Seth and I are finally back in LA after our trip to London and Paris. I had jet lag the whole time I was in London, then got it again when I got home, so that wasn’t particularly enjoyable, but other than that we did some fun things. Now we’re working toward Block Partywith Boxi, Krystian Truth Czaplicki, Gregor Gaida, Simon Haas and Dan Witz + a showcase with Sixeart, which opens here at Carmichael Gallery on Saturday, November 13, and putting together the Miami issue of tasj.
I just wanted to quickly share some highlights from the current issue of tasj (vol ii – issue iii). As always, it’s free to subscribe to, no matter where you live.
As you can see from the cover, this is Part II of our Backstage Series (see who was in Part I here). One of my favorite interviews is with Mike Vargas and Moni Pineda, who run the web series/blog Friends We Love. I recommend checking out the site if you haven’t been on it yet; there is so much great content up there!
In addition to our Unurth, auction and art fair pages, we also have several new regular sections: Special Event (for shows taking place outside traditional gallery/museum settings – you’ll read about Blk River in here), Stopover (our city guide – this issue highlights London), Limited Edition (for prints and multiples – Faile, Bumblebee, Eine and Zeus are street artists who feature) and Newsstand (an off-shoot of Bookshelf and a place to support our fellow magazines and newspapers).
I’m racing through my computer science homework right now and also throwing this post together before it gets to be too late. I have to be up early tomorrow to get to Washington D.C. for The Daily Show’s Rally To Restore Sanity. I probably shouldn’t been spending my entire day on my way to and from that rally, but it’s going to be an insane day. So between planning getting 50 students to the rally and teaching a course on street art at my university (not an official course, there’s no homework or exams and I don’t get paid), things had to slip through my fingers this week:
There’s a film about Steve Powers’ A Love Letter For You Project, and it just premiered in Philadelphia. Also, Steve has a new website with some work available to purchase and plenty of photos.
Beautiful Losers, the film about some of low-brow and street art’s 1990’s pioneers, is now streaming online on Babelgum. If you haven’t seen this movie yet, now you’ve really run out of excuses. If you enjoy reading Vandalog, this is a key film for you to see. Artists interviewed include Barry McGee, Steve Powers and Shepard Fairey. I think it even includes one of my all-time favorite quotes about art:
“From a distance it might look straight, but when you get close up, you can always see the line waver. And I think that’s where the beauty is.” – Margaret Kilgallen
So yeah, get over to Babelgum.com/beautifullosers to watch the entire film. Now I kind of feel like an idiot for buying the dvd…
So, I like to procrastinate. This week, I didn’t get to post everything I wanted to here because I was catching up on homework. I spent 12 hours on trains and buses last weekend, and didn’t get a single piece of homework done. Because of that, I haven’t been able to write about everything awesome in street art this week, but other people did:
The Ma’Claim crew (Rusk, Tasso, Case and Akut) are in LA right now painting. Haven’t seen any pictures yet though. And if you’re in LA, they’ve be doing some live painting followed by a talk on Saturday. Sour Harvest has the details on all that.
Steph mentioned that Ron English has a massive show on in NYC right now called Status Factory, but I just want to remind everyone to check out the sculptures from that show. For me, some of the most interesting work Ron has done indoors. And to check out the entire show, of course Arrested Motion has the photos you want.
Jenny Holzer (one of the original street artists from way before I was born) has made some sneakers with Keds to support The Whitney. They’re out of a lot of sizes on the Keds website, but Bloomingdales.com seems to have a slightly better selection. Still, both sites are out of low-top black ones in my size, so if anybody has that in a 9, let me know.
Sickboy and Shepard both have some new books (actually Shepard’s is an updated version of his recent Arktip magazine). Shepard’s looks nice and I like Sickboy, but I’m not sure I need a whole book from him just yet.
Quel Beast has his first solo show coming up on October 9th. Andrew Michael Ford is putting the show on at King’s Country Bar in Brooklyn. Should definitely be worth checking out. It’s always interesting to see how street artists bring their work indoors for the first time.
Nolionsinengland has photographed two awesome rollers: Mighty Mo & Gold Peg right next to Village Underground and Type with a sort of ESPO tribute roller I guess.
As a harsh critic of Shepard Fairey, I feel a bit hypocritical posting about this show, but I really feel like it deserves some attention. Printed Matters is the name of Fairey’s latest show taking place at Subliminal Projects in Los Angeles. What interests me most about this exhibition is the fact that it is a show purely compiled of Fairey’s prints. With the increase in popularity of street art books (incidentally Fairey will be signing copies of Beyond the Street Art at the opening reception), the hit the economy has incurred in the past year and the launch of Christie’s Multiplied Art Fair, prints are becoming an essential component of mainstream commercial art work. Usually working with the themes of repetition, borrowed images and urban cultures, Fairey’s prints remind the viewer of classic dated typography and muted design, while still managing to fuse Dada-esque collage in his work. Hopefully, Printed Matters will finally show some new work by Shepard Fairey that breathes some life back into the stale overused pieces that have been pooping up in group shows and outdoor murals this past year. Give me something to be positive about, please. It is pathetic when the nicest words I have for an artist’s work coincide with the launch of a vinyl toy (which was indeed pretty awesome to say the least.)
Most days, I’m a fan of Shepard Fairey. He’s been getting up longer and harder than almost anybody else in street art, he’s a talented artist and few others have done more for the street art scene. But nobody’s perfect, and the bigger the star, the more bigger those imperfections. Every once in a while, I do a post like this about the latest crazy things Shepard has said or done.
Joaquin Phoenix
1. There are the posters depicting Joaquin Phoenix which have been popping up in a few major US cities. Forget about this being illegally place guerrilla advertising for some film, they’re pretty unappealing to look at. Even if they were straight up street art, they’d be pretty unremarkable, unless you were remarking on their poor design. Well, according to New York Magazine, these posters were designed by Shepard Fairey and they are presumably being placed by his street team. The poor design of this image is EXACTLY WHY people criticize 1-layer stencils and Shepard’s poster style as nothing more than failed art students putting a photo through Photoshop. And that’s not what all 1-layer stencils or Shepard Fairey images are. Some of them are brilliant (I think). Then again, the rumor about this Joaquin Phoenix documentary is that the last two or so years of Joanquin’s life have been some elaborate performance piece about a man gaining fame through a career path that he has no business being on. Kind of like the ending that everyone was hoping for with Mr. Brainwash in Exit Through The Gift Shop, except that Joaquin is trying to be a rapper. So if the rumors are true, maybe this sub-par poster is just another component of the hoax.
2. Last week, a mural Shepard recently put up in San Diego was partially tagged over by a fire-extinguisher-wielding writer going by the name of Polo Joe. It was a nice mural. It’s a shame to see it written on so swiftly. I’m sure plenty of people will disagree with me on that point, but I liked the mural. Unfortunately, pieces getting covered, written over, removed or even just decaying is part of street art and graffiti. Every artist that I know accepts this as part of the culture. Typically, street artists are more open to this than graffiti writers. And yet, I’m not that shocked by Shepard Fairey releasing a statement about this wall getting written over. After all, a lot of people who enjoy that mural might have expected it to last longer. What did surprise me a bit was what Shepard said in his statement: “The endeavor fulfills some need for the heckler but has no redeeming value to any of the other participants, but I firmly believe in street art as a democratic forum. In street art, tenacity always wins and I’m not going away.” That just sounds a bit supercilious to me. Polo Joe is not merely a “heckler” who should be completely ignored. He was making a statement with his tag. I wouldn’t expect Shepard to agree with Polo Joe, but since Shepard has been involved in street art for longer than I have been alive, I figured he wouldn’t just brush aside such an important part of graffiti and street art culture so simply. Like Team Robbo writing over Banksy, Polo Joe might be annoying and ruining a piece of art history and I might wish he didn’t do it, but he has as much right to tag over a Shepard Fairey mural as Shepard has to put up a poster without permission. I think it’s unfortunate that Shepard agree (or if he does, won’t admit that he does).
Shepard Fairey’s prints can be pretty hit or miss, but the Obey Megaphone is definitely a hit. The print will be for sale from a random time on Friday August 13th at the OBEY website. The print is an edition of 230 and, as usual with Shepard, the price is just an affordable $45.
The Lost Ones is a group show opening this week at Fifty24MX, Upper Playground’s Mexico City gallery. The show is being curated by New Image Art Gallery‘s Marsea Goldberg and features some great street artists like Retna, Shepard Fairey, Judith Supine and Neck Face. The Lost Ones opens on Friday. I wonder of Arrested Motion will have photographers there, because I certainly don’t know anybody who will be there taking photos and I’d like to see this once it’s open.
A few weeks ago, KPBS, a San Diego public radio station, conducted a very insightful and intelligent interview with Shepard Fairey, JR and Pedro Alonzo (curator of Viva la Revolución at MCASD). At nearly 40 minutes long, it’s an interview that you really need to set some time aside for, but it’s still worth listening to or reading. Especially if you enjoyedVandalog’scoverage of Viva la Revolución. Check out the interview on the KPBS website.
This is sort of a different show for Signal Gallery. Beyond Punk will consist of artwork by punk musicians (plus Jamie Reid, Shepard Fairey and Dale Grimshaw). Personally, I’m most looking forward to Jamie Reid, Gee Vaucher and Shepard Fairey. Oh and I’m curious to see what Steve Ignorant comes up with. Crass were some of the early UK stencil artists, and they used their albums to help promote the making of political stencils, but (if I’m not mistaken) Gee and Steve weren’t as involved in making stencils as some of their other band mates.
Beyond Punk opens August 12th at Signal Gallery in London (yes the flier says it opens on the 13th, but the private view is on the 12th).
