Taking it to the Brazilian streets.

First, I need to make it clear I have no tolerance for cheap graffiti; those meaningless tags that lack any concept, style, or design sensibility. That kind of stuff just messes up a lot of really great buildings and views. That said, I'm an enthusiastic devotee of street art, starting with the masters from the 80s like Keith Haring and Kenny Scharf.  In today's modern world, street has gained at least a little more respect.  And I think that's largely due to a pack of talented individuals who've made it clear that global corporate brands aren't the only entities that should be allowed to express themselves in public places.

With artists like Nunca and the global sensation, identical twins Os Gemeos, Brazil is a hot bed for the latest street art.  Rio has even gone so far as to make street art legal.  And if you're in São Paulo, you can visit an amazing neighborhood that has embraced street art in a way like no other place I've visited.  Beco do Batman is a series of side streets and alleys that are a mecca for fans of street art.  This constantly changing gallery is a tribute to the urban art movement. And it's a surprisingly inspiring place.  So enough with the talking, here are a few photographs.

Expecting the unexpected in New York City.

It's hard to pinpoint exactly what makes New York City the unique experience that it is.  Maybe it's because you're always bumping into surprises.  So much so that you get to a point where you expect it. Here are a few random surprises from my last trip to NYC.

Subway mosaics are everywhere.  But I wasn't expecting this wall of golden mosaic, reminiscent of a Gustav Klimt painting.

Retail is an endless source of surprise in New York.  Here are two examples.  First, on the way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art we ran into the Gagosian store with these fantastic Murakami inflatables in the window.

I didn't make it out of the store without purchasing a stuffed version of the artist's iconic mushroom-cloud skull complete with brightly-colored flower eyes.

At the normally impossible-to-spot Commes des Garcons (CDG) store in Chelsea, the urban-camouflaged storefront was lavishly festooned in preparation for the release of a line of clothing co-designed with Matt Groening, the creator of the Simpsons.

The CDG store still sported its tags by some of the world's best street artists like this from the artist known as Space Invader.

If my street-art creds were better, I'd know the name of the artist responsible for this sidewalk painting.

Finally, I like the way art by today's most noted artists just seems to magically appear.  On a gray, rainy day near the noise and chaos of the World Trade Center construction site this spectacular crush of metallic red, Jeff Koons' Balloon Flower (Red), is a delightful surprise.

Big laughs in Vancouver.

Sometimes, my travelling companions get sick of me dragging them to art works.  But I couldn't leave Vancouver without a visit to Yue Minjun's recently installed public sculpture, A-mazing Laughter found in the West End on English Bay.  Minjun is famous for paintings and sculptures that are repeating self portraits of the artist laughing.  And Vancouver's version  is a maze of giant bronze Minjun's in spectacular laughing poses.

The sculpture is a hit with locals and tourists alike.  And you can see why.  It's tough to be sad when you're surrounded by so much funniness.  But I'm not sure humor is the sole intent of Minjun's work.  For me, the artist's imagery offers a more sinister statement.  The frozen smiles seem like masks, hiding all of the things we choose not to reveal.  And usually those things are a lot less pleasant than this brilliant bit of public sculpture.

Here are a few photos:

And here's a video walk through the maze:

Banksy and me.

I can't end my Sundance posts without noting that world famous street artist turned art-world superstar Banksy paid a visit to Utah for a screening of his first feature film.  There's not much to say.  Instead I'll post a few pictures that prove he was here, many of his Utah tags have already been painted over or soon will be.

The billboard he altered on State Street right here in Salt Lake City.

In park city he left this intriguing image at the local coffee shop.

And just to prove I was there, here's my Self Portrait with Banksy.

Maybe my favorite image left by Banksy in Park City is this rat (a classic Banksy subject) wearing 3-D movie glasses, which seems strangely appropriate since this year Sundance screened a 3-D documentary called Cane Toads: The Conquest. Special thanks to Felix for the photo of this image found on a back door to the Egyptian Theater.

Raindrops keep falling on my chalk art.

Recently I was asked to judge the Utah Foster Care Foundation’s Chalk Art Festival. I arrived at the specified time only to be greeted by a healthy rainstorm that showed no signs of stopping. In the category of things that don’t go together? Rain and chalk art.

At first, the people in charge suggested that we bag going out to view the art and instead try and find photos of the entries to judge. But along with the other judges, I felt we needed to give the artists their due and go see the chalk art. So we grabbed our umbrellas and ventured out into the rain to view sidewalk drawings. And I’m glad we did. The art was great. And the artists were happy to see us. In additon, much of the incredible art survived the deluge surprisingly well. (Many artists use hairspray as a fixative and it proved to be darn good protection against the water.)

I have to apologize to the artists. I hate it when people don’t give all the details for works of art. But it was so crazy with the rain that I didn’t capture the artists names associated with each work. So if you’re out there and you see your art posted here, please leave a comment and let me know.

Here then are some of my favorite works, many of them were even winners.

This work was by a featured artist so it didn't qualify for judging but the bubbly bath water
seemed strangely appropriate for a wet, rainy day.

This was one of my favorite images. I loved the illustrative quality
and the content was perfectly appropriate for a chalk art festival.

A little bit hippie, but isn't the chalk art festival all about love?

Yes it's a rip off of a familiar image. But it was sure rendered well.

This was amazing. It felt like something you'd see in a Chelsea gallery. Only it washes away with the rain.

There were plenty of other works of chalk art that I didn’t photograph (like the adorable kid snorkeling). If you didn’t go this year, be sure to go next year. And definitely go to the gala. At $25 a ticket, it’s one of the most affordable gala events in Salt Lake City. And it’s fun, with a great silent auction. Plus, it benefits the Utah Foster Care Foundation. Let’s hope next year is warm and sunny. And I hope they invite me back to judge.

Street art smackdown.

Remember the The 337 Project? Well that event has turned into an ongoing artistic entity and this weekend it continued its dedication to street artists with an event called Face Off. The idea: take nine artists, give them 18 hours to paint a garage door at the Urban Gallery, and award the audience favorite with $1,000. It all took place last Friday and Saturday. I stopped by for a few minutes Saturday afternoon to check out the results.

I like street art, but only if its really good. And very little of it is really good. As street artists continue to seek more respect for their right to decorate our cities, they often do themselves a disservice by celebrating work that is just bad graffiti. And some of the work at Face Off was just bad graffiti. But there was some respectable work that shows just how much you can accomplish with a can of spray paint. My favorite was this image created by Chuck Landvatter.


The Urban Gallery is located at Neighborhood House, a non-profit that provides affordable day care. And for my money, the art surprise at Face Off was the kid-friendly mosaic at the entrance to the Neighborhood House.


You can still see it all at the Neighborhood House located at 1050 West 500 South.

How much is that artist in the window?

Westminster College entered the world of performance art this weekend with unravel, REVEALED. This live performance spanned 24 hours. Yes I said 24 hours. It started Friday night at 9:30 p.m. and ended Saturday night at 9:30 p.m. I wasn’t ready to invest 24 hours for a college performance art project but I did try and stop by numerous times during the performance to see what was going on.

The project took water ecosystems as its theme re-creating the birth and gradual death of a natural environment and its inhabitants. The work took place outside on 1700 South just west of 1300 West. For the most part, I found the work tedious. The choreography felt improvised but I suppose it would be hard to create 24 hours of dance without asking the dancers to improvise much of it.

My favorite moment came during a portion of the work entitled topographical contours distort (butoh). It involved a near-naked man rising from an old bathtub and dancing about the walls and landscaping. The traffic on 1700 South slowed to barely a crawl. I’m sure there were a lot of confused drivers wondering what was going on.

Much of this work was just boring. In fact there were many times that if I hadn’t known something was going on, I would have thought that it was just people cleaning the windows. But I applaud the artists (choreographer Corrine Cappelletti and visual artists Jim Frazer and Suzanne Simpson masterminded the project) for attempting such an ambitious idea.