Friday February 03 Advance Preview. RSVP to Danny@unit-44.com
Unit 44’s latest exhibit New Arrival by Philip Lumbang opening 6 February 2012 to the general public. The illustrator and street artist will be presenting a brand new body of work at the Newcastle space for his first UK solo show. Incorporating his childhood fascination with cartoons, pop art and logo designs, Lumbang will showcase an array mediums including found objects, tiled pieces, haind painted characters and limited edition screenprints. Formerly infamous street artist Shepard Fairey’s assistant, Lumbang has forged a name for himself with his involvement in LA’s premiere collective The Hundreds creating work and streetwear that has become a cult favourite among fans.
Hoults Yard, Unit 44, Walker Road, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE6 2HL.
Rising deities in a darkened house of worship, the new geisha-like figures silently rise above your earthbound concerns and hover, gestural hands signalling a blessing for all who enter. These new works by Street Artist and fine artist HUSH at 941 Geary impart a serenity even as they swirl in patchwork brocades and Maypole strips of holy aerosol tags. Well lighted and well appointed, these near theatrical figures pierce the veil, solemnly, in search of a shabby gilded cosmos as Hush’s marrying of styles ultimately creates a new one at this show.
The streets have been seeing an uptick in socio-political messages recently, whether because of the Occupy protests, or because artists are exercising their speech in low cost, low-tech, person-to-person methods. The very personal nature of this kind of messaging actually feels impactful when it catches your eye with a sense of intention, grabbing you by the ear and making you think. This week we have Street Art commentary about housing, class inequality, the abuse of poser, erosion of privacy and fears of a police state. It makes sense that art on the streets is reflecting us back to ourselves.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street; this week featuring Buff Monster, Cash4, Cope, Dirty Teddies, Ema, Enzo & Nio, Essam, Faile, Hush, Ment, Shiro, XAM, and XXX.
“Making Faces” is as much about mix mastery as it is happenstance – kind of like walking on the street in New York. The boldly unmatching collection of portraits on view at Opera Gallery in Soho is sometimes thrilling, even challenging in it’s dismissal of category. There is this new crop of many of the Street Artists you’ve seen in the wild these last few years hanging with stars of the Chinese new wave, early 20th century European revolutionaries, an historic leader of impressionism, a surrealist – you know, a gamut. You could call it cleaning out the closets, or you could call it “Girl Talk curates the gallery”. Either way, it can be thrilling to see these pieces in this context; sparring, harmonizing, both.
Street Art springs at you when you are in ratty decayed lots in Bed Stuy, and similarly here you have rely on your own intellectual strengths to process the work in it’s surroundings, analyzing and imagining the coupling, or tripling. Is this a master or a pretender? You’ll figure it out eventually but the stimulation lies in your ability to let go of hard classifications and surprise prejudices to re-assess the faces and appreciate an occasional revelation at this New York mixer.
Artists include Yasmina Alaqui, Marco Guerra, Karel Appel, B., Jean-Michel Basquiat, BAST, Simon Birch, Bernard Buffet, Lita Cabellut, Marc Chagall, Sas Christian, Mauro Corda, Dinorah Delfin, Jean Dubuffet, Lori Earley, Ron English, Paul Insect, John John Jesse, Kid Zoom, Li Tianbing, Bengt Lindstrom, David Mach, Henri Matisse, Joan Miro, Phiippe Pasqua, Pablo Picasso, Gerard Rancinan, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Rostarr, Judith Supine, Alexandros Vasmoulakis, Tom Wesselman, Yan Pei Ming, Zhang Xiaogang.
Today on Fun Friday:
1.”Making Faces” at Opera Gallery (Soho, NY)
2. “Nostalgia” at Rook & Raven (London)
3. “Bone Yard Project” at Pima Air & Space Museum (Tucson, AZ)
4. Phlegm at Nuart (VIDEO)
5. Official Trailer for “Getting Up” (VIDEO)
6. The Big Egg Hunt: Baku Magazine x Secret Wars (VIDEO)
“Making Faces” at Opera Gallery (Soho, NY)
An unusual collection of portraiture is on display starting today in Soho that knocks your head for a spin because of it’s loose theme that can stretch to embrace a century or two, a few continents, and about 30 schools of art.
Favorite pairing from last nights opening: Picasso next to Judith Supine. If he only knew.
“Making Faces” throws a cocktail party for old masters along with contemporary fine and Street Artists, including Judith Supine, Bast, Paul Insect, Rostaar, B., Zhang Xiaogang, Ron English and Kid Zoom sharing wall space with Chagall, Matisse, Miro and Basquiat among others.
For further information regarding this show click here
“Nostalgia” at Rook & Raven (London)
At the Rook & Raven Gallery in London the group show “Nostalgia” opens todaywith new works by Various & Gould, Dain, David Shillinglaw and Stinkfish, among others.
“Nostalgia” participants: Terry O’Neill, Dave White, DAIN, Rosie Emerson, David Shillinglaw, Various and Gould, Alex Daw, James Mylne, Stinkfish, Charlie Masson
Here is a video of David Shillinglaw, who prepared his piece for the “Nostalgia” show over the course of a week:
For further information regarding this show click here
“Bone Yard Project” at Pima Air & Space Museum (Tucson, AZ)
Another mind-blowing project – curated by Medvin Sobio and Carlo McCormick and conceived by Eric Firestone – opens tomorrow in Tucson, where there is a lot of space. Carcasses of planes lovingly wrecked by artists you love; The Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona announces the opening of “Round Trip: Art From The Bone Yard Project” this Saturday January 28.
More than 30 artists have participated in Round Trip including DC Super 3 planes painted by graffiti artists How & Nosm, Nunca, and Retna, and a C97 cockpit by Saner, and C45 planes by Faile and Andrew Schoultz.
For further information regarding this show click here
The Bone Yard Project 2012 by Viejas del Mercado (Medvin Sobio & 塚本清市) Featuring Retna, Nunca, Saner and How & Nosm.
Also happening this weekend:
At the Urban Folk Art Gallery in Brooklyn founder Adam Suerte has curated a show that includes ten years of work from his personal collection. Click here for more information.
Phlegm at Nuart (VIDEO)
Official Trailer for “Getting Up” (VIDEO)
“After being diagnosed with ALS and rendered almost completely paralyzed, legendary L.A. graffiti artist Tony “Tempt” Quan gets his voice back through technology that reads the movement of his eyes and enables him to create art and write once again.”
The Big Egg Hunt: Baku Magazine x Secret Wars (VIDEO)
THE BONE YARD PROJECT | PIMA AIR & SPACE MUSEUM | JANUARY 28 – MAY 31
The Pima Air & Space Museum is pleased to announce the opening of Round Trip: Art From The Bone Yard Project on January 28 in Tucson. Conceived in Spring 2010 by Eric Firestone, and organized with curators Medvin Sobio & Carlo McCormick, The Bone Yard Project resurrects disused airplanes from America‟s military history through the creative intervention of contemporary artists, taking entire airplanes and their elements out of aeronautic resting spots in the desert, known as “bone yards,” and putting them into the hands of artists. Re-imagined by Brazilian graffiti artist Nunca, an abandoned DC3 comes to life with a striking picture of an eagle leading men through the skies, and the idealized dreams of flight are able to soar once again in our collective imagination. With a nod to the airplane graffiti and „nose art‟ that became popular during WWII, the project offers a vision of the wonder by which humanity takes to the air through some of the most prominent and acclaimed artists working today.
Round Trip: Selections from The Bone Yard Project, will include selections from the previous exhibition along with more than a dozen cones interpreted by artists new to this project. It will feature five monumental works created on military planes by a dynamic selection of popular graffiti and street artists from around the world. The curatorial team includes Medvin Sobio, an independent curator and consultant, and Lesley Oliver of the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, a longstanding figure on the Arizona art scene.
More than 30 artists have participated in Round Trip including DC Super 3 planes painted by graffiti artists How & Nosm, Nunca, and Retna, and a C97 cockpit by Saner, and C45 planes by Faile and Andrew Schoultz. Additionally, Nose Job artists Aiko, Peter Dayton, Shepard Fairey, Futura, How and Nosm, Mare, Tara McPherson, Richard Prince, Lee Quinones, Saner, Kenny Scharf, and JJ Veronis will be on display, along with new nose cones by artists Colin Chillag, Crash, Daze, Daniel Marin Diaz, Tristan Eaton, Jameson Ellis, Ron English, Faile, Eric Foss, Mark Kostabi, Lisa Lebofsky, El Mac, Alex Markwith, Walter Robinson, Hector Ruiz, Randy Slack, Ryan Wallace, and Eric White, among others.
The Pima Air & Space Museum is the largest non-government funded aviation museum in the United States, and one of the largest in the world. It maintains a collection of more than 300 aircraft and spacecraft from around the globe and more than 125,000 artifacts. The museum is located at 6000 E. Valencia Rd. , Tucson, and is open 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM daily. Round Trip is open to the public from January 28 through the end of May 2012. Further details may be found at www.pimaair.org.
Last month photographer and video artist Carlos Gonzalez tagged along with Street Art duo Dabs & Myla in Los Angeles to do a bit more than the typical mural project. Following them through the steps of their own tradition, Carlos captured some of their humanity along with their serious skillz with cans. Since illuminating different angles of the creative process that provide you with more insight is always a BSA value, Carlos has appeared on these pages many times as photographer and videographer. This time he’s thinking his newest project is a documentary. Let’s see what you think.
Brooklyn Street Art asked Carlos a couple of questions about his experience shooting on the streets and how many arms he would like to have:
Brooklyn Street Art:You like both stills and video. How do you divide your time when shooting a new installation between still photography and video. Do you wish you could have eight arms to cover everything that happens?
Carlos Gonzalez: I still lean more towards still photography even though I have a background in film and graduated from film school. I like the concept of freezing a moment in time. That’s something you can’t capture in video. When one remembers a certain moment from the past, it’s always an image or a single moment that comes to mind. It’s hardly ever a scene playing out entirely. At least that’s my experience. So I feel like photography captures moments that will never happen again in a more honest way.
Of course this complicates things when making a video because in essence, I have to choose between capturing those moments in stills or filming the moment. The best approach: Be ultra aware of everything that’s going on so when the special moment happens, you’re ready to capture it before it’s gone. What’s really interesting about this Dabs & Myla video, and one factor which didn’t hit me till later on, was how uniquely close the mural footage looked to my photos. In this instance, it was just a matter of predicting when those moments would happen and capturing them as soon as possible. So yeah, it’s a balancing act and at times, I do wish I had multiple cameras all running at once from 5 different angles. But even then, I’m sure I would still kick myself for missing out on a small human expression, a certain movement, a wink or a smile. Case in point, the shot where Myla’s hair is blowing amidst the wind. I wish I had photographed that moment as it happened. I still look back and think, “how did I not get that shot?”
Brooklyn Street Art:You begin the video with the artists going to a grocery store and debating over purchases. At the end we find out what they are used for. Can you talk about the experience from your perspective?
Carlos Gonzalez: The experience was really interesting and I felt privileged to be a part of it, mostly because I understood how important this tradition is for Dabs Myla. Before the mural even took place we got together and talked about the tradition, their reasons for doing it, and I even saw early sketches of the mural. From that moment I understood how special this project could be and it simply came down to capturing the whole experience in the most honest way possible. The entire process really came down to capturing as much footage as possible. Sure there were ideas of how to edit the video. But those concepts are always changing so you don’t worry too much about those technical aspects in the start. At least with this video, which I treated like a short documentary, I was just concerned with making sure I filmed moments that feel unique and that have a human element that we can all relate to.
I never once asked Dabs Myla to replay a certain moment just for the camera. I basically asked them to go through their routine as usual and pretend that I was never there. This feeling definitely comes through the video. From the second they walk into the grocery store to the final shot of the film, it’s all real emotions and actions bursting through the screen. So in a way, this video is not so much about a mural, but rather it’s a story about helping one individual with street art as the backdrop. The last part of the process was to edit the footage in such a way that put a question in the viewers’ minds about what the tradition may be and you keep their attention till the very end so there’s an emotional payoff.
Brooklyn Street Art: When you’ve hung out with artists creating murals on the street, have you had occasion to meet people who live there?
Carlos Gonzalez: I have had the chance to meet individuals whose properties or walls are being painted on. And they’ve always being very supportive of the art. I’ve only had one instance where certain people or neighbors feel like street art is affecting their neighborhood in a negative way. So yes, there’s a bit of stigma still attached to graffiti and street art, but it’s clearly changing and it’s more acceptable now than it ever was. And hopefully videos like this one and others can change more people’s perspective about how this kind of art can have a much more positive aspect across different communities.
Various & Gould “Serendipity 2” Detail (Image courtesy of the gallery)
NostalgiaRook & Raven Gallery is proud to present ‘Nostalgia’, their first show of 2012, featuring an eclectic mix of artwork, games and ephemerae from a diverse collection of artists.
Artists exhibiting include:
Terry O’Neill
Dave White
DAIN
Rosie Emerson
David Shillinglaw
Various and Gould
Alex Daw
James Mylne
Stinkfish
Charlie Masson
“ALL TALK” features some of New York City’s boldest anti-heros, cynics and preachers. Those that run us through the gauntlet of fine art, design, and graffiti. From spray paint to oil paint to print making, this group of artists will display a collection of work to be hung in a gallery, but that can also be seen on the streets, walls and rooftops of New York. Their consistency and work ethic have been unparalleled in a scene that seems to be full of come and go artists looking for quick fame. This group has proved themselves time and time again to be among the most authentic and dedicated creators around. Engulfed with the love for what they do, they demonstrate their undaunted drive and creative dominance…………… unless it’s just all talk.
Team Robbo, the fun-loving anti-Banksy graffti Collective from South London who is not pleased with the appearance of work by the world-known Street Artist. Even in his hometown of Bristol, Banksy gets no respect from Robbo, and apparently The Rolling Stones are now buffing as well? Team Robbo employs a classic Stones lyric “Paint it Black” by way of engaging the public with a very open demonstration of tough street love and ironically, the only thing you may remember from the effort is the refrain.
Interviewed regarding this Street Art/Graffiti rivalry that sends bloggers and print journalists into paradoxisms of high alert, this local London duck was non-plussed. While congenially posing for a photo opp on Regents Canal, Mallard seemed to know little about the whole home turf affair and wondered aloud if we had any bread crumbs.
Thanks to Garry Hunter for his in-the-field photography.
Why does that well-worn proverb remind us of Skewville? Check out the “Playground Tactics” on display at their new show in San Francisco’s White Walls Gallery and you’ll get a sense of these stickball kids and what it is like to grow up playing on the street. There aren’t any rubber mats to catch you before the pavement, the ball may smash the corner deli window and you may dent the hood of that car you’re standing on. But kids will be kids.
Mr. Deville shows BSA readers these cool pics of the opening of “Playground Tactics”, and you can see that play is an integral part of the Skewville process, where taking stuff too seriously is not advised, unless somebody sticks their bubble gum in your hair. Then you should chase them down and give them a beating.
The Skewvilles are reaching a milestone in their twin lives: They are turning 80. They grow up so fast! It seems like just yesterday they were 76. Join the Celebrations at Factory Fresh with a party and a retrospective of their work next week. For more information click here
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
