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.
Posted on

All the usual Shepard Fairey updates

Time to talk Shepard Fairey. And that means two things.

First: The Boston Arrest. Fairey was arrested back in February at the Boston ICA during the opening of his show there. He was charged with a number of counts of vandalism. Most of those were eventually dropped. The most recent news is that Fairey has pled guilty to those remaining charges and in exchange agreed to not carry graffiti supplies in Boston for two years. I guess he won’t be doing any more work with Boston’s mayor on the side of City Hall during that time.

Via Arrested Motion

Second: Mannie Garcia, the photographer who took the photo that Fairey based his Obama poster off of, has made claims in court that he was not employed by the AP at the time he took that photograph and therefore own the copyright to it. Now, he’s made those claims official in court. The Art Law Blog, which has done an amazing job following this case, has more.

Posted on

Dan Witz’ “Dark Doings”

Dan Witz, who needs to become much better known in the UK by the way, has started on a new project and it is as great as ever. Here are a few images from “Dark Doings“:

Dan Witz

Dan Witz

Dan Witz

Without a doubt, these street pieces are impressive, but what about Witz’ work in the gallery. Here is a piece from the current group show at StolenSpace Gallery:

Dan Witz

For me, it doesn’t quite work. I’ve seen pieces by Witz that work very well in the gallery, and he is an amazing painting on the street or indoors, but for the most part, I think his paintings are much more powerful when outdoors and unexpected rather than in galleries or homes.

Via Wooster Collective

Posted on

Headed on Vacation

If you’re reading this, I’m probably not in London anymore. My friends and I are taking a trip through continental Europe, and I won’t be back until July 13th. We’ll be visiting Amderdam, Berin, Prague, Bratislava, Zagreb, Venice, Rome, Bacelona and Paris, so if you have any suggestions of things to do while we’re in those cities, feel free to let me know.

Luckily, Vandalog won’t be completely dormant while I’m on vacation. I’ve got a few amazing people lined up to do guest posts while I’m away. I won’t give away any names, but two of the guests live in LA.

Here’s new piece by The London Police in Amsterdam. I’ll definitely be on the look out for it while I’m there.

London Police Amsterdam

Posted on

WK-Interact at Jonathan LeVine

WK-Interact has been around forever and I think his style is pretty identifiable on the street, but his latest show at Jonathan LeVine Gallery is a new direction for WK. “12 Angry Men” opens on the 27th, and while the fascination with motion is still clear, there is a new focus on faces. Can’t wait to see the whole series.

WK-Interact

WK-Interact

WK-Interact

Also opening that night at the same gallery is a solo show by Space Invader. Although I love Invader’s little mosaics, this show seems MUCH less interesting. The rubik’s cubes were cool at first, and I respect that he actually takes the time to properly put the colors in the right spots on each cube, but these album covers seem boring to me. Have a look:

Posted on

Insa is crazy busy

Lately, it seems like Insa has been getting up in London every weekend. Here’s some of his recent work. Man Insa loves feet.

Photo by unusualimage
Photo by unusualimage
Photo from Insa
Photo from Insa
Photo by unusualimage
Photo by unusualimage
Insa at Meeting of Styles. Photo by unusualimage
Insa at Meeting of Styles. Photo by unusualimage
Photo from Insa
Photo from Insa

Posted on

Skullphone’s gas stations

I know next to nothing about Skullphone, except he’s known for putting his logo up everywhere. Found this recent project of his yesterday though, and it looks pretty cool. Hate the recession, but you gotta love the recession inspired street art.

Skullphone has been finding abandoned/dead gas stations and putting up these posters:

Photo by Lord Jim
Photo by Lord Jim

More examples here and here.

On a related note, Skullphone and some other artists have a show on called “This Must Be The Place” starting June 20th in LA at the Scion Space.

Via Sour Harvest

Posted on

Nuart Festival Lineup

Now I’m just going to take a guess here and say that 72% of my readers live in Norway. Okay just went to check my Google Analytics page, and it turns out that very few of my readers actually live in Norway, though the city of Kristiansand does have a surprising number of Vandalog readers, so thanks guys.

Even though not very many Vandalog reader will probably have a chance to see this festival, it needs to be mentioned. Nuart is the annual street art festival taking place in Stavanger, Norway. This year the lineup looks better than ever with some of New York City’s best street artists making their way to Stavanger to work on installation pieces.

Nuart 2009 will play host to Swoon, David Choe, Ben Wolf, Graffiti Research Lab, Brad Downey, Judith Supine, Leon Reid IV, Chris Stain, Logan Hicks and Skewville.

So if for whatever reason you find yourself in Stavanger around September 10th, now you no where to find your street art fix.

Posted on

Ways of Seeing at Black Rat Press

Let’s say you own Black Rat Press. You want to do a group show with three of your artists who challenge people’s preconceptions about painting and street art. Who do you choose?

That’s right. You bring together Swoon, Matt Small, and Brian Adam Douglas (aka Elbowtoe).

Swoon is a female wheatpaster who spawned an entire school of street art in New York City, and she spends her time building rafts and crashing art festivals.

And any art critic who says urban artists don’t know how to paint doesn’t know Matt Small. A few years ago, Matt was a runner up for one of the top prizes in the British art world.

Elbowtoe has had a presence on the street art New York City for years as part of the school of lino-block cutters that Swoon influenced, and now as Brian Adam Douglas he is making intricate collage works that look more like impressionist paintings than thrown together magazine clippings. For me, the collages can be hit or miss, but when they work, they really work.

Well that’s exactly what “Ways of Seeing Is,” BRP’s next show which opens on July 2nd.

The official word from Black Rat Press and some photos after the jump… Continue reading “Ways of Seeing at Black Rat Press”

Posted on

RIP – Iz The Wiz

I Love Graffiti reports that Iz The Wiz, one of the legendary graffiti writers featured in both the film Style Wars and the book Subway Art, has passed away. Snort This says that Iz died on the 17th of June of a heart attack. You can’t help but admire this guy. He wrote until the day he died.

IZ RIP

Iz The Wiz Train

IZ The Wiz

Posted on

Great new Conor Harrington for FAME

Conor Harrington recently painted this in Italy as part of September’s FAME Festival, and it is, as usual for Harrington, pretty awesome.

Harrington FAME

I’d love to hear more about how Harrington came about with his signature style and about his history, because as cool as his work looks, it could definitely be seen as a fine artist trying to co-opt tags and graffiti culture for something unrelated. Just saying. (And, if you know more about Harrington’s history than I do, please let me know by emailing me or commenting on this post)