Down in Washington D.C. these past few days, I had the opportunity to revisit old pieces and discover new ones. Here are a few favorites:

Gaia

Gaia

Rosina "teri" Memolo and her students inspired by JR's “Inside Out Project"

Rosina "teri" Memolo

Kelly Towles, "Scouts"

Photos by Lois Stavsky

Encrages (French “inking,” according to Google), is JR‘s latest solo show, and it looks to be a significant one. Encrages will take place at Galerie Perrotin, a top-tier gallery in Paris who have also worked with Kaws and Ivan Argote. The show opens this Saturday at 7pm, and runs through January 7th. Arrested Motion have done a studio visit with JR in anticipation of the show.

It’s great to see continued success for JR, but with every step further up the art-world ladder, more questions are of course raised as to the inherent imbalance between the subjects of his photographs and those who buy his art.

Photo courtesy of Galerie Perrotin

Charming Baker "Panda Boy remix" (2007) (£6,000 - £8,000)

This week sees the opening of Autumn’s most high profile street art “exhibit” at The Cumberland Hotel in Marble Arch. I say exhibit loosely since Urban Contemporary is a ten day show culminating in the 150 works being auctioned off by Dreweatt’s on October 10. As usual, there is a mix of crap and some rare works that haven’t been seen in a while. The two that stood out for me is JR’s Adama, Montfermeil, Portrait d’une generation (2006) and the Charming Baker Panda Boy Remix (2007). Not only is the piece an early Baker, but this is also the first time (I cannot find evidence to say otherwise) one of his works has cropped up in the secondary market. Other artists in the show include D*Face, Barry McGee, Shepard Fairey, Banksy, Blek le Rat and Eine.

The show opens September 30th at The Cumberland Hotel in Marble Arch.

D*Face "Pop Tart" (2007) (£4,000 - £6,000)

Shepard Fairey "Johnny Ramone" (2008) (£6,000-£8,000)

All Images courtesy of Dreweatt’s Bloomsbury

Snyder, a tribute to Kase2 (RIP) by Krush, Dame and Evol and other pieces

You know what’s really nice? Sleep. Hence, this weekend is a blessing. For now, life is school school school and more school. Hopefully there’s still a trip to NYC in my near future though… Here’s what has been going on around the internet and on the street:

• OverUnder and Chris Stain have gotten things started at Living Walls Albany. OverUnder’s portrait looks kinda like an Ethos piece, but it still looks cool. And Chris’ tribute to the 9/11 first responders was painted on wood and has just been moved to the New York State Museum.
• WK Interact collaborated with NY firefighters on a mural in Brooklyn.
• This 9/11 related piece by Zevs has caused a bit of a stir. Definitely one of most controversial 9/11 related artworks I’ve seen.
• JR’s Inside Out project has made it to Israel and Palestine.
• Some promising new for Leon Reid IV‘s latest project.
• Amanda Marie, the latest artist to show at Andenken in Amsterdam, isn’t a street artist, but she does stencils that I’m loving. (heads up, the link is a pdf)
• Ema has a solo show that opened tonight at Glasgow’s Redcoat Gallery.
• Banksy has donated a sculpture to The Bristol Museum.
• A few years ago, there was a castled painted in Scotland by some of Brazil’s best street artists: Nina, Nunca and Os Gêmeos. It was supposed to be temporary, but the owners of the castle want to keep it.
• Maybe my favorite thing I’ve ever seen from Jaybo.
• Risk and Retna painted a mural in Santa Monica, CA, but now the city wants to fine the building owners $5,000 a day until the mural is removed.
• Brad Downey and Akay collaborate at FAME Festival.
• Jim Carrey and Shia LaBeouf are both trying to do some street art. Yep, the guy from Ace Ventura and a Disney Channel star are now technically street artists. Melrse&Fairfax says, “Interesting how street art seems to be more and more an exciting ‘escape’ for celebrities.” I’d like to replace interesting with some other word or words…

Photo by Snyder

Neckface

With my mind still on Living Walls, I’ve got some catching up to do with what’s been going on outside of Atlanta. So here’s some of that catching up…

• King Robbo is currently having serious health issues, and there’s a fundraising art auction at Cargo for him next month.
• Brooklyn Street Art’s LA show, Street Art Saved My Life, opened and BSA has photo of the entire thing.
• The Zoo Project are a major street art force in Paris, and this wall is one of my favorites from them in a while.
• Tristan Manco contributed a list of his 10 favorite pieces of street art to The Guardian.
• Shepard Fairey had quite an ordeal in Copenhagen. On the whole, I’ve got to agree with Shepard on this one. He made a mistake and tried to make it right, but people still beat him up and newspapers still sensationalized their stories in inaccurate ways. Uncool. That said, it’s worth pointing out that right in the midst of Shepard complaining about newspapers getting their facts straight and being ethical, he writes “I adhere to my ethical beliefs in all areas of my artistic and business practice.” I hate to kick a guy while he’s down, but it needs to be mentioned that Shepard did attempt to falsify evidence during his lawsuit with the AP, so those ethics aren’t always adhered to. Anyway, sucks that Shepard and Obey Clothing’s Romeo Trinidad were beat up.
• Futura and Stash getting up in NYC.
• James Marshal aka Dalek is trying something very different with his new work.
• Nunca, Miss Van and others are at work on a mural project in Berlin.
• Sao Paulo’s Museum of Art just opened a huge show of street artists including JR, Swoon, Invader and Remed.

Photos by Sabeth718

Gold Peg

Well, it’s been quite a week for me at least. Here’s what I wasn’t posting about while I was busy breaking up fights…

• Tox has been jailed for an absolutely insane sentence of 27 months for writing graffiti. There are not words the express who screwed up that sentence is. The British Transport Police claim Tox’s graffiti caused passenger delays, but sending him to jail for 27 months just costs taxpayers a boatload of money. Graffiti writers should receive sentences of community service and/or fines. Not jail time.
• JR has posted a short video highlighting one of the stories to emerge so far from his Inside Out project.
• Dirty Hands, a film about David Choe, is finally on DVD and streaming online.
• Some big names including El Mac, SheOne, Roids and Kid Acne are due to paint some big murals on a Bristol street soon.
• The Toykio cafe/gallery is finally open and it looks fantastic.
• Vhils has another video out of his artwork-by-explosion technique.
• I’m not usually a fan of light art or “light graffiti,” but this stuff blows me away.
• Graffiti writer BNE has raised almost $20,000 towards providing clean water to people in need. And he’s looking to do even more.
• Roa’s show in Berlin has opened.
• Becca is part of a show in LA.
• Thom Thom / Hephaestus makes some damn cool ad disruptions.

Photo by Delete08

QRST. Photo by Sabeth718

New York is suddenly awash in new work and its really quite exciting. Of course Welling Courts is decorating the north side of Queens, but also a lot of legal commissions are bringing JR and the likes into the mix. And then there is QRST and ElSol25 who are holding it down for Brooklyn in an otherwise pretty sleepy season regarding street art in New York.

Elsol25. Photo by Sabeth718

Obey. Photo by Changsterdam

Read the rest of this article »

Earlier this week, JR got up at the historic mural spot on Bowery and Houston in New York City, most recently painted by Kenny Scharf. This photo is of DJ Two Bears, a man JR photographed at the Standing Rock Nation Native American reservation. Martha Cooper took this photo and has shots of the entire process on her blog.

Photo by Martha Cooper

Carmichael Gallery‘s next show is Playing Field, a group show of secondary market works. It opens this Saturday, June 18th and runs through August 9th. The line up hits most of the big names you’d expect to see as well as a few surprises: Banksy, Faile, Shepard Fairey, Sixeart, Os Gêmeos, Mark Jenkins, JR, KAWS, Barry McGee, José Parlá, Judith Supine, Swoon, Titi Freak, Dan Witz.

These sort of shows tend to be either really good or really bad. I’m liking the above piece by Barry McGee, so I’m thinking this should fall on the really good side of things. But LA residents can see for themselves starting on Saturday. The opening is from 6-9pm.

Photo courtesy of Carmichael Gallery

"Circus" ad disruption in Philadelphia by Sorry

Wow, last week went by quickly. And Steph moved in with me today, temporarily. Should be a crazy few weeks. Here’s what I’ve been meaning to write about:

• JR’s show at Centre Pompidou is open.
• Ludo’s got a new sculpture for sale.
• Faile’s new print with Paper Monster could have been great, but I think they picked such a weak image to work with. Oh well. I’m sure there will be more and better Faile prints in the future.
• The remnants of a historic Cost/Revs piece can now be seen up close from a newly opened section of the Highline in NYC.
• Banksy is sponsoring Art in the Streets at MOCA in LA so that visits are free every Monday from 11-5 through the rest of the show’s run.
• A large Kaws sculpture moved from the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum to The Standard Hotel in NYC. And there’s this new video interview with Kaws too.
• New from Phlegm.
• Lois posted some photos, but here’s even more from Logan Hicks’ show at Opera Gallery.
• I’ve never heard of Anton Steenbock, but I want to see more like this.
• Glen E. Friedman has won his lawsuit against Mr. Brainwash for using Friedman’s iconic photograph of Run DMC. I still say I’d rather have seen MBW win this case. Not because I think MBW’s work based on that photo looked good, but because I’d rather see more room for artists to re-appropriate content and less restrictions on copyrighted material. What MBW did to Friedman’s photograph was transformative. The original photo is a great photo and an iconic one. What MBW did was make it look totally silly. And that should be covered by fair use, for the benefit of better artists.

Photo by Carolinecaldwell