Link-o-rama

Gane and Texas in Philadelphia
Gane and Texas in Philadelphia

Sorry if some of these links are a bit dated, but hopefully they’re still interesting:

  • Don Leicht, the original Space Invader, has a exhibition of his work on now at Mary Colby Studio & Gallery on City Island in the Bronx. Leicht has been making space invader characters for the street and for galleries since 1982, often in collaboration with John Fekner. Both Leicht and Fekner have never really embraced the spotlight in the way that others from their generation have (particularly in recent years), and so Leicht’s place in early New York street art often goes unacknowledged. Whereas Space Invader’s characters are generally lighthearted and fun and more about interesting placement than interesting content, Leicht’s content is political. His invaders, painted in camo, serve as a reminder/warning that war is real and of the relationship between videos games and the military.
  • The app NO AD, which I was pretty excited about when it launched and even more excited about once I got to try it out myself, recently announced their next exhibition on the app. NO AD is working with the International Center of Photography to display images from their current exhibition, Sebastião Salgado: Genesis. I love that the ICP is into this idea. NO AD is a fantastic exhibition platform, but it’s also a bit of an odd one, so it’s very cool to see the ICP embracing both augmented reality technology and an anti-public-advertising platform. Click here for more info on the exhibition.
  • Speaking of public advertising, this crazy thing happened in Hong Kong.
  • And over on Hyperallergic, Julia Friedman addresses the major discrepancy in how  New York City enforces laws relating to public advertising. Essentially, the current enforcement strategy seems to punish artists and activists while leaving corporate interests to do whatever they please.
  • I really enjoyed this article on the painfulness of advertisers appropriating street art and graffiti for their own ends, to the point that Perrier actually replaced a mural of Nelson Mandela with an advertisement featuring the hashtag “#streetartbyperrier”.
  • Speaking of water companies, street art and hashtags…  The folks being the for-profit bottled water company WAT-AAH (aka Let Water be Water LLC, or as I like to call them “Evian for Kids”) sent The L.I.S.A. Project NYC a cease and desist letter for using a hashtag that they claimed to own the trademark for (they don’t). Animal has more on that ridiculous story.
  • Jorge Rodríguez-Gerada created a massive piece on the National Mall. Impressive piece. Impressive location. Good stuff.
  • Conor Harrington had a great show in NYC, at a pop up space with Lazarides Gallery from the UK. I went up for the opening, and despite the space being lit like a haunted house and seemingly pumped full of mist from a fog machine, the work looked even better than I had anticipated. Plenty of artists can paint traditionally beautiful paintings, and plenty of artists can use drips and tags and half finished elements and things like that to make their paintings look “street” or to make it look like they are saying “screw you traditional notions of beauty and fine art painting!” Few artists can do what Conor does, which is to utilize all of those styles and techniques, from beautifully staged scenes painted with perfection to all the different ways to make a painting look rough and cool, but utilize those things in the right balance and with respect. To Conor, it looks like a drip is no different than the a detailed brush stroke. The “disruptive” elements look like they belong. He isn’t trying to destroy painting. He’s trying to bring it to new heights, and he’s much better at it than most.
  • It was a surprise to see that Jonathan Jones at The Guardian actually liked a recent Banksy piece, but then again it was a good piece with an even better story in the end.
  • This article on the utter failure of a major “street art biennial” in Moscow is an absolute must-read.
  • This fall I’ve seen (online) two interesting pieces of endurance art, both of them by female artists in New York City who took to endurance art to address what they see as crises.
    • gilf and Natalie Renee Fasano walked 15 miles barefoot around the city. 60 million or more people worldwide live every day without shoes. Interestingly, Gilf’s project was not so much an awareness campaign as an opportunity for self-reflection that she documented and publicized. None of her Instagram posts on the performance provide information about what can be done about this problem, and the video documenting the work provides no context except the text “A day in the Shoes of the Shoeless with gilf!” On some level, I find that frustrating. But of course the work wasn’t about raising national awareness for this issue. gilf’s own description of the project makes that clear. It was more a project for herself. And that’s great and useful too, but on some level I can’t get over the missed opportunity here to make the project more than personal suffering/meditation and self-promotion. Why not simply say, “And if this project is bringing the issue of people without shoes to your attention and you want to help, here’s something you can do.”? Yes, it’s a personal project for self-reflection, but it’s also an artwork that was promoted all over the web. So, I’ll close by saying that if you do want to help provide shoes for people in need, Soles4Souls seems to be the place to go (thanks to Animal for that tip).
    • Emma Sulkowicz has to be one of the bravest, most impressive people I’ve read about in a long time, and I almost hesitate to call what she’s doing an art piece, lest it devalue her actions in an age when so much art is devoid of the kind soul this particular performance/way of living requires. For nearly two months, Sulkowicz has been carrying her dorm room mattress with her to every class, every lunch break, every party, and everywhere else she goes, constantly, and she says she will continue to carry her mattress with her “for as long as I attend the same school as my rapist.” More about this piece, and the reaction she’s received from her fellow students at Columbia University, at Hyperallergic.

Photo by RJ Rushmore

Wall\Therapy, the finished products

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Smith

This year’s Wall\Therapy festival is winding down in Rochester, NY, so let’s have a look at the finished work (although a few were already covered by Daniel’s posts). There are a few really killer pieces, including this piece by Ever that I haven’t seen professional photos of yet, and some legal work along abandoned train tracks which is really interesting, but I’m not sure about this spot that looks like a little hall-of-fame setup. Those are valuable to have, but I personally wouldn’t put one in a mural festival these days. Still, plenty of good work all around, and I love that there are way more old-school writers at Wall\Therapy than just about any other mural festival I’ve ever seen besides perhaps a Meeting of Styles event. Conor Harrington knocked it out of the park, and Jessie and Katey did a simple but really effective piece.

Conor Harrington
Conor Harrington
Wise2
Wise2
Jessie & Katie
Jessie & Katey

Continue reading “Wall\Therapy, the finished products”

Wall Therapy firsthand – Part 1

Conor Harrington in progress
Conor Harrington in progress

It seems like all of my friends are up in Rochester at the moment for Wall\Therapy, the mural festival organized by the fantastic Dr. Ian Wilson. I was hoping to go up myself, but instead Caroline and I will be going to Living Walls in Atlanta next month. Daniel “Halopigg” Weintraub is at Wall\Therapy, and he’s been kind enough to share some photos and thoughts with us. For more up the the minute updates, you can keep an eye on Daniel’s instagram. – RJ Rushmore

I arrived in Rochester Monday afternoon and it did not take too long for me to find murals from last year’s Wall\Therapy by renowned artists Roa, Herakut, and Faith47. I checked in as quickly as possible and decided to hit the streets. I popped in the homies LNY and Cern’s coordinates and realized that it was going to a lot easier for me to walk to Cern’s wall, and being a man of constant efficiency I decided that was to be my first stop of the week.

Cern
Cern in progress

Cern, aka Cernesto, aka CernYMI, aka CernTWD, was just getting started on his mural and my presence did not help the early progress. With some artists I just like to sit and watch but when Cern is painting the undiagnosed ADD just comes out in both of us. We chilled for a bit but I figured I needed to let the man get to work so I hitched a ride from a nice volunteer over the LNY’s mural across town.

It was at this point when I realized I have a car, and I should be driving my own self around! It is just my instincts to put my car away and forget it when I get to an urban environment; just a heads up, there seems to be ample parking in the ROC as they like to call it here.

LNY
LNY in progress

LNY, or Lunar New Year, was stationed in a very residential urban community, and his mural reflects that. In the early stages of his mural you can see Corinthian columns “holding up” the windows of the house, along with images of Trayvon Martin, and Frederick Douglass. LNY has a knack for connecting and communicating with his surroundings, with this mural being no exception. I am very excited to see the progress of this wall, especially since the community has shown such an embrace for the work in the short time it has been up. I can’t tell you the number of honks, thumbs up, and shouts I heard yesterday in the hour and a half that I was there. Community improvement though art is what Wall\Therapy is all about and it is really nice to see it in action.

Following LNY’s completion for the night we hitched a ride to dinner where the entire team of “Wall Therapists” convened for a night of food, drinks, and dancing. The project is off to a great start! Hats off to Ian and his team, you’ve already succeeded in my book!

Ricky Lee Gordon aka Freddy Sam
Ricky Lee Gordon aka Freddy Sam in progress
Mr. Prvrt
Mr. Prvrt
Adam Francey in progress
Adam Francey in progress

Photos by Daniel “Halopigg” Weintraub

Baroque the Streets – A street art festival in South London

Nunca
Nunca. Photo by RJ Rushmore.

While I was in London recently, I had the opportunity to tour the murals in Dulwich thanks to Remi/Rough. Dulwich is a part of South London, almost suburbia really, where you definitely wouldn’t expect to see world class murals, but a fair few have popped up recently. Most of the murals in Dulwich are thanks to the recent Baroque The Streets festival, where artists were invited to paint murals based on paintings in the Dulwich Picture Gallery. We already posted about Reka’s piece for the festival, so here are a few more pieces I found in this quite part of London. By far my favorite has to be the piece by Nunca, but there are a lot of strong pieces. Thanks again to Remi/Rough for showing me around town.

Conor Harrington
Conor Harrington. Photo by RJ Rushmore.
Phlegm. Photo by RJ Rushmore.
Phlegm. Photo by RJ Rushmore.

Continue reading “Baroque the Streets – A street art festival in South London”

Weekend link-o-rama

Awer
Awer

It’s a shortish link-o-rama this week, but with some really good stories and great walls…

Photo by Awer

Murals from FAME Festival 2012, part two

Conor Harrington

Here’s part two of our FAME Festival mural coverage, thanks to Henrik Haven and his photos. Part one can be found here. In a two-part series, we’ve selected some of our favorite pieces from FAME 2012. For part two, we’ve got walls by Conor Harrington, Lucy McLauchlan, Cyop & Kaf, MOMO, Boris Hoppek and Bastardilla.

Lucy McLauchlan
Lucy McLauchlan

Continue reading “Murals from FAME Festival 2012, part two”

Murals at FAME Festival 2012, part one

Erica il Cane

Henrik Haven visited FAME Festival in Grottaglie, Italy for the festival’s opening events last month. Naturally, he took plenty of stunning shots of the new work there. In a two-part series, we’ve selected some of our favorite pieces from FAME 2012. In part one here, we’ve got walls by Erica il Cane, Conor Harrington, Interesni Kazki, Vhils, Moneyless, Brad Downey, Akay and Cyop & Kaf.

Cyop and Kaf
Vhils
Brad Downey and Akay

Continue reading “Murals at FAME Festival 2012, part one”

Waking up Vardø

E.B. Itso. Click to view large.

Note from RJ: We at Vandalog are excited to publish Tristan Manco‘s first post on the site, hopefully the first of many. Tristan is one of contemporary street art’s greatest champions and most-distinguished writers. Tristan curated by iterations of Cans Festival, worked at Pictures on Walls for half a decade, has written or in some way contributed to 8 art books since 2002 as well as numerous magazine articles in publications such as Juxtapoz. I’ve known Tristan for a couple of years, and he is one of the people whom I really trust when it comes to art.

Taking place in the 24-hour daylight of a Northern Norway summer on a small island town called Vardø north of the Arctic Circle – Komafest was always going to be a unique event…

Vardø is the oldest settlement in Northern Norway and in recent years has become depopulated with many buildings left empty, partly as a result of the collapsing fishing industry. The curator and organizer of the festival, the Norwegian artist Pøbel saw the potential of a street art festival to make a visual transformation of the town and to show the local people it was possible to make changes. While developing the idea Pøbel spent time getting to know the locals and with his unassuming nature and enthusiasm he began to gain their trust. Soon the public began to get behind the idea and offer up buildings for artists to paint on and volunteering to help in the organization. It became a truly grassroots movement rather than something imposed on the community.

Click to view large

The island, shaped like a butterfly, has an otherworldly atmosphere and is only accessible overland by a winding 3km undersea tunnel, which appears out of the ground like something out of a science fiction movie, but the real stars of the show are its traditional wooden buildings. Many of the wooden jetties, warehouses and buildings are abandoned, weather-beaten and in a state of beautiful decay. Although standing empty these heritage buildings all have owners who are often unable to afford their proper restoration. The idea of project is that the art that is created on them can awaken these buildings out from a coma, giving the festival it’s name – Komafest.

Steve Powers. Click to view large.

What I found inspiring about this project was the way the invited artists responded to the place. Each artist had some idea of what they might experience but in most cases their preconceptions soon changed once they began to speak to the locals and learn more about their environment. According to local fisherman Aksel Robertsen, Philadelphian artist Steve Powers had many ideas planned but scrapped them as soon as he began to meet the people and experienced the place for himself – all those encounters shaped his final murals; such as “Cod is Great” and “Eternal Light – Eternal Night”. The French artist Remed painted a mural on an old seafront warehouse, which took some of its imagery from the seascape but included the text Hellige Heks Fortuna, (Hellige Heks means Holy Witch in Norwegian). This references to witches dates back to the Vardø witch trials that were held there in 17th century resulting in many of the accused being burned alive at the stake.

Remed. Click to view large.

More after the jump… Continue reading “Waking up Vardø”

Whitecross Street Party

This weekend saw the return of the Whitecross Street Party and the Rise of the Non-Conformists Art Show. Each year, the event gets bigger and bigger featuring an array of talented artists that display their work for several months in the heart of London. Always a fan of White Cross, this year’s line-up was the best yet featuring large scale works by Malarky, Ronzo, Shepard Fairey, Conor Harrington and so many more which will be on display until September.

Below are just some teaser images of the work, but check back for pictures of the antics from the weekend.

t.wat
Joel Gray
Conor Harrington and Robots

Continue reading “Whitecross Street Party”