Leon Reid IV and Julia Marchesi have teamed up for Reid’s latest project: The Hundred Story House. It’s a sculpture designed to house free books at a park in Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill Park. The idea is that the sculpture will function as free library on an honor-system. People can take books or leave them, and the sculpture could be a place where people know they can find great books to read for free. But Leon and Julia need $13,000 to make their vision happen, so they have gone to Kickstarter in the hope of raising that money. Here’s their pitch:

So far, they’ve raised about 13% of their goal, and they have 28 days to go. To support The Hundred Story House or learn more, check out the Kickstarter page.

Bananananas by Dal

Well, the internet went a bit crazy this week, but it looks like we’re winning. Thank you to anyone who noticed that Vandalog was offline on Wednesday in protest of SOPA and PIPA and took the time to contact their representatives to voice objections to the bills. But enough about politics. This is an art blog.

• This Mark Jenkins exhibition in Berlin looks awesome. The show has new sculptures, but it is also the launch of his monograph with Gestalten.
• In a subway station a bit like the site of The Underbelly Project, a number of Russian street artists painted this installation.
• Here’s a beautiful new piece from Phlegm.
• Above has a bunch of new photos on his website.
• The Toasters’ film launches in London on Tuesday.
• Barry McGee will have a show this year at UC Berkeley’s art museum. The show is made possible by a $100,000 grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation.
• Leon Reid IV‘s latest project is pretty different from what we’ve come to expect from Reid. It’s a series of posters depicting recent world events. Hrag Vartanian spoke with Reid about the series.
• Looking for something great to do on Saturday night in LA? Try this – New Image Art and The Hole have teamed up for a party with some DJs and musicians plus installations by Retna, Anthony Lister and Drugs Crew.

Photo by Dal

Unknown artist

Well, while I had myself more or less locked in a library underground for the better part of last week, the art world did not stand still. And so we have this special Tuesday edition of the typically friday event – the link-o-rama:

• Olek is facing charges in London (not related to her street art), and needs your help. Hyperallergic has more info.
• Banksy has loaned a sculpture to a museum in Liverpool. Meh. Another artwork that just as easily could have been seen at any urban art group show, but it’s by Banksy so the BBC and the rest of us should apparently care. What is this? It’s not just with Banksy. Bloggers in particular, we seem to have this urge to always be the first to say “Yeah, I saw that girl’s work first and said she was cool” and a fear of being caught in a situation where everyone except us thinks that some artist or artwork is great. And now I’m rambling…
• Blu just painted two walls in Buenos Aires. Here’s the first and here’s the second.
• I’m loving this new sculpture from Leon Reid IV about the financial crisis.
• Todd James also has a new sculpture in both bronze and porcelain. It’s for sale at Toykyo.
• Mode2′s new work (NSFW) might be the best I’ve ever seen from him. Amazing stuff.
• KAWS has a show on now at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.
• Knock Knock is a new online magazine with a lot about street art and graffiti in Australia.
• Kunle Martins aka Earsnot aka the founder of the infamous IRAK crew participated in Wynwood Walls this year alongside Jesse Geller aka Nemel. Martha Cooper has shots of what they got up to and then the Wynwood Walls video series has a great episode on them. For some people, it may be hard to avoid comparisons to this wall by Barry McGee. 12ozProphet says “The building painted by IRAK for Wynwood Walls is inspired by Barry McGee’s tag-filled murals… Earsnot and Nemel build on Barry McGee’s tag wall concept by filling the wall with a variety of monochromatic shades of overlapping tags creating the illusion of depth.”

Photo by Damonabnormal

Last Saturday in Union Square, Leon Reid IV‘s latest temporary public sculpture existed from dawn until dusk, and then was dismantled. For Tourist-in-Chief, Leon attached some new accessories to Union Square’s sculpture of George Washington. It was part of this year’s Art in Odd Places festival. It’s in the same vein as his True Yank piece from a few years back. As Banksy said, “If you have a statue in the city centre you could go past it every day on your way to school and never even notice it, right. But as soon as someone puts a traffic cone on its head, you’ve made your own sculpture.”

Check out more photos over at The Street Spot.

Photos courtesy of Leon Reid IV

Great news: Leon Reid IV‘s proposed Tourist-in-Chief sculpture (proposal above) has gotten the go-ahead and will be installed in Union Square Park this Saturday, October 1st from 8am until 7pm.

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

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!

Labrona and Gawd. Click the photo to view it large.

Last night might have been my busiest 1st Thursday ever, and I didn’t even stop off everywhere I wanted to. Either way, I’ll have to go back to a few galleries this week to actually look at the art properly. Even with a cursory glance though, the Charming Baker show was the highlight by a mile. I’m not sure how sustainable it is to sell paintings at the prices they sold for last night, but damn it looked good. Here’s a few things I could have posted about last night, had I not been out being a gallery-hopping scenester…

• Probably the coolest thing I’ve seen all week: Nug (this guy) visited FAME Festival.
• Everfresh have created the graffiti writer’s dream machine: The Graff Mobile.
• Conor Harrington has been painting some murals of bulls in Ireland. I like this one. This one, not so much. Unfortunately, I cannot figure out why that is about either of the walls.
• In addition to his LA show, Lush is doing a show in August at Fifty24SF.
• As usual, Dal does something visually stunning.
• Leon Reid IV is doing a Kickstarter campaign for his latest potential public sculpture in New York City.
• Meighan O’Toole at My Love for You has done a podcast where she interviewed up with Steve Powers, the first in what will hopefully be a series of podcasts from her.
• A new print from Shepard Fairey is being released, partially for charity, in New York this weekend.
• Showpaper has done round 2 of its Community Serviced project where they get artists to paint newspaper bin boxes for Showpaper. Check out all the photos from round 2 here.

Photo by Labrona

Leon Reid IV public art proposal

Town & Country is a group show opening next week at 320 Studios in NYC. It’s curated by my friend Keith Schweitzer at M.A.N.Y, Samson Contompasis from The Marketplace Gallery and others. Almost 2 dozen artists are in this show, including Leon Reid IV, Veng, White Cocoa, Olek and Chris Stain. Town & Country will only be open for 3 days (June 28th-30th), but it should be a pretty great three days. The opening is on the 28th from 6pm-midnight.

Photo courtesy of Keith Schweitzer

Skewville at the Bushwick Art Park

Last weekend, Factory Fresh hosted another 1-day iteration of their Bushwick Art Park with new murals by Veng, Bast and Skewville and sculptures by Leon Reid IV, Specter, Skewville, Infinity and others. Above is a photo of Skewville’s mural. Right next to is Bast’s mural. The Street Spot has photos of Veng’s mural and the sculptures.

Photo by astrodub