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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HOTTEA helps revitalize a tennis court (with hot pink yarn)

Lost & Found is HOTTEA‘s latest project. It took place in Minneapolis, where HOTTEA had found a disused tennis court without a net. With a bit (okay, a lot) of yarn, HOTTEA was able to at least temporarily make the court usable again for tennis. Here’s a timelapse video of the piece being made:

But the story doesn’t end there. HOTTEA’s work actually seems to have made a bit of an impact on at least two local residents. Here’s the story in HOTTEA’s words:

After the net was complete I rounded up some of the local youth to come try it out, tennis racquet’s and all. They loved it! Mission complete. 🙂 I ended up giving the tennis racquets to one of the locals that had a sincere interest to play tennis. I came back a few days later to check up on the net and I happened to run into him again. His name is Abnan. He told me this wonderful story about what had happened to him earlier that day….

He and a friend were playing tennis with the newly installed net and a gentelman stopped by and told Abnan if he and his friend came back later that day at 4:00 he would give them both new racquet’s to play with. Sure enough Abnan and his friend showed up and the man kept his word and gave them both brand new racquet’s and a few tennis balls. I couldn’t have been more excited after he had told me the story.

After hearing Mike Lydon speak about tactical urbanism at Living Walls last week, it’s great to see a street artist trying it out a bit and succeeding so fantastically with such a simple intervention. Street art that improves public space is pretty much the best kind of street art.

Photo courtesy of HOTTEA

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Gaia and Roa in Chicago thanks to Pawn Works

Quetzalcoatl and the Stork by Gaia. Photo by Brock Brake. Click to view large.

Continuing the work that Pawn Works, 25th Ward Alderman Danny Solis (who is paying for these murals), The National Museum of Mexican Art, and the Chicago Urban Art Society have been bringing to Chicago, Gaia and Roa both recently painted in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago.

Gaia painted a piece called Quetzalcoatl and the Stork, about the neighborhood transitioning from mostly having Polish immigrants to now being home to many Mexican immigrants.

Quetzalcoatl and the Stork by Gaia. Photo by Gaia.

Roa‘s piece is a nice illusion of sorts and utilizes the space absolutely perfectly. Some of the best placement of a mural or piece of street art I’ve seen all year. Remember folks, learn from Roa and always practice good placement.

Roa. Photo by Brock Brake. Click to view large.
Roa. Photo by Brock Brake. Click to view large.

While in town, Gaia also painted another piece independently of the Pilsen project called Afro Cuban Siblings.

Afro Cuban Siblings by Gaia. Photo by Brock Brake.

Photos by Gaia and Brock Brake

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Vandalog Movie Night as a blog post

Earlier this week, I hosted a movie night at The Wren’s Nest in Atlanta for the Living Walls Conference. Living Walls asked me to put together a list of some short films to show, and I ended up with 27. A few people have asked me to post those films online to share with friends or just to see a film that they missed while they were getting some food, so after the jump you’ll find embedded versions of all 27 films that were screened at the movie night (many of which have appeared on Vandalog before). Enjoy! Continue reading “Vandalog Movie Night as a blog post”

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A mural that reduces air pollution

This new mural by Andreco is more than just a nice painting of a tree in Bologna, it actually helps the environment by reducing air pollution. Andreco used a special kind of photochemical paint that reduces the amount of nitrogen monoxide in the air. Andreco’s mural is part of the Frontier project, curated by Claudio
Musso e Fabiola Naldi and coordinated by the City of Bologna.

Click to view large

Photos by Andreco

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OBEY is the drug

That thing above this text? Yeah, that’s Love is The Drug, the latest print by Shepard Fairey. When people complain about Fairey’s work not being up to the standard that it once was, this might be the sort of product that they’re thinking about.

I don’t think it’s entirely fair to criticize Fairey for putting out mediocre prints from time to time. After all, he puts out a lot of work. Not all of it is going to be great. But this one just seems particularly disappointing. Love is The Drug is red and black and gold, and nobody would care about it if Shepard Fairey’s signature wasn’t in the lower right corner and an OBEY star logo wasn’t in the top left.

Despite the weak image, my bet is that the print will still sell out in less than an hour once it is released for sale sometime on Tuesday.

Photo courtesy of OBEY Giant

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Texts from Know Hope

Know Hope has gone in bit of a different direction lately with his street work. As we saw during the Brandalism project, the text/poetry that has long been in Know Hope’s work has come to the fore and the characters have (at least for now) disappeared. Of course, he’s not the first to write short quips or poems on the street, but they are nice. What do you think of this sort of new direction for Know Hope?

Okay this piece has a flag in it too, which is like some pieces Know Hope has done in the past, but I like it so I’m including it in this post anyway.

Photos by Know Hope

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Living Walls is underway

This year’s Living Walls Conference has begun and the team are posting daily updates to Vimeo. Here are the first three days. I’ll be arriving in Atlanta for the conference in less than 24 hours. Please join me on Wednesday night for an evening of short films and Friday evening for a panel about gender and identity in street art. And also, I’m sure the rest of the conference events will be interesting too. Here’s the full line up of Living Walls activities.

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Weekend link-o-rama

Cept

Caroline and I are out in Colorado this week with my family, so art is coming second, but luckily it looks like it’s been a slow week. Here’s what I almost missed…

Photo by Nolionsinengland

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Going to the gallery

There are a bunch of shows open now or opening in the next month that I’d like to mention, but there are only so many hours in the day. So here’s a bit of a round-up:

  • DĂ©tournement: Signs of the Times is a group show that just opened at Jonathan Levine Gallery in NYC. It was curated by the legendary Carlo McCormick and features artists who “subvert consensus visual language so as to turn the expressions of capitalist culture against themselves.” Some of those artists in DĂ©tournement are Aiko, David Wojnarowicz, Ripo, Posterboy, Ron English, Shepard Fairey + Jamie Reid, Steve Powers, TrustoCorp and Zevs.
  • Chris Stain and Joe Iurato are showing together for a two-man show at NYC’s Mighty Tanaka. The show opens on Friday. These are two great and underrated stencil artists. I highly recommend checking out this show, particularly given the superb quality of Stain’s recent indoor work.
  • Sweet Toof has a solo show opening this week at High Roller Society a pop-up space in Hackney Wick, London.
  • Contemporary Wing’s (Washington, DC) latest group show, opening on the 16th, is an exhibit of secondary market work, but there should some nice stuff, including work by Shepard Fairey, WK Interact, Gaia, Faile and Blek le Rat. I must admit that I’ve included a piece in this show, but I’m not going to say which one (so if you want to help me out, just buy the entire show…).
  • Finally, Dabs and Myla have curated a show at LA’s Thinkspace Gallery which will open September 1st. In addition to their own paintings and installations, the show features 32 of their friends, plus a solo show in Thinkspace’s project room by Surge MDR. Those shows open September 1st.

Photo by Susan NYC