Graffuturism have curated a show which is due to open next month in LA. The extensive line up includes Delta, Mare139, Doze Green, DVS1, Eric Haze, Jaz, Futura, Greg Lamarche, Kenor, Sowat, and others.
This weekend Bring Back The Boadwalks is holding a benefit art auction to raise money to help rebuild the Rockaways and Coney Island, two communities were hit hard by Hurricane Sandy. The silent auction will have work from some major names including Futura, Swoon, Phil Frost, Faile, David Ellis, Shepard Fairey, and Dennis McNett, and 100% of the proceeds from the auction will go to recovery efforts.
The auction will take place this Saturday, November 17th, at Trais Gallery at 76 Wooster Street (between Broome and Spring) in Manhattan.
Originally, I submitted this essay for publication in the We Own the Night, the official book of The Underbelly Project. It was not published in the book, but today, the two-year anniversary of the public announcement of The Underbelly Project, seems like a good time to finally get this piece out into the world. – RJ
There’s a certain group of street artists, a group whom I tend to admire, who make art to give a gift to the rest of the world. These artists create spectacles. These artists attempt to make the world a better place by putting their art into it. These artists increase the amount of wonder in our everyday lives. This group includes artists like Swoon, Mark Jenkins and the performers in Improv Everywhere.
While not all street artists are trying to do what Swoon and Mark Jenkins are doing, there’s certainly an element of that in the vast majority of street art. At the very least, interacting with society in some way seems to be so much of what street art is about. Like Banksy said “even if you don’t come up with a picture to cure world poverty, you can make somebody smile while they’re having a piss.”
So what does that mean for The Underbelly Project? If I’ve just described the most pure and ethical goal of street art, The Underbelly Project fails miserably. It is inaccessible to the public and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Only a few people besides the artists themselves ever saw any of the project in the flesh, and most of the artists did not have a chance to wander around the space and experience see more than just their wall. And yet, this is not something I even considered during my visitto The Underbelly Project. The idea that The Underbelly Project might be failure as street art is something I only really considered after the project went public and people were disappointed that they had not seen it in the flesh. Why did I experience that disconnect? Is it simply that I was one of the few non-artists to see the station in-progress, so I am speaking from a privileged position? Maybe, but I didn’t go down to The Underbelly Project’s installation in Paris and I still enjoy those photos.
Numerous artists at The Underbelly Project
Yes, it could be argued that The Underbelly Project, as a street art project, failed very clearly. But I don’t think that’s the case.
First of all, street art in this decade is, for better or worse, mostly viewed online or in books. Yes, I experienced The Underbelly Project in person and it was a unique and unforgettable experience, but that was an experience of the space more than an experience of the art. To fully appreciate the art, I had to look at photographs. Cameras depict the station better than the human eye possibly could in that darkness. As valuable an experience as it was to get down into The Underbelly Project and wander around, there’s just as much value, in a different way, in looking at good photographs of it.
Maybe the angle of Underbelly as a “street art” project is all wrong. The Underbelly Project is not really a street art project or a mural project. Workhorse and PAC know how to organize mural projects. They know what large street art mural projects look like: lots of artists painting in daylight in very public spaces, usually over the course of a few days, and interacting with curious members of the public. The Underbelly Project is something else. If it’s something else, it should be held to a different (but not necessarily higher or lower) standard.
The Underbelly Project should be compared to the work of the street artists and graffiti writers who paint in abandoned factories. Very few people will ever see those murals in the flesh, but that does not make them any less impressive. Murals in abandoned factories are not gifts to the world in the same way that it is a gift when Swoon commands a flotilla down the Mississippi, but there’s still something valuable about them.
Rone and Meggs at The Underbelly Project
Aren’t artists allowed to enjoy themselves? It is selfish on the part of fans to say that street artists can only paint outdoors in spaces where lots of people will see the work. The Underbelly Project, like murals in abandoned spaces, was a space for artists to experiment and be free. That’s where the project was an astounding success: In a culture where artists are constantly under pressure to perform and sell and promote, The Underbelly Project stripped all that away and brought the artists back to making art for the sake of making art, which is just as much a part of the street art spirit as giving gifts to the public. Street art is about anybody being able to make art and just getting out and doing it for the love of making, rather than for the sake of a paycheck.
Going into The Underbelly Project, it seems that artists didn’t know if their contributions would ever be seen, how images might be distributed, who else was involved or if spending a night painting would “pay off” in a monetary sense. When I accepted the invitation to go see the project, about all I was really told was that I should get to NYC at a certain time of year because it would be worth my while and I’d see something cool. I learned a little bit more about what I was in for before going down, but not much. I thought it would be fun or terrible or interesting or, at least, memorable. I would have accepted the invitation even if I had been forever sworn to secrecy about the existence of the project.
Numerous artists at The Underbelly Project
The Underbelly Project is not a gift to the public; it is something for the artists.
Of course, The Underbelly Project will not remain inaccessible forever. People made it into the station for a few days after news of the project broke, but then it sounds like the MTA sealed off the entrance more thoroughly. Some day though, that entrance will be unsealed. Maybe it already has been. Some day, daredevils will risk their safety to visit the station. Maybe they will know about The Underbelly Project or maybe they won’t. Maybe some of the artwork will still be intact or maybe it will all be destroyed. Whatever the case may be, at that point, The Underbelly Project will be a gift. Not to the rest of a world, but to a select few.
For most of last week, I was in Stavanger, Norway for the 2012 Nuart Festival. Naturally, even though I was there in part as press, I spent very little time on my computer and didn’t do any blogging. So, expect a full post or two about Nuart later this week, but for now here’s what I missed writing about while I was away:
Steve Powers’ and Joey Garfield’s film A Love Letter for You is now available on iTunes. It’s an interesting film well worth checking out if you like Powers.
Last month, I was at the Living Walls Conference in Atlanta, but it’s only now that I’ve really had a chance to sit down and write about it. I thought that I was going to write this really long post, but the environment at Living Walls is difficult to capture in words, so this post isn’t nearly as long as I would have hoped.
Living Walls is, as far as I can tell, the best mural conference/festival/program going on right now in North America. Living Walls doesn’t tend to just invite all the artists who are painting at other mural events around the world. They invite good artists. Sometimes those artists are guys like Roa who are everywhere, and sometimes it’s women like Miso who have only ever painted one or two murals. As a result, Living Walls sets trends among mural festivals.
Lex and Sten
For their main conference this year, Living Walls really bucked popular trends and tried to put street art on a new track by having a festival made up almost entirely of female muralists. While guys like Gaia, LNY and I were still invited to speak at the lecture and panel portion of the conference, the murals by Lex&Sten and Indigo&Andrzej Urbanski were the only two where male artists were contributing.
Martina Merlini
While the murals weren’t as amazing on the whole as they were last year and the crowd of artists wasn’t nearly as rowdy (although that might have been a plus), this year’s Living Walls did bring some great work to Atlanta and really showed that there are some underrated female street artists and muralists out there who could be on the mural circuit as much as guys like Jaz or Roa. My hope and expecting is that the top-tier of artists from the conference will get more attention brought to their work thanks to Living Walls and some will start getting invited to a lot more mural festivals. As I’ve said in the past, I do not generally get excited to give artists preferential treatment based on them belonging to some underrepresented group, but I can see why an all-female Living Walls may have been the right move for this year even if the quality of the work did drop slightly.
Jessie and Katey
This Living Walls conference had more artists than ever before who were either more on the community mural side of the spectrum or had never painted a mural before. The results of that move were mixed, but there were some artists like Jessie&Katey and Mon Iker who took the opportunity and absolutely crushed it.
One thing I have to add isn’t so much about the art though. Whether Living Walls were inviting only artists that none of us have ever heard of before or stealing their line-up from Nuart, it would still be at least one of the best mural conferences in the world. That’s because Living Walls’ secret is in their amazing staff. Living Walls has best team of volunteers of any mural festival I’ve ever seen or could imagine. They are unbelievably dedicated to the festival and to getting more world-class street art and murals in Atlanta. Every day, the media team led by Alex Parrish was up until something like 4am putting together a video of what had gone on that day, and then they’d be back up at 7am to start filming all over again. Just last week, I was emailing with Keif Schleifer, their Logistics Director, who was spending her free time advising me on cherry-pickers. The day of the Vandalog Movie Night, volunteers showed up out of the blue to help us set up and run the show. Laura Calle and pretty much everyone else on staff who spent their own money to pay for the gas to drive myself and the artists around Atlanta. The drag queen who was a volunteer last year and this year helped arrange a drag show for the Living Walls Block Party. The artist assistants who stand in the hot sun alongside their artists all day long, offering any help they can. And of course, Monica Campana, the Executive Director of Living Walls, who is the amazing glue holding everything together without ever sleeping or slowing down. Everyone on staff or volunteering at Living Walls works at least as hard as the artists, and they were certainly working harder than me. After visiting two years in a row for just a few days each time, it honestly feels like I have family in Atlanta.
Just a question: Anyone wish an air-conditioned home want to trade places with me until things cool down? Anyway, here’s some linkage to what’s been going on with art this week:
Endless Canvas’ Special Delivery show in a formally empty warehouse opens this weekend. The pics I’ve seen look great. Don’t miss this if you’re in the Bay Area.
This project by Swoon to raise money for her work on Braddock, PA will be happening on Saturday in New York.
This is an essay I wrote a couple of years ago for a book that was to be a collection of essays by a number of different people in the street art world, but the final product has not yet materialized, so I’m posting the piece here instead.
I don’t want to see the plan succeed/There won’t be room for people like me/My life is their disease/It feels good/And I’m gonna go wild/Spray paint the walls – Black Flag
Good subcultures get co-opted by the mainstream. That’s what happens. Punks and preps, hippies and hipsters, gangsters and geeks have all had parts of their cultures brought into the mainstream, and that attention usually harms the actual subculture.
Sometimes it can feel like street art is getting taken over the mainstream more and more every day. Plenty of people have told me that Vandalog contributes to that co-opting of the culture. The most obvious examples naturally also tend to be the most popular names in street art: Banksy and Shepard Fairey. These guys used to be the torchbearers of street art, but their newfound fame as household names has come at a price: they certainly aren’t the revolutionary artists they once were, and I would go so far as to say that in their outdoor work they are as much guerrilla marketers as they are artists. There’s plenty to say on that topic alone, but I won’t get into too much detail about the negative aspects of street art. I still have faith in the general movement of street art: Even as some artists “sell out,” it’s inevitable that street art as a whole will remain authentic, powerful and revolutionary for a long time to come.
Anyone who has read Norman Mailer’s 1973 essay The Faith of Graffiti has probably had a good laugh at Mailer’s suggestion that graffiti was already dying out. Street Art, a book by Allan Schwartzman and published in 1985, makes a similar suggestion about street art. Looking through Street Art, you’ll see the work of early street artists like Jenny Holzer, John Fekner and Richard Hambleton as well as many other names that have mostly faded from the history of street art. Most of those artists no longer make street art. Of course, street art didn’t die out, and Schwartzman was far from the last person to write a book about it, but something special is definitely captured in Street Art: The first generation of modern street art.
While most of that first generation has now moved on from street art into other mediums, they inspired future artists to start working outdoors. In the early to mid-90’s, artists like Phil Frost and Reminisce were members of a new generation doing work on the street. Frost doesn’t work outdoors anymore, and Reminisce only very rarely does. They and many (but of course not all) of their contemporaries have more or less moved on from their roots.Then in the 2000’s, new artists like Swoon and Leon Reid IV became involved in the movement with as much passion as previous generations. While both Swoon and Leon Reid IV are both still actively making work outdoors, they have somewhat moved away from street art’s anti-establishment roots: a good portion of their outdoor work is being done with permission and in cooperation with galleries, museums or arts organizations. Over the last few years, the internet has allowed street art to grow even further, and talented new artists from around the world are coming to light all the time. Artists like Roa and Escif were already well known among street art fans before they first painted outside of their home countries because people had seen their artwork online.That’s an oversimplified history, but hopefully it shows in a very general way that street art is always evolving.
Since the 1970’s, the media has lost and gained interest in street art numerous times. Naysayers often suggest that the interest of media and the injection of money can only serve to destroy street art culture, but each time this cycle repeats, street art is reborn and brought back to its core values by a new generation of revolutionary artists. Even as the most world-famous street artists stop making street art, there’s always a talented and idealistic artist just starting out with a can of spray paint or a bucket of wheatpaste, working their way up from the bottom.
Artists and even people who don’t consider themselves artists are interested in the opportunities that only street art can provide. Once the idea that street art exists is in somebody’s head, it can’t be taken away. Now that the idea of street art has become part of the collective mainstream public consciousness, it can’t be taken away from there either. Even as its general popularity may fluctuate, the idea of street art is always going to be resonating with somebody around the world, and that’s all it takes. People want to express themselves and communicate with the public, and there are few better ways to reach the public than street art.
Street art doesn’t discriminate. A trained artist in a studio with dozens of brilliant assistants can make street art, but so can a teenager with nothing more than a permanent marker and an idea. Practically any wall is an equally valid place for a piece of work for drunken men to piss on or for kids to be inspired by.
Tags by The Jellyfish. Photo by bitchcakesny.
The combination of almost no barrier to entry and the fantastic power wielded by street artists, a combination unrivaled by any other art form, is why the underground nature of street art will always triumph over any push to make the genre truly mainstream. It just takes one person with a crazy idea to shift the culture in a new direction, and there are thousands of those people out there trying out crazy ideas every day. You can’t make a culture mainstream if the thing is constantly changing, you can only make out-of-date segments of the culture mainstream.
And does it really matter if one segment of street art becomes mainstream? The fact that you can buy an OBEY shirt in a department store doesn’t diminish the power that street art has in giving a voice to any person who has something to say, and it doesn’t make it any harder to pick up a can of spray paint for the first time. Street art is a great way to buck the system, especially if that system is the street art establishment itself.
For the last three decades in particular, working outdoors without permission has fascinated artists, and they keep finding ways to do it differently. During that time, stars have been born and many have faded away. Media and art-world interest has waxed and waned. In the end though, the mainstream popularity of street art doesn’t make much of a difference. Artists will always have the drive make street art and the public will always notice street art. That’s not going away. Even if it’s just one artist reaching one other person, street art can change the world. Of course, it’s never going to be just one artist. From here on out, it won’t be less than an ever-evolving army.
EVOL, Denis Meyers & MUGA seen in the La Louviere exhibition.
The small town of La Louvière, in Belgium is host to a brilliant Urban Art exhibition being held at “Centre de la Gravure et de’limage imprimée” (The Center for Engraving and the Printed Image). Showing through September 2, 2012, “Vues sur Murs” (Wallscapes: Prints in Street Art) features an impressive list of international artists, many making new work specifically for this exhibit and also hitting the town with huge pieces.
Invader, C215, Jef Aérosol, EVOL, Ludo, Denis Meyers, Obêtre, Muga, Doctor-H, Sten & Lex, Swoon and OBEY (Shepard Fairey) are all featured in this show which spans three floors of the gallery. The show’s curator, Marie Van Bosterhaut, had the seed of the idea in 2009 after seeing an OBEY print at the home of a collector. She contacted Fairey’s people for what was initially planned to be an OBEY retrospective…
“But then it appeared it might be more interesting to invite more artists using printing techniques in street art,” said Bosterhaut of the project’s evolution. “It was really great to have all these artists working inside the museum, and also outside. There was like a great energy.”
While some of the artists knew each other, others met for the first time. “This created some small surprises,” said Bosterhaut. Evidence of this is seen in one of the exhibition’s highlights located on the top floor. There, Berlin-based EVOL has transformed several structural columns, which protrude at various levels into the exhibition space. They now appear as EVOL’s signature-style buildings and “artists like Denis (Meyers) & Ludo made some tiny stencils or billboards, creating a kind of interaction between the artists,” Bosterhaut said.
Ludo’s mini-billboard seen on an EVOL “building.” The billboard ad disruption on a Kinder Bueno candy box measures about 3 inches high. Full size pieces from both artists appear in the background.EVOL’s other works include some exquisite urban-themed paintings on cardboard.
Another highlight of the show is Brussels-based artist Denis Meyers. Mostly known for the large faces he paints, he also prints unique stickers and uses hand-made woodcuts and rubber stamps to produce a wide variety of work which all screams out with his signature style. Many of his sketchbooks are also on display as well as other elements which offer a peek into the artist’s process.
Just a bit of the Denis Meyers section from the show. (see more in the photo gallery)
Long-time French favorite Jef Aérosol‘s large iconic work greets you at the entrance of the exhibit but some of his smaller, printed images are framed on the sides and offer a more intimate experience with the artist. Jef also hit the town, painting a three-story-tall face of rocker Jimi Hendrix.
Jef Aérosol’s work greets you at the entrance.Aerosol’s Hendrix
In addition to his brilliant mini-billboard, the Paris-based paste-up master Ludo and his unmistakable green paint occupy a notable section of the top floor, including a full-scale bus shelter (crappy tags included.) For the real experience though, pick up the map supplied at the front desk and follow it to the various “treasures” left by artists around the city. Ludo has posted three large pieces out on the town.
LUDO work on Rue René Magritte in La Louvière.
A favorite of mine is “C215” (Christian Guémy.) The Parisian stencil artist painted a large mural for the show. There are also many photographs of his stencil works, and several other painted “objects,” including three mailboxes, a shoeshine box, and a metal sign among other things.
Mailbox by C215
The pioneering Italian artistic duo of Sten & Lex display some of their strong, black & white portrait posters, but the real treat from them requires a 10 minute walk to a parking lot down the road a bit. There, a dramatic and elaborate composition of black & white zig-zagging lines reveal a face that fills the wall and towers over the cars and shopping carts.
Sten & Lex WallSten & Lex Wall Detail
Of course the anchor of the exhibition is an extensive collection of OBEY works by American artist Shepard Fairey. In addition to a short documentary video, the display spans his career from his quirky beginnings making “Andre the Giant has a posse” stickers, to the slick, celebrity and political-themed posters pumped out by the Obey Giant Worldwide Propaganda factory today. There are dozens of his limited-edition prints with their graphically-pleasing imagery, and even a trio of OBEY skateboard decks. A definite treat for any Fairey fan.
OBEY poster restrospective.
The show concentrates on the printing aspects of urban art but there’s a ton of other multi-media work to see there as well. Too much art to mention in this article, including great stuff by Invader, Obêtre, Muga, Doctor-H & Swoon.
IF YOU GO: Smack-dab in-between Paris & Cologne, La Louviere is about a two and-a-half hour drive from each, and just 45 minutes south of Brussels. Definitely worth the trip. But remember, it’s only showing through September 2, 2012 – so get going!
Photos by Lance Aram Rothstein (many of these photographs were shot with Film Cameras. Long Live Film!)
One of the best things that street art can do, which doesn’t happen often, is that it can truly engage with people and inspire them. There are two whimsical projects potentially happening this summer which, while not traditional street art, come from that same place. And they need some support or else they might not happen.
First, there is Release the Wolves, a go-karting project by Gold Peg and Pelucas. These two artists are trying to build a go-kart track and go-karts with local kids in South London. They need another £6,500 to make the project a reality. When I was living in London, Gold Peg was one of my favorite local street artists/graffiti writers, and this project fits her to a T. I remember the opening night of The Thousands, a show that I curated back in 2009, where Gold Peg decided that, rather than put a painting in the show like the rest of the Burning Candy crew (in addition to the mural that they painted), she wanted to give out ice cream at an ice cream stand. And so she made a custom ice cream stand and had her friends serve everyone ice cream. It was probably the most popular part of the show, until the ice cream ran out. That was great fun and a bit whimsical, but it was for a crowd of Shoreditch hipsters like myself. With Release the Wolves, Gold Peg is taking that same spirit of fun and exuberance and bringing it to kids who probably didn’t show up for ice cream at The Thousands. I hope she can pull this project off. To help make Release the Wolves happen, you can pledge your support here.
And then there is the latest installment in the Swimming Cities project, which is probably best-known as that crazy series of junk boat projects that Swoon had a hand in. While Swoon is no longer at the helm, Swimming Cities has continued. This year, the group is hoping to float down the Ohio River. The Swimming Cities team is hoping to raise about $20,000 in the next 15 days. It’s a lot, but Swimming Cities is quite a project. I was fortunate enough to ride on one of the Swimming Cities vessels in Venice a few years back. It was the experience of a lifetime, and even just seeing the performance that took place on the boats was spectacular. I cannot say enough good things about this project. I hope that they reach their funding goal and send out some positive energy all along the Ohio River. You can help Swimming Cities here.
Caroline and I were in Baltimore this week checking out Open Walls Baltimore. If you have the chance, definitely make a trip over there. Full posts about Baltimore coming soon. Point is, between Baltimore and moving this weekend, I’ve been lax this week. Things should return to normal on Wednesday or Thursday, but in the mean time, here’s what I’ve been meaning to post about:
