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.
Stikman, a fan favorite street artist along the East Coast, has a solo show opening on Friday at Philadelphia’s Stupid Easy Gallery. Stikman 20.1 Celebrating 20 Years Hanging Around Philly is the Philly version of his 20th anniversary show that was on at Pandemic Gallery back in the springtime. If Amtrak doesn’t get running again by Friday for me to get up to NYC for the shows that Ron English, Hanksy and Gilf! have on Thursday and The Art of Comedy art crawl/mural unveiling on Saturday, I’ll be spending my Friday at Stupid Easy checking out Stikman’s show. This will definitely be the opening to be at in Philly this week.
Stupid Easy Gallery is at 307 Market Street, between 3rd and 4th streets, and the opening runs from 6-9pm on November 2nd.
The artist and graffiti writer by the names of The Reader, Read More Books, Books, Boans and others (who has a big new piece up in NYC) has a show on earlier this month at Ditch Projects in Springfield Oregon. The closing party for the show is Halloween night, where there will be a concert at the gallery by White Manna, Midday Veil and Testface. Entrance will cost $5.
Read up in a down economy does not look like the show of an artist struggling with the transition from street to gallery, something that most street artists and graffiti writers who eventually work indoors under that outdoor identity seem to experience as a challenge. While this isn’t The Reader’s first time indoors, he’s definitely more well-known for his graffiti. It’s so great to see an artist whose outdoor work I love so much transition indoors so smoothly.
UPDATE: THIS OPENING OF GILF!’S SHOW HAS BEEN DELAYED DUE TO THE HURRICANE. IT WILL NOW BE ON NOVEMBER 8TH FROM 5-9PM (SAME LOCATION OF COURSE).
This ThursdayNEXT THURSDAY from 5-9pm, Gilf! there will be a public opening for Gilf!’s solo show at Galerie Swanström (136 Sullivan Street, 3rd Floor, New York City). I was really impressed with Gifl!’s booth at Fountain New York earlier this year, and so I’m excited to see what she’s done for this show. Check back later this week or early next for photos from the show and from The Art of Comedy, which Gilf! is a part of along with Hanksy and Ron English.
Ron English‘s latest solo show opens this Thursday evening at Opera Gallery‘s NYC location in SoHo. The main theme of Crucial Fiction is an attempt by Ron to paint the sort of images that his 8-year-old self would dream up but couldn’t express with such technical excellence. From what I’ve seen, the results center on maddening scenes of Ron’s custom-toy dreamworlds, like the one above. And by “custom-toy,” I don’t just mean the stuff that he turns into vinyl gold with brands like Kidrobot but also the one-off creations and strange combinations he comes up with that look something like very advanced versions of Sid’s mutant toysToy Story.
Weather permitting, I’ll be coming up from Philadelphia for this show (as well as Hanksy and Gilf!’s openings the same night), so New Yorkers really have no excuse not to be there.
Early Saturday morning, Rhiannon Platt joined Hanksy as he worked on two of his walls for The New York Comedy Festival‘s The Art of Comedy, which was curated by myself and Wayne Rada and also supported by Montana Cans and Little Italy. The walls feature Jim Gaffigan and Aziz Ansari, who are both performing at the New York Comedy Festival.
UPDATE: THE ART CRAWL / MURAL TOUR WILL TAKE PLACE ON NOVEMBER 10TH AT NOON RATHER THAN NOVEMBER 3RD.
The New York Comedy Festival, in association with Vandalog, Little Italy and Montana Cans, are bringing street art into this year’s New York Comedy Festival with The Art of Comedy. The Art of Comedy is a series of indoor and outdoor installations around Manhattan by some of New York’s funniest street artists: Ron English, Hanksy, and Gilf!. The installations include murals in Little Italy on Mulberry Street between Canal and Broome, and work inside of the historic comedy club Carolines on Broadway. I’m very excited to be a co-curator on this project alongside Wayne Rada. Caroline Hirsch, of Carolines on Broadway and creator of the New York Comedy Festival, says,”We’re always looking for new and creative ways in which humor is represented in art. These talented artists add a really unique element to this year’s festival, literally taking comedy to the streets.”
The installations inside of Carolines on Broadway by all three artists will be up from November 7th-11th, so if you’re going to check out The Wayans Brothers or maybe one of theother New York Comedy Festival shows at Carolines, be sure to have a look around the Carolines Lounge before you get seated for the show.
Over on Mulberry, the artists will be painting a mix of temporary and permanent murals. Ron’s mural is of particular note since it will be the first mural he has painted in Manhattan (excluding billboard takeovers) since 1987, and this one is going to be big enough that it may just be worth the wait. I’m also looking forward to seeing the election-themed work that Gifl! will put up and work by Hanksy starring some of the performers in this year’s New York Comedy Festival.
I hope you’ll join us on Saturday, November 3rdNovember 10th at noon on a short tour of the completed murals. We’ll be meeting at Caffe Roma (385 Broome Street).
The Art of Comedy and The New York Comedy Festival also line up nicely with solo shows from all three artists opening on November 1stNovember 10th. Ron’s show, Crucial Fiction, opens from 6-9pm at Opera Gallery NYC (115 Spring St) and runs through November 29th. Gilf! will be showing at Galerie Swanström (136 Sullivan Street, 3rd Floor) opening from 5-9pm. Hanksy’s show, Young Puns 2 – Now With More Pun, opens at Krause Gallery (149 Orchard Street) from 6-9pm and runs through November 28th.
As for the main events at the New York Comedy Festival, this year has some amazing headliners performing all over the city including Aziz Ansari, Bill Maher, Robin Williams and more. Personally, Caroline and I are going to try to catch Jim Gaffigan. The full schedule can be found here.
Sorry for the short notice, on this, but Kid Acne has a solo show opening tonight at Inoperable Gallery in Vienna, Austria. Damn Straight features his Stabby Women characters that we’ve come to know and love, and runs through November 24th.
Next month Amsterdam’s Unruly Gallery has a solo show with Egs from Finland. I’m really enjoying what I’ve seen of the work. Reminds me a lot of Futura, SheOne, or Shoe. Definitely the sort of thing that fans of Graffuturism will be interested in. Plus, Unruly is Niels “Shoe” Meulman‘s space, so you know there’s someone with a good eye curating it. Egs’ show opens November 2nd from 5-8pm.
