So, what have you been up to so far this year? Watching Sh*t Cats Say? We’ve been learning cool stuff like Specter and friends Russell and Peter getting up in the JCC center , imagining who on earth might create a Street Art piece lionizing Ron Paul, seeing the spanky new Aiko and Bast reunited wall, and reading impressive 2 page email press releases for Street Artists who apparently get up in NYC but we never actually see and no one talks about. It’s a weird fun life and we’re totally okay with it.
Meanwhile, here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week including Aiko, Anthony Lister, TMNK, Bast, C215, Dain, ECB, Gaia, Gilf!, Gold Dust, Gufo, How & Nosm, Cope, Juango, KCA, Oiler, Palladino, Shin Shin, Snort, and Xavier.
Last weekend Street Artists Gaia and Nanook had some fun touring around with photographer Martha Cooper in her neighborhood of South West Baltimore. Gaia’s ongoing “Legacy” series of big ol’ heads of white men – we should say portraits – who have contributed to the history of urban environments and conditions continues here too.
We’ve been seeing Gaia continue this theme recently in cities like New York, Albany,Atlanta,Miami and even his studio piece in our “Street Art Saved My Life” show last summer in LA – and it’s strangely rewarding and even entertaining…site specific postings of people like NYC’s master builder and corporate beneficiary Robert Moses from mid-20th century may look strange posted in the wilds of decayed New York, yet his big mug is probably more related to the state of our local economy than most people who are running things today. Where Moses’ critics accused him of destroying much of New York’s culture and life through building, Baltimore’s ill-famed developer is accused of killing parts of the city through active neglect. Gaia’s new big head is that of Baltimore billionaire Harry Weinberg, who bought clusters of buildings and abandoned them, effectively bringing blight to part of the city for decades, including today, according to Gaia’s position paper on the topic.
Gaia frequently assists passersby with helpful background information to help explain and contextualize his work like this one-pager above. (copyright Gaia)
“ First we installed a site generated piece of Weinberg’s portrait across the street from his formerly decrepit, now demolished, real estate holdings,” explains Gaia about his travels with the well-known street life photographer. Afterward they all toured with Martha through her hood, hearing her perspective and insights on urban decay and sociological aspects of the neighborhood now better known as the site for the TV show “The Wire” – a tour which is a genuine treat BSA has also enjoyed.
Eventually it was time to put up a Gaia piece created from a Martha photograph of HE3 from the 1970s. Says, Gaia, “The piece is situated in an alley where a lot of the neighbors congregate and is right now the street from the active stables and pigeon coops.”
1. “Lost and Found” Tonight in Brooklyn
2. “On the River…”, Robyn Hasty AKA Imminent Disaster Open Today
3. SuperTwins Skewville in San Francisco Employing “Playground Tactics”
4. “Hybrid Thinking” at Jonathan Levine Saturday
5. Muhammad Ali Hits 70, and the Show Begins Saturday
6. Klughaus Gallery, Jesse Edwards show “Dialogue of the Streets”
7. Le Salon d’Art, Fumero and Joseph Meloy , “90 Stanton Street Art Show”
8. Jesse Edwards by Tom Gould (VIDEO)
9. Kophns One: Kophenjoy by The Site Unscene (VIDEO)
10. Ben Eine Off Canvas by Studio Stare (VIDEO)
“Lost and Found” Tonight in Brooklyn
“Lost & Found” opens today at Mighty Tanaka Gallery in DUMBO, Brooklyn with the participation of Adam Void, Alice Mizrachi, Curtis Readel, ELLE & John Breiner:
“On the River…”, Robyn Hasty AKA Imminent Disaster Open Today
Her first New York solo show “On The River…” is actually the joining of two strong and handsome rivers into one. Her Street Art work finds a sister in this new wet-plate photograph collection at the cozy Kesting/Ray Gallery in Manhattan.
For further information regarding this show click here
SuperTwins Skewville in San Francisco Employing “Playground Tactics”
The Queens natives and New York wiseguys are re-wiring an entire band from their imagined musical teen heartthrob youth – the one where Droo was adding more gel to his perfect hair and punishing his Fender onstage and Ad was getting high in the mop closet. White Walls in San Francisco takes the risk of letting the Street Art duo put on a show this time, and you can expect more “Playground Tactics” Saturday.
Skewville “Playground Tactics” (image courtesy of the gallery)
For further information regarding this show click here
“Hybrid Thinking” at Jonathan Levine Saturday
“There’s a growing creative movement that we’ve dubbed Hybridism: a blend of both street art and fine art – a hybrid – as the raw meets the refined,” as the 2009 group show at Brooklyn’s Mighty Tanaka observed while giving evidence of what was happening on the streets and in galleries in the Brooklyn show “Hybridism”. Of course, Daniel Feral’s diagram points to 2008 as the beginning of “Hybridism”.
Similarly a year ago at Hold-Up Gallery in LA there was the “Hi-Graff” show that excitingly merged many Graff and Street Art movements as we observed at the time, “Those Cold War years are being chopped away brick by brick like the Berlin Wall 20 years ago, and a new language borrowing vocabulary from graffiti, street art, fine art, advertising, and pop/punk/hiphop/skater/cholo/tattoo culture continues to emerge in ways we never thought of before.”
Now in 2012 Manhattan’s Wooster Collective continues the conversation to reveal “Hybrid Thinking”, their collection of an international roster (South Africa, Germany, Spain, Amsterdam, Beijing) of names that have been successful in the galleries and streets, illustrating what you have been seeing alive and expanding for the last decade. In the curators’ words: “Hybrid Thinking refers to the current zeitgeist of our time: disparate cultures coming together to create something completely new.”
This roster includes Dal, Herakut, Hyuro, Roa, Sit and Vinz.
For further information regarding this show click here
Muhammad Ali Hits 70, and the Show Begins Saturday
An culturally interesting thematic show honoring the fighter Muhammad Ali called “Ali The Greatest”opens tomorrow at Evolve Gallery in Sacramento, CA. With new stuff from Joe Iurato and David Flores among others, the show is expected to travel to Vegas and New York and celebrates the 70th birthday of the man.
White Walls is pleased to present “Playground Tactics,” an intriguing collection of new works by Brooklyn-based artists Skewville, curated by Tova Lobatz. This will be Skewville’s first solo project with White Walls, with approximately 30 pieces and an installation that w…ill encompass and connect the Skewville style to the indoor space. The opening reception will be Saturday, January 14, from 7-11 pm, and the exhibition is free and open to the public for viewing through February 4, 2012.
As the artistic duo known infamously as Skewville, twin brothers Ad and Droo, gained recognition in the late nineties with their fake wooden sneakers tossed over telephone lines. While continuing a heavy presence in the public art forum since then, Skewville has also entered galleries with varying size of artworks on plywood, and a focus on installation. A constant source of the brothers’ inspiration is the New York City lifestyle- including graffiti, fashion, and urban expression. To create this urban experience, Skewville looks for mediums outside the canvas and paints on found objects with house paints.
“Playground Tactics” will feature large-scale and complex fine artworks themed around the old school city playground, a place where Skewville spent much of their time during adolescents. These city playgrounds set the scene for the artists’ young minds to flourish and experiment with worldly ideas and concepts. Skewville will use the playground to go back to the roots of exploration and translate that imagination into the gallery setting. Stylistally known for using urban materials, the brothers will not disappoint on that front, and may incorporate found objects and vintage toys from their past.
From the artists:
“The Ideology of Skewville came outta a crooked building filled with our collectibles and antiques we got at yard sales…hundreds of board games, lunch boxes, Star Wars, all that good stuff. We collected a lot of stuff that our mother ended up selling off at yard sales so as young adults we tried to buy back our childhood. We intend on using a lot of these oldschool items in the work and installations.
As twins, growing up with a constant playground companion always put us above the curve, but always being given a single identity (i.e. “the twins”) has always made us separately want to strive harder for our own style. Even as Kids we were always on a mission to change things up, from building club houses to making Slingshots while the rest of the kids were playing stickball. Still decades later we are still making art outside and playing with their environment, as well as still building sculptures, painting, and now printmaking and installations. Most people try to relieve their youth, while Skewville has maybe never let it go. So this random childlike energy that keeps evolving our aesthetic into new mediums has tactfully become known as the Skewville Style.”
Playground Tactics opens this Saturday, January 14th, 2012
White Walls
835 Larkin
San Francisco, CA
Wunderkammern presents the young urban artist Ludo for his first solo show in Italy,: nature, both magnificent and menacing, challenges humankind from the walls of the city.
On show in Rome from 21st January at Wunderkammern, where he is making his first appearance
in Italy, the young French artist Ludo is one of the most innovative and promising on the urban art
scene. He has left his mark in major cities throughout the world (Paris, London, Zurich, Oslo, New
York, Los Angeles and Chicago), with surreal and bewildering works that are perfectly integrated
with the context in which he places them.
Ludo’s creatures emerge from reassuring greyscale images blended with acid green that is poured
onto paper, sending out a message of humility for contemporary society. Elegant and vindictive,
the artist’s creations belong in fact to the series Nature’s Revenge and Bugs: plants and insects
drawn with botanic precision, which have evolved into mechanical, chemical and technological
hybrids as a way of defending themselves against people’s aggression.
With his latest series, entitled Co-Branding, major brands like Chanel, Dior, Calvin Klein, H&M and
Benetton are transformed into aggressive and inappropriate images that nonetheless seem
perfectly in line with the aesthetic canons of contemporary publicity, thus contrasting consumers’
inurement to bombardment by multinational brands promoting luxury and much more.
On the occasion of his exhibition at Wunderkammern, Ludo will present a series of works on paper
and canvas from the series Nature’s Revenge and Co-Branding, as well as sculptures created
specifically for the gallery. Images of a proud and haunting nature, where the aesthetic canons of
advertising are filtered by the artist’s ironic and mocking eye.
WUNDERKAMMERN
via Gabrio Serbelloni 124, Roma
web: www.wunderkammern.net
email: wunderkammern@wunderkammern.net
Tel: +390645435662
ingresso gratuito
Jesse Edwards “Dialogue of the Streets” will feature a selection of Edwards’ strongest paintings produced over the last two years, including the classic landscapes and unconventional still lifes he is known for. Edwards’ rare appeal lies in a uniquely successful ability to cross-pollinate the classical 19th Century style of the Old Masters he idolizes with a contemporary subject matter from his personal street life. His oils on canvas are as likely to depict a marijuana plant or a crack pipe as they are a calming Tompkins Square landscape. A still life of a Playboy, a sock, and a jar of Vaseline is rendered as tenderly as a sweeping view of a Pacific Northwest park.
Ali The Greatest
“Ali: The Greatest” celebrates and commemorates Muhammad Ali’s 70th birthday.
“Ali: The Greatest”
A fine art exhibition and tribute to boxing legend Muhammad Ali’s 70th Birthday
January 12 – 28, 2012
Featuring: Adrian Pickett, Alvin Burts, Alex Forster, Corey Pickett, Charly Palmer, Gerry GOS” Simpson, Frank Morrison, Joe Iurato, James Gayles, James Henninger, Kadir Nelson, Kevin OKeith, Kelvin Curry, Kinzie Davis, Lauren Gillette, Lisa Alonzo, Paul Goodnight, Tim Okamura, Charles Bibbs, Michael Grattan, Michael Brennan, and David P. Flores.
Preview Reception – Thursday, January 12th (6pm-9pm)
Opening Reception – Saturday, January 14th (6pm-10pm)
Evolve Gallery
2907 35th Street, Sacramento, California 95817
Gallery Hours: Thursday through Saturday |1-6pm | Please call first (916) 572-5123
About a year ago you may remember the Kickstarter banner we ran on BSA to raise money for New York Street Artist Robyn Hasty AKA Imminent Disaster to travel across the US capturing portraits with a very old photographic process for a project called “Homeland”. The campaign was successful, and despite an episode where her car “Cecelia” completely broke down and needed a new engine, Robyn set out to find another side of the country, seen through a new set of eyes. The first portrait result we saw was the image she put in BSA’s show last August in LA, but tonight you have the opportunity to see her first real exhibition of this work at Kesting/Ray Gallery in Manhattan. In addition she’ll be showing new cut paper works that many will be familiar with from her work on the street as Imminent Disaster in the late 00s.
Over the course of 15,000 miles with her wet plate collodion camera and her chemicals in hand, Robyn set out on a road trip across the country to take photographs of people living outside the established urban settings and gridwork that forms much of the US. These simple and complex works are “magical alchemy”, according to Hasty.
“Every time I took a picture it just surprised me how it looks when it comes up. The camera doesn’t see like your eye sees. So every time you see what the camera sees – it’s a discovery.”
The new portraits bring to mind the work of the late master photojournalist from Hoboken, New Jersey Dorothea Lange (1895-1965). Ms. Lange documented with her arresting images the plight of the migrant workers during the great depression for the Farm Security Administration from 1935 to 1939. Now amidst our great recession, her wet plate collodian tintype produce beautiful portraits of her subjects that seem strangely akin to those subjects of that time – captured in their surroundings as they live today.
Ms. Hasty took a few moments from hanging the show to talk about the new work with Brooklyn Street Art.
Brooklyn Street Art:What did you think you were going to discover
Robyn Hasty: I guess I was hoping to find relationships between a community that I’ve been working with in New York, and across the country in various ways, to see how that community kind of extended beyond those boundaries and was formulating into a movement. It is a national movement creating an alternative way of living that is different from the capitalist system.
Brooklyn Street Art:In a way you kind of envisioned, or saw in a some way, what happened at Zuccoti Park but in different parts of the country?
Robyn Hasty: I think the thing that was significant about Occupy Wall Street was that it started in New York and within weeks it had spread to most other cities in the country. That seems to indicate that there is actually an unrest and a unity between people who feel that they want radical change and I think I do see a lot of commonalities with the different people I met. An overlap in ideologies; they may not agree in ideologies and there may not be an established ideology that is stated, that has been formalized.
Brooklyn Street Art:You encountered people you didn’t know. Was it difficult for them to say yes to posing? How did you approach them?
Robyn Hasty: Most people were receptive to it. I just introduced myself and sometimes I would chat for a while and then eventually I’d show them the wet plates I’d already taken and ask them if they wanted to be involved in the project and have their portrait taken. Usually they said yes. There were a few cases where they said no.
Brooklyn Street Art:What sort of inspiration do you get from these people?
Robyn Hasty: I feel like I choose the portraits that I take because I feel a connection to my subjects, like as a cohort. I respect what they are doing. I am inspired by what they are doing, and I feel like there is kind of an overlap between what we’re trying to do in our lives. Based on that relationship, it is the reason why I’m taking the portrait and what I’m trying to convey in the portrait to other people.
Brooklyn Street Art:What was it like traveling across the country? Was it ever lonely?
Robyn Hasty: I rarely felt lonely. I think I had a very positive experience because I realized how large the country is, how beautiful it is, how many opportunities there are to build and to re-envision it. I think I saw that from traveling across it.
Robyn’s large scale, cut paper portraits for which she is mostly known with her work on the streets are part of this show as well.
Street Artist and sculptor Isaac Cordal installed new work on a recent visit to his native town of Galicia in Spain. As much a project about photography as sculpture, it is an illuminating trip to follow his little grey men while they interact with the world. With his impeccable sense of placement and capture, instant storylines emerge just because of their context. Vulnerable, engaging, sometimes pessimistic, or quietly reflective, Cordal’s cement vignettes always look like these cement fellows are caught in the middle of a stream of activity they didn’t quite elect. Ultimately, the impact lies in the artists imagination, and yours.
Here are exclusive images of the new work for BSA readers (along with our witty and insightful captions).
Just wanted to update everybody on the Happy New Year Stikman 2012 Calendar give-away today …
As expected, a.) they went fast and, b.) people love Stikman. Congratulations everybody!
Discovering Stikman pieces in NYC is one of my fave things. Even better when I saw them in Chicago! Everyone I introduce them to falls in love with the city all over again.
RM
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Dear Stikman, You are invited to my wedding. You will be the groom. Love Elisabeth T.
P.S. I would love to know what day it is
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I’d be honored to have one of your calendars. I’ve been tracking your work all over NYC for the last 3-years…
Keep ’em coming!!!!
Scott B.
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I love Stikman because I find him in the most unexpected places… like on a bridge in downtown Chicago! (I’m a New Yorker!) And I he draws on choral hymn music… love.
Best, Amanda D.
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Stikman iz gr8 bc he izn’t overwhelming liek “soem” street artiztz…and no matter where he may be found it’z alwayz juzt enough 2 grab ur attention until the next tiem u turn n find him…for such a simple dezign he’z so recognizable. do i win? lol! 0:P
You’ve seen him in the pavement, you’ve seen him stuck to lamp posts, now see him every day inside your locker at school! Stikman made a handful of these for the new year, featuring one of those dapper dames from calendars you used to stare at while sitting on two phone books at Dad’s barber shop.
Always reinterpreting the iconic Stikman in new venues and mediums, this perky little new pin-up by the Street Artist is Joyce Ballantyne meets Penthouse meets The Car’s album “Candy-O”. 2012 is just big enough to slide into a legal sized envelope and Stikman is feeling very generous indeed, allowing us to send one free to the first five BSA readers who write and tell us why you love Stikman.
These calendars are not offered for sale anywhere and he only made a handful, so write to us with your address at stikman2012@brooklynstreetart.com and tell us why you love Stikman. We’ll write back to the first five.
In the meantime, enjoy these shots from Jaime Rojo in New York; Stikman’s recognizable character pops up very often in different parts of the city. Below are some of our favorite versions.
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
2012 by Stikman. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
