Saying goodbye to Vandalog contributor Laura Patricia Calle

Laura

This week, we at Vandalog lost a friend and colleague, as well as one of the most promising (and already accomplished) public art advocates in the United States. Laura Patricia Calle passed away this week at the age of 26. In addition to being a Contributing Writer on Vandalog, Laura was a long-time volunteer staff member for Living Walls in Atlanta (most recently as Programming Director). For Vandalog, Laura brought a fresh voice as a champion of South American street art and muralism. In Atlanta, well, she was an integral part of the Living Walls family for as long as I’ve been visiting the conference.

Atlanta’s alt-weekly Creative Loafing has their own article about Laura, which includes an inspiring Facebook post from Laura about the way she lived her life.

Atlanta won’t be the same without her, but Laura’s legacy lives on on the walls of the city and in the hearts of the artists, arts advocates, and friends spread out from Columbia to Paris, and everywhere in between.

Photo from Laura’s Facebook

Returning from an accidental hiatus

Michelle Angela Ortiz installing a piece for the Cit of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program.
Michelle Angela Ortiz installing a piece for the Cit of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program.

Vandalog has been silent for about a month. My apologies. I knew it would be a busy month, but I didn’t realize just how much would have to fall to they wayside.

My October was absorbed by Open Source, an exhibition curated by Pedro Alonzo for the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program. In one way or another, I’ve been working on Open Source in my own very small way for about two and a half years. In October, the exhibition finally culminated in a month-long series of art installations and events. I found the entire experience extremely rewarding, maybe even life-changing. It’s always an honor to work for Mural Arts’ Jane Golden, and adding Monica Campana and Pedro to the mix made took things to new heights.

So I think that Mural Arts, Jane and Pedro and Monica in particular, did something special with Open Source, but of course it’s literally my job to say that. Instead of going into self-promotional detail, here are a few people who generally seem to agree:

Still, that’s highlighting three out of about a dozen projects, which leaves me curious: What did people think about Open Source? Was it a success? Was it relevant? Philly seems to love it, but does the internet care (does that even matter though)? I’d love to get some feedback on the project. Leave a comment or, if you prefer, shoot an email.

Thanks, and again, my apologies for the unexpected hiatus on the blog. Hopefully things will get back on track this week.

Photo by RJ Rushmore

New job, changes to Vandalog (maybe)

Jane Golden and I outside the offices of The City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program
Jane Golden and I outside the offices of the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program

As you may have seen earlier this week on Instagram or Twitter, on Tuesday I started a new job at the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, an amazing public art organization that has been transforming Philadelphia for three decades. I couldn’t be more excited about this new job.

Why should you care about my new employment status? Transitioning from being a student to working full time for an organization that does work that overlaps with what we cover at Vandalog may mean some changes for the blog. I’m not sure exactly what those changes will look like, or how significant they will be. I’m not planning to shut Vandalog down, focus exclusively on legal work, or write a weekly post about what the Mural Arts Program is up to.

I hope you will use common sense and be aware of this new potential conflict of interest as you read Vandalog. For example, the Mural Arts Program has worked extensively with Steve Powers, so I’m probably not going to post a rant here if I think his next mural is terrible. And I’ll try to be conscious of this conflict of interest too, pointing it out when necessary and appropriate. I figure we’re all intelligent and respectful enough of one another that this won’t be an issue, and may in fact lead to some positive changes for the site, like more guest posts to fill any gap left by me having less time to write.

Photo by Pedro Alonzo

Illegal August: Vandalog’s month-long experiment revealed and explained

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I have a confession to make: If you read Vandalog at all this August, you were taking part in an experiment, but today we are ready to publicly announce what we were doing. We nicknamed the experiment Illegal August. Look back through what we posted last month and you’ll see that we only posted about illegal work or news stories relating to illegal work from August 1st-31st. The experiment extended to our Tumblr and Facebook pages too. It was an entire month of ignoring murals, gallery shows, print releases and the VMAs on all of the general Vandalog sites (we didn’t include our personal social media accounts in the experiment, so that’s why you may have seen legal work on the Vandalog Twitter or Instagram accounts, which are really my personal accounts).

The idea for Illegal August came out of a dinner that Caroline and I had with Luna Park and Laser Burners. We were discussing mural festivals and legal murals, and how perhaps street art blogs have lost focus on street art in favor of covering a roving band of international murals touring city to city like mercenaries with spray cans, ready to paint something out of their sketchbook on any wall they can get access to, as long as they also get access to a lift. Somehow, I don’t think Luna Park actually ever said this to me, but I got the idea in my head that she had challenged Vandalog to only post about illegal work for one month. Whether she said that outright or even intended to make that challenge or not, I associate Illegal August with Luna Park. I thought it was a great idea to try only posting about illegal street art and graffiti for one month, and I chose August for the challenge/experiment because I thought that would be the most difficult month. There are so many mural festivals from July through September that I knew Vandalog would miss out posting about some great murals. It would hurt, but if it wasn’t going to hurt, what would be the point?

The rules for Illegal August were simple: Anyone posting on Vandalog from August 1st through 31st had to be reasonably confident that what they were posting about had been done without permission, or if they were posting news or an interview that the content was related to something that had been done without permission.

Illegal August morphed from a challenge into an experiment when I decided that we would attempt to complete the challenge without announcing it publicly. I wanted to see what readers would do. Would people complain that we weren’t covering Living Walls? Would they stop visiting? Would they get tired of posts featuring stickers and tags when they had come to expect murals? Would anyone notice what we were doing and ask us about it?

One way to analyze what happened is by looking at visitor numbers. In July, our most popular post by a mile was this one about a legal mural by Escif. In August, it was this post about a piece by Above that I believe to have been done illegally but I’m not positive. The Escif post got about 3x the visits as the Above post. Looking at pageviews in July versus August, we saw about a 10% drop in visitors.

But not all visits should be counted equally. Multiple posts in August inspired people to email me personally to say how much they enjoyed something that we had published. Most months, people will share what they like on Facebook or Twitter, but honestly it isn’t common for me to receive the kinds of emails I got last month. To me, that says that at least some of the people who did visit Vandalog in August were more engaged than visitors in July. I would rather know that a handful Vandalog readers are really loving the content than that a lot of people are visiting who are mostly indifferent about the content. It seems that focusing on illegal work forced myself, the rest of the Vandalog team and this month’s guest posters, to create more engaging and unique content.

What a lot of people may not realize is that a lot of what gets posted on Vandalog are things that I learn about because people email me press releases (sometimes very formal ones, sometimes entirely informal) about them. But most artists don’t send out messages to their mailing list when they put up a wheatpaste. Those emails are pretty much reserved for legal murals and gallery events. Illegal August forced me to not be so lazy. I had to go out and find content, whether that be interesting guest posts or searching through archives to highlight underrated artists. It was a lot harder than just publishing whatever was in my email inbox. But because I wasn’t worried about posting the latest murals, it freed me up to write about artists like You Go Girl! and Enzo&Nio whom I love but tend to neglect posting about. Basically, Illegal August allowed me to escape the rat race that street art blogging can be, the very existence of which is nuts since all of us bloggers are doing this out of love and a passion for the art.

But what art are we really so passionate about? I’ve always described Vandalog as a street art blog, and then there are blogs like StreetArtNews and Brooklyn Street Art with “street art” right in the name. I did a quick look at at what StreetArtNews, Wooster Collective, Brooklyn Street Art and Juxtapoz (in their “Street Art” section) posted during the week of August 19th…

    • 28 out of 38 posts on StreetArtNews that week were definitely about legal work, with one post mixing legal and illegal work and 9 where I wasn’t positive if the work was painted legally or illegally.
    • The only post on Wooster Collective that week was about a print release related to their 10 year anniversary show with Jonathan Levine Gallery.
    • Brooklyn Street Art had 2 posts about legal work, 2 posts about work that seemed likely to be illegal, and 3 posts that had a mix of legal and illegal work.
    • 13 out of 14 posts that Juxtapoz published under their “Street Art” category were entirely about legal work.
    • I would guess that if Vandalog had not been in the midst of Illegal August, at least 75% of our posts for that week would have been about legal work.

Given those numbers, if you think that “street art” means art placed in public space without permission, it’s pretty clear that street art blogs are not the place to go looking for street art online. But why is that? Talk to any street art blogger and they will tell you about the awesome wheatpaste or sticker that they saw recently before mentioning the mural they posted about the night before.

Huge murals captured in the perfect light by professional photographers look great on blogs, regardless of how they look in person. Stickers and wheatpastes captured with an iPhone that look like crap on blogs can stop you in your tracks on the street. And on the street, the work is confronting you, so you’re going to look at it whether it’s Swoon or Mr. Brainwash or someone you’ve never heard of. Online, if you’re like most viewers and see a headline for a blog post along the lines of “Some guy you’ve never heard of who does wheatpastes in a city you’ve never been to,” you’re maybe not so likely to read that post. This may be one reason why street art blogs and general art and culture blogs that cover street art have shifted from covering street art to covering contemporary muralism under the guise of covering street art.

And then there is the issue of laziness that I mentioned. Well, not really laziness, but it’s just easier to post about the legal piece is sitting right in your inbox than to go out searching through flickr or actual streets (if you’re lucky enough to live near a lot of street art) in search of something brilliant but still illegal.

Or maybe street art just doesn’t mean the same thing that it once did. Maybe mural festivals and the ease of finding legal walls has elevated the genre. Artists can spend days on a mural without worrying about police rather than sneaking around at night and working as quickly as possible. With plentiful legal walls, maybe some artists don’t see the need for working illegally anymore. Can the same goals be achieved at a legal wall as at an illegal spot? I don’t think so, but some may disagree with me.

For me, Illegal August was difficult. I had to spend a lot more time than usual coming up with content, even though I asked guest bloggers to come in and help lighten the load. And it hurt. It hurt to not post about Living Walls while Caroline and I were there watching the conference happen. It hurt to not post about Tristan Eaton painting a spot that I helped to organize in Little Italy. It hurt to tell artists whose work I really like, “Sorry, no. I can’t post about this.” But Illegal August was also freeing. It made me realize when it hurt to not post something, and when I hardly cared. It allowed me to get out of posting work that I would have otherwise been on the fence about, but would have felt obligated to post because of personal ties or because all the other blogs were posting about it and not posting would make it look like Vandalog wasn’t up on the latest thing. I hope that this experiment can spark a discussion in the street art and contemporary muralism communities about how we create, promote and consume art, but on a personal level it has helped to remind me that Vandalog is about what I feel strongly about, and I need to keep the focus on that. Today Vandalog goes back to “normal,” but it won’t be unchanged.

What do you think about Illegal August? Did you notice anything different on the site? Was the experiment valuable or a waste? Are street art blogs too focused on legal walls? Has “street art” become about legal work? If so, should that change and how could it?

Photo by RJ Rushmore

Please Take our 2013 Reader Survey

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We need your help! We’re running a short 2-minute reader survey with our advertising partner Nectar Ads to better understand our audience.

This information will help us understand the types of people visiting our site, leading to better, more useful advertising that will continue to help fund this site and other great art sites.

The survey is anonymous and we will not be collecting or sharing any personal information about individuals.

Please take a moment now to fill out the reader survey. We’d really appreciate it. Thanks!

Click Here to Start the Survey

(…and if you or anyone you know may be interested in advertising on the Nectar Ads Art Network, please get in touch.)

Photo by jtbrennan

Web hosting craziness link-o-rama

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Photo by Luna Park

For the last week or so until today, we’ve been in the process changing Vandalog’s web hosts. No need to get into the technical details, but now the site should run more smoothly and with less downtime. Unfortunately it means that we haven’t been able to write anything new on the site since that process began (everything that’s gone online was pre-scheduled). So this is a mega-link-o-rama combining the usual weekend link-o-rama content with stuff that I could have written about last week even if I’d had the time.

Photo by Luna Park

Thank You to Our November Sponsors

We would like to take a brief moment to thank this month’s sponsors. These are the organizations and companies that keep us publishing, so be sure to check them out!

Featured Advertisers

  • Guggenheim – The “Conversations with Contemporary Artists” series presents the opportunity to hear and meet artists such as Gabriel Orozco and R. H. Quaytman as they discuss themes in their work as well as current issues in the art world.
  • Asia Society MuseumBound Unbound: Lin Tianmiao represents the artist’s first major solo exhibition in the United States
  • Artspace – Insider access to art from the best artists, museums, and galleries in the world
  • Art Miami – Miami’s premier anchor fair showcases the best in modern and contemporary art from more than 100 international art galleries.
  • Miami Project  – A new contemporary and modern art fair consisting of presentations by 65 galleries from around the world.
  • Pacific Northwest College of Art – For over 100 years, PNCA has served as a creative hub for artists and designers with an educational philosophy that emphasizes individualized curricula, independent inquiry and cross-disciplinary exchange.
  • NYU Steinhardt  The M.A. in Studio Art program in Berlin, Germany provides artists, students of art, and current and prospective art teachers the opportunity to do  high-level studio work over three intensive summers

Network Sponsors

  • American Apparel – Made in Downtown LA—vertically integrated manufacturer, distributor, and retailer of clothing
  • Mixed Greens – Currently on view are Christina Mazzalupo’s Prognosis: Doom paintings and Jonathan Feldschuh’s window installation Large Hadron Collider.
  • Pernod Absinthe – The Art & Absinthe Guide to Brooklyn – mobile interaction with the thriving arts community of Brooklyn, NY
  • Fountain Art Fair – Exhibition of avant garde artwork in Miami during Art Basel Miami Beach
  • School of Visual Arts – Graduate MFA programs including one in Critical Theory and the Arts, and another in Photography, Video and Related Media
  • East Tennessee State University‘s Positive/Negative National Juried Art Exhibition aims to serve as platform for diverse visual art production
  • New York Academy of SciencesScience and the Seven Deadly Sins is a vice- ridden series of events featuring scientists, authors, urban planners and many more
  • Tim Roseborough – The Art Rap EP by D. Skilling
  • TheBowerbirds Collection of art from various Asian artists available to everyone as art prints
  • NY City College – MFA programs in Digital & Interdisciplinary Art Practice or Studio Art, and MA programs in Art History or Art Education for K-12.
  • Nauset Press – Online publisher of idiosyncratic books and art inspired by creative collaboration
  • Art Systems – Professional art gallery, antiques and collections management software
  • ASP Fine Arts Services – Art installation, transportation, storage, and logistics services with locations in New York City, Los Angeles, and Miami

If you are interested in advertising on Vandalog, please get in touch with Nectar Ads, the Art Ad Network.

Photo by Lena Nicholson

Hurricane Sandy delays The Art of Comedy murals and gallery openings

Ron English’s mural on Mulberry Street

Last week we announced The Art of Comedy, a series of art installations and murals with The New York Comedy Festival that Wayne Rada and I curated. The Art of Comedy also coincided with solo shows by all three of the artists involved: Ron English, gilf!, and Hanksy. Due to Hurricane Sandy, both the official unveiling of the murals that these artists have painted in Little Italy and their solo show openings have been delayed by a week. So, here’s what the calendar looks like now for The Art of Comedy and those gallery shows:

Also, in the past week, we’ve had interviews by Rhiannon Platt with gilf! and Hanksy, and Rhiannon also took some photos of Hanksy working on two of his three murals.

Photo by Wayne Rada

Thank You to Our October Sponsors

We would like to take a brief moment to thank this month’s sponsors. These are the organizations and companies that keep us publishing, so be sure to check them out!

Featured Advertisers

  • Guggenheim – Stillspotting nyc is a multidisciplinary project that takes the museum’s Architecture and Urban Studies programming out into the streets of the city’s five boroughs.
  • Asia Society Museum – Bound Unbound: Lin Tianmiao represents the artist’s first major solo exhibition in the United States.
  • Creative Time Creative Time Reports features Artists’ analysis of pressing news and events from around the world.
  • Association of Public Art – Open Air, an interactive art installation that allows participants’ voices to transform the night sky over Philadelphia’s historic Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
  • Curator’s Office – Progressive contemporary micro-gallery and curatorial service bureau for offsite projects and exhibitions in Washington, DC.
  • Art Miami –  Miami’s premier anchor fair, showcases the best in modern and contemporary art from more than 100 international art galleries. December 4-9, 2012
  • Pacific Northwest College of Art  – For over 100 years, PNCA has served as a creative hub for artists and designers with an educational philosophy that emphasizes individualized curricula, independent inquiry and cross-disciplinary exchange.
  • NYU Steinhardt – Graduate art programs in Studio Art, Art Education, Art Therapy, Visual Culture: Costume Studies, and Visual Arts Administration.
  • International Center of Photography –  The ICP-Bard Program in Advanced Photographic Studies offers a curriculum of professional and studio practice, critical study, and Resident Artist Projects.
  • School of Visual Arts – Molecular Cuisine: The Politics of Taste is an interdisciplinary conference investigating the importance of taste from the perspectives of the culinary arts, sociology, art history and theory, anthropology, as well as the cognitive, material and biological sciences.
  • artnet Auctions – Shepard Fairey: The Giant in Society and Politics, a special sale of over 30 rare prints by renowned Street artist Shepard Fairey.

Network Sponsors

  • Mixed Greens – In the current exhibition, Night For Day, Joseph Smolinsky uses drawing and sculpture to explore subtle shifts of light, time, space, and climate.
  • Brooklyn Comics & Graphics Festival – Annual event featuring artists and publishers, lectures, exhibits and events.
  • School of Visual Arts – The MA in Critical Theory and the Arts is an intensive yearlong study of the problems and questions of making art today.
  • New York Academy of SciencesScience and the Seven Deadly Sins – A vice – ridden series of events featuring scientists, authors, urban planners and many more.
  • Tim Roseborough – The Art Rap EP by D. Skilling
  • Pernod Absinthe – The Art & Absinthe Guide to Brooklyn – mobile interaction with the thriving arts community of Brooklyn, NY.
  • Art Systems – Professional art gallery, antiques and collections management software
  • TheBowerbirds – brings together a collection of art from various Asian artists and makes them available to everyone as art prints

If you are interested in advertising on Vandalog, please get in touch with Nectar Ads, the Art Ad Network.

Photo by Lord Jim

Thank You to Our Sponsors

We would like to take a brief moment to thank this month’s sponsors. These are the organizations and companies that keep us publishing, so be sure to check them out!

Featured Advertisers

  • Brooklyn Museum GO is a community-curated open studio project. Artists across Brooklyn opened their studio doors, so that the public could decide who will be featured in a group show at the Brooklyn Museum
  • NYU Steinhardt –  Offers graduate art programs in Studio Art, Art Education, Art Therapy, Visual Culture: Costume Studies, and Visual Arts Administration. Admission Deadlines: January 6, 15 & February 1, 2013
  • Creative Time The Last Pictures, Trevor Paglen has developed a collection of one hundred images that will be etched onto a silicon disc to be sent into orbit onboard the Echostar XVI satellite in Fall 2012, as both a time capsule and a message to the future
  • Vera List Art Project – Culture Vulture, a new commissioned print by acclaimed artist Barbara Kruger, has been released to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Vera List Art Project
  • International Center of Photography The ICP-Bard Program in Advanced Photographic Studies offers a curriculum of professional and studio practice, critical study, and Resident Artist Projects. Application Deadline: January, 18, 2013
  • Association of Public Art – Open Air, an interactive art installation that allows participants’ voices to transform the night sky over Philadelphia’s historic Benjamin Franklin Parkway. September 20 and October 14, 2012
  • Norte Maar – To be a Lady: Forty-Five Women in the Arts,  is on view at the 1285 Avenue of the Americas Art Gallery featuring the work of forty-five female artists born over the last century. September 24, 2012 – January 18, 2013
  • Guggenheim Stillspotting nyc: bronx, the fifth and final edition in the stillspotting nyc series, Improv Everywhere presents Audiogram, an interactive audio experience and theatrical group hearing test designed for the South Bronx. October 13-14, 2012

Network Sponsors

  • Art Systems – Professional art gallery, antiques and collections management software
  • Scott Chasse Art Panels – Quality artist’s painting panels, made-to-order in Brooklyn, NY
  • TNC Gallery – App* Art: Painted Paper,  Continues Peter J. Ketchum’s interest in the past as it is encapsulated in printed matter. September 11- October 25, 2012 
  • Safety: An Art Exhibition Group exhibition curated by Cassandra Young about actively seeking contentment and in ascending towards needing nothing. On view at Leloveve Gallery, September 2012
  • TheBowerbirds – brings together a collection of art from various Asian artists and makes them available to everyone as art prints
  • Brooklyn Comics Festival – an annual curated event consisting of four parts: artists and publishers displaying and selling publications; gallery exhibitions; films and performances; and lectures and conversations on comics. Free to the public, Saturday, November 10
  • Waterfront Toronto – Seeking proposal submissions from artists for three public art opportunities on Front Street East in the West Don Lands. Submission Deadline: October 22, 2012

If you are interested in advertising on Vandalog, please get in touch with Nectar Ads, the Art Ad Network.

Photo by nuttallp