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.
Posted on

Thank You to Our Sponsors

We would like to take a brief moment to thank this month’s sponsors. These are the organizations and companies that keep us publishing, so be sure to check them out!

Featured Advertisers

  • Brooklyn Museum– GO is a community-curated open studio project. Artists across Brooklyn opened their studio doors, so that the public could decide who will be featured in a group show at the Brooklyn Museum
  • NYU Steinhardt –  Offers graduate art programs in Studio Art, Art Education, Art Therapy, Visual Culture: Costume Studies, and Visual Arts Administration. Admission Deadlines: January 6, 15 & February 1, 2013
  • Creative Time – The Last Pictures, Trevor Paglen has developed a collection of one hundred images that will be etched onto a silicon disc to be sent into orbit onboard the Echostar XVI satellite in Fall 2012, as both a time capsule and a message to the future
  • Vera List Art Project – Culture Vulture, a new commissioned print by acclaimed artist Barbara Kruger, has been released to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Vera List Art Project
  • International Center of Photography –  The ICP-Bard Program in Advanced Photographic Studies offers a curriculum of professional and studio practice, critical study, and Resident Artist Projects. Application Deadline: January, 18, 2013
  • Association of Public Art – Open Air, an interactive art installation that allows participants’ voices to transform the night sky over Philadelphia’s historic Benjamin Franklin Parkway. September 20 and October 14, 2012
  • Norte Maar – To be a Lady: Forty-Five Women in the Arts,  is on view at the 1285 Avenue of the Americas Art Gallery featuring the work of forty-five female artists born over the last century. September 24, 2012 – January 18, 2013
  • Guggenheim – Stillspotting nyc: bronx, the fifth and final edition in the stillspotting nyc series, Improv Everywhere presents Audiogram, an interactive audio experience and theatrical group hearing test designed for the South Bronx. October 13-14, 2012

Network Sponsors

  • Art Systems – Professional art gallery, antiques and collections management software
  • Scott Chasse Art Panels – Quality artist’s painting panels, made-to-order in Brooklyn, NY
  • TNC Gallery – App* Art: Painted Paper,  Continues Peter J. Ketchum’s interest in the past as it is encapsulated in printed matter. September 11- October 25, 2012 
  • Safety: An Art Exhibition – Group exhibition curated by Cassandra Young about actively seeking contentment and in ascending towards needing nothing. On view at Leloveve Gallery, September 2012
  • TheBowerbirds – brings together a collection of art from various Asian artists and makes them available to everyone as art prints
  • Brooklyn Comics Festival – an annual curated event consisting of four parts: artists and publishers displaying and selling publications; gallery exhibitions; films and performances; and lectures and conversations on comics. Free to the public, Saturday, November 10
  • Waterfront Toronto – Seeking proposal submissions from artists for three public art opportunities on Front Street East in the West Don Lands. Submission Deadline: October 22, 2012

If you are interested in advertising on Vandalog, please get in touch with Nectar Ads, the Art Ad Network.

Photo by nuttallp

Posted on

Stephen Powers: A Word is Worth a Thousand Pictures

A Word is Worth a Thousand Pictures is Stephen Powers aka ESPO’s latest solo show. It opened earlier this month at Joshua Liner Gallery in New York City. Caroline and I had a chance to stop when we were in town for the screening of his film A Love Letter for You (which is available on iTunes as of this week). At the screening, we had a chance to speak with Powers, and it was a pretty enlightening experience. I’d met him once or twice before, but only briefly. Simply having a conversation with Powers gave me a much better appreciation for his work. What you see on the wall is pretty much what you get when you talk to him. Maybe the puns aren’t hitting you at every five seconds like one of his paintings, but there’s a banter that he engages you in that carries over perfectly into his artwork.

A Word is Worth a Thousand Pictures is a good mix of Powers’ greatest hits from the last few years combined with some distinctly new directions. There is quite literally a “greatest hits” walls featuring some of most classic icons and phrases (plus one new design that just began appearing in this show), so no Powers fan can really go away from this show entirely disappointed. As for the new directions, I think his painting that just has a single period against a black background is something new and perfectly Powers, and then there are the ADORE pieces…

If there’s one thing I flat-out did not like at this show, it was the ADORE series. For each of these pieces, Powers got the word “ADORE” painted a bunch of times on metal, like usual, but the signs were put in a square-shaped pile and assembled them into one piece. The idea of layering the signs could yield some interesting results and it’s kinda funny to see a giant painting that orders you to adore it over and over again, but the work comes across as the sort of blah pop art that a gallery with no repeat clients would hang next to Warhol-like portraits of Tim Tebow. Like with Faile’s last show at Lazarides, it’s great to see Powers trying out something new, so there’s no need to pretend that he has succeeded in his first attempts at this new idea.

As for the rest of the show, it made me smile, so I’m happy. The jokes and visual puns are where Powers shines. He is unquestionably clever when it comes to words and simple graphics. His “metalations” are like the silly doodles that most people do in school, but developed to a level that the limits of class time and the margins of a notebook never quite allow for and (sometimes) much more serious than the typical random doodle.

I’ve never totally loved the way that Powers makes the artist’s hand so evident in his paintings, but that’s a minor detail to worry about when you’re laughing, and it’s clearly an intentional choice on Powers’ part rather than a lack of skill. I’m sure he could paint in a KAWS-like superflat style if he wanted.

A Word is Worth a Thousand Pictures is open at Joshua Liner Gallery through this Saturday, and it’s a great place to go if you want to laugh a bit at the fact that life isn’t easy.

Photos courtesy of Joshua Liner Gallery

Posted on

A social media update from Vandalog

Over the last few months, we’ve been working hard at Vandalog to produce content both for the blog and for the other sites that we post on around the web, and so it seems worth mentioning just what those other sites art. So, where else besides Vandalog.com can you find Vandalog content?

All of those pages have some amount of overlap between one another and the blog as well, but there’s also original content on each platform that you’ll only come across there.

Photo by k6martini

Posted on

Poppington gallery? Seriously, should be good

Jim Joe and Beau

Despite the ridiculous name of Poppington for the new gallery at 60 Orchard Street in NYC (it has something to do with Nicki Minaj), their first show looks like it will be, well, I guess poppington. Grr, I kind of hate myself for writing that. Quality of LIFE includes some of NYC’s best writers, those with one foot solidly in the art world and the other solidly in traditional graffiti: PHIL has one of the finest handstyles in the city; Pixote and Sabio have a handful of rivals for best rollers going up right now, but they are certainly up there; Jim Joe’s styleless style and strange quips make him one of the most loved and hated characters in New York City; and KATSU is perhaps the best active writer in America, with a chance to become the next Barry McGee if he decides to go that route.

So Quality of LIFE is a show of writers going indoors, which is always risky even if it’s not their first time working indoors. Sometimes the work carries over beautifully, usually it falls flat. Sometimes writers go indoors and try something completely different, which also usually fails but sometimes works amazingly well. I wasn’t a fan of what I saw (only through the web) of Jim Joe’s recent solo show at The Hole, but I’m excited to see what he’ll do this time around.

Quality of LIFE opens on September 27th at 7pm and will almost definitely be worth checking out.

Photo by las – initially

Posted on

Saber takes to the skys againt to #DefendTheArts

Photo by Nineteen92

On Sunday, Saber executed his latest skywriting campaign in New York City. About a year ago, Saber did something similar in Los Angeles to defend murals/protest LA’s ridiculous mural regulations. This time, Saber is defending the arts in general against Mitt Romney, who has said that a Romney administration would stop funding the National Endowment for the Arts, National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service. The bold action was caught by photographers around the city and organized on twitter and instagram under the hashtag #defendthearts. Nearly 200 photos of the skywriting have been uploaded to instagram under the #defendthearts hashtag, and probably more without the hashtag.

Photo by changsterdam

In full, Saber’s message read: “Artists designers musicians writers actors poets patrons #DefendTheArts #RomneyHatesArt #gopfail Protect NEA PBS NPR No Cuts #ArtIsInspiration #ArtCreatesJobs #WhatInspiresYou #OccupyWallStreet #art #graffiti #streetart Haring Kase2 Sace IZ StayHigh149 AWR MSK EKLIPS REVOK RETNA MSK Twitter at Saber #DefendTheArts (flag)”

Photo by Adam Greenfield
Photo by changsterdam
Photo by changsterdam
Photo by changsterdam

Photos by Nineteen92, changsterdam and Adam Greenfield

Posted on

Isaac Cordal goes kinda John Ahearn-y

Seeing this piece by Isaac Cordal for the MUU Street Art Festival in Zagreb, Croatia, I couldn’t help but think of John Ahearn’s sculptures where life-sized people sort of jump off the wall. Not that that’s a bad thing. Hell, it’s great. Isaac’s work is cool, and John’s work is too. I just want to make sure that John gets some credit as a possible inspiration for this particular piece of Isaac’s.

More from Isaac’s work in Zagreb after the jump… Continue reading “Isaac Cordal goes kinda John Ahearn-y”

Posted on

Weekend link-o-rama

Stinkfish

I’m headed to Nuart next week, so expect updates to be sporadic any maybe Nuart-focused. Should be a great festival. Here’s what I missed this week:

Photo by Stinkfish

Posted on

Yote celebrates National Welcoming Week

Yote is celebrating National Welcoming Week (which is this week) by putting up signs these that have the word “Bienvenidos” (Spanish for “Welcome”) superimposed over the Arizona state flag. According to the event’s website, National Welcoming Week is an effort to “promote meaningful connections and a spirit of unity between U.S. and foreign-born Americans.” This week is also the week that the last parts of SB1070, Arizona’s controversial immigration law, go into effect.

Photos by Yote

Posted on

The saga of Hyuro in Atlanta

On September 16th, Hyuro‘s mural in Atlanta was buffed by members of the Living Walls team. As I wrote last month, the mural that Hyuro painted for this year’s Living Walls Conference was the highlight of the festival, but it was considered controversial by some of the local residents. Of course, street art and murals cannot last forever, nor should they, but it’s difficult to not be at least a little sad about the swift rejection of this mural by the community. Creative Loafing Atlanta has a great slideshow going over the story of the mural from start to finish.

Both Hyuro and and (Living Walls co-founder and executive director) made statements about the mural and it’s removal.

Hyuro:

Each person can take it the way they want to, because it is for everyone …and at the end, if it gets painted over, know that the gray paint will not hide the fears of no one, but if anything It will make those fears more visible.

Monica Campana:

Paint on this wall made for a beautiful mural, people talking about it made for a beautiful conversation. A public space was created and all of a sudden this dead intersection became more human. The mural belonged to all of us, to the ones that liked it and to the ones that didn’t, it was our dialogue, it was our challenge, but now it’s gone. Now we are back to ignoring that space again, now we are back at thinking that erasing the evidence will make us think this never happened. It hurt so much to paint over the wall, to destroy something someone else put so much heart and passion into. It was a painful process, but what hurt the most was that for the first time I felt like I had to censor myself. It was a weird feeling, a confusing and ugly feeling that I never want to experience again.

Photo by Dustin Chambers via Creative Loafing Atlanta

Posted on

Beau Stanton paints the Berlin Wall

Beau Stanton was recently in Germany where he painted a section of the Berlin Wall. Of course, Beau is Ron English’s assistant and has been mentored by Ron for a couple of years now, and Ron painted the wall back before it came down and when painting it meant risking arrest. Still, Beau’s work for this project was pretty spectacular. Somebody give this man some wallspace to paint murals in NYC!

Photos by Beau Stanton