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 Awards in The Observer

The Street Art Awards (organized by Auction Saboteur) are this Thursday at Rough Trade East. The event sounds like it will be a fun time, and there’s a bunch of great looking work in the charity raffle. The awards are sure to be packed, as they’ve gotten coverage in The Observer today. It’s a great article well worth a read:

‘Twenty-five years ago I was doing one-man shows and street art was outcast; people thought it was outrageous. It was pretty hairy in those days, when graffiti artists would go out and paint trains. Then, it was all about getting your train seen from one side of the city to the other,’ recalls Goldie, one of the contenders for the first Street Art awards on Thursday.

Read the rest here.

Via UK Street Art

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The White Noise Review

So last night was the opening of Black Rat Press’ White Noise show. Most of the work was from Lucas Price/Cyclops, Asha Zero and Brian Adam Douglas/Elbowtoe, but there was work from Blek le Rat, Nick Walker, Matt Small, and D*face as well.

Cake by Brian Adam Douglas. Photo by RJ
Cake by Brian Adam Douglas. Photo by RJ
Self Portrait by Brian Adam Douglas. Photo by RJ
Self Portrait by Brian Adam Douglas. Photo by RJ

For Brian Adam Douglas, the show was a chance to introduce a whole new direction in his work: collage. These collage pieces are amazingly detailed and I can’t wait to see how the work progresses. For now though, there is at least one collage which had a crowd of people around it all night. Douglas’ self-portrait, pictured on the left, may be the perfection of collage. His other collages were good, though I prefer his older work to most of them, but his self portrait is probably the best piece I’ve ever seen by Douglas. The video below from JetSet Graffiti features Douglas/Elbowtoe and talks a bit about his collage work at the end.

Detailed. Photo by RJ
Detailed. Photo by RJ

More after the jump…

Continue reading “The White Noise Review”

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Dirty Laundry Review

Thursday night was the opening of Herakut’s new London show “Dirty Laundry“.

In short, this is one of the best shows of the year. Adam Neate has plenty of work to blow people away, and group shows like White Noise (last night at Black Rat) have some great variety, but all of these shows have a piece or two that just aren’t that great. The general consensus Thursday though was that people would be happy to have any of the pieces. There wasn’t a single piece that people looked at and said, “well, maybe that’s not for me.” Even the weaker pieces for this show would be highlights at almost any group show. Continue reading “Dirty Laundry Review”

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Know Hope Updates

Couple of bits about Know Hope today. First, he’s got an interview over at Artasty, so check that out here. Second, he’s just posted a new piece on his flickr which is very timely.

"put your money where your mouth is" by Know Hope
"put your money where your mouth is" by Know Hope. Photo by Know Hope
The building is a bank. Photo by Know Hope
The building is a bank. Photo by Know Hope

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Asbestos Boxing Club

Sorry for not posting this earlier, but if you’re in Belfast, Asbestos has a show going on based on portraits of men he met at the local boxing club.

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White Noise 2(night)

Black Rat Press’ group show White Noise opens tonight (in a few minutes actually), and as usual, I’ll be twittering live.

The show has work from a very diverse group of artits, from Matt Small to Blek le Rat.

Just a reminder for those who are a bit confused when I say I’ll be twittering the show: Twitter is a “micro-blogging” site, and when I go to openings, I post comments and photos live at http://twitter.com/vandalog. That means that even if you can’t be at the opening you’ll be among the first to see images and hear about it.

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Concrete Canvas’ The Krah Interview

Locked Up by The Krah. Photo by RJ
Locked Up by The Krah. Photo by RJ

Concrete Canvas has just posted a great interview with The Krah. Among other topics, The Krah’s recent project of locking pieces to the street is discussed:

We featured your ‘locked up’ work on Concrete Canvas last week, what inspired you to do this and do you reckon those pieces will avoid the buff?
I got inspired by Revs from New York, he never used pad locks but what he did was welded sculptures of graff letters in the streets. I got fed up of people stealing my work, I found that whatever I put up was gone a day later. So I locked them to fuck with people.The thing that I don’t like is that they don’t take it because they like it they take it to sell it on. The good thing is that it confuses the authorities they just don’t understand it, is it graffiti? Is it DIY gone mad? What is it? Its quick to put up and the scavengers find it harder to steal so it stays up the longest. I will be making sculptures that will get locked up and I also have lots of other tricks that you will see soon.

Check out the rest of the interview here.

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Swoon Print For Charity

Those familiar with Swoon may know about her work in Braddock, a suburb of Pittsburgh. Basically, she’s working to revitalize the area through art. It’s a great project headquartered here. Well anyway, Swoon released a print on Just Seeds recently to raise money for rebuilding a church that is being taking over by artists in Braddock. Alden is a great image (I’ve got two versions of it), and this looks really great. The print is only $400, which seems low for an edition of 55. Why not support a great cause and get a beautiful piece of artwork in the process? (Sorry if this all sounds a bit like an advert, but I really think that these things that Swoon does for charity are great)