Category: Featured Posts

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Jeffrey Deitch named director of MOCA

UPDATE: Jerry Saltz reports on his facebook account that “LA MoCA just announced that Jeffrey Deitch is their new Director. He begins June 1. He will soon close his gallery.” So I guess that answers that question. No more Deitch Projects.

As anticipated, The LA Times reports that Jeffrey Deitch has been named as the new director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in LA. The nomination is a controversial one primarily because Deitch’s background is as a commercial art dealer, while traditionally the post would be filled by somebody who has worked in museums for most of their career. Also, there is the question of what will happen to Deitch’s gallery, Deitch Projects, and what role he will play in the gallery’s future.

I for one am ecstatic about this news. Deitch has been associated with many great street artists like Shepard Fairey, Keith Haring and Barry McGee, so perhaps this new position will allow Deitch to bring some of those artists into MOCA’s collection.

So, congratulations to Jeffrey Deitch on this new job. I hope that he is able to breath a new life into MOCA and bring it back from the edge of bankruptcy (okay, to be fair it was in 2008 that the museum was almost bankrupt, but it certainly isn’t in a strong position today).

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The Faith of Graffiti giveaway

This month on Vandalog, I’ve organized a few giveaways.

The first of those giveaways starts today with two copies of Jon Naar and Norman Mailer’s seminal graffiti book The Faith of Graffiti. When it was first published in 1974, The Faith of Graffiti was the first book to take a serious look at graffiti. In 1974, Jon Naar’s photos and Norman Mailer’s essay gave the graffiti movement some mainstream legitimacy, as Mailer was one of the first to call writers artists. Looking back now, the book acts as an important historical document, preserving the very first generations of New York graffiti. Mailer’s understanding of graffiti was unparalleled at the time, and his writing is still an important starting point when looking at graffiti in the context of art history and art criticism, while Naar’s photos, taken at a time when few other photographers were paying much attention to graffiti, are invaluable evidence of how widespread and powerful graffiti culture was in the 1970’s

For years, it hasn’t been easy to get a copy of The Faith of Graffiti, as it was out of print, but last month it was reprinted in an expanded edition. This book is an absolute must-have for fans of graffiti and street art; my 1st edition is one of my prized possessions.

So how can you get a free copy of The Faith of Graffiti? Easy. HarperCollins has given me two copies of the paperback edition to give away. To enter the contest, you can either comment on this post (make sure to include your real email address, otherwise you can’t win because I won’t be able to contact you), or go on twitter and tweet a link to this post along with the hashtag “#vandalog”. But you have to enter before 6pm (GMT) on Wednesday, January 13th. After that, I’ll randomly pick two winners. Good luck.

Of course, not everybody can win, so if you’d like to buy a copy of the book, just go to Amazon.com.

Photos by Jon Naar

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M-City and Gaia Collaborate in BedStuy

Over the past two nights, M-City and I painted this collaborative mural on Malcolm X Blvd under the auspices of Brooklynite Gallery. It was a pleasure to work with this incredible artist and frankly the painting went swimmingly, without so much as a single conflict in our styles or vision. A big shout out to Mikeion for the fantastic documentation and the wonderful Brooklyn Street Art for the coverage

Continue reading “M-City and Gaia Collaborate in BedStuy”

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Uncommon – cool artist designed iPhone cases

I’m not big on blogging about products here. Mostly because a lot of graffiti/street art related products are kind of silly (see: the graffiti mug). But Uncommon makes what seem like very cool cases for your iPhone. I’ve never seen one of these in person, but I might buy one. The artist line up is pretty solid.

Uncommon lets you design your own case using your own artwork or artwork from their catalog. The concept is interesting enough, and the lineup of artists is just perfect: Ron English, San, Mode2, David Ellis, Tinho, Anthony Lister, Herbert Baglione, Date Farmers, Usugrow, Dennis McNett and Monica Canilao just to name a few (and these are just the artists they are starting with, who knows how many more will be added in the future). One of the great things about these cases is that the artists haven’t contributed just one image each, some have contributed a dozen. And while those in a hurry can buy a “premade” case (like those pictured above), creative risk takers can customize their case by placing the graphic themselves: you can blow up the imagine so that the all you see is Ronald Mcdonald’s giant head painted by Ron English or shift the design so that a Date Farmers drawing appears at the top, center or bottom of the case.

Here are two cases I designed from the same image by David Ellis:

The cases aren’t cheap ($39.95), but that seems like a small price to pay when you spend hundreds of dollars on a phone and most other cases make it look so ugly.

Here are two more premade cases:

By Greg Gossel
Special edition for Juxtapoz

In short, these are pretty cool.

Buy them at getuncommon.com

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How I met Justin Lovato

While in Miami for Art Basel last month, I went to more than a dozen different fairs or exhibitions of one kind or another. And I barely scratched the surface of what was there. One night, I was out with a big group including people from Babelgum, Arrested Motion and a few other organizations. We were more or less wandering around Wynwood looking for any fairs that were still open. We ended up at Art Whino. I’d heard of Art Whino, but frankly hadn’t planned on going to the show. There was just so much going on that I didn’t think I would be able to find the time. Turns out, it was one of the more interesting exhibitions in Miami. There was artwork from Chris Stain, Billy Mode, PaperMonster and a whole assortment of others.

But for me, one artist stood out. This guy who had a sort of low-brow illustrator style, but not the kind that I normally hate. There was some substance to these paintings. I was absolutely loving all the paintings by this artist. His name was Justin Lovato. I happened to see Gaia nearby, so I rudely interrupted whatever conversation he was having with somebody I didn’t recognize and told them about how I had just found this amazing new artist called Justin Lovato. Turns out, the guy Gaia was talking to was Justin Lovato. Even better, Justin does paint the occasional piece outdoors, so it gave me an excuse to mention him here.

Here’s what Juxtapoz.com has said about Justin:

Here’s what we have to say: his art looks neat. The linework is nothing groundbreaking, reminiscent of a mix of Andrew Schoultz and Ferris Plock, but he has a distinctively rich, earthy palette and subtle use of stenciling incorporated with hand painting that makes us smile.

(oh, and make sure to click on these pics of his indoor work so that you can see them much larger and in the detail that they deserve to be seen in)

More after the jump… Continue reading “How I met Justin Lovato”

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The Art Street Journal Issue 6 – January

The first issue of The Art Street Journal 2010 is out! Inside, amongst other things, you’ll find reviews on some of the best shows from December (like Grifters at Lazarides) and previews of some of the ones we’re most excited about in January (like A Cry For Help at Thinkspace). There are a lot of interviews in this issue, too – Martha Cooper, Mark Jenkins (who’s showing here at Carmichael Gallery with Aakash Nihalani in January) Stephan Doitschinoff and Zezao.

This month’s Unurth page is very cool (I love that this page enables us to fit so many different artists into the paper – it really is hard to include everything you want to cover in sixteen pages and Sebastian does a fantastic job of highlighting the best on the street), plus we’ve finally started the tasj bookshelf page. Each month, this page will feature a selection of the best publications out there (RJ’s The Thousands: Painting Outside, Breaking In makes it in first time, of course, as does Issue 10 of Very Nearly Almost).

As always, tasj is free and we’ll deliver it anywhere in the world. You can get it here.

– Elisa

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TMD Crew crush it in NZ

Had the privilege to see Askew painting at Primary Flight earlier this month, and today I came across these two amazing walls he was involved with (along with other members of the TMD Crew) in New Zealand. These are, to put it very mildly, some of my favorite pieces of graffiti in 2009.

Deus, Askew and Berst
Stray, Vents, Askew, Shake, Misery and Berst

You can check out the TMD Crew website for the full story behind these walls and more pictures (and should check it out if only to see these images larger).

Via Hurt You Bad