Street art power-couple Faith47 and Dal recently left their home in Cape Town, South Africa to visit Rochester, NY. Here’s a bit of what they got up to.
Photos courtesy of Faith47
Weekend link-o-rama
With my mind still on Living Walls, I’ve got some catching up to do with what’s been going on outside of Atlanta. So here’s some of that catching up…
- King Robbo is currently having serious health issues, and there’s a fundraising art auction at Cargo for him next month.
- Brooklyn Street Art’s LA show, Street Art Saved My Life, opened and BSA has photo of the entire thing.
- The Zoo Project are a major street art force in Paris, and this wall is one of my favorites from them in a while.
- Tristan Manco contributed a list of his 10 favorite pieces of street art to The Guardian.
- Shepard Fairey had quite an ordeal in Copenhagen. On the whole, I’ve got to agree with Shepard on this one. He made a mistake and tried to make it right, but people still beat him up and newspapers still sensationalized their stories in inaccurate ways. Uncool. That said, it’s worth pointing out that right in the midst of Shepard complaining about newspapers getting their facts straight and being ethical, he writes “I adhere to my ethical beliefs in all areas of my artistic and business practice.” I hate to kick a guy while he’s down, but it needs to be mentioned that Shepard did attempt to falsify evidence during his lawsuit with the AP, so those ethics aren’t always adhered to. Anyway, sucks that Shepard and Obey Clothing’s Romeo Trinidad were beat up.
- Futura and Stash getting up in NYC.
- James Marshal aka Dalek is trying something very different with his new work.
- Nunca, Miss Van and others are at work on a mural project in Berlin.
- Sao Paulo’s Museum of Art just opened a huge show of street artists including JR, Swoon, Invader and Remed.
Photos by Sabeth718
Graffiti Wars
So the other night I finally got around to watching Channel 4’s Graffiti Wars, otherwise known as “The documentary about ROBBO.” I have some mixed feelings about it, and obviously want to tread lightly talking about it with ROBBO’s condition (He is currently in a coma), but feel that RJ and I should at least attempt to address the pseudo-documentary.
For those who haven’t seen it yet, and you can over here on 4od online in the UK, the hour long special focuses on UK graffiti writer ROBBO and his ongoing turf war with Banksy. Vandalog has covered the “graffiti war” since the beginning, but pretty much Banksy covered a ROBBO piece along the Camden canal that had been there since the 1980’s and in retaliation ROBBO began writing graff again and he and his team would vandalize Banksy works.
My main issue with the documentary is not the extreme sympathy and bias that Channel 4 shows towards ROBBO throughout or the lack of interviews from street artists (not just all the graff writers that spoke on camera), but actually this alleged success story for ROBBO of him on the brink of becoming a fine artist.
I went back to Pure Evil yesterday (who is featured in the film for hosting ROBBO’s first solo show) to look at some of the unsold works. He has put them on display in the basement, so if you have a chance do go check them out. In all honesty, however, the work is not that great. Now we all know there is a lot of shit out there that people praise, but from a strictly artistic perspective, in my opinion the work is sub-par that was shown in the gallery. He is a graff writer and does amazing graff works, but his gallery work doesn’t reflect that wild style. The film focuses on ROBBO’s dreams of becoming a fine artist in his own right and that is is the crux of my issues. He is not a fine artist and he just used the feud between him and Banksy to make some money. He hadn’t been working for years, but all of a sudden, he used the notoriety of Banksy to get noticed and maneuver his way into the gallery system. Plenty of artists take advantage of publicity to sell art (Eine…), but eventually the work has to stand on its own. ROBBO’s does not. ROBBO might be a “king”, but he is not a great artist.
I am sure people have other views on this, but the documentary could have been more well-rounded and unbiased. It is a tragedy what happened to ROBBO, and my thoughts are prayers go out to his family and friends. If you want to help support ROBBO, there is a fundraiser/art auction taking place next month at Cargo.
Photos courtesy of Channel 4
Revok, Roid and Rime at Known Gallery
Revok, Rime and Roid of the MSK crew have a show together opening this weekend at Known Gallery in LA. I know Rime doesn’t like being mentioned on sites like Vandalog, so let’s instead focus on two very talented writers: LA’s Revok and the UK’s Roid. Revok is probably best known for recently getting out of prison in LA for a graffiti-related charge, but one reason that case got so much attention is that Revok is a guy who gets up, and looks good doing it. If there are still kings in an internet age, Revok is one. Roid represents MSK in the UK, and has technical skills that few writers can match. This piece by Roid is one of my favorite pieces of graffiti I’ve ever had the chance to photograph.
The show is called Perseverance and will be open August 20th through September 12th. Definitely one for graffiti fans to check out.
Here’s a little preview… I think most of these pieces are by Revok, but I’m not positive. If you do know who did what, give me a shout.
Photos courtesy of Known Gallery
Marco Sueño at Living Walls
More from Living Walls Atlanta. Today, Marco Sueño. Marco is a photographer from Peru who works with stickers and wheatpastes. He did a few murals for Living Walls. Here’s how he describes this series:
Sacha Project is a muralism, photography and public space intervention that proposes, through a series of compositions that highlight the hybrid nature of icons and objects a result from the fusion between modern urban culture and the andean culture traditions a visual explorations on the peruvian identity, seen from its own transfiguration. “Sacha Project” displays how the sacred and the “Hybrid” create a jigsaw of different realities interacting through synergies and fragmentation.
Photos by Marco Sueño
Thank you Atlanta/Living Walls
Over the last week or so, there have been a lot fewer posts on Vandalog than usual. Two reasons for that: This week I’ve been spending time with my family and relaxing, but last week it was because I was in Atlanta for the second annual Living Walls Conference. It was a crazy few days, resulting in some beautiful new murals for Atlanta (like these from Gaia, Nanook and Escif). I’ll be posting more of those murals over the next few days.
For now, I’d like to focus on a massive thank you to all of the volunteers, organizers, artists, speakers and sponsors at Living Walls. In particular, all the volunteers who spent their own money on gas to practically act as personal drivers to all of us without a means of transportation. And while there’s a long list of sponsors, here’s a little shout out to those that I had the pleasure of connecting with: Sam Flax South, Eyedrum, Dodekapus, Atlanta Beltline, Streetela, The Goat Farm, MOCAGA and The Sound Table. The artists and speakers at Living Walls are some of the most talented around, but they are also some of the most fun. So thank you to everyone involved in Living Walls on any level for all the hard work. It was an honor to be invited to speak, and I hope to return again next year.
Photos by Drew Tyndell and Evereman
Basick in London
On a recent trip to London for the launch of Nuevo Mundo, a fantastic book on Latin American Street Art, Peruvian artist Basick was able to get up and paint some nice pieces.
Photos by Basick
Words from Haze
Eric Haze is an artist and designer who I’ve got a lot of respect for. This video of him from 2006 (part of the Stussy World Tour series), sums up a lot of why. It’s not just that his creative output is iconic, but his entire attitude.
Stussy World Tour – Eric Haze from Stussy on Vimeo.
Via Juxtapoz
Photo courtesy of Haze
Emory Douglas at The Outsiders in London
Emory Douglas, aka the former ‘Minister for Culture’ for the Black Panthers and a major influence on artists like Shepard Fairey, has a show opening this week at The Outsiders, Lazarides’ Greek Street space in London. I’m a huge fan of Emory Douglas’ work, and I think he has been massively underrated, in large part because a lot of his original work was destroyed, but also because it was so controversial. Decades late, he is finally getting the recognition he deserves. Douglas is the master of revolutionary and political artwork. This show runs from August 18th through September 10th. I highly recommend that anyone with an interest in the intersection of art and politics check it out. Douglas’ work is political art that actually means something and changed things, compared to a lot of today’s “political” street art.
Images courtesy of The Outsiders
Escif for Living Walls Atlanta
As Gaia mentioned, a bunch of artists were painting murals last week in Atlanta for the Atlanta leg of the Living Walls Conference. My personal favorite of the walls I’ve seen so far (I was there, but a few walls were still unfinished when I left town) is this one by Escif.
Photos by RJ Rushmore