This Friday, Metamorphosis opens at High Roller Society in London. It will be Ludo‘s first solo show in London, and certainly something his fans (like me) have been looking forward to for quite a while. I’ve been a fan of his Nature’s Revenge series for at least two years, but rarely have I seen what Ludo is capable of when he moves indoors. The work in this show includes, in addition to prints and drawings, some of Ludo’s sculptures, which might just be the most underrated things he makes. The opening for Metamorphosis doubles as a book launch for a Ludo book, Opus #23, with an introduction by Marc and Sara Schiller of Wooster Collective.
Opening tonight at the East Village’s Dorian Grey Gallery is CLUB 57 & Friends featuring some of the early pioneers of the 1980’s East Village art scene and the CLUB 57 performance space. Both original works and legendary photographs are on display. Here is a small sampling:
Robert Carrither’s photo of Basquiat, 1980, image courtesy of gallery
Robert Carrither’s photo of Keith Haring, 1980, image courtesy of gallery
Hank O'Neal's photo of Richard Hambleton & Basquiat, photo by Lois Stavsky
Martha Cooper's photo of Basquiat on door, image courtesy of gallery
Dress designed by LA II aka LA Roc, photo by Lois Stavsky
The opening reception is from 6 – 9pm this evening at 437 East 9th Street between 1st Ave and Ave A. The exhibit continues through October 9th. Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Sunday 12 – 7pm.
Space Indavers is a collection owned by the National Gallery of Australia featuring street art, stencils, posters, paste ups, zines, stickers and graffiti from the last 10 years from across Australia.
The exhibition is like a time capsule containing some of the most well known pieces from the last decade or so.. So many memories! 🙂 There are far too many artists to mention, so have a look here. The exhibition explores the movement from the street into the gallery as many of these pieces signify the explosion of the scene in Australia and also the start of many of these artists gallery based careers.
While the show is running, RMIT is also hosting a number of interesting discussions including ‘Vandals or Vanguards?‘, discussing the political, social and artistic aspects of street art and zines. Nice work RMIT!
I went down to the opening last week to check it out. Enjoy.
RekaHAHAstickersPhibsYOKRekaA man dedicated to his stencils. HAHA's legs.stickersJumbo and ZapMisoVextaGhostpatrolMarcstaJames DoddSYNCMeek
Thanks to Endless Canvas for turning us on to this story.
It seems that police pressure in Portland has resulted in The Railyard gallery being evicted from their location. The Railyard opened earlier this summer with an installation-based show where dozens of artists (including Swampy, Feral Child and Gats) painted on the walls of the space. Portland police claim that the gallery is responsible, through that show, for bringing artists to Portland who then painted street art and graffiti illegally while they were in town. On the one hand, this whole thing is ridiculous: The Railyard is not responsible for what artists do in their spare time, and the work that The Railyard is responsible for was painted legally (and looks pretty good too). On the other hand, I’m surprised that more police around the world don’t try this tactic. Probably because a. it’s a difficult case to prove and b. it makes the police look like uncultured jerks. Shutting down art galleries isn’t exactly a popular move. Although in this case, it sounds like the police just used intimidation rather than actually pressing charges, so there’s really nothing that would have to be proven in court.
Get the full details on this series of events here and here.
Best of luck to The Railyard. Hopefully they can move to a new space where the police will leave them alone.
Euth, a street artist, sued Green Day for appropriating one of his images in background graphics for their live show. That lawsuit has been dismissed. Melrose&Fairfax seems to lean towards agreeing with Euth on this one, but while Green Day might have been in an ethical grey area by not compensating Euth, they were undoubtedly legally in the right, and on the whole, that’s a good thing. No idea is 100% original and appropriation is appropriate. As M&F point out in this post, a lot of street artists base their work on appropriation.
A guy in the Hamptons is selling a bunch of Banksy pieces that were ripped out of walls from around the world. Gawker has some explanation of what happened. Of course the work is all unauthenticated and the morals of the whole situation are pretty sketchy.
The work that I’ve seen from this show has got to be Pedro Matos‘ best yet. On Saturday, Pedro’s solo show opens at Shooting Gallery in San Fransisco (7-11pm). The paintings for Ephemera tick a lot boxes for me: The portraits are interesting and well painted, Pedro has pulled off the faux-décollage style that is so difficult to do well and there’s of an influence from Specter‘s sign and fabric paintings. I’m very jealous of all of you in San Fransisco who will be able to check out Ephemera in person (and if you miss the opening, it runs through September 24th), but for the rest of us, here’s a taste:
Despite getting off to an undoubtedly rocky start, London’s Pertwee Anderson & Gold gallery has put on some great shows this year. Starting today, the gallery has four shows on at once. Of particular note are Biliteral by Mat Chivers and i, a group show of portraiture with Che Lovelace, Clarisse d’Arcimoles, Steve Goddard and Swoon. And speaking of Swoon, she’s hard at work on her installation for the Boston ICA.
A note from the editor: This interview is the first in a series of interviews with some of the Australian artists in the Young & Free show opening next week at 941 Geary in San Fransisco. Over the next week or so, Luke McManus and I (well, almost entirely Luke) will be interviewing a number of artists involved in the show. Hopefully, this will take Vandalog a step in the right direction towards better recognition of the thriving Australian street art scene. I’m pleased that we can start this series off with Luke’s interview with Rone, a member of Melbourne’s much-respected Everfresh Crew. – RJ
Rone (Everfresh) is one of the most well known and recognised street artists in Melbourne. Rone’s iconic girl face paste ups have adorned many of Melbourne’s underpasses, intersections and unused billboards as well as numerous walls for as long as I have loved street art. Rone has also hit walls in cities around the world including Los Angeles, New York, London, Toyko, Barcelona and Hong Kong. One of the girls was featured in Banksy’s Exit Through the Gift Shop.
Rone’s recent show ‘L’inconnue de la Rue’ (The unknown girl of the street) at Backwoods gallery in Collingwood (Melbourne) was a huge hit and possibly the show of the year so far. Every painting was sold before the exhibition opened.
I caught up with Rone recently to ask him a couple of questions. This is what he said.
LM: You must be excited about ‘Young and Free’. What do you think about this amazing opportunity and the impact it will have on the awareness of Melbourne, and Australian, street art and artists?
Rone: I’m stoked to be involved in this exhibition not just to get myself out there but to let people know about how strong the graffiti and street art community is in Melbourne and all over Australia. We have had so many internationals come here over the years and be amazed about how much we have going on but because we aren’t New York or London we unfortunately don’t get noticed as often.
LM: Tell me about your background. How did you get into street art?
Rone: I moved to Melbourne around 2000 to study graphic design. I was fascinated by the stencil works by HA-HA, Sync & Psalm that was around at the time. I started painting at skate spots with friends I skated with. Finding spots to skate soon turned into finding spots to paint.
LM: What does your name mean?
Rone: Nothing really, just a nick name that stuck.
LM: What do you enjoy most about the whole street art process? The creation, the night missions etc?
Rone: Hard to say one thing, I guess there is nothing better than seeing your work up a long way from home. I think that’s what a lot of graffiti is about- I was here, I did this.
LM: Who or what inspires you?
Rone: The noise on the walls is what I’ve been looking at lately. The way things decay on the street, rotting & ripped posters, buffed walls etc. The constant battle between artists, bill posters and the buff. I want my artwork to feel like that.
LM: Which artists are you into at the moment? Local and International.
Rone: Locally; Many of the crew on the Y&F line are huge inspirations but i’m always in awe of the work of Merda, Phibs, Twoone & Al stark. International; JR, Blu & ROA are all doing amazing things.
LM: Where do you work from and what is your studio space like?
Rone: I work from Everfresh Studio, the studio looks like a 15 year old vandals dream. I’ve set up a screen printing area to make posters and a bit of a space to paint from.
LM: I’ve been loving your recent work a lot. Tell me about your evolved style and also your recent show “L’inconnue de la Rue”.
Rone: “L’inconnue de la Rue” was my first solo exhibition so I wanted to bring the feel of my work on the street into the gallery. I screen printed a series of posters that became the background for the stenciled portraits. (Video). The idea was to create works the were quite rough and unrefined that contrast against the beauty of the girl. “L’inconnue de la Rue” was inspired by the story of L’Inconnue de la Seine, in which the body of an unknown girl was pulled out of the Seine River in Paris. Her peaceful expression added to the mystery surrounding her death. L’inconnue de la rue was my adaption of the story.
"L’inconnue de la Rue""L’inconnue de la Rue"Work from "L’inconnue de la Rue" - NWork from "L’inconnue de la Rue" - Pain & GuiltWork from "L’inconnue de la Rue" - ColereClose upsClose upsClose upsEarly Rone (Melbourne ~2004)Rone (Melbourne ~2009)Rone (Flinders Street station, Melbourne ~2007)Rone (New York ~2011)
