Logan Hicks’ much anticipated solo show at Opera Gallery in NYC opens on Thursday. I saw some of the work for Pretty Ugly while I was in New York recently, and, as always, Logan is a master of technique. You don’t want to miss this show. Here’s a little preview of what to expect…

Untitled from Logan Hicks on Vimeo.

And don’t forget that Logan was interviewed for the latest issue of Very Nearly Almost.

Photos courtesy of Logan Hicks

Rich Simmons "Homeless Superman"

I normally am not this much of an ass, but this was too good to pass up and not post. I have heard about this show at Opera Gallery for awhile now, as I am sure most of you have as well. I may have been able to overlook the ridiculous name of the show, The Street Art Show, because of the incredible line-up: Keith Haring, Jean-Michael Basquiat, Banksy, Blek Le Rat, Seen, Ron English, Logan Hicks, Crash, The London Police, Nick Walker, How & Nosm, Saber, ROA, D*Face, Sweet Toof, Mr. Jago, b., Swoon, Kid Zoom, ALEXONE, Anthony Lister, Alexandrous Vasmoulakis and Rich Simmons, but then I remembered that this is still a show put on by Opera Gallery, the home of the beloved Mr. Brainwash. They do put on good show as well as some really shit ones, and I really do want this to be good, but that association still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Plus I cannot help, but feel a bit suspicious since the show is launching on the heels of Art in the Streets.

The Street Art Show seems to be more for the collectors’ benefit who are still salivating over the interest in the LAMOCA show and want to buy more/start buying some pieces for their own collections. Well, at least Mr. Brainwash isn’t an option this time around, although i am sure he will be again soon enough.

The show opens June 17th at Opera Gallery in London.

Photo courtesy of Opera Gallery

This Thursday VNA will launch their latest issue featuring the likes of Shepard Fairey aka Obey. The issue also contains features on Nychos, Logan Hicks, Burning Candy Crew and Elph. By the sound of it the launch is going to be a bash you don’t want to miss. The party starts at 6pm on Thursday at Black Rat Press. To get on the list email RSVP@verynearlyalmost.com

And to pre-order your copy of VNA click here

In two weeks, Vandalog and Murals Around New York (MANY) will be putting on a pop-up show in a New York City apartment. Up Close and Personal mostly came out of two ideas: 1. Street artists tend to work large outdoors and we wanted to challenge people to make art on a small scale and 2. We’ve all seen artwork in galleries that either would only look good in a gallery but not in a home, or is just too big to fit into a typical apartment and we wanted to see something different from that. With Up Close and Personal, the show itself is taking place in an apartment on the Upper West Side, and we have capped the size of the artwork at 30 x 30 inches, with an emphasis on going as small as possible.

I’ve worked with Keith Schweitzer and Mike Glatzer of M.A.N.Y. to curate this show, and we’re really excited with the line up that we’ve managed to put together: Aiko, Chris Stain, Clown Soldier, Don Leicht, Edible Genius, Elbowtoe, Gaia, How & Nosm, Jessica Angel, John Fekner, Know Hope, Logan Hicks, Mike Ballard, OverUnder, R. Robot, Radical, Retna, Skewville, Tristan Eaton, Troy Lovegates aka Other and White Cocoa.

Up Close and Personal opens May 12th from 7-9pm. We’ll also be open from 7-9pm on the 13th. Then noon-9pm and noon-7pm on the 14th and 15th respectively. Particularly on the 12th, it is possible that we’ll be shifting people in every half hour or so, since the space is a small apartment. The show is taking place at 217 West 106^th Street, Apartment 1A, New York, NY 10025 – Between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenues.

Hope to see you in a couple weeks!

Chris Stain

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

Logan Hicks sent me some more pictures from Wide Open Walls in Gambia. Lucy McLauchlan’s piece looks awesome.

Eelus painting

Xenz painting

Lucy McLauchlan painting

Photos by Logan Hicks

Logan Hicks sent over some photos from Wide Open Walls, the painting trip that he is on right now in Gambia. Logan, Eelus, Mysterious Al, Broken Crow and other artists are visiting small villages right now and painting walls there in an effort to improve the towns and increase tourism.

Juxtapoz, Brooklyn Street Art and the Wide Open Walls blog have more pictures.

Photos by Logan Hicks

Billboard by Mobstr

This link post is definitely going to be a weekly thing. Hopefully it will allow me to link to things that I just haven’t had the time to cover here on the blog, my Twitter or Vandalog’s Facebook page. So here’s what you may have missed in street art this week:

• My Love For You Is A Stampede of Horses and Arrested Motion have two sets of amazing photos from Fecal Face‘s 10 year anniversary show at The Luggage Store in SF. This show has a pretty sick line up including Barry McGee, Margaret Kilgallen, Jim Houser, Swoon and Maya Hayuk.
• Nychos’ solo show at Pure Evil Gallery (in cooperation with End of The Line) opened on Thursday. Go here for the press release sort of info or go here for photos from the opening.
• That I May See, Matt Small’s latest solo show, opened last week at Black Rat Projects and it looks absolutely stunning. My family and I can’t thank Matt enough for his support of the Robert Shitima School in Zambia, which is where Matt and Black Rat Press have decided to donate 40% of the proceeds from this show.
• Eelus, Logan Hicks, Eine, Lucy McLachlan and others are headed to Gambia next month for the Wide Open Walls project.
• OFFSET has once again put together an interesting conference of creatives who will be speaking next month (October 1st-3rd) in Dublin. OFFSET 2010 will have presentations from Gary Baseman, Steve Powers, Marc and Sara Schiller of Wooster Collective and many more. Early bird tickets are available online for 150 euros (with discounts for students thankfully).
• A very touching work of street art in Brooklyn.
• Just Seeds has put together Resourced, a set for political posters that you can download and print at home. There are designs by Gaia, Armsrock, Chris Stain, Josh MacPhee and many more artists.
• When I first heard about JR’s new Unframed project, I didn’t really care for it. Basically, JR is wheatpasting other photographers (often famous) photographs around in cities. To me, this sort came out of left field. I don’t mind when Blek le Rat does similar things, but with JR, I always liked the stories behind the photos as much as the images themselves. I thought that with Unframed, that aspect of the art would go away. Luckily, Angelo at FAME Festival reassured me in an email and said once I learned more about the project, these would be just as interesting as the rest of JR’s art. Because I trust Angelo, I waited and didn’t write anything about Unframed or JR’s piece at FAME Festival. Earlier this week, Hi-Fructose’s blog posted a better explanation of the project as well as some photos of Unframed taking place in Switzerland. As usual, Angelo was right and after reading that post on Hi-Fructose, I’ve been convinced about Unframed.

Photo by Mobstr

As mentioned last week, Wednesday is the opening of a show at Opera Gallery in New York with Logan Hicks and Anthony Lister. Logan has made this video teaser for the show:

Logan Hicks has sent me images of some new paintings that will be in a show opening May 19th at Opera Gallery in New York. The style is a bit different for him, but something that I’m looking forward to seeing more of.

The show at Opera is a 3-person show and one of the other artists is Anthony Lister, so I’m looking forward to seeing his work as well.