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

According to The Guardian, Banksy‘s got a little problem with Channel 4′s Graffiti Wars documentary about Robbo and the Banksy versus Robbo feud. Rather than taking it to the street like you might expect when a street artist has a problem with the government or mass media, Banksy has sent a formal letter of complaint to Channel 4 and demanded an investigation. Among other concerns, Banksy is particularly upset that, in his opinion, the end of the documentary implies that Banksy was responsible for putting Robbo in a coma. To be clear, Banksy was not responsible for Robbo’s injury. Check out more details of Banksy’s complaints over at The Guardian.

Speaking of Robbo, a fundraiser for him took place today at Cargo in London. We hope it was a success.

Photo by Nolionsinengland

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

So the other night I finally got around to watching Channel 4′s Graffiti Wars, otherwise known as “The documentary about ROBBO.” I have some mixed feelings about it, and obviously want to tread lightly talking about it with ROBBO’s condition (He is currently in a coma), but feel that RJ and I should at least attempt to address the pseudo-documentary.

For those who haven’t seen it yet, and you can over here on 4od online in the UK, the hour long special focuses on UK graffiti writer ROBBO and his ongoing turf war with Banksy. Vandalog has covered the “graffiti war” since the beginning, but pretty much Banksy covered a ROBBO piece along the Camden canal that had been there since the 1980′s and in retaliation ROBBO began writing graff again and he and his team would vandalize Banksy works.

My main issue with the documentary is not the extreme sympathy and bias that Channel 4 shows towards ROBBO throughout or the lack of interviews from street artists (not just all the graff writers that spoke on camera), but actually this alleged success story for ROBBO of him on the brink of becoming a fine artist.

I went back to Pure Evil yesterday (who is featured in the film for hosting ROBBO’s first solo show) to look at some of the unsold works. He has put them on display in the basement, so if you have a chance do go check them out. In all honesty, however, the work is not that great. Now we all know there is a lot of shit out there that people praise, but from a strictly artistic perspective, in my opinion the work is sub-par that was shown in the gallery. He is a graff writer and does amazing graff works, but his gallery work doesn’t reflect that wild style. The film focuses on ROBBO’s dreams of becoming a fine artist in his own right and that is is the crux of my issues. He is not a fine artist and he just used the feud between him and Banksy to make some money. He hadn’t been working for years, but all of a sudden, he used the notoriety of Banksy to get noticed and maneuver his way into the gallery system. Plenty of artists take advantage of publicity to sell art (Eine…), but eventually the work has to stand on its own. ROBBO’s does not. ROBBO might be a “king”, but he is not a great artist.

I am sure people have other views on this, but the documentary could have been more well-rounded and unbiased. It is a tragedy what happened to ROBBO, and my thoughts are prayers go out to his family and friends. If you want to help support ROBBO, there is a fundraiser/art auction taking place next month at Cargo.

Photos courtesy of Channel 4

The UK’s Don’t Panic and Channel 4 have teamed up for a design competition celebrating Channel 4′s Street Summer, a summer line up of street culture related shows, including the UK TV premiere of Exit Through the Gift Shop and a documentary about Robbo, a graffiti writer at war with Banksy. Don’t Panic is asking for artists and designers to submit ideas to this website, which will then be voted on by the public and judged by guest artist judges like Faunagrafic. There will be 7 winning designs, one from each region of the UK. Each of those designs will then be rendered by the guest artist from the winning designer’s region and put up for two weeks outdoors. In addition, and for me this is the highlight, the winning designs will be featured in one of Don’t Panic’s trademark posters. In the past, artists like Eine and Banksy have done posters for Don’t Panic. Winners also get £300, their work on a postcard to be put in Don’t Panic pack and to be featured in a short film.

I don’t usually post about design competitions, but Don’t Panic packs and the posters inside are quintessentially London, so this opportunity for young artists and designers immediately caught my eye. Plus, I can’t wait to see how Channel 4′s film about Robbo comes out.

You can enter the competition and get more details here. Hurry though if you are looking to enter because voting begins on July 4th and the competition closes on the 17th. Also on that page, each of the regional artist judges have made a video about their local scene as well as what they are looking for in this competition.

Another Robbo show, this time at Signal Gallery. Opening April 8, the gallery walls will be graced again with Robbo and friends’ cheeky works making fun of some of his more famous contemporaries. Maybe this time he will do something more original since people still seem interested in what he has to contribute to “art.”

Usually, I love the shows that Pure Evil hosts. With a keen eye for fellow artistic talent, Pure Evil has put on some amazing solo shows with the likes of ROA, Dran and Specter, just to name a few. This time around though, I am a little disappointed to hear that Robbo is the latest artist to invade the gallery. You can think what you want, but in my blunt opinion, I think this atrocious to back an artist who has remade a name for himself late in his career because of a beef with another artist. I am, however, surprised it has taken this long for him to capitalize on his rejuvenated fame since the “War on Banksy” began. No doubt, there will be some pieces that make fun of the stencil artist, but I think this would be a good time for Robbo to step away from the controversy and show his own talent in a gallery, especially one that is so well respected in the street art community. If he does, I will eat my words. But his current actions in London, hyping the show, beg the differ as he and his cronies continue to bomb over Banksy pieces and make digs at him. For someone who has issues with an artist selling out and getting too big for his britches, I think the pot is calling the kettle black.

The show’s preview will take place tomorrow, September 30, at Pure Evil Gallery on Great Eastern Street. Stop by and let me know how it goes down since I am in Liverpool for the Biennial this week.

Top Cat at the Canal in Camden

More from The Canal

Photos courtesy of Robbo, Nolionsinengland, and Pure Evil

After 6 months of “Team Robbo” running around, you’d think people would be tired of the guy already. I am. When 10 Foot dissed Banksy and a few other street artists, he was still getting up. As far as I can tell, dissing Banksy is all Robbo is doing these days. It’s not even that I agree or disagree with the politics of what Robbo is up to, it just bores me after 6 months. Juxtapoz isn’t bored yet though. They just posted an interview with Robbo. So, you know, if you disagree with me and you think Robbo is still interesting, you may want to check out that interview on Juxtapoz’ website.

Photo by MakaniMike

I am definitely behind on writing about Banksy news. So here’s a bit of what’s been going on in the Banksy world:

• The distribution strategy for the US release of Exit Through The Gift Shop is pretty unique. The Wrap has more details, but basically, Banksy’s got a distribution company devoted entirely to his film, and they’ll be releasing the film city-by-city (leaving open the possibility of Banksy doing some street work across the USA? Maybe…).
• There’s a new 5-minute teaser of the film available on YouTube. It includes a slight spoiler by giving away the plot, but if you’re reading Vandalog, you probably know the plot already anyway. Either way, you have to watch the bit at 0:59 where the guy is getting chased by cops. Those parkour guys ain’t got nothing on graff writers. Check it out:

• And finally there’s the updates on the Banksy versus Robbo feud. Somebody, maybe Banksy, has struck back at Robbo on Regents Canal. This is really getting pretty boring for me, and I’m pretty sure these latest modifications are just by some random activist and not Banksy (which, admittedly might make things a bit more interesting, but they still look lame). Graffoto has photos and their take on the story.

It looks like Team Robbo isn’t done with Banksy just yet. If you don’t know the story, you catch up with this video from a couple of weeks ago. And here’s the latest action by Team Robbo: