“All Big Letters” Opens, Curated by RJ Rushmore

ALL BOLD CAPS.

Early graffiti train writers knew they could gain their widest audience on elevated train tracks the same way cigarette manufacturers broadcast from billboards looming above streets. BLADE emblazoned entire train sides with his five letters, as did LEE with his three. Audacious, confident, commanding: the ultimate tag.

Faust at work on his installation. All Big Letters. Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery At Haveford College. Philadelphia. (photo © Courtesy of RJ Rushmore)

In 2017 the bold technique helps to cut through the information clutter as well, even when your billboard is reduced to a canvas the size of a smart phone icon. Keep it simple, brash, attention grabbing. RAMBO of course does slaughter actual billboards regularly across NYC, and on the street level the technique works as well, as Brooklyn’s graffiti writer FAUST can attest with his ever enlarging scripted tag recently emblazoned in metallic gold across a long wall in Berlin with Urban Nation. Here Faust is preparing his tag with ALL BIG LETTERS for ALL BIG LETTERS, a new exhibition opening Friday at Haverford College in Pennsylvania.

The new show is “is less about the art of graffiti and more about the craft of writing it,” says curator RJ Rushmore, editor in chief of Vandalog and alumnus of Haverford, in his description of the show. Rushmore enjoys the and studies the lore as much as the technique and here he brings a balanced cross-section of photographers, mark makers, painters, and ingenious tool crafters together to examine the methods of creating illicit missives meant to broadcast publicly. With thoughtful position paper at hand, the somewhat recent grad returns to the campus’ Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery with an exhibit that “acknowledges and investigates the surprising variety of tools that artists use,” to make hopefully a BIG impression. In the end, after all it’s how you use the tools and ALL BIG LETTERS examines strategies and techniques of hard driving urban artists working in the public sphere to capture your attention.