Miami is in full effect! Murals and cans and scissor lifts and beers and cameras are all going at once! Street Art has never been so well represented in Miami’s Art Basel as it is this weekend – in fact it is impossible to follow it all unless you are an octopus.
And opportunities are seized, while others are missed, and some are trampled underneath. Carlo McCormick writes in Paper Mag a pleasantly prickly on-point overview of the current events with an eye toward some of the sliminess. McCormick should know about the polluting and homogenizing effect of commerce and hype on a scene born in the street, having witnessed and documented first-hand the explosion of graffiti in the NY Downtown scene during the 1980s as well as the market implosion that hurt so many artists in it’s wake. Perhaps that’s why his piece ends with the populist summation,
“It’s all good whatever side of the town you want to walk on, but to our view the art that is taking place with the 99% in mind rather than in whorish acquiescence to the 1% is infinitely more lively, vital and relevant. It may not be making much money (unlike many here we’re too polite to ask about sales), but believe it or not, that’s not the point of art. “
Meanwhile, the giant magnet Miami has attracted artists and their dreams and stories to paint walls today. New York photographer Mike Pearce shows BSA readers some murals in progress.
1. New Video from The Paris Underbelly Project
2. The Underbelly Project Art Show
3. “UR NewYork” solo show “Breaking and Entering”
4. Swoon’s “Murmuration” (London)
5. “Wild Life” a group show that includes Dan Witz and D*Face at Stolen Space Gallery
6. Xenz presents his solo show “Cloud Cuckoo Land” at Blackall Studios in London
7. Skount solo show at the Aalborg Hotel in Amsterdam
8.”Wallflowers” a group show that includes LUDO at Carhartt Gallery in Weil Am Rehein Friedlingen, Germany
9. Romanian Artists Allan Dalla and Cosmonotrip (VIDEO)
Opens today to the general public at Art Basel at 78NW 25th Street at 5:00 pm. There will be a book signing at 6:00 pm with many artists in attendance.
UR NewYork solo show “Breaking and Entering”
In Miami today, a solo show by two New Yorkers who keep it real.
The scale! The hand coloring! The reclaimed cabinetry! Brooklyn Native Swoon has been, for weeks, laboring in London in preparation for her solo show “Murmuration”, which opens today at Black Rat Projects Gallery. Telling the stories of people and characters she has often introduced to the streets of New York, Swoon has brought Thalassa (“sea”), a primordial Greek sea goddess to command the tunnel, and to adorn a small passage in London as a wheatpaste.
Check out the video of Swoon on the street with Time Out London at the end of this post. (video stills copyright Time Out London)
Thanks to Mike Snelle for sending to us a handful of process shots of the installation. He promises to clean up some of this walking area before the doors open tonight!
The city of Chicago is famous for many things, one of them is the city’s zero tolerance for Graffiti and Street Art. Lore has it that if a piece runs for more than one day before “The Buff” hits it with a drab splotch of municipal death, it’s because they thought it was an ad.
One piece that has survived the wrath of The Graffiti Blasters (as they are officially known) is the only known Banksy piece in Chicago. It’s a vintage baby carriage tumbling down the ghosted remnant of a staircase. It brings to mind the movie ‘The Untouchables” with mobsters and police and screeching cars and a panicked baby just for the hell of it. But, really, no one knows why this Banksy baby has survived so long.
Compounding the question this summer was the appearance of a mysterious unfinished non-Banksy body lying further down the staircase. Oddly stiff and praying, nobody knew the cadaverish forms’ origin as we looked through a lense at the Banksy in all it’s faded glory, looking more poignant and beautifully decayed, tagged but not destroyed. The unfinished form appeared to be levitating above the steps, it’s incompleteness adding an eerie feel to the Banksy carriage. Who painted it? Why was it not finished? Que significa?
Today we can report to you with certainty that the unfinished piece was by that side-busting Specter. And it is unfinished no more.
According to one account, it looks like the Brooklyn Street Artist had gotten in a little deeper than he intended when he began his unwanted collaboration with the biggest name in spraybiz, and he lost his concentration, one could say.
The resulting work, the “restoration” of the original Banksy, will surely infuriate some BSA readers. In the context of Specters other “sidebusts” and his own semi-rigid rulebook, however, it makes it’s own curious sense. And the woman who appears to have inched her way closer to the baby carriage as she become more complete? What of her? Reached for comment, Specter only said that in this unwanted collaboration he “used the Banksy baby carriage to make a reference to the conservative agenda that attempts to control women’s reproductive systems.”
“In this colab I used the Banksy baby carriage to make a reference to the conservative agenda that attempts to control women’s reproductive systems”. Specter
Miami is basically “South Brooklyn” starting right about now, minus the bagels, the B62 bus, and the compulsive habit of cutting you off mid-sentence. Artists, galleries, fans, party girls and boys, djs, – they all head south the first few days of December for the big fair and all the little ones.
It already seems a little quieter here because Fountain took the weirdos, Wynwood Walls took the Soho softshoes, and The Underbelly collected the hardcore characters just long enough to sign a book and scarf some pizza before looking for a tunnel somewhere. Art Basel is a feast and the draw of Street Art and graffiti continues apace this year, with entrants from all the strata looking for a wall, and maybe a party, and a honey to go skinny dip with.
We picked a few Street Art related gems here that you might want to hit, but even if you show up in Miami this week with no plans, you’ll easily find some trouble to get into, we trust. Do your best.
After a full year underground, The Underbelly Project is coming to Miami during Art Basel. A pop up gallery, the show will feature original artwork from many of the 103 international artists who participated in the hidden subway project in New York. The exhibition will feature a video piece of multiple installations happening simultaneously, as well as new pieces by many of the artists. Additionally a book signing of the first volume to come out about the project, published by Rizzoli, will take place on December 2nd. Artists participating in the signing include: Dabs & Myla, Rone, Gaia, Lister, Eric Haze, Joe Iurato, Adam Feibleman, Know Hope, Jeff Stark, Jason Eppink, Jim and Tina Darling, The London Police, Dan Witz, Specter, Surge and other surprise artists.
Included in the show are street, graffiti and fine artists alike. The full line-up includes: Faile, Dabs & Myla, TrustoCorp, Aiko, Rone, Revok, Ron English, Jeff Soto, Mark Jenkins, Anthony Lister, Logan Hicks, Lucy McLauchlan, M-City, Kid Zoom, Eric Haze, Saber, Meggs, Jim & Tina Darling, The London Police, Sheone, Skewville, Jeff Stark, Jordan Seiler, Jason Eppink and I AM, Dan Witz, Specter, Ripo, MoMo, Remi/Rough, Stormie Mills, Swoon, Know Hope, Skullphone, L’Atlas, Roa, Surge, Gaia, Michael De Feo, Joe Iurato, Love Me, Adam 5100, and Chris Stain.
THE UNDERBELLY SHOW 29 November – Press Preview 5pm/ Private View 7pm 30 November – Collector’s Preview 7pm 1 December – Secret Wars US vs. UK 6pm 2 December – General Opening 5pm and Artist Book Signing 6pm
The show will take place in the heart of Wynwood at 78NW 25th Street
SCOPE
Jonathan Levine Gallery At Scope with WK Interact, Aakash Nihilani, Olek, and Jason DeCaires Taylor
“Placing a focus on public art for this program, the gallery will present a series of works that highlight a diverse range of distinct styles, cultural perspectives and unconventional mediums. Each of the four artists selected represent fresh directions in creating work in public space through their innovative vision and inventive use of materials. Photography documenting their interventional imagery, sculpture, and performances convey the transformative effect their work has on its surrounding
White Walls will be hosting four booths at SCOPE, situated in the center of Miami’s Wynwood Gallery Arts District, featuring a MTN Colors Group show with APEX, Neon, Estria, Vogue, Blek le Rat, HUSH, Kofie and Chor Boogie, a White Walls Group show with Casey Gray, Ben Eine and Greg Gossel, and solo shows for both ABOVE and ROA. APEX, Eine, Kofie, ABOVE, ROA and Chor Boogie will also be painting at the Kohn compound on 24th street.
For a full listing of exhibitors and events click here SCOPE
Wynwood Walls
Wynwood Walls is premiering 7 new Street Art murals and 16 new pieces at Wynwood Doors and walls outside.
Debuting in tandem with the new murals and installations during Art Basel this year on Tuesday, November 29, 2011, the “Shop at the Walls” the first Wynwood Walls Pop Up gallery space that will offer artworks and the new Wynwood Walls book.The book has interview with Street Artists and photography by Martha Cooper.
Artists include Retna, The Date Farmers, How and Nosm, Gaia (USA), Saner and Sego (Mexico), Liqen (Spain), Neuzz (Mexico), Nunca (Brazil), Vhils (Portugal), Interesni Kazki (Ukraine), Faile (USA) and b. (Greece). Kenny Scharf is expected to augment his existing wall, and remaining work from the last two years from Nunca, Shepard Fairey, Aiko, Ryan McGinness, Stelios Faitakis and avaf will be on display.
Walls Outside the Wynwood Walls, encompassing key locations outside of the actual art park itself and in the surrounding neighborhood, will be created by Friends With You (USA), avaf (Brazil and France), Nunca, and Interesni Kazki (Ukraine); joining works previously completed by Swoon and Barry McGee.
Location:
Wynwood Walls and the Pop Up Shop are located at NW Second Avenue – between Joey’s Italian Café on 25th Street and the art-filled Wynwood Kitchen & Bar on 26th Street – and are open to the public free of charge.
HERE COMES THE NEIGHBORHOOD: WYNWOOD (Video)
Fountain Art Fair
“Our preferred punk rock lopsided Anti-Fair.” —Brooklyn Street Art
This year Fountain Miami’s signature on-site street art installation is curated by Samson Contompasis, director of Albany’s The Marketplace, and will feature over 150 feet of work Street Artists including Sharktoof, Chris Stain, Olek, Hugh Leeman, Chor Boogie, OverUnder, White Cocoa, Army of One, Clown Soldier, Joe Iurato, CAKE, Tip-Toe, Elle, Ian Ross, Know Hope, Depoe, and Zero Cents.
Brooklyn’s own Mighty Tanaka Gallery is showing at Fountain Participating artists include: Adam Void, Alexandra Pacula, Alice Mizrachi, ChrisRWK, Ellen Stagg, Gigi Chen, Hellbent, Hiroshi Kumagai, JMR, John Breiner, Max Greis, Mike Schreiber, Robbie Busch, Skewville, TooFly, URnewyork, VengRWK & Miguel Ovalle
December 1–4, 2011 2505 North Miami Avenue (at the corner of 25th St) | Miami, FL 33137 General Hours: 12pm–7pm daily Tickets: $10 daily / $15 weekend pass. All tickets sold at door.
Primary Projects
A new exhibit debuting during Art Basel Miami Beach 2011
Thursday, December 1
Opening Reception
7:00 to 10:00 p.m.
RETNA, Jessy NITE, Stormie MILLS, Evan ROBARTS, Lena SCHMIDT, Luis PINTO, Andrew SCHOULTZ, Karen STAROSTA-GILINSKI, Kenton PARKER, TM SISTERS, Samantha SALZINGER, Emmette MOORE, Anthony LISTER, Charles KRAFFT, Tatiana SUAREZ, Edouard NARDON, Andrew NIGON, Johnny ROBLES and Lawrence GIPE.
Primary Projects
4141 NE Second Avenue
Suite 104
Miami, FL 33137
Living Walls is working with with Primary Flight, one of the original graffiti and Street Art mural projects, to create 3 new murals in the Wynwood District.
From graffiti and street art, science fiction and tattooing, to cartooning, fine art, master shading and pristine line work – Paranormal Hallucinations will twist your senses and flip your head around. With so many different styles converging into one gallery the outcome will be exceptional. Come witness the divergent beauty of 16 Artists with different backgrounds, all united through one common medium used in their works; Pen . Ink . Brush . Official Website
Opening Reception: Friday, December 9, 2011 6-8:30 pm
LOS ANGELES, CALIF.- After taking pictures of gallery openings, artists and street art, Bryan Meyer or Birdman is stepping out from behind the camera and displaying his collection of photos for the first time at Novel Cafe in Los Angeles on December 9 at 6pm.
Birdman’s exhibition, “Wish You Were Here,” will feature his adventures in the art world. Including shots on roof tops, night sessions and rare images of artists up close working on murals.
“While climbing buildings, going wheat pasting, and watching murals being painted I try to capture an artist’s process that not that many are able to see,” comments Birdman on his work. “The night photography gives the average person a glimpse at the world we see at night; the amber glow of street lights and the dangerous installment process of donating art in the streets.”
Due to legal restrictions, street art’s lifespan is considerably short. What Birdman has accomplished with his photography is preserving the artists‘ work so that others can enjoy.
He is also unveiling his collaborative project with artists Phil Lumbang, David Flores, Lydia Emily, KH no 7, Gregory Siff and Cyrcle. Using photos taken by Birdman, each artists painted on images of themselves further personalizing the average environmental portrait.
Birdman has contributed to: Brooklyn Street Art, Huffington Post, Hi Fructose, Street Art News, The Dirt Floor, The Site Unscene, and Warholian. Is the in house photographer for Lab Art Los Angeles, and the Maximillian Gallery. A street art correspondent for LA Canvas magazine and featured in the October Juxtapoz center spread in a Dabs Myla interview.
On behalf of LAB ART Los Angeles we would like to invite you to the opening of “Everything Popular is Wrong” on Saturday, December 10. The show will be a spotlight on the artist collective DD$ ( Double D’s) who are also known as CYRCLE. Their alternative name for their different style of art transcends their humorous nature that they merge into beautiful paintings.Please let me know if you plan on attending.
Artists interpretation of the living world in Sculpture, Painting & Installation.The wild life of wildlife.
A flower growing through the crack in the pavement, the ivy scaling the fascia of a building, camouflaging, cloaking, pulling it to the ground, the tree growing around a concrete pillar, engulfing it slowly, morphing year on year. The birds nest in the rafters of a roof, made up of twigs and plastic ties, the nested young being fed the preservative pumped, calorie powered garbage bin rewards. These are glimpses of wildlife interacting, adjusting, adapting to the environment that we’ve created, over, around, on top of it, the once green meadow now a sea of steel work, glass and poured concrete, trees confined to their architect planned and perfectly aligned boxes.
But our wild life, this wildlife is playing a slow game, a slow deathly dance between the static, lifeless concrete structures we’ve built and the unstoppable force of nature. Adapt or be adapted, adjust or be adjusted, remember me? I was here before you, I’ve always been here, you need me, I am life.
Is mother nature reclaiming our temporary oasis or is it adapting to the obstacles that we’ve put in its way or are we now having to listen to the reminder that this place is not ours, we are simply borrowing it?
Confirmed Artists:
Josie Morway (Painter)
Rose Sanderson (Collage)
Jennifer Murphy (Painter)
Kelly Allen – (Painter)
D*Face (Mixed media)
Dan Witz (Mixed media)
Jake Wood Evans (Painter)
Roxanne Jackson (Sculptor)
Kelly McCallum (Sculptor)
Jessica Joslin (Sculptor)
Kai & Sunny (Mixed media)
Katja Holtz (Painter)
Renhui Zhao (Mixed Media)In wilderness I sense the miracle of life, and behind it our scientific accomplishments fade to trivia.
How long can men thrive between walls of brick, walking on asphalt pavements, breathing the fumes of coal and of oil, growing, working, dying, with hardly a thought of wind, and sky, and fields of grain, seeing only machine-made beauty, the mineral-like quality of life.
If I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes.
– Charles Lindbergh
StolenSpace Gallery | Stolenspace Gallery, The Old Truman Brewery, 91 Brick Lane | London, UK E1 6QL, United Kingdom
The upcoming show at Mighty Tanaka entitled “Robots Will Kill and Friends” brings together a collection of artists who have collaborated, shown, worked etc directly with the members of RWK. The show also marks the second anniversary for Mighty Tanaka. The show brings together a eclectic group artists, not just street artists and graffiti artists.
Black Rat Projects is excited to invite you to join us for the opening of ‘Murmuration’, an installation by New York artist Swoon on the first of December at BRP gallery from 6 to 8.30pm.
British artist, Xenz presents a new major solo show, Cloud Cuckoo Land in London this December.
Famed for his graffiti murals, the artist exhibits a beautiful collection of new landscape paintings which immerse the viewer in an undiscovered world filled with exotic species drawn from the vivid depths of his imagination.
Xenz offers a panoramic view of his fantasy world, presenting a strange utopia where peculiar plants, insects and birds are sighted among the tropical lagoons of moonlit forests. But with the satirical slant of an artist who paints from a dark, gritty warehouse in Hackney Wick, viewers can expect interesting twists such as a bird of paradise sporting Burberry feathers.
Cloud Cuckoo Land shows a body of work created over the last two years. In addition to a new collection of paintings and prints, Xenz’s newest work has seen him experiment with scale by painting on large-scale murals that divide into smaller, compact and highly-desirable pieces.
Xenz successfully marries fine art with urban art forms, using the spray can to capture fragments of memory and subject matter often drawn from the natural world. A love of ornithology and a search for ever-exotic wildlife has led to this greater evolution of the artist’s work.
Xenz explains: “Cloud Cuckoo Land is a kind of childhood fantasy of setting sail to discover a lost world, but ending up in an opium den in Singapore. It’s a celebration of creativity; something happy and joyful, but with a slight twist. I suppose living as an artist is seen as living in cloud cuckoo land by many people and I want to celebrate this by showing people what my dreams look like. Scientists estimate that there are more than 7 million undiscovered species on the planet — that’s inspiration right there!”
An extraordinary cohesion between mind, memory and spray can, allows this influential artist to walk up to a wall or canvas and paint epic landscapes and fantasy dreamscapes from his imagination. Offering a sense of escapism, a Xenz painting has universal appeal, and in the last two years alone, his work has been commissioned for a show by the British Council in India, exhibited globally from Australia to Ibiza, and his work hangs in mud huts in Gambia to celebrity homes in Chelsea.
Xenz paints landscapes imbued with escapism and symbolism and his background in graffiti is still evident. Look closely at a Xenz composition and you might find the letters of his tag worked into the twisted vines or the rocks in a waterfall. “It’s like a game, trying to decipher the code,” he says. “All my work is about escapism: the exotic and that vein. It’s about freedom and I suppose I’m trying to preserve a sense of value in art. I like to create work that takes you somewhere; a picture that takes a few moments more to soak up than an instant slogan or striking image.”
This one caught our eye for the merging of classic graffiti nerve, blunt style execution, sentimental velvety roses, inspirational verses, …Read More »
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