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.
This year at Wall Ball, Mural Arts will be honoring their board chair Joe Goldblum and M. Night Shyamalan, but I think the most interesting honoree is Shepard Fairey. He will be receiving Mural Arts’ first annual Tony Goldman Visionary Artist Award, named in honor of the late Tony Goldman. It’s exciting to see Mural Arts selecting Fairey to be the inaugural recipient of this award, a major signal that Mural Arts is continuing to expand the kinds of artists and public art they are interested in.
I’ll be there. Caroline will be there. Shepard Fairey will be there. You can purchase your ticket here.
Photo by Steve Weinik for the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program
Joe Iurato and Logan Hicks, co-curators of The Mana Museum of Urban Arts.
Very exciting news for the worlds of street art and graffiti: Jersey City’s Mana Contemporary will be opening the world’s only urban art museum later this year. As much as I detest the term “urban art,” I’ll excuse Mana on this one because there is no good term for a museum that will include both street art and graffiti. So, The Mana Museum of Urban Arts it is. If this sounds familiar, it should, because Mana Contemporary announced plans for a street art museum in January, but at that point, details have been skint. Now, we know the museum’s curators, and they provide some major reassurance that Mana Contemporary will be doing this right.
I love the museum’s curators: Logan Hicks and Joe Iurato. Logan has been a friend since before Vandalog started, and he’s been one of my most valued guides to the art world and life in general. More importantly, he’s an underrated curator who is in the perfect place (at least within the street art world) to curate this museum. Logan actually introduced me to Joe’s art a few years ago. Both are hard-working guys with a great respect for street and and graffiti. I’m sure they will do a great job with this project.
The Mana Museum of Urban Arts opens this September in a 100,000-square-foot former ice factory in Jersey City, NJ.
From the press release:
The Mana Museum of Urban Arts’ mission includes: showcasing contemporary street artists from around the world through rotating interior exhibitions, large-scale exterior murals, and through an artist billboard; documenting and preserving historically significant works with a permanent collection and media center; educational outreach; and fostering creativity and community among artists through workshops, artist studios, and public works.
Of course, there’s the question of whether such a museum should even exist, maybe it signals the death of “urban art.” I like Mana Contemporary Eugene Lemay’s response to that question in an interview with Hrag Vartanian at Hyperallergic:
This sounds to me like a question coming from a place of fear. The idea is not to institutionalize the artwork, but to create a platform for learning about its rich history, increase accessibility, and build a gathering place.
Sounds good to me. I’m all for an institution making sure that the increasingly complex history of street art and graffiti are preserved. And definitely check out that entire interview. Lemay also says that there will be a free wall area where anyone can paint.
Congrats to Mana Contemporary, Logan Hicks and Joe Iurato. This could be something pretty amazing and important. See you in September!
Future site of The Mana Museum of Urban Arts (check the old KAWS rollers)
Pablo Delgado has a solo show, Even Less, on right now through June 8th at Howard Griffin Gallery in London. It’s pretty clear that photos don’t do this show justice, but I’m going to post some anyway. I’m bummed that I won’t be able to see this in person. If you have seen it, please leave a comment with your thoughts.
Pablo Delgado’s work is so great on the street, but it’s also so street-specific. The joy of the work is the scale and the surprise and that it’s on the street and a bit different from what anyone is expecting, even from other street art. It’s makes me very happy to see that, from what I can tell from these photos at least, Delgado has found a few interesting ways to translate his ideas indoors. Not an easy task. Congrats!
Chicago street artist Don’t Fret just launched a great little project. For $25, you can buy one of 50 scratch-off lotto tickets that Don’t Fret has painted on. Some of the tickets are loser tickets that have already been scratched, but what I love is that some are new tickets. You could have a winner under that artwork, and you’ll have to make the choice whether you’ll keep the painting intact or test you luck and scratch part of it away to a chance at big money. Plus, the artworks are being sent out randomly, so you can’t choose which one you’ll get.
INSA just finished this new GIF-ITI piece at le M.U.R. XIII in Paris. I haven’t posted about INSA since the release of Viral Art, so I think it’s time to revisit his GIF-ITI work.
As I and many others have noted, INSA’s GIF-ITI is clearly designed for the internet. But what I like about it is that it’s not only for the internet. Blu’s animations look great as a finished product, but they’re not so beautiful if you visit those walls in person long after Blu has left. Some murals photograph well or make sense when you look at them, but they don’t pop or make sense when you see them in person. Others look great in person, but are difficult to photograph. INSA’s GIF-ITI pieces work amazingly well online (certainly better than most still photos) and still looks great on the street. That’s an uncommon combination.
After probably a year of people mistakenly thinking that this piece was organized through The L.I.S.A. Project NYC and participating with in a collaborative wall for us late last year, we’ve finally had the chance to get Buff Monster a solo wall with The L.I.S.A. Project NYC. Late last month, he painted this piece at the corner of Mulberry and Broome streets. As I’ve said before, one of the things I love to do with our murals in Little Italy is find artists whose work supports the heritage of Little Italy and the businesses there today, but still looks like something you wouldn’t expect to see. I think Buff Monster’s mural fits that. It’s definitely unexpected and bold, but it also features some Neapolitan ice cream and there’s probably 3-4 local spots within sight of the mural to get some gelato.
This week, Alice Pasquini became the first Italian artist to paint with The L.I.S.A. Project NYC in Little Italy. Alice was in town for a few days, and we were able to snag her at the end of her visit for a quick piece on Mulberry Street, shown above. With all the talented muralists and street artists coming out of Italy, I’m a little embarrassed that it’s taken us this long to work with an Italian artist, but I’m glad Alice was able to stop by. For The L.I.S.A. Project NYC, I really like pieces like Alice’s because they fit right into the existing vibe of Little Italy, while still bringing something new to the space.
Farewell‘s Strip Box is one of my favorite ad disruptions in a while. It relies on a dangerous and highly effective device that Farewell called the “destructeur,” simply a piece of wood with a couple dozen X-Acto blades on it. Put the destructeur in the right mini-billboard, and, well, just watch the video…
I don’t have much to add beyond what’s already been written elsewhere about the new Banksy pieces or pieces that have been all over the news in the last few days. But I do want to link to some of the best and most up-to-date articles I’ve seen covering these pieces.
In case you somehow haven’t heard, Banksy posted a new piece to his website earlier this week, shown above. Kinda looks like an old cover of The Atlantic, but it’s a well done piece and I imagine The Atlantic wasn’t the first to do something along those lines either. The manager of a financially struggling Bistol youth club located just down the road from where the piece was installed quickly removed the piece from the wall (which he does not own) in the hopes of selling it. Animal argues that this isn’t so bad. Then the piece was put on display in the youth club. The club’s CCTV cameras may have caught a really useless image of Banksy installing the piece. Then, the youth club manager started receiving death threats, so he worked with the city of Bristol to have the work removed by police and placed on display in the Bristol Museum.
Detail of Banksy’s piece once moved inside the youth center. Photo by Banksy Locations & Tours.Police entering the youth club to remove the Banksy piece. Photo by Banksy Locations & Tours.
Another piece, a possible Banksy, has appeared in Cheltenham, near the headquarters of British NSA-equivalent GCHQ. While this piece hasn’t shown up on Banksy’s website, it looks like a Banksy to me. And I’m not the only person who thinks so. If we’re wrong and it’s not a Banksy, okay, but whoever the artist is is at least trying harder than most to emulate Banksy in concept, technique and placement. Given this piece’s proximity to the GCHQ headquarters, I really love the spy theme. Oh, and some people tried to vandalize the vandalism and then someone else washed off the paint… So begins the saga of this piece’s destruction.
Possible Banksy in Cheltenham, England. Photo by Kathryn.
