Looks like the art world has gotten back on track after the holiday season. Lots of links this week.

• Over at Complex.com, I wrote about the 10 (well, actually 12) street artists that I think people should be watching for in 2013.
• Rae, one of the artists on that list of mine, has a solo show opening at Signal Gallery in London later this month.
• Broken Fingaz are also on that same list, and it looks like they have some new work up in London.
• Sten and Lex get up in an ancient church.
• I’d never heard of Kraser Tres before, but damn can he paint.
• And so can Sokram.
• Faile are working on a huge project with the New York City Ballet. It sounds like a bit of a strange collaboration at first, but I’m excited to see the results. It seems like this has given Faile an opportunity to develop new work in a direction that they would have otherwise never gone, and the results that have been teased so far look strong.
• 2501 has a show opening this month in Bologna.
• A lot of Rammellzee’s work is on display now at New York’s Children’s Museum of the Arts.
• There’s some great work available in the Iron To Gold/Ashes To Hope benefit auction which will help to fund an artist residency program in Detroit.
• Here’s a nice video of Kid Zoom at work.
• I might have asked this question before, but can someone please explain the appeal of Barry McGee’s recent Brooklyn mural to me? The first of the videos here has some info about it, but I need more. McGee has previously stated his objections to painting so-call beautifying murals. The only time in recent memory that I can recall seeing anything similar to the Brooklyn mural is the one he painted a few years ago in Miami, but even that piece included a fair bit of traditional graffiti. Plus, the Brooklyn mural was painted by the billboard painting company Colossal. I’ve got no problem with artist assistants or anything like that, but the whole thing strikes me as McGee just saying “Sure, if Cadillac wants to pay me a bunch of money to license one of my images and hire someone else to paint it on a building, I’ll take that paycheck.” And hey, more power to the guy if he can get Cadillac to pay him for that, but is that all that’s going on here or am I missing something? Has McGee’s philosophy about public art changed?

Photo by Tellas

Category: Auctions, Events, Gallery/Museum Shows, Photos, Videos | Tags: 2501, broken fingaz, ciredz, faile, kid zoom, kraser tres, RAE, rammellzee, sten & lex, Tant, tellas, Unga

The work of Rammellzee, one of the late great mysteries and legends of the New York graffiti community, will be on display in New York City starting tonight at The Suzanne Geiss Company. Letter Racers will have two complete sets of Rammellzee’s letter racer creations on display. By this point, you’re probably either in agreement with me that this show is a must-see, or you’re completely lost because you don’t know who Rammellzee is. Well, The New York Times profiled him last week, which is a better introduction than anything I might write about him.

Letter Racers opens on March 8th from 6-8pm and runs through April 21st.

Photo by RJ Rushmore, flyer courtesy of Suzanne Geiss Company

Category: Gallery/Museum Shows | Tags: rammellzee, suzanne geiss company

Why haven’t hotels figured out that they should have strong free wifi in all rooms? And, if they make you pay for wifi, the signal and speed had better be amazing? Starbucks has it figured out, and I don’t have to pay a boatload of money to hang out in a Starbucks for a couple of hours (unless I’m drinking their coffee while I’m there). And yet, hotels haven’t seemed to get the message. So that problem, and the general busyness of the last few days in LA, is why I am woefully late covering the opening of Art in the Streets at MOCA in LA, probably the biggest indoor event this year relating to street art or graffiti. And I’m still going to be woefully late with coverage today. Expect a full review in a couple of days, but in the mean time, here’s some of the best reviews and coverage from around the web:

• Some overviews of the show by Arrested Motion and Sour Harvest.
• Lots of photos of sections by Lee, The Fun Gallery, Swoon, Barry McGee, Todd James, Steve Powers, Rammellzee, CR Stecyk III, Ed Templeton, Shepard Fairey, Banksy (whose section is a work in progress) and Os Gêmeos.
• Some thoughts on KATSU’s fire extinguisher on the side of the museum (since buffed and painted over with a mural).
• Unurth’s thoughts on the show (and Hyperallergic’s comments on Unurth’s review).
• Jake Dobkin’s comment on the lack of political content in Art in the Streets.
• Hyperallergic on this being the “first” exhibition of its kind.
• A review from The LA Times.
• The LA Times reports on an increase in graffiti throughout LA because of the show. A. Umm… duh. B. MOCA director Jeffrey Deitch attributed this increase to “some of the young taggers who are anarchic,” but neglected to mention that some artists in Art in the Streets are involved too. Barry McGee, Amaze, ESPO and friends painted some graffiti. I saw some McGee stickers around the museum. And Shepard Fairey’s crew has been hitting up electric boxes right out in front of MOCA without permission.

Category: Art News, Featured Posts, Gallery/Museum Shows, Random | Tags: art in the streets, banksy, barry mcgee, cr stecyk iii, deitch, ed templeton, katsu, lee, mocala, os gemeos, rammellzee, shepard fairey, steve powers, swoon, todd james

If you’re the Jeffrey Deitch or museum-hating type, the next few weeks are not going to be your favorite weeks, at least not when it comes to Vandalog posts. I’m gonna be talking a lot about this topic. I could hardly be more excited for MOCA‘s upcoming Art In The Streets show, and some substantive information about the show is finally starting to come out:

• First of all, what lots of people have been asking for: a solid and confirmed opening date. Art In The Streets opens on April 17th.
• There will be 50 artist installations including Futura, Margaret Kilgallen, Swoon, Shepard Fairey and Os Gêmeos. Arrested Motion has some photos of Shepard’s installation process.
• The MOCA iteration includes a lot of West Coast stuff like Cholo graffiti and writers like Revok and Saber.
• Oh, clarification on the last point: The show movies to The Brooklyn Museum next March. Presumably the show will be refocused a bit NYC graffiti for that iteration.
• The show will include some mini-shows within it including a space dedicated to The Fun Gallery, a RAMELLZEE installation and Todd James, Barry McGee, and Steve Powers’ new iteration of their legendary Street Market show.
• Because MOCA is looking at skateboarding as art on the streets too, there will be a custom skate ramp in the museum and Nike’s skateboarding team will be skating there throughout the run of the show.
• There will be a film festival component to the show.

So yeah. Sounds good. Can’t wait for the opening. If this show succeeds, it could be the American equivalent of Banksy Versus The Bristol Museum in terms of impact.

Here’s some more preview images:

Photos courtesy of MOCA

 

Category: Featured Posts, Gallery/Museum Shows | Tags: art in the streets, barry mcgee, deitch, futura, keith haring, margaret kilgallen, mocala, os gemeos, rammellzee, revok, saber, shepard fairey, steve powers, swoon, todd james