Welcometo “ARTHAPPENING” at A-Gallery Thursday,February 16 at17-21. It will be afantastic eveningwithwonderful art; nicemingling andwine tasting withchampagne and Italian winesfrom theFrenchcompany.
REBECCALUNDH:abstract painting LIUBOLIN:photography, “hidingin the city“ SHAI DAHAN: urban art JÖRGDÖRING:contemporarypopart JOHNNYBOYERICSSON:urbanart VINCENTEDMONDLOUIS: photography,portraits Jan Jörnmark: photography,urbanart
Carnage & Making Deals Zine Present:
SNOWBLIND + Carnage Zine Release featuring New Yorkʼs ATM Crew at Klughaus Gallery, NYC
Opening Reception: Friday, February 17th, 2012 from 6-10pm Show Runs Through Sunday, March 3rd, 2012
With SNOWBLIND, Klughaus Gallery, in conjunction with Carnage and Making Deals Zine, is proud to present a group of artists who have captured the gritty pleasures of the winter season.
Photographs from renowned urban documentarian Martha Cooper and Carnage zine creator Ray Mock show slush, sludge, and frozen faces contrasted with empty, peaceful city streets and the blinding white of last nightʼs snowfall. The show also features clever, snow-inspired artwork and photography from Jesse Edwards, Mike P, Alexander Richter, Michael Fales, Oscar Arriola, Graham Shimberg and Bob Barry.
The showʼs opening reception will mark the launch of issue #2 of Carnage, a limited edition zine featuring the prolific and highly distinctive work of New York Cityʼs ATM Crew.
Klughaus Gallery exhibits a variety of contemporary art. The gallery works primarily with artists that have roots in graffiti and street culture and seeks to develop itself as a leader in fostering urban art appreciation within the local (Chinatown/LES) community.
Klughaus Gallery is located at 47 Monroe Street, New York, NY 10002. Gallery hours are Thursdays and Fridays from 1-7pm, Saturdays and Sundays from 12-6pm. For more information, please email info@klughaus.net or call (646) 801-6024.
Martha Cooper is a documentary photographer who has specialized in shooting urban vernacular art and architecture for over thirty years. Her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide and published extensively in magazines from National Geographic to Vibe. Some of her publications include Subway Art, New York State of Mind, Going Postal, and most recently, Tokyo Tattoo 1970.
Ray Mockʼs mission as a photographer is to capture the uncooptable core of city culture and make ugly look pretty. His work has been featured in books, in magazines and on countless websites. He publishes Carnage and likes to hang around trains.
Jesse Edwards is a Seattle based artist who focuses on oil paintings ranging from classic landscapes to more unconventional still-lifes. In addition to his paintings of guns, marijuana plants and graffiti tools, he is known for his pixilated nudes as well as his quality work with ceramics. He has studied at the Cornish School of the Arts and Gage Academy and has exhibited his work throughout the United States in many prominent galleries and museums including Seattleʼs Center on Contemporary Art (CoCA), Woodside/Braseth Gallery, BLVD Gallery, Deitch Projects, The Hole NYC, and The Museum of Sex. Edwards has also been featured in many prestigious publications including the New York Times, Seattle Times, Vice Magazine, Seattle PI, and City Arts Magazine.
Mike P is a New York City based artist who works in a wide range of mediums focusing on painting and illustration. His art can be found in one form or another in many of the places that he has traveled around the world.
Alexander Richter is an NYC based commercial photographer specializing in portraits for editorial, advertising and the music industries. When he is not making pictures, he can be found with his wife in Maine drinking fresh squeezed lemonade and eating lobster rolls.
Michael Fales can be found photographing the streets as the city comes alive in the morning, or exploring itʼs tucked-away nooks. His photos have appeared on numerous websites, books, and exhibitions. He currently resides in Brooklyn with his wife and two cats.
Graham Shimberg is a photographer, track-walker, freight-nerd, and bindle-stiff.
Bob Barry documents graffiti amidst the paranoia and the Disney-fication of a post-9/11 New York.
Oscar Arriola is a Chicago-based photographer who has enjoyed documenting graffiti, city life, tuxedo cats, rogue cops, and artists since the mid-80’s. His photography has been featured in the recent Chicago Street Art book.
BSA contributor and urban explorer Garry Hunter just stumbled willingly into an alley in London where Street Artists ROA and Phlegm had transformed the walls and he shares his experience here with us, along with some images of the work.
By New York standards, London snowstorms are occasional and fleeting, with this winter’s first carpet of white disappearing within 48 hours. This window of opportunity on a rare warm day prompted a trip to South East London, ancient habitat of second hand car dealers and purveyors of stolen goods. Peckham is off the Tube line, but an over ground artery to Kent allows quick access from Central London. It is very close to this Rye station where there lies an unassuming dark alley that opens out into a plethora of monochrome masterworks.
Modern Flemish master ROA has decorated four walls of an industrial yard with Gothic bird skulls, while the remaining doorways, loading bays and other brick surfaces show an entangled narrative of dark materials by Sheffield-based Phlegm. These hidden gems were only made fully accessible by the serendipitous arrival of a resident in the adjoining apartment, who had keys to the barred gate of the yard.
As I leave back through the tunnel to the High Street, my head spinning with intense imagery, the waft of goat curry mingles with odors from an Arabic tea-stall, the hawker’s call and the loud strains of passing London buses. Back to reality, cheap shops selling tat and the predictable chain stores of an English high street; an identity being crushed by corporate greed.
Los Angeles based Street Artist and graff writer RETNA has his own alphabet when it comes to writing on walls. We occasionally meet someone who says they can read it, but I’m suspicious that they may also be the kind of clairvoyant person who is able to divine water that lies underground with a wooden stick in their hand. Hell I’m dyslexic with standard English so I’ll be a monkey’s uncle if I can figure out what RETNA’s secret language is. But that’s not the point of this story, is it?
Photographer and BSA contributor Birdman captured this new work by RETNA, on the side wall of the soon to open LALA Gallery, as he worked with a monochromatic palette of grays, silver and black. This is the first phase of this wall as the artist will be adding more work in the future.
Says Birdman “Dunno what it says but its in Spanish, tried to get a translation but it didn’t happen”. Can you tell us what it says? Any interpreters online today?
RETNA and Zes are in a new show “Excavated Revelations” opening today at the Known Gallery in Los Angeles. For further information regarding this show click here.
1. Giants Fans in Manhattan Streets (VIDEO)
2. “F*ck Art” at Museum of Sex
3. CASA DE EMPENO at Anonymous (Mexico City)
4. “Love & Hate” Group Show at Stolen Space (London)
5. CREEPY at Okazi Gallery (Berlin)
6. Chris Stain and H. Veng Smith at C.A.V.E. Gallery (Los Angeles)
7. Winter Group Show at White Walls Gallery (San Francisco)
8. Zes and Retna new show “Excavated Revelations”
9. German duo Herakut paint a mural at Big Art Labs (VIDEO)
Giants Fans in Manhattan Streets (VIDEO) Weeeeeeeee are the CHAMPEEEEENSSSS
Streets in Manhattan were bloated with about a million crazy football fans this week as the Superbowl-winning New York Giants had a parade and almost everybody skipped school and work to go see their heroes. Office workers literally dumped garbage cans of shredded paper out the window en masse while fans poured into the city from every direction, including nearby states, to roar as the players rode by. Some people were well behaved, but they were hard to see or hear because of all the hooligans raising holy hell. Here’s a video taste of it – some seriously funny sh*t. Watch out for unbridled testosterone fueled aggression, swear words and Giants inspired freestylin. NSFW, but okay for the street.
Click here to read our article and interviews with the curators and some of the artists.
CASA DE EMPENO at Anonymous (Mexico City)
In Mexico City Anonymous Gallery new group show “Casa de Empeño” opens today to the general public. Centered around the themes of a Pawn Shop the show includes internationally recognized Street Artists Judith supine. Maya Hayuk and Davil Ellis among others.
For further information regarding this show click here
“Love & Hate” Group Show at Stolen Space (London)
“Love & Hate” the new group show at Stolen Space Gallery in London opens today to the general public. With the participation of several Street Artists from different cities including: D*Face, Dan Witz, Miss Van, Ronzo, Toshi, Will Barras, Word To Mother, Jeff Soto and EINE among others.
“Back in the day, there were these old buildings in downtown Los Angeles on Broadway Street that were abandoned, but they were so beautiful. Zes and I wanted to climb them no matter how high they were, just so we could write on them. They might not have been paintings, but to me, they were still works of art.” – RETNA
Known Gallery is proud to present Excavated Revelations, a dual exhibition featuring new work by Los Angeles-based artists ZES and RETNA. Introduced in their youth by their mutual friend AYER, ZES and RETNA led parallel lives through an upbringing in graffiti. Utilizing a fluidity and precision they mastered by painting some of the most coveted walls in the city, their refined technique is now exemplified in this fresh body of abstract work.
ZES began his career at the young age of thirteen and gained recognition for his determination to climb some of the city’s most challenging locations, stealthily navigating the streets of Los Angeles and commandeering its obscure walls at night. Growing up in the heart of the city, by the age of fifteen, ZES became one of the youngest members of the legendary MSK crew and has helped define the contemporary graffiti movement. Widely respected for his innovations to West Coast wild style, his determination to overcome the obstacles the nature of graffiti presented resulted in a fervent approach to his modus operandi. His longevity has allowed him to produce a substantial amount of work on the streets, making him one of the most influential and recognized graffiti artists not only in the city, but also internationally, along with his contemporaries AYER, REVOK, and SABER. He has traveled from coast to coast in search of new environments that challenge him to climb higher and paint pieces that express his creative intensity. To this day, ZES can still be found on rooftops, ledges and fire escapes.
RETNA is always brimming with new ideas. This past year alone, his work has been spotted everywhere from tail wings of jets to the walls of the Museum of Contemporary Art. RETNA continuously pushes personal, artistic and physical boundaries as demonstrated in Excavated Revelations. In this exhibition, he challenges himself with various methods including etching, the most esteemed technique used for master printing. The age-old process utilizes zinc plates, produced and manipulated through washes and resists and placed in a bath charged with an electric current that physically “etches” the plate. An impression is then printed by running the plate and a sheet of paper through a press at about 2,000 pounds of pressure per square inch. The result is beautifully embossed into the paper.
Known Gallery
441 North Fairfax Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90036 info@knowngallery.com
310-860-6263
Inside Out
Mighty Tanaka presents:
Inside Out
Featuring the artwork of Cake & Don Pablo Pedro
Look in the mirror, what do you see? Does your reflection smile back at you? Or does it hide behind layers of doubt? As each of us interprets the notion of self differently, the ways in which we choose to outwardly express ourselves varies greatly. For some, personal identity cannot always be communicated simply with words alone, so other means are utilized to translate the inner dialogue. Mighty Tanaka is pleased to bring you our next show, Inside Out, featuring the artwork of Cake & Don Pablo Pedro.
Inside Out is the outward expression of ones innermost feelings. The figurative and symbolic imagery relates to the personal struggle for understanding and emphasizes the desire to be heard. It’s the rare insight into the mind of another, a visual representation of an individual’s emotions. In essence, Inside Out is the exploration of self.
Cake & Don Pablo Pedro, two artists who’s work both compliments and conflicts, juxtapose each other in a complimentary way. From the soft touch of muslin fabric to the rigid edges of a wooden panel, their chosen materials are representational of their message, as they open themselves to the world.
OPENING RECEPTION:
Friday, February 17th, 2012
6:00PM – 9:00PM
Mighty Tanaka
111 Front St., Suite 224
Brooklyn, NY 11201
You’ve seen at least one pair of Skewvilles dogs dangling in cities around the world, an unusual mimicry of a city custom where people throw their old kicks over wires for one reason or another. The brothers began custom designing and hacksaw cutting out their wooden versions in the 90s and flinging them. But it ain’t easy, and many times they miss the wires completely. It’s tricky.
Recently in Chicago, photographer and video maker Brock Brake followed Skewville around to see how it’s done, and how it’s missed. Says Brock, “I just wanted to focus on that as its own video because I think that’s one of the most important traits of Skewville is this weird shoe tossing phenomena.”
Street Artist Ron English has played many a visual trick on unsuspecting passersby, reflecting normalized consumer culture back through a funhouse mirror to illuminate the darker, more hypocritical aspects of unconscious living. Like the skits on Saturday Night Live, English’s brand of “POPaganda” has to stretch into the outlandish to lampoon the new normal, all for some social commentary that goes down with a spoonful of artistic sugar.
And now, for your voyeuristic edutainment, the reality show format is employed to take you on the revered “road trip” across the U.S. with the new American family: Ron, his wife, and kids (and assistants). Combining stunningly well-appointed suburban normality and bombed out urban abandonment, the gas-guzzling white flight this time is reverse back to the hood for a bit of wheat pasting, cameras in tow. The final part of this brand new trilogy ties it all together, but you’ll notice the juxtapositions almost immediately along with the mundane and satirical. It’s just hard to know which one is which.
“F*ck Art”, an undulating and adventurous group show by New York Street Artists opens its arms and legs to you at the Museum of Sex (MoSex) tomorrow and whether it’s the human powered penetrating bicycle or the glass bead encrusted dildo, it endeavors to satisfy.
Co-curated by Emilie Baltz (Creative Director) and Mark Snyder (Director of Exhibitions), the show selects 20 current Street Artists who have pushed notions of propriety into provocation on the street and it invites them to let it loose behind closed doors. Not that Miss Van needs anyone’s permission; her sensual role-playing painted ladies have been playfully preening on graff-piled walls and blue-boarded construction sites for much of the 2000s. Similarly the powerfully stenciled sirens by Street Artist AIKO have been bending over in high heels on walls all over the world with just a hint of the geishas from her native Japan for over a decade.
The “Fuck Bike #001”, a pedal operated plunging machine by William Thomas Porter and Andrew H. Shirley, has at its conceptual base an ode to the lengths a guy will go to reach his natural objective. The two artist met at a Black Label Bike Club event called “Ridin’ Dirty” in 2010 and later schemed together to make an entry for a bike-themed group show in Bushwick, Brooklyn that featured many Street Artists like DarkClouds, Ellis G., UFO, Noah Sparkes and Mikey 907. “I approached Tom with the idea of creating a kinetic bike sculpture which you could f*ck someone with,” remembers Mr. Shirley, “Tom is a very gifted artist and bike engineer, it took a few days for him to build our design.”
Visitors to the show are invited to mount the bike and take it for a spin. “This bike is more sculpture oriented, but still functions sexually. It’s also totally interactive,” explains Mr. Shirley, who has displayed the bike in cities in Europe and America, most recently at Art Basel in Miami in December. So the bike has gotten around and Shirley happily recounts stories of intimate encounters it has had with both genders. (See the very Not-Safe-For-Work film of the bike in action below.)
The street has certainly seen an increase of fairly graphic sex related Street Art in the last decade or so as people have become more comfortable with such themes and much of this show can often be seen throughout the city without the price of admission. Gay couple Bryan Raughton and Nathan Vincent have been putting large and small scaled paste-ups of sexually themed imagery as a Street Art duo called RTTP for about two years on Manhattan’s Lower East Side and in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Short for “Reply To This Post”, the line-drawn torsos and spread eagles are all part of their collaborative Street Art project that explores the desires of men seeking men on Craigslist.
Describing the work, Vincent says it’s a process of lifting the mystery off of a just-below-the-radar Internet dating game – and pasting it on a lightpole. “Users post an ad with an image, title, and a short description of what they are looking for tonight. The photograph they post of themselves is drawn and titled with the ad’s title.” By putting these erotically based desires on the streets, Vincent thinks “they magnify those desires that often seem to live at the edges.” Says Raughton of the project, “We see it as an interesting way to take people private desires to the public street.”
In discussing the origins and underpinnings of a show like this, the co-curators reveal a more academic and sociological grounding than the prurient and salacious sauciness one might infer by a display of so much “F*ck Art”. We asked Baltz to give us a sense of the context for a Street Art driven sex show.
Brooklyn Street Art:What is your favorite part of curating a show like this? Emilie Baltz: Seeing the different interpretations and energy that each artist brings to their work is always the most interesting part of curating – with this topic, especially, it’s the fact that they are all pushing the limits of their medium by creating such provocative statements.
Brooklyn Street Art:While these pieces are behind closed doors available to a certain audience, Street Artists typically put their work out in the public. Do you think the work should change depending on the audience? Emilie Baltz: We don’t think it’s about changing the work, it’s about how the work changes the environment it lives in. Street art has a long history of revealing different perspectives on its surrounding environment and by placing this work in a museum it creates a certain energy and visual provocation that changes the relationship we traditionally have to the museum-going experience.
Brooklyn Street Art:Do you think there has been an increase in sex-related street art in recent years, and if so, why? Emilie Baltz: There definitely is an increase in sex-related conversations in recent years. It’s not that there is more content suddenly, it’s just that culture is actually ready to start talking about it now, rather than ignore it.
Brooklyn Street Art:We have noticed that themes of sex and sexuality are often quickly destroyed on the street, while other pieces remain for months. Is this a form of selective censorship by the public? Emilie Baltz: Street art is a dialogue. Its creation is about expression and commentary, and therefore can become a barometer of cultural consciousness (or unconsciousness). The intimate and emotional nature of sexual content can obviously elicit strong feelings in viewers, and, given that street art is an environmental medium, either you have to live with it or get rid of it. Sex walks a fine line between acceptance and rejection. Public response to this kind of art is potentially a mirror into how our society relates to the topic.
Brooklyn Street Art:What surprised you the most about putting this show together? Emilie Baltz: The enthusiasm from the public. People are genuinely excited to talk about sex in public space and it’s an incredible honor to be able to help facilitate that discussion.
F*CK ART
A Street Art Occupation at the Museum of Sex in New York City, opens February 8 and will run through June 10, 2012.
Emilie Baltz, Co-Curator, Creative Director, F*CK ART
Mark Snyder, Co-Curator F*CK ART, Director of Exhibitions, Museum of Sex
Meghan Coleman and Alex Emmart of Might Tanaka Gallery in Brooklyn served as Chief Advisors.
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
