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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Beautiful New Futura Prints

HOOKED beat me to the punch on this one, but there’s some amazing news today for fans of the legendary graffiti artist Futura: On December 10th, he’ll be selling two beautiful screenprints at Hang-Up Pictures. The images come from his recent LA show, Strategic Synchronicity. The image on the left, “Helix Object” may have been the highlight of the LA show, so I’m excited to see it in the form of a 19 COLOR print.

Sounds like most of these prints will be sold on Krunk‘s website at some point, but numbers 75-100 of each print are going up on Hang-Up Pictures December 10th for £525 each (inc VAT).

Details:

“Fornax Alpha” (Green)
17 colors: 3 blues, 5 greens, 4 blacks, and 5 whites
Edition: 100
Size: 39” x 45”
Signed, numbered and dated

“Helix Object” (Red)
19 colors: 6 reds, 4 blacks, 2 purples, 1 yellow, 3 grays, and 3 whites
Edition: 100
Final size: 39” x 45”
Signed, numbered and dated

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Street Art Awards Tonight

The Street Art Awards are tonight at Rough Trade East, and today they’ve been featured in The Independent. Below is an except, but check the full article, along with profiles of Guy Denning, Case, Matt Small, SPQR and others, here.

Street artists paint on the street, graffiti writers tag on walls and urban artists paint on canvass – right? Think again. The boundaries between these genres are blurring to create a new movement that echoes the punk ethos of anything goes. Artists grouped together under this “street” umbrella are not just spraying Bansky style stencils on walls. Some, like German duo Herakut, are highly skilled painters who create “photorealistic” graffiti with spray paint, others, like Tel Aviv artist Know Hope, are more craft-based.

It seems fitting then that street art, in all its guises, is to be recognised at the first ever Street Art Awards ceremony. The public have been encouraged to vote for their favourite piece of street art from 2008 both online and at the awards night which takes place at Rough Trade East record store, London, tonight. The evening promises top-name DJs including Andrew Weatherall, magicians, live painting and a charity raffle.

“Street art has always been a democratic art form,” says Mark Bracegirdle who runs urban art business Auction Saboteur and founded the awards out of a desire to let ordinary people decide what constitutes good art. “We wanted to take that idea further and encourage everybody to become an art critic rather than just the elitist few.”

In addition, over 50 international artists have each donated a work on vinyl to be raffled at the event and in month-long eBay auctions – a pick of the best on offer can be found on these pages. Raffle tickets will be £10 each on the night – a bargain if you walk away with an original by Matt Small or Guy Denning that would usually sell for thousands of pounds. All monies raised will go to the charity Single Homeless Project.

The manager of Rough Trade East and keen art collector, Spencer Hickman, said: “Music and art go hand in hand so it seemed fitting to get the artists to produce work on a record. Every medium including stencils, cut and paste and fine art is on offer and people will be amazed at the range of work. The artists have really made these second-hand objects beautiful again, just like painting on a dirty wall outside.” Who said vinyl was dead?

For tickets to the awards and to cast your vote, go to www.streetartawards.com.

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Elms Lesters Book Launch

Tonight, Elms Lesters Painting Rooms is launching their 502-page behemoth of a book as part of a group show featuring the artists in the book. So far, I’ve only had a chance to skim through the book, but expect a full review this weekend.

Artists with work in this show (which runs through December 20th) include Dalek, Futura, Anthony Lister, Adam Neate, and others.

If you’ve never been to Elms Lesters before, this is the time to start. What I’ve realized about this gallery is that whether you like the artists’ subject matter or not (and usually I do), everyone shown at Elms Lesters is an amazing painter.

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Q’s For Klone. Q’s For Klone. Q’s For Klone.

Klone is one of Tel Aviv’s most prolific street artists, and lately he’s been making waves on the internet was well. Klone’s recent work has involved a series of “predator” characters that he’s painted and wheatpasted throughout Tel Aviv.

I’ve mentioned Klone before, but I didn’t really know anything about him besides what I found on his flickr. Luckily, I was about to get in touch with him to do a little Q&A session that I’m very excited to share with you.

RJ: When did you start doing work on the street, and do you have an art background?
Klone: My story with the street started in 1999 when I somehow stumbled upon graffiti, I went on trying this thing and got really into since the first time out, back then doing graffiti in Israel meant pioneering it, learning it all by yourself from internet and books since there was practically nothing out there, both writing and street art scenes started to develop only in last few years and still in their beginnings.
I don’t have any art education background but as a kid I was always drawing, building and inventing worlds for myself and the friends I used to play with.

RJ: Where did you get the name Klone?
Klone: 5 years ago I was still into writing my name which was MAKE back then, and through sketching I came upon my first characters, that looked almost the same, really simple ones, same but different, I called them klones – same clones but different, thus the ‘K’, and since then it became my name. I rarely do letter pieces nowadays, concentrating more on image work.

RJ: In addition to your work in the street, you’ve done work for galleries/charity events. What’s different about working on the street versus working in a “gallery friendly” medium like canvas?
Klone: Hmm, I still think that the only friendly thing about canvas is the fact that I can roll it up when I finish painting it so I don’t have to see it or stumble into. But seriously now I see gallery as just another place to express myself with its own terms, It wasn’t an easy thing for me to put my work on white walls, took me awhile to get used to it and be able to really handle it. I still see the street as the ultimate gallery, with the best critics, and the galleries serve as a platform to show the stuff I’m fuckin’ around with in my studio.

Read the rest and see more photos after the jump… Continue reading “Q’s For Klone. Q’s For Klone. Q’s For Klone.”

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Asbestos Boxing Club in Belfast

One of my favorite artists, Asbestos, had a show that opened last week in Belfast. It sounds like a really great show. Here’s some info on the show from Asbestos plus photos. I’ll post the video once it’s online. If you haven’t already read it, check out this profile/interview I did with Asbestos.

Everybody still talks about ‘The Troubles’ in Northern Ireland. But as I approached the Ligoniel Amateur Boxing Club in North Belfast on a cold November evening, I was at an advantage because I had no preconceived ideas as to whether the boxers were Protestant, Catholic or Hindu for that matter. I hadn’t even thought about asking before that night, and as my visit wore on, I started to assume from their names that they were catholic (Sean, Joe, Paddy). You see, there’s been so much conflict in Belfast over the last thirty or so years, that both communities have become isolated in their own suburbs. So for me, this boxing club in the suburbs in North Belfast and the men who give their time for free intrigued me.

I was introduced to this boxing club by the guys who run the Safehouse Gallery and on my way to Belfast on the train that day, the usual images and preconceptions of ‘The Troubles’ in Northern Ireland came to mind. But I wasn’t interested in adding to a landscape of film, painting and literature that couldn’t escape the images of violence and division from the past. It was my intention to create a body of work focusing on people who’re making a difference in their community despite all the shit that goes on around them.

I photographed the boxers training and sparring in Ligoniel Amateur Boxing Club (it’s been on the go since 1971 and has been funded by the boxers and the community around Ligoniel) late one Wednesday evening. Upon arriving I was welcomed in by Eddie, who stood in the doorway eclipsed in the stark boxing hall light, his hand, decked out in gold rings reached out to greet me and welcome me into a club he’s been volunteering in for over thirty years.

I got to know the guys from the club, each had a story, each had a reason to be drawn to boxing and the small club that was a home and a safe family. I came away from that club with a head full of stories and a meaningful idea for an exhibition in Belfast. My initial fear was that these guys would treat me with suspicion, but each was open and honest, happy to talk while I photographed.

The following day, I scoured the streets in different parts of Belfast for the signature yellow Ace Bates skips (he’s the king of the Belfast skip world). I hoped that they might contain the detritus of the city; wood, metal and any other objects that told the cities history for me to paint on. I pulled pieces from skips in the Holy Land, the Shankill Road, the Lisburn Road and the Falls,  then I hauled them home to the studio in Dublin to paint.

Back in Belfast on the night of the show, it was a very humbling experience for me to see each boxer come to see his portrait. It was singularly, the most rewarding and emotional moment in my entire art career. One boxer told me that it’s usually “generals or dead politicians that get their portraits painted, not amateur boxers from north Belfast”;. But to me, these guys are the heroes of the community, they’re the guys who keep the kids off the steets, training three nights a week, they’re the guys who get screamed at by their wives “for volunteering more time at the club than at home”. It was a privilege for me to spend time with and paint the portraits of these contemporary heroes.

Photos after the jump… Continue reading “Asbestos Boxing Club in Belfast”

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5 Reasons POW’s Open Day Is A Can’t Miss Affair

This Saturday and Sunday, Pictures on Walls will be hosting their first annual “Open Day” (which is actually two open days). As the title says, here’s 5 reasons why I expect to see you there (assuming you live in this country, plane ride might be a bit much for a Banksy print).

1. New Banksy print being sold in a lottery system. Everybody gets a shot at the tesco image. This alone should get a line of people back into the Old Street tube station.
2. New Vhils print being signed in person with inscription to avoid ebay flippers. His work is top quality, and people won’t be forgetting his work at Cans Festival for a long time. If the world were fair, getting access to this should be as in demand as the Banksy print.
3. New Micallef prints. No more “Bomber Girl” prints here. “Bethlehem” looks great (though we’ve yet to see any high-res images). These are also going through a lottery system, so hopefully that means fewer flippers, but I doubt it.
4. Some kind of legal stenciling. I’ll be bringing some stuff down for sure, and maybe this will be like the Cans free stencil area and some real talent will show up as well.
5. Umm, it’s a two-day long street art party and everyone’s invited. Did I really need the rest of the list?

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New Stella Dore Space

This week, Stella Dore expanded and reopened on the street art oasis that is Rivington Street. I suppose I’m a bit late to be posting the flyer for their grand opening night, but I didn’t make it over until yesterday afternoon.

The new space is bigger, nicer, and easier to find. It’s just a block from Black Rat Press and Behind the Shutters, so there’s no reason not to check it out if you’re in the area.

Right now, there’s work from some really talented artists, including Shock1 and Eelus.

Prices are reasonible too. I picked up a great Kid Acne spray can for just £30. I don’t expect it to fetch much at Bonhams or anything, but I like Kid Acne’s work.

Best of all, they’ve got a couple Banksy Christmas cards. Thanks to Romanywg for the tip there.