Our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Anthony Sneed, El Mac, Elle, Goata, Joshua John, JR, Katsu, Leba, Obey, R. Robots, Retna, REVS, Reskew ACC.
“The piece is called “Moon Mask” and it’s ink and acrylic on paper. The concept of the piece is based on the idea of revealing one’s true self and letting go of masks that blind us” Joshua John
The More “Things Change”, the More They Stay the Same
Opening last night at Since-Upian Gallery in Paris, “Things Change”, Specter’s solo show is a collection of hand drawn, painted, carved, stenciled and collaged materials showing how the Street Artist continues to broaden technically while focusing socially.
In these images special to BSA readers, these individual paeans to the unflinching rugged personality of Brooklyn streets capture a moment and a bit of humanity as a rapidly downshifting economy gusts and blows through the streets, catching more people off guard as Towncars with tinted windows glide by. It’s hard to feel romantic about a fraying social net through which more people are falling, which is where the care of Specter’s hand rendered scenes, unpatronizing, clear eyed, and possibly sarcastic, take us again.
Similarly and with great determination, this Street Artist uses painting to capture and somehow give honor to the stickers and graffiti tags and stencils and commercial advertisements that appear on New York’s streets in some neighborhoods. Holding a mirror up, clearly with these paintings Specter appears to be glorifying graffiti and street art – a scathing charge leveled at certain museum exhibitions of late.
As in his work over the past few years this show Specter continues to draw attention to the gentrification that speeds unabated throughout many neighborhoods of New York today, as local character is buffed and expunged for vertical glass big-screen sanitized living. The commentary is not so much the lost vibrance and character of a city that doesn’t return, but a focus on the people who are pushed further and further, but to where?
AD HOC ART – Welling Court Community Street Art Celebration Saturday (Queens)
AdHoc Arts returns to Queens this year to Welling Court where Street Artists and the locals mix it up with music, local and homemade food and artists painting live. Bring your camera and bring a plate of cookies too. Sharing is caring.
The project transforms several city blocks into a 24/7 street-level gallery, bringing art from around the world directly to the heart of this community. Renowned artists with deep roots in the street movement have created site-specific works for this project and many will showcase various creative sundries for your perusal. This new array of visual experiences provides fresh contexts for how people working, visiting, and living in this diverse cultural gem of Queens think about and interact with their environment.
Artists include: Alice Mizrachi, Alison Buxton, Beau Stanton, Bunnie Reiss, Caleb Neelon, Chris Mendoza, Chris Stain, Celso, Cern, Cey Adams, Chor Boogie, CR, Cycle, Dan Witz, Darkclouds, Don Leicht, Ellis Gallagher, Ezra Li Eismont, Free5, Garrison Buxton, Greg Lamarche, Jesse Jones, JMR, Joe Iurato, John Ahearn, John Fekner, Jordan Seiler, Katie Yamasaki, Lady Pink, Leon Reid, Matt Siren, Michael De Feo, Michael Fumero, MIMEO, Mr. Kiji, Neko, Nuria, OverUnder, Pablo Power, R. Nicholas Kuszyk, ROA, Ron English, Royce Bannon, Sinned, Sofia Maldonado, TooFly, Tristan Eaton, Veng RWK, Zam.
WHERE: 11-98 Welling Court {@ 30th Ave & 12th Street}, Astoria, Queens 11102
WHEN: Saturday, June 25th, 2011 from noon until 9pm.
Click on the link below for more information regarding this event:
Right across the street where they’ll be debuting a new piece with BSA in August for “Street Art Saved My Life: 39 New York Stories”, the Brooklyn Street Art Collective Faile is presenting this pop up print show this weekend in Venice, Los Angeles. Tonight at the opening they’ll release a new print too.
“The show will feature a variety of works on paper over the last 12 years. A broad range of new and old prints and original works on paper. There are a variety of new pieces and a few surprises made for the show, including a new collection of works entitled Vintage Book Covers highlighting classic pieces from over the years” – Faile
Worth Something Gold
Edition of 50
Acrylic and Hand Pressed Gold Foil on Coventry Rag 335 gsm
35.75in. x 29in. (90 x 73cm)
Signed, Stamped & Numbered
Faile 2011
Opening Reception: June 24, 2011 (7 – 10pm)
Exhibition Runs: June 24 – July 24, 2011
POST NO BILLS
1103 Abbot Kinney Blvd.
Venice Beach, CA 90291
310.399.2928
Click below for more information regarding this show:
One of the new clowns out there today is having a solo show of his fine art and some new interpretations of his Street Art funboys as well. With wit and a method to his absurdity, these new works give insight to the solid study he’s actually been doing for years.
Chicago at Pawn Works Gallery, Clown Soldier is “The Human Cannonball”
His new show in Paris at the Since-Upian Gallery is accompanied by some new work on the street – much of it inspired by Brooklyn streets. See brand new photos tomorrow on BSA.
Brooklynite Gallery welcomes the start of the summer with “Parlour” a sexy show Saturday Night. Also DJ Mayonaise Hands will be there with a camera and mike for insightful interviews and scintillating observations. Dress your rockinist cause you know the Bedstuy peeps are always in top form at this gem.
Miss Bugs. Detail of the new print “Eyes Glanced” (photo courtesy of the gallery)
“PARLOUR”
MISS BUGS
June 25 – JULY 16
Opening Night: Saturday, June 25, 7-10pm
MUSICAL GUEST: Hank Shocklee [Bomb Squad]
BROOKLYNTE 334 Malcom X BLVD
Brooklyn, NY 11233
Click on the link below for more information about this show:
Jon Burgerman Doodles on a Car in Brooklyn (VIDEO)
Last weekend for the CresFest and NorthSide Open Studios artist Jon Burgerman was invited by Brooklyn Street Art to paint on a car. We forgot to tell him to get dressed first. Little details like that escape him.
Video by µ-Ziq Theme by µ-Ziq.
K-Guy Print Release “Primate Pontificate”
London based artist K-Guy will be releasing a print on July 1st of his “Primate Pontificate” commentary on the state of affairs of the Catholic Church and their perceived hypocrisy on some relevant topics. He introduced this piece on the occasion of Pope Benedict XVI most recent visit to England last year and we found some of these same primates on the streets of NYC in the fall. Funny to see them get released as prints.
Today British artist K-Guy is releasing a new print: “Primate Pontificate”
K-Guy “Primate Pontificate”
TITLE: PRIMATE PONTIFICATE
EDITIONS: 4 different colorways – Deep Red, Royal Blue, Black and
Regal Purple
SIZE: 30″ X 22″
QUANTITY: 25 of each color
DESCRIPTION: 3 color hand pulled screen print on 320gsm Accent
Antique – signed/stamped/numbered
For details of release time, where to buy and price click on the link below:
Seen from the perch of the Highline, surrounded by a carefully curated urban wilderbush and postmodern biosculpture, the boisterous cacophony of the honking screeching streets below fades into a minimalist Phillip Glass plain, peppered with sharpened and sweet Sufjan Stevens sonnets and Nina Simone longings. Sometimes NYC is best viewed and enjoyed from its high points. Most of the city is up here anyway.
Summer streets are a swirling gritty brew of culture and commerce, happenings and happenstance. To have the opportunity to go to heaven without leaving earth or NYC for that matter is what a well designed public space like the Highline is successful at. Of course it took years of fostering, finagling, financing. A melding of vision and vitriol, the outcome has been an astounding urban oasis. Opened in June of 2009 it has been an instant success, attracting thousands daily.
A once abandoned carcass winding through this lower west side swath of Manhattan, the reclaimed former elevated freight railroad once connected factories and warehouses. Unused for nearly 30 years except by youthful graffiti artists and couples in love, it has debuted as on open pedestrian thoroughfare, a private and public place for citizenry, born from the vision of people and planners. As the second section opened last week the talents of so many are on display : architects, landscape designers, furniture designers, lighting designers and engineers all continue to work on its development (a 3rd phase is in the works) exhausting the limits of their talents and imagination to make this urban gem; a work of art in a city famous for being a difficult place to make things happen.
Here is a taste of the visual experience on the new section and some of the neighborhood it rises above and amidst; Blending the architecture with a bit of archeology, you can see old graffiti that was on the walls of the buildings next to it. It ads relevance, and interestingly, a sense of history, complimented by new commissioned public art installed along the park’s pathways and today’s Street Art below. Despite efforts to pressure wash some of these burners and rollers, one can still appreciate the outlines of the tags and the remnants of the paint on the brick walls; strains of an eroded and beautiful decay rising from the orchestra.
Street Artist Shark Toof clips the short chain on the animal inside for his debut solo gallery exhibit with paintings and portraits of fantasy future hybrids with an air of rough trade, yet cuddly.
Known around New York for his schools of large Zen master sharks swimming proudly and quietly in formation across ever greater lengths of the city’s walls, Mr. Toof brashly expands his animal vocabulary here to include furry chested lounge singers, knife carrying romantic astrologists, forlorn front desk motel tramps with long pointy teef – and any other kind of role playing character he can coax from your subconscious.
Cooking with a killer instinct, tonight’s chef Shark Toof blows the trucker caps off expectations with this astonishing painting/illustration/finished/raw visual stew served over a bed of fresh graffiti tags. You’ll be too full for dessert, but maybe you would like your paws massaged?
“After being featured in the recent Portsmouth Museum of Art’s
‘Street’ exhibition, Shark Toof returns to LA for his first major solo
gallery show. ‘Nature Will Always Win’ will feature a series of
paintings in Shark Toof’s signature style, but will surprise his fans
with a greater technical acumen than his traditional work on the
streets”.
Location – LeBASSE projects (Culver City Location)
6023 Washington Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232
Exhibit – Shark Toof :: ‘Nature Will Always Win’
Running – June 18th – July 10th, 2011
General Gallery Hours – Culver City: Tue – Sat, 12 – 6 pm
<<< > > > > < > < >< > < > > > > > > >
Special thanks to photographer Jennifer Strauss
For more on Jennifer’s work click on the link below:
Fifty24SF FIFTY24SF Gallery in Association with Upper Playground presents:
“See you in Croatan” – A San & Escif road show.
“We were taught in elementary school that the first settlements in North America failed; the colonists disappeared, leaving behind them only the cryptic message “Gone to Croatan”. The very first colony in the New World chose to renounce its contract with the Empire and go over to the Wild Men. They dropped out. They became ‘Indians,’ ‘went native,’ opted for chaos over the appalling miseries of serfing for the plutocrats and intellectuals of London” – TAZ, Hakim Bey
SAN FRANCISCO, CA [6.21.11] — FIFTY24SF Gallery presents “See you in Croatan” a road show by San & Escif opening on June 30th, 2011.
“See you in Croatan” is an experimental research project which will cross the lives and experiences of two friends, Spanish artists San and Escif, in a random road trip across the West Coast of the United States. Their mission is to work as far away as possible from doctrines, imperialisms and linear reasoning, searching for beauty in errors and fortuitous tools, working with intuition and hazard; trying to light relations, transitions and processes; working with research as the way itself; understanding chaos as an ideal space for creation.
From Escif:
I’ve spent a few days thinking about the project, and about the way we are approaching it. The idea of generating a third language seems like it’s not working very well, at least not in a practical way. Certainly it is a path that should become stronger during the journey, but so far it has seemed to be more of an impediment than the correct path. We already knew that teamwork is very complex, but I think it is a lot harder when the roles on the team are not well established. Because then the fight between the two egos grow to see who is the one directing the movie (I´m thinking out loud) and its something that gets more complex when the two directors (you and I) have such different ways of working.
From San:
I completely understand what you say. I think we have to be practical, although we both like to navigate riskier terrain than we normally would on our own. Team work is hard, and even more so when obsessive perfectionists like us work together, each with our own story, but it is what it is. When I made the two drawings that I sent you, I always thought that what I was doing was twisting my work a little bit to get closer to a new “skin”, not so much trying to invent a third language. I think that´s exactly where the focus of the expo should be, in making an effort to get out of our safe zone and dig into something a little less personal, but using our powers, of course…
FIFTY24SF Gallery Contact Information:
Gallery Hours: Wednesday-Sunday from 12-6 P.M. and by appointment
Address: 218 Fillmore Street, San Francisco, CA 94117
The exhibition Shadows & Reflections emphasizes the variety of stencil’s artistic forms. First, by the variety of supports ranging from walls to installations including canvas and then by the diversity of techniques used by the artists.
Shadows and reflections, presents works on canvas, totally new installations, video, etc. The exhibition confronts the variety of expression of the stencil and proves the richness of this major movement of Street-Art which offers the artists infinite possibilities of creation…
L’exposition Shadows & Reflections montre la diversité des formes artistiques que prend le pochoir. D’abord, par la variété des supports, du mur à l’installation en passant par la toile. Surtout par les différentes techniques utilisées par les artistes.
Shadows and reflections, présente des œuvres sur toile, des installations inédites, de la vidéo, etc. L’exposition confronte les différents modes d’expression du pochoir et prouve la richesse de ce mouvement majeur du Street-Art qui offre d’infinies possibilités de création aux artistes.
Jef Aérosol, Blek le Rat, C215, Miss Tic, Kris Trappeniers, Vhils,
The show Shadows & Reflections goes on from june 25 to July 30, 2011
L’exposition Shadows & Reflections a lieu du 25 juin au 30 juillet 2011
When we visited the LA MOCA “Art In the Streets” exhibit days before it opened in April, the feeling of camaraderie and expectation hung thick in the air as artists and curators and museum directors put the final touches on what they knew was the first major show of it’s kind; an historical taking stock of the route graffiti and Street Art travelled over the last half century to become an undeniably positive influence on art, music, fashion, … the culture. That week when talking with Sharon Matt Atkins, The Brooklyn Museum’s Managing Curator of Exhibitions, about the plans for bringing the show to our beloved city in Spring 2012, we were nearly apoplectic about the prospect of somehow being involved in the welcoming.
Sadly this afternoon we hear from the museum and friends that the show has been withdrawn. Sally Williams from the Museum’s Public Information Department confirmed the news to BSA over the phone. “This is a very important show for anybody to have but it is also a huge and very costly exhibition and we just couldn’t get funding for it”.
Meanwhile the last hour in the Twitterverse has raised a bit of a buzz about the statement by Brooklyn Museum Director Arnold L. Lehman’s that the decision is “due to the current financial climate”. The current home for “Art in the Streets” has found the show receiving great critical and popular acclaim and the much sought after younger demographic forming lines, making their own videos of the show, and yes, hitting up the giftshop. It really looks like it is proving to be a blockbuster for the museum and business in the community. That’s why its even more sad and a little confusing to find that Brooklyn can’t host what would surely be a boon to the organizers, the museum, and the city.
We thought that the cultural history of our city would have been greatly enhanced by the Brooklyn Museum’s decision to be the next stop of this exhibition. Despite it’s association with the negative aspects of vandalism and all that go with it, graffiti and Street Art have transformed global arts culture in many positive ways and New York is known worldwide as one of the birthplaces, an epicenter of this rich cultural history and what it has evolved from it.
Brooklyn Museum Withdraws from Art in the Streets Exhibition
Brooklyn, New York–June 21, 2011. The Brooklyn Museum has canceled the spring 2012 presentation of Art in the Streets, the first major United States museum exhibition of the history of graffiti and street art. Organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, where it is currently on view at The Geffen Contemporary through August 8, 2011, the exhibition had been scheduled at the Brooklyn Museum from March 30 through July 8, 2012.
“This is an exhibition about which we were tremendously enthusiastic, and which would follow appropriately in the path of our Basquiat and graffiti exhibitions in 2005 and 2006, respectively. It is with regret, therefore, that the cancellation became necessary due to the current financial climate. As with most arts organizations throughout the country, we have had to make several difficult choices since the beginning of the economic downturn three years ago,” states Brooklyn Museum Director Arnold L. Lehman.
Cities and municipalities around the globe have no cohesive opinion or set of organized practices in response to Street Art. Heated rhetoric and strict criminal proceedings in one city contrasts sharply with a laissez faire or even loving embrace in another. Terminology in one city may lump all artistic expression together with vandalism while another carefully makes distinctions between categories such as vandalism, sanctioned, graffiti, street art, and others.
While one city has on-the-spot buffers and power spray washers and special authorities on the lookout for even a sticker, others are sponsoring projects and setting aside walls or neighborhoods specifically for the growing interest and expression in what they consider a peoples art movement. Some are even rushing to preserve certain Street Art works as important landmarks. Among the contributing factors that determine how a city responds to the occurrence of graffiti and/or Street Art include cultural attitudes, class issues, relative wealth, historical attitudes, the ebb and flow of public opinion, the educational system, the influence of business and arts constituencies, and even the potential for one to make political hay. In between the extremes are a patchwork of options including, of course, the indifferent.
Some times the cat and mouse game in the mind of a street artist can become quite intense and storied. DosJotas is a Spanish Street Artist residing in Amsterdam who has been exploring with his art the relationship between the government and their Street Artists. With his installation titled “Street Wars in Amsterdam” he depicts the relationship in blunt warlike terms, with the power and military might far overshadowing the unarmed aerosol spraying individual. Using plain black stickers cut out as silhouettes, DosJotas portrays a very stark and severely unbalanced use of violent force brought to bear – helicopters, drones, sharpshooters – all allied to blow away the wheat paster or man with a can.
Dude, watch out in Amsterdam, they’ll crush you with a tank. No lie.
Of course, we know (or sincerely hope) the scenes are a metaphor, an exaggeration intended to illustrate. Looking at a description of the project from the artist, we’re thinking there are no snipers on the roof, but that it is a commentary on a more pervasive cleansing of public space that the artist is reacting to;
“To speak of weapons is not to strictly speak of pistols, machine guns or tanks; but of strategies.
The streets have become controlled and tamed by the architects, politicians and businessmen, where any expression contrary to power is censored or criminalized.
A spray, a poster, a stencil or a sticker, may be the best weapons in a city. All subversive and illegal acts performed in public spaces are a defense of public spaces.”
Reed Projects Following the acclaimed and ongoing international success
story of Stavanger’s Nuart Festival as well as last years
“Lowlife” exhibition at Stavanger Kunstforening, Reed
Projects is set to consolidate the regions rising reputation for
providing a home for this, the 21st Centuries most dynamic
artform by unleashing a brand new show dedicated to Street
and Urban Art.
Spread across 220m2 of space, Skur 2, a beautifully
converted Victorian warehouse on the city harbour front will
house works from over 30 of the worlds leading urban artists
including Scandinavia’s largest collection of Banksy works
alongside new and exclusive pieces from Norway’s Dolk.
Part museum show, part contemporary art exhibition
and part urban art boutique, Outside In is nothing if not
ambitious, the show will present the myriad of ways in which
Street Artists explore and tackle a multitude of techniques,
both old and new. Drawings, watercolours, etchings, oil
paintings, acrylics, lithographs, screen prints, photography,
film and much more will all be on show.
Outside In aims to question and challenge the perception
that Street Art is primarily concerned with graffiti and the
spray can. A good selling point for gallerists and lifestyle
media as well its detractors, but as Outside In aims to show,
far from reality.
Outside In shows urban artists who are equally at home
tackling antiquated etching techniques, watercolours,
drawing and oil painting as they are with a spraycan and
marker. As likely to be found hunched over a litho stone
as they are scaling trackside fences, “Street” artists have,
over the years, explored and mastered crafts not popular in
contemporary fine art practice for generations.
Outside In is set to be the countries first major group
exhibition (outside of Nuart) dedicated to the most dynamic
and democratic art movement of the 21st Century.
Outside In opens on July 01st and runs until Aug 07
Martyn Reed
Curator and Creative Director
Reed Projects.
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
Joshua John. Detail (photo © Jaime Rojo)
