Category: Art News

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Art in the Streets link-o-rama

The entrance at Art in the Streets

Why haven’t hotels figured out that they should have strong free wifi in all rooms? And, if they make you pay for wifi, the signal and speed had better be amazing? Starbucks has it figured out, and I don’t have to pay a boatload of money to hang out in a Starbucks for a couple of hours (unless I’m drinking their coffee while I’m there). And yet, hotels haven’t seemed to get the message. So that problem, and the general busyness of the last few days in LA, is why I am woefully late covering the opening of Art in the Streets at MOCA in LA, probably the biggest indoor event this year relating to street art or graffiti. And I’m still going to be woefully late with coverage today. Expect a full review in a couple of days, but in the mean time, here’s some of the best reviews and coverage from around the web:

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Banksy’s Crayon Forclosure for sale

A couple of days ago, I got an email from someone selling Banksy‘s Crayon Foreclosure piece (photo above), painted earlier this year in LA. The seller describes the piece as and 12 x 8 feet and “mixed media on concrete.” Of course, the piece would never come with official Pest Control certification (standard for legitimate Banksy artwork), as Pest Control does not authenticate Banksy’s street pieces, but the piece does appear on Banksy’s website. No word yet on the price that is being asked.

Photo courtesy of Banksy’s website

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Candyfactory Get’s A Little Surface Treatment

For those not familiar with this infamous building, the Candyfactory is essentially the last vestige of a proper spot in Soho for putting up work. What has now all but migrated across the river to Williamsburg, used to revolve around this wonderful little building. Why it has transformed into such an iconic place for putting up work and the story behind it is a mystery to me, but the city is apparently not fond of its perennially changing surface. The above photo from Amolho4 is New York’s most recent endeavor to put the last nail in the coffin. Wonder how long it will take to proliferate into its former beauty.

buff team in 2010 by Amolho4

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Legal mural by Revok, Os G, Retna and others partially buffed in LA

This is the start of a story about what happens when the buff men starts acting like graffiti writers and painting anywhere they wish…

LA TACO and Revok have the full story on their blogs (at least, what is known and has happened so far), but here’s the short version of this sad and seriously screwed up story: This legal mural in LA, painted last summer by Retna, Rime, Revok, Norm, Os Gêmeos and Saber, was partially buffed by a private graffiti removal company without the property owner’s permission or knowledge and entering the property required that the graffiti removal company break a fence on the property. This sucks and just shows, if this was done legally, how screwed up the legal system is when it comes to murals. I know there are some cities (such as, I think, NYC) where the city can buff pretty much whatever they want regardless of what the property owner would like to do. Of course, I’m not sure what’s more ironic: that the graffiti removal company basically graffiti-ed this mural themselves by buffing it without permission, or that people throughout the blogosphere (including me) are complaining about it. After all, the mural was painted by a bunch of writers… But I’m pretty sure that what the buff squad did is more ironic and screwed up. Luckily, the property owner was alerted to the damage and was able to stop the buff squad before the entire mural was lost.

Expect more on this in the next few days.

Photo by LA TACO

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Shepard Fairey Joins Forces with NYC Teens

When Shepard Fairey was in New York City last spring for his solo exhibit at Deitch Projects, he collaborated with Manhattan teens on a huge mural. Panels from this mural are currently on exhibit at Chelsea’s Icosahedron Gallery at 606 W. 26th Street. An April 28th auction is planned with all proceeds going to the non-profit youth organization, CityKids Foundation. I stopped by earlier this week and liked what I saw, as the works exude an arresting raw energy and spirit.

Photos by Lois Stavsky

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The Phantom Street Artist t-shirt giveaway

Last year we mentioned a print available by The Phantom Street Artist, an artist probably best known for his art on the cover of Rage Against The Machine’s album The Battle of Los Angeles. Now, a variation on that image has been put on a t-shirt through Morelworks. I’m a big fan of artists doing t-shirts (wearing my Barry McGee shirt right now), so this news was really exciting to me. The Phantom’s Art Saves Lives t-shirt is available online for $25, but Morelworks also have one shirt to give away to a lucky Vandalog reader.

HOW TO ENTER THE GIVEAWAY: Just comment on this post (make sure to include your email address so you can be reached if you win), tweet a link to this post on Twitter or share a link to this post on Facebook. Do one of those things before midnight on Friday (eastern daylight time aka the time in NYC), and you will be entered in the random draw to win an Art Saves Lives shirt (in the size of your choice).

And of course, even if you don’t win, you can buy the shirt online.

Photos courtesy of Morelworks

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Weekend link-o-rama

Galo, 2051 and Ottograph

So much going on behind the scenes this week for a couple of upcoming events. Can’t wait to say more. Hopefully next week I’ll be able to write about one of them. Here’s what I didn’t have a chance to post about this week:

Photo by Galo

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It’s finally (almost) over: OBEY and Shepard Fairey versus the AP

While the lawsuit between Shepard Fairey and the AP was settled in January, there was still a suit between Obey Clothing and the AP. That suit was finally settled, according to PDN Pulse. Both suits surrounded Fairey’s Hope portrait of Obama from a few years ago.

The terms of the settlement with Obey Clothing (as well as some of the retailers who sold clothing with Hope on it) include three important points:

1. Neither side is backing down and admitting that they were wrong. They both get to stick to their beliefs (the AP that the use of a photo they owned as the basis for Hope being infringement and Obey Clothing that it was fair use).

2. Obey Clothing “will not use another AP photo without obtaining a license from the AP.”

3. (and here’s why I say this series of unfortunate events is almost over) Obey Clothing “will collaborate to create and sell apparel using Shepard Fairey’s graphics based on photographs owned by the AP.”

You may remember these terms as sounding pretty familiar as they are pretty much identical to the terms of the settlement with Shepard Fairey, except dealing with clothing.

And yes, condition #3 does mean that there will probably a series of half-assed-and-photoshopped-in-5-minutes-to-OBEY-specification prints and t-shirts based on some famous photographs that the AP owns the rights to. Does the AP seriously think this is going to make them look good? I know people (including myself) have criticized some pretty low quality prints from Fairey from time to time, but damn, besides just the very real possibility of Shepard making some poor designs in a large enough series, I wouldn’t blame the guy if these upcoming designs based on AP-licensed images were intentionally half-assed just to spite the AP.

Or maybe I’m just writing spitefully because I wish Shepard had seen his day in court to patriotically defend the right of fair use… After all, I did buy a print from him last year.

Photo courtesy of Obeygiant.com

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Before Banksy, that “Elephant” tank was a man’s home

It seems that there is more to say about Banksy‘s recent piece, This Looks A Bit Like An Elephant, which was removed and is now for sale. Until as recently as September of 2010, a man had been living inside the water tank that Banksy painted. Tachowa Covington aka Rollerball has lived inside the tank for about seven years. In fact, it’s probably a good guess, although I can’t say for sure, that Tachowa was still living in the tank when Banksy painted it, given that he shows up in the video that Banksyelephant.com (the folks trying to sell the tank) have posted on their homepage and says that he saw Banksy paint the tank.

There have been a couple of short films made about Tachowa:

Melrose and Fairfax wonder if maybe Banksy was unaware of Tachowa’s story or that maybe he was aware of Tachowa but was doing a favor for a friend who wanted the tank removed (local residents had been trying to get the tank removed because it disrupts their view of the landscape, and if it weren’t a home, I’d probably agree with them). They also point out that whatever Banksy’s intent, the consequences seem to have left Tachowa homeless.

I’m not so sure about that (edit) that Banksy was unaware of Tachowa though. Given that Banksy has dealt with the issue of homelessness before (including tangentially during the same trip to LA when This Looks A Bit Like An Elephant was painted), it seems possible that this piece was about homelessness (the elephant in the room) and that Banksy was aware that the tank was Tachowa’s home. If that’s true, the meaning of the piece becomes mutli-layered and more than a quick joke about the shape of the tank.

Either way, the questions are now: Where is Tachowa now, how is Tachowa doing, will Banksy help him out and has Banksy done so already?

Photo from Banksy’s website