I know I already posted about Lush this month, but he’s worth another update. These recent sketches by Lush once again show that nobody is safe from his wrath.
Photos by Lush
Another Lush update
A Lush update
Lush has been busy this year, but I only have a handful of images to share on Vandalog. As long as you don’t mind some NSFW content, I highly recommend checking his flickr for a more full and explicit sampling of Lush’s recent work, but here are a couple SFW examples…
Photos by Lush
So many shows about to open
There are so many interesting shows opening in the next week or two that I thought I’d just throw them all together into one post. Here’s what I think looks worth checking out:
- Yesterday, the Museum of Sex in New York opened a show that sounds absolutely awesome called F*ck Art. It’s on through June 10th and features artwork by Aiko, El Celso, Lush, Mode2, Cassius Fouler, Miss Van and many more.
- Love & Hate is a group show opening at StolenSpace this week and runs through March 4th. D*face, Dan Witz, Ronzo, Word to Mother, Jeff Soto, Eine, Charles Krafft and others are included.
- Chris Stain, Veng and Taka Sudo will be showing together at C.A.V.E. Gallery, beginning February 11th. Brooklyn Street Art has a preview of Chris’ work.
- Zes and Retna are together at Known Gallery in LA. LA TACO has the info.
- Nick Mann aka Doodles, Brett Flanigan, Craig Rodgers and Dan Bortz are collaborating with one another in Oakland, CA.
- Another collaborative group show will be in Da Mental Vaporz‘ (Bom.k, Blo, Brusk, Dran, Gris1, ISO, Jaw, Kan, and Sowat) show at Melbourne. That show, Le Venin, will be at RTIST Gallery from February 16th through March 4th.
- All Talk at Pandemic Gallery will include Aakash Nihalani, Cassius Fouler, Gabriel Specter, Jesus Saves, NohJColey and others and runs from February 17th through March 11th.
Photo courtesy of Da Mental Vaporz
Street art for the internet
Street art is moving online. If you’re a regular reader, you’ve probably noticed that street artists are making art on the street for the purpose of photographing it and sharing the images online (and maybe you remember these posts). I think it is too early to say for sure whether this transition is a good thing, a bad thing or just change, but it has gotten so pervasive that street art that comments on street art now often focuses on pointing out this transition from in-the-flesh street art to art that was intended to be shared digitally. Here are a few recent examples…
1. Reblog This by mobstr (shown above). This piece was painted in Shoreditch, a spot where it would have been seen by countless street art photographers, but it only lasted 7 hours before getting buffed. No matter. Mobstr got a great photo of it and put that photo online. Now it’s all ready to be reblogged on tumblr.
2. What ever happened to street art on the street? by Lush. Both a comment on the proliferation of street art online and the commercialization of the movement. This image is available as a print at Backwoods Gallery. Lush has also made animated gifs of his work, something else that can only be viewed digitally but is created on the street.
3. Fine by Elfo. The text is in Italian and references this work by Giuseppe Chiari. It translates to “Street art is finished, stop all together.” Rather than painting this in a busy city center, Elfo put it on an abandoned building in what looks like the countryside. The audience for the work is (primarily) the audience that will see this photo online and Elfo is well aware of that. Does this mean the death of street art though? Of course not. Chiari continued making art after his declaration, and Elfo has already made more street art. It’s just that Elfo’s public is primarily a digital one, either seeking his work out or coming across it randomly on a site like tumblr, but either way viewing it for free.
For more about this shift towards a digital street and a digital public, here are two posts I wrote a while ago.
Photos by mobstr, Lush and Elfo
More “art” from Lush
Lush is up to his old tricks at Backwoods Gallery in Melbourne, where he had his first solo show last year. Another shithouse “art” show opened earlier this month with a bang: At the opening, Lush held a “death match” between Jesus and Satan. And yes, it was captured on video. If you’ve been following Lush’s flickr lately, you’ve probably seen the sketches he has been putting up. Those are on display at the show and have turned into a zine that Backwoods is selling online.
Here’s part 1 of the fight videos, a bit of an introduction to the fight:
And here’s the fight itself (and yes, it’s violent, so be warned):
Here are a few shots from the show. You can find more on Backwoods Gallery’s facebook or at Arty Graffarti:
Photos courtesy of Backwoods Gallery
Another “art” show from Lush in Melbourne
Lush is back in Melbourne after spending so much of the summer in California, and he’s getting ready for his second show at Backwoods Gallery. Shithouse “Art” Show opens on December 6th, a nice counterpoint to the Miami Basel madness that so much of the art world (Vandalog included) will still be high off of.
Photo by Lush
Pics: Lush’s show in LA
Lush‘s LA show opened last week and it looks like he’s done it again. Some great pieces in this show making fun of street art and graffiti, specifically taking aim at Banksy and Keith Haring. Here are a few of my favorites.
And check out many more photos on Juxtapoz.
Photos by Lush
The Lush interview…
A Warning From the Editor: This interview is intended for mature audiences only. If you are not at least 18 years old, you shouldn’t read this. Or if you are at your office. Or you are my parents. This interview is definitely definitely definitely Not Safe For Work. There’s nudity, strong language and insults. Some people will find the visuals and/or text of this article offensive, vulgar and insulting. Others will find it hilarious. Personally, I think this might be my favorite interview we’ve ever had on Vandalog, but we take no responsibility for what Lush says. The views expressed are his own, and may or may not be the opinions of the Vandalog staff. So yeah, that’s your warning label. Consider yourself warned and proceed with caution. If you do choose to read the rest of this post, be prepared to laugh your ass off.
What can I say about Lush? If you think the South Park writers are too tame, Lush might be just the artist you’ve been looking for. If you think street artists are a bunch of pussies, Lush is definitely your man. I’d say that this graffiti writer out of Melbourne is taking the art world hostage, except that he’s not the type to take prisoners. He’d probably collect the ransom money and then shoot everyone in the head just for kicks. Lush seems to think that graffiti is too cutesy these days, so he’s pushing the limits of taste. In fact, it looks like he intentionally goes beyond those limits for the sake of being distasteful. Like graffiti is supposed to be. And, often times, his pieces are funny as hell too. Nobody is safe from Lush’s attacks: he goes after street artists, graffiti writers and even celebrities with unparalleled balls and cleverness (and I wouldn’t be surprised if blogs, including this one, end up a target as well). His first gallery show opened last year in Melbourne, and I loved what I saw. Now Lush is in California preparing for solo shows in LA and SF. The LA show opens this Friday. I sent a few questions over to Lush via email. Check out his unedited responses, plus some of his NSFW pieces and photographs, after the jump… Continue reading “The Lush interview…”
Weekend link-o-rama
Last night might have been my busiest 1st Thursday ever, and I didn’t even stop off everywhere I wanted to. Either way, I’ll have to go back to a few galleries this week to actually look at the art properly. Even with a cursory glance though, the Charming Baker show was the highlight by a mile. I’m not sure how sustainable it is to sell paintings at the prices they sold for last night, but damn it looked good. Here’s a few things I could have posted about last night, had I not been out being a gallery-hopping scenester…
- Probably the coolest thing I’ve seen all week: Nug (this guy) visited FAME Festival.
- Everfresh have created the graffiti writer’s dream machine: The Graff Mobile.
- Conor Harrington has been painting some murals of bulls in Ireland. I like this one. This one, not so much. Unfortunately, I cannot figure out why that is about either of the walls.
- In addition to his LA show, Lush is doing a show in August at Fifty24SF.
- As usual, Dal does something visually stunning.
- Leon Reid IV is doing a Kickstarter campaign for his latest potential public sculpture in New York City.
- Meighan O’Toole at My Love for You has done a podcast where she interviewed up with Steve Powers, the first in what will hopefully be a series of podcasts from her.
- A new print from Shepard Fairey is being released, partially for charity, in New York this weekend.
- Showpaper has done round 2 of its Community Serviced project where they get artists to paint newspaper bin boxes for Showpaper. Check out all the photos from round 2 here.
Photo by Labrona
Lush sells out in LA
Please note: It is reasonable to assume that most links in this post are NSFW. You have been warned.
Lush‘s graffiti has been popping up in LA recently (sometimes very much announced, sometimes a bit more subtly). Well, Lush is no idiot. In fact, he is pretty damn clever. So it’s no surprise that all these pieces have been leading up to a pop-up show in LA for next month called Lush Sells Out In LA. I’ve no idea what to expect, except that someone will get offended. His show in Melbourne last year was a huge hit, but wasn’t for the faint of heart or politically correct. I’m really excited to see what he does this time around. Get ready LA, Lush is selling out all over again on July 15th, and it’s gonna be crazy.