Unruly Gallery is proud to present EGS – the most internationally recognized Finnish graffiti artist. His career started in Helsinki during the late 80s and was part of the country’s first graffiti wave.
His art is an anthropological research into graffiti.
At first Egs searched for every piece of graffiti in his own neighbourhood, then in the rest of Helsinki before heading to meet and paint with like minded writers in all corners of Europe.
The last 25 years he has painted in five continents and over 40 countries. He has sought inspiration in local graffiti scenes worldwide and collected global graffiti folklore for his own art.
“Every wave, star, drip or block I have ever painted can be traced to this attitude of graffiti anthropologist. Every fade is reminiscent of some graffiti that I have seen. Every 3D or bubble has a story to tell. Every piece I’ve done pays an homage to the great graffiti folklore.” -EgsEgs’ art has been exhibited in galleries and on walls all over the world.
The works in the upcoming exhibition at Unruly Gallery in Amsterdam are inspired by graffiti art in its most distilled form: a name painted in black.
Dale Grimshaw is a dynamic artist calling on powerful emotions and strongly held belief to fuel his creative output. This tumultuous energy has produced a marvelous series of paintings over the past five years – works that have often been highly personal, but because of their directness and honesty, have succeeded in resonating with very many people.
In his new show, ‘Moreish’ Dale is deeply concerned by the increasingly desperate dance of excess that he sees so many of us jig along to. As the artist says ‘It’s a case of enough is never enough. The ‘haves’ want more and the ‘have nots’ can pay for it. Once we get that acquisitive taste, we just want more and more’.
The response from the artist to this view of the world is ironically seductive. Succulent cakes, fruit, meat, chocolate and cream are piled on top of each other in an orgy of visual sensations. The works themselves have a disturbingly ‘Moreish’ appeal and despite the artist’s displeasure at a world where ‘some people don’t have a pot to piss in, while others are eating live octopus and filming the torture for youtube’, the images take on a Rubenesque lushness, full of symbolism and atmosphere.
Indeed much of the imagery references the increasingly overblown world of the baroque, a world that was on a collision course with the French Revolution. There is an underlying sadness, as if the artist is saying that this unsustainable behaviour will surely come to a crashing end at some point soon.
This will be Dale’s fifth solo show at Signal. His work has been seen in galleries across the world, notably in Paris, Rome, Berlin and in the USA. Dale is also getting recognition for his street art. He is now considered to be the leading street artists in the UK to use the woodcut print ‘paste up’ medium. He has also been invited to take part in a number of street art festivals across the UK and Europe, producing large mixed media works in his inimitable style.
THE PRIVATE VIEW IS TAKING PLACE ON 1ST NOVEMBER 6 – 9PM. PLEASE EMAIL US TO BE INCLUDED ON THE GUEST LIST info@signalgallery.com
Situated in the fashionable Hoxton area of London, the Signal gallery is well served by all the main means of transport;
Bus
There are many bus routes to the area including 67, 141, 149, 76, 21, 214, 26, 45, 43, 271, 47, 48
Underground
Nearest tubes are Old Street and Shoreditch High Street.
British Rail
Liverpool Street mainline station Old Street.
Car
Parking – some very limited on-street is available. There an NCP car park 50 meters away on Paul Street.
Opera Gallery NY is thrilled to present Ron English’s “Crucial Fiction”
from November 2nd till November 23rd 2012
Monday to Saturday 10:30AM to 7PM
Sunday 11:00AM to 7PM
115 Spring St. NY, NY 10012
+1 212 966 6675
“I want to tell my inner child, help me remember what you saw, and I will make it for you…”
Inspired by Andy Warhol, Ron English created his own movement and was baptized “The Father of Street Art.” One of the most important and respectable artists of our time, Shepard Fairey, referred to English as “an artist who can paint an advertising satire with the skill of a Renaissance Master (one who’s been to the future and witnessed surrealism and 1984!).”
While participating in illegal public art campaigns from the early 1980s, English developed the skills of a master painter to become one of the pioneers of Pop-Surrealism.
He is one of the very few contemporary artists who still uses his oil dipped paintbrush to create masterpieces like a Picasso on acid would do.
English’s Guernica is one of his most popular pieces. It is a piece which demonstrates that he does not see as the rest of us. The intensity of the Pop Surrealists’ explosion, including his brilliant use of color and his nightmarish creatures, surely leads the viewers eye and mind towards a feeling of tripping while standing in front of his works.
In “Crucial Fiction,” a series of paintings revealing an inspired collaboration with his former self, English seems to have made an important decision to prove that a true artist is able to use his imagination and transform it into reality. His vision is willing to offer us a unique experience with the excitement and vitality of a child, a child who cultivated a bountiful career that has been spread across streets, museums, movies, music, books and television.
“…Give me your imagination, and I’ll give you my skills.” -Ron English
English lives and works in New York. His art is in the collections of the Whitney Museum in New York, Museum of Contemporary art in Paris, Today Art Museum in Beijing, Wynwood Walls in Miami (Art Basel), MOMA: screening of his documentary “The Art and Crimes of Ron English.” His collaborations include Puma, Absolut Vodka and the album covers of artists Chris Brown and Slash to name a few.
Opening tomorrow October 25th at INOPERAbLE. Kid Acne will have his solo show “Damn Straight” in Vienna featuring his signature Stabby Women in all kinds of versions, including mono prints, graphite, Screenprint, Watercolor, Riso, and much more! The show will also feature a limited print honoring the worlds first Graffiti Artist, Kyselak, an austrian who painted during the early 1800’s.
This art is Not Safe for Work or School, even though it’s on public streets.
It sounds strange to say it but these images of Street Art are erotic, sometimes violent, and might even be considered prurient or pornographic by some viewers – yet they are part of today’s free-wheeling ever expanding visual feast on the streets that any random passerby may see. In New York, many of these pieces ride for a long time fully on display for hundreds or thousands before someone crosses them out or otherwise damages them.
With flesh increasingly paraded across all manner of screen and print publications, it is no wonder that large public billboards in cities throughout the western world have grown increasingly blunt in their depiction of sexual themes and innuendo; with near-coital poses, barely covered breasts, and bulbous packages thrust into the public eye while we drive, walk, and sip a pumpkin frappuccino. As long as the image is in pursuit of the sale of a product, it’s hardly mentioned today.
Street Art today falls into that nether region of art too, where certain liberties for free expression and the depiction of the human body are protected from criticism because they can be classified as artful and part of our right to freedom of speech. As we continue to scan the streets for clues about ourselves and the direction that Street Art is taking, here are more than a handful of scintillating beauties that are beckoning for the attention of, well, everyone.
Here are some hot new shots of stuff on the streets by Judith Supine that seem perfect for startling New Yorkers this week on their way to the haunted house. Characterized by putrid hot color, recombined body parts of various proportions, a contorted focus on maquillage, it looks like Supine is in full effect for Halloween (or Day of the Dead) this year, and with help from a couple of collaborations.
The first “collabo” is really just about placement next to the colorful geometric colorplay patterning of Anthony Sneed– which on a normal day look bright but next to Judith can appear dimmed in comparison. The second collabo is more of the roughneck kind – bringing more of the west coast SoCal flavor of cholo tattoo – with patterns inked directly on the face by Street Artist/fine artist/illustrator Jesse Hazelip. Given their inherent visual punch, we never really thought of Supine works as a canvas and never really thought the portraits could evoke more evil pranksterism – but seeing these tattooed symbols on the fluorescent faces is going to scare some of the kids next week as they walk by with plastic pumpkin buckets of treats.
Right now it would appear that there are new development in the world of Street Art daily, and some times you may want to revisit the best stuff to measure it against what is new and see how it stands up, and check how your perception of the work may have changed. A recognized talent on big walled installations around the world, Street artist BLU pretty much pioneered the category of stop motion animation in the Street Art world during the late 2000s and no one has matched the imagination and ingenuity that BLU brings to everything he touches.
Here’s an example of the freewheeling explorer attitude that characterizes the best of Street Art. Utilizing the least expensive art materials, including garbage, you can make any place a stage for expanding your mind and sense of discovery. A testament to compelling story telling, this nearly 10 minute long video doesn’t feel like a commitment, but rather an escape.
A lot of action on the street right now – people are in organized events, on commissioned walls and doing their own personal thang too. Here’s our weekly interview with the street featuring Bast, Chris and Veng from Robots Will Kill, ECB, Faile, Jaye Moon, Jetsonorama, JM, Judith Supine, Meer Sau, Mr. Toll, ND’A, NoseGo, See One, and Stik.
Young Urban Professionals Evolved 4 Million Years Ago (a. urbanis yuppicus)
Barcelonian Street Artist Göla completed a new mural on the side of a modern housing building in Poznan, Poland recently, and he brought imagination and his sense of humor. It’s a somewhat sarcastic eight-story infographic on human evolution which you may enjoy while sitting at a café table while sipping a carbonated canned beverage and chomping on a Millenium Kabob, with suburban car traffic whizzing by.
Using the visual vernacular of many more serious science textbook illustrations, this is perhaps closer to the diagrams in an acupuncturists’ waiting room. Despite the pleasant and comical elements, Göla is bringing the human race in for a colorful and entertaining critique for being so thoughtless with the rest of the planet. Perfectly themed for a festival called “Outer Spaces”, the environmentally minded artist re-constructs the entire evolutionary timeline to include Yuppies at the very beginning. Since Yuppies first roamed the earth approximately around the time Göla was born, he undoubtedly thinks they have been here forever. In a way, he has a point.
“My idea of the wall was to read from bottom to top, passing through symbols, as a metaphor for evolution,” Göla told us this week ,“From Australopithecus and the Yuppie at the bottom of the Mayan pyramid up through the second element as the cell of the new human being and the third depicts humans as they are described nowadays as a tick of the world. The top image is meant to symbolize the return to the natural world, the concept that we are part of the biosphere and we have to cooperate with the rest of the forms of life.”
Happy Friday Peepuls. Now before we all set our sights on Friday art parties and dancing and getting crazy and writing on people’s foreheads with markers, it’s time for us to get Debatified so we are all ready to vote. Obama is ahead in New York by like a hundred and five percent but apparently there are some states in the imperfect union where it is still a toss-up and people are just not sure who’s better. Moderator Candy Crowley scoured all of New York’s Long Island Tuesday and came up with only 82 people who still don’t know who they’re voting for – 12 of them polled just before airtime were also not sure who is on the one dollar bill, so there’s a clue for ya right there. Here’s a capsulized version of what went down.
1. Becca and Philip Lumbang (LA)
2. “Purple”, a Female Group Show in Williamsburg (BKLN)
3. Fairey’s “Sound and Vision” (London)
4. Gregory Siff is “A Matter of Time” in LA
5. Shark Toof Takes a Bite out of LA
6. Meanwhile, Back in Haunted Brooklyn…Get Out Your Knife
7. “The Art of Basketball” at the Pop International Galleries (NYC)
8. Gallery For The People at Stonebook Court Estate (Los Altos)
9. “It’s Alive 2” at Urban Folk Art Gallery (BKLN)
10. “Art on the Seam” Documentary teaser (VIDEO)
11. Vermibus – The Sting (VIDEO)
12. ROA in the Boneyard (VIDEO)
Becca and Philip Lumbang (LA)
Becca and Philip Lumbang, two of LA’s Street Art scene, are teaming at Lab Art Gallery in Los Angeles, CA with their show titled “Babes & Bears” now open.
For further information regarding this show click here.
“Purple”, a Female Group Show in Williamsburg (BKLN)
“Purple” is the new color for this season as envisioned by a strong group of female Street Artists in a group exhibition in Brooklyn, NY at Causey Contemporary. This show opens tonight.
PURPLE includes Alice Mizrachi, Diana McClure, Gilf, Lady Pink, Lichiban, Miss Van, Olek, Priscila De Carvalho, Queen Andrea, Ritzy Periwinkle, and Sofia Maldonado
For further information regarding this show click here.
Fairey’s “Sound and Vision” (London)
Shepard Fairey’s solo exhibition “Sound & Vision” opens tonight in London at the Stolen Space Gallery. His first London exhibition in 5 years, Fairey brings along friend and collaborator Z-Trip to supply the soundtrack to the artwork.
For further information regarding this show click here.
Gregory Siff is “A Matter of Time” in LA
A “Matter of Time” is the title of Street Artist Gregory Siff’s new show at Gallery Brown in Los Angeles, CA opening tomorrow night.
For further information regarding this show click here.
Shark Toof Takes a Bite out of LA
If you have never seen a shark playing ping pong you’ll have your chance at C.A.V.E. Gallery in Venice Beach, CA where Shark Toof’s new show “Ping Pong Show” opens tomorrow.
For further information regarding this show click here.
Meanwhile, Back in Haunted Brooklyn…Get Out Your Knife
Fall is here, leaves are turning, the sweet smell of burning fires permeates many residential neighborhoods of the city, ACs are off and windows are open and you can hear the sounds of the streets are night. And now you get to stab a pumpkin and carve a face out of it at Crest Hardware. MWAH HAH HAH HAWWWW. Joe invites you and the whole family to come out and enjoy the 3rd Annual Pumpkin Carving Contest, Saturday.
For entry rules, times and more details on this event click here.
Also happening this week:
“The Art of Basketball” is a group exhibition curated by Billi Kid at the Pop International Galleries in Manhattan featuring Mr. Brainwash, URNY, The Dude Company, Skewville, Shiro, Rene Gagnon, Joe Iurato, Ewok, One 5MH, Jack Aguire, David Cooper, Cope2, Chris Stain, Cern and Billi Kid. This show is now open to the general public and you can click here for more details.
Gallery For The People Fall Pop-Up show with Sage Vaughn, Deedee Cheriel, and Curtis Kulig is now open for the general public at The Stonebook Court Estate in Los Altos Hill, CA. Click here for more details on this show.
“It’s Alive 2” showcasing the art of Mark Bode, Dr.Revolt, and Stan 153 opens tonight at the Urban Folk Art Gallery in Brooklyn. Click here for more details on this show.
“Art on the Seam” Documentary teaser (VIDEO)
An upcoming documentary by David Freid about the art work on the wall in the West Bank.
Vermibus – The Sting (VIDEO)
ROA in the Boneyard (VIDEO)
A new video from Jason Wawro for the Boneyard Project features ROA.
Right now you can get a good look at one sculpture that is usually six stories over your head with honking, speeding cars and trucks swirling around it 24 hours a day. The famous guy at the center of Columbus Circle is inviting you to hang out in his living room, and you won’t believe the views, bro.
Part of a limited engagement, this project called “Discovering Columbus” by Japanese artist Tatzu Nishi enlivens a public art piece first erected in 1892 by Gaetano Russo. BSA guest contributor Cassandra Brinen stopped by Columbus’s penthouse and tells us what it’s like to get up close with a 13-foot-high marble sculpture. Photos are by James Boo.
After ascending the six short flights (really it did seem short!) to reach the front door of what I will call Chris’ living room, we’re greeted by a volunteer who tells us that our time inside is allotted to 15 minutes. And please do not sit on the window seals.
We enter a short clean and modern hallway with hardwood floors and a large medium mirror on the right wall. The exit is in full view directly across from the entrance. As we walk to the center of the hall, it opens into the living room and the first glimpse of Columbus is from behind, in the middle of the room, surrounded by visitors. Oddly enough, he looks like he belongs there. This sculpture is what you could call a fitting “statement piece” for the modern New York apartment.
Almost as common as a column or a house plant, upon closer inspection and a front-facing view, this simple perspective is shattered. This piece of art was not meant for one apartment–it was meant for the vast New York public and was made to survive the years.
There’s no escaping Chris when you sit on the comfortable couches that flank him from three sides. Attempting to look at the furniture or people taking pictures requires a head (or full body) tilt. This is his house. He has lived here since before you were born and he will be here long after you leave. And he has good taste! The faded pink Americana wallpaper designed by the installations artist Tatzu Nishi, with illustrations of the Empire state building, Elvis, and hotdogs, creates a beautiful backdrop for the modern apartment furnishings and serves as a playful contrast to Columbus’ weathered exterior.
A detailed examination of that exterior shows wear and tear on the granite that calls out his daily existence. Questions arise; How did he get the tiny heart-shaped hole on his lower left cloak? How long did it take for whole chunks to fall off his leg? How is it possible that these are his only imperfections after he has lived here since the early 20th century? Only he knows and even though we are invited into his house, I don’t think he’s giving up his secrets anytime soon.
Street Artist Gaia regularly highlights people from whichever community that he’s painting or wheatpasting in. Passersby commonly stop to talk while he’s working, often adding layers of history, knowledge, opinion, and nuance to his piece while he works. With his newest wall in Sandtown, a neighborhood of Baltimore, Gaia draws attention to a dying local profession that is hanging on, but barely.
Arabbers, pronounced locally with a long A (“A-rab”) were salespeople who had as many as 400 commercial carts offering fresh produce and other items rolling daily through the streets of Baltimore at one time, according to some accounts. Horse-drawn carts were a normal part of the early 20th century street life and amazingly B-Town still supports a few of these small business people on the streets in the 21st.
Because of new zoning and bylaws enacted during a period of urban renewal, the city restricted where horse stables existed, and many were put out of business. But during our travels through Baltimore with photographer Martha Cooper, who grew up there, we have had occasion to meet a number of the people who still carry this trade forward, some for many generations. Their small fenced off plots of land and stables appear suddenly like an oasis of farm life from another era in the middle of otherwise urban blocks. Once able to provide a good living to a family, Arabbers still brings fresh food to under served communities at reasonable prices. Unfortunately the proud profession is now endangered by the economic pressures of rising fees, the costs of animal care, and stable upkeep.
“The Arabbers are a dying Baltimore tradition,” says Gaia, “that have long been a staple of this remarkable city.” The NYC Street Artist, who has been living in Baltimore for a handful of years while attending university as an art student, feels a kinship to the families who are still enduring to keep this kind of livelihood sustainable. “These men and women define the word ‘hustle’,” he remarks, “trotting along both desolate and vibrant landscapes selling their goods and making ends meet. This mural depicts four generations; starting with the great grandfather Manboy in the middle and up to Fruit’s son on the top right.”
As the many expressions of Street Art freely bleed into all of art’s disciplines, many of Gaia’s more recent work clearly overlaps the traditions of community murals, where local residents are called out and celebrated, deified, congratulated, and mourned. In this case, the tradition also extends to being a little bit educational as Gaia points to some of the contributing factors that endanger a profession here, “ The Arabber portraits are mixed with the logos on the containers in which their produce comes: a global economy meets a fading, tough tradition.”
Street art welcomes all manner of materials and methods, typically deployed without permission and without apology. This hand-formed wire piece …Read More »
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
