Author: RJ Rushmore

RJ Rushmore has been involved in contemporary art as a writer, curator, photographer, arts administrator, and fan since 2008. With a focus on street art, graffiti, and public art, RJ facilitates and promotes catalytic and ambitious art outdoors, in galleries, and online. He founded the street art blog Vandalog and has worked at The L.I.S.A. Project NYC, Mural Arts Philadelphia, and Creative Time. Currently, RJ is Co-Curator of Art in Ad Places.
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Ben Eine paints SF before show at White Walls

Eine in San Fransisco

Ben Eine is in California preparing for his show at White Walls in San Fransisco. (The, I think, ironically titled) Greatest opens on March 12th and runs through April 2nd.

The show consists of two parts. First, the indoor side at White Walls: There will be 10 new works on canvas from Eine. I’ve always preferred Eine outdoors to indoors and thought of the indoor work similarly to how I see Invader’s gallery art: as reminders of what we’ve seen and loved outdoors, so we’ll see how that part of Greatest goes. The other half of the show is that Eine painting a full alphabet with permission on roll-gates in San Fransisco and will continue to do so for a couple of weeks, so that’s great. Eine holds a special place in my love of street art because he was the first artist besides Banksy whose work truly grabbed on on the street, so I’m pleased to hear that San Fransisco will be getting a little taste of Eine. The roll-gate letters don’t quite grab the viewer like SCARY did for me, but they do brighten up the streets. I’m looking forward to seeing how San Fransisco reacts a new Eine alphabet.

Also, I think this is his first solo show since Obama was given one of Eine’s paintings as a gift.

Photo by Steve Rhodes

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Hueless: A group show in grayscale

A taste of Hueless

The latest show at the relatively new gallery Mallick Williams & Co is Hueless, a group show of 21 artists, but all the artwork is in black, white and shades of gray. The show opens this Friday, March 4th. I chanced across the last show at Mallick Williams & Co when I was last in NYC and really enjoyed it. With Hueless, the line up looks strong once again, with highlights including Shepard Fairey, Skullphone, Faust and Katsu (yes, the writers Faust and Katsu!). Here’s the flyer:

Photocollage courtesy of Mallick Williams & Co

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Pantheon: A history of art from the streets of New York City

Matt Siren 

UPDATE: There are just a few days left for the Pantheon fundraiser on Kickstarter. There are some cool rewards for supporting this show, so check it out.

Abe Lincoln, Jr., John Ahearn, Adam VOID, Cahil Muraghu, Cake, Darkclouds, Droid, El Celso, Ellis Gallagher, Faro, John Fekner, Freedom, Gen2, Goya, Groser, Richard Hambleton, infinity, Ket, LSD Om, Matt Siren, Nohj Coley, OverUnder, Oze 108, Quel Beast, Royce Bannon, Sadue, Skewville, Stikman, Toofly, UFO, and even more artists are all part of a group show opening in New York on April 2nd. Pantheon: A history of art from the streets of New York City aims to bring together multiple generations of street art (and, to a lesser degree, graffiti) from New York City and tie them together into a cohesive history. There are some real under-appreciated gems in that line up like Richard Hambleton, Skewville, John Fekner, Don Leicht and Faro.

Pantheon will take place in New York City at chashama/Donnell Library Building, right across from MoMA and run through April 17th. I’m really disappointed that I won’t be able to see this show in person. It should make a nice counter-point to MOCA’s Art In The Streets show opening in LA around the same time. If you do make it to Pantheon, be sure to check out the catalog, which Vandalog’s Monica Campana has contributed to.

Here’s a little preview of some of the street work from artists in Pantheon:

UFO and Gen2
Royce Bannon
Darkcloud
Avoid
Abe Lincoln Jr. and infinity

Photos by Luna Park

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No Oscar for Banksy’s Exit Through The Gift Shop

Well, there you go. Banksy‘s film Exit Through The Gift Shop, while a good film, was apparently just not good enough for The Academy. The film was nominated for Best Documentary Feature but lost to Inside Job (a win which will probably has a larger postive impact on the world than a win for Exit).

While I can understand that some people were not excited when Exit was nominated, and I also certainly saw it as a sign of Banksy’s mainstream popularity and pandering, for better or worse, I would have the say that once it got nominated, I wanted to at least see it win.

Better luck next time Banksy…

Photo by Trick Kid

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Concrete Voices: a short film about The Living Walls Conference

The Living Walls Conference took place last August in Atlanta and included some Vandalog favorites like Chris Stain, Gaia, Jordan Seiler and Swampy. In fact, Monica Campana, a recent addition to the Vandalog bloggers, organized Living Walls (and that plays into the series of coincidences of how we met, but that’s a story for another day). Christine Sylvain just posted this short video from the conference:

CONCRETE VOICES from Birds of Prey Productions on Vimeo.

I’m also pleased to say that Living Walls will be taking place again this summer, and in two locations. There will be a conference in Atalanta again in August, plus another one in Albany, NY from the 16th-18th of September. For more info or if you think you would like to help make this year’s Living Walls conferences a success, email livingwallsconference@gmail.com for Altanta or livingwallsalbany@gmail.com for Albany.

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Weekend link-o-rama

Poster by Morley

Wow. This week has gone by really quickly. I guess the world feels like it is moving faster when you are running on less sleep. Such a counter-intuitive thing. Anyway, here is what has been going on that I didn’t have a chance to write about this week:

Photo by Morley

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Above solo show opens today in Sydney

Above has a solo show, Here Today Gone Tomorrow, opening today at Lo-Fi Gallery (383 Bourke St. Sydney, Australia). I haven’t liked Above’s indoor work in the past, but from the look of the preview, I think done something very right this time. The most surprising thing about that is that he’s combining some ideas in this work that normally spell “train wreck.” The work combines ripped posters, pop art and images of dead celebrities.  Unless we’re talking about Faile, that combo tends to end in an EPIC FAIL. But this work actually looks some Above has pulled it off, which is exciting. Don’t ask me how or why, but I like this new series. CFYE has plenty of photos posted, and here’s a teaser video:

HERE TODAY GONE TOMORROW (PART 3) from ABOVE on Vimeo.

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Graffiti at Christie’s Amsterdam

My friends are Lebowski Publishers are hosting this event next week at Christie’s in Amsterdam. At the next auction at that Christie’s location, there are going to be a number of pieces for sale from old-school writers, which is how this party has come about. Nothing against old-school graffiti on canvas, but it’s not really my thing. What I’m more interested in with this party is the living painting collaboration between Shoe and Quik, plus whatever Laser 3.14 and WorldWarWon get up to in. WWW is a clever and new street artist in London, and Laser 3.14 does some great text-based street art/graffiti. Also, the first 50 people there will get a copy of a classic book: The Faith of Graffiti.