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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Kickstart the Shepard Fairey biopic – OBEY THE GIANT

Remember that film about Shepard Fairey that was on Kickstarter last year for about a day before the project disappeared? It didn’t actually disappear. Actually, a crew went and filmed the damn thing. Now they are back on Kickstarter looking for some funding to finish post-production. The film, OBEY THE GIANT, is directed by Julian Marshall, a 21-year old student at Shepard’s alma mater RISD. OBEY THE GIANT tells the true story of Shepard’s first major billboard takeover. It was an assignment for a class at RISD where he had to illustrate the words from a fortune cookie. His fortune read “TO AFFECT THE QUALITY OF THE DAY IS NO SMALL ACHIEVEMENT.” So he took that and ran with it. I could say more, but the trailer is one of the best things I’ve seen all year and so I don’t want to spoil it anything.

Julian is looking for another $30,000 to finish OBEY THE GIANT. The entire thing has already been shot. It would be a shame if the project never left the editing room. Can you help? As usual with Kickstarter projects, there are some great prizes in it for you if  do. Click here to visit the Kickstarter project page to learn more about the film and pledge your support.

Here’s the trailer along with some words from Julian and the film’s producer:

Looks awesome. Doesn’t it? I cannot wait to see the finished product. Go here if you’d like to support these young filmmakers and help make OBEY THE GIANT a reality.

Photo courtesy of OBEY THE GIANT

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Very Nearly Almost 18

Screw Conor Harrington. Screw Ronzo. Screw Remi/Rough. Not because all of those people aren’t great. Not because I dislike their work. Not because their interviews in Very Nearly Almost issue 18 are uninteresting. I don’t know Ronzo personally, but Conor and Remi have been nothing but nice to me. All three of them have made cool art. Their interviews in VNA are worth reading. But screw them because all of Very Nearly Almost issue 18 pales in comparison to their spectacular interview with the legendary Mode2. I’ll certainly admit that I don’t like everything Mode2 has ever done, but he has been an innovator in Europe for decades and when he gets it right, he gets it very very right. He is also very clearly a smart man. VNA’s interview with Mode2 is detailed, insightful and worth every moment you’ll spend reading it.

If you still haven’t picked up a copy of VNA18, I highly encourage you to do so now. You won’t regret it. Plus, after you’re done reading the Mode2 interview, Ronzo, Conor, Remi and the rest of the artists in this issue honestly do have some interesting bits to say as well, and there are some rare pics of How&Nosm’s work in Brazil.

Very Nearly Almost is available online.

Photos courtesy of Very Nearly Almost

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Completed G40 murals in Richmond, Virginia – Part 2

Pixel Pancho. Photo by sammiches18

Our coverage of all the murals for Art Whino‘s G40 Art Summit continues with work by Pixel Pancho, La Pandilla, Angry Woebots, 2501, Roa, Jaz, Lelo and Scribe. Check out part 1 here, and expect the final installment in this series later in the week.

Angry Woebots. Photo by sammiches18

More after the jump… Continue reading “Completed G40 murals in Richmond, Virginia – Part 2”

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Counter-productive street art

Update: This post is factually inaccurate. As it turns out, Jeice2 did not wheatpaste this poster to the shutters. Instead, as I suggest in the article might be a kinder alternative, he actually taped it to the wall temporarily, took a photo and then removed the poster. If you look very closely at the edges of poster in the above photograph, you can see the tape. I am keeping this post up because the concern that street artists often do not respect graffiti is still generally valid, even if it is not valid in this example.

Sometimes I wonder why so many graffiti writers have such a negative view of street art. And then I see pieces like this by Jeice2 and remember at least one of their reasons: The lack of respect that young street artists often have for graffiti. This poster by Jeice2 is not bad. Clearly he’s spent some time on it. Okay, it’s not amazing or particularly unique, but it will probably look pretty cool in person while it is fresh.

There are two problems though:

  1. It’s a wheatpaste on a shutter. If that shutter opens regularly, the paper may rip and and look a lot worse very quickly while still taking up lots of space on the spot.
  2. Jeice2 seems to have gone over as many tags (and possibly throw-ups) as he possibly could.

What Jeice2 seems to have done is put up a piece over a bunch of other work without any consideration for those writers, and it’s a piece that will quickly look terrible. Since the primary audience for the pristine piece seems to be the internet, maybe Jeice2 should have just taped his poster to the shutter, taken a photo and then removed it, leaving the graffiti undamaged and visible.

It’s difficult to do a piece that large that isn’t going to cover at least one tag, but surely there was at least one more appropriate spot in all of Seville for this poster.

It’s mistakes like this one by Jeice2 that give street artists a bad name among graffiti writers.

I hope that next time Jeice2 will pick a more respectful spot for his work.

PS, Some people may wonder why I am pointing this out while I have (mostly) defending Banksy’s initial piece in the Banksy versus Robbo feud. The difference that I see between Jeice2 and Banksy versus Robbo is that Banksy actually brought way more attention to Robbo’s piece, Banksy’s piece interacted with the graffiti already on site and Robbo’s piece was tagged over a lot already. But I imagine a lot of people don’t see that same distinction. That’s fair enough and only furthers my point that graffiti writers see street artists as often being disrespectful to graffiti.

Photo by Jeice2

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Completed G40 murals in Richmond, Virginia – Part 1

Pixel Pancho. Photo by Bill Dickinson

Art Whino‘s G40 Art Summit resulted in almost two dozen new murals for Richmond, Virginia this month. Congrats to Art Whino. It looks like they have put together a really amazing festival and transformed at least a part of the city. Starting with this post and continuing for one or two more, I’ll be trying to show all of these new murals. First up, we have work by Pixel Pancho, Roa, Gaia, Aryz, Jaz, Lelo and Scribe.

Aryz. Photo by Marc Schmidt

See more after the jump… Continue reading “Completed G40 murals in Richmond, Virginia – Part 1”

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Sean Hart

Update 2 (June 2012): Sean Hart has gotten in touch again to insist that all of his work is painted physically rather than made using image-editing software. He sent us more photos of his work in progress. One of these photos looks very real. It appears to be a tightly cropped in-progress shot for a piece in the Shine series which we have not seen the finished version of.

Update: Sean Hart has told us that all of these pieces were physically painted as depicted. He has sent us photos of his “Love Fearless.” piece in progress. Caroline and I think those photos look more likely to be photoshopped than the finished piece. So, once again, I ask if it matters if he physically painted the work or not. Hart seems to think it does and would like anyone reading this post to believe that the pieces were painted as depicted.

Sean Hart is a French street artist who seems to specialize in tumblr-friendly work, and I mean that in the best possible way. Like Banksy, his work always seems ready to go viral. At the same time, Hart’s manifesto/bio seems to be trying to say that he is much more than just another potential viral flavor-of-the-month but rather a street artist who actually does more than watch Exit Through the Gift Shop and start putting up stencils (and he’s actually been working outdoors for years). Anyway, here’s a bit of what he has done after the jump… Continue reading “Sean Hart”

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Weekend link-o-rama

Specter for Open Walls Baltimore

This week’s link-o-rama is a few days delayed. Parents were in town earlier this week and even came to an event some friends of mine organized at Haverford College: A talk by Jayson Musson (the artist who created and plays the character Hennessy Youngman). I don’t think my mom was amused. Here’s what I’ve been reading this week:

Photos by Martha Cooper

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Above at Jewel City

Above sent over some info about his latest mural, a huge wall of text in Johannesburg at the diamond-trading hub Jewel City. Here’s how Above explains the piece:

Africa has had a devastating history of blood diamond wars. Blood diamond refers to a diamond mined in a war zone and then sold to finance an invading army’s war efforts, usually in Africa where more than two-thirds of the worlds diamonds are extracted. This site specific social / political word play was painted on the exterior wall of Johannesburg’s largest diamond trader Jewel City.  Jewel City is a six-block mega-precinct that serves as a base for some 300 diamond traders as well as South Africa’s Diamond Board and State Traders Association. Jewel City is the largest diamond exporter in the southern hemisphere with over R7-Billion worth of Diamonds being exported every year.

I was able to get away with this diamond wall heist because I told the owners I would paint in big letters “Diamonds are a woman’s best friend” on the exterior of their building.  The owners loved the idea and all quickly agreed. The next day I had started painting but what the owners didn’t know is that I lied to them and was hijacking their wall. Like any premeditated robbery, situations are not what they seem and shit can flip from best friends to worst enemies in a few moments.

I assume the owners were too busy trading diamonds inside the mega centre they never took the time to come out and see I was painting a controversial word play about the diamond trade and how it’s fueled so much bloodshed in wars making it one of man’s worst enemies.

See the rest of the piece, as well as some of my thoughts as to why it might be problematic, after the jump… Continue reading “Above at Jewel City”