This latest piece by The Wa was done in Stockholm, but references The Situationists in France. It’s called Sous les pavés la plage (or, Under the pavement, the beach) after this piece of Sittuationist graffiti.
Photos by The Wa
Young & Free: Australian street artists in SF
One thing that has come up a number of times on Vandalog and in my personal conversations is the seeming isolation of Australia’s street art scene. Although Melbourne in particular as a street art community to rival many major American cities, it seems that most fans of street art are unfamiliar with Australian-based artists besides Anthony Lister and perhaps Meggs. Now, two of Australia’s most committed street art collectors have teamed up with 941 Geary in San Fransisco to put on the biggest show of Australian street artists the US has ever seen, Young & Free. The show has been curated by Sandra Powell and Andrew King, the couple with what is probably both the best collection of work by Australian street artists, and the best collection of work by street artists in Australia.
13 artists are involved in Young & Free: Anthony Lister, Kid Zoom, Dabs & Myla, Dmote, New2, Ben Frost, Meggs, Ha-Ha, Reka, Rone, Sofles and Vexta. That’s a pretty solid line up, representing most of the best Australian-born street artists (but, as far as I know, Ben Frost is not a street artist). If you haven’t heard of all of those names, you can go to the Young & Free website to get a taste for each artist. Basically, without making the trip to Australia yourself, this show will be the best way to see what’s going on with their street art scene. Hopefully, it will also be a massive step towards putting Australian street art on equal footing internationally with American and European street art.
But of course, a gallery may be a place to experience art, but it’s not the place to experience street art. Street art is on the street. Luckily, all 13 of the artists in Young & Free will be in San Fransisco at the start of September, so here’s to hoping that some walls get painted.
Young & Free is still a few weeks away from opening, with a run from September 10th through October 22nd, but we’ve got a quick preview…
Photos courtesy of Young & Free
Destruction at Primary Projects
Primary Projects, the gallery that came out of Primary Flight, has a group show opening next month called His Wife and Her Lover. The show centers on the themes of “destruction, secrecy, violence, social class, pride and desire.” Two artists of note for Vandalog readers will be Mark Jenkins and Cleon Peterson. Also included in the show are Valerie Hegarty, George Sanchez Calderon, Dead Dads Club Corporation, Manny Prieres, Emmett Moore, Franky Cruz, Andrew Nigon, Nick Klein, Johnny Robles, Jessy Nite and Edouard Nardon. His Wife and Her Lover opens on September 10th and runs through October 1st.
Image courtesy of Primary Projects
More from Living Walls
Even more from Atlanta’s Living Walls… Today it’s Greg Mike, LNY and Jaz.
Photos by Greg Mike and RJ Rushmore
D*face, Galo and Logan Hicks in Oslo
Here’s the latest from the T&J Art Walk in Oslo. Previously, we’ve posted about Faile and Shepard Fairey‘s murals for the event, and Brooklyn Street Art has some photos of what The London Police are working on. Most recently, D*face, Galo and Logan Hicks have finished their walls. Art Walk’s indoor exhibition to benefit Human Rights Watch also opened at Blomqvist opened on the 19th. But here are the new walls…
Photos by Ole Walter Jacobsen and courtesy of Logan Hicks
A portrait of Atlanta
Here’s the mural that Ola Bad (who has no website but can be reached at olabad.art@gmail.com) and Howdy Nater collaborated on for Living Walls.
Ola Bad tells this story of how the mural came about…
This is my first wall which was done in collaboration with Howdy Nater. The wall is out in the West End of Atlanta on the border of two run down neighborhoods, Adair Park and Oakland City. It lies directly along the Northbound Marta Line which is what everyone coming into the city has to take from Hartsfield Airport. Living walls had started a few days before we started painting and we were just tripping out at how much all the out of town artists were talking about all the love they were recieving and how this felt truly like a home away from home. We had decided that because of the location we wanted to welcome every traveller into the city with the hope that they would experience the same feeling as the artists.
Howdy Nater came up with the saying Your Southern Home Away from Home. I wanted to do portraits but didnt know who. As HN was laying out some letters I walked across the street to goto the gas station to buy us some 40s of Colt 45. The gas station had two lines , mine which was barely moving and the other which was flying by. I decided to move over to the other line when I was greeted by a man named Fred. He had two gold fronts a towel over his shoulder and was completely thugged out. He congratulated me on my patience and offered to let me cut in line. We started a converstion when a homeless man i was talking to earlier came in and asked me to buy him a hotdog. Before I could even reply Fred interjected that anyone who was humble enough to ask for food deserved to eat and purchased the hotdog. Fred told me that he had lived in Oakland City his entire life. I was completely blown away by his kindness and the way he treated anyone in his neighborhood like family. I knew immediately that he was the perfect ambassador for the mural and got to work.
The second portrait is of a wonderful woman who is heavily involved in the atlanta graff/street art scene, whos name is Sharon. She and Fred both share the same love for Atlanta and its inhabitants no matter who they are or what they look like. Its rad to think that two completly different people with completely different backgrounds share the same love and the only hope I have is that there are people like this in everycity to welcome and love people.
Photos by Ola Bad
Dal and Faith47 in Rochester, NY
Weekend link-o-rama
With my mind still on Living Walls, I’ve got some catching up to do with what’s been going on outside of Atlanta. So here’s some of that catching up…
- King Robbo is currently having serious health issues, and there’s a fundraising art auction at Cargo for him next month.
- Brooklyn Street Art’s LA show, Street Art Saved My Life, opened and BSA has photo of the entire thing.
- The Zoo Project are a major street art force in Paris, and this wall is one of my favorites from them in a while.
- Tristan Manco contributed a list of his 10 favorite pieces of street art to The Guardian.
- Shepard Fairey had quite an ordeal in Copenhagen. On the whole, I’ve got to agree with Shepard on this one. He made a mistake and tried to make it right, but people still beat him up and newspapers still sensationalized their stories in inaccurate ways. Uncool. That said, it’s worth pointing out that right in the midst of Shepard complaining about newspapers getting their facts straight and being ethical, he writes “I adhere to my ethical beliefs in all areas of my artistic and business practice.” I hate to kick a guy while he’s down, but it needs to be mentioned that Shepard did attempt to falsify evidence during his lawsuit with the AP, so those ethics aren’t always adhered to. Anyway, sucks that Shepard and Obey Clothing’s Romeo Trinidad were beat up.
- Futura and Stash getting up in NYC.
- James Marshal aka Dalek is trying something very different with his new work.
- Nunca, Miss Van and others are at work on a mural project in Berlin.
- Sao Paulo’s Museum of Art just opened a huge show of street artists including JR, Swoon, Invader and Remed.
Photos by Sabeth718
Revok, Roid and Rime at Known Gallery
Revok, Rime and Roid of the MSK crew have a show together opening this weekend at Known Gallery in LA. I know Rime doesn’t like being mentioned on sites like Vandalog, so let’s instead focus on two very talented writers: LA’s Revok and the UK’s Roid. Revok is probably best known for recently getting out of prison in LA for a graffiti-related charge, but one reason that case got so much attention is that Revok is a guy who gets up, and looks good doing it. If there are still kings in an internet age, Revok is one. Roid represents MSK in the UK, and has technical skills that few writers can match. This piece by Roid is one of my favorite pieces of graffiti I’ve ever had the chance to photograph.
The show is called Perseverance and will be open August 20th through September 12th. Definitely one for graffiti fans to check out.
Here’s a little preview… I think most of these pieces are by Revok, but I’m not positive. If you do know who did what, give me a shout.
Photos courtesy of Known Gallery
Marco Sueño at Living Walls
More from Living Walls Atlanta. Today, Marco Sueño. Marco is a photographer from Peru who works with stickers and wheatpastes. He did a few murals for Living Walls. Here’s how he describes this series:
Sacha Project is a muralism, photography and public space intervention that proposes, through a series of compositions that highlight the hybrid nature of icons and objects a result from the fusion between modern urban culture and the andean culture traditions a visual explorations on the peruvian identity, seen from its own transfiguration. “Sacha Project” displays how the sacred and the “Hybrid” create a jigsaw of different realities interacting through synergies and fragmentation.
Photos by Marco Sueño