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The Rooftop Burner Fund auction has begun

As mentioned last month, Rowdy has recently lost nearly everything in a house fire and artists from around the world have come together to help him out. That help is coming in the form of The Rooftop Burner Fund, organized by Steal From Work. The Rooftop Burner Fund is an Ebay auction of work donated by dozens of artists to help out Rowdy. The auctions can be found here. Some of the artwork is already for sale, with the rest of the auctions starting between now and July 5th. For more about Rowdy, check out this recent interview he did with Arrested Motion.

Here’s some of the work that you can already bid on (and at this point it looks like there are some real deals to be had, in addition to helping Rowdy):

Sickboy
Steve Powers / ESPO
Gold Peg

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Sten & Lex

Photo by Sten

It looks like Sten & Lex have been keeping busy. They had a new book published by Drago earlier this year, have been putting up some murals in Rome (including the massive 26 meter tall one in the above photo), there was that great solo show in Paris and now they have a show on at a museum in Italy.

There don’t seem to be any press releases in English, so I’m not 100% sure what is going on at the Carandente Museum in Spoleto, Italy, but it looks like Sten & Lex’s show is taking place in addition to a massive group show of pop surrealists called, unsurprisingly, Pop Surrealism, which was previewed on Arrested Motion.

As the show just opened this weekend, hopefully there will be some pictures surfacing online soon.

Photo by Sten

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Mr. Jeff Soto in NYC

Update: The original headline on this post, and the one that you probably saw if you are found this on your RSS feed, mentioned a new toy. Then I decided not to mention Jeff Soto’s new toy because I went on a rant about art versus advertising. If you’re curious though, Hi-Fructose has some info on the new toy that Jeff is working on.

Looks like Jeff Soto just painted this piece outside of Eyebeam in NYC.  Which reminds me, if you’re in NYC, tonight would be a good night to stop by Jonathan LeVine Gallery. Jeff Soto and Dave Cooper both have solo shows opening there tonight (those shows run through July 24th). Arrested Motion recently posted a studio visit with Jeff, which includes some of the artwork that will be at his show tonight.

Now, I don’t mean to direct any potential negative attention towards Jeff Soto, but this piece reminds me of an interesting argument that I had last night with a friend of mine, who I’ll call James because I’m sure he doesn’t want me to publish his name. I said that I’d rather not be subjected to advertising while I’m in a public space, especially illegal advertising. Naturally, James brings up that I’m more than okay with artists putting up street art illegally. He thinks that I’m hypocritical for hating illegal ads but loving illegal art, especially since the definition of what is art is subjective. I say there’s a big difference, since street art, public art and architecture aren’t trying to sell you anything. Naturally, James makes the point that when a street artist puts up a piece, that’s advertising for their own work. In the case of Jeff Soto, Jeff rarely paints outside anymore, and this particular wall is clearly a form of promotion for his show with Jonathan LeVine Gallery. So it’s an ad, right? Not in my opinion. Yes, it’s an ad, if you know who Jeff Soto is and you know that he has a show opening tonight, which is probably less than 1% of the people who walk by Eyebeam today. For the vast majority of New Yorkers, that’s just a piece of art. Even if Jeff had signed his name, it’s not like he’s put a sign next to it saying “You can buy this image as a print for $70 at potatostamp.com!” (although, actually, you can).  Maybe murals like Jeff’s and 99% of street art is a form of guerilla marketing, but it’s only seen as marketing by a tiny minority of the population. For the rest of the world, it’s art in the place of a grey wall, and there’s nothing better than that. So that’s my rant about the different between street art and advertising. Hopefully you agree with me, otherwise I may have just turned a few people off of Jeff Soto, which would suck.

Photo by amc_

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Lucy McLauchlan’s “Together”

As a typical 19-year-old guy, I tend to enjoy art which is “edgy” (aka: full of girls, guns and rebellion – I couldn’t think of a ‘g’ word for that). That’s certainly not always true, but I did prefer Chloe Early’s tank paintings to pretty much anything else she’s done, so I think it’s fair to say that it’s at least one aspect of what I find interesting in art. That said, sometimes I want to look at something calming, beautiful and, if you will, zen. Now, my favorite artist is Swoon, so if course, she fits into that beautiful category, but she’s not the only one. Lucy McLauchlan, when she gets it right, is one of the most underrated young painters in London.

Luckily, Lazarides Gallery agrees with me, because they have a solo show from Lucy starting next week at their Rathbone Place location in London. In fact, Together is her second solo show with Lazarides.

As usual, Lucy is painting on a huge variety of material for this show. Just read this section of the press release:

Paint cans, ex-Police riot shields, doorways, camper vans, plastic containers, driftwood, and brick walls have all been transformed by Lucy McLauchlan’s graphic, fluid monochromatic style. In our technologically dominate age forget digital manipulation, McLauchlan prefers to stick with Indian ink or permanent marker often allowing the mistakes to take centre stage in her fantastical murals.

Here’s the hoping that Lucy will be doing some paintings on the gallery walls as well. Her mural currently gracing the Rathbone Place stairwell is one of my favorite things about that space (along with David Choe’s mural in the same stairwell).

Together runs from July 1st through August 12th.

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StolenSpace Summer Show

Since graduating college a few months ago, I have been forced to find other ways to pregame on the weekends other than a recurring bad romance with Natural Light and terrible displays of beirut.  Now that I am an official adult, going to art openings to see some fantastic art and gulping down the free beer is a pretty appealing alternative.  I always look forward to the shows in the Summer time because so many people go to galleries on opening night (for the booze) that the shows seem to be featuring their highest caliber artists.  Or maybe I just think so because I am five feet tall and feeling woozy after a beer.

On July 1st, Stolenspace in London will be opening their Summer group show featuring some of the biggest names in the game.  When I hear “group show,” my mind jumps to art school end of the year culminations that exhibit an eclectic array of amateur art.  This show, however, is too cool for school.  Shepard Fairey, Wordtomother, D*Face, Kid Acne, Mr. Jago, Cyclops will have works hanging alongside artists (Miss Van, The London Police, and Chloe Early) who had solo shows at the gallery this past year.

Sadly, I still will not be in London until mid-August and will miss the entire show.  I swear some higher power does not want me to see Miss Van’s art in person. Sigh

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Eltono collaborates with the public

Update: D’oh. Aaron posted about this months ago. I just got reminded of it in Eltono’s newsletter and thought “We didn’t post about that right? Why not? It’s cool.” Well, we did post about it. Sorry Aaron.

A few months ago, Eltono put together an experiment on the streets of Coruña, Spain. First, he painted geometric designs on sheets of plexiglass. Then he painted the entire other side of the glass white. He placed these sheets in three spots around town and waited. Here are the results:

Everyday passersby began to draw on the plexiglass or scratch away at the paint… Eventually Eltono’s designs on the other side of the glass began to show through.

After 5 days, Eltono removed the pieces and brought them back to a gallery for the MUAU:

You can see more about the project on Eltono’s website.

Photos courtesy of Eltono

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SHRED at Perry Rubenstein Gallery

Bears by Brian Adam Douglas

Perry Rubenstein Gallery in NYC has was looks like an awesome show opening on July 1st. SHRED is a show of collage-based artworks curated by Carlo McCormick, an editor at Paper magazine. Traditionally not a gallery focused on street art, Perry Rubenstein Gallery seems to have gotten interested in the genre after starting to work with Faile last year (and I think Faile have a show there in the fall). For SHRED, McCormick has brought together classic works from well-known masters of collage like Rauschenberg, Gee Vaucher and Dash Snow, as well as brand new work from the likes of Brian Adam Douglas (aka Elbowtoe), Faile (including brand new imagery), Shepard Fairey, Swoon, Judith Supine and others.

This should be great show, not just for the impressive artwork, but also because this will expose a whole new group of people to artists like Judith Supine and Brian Adam Douglas.

SHRED is runs from July 1st through August 27th, with an opening reception on July 1st from 6-8pm.

Via my love for you is a stampede of horses

Photo courtesy of Brian Adam Douglas