I’m excited to see that Troy Lovegates aka Other, one of my favorite street artists, just painted this mural in my hometown of Chicago. It was installed as part of the Art In Public Places project with Pawn Works, the Chicago Urban Art Society, and Alderman Danny Solis.

Photos by Nicholas Marzullo

Overunder

Sorry I missed the link-o-rama last week. Was having a fantastic birthday in NYC. Thanks to everyone who came out to say hello.

• I just picked up the recent Troy Lovegates book (now sold out), and I wish I could pick up this print as well. Absolutely beautiful stuff.
• Nice little Pink Floyd-themed stencil by Plastic Jesus.
• Interesting JR-esque posters in UK mines.
• Philippe Baudelocque in Paris.
• Judith Supine on being bored with street art.
• Leon Reid IV’s latest sculpture addresses the crushing personal debt of so many Americans.
• Tova Lobatz curated a show at 941 Geary with Vhils, How and Nosm, Sten and Lex, and others.
• Shepard Fairey released some prints using diamond dust, which is quite interesting. As the press release says, “Perhaps most famously used by Andy Warhol, who understood perfectly how to convey a message, Diamond Dust was used to add glamour, transforming ordinary images into coveted objects. The material aligns with Shepard’s work and interest in the seduction of advertising and consumerism. Diamond Dust, literally and metaphorically is superficial, applied to the surface of the print, the luminous effect is both beautiful and alluring.” But it’s one of those things that just gets me thinking about how the art world, much like capitalism, seems so good at absorbing critique and spitting at back out as product. People love the meaningless OBEY icon, so Shepard sells it. Shepard needs to make more product to continue selling to this market he has created, so he takes an old design (or a slight variant, I’m not positive), and adds meaningless diamond dust to it and sells it as something new. The best critiques participate in the system which they critique, but that’s a risky game to play. Of course, I say all this with a print by Shepard hanging on my wall.
• OldWalls is a project where the photographer took photos of graffiti in the early 1990′s and recently returned to those spots to take the exact same shots, and then each matching photo is displayed next to its counterpart.
• Artnet’s latest street art and graffiti auction has a handful of interesting pieces (Artnet is a sponsor of Vandalog btw). Here are my favorites:
  • Greg Lamarche’s Krylon boxes
  • A nice Futura with a character from 2006
  • A classic Richard Hambleton print. He wheatpasted this self-portrait on the streets of New York in the early 1980′s.
  • A great Todd James on paper

Photos by Luna Park

If you’ve ever wandered through a train yard, work like Troy Lovegates‘ (aka Other’s) is the kind of jaw-dropping stuff you feel fortunate to have come cross. For the past few months Lovegates has been spending time in Germany, but with all his freight car pieces running, his presence will be felt across borders.

Photos by Other

Troy Lovegates aka Other

From the photorealistic to the abstract, the characters on Toronto’s public spaces captivate. Here are a few more:

Troy Lovegates aka Other

Patrick Evoke, Alexa Hatanaka & Peru Dyer Jalea aka Peru 143

Hunto

Drew TCI and Jarus

Photos by Sara Mozeson

Jade

It’s the weekend…

• This is not your average train-bombing video.
• Lois Stavsky interviews Stikman.
• Dennis McNett has an open studio this weekend, with some prints available at 25% off.
• Troy Lovegates has a new limited edition book available.
• Aiko, Ron English, Swoon, How & Nosm, Logan Hicks, Kenny Scharf, and Futura are showing work indoors at Wynwood Walls this week in Miami.
• Speaking of Miami, Brooklyn Street Art have a round up of great things to do and see in Miami this week.
• This work from Aakash Nihalani was done during Nuart earlier this fall, and I love it. It’s simple and site specific. Remember, always practice good placement. If you do that, you don’t have to paint 7 stories tall just to catch people’s attention.
• What Are You Doing To Participate looks like a great show of zines opening this week in LA with work from Mel Kadel, Matt Leines, Pez, and many more.
• Sickboy and Word To Mother have a show together in London next Thursday for one-night only.
• In Syria, street art and graffiti can get you killed.

Photo by Jade

Gaia. Click to view large.

Damon Landry and I recently took a trip to Haverford College so that he could photograph some of the street art and murals there. Here are some of my favorite photos that Damon took during our visit.

Labrona and Troy Lovegates aka Other. Click to view large.

Stikman

A black squirrel wheatpaste

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Chris Stain

All too often, I get the same basic press release in my inbox. It reads something like this:

Dear Arrested Motion editor,

Gallery X, the hippest gallery in the USA even though you’ve never heard of us before, is super excited about their upcoming show Lame Pun for a Name, a group show featuring prints from the world’s most exciting street artists. We have 15 artists you’ve never heard of or have heard of but don’t care about who we think are making a real splash and 2 artists you’ve heard of but whose prints we found on eBay for the purpose of including them in this show. Oh, and yes, we have a Banksy print! This is sure to be the best show ever in the history of the world even though we only just discovered that street art is a thing after my mom told me about this movie called Exit Through the Gift Shop.

I hope you’ll post about our show. An inconvenient to download and use pdf file is attached.

Sincerely,

Gallery Girl

Because of emails like that, my tolerance for group shows of prints is pretty low these days. I pretty much write them off as ignorable when I hear about them, even when I like some of the artists in the show. Well, I’m extremely thankful that two of my friends dragged me to New York’s Hendershot Gallery last week after I had written off their latest group print show, (Re)Print.

Troy Lovegates

(Re)Print features ASVP, Clown Soldier, Chris Stain, Troy Lovegates, Labrona, Judith Supine and others. It achieves that combination of well-known and extremely talented but up-and-coming artists that nearly every group show strives for but few manage to pull off. If you’re looking for work by artists who don’t get the attention they deserve, (Re)Print is the place to see a whole lot of them. In particular, the new prints by Chris Stain and collages by Clown Soldier are a real treat.

Here are a few bits from the show, but if you’re in New York at all this summer, definitely try to make it over to Hendershot Gallery to see the entire show. (Re)Print is open through August 15th.

Clown Soldier

Paul Insect

Troy Lovegates

Photos courtesy of Hendershot Gallery

Chris Stain

While Caroline and I visited Baltimore with the goal of seeing Open Walls Baltimore, but we also got a bit of a taste for the larger street art and graffiti scene there, including a lot of work that has been done without permission. We even went out with a few local writers (Avoid, Fisho and Mountain) to watch them paint. Here are some of my favorite pieces that we came across in Baltimore that are not murals, including a few of photos have been posted on Vandalog previously.

Other

LNY

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Other and Labrona at Haverford College. Photo by RJ Rushmore

Earlier this month, Labrona and Troy Lovegates aka Other came down from Canada for a few days. Their first stop was Haverford, the small Philadelphia suburb where I go to college. At Haverford College, they painted a mural on the same building that Gaia painted last year. Then, they spent less than 24 hours in Baltimore, but took advantage of every second for painting and getting up. In Baltimore, Martha Cooper invited them to paint in SoWeBo, a part of town where she has been photographing the residents.

Other and Labrona in Baltimore. Photo by Martha Cooper

Check out more photos from Haverford and Baltimore after the jump… Read the rest of this article »

Jack Murray aka Panik ATG

Exciting week next week: Troy Lovegates and Labrona will be coming to Haverford to paint a mural here, so look forward to some pictures of that… If I find the charger for my camera. Also, I’ve taken the plunge and I’m finally on Instagram. Here’s what I’ve been reading this week:

• Troy Lovegates has a show on this week in Halifax.
• There’s a new ezine by Overunder.
• Joe Iurato and others painted a mural in New Jersey that included a tribute to Trayvon Martin. Of course, ridiculous controversy ensued. Here are some thoughts from Joe.
• More murals in Richmond, Virginia (including Dalek breaking out some of his Space Monkeys).
• I’ve mentioned this before, but here’s a reminder that No Longer Empty is hosting a talk about the Fashion Moda this Sunday moderated by Joyce Manalo and including Stefan Eins, Lisa Kahane, Crash and Lee.
• Faile’s new mural in Williamsburg is something quite different and unexpected.
• Chaz Bojorquez has his first show in Australia this weekend.

Photo by Jack Murray