Tag: swoon

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Things to look at this weekend…

Detail of a painting by Bast

I’m guessing that with college only getting busier (although, as Stickboy pointed out on Twitter, freshman year isn’t exactly the busiest), I think I’ll finally have to resort to a semi-weekly link post. So Things to look at this weekend… will probably become a weekly feature on Vandalog (but maybe with more exciting name). So here’s what I’ve been reading recently:

  • Street Art: Contemporary Prints from the V&A is pretty much what the surprising title says. Turns out, the V&A museum has a pretty solid collection of urban art prints by artists like Swoon, D*Face and Blek le Rat. This show opens at a museum in Coventry, England on October 9th and UK Street Art has more info.
  • Tristan Manco‘s latest book, Street Sketchbook: Journeys, will be released at the end of September. Tristan is one of the people that I most respect in the street art community. Besides curating Cans Festival, he has been writing quality street art books for about a decade. He probably knows more about the artists he is writing about than just about anyone else, but he keeps everything accessible to a mass audience. Originally, I was skeptical of the concept of this book, but I’ve since been convinced that it will be at least worth checking out, and will probably be the best street art book of the year in terms of mass appeal (although other books will likely top it for street art fanatics). For me, the most exciting part of this book is going to be the exhibition that Tristan is curating at Pictures on Walls for next month. You’ll probably hear more about it on Vandalog in the coming weeks, but basically all the artists from his new book will be in the show. WallKandy has more info.
  • Bast has a solo show at Lazarides’ Rathbone Place. Most day’s I’m pretty indifferent to Bast indoors (credit to him for always getting up though), but I’m liking some of this work, and the Bast fans I’ve spoken with think this is some of his best work yet. Arrested Motion has photos.
  • Eelus has a solo show at Brooklynite Gallery in NY. The show runs through October 2nd. Hi-Fructose has some great photos.
  • It’s not a new idea and this video has been appearing all across the web, but if you haven’t checked out this “birds as CCTVs” project yet, it’s about time you do. I ignored it at first because I thought the idea was tired, but this version brings the idea to new levels and the video is very well-made.
  • One of my favorite art blogs is Street Art is Dead. If you haven’t read it before, it’s basically a no-holds-barred street art blog. Basically, I guess the writer of the blog is anonymous or just really doesn’t care what people think, so he/she really says it like it is and reveals juicy tidbits of gossip before anybody else. Today I want to link to two recent posts from Street Art is Dead. This one , on a topic that will not be discussed on Vandalog because I don’t want to play into the hype-machine, and this 100%-spot-on post about the latest Dolk prints and SPQR’s upcoming show at Signal Gallery. SAiD took the words right out of my mouth about SPQR and Dolk before I could post that here.
  • Old-school street artist Richard Hambleton has a solo show which just opened this week in Moscow. It looks pretty damn good. Of course, Arrested Motion has photos and all the info you need.

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Unauthorized collaborations: Specter invades NY street art

Dammit. Once again, Specter is messing with people’s heads in an awesome way. For his latest pieces, which he’s calling “sidebusts,” Specter has “collaborated” with various street artists in New York by adding on to work that they had already put up. In the case of the above sidebust of a Swoon poster, the top half of the piece was falling apart and had been partially written over, but Specter brought it back to a state that looks almost like new (in fact, I know at least one other blogger who thought that the work was entirely by Swoon). So far, Specter has done similar work on street art by Skewville, Bast and Faile. Here’s his sidebust of a Bast poster (Specter added the flag and matched it perfectly to a portion of the wheatpaste which had already been torn off):

Check out more examples of these sidebusts at The Street Spot.

Photos by Luna Park

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Joshua Liner Gallery summer group show

Joshua Liner Gallery’s summer group show opens this Saturday evening. Personally, I’m most looking forward to seeing new artwork from Swoon, Dennis McNett, Mac and Kris Kuksi, but list of artists in this show is extensive and impressive: Cleon Peterson, David Kassan, Dennis McNett, Evan Hecox, Ian Francis, James Roper, Jeremy Fish, Jessica Joslin, Kenichi Yokono, Kris Kuksi, Mac, Mi Ju, Mike Davis, Oliver Vernon, Pema Rinzin, Pete Watts, Ryan Bradley, Ryan McLennan, Shawn Barber, Swoon, Tat Ito, Tiffany Bozic, Tomokazu Matsuyama and Tony Curanaj. Oh, and the Swoon piece in the above photo is actually from the gallery’s Barnstormer show earlier this year, so don’t expect to see it in this show.

The show runs from August 14th through September 2nd at Joshua Liner Gallery in NYC.

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News from The Konbit Shelter Project in Haiti

Once again, Swoon has been using her art to help those in need. Swoon and the rest of the team with The Konbit Shelter Project (including Ben Wolf and Tod Seelie) are busy working in Haiti right now. They are building super-adobe structures in the village of Barrier Jeudi in an effort to help rebuild after January’s devastating earthquake. These super-adobe buildings are extremely cost-effective, stronger than the standard homes in Haiti and are built with locally sourced materials. Their website will certainly explain the details better than my paraphrasing, so check that out.

Photographer Tod Seelie is there documenting the project and the crew’s time in Haiti. Here are some of his photos:

The best way to keep up to date with The Konbit Shelter Project is their blog, where Tod has been posting updates as the building process progresses.

And one way to support the project is to purchase this print by Swoon:

The print is a 2-color screenprint on fabric measuring 19×26 inches. It’s an edition of 60 and is available for $350. What does PBS give you for a $350 donation? A tote bag and an umbrella? I’d take this print any day of the week.

Photos by Tod Seelie, from his blog and his flickr

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Definitely go see: Shred at Perry Rubenstein Gallery

Faile

Among the street and low-brow art communities, the Shred show on now at Perry Rubenstein Gallery is probably the most-talked-about exhibition currently on in New York. Shred is a show of collaged-based artwork which has been curated by Carlo McCormick. While Shred is by no means intended as a show about “street artists,” there are works by a number of street artists hanging alongside classic collage artists like Gee Vaucher. Perry Rubenstein Gallery is a major New York City gallery, and to my knowledge, this is the first time they have exhibited work in their gallery by the current generation of street artists (although there is a Faile solo show at the gallery later this year).

Gee Vaucher

After speaking with a few people about this show, but not yet having seen it in the flesh myself, I was disappointed. Most of the people that I spoke with were of the general opinion that although the show might have one or two solid pieces, it wasn’t really worth stopping by and it was generally not as good as anyone had expected. Luckily, I didn’t listen to those friends and stopped by the gallery anyway while I was recently in New York. I can’t figure out what people were complaining about. The show has plenty of solid pieces along with some of the best work I have seen from Judith Supine and Shepard Fairey.

This piece by Judith Supine is one of my favorites that he has ever done (I always seem to say that when I see his work in the flesh, but he just keeps getting better). Unfortunately, this photo just doesn’t do the work justice. The varnish that Supine often coats his paintings with has been lapped on extra thick and reflective here and the green specks throughout the piece are actually fake nails embedded into the varnish. I’ve heard complaints that the work is too reflective, but I have to disagree. Besides, most any frame that the work’s owner might put on the piece would be reflective as well unless they decided to spend extra money on non-reflective glass. New Yorkers really need to go see this one in person. It’s a real beauty.

Judith Supine

And Shepard Fairey’s piece is a retired stencil; in fact, it’s one of the best retired stencils I’ve seen from Fairey.

Shepard Fairey

Shred marks the start of something new for Brian Adam Douglas (did you know that Vandalog recently interviewed Brian?), with his collages moving from portraits to a new narrative subject matter:

Brian Adam Douglas

Finally, there is Swoon’s contribution to Shred. While I’m not really liking this new image that she’s been using recently (the man’s head looks like more of a caricature than her typical portraits which bring out the inner beauty of her subjects), the collaged details are what makes this piece so interesting. It’s definitely not a typical Swoon. For this work, Swoon has taken to doing Fairey-like collages of newspaper artists and tiny screenprints in the background of the work. Unfortunately, I don’t have an image that really shows these off well, but the small screenprinted designs towards the bottom of the work are stunning.

Swoon

Shred runs at Perry Rubenstein Gallery in New York City through August 27th, and I urge you to go have a look in person.

Photos courtesy of the artists and Perry Rubenstein Gallery

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Inside MCASD’s “Viva La Revolucion”

This Os Gêmeos work was made using unused parts of Swoon's installation

The urban art event of the summer took place over the weekend at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD). Viva La Revolucion is a massive show. On Vandalog, we’ve been covering the outdoor parts of the show, but there’s a major indoor component as well.

Calma

Of course, our friends at Arrested Motion were at MCASD with cameras. Elisa Carmichael was in the space a bit early and caught some of the artists working, and AM’s San Diego correspondents made sure to take plenty of photos on the opening evening. From what I hear though, these photographs still don’t capture the entire indoor show. There’s an entire room full of Banksy prints, and probably some more things that I haven’t heard about yet.

Looks like JR has replicated his installation that was at Lazarides a while back. It’s a room covered in posters of his contact sheets, with a film about his flavela project playing:

Swoon’s installation is another iteration of her Konbit Shelter project, which will culminate in her building shelters in Haiti:

Photos by Arrested Motion, who have plenty more photos of this show on their website

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Viva La Revolucion: A Dialogue with the Urban Landscape

I know I mentioned this show in the Invasion of San Diego post, but I figured I would go into a little more depth with it, since it is opening July 18th to the public.

The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD) will be hosting one of the first street art museum exhibits in the middle of July.  Citing the cultural influence of art in cities, “Viva La Revolucion” brings together some of the most high profile street artists today that have made an impact on city spaces with their socio-political works.  Not only will the exhibit be one of the broadest street art museum displays ever curated, but the city of San Diego will also pay host to several public works created in currently unknown locations by some of the featured artists.  Invader’s pieces are just one of the public works, with more pieces surly to follow by the likes of Shepard Fairey, Os Gemeos, and Blu and David Ellis, and possibly Banksy.  I cannot wait to see what comes of this.

Os Gemeos. Photo by apwbATTACK

Here is a complete list of the artists participating:

Akay
Banksy
Blu
Mark Bradford
William Cordova
Date Farmers
Stephan Doitschinoff
Dr. Lakra
Dzine
David Ellis
FAILE
Shepard Fairey
Invader
JR
Barry McGee
Ryan McGinness
Moris
Os Gemeos
Swoon
Vhils

For more information check out MCASD’s website

Photo by apwbATTACK

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New Work in New York

A couple new things have been popping up as of late. Overunder is back in town, along with a couple new lovely pieces from Swoon alongside some fresh Imminent Disaster up in the mix. Mint and Serf have been engaged in a campaign to reset some street spots in an effort to challenge people to “just put better work out there.” Whatever that means, I was not spared from the apparent critique.

Via LunaPark and Rebecca Fuller

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Swoon for sale (AGAIN) at Phillips de Pury

Looks like this piece by Swoon is finally going to hit the auction block at Phillips de Pury next week. Last March, the exact same artwork was pulled from an auction there less than 24 hours before it was due to be sold. For that first auction, PdP had estimated the artwork at just £2,000-3,000, a shockingly low number. This time though, the piece is being estimated at £10,000-15,000, which is pretty much what you would expect.

Photo courtesy of Phillips de Pury