Next month, Swoon has an installation opening at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. Anthropocene Extinction, the name of the show which is the phrase coined to denote the extinction of a species due to humans, opens on September 3rd and runs through December 30th. It will consist of a 40-foot tall papercut piece and sculptural elements (including a 200-pound bamboo sculpture). This comes on the heels of Swoon’s recent installation at the New Orleans Museum of Art.
Photo by Jake Dobkin
Lonac is an artist in Zagreb, Croatia. This is one of his latest pieces, Time Catcher.
Time Catcher from Marin Mimica on Vimeo.
Photo by Lonac
Brooklyn Street Art and Thinkspace Art Gallery have put together a huge group show called Street Art Saved My Life: 39 New York Stories. It opens next Friday, August 12th at C.A.V.E. Gallery in Venice, CA (not Thinkspace). The 40+ artists (39 names, but some are duos) come from around the world, but mainly New York. There’s a great range of artists from up-and-coming guys like Radical! to legends like Futura.
Photo by Anthony Lister
Christiaan Nagel is the artist who has been putting up strange mushroom sculptures in London for a little while. They can be really fun to come across when you’re not expecting it. If you’ve seen them before, you’re kind of in the know, at least to an extent. Still they are a bit of a mystery. How are they made and what are they made of? Is there a message? And if you’ve never seen one before, well the first time you see one is kind of like the first time you see an Invader. But like Invader, Christiaan is probably better suited for the outdoors than a gallery setting. Nonetheless, he has a solo show at Rich Mix in London opening next Thursday, and it’s been put together by Street Art London. So we’ll see how this goes. But I’m apprehensive. There’s a lot of street artists whose stuff really only works outdoors, and Christiaan’s mushrooms seem to fall squarely within that category. That’s not a slight against him or points for him. Some artworks work well indoors. Some work well outdoors. Some work well anywhere. I’m curious to see if Christiaan can bring his work indoors successfully. More info about the show here.
Faile have been painting this week in Oslo in preparation for the T&J Art Walk taking place this month for the benefit of Human Rights Watch. Faile are the first artists to get to Olso and start painting for the event, but Shepard Fairey, Logan Hicks, D*face, The London Police, Seen, Fenx, Galo and others will be taking part as well. In addition to 10 murals in central Oslo celebrating the work of Human Rights Watch and memorializing the victims of last month’s terror attack, there will be an exhibition from August 18th through September 4th at the Norwegian auction house Blomqvist for the benefit of Human Rights Watch.
Check out some of what Faile has been up to in Oslo after the jump, and expect to see more T&J Art Walk murals on Vandalog soon… Continue reading “Faile in Oslo and the T&J Art Walk”
As far as I can tell, Pawn Works have brought Skewville to Chicago for the first time. Not My Type opened last week and looks to be just what we’ve come to expect from Skewville: A colorful celebration of fun. Most of the work is in the gallery, but Skewville also customized a full-sized school bus, painted this mural and tossed some kicks. And it looks like Skewville is trying to take back “Your Ad Here” from Shepard Fairey. Of course it’s not a term that Skewville coined, but there’s this little feud between the two concerning on the phrase.
Check out some photos from inside Not My Type after the jump… Continue reading “Chicago, meet Skewville”
Later this month, Atlanta is going to be taken over by street artists from around the world for this year’s edition of the Living Walls conference, Living Walls: the City Speaks. From the 12th-14th of August, there will be film screenings, lectures and artists painting murals around the city. Living Walls have brought together an impressive artist roster from around the world including (but not limited to) Doodles, Swampy, Gaia, Roa, Labrona, OverUnder, Sam3, Freddy Sam, White Cocoa, Nanook, Greg Mike, Paper Twins, Clownsoldier and Gawd. And I can’t complain about the keynote speakers either: Tristan Manco, Gaia, Ricky Lee Gordon and me.
So if you’re in Atlanta, come out check out the opening party at The Sound Table on Friday the 12th, lectures at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia on the 13th during the day, a party at The Goat Farm the night of the 13th and a tour of all the new murals on the 14th. I’ll post more details about exact times later. And of course, I’ll be posting plenty of photos from the conference as well.
In September, another Living Walls event will take place in Albany, NY. More on that later.
Photo by Greg Foster Photography
Outside the Planter Boxes is a series of artworks in Toronto organized by Sean Martindale. Sean saw that the planter boxes around Toronto that were meant for planting trees were in poor shape. Many were falling apart or only had stumps in them. So he got a group of artists together to spruce up some of the boxes. Here are a few of my favorites, but you can check out the rest on the project website.
Photos courtesy of Sean Martindale
Since the UK graffiti writer Tox was sentenced to 27 months in prison a couple of weeks ago, there’s been some controversy drummed up about Tox between HurtYouBad, Don’t Panic, Channel4 and Ser. As I mentioned last month, Don’t Panic and Channel4 a hosting a competition where people could contribute design ideas and the winners could get their ideas made into a mural. Someone clever submitted a design by Tox. Naturally, that design got the most votes by a mile. And yet, he did not win. This thing did. HurtYouBad explains just how absurd that choice was. Oddly enough, while Ser was supposedly meant to be the judge who helped to determine the winner, he was overruled by the contest organizers. So I guess Channel4 and Don’t Panic didn’t actually want a competition. They just wanted some design ideas. By all rights, as silly as this competition might seem to many people, Tox should have won, if only to bring more attention to this absurd jail sentence.
So yeah, lame job Channel4. Don’t ask for street art and graffiti and then reject any real graffiti that you see. You could have helped draw attention to someone’s unjust legal troubles. Instead, you ignored him.
Photo by RJ Rushmore
