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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Street artists for the magazine Diplomat

Sometimes street art end up in odd places. The cover of Diplomat, a magazine targeting the community of diplomats in London, probably qualifies as one of those most unlikely places. And yet, their creative director Jeannine Saba has been working to bring street artists to the diplomatic community. In October 2009, before hardly anyone knew about him, Roa was the first street artist to make a cover for Diplomat. And this October, Invader was on the cover.

I asked Jeannine about Roa’s cover and she said that Roa was asked “to depict the pharmaceutical industry in the East and the West.” Here’s what he came up with:

I don’t quite see it, but I’ll trust Roa on this one. I just love the idea of having that magazine sitting on some MP’s desk.

Diplomat has more street art and graffiti planned for covers in 2011 too, including possibly Isaac Cordal, which would be awesome.

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Kenny Scharf mural dissed and repaired (and probably about to be dissed again)

Photo by Martha Cooper

Apologies for the meta-ness of this post. It’s kind of a blog post about blog posts, and not everyone likes that.

A little over a month ago, Kenny Scharf painted a mural at the Houston and Bowery mural space in NYC. I’m usually pretty indifferent to Scharf’s work, but in this instance, painting that spot was a homecoming. Kenny, LAII, Keith Haring and a few others painted a mural in the same spot back in the early 1980’s. About a week ago, the mural was dissed, as shown in the above photo. I’d say that’s pretty much the reality of painting outdoors. It sucks, but it’s life. What I’ve found more interesting has been the reaction to all of this…

  1. Animal posts some photos of the dissed mural.
  2. Martha Cooper posted some photos and her reaction on her blog.
  3. Kenny himself posted his reaction to the diss.
  4. Over at Animal, Bucky is insulting and provoking people because that’s pretty much all he’s good for. He might’ve even had some good points to make, but it’s hard to get past him acting like a dick.
  5. The Hole‘s Kathy Grayson (The Hole is the gallery that is currently “curating” the murals on that wall) snapped this photo of the mural having been fixed up by someone. She also said “graffiti does mean no rules and pissing people off, but this was pee the wrong spot. makes them look bad. and lame.” So, yeah… Not quite sure what to make of that comment.

Photo by Martha Cooper

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Weekend link-o-rama

D*face sticker

Happy new year! Between snow in NYC and the general slowness around this time of year, not much going on this week. Here’s a bit of what I’ve been enjoying though:

Photo by Delete08

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Best of: John Fekner

One of my favorite artists, and maybe the most under-appreciated artist from the first wave of street art, is John Fekner. These 10 artworks are some of favorites from Fekner and his collaborator Don Leicht. They were made between 1980 and 1993.

Fekner is probably best-known for the the text he stencils outdoors in New York City:

Leicht and Fekner always seem to be making art far ahead of their time. Here are a few examples:

Fekner was reusing found paintings in the 1980's

Reminds me of a certain Banksy from earlier this year in Detroit, except much better
John Fekner and Don Leicht in 1982. Photo © Peter Bellamy 1982
Fekner and Leicht made this in 1993

And finally, Fekner has also made video art and music. Here a video from 1981 called Toxic Wastes From A To Z:

Photos courtesy of John Fekner

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Opening Friday: Urban Osmosis from Spoke Art

Spoke Art‘s next show opens this Friday with a New Years Eve Party at the Lopo and Space galleries in SF. For me, the highlight of this show undoubtedly looks to be the room curated by Endless Canvas. As I wrote just a few days ago, I think GATS is awesome, and if Endless Canvas’ blog is anything to go by, those guys have a great eye and will put together a unique room that is definitely worth checking out. It’s not on the flier, but Feral Child will also have work in Endless Canvas’ room, which is awesome. And even though I think his May solo show was very very very heavily influenced by Faile, I want to see what Shark Toof does this time around.

Not sure about the rest of the artists, but if you’re on the fence about checking it out, I’d give Spoke Art the benefit of the doubt. They haven’t been around long, but they’ve put together a few great shows.

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Zezão detained for painting in Brazil

Zezão, one of my favorite Brazilian street artists and one of the artists who I think best embodies the ethos of street art, was detained on Tuesday by police for painting in São Paulo. He was painting a spot that he has painted multiple times before, but he did not have permission. There isn’t much info about what happened so far, but this news article has some info. Also, Lost Art seems to be the most reliable source of news on the detainment with updates on their Twitter. According to Lost Art, Zezão “was detained while painting in a crack infested area.” Lost Art also says that “he was charged with vandalism & may face legal costs.”

Let’s hope that the police get their heads on straight and realize what a mistake they have made. Zezão not a criminal but an artist trying to brighten up the world and draw attention to the things that many of us in society would rather avoid thinking about.

Photo by Jullezs