MINI MAG #4 : RVA STREET ART 2012

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ODUCTION 13 INTR Y WOEBOTS 14 ANGR 17 GAIA PANCHO 20 PIXEL CHRIS MILK

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PICKETT E KUSYCK 32 SCRIB 78 NICK TON GLASS 34 ROA 80 HAMIL SOTO 38 2501 82 JEFF INS K N JE K TREPANIER R A E 42 M 84 HEID N RD COLEMA 44 ARYZ 85 RICHA AL IV ST T ART FE ASK 50 STEE 86 ED TR LA IL D N PA L MAP 56 LA 88 MURA 60 LELO

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n 90s-era Richmond, street art was ubiquitous, and any blank wall left unattended for too long was likely to break out in a riot of vibrant color. However, over the past decade, even as the city has been revitalized, the street art scene has largely been a thing of the past. Fortunately, all of that changed over the past few months. With Art Whino’s third annual G40 Art Festival taking place here in Richmond, and Ed Trask and Jon Baliles bringing the RVA Street Art Festival to town only a month later, citizens of Richmond were pleasantly surprised to see huge pieces of public art popping up all over the city. With 30 different murals created since the beginning of April, RVA has finally found a way to embrace its legacy of street art within

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the boundaries of the law, and brought so much new public art to our streets that we’ll be marveling over the many different examples for years to come.

Richmond has earned a place on the international map with this excellent artistic explosion, and we at RVA Magazine are proud to be able to document that historic moment with this collector’s issue of our publication. In addition to the art itself, throughout the issue you will find conversations with various participating artists, who shared with us their feelings on these events and what they will mean for the future of Richmond street art. Enjoy!

--Andrew Necci, editor-in-chief, RVA Magazine

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CHRIS MILK

RIC HM ON D (SA F)

How did you get involved with the project?

I’ve worked with Ed over the years. They wanted to do something that involved some of the sponsors, and I seemed like a natural fit for that.

You’ve been a canvas guy for some time. I know you just take pieces of wood or whatever you find.

Yeah, this was a definite departure. [The mural is] one hundred times the size of what I’m used to doing. [It’s] definitely the biggest piece [I’ve done].

Do you want to continue doing murals?

Yeah. In fact, just since I’ve started, I’ve been asked to do a mural in Farmville and a mural in Petersburg.

Apparently there’s a market for it. I’ll be doing at least two more.

That’s cool, man. I’ve been talking to some of the guys about how they started off as graffiti guys and then went into the galleries. A lot of the guys are finding that the galleries are kind of boring, and they are going back out into the street.

I feel like I don’t really fit into either category, you know? Which is fine, because I’ve found a niche as an outsider. I am definitely not a street artist like the rest of these cats, and I’m not a muralist, but I am willing to try and be a part of it and expand my own repertoire.

It’s been cool, it has been a great experience.

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ROA BELGIUM

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Are back to back gallery shows a regular thing for you now, or are you just mixing it up from the off-theradar “hit and run” style street art you are used to?

It’s a lot of traveling, mostly to Europe and a mix of gallery shows, festivals, workshops, and other odd things here and there. RVA festival is actually the first outdoor project we’ve done in VA. Your Richmond jam got a lot of positive vibe from the locals, but did it feel a bit “staged” to you within the context of an organized art show?

The element of surprise seemed sort of nullified compared to something that is placed without any forewarning. More for me it was about doing my first mural. I’ve never painted a wall before and so I saw it as a challenge to share space with artists like Soto,

even if it got mucked up a little by the piece under it.

But I don’t feel a need to always maintain this element of surprise.

One of the “dart people” apparentely came off and ended up in the canal, and someone saw it and called the cops because they thought it was a dead body floating in the water!

Not sure why every one calls them darts. Don’t you guys have dart boards in your city? It’s an archery target and they’re meant to be arrows. But I don’t do shoddy work that falls down in the night and jumps in the river. My guess is that some one or something ripped them down.

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How did you get involved with the RVA Street Art Festival?

Ed and I have been friends for years. We kept in touch over the years through Avail. [Once] I moved to Raleigh, we saw each other more often because he had shows down there. When he was first telling me he wanted to put this together, he wanted me to help him pick the artists. He wanted to make sure the cohesion was right. So I just helped him consult a little bit, like I put him on Pose and Aryz.

I’m surprised to see so many graffiti artists mixed in with street artists. I know those guys have been transitioning out of graffiti.

They are. I think this is the direction they are going, more fine art stuff. So I think for them, something like this is a good opportunity to experiment and play.

That’s what’s fun about these kinds of projects--you can do whatever you want and have fun with it. That’s one of the nice things about having people that know each other real well. The comfort level is rad.

It seems like this group of artists are really close-knit.

Sometimes people just go for names and bring a bunch of people that aren’t really connected together, and that can go any which way. For something like this, where everyone is on top of each other and they have to really work together...

It’s intense having to work in the same space.

Yeah, [and yet] this whole wall feels very cohesive.

There is really nice flow through the whole wall.

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How did you get involved with the project?

I’ve known Ed Trask for at least [10 years]. It didn’t seem so formal because of Ed. Even though it was a relatively substantial commercially funded corporate thing, Chamber of Commerce and all that shit, it didn’t feel that way.

people [from other countries] kind of push shit. Like, “Let’s do this on a competitive level.” Because that’s how it is, graffiti especially. Those graffiti guys work big.

It was interesting hanging out with Pixel Pancho, from Italy, and ROA. They were saying that a lot of the walls in Europe had been just eaten up. Just that the street art scene and Recently there’s been this explosion of giant pieces on walls. A lot of the graffiti guys got legit, did gallery work, got the mural scene is really huge. bored of gallery work, and are now just going back to street. Exactly. So you got to chill with these Europeans. Not talking I hate saying stuff [against] Americans, but I think a lot of shit, but it’s like, “Yo, stop flying these fuckers in.” Get the

good talent that’s been slept on [from] the States. There are so many motherfuckers that are absolutely capable of doing these huge amazing things that haven’t had the opportunity.

But it’s also good to have the superstars. ROA was talking shit about being a superstar, but inadvertently, with his nature, he is a fuckin’ superstar in this scene. He just one-up’s his shit, it’s awesome.

He went to London after this, and Aryz flew out to Madagascar.

That’s cool. I’m going to Australia next week. I’m curating a

group show. A bunch of Richmond people and international people [are] in it.

What do you think a project like this could do for Richmond, since it’s completely new?

I don’t know. Inherently, with things like this, it only happens if the developers are interested. The city is only doing it because they are realizing that this kind of attention is good for property value, and that’s a harsh reality if you are not a commercial person.

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