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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Endless Canvas selects… Uter of Charles Crew

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Uter of Charles Crew is the third artist in our series of artists being highlighted by Endless Canvas, a great blog that I’ve invited to contribute a few posts on Vandalog to bring attention to the great work that’s going up in the Bay Area. For today we have Endless Canvas’ photos of Uter, a member of Charles Crew, who is doing some really great work with illegal graffiti that looks more complex that many writers’ legal pieces. In fact, all of Charles Crew seems to be great at that. Check out this flickr page for more from the crew. Here are a few of Endless Canvas’ photos of Uter’s work:

Dvote and Uter
Dvote and Uter
Uter, Anemal and Sorie
Uter, Anemal and Sorie

Photos by Endless Canvas

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Endless Canvas selects… Ras Terms

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Grow, Ras Terms, Broke and others

Today’s pick from Endless Canvas is Ras Terms. Endless Canvas is one of my favorite art blogs and so last month I asked if they would select a few of the Bay Area artists that they regularly post about to highlight on Vandalog. They sent over a bunch of photos of work by half a dozen artists, and with this post we are half-way through Endless Canvas’ selections. I hope this series bring some attention to the great work that Endless Canvas is doing documenting graffiti and street art in the Bay Area as well as to the amazing artwork itself. Here’s more from today’s artist, Ras Terms:

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Ras Terms and Old Crow
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Broke, Ras Terms and Elite

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Photos by Endless Canvas

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Endless Canvas selects… GATS

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Endless Canvas is one of my favorite art blogs. It is the best site that I know of documenting street art and graffiti in the Bay Area. Endless Canvas has been kind enough to select a few Bay Area artists to highlight on Vandalog this week and sending over some photos that we can use. Today’s artist is GATS, a writer and street artist that I’m a big fan of. I guess the most comparable artist I can think of on the street both in terms of content of the work and style would have to be Swampy. Here are a few of Endless Canvas’ photos of GATS’ work:

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GATS and IMP

Photos by Endless Canvas

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Visiting the Atlanta Prison Farm

Feral Child
Feral Child

Earlier this month, Caroline and I and some friends (guided by Rob Dunalewicz) visited the abandoned Atlanta Prison Farm, a prison that was in active use for a good chunk of the 20th century and it now mostly abandoned, save for the occasional police training exercise. Today, the prison is covered in street art and graffiti. For me, it was interesting to see old work by Never, from before he began to focus on his owl characters that you can see around Brooklyn today. What’s so cool for me about artists working in abandoned spaces is that there seems to be a freedom to a lot of the work that isn’t found in their work when they are working in public spaces or making work for sale. Here’s a sampling of what we saw:

Never
Never

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Nos
Nos

Continue reading “Visiting the Atlanta Prison Farm”

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Weekend link-o-rama

Elfo
Elfo

Okay, time for me to relax like Elfo’s character. I’ve got one week before senior year begins… But anyway… art:

Photo by Elfo

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Weekend link-o-rama

Unknown artist in Berlin
Unknown artist in Berlin

Caroline and I are headed to Chicago today. We’ll have a few days to explore, so any suggestions are appreciated. Here’s your links:

  • El Toro, Dave The Chimp, Invader, Flying Fortress, Mr. Penfold and others sent in stickers and other small artworks to This must be for you, who put all the work together into little folders and lift them as free gifts around London. Giving out free gifts unexpectedly to random people with no expectation of anything in return, sounds like fun to me (although of course very similar to Papergirl). Check out the video here.
  • I love this intervention by Plastic Jesus. He went into Best Buy stores in LA and left them with some special new products.
  • TrustoCorp put up a sign in Bushwick last week.
  • Luzinterruptus put up this fantastic sculptural intervention in Madrid in response to accusations of corruption and money laundering in the Spanish government.
  • Anyone know who did this? It’s so cute.

Photo by pareto8020

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Bast and Paul Insect, somewhere between animation and timelapse

Paul Insect and Bast made this video in NYC recently, showing a few pieces they painted collaboratively in New York. Like this recent piece by Paul and Sweet Toof, this piece isn’t quite a straight up timelapse of the pieces coming together and it isn’t quite a straight up stop motion animation like one of Blu’s videos. Instead, there’s a bit of timelapse and a bit of stop motion animation.

I like that each piece Paul Insect and Bast painted together for this project can be looked at on its own as a finished product, and the animation that we see is just a bonus. Animations like Blu’s Muto on the other hand create a lot of “waste” where there’s just a white blob of paint left after the animation progresses.

Here is Paul’s description of their film:

Bast and Pins spend a few days painting and pressing the button on an iphone in New Yorks abandoned buildings, trains lines and bridges to bring a short stop motion film.

Thanks to Home Depot & Lowes DIY Centre for there support. Paint used, Rustoleum & Home Depots $1 spray paint range. iphone 4 for the pictures.

Check it out:

BAST NY and Paul Insect in New York from PAUL INSECT on Vimeo.

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Exhibiting in an abandoned building in Israel

Tonight at Brooklyn Street Art‘s movie night at the Living Walls Conference in Atlanta, BSA’s Steve and Jaime showed a bunch of interesting films, but one really stood out for me. I think I saw the first few seconds of this video months ago and wasn’t drawn in, so I ignored it. But, watching the whole thing, I see I clearly made a mistake. Nearly a dozen artists took over this abandoned building in Jaffa, Israel earlier this year and covered it in art. Then, they invited their friends to come and see what they had done. The installation was called Feel in the Cracks. The project reminds me of FAME Festival’s abandoned monastery, where much of the best work of the festival is hidden away, only available for those willing to explore.

I’ve got to hand it to Wonky Monky, Untay, Slamer, Signor Gi, Ross Plazma, Nitzan Mintz, Natalie Mandel, Latzi, Kipi, Dioz and Dede for going out and taking over this building, but then being pretty public about it. Plenty of abandoned buildings get painted, but then to host a public party pointing out that fact seems pretty exciting and ballsy to me. It’s a very loud and very blatant call for people to take space and improve it, whether they have the legal right to do so or not because perhaps there is a morality about the use of space that overrules legality.

Anyway, the video is cool…

Feel in the Cracks from Daniel Wechsler on Vimeo.

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The diversity of You Go Girl

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Until I was looking through Carnage NYC‘s photos, it never really dawn on my just how much variety You Go Girl has in their work. You Go Girl is one of those rare artists somewhere between a street artist and a graffiti writer who really has no boundaries for how they get up. It could be stickers, rollers, posters, spraypaint… It could be a character, tag, a throw-up… You Go Girl doesn’t fit comfortably any boxes. That sets them apart from a lot of street artists and graffiti writers who seem to find one thing and stick to doing that well until they get recognition for it (and then they keep going but at least by that point they might be getting paid).

Here’s just a small sampling of the different styles of work that You Go Girl produces on the street:

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You Go Girl with The Reader aka Boans
You Go Girl with The Reader aka Boans
You Go Girl with The Reader
You Go Girl with The Reader

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Photos by Carnage NYC