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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Banksy hits Glastonbury

No official confirmation yet on Banksy’s website, but this sure does look like his work. It appeared at Glastonbury, where Banksy has worked a few times before.

I know there are a lot of people out there who are fed up with all the Banksy-hype and craziness out there. I am too. But after spending just a few weeks not thinking about Banksy at all (besides this post), I’ve gone back and looked at this website. He’s actually kind of clever. With Banksy being so active outdoors lately to promote Exit Through The Gift Shop, some people, myself included, were just sick of him. For me at least, I’ve discovered that I wasn’t so much sick of his work, just the hype. The work on it’s own, that’s as strong as ever. Don’t believe me? Have a look.

Photo by al_green

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Brush Strokes – Lydia Fong and Todd James at V1 Gallery

Next Friday in Copenhagen, V1 Gallery will be opening a two-person show with Lydia Fong (aka Twist/Barry Mcgee) and Todd James (aka Reas). Brush Strokes – An Artistic Exchange Between Todd James and Lydia Fong will be the first collaboration between Lydia Fong and Todd James since the Beautiful Losers show (although McGee and James are currently both in a group show right now at The Hole in NYC). These two artists are probably two of the best-respected and most-successful artists to come out of the graffiti movement since Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, so I can’t wait to see what they are going to do for this show. This is definitely going to be something special. Additionally, Brusk Strokes takes place at V1 Gallery, which has a history of amazing shows, which just makes me even more interested in the possibilities.

Brush Strokes opens July 9th (from 5-10pm, come hungry because there will be a grill outside) and runs through August 4th.

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The Everfresh book

Everfresh (the Melbourne graffiti/street art crew with Sync, Phibs, Reka, Rone, Wonderlust, Prizm, Meggs, Makatron and The Tooth) have put together a book. EVERFRESH: BLACKBOOK is meant to give readers a look inside the Everfresh studio.

To be honest, I don’t know much about that artists in Everfresh. I’ve seen work from Meggs from time to time, but that’s about it (except of course, the work I’ve now seen while researching this post). But that’s not because they aren’t a talented group of artists. It’s because, even with the internet, Australian street art still feels, at least to me, cut off from the rest of the world. Anthony Lister found success when he moved to New York. Charlie Isoe had to move to Berlin. It’s weird. You would think that Flickr and ekosystem and everything else would change things, but the internet hasn’t done as much as you would expect for street art in Australia. That said, the people I know who know Australian street art say that the artists in Everfresh are a big part of what makes Melbourne one of the world capitals of street art. The chance to discover of a whole new group of talented artists is a big part of why I’m excited about this book.

EVERFRESH: BLACKBOOK isn’t going to be in stores until September, but you can pre-order the special edition hardcover book starting today. The hardcover edition is limited to 500 copies and available for $80.00 on Everfresh’s website. That edition also comes with a hand-finished cover, a print and a photographic print.

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MOMO paints FAME Festival

MOMO has just spent 12 days painting at FAME Festival. During that time, he painted five walls. Here are a few of them.

As FAME’s organizer, Angelo, points out on his blog, MOMO’s abstract designs are very different from the figurative pieces that FAME is known for, but MOMO seemed to work just fine in Grottaglie, even with a slightly different aesthetic.

Photos courtesy of FAME Festival

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Ericailcane’s Rovina – The start of POP UP!

Rovina (Italian for ‘ruin’), an installation from Ericailcane, has just opened at the POP UP! Festival in Ancona, Italy. Rovina takes place in an abandoned building, certainly reminiscent of Ericailcane’s work inside FAME Festival‘s abandoned monastery. In addition to painting the walls, this show also includes sculpture. For years, Ericailcane has been making beautiful stop-motion animations with sculptures and there were some simple ceramic pieces at FAME Festival last year, but I think this may be the first time that Ericailcane has put such complex sculptures into a show (but I’m not expert on Ericailcane, so I could be mistaken on this). As nice as the wallpaintings are, the sculptures are definitely my favorite part of this show. Just wish I could see it in person and walk around, it’s hard to get a real feel for the space from a few photos. Nonetheless, here are a few more photos:

This show is part of the 3rd edition of the POP UP! Festival. The festival has just opened with Rovina and will run through September 5th with a number of other events. There are three highlights: On July 30th, Blu will be previewing his latest animation; throughout August, a number of streets artists will be painting fishing boat hulls; on September 5th, the painted fishing boats will head back into the water. And it sounds like at least Blu will also be painting some a wall or two in Ancona.

Photo courtesy of the POP UP! Festival

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The Senioritas of Lisboa

These signs have been put up in Lisboa by a collective called CC. The signs parody the Securitas logo. Apparently, these ladies are quite a common sight in Lisboa. Target says “I remember I used to play soccer on the street, and this lady always called the police whenever we were there. Of course by the third day she did that again, police didn’t bother anymore.”

I love things like these, they cause you to make a double take and re-examine your surroundings.

Photos by CC

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The Rooftop Burner Fund auction has begun

As mentioned last month, Rowdy has recently lost nearly everything in a house fire and artists from around the world have come together to help him out. That help is coming in the form of The Rooftop Burner Fund, organized by Steal From Work. The Rooftop Burner Fund is an Ebay auction of work donated by dozens of artists to help out Rowdy. The auctions can be found here. Some of the artwork is already for sale, with the rest of the auctions starting between now and July 5th. For more about Rowdy, check out this recent interview he did with Arrested Motion.

Here’s some of the work that you can already bid on (and at this point it looks like there are some real deals to be had, in addition to helping Rowdy):

Sickboy
Steve Powers / ESPO
Gold Peg

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Sten & Lex

Photo by Sten

It looks like Sten & Lex have been keeping busy. They had a new book published by Drago earlier this year, have been putting up some murals in Rome (including the massive 26 meter tall one in the above photo), there was that great solo show in Paris and now they have a show on at a museum in Italy.

There don’t seem to be any press releases in English, so I’m not 100% sure what is going on at the Carandente Museum in Spoleto, Italy, but it looks like Sten & Lex’s show is taking place in addition to a massive group show of pop surrealists called, unsurprisingly, Pop Surrealism, which was previewed on Arrested Motion.

As the show just opened this weekend, hopefully there will be some pictures surfacing online soon.

Photo by Sten

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Mr. Jeff Soto in NYC

Update: The original headline on this post, and the one that you probably saw if you are found this on your RSS feed, mentioned a new toy. Then I decided not to mention Jeff Soto’s new toy because I went on a rant about art versus advertising. If you’re curious though, Hi-Fructose has some info on the new toy that Jeff is working on.

Looks like Jeff Soto just painted this piece outside of Eyebeam in NYC.  Which reminds me, if you’re in NYC, tonight would be a good night to stop by Jonathan LeVine Gallery. Jeff Soto and Dave Cooper both have solo shows opening there tonight (those shows run through July 24th). Arrested Motion recently posted a studio visit with Jeff, which includes some of the artwork that will be at his show tonight.

Now, I don’t mean to direct any potential negative attention towards Jeff Soto, but this piece reminds me of an interesting argument that I had last night with a friend of mine, who I’ll call James because I’m sure he doesn’t want me to publish his name. I said that I’d rather not be subjected to advertising while I’m in a public space, especially illegal advertising. Naturally, James brings up that I’m more than okay with artists putting up street art illegally. He thinks that I’m hypocritical for hating illegal ads but loving illegal art, especially since the definition of what is art is subjective. I say there’s a big difference, since street art, public art and architecture aren’t trying to sell you anything. Naturally, James makes the point that when a street artist puts up a piece, that’s advertising for their own work. In the case of Jeff Soto, Jeff rarely paints outside anymore, and this particular wall is clearly a form of promotion for his show with Jonathan LeVine Gallery. So it’s an ad, right? Not in my opinion. Yes, it’s an ad, if you know who Jeff Soto is and you know that he has a show opening tonight, which is probably less than 1% of the people who walk by Eyebeam today. For the vast majority of New Yorkers, that’s just a piece of art. Even if Jeff had signed his name, it’s not like he’s put a sign next to it saying “You can buy this image as a print for $70 at potatostamp.com!” (although, actually, you can).  Maybe murals like Jeff’s and 99% of street art is a form of guerilla marketing, but it’s only seen as marketing by a tiny minority of the population. For the rest of the world, it’s art in the place of a grey wall, and there’s nothing better than that. So that’s my rant about the different between street art and advertising. Hopefully you agree with me, otherwise I may have just turned a few people off of Jeff Soto, which would suck.

Photo by amc_