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.
Here’s some stuff I missed this week while sitting under a giant stack of books and papers to read, mostly stuff I was supposed to read for school but avoided because I was at Nuart last weekend.
“Daily Spontaneous Excursions” by NoseGo at the Woodward Gallery Project Space. Click to view large.NoseGo at work in San FransiscoNoseGo at work in San FransiscoPhiladelphia
IMPORTANT UPDATE: THE OPENING OF “YOUNG PUNS 2” HAS BEEN POSTPONED DUE TO THE HURRICANE AND WILL NOW TAKE PLACE ON NOVEMBER 8TH AT 6PM.
Hanksy‘s next solo show opens November 1st at Krause Gallery on New York’s Lower East Side. Young Puns 2: Now With More Pun is Hanksy’s second show with Krause Gallery. When I first saw Hanksy’s work, I was not (too) amused. But as he’s expanded beyond the Tom Hanks-themed work, I’ve definitely become a fan. He’s a friendly and funny introduction into street art. I’ll definitely be checking the opening of Young Puns 2, and we’ll have more news about a project that Vandalog and Hanksy are involved in together very soon.
Young Puns 2 opens November 1st from 6-9pm and run through November 28th.
TrustoCorp have a solo show opening at Lazarides’ Newcastle location this week, but before heading to the UK, they took over some bench-ads in Los Angeles. The International Bank of TrustoCorp opens on Thursday from 6-9pm and runs through November 10th. I’ve only ever seen TrustoCorp’s shows through photos or caught their work in group shows, but by all accounts their solo gallery events, particularly the opens, are can’t-miss, particularly thanks to their interactive installation works.
Check out more of TrustoCorp’s recent LA work after the jump…
Swampy, Oakland’s legend in the making, has just put two two new beautiful works through Paper Monster: a hand-finished print and an original drawing.
The print, Owl of Yawn, is a two-color print on hand-dyed paper with hand finishing in ink and graphite. It is Swampy’s first print (not including his photo prints of course). Not sure what this really does to the prints, but Paper Monster says that “before releasing this edition of prints, he kept them locked in the closet of an abandoned house owned by an infamous cult in Oakland.” Owl of Yawn is an edition of 40, measures 20 x 26 inches and is available for $350.
The drawing, I Like Disappearing, features Swampy’s trademark character and the phrase, “I like disappearing,” which has been popping up in his work recently. It measures 20 x 25 inches and is available for $700.
Azo is a Ukrainian artist currently based in Kiev, but he recently did a bit of painting and traveling around Europe. Azo’s work freaks me the hell out, but that doesn’t mean it’s not interesting. Actually, the creepiness is exactly why I love it. His characters are something between Phlegm, Know Hope and Parra, but darker (okay, Parra can already be pretty dark, but darker than Phlegm and Know Hope).
Bergamo, ItalyPorto, Portugal. Click to view large.Pozharki, UkraineCollaboration between Seth, Dem189 and Azo in Paris
For most of last week, I was in Stavanger, Norway for the 2012 Nuart Festival. Naturally, even though I was there in part as press, I spent very little time on my computer and didn’t do any blogging. So, expect a full post or two about Nuart later this week, but for now here’s what I missed writing about while I was away:
Steve Powers’ and Joey Garfield’s film A Love Letter for You is now available on iTunes. It’s an interesting film well worth checking out if you like Powers.
Last month, I was at the Living Walls Conference in Atlanta, but it’s only now that I’ve really had a chance to sit down and write about it. I thought that I was going to write this really long post, but the environment at Living Walls is difficult to capture in words, so this post isn’t nearly as long as I would have hoped.
Living Walls is, as far as I can tell, the best mural conference/festival/program going on right now in North America. Living Walls doesn’t tend to just invite all the artists who are painting at other mural events around the world. They invite good artists. Sometimes those artists are guys like Roa who are everywhere, and sometimes it’s women like Miso who have only ever painted one or two murals. As a result, Living Walls sets trends among mural festivals.
Lex and Sten
For their main conference this year, Living Walls really bucked popular trends and tried to put street art on a new track by having a festival made up almost entirely of female muralists. While guys like Gaia, LNY and I were still invited to speak at the lecture and panel portion of the conference, the murals by Lex&Sten and Indigo&Andrzej Urbanski were the only two where male artists were contributing.
Martina Merlini
While the murals weren’t as amazing on the whole as they were last year and the crowd of artists wasn’t nearly as rowdy (although that might have been a plus), this year’s Living Walls did bring some great work to Atlanta and really showed that there are some underrated female street artists and muralists out there who could be on the mural circuit as much as guys like Jaz or Roa. My hope and expecting is that the top-tier of artists from the conference will get more attention brought to their work thanks to Living Walls and some will start getting invited to a lot more mural festivals. As I’ve said in the past, I do not generally get excited to give artists preferential treatment based on them belonging to some underrepresented group, but I can see why an all-female Living Walls may have been the right move for this year even if the quality of the work did drop slightly.
Jessie and Katey
This Living Walls conference had more artists than ever before who were either more on the community mural side of the spectrum or had never painted a mural before. The results of that move were mixed, but there were some artists like Jessie&Katey and Mon Iker who took the opportunity and absolutely crushed it.
One thing I have to add isn’t so much about the art though. Whether Living Walls were inviting only artists that none of us have ever heard of before or stealing their line-up from Nuart, it would still be at least one of the best mural conferences in the world. That’s because Living Walls’ secret is in their amazing staff. Living Walls has best team of volunteers of any mural festival I’ve ever seen or could imagine. They are unbelievably dedicated to the festival and to getting more world-class street art and murals in Atlanta. Every day, the media team led by Alex Parrish was up until something like 4am putting together a video of what had gone on that day, and then they’d be back up at 7am to start filming all over again. Just last week, I was emailing with Keif Schleifer, their Logistics Director, who was spending her free time advising me on cherry-pickers. The day of the Vandalog Movie Night, volunteers showed up out of the blue to help us set up and run the show. Laura Calle and pretty much everyone else on staff who spent their own money to pay for the gas to drive myself and the artists around Atlanta. The drag queen who was a volunteer last year and this year helped arrange a drag show for the Living Walls Block Party. The artist assistants who stand in the hot sun alongside their artists all day long, offering any help they can. And of course, Monica Campana, the Executive Director of Living Walls, who is the amazing glue holding everything together without ever sleeping or slowing down. Everyone on staff or volunteering at Living Walls works at least as hard as the artists, and they were certainly working harder than me. After visiting two years in a row for just a few days each time, it honestly feels like I have family in Atlanta.
