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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Mr. Brainwash is getting his ass sued

Mr. Brainwash, aka Thierry Guetta, is getting sued for basing some of his “artwork” on Glen E. Friedman’s iconic photograph of Run DMC (as seen on the right side of the above photograph).

Sean Bonner has an article on Boing Boing with some details of the case his thoughts. While I think he makes some good points as to why this is different from Shepard Fairey’s lawsuit with the AP over his Obama HOPE poster, I disagree with his conclusion that Mr. Brainwash’s work isn’t covered by fair use while Shepard Fairey’s should be. As much as I dislike what Thierry does, as much as I would like to bash him and as much as I think the ethical thing in this case would have been to credit and license the image from Glen E. Friedman, I’m not sure that it’s a wise thing to say that he should be legally obligated to do so. I’ll probably explain my thoughts on this in more depth in another post by the end of the week.

Photo by enderzero

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Sickboy solo show coming up in Lisbon

UPDATE: Sounds like the above image may also have something to do with an issue of Very Nearly Almost coming out in the next two weeks…

Sickboy has a solo show coming up on February 3rd at the Montana Gallery in Lisbon, Portugal with Yellow Pants Gallery. Yellow Pants are new, but their last show looked pretty cool and had a very strong line up, so I’m expecting big things from them, and this Sickboy show might just be one of those big things. Sickboy is a UK-based street artist and graffiti writer and I’ve really enjoy his work indoors and outdoors for the last couple of years. He also really knows how to do a show right. He had a show in Bristol that was only open for 3 hours and one in London that completely transformed a giant space. Who knows what he’ll get up to in Lisbon… Here’s the flyer:

Photos by Viktor Vauthier

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Exit Through The Gift Shop gets Oscar nomination

UPDATE: Exit Through The Gift Shop did not win the Oscar. It went to Inside Job.

It’s just been announced that Banksy’s film Exit Through The Gift Shop did in fact make it from the Oscar short list to getting a nomination for this year’s Best Documentary Feature at the Academy Awards. So that’s kind of cool. Interesting that The Academy a. doesn’t seem to have concerns about the authenticity of the film and b. doesn’t seem to mind that Banksy won’t be able to accept the award himself, both concerns that some people thought could keep Exit from getting nominated. Also nominated are Gasland, Inside Job, Restrepo and Waste Land. While a lot of people would note that I’m not the biggest Banksy fanboy in the world, I’m definitely hoping that Exit wins this award.

Photo by jvoves

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Roa in NYC

Roa just sent over some photos of work he did last year in New York. I’m loving the below piece over a Cash4 (not because it’s over Cash4, but because it’s two great writers next to each other in a cool spot).

Unurth has some more photos from this trip.

Photos by Roa

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Above in Brisbane

Just got this note from Above. This is one of my favorite pieces from him in a while…

I just returned this morning from being in the flood ravished city of Brisbane, Australia. With the international attention around the floods I decided to immediately fly from Sydney to Brisbane to make this site specific stencil.  Unfortunately I had another stencil that Friday night I got arrested for right in the middle of painting! oughf!  I spent 10 hours in jail, had a court appearance and got a decent fine so this piece is the only 1 I can submit and offer for you. I tried my best not to make fun at this drastic and horrific situation but instead to empathize and portray just how serious and large the scale of these floods had been with the relative depiction of “NOAH’s” ark being sunk due to the floods.

Photo by Above

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Posters from Morley in LA

Check out these posters from Morley. He’s been putting them up in LA. Very fun stuff.

And this last one has a bit of a story:

Apparently, the poster originally just said “If we never speak again just assume I became famous” and the other text was added later by someone random.

Photos courtesy of Morley

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Read this book!

Great news today from Becki Fuller and Luna Park at The Street Spot: Reader/Booker/ReadMoreBooks/Hoodrich/Boans… has a book out. Operation Madman has a 186-page hardcover book called The Reader. Reader is one of my favorite active writers in America and while I haven’t seen this book in the flesh (I’ve just ordered my copy), I’m pretty confident that it will be worth reading.

Based on the sample pages online, this doesn’t look like a typical graff book at all, but then again, Reader isn’t your typical writer.

This weekend, The Reader is available online for $13. After this weekend, it will be $20.

Photo by LoisInWonderland

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Weekend link-o-rama

Elfo's road sign for an underground robber

Getting back in the swing of things at school this week. Fair warning, today is the first meeting of a class I’m taking about conceptual art. I’m excited and the professor seems awesome, but just fair warning: That class could bleed over into the rest of my life and lead to an increase in bullshitting from me here on Vandalog. Unfortunately, I haven’t sorted out a proper internet connection yet since getting back to school, so I’ve been a bit lax this week. Here’s what’s been going on:

  • This isn’t street art or urban art or low brow or anything really related to Vandalog, but one of my favorite artists, Hiroyuki Doi, has a show on in New York right now. Definitely check it out.
  • Kid Acne has a new zine out.
  • This collaboration between Malarky, Billy and Mighty Mo is great.
  • At first I hated this sculpture from Jeremy Fish, but now I’m thinking I’d love to walk by it every day.
  • Last week I asked about graffiti photographers in Philadelphia, and Fat Cap has found a great one.
  • I think some of these pieces from Phil Jones are old, some just remind me of Asbestos’ Lost series and some are pretty meh, but damn overall Jones is kicking ass with some fun street art.
  • Felice Varini makes me smile.
  • Exit Through The Gift Shop was nominated for a BAFTA and won an award for documentaries. In other Banksy news, someone is trying to sell 5 Banksy works on paper, basically preparatory works, for £125,000.
  • This “news” article reads like a press release for Bonhams, but there is one surprising bit of information in there: Apparently the Shepard Fairey Peace Goddess, which sold earlier this month at Bonhams for £27,600, is the highest price ever paid for a Shepard Fairey work at auction. I would have thought he’d reached a higher number by now, but I guess most of the work that goes to auction tends to be prints and HPMs, not the large collages or retired stencils that might have otherwise already reached that number. UPDATE: Of course, the article is wrong. That isn’t the highest price paid for a Shepard Fairey work at auction. Not sure if this price is the highest, but it’s much higher than the Bonhams result. So I guess that article is just a giant press release. Sorry.
  • And because that last thing was all about money, here’s a relevant old piece from Twist/Barry McGee.
  • Jose Parla has been busy in Toronto (Thanks to Simon for the tip).

Photo by Elfo