One of my favorite Shepard Fairey prints of the year, and it’s for charity. Awesome. Well, except for the fact Peel Magazine is in trouble, which is the opposite of awesome.
From Shepard Fairey:
Dave and Holly Combs are wonderful people as well as the founders of PEEL Zine. They took the risk of following their artistic passion and have paid the price of losing their home. I created this print with and for them to raise money to help with their huge debt. PEEL has helped to support and grow the street art community and I believe they deserve to have the favor returned. Profits from this print go to help the Combs family. Please help out.
The print goes on sale on October 6th for just $45. It is from an edition of 450.
Dennis McNett just made me feel much better about going to school in Philadelphia next year. Finally, there is a cool art gallery I can point to and say, “See, there’s still art for me in Philadelphia” when people ask how the hell I’m going to handle being so far from the art I like.
“Year of the Wolfbat”
An installation by Dennis McNett
Show dates: October 2nd –October 31st
Opening Reception: Friday October 2nd 7-10pm
Where: Space 1026, 1026 Arch St. Philadelphia, PA 19107
The “Year of the Wolfbat” began in NYC in June and has since trekked across the US stopping for exhibitions, artist talks and workshops along the way. The migratory flight of the Wolfbats has swooped in for shows at Fecal Face Dot Gallery in San Francisco and Thinkspace Gallery in Los Angeles. Their tour will culminate at Space 1026 in Philadelphia with an installation of print-derived sculpture and mural, accompanied by unique and editioned works both large and small.
You can expect to see a loud psychedelic woodcut landscape covering several walls of the gallery in which nature’s bass has been cranked up to 11. Duck your head walking in and make way for an entire flock of hotheaded Wolfbats swooping overhead, not to mention the supercharged eagles diving out of their path to let them through.
Also on view will be several new wood carved pieces, relief cut prints, masks and oversize tapestries. Leopards with serpent tails, goat heads wrapped in snakes, angry beasts, eagles fighting snakes, bats, and of course, Wolfbats are just a few of the images you’re likely to come across.
An overdue post. Fame Festival opened almost 2 weeks ago now and I haven’t properly covered it. There were a few of us who traveled to see the festival (some from as far away as LA), and if you couldn’t make it for the opening, I have to recommend it for a weekend getaway or something. Everybody had a great time. There was good food, good company and good art.
The gallery component of the festival was nice, but the highlight of Fame isn’t the temporary gallery exhibition but all of the street work. Artists have painted all over the small town of Grottaglie, Italy. Here are some of my pictures:
BluDemDavid EllisVhils
While it is great to wander around the town and see so much street art almost wherever you look, the highlight of Fame Festival is the monastery. There is an abandoned monastery where I am told the local teenagers usually go to bunk off school, and it has been transformed by artwork. It also happens to be where the Blu/David Ellis film Combo was filmed.
To enter this monastery, you have to go down a road out of town, walk past what I think was a small vineyard, find the wall that surrounds the monastery and follow it until you see some red drips of paint. Then you climb over the wall by standing on a shaky pile of rocks. The other side of the wall looks like a park that has been left to grow for a few decades. There are a few paths where you can see that plenty of people have walked, and you have to find the correct one to follow. Eventually, you realize that you’re on the roof on the monastery and you have to find your way inside. Once you’re finally inside though, it is immediately worth the trouble of finding your way there. I spent maybe 1.5 hours there and still didn’t see all of the artwork. Here are a few of the pieces I did find though:
Conor HarringtonSam3LimowThe remains of Combo by David Ellis and BluJudith SupineWord To Mother
Two major graffiti shows have opened (and one has closed) without me saying a thing. Sometimes I get too involved in street art and forget about graffiti and its awesomeness.
First is Futura’s Odyssey Two which was in Berlin but closed on the 27th. Futura is a graffiti legend, so I’m always interested in seeing some new work from him. Here are a few pics and a video interview:
Photo by urbanartcore.euPhoto by urbanartcore.euPhoto by urbanartcore.eu
And graffiti show number two is all the way in Santa Monica, California at Robert Berman Gallery. Retna and Mac are big names in California, but have yet to really become as well known over here in Europe. Known Gallery has a bunch of pics you can check out from the private view, but unfortunately I can’t download them to use on Vandalog so here’s the show’s flyer:
Yote is a relatively new street artist, with his flick stream only going back to June, but already he’s put out some work that other major street art blogs have been talking about. Figure it’s about time I gave Yote a mention.
He recently made a trip to Brooklyn and hit up some classic spots with his characteristic animals:
And here’s one of Yote’s earlier pieces:
What do you think of the work? Personally, I think Yote is really promising because he does have the technical skills down, but Dennis McNett and Gaia are both using wood and lino blocks to print images of animals and those artists have components in their art that make their pieces more than portraits of animals.
About a month ago I got a very nice email from the folks at Acclaim Magazine about their latest issue (#17). My copy came in the post a few days ago. It’s the first issue I’ve read and I’m surprised I haven’t picked up Acclaim before. Actually, not that surprised, because my knowledge of “street culture” or whatever you want to call it is woefully poor but still, these guys did interview Martha Cooper and that’s usually enough to get me interested.
Acclaim is a “street lifestyle” magazine, which means toys, art, music, fashion and those sorts of things. On the art side, they’ve definitely got a soft spot for street art.
So, the art coverage: 1 page devoted to Anthony Lister where he just explains some of the objects he carries with him most days. There’s some info on Carrot Clothing, the place where ESPO made his “street art is gay” shirt. And of course interviews with Stormie Mills, Mike Revelli (Upper Playground and Juxtapoz) and others.
I think it’s a testament to Acclaim that the editor of Juxtapoz takes time to have a spot in their magazine.
Acclaim is like a few street culture magazines, but because it is based in Australia, there is a distinct Australian bent to the magazine which is kind of cool.
Fame Festival isn’t the only place artists are taking over abandoned buildings. The leaders of Israel’s street art scene recently painted a building in Tel Aviv for their show Kindred Times and Future Goodbyes. Know Hope, Klone, Foma and Zero Cents all participated. Here are some pics that Know Hope sent me:
JR‘s latest pieces are being wheatpasted right now in Paris. Here are a couple of the first images coming out of Women Are Heroes. Everything should be done by October 3rd.
