March 2012

Shai Dahan, Ollio and Ekta in the Swedish Woods

Some artists are always on the lookout for abandoned construction projects or buildings that the owners leave empty after they can’t afford to live in them, pay for the maintenance, or taxes. Developers start projects and run out of funding because their backers pull out or the economy goes into the ditch. Sometimes the developer never had the intention of finishing the job, or their backers pull out, someone gets hurt on the project, or they cannot get the necessary permits, or are in jail. The spaces feel haunted, empty, full of echo; sometimes remaining features contain remnants of stories of people you imagine lived there or worked there. Other times the empty incomplete shells contain pieces of possibilities, grand dreams for the imagined future never realized.

Ekta (photo © Shai Dahan)

Shai Dahan spent some sweet time with his Swedish homies Ekta and Ollio painting and pasting and exploring one sunny recent afternoon at a secret hidden location deep in the woods of “Smorgasland’, as Shai calls it. This abandoned spot has some nice grey industrial concrete that will add to the character of the pieces as the structure decays, molds, rusts, rots, is overgrown and overtaken by the trees and moss. Here are some new shots of the finished pieces exclusively to BSA readers.

Ekta (photo © Shai Dahan)

Shai Dahan (photo © Shai Dahan)

Shai Dahan (photo © Shai Dahan)

Ollio (photo © Ollio)

Ollio (photo © Ollio)

Ollio (photo © Ollio)

 

 

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Fun Friday 03.30.12

Fun Friday 03.30.12

1. Wooly Bully! (VIDEO)
2. “International Woman” at The Warrington Museum (UK)
3. “While Supplies Last” at Pawn Works (Chicago)
4. Crossing Borders at MSA Gallery (Paris)
5. Isaac Cordal “Waiting for Climate Change” at Beaufort 04 (Flemish Coast, Belgium)
6. HOW & NOSM show you HOW they made “Reflections” (VIDEO)
7. Kid Zoom Crashes Cars (VIDEO)

WOOLY BULLY! Straight from the Desert Island – Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs!

Let’s see if you can shake it as fast as the back-up dancer lady in this video!

“International Woman” at The Warrington Museum (UK)

“International Woman” the new group show at The Warrington Museum and Gallery in Warrington, UK is open to the general public with a lineup of brilliantly talented women artists from around the world including many Street Artists: Catalina Estrada, Cheryl Dunn, Elizabeth Mcgrath, Faith 47, Hera, Kukula, Mel Kadel, Miss Van, Pam Glew, Sarah Joncas, Stella Im Hultberg, Swoon, Tara Mcpherson and Xue Wang. With so much female talent under one roof this promises to be one hot and interesting show not to miss, Miss!

Faith 47. Detail (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mel Kadel (photo © Jaime Rojo)

For further information regarding this show click here.

“While Supplies Last” at Pawn Works (Chicago)

The Pawn Works Gallery in Chicago new show “While Supplies Last” opens this Saturday. For this show the space would be transformed into a site specific retail environment where you’d be able to purchase items from books to art from a list of artists that include: Shawnimals, Skewville, Kosbe, 5003, Ader, Amuse 126, Snacki, JC Rivera, Montgomery Perry Smith, Left Handed Wave, Max Kauffman, Nice-One, Swiv, and Jon Burgerman.

Kosbe (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Skewville (photo © Jaime Rojo)

For further information regarding this show click here.

Crossing Borders at MSA Gallery (Paris)

MSA Gallery new group show “Crossing Borders” opens this Saturday in Paris, France and arttists including are: DAL, David Walker, Stinkfish, Faith47, David Shillinglaw, Martin Whatson, Klone, Snik, Otto Schade, Ben Slow, Joseph Loughborough, Inkie and Banksy:

Stinkfish (photo © Jaime Rojo)

David Shillinglaw (photo © Jaime Rojo)

For further information regarding this show click here.

Isaac Cordal “Waiting for Climate Change” at Beaufort 04 (Flemish Coast, Belgium)

Sculptor and conceptual artist Isaac Cordal is doing a series of outdoor installations From March 31st to September 30th, 2012 in 30 Locations spread across 9 coastal municipalities throughout the Flemish coast as part of Beaufort 04.

Mr. Cordal’s army of little cement characters are sure to stop you on your heels if you see them that is. His commentary on social issues runs deep and wide always with a humorous touch and an impeccable sense of placement:

For further information regarding this event click here.

HOW & NOSM show you HOW they made “Reflections” (VIDEO)

A custom installation by How & Nosm just finished at the new show opening next week in the Bronx called “This Side of Paradise”. See BSA coverage of the show and more photos of How & Nosm’s installation along with Crash and Daze HERE.>>“Poorhouse for the Rich” Revitalized By The Arts

Kid Zoom Crashes Cars (VIDEO)

The other Australian bad boy Kid Zoom made a video of himself building a house and crashing some cars. We have video to prove it:

 

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OLEK Queen of Crocheted Expressionism – With Balloons

Crochet and knitting used to be for girls only. They would learn how to knit early in their training for their married life. Some girls were trained at finishing school while others learned it in an arts and crafts class.  Often the trades you learned were split by gender – Mr. Arbunk, the Shop teacher, was teaching the boys how to make bird houses or hammered metal ashtrays while across the hall Miss Fortune, the Home Economics teacher, was showing the girls how to calculate the amount of dry pasta per person to put into the pot. Meanwhile your friends, who were skipping  school, were at home calculating how much pot per person to put into the brownie mix.

These days crochet and knitting is no longer for girls only and is out for all to enjoy and there are actual knitting and crochet classes and clubs for the D.I.Y. generation.  Just take the L train on an average Wednesday and you’ll see one or two young pretty boys and girls busy with their needles or hooks and their Ipods.

Olek and David Peterson “Synthetic Nature” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Maybe that is why the last decade has sprouted knitted art in new ways, and in recent years a handful of Street Artists have been using crochet and knitting as the the medium for their art. Two of the most prominent names, Olek and Knitta Please! have been industrious on the streets of New York, leaving large and small pieces, frequently full of color, their implicit humor lightening our heavy daily routines.

Olek favors covering practical objects that you use on a daily basis such as bikes or shopping carts or baby strollers.  She also likes to make big statements by taking over large iconic monuments and giving them a poppy camouflage coat, literally covering entire sculptures with her art, like the cube at Union Square or the bull at Wall Street.

Olek and David Peterson “Synthetic Nature” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Currently Olek is teaming up with sculptor David Peterson for a new show at the Krause Gallery on the Lower East Side entitled “Synthetic Nature“. Mr. Peterson created a series of boxes/machines to simulate synthesizers and Olek, using balloons this time instead of yarn, interprets the movement of the sound that might emanate from those boxes.  The entire installation is a cacophonic celebration, a sort of kinectic African folk expressionism in neonic color and neo-punk energy.

Speaking of music, if you put Olek’s pieces on and dance you’ll be transformed. In recent exhibitions, Olek has costumed actual people onto the street – 3-D installations with an organic rhythm and movement – balloons and mutlti-colored tentacles bobbing from her form fitting sculpture skins. The movement might recall for some the 1990s nihlist costume rockers Slipknot, minus the Aryan overtones and extended middle finger.  It’s conceivable, even knittable, that this kind of handmade expression could take hold of the popular imagination and spread through the streets of Occupy Nation, given the enthusiasm of this professor.

Olek and David Peterson “Synthetic Nature” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Olek and David Peterson “Synthetic Nature” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Olek and David Peterson “Synthetic Nature” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Olek and David Peterson “Synthetic Nature” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Olek and David Peterson “Synthetic Nature” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Olek and David Peterson “Synthetic Nature” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“Synthetic Nature” By Ian Sklarsky

“Synthetic Nature” is currently on view at the Krause Gallery in Manhattan. For further information regarding this show click here.

 

 

 

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“Poorhouse for the Rich” Revitalized By The Arts

A block-long limestone mansion originally built as a welfare hotel for the retiring rich invites streetwise Graff artists and others to gild it’s decayed rooms, raising it from pigeon-infested squalor. Call it “This Side of Paradise”

Enter a discussion about the impact of the modern Street Art movement and someone will inveigh with swollen gravitas that Street Art has the power to “activate” or “re-vitalize” a previously moribund space, to bring it to life. Aside from sounding like part of the gentrification process, the “activate” argument is meant to tip on its head the impulse of  simple-minded dullards who opine that Street Art and it’s cousin graffiti are pure social disease and degrading to the foundations of city life.

How and Nosm “Reflections” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Opening in April in the Bronx a similarly anti-intuitive project invites artists of the street to create new life in a decaying mansion and the looking-glass contradictions are as rich as those of the benefactor for whom the aged home is named. The Andrew Freedman Home, with it’s Italian Renaissance details and stepped back grandeur along the Grand Concourse and a mile south of Yankee Stadium, acquired its landmark status in 1984 – the same year it breathed it’s final breath as a retirement home for the rich who had fallen on hard times.

When the building’s namesake, a New York millionaire businessman and colleague of the corrupt Tammany Hall, died as a confirmed bachelor in 1915, he wanted to make sure the money he left would keep the wealthy feeling wealthy after falling in the poorhouse. He simply didn’t want his peers to suffer no matter their financial plight so his wealth commissioned this mammoth home with roughly twice the space of the White House to give these deserved folk a good life in their later years, with servants. Beginning in the Roaring Twenties and over the next six decades, with hallways as long as 22 Town Cars, the ground-bound ship liner swam with former Cunard attendants serving the mostly white seniors as they dined in red and black Chinoiserie style, thumbed books in the library, played sport in the billiard room, and bobbed in the grand ballroom.

 

How and Nosm “Reflections” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

How and Nosm “Reflections” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“I think that you cannot help but be struck by the bizarre nature of the enterprise because it was class solidarity. He was less concerned with the indigent poor than protecting his own class who had fallen on hard times,” exclaims Manon Slome as she frames the ridiculous circumstances that kept “members” well heeled into their twilight.

Slome is President and Chief Curator of No Longer Empty, a contemporary public art organization that takes empty buildings that are often in disrepair and revitalizes them with site-responsive contemporary art exhibitions. Together with the Mid Bronx Senior Citizens Council, the non-profit that has owned the 117,000 square foot complex since 1984, No Longer Empty is curating a 32 artist show that for two months will offer curious visitors the first peek at the decrepitude that is slowly being enlivened.  Since bidding farewell to their last upper crust in the early 1980s, the crusty decay of walls and ceilings has been curling and peeling and dropping to the floor. With artists interpreting the history and memories of the place along with their own take on the economics involved, the results are definitely site specific.

How and Nosm “Reflections” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

How and Nosm “Reflections” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

As she talks about the new show “This Side of Paradise,” Jeanette Puryear, Executive Director of Mid Bronx Senior Citizens Council, reflects on how she used to watch the games and social activities in the grassy gardens of the home from the other side.  “We began across the street when the council started in 1973. I came aboard as a staff person in ’77 and I used to look down on the parties that they had on the lawn here. I just thought it was a wonderful building.”

Discussing the selection of No Longer Empty (NLE) as partner to the arts community and curator of the new show, Puryear feels like it is a natural accord. “The idea, our collaboration, really came about when I met Manon and she talked about NLE’s interest in revitalizing communities and it really fit very much with our mission of comprehensive community revitalization.”

Justen Ladda. “Like Money, Like Water”. Eventually this installation in progress would be black lit. The blue tape affixed to the walls is to economize and will not be a part of the installation. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Daze (photo © Jaime Rojo)

This may come as news to some that graffiti kings like Crash and Daze were called upon to do community revitalization in the same borough where leaders once reviled their painting style.  With a few heavyweight street art and graffiti names bringing these rooms to life, it’s interesting to see their role as one of contributing in a positive way here where the emergence of a global “Wildstyle” graffiti first blossomed while entire neighborhoods burned.

“At the same time in the late 70s and early 80s when this home’s original purpose was failing you had the rise of Bronx graffiti,” says curator Keith Schweitzer, who introduced Crash, Daze and Tats Cru alumni How & Nosm to Slome, each taking one of the rooms and bringing it to life. Schweitzer sees many parallels in this Bronx tale as he reflects on the role of the artist rising from the ashes of the burned-out neighborhoods then and an art show in the decay of this home now. “At that time you had things like Fashion Moda in the Bronx, which sort of incorporated graffiti into a contemporary art exhibition and these conceptual spaces that Street Artists and Graffiti artists participated in. And it all happened at the same time.”

 

Daze (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Daze (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Slone brings the stories full circle as she excitedly relates the multiple arts and education projects currently afoot in the home, including many with a social mission of building community and connections within it. “When we started selecting and inviting the artists, we steeped them in the history of the home. The goal was really to create a fusion of the history of the home and the nature of the history of the Grand Concourse and the present day realities of the Bronx. And that fusion was really the creative springboard, if you like, for most of installations in the exhibition.”

Whatever role you assign the artist in this clubby home of decay, the experience of discovering these complete room installations is at times reflective, sometimes illuminative, and often revitalizing to the spirit. It will depend on the definition of paradise.

Crash “Connections” 2012. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Crash “Connections” 2012. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Crash “Connections” 2012. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Scherezaede Garcia. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Scherezaede Garcia. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cheryl Pope “Then and There” Installation in progress. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cheryl Pope “Then and There” Installation in progress. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cheryl Pope “Then and There” Installation in progress. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cheryl Pope “Then and There” Installation in progress. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Adam Parker Smith. “I Lost All My Money In The Great Depression And All I Got Was This Room”,  2012. Installation in progress in collaboration with Wave Hill. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Adam Parker Smith. “I Lost All My Money In The Great Depression And All I Got Was This Room”,  2012. Installation in progress in collaboration with Wave Hill. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Adam Parker Smith. “I Lost All My Money In The Great Depression And All I Got Was This Room”,  2012. Installation in progress in collaboration with Wave Hill. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Pigeons took over while most of the house remained close and unused. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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This Side of Paradise will open on April 04 at 6:00 pm.  For further details about this exhibition click here.

With special thanks to President and Chief Curator Manon Slome and Curator Keith Schweitzer of No Longer Empty for their generous access to the installations in progress. To learn more about No Longer Empty click here.

BSA would also like to extend our gratitude to Jeanette Puryear, Executive Director of Mid-Bronx Council for taking time to answer our questions. To learn more about Mid-Bronx Council click here.

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Addict Galerie Presents: John CRASH Matos “Study in Watercolors” (Paris, France)

Crash

Laetitia Hecht & ADDICT Galerie présentent :
John CRASH Matos – “Study in Watercolors”

14.04.2012 – 02.06.2012

Vernissage le Samedi 14 Avril 2012, 18:00 – 21:00

Opening on Saturday, 14th of April 2012, 6 – 9 pm

Doit-on encore présenter John CRASH Matos, ce pionnier du Street Art, né dans le Bronx en 1961, qui entreprend, à l’âge de 13 ans, de populariser son blaze de graffeur sur les trains de New York ?

ADDICT Galerie le propose pour la quatrième fois, tant passionne le travail de cet artiste qui, pour ne pas se laisser enfermer dans le graffiti, s’exprimera sur la toile dès 1978. Cette audace lui a permis de rendre ses lettres de noblesse artistiques au Street Art dès sa première grande exposition, “Graffiti Art Success”. Pour la première fois, l’Art urbain y était pris au sérieux aussi bien par le public que par la critique.

En passant des trains aux cimaises, CRASH a pu alors commencer à côtoyer les plus grands (Jean-Michel Basquiat et Keith Haring à la galerie Real Art Ways) et donner naissance au post-graffiti.

Depuis, du Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris au MoMA de New York ou au Groningen Museum aux Pays-Bas, CRASH ne cesse d’afficher avec brio ses innovations. Il a appris à se renouveler tout en restant fidèle à ses options par une recherche incessante de la concision et de la synthèse. Son style ne cesse d’évoluer vers la simplification essentielle, le dépouillement éclatant. Pour lui, se renouveler, c’est approfondir en évacuant de ses toiles le superflu, les fioritures qui obscurcissent le sens, telle la démarche faussement simplificatrice d’un Matisse.

Preuve de leur singularité et de leur puissance, les œuvres de CRASH sont ainsi identifiables au premier coup d’œil.

Avec “Study in Watercolors”, ADDICT Galerie propose une sélection d’études préparatoires fraîchement réalisées par John CRASH Matos. Jusqu’ici peu montrées en France, ces aquarelles éclairent les dernières avancées du travail de l’artiste.

Bien au-delà de l’esquisse préparatoire, de l’essai inaccompli, ces œuvres révèlent l’aisance avec laquelle CRASH synthétise avec une rare acuité la culture urbaine et la culture pop. Comics, mangas, hip-hop, science-fiction, produits télévisés, graphisme, ce déferlement désordonné d’images charriées par notre société, CRASH le condense en une expression picturale organisée selon le principe du sampling.

Les potentialités plastiques propres à l’aquarelle permettent à CRASH de composer de subtiles nuances chromatiques éblouissantes de lumière. De manière audacieuse, l’artiste inscrit dans des cadrages resserrés bribes de lettres et fragments de visages sans que l’œil, chaque fois, n’abandonne sa présence obsédante, signe complice à Roy Lichtenstein. Mais, dans son cas, le petit format n’est pas enfermement, il invite au contraire à saisir la dynamique des lignes entravées qui se projettent avec force hors du cadre.

Le nombre d’œuvres exposées montrent, s’il en était besoin, que CRASH n’a en rien perdu de sa fureur de peindre depuis près de 40 ans. La technique de l’aquarelle lui permet d’exprimer, dans une sorte d’urgence, toute son énergie créatrice.

Avec cette exposition consacrée à CRASH du 14 avril au 2 juin 2012, ADDICT Galerie, met en lumière l’ébauche, le travail préparatoire du graffiti, aspect trop souvent relégué au second plan d’un mode d’expression parfois assimilé à un jaillissement spontané de l’imagination de l’artiste. La reconnaissance du Street Art passe aussi par ce retour aux sources.

Visuels et informations disponibles sur demande
Images and informations available upon request
Contact : +33 (0)1 48 87 05 04 / info@addictgalerie.com

ADDICT Galerie – Laetitia Hecht
14/16 rue de Thorigny 75003 Paris
T:+33(0)1 48 87 05 04
Horaires d’ouverture / Opening hours
Mardi – Samedi 11:00 – 19:00 et sur rendez-vous
Tuesday – Saturday 11am – 7pm and by appointment
info@addictgalerie.com
www.addictgalerie.com

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MSA Gallery Presents: “Crossing Borders” A Group Show (Paris, France)

Crossing Borders

featuring work by

DAL, David Walker, Stinkfish, Faith47, David Shillinglaw, Martin Whatson, Klone, Snik, Otto Schade, Ben Slow, Joseph Loughborough, Inkie and Banksy

Opening Reception: Saturday, March 31, 5-9pm

MSAGallery @ L\INCONNU
17 rue Mazagran
75010 Paris, France

Please RSVP to rsvp@mystreetartgallery.com
Preview List can be requested to theshop@mystreetartgallery.com

Exhibition open to the public March 31st – April 5, 2012
MSAGallery is pleased to present Crossing Borders, a group show which brings for the first time in the heart of Paris, fifteen artists whose work activates creative conversations far from the French borders with geographically disparate cities of Bogotá, Cape Town, Beijing, Kiev, London, Oslo, Bristol, Concepcion and Tel Aviv

Artists will be present in Paris painting in the city for MSA’s open air gallery project ParisFreeWalls.

About MSAGallery:

Founded in 2011, MSAGallery focuses on a select group of artists breaking ground in painting, mixed media and sculpture. The annual program consists of a series of pop-up solo and group exhibitions that document the progress of these artists.

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Rusted Metal: Canvas and Collaborator on the Streets

Street Art is ephemeral. That, for the most part is true. Unless we consider the role that the Internet plays in the way most people experience it. Then it doesn’t seem ephemeral at all.

From the moment a piece of Street Art appears, its evolution begins. Transformed by the elements; rain, sun, the rusting and oxidation of metal, the fading of paper. If you become familiar with a piece on the street, you might see it daily on your way to work or school or the laundromat. Over time it matures, evolves, takes on new characteristics, and eventually disappears.

Today we look at metal and it’s collaborative behavior as art material, its personality, its natural qualities. Industrial lots, garbage bins, heavy old gates secured with chains and locks, scrap yards, untreated wood facades – they all provide a myriad of surfaces, textures, shapes that serve as canvas and collaborator. Over time you observe the aging process of a stencil on a metal plate, or a decaying wheat paste peeling off of it or rusting into it, masking it’s shape onto it. The collaboration of materials and elements can be one of the most beautiful experiences one encounters on the streets, even an enduring one.

Here are some pieces on metal for you to enjoy.

Revs (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Elbow Toe (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Elbow Toe (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kaws (photo © Jaime Rojo)

C215 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

C215 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

C215 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

C215 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bast (photo © Jaime Rojo)

See One (photo © Jaime Rojo)

See One (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The Dude Company (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Anera (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jef Aerosol (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jef Aerosol (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Skewville (photo © Jaime Rojo)

White Cocoa (photo © Jaime Rojo)

NohjColey (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Artist Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The 1% (photo © Jaime Rojo)

QRST (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jolie Routine (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

 

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Guarding an Oasis in the Desert

You ever been old? Me either but if I ever get there I hope I can be slim and stately and marching around a water tank, protecting a natural resource that belongs to us and future generations. That would be good and honorable work.

Here are some pics of Jetsonorama’s new work on the reservation. Check out the windmill. Nice!

Jetsonorama “Secody’s Watertank” (photo © Jetsonorama)

Jetsonorama “Secody’s Watertank” (photo © Jetsonorama)

Jetsonorama “Secody’s Watertank” (photo © Jetsonorama)

 

 

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Images of the Week 03.25.12

Saw my first barefoot hippie walking down 7th Avenue on Friday and it was like spotting a Robin on the lawn in Union Square Park. SPRING! Spring time hit New York like a truckload of thick sweet kisses and homeboys started checking every cute move of all the shorties, who mysteriously also fluffed up all their magnolia pink feathers and almost imperceptibly put a bit more sa into their shay. Don’t ask us what any of that means, except that when the days get all comfy and warm like these, it’s all about the birds and the beeeeeeees, B.

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, with some special shots by Jaime Rojo from a secret place in the Bronx as well as some contributions from Lima, Peru by Adolfo Bejar, and in Essen, Germany from Skount. Names this week include DCT, Elliot Tupac, Essam, How & Nosm, EKG, Keith Haring, Mariposa Mentirosa, Radical!, Seth, Skount, V, and Zam. First we start out with some spring flowers by an unknown artist.

Artist Unknown. Street installation to welcome the Spring 2012 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Artist Unknown. Street installation to welcome the Spring 2012 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mariposa Mentirosa. Street installation to welcome the Spring 2012 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

How & Nosm (photo © Jaime Rojo)

How & Nosm (photo © Jaime Rojo)

How & Nosm (photo © Jaime Rojo)

How & Nosm (photo © Jaime Rojo)

EKG…is feeling a bit cocky. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Artist Unknown  (photo © Jaime Rojo)

V (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Zam (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Radical! (photo © Jaime Rojo)

#Heros Street Art…Keith Haring. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Essam (photo © Jaime Rojo)

DEKRD (photo © Jaime Rojo)

DEKRD (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 SKOUNT “The Automata Repairer” Essen, Germany. (photo © Skount)

SKOUNT “The Automata Repairer” Essen, Germany. (photo © Skount)

DCT, SETH and ELLIOT TUPAC. Lima, Peru. (photo © Adolfo Bejar)

DCT, SETH and ELLIOT TUPAC. Lima, Peru. (photo © Adolfo Bejar)

Untitled. (photo © Jaime Rojo )

 

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No Longer Empty in Collaboration With Mid-Bronx Council Present: “This Side of Paradise” (Bronx, NYC)

This Side Of Paradise

On April 4, 2012, the gates of the Andrew Freedman Home will open to the public. The Home was once built to be a haven, a paradise, for the rich elderly who had lost their fortunes. Bequeathed by millionaire Andrew Freedman, the Home provided not only food and shelter but all the accoutrements of a rich and civilized life style – white glove dinner service, a grand ball room, a wood-paneled library, billiard room and a social committee who organized concerts, opera performances and the like.

Referencing this quixotic history, This Side of Paradise will reference the past and reconnect the vision of Andrew Freedman to today’s Bronx and its realities. The exhibition and its extensive public programming onsite and offsite will draw together the economic and social history of the Home with the present day realities of the Bronx and its residents.

The selected artists’ will work in a site-specific manner and will respond to such issues as memory, immigration, storytelling, aging and the creation of fantasy that the original concept of the Home “being poor in style” suggests. This Side of Paradise will celebrate human ingenuity, the strength of the human spirit and the resilience needed to fashion beauty, hope and rejoicing.

Opening Reception will be Wednesday, April 4 from 6 to 8pm followed by the Speakeasy After Party Fundraiser sponsored by St. Germain starting at 8:30pm. Support NLE and future exhibitions by purchasing tickets here.

Exhibition Hours: Thursday to Sunday, 1pm to 7pm (extended hours when events are hosted).

Bronx Arts Alliance is a partner for This Side of Paradise either installations, events or general cross-promotion of Bronx Arts. Partnering organizations are: Bronx Documentary Center |  Casita Maria  |  Hebrew Home at Riverdale  |  Lehman College Art Gallery  |  Longwood Art Gallery at Hostos College  |  The Bronx Children’s Museum  |  The Bronx Council of the Arts  |  The Bronx Museum of the Arts  |  The Bronx River Art Center  |  The POINT  |  Wave Hill

Organizations Presenting Installations are Wave Hill – Installation by Adam Parker SmithThe POINT – Designed by Carey Clark, Alejandra Delfin, Danny Peralta, Lady K Fever, Sharon de La Cruz, Tats Cru, David Yearwood among others;  The Bronx Museum of the Arts – Works by artists in the AIM Program; Bronx Documentary Center -Film by Tim HetheringtonLehman College Art Gallery – Works by Scherezade García

Video and Production SupportBronxNet– a not for profit  that provides local television by the people of the Bronx, for the people of the Bronx.

Media Partner: WNYC Radio

The Cafe in the Home is generously supported by La Colombe Torrefaction coffee.

This Side of Paradise is a collaboration with the Mid Bronx Senior Citizens Council, one of the largest nonprofits who has been providing community services in the South Bronx. Contact wpuryear@midbronx.org about the Andrew Freedman Home and mjenkins@midbronx.org about MBSCC.

Curatorial team is Manon Slome, Keith Schweitzer, Charlotte Caldwell and Lucy Lydon. A tremendous thank you to all our volunteers and interns involved in the project. Thank you!

ARTISTS:

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Suben Presents: Isaac Cordal Solo Show (Barcelona, Spain)

Isaac Cordal

SUBEN PRESENTS

ISAAC CORDAL . Solo Show

RAS Gallery Barcelona . Carrer Doctor Dou 10
Opening Friday April 13th from 7.30 till 10 pm
Exhibition runs from April 13th till May 12th
Curated by Maximiliano Ruiz

“In 2007 the Spanish building industry used 54.2 million tones of cement. This factoid did not escape the thoughtful attentions of one very interesting Galician digital nomad, namely Isaac Cordal. Cordal saw this frenzied ‘cementisation’ of the world around him as evidence of our deep alienation from an ongoing conflict with the natural environment. So, being an artist very much obsessed with the problem of the human body Cordal appropriated cement as the tool for his own intervention in the built environment. What this means in laymen’s terms is that he used cement to make his art and in this case his art was sculptures of little people.”
Gary Shove

“Blink and you’ll miss it. Turning the urban landscape in on itself with installations that are almost to subtle to be noticed while passing by in an individualistic frenzy, Isaac Cordal uses the grey functionality of cement to question the lack of colour and vibrancy in so much of our lives through his tiny figures.”
Street Art Utopia

“Creator of a tiny community of cement sculptures hidden and isolated around the city, Isaac Cordal invites us to reflect on the sad state of the world through his art. It holds a mirror up to society by recreating scenes of our everyday modern life reminding us of the numb passage of time, the overwhelming influence of consumerism and elimination of nature. Keep your eyes open!”
Street Art London

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Copenhagen Street Art on Lock Down : Tejn

Danish Street Artist Tejn does some paste-ups periodically but the thing he is most known for is his welding.  Also his “Lock On”, a practice of chaining his welded sculptures to the street with a bicycle lock. In much the same way New York Street Artist REVS has been leaving his welded tags around Brooklyn during the last decade, these Lock On’s and welded fake signs are much less ephemeral than what you may typically associate the term “street art” with.

Tejn (photo © Sandra Hoj)

Photographer and BSA contributor Sandra Hoj reports today of her newest findings on the streets of Copenhagen, where Tejn has been installing new work.

Here Ms. Hoj describes the new works;

“The scrap iron sculpture Lock On’s by Danish street artist Tejn are scattered all over Copenhagen at the moment. Whenever I stop to take a picture of one, someone comes up to me to alert me to another piece. These welded sculptures are made from salvaged iron collected from places like our cultural battlefields Christiania and the empty lot of Jagtvej 69, former location of the Youth House. Tejn welds the iron together and returns it to the streets chained and locked with found bike-locks”

Tejn (photo © Sandra Hoj)

Tejn (photo © Sandra Hoj)

Tejn (photo © Sandra Hoj)

Tejn (photo © Sandra Hoj)

Tejn (photo © Sandra Hoj)

 

To see more great photos and observations on Sandra Hoj’s site please click here

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