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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Artists protest Smithsonian for censoring art

For a more detailed background to this story, check out these posts on Hyperallergic.

Recently, a video, Fire in my belly, by David Wojnarowicz was removed from an exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery in DC after the religious right got upset about the content of the video. The video is about the death of a lover who died of complications resulting from AIDS. The particularly “offensive” footage is few seconds of ants crawling over a statue of Jesus on the cross, but it’s also been suggested that the objections to the piece stem from anti-gay sentiments. Whatever the exact reason, the censorship is some right-wing bullshit that shouldn’t be tolerated by the artistic community.

How this story sort of relates to street art is this: On Saturday, two artists went to the National Portrait Gallery and began playing Fire in my belly over an iPad outside the exhibit. This video shows what happened:

Check out Hyperallergic for more on this protest art.

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Random link-o-rama

Sure and Faust. Photo by euniyah

I’ve been out of the loop and stuck in libraries lately (and then in Miami for the weekend), and that’s led to me miss posting about a lot of things. I’ve got some catching up to do, so here’s the start of that:

Photo by euniyah

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Kid Zoom’s first US solo show opens this weekend

Kid Zoom, one of the standouts in The Underbelly Project, has his first US solo show opening this weekend in New York City. Ron English has been mentoring the Australian artist, and so far the results are, at the absolutely least, amazing on a technical level. Hopefully this solo show will shed light on the substance of his art, but I’ve got a good feeling that Kid Zoom is something special.

Check back later this week for a very special interview with Kid Zoom.

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Anthony Lister in Miami

Photo by S.Vegas

Anthony Lister may have been the busiest artist in Miami last week. I around town 3-4 times in different places, but never saw him paint. Still, he managed to complete a number of murals around the city, put on a little-publicized but impressive solo show in a pop-up space and have work (including an indoor mural) at the Hello Kitty show. Here are some of my favorite things from Lister’s time in Miami:

This was indoors at his solo show

And all of these were from the solo show too:

First photo by S.Vegas, the rest courtesy of Anthony Lister

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Miami Madness

In a lot of ways, Hargo sums up Miami's art fair week

With so much of the art world migrating to Miami this week in a frenzy, there seem to be too many events and parties (and I promise not to blog about the parties in detail. This isn’t a gossip site) and exhibits and festivals and everything else to keep track of. Here’s a roundup of some of the things that I’m most interested in seeing (or not seeing).

Things that have already been mentioned on Vandalog:

And things that I haven’t already blogged about:

  • Elisa Carmichael has her list of Miami must-sees, which includes a Dan Witz book signing and a Trespass book signing with Marc and Sara from Wooster Collective and Carlo McCormick.
  • Sorry to bring this up, but Sanrio’s exhibition of Hello Kitty art is just annoying. They got some great artists like Jim Houser to paint Hello Kitty characters. I’ll be avoiding this show like the plague.
  • I mostly go for Ryan McGinness’ really abstract work and this isn’t that, but McGinness fans will probably want to check out his solo show.
  • Barry McGee will be showing work and signing books at Ratio 3’s book in Basel Miami.
  • Jonathan LeVine Gallery has a pop-up show as part of Wynwood Walls. Some of the artists include AJ Fosik, Judith Supine, Doze Green, Dan Witz and WK Interact.
  • FriendsWithYou are filling a park with giant blow-up sculptures.
  • Last year, OHWOW Gallery’s It Ain’t Fair show was one of the most interesting shows in Miami. Once again, they have a killer line up for the show including José Parlá, Rey Parlá (José’s brother who is, I believe, a filmmaker), KAWS, Phil Frost, Barry McGee and Neckface.
  • OHWOW Gallery are also opening a bookstore at The Standard Hotel in Miami.
  • New Image Art’s pop-up show includes Neckface, Judith Supine and Os Gêmeos. Probably going to be a must-see.
  • Tristan Eaton and his partners are launching Contra Projects with a wide-array of events this week including a tent/lounge space, a mural (by Mr. Jago, Tristan Eaton, Ron English and others) and a TrustoCorp carnival aka TrustoLand. More info on the Thunderdog blog.
  • Carmichael Gallery, Joshua Liner Gallery and others will have booths at SCOPE, and I think Maya Hayuk is painting a mural there, which should be awesome if I’m remembering that correctly.
  • And of course there’s all the fairs I haven’t mentioned, because there are just so many. So many. Too many. It’s gonna be art overload. But if I’ve missed anything that you think is particularly special, please leave a comment.

Photo by Hargo

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Sorry for the silence

Silence Is Golden by worldwarwon

Sorry for the silence over the last few days (yes, I realize the irony of saying that and picking the above image for this post). I was celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday with some friends in NYC and was barely online. Now I’m trying to get as much schoolwork done as possible before heading to Miami on Thursday and then it’s time for final exams… Until at least the end of the week, I’ll probably only be posting about Miami Basel and events surrounding that. Luckily, Stephanie has been picking up the slack and will continue to do so while I’m locking myself in the library.

That said, I couldn’t help writing briefly about worldwarwon. I’ve just been introduced to his street art, and he’s been doing some interesting things on the streets of London recently. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like street art is getting a bit more conceptual. Maybe as a reaction to crappy stencils? Anyway, worldwarwon is a nice example of an artist possibly inspired by Banksy but going a bit more conceptual and using the streets. Okay, as I’m rereading those last three sentences, I get the feeling that I’m almost definitely overthinking and overexplaining things. Simply put, check out worldwarone’s website for some clever street art and maybe a laugh.

Photo by worldwarwon

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Sace tribute by IRAK over McGee’s legal mural in NYC

Looks like the IRAK guys have just hit up Barry McGee aka Twist’s legal wall of tags at Bowery and Houston in NYC and covered it with a massive fire extinguisher tribute piece to Sace aka Dash Snow. As much as I loved McGee’s mural, this piece is damn beautiful and I love that this wall got hit up so massively and illegally. Given that McGee’s mural was a bunch of tags, it only seems right that they spot be covered by something nice and illegal. Sace’s name was put up in the original mural though (see the Sacer by the top left corner in this photo)

If you don’t like it, it’s probably worth pointing out what McGee usually does when someone commissions him to paint murals.

Update: Based on this photo by Dante Ross, it looks like somebody’s already been brought in with a scissor lift to cover up the wall. Pretty useless to try buffing it if you ask me. IRAK will just be back if they want to be.

Update 2: Okay nevermind that first update. Not totally sure what’s going on here anymore, but based on info from Luna Park, photos from Martha Cooper and a photo by EssG (thanks to foodofthefuture for those tips) it now sounds like the wall was painted legally.

Update 3: Kathy Grayson’s blog clarifies things. The wall was repainted with permission. It will last 1 day only (which sucks for me because I’ll be in NYC tomorrow evening) before being completely buffed over, and another artist or artists will be repainting the wall next week.

Photo by Sabeth718

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The Underdogs – making room for street art in Portugal

The Underdogs project is a new venture from Vhils and a number of other (primarily Portuguese) street artists who are trying to gain more awareness for street art in Portugal. Some of the artists included in the group include Vhils and Tosco. Vhils tell Vandalog that the core of The Underdogs is a drive to make a platform for showing and uplifting street art in Portugal in a variety of different ways.

I’m still not 100% sure of everything that the project will involve, but their launch event is taking place this Friday at Vera Cortês in Lisbon. For that event, The Underdogs have teamed up with Pictures on Walls to show some prints by Blu, Steve Powers and others. In addition to being an art exhibition, the launch event will double as the launch of The Underdogs’ first book, a book about the Portuguese street art scene and its history.

For more info about The Underdogs and their launch party, check out Target’s blog.

This could be the start of something pretty interesting. If you’re in Lisbon, definitely something to check out. Let us know how it goes.

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The Bridge Is Over – a group show from Spoke Art

This should be good. Spoke Art‘s next show open’s this week at Lopo Gallery in San Fransisco and it has a few of my favorite underrated West Coast artists. Foremost among those is, of course, Emory Douglas, one of Shepard Fairey’s biggest inspirations and a great artist in his own right. I’m reading two different books right now about black liberation theology which pretty much say that I can’t appreciate Emory Douglas’ art because I’m white, but I can’t help myself.

Additionally, The Bridge Is Over includes Justin Lovato, Daryll Peirce and GATS (who I don’t think I’ve blogged about before, but whose work I’ve been admiring online for a while as similar to what people like Faro, Swampy and the Burning Candy and Everfresh crews are doing meshing street art and graffiti). Admittedly, the number of artists is this show is large enough to guarantee some bad art will find it’s way in, but that’s just the nature of large group shows.

The Bridge Is Over opens on Saturday, November 27th at Lopo Gallery.

Via Endless Canvas

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Wild Hackney – changing graffiti policy in London

Wild Hackney is a new project by some of the same people who helped to save Roa’s rabbit, which Hackney council in London recently almost painted over. I’m not quite sure what to think of Wild Hackney. Here’s some of how the project is described on its website:

The Wild Hackney project was created our of concern for the sanitisation of our neighbourhoods.

…

Our first campaign is to lobby Hackney Council about a new approach to graffiti that goes beyond paint it black by providing them with a policy written by local residents.

While I certainly like the idea of more lenient graffiti removal policies, I’m worried that Wild Hackney could turn into judges of what constitutes good street art; what should be preserved and what should be buffed. Without knowing the people making those decisions, it’s a tough idea to get behind. And of course, no street art fan wants their city walls covered in perspex frames. Street art is ephemeral, and that’s part of its nature. With any luck though, Wild Hackney could give property owners more rights in regard to commissioning murals and keeping up street art that was placed on their property, whether it was painted legally or not.

Wild Hackney has a meeting on December 2nd to hash out some ideas for the campaign further. It will be at the Fellows Court Community Centre from 6:30pm.

Photo by noii’s