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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An animated feature-length project from Os Gêmeos?

There’s not much to say about this yet, but Os Gêmeos posted a video on their blog earlier this week called It’s Snowing:

Okay, so it’s kind of a cool video. Not on the level of Blu or Erica Il Cane’s work, but at least something a bit different. Nonetheless, I probably wouldn’t be posting about it except for this news from Arrested Motion: It’s Snowing is really just a teaser for a larger animated feature from Os Gêmeos. If that’s true (and I would guess that it is), then that is going to be something truly special.

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Matt Small’s “That I may see” at Black Rat Projects

Today I have to break my usual rules for posting on Vandalog. I’m trying to stick to cover “street artists” and not “urban artists,” but I have to make an exception for this. It would make no sense to ignore Matt Small’s upcoming solo show at Black Rat Projects. That I May See is a show based on Matt’s trip to the Robert Shitima School in Kabwe, Zambia and it opens next Thursday (September 9th). Matt, Swoon, Mike Snelle (who runs Black Rat) and I spent some time at the Shitima school earlier this year. You can check out my video of the trip here, but Mike’s post about the trip on Arrested Motion is probably the best place to learn about what we did and where we were.

Since getting back to London, Matt has been painting portraits of students that we met in Zambia, and those will be shown for the first time at That I May See. This is a really special show to me, because my mother and sister are very involved with the Shitima School and having visited myself, I have seen just how vital their work is. Anyone who has met Matt knows what a kind person he is, so it should come as little surprise that Matt and Black Rat Projects have kindly decided to donate 40% of the proceeds from sales to the school. Unlike a lot of charity art shows where a hodge-podge of artists donate work that has been sitting around their studio for a year or two, this really is a proper solo show from a talented artist, and it happens to also be supporting a great cause.

If you’re in London next Thursday, I hope you have a chance to check out this show.

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Dibujar Mata Violente from Bom.K, Dran and Sowat

Dran

So after posting about Da Mental Vaporz’ kickass recent wall in London, I found out that part of the crew makes up the three-man show Dibujar Mata Violente at Ras Gallery in Barcelona. Bom.K, Dran and Sowat make up nearly half of DMV and (at least to my knowledge) are the more active members of the crew when it comes to painting indoors (but my knowledge of that is pretty limited to what has been shown in the UK, so feel free to correct me) Update: Thanks to people who know more about DMV than me, I’ve been informed that there are 9 artists in the crew and that they all have both outdoor an indoor practices, so I was right to worry that I might be misinforming people. Sorry for any confusion. This is definitely something to check out.

Bom.K
Sowat

Photos courtesy of Suben

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Signed books for sale from Faile and Kaws

There are three big book releases coming soon that I should be talking about. Today I want to just mention two of those.

KAWS’ 250+ page monograph actually won’t be released until November, but The Aldrich Museum (site of his recent solo show) is already selling an signed edition of the book for $45. UNFORTUNATELY, I think you have to live in the USA to purchase anything from The Aldrich’s online store. If you are living in the USA though, you can buy the book now for $45 and it will ship in November.

And there is a similar book coming out from Faile. Faile: Prints and Originals 1999-2009 is pretty much what it says in the title. I recently had a very brief chance to flip through a copy of this book, and it is just about the most comprehensive catalog of Faile’s work you can imagine. So, if you like Faile, it’s a must have, but if you don’t this obviously won’t be for you. This book should be available in stores or online any day now, but the one place you can definitely go already is Paper Monster. They are selling a “studio edition” of the book today for $69. This version of the book comes signed, stamped and embossed by Faile. But as much as you may want to go out right now and buy this book from Paper Monster, there’s something holding me back. Paper Monster notes that Faile will be releasing an “artist edition” of the book sometime in September, and that will be limited to 200 copies (no word on how many copies the “studio edition” is limited to).

Via The Art Collectors and Hi-Fructose

Photo courtesy of Papermonster

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More from TOSAT

Imminent Disaster

The other day, Gaia posted about Toronto Street Advertising Takever (TOSAT). Because this is such a cool project and I have a lot of respect for PublicAdCampaign, the event organizer, I wanted to just post a view more photos from TOSAT. For more about what exact TOSAT is, check Gaia’s post.

These pieces by Imminent Disaster, Ox and Sean Martindale were some of my favorite billboards from the event.

Ox
Sean Martindale. Photo by Martin Reis

Photos courtesy of TOSAT and by Martin Reis

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So many tags… Twist in NYC

UPDATE: TheArtCollectors was there when the wall was being painted, so they’ve got the full story of all the crazy things that went down.

Twist aka Barry Mcgee has just completed this crazy wall of tags at the Bowery and Houston spot in NY previously painted by Shepard Fairey, Os Gêmeos and Keith Haring. It’s looking pretty awesome right now, but McGee tried this back in San Diego and the wall had to be buffed after residents complained! This is a legal spot, but still, expect complaints.

If you look closely, you’ll see a huge variety of tags including classics like Twister, Iz the Wiz, Amaze (McGee’s longtime assistant) and Revok as well as shout outs to McGee’s friends (Todd) and other McGee pseudonyms (R. Fong, DFW).

Photos by sabeth718

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Da Mental Vaporz at London’s Meeting of Styles

Photo by unusualimage

Meeting of Styles London (organized once again by End of The Line and Probs) 2010 just took place. While there were plenty of amazing walls painted, the most impressive is definitely this one by Da Mental Vaporz (Bom.k, Jaw, Sowat, Brusk, Blo, Dran and Kan). Not much to say here besides “Damn that’s good!”

Photo by RomanyWG
Photo by RomanyWG
Photo by RomanyWG

To see more from Meeting of Styles, check out the official flickr group, unusualimage’s set, and RomanyWG’s set.

Photos by unusualimage and RomanyWG

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AnimalNY calls out Kaws for Disney toy

Seems like the streetwear blogs have been drooling over this latest toys from Kaws. His Pinocchio toys and shirts are about to be released, and all the usual Kaws lovers are of course eager to get their hands on this new design. But AnimalNY tells it like it is:

His latest partnership is with Disney and for me, like graffiti writers painting legal walls, there’s something weak about obtaining permission from the companies that should be getting knocked-off.

I’m not particularly a Kaws hater. In fact, I like A LOT of his work, both new and old. This new toy is pretty meh though, and I just don’t get why everybody is so excited about it. And yeah, kind of funn that he actually licensed the image from Disney. To be fair to Kaws though, his graffiti days are long behind him, and I don’t think anybody should have any misconceptions about that. He’s an artist/designer now. Not a subversive artist/graffiti writer. Nothing inherently wrong with that. It’s just a change (though admittedly not a recent one).

Photo courtesy of OriginalFake