Remember this cryptic video from last year? Or these shots of Nunca painting a giant airplane? Well all of that is finally coming together and will be on view for the public… The Boneyard Project: Return Trip is the fully-formed vision that was hinted at by the Nose Job show last year at Eric Firestone Gallery. In addition to some of the Nose Cone pieces and some new work on airplane nose cones, this iteration of the Boneyard Project will feature disused planes that artists have painted all over.

According to Aviationpros.com, “More than 30 artists have participated in Round Trip including DC Super 3 planes painted by graffiti artists How & Nosm, Nunca, and Retna, a C97 cockpit by Saner, a C45 plane by Faile, and a Lockheed VC 140 Jetstar by Andrew Schoultz.”

Return Trip opens at the Pima Art and Space Museum in Tuscan, AZ on January 28th and runs through May 31st. Check out Aviationpros.com for more info.

Os Gêmeos in Greece

It’s 11/11/11, so I guess that’s a big deal to some people. That seems so arbitrary to me, since our calendar is pretty arbitrary to begin with. Besides, it’s really 11/11/2011. A few years ago, 11/02/2011 was much cooler. In my social sphere though, 11/11/11 seems like an excuse to throw parties, so maybe I shouldn’t complain. While I was thinking about the ridiculousness of this date, here’s what almost passed me by this week in art:

• As pictured in part above, Nolionsinengland came across a well-preserved mural by Os Gêmeos, Nina, Same84 and Nunca in Athens, Greece.
• LNY designed a couple of t-shirts.
• I’m loving this “Occupy Your Mind” poster by EZRA.
• Echo and The Bunnymen are a brilliant band and Will Sergeant is a fantastically talented member of that group. Unfortunately the same things cannot be said about his attempt at street art.
• Last month, Ola Bad’s first solo show took place in Atlanta. It does not look like it’s his first show. It looks much better than any artist’s first solo show should look. There are a number of photos from the show here.
• A tribute to Robbo has been painted on the wall where he and Banksy feuded. It looks like it’s by Banksy, but there’s been no word from his camp or any other artists claiming responsibility. Last we heard, Robbo was still in intensive care at a hospital due to the injuries he sustained back in April.

Photo by Nolionsinengland

Sam3 in France

This week it seems like I’ve been appearing elsewhere on the web as much as here on the blog. I’ve been more active than usual on Vandalog’s tumblr, which I’ve finally getting a feel for; I was interviewed by Brian Sherwin over at FineArtViews; and I wrote a post for my friend at Hyperallergic about advertisers utilizing the style of Liu Bolin to sell stuff. Here’s what didn’t make it to Vandalog:

• Revok called out Fab 5 Freddy for appropriating (or in Revok’s words “stealing”) letters from other artists including Sever and using them in his own work. You can read Revok’s post here, and hopefully I’ll have some thoughts about it in a post on Vandalog over the weekend. A commenter on Vandalog actually noted that Fred was doing this about two months ago.
• New York Magazine published an article, and not a particularly brief one, all about a painting that is supposedly by Jean-Michel Basquiat but was denied by his estate’s authentication committee. Well, while the writer of the article tries to get readers to sympathize with going through a potentially daunting and certainly not transparent authentication process, there was really no point for the whole thing: The painting is clearly by Phil Frost, something that the article doesn’t mention at all. So, umm… good work. Thanks to Known Gallery for pointing this all out.
• Nunca, Titifreak, Invader and more at this show in Paris.
• Retna painted a mural in Miami.
• Here’s some images of Bast’s show in Newcastle.
• The New York Times went with graffiti writer Freedom back to The Freedom Tunnel where he used to paint and took some photos.
• A street art / mystery investigation documentary film thing. Looks kinda cool except that they are trying to “out” an artist, so I’m not sure I’m 100% cool with that.

Photo by Sam3

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

Monotremu

So I’m about to get on a flight to Philadelphia, which means that there could be power outages as soon as tomorrow night and I’ll be offline for a few days. So if Vandalog doesn’t update, that’s why. This week has been all about good walls for me, and so that’s what almost this entire link-o-rama is about as well:

• Some interesting new pieces by Mr. Bino on Ekosystem.
• More from Freedom Park in Berlin, which I mentioned last week.
• Roa in Copenhagen.
• MOMO has updated his site a few times this month, including a collaboration with El Tono.
• The DMV crew has a massive new mural in Denmark.
• And for the non wall related news, 12ozProphet has a studio visit/interview with Mare139.

Photo by Monotremu

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

While in São Paulo and now while reviewing my photos, I’m struck by the incredible array of faces that surface on the walls of this amazing city.  They range from the dream-like poetic to the weirdly surreal. Here’s a sampling:

Sometimes I see something and all I can really say is “Yes.” This is one of those times, and I’m not even 100% sure what I’m seeing. It’s call The Boneyard Project. It’s coming this summer. Here’s the trailer:

THE BONEYARD PROJECT from viejas del mercado on Vimeo.

Nunca was recently in Milan for a project that he’s doing with Nike. Some sports jerseys for a football team I believe. While he was there, Nike made this video. It’s pretty sick for an advert. In it, Nunca talks about why he thinks graffiti is an important part of any city.

There are a lot of pictures out there of Nunca’s wall for the Deitch/Goldman Wynwood Walls Project during Art Basel Miami as it looked at the opening party, but not so many people saw the finished piece. Nunca continued to work on the characters, coloring and background details right up until late Sunday night, and, as you can see from the photo above, developed his mural from something really good into something spectacular. Take a closer look below:

In case you missed what Aiko, Nina, Shepard, osgemeos, Barry McGee and Clare Rojas were working on around Nunca, check out more of my photos of The Wynwood Walls here, here and here.

- Elisa