So many stickers at Maxwell Colette Gallery

Sticker wall organized by DB Burkeman for Wynwood Walls 2010

Chicago’s Maxwell Colette Gallery is kicking off the new year with STUCK UP: A Selected History of Alternative & Pop Culture Told Through Stickers, January 20th from 6-10pm. The show is curated by DB Burkeman, author of the ultimate book on stickers, and is a chance to see some of the best stickers from DB’s collection, including stickers by Barry McGee, Jenny Holzer, Banksy and Kaws. On January 21st from 1-3pm, the gallery will host a book signing with DB and seminal graffiti photographer Martha Cooper, who has had two books of her photos of stickers published.

In addition to Stuck Up, there will be work at the gallery by Chris Mendoza and a version of the Slap Happy charity project that DB and Paul Weston curated for SCOPE Miami last year.

Photo by Lulu Vision

While I was under a rock link-o-rama

Unknown artist

Well, while I had myself more or less locked in a library underground for the better part of last week, the art world did not stand still. And so we have this special Tuesday edition of the typically friday event – the link-o-rama:

  • Olek is facing charges in London (not related to her street art), and needs your help. Hyperallergic has more info.
  • Banksy has loaned a sculpture to a museum in Liverpool. Meh. Another artwork that just as easily could have been seen at any urban art group show, but it’s by Banksy so the BBC and the rest of us should apparently care. What is this? It’s not just with Banksy. Bloggers in particular, we seem to have this urge to always be the first to say “Yeah, I saw that girl’s work first and said she was cool” and a fear of being caught in a situation where everyone except us thinks that some artist or artwork is great. And now I’m rambling…
  • Blu just painted two walls in Buenos Aires. Here’s the first and here’s the second.
  • I’m loving this new sculpture from Leon Reid IV about the financial crisis.
  • Todd James also has a new sculpture in both bronze and porcelain. It’s for sale at Toykyo.
  • Mode2’s new work (NSFW) might be the best I’ve ever seen from him. Amazing stuff.
  • KAWS has a show on now at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.
  • Knock Knock is a new online magazine with a lot about street art and graffiti in Australia.
  • Kunle Martins aka Earsnot aka the founder of the infamous IRAK crew participated in Wynwood Walls this year alongside Jesse Geller aka Nemel. Martha Cooper has shots of what they got up to and then the Wynwood Walls video series has a great episode on them. For some people, it may be hard to avoid comparisons to this wall by Barry McGee. 12ozProphet says “The building painted by IRAK for Wynwood Walls is inspired by Barry McGee’s tag-filled murals… Earsnot and Nemel build on Barry McGee’s tag wall concept by filling the wall with a variety of monochromatic shades of overlapping tags creating the illusion of depth.”

Photo by Damonabnormal

Update: Banksy Stolen in Melbourne

Remember when I posted a little while ago about the StealBanksy pr sunt in Melbourne? Well someone actually managed to steal it and not in a very creative way either. Posing from as a staff member from the Art Series Hotel (the hotel owners behind the gag) agency, Maura Tuohy stole No Ball Games out of The Blackman Hotel.

Apparently, the agency got so much press for this they are doing it all over again (for a final time supposedly) with Banksy’s  Pulp Fiction until January 15th. Rememebr if you want to try your hand at stealing this piece you have to a guest at the hotel. Of course that’s the catch. There is always a catch.

Photo courtesy of Art Series Hotel

A successful Banksy (oh and Banksy updated his website)

At Vandalog, we try not to post every single Banksy piece that pops up. The reason for that is that not every Banksy piece is a work of genius or a complete flop. Some are just forgettable. Unfortunately, because Banksy is Banksy, his forgettable works get blown out of proportion and become tourist attractions. With one of his new pieces though, Banksy has used his fame and the addition of a small stencil to change something worth noticing but generally forgettable into something noticeable and memorable. The above photo is of Banksy’s latest work in Liverpool (and there was a similar piece in London, but it’s now buffed). Painting a heart with a fire extinguisher is something that anybody can do if they have the right materials, and it’s something that people might appreciate, if they notice it. But that heart alone could go unnoticed or a more callous person might view it as petty vandalism and quickly have it painted over (as the London piece was). With the addition of that airplane stencil and the claim that it was made by a famous artist, the heart becomes a landmark. In all likelihood, the work won’t be buffed and it will become a tourist attraction just like so many other Banksy’s pieces. And yes, it’s still pretty silly that people might drive for hours just to see this in the flesh, but the other consequence of the wall staying up is that now a simple positive message will be on that wall rather than nothing but a lot of greyness. Sometimes the Banksy pieces that get protected are little more than twice-told jokes, but this wall is actually sending out a positive message to thousands of people every day, so that seems worth protecting to me. Is it the greatest piece of street art ever? Hell no. Primarily, it’s just glorifying the sort of heartfelt and fun but poorly executed drunken amateur vandalism that bored teenagers get up to. But I do appreciate that Banksy has used his fame put up a positive, simple and imitable piece that would have probably been buffed if it were by any other artist or did not have the addition of a stencil at the end to turn it from “vandalism” into “street art.” For all the crap that street art gets, and often deserves, sometimes the public bias in favor of it can lead to good things. Or maybe Banksy is just being lazy and he couldn’t think of anything particularly complex to do.

PS, after I wrote this whole thing but before it was posted, Banksy updated his website. So I’m gonna contradict a bit of what I’ve just written and point out this update. There’s some new stuff including some outdoor pieces that are boring and some that are actually pretty good, plus an FAQ section.

Photos by nolionsinengland

Banksy news update

Photo by S.Butterfly

We’ve got a few bits of Banksy-related news to share, so it’s all being lumped together here:

  • It looks like there will be a new Banksy print this Christmas March 2012 from Pictures on Walls (no surprise). The print will be based on this gorilla image, which was recently buffed accidentally. Even Pictures on Walls’ description of the print in a bit tongue-in-cheek about the recycling of this older image into a print with different glittery color options.
  • A number of people have emailed me after seeing this Banksy installation (photo by Just) at Pictures on Walls’ winter group show (which Just has plenty more photos of) because it looks a bit like this sculpture by Giles Walker and Peter Dunne from a couple of years ago. Personally, I prefer Dunne and Walker’s piece, but I don’t think the pieces are too similar for comfort. Could Banksy have seem the work by Dunne and Walker and been inspired partially by that? Definitely. But it’s not just an outright copy, and I’m often hesitant to say that any Banksy idea has been outright stolen from another artist, since most of his ideas rely on pretty simple themes and symbols, so it’s likely that others have tried similar things before whether Banksy knew about it or not.
  • It now seems unlikely that we will ever get confirmation from Banksy’s website that the piece pictured at the top of this post and covered on Vandalog last month is a Banksy. Foreignstudents.com happened to catch some photos of the work being put up. No faces of the artist or his crew, but the site did get images of a scaffolding being put up that covered the work while it was being done, and they say a man posing as a security guard stayed at the scaffolding for some of the time that it was up. So if this wasn’t Banksy’s work, someone may still come forward claiming responsibility. I’m confident however that this was the work of Banksy, so given these photos and any more that might be out there, taking responsibility seems risky for his anonymity.

Photo by S.Butterfly

Happy Black Friday

Photo by S.Butterfly

There’s speculation around the internet that this piece in central London is by Banksy. I couldn’t care too much either way. Yeah, the stencil is simple, but why does it need to be complex? The message comes across. Plus, the timing is perfect. Although this stencil is in London, no doubt it will be seen by Americans today, the biggest shopping day of the year. So… shop ’til you drop!

Photo by Unusualimage

Photos by S.Butterfly and Unusualimage

Weekend link-o-rama

Os Gêmeos in Greece

It’s 11/11/11, so I guess that’s a big deal to some people. That seems so arbitrary to me, since our calendar is pretty arbitrary to begin with. Besides, it’s really 11/11/2011. A few years ago, 11/02/2011 was much cooler. In my social sphere though, 11/11/11 seems like an excuse to throw parties, so maybe I shouldn’t complain. While I was thinking about the ridiculousness of this date, here’s what almost passed me by this week in art:

Photo by Nolionsinengland

Weekend link-o-rama

Bust in Amsterdam

Happy almost Halloween. It’s been a week of wasted energy, or so it seems. A potential legal wall that I was organizing has fallen through for the time being, but hopefully things are just delayed rather than cancelled. Here’s some of what I should have posted about this week:

Photo by Bust

Jay “J.SON” Edlin’s GRAFFITI 365 Presents an Ambitious Survey of Graffiti & Street Art

Cover photo by Martha Cooper

Featured in USA Today’s Pop Candy blog as one of three coffee table book recommendations, Graffiti 365 by Jay “J.SON” Edlin is much more. An ambitious global survey of the key graffiti writers and street artists of our time, it serves too as an ideal reference guide.  Here is a small sampling of images that accompany the writing:

Deuce 7, photo by Luna Park
Hargadon, photo by Becki Fuller
Stinkfish, photo courtesy of Stinkfish
Faber, photo courtesy of Faber
Banksy @ Cans Festival, photo by Lois Stavsky

Jay will be at Art Basel Miami Beach in early December. Meanwhile, my favorite post-publication photo is the one captured of former NYC mayor Ed Koch, who waged an aggressive campaign against graffiti back in the 80’s, signing GRAFFITI 365. (Thanks, Jay, for sharing it!)

Photos courtesy of Jay Edlin

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