Trustocorp

Today I’m finishing my exams and packing up my dorm. Sunday, it’s off to London. Can’t wait. Here’s what I’ve been distracting myself with this week:

• Would you be so kind as to fill out this research survey for a friend of mind about street art, graffiti, and society?
• Anthony Lister is getting up in Miami.
• HBO is airing a documentary about JR’s Inside Out project.
• A painting by Basquiat set an auction record for the artist this week, selling for nearly $50 million.
• A prankster/artist is having some fun with that famous Belgian statue of the child pissing into the fountain.
• Jaybo Monk, Carlos Mare, Remi Rough, Derm, LX One, and Steve More painted a mural in Morocco.
• Tile graffiti (not by Invader or someone whose work is extremely derivative of Invader’s).
• Great balance between abstract graffiti and traditional graffiti from Beside, Spielerei and Erosie.

Photo courtesy of Trustocorp

“The American Cousins” by Cekis in Fleury-Les Aubrais, France

So as finals exams and essays begin to creep up on me (70-ish pages to write in the next month), these link-o-rama posts are going to become essential until the school year is up, so you know, I encourage you to read them closely.

• Aryz has a solo show coming up in San Fransisco at Upper Playground’s Fifty24SF. David Choe is a fan, and says that it’s gonna be a “feeding frenzy” with collectors wanting to buy out the show 100x over even before anyone has seen the work.
• Of course, if you’re looking for something you can get your hands on, I’m loving this print from Unga.
• Ron English recently released a monochrome grey version of his Temper Tot figure on his website.
• Sam3 gets me every time.
• The Carbon Festival is on this weekend in Melbourne.
• I’ve got to hand it to TrustoCorp for making this sweet suitcase device to spray stencils in broad daylight. They also been distributing a bunch of custom cereal box artworks (in collaboration with other artists like Shepard Fairey) around LA for people to hunt down.
• Those pretty blah painted shutters near the New Museum are getting painted again. Sounds like more blah.

Photo courtesy of Ville de Fleury-les-Aubrais

TrustoCorp have a show opening this month at LeBasse Projects in Los Angeles. The Future is Blight opens April 13th from 6-9pm and runs through May 11th. The show will tackle issues of income inequality in LA. TrustoCorp say, “Underneath the glossy veneer of tabloid magazines and Hollywood movies, the former middle class is struggling, families are facing poverty and America is slowly becoming a third world country. In the absence of any real help or solid solutions, there is hypocrisy, greed and hopelessness. Through our work, we hope to call attention to this reality, crack a few smiles and hopefully make some people think along the way. After all, when the mistakes of the past are repeated, the future is blight.”

Photo courtesy of LeBasse Projects

Wow. Interesting project from TrustoCorp and Mass Appeal. TrustoCorp visited an abandoned theme park in California and turned the place into their very own TrustoLand. If the video above leaves you wanting to more, check inside the latest issue of Mass Appeal magazine.

TrustoCorp have a show on now at Lazarides’/The Outsiders Newcastle, UK location. Here are a few of my favorite pieces from the International Bank of TrustoCorp show, which runs through November 10th. You can see the full show on TrustoCorp’s flickr.

Photos courtesy of TrustoCorp

TrustoCorp have a solo show opening at Lazarides’ Newcastle location this week, but before heading to the UK, they took over some bench-ads in Los Angeles. The International Bank of TrustoCorp opens on Thursday from 6-9pm and runs through November 10th. I’ve only ever seen TrustoCorp’s shows through photos or caught their work in group shows, but by all accounts their solo gallery events, particularly the opens, are can’t-miss, particularly thanks to their interactive installation works.

Check out more of TrustoCorp’s recent LA work after the jump…

Read the rest of this article »

There are a bunch of shows open now or opening in the next month that I’d like to mention, but there are only so many hours in the day. So here’s a bit of a round-up:

• Détournement: Signs of the Times is a group show that just opened at Jonathan Levine Gallery in NYC. It was curated by the legendary Carlo McCormick and features artists who “subvert consensus visual language so as to turn the expressions of capitalist culture against themselves.” Some of those artists in Détournement are Aiko, David Wojnarowicz, Ripo, Posterboy, Ron English, Shepard Fairey + Jamie Reid, Steve Powers, TrustoCorp and Zevs.
• Chris Stain and Joe Iurato are showing together for a two-man show at NYC’s Mighty Tanaka. The show opens on Friday. These are two great and underrated stencil artists. I highly recommend checking out this show, particularly given the superb quality of Stain’s recent indoor work.
• Sweet Toof has a solo show opening this week at High Roller Society a pop-up space in Hackney Wick, London.
• Contemporary Wing’s (Washington, DC) latest group show, opening on the 16th, is an exhibit of secondary market work, but there should some nice stuff, including work by Shepard Fairey, WK Interact, Gaia, Faile and Blek le Rat. I must admit that I’ve included a piece in this show, but I’m not going to say which one (so if you want to help me out, just buy the entire show…).
• Finally, Dabs and Myla have curated a show at LA’s Thinkspace Gallery which will open September 1st. In addition to their own paintings and installations, the show features 32 of their friends, plus a solo show in Thinkspace’s project room by Surge MDR. Those shows open September 1st.

Photo by Susan NYC

Ron English (and part of a TrustoCorp on the far right)

Letters From America opened last night at Black Rat Projects in London. The show, organized by Corey Helford Gallery, includes work by Ron English, TrustoCorp, Risk and Saber. I wasn’t sure how work from all of these artists would look when put together in one room, but it looks good. As usual, it looks like Ron and TrustoCorp brought some solid work, but the real treat is that the show is a rare opportunity for Londoners to see pieces by LA’s Risk and Saber. Risk and Saber’s work can certainly be a bit over the top, but so is graffiti. In particular, I am really enjoying Saber’s tribute to the UK’s National Health Service.

NoLionsInEngland was kind enough to pop by the show and take some pictures for us. See more of them after the jump… Read the rest of this article »

Ron English

Ron English, Shepard Fairey, TrustoCorp and Risk painted last week at the London Pleasure Gardens, a brand new cultural center of sorts from the folks behind MuTate Britain. Fairey has had some involvement with MuTate Britain organization before, but I’m not sure about the other artists. Whatever the case, there’s some nice work that went up at the gardens, including Fairey’s tallest mural to date and some great work on airplane nosecones by Risk and English (shown above).

Swap Fairey for Saber and you have the line-up at Letters from America, the show Corey Helford Gallery is putting on at Black Rat Projects starting July 4th, so if you like this work, definitely check out that show too.

Here’s some of the work at the London Pleasure Gardens, and we’ll probably do a part-2 of with more work in a few days:

Risk

Shepard Fairey

Risk

Photos by S.Butterfly

Saber and Risk at “Art in the Streets”

LA’s Corey Helford Gallery (who do advertise on Vandalog) have teamed up with London’s Black Rat Projects to put on a show, called Letters From America, in London on the 4th of July. Because the 4th is Independence Day in America, Corey Helford Gallery are bringing over a team of four American street artists to show at Black Rat Projects: Risk, Saber, TrustoCorp and Ron English. There aren’t many more details available for now, but I’ve been a lot of very exciting whispers about this show…

Hopefully I’ll have more to say soon.

Photo by LindsayT