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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Street art and advertising

There is often a very fine line between street art and public advertisements. They are both on the street, and often times they are both illegal. When that line gets very blurred though is when street artists start putting up advertisements as artwork or vice versa.

There are numerous examples of artists who put up wheatpastes or flyposted advertisements when they have a show about to open, but they also aren’t what I want to address today. I want to focus on a few more recent and blatant examples of street at as advertising and advertising as street art.

First, there is Kaws. He did some work for Kanye West’s new album, including this piece in Times Square:

Photo by JOE M500
Photo by JOE M500

For a guy who started as a graffiti writer and transitioned to a street artist who subverted (or at least changed) advertisements, he sure has come a long way. I’m not going to say it’s good or bad that Kaws is doing advertisements. I’d probably rather he didn’t, but I can’t blame him for wanting to make some money and get up in Times Square. People change, and I don’t think he’s shy about how he has changed. There isn’t a false front there. Kind of like Kanye himself.

Rappers don’t usually start out their careers by saying “I really want to rap and get a connection with fans and spread a message.” The stereotypical rapper justs comes right out and says “I wanna get really extremely rich.” By comparison, your average rock start has to worry about “selling out” and staying true to their originals and all that. Inside, that rock star is probably thinking “I really want to buy a mansion some day,” but they’d never be allowed to say that out loud.

Kaws doesn’t claim to be this anti advertising subversion king at all, so more power to him I guess.

And the important thing to keep in mind here is that Kanye’s record label paid for that ad. It’s not like that billboard is a wall which would have otherwise been taken and used by street artists or graffiti writers.

More after the jump… Continue reading “Street art and advertising”

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Untitled II: The Beautiful Renaissance

One of my favorite street art books is Untitled, so upon receiving the sequel, Unitled II: The Beautiful Renaissance, in the mail last weekend, I couldn’t wait to read it and see if the sequel could live up my expectations.

In short, it does. For £19.95, you can get a well printed hardcover art book just shy of 200 pages long that could easily retail for more than that in high street shops.

Most of my favorite artists are included in Untitled II: My all time favorite Gaia image is on the cover, there are some cool shots of Banksy’s work, Swoon, Mark Jenkins, PosterBoy, Roa, WK Interact, Judith Supine, Blu and many many more.

Untitled II feels like the compiler (Gary Shove) really just sat around one day and said, “here’s some stuff that I’m really digging at the moment” and turned it into a book. And I mean that in a good way. The whole thing feels very holistic and it doesn’t seem like he’s tried to cram in certain artists just to say “yeah this book includes a photo of X’s work.” There are a few sections which are generally organized, like the section on New Orleans or the one on Norway, but really it’s just pictures that look nice together. And the quality of the photos is top notch. I just pulled a half dozen street art books out off my shelf to compare, and it is clear that the guys behind Untitled II have spared no expense in printing or finding the best photos.

But the truth is that pictures are only half the story with Untitled II. The text alone is reason to buy this book.

Too many people in art take themselves too seriously. Not so in Untitled II. The end of the book carries this disclaimer: “None of the words and spaces contained herein have any relevance to any of the photographs. They are only included to keep the pictures company and make us look cleverer than we actually are.”

You know how Banksy includes little bits of text in Wall and Piece? Think that sort of thing but taking up way more space. The text either proves that the writers are geniuses, or, much more likely, very good at BSing like geniuses. And those sort of texts are always fun to read when you know there is a bit of a humerous conceit to the whole thing.

Untitled II also includes a DVD called Storytelling. It has a few short films on it like Spending Time with PosterBoy plus Living Decay, a film about street art in Norway.

This isn’t the book you want if you’re looking for a serious book about street art, or if you’re just getting introduced to the genre, but for people who already know the street art scene well, this Untitled II deserves a spot on your bookshelf.

Untitled II is available on the Untitled website or at FUSShop.

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Blu at FAME

While Blu is working an animation for FAME festival with David Ellis, he also painted this wall (or maybe it’s part of the animation, I’m not positive). Amazing amazing amazing. I just love it.

Blu

Blu

And here is the story behind the wall, just as interesting as the art itself (via the FAME Festival blog)

If you’re new to FAME festival, you probably dont know that Grottaglie is 10 minutes far from Taranto. if you’ve been in Taranto, you probably remember that the city has a massive ugly factory called ILVA (one of the biggest steel factory in europe).this factory is destroying the territory and killing a lot of workers ’cause of its big lack of security measures and high environmental pollution. the direct consequence is that Taranto has one of the highest rate of death by cancer in italy.

As a plus, the smartest politicians from Grottaglie’s town council allowed, back in ‘96, the construction of a very filthy special wastes dump right outside the city. they did not inform the people, they did not ask anybody’s opinion, they just did it. i wish i could wonder WHY they did it.

this said,
i usually like to think that every piece of art can have different meaning, depending on who is looking at it and from wich perspective he is looking from. this time, i prefer to think that we’re all looking at a mere mirror of the actual situation we’re living in.

especially for our mean local politicians, none of them excluded. i hope that they can recognise themselves in these huge faces and feel disgusted for what they’ve done to their people.

Via Unurth

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Nothing to see here

It should come as no suprise that Banksy took every step possible to prevent The Bistol Museum from revealing his identity or very much at all about his show Banksy Versus The Bristol Museum. Banksy’s lawyers (yes, even street artists need lawyers) crafted a seemingly airtight contract with the museum, and now a Freedom of Information request regarding the show has revealed almost nothing.

You can read the full results of the request online, but in short, here’s what was learned: Banksy was paid £1 for the exhibition, pretty much all the CCTV footage is destroyed after 30 days (so if you want to rob the Bristol Museum, just make sure whatever you steal can go missing for a month before anybody notices), and that Banksy really wants to keep his identity a secret.

So really, who cares?

Via @Banksynews

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Burning Candy reclaims space

On a similar note to my last post, Burning Candy has reclaimed a wall in Hackney Wick very recently. Unfortunately, I don’t have permission to you Romanywg’s photos (I should really ask him for that because he takes spectacular pictures), so for the 6 months ago and 10 days ago images I have to give you links, but I can show you the latest piece on this wall.

Here’s a 6 months ago.

Here’s last week when the piece was painted over by a big blue nothing

And here is what they’ve done now:

Photo by nolionsinengland
Photo by nolionsinengland

I think it looks even better than before. Cyclops, Sweet Toof, Gold Peg and Might Mo and done it again. Just with Tek33 was involved a well.

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Conor Harrington mural fixed

Thank God. Looks like all is back to the way it should be with Conor Harrington’s impressive painting in New York City. Here’s what happened.

First it was like this and everybody was happy:

Photo by laverrue
Photo by laverrue

Then NPA came along recently and made it look like this:

Photo by amolho4
Photo by amolho4

Nobody (except maybe Steely Dan and NPA) was happy about that.

Luckily, the law was taken into the hands of the citizens of New York City and now Conor’s painting looks like this again:

Photo by amolho4
Photo by amolho4

Thanks to PublicAdCampaign and DickChicken for getting rid of those ads. Always good to see a painting revived when I thought it was lost to adverts.

Also, I’ve emailed NPA asking for some information about this incident, so we’ll see if I hear anything back from them.

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Brazilian things

This is a very Brazilian week on Vandalog. Every day so far, I’ve posted something about Brazilian artists. On Monday, it was Sixeart’s solo show. On Tuesday I mentioned Tikifreak’s book launch. And today I have two Brazilian street art bits to write about.

First is the awesome gallery Choque Cultural‘s write-up in Newsweek. Choque Cultural is my favorite street art gallery that I’ve never visited. I guess that’s a pretty limited field, but that’s supposed to be a compliment.

São Paulo’s Choque Cultural Gallery prides itself on exhibiting works of pop art, photography, and sculpture by Brazil’s top contemporary artists. But its current exhibit, Coletiva Choque, featuring works by the artists Zezão, Jaca, and Presto, looks like it’d be more at home on the walls of a favela. It consists of large, colorfully embellished murals, known as street art, that have been transferred to canvases. More inspirational than angry, they’re a far cry from “tag” graffiti—hastily sprayed words on outdoor property that convey social and political messages.

São Paulo is not the only place where street art has made the leap from the inner city to the gallery. Exhibition spaces in Los Angeles, London, and New York City have all commissioned street artists to apply their talents to murals rather than on building façades or concrete barriers. Although the artistic style of the outdoor artwork is preserved, some argue that moving it indoors and changing its scale compromises its integrity and mission. Indeed, during Choque Cultural’s Trimassa! street-art exhibit last fall, vandals broke in and spray-painted pichação, or tag graffiti, all over the works to protest the mainstream marketing of the art form.

Read the full article for more about the transition from painting on the street to hanging work in a gallery.

And the other Brazilian street art thing I have to mention is worth bring up for how distinctly un-Brazilian it seems. Today, Unurth introduced me to Urso Morto. Just have a look at these paintings and try to tell me they look like they are painted in Sao Paulo.

Urso Morto

Urso Morto

Urso Morto

The only really giveaway here is the pichação. Urso Morto’s bears don’t seem to display any of the classic touches of Brazilian graffiti. For one thing, the usual bright colors are replaced with white, black and red. Nonetheless, I’m definitely enjoying Urso Morto‘s work. I’ve never really understood the appeal of Berlin’s Little Lucy, a girl who kills her cat over and over again, but Urso Morto’s bears I like.

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Well painted walls

Just want to highlight two new walls that I think were particularly well painted collaborations.

First is this wall in NYC with Veng, Indie, Deem and Cern. Great mix of graffiti and street art. Love to see these two often opposing groups working together.

Veng
Photo by Veng

And here is a wall in Cardiff by Remi/Rough and Timid:

Remi and Timid

Remi and Timid

Collaboration is where it’s at.