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.
Banksy underneath the High Line. Photo by Hrag Vartanian.
Today’s Banksy, which runs through midnight Sunday, is Better Out Than In at its most literal yet: Two collaborative works by Banksy and Os Gêmeos that could easily hang inside a gallery (and practically any gallery in the city would probably be happy to have them), but instead they are on display in Chelsea underneath the High Line park. As usual, the audio guide is a great addition to the work. Seems like Banksy is almost taunting all of the nearby galleries in Chelsea, while they are desperate for a few people to come inside, Banksy has a massive crowd trying to catch a glimpse of these two pieces outside (which are of course well-guarded lest anyone try to steal or harm them). Or perhaps art galleries are just terribly uncomfortable places to view art and they don’t actually want visitors anyway. More info on the whole situation at this site over at Hyperallergic.
The crowd at Banksy’s “gallery.” Photo by Hrag Vartanian.
Yotes and SINUS outside of DC. The piece was painted at the start of the federal government shutdown. Photo by Yotes.stikman in Philadelphia. Photo by RJ Rushmore.Poster Boy in Cuba. Photo by Poster Boy.Unknown artist. Photo by liborius.Unknown artist in Vizela, Portugal. Photo by CláudioM.
Today’s Better Out Than In piece only lasted for a few minutes after it was announced before it was defaced, which is too bad because it’s really a great example of how a simple intervention with the right placement can be great. Banksy is one of the best at this sort of thing.
Swoon in London. Photo by Alex Ellison.Zap in Paris. Photo by vitostreet.Mygalo in Paris. Photo by vitostreet.Sweet Toof and Paul Insect in London. Photo by liborius.Unknown artist in Cádiz, Spain. Photo by Iztok Alf Kurnik.
Banksy in the South Bronx. Photo courtesy of The L.I.S.A. Project.
Another performance piece today from Banksy for Better Out Than In. This custom Ronald McDonald statue will be traveling to McDonald’s restaurants (okay, restaurants is a stretch) around the city all week, where you can visit it to see “his shoes shined by a real live boy.” Definitely check out the audio guide on this piece. Funny as always.
In random Banksy updates: Check what Hyperallergic found – a photo of a “signature” that the shoe shining actor in this piece gave to a fan (plus their description of the context for this sculpture is helpful); apparently the Bronx Borough President is a fan of Banksy, unlike Mayor Bloomberg.
As usual, we have a + 5 today. This time, I’m featuring work by C215, Clam Nation, Lisk Bot, Dylan Egon (although this piece is also a blatant ad for a show if you look closely, so there’s that…) and Beastie.
C215 in London. Photo by Boring Lovechild.Clam Nation in Chicago. Photo by Brian Knowles.Lisk Bot. Photo by markheybo.Dylan Egon in Jersey City. Photo by Bill Benzon.Beastie in Gloucester, UK. Photo by kennysarmy.
Update: As the New York Post notes (even though they reference the unverified and likely-fake Banksy twitter account), one interesting thing about this piece is the question of how long it will last before being vandalized.
For today’s Better Out Than In piece, Banksy has made a sort of 9/11 tribute or memorial. I suppose it’s interesting that Banksy is using a flower both as a memorial and to show an explosion, but I’m still not sure about this piece. Sidenote: Banksy has previously made at least twopieces referencing 9/11. And Gothamist reports that Banksy may have made two of this piece. There’s another similar stencil but sans-flower in Brooklyn Heights.
Kid Hazo in Philadelphia. Photo by Kid Hazo.Pablo Delgado. Photo by Boring Lovechild.Poster Boy and Bamn in Cuba. Photo by Poster Boy..frA* in Berlin. Photo by duncan c.
One thing that I’ve been hopeful of since the beginning of Better Out Than In is that Banksy might put up work in every borough. With today’s piece in Queens, that hope is one step closer to becoming a reality. This piece also seems to have been Banksy’s closest call yet, with Gothamist reporting the story of a woman spotting a man leaving the site of the piece wearing construction gear (while there is no nearby construction) while the paint was still wet and there was still a blue tarp pinned up on part of the wall. It was been reported in the past that Banksy might use a tarp to cover up his work while it is in progress. But other than the location and that story, not a particularly interesting piece in my opinion, so let’s have a look at today’s + 5.
For this + 5, I’ve got work by GATS, Trollz, Syd and three unknown artists:
GATS in the San Francisco Bay Area. Photo by Jeremy Brooks.Trollz in Melbourne. Photo by Michael Verhoef.Syd in London. Photo by Boring Lovechild.Unknown artists in Melbourne. Photo by 1llustr4t0r.com.Unknown artist (although tagged as possibly by Peat Wollaeger) in St. Louis. Photo by Shawn Semmler.
Once again, people such as myself are the butt of Banksy‘s joke for a Better Out Than In piece (and once again I’m late posting about a piece). This may be my favorite work in the show so far. Banksy arranged for a man to sell original Banksy artworks on the street next to Central Park. The paintings weren’t labeled as Banksy pieces in any way, and were available for $60 a piece (although one woman haggled a bit and snagged 2 for $60). The obvious comparison is to Joshua Bell playing in the DC Metro, though the parallels are not exact.
This piece by Banksy is great because, like so much of Better Out Than In, it’s about the crowd that follows Banksy’s work and the system in which Banksy exists. Jeffrey Deitch recently called Banksy a conceptual artist, and I think he is spot-on. This piece, and so many others in Better Out Than In, are not the physical art objects themselves but about the relationships that people have with the objects.
Most Vandalog readers will have heard people complain, or have complained themselves, about how mediocre Banksy pieces can get covered in plexiglass and preserved while masterpieces just around the corner by any other artist can get ignored or painted over. Even work by Banksy has been accidentally painted over when not identified as his work. For 99% of street art and graffiti, the vast majority of people see it without the context of “This is a work by Artist X, whose history is Y. It is important because Z,” but fewer and fewer people see Banksy’s work in that random way, as just another artist among thousands, as just another piece of visual information on a crowded streetscape. For a brief moment this past Saturday, Banksy was just another artist, not a media sensation. Any hey, for just another artist, $420 isn’t bad for a day’s work.
Of course, now I’ve got friends and relatives emailing me asking why the hell I didn’t give them a heads up about this and asking how they can get a Banksy for $60 in order to quickly flip it and possibly make quite a few thousand dollars. But while the works at the stall were authentic, I wonder whether or not Pest Control will authenticate them. Without that authentication, even the people in the video can’t really be trusted if they attempt to sell their “authentic” artworks. Those stencils would be easily enough to fake. But who really cares if the works are real or fake, so long as you’re not paying more than $60 for them?
Speaking of street artists being unappreciated when their name isn’t Banksy, here’s our + 5. These five works that range from very big to quite tiny and are by Ludo, 616, UFO, Cane Mortoedit: with Insurrectionize,Royce Bannon and Russell King:
Ludo in Paris. Photo by Carlos Ribeiro.UFO in NYC. Photo by Hrag Vartanian.616 in London. Photo by Alex Ellison.Cane Morto and Insurrectionize in Bergen. Photo by svennevenn. Click to view large.Russell King and Royce Bannon in Philadelphia. Photo by Ellen King.
The elusive stikman is showing his artwork indoors right now at the offices of the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program. …in the house… is open now through November 13th, but there’s an evening reception this Friday evening from 6-8pm. Before that reception, I’ll also be giving a brief talk about the history of street art in Philadelphia and internationally. The reception on the 18th should be a blast, especially since we’ll be releasing a stikman sticker that will be available for free to anyone who stops by (the sticker will also be available if you come see the show after the 18th). This is also a great time to buy a piece of stikman’s original artwork since all of the work for sale at “…in the house…” is being sold to benefit Mural Arts.
Photo by Damon Landry
Technically, I’m considered the curator of …in the house…, but I would say it’s more accurate to say I helped coordinate the show since I thought it would be more productive to give stikman as much free reign as possible. One of the things that makes …in the house… so interesting to me beyond it being a show by a great artist who doesn’t display his work indoors all that often is that it is being held at the Mural Art Program’s offices, which also happen to be the former home of artist Thomas Eakins. I interned with Mural Arts over the summer, and it’s a fascinating organization. If you’ve ever seen a mural in Philadlephia, chances are they were behind it. For this show, stikman has on drawn the history of the Mural Arts Program and the building in which it is based to create new work dealing with alternative forms of community engagement and the art of Thomas Eakins.
“On The Water” by stikman. Photo by stikman.
Mural Arts and stikman both want engage communities through public art, but they go about it in very different ways. Mural Arts shakes hands, holds meetings and encourages people to help paint murals, all with spectacular results that change the Philadelphia landscape. stikman goes for walks and installs his artwork where he pleases, each piece a temporary gift to the people who look closely enough, lasting only as long as nature and graffiti removal specialists will allow. Both stikman and Mural Arts are active in place-making. Mural Arts gives Philadelphia communal places, while stikman lets individuals discover small private, even secret, places in the midst of the urban jungle and make them their own. Mural Arts’ large-scale works of public art coexist in Philadelphia alongside stikman’s comparatively miniscule sculptures, stickers, tiles and installations, but if you look closely enough, they aren’t so different.
Photo by Damon Landry
“…in the house…” is open now at the Mural Arts Program’s headquarters at 1727-29 Mt. Vernon Street in Philadelphia. It runs through November 13th, and while the show is in an office, it is open to the public and anyone can visit during Mural Arts’ normal business hours (9-5, Monday-Friday) or by appointment by emailing events at muralarts . org.
Photo by Damon LandryPhoto by stikmanPhoto by Damon LandryPhoto by Damon LandryPhoto by Damon Landry
I’m late on this one, but hey, it was the weekend and I was in Little Italy watching this wall come together. Saturday’s Banksy, while a pretty standard stencil besides the great placement, continues on Banksy‘s theme for Better Out Than In of it really being about the crowd. Concrete Confessional is just perfect for photos like the one above, and really requires a fan to activate the piece.
Here’s today’s + 5 by Ntel, Frank Ape, La Ira, and two unknown artistsedit: Cane Morto and one unknown artist:
Ntel. Photo by Bill Benzon.Frank Ape. Photo by edenpictures.La Ira. Photo by món mort.Unknown artist. Does the signature say Mari? Photo by Beth M527.Cane Morto in Bergen. Photo by svennevenn.
Today‘s Banksy for Better Out Than In was a pretty impressive production, a roving truck featuring what appear to be a combination of animatronic and human-controlled animal puppets. Good stuff.
And for our + 5, there’s work by Buildmore, Nether, edit: London Kaye (thanks to Daniel in the comments) and three two unknown artists:
Buildmore in Philadelphia. Photo by Damon Landry.Nether in Berlin. Photo by duncan c.Unknown artist in Berlin. Photo by duncan c.Unknown artist in London. Photo by The Integer Club.London Kaye in NYC. Photo by allan molho.
As I mentioned yesterday, this Saturday we’re holding a party outdoors in Little Italy. Presented by Wix.com, the party is to celebrate all the murals that myself and others in The L.I.S.A. Project NYC have been organizing in Little Italy, particularly Tristan Eaton’s brand new Liberty mural. The party is also a chance to watch a brand new mural painted live as part of a Secret Walls competition.
