David Choe painted A LOT for the most recent show at Lazarides Gallery, where many of the artists painted outdoor murals, and this Babelgum video captures some of those pieces:
The Ghostvillage Project
Agent of Change recently went to Scotland to paint an abandoned village. Looks beautiful. That’s all I’ll say. They made this short film, it explains the rest:
The Ghostvillage Project from Agents Of Change on Vimeo.
Vhils and David Walker in Lisbon
David Walker and Vhils recently painted some work as part of Visual Street Performance in Lisbon. Very cool results. I love these sort of street art events in places outside of London and NYC.
Photos courtesy of David Walker
Remi and Jaybo
Remi/Rough and Jaybo took part in an event the other night in Berlin to raise money for an organization that builds wells in Africa. They each started working on a painting, then swapped and worked on the other’s piece, then swapped back to finish the paintings. Great looking results. These are some of my favorite Jaybo pieces.
And here’s a little bonus, a piece that Remi/Rough painted outside of Santander, Spain:
MBW, meet elbow-toe
One thing that makes street art so great is the dialog it creates, and the opportunity for collaboration. Of course, I think it’s going to be a while before I see anything better than Skewville’s Your Ad Here, but Elbow-toe has made something pretty interesting out of a decaying wheatpaste by Mr. Brainwash.
Photo by guy_on_the_streets
Four new Banksy pieces appear in London
Practically overnight, four new Banksy’s have appeared in London.
This piece is in Camden, where there is basically a tourist industry around the remnants of London punk culture:
I wouldn’t have thought this was a Banksy if people more knowledgeable than me hadn’t been saying so. It’s been a while since he’s painted rats:
This is definitely my favorite:
All photos by TheMammal
Dark Pop 2.0 at Last Rites Gallery
In fall of 2008, Andrew Michael Ford curated Dark Pop, a show at Last Rites Gallery which challenged artists to create a piece of “dark” art. It was a big hit. Since then, Andrew has begun working at Last Rites, and now Dark Pop 2.0 is almost here. Looks like a very interesting show.
Last Rites Gallery has again decided to find out what several of today’s brightest art stars are capable of when asked to create ONE piece of what could be considered truly ‘dark art’. Many artists find themselves in a nice groove of creating a certain mood or emotion through their work and have, understandably, become quite comfortable following this path in their art-making. We were curious, however, what would happen if things were to get a little uncomfortable, as the artist challenged themselves to search through new or buried feelings and emotions, the kind which might find their place on the ‘darker’ side of the artistic spectrum. With that in mind, Last Rites Gallery proudly presents “Dark Pop 2.0”: A collection of truly ‘dark art’ from an incredibly talented and diverse group of artists who would normally never get anywhere near this stuff! If the first Dark Pop was any indication, Dark Pop 2.0 is guaranteed to astound.
Participating Artists Include: AIKO (Aiko Nakagawa), Lisa Alisa, Esao Andrews, John Cebollero, Benjamin Clarke, Joshua Clay, Molly Crabapple, Amy Crehore, Yoko d’Holbachie, Leslie Ditto, Mickey Edtinger, Mark Elliott, Eric Fortune, GAIA, Stella Im Hultberg, Sarah Joncas, Aya Kakeda, Ben Kehoe, Dan-ah Kim, Daniel Hyun Lim (Fawn Fruits), Danni Shinya Luo, David MacDowell, Mike Maxwell, Simone Maynard, Dennis McNett, Tara McPherson, Michael Page, Nathan Lee Pickett, Leslie Reppeteaux, Mijn Schatje, Tin, Dan Witz, Jaeran Won and more.
Holiday gift guide: books
There was a very positive response from my first holiday gift guide post about affordable prints, so I thought it might be worth putting together a similar list for art books.
1. The Faith of Graffiti by Norman Mailer and Jon Naar
Okay, this book isn’t actually released until December 29th, but it absolutely needs to be included in this list. A full decade before Subway Art was published, Mailer wrote a brilliant essay to accompany Naar’s photographs of the very earliest New York City graffiti, most of which would be considered tags today. This book is an essential piece of graffiti history, but it has been largely ignored by history in favor of the next book on this list.
2. Subway Art: 25th Anniversary Edition by Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant
While Naar did a great job documenting the very earliest stages of graffiti, Subway Art is what turned graffiti into an international phenomena and forced people to look at graffiti as more than petty vandalism. This new edition of the book includes new photographs and is in a much larger format, so many of the photos that are in your old copy of Subway Art are now printed much larger and nicer. While The Faith of Graffiti documents the earliest moments in graffiti history, there is no more important book about graffiti or street art than Subway Art.
3. Keith Haring by Jeffrey Deitch and many others
If you like Keith Haring, this is the definitive book of his artwork. It’s pretty huge, weighing in at almost 9 pounds. It’s not cheap either (almost $40 at the time of this post), so it’s really for those who absolutely love Haring, but you’re not going to find a better book of his artwork.
4. Brooklyn Street Art by Jaime Rojo and Steven P. Harrington
Probably the best of Prestel’s series of street art books, this is a solid overview of Brooklyn’s street art. A great stocking stuffer.
5. Street Art: The Graffiti Revolution by Cedar Lewisohn
In my opinion, maybe the best street art book for the street art lover. Not just a book of photos, this book covers a great deal of street art history in a very serious way.
6. Wall and Piece by Banksy
Honestly, I kind of hope that nobody buys Wall and Piece because it’s on this list. Pretty much anybody who reads Vandalog should have at least one copy of Wall and Piece. Banksy is a genius. ‘Nuff said.
7. Young, Sleek, And Full Of Hell by Aaron Rose
I just read this book a week or two ago, and if you liked the film Beautiful Losers, this book is a great companion. It tells the story of New York’s Alleged Gallery, mostly through pictures and interviews with many of the people who were associated with the gallery over it’s lifetime.
8. Pictures of Walls
A funny little stocking stuffer. One of those things that makes me smile.
9. Untitled II: The Beautiful Renaissance by Gary Shove
This book doesn’t take itself too seriously and it’s full of pretty pictures. It’s good overview of recent street art, and includes some new artists that I wasn’t familiar with as well as many of that greats that I know and love.
10. The Thousands: Painting Outside, Breaking In by RJ Rushmore
Can of had to include my own book, didn’t I? What I love about this book isn’t what I wrote, but what other people wrote. Know Hope’s biography of Chris Stain taught me as much about Chris as it did Know Hope’s personality. An excerpt from Mike Snelle’s forward to the book was recently posted on Drago’s website.
Binho Martins from Brazil
Binho Martins has a certain style (characters, religion, lots of gold) which seems pretty popular right now. He reminds me of Calma and maybe (to a lesser extent) Stelios Faitakis, and that’s rarely a bad thing, so I thought I’d share some of his artwork.
Sickboy’s Logopop show
This week, Sickboy’s latest solo show, Logopop, was open for all of three hours. Looks like a solid show.
Sickboy’s large original works have a crazy amount of detail. I really want to see one of these in person:
And then there are his Logopops. They are small screen prints with hand finishing. You can buy 1-2, or 10 and put them all in the same frame.
Some artwork still available on Sickboy’s website.
Many more pictures from the opening on Smart Hype’s flickr