Category: Art News

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JR wins TED Prize, comes with $100k

Amazing news this week about JR, the French photographer/street artist. He has just won the TED Prize, a $100,000 prize (to be used for some sort of positive purpose, not just to buy an amazing car) from the people who put on the TED conferences. TED have done a nice interview with the artist on their website. Ask any of my friends and they’ll tell you how I always say I am somehow mentally incapable of determining if a photograph is “good” or not, but I’m told that JR is a good photographer and he definitely is doing some important work trying to help people.

The prize was announced in an article in The New York Times. Here’s the start of the article:

It’s not common for important philanthropic prizes to go to people whose work involves criminal trespass and who make statements like the following: “You never know who’s part of the police and who’s not.”

But the TED conference, the California lecture series named for its roots in technology, entertainment and design, said on Tuesday that it planned to give its annual $100,000 prize for 2011 — awarded in the past to figures like Bill Clinton, Bono and the biologist E. O. Wilson — to the Parisian street artist known as J R, a shadowy figure who has made a name for himself by plastering colossal photographs in downtrodden neighborhoods around the world. The images usually extol local residents, to whom he has become a Robin Hood-like hero.

Read more…

So congratulations to JR. This is some great news.

Photo by F4BZ3F4B

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JetSet Graffiti under investigation by the LAPD

Due to legal concerns, I’ve decided that the best move is unfortunately to disable all comments on this post. – RJ Rushmore

This is probably old news to a lot of readers, but maybe not to all: LAPD’s art fraud unit is currently investigating JetSet Graffiti for various allegations of theft and fraud. JetSet Graffiti is an online gallery run by Daniel Lahoda to sell prints and occasionally original work by street artists and graffiti writers. In the past, JetSet Graffiti has released prints with artists such as Ron English, D*Face and Saber. This isn’t the first time that accusations have been made against JetSet Graffiti, but to my knowledge this is the first time that police are investigating the business.

On August 31st, a message appeared on the Urban Art Assocation/Banksy Forum. Silky, the forum moderator, posted an email from an investigator at the LAPD. You can read the message on the forum, but it essentially said that the LAPD were trying to reach anybody who had had bad business experiences with Lahoda.

Then, around September 16th, the LAPD posted a “Crime Alert” about Lahoda on their website. The crime alert (available online) is an information request once again asking for anyone potentially defrauded by Lahoda to come forward as well as a warning about complaints that have been received. The LAPD says that they have gotten complaints including “art ordered and paid for but never delivered,” “taking art on consignment and diverting the art and money obtained for his own use,” “selling unauthorized prints” and other issues as well. The alert also claims that Lahoda was fired from three jobs over the last 6 years for embezzling funds (I’ve attempted to reach these companies, but could only get a hold of one. They declined to comment). It’s important to note that even given all these things, the report states that Lahoda “is not wanted by the police at this time.”

I spoke with Detective Don Hrycyk at the LAPD, the officer in charge of investigating Lahoda. He gave one example of the numerous complaints that he had received which he believed to be true: Allegedly, a buyer in England gave $8000 to Lahoda for a Banksy print, but never received the artwork.

Lahoda and I were in touch by phone and email both before and after the crime alert was posted online. He offered to answer some questions for Vandalog in an effort to explain his side of the story. Despite repeated emails to Lahoda and his repeated assurance that he would be responding to the questions in a matter of days, I’ve still not heard back from him after a few weeks, so I’ve had to publish this without his comments.

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Weekend link-o-rama

BEST EVER X Deadleg in London

It’s been a crazy week in London. Moniker and all that. But here’s what has been going on with street art elsewhere:

Photo by unusualimage

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Weekend link-o-rama

A mobile projection by Armsrock

Here’s what I missed this week, or where people just wrote things that I couldn’t do or wrote them better than I could:

Photo by Armsrock

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Jeffrey Deitch’s street art show at MOCA LA

One of Jenny Holzer's Inflammatory Essays. She had better be in this show if it's to be any good

A few months ago, this was mentioned briefly in an NYTimes article, but now the first real information is starting to come out about Jeffrey Deitch’s upcoming street art show at MOCA in LA. Culture Monster has a post all about the show, Art in the Streets. I’ve been hearing a lot of great things about this event for a while, but it’s all been rumors, so it’s nice to finally get some facts to write about.

Deitch says that Art in the Streets aims to be a broad look at street art, but will also dig deep into the history of outdoor art. That sounds like music to my ears, but it also sounds like a nearly insurmountable challenge. For example, the show will certainly involve graffiti, but so much graffiti had localized differences that now influence modern street artists and writers. So where do you draw the line at what to include? And what about the Philadelphia Mural Arts program, created to eradicate graffiti? It’s not street art, but it might deserve a place in a show titled Art in the Streets… Anyway, I’m sure we’ll know more in a few weeks when a formalized press release is sent out.

In the mean time, here’s what else is known…

  • Art in the Streets opens April 2011 at MOCA’s Geffen Contemporary
  • The show will include work from the last few years as well as art from as long ago as the 1970’s, which seems about right.
  • There will be around 25 artists doing installations/murals.
  • Banksy will be involved, so yeah. That’s interesting I guess… I’m not his biggest fan lately, so it’s hard for me to get excited about that.
  • Over 100 artists will be represented in the show.
  • Aaron Rose (from Alleged Gallery/the Beautiful Losers film) and all-around graffiti and street art expert Roger Gastman are helping to curate the show.

This show could be the best thing to happen to street art since… ever. But even if it’s not perfect, it’s still going to be pretty damn good. Deitch isn’t going to screw this up. He, Rose and Gastman all know their shit.

Photo by Lord Jim

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AnimalNY calls out Kaws for Disney toy

Seems like the streetwear blogs have been drooling over this latest toys from Kaws. His Pinocchio toys and shirts are about to be released, and all the usual Kaws lovers are of course eager to get their hands on this new design. But AnimalNY tells it like it is:

His latest partnership is with Disney and for me, like graffiti writers painting legal walls, there’s something weak about obtaining permission from the companies that should be getting knocked-off.

I’m not particularly a Kaws hater. In fact, I like A LOT of his work, both new and old. This new toy is pretty meh though, and I just don’t get why everybody is so excited about it. And yeah, kind of funn that he actually licensed the image from Disney. To be fair to Kaws though, his graffiti days are long behind him, and I don’t think anybody should have any misconceptions about that. He’s an artist/designer now. Not a subversive artist/graffiti writer. Nothing inherently wrong with that. It’s just a change (though admittedly not a recent one).

Photo courtesy of OriginalFake

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Poster Boy Book and Street Art Legal Defence Fund Launch

It’s had like a million views at this point (and I’m not exaggerating) so you’ve probably seen this video already, but it’s still fun to watch. If you’re a fan, you can support the Poster Boy movement, the new Poster Boy book, The War of Art and the new street art/graffiti legal defence fund K.A.R.A.T.E. (about time we had one of these) in four different cities on Saturday night:

Pure Evil in London, 17 Frost in NYC or AE District in Miami.

Or come hang out with the incredible writer of this post at Carmichael Gallery in LA.

– Elisa

Video by Keith Haskel, who also made the fantastic video the four galleries will be screening on the night.

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Banksy in Hastings not considered “graffiti” by city officials

I wasn’t planning to make much mention of Banksy‘s latest work (the above stencil which can be found at a beach in Hastings). As usual though, it seems the story surrounding the art is more interesting than the piece itself: The Hastings graffiti removal squad will be leaving Banksy’s work alone. Not something entirely new from town councils. What I really love about Hastings though is what councilor Jay Kramer has said about the situation:

I think this is great.

I know that we have a zero tolerance policy on graffiti, and that is absolutely right. However, we have to be flexible so on this occasion I have agreed that Banksy can be an exception to our rule and can stay.

So, the town has a zero-tolerance policy on graffiti (and presumably street art too) except in cases where the work is an instant tourist attraction. In those cases, the policy is not so zero-tolerance. That’s a “Banksy-tolerance” policy, and that’s a pretty short-sighted way of doing things.

Via Banksy Prints

Photo by world of emma

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Playing catch-up: It’s a link post!

Been in NYC for the last few days. Besides being busy, it seems like the hotel I was at still hadn’t quite figured out the concept of wifi extending to all rooms in the hotel… So now I’ve got a lot of stories to post about. Here’s what I missed while I was away, though you may have read about it elsewhere:

  • I’ve actually been meaning to post about this for a while. Ken Harman from Arrested Motion and the Hi-Fructose Blog, just curated one of the better group shows I’ve seen. Some artists of particular note would be Emory Douglas (a major influence on Shepard Fairey and important propaganda-maker in his own right), Dabs, Myla, Mike Shine and Monica Canilao. A Decade With No Name is open on Saturdays and Sundays through September 12th at 54 Washington St. Oakland, CA. My Love For You Is A Stampede of Horses has photos of Monica’s installation, and Spoke has photos of everything else and is where you can purchase the artwork.
  • Papergirl NY is bringing Germany’s Papergirl concept to the USA. Basically, artists get together to distribute a bunch of free art to members of the public by riding around on bikes. Their YouTube video shows what happens in a bit more detail. Papergirl NY events are taking place in New York City this week. On Tuesday and Wednesday they will be at the DUMBO Arts Center, and then Papergirl will move to The Armory where you can find them Friday through Sunday.
  • Mobstr hasn’t been around forever, but his humor can already rival Banksy.
  • Blu and Ericailcane are in Stavanger for Nuart, and their wall is one of Blu’s boldest political statements yet (after all, Stavanger is an oil-funded city, and oil money from taxes pretty much funds Nuart). Nice stuff.
  • I’m loving Shepard Fairey’s portrait of Johnny Ramone at Signal Gallery’s Beyond Punk show.
  • Graffiti in New Orleans after Katrina.
  • Luzinterruptus has made some “urban nests.”
  • I’m hoping to post some more about this in the coming days, but Jordan Seiler as written on his blog about his experiences at Living Walls.
  • Once5 aka Jeffrey Pena has a solo show coming up at My Addiction Gallery in Tucson, Arizona. Pena has a nice timelapse on YouTube of him putting up a large paper-cut in Brooklyn.

So that’s it for now, but I should be back to daily posts now.

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The continuing story of Ron English and Electric Windows

Ron English was pretty active recently at the Electric Windows event a few weeks ago, not only painting a panel but also putting up a few posters.

Turns out, not all the locals in Beacon were happy with English’s work.

Here’s something from Ron English:

The Electric Windows Project in Beacon was a great success this year, getting out some great art and bringing together Brooklyn hipsters and longtime Beacon residents…

But by Tuesday, dozens of outraged townies assembled at the Beacon city planning board meeting to protest a couple of pieces I did. After a quick briefing in closed session with the city attorney, who went over the first amendment with planning board members, the board announced that although it had no legal right to order the work taken down, it would allow the public to express their outrage over the fact that I used Jesus as a corporate spokesmodel and “Crack” as a criticism of fast food in a couple of “subvertisements.”

The board let me speak first, and I expressed surprise that my work created such a furor. I’m always surprised when this kind of thing happens… which is often and usually propagated by people who don’t understand or fully take in the work but instead attach their own agenda to it.

After I spoke, a wave of angry Christians took their turns at the mike. One woman wanted to know why she couldn’t paste up the photos of dead fetuses that she routinely held up at the health clinic. Others wanted to know what gave me the right to comment on the most powerful religion on the planet. And one board member expressed outraged that I was promoting crack… to the children. Afterwards, a teacher got up to helpfully explain that children don’t understand metaphor.

Then a self-professed stateside noncombat post traumatic stress-afflicted veteran informed me that he had notified Miller High Life about my offensive parody of their brand..

So English returned to Beacon and modified the posters. Check out the new posters on his Juxtapoz blog.

Photos by LoisInWonderland