Bust in Amsterdam

Happy almost Halloween. It’s been a week of wasted energy, or so it seems. A potential legal wall that I was organizing has fallen through for the time being, but hopefully things are just delayed rather than cancelled. Here’s some of what I should have posted about this week:

• Reported, this sculpture at Occupy London was made and left there by Banksy, but that claim is unconfirmed by Banksy so far. Nonetheless, Zeus added this modification to the piece. And Above has also made some work in solidarity with the Occupy movement. Similarly to K-Guy’s work at Occupy London, I’m conflicted here. On the one hand, it’s great when artists who know how to get headlines do so in solidarity with a political movement of sorts, but on the other hand these artists are of course latching on to the movement and associating themselves with it in a way that they know will get headlines and potentially help them sell some paintings. Of course the same could be said of many of the celebrity speakers who have been generally well-received at Occupy events. So there’s that dilemma to think about.
• Faile are the latest artists to hit the wall at Bowery and Houston.
• Last time I was in NYC, I saw this billboard for Hennessy cognac with designs by Kaws. Just interesting to see the flip from a decade ago when Kaws would have modified that billboard illegal to insert his work onto it in an effort to associate with the Hennessy brand, and now Hennessy pays Kaws to associate with their brand. Also, this new Kaws/Snoopy toy goes on sale today on Kaws’ website. Okay, one last bit of Kaws news: I love this new painting by him.
• This is a nice video of ECB painting a wall in London.
• The Citrus Report interviewed Feral Child.
• John Baldessari’s views on street art.
• The Nuart festival book is available for pre-order.
• TrustoCorp’s show at Opera Gallery in NYC looks like a lot of fun.
• Here are two articles about street art and graffiti in Libya and other countries being impacted by the Arab Spring.

Photo by Bust

Seth and I are finally back in LA after our trip to London and Paris. I had jet lag the whole time I was in London, then got it again when I got home, so that wasn’t particularly enjoyable, but other than that we did some fun things. Now we’re working toward Block Party with Boxi, Krystian Truth Czaplicki, Gregor Gaida, Simon Haas and Dan Witz + a showcase with Sixeart, which opens here at Carmichael Gallery on Saturday, November 13, and putting together the Miami issue of tasj.

I just wanted to quickly share some highlights from the current issue of tasj (vol ii – issue iii). As always, it’s free to subscribe to, no matter where you live.

As you can see from the cover, this is Part II of our Backstage Series (see who was in Part I here). One of my favorite interviews is with Mike Vargas and Moni Pineda, who run the web series/blog Friends We Love. I recommend checking out the site if you haven’t been on it yet; there is so much great content up there!

In addition to our Unurth, auction and art fair pages, we also have several new regular sections: Special Event (for shows taking place outside traditional gallery/museum settings – you’ll read about Blk River in here), Stopover (our city guide – this issue highlights London), Limited Edition (for prints and multiples – Faile, Bumblebee, Eine and Zeus are street artists who feature) and Newsstand (an off-shoot of Bookshelf and a place to support our fellow magazines and newspapers).

Hope you enjoy!

- Elisa

This show looks pretty interesting. Eine and Zeus together at Ink_d Gallery in Brighton. November 27 through December 24th (I feel really bad whoever is dismantling this show on Christmas).

Ink_d says:

For our next show at Ink_d Gallery we bring together two urban art heavyweights; Eine & Zeus.

Both are prolific street artists and innovators in typography and both have pushed the boundaries in a way that has redefined how we see graffiti as an art form.

Eine is best known for his alphabets and letters on shutters and Zeus for his three dimensional images and sculptures based around his writing style.
They come together at Ink_d for ‘Crimes and Punishments’ where their collaboration has produced a heavy hitting alphabet in Pen & Ink.

The show will feature beautifully framed original work on paper combining illustrations of crimes and punishments with Eine’s inimitable fonts and drawings of Eine’s hands by Zeus.
There will also be our usual affordable screen printed show poster and an exclusive low edition print release available during the show.

Cool new concept from Zeus. Concrete council flats placed on roadsides.

As part of Vandalog’s “Great in ’08″ series, which will be running every day for the rest of the month. Check out previous posts here. Street artists from across the world have been given one post to give away to one artist who they feel has been doing great work recently. Today it’s Domasters‘ turn.

Who is one artist doing really great work right now?

Dotmasters: Zeus is smashing it at the moment.

Photo by kalevkevad

See more photos of Zeus’ work after the jump…

Read the rest of this entry »

As part of Vandalog’s “Great in ’08″ series, which will be running every day for the rest of the month. Check out previous posts here. Street artists from across the world have been given one post to give away to one artist who they feel has been doing great work recently. Today Zeus and K-Guy have both picked the same artist.

Who is one artist doing really great work right now?

K-Guy: Herakut.

Zeus: It has to be Herakut. Real skills.

Photo by Presciption Art

See more photos of Herakut’s work after the jump… Read the rest of this entry »

Update: Check out the other posts in this series here.

Unless you live in a strange world where time does not exist, we’re coming to the end of 2008. As my contribution to street art’s end-of-year/Christmas/Hanukkah/winter solstice activities, I’ve organized a series of posts which will run from tomorrow until the end of the year.

What’s so special about these posts? I’ve asked a number of street artists one question: “Who is one artist doing really great work right now?” and given them the chance to respond and “gift” a post to the artist or artists that they’ve chosen.

Starting tomorrow, and continuing for the rest of the month (or at least until Boxing Day), I’ll be posting one of these responses every day, along with photos of work by chosen the artists.

Here’s a small selection of the artists who will be sharing some of their favorite artists with Vandalog readers in the coming weeks:

Gaia

Zeus

Cake

Posterboy

©opy®ight

Video of some really great by Zeus.

His 3d stuff is always fun to see, but this fish tank takes it to a new level.