A note from RJ: This is a guest post by Damon Landry, probably Philadelphia’s foremost street art photographer right now. Damon is writing about Open Air Philly, who a sponsor of Vandalog this month, which is why I figured it would be better to have Damon write about the event than me. The color photos were shot with a Nikon D7000 and a 17-55 f2.8 ED DX lens. For the black and white photos, Damon used an Olympus EPL2 Pen camera using a 20mm Panasonic pancake lens.
At first I was not “sold” on the concept of this project by aPA and Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, as I am used to seeing these types of Xenon lights used mainly to draw attention to used car lots and nightclubs and so had that association in mind. However seeing the project being tested from out my home’s 3rd floor windows my curiosity was tapped, especially on humid nights as the air carried the beams in a very defined manner on those nights. I went down the night before the opening and was literally laughing as it was fairly amazing to be under what appeared to be a crystal castle of sorts… “I got it” at that moment! Opening night was great however the crush of people on the parkway took away from what I thought needed to be a more intimate experience insomuch as you can have in the environment of the parkway. Nonetheless I was again amazed and like a lot of people were doing I just laid down on my back in the middle of the parkway and stared at the sky and was taken away by the show. For public art, this was pretty interesting stuff and for all the news about the very few “dark sky advocates” who were going to be there in protest I did not see any nor did anyone I know pay them any mind. I brought along a variety of camera gear to get images but in the end I just wanted to watch and not bother with setting all that up. This was good stuff… go see it if you have the chance!
Swampy, Oakland’s legend in the making, has just put two two new beautiful works through Paper Monster: a hand-finished print and an original drawing.
The print, Owl of Yawn, is a two-color print on hand-dyed paper with hand finishing in ink and graphite. It is Swampy’s first print (not including his photo prints of course). Not sure what this really does to the prints, but Paper Monster says that “before releasing this edition of prints, he kept them locked in the closet of an abandoned house owned by an infamous cult in Oakland.” Owl of Yawn is an edition of 40, measures 20 x 26 inches and is available for $350.
The drawing, I Like Disappearing, features Swampy’s trademark character and the phrase, “I like disappearing,” which has been popping up in his work recently. It measures 20 x 25 inches and is available for $700.
Azo is a Ukrainian artist currently based in Kiev, but he recently did a bit of painting and traveling around Europe. Azo’s work freaks me the hell out, but that doesn’t mean it’s not interesting. Actually, the creepiness is exactly why I love it. His characters are something between Phlegm, Know Hope and Parra, but darker (okay, Parra can already be pretty dark, but darker than Phlegm and Know Hope).
Bergamo, ItalyPorto, Portugal. Click to view large.Pozharki, UkraineCollaboration between Seth, Dem189 and Azo in Paris
For most of last week, I was in Stavanger, Norway for the 2012 Nuart Festival. Naturally, even though I was there in part as press, I spent very little time on my computer and didn’t do any blogging. So, expect a full post or two about Nuart later this week, but for now here’s what I missed writing about while I was away:
Steve Powers’ and Joey Garfield’s film A Love Letter for You is now available on iTunes. It’s an interesting film well worth checking out if you like Powers.
Walking around in the abandoned areas of Baltimore gave me a peace of mind that the NYPD would never allow in New York. However, engaging life-long citizens of Baltimore about the graffiti surrounding them in the streets came with its own merits. The blending of New York and Baltimore-based artists that I saw in the the city’s innards was mirrored in its streets. With the, then recent, invasion of international artists for Open Walls Baltimore, the city had become a hub for any east coast street artist to visit. As long as you had friends in the area or on the roster, chances are you ended up there. Continue reading “Illegal Baltimore part three: The city’s streets”
Bushwick 5 Points has quickly become one of NYC’s most exciting and enticing open-air galleries. ND’A, OverUnder and LNY, three of my favorite street artists, have recently been gracing its walls. Here are some captured these past two days:
ND’A at workOverUnder at work, close-upOverUnder — complete — and LNY
Futurism 2.0, the brainchild of London-based Gamma Proforma owner Rob Swain and New York-based theoretician Daniel Feral, attempts to draw a thread between several artists, most of whom evolved out of tag-based graffiti backgrounds and are now created geometric forms within their art. The show opened yesterday at Blackall Studios in the Shoreditch neighborhood of London.
Remi/Rough
On display during the exhibition is the work of Augustine Kofie, Phil Ashcroft, Carlos Mare (Mare139), Boris Tellegen (Delta), James Choules (sheOne), Matt W. Moore, Mark Lyken, Sat One, Christopher Derek Bruno, Moneyless, Mr Jago, Nawer, O. Two, Morten Andersen, Keith Hopewell (Part2ism), Jaybo Monk, Poesia, Derm, Jerry Inscoe (Joker), Remi/Rough, Divine Styler and Clemens Behr. Following the movement through several countries, Rob Swain has delineated a movement that attempts to place graffiti in within the larger canon of art history.
DermO. Two
In addition to creating a ground-breaking exhibition, Rob Swain and Daniel Feral have teamed up to create a catalogue that will push this movement beyond the life of the exhibition. With a comprehensive essay tying the Futurist movement of the early 1900’s to a graffiti-based style happening nearly a century later, Feral has cohesively put words to awe inspiring work as only he can.
Boris Tellegen aka Delta
Futurism 2.0 is open now through October 2nd at Blackall Studios in London.
Last month, I was at the Living Walls Conference in Atlanta, but it’s only now that I’ve really had a chance to sit down and write about it. I thought that I was going to write this really long post, but the environment at Living Walls is difficult to capture in words, so this post isn’t nearly as long as I would have hoped.
Living Walls is, as far as I can tell, the best mural conference/festival/program going on right now in North America. Living Walls doesn’t tend to just invite all the artists who are painting at other mural events around the world. They invite good artists. Sometimes those artists are guys like Roa who are everywhere, and sometimes it’s women like Miso who have only ever painted one or two murals. As a result, Living Walls sets trends among mural festivals.
Lex and Sten
For their main conference this year, Living Walls really bucked popular trends and tried to put street art on a new track by having a festival made up almost entirely of female muralists. While guys like Gaia, LNY and I were still invited to speak at the lecture and panel portion of the conference, the murals by Lex&Sten and Indigo&Andrzej Urbanski were the only two where male artists were contributing.
Martina Merlini
While the murals weren’t as amazing on the whole as they were last year and the crowd of artists wasn’t nearly as rowdy (although that might have been a plus), this year’s Living Walls did bring some great work to Atlanta and really showed that there are some underrated female street artists and muralists out there who could be on the mural circuit as much as guys like Jaz or Roa. My hope and expecting is that the top-tier of artists from the conference will get more attention brought to their work thanks to Living Walls and some will start getting invited to a lot more mural festivals. As I’ve said in the past, I do not generally get excited to give artists preferential treatment based on them belonging to some underrepresented group, but I can see why an all-female Living Walls may have been the right move for this year even if the quality of the work did drop slightly.
Jessie and Katey
This Living Walls conference had more artists than ever before who were either more on the community mural side of the spectrum or had never painted a mural before. The results of that move were mixed, but there were some artists like Jessie&Katey and Mon Iker who took the opportunity and absolutely crushed it.
One thing I have to add isn’t so much about the art though. Whether Living Walls were inviting only artists that none of us have ever heard of before or stealing their line-up from Nuart, it would still be at least one of the best mural conferences in the world. That’s because Living Walls’ secret is in their amazing staff. Living Walls has best team of volunteers of any mural festival I’ve ever seen or could imagine. They are unbelievably dedicated to the festival and to getting more world-class street art and murals in Atlanta. Every day, the media team led by Alex Parrish was up until something like 4am putting together a video of what had gone on that day, and then they’d be back up at 7am to start filming all over again. Just last week, I was emailing with Keif Schleifer, their Logistics Director, who was spending her free time advising me on cherry-pickers. The day of the Vandalog Movie Night, volunteers showed up out of the blue to help us set up and run the show. Laura Calle and pretty much everyone else on staff who spent their own money to pay for the gas to drive myself and the artists around Atlanta. The drag queen who was a volunteer last year and this year helped arrange a drag show for the Living Walls Block Party. The artist assistants who stand in the hot sun alongside their artists all day long, offering any help they can. And of course, Monica Campana, the Executive Director of Living Walls, who is the amazing glue holding everything together without ever sleeping or slowing down. Everyone on staff or volunteering at Living Walls works at least as hard as the artists, and they were certainly working harder than me. After visiting two years in a row for just a few days each time, it honestly feels like I have family in Atlanta.
We would like to take a brief moment to thank this month’s sponsors. These are the organizations and companies that keep us publishing, so be sure to check them out!
Featured Advertisers
Brooklyn Museum–GO is a community-curated open studio project. Artists across Brooklyn opened their studio doors, so that the public could decide who will be featured in a group show at the Brooklyn Museum
NYU Steinhardt – Offers graduate art programs in Studio Art, Art Education, Art Therapy, Visual Culture: Costume Studies, and Visual Arts Administration. Admission Deadlines: January 6, 15 & February 1, 2013
Creative Time –The Last Pictures, Trevor Paglen has developed a collection of one hundred images that will be etched onto a silicon disc to be sent into orbit onboard the Echostar XVI satellite in Fall 2012, as both a time capsule and a message to the future
Vera List Art Project – Culture Vulture, a new commissioned print by acclaimed artist Barbara Kruger, has been released to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Vera List Art Project
International Center of Photography – The ICP-Bard Program in Advanced Photographic Studies offers a curriculum of professional and studio practice, critical study, and Resident Artist Projects. Application Deadline: January, 18, 2013
Association of Public Art – Open Air, an interactive art installation that allows participants’ voices to transform the night sky over Philadelphia’s historic Benjamin Franklin Parkway. September 20 and October 14, 2012
Norte Maar – To be a Lady: Forty-Five Women in the Arts, is on view at the 1285 Avenue of the Americas Art Gallery featuring the work of forty-five female artists born over the last century. September 24, 2012 – January 18, 2013
Guggenheim –Stillspotting nyc: bronx, the fifth and final edition in the stillspotting nyc series, Improv Everywhere presents Audiogram, an interactive audio experience and theatrical group hearing test designed for the South Bronx. October 13-14, 2012
Network Sponsors
Art Systems – Professional art gallery, antiques and collections management software
TNC Gallery – App* Art: Painted Paper, Continues Peter J. Ketchum’s interest in the past as it is encapsulated in printed matter. September 11- October 25, 2012
Safety: An Art Exhibition– Group exhibition curated by Cassandra Young about actively seeking contentment and in ascending towards needing nothing. On view at Leloveve Gallery, September 2012
TheBowerbirds – brings together a collection of art from various Asian artists and makes them available to everyone as art prints
Brooklyn Comics Festival – an annual curated event consisting of four parts: artists and publishers displaying and selling publications; gallery exhibitions; films and performances; and lectures and conversations on comics. Free to the public, Saturday, November 10
Waterfront Toronto – Seeking proposal submissions from artists for three public art opportunities on Front Street East in the West Don Lands. Submission Deadline: October 22, 2012
If you are interested in advertising on Vandalog, please get in touch with Nectar Ads, the Art Ad Network.
