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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Link post

I’ve noticed a number of links piling up over the past few days, so it’s time for one of my link compiling posts. Oh and thanks to C-Monster for featuring Vandalog on today’s Daily Digest (the probably superior link post series that I try to emulate a bit from time to time).

  • On the Beautiful Losers front, the DVD is coming out this month. Anybody who has seen the film will tell you the same thing: buy the DVD. Also, there was a touching profile of Margaret Kilgallen, one of the artists featured in Beautiful Losers, in The Guardian over the weekend.
  • The extremely talented Titifreak has a book. I didn’t know he had one coming out, but apparently plenty of people in Rio did because his launch party looks like it was a huge success.
  • Some people love D*Face. Some people hate him. If you’re a hater, just pretend this is somebody else, because D*Face says some things work listening to in this interview with Walrus TV (via Juxtapoz)

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Shows this week

I’ve got a few shows opening this week to highlight, most of them in London, one in Brazil.

sixeart

Let’s start in Brazil. Sixeart has his first solo show in Brazil opening on Tuesday the 11th.

Sixeart

Sixeart “Sueñan las gallinas con ser humanas”

In 2008 the Spanish artist Sixeart achieved international fame by participating in “STREET ART AT THE TATE MODERN” in London, along with brazilian Os Gemeos, and Nunca,  french JR, united states Faile and italian Blu. Today his works are shown in Spain alongside those of Miró, Chillida and Tapies.

“Sueñan las gallinas con ser humanas” is series of 13 new pieces on paper made exclusively to be exhibited in ROJO®artspace Sao Paulo from 11.08.2009 to  05.09.2009.

ROJO®artspace Sao Paulo
POP. Rua Virgilio de Carvalho Pinto 297,

Pinheiros. 05415-030 Sao Paulo. Brazil
talk: +55 11 3487 1677 online: http://www.rojo-saopaulo.com

And now back to London.

My Thursday evening starts off with a stop over at Lazarides‘ Rathbone Place gallery for Invader show ‘Low Fidelity’. There should be everything we’ve come to expect from the Parisian globe trotter: mosiac video game characters, rubix cubes, QR codes and even sculpture. Personally, I’ve always preferred the thrill of discovering an Invader on the street to seeing it in my home, but that hasn’t stopped me from buying one in the past. I’m curious, though not enthusiastic, about what this show will bring. Plus, everybody knows that Lazarides throws great opening parties.

Then it’s off to Pure Evil’s gallery for his solo show which mixes art and music.

Pure Evil

And then maybe a stop over at Urban Angel for “The Sentiment of Love,” a show of erotic photography.

Friday night I hope to be back in Shoreditch for the launch of London Handstyles at Rarekind Gallery. Another London graffiti book.

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Viss Van at StolenSpace

I’ve been eyeing a piece by Miss Van in the office of StolenSpace Gallery for some time now, which is why this announcement caught my attention:

Miss Van

‘Lovestain’

By Miss Van
1st – 18th October 2009

StolenSpace are proud to present ‘Lovestain’ a UK premier solo show from world renowned female street artist, Miss Van. A retrospective as well as a new body of work and taking over two exhibition spaces at StolenSpace, this will be her largest solo show to date.

Toulouse native and current Barcelona resident Miss Van started to paint her graffiti on the streets during the 90s, at the age of 18. Her overtly feminine street art was a breath of fresh air in a traditionally masculine movement of urban art and paved the way for many contemporaries. Now her infamous sultry female characters, known as her ‘Poupes’, are seen on the streets and in galleries alike all over the world.

From these pouting, sulky girls emerges a certain sensuality and disconcerting eroticism that is frank and unabashed. Their thoughts are palpable and the paintings become real in both flesh and spirit.

Miss Van creates her characters with an innovative spirit.  Affirming her style, the artist infuses into her work traits from her own personality, rendering them thus, self-portraits. It is through their fantasy that the sensitivity and fragility of the artist is expressed. She takes pleasure in playing with ambiguities, her dolls are childlike women that are equally angelic and devilish. They have a rare appeal that transcends gender-an appeal that also extends to the work that she shows in galleries.

Over the years, Miss Van’s characters keep evolving. They have become less cute and  more dangerously alluring, edgier – their sexy aura made all the more complex by their increasingly ambiguous facial expressions. The more she has moved into gallery work and can work with the nuances of more fragile media than the streets allow (pencil, for one), her characters have grown even more sensitive, subtle, and delicately rendered.

Featuring a retrospective of her work & new paintings this show will also see the release of a rare exclusive hand pulled limited edition screen print from Miss Van.exclusive hand pulled limited edition screen print from Miss Van.

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The latest from Klone

Klone

Klone has some new work up in Tel Aviv. Here’s a sample.

Klone

Klone

And check out Facing Klone, an article about Klone written by Hagi Kenaan, a professor of philosophy at Tel Aviv University:

Their presence on the streets of Tel-Aviv has become so clear in the last two years: what is the kind of voice that enunciates itself in Klone’s images? How do Klone’s human-alien-predators speak to us, as they unexpectedly surface on buildings, houses, walls, street corners, power boxes, doors, entryways, doorframes and windowsills, as they flicker – appearing and disappearing – on Marmorek, Yehuda Halevi, Shenkin, Lillienblum and Herzl streets; on Rothchild Boulevard, or in the Florentin and the Old Central Bus Station districts; in the Dizzengof Square area, the old Tel-Aviv Theater on Pinsker Street, in Bezalel Market and northward along Ben Yahuda Street? How should we listen to the voice of these images?

Keep reading Facing Klone here.

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The Thousands

UPDATE: New e-flyer, the full line up, opening times, and all the info you need at this new post.

The street art exhibition I announced last week finally has a name: The Thousands. It also has a special blog where you can find regular updates about how well (or poorly) the whole event is going along with plenty of teaser images. Go there now to see some examples of the work that will be on view at The Thousands.

The Thousands

Here’s a slightly adjusted announcement:

On November 18th, The Thousands, an exhibition of some of the world’s best street art, will open in London for just 5 days. The Thousands will feature original work by some of the top names in street art: Faile, Banksy, KAWS, Shepard Fairey, Swoon, Herakut, Barry McGee and many more. Most of the work will come from private collections, but there will be a few brand new pieces direct from the artists.

Last summer, the Tate Modern put street art outside their museum, and this year the Bristol Museum let Banksy take over for a few months. Those are definite steps in the right direction, but The Thousands attempts to show the art world and the public that there are great works of art within the sphere of “street art,” and that street artists deserve a place in art history at least equal to that of The Young British Artists or the great pop artists. Unlike any show that a gallery can organize (not that there’s anything wrong with art galleries), the goal of The Thousands is not to sell work, but to publicize it, and the vast majority of the work on display won’t be for sale. It’s on loan from collectors. To help extend that promotion effort even further, Drago Lab will be publishing a companion book to the exhibition.

The name The Thousands comes in part from a short fable by Daniel Alarcón which was published in McSweeney’s #28. I see the story of “The Thousands” in street art all the time. Around the world there are thousands of anonymous and semi-anonymous people and artists working outside the restrictions of government and/or the art establishment to create something that cannot be understood by those authorities. And this exhibition highlights the best of those thousands so that the art establishment will hopefully begin to understand and appreciate these artists. So that’s why it’s called The Thousands.

The Thousands will be open from November 18th through the 22nd of November at Village Underground in London (54 Holywell Lane, London, EC2A 3PQ).

Also, if you’re a UK based street art collector and interested in getting involved with this project, I’m still looking for more artwork to borrow so just shoot me an email (rj@vandalog.com).