Agent of Change recently went to Scotland to paint an abandoned village. Looks beautiful. That’s all I’ll say. They made this short film, it explains the rest:
The Ghostvillage Project from Agents Of Change on Vimeo.
Ericailcane in Brighton
As mentioned a few days ago, Ericailcane has been in Brighton working towards an exhibit (alongside Dem, Run, Cat Johnston and Andy Doig) at Prescription Art. In addition to several great installation works, there are some beautiful works on paper (the one above, Uchello 2, is my favorite) and a few limited edition prints and books available. Here’s a sample:
I highly recommend Il Numero delle Bestie and will be featuring it in next month’s bookshelf page of The Art Street Journal.
To see more of Ericailcane in Bara Volante, visit Prescription Art’s site and flickr (lots of great pics of all five artists’ work here!)
– Elisa
Four new Banksy pieces appear in London
Practically overnight, four new Banksy’s have appeared in London.
This piece is in Camden, where there is basically a tourist industry around the remnants of London punk culture:
I wouldn’t have thought this was a Banksy if people more knowledgeable than me hadn’t been saying so. It’s been a while since he’s painted rats:
This is definitely my favorite:
All photos by TheMammal
Holiday gift guide: books
There was a very positive response from my first holiday gift guide post about affordable prints, so I thought it might be worth putting together a similar list for art books.
1. The Faith of Graffiti by Norman Mailer and Jon Naar
Okay, this book isn’t actually released until December 29th, but it absolutely needs to be included in this list. A full decade before Subway Art was published, Mailer wrote a brilliant essay to accompany Naar’s photographs of the very earliest New York City graffiti, most of which would be considered tags today. This book is an essential piece of graffiti history, but it has been largely ignored by history in favor of the next book on this list.
2. Subway Art: 25th Anniversary Edition by Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant
While Naar did a great job documenting the very earliest stages of graffiti, Subway Art is what turned graffiti into an international phenomena and forced people to look at graffiti as more than petty vandalism. This new edition of the book includes new photographs and is in a much larger format, so many of the photos that are in your old copy of Subway Art are now printed much larger and nicer. While The Faith of Graffiti documents the earliest moments in graffiti history, there is no more important book about graffiti or street art than Subway Art.
3. Keith Haring by Jeffrey Deitch and many others
If you like Keith Haring, this is the definitive book of his artwork. It’s pretty huge, weighing in at almost 9 pounds. It’s not cheap either (almost $40 at the time of this post), so it’s really for those who absolutely love Haring, but you’re not going to find a better book of his artwork.
4. Brooklyn Street Art by Jaime Rojo and Steven P. Harrington
Probably the best of Prestel’s series of street art books, this is a solid overview of Brooklyn’s street art. A great stocking stuffer.
5. Street Art: The Graffiti Revolution by Cedar Lewisohn
In my opinion, maybe the best street art book for the street art lover. Not just a book of photos, this book covers a great deal of street art history in a very serious way.
6. Wall and Piece by Banksy
Honestly, I kind of hope that nobody buys Wall and Piece because it’s on this list. Pretty much anybody who reads Vandalog should have at least one copy of Wall and Piece. Banksy is a genius. ‘Nuff said.
7. Young, Sleek, And Full Of Hell by Aaron Rose
I just read this book a week or two ago, and if you liked the film Beautiful Losers, this book is a great companion. It tells the story of New York’s Alleged Gallery, mostly through pictures and interviews with many of the people who were associated with the gallery over it’s lifetime.
8. Pictures of Walls
A funny little stocking stuffer. One of those things that makes me smile.
9. Untitled II: The Beautiful Renaissance by Gary Shove
This book doesn’t take itself too seriously and it’s full of pretty pictures. It’s good overview of recent street art, and includes some new artists that I wasn’t familiar with as well as many of that greats that I know and love.
10. The Thousands: Painting Outside, Breaking In by RJ Rushmore
Can of had to include my own book, didn’t I? What I love about this book isn’t what I wrote, but what other people wrote. Know Hope’s biography of Chris Stain taught me as much about Chris as it did Know Hope’s personality. An excerpt from Mike Snelle’s forward to the book was recently posted on Drago’s website.
Holiday gift guide: affordable prints
So maybe this is the first of a few posts with street art related gift ideas, maybe not. Here are some prints that are available online for a very low price (but they aren’t cheap. Right Zeus?).
1. Logopops by Sickboy. Last night was Sickboy’s one night only show, Logopops. Lots of hand finished prints are available online for as little as £35 (though you are meant to get a few of them to create a custom cluster of prints).
2. Storm Clouds by Jeff Soto. I must admit that I am becoming more and more of a Jeff Soto fan, especially the watercolor pieces. At just £75, it costs a lot less than I expected.
3. Sprout by Josh Keyes. I am very very wary of recommending this. Josh Keyes is an amazingly talented painter and I do like his work, but I’m not sure if you get the same feel for it through a giclee print. You kind of need to see the originals in person to see what sets him apart from all the other guys painting post-environmental-apocalypse art. Could be awesome though, and it’s a book and (very large editioned) print for $85 so that’s nice.
4. Tempo Boxer by Ace. A staple of the London scene (Blackall Street in particular), Ace does some nice work and a nice print from him goes for between £50-55.
5. Dalek Blue by Dalek/James Marshall. Dalek has two “Space Monkey” prints available on his site, both very nice, but I prefer the blue one.
6. Homeless, Not Hopeless by Above. I mentioned this print the other day, but it’s worth showing again because all the profits go to a good cause.
7. Better Than Nothing by Kid Acne. I suppose you either like his warrior women or you don’t. I do.
8. Make Room For The Emptiness by Jim Houser. This is the print that I want to buy with my grandma’s Christmas money. Love it. And at just $75, I can’t believe it hasn’t sold out yet.
9. Mama Quilla by Fefe Talavera. Another beautiful and affordable print from The BLDG.
10. The Answer by Hera. This lithograph by Hera looks great and comes with my book The Thousands: Painting Outside, Breaking In. It’s £100 for the set, and since the book retails for about £25, that’s an affordable print if I ever saw one. The print is of a sketch by Hera, and she really knows how to sketch.
Best Ever and Dead Leg crews at MuTate Britain
Loving this video from the folks at MuTate Britain of Best Ever and Dead Leg painting a piece. It even includes a bit of animation.
And I’m thinking that the MuTate guys would like me to mention their new shop which is now online.
Nunca : The Wynwood Walls
There are a lot of pictures out there of Nunca’s wall for the Deitch/Goldman Wynwood Walls Project during Art Basel Miami as it looked at the opening party, but not so many people saw the finished piece. Nunca continued to work on the characters, coloring and background details right up until late Sunday night, and, as you can see from the photo above, developed his mural from something really good into something spectacular. Take a closer look below:
In case you missed what Aiko, Nina, Shepard, osgemeos, Barry McGee and Clare Rojas were working on around Nunca, check out more of my photos of The Wynwood Walls here, here and here.
– Elisa
The Fiesta Resistance
Finally found some pictures from The Fiesta Resistance on now at Pictures on Walls. They’ve just released a bunch of stunning prints (Banksy, Date Farmers, Anthony Lister, Dran…), but I want to focus on just their show with The Date Farmers, Saner and Smithe.
All photos by Unusual Image, who has many more pics from the show on his flickr.
Primary Flight
My highlight of Art Basel was almost definitely Primary Flight, the huge mural project in the Wynwood district. They had over 100 artists painting murals, from big names like Shepard Fairey and Nick Walker to local graffiti writers. Here’s some of what they did.
Joe and I made a video about the project:
Many many more photos on Jeremiah Garcia’s flickr
The Anonymous Gallery in Miami
Here are some videos from my time in Miami. I’m just about to go to Basel (finally), but I thought I’d share some of what I’ve seen so far at The Anonymous Gallery‘s booth at SCOPE.
First, here is a tour of The Anonymous Gallery’s booth:
And here’s a bit more about that sound sculpture by David Ellis: