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Leon Reid’s Tourist-in-Chief

Last Saturday in Union Square, Leon Reid IV‘s latest temporary public sculpture existed from dawn until dusk, and then was dismantled. For Tourist-in-Chief, Leon attached some new accessories to Union Square’s sculpture of George Washington. It was part of this year’s Art in Odd Places festival. It’s in the same vein as his True Yank piece from a few years back. As Banksy said, “If you have a statue in the city centre you could go past it every day on your way to school and never even notice it, right. But as soon as someone puts a traffic cone on its head, you’ve made your own sculpture.”

Check out more photos over at The Street Spot.

Photos courtesy of Leon Reid IV

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Tristan Eaton and How & Nosm in Williamsburg

Whenever I visit Williamsburg, I tend to stick to the few blocks in the vicinity of the Bedford Avenue subway station. Yesterday, we ventured further south, where we discovered not only first-rate paste-ups and graffiti — but some amazing murals, as well. My favorite is the wall shared by Tristan Eaton and How & Nosm.  Here are a few images:

Tristan Eaton close-up
Tristan Eaton
How & Nosm close-up
How & Nosm

Photos by Lois Stavsky

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Warren Lewis aka WorldWarWon in Amsterdam

Warren Lewis, aka WorldWarWon, has his first solo show in the Netherlands opening this weekend at Amsterdam’s Andenken Gallery. My Name Is only runs from October 8th through the 14th though, so make sure to see if ASAP if you’re interested. Warren’s paintings are much more graphically complex than most of his street art. They look like a physical mash-up of politics, vacuous tumblr/facebook/twitter babble, brand identities and pop culture all roll into one, sort of abstract portraits of modern 20 and 30-somethings.

Warren Lewis is represented by the recently launched Klerkx Art Agency, who also represent John Fekner, Icy and Sot (among others).

Photo by Warren Lewis

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The People Speak, New Work by Jetsonorama

Just received word from jestonorama about this new project. The scale and concern with local dilemmas always remains inspiring. From his blog: “i asked several friends what their feelings are about the sacred mountain slated to receive artificial snow made from reclaimed waste water. with the help of raechel running, stephanie jackson and rey cantil, their words were written or painted onto their faces and the final images were wheat pasted.”

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Nearly perfect: OX for Bien Urbain

This is one of the most perfect ad disruptions I’ve ever seen. OX did this takeover at the Bien Urbain festival in Besançon, France. Here’s why I think it’s nearly perfect:

Pros –

  • It’s site-specific.
  • It’s possible to not notice it. The piece can fade into the background of the environment (not just because the billboard matches the sky in this photo, but because it doesn’t try to grab your attention).
  • For the people who are familiar with the billboards and do notice the change, the takeover is something for them to think about.
  • It’s photographed well for online distribution.

Con –

  • The billboards themselves aren’t at ground level.

Now, that last pro and the con might not make immediate sense. In the case of billboard takeovers, I think that many of the best ones make it clear to viewers that they too can do exactly what the artist has done; that it’s not only OX who can or should cover up public advertisements. So on the pro side, this takeover is beautifully photographed and people who see this photo are probably more likely to be inspired than it it were a quick snap from OX’s camera-phone. As for the billboards not being a ground level, this sort of take over would probably have required a ladder or a long pole. Those aren’t particularly difficult things to get, but ground level billboards are even easier to disrupt, so photos of those takeovers might inspire more people to take action themselves than a more difficult billboard takeover.

Some of these thoughts about what makes a good ad takeover are based on similar ideas by Jordan Seiler, so definitely check out his site as well if this is interesting.

UPDATE: Jordan as actually posted his own thoughts about this piece over at his own blog.

Photo by OX

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Michael de Feo curating a show in Connecticut

Dan Witz

On Every Street is a show opening this Thursday at Samuel Owen Gallery in Greenwich, CT. Curated by Michael de Feo, it features the work of dozens of street artists. On Every Street includes a diverse of street artists both in style and (from Hargo to Tony Curanaj) and when they were active outdoors (from Richard Hambleton to Gaia).

Here’s the full line up: Above, Aiko, Michael Anderson, Banksy, Jean-Michel Basquiat, C215, Tony Curanaj, Michael De Feo, D*Face, Ellis Gallagher, Keith Haring, Ron English, Blek le rat, Faile, Shepard Fairey, John Fekner, JMR, Gaia, Richard Hambleton, Hargo, Maya Hayuk, Don Leicht, Tom Otterness, Lady Pink, Lister, Ripo, Mike Sajnoski, Jeff Soto, Chris Stain, Swoon, Thundercut, Dan Witz.

Images courtesy of Michael de Feo

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50% off t-shirts by Gaia, Faro and Troy Lovegates aka Other

Last year, Vandalog released a series of t-shirts with designs by Troy Lovegates aka Other, Faro and Gaia. Since the last of those shirts are taking up some valuable space in a box under by bed, they are now on sale at 50% off at the Vandalog online store, making them just $15 each. Unfortunately we’ve sold out of mediums in every design, but small, large and XL shirts are still available. You can buy a shirt here.