Surge, Gaia, Stormie, Remi/Rough and in The Underbelly Project

UPDATE – LOCATION CHANGE: The Underbelly Show has moved to 78 NW 25th Street in Wynwood, Miami to accommodate the large scale of the artwork in this show.

The Underbelly Project is back. Last year, I posted a lot about the project where 103 artists from around the world secretly painted an abandoned/half-completed New York City subway station. After that initial burst of press here and around the web, The Underbelly Project organizers stayed silent. With only occasional vague tweets from a mysterious twitter account and the appearance on Amazon of an upcoming book about the project. Yesterday though, The Underbelly Project announced that they will be participating in this year’s Basel Miami Week madness with a pop-up gallery in South Beach Wynwood.

The organizers of The Underbelly Project and The Underbelly Show, Workhorse and PAC, have this to say about the show:

Workhorse: The New York Underbelly was an important chapter for us, but the story hadn’t been comprehensively told. The Underbelly Miami show gives us a chance to present the broad scope of documentation – Videos, photos, time-lapses and first hand accounts. The project is about more than just artwork. This show gives us a chance to show the people and the environment behind the artwork.

PAC: While the experience each artist had in their expedition underground can never be captured, it is my hope that this show will highlight some of the trials and tribulations associated with urban art taking place in the remote corners of our cities. Too often the practice of making art in unconventional venues remains shrouded in mystery and I hope this exhibition will shine a faint light on those artists who risk their safety to find alternative ways to create and be a part of the cities they live in.

35 of the 103 artists from The Underbelly Project will be exhibiting art in The Underbelly Show, plus video and still footage of the artists at work in the tunnel. Here’s the full line-up: Faile, Dabs & Myla, TrustoCorp, Aiko, Rone, Revok, Ron English, Jeff Soto, Mark Jenkins, Anthony Lister, Logan Hicks, Lucy McLauchlan, M-City, Kid Zoom, Haze, Saber, Meggs, Jim & Tina Darling, The London Police, Sheone, Skewville, Jeff Stark, Jordan Seiler, Jason Eppink and I AM, Dan Witz, Specter, Ripo, MoMo, Remi/Rough, Stormie Mills, Swoon, Know Hope, Skullphone, L’Atlas, Roa, Surge, Gaia, Michael De Feo, Joe Iurato, Love Me, Adam 5100, and Chris Stain.

For this show, the space will be transformed into an environment imitating the tunnel where The Underbelly Project took place, right down to playing sounds recorded in the station while The Underbelly Project was happening.

If you absolutely cannot wait until February to get We Own The Night, the book documenting The Underbelly Project, a limited number will be available at The Underbelly Show in a box set with 9 photographic prints and the book all contained in a handcrafted oak box. Additionally, you will be able to your book signed by the artists participating in The Underbelly Show.

The Underbelly Show will take place at 2200 Collins Avenue, South Beach, Miami 78 NW 25th Street, Wynwood, Miami. There will be a private opening on November 30th, and the space will be open to the general public December 2nd-5th, with a general opening on the 2nd from 8-10pm.

Photo by RJ Rushmore

Three pieces by Jordan Seiler

Stormie Mills asked some of his favorite artists to paint three self-portraits from different perspectives. The result of that brief is For, Against, the Truth, a show opening this week at Linton & Kay Contemporary  Art in Perth, Australia. The show includes Vandalog regulars Remi/Rough, John Fekner and Jordan Seiler, as well as Kenton Parker, Jaybo Monk, Matt Doust, Marco ‘Pho’ Grassi, Jade Palmer, Amanda Lynn and Darren Henderson.

Photo by Jordan Seiler, flyer courtesy of Remi/Rough

This is one of the most perfect ad disruptions I’ve ever seen. OX did this takeover at the Bien Urbain festival in Besançon, France. Here’s why I think it’s nearly perfect:

Pros -

• It’s site-specific.
• It’s possible to not notice it. The piece can fade into the background of the environment (not just because the billboard matches the sky in this photo, but because it doesn’t try to grab your attention).
• For the people who are familiar with the billboards and do notice the change, the takeover is something for them to think about.
• It’s photographed well for online distribution.

Con -

• The billboards themselves aren’t at ground level.

Now, that last pro and the con might not make immediate sense. In the case of billboard takeovers, I think that many of the best ones make it clear to viewers that they too can do exactly what the artist has done; that it’s not only OX who can or should cover up public advertisements. So on the pro side, this takeover is beautifully photographed and people who see this photo are probably more likely to be inspired than it it were a quick snap from OX’s camera-phone. As for the billboards not being a ground level, this sort of take over would probably have required a ladder or a long pole. Those aren’t particularly difficult things to get, but ground level billboards are even easier to disrupt, so photos of those takeovers might inspire more people to take action themselves than a more difficult billboard takeover.

Some of these thoughts about what makes a good ad takeover are based on similar ideas by Jordan Seiler, so definitely check out his site as well if this is interesting.

UPDATE: Jordan as actually posted his own thoughts about this piece over at his own blog.

Photo by OX

Stinkfish in London

Is it time for another link-o-rama already? The week has flown by. Except for when I had to read the multiple formal press releases I received this week which promoted artists’ gallery shows by talking about a recent campaign of wheatpasting that they were doing solely for the purpose of promoting their shows. Bleh. By contrast, Stinkfish has been in London for a bit and just seems to be getting up with posters, spraypaint and other materials because it’s fun. Here’s some of the things I’m not going to be kinda bitter about this week…

• Anthony Lister has been getting up in LA. Okay, to be honest, one of those annoying press releases was promoting a new Lister show. That opens tonight in LA and runs through August 29th. I’m looking forward to seeing some pics. To be fair, the posters that Lister put up to promote the show were on advertising space (albeit probably illegal street level billboards) and he probably paid for them, so at least he’s not putting up ads over street art but rather over other ads, but the press release and hype around some ads was kind of unnecessary. And now to not be bitter!
• Speaking of advertising, Jordan Seiler/PublicAdCampaign has been testing a new iPhone app that replaces real-world ads with art by people like Ron English and John Fekner when you view them through your phone. A fun little experiment for sure.
• Aryz gets up huge in Italy.
• It looks like New York City’s Parks Department doesn’t find Leon Reid IV’s latest idea too funny.
• Arrested Motion is teasing some new work from Kaws.
• Evol’s latest project is a must-see.
• Vhils has hit FAME Festival.

Photo by HowAboutNo!

The latest issue of Very Nearly Almost, issue 15, went on sale last month. As a fan and occasional contributor to VNA, it’s a magazine that I always pick up. This issue is particularly cool though because it might have the more interviews with artists that I’ve written a lot about on Vandalog than any other issue of VNA. This is a coincidence, but certainly a happy one for me. Besides the interview that I did with Jordan Seiler, there is of course a detailed cover article where VNA speaks to Shepard Fairey, some very insightful words from Logan Hicks, a crazy series of conversations with members of Burning Candy (the VNA team might have been the only people to ever get the full nine current and former members of BC in one room at the same time) and interviews with Ripo and Nychos (who I haven’t written about too much, but now I want to) as well. As always, the guys at Very Nearly Almost have put together a quality zine and I highly recommend picking up a copy.

Here are a few teasers from this issue:

Photos courtesy of Very Nearly Almost

Bast

You know what’s weird? Hanging out with all your friends from high school and then actually seeing current high school students from your school. Those kids are so young! While I was freaking out about no longer being a teenager and enjoying the beautiful London weather (I’m serious about this one), here’s what I almost missed this week:

• Ok let’s start with something self-promotional – I was interviewed and photographed by my friends at The Ripe Apples. Definitely the most relaxing and fun situation to have ever involved my face in front of a camera.
• The full Da Mental Vaporz crew (Dran, Bom.K, Sowat, Brusk, Lime, Kan, Iso, Blo and Jaw) put together a show in Toulouse. The crowds look massive and the art looks great. S.Butterfly has all the photos you need here and here.
• Neckface used his installation in Art in the Streets to film a movie trailer.
• Jordan Seiler at PublicAdCampaign took Neko around NYC and the result was a series of beautiful ad disruptions.
• Sometimes Every time I think about it, I get annoyed by the close relationship of Juxtapoz and Upper Playground (Matt Revelli is editor-in-chief at Juxtapoz and founder/creative director at Upper Playground). Not so much because of any “journalistic integrity issues,” but because Juxtapoz gets lots of great exclusive Upper Playground related content. This time, they have photographs from a trip on freight trains with Swampy, and they’ve interviewed Swampy for the July issue of Juxtapoz. Definitely check those out. Swampy of course has a show opening next week in San Fransisco at Upper Playground’s Fifty24SF.
• Myne has a nice new print out.
• This piece by Simple is crisp.
• One of my favorite painters in New York, Don Pablo Pedro, is in a group show opening today in Brooklyn.
• If you’ve spent time in Williamsburg, you’ve seen that pink cloud and lightening bolt logo around and probably wondered about it. Well, it’s by Abel Macias, and he’s got some really nice Pink Cloud shirts available.
• Anthony Lister is going to do a 6-day painting marathon in Berlin starting June 9th. And you’ll be able to monitor his progress online.

Photo by Luna Park

Jordan Seiler. Translation - Make love to your city, caress and hold her tightly.

On March 30th, Jordan Seiler and some Madrid-based helpers disrupted bus-shelter advertisements throughout Madrid for PublicAdCampaign‘s latest takeover, MaSAT (Madrid Street Advertising Takeover). Over 100 artists and everyday people from around the world contributed to MaSAT by supplying text which was then printed on the posters that Jordan and his crew installed. Here are a few of my favorites:

TrustoCorp

Charlie Todd of Improv Everywhere. Translation - advertisement for a bad movie

Joe Iurato

Logan Hicks

And the MaSAT project is particularly interesting to me because Jordan is participating in the Street Communications panel that I am moderating this weekend at Haverford College and because both the Schillers and I (Marc and Sara will also be on the panel) participated in MaSAT by sending some text:

Marc and Sara Schiller of Wooster Collective

RJ (me). Translation - Hi Carmen. I hope you’ll smile today!

Photos courtesy of PublicAdCampaign

Next Saturday (April 9th), I’ll be hosting an event at my school, Haverford College, which I hope you will be able to attend. I’ll be moderating Street Discussions, a panel with Gaia, Jordan Seiler, Marc Schiller and Sara Schiller. We’ll be looking at what roles and responsibilities there are on the street for both artists and advertisers. Gaia is a street artist and blogger for Vandalog. Jordan is the artist/activist behind PublicAdCampaign. Marc and Sara started Wooster Collective and their book Trespass was published last year. The event is open to the public, and, contingent on me getting organized, there might be a video uploaded afterward for anyone who can’t make it.

For those in Philadelphia, Haverford College is really easy to get to via SEPTA.

Random side-note: This is one reason why I love Haverford College. Two groups on campus (The Collection Fund and the Humanities Center’s Student Arts Fund) have come together to sponsor this event. They are fantastic.

The Living Walls Conference took place last August in Atlanta and included some Vandalog favorites like Chris Stain, Gaia, Jordan Seiler and Swampy. In fact, Monica Campana, a recent addition to the Vandalog bloggers, organized Living Walls (and that plays into the series of coincidences of how we met, but that’s a story for another day). Christine Sylvain just posted this short video from the conference:

CONCRETE VOICES from Birds of Prey Productions on Vimeo.

I’m also pleased to say that Living Walls will be taking place again this summer, and in two locations. There will be a conference in Atalanta again in August, plus another one in Albany, NY from the 16th-18th of September. For more info or if you think you would like to help make this year’s Living Walls conferences a success, email livingwallsconference@gmail.com for Altanta or livingwallsalbany@gmail.com for Albany.

Sticker by Hieronymus

Wow. It’s actually Friday night already? This week went by really fast. I think I’ve been sleeping too much. Well, while I was sleeping, these things nearly slipped me by:

• A film is being made about The Underbelly Project, and they are looking for reactions from the public. This Sunday, New Yorkers get have their reactions (positive or negative) on film. More info on the film’s website. I’ve been interviewed for this a couple of times, and I can’t wait to see the finished film.
• Shepard Fairey is guest-editing the latest issue of PAPER Magazine. Great price for an art/culture magazine by the way: I just realized that a two-year subscription to PAPER Magazine is $15! Juxtapoz costs more than that per year just for a digital subscription (more issues per year though)!
• Graffoto are raving about Mantis‘ solo show in Hackney Wick. Honestly, I saw a few photos in the preview and thought something along the lines of “What? These are paintings and they aren’t funny or clever and they aren’t amazing. This isn’t what I love about Mantis at all!” Well I stand corrected. While I still think a lot of the paintings are pretty unappealing, there are some great drawings and even a nice painting or two. The man can draw!
• Jordan Seiler is playing a game with outdoor advertising companies in NYC and Philadelphia.
• Kid Acne has a solo show in London open now.
• A Basquiat was defaced in Paris. Kyle Chayka asks if it really even matters?
• Political graffiti in Afghanistan is pretty interesting.
• People have been tagging up Barry McGee’s wall of tags in New York. Not writers, but just regular people. As beautiful as that wall was when it was first painted, I love that more people are writing on it. I guess the existence of the tags and a while background is sort of inviting average people to interact.
• I really enjoyed this interview with Phlegm.
• Arrested Motion has photos from Best Ever’s London solo show.
• Swoon is building at musical house in New Orleans.
• This street art/graffiti film festival event in Spain looks pretty interesting.
• There’s a new interview with me online at $200 Art Collecting, a blog with one of the best concepts I’ve heard in a long time: buy great art for $200 or less.

The week’s not up yet though, and I’ve committed to doing at least one useful thing before it is: Tomorrow I’m going to try using my kitchen for the first time since going to university. Wish me luck…

Photo by LoisInWonderland