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Classic José Parlá graffiti

You may be familiar with José Parlá‘s recent artwork, like the above canvas. And you may also know that Parlá used to write graffiti under the name Ease, primarily in Miami. But you probably haven’t seen much of that graffiti. Until this week, I’d only seen maybe one or two Ease pieces. Just a few days ago though, Depoe sent me a great link: It turns out that the website Miami Graffiti has dozens of photos of Ease graffiti by Parlá. So maybe I’m on the only one out there for whom this is new informatoin, after all this website isn’t a secret, but I hadn’t seen this work before and really enjoyed checking it out.

Thanks again to Depoe for the tip (and check out his recent series of etchings. I’ve got a few of his etchings and they are the first thing I see on my wall when I get up in the morning. Great stuff.)

Photo by bashford

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Baltimore Open City: Open Call

Baltimore Open City
An open city is a place where everyone feels welcome, regardless of such things as wealth, race or religion. In every neighborhood of an open city, one feels like he or she belongs. Does Baltimore feel open or does housing discrimination, bad public transportation, and the privatization of public space separate people and create an uneven distribution of opportunity? For the exhibition Baltimore Open City, students of Maryland Institute College of Art’s Exhibition Development Seminar invited scholars, activists, community- based organizations, local artists and visiting artist Damon Rich to create a series of installations, workshops and other public programs that investigate the ways in which Baltimore is and is not an open city. We welcome our neighbors to join us in exploring what an open city might look and feel like.

Call for Entries
At this time, Baltimore Open City would like to invite artists, designers, architects, educators, community groups and all other interested parties to participate in our exhibition. We are looking for people to contribute original and informative works of two- and three- dimensional art and design. The work submitted should be relevant to the idea of the “open” city in general and/or Baltimore specifically. Only finished work will be considered for acceptance.

Continue reading “Baltimore Open City: Open Call”

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‘A’ – Remi/Rough and Steve More

Steve More and Remi/Rough have a show opening next week at Blackall Studios in London. A is intended as a sort of checkpoint for what Remi and More call the urban abstract movement (them plus people like Kofie, Jose Parla and Retna). I’m not sure about that, but hey, I like the pictures so I’m not going to complain about a bit of over-hyping. Vandalog readers will probably be familiar with Remi’s abstract graffiti-style canvases, but this is one of the first time I’ve seen a substantial number of artworks by More. Arrested Motion recently did studio visits with both More and Remi, so you can check those out here and here. Here’s some of what you will see in A, and Londoners can go to Blackall Studios next week to see everything (I have a feeling that Steve More’s work really needs to be seen in person to pop):

Steve More
Remi/Rough
Steve More
Remi/Rough
Steve More

Photos courtesy of Remi/Rough

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EVEREMAN is for everyone

If you live in the city of Atlanta you might have run into an EVEREMAN piece at some point, or maybe you found a little EVEREMAN wooden magnet on the street for you to take. I know I have. The first time I found one of his pieces was on my bike stuck to the frame.

EVEREMAN is a wood craftsman, who likes country music, hobo history, trains and gifting! Every EVEREMAN piece is for you to take, whether it is a flat square EVEREMAN magnet, big or small, an EVEREMAN cube, or an EVEREMAN tile attached to a rock. If you find it and if you like it, then it’s yours! “4 U ATL” , carved on the back of all of his pieces, if how he lets you know his art is a gift for you.

Back in the day he was throwing steel poles at billboards.

Nowadays he hangs his art up high.

or puts his art right in front of your face for you to find,

and sometimes he makes giant cubes to decorate parks.

Here’s an EVEREMAN studio tour- the first of 12 videos project I am working with STREETELA:

EVEREMAN – Streetela from Streetela on Vimeo.

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Something new from Judith Supine in NYC

Looks like Judith Supine has been getting up a bit in NYC, which is always nice to see. These aren’t his most complex pieces ever, but I do like how the above piece interacts with its surroundings. It’s also kind of interesting to compare these to his recent indoor work. It seems to me like his street art is looking a bit more DIY while the gallery work is getting more refined (and I don’t just mean the super glossy coating on his canvases).

Photos by Becki Fuller

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Mr. Brainwash is getting his ass sued

Mr. Brainwash, aka Thierry Guetta, is getting sued for basing some of his “artwork” on Glen E. Friedman’s iconic photograph of Run DMC (as seen on the right side of the above photograph).

Sean Bonner has an article on Boing Boing with some details of the case his thoughts. While I think he makes some good points as to why this is different from Shepard Fairey’s lawsuit with the AP over his Obama HOPE poster, I disagree with his conclusion that Mr. Brainwash’s work isn’t covered by fair use while Shepard Fairey’s should be. As much as I dislike what Thierry does, as much as I would like to bash him and as much as I think the ethical thing in this case would have been to credit and license the image from Glen E. Friedman, I’m not sure that it’s a wise thing to say that he should be legally obligated to do so. I’ll probably explain my thoughts on this in more depth in another post by the end of the week.

Photo by enderzero

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Sickboy solo show coming up in Lisbon

UPDATE: Sounds like the above image may also have something to do with an issue of Very Nearly Almost coming out in the next two weeks…

Sickboy has a solo show coming up on February 3rd at the Montana Gallery in Lisbon, Portugal with Yellow Pants Gallery. Yellow Pants are new, but their last show looked pretty cool and had a very strong line up, so I’m expecting big things from them, and this Sickboy show might just be one of those big things. Sickboy is a UK-based street artist and graffiti writer and I’ve really enjoy his work indoors and outdoors for the last couple of years. He also really knows how to do a show right. He had a show in Bristol that was only open for 3 hours and one in London that completely transformed a giant space. Who knows what he’ll get up to in Lisbon… Here’s the flyer:

Photos by Viktor Vauthier

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White Cocoa in Brooklyn

One of my new favorite ones lately has been White Cocoa. Her wheatpastes are beautifully detailed and all hand drawn in color pencils. The work, time and effort put on each drawing is really mind blowing.

Check out more of her work here.

Photo by Becki Fuller

“Giving the work over to the street, and letting go of ownership, has given the portraits a new life and purpose that they could never have achieved in the precious spaces of the studio and gallery”

Photo by OverUnder
Photo by White Cocoa

Photos by White Cocoa, Becki Fuller and OverUnder

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Flix and his robots invade Venezuela!

I will admit I am a sucker for bright neon colors, but this is not just about that. The work Flix gives us is cleverly camouflage in the urban landscape in a very fun way, making even fire hydrants more interesting and attractive to everyone.

Feel free to check out his flickr account to see more of his work.

Photos by Flix.