Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Amanda Marie, Blaqk, Brian Scott, Cash For Your Warhol, Elbowtoe, Elmer, Ismael, Joe Iurato, Lamarid, Rae, Specter, Veng RWK, and Willow.
An interesting departure for Street Artist LUDO, the Parisian who’s usually messing with nature: a new series of images show what appears to be bus shelters scrawled with clever phrases and plays on words. Can’t help but be reminded of Brooklyn’s Elbow Toe, another studio artist who places text-based snatches of poetry and reverie on dumpsters and doorways around New York. Without stylistic flourish or flair, this form of street texting has antecedents of course; Basquiats’ SAMO scripting, for example, and REVS underground diaries, among others. It raises questions about how one might define it? Street Art? Graffiti? It is just interesting to follow this thread that continues into this new year.
HuffPost Arts and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) hosted a presentation and panel discussion presented by Brooklyn Street Art founders Steven P. Harrington and Jaime Rojo this past Saturday at the Ahmanson Auditorium with 150 guests. Five days after the closing of the record breaking “Art in the Streets” show at LA MOCA, which was seen by over 200,000 visitors, BSA charted some new ground going forward in the ever evolving graffiti and street art movement.
The panelists, who included HuffPost Arts Editor Kimberly Brooks and Street Art phenom Shepard Fairey, watched a presentation by Harrington and Rojo about a new storytelling direction that artists are bringing to the streets of New York and other cities around the world. With examples of relative newcomers not seen by many in the audience, they pointed to precursors from the last 40 years to this storytelling practice and questioned how its sudden growth may be evolving what we have been calling “Street Art” for the last decade.
After a conversation with panelists Brooks, Fairey, Marsea Goldberg, Ken Harman, and Ethel Seno that covered topics like the paucity of females in the street art scene, the influence of the Internet on “getting up”, and the significance of personal engagement in the work of many of today’s new street artists, Harrington and Rojo opened the discussion up the auditorium. Here topics ranged from LA’s evolving approach to Street Art to include public and permanent art, the influence of money on street artists, and how a show like “Art in the Streets” effectively influences the next generations’ perception of street art.
The packed event was interesting enough to bring many audience members down to the stage after the show to continue the conversation and meet the panelists and LA MOCA Director Jeffrey Deitch, who took great interest in the presentation, talked with a number of people before taking off. Fairey, with his wife Amanda at his side and a healing black eye from his recent trip to Copenhagen (see his account for HuffPost Arts here) gamely took on questions from many and posed for pictures after the event and at the reception which HuffPost hosted afterward.
Brooklyn Street Art Co-founders Jaime Rojo and Steven P. Harrington converse with esteemed panelists at “Street Art Stories”, hosted by HuffPost Arts and LA MOCA.
MONICA ROACHE, JESSICA YOUN, CHRIS RICHMOND, DAVID BRADSHAW, JEFFREY DEITCH, LYN WINTER, PATRICK IACONIS, TANYA PATSAOURUS, TRAVIS KORTE, MELINDA BROCKA, TINA SOIKKELI, EUTH, ANDREW
HOSNER, CARLOS GONZALEZ, KIMBERLY BROOKS, MARSEA GOLDBERG, KEN HARMAN,SHEPARD FAIREY, ETHEL SENO, THE MOCA MUSEUM STAFF AND SECURITY,
THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART, LOS ANGELES (MOCA), BROOKLYNSTREETART.COM, HI-FRUCTOSE, JUXTAPOZ,
IMAGES IN PRESENTATION BY JAIME ROJO WITH ADDITIONAL PHOTOS BY MARTHA COOPER, REVS PHOTO BY BECKI FULLER, and FAUXREEL PHOTOS BY DAN BERGERON
This weekend is a perfect storm of shows that are opening on the East, West and points in between.
Up Close And Personal: RJ Curates Street Artists Into an Upper West Side Apartment (NYC)
In the intimacy of a private residence in the Manhattan suburbs of UWS, RJ Rushmore of Vandalog fame along with Keith Schweitzer and Mike Glatzer of newly minted M.A.N.Y. have mounted a fresh new open house show just off Broadway. An exquisitely curated show with marquee names and a few newbies the selection is solid in quality and unusual in it’s scale.
Troy Lovegates aka Other (image courtesy of the curators)
Participating artists include:
Aiko, Chris Stain, Clown Soldier, Don Leicht, Edible Genius, Elbowtoe, Gaia, How & Nosm, Jessica Angel, John Fekner, Know Hope, Logan Hicks, Mike Ballard, OverUnder, R. Robot, Radical, Retna, Skewville, Tristan Eaton, Troy Lovegates aka Other and White Cocoa.
Aiko’s cans are on proudly on display at the bachelor pad, and that’s not all (image courtesy of the curators)
Dates: May 12th– 15th, 2011
Times:
May 12th, 7 – 9pm
May 13th, 7 – 9pm
May 14th, noon – 9pm
May 15th, noon – 7pm
Note: Due to the limited exhibition space, people may be admitted in block times every half-hour.
Location: Apartment on the Upper West Side (217 West 106th Street, Apartment 1A, New York, NY 10025) – Between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenues.
Cost for entrance: Free
Go to Hellbent and John Breiner Tonight in Brooklyn (NYC)
Mighty Tanka is presenting a show with two Brooklyn based artists: Hellbent and John Breiner.
Mr. Hellbent says of the show: “The best part of making a show like this is to finally see it up on the wall and the way that everything interacts. I have been thinking of these pieces as parts of a quilt, different fabrics being stitched together. The different colors, floral stencils, animals, and jaw bones melding together and playing off one another, even down to the different depths and sizes of panels, but until it was hung they were just pieces, not yet a whole. Its given me an opportunity to show the different elements that i am working with and how they have grown out of one another and to display all the different carvings and stencils patterns together, where on the street they are separated in different locations.”
To learn more about “Smiled Distress” at Mighty Tanaka tonight please click on the link below:
Matt Siren and My Plastic Heart present “Ghost in the Machine” (NYC)
25 spirits in the material world have made tributes to Street Artist Matt Siren’s Ghost Girl character for this show on the Lower East Side tonight. The custom toy show transforms the character that appears in doorways around New York, each putting its own unique spin on his character.
The show includes work from 64Colors, Royce Bannon, Steve Chanks, Chauskoskis, DarkCloud, Deeker, Gril One, J*RYU, Jester, Keely, Abe Lincoln Jr., Map-Map, Marka27, Brent Nolasco, Lou Pimentel, Reactorss, Marc Reusser, Todd Robertson, Robots Will Kill, Chris Ryniak, Matt Siren, Scott Tolleson, Julie West, Wheelbarrow, Wrona
Click on the link below to learn more about this show:
Ghost in the Machine May 13th 2011 – June 12th 2011
Chicago Street Art Show Tonight (CHI)
Tonight the book “Chicago Street Art” is being released at the the Chicago Urban Art Society in conjunction with a show titled “The Chicago Street Art Show”
Brooklyn’s AD HOC has a New Puppy in Los Angeles (LA)
On the West Coast the dynamic duo and husband and wife Garrison and Allison Buxton have curated a group show “I have a dream, I have a nightmare: Friday the 13th” at The New Puppy Gallery opening this Friaday from 7:00 to 11:00 pm
Artists include: Alison Buxton, Beau Stanton, Bill Fick, Broken Crow, Bunnie Reiss, Chor Boogie, Chris Stain, CRASH, Dabs & Myla, Daryll Peirce, David Loewenstein, Don Leicht, Ezra Li Eismont, Garrison Buxton, Hellbent, Joe Iurato, John Breiner, John Carr, John Fekner, Jordan Seiler, Know Hope, Lady Pink, Michael De Feo, Mikal Hameed, Paul Booth, Peat Wollaeger, Ray Cross, Rex Dingler, ROA, Robert Steel, Sean Starwars, TheDirtyFabulous, & Thundercut.
WHERE:2808 Elm Street, Los Angeles, California 90065
English Kills Group Show Saturday, “The Mother Ship” (NYC)
Chris Harding, owner and ringmaster of the Bushwick Brooklyn-based space station English Kills brings out his strong stable of artists for this group show aptly titled “The Mother Ship” opening this Saturday at 7:00 pm. It’s not necessarily Street Art – but this is a hotbed of new ideas so it is always worth your trip.
Participating artists include:
Brent Owens, Andy Piedilato, Vilaykorn Sayaphet, Jim Herbert, David Pacheco, Hiroshi Shafer, Gyles Thompson, Sarah H. Paulson, Holly Faurot, Tescia Seufferlein, Peter Dobill, Steve Harding, Judith Supine, Lenny Reibstein, Andrew Ohanesian, Jason Peters, Don Pablo Pedro, Steven Thompson, Andrew Hurst and Rob Andrews.
English Kills is located at:
114 Forrest St. Ground Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11206
(718) 366-7323
Specter is a “Repeat Offender” 5/14 at Pawn Works in Chicago (CHI)
Brooklyn based artist Gabriel Specter’s solo show “Repeat Offender” opens this Saturday at the Pawn Works Gallery.
Opening Reception Saturday, May 14, 2011/ 6-10pm
PawnWorks
1050 N. Damen Ave.
Chicago, Illinois 60622
Ph: 312.841.3986
London Police in Denver, “Amsterydynasty”
In Denver Colorado Black Book Gallery brings back the glamour of the 80’s with The London Police and Handiedan in a show titled “Amsterydynasty”
Troy Lovegate AKA Other (image courtesy of the curators)
Startingon May 12th, a New York City home will play host to a new type of street art exhibit. While the community concentrates on artists creating larger murals in often controversial public spaces, the subtle nuances of the genre are lost in the hype. Up Close and Personal explores the craft of artists who usually work in large-scale formats outdoors, by challenging them to create pieces that conform to the intimacy of a residential indoor setting. The works will be no larger than 30 x 30 inches, as small as a Metro card and exhibited on the walls of a small city apartment. As street art continues to morph into an all-encompassing art genre, Up Close and Personal will showcase works by talented artists whose work is impressive both indoors and outdoors. Up Close and Personal is curated by RJ Rushmore of Vandalog, and Keith Schweitzer and Mike Glatzer of M.A.N.Y.
Participating artists include:
Aiko, Chris Stain, Clown Soldier, Don Leicht, Edible Genius, Elbowtoe, Gaia, How & Nosm, Jessica Angel, John Fekner, Know Hope, Logan Hicks, Mike Ballard, OverUnder, R. Robot, Radical, Retna, Skewville, Tristan Eaton, Troy Lovegates aka Other and White Cocoa
Logan Hicks. Detail on anodized aluminum. (image courtesy of the curators)
Dates: May 12th– 15th, 2011
Times:
May 12th, 7 – 9pm
May 13th, 7 – 9pm
May 14th, noon – 9pm
May 15th, noon – 7pm
Note: Due to the limited exhibition space, people may be admitted in block times every half-hour.
Location: Apartment on the Upper West Side (217 West 106th Street, Apartment 1A, New York, NY 10025) – Between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenues.
Cost for entrance: Free
M.A.N.Y. (Murals Around New York) is a team of artists and curators who organize street and contemporary art exhibitions around the United States.
Vandalog is an international street art blog that covers the art scene as it evolves. Posting interviews, art news, show critiques and photographs of relevant works, Vandalog has gained a loyal following among the street art world. Founded in 2008 by then teenager RJ Rushmore, Vandalog now includes various writers and publishes across a number of social media platforms. Vandalog was Arts Media Contact’s top art blog of 2010.
As part of a string of strikingly personalized spot-jocking intended to send shivers through the New York Street Art scene, artist Specter is brazenly re-crafting other artists pieces, including high profile names like Swoon, Faile, Skewville, and Shepard Fairey.
This discovery side-busted our heads when we saw the radically altered Shepard Fairey piece – a myriad of nested ironies that takes “homage” to a new level. Or is that a “diss”?
The Fairy piece he’s messing with is a 2010 version of his Nubian Signs that appeared on walls during the run-up to his May Day gallery show this spring at the now closed Deitch Projects in Soho. Since that time, the wheat-pasted piece has weathered and faded. As part of Specters reworking of the piece, the portrait of Ice-T, itself criticized for incorporating the iconic image of Che, is now backed up by his fictional TV partner Detective John Munch from Law and Order: SVU. Ice-T has a new posse. Aside from that quizzical pairing that has left Street Art watchers dumbfounded, it’s even more confusing that Fairey’s original was restored before Specter smacked his own piece on top.
“It was totally defaced, you could not make out what was going on anymore,” said Specter this week when reached for comment.
Dissing doesn’t usually include restoration.
Explaining the choice of adding Ice-T’s fictional police partner to the existing Fairey piece, Specter talks about the duality of a celebrity’s image that can produce a cognitive asymmetry.
“Ice-T plays a detective on a very popular crime show that everyone likes so much. (My piece) is kind of poking at these popular figures – who maybe were seen as a visionary. This was a rebellious figure, who is now on prime time television playing a police detective, who he previously was talking about shooting.” According to the show’s website, the rapper-turned-actor “formed the thrash metal band Body Count”, whose “1991 self-titled debut contained the controversial single ‘Cop Killer.’”
In an additional homage to Fairey, Specter appears to have used a copyrighted promotional photo off the internet to interpret Detective Munch – calling to mind the current lawsuit Fairey is defending himself against that accuses him of incorporating copyrighted material to create his famed Obama poster of two years ago.
In each of the cases where Specter is hitting the street art of somebody else, the style and technique closely mimics that of the original artist, creating a counterfeit that so closely resembles their own body of work that it could be confused theirs. This alone opens up a discussion about high-jacking a message, misleading a passerby, or even damaging a reputation.
This new crop of “side-busts” may get him in hot water, but Specter is giddily unapologetic to the other street artists whose work he’s jocking. In an extensive interview he talked about the nature of impermanence implicit in the Street Art scene, his own weariness with attempts at codification of rules that some have endeavored to create for the street, and the fact that many of these pieces already have run for a long time – so they’re fair game according to his rules. For Specter, it is evident that this project is a social experiment as much as an expression of creativity and an attempt to shake open a can of conversation.
Is Specter sort of poking the monkey to see what will happen? Surely he knows that someone is going to see it as a sign of disrespect.
The cheerful Specter replies, “Yes, of course. I also thought it was also kind of good to push the button. It might piss them off, or they might love it or they might hate it. The point is I can do it regardless because of the nature of the work.”
In the Street Art world, as in the graffiti world before it, the unwritten “rule book” (existing mainly in the heads of the participants) pretty clearly marks ones territory. Putting up your piece too close to someone else’s, let alone over part or all of it, can occasion vendettas, retaliation, or at least some trash talk. Never mind that this claim to real estate sometimes refers to a building actually owned by somebody else entirely – a bothersome contradiction that falls to the wayside when street rules are in effect.
“I was talking to another Street Artist who was saying that people were angry with him for spot-jocking and I said that’s what these pieces are about: the ridiculousness of these kinds of ideas. It all harkens back to these ‘rules’ of this anarchistic form of art. Street Art can be this unauthorized kind of art form and people are like, ‘Oh you shouldn’t come within 12 feet of me’. This project talks about that too and it’s supposed to bring up this dialogue. I really think that these issues need to be discussed because people take it very seriously”
Chris Stain (detail) Image Courtesy of Leo Kesting
Leo Kesting Gallery Presents:
Dead Letter Playground:
A Collection of Contemporary Street Art
June 24 – July 18, 2010
Opening Night Reception: Thur, June 24 from 7-10pm
812 Washington St (at Gansevoort) NY, NY 10014
8th Ave A, C, E and L train Stop or 1, 2, 3 to 14th St
Tue – Sat 11am – 7pm, Sun 1 – 6pm
Admission is free to the public
Phone: 917-650-3760 / 917-292-8865
http://www.leokesting.com
Having left the gallery model for free form street installations, a narrative of artwork is grouped and reconstructed in a reverse white wall format late June at the Leo Kesting Gallery. The collection of prints, illustrations, paintings and installations takes its name Dead Letter Playground as a reference to the tactile paper quality of most works and the open letter format that street art has embraced as building dialog with the public.
”This collection adheres to the gallery’s principles of showcasing the most contemporary urban figurative works. These artists alter their surrounding environments, using public install as catalyst for positive reform,” states gallery co-director David Kesting. ”In contrast to dead letters not reaching their readers, these artworks embrace a playground of viewer’s eyes and an earnest public wanting more.”
“Publicly placed works last only as long as the elements or the public allow,” explains John Leo gallery co-director, “Dead Letter Playground is an opportunity to see these works in an urban-gallery environment.”
Dead letter Playground features the work of Carolyn A’Hearn, Chris Stain, Clown Soldier, Dain, DickChicken, Doze Green, Elbowtoe, Elle, Ellis G, Faro, Gaia, Head Hoods, Imminent Disaster, Jen.Lu, Jordan Seiler, Know Hope, Laura Meyers, Lee Trice, Love Me, Matt Siren, Mister Never, Nicola Verlato, Peru Ana Ana Peru, Phil Lumbang, Shark Toof, Anthony Michael Sneed and Sweet Toof.
Leo Kesting invites you to join us as we unveil Dead Letter Playground with an opening night reception for the artists on Thursday, June 24 from 7:00 – 10:00pm. The work will be on display until July 18.
Leo Kesting Gallery launched in 2003 and developed an aggressive campaign to introduce new figurative artists to collectors and art supporters. Leo Kesting offers the art viewing public an opportunity to see forthcoming talents in an intimate setting where undiscovered, cutting-edge artists are presented to the contemporary art scene.
Leo Kesting Gallery is located at 812 Washington Street at the corner of Gansevoort in Manhattan’s Meat Packing District. A, C, E or L train to 14th Street. Summer gallery hours are Tuesday to Saturday from 11am until 7pm and Sunday 1-6pm, the gallery will be closed on Mondays until after the Labor Day weekend
Leo Kesting Gallery gallery is located at 812 Washington St New York NY 10014
phone: 917-650-3760 at the corner of Ganesvoort St
8th Ave 14th st A,C, E and L train Stop
For ten days we’re presenting ten artists and their wishes for the new year, 2010, in no particular order. Together, they are a tiny snapshot of the people who are part of the giant explosion of street art in New York. Individually, each has added their expression of the creative spirit to the decade now ending.
Today’s wish comes from ElbowToe, a poet of the streets and figurative line drawer, who conjures stories, pays homage to classics, and renders bended every-people.
“MAY YOU HAVE SPACE FOR REFLECTION.” – ELBOWTOE
Straight from ElbowToe’s sketchbook. “The drawing is part of my subway series, warm up drawings I do every day on the subway for an hour.”
Reporter Chuck Marvin examined the intersection of graffiti and street art in the Brooklyn area recently and filed this report in the WG News in print and on the web. We don’t know a lot about graff, but we were glad to help out with the Street Art aspect.
Somewhere between drawing the drapes and playing “I’m a little teapot”, Emma’s hair began to grow and curl like a Victorian furniture, causing her head to become heavy. (Imminent Disaster) (photo Jaime Rojo)
Imminent Disaster (detail) (photo Jaime Rojo)
OverUnder (photo Jaime Rojo)
Thanks to nanotechnology, soldiers can be shrunken and posted in fairly well hidden locations (General Howe) (photo Jaime Rojo)
Okay, everybody push your chair away and stand up from the Thanksgiving table and reach for the ceiling with me. One, two, three, streeeeeeetch! (Elbow Toe) (photo Jaime Rojo)
A new installment in Specter’s series of portraits of New York’s homeless individuals (photo Jaime Rojo)
Specter (detail) (photo Jaime Rojo)
A “vintage” ElbowToe and C215 (photo Jaime Rojo)
Something new incorporating farm animals and airplanes (photo Jaime Rojo)
And another (photo Jaime Rojo)
Quel Beast (photo Jaime Rojo)
Brooklyn got a new sculpture this week – a 3D version of Specter’s homeless series. When we saw this, many people were walking up to it, taking pictures of it, discussing it with each other. One woman said, “This is New York!” (photo Jaime Rojo)
Specter (photo Jaime Rojo)
Oopsy Daisy (photo Jaime Rojo)
(photo Jaime Rojo)
Mutual of Ohamastan’s Wild Kingdom (photo Jaime Rojo)
Brooklyn Street Art – Our Weekly Interview With the Streets
Man on the street by Specter (photo Jaime Rojo)
Specter (detail) (photo Jaime Rojo)
Specter (detail) (photo Jaime Rojo)
Vintage botanical by Elbow Toe (photo Jaime Rojo)
“And, but, see, the thing is, the lady at the desk didn’t even know that I had about a thousand dollar bills rolled up in my back pocket and I could of bought any of those pictures. She just looked at me and told me I couldn’t come in”. (Pickett) (photo Jaime Rojo)
The new Damon Ginandes figures look with ennui and curiosity at the ebullient high school students passing by. (photo Jaime Rojo)
Damon Ginandes (detail) (photo Jaime Rojo)
Found this little lady hiding inside a phone booth (photo Jaime Rojo)
MBW is delving back to the early days of comedy and cinema with this portrait of Charlie Chapman (photo Jaime Rojo)
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
