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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Anatomically Incorrect at Luck Gallery

Just found out about this show at the Lucky Gallery in New York yesterday. Looks pretty cool, and it’s still on for another week. I’m particularly a fan of Faro‘s work.

The Lucky Gallery says:

Saturday evening, January 16, from 6-9PM, Lucky Gallery is hosting an artist reception for the exhibition “Anatomically Incorrect” which is an an on-site collaborative drawing installation by Anastasia Akulinina/Kaerfkrahs, Brian Butler, Downer, Faro, Scott Ferguson, Fish McGill, Maxwell Piersol, Cardon Webb, and Eunjeong Yoo. “Anatomically Incorrect” exhibition runs January 16th to February 7th.

The artists chose to focus on anatomy, which is a concrete, organized system, which is in contrast to the chaotic/spontaneous process of this show – the end result leads to figures anatomically incorrect.

Working directly on the gallery wall each artist creates a visual conversation; the alchemy of characters, text, and pattern affecting how the mural expands as each artist works responsively to the other.

print by Faro

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London’s February auctions

On February 11th-13th, Sotheby’s Christie’s and Phillips de Pury will all have auctions in London which include a fair amount of street art. Here’s a selection of most of that work.

Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Day Auction. February 11th, from 2pm.

  • Lot 230: Untitled by Jean-Michel Basquiat. Estimated £70-90,000
    RJ’s thoughts – Meh. It’s an okay sketch. For the £70,000 estimate, wouldn’t you rather have a kickass José Parlá?
  • Lot 233: Kate Moss by Banksy. Estimated £25-35,000
    RJ’s thoughts – I’m not a fan of the Kate Moss prints, but I seem to be the only one in the world who isn’t. Also, how cool is it that Sotheby’s gets the joke has lots 232 and 234 are both by Warhol?
  • Lot 284: Bomb Hugger by Banksy. Estimated £25-35,000
    RJ’s thoughts – Usually I don’t like the poorly executed original works that Banksy made around this time, but this one I love for some reason.
  • Lot 285: Amoured Car by Banksy. Estimated £25-35,000
    RJ’s thoughts – Pretty much the same as my thoughts on Bomb Hugger, except that the reason I like this piece is the title.

Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction. February 12th.

  • Lot 269: Untitled (Robots Amaze) by Barry McGee. Estimated £30-40,000
    Elisa’s thoughts – Both this piece and Lot 271 could be tough sells as they are not “typical” McGee works, plus they’re installations, but this one is certainly fun. It’s not for me, but I have to admit that it’s a cool piece to observe in person – it has that eerie aura to it that all animatronics have. But how does one get the tag on the wall? Does Barry come over and do it for you himself? That would be cool. Otherwise, how does the piece work? I’ll also add that it is interesting to see both this lot and Untitled (Car Boot) at auction – whether you like the work or not, it shows the wider art world that Barry’s scope is greater than his gorgeous trademark clusters and individual portrait pieces.
    RJ’s thoughts – From what I hear, the piece doesn’t come with the “Amaze” tag, and if you want one, you have to paint it yourself. That is so disappointing. This will only sell to a museum or somebody who wants to donate it to a museum, if it sells at all.
  • Lot 270: You Told That Joke Twice by Banksy. Estimated £100-150,000
    Elisa’s thoughts – This is a strong, intelligent piece from Banksy. The estimate is high, considering the market, but it’s a big piece and I hope it performs well as it shows Banksy off at his best. I love it.
    RJ’s thoughts – Yeah it’s a high estimate, but as Elisa says, it’s quite a big painting. And it’s one of my all time favorite Banksy’s. Definitely one of his strongest works. And in terms of the art market, it definitely helps that this piece was in Banksy’s book “Wall and Piece” and that it’s a total one-off.
  • Lot 271: Untitled (Car Boot) by Barry McGee. Estimated £15-20,000
    Elisa’s thoughts – This works as a cool installation piece within a larger exhibition context and links to the great larger car installations Barry is known for, but on its own it looks a bit dead and pretentious. It should go to a museum, some other kind of institution, or else a McGee fanatic who owns hundreds of pieces and can put lots of other work around it to give it the life it deserves.
    RJ’s thoughts – I think that a museum could do better, maybe will a full car, but a really ambitious collector with some McGee clusters already could make this piece the centerpiece of their collection.

Phillips de Pury Evening Sale: Contemporary Art. February 13th.

  • Lot 18: Cash Crop by Jean-Michel Basquiat. Estimated £600-900,000
    Elisa’s thoughts – This is an interesting piece because it reflects an important period in Basquiat’s history. It’s a very introspective, personal piece, which makes for a tension that appeals to me, but it’s not his strongest work.
    RJ’s thoughts – Agreed, it’s not his strongest work. I wouldn’t care if this was on my wall or not, except for the fact that it was painted by Basquiat. “Year of the Boar” sold at Phillips de Pury back in October for £1.1 million, and that painting looked 10x better to me.
  • Lot 19: Vandalised oil #001 by Banksy. Estimated £60-80,000
    Elisa’s thoughts – This is an iconic crude oil from Banksy. If you’re a fan of Banksy and like this series, I say go for it.
    RJ’s thoughts – Pricing for Banksy’s crude oils can be so screwy that it’s nearly impossible to know what a fair market price is, but this is definitely one of the better ones.

Phillips de Pury Day Sale: Contemporary Art. February 13th.

  • Lot 138: Two works – Untitled by Kaws. Estimated £10-15,000
    Elisa’s thoughts – In my opinion, there is no artistic merit in works like these. The estimate is about right, but it’s beyond me why someone would pay that for them.
    RJ’s thoughts – I’m not a Kaws collector, but we all know one (or are one). For Kaws fanatics, these two pieces would be great additions to a collection. But yeah, otherwise, who else cares? They’re just his skulls by themselves. It’s more like buying a Nike logo, not an OBEY Giant poster.

RJ’s final thoughts – Overall, wow. Maybe not all of these pieces are amazing, but the artists are all top-tier. There are no unproven street artists in these sales.

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As If By Magic

Looks like a really solid line up for this show, As If By Magic, at the Neurotitan Gallery in Berlin:

Every serious art show should have a theme, subject, or a suggestive title. This show does all that but it also makes an exception. The title doesn’t refer to a specific subject or theme, but tries to say something about the works of every artist who takes part in this show, about the strange gathering of a few people from different parts of the world, different backgrounds, experiences and styles, who want to meet and show their works and paint together. And it also tries not to say too much…

The works of each of the 8 artists in the show, have a more or less obvious magical, fantastical component or feeling: the geometrical, almost abstract fantastical characters of 1010, the intricate world populated by chubby cute creatures of Aitch, the paintings/collages of pop characters, crude colors, hyper realistic landscapes and potraits of Juan Carlos Noria, the expressionistic compositions of characters grouped almost like in magical processions in the works of Labrona, the delicious multi eyed/handed/faced monstrous characters of Noper, the magical mix of realistic portraits, intricate colorful patterns and grotesque members in Other’s characters, the dreamy/nightmarish characters or pencil drawn animations of Produkt and the colorful backgrounds, mystical graphical signs and the cute or grotuesque fantastical creatures of Saddo.

Also, the 8 artists are somehow connected to each other – either they met at some point in their lives, lived in the same city or worked together before in different formations;, but never all of them appeared in the same show, under this line-up – and now they are brought together not through the powers of hazard or fate, but almost…as if by magic.

Labrona
1010
Other

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The UK Premiere Screening of “New Brow”

This looks like a really cool film. New Brow: The Rise of Underground Art is a documentary about the new brow/low brow/pop surrealism/graffiti art/street art/enjoyed-by-Juxtapoz art movements. The film made the rounds at film festivals in the states, and now next month is the UK premiere, thanks to London Miles Gallery.

The press release:

London Miles Gallery is proud to host the premiere UK screening of Contemporary Art documentary, New Brow – The rise of Underground Art, a feature film presented by Humble Pictures in association with The Shooting Gallery from San Francisco, California. The documentary features some of today’s most influential and groundbreaking artists from the New Contemporary Art movement, such as Shepard Fairey, Ron English, Silvia Ji, Gary Baseman, Shag and many more, who speak openly and enlighteningly about the growing art movement and its origins. The documentary not only includes first-hand accounts from an impressive list of pioneering artists, but also showcases the important galleries and collectors who adopted, and continue to drive the New Contemporary Art movement today.

New Brow has been the official selection of the San Francisco Film festival, Rader Hamburg Film Festival, The Tulsa United Film Festival, The Hot Springs Film Festival and the Golden State Film Festival. New Brow premiered at the 2009 Golden State Film Festival where it received the second largest attendance behind a special screening of Star Wars, the Empire Strikes Back. It has been screened in cities across America and has made its way to Europe, Australia and now to London this February.

London Miles will be screening New Brow on Saturday the 20th of February at 4:00pm and the 27th February at 2:00pm and 5:30pm. Tickets are £8.00 and the film will be shown in the Project Room in Westbourne Studios, 242 Acklam Rd, London, W10 5JJ. Please purchase advance tickets at www.londonmiles.com, or reserve by email to info@londonmiles.com.

And the trailer:

New Brow Trailer 1 from New Brow on Vimeo.