Know Hope has gone in bit of a different direction lately with his street work. As we saw during the Brandalism project, the text/poetry that has long been in Know Hope’s work has come to the fore and the characters have (at least for now) disappeared. Of course, he’s not the first to write short quips or poems on the street, but they are nice. What do you think of this sort of new direction for Know Hope?
Photos by Know Hope
Deep In The Cut, the two-man show with Joe Iurato and Chris Stain, opened last week at Mighty Tanaka in Brooklyn. It runs through September 7th.
As recently as June both artists worked within eyeshot of one another for the Welling Court mural project. With this familiarity, visitors may think that they’ve seen every iteration of the Stain/Iurato pairing. However, both artists have gone above and beyond the labor required for a typical gallery show and the results are astounding.
On the surface, Chris Stain and Joe Iurato appear to be tied together because of their stylistic choices. Both typically work in minimalistic color palettes, with the occasional pop of color thrown in for good measure. Both depict relatively realistic portraiture.
However, when put side by side in a gallery instead of spread out over blocks, it is the outstanding differences of these artists that makes the work of Iurato and Stain that makes viewers’ knees buckle in awe. Stain is known for depicting the everyday man. Drawing upon his working class background, whether it is a former student of his or someone else from his life, the artist renders portraits of people that are highly relatable.
In contrast, Iurato takes what would look like your average person walking on the street and adds hints of the divine. Many of the pieces that the artist created for Deep In The Cut show his hooded modern day saints, emblazoned with halos. By placing modern day saints in conversation with working class hero, Mighty Tanaka has created a dialogue that has to be seen for the full impact to come across. As with many ethereal things, words cannot do it justice.
Photos by Rhiannon Platt
This year’s Living Walls Conference has begun and the team are posting daily updates to Vimeo. Here are the first three days. I’ll be arriving in Atlanta for the conference in less than 24 hours. Please join me on Wednesday night for an evening of short films and Friday evening for a panel about gender and identity in street art. And also, I’m sure the rest of the conference events will be interesting too. Here’s the full line up of Living Walls activities.
One of the most active artists to grace the walls of Tel Aviv, Dede Confidential’s work is increasingly moving indoors — as well — to a variety of alternative spaces and galleries. Here’s a recent sampling of work in both settings that Dede shared with me:
Outside:
Inside:
Photos by Dede Confidential
Opening this evening from 6-9pm at Bushwick’s stylish Low Brow Artique is You and Me, an intriguing exhibit of collaborative pieces in a range of textures and styles. Curated by Rhiannon Platt, it features works by Cash4 & Smells, OCMC & This Is Awkward, Veng & Sofia Maldonado, Chris & Veng (RWK), EKG & Dark Clouds, Matt Siren & Fenix and Royce Bannon & Russell King, The exhibit continues through September 1 at 143 Central Avenue. Here are two more pieces:
Photos by Tara Murray and Lois Stavsky
Damon Landry and I recently took a trip to Haverford College so that he could photograph some of the street art and murals there. Here are some of my favorite photos that Damon took during our visit.
More after the jump… Continue reading “Damon Landry visits Haverford College”
Caroline and I are out in Colorado this week with my family, so art is coming second, but luckily it looks like it’s been a slow week. Here’s what I almost missed…
Photo by Nolionsinengland
Note from RJ: We at Vandalog are excited to publish Tristan Manco‘s first post on the site, hopefully the first of many. Tristan is one of contemporary street art’s greatest champions and most-distinguished writers. Tristan curated by iterations of Cans Festival, worked at Pictures on Walls for half a decade, has written or in some way contributed to 8 art books since 2002 as well as numerous magazine articles in publications such as Juxtapoz. I’ve known Tristan for a couple of years, and he is one of the people whom I really trust when it comes to art.
Taking place in the 24-hour daylight of a Northern Norway summer on a small island town called Vardø north of the Arctic Circle – Komafest was always going to be a unique event…
Vardø is the oldest settlement in Northern Norway and in recent years has become depopulated with many buildings left empty, partly as a result of the collapsing fishing industry. The curator and organizer of the festival, the Norwegian artist Pøbel saw the potential of a street art festival to make a visual transformation of the town and to show the local people it was possible to make changes. While developing the idea Pøbel spent time getting to know the locals and with his unassuming nature and enthusiasm he began to gain their trust. Soon the public began to get behind the idea and offer up buildings for artists to paint on and volunteering to help in the organization. It became a truly grassroots movement rather than something imposed on the community.
The island, shaped like a butterfly, has an otherworldly atmosphere and is only accessible overland by a winding 3km undersea tunnel, which appears out of the ground like something out of a science fiction movie, but the real stars of the show are its traditional wooden buildings. Many of the wooden jetties, warehouses and buildings are abandoned, weather-beaten and in a state of beautiful decay. Although standing empty these heritage buildings all have owners who are often unable to afford their proper restoration. The idea of project is that the art that is created on them can awaken these buildings out from a coma, giving the festival it’s name – Komafest.
What I found inspiring about this project was the way the invited artists responded to the place. Each artist had some idea of what they might experience but in most cases their preconceptions soon changed once they began to speak to the locals and learn more about their environment. According to local fisherman Aksel Robertsen, Philadelphian artist Steve Powers had many ideas planned but scrapped them as soon as he began to meet the people and experienced the place for himself – all those encounters shaped his final murals; such as “Cod is Great” and “Eternal Light – Eternal Night”. The French artist Remed painted a mural on an old seafront warehouse, which took some of its imagery from the seascape but included the text Hellige Heks Fortuna, (Hellige Heks means Holy Witch in Norwegian). This references to witches dates back to the Vardø witch trials that were held there in 17th century resulting in many of the accused being burned alive at the stake.
More after the jump… Continue reading “Waking up Vardø”
This summer has been anything but slow and relaxing for Broken Fingaz Crew. After 3 months touring Europe, painting walls, doing collaborations, 2 solo shows in London and Vienna and a group show in Paris, the crew is finally headed back home to Tel Aviv. But before, Tant and Unga left Austria with these murals (and this cool animation), which were inspired by a few old books they found in a coffee house they they were staying in, about how death is just around the corner.
Photos courtesy of Broken Fingaz
There are a bunch of shows open now or opening in the next month that I’d like to mention, but there are only so many hours in the day. So here’s a bit of a round-up:
Photo by Susan NYC
