I know I already posted about Lush this month, but he’s worth another update. These recent sketches by Lush once again show that nobody is safe from his wrath.
Photos by Lush
Another Lush update
GHOST on Manhattan’s Lower East Side with Matt Siren, Kenji Nakayama and much more
Last weekend, as I was walking down Eldridge Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, I was lured into GHOST, a café/bar that recently surfaced on the block. It wasn’t the food and drink — though certainly enticing — that lured me in, but the art that I glimpsed from outside. Among the works on display are a series of signs designed by Matt Siren — all featuring his signature ghost — in collaboration with some of NYC’s most prolific street artists including Dark Clouds, Celso and Royce Bannon. Particular standouts include huge pieces by Richard Hambleton and by Japanese-born Boston-based Kenji Nakayama. It soon became apparent that GHOST is an extension of one of my favorite galleries, Woodward Gallery, that will be presenting Kenji’s first NYC exhibition. (More on that in a later post!) Meanwhile, if you are anywhere in the vicinity of of 132A Eldridge Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, GHOST is certainly worth a visit.
Images courtesy Woodward Gallery
Press releases that will make you piss yourself: Ryan McCann
Here at Vandalog, we get some pretty ridiculous press releases from publicists, galleries and artists themselves. Some not in English, invites to shows opening in foreign lands, many not having anything to do with art, and my personal favorite- that this artist is the new Banksy. We pride ourselves on hardly ever posting these, but when they are as funny as this one we think we will make the exception for our audience. Here’s the first in this new (and hopefully infrequent) series…
From online gallery 1xRun comes the work of Ryan McCann, a former college football player who was drafted by an NFL team and uses a blowtorch to create his artwork. How badass is that picture? The naked twins and flame only add to this guy’s aura.
The current release is Abe Lincoln’s burnt face in the vein of The Social Network. How gritty and clever. And guess what the artist has to say? Nothing about the work except where he took the font and size of the piece from:
ARTIST STATEMENT: This piece was inspired from the Social Network movie poster that had a similar saying regarding getting to 1million friends. That is why the original piece is 40×27 inches, the standard movie poster size. These multiples are burnt into a 3/8 inch wood panel with a blowtorch, and then have 2-color silkscreened letters applied before they are sealed in polyurethane. Each piece is hand branded with my signature on the front and will be signed and numbered in ink on the back. – Ryan McCann
There is even a sick promo video to accompany the release. Enjoy!
Images and Video courtesy of 1xRun
Wild Style Wednesday!
Graffiti is a gateway crime.
Photos by Gargantuen, Morac19, Tatscruinc, and Voodoodi London
Roa – Hypnagogia – part 2
Roa’s 2-part solo show Hypnagogia is on now in London. Half of the show is at Stolenspace, and half is down the street at The Stone Masons. Here are some photos from the portion of the show at The Stone Masons. Check over here for photos of the portion at Stolenspace, and over at Arrested Motion for more photos from The Stone Masons.
More after the jump… Continue reading “Roa – Hypnagogia – part 2”
UGLAR: L.A.’s Best Kept Secret?
If that is the case, they aren’t hiding very well these days.
I suppose you could blame TNT’s popular TV cop drama Southland for some of that. The group’s “Painting the Painters” mural was prominently featured in a recent episode titled, oddly enough, “Risk.” In addition, UGLAR member Evan Skrederstu was commissioned by The Wende Museum (the same institution that commissioned RETNA, D*face, and Herakut to paint portions of its Berlin Wall) for the L.A. Chamber Orchestra’s “Play Me, I’m Yours” Project to paint a piano to stand across from LACMA, next to the wall segments.
The group has also completed two murals with ZES (including one in collaboration with PUSH for L.A. Freewalls), and features in the upcoming La La Gallery show.
The word is out, it seems. So who are they?
UGLAR stands for Unified Group of Los Angeles Residents and consists of five members: Evan Skredertsu, Christopher D. Brand, Steve Martinez, Espi, and Jose A. Lopez. They recently added ‘works’ to their name in honor of the great public works projects that were once commonplace in Los Angeles during the era of Rivera and Siqueiros. Originally, however, the group took their acronym from the Ulysses Guide to the L.A. River when they created a book celebrating the river and its inhabitants in 2008. This culminated in a show at the Pasadena Museum of California Art that featured Chaz Bojorquez and others. Perhaps what is most remarkable about that show is that the group fabricated and installed the entire exhibition by hand and brought the feel of the concrete L.A. riverbed indoors by obliterating the white gallery walls.
And yet, just a glimpse of their work shows it to be incredibly diverse. Martinez paints, photographs, and is the only member to use Photoshop in conceiving his pieces. Lopez graduated from graffiti lettering to abstraction years ago, even taking to etching some recent works on copper. Espi adds a spiritual element to the group it seems, but what else would one expect from the Art Director of the Los Angeles Friends of Tibet?
As a group, they do far more than walls. They are kings of scale, from the huge to the tiny, from murals to bugs. Yes, bugs. The story goes that Skrederstu and Brand were painting in the L.A. River a decade ago and accidentally sprayed a cricket blue. What grew out of that happenstance is amazing to see. Yet, what I find so fascinating is they do more than simply paint, and they don’t work exclusively with aerosol. Brand also sculpts, and is capable of some incredibly lifelike pieces similar to those of Ron Mueck. By way of example, check out the severed head below.
At a time when many are asking if street art can transition indoors (obviously the techniques can, but how well, and to what effect?), it is fascinating to watch contemporary street artists adapt to new spaces after having few limits. I can’t help but wonder which artists will transcend such labels by producing regardless of venue, and which will be limited in new environs. Considering the breadth of UGLAR’s skills and polish, it seems reasonable to conclude that they have all the potential necessary to effectively make that leap. Perhaps most importantly, they don’t seem satisfied to work exclusively on the street, but anywhere their creativity takes them.
All photos courtesy of UGLARworks. For more photos click here
Kidult’s Supreme ad parody
The London Police head to Newcastle
The London Police are getting ready for their first solo show in Newcastle at Unit 44. A Night with The London Police opens on May 11th (6-9pm) and runs through the 18th. So it’s not actually just one night with TLP, but if their past openings are anything to go by, that will be the night to go and check out the show. In addition to prints and paintings at the show, The London Police will be painting a “huge” new mural while they are in Newcastle.
Photo courtesy of Unit 44
Eloquent Vandals: A History of Nuart Norway
The Nuart festival of Stavanger, Norway is one of a handful of trailblazing street art festivals that have been popping up over the last decade or so. Actually the predate most, if not all, of the significant festivals. Last year, the organizers of the festival put together a book documenting Nuart’s history, Eloquent Vandals: A History of Nuart Norway.
Extensive photographic documentation of Nuart is already available, but Eloquent Vandals also has texts that you won’t find anywhere else. Essays by Logan Hicks, Carlo McCormick and Brooklyn Street Art’s Steven Harrington and Jaime Rojo provide some context for the festival and the festivities that happen there.
Hicks gives the inside scoop on what it is like to be a participant at Nuart. He acknowledges what so many artists and festival organizers really love about places like Nuart: The best festivals are made up of the best people, and the best parts of the festivals are the unexpected fun bits, not the murals. The artwork mostly just facilitates the good times and helps to justify to the rest of the world why a bunch of people getting together in a small city in Norway.
McCormick’s essay begins with one of my new favorite quotes about public art “Public art, when it is commissioned and produced according to some vague idea of the public good, is by and large really lousy art – and as such arguably the very last thing people need.” He goes on to show how festivals like Nuart can breath new life into the realm of public art.
Harrington and Rojo’s essay is not only the most important in the book, but one of the most important essays written about street art in this decade. They lay out what so many of us have thought about, but few have written about so eloquently and with such serious consideration: THE INTERNET IS REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT IN THE DISTRIBUTION OF CONTEMPORARY STREET ART. Sounds simple and obvious right? Well, it’s a bit more complicated than what I just wrote and the complicated aspects of this obvious fact deserve serious consideration, a conversation that Harrington and Rojo have now begun.
If you are interested in street art festivals like Nuart, and especially if you are one of the many people out there thinking of starting a street art festival, I highly suggest that you pick up a copy of Eloquent Vandals: A History of Nuart Norway.
Photo by RJ Rushmore
Roa – Hypnagogia – part 1
Roa’s 2-part solo show Hypnagogia is on now in London. Half of the show is at Stolenspace, and half is down the street at The Stone Masons. Here are some photos from the portion of the show at Stolenspace. Check back soon for photos of the work at The Stone Masons. And check Arrested Motion for more photos.
More after the jump… Continue reading “Roa – Hypnagogia – part 1”