As part of their Vandal or Visionary Series, where BSA selects one Street Artist to curate a show that follows their specific vision of the scene, BSA is proud to introduce Hellbent as curator of the inaugural show of the series titled “GEOMETRICKS” at new Gallery Brooklyn in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn, New York City, opening September 22, 2012.
GEOMETRICKS turns the spotlight on the movement on the streets that boasts bold color, wild patterning, sophisticated lineplay, and a modern approach to abstraction.
As the stylistic circle widens on the street, GEOMETRICKS grabs a razor-sharp cross section of the growing number of graffiti artists who depart from traditional forms of lettering, Street Artists who are not interested in Pop-inspired icons or irony, and fine artists who never considered the “rules” of the street to begin with.
GEOMETRICKS references modernists, tribalists, and the rhythmic symmetry of the natural world, with it’s hexagons and spirals and comforting repetitions. Old labels about graffiti and Street Art mean little; this group takes the formalist clarity that references geometry, folk art, and science, and often smashes it with an abstract hammer.
Parallel, perpendicular, rigid, curvilinear; lines and shapes intersect and play off color-rich pattern – challenging the shape, form and expectations of many in the Street Art scene. GEOMETRICKS show how graff and Street Art right now are exploding in a new direction together without first asking for permission, again advancing the conversation of art on the streets.
“I’m stoked to be able put together this GEOMETRICKS show with some artists who I’ve really admired for a long time as well as some of the new players on the scene. This show is a great opportunity for me to create a vision and really put a dream team of artists into one room and show people what I am diggin’ right now.” – Hellbent
The Vandal or Visionary Series presented by BSA GEOMETRICKS
Curated by Hellbent
The Vandal or Visionary Series calls into question the simplistic characterization of artists who work on the street as one dimensional vandals and it wonders aloud what a gallery show would look like if viewed through their eyes. Many artists have always had a better understanding of the scene than academics or experts who talk about it and this series allow us to see a show curated by someone with a direct view and a very unique perspective.
BrooklynStreetArt.com is a daily source for Street Art reporting, interviews, and photography in New York and around the world.
We’ve been thinking a lot about this show and recently published examples on the street that are indicative of one new direction;
“Art from the streets has been heralding a new eye-popping geometric disorder that can now fairly be called a movement.”
~ From our recent piece on The Huffington Post : “Color, Geometry and Pattern on the Streets”
As part of their Vandal or Visionary Series, where BSA selects one Street Artist to curate a show that follows their specific vision of the scene, BSA is proud to introduce Hellbent as curator of the inaugural show of the series titled “GEOMETRICKS” at new Gallery Brooklyn in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn, New York City, opening September 22, 2012.
GEOMETRICKS turns the spotlight on the movement on the streets that boasts bold color, wild patterning, sophisticated lineplay, and a modern approach to abstraction.
As the stylistic circle widens on the street, GEOMETRICKS grabs a razor-sharp cross section of the growing number of graffiti artists who depart from traditional forms of lettering, Street Artists who are not interested in Pop-inspired icons or irony, and fine artists who never considered the “rules” of the street to begin with.
GEOMETRICKS references modernists, tribalists, and the rhythmic symmetry of the natural world, with it’s hexagons and spirals and comforting repetitions. Old labels about graffiti and Street Art mean little; this group takes the formalist clarity that references geometry, folk art, and science, and often smashes it with an abstract hammer.
Parallel, perpendicular, rigid, curvilinear; lines and shapes intersect and play off color-rich pattern – challenging the shape, form and expectations of many in the Street Art scene. GEOMETRICKS show how graff and Street Art right now are exploding in a new direction together without first asking for permission, again advancing the conversation of art on the streets.
“I’m stoked to be able put together this GEOMETRICKS show with some artists who I’ve really admired for a long time as well as some of the new players on the scene. This show is a great opportunity for me to create a vision and really put a dream team of artists into one room and show people what I am diggin’ right now.” – Hellbent
The Vandal or Visionary Series presented by BSA GEOMETRICKS
Curated by Hellbent
The Vandal or Visionary Series calls into question the simplistic characterization of artists who work on the street as one dimensional vandals and it wonders aloud what a gallery show would look like if viewed through their eyes. Many artists have always had a better understanding of the scene than academics or experts who talk about it and this series allow us to see a show curated by someone with a direct view and a very unique perspective.
BrooklynStreetArt.com is a daily source for Street Art reporting, interviews, and photography in New York and around the world.
We’ve been thinking a lot about this show and recently published examples on the street that are indicative of this new direction;
“Art from the streets has been heralding a new eye-popping geometric disorder that can now fairly be called a movement.”
~ From our recent piece on The Huffington Post : “Color, Geometry and Pattern on the Streets”
Art from the streets has been heralding a new eye-popping geometric disorder that can now fairly be called a movement. With roots in recent art history and the rhythms of the street, artists are giving themselves over to pungent color, pattern, grid inspired line, and a sharp edged abstraction. No one can say what has moved the conversation toward this aesthetic – it all mimics the repetitive patterns that are found in nature as well as the cool symmetries programmed by human industry. These modern alchemists from across the globe are somehow pumping the Street Art scene with an oxygen-rich supply of lifeblood and a variety of possible directions to explore.
An uncanny blending of the cans, both the graffiti tradition and the Street Art practice each find common ground to be a place where tagging and Pop irony all dissolve together into form and shape. On walls around cities where these two practices were once polarized, we’re seeing that everybody can drop their guard and just paint, bro.
In these images collected by photographer Jaime Rojo over the last couple of years, you can see elements of mid 20th century modernism, sci-fi fantasy, retro-futurism, imperfect folk patterning, and the distinct echoes of Wild Style. The common thread in this new discovery of graphic geometry is not just what it is, but as it pertains to art on the street, also what it’s not.
MOMO has just completed what he calls the largest mural he has ever done in the US. Baltimore is the lucky recipient of this piece by one of Street Art’s modern abstractionists, a fine artist who has proven to be a quietly inspired force for exploration in one of the developing new directions for Street Art.
The city of Baltimore has it charms and many people here will greet you and offer to help you or chat for a minute, and this weekend it was evident that Open Walls Baltimore has touched off an excitement in a few of the neighborhoods here. MOMO’s own contribution enlivens and activates such a large space that you can imagine the empty lot it’s in turning into a playground or park or at least a block party. We saw so many youth and children in this neighborhood with eyes wide and full of curiosity and interest in participating in the act of creativity. Perhaps work like this can eventually put doors on boarded homes, shore up foundations, create a sense of hope and connectedness and community engagement that supercedes mere dreams of making money.
During the MOMO installation, the blasting sun was ongoing and so was the serenade of the incessant singing of mockingbirds in nearby trees. Sincere thanks to MOMO for letting us get a close look at his process and his work.
Abstract geometrist and Street Artist MOMO is still sweeping across a massive brick wall in his cherry picker as he leads Open Walls Baltimore across the finish line with more than twenty artists and murals spread across these blocks straight off “The Wire” TV series.
“Oh, man, he’s really getting it down over there,” says local pigeon trainer Tony Divers, who is looking out his back door past the bird’s coop at the new 5-story MOMO piece coming alive in the empty lot next door. Mr. Tony, whose pigeons have also had a starring role in the series, himself became the subject of a massive building-sized portrait by Jetsonorama two blocks up the street.
New York Street Artist Gaia had been racing his fixie around this town since he started studying at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) a few years ago. In between trips back home he began hitting walls with his large scale paste-ups on sides of some of the abandoned buildings that comprise entire blocks in this city. Somewhere along the way he gradually fell in love with the neighborhood and it’s lively conversations on the stoop, secret speakeasies on the weekend, and eclectic shows with Dan Deacon and the Wham City Arts Collective.
Freshly graduated, the talkative 23 year old artist with a natural knack for organizing decided to stay in B’more and plot a Street Art revitalization of sorts. With Ben Stone and Rebecca Chan of Station North Arts & Entertainment as partners, the trio secured monetary backing and city support for 20 artists to come and paint murals this spring. When asked if the grand outlay of almost a hundred thousand dollars is a civic/private program, Gaia is quick to answer, “Totally private. I guess you could call it civic because they’re non-profit.”
Armed with a budget and Gaia’s knowledge of Street Artists on the scene, the team was able to garner a wide collection of artists to create murals. When Baltimore native and famous graffiti/hip-hop photographer Martha Cooper agreed to shoot it all, Gaia knew OWB was going to be a hit. Large walls were pretty easily secured with help from the City of Baltimore and sponsors helped with paint and services. From March to May the neighborhoods of Station North and Greenmount West have played host to internationally known Street Art names of the moment like Vhils, Sten and Lex, Swoon, Jaz, MOMO, and Interesni Kazki getting up on walls alongside a list of local and regional talents.
The reviews and interactions between the organizers, artists and local residents have generally been positive in this part of town where the drug trade has filled the vacuum since all the factories died and communities were destroyed. With “art as a gentrifying force” being a huge discussion, these hippy kids have formed community in bombed out factory buildings here over the last decade and a burgeoning artists community has somehow sustained itself tenuously through the rigors of a ruthless recession. Programmatically OWB is not entirely new as a cultural stimulus but this sort of “jump-start” approach to engendering a creative renaissance by public/private development may be watched carefully by other cities as a possible formula to imitate.
For the upbeat organizer/curator of the project, it’s been extremely gratifying and an eye opener to be accountable to such a range of interests, “I learned that murals can be a little threatening to people and bring out their latent fears and that the parties you think who are going to be most afraid generally might not be,” Gaia explains, “and the ones you think might be the most into it – provide the most criticism.”
“For example the artists community turned out to be the one that was most afraid of being a gentrifying force and was most critical of the project. And all the legacy residents were generally not bringing that up, even if I asked them,” he says.
Street Artist Nanook, also a student at nearby MICA and a logistical lynchpin for OWB, created his own mural that strikes at the historic manufacturing base that once provided a livelihood for the people who lived in many of these abandoned buildings. For him, the artist’s role is to connect the lines between past and present, “And so it’s just about bringing back these signifiers to the neighborhood. Especially for this housing area that was built to house the people who were working at these factories. It has been interesting to meet the people who are old enough to have worked at these factories – they actually worked at the coat factory and the rudder factory and the bottling factory down the street.”
As he smokes and points to the gears and the large hand on his mural, Nanook also talks about the former coat factory two blocks away that is now being renovated to be a magnet art school, and the possibility that work by creatives can create help neighborhoods re-imagine a future, “I think most artists are intermediaries for the communities they reside in.”
As we tour around the streets with Ms. Cooper, we make sure to hit the hot graffiti spot in town, an alley she’s known for more than 50 years and one that has provided uninterrupted opportunity for exploration with an aerosol can for many artists who start out here. “Usually there are people painting back here and there’s often somebody doing a fashion shoot back here,” she remarks while snapping images of tags and colorful pieces. “There was a “Wild Style” reunion here a few years ago with Charlie (Ahearn), and they painted all kinds of stuff. It’s fun and they all come to this – because there really aren’t too many locations to do this”
While we watch a handful of 20-year-olds pulling cans from backpacks and arranging them on the cracked concrete in front of a wall, we talk to Jeremy, a local Baltimore artist who also makes puppetry and masks. He says he likes the effect that OWB has been having on the neighborhood. “It’s an interesting project. It’s nice to see a kind of subtle but effective change. Baltimore is kind of rough. But because (OWB) is there it invokes something different and the space actually is transformed.”
On a Friday evening at a block party celebrating the completion of the final wall, Gaia is happy with how it has turned out, and pleased with the multiple conversations he’s been able to have with people in the community about murals, walls, pigeons, paint, and wheat-paste. “My only curatorial process was matching the artists with walls and sites that I thought would be pertinent and I thought would really work with the artists’ process – that was my biggest goal and it succeeded.”
Open Walls Baltimore includes the following artists: Gaia (Baltimore), Momo (New Orleans), Doodles (Port Townsend, WA), Maya Hayuk (New York City), Ever (Buenos Aires, Argentina, Overunder (Reno, NV), John Ahearn (New York City)
Specter (Montreal), Mata Ruda (Baltimore), Josh Van Horn (Baltimore) , Caitlin Cunningham (Baltimore) , Jessie Unterhalter & Katey Truhn (Baltimore), Freddy Sam (Capetown, South Africa), Intersni Kazki (Kiev, Ukraine),
Gary Kachadourian (Baltimore), Chris Stain (New York City, Baltimore), Billy Mode (Baltimore), Jetsonorama (Arizona), Swoon (New York City), Sten and Lex (Italy), Nanook (Baltimore), Jaz (Buenos Aires, Argentina), and Vhils (Portugal)
Brooklyn’s Son and international artist MOMO spent some time in Tilburg, The Netherlands making art and collaborating with local artists and The Incubate Art Festival. Below is a video of the large mural he worked on while in Tilburg.
“It was amazing to work with Piet and see the sorts of decisions he was making with the paint and sprayer, things I would never think to do. And it was great talking with him. Hearing about the first punk scene in Rotterdam, his conception of concrete painting’s ethos, and time’s strange effects on these.” MOMO
To see still images of the mural click on MOMO’s site here
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.
By now it has been very well documented that Monster Island in Williamsburg, Brooklyn has closed its doors after seven years of art exploration and experimentation with murals, art shows and music concerts. The building is set for demolition and it is rumored that it will be replaced by a Whole Foods Store.
During these years we’ve watched the exterior of Monster Island with great interest as it was an every-changing heaven for emerging artists to show their stuff to the public. The environment engendered creativity; With non for profit art galleries and performance spaces, an underground music venue, a surf shop, a screen-print studio, a recording studio, several artists studios and a family of lovely street cats, Monster Island was a symbol of what Williamsburg was all about; artists and community struggling to make cool stuff for each other and sometimes a big audience. Since the early 1990s, ad-hoc love-driven venues like this have opened and closed, along with art parties, loft performances, artist collectives, and a loose association of art galleries. The settlement of writers, dancers, bands, performers, and all sorts of artists helped give the area a decided edge, even if you couldn’t convince your Manhattan friends to come visit the neighborhood at night.
Now “The Edge” of course is the name of a corporate looking glass tower on the waterfront and the moderate frightened masses began their march to Williamsburg after the developers re-zoned 30+ blocks in North Brooklyn in 2005, transforming it quickly to a New York suburb with quirky, kooky shopping opportunities. It’s an old story, but we have to tell it; Now the rents are too high and the culture is increasingly inhospitable to artists and the Monster Island landlord has a different plan for the lot and the lease wasn’t renewed. Williamsburg is going upscale just like Manhattan and the rest of the city and for struggling artists and the venues that give them shelter and nurture them this is another reason why we are watching people move to other neighborhoods or out of New York altogether. In a way, this is what NYC is all about; Re-invention and greed.
We have been photographing the ever-changing facade of this building that was offered as a canvas for local and visiting artists all over the world to put their art up. Today we pay homage and say farewell to this iconic institution and to the people that endeavored to make it unique with a photo essay of the numerous murals that went up there since 2004. We have made an effort to identify most of the artists. Please let us know if you know the names of the artists we have tagged as unknown or if we erroneously credited a piece of art.
1. “Anti-Social Networking” Show by Skewville at Black Book (Denver)
2. Oh MOMO You Didn’t! That’s right. (Philadelphia)
3. Street Art Tribute to Steve Jobs on Bond Street in Manhattan (VIDEO)
4. Swoon and Olek on the TV Machine (VIDEO)
5. Cape Town Crushes Rochester, New York (VIDEO)
6. Formaje In Romania (VIDEO)
7. HOPE and Craola in Connecticut (VIDEO)
8. Anthony Lister Plays with Fire (VIDEO)
“Anti-Social Networking” Show by Skewville at Black Book (Denver)
You’ve been Skewvilled again, this time with a number of their “friends, including BAST. The constellation of connections you can make will be revelatory. Like.
For more information about this show please click on the link below:
The post-graffiti abstract Street Artist MOMO is in Philadelphia for a small group show with Amber Dubois and Steven Riddle opening today at the Space 1026 Gallery. It’s an opportunity to see three painters exploring traditional issues of abstraction. Through their use of color, shape and form – each in their own distinct but related mediums of painting, collage and sculpture respectively. Check it.
Street Art Tribute to Steve Jobs on Bond Street in Manhattan
A poorly shot little video of this lenticular tribute to Steve Jobs, but you get the idea. Yesterday there were many tributes to the founder of Apple in front of the Apple stores in Manhattan, as many people were clearly affected by the creative genius of the guy over the last 3 decades. Our thoughts go to his family and friends.
Swoon and Olek on the TV Machine
PBS ARTS has a new short film with two female Street Artists SWOON and OLEK for their series “Off Book”. Watch it below- sorry about the commercial at the start of the video.
Cape Town Crushes Rochester, New York
This summer in July a group of four artists from Cape Town, South Africa traveled to Rochester, New York to collaborate on a series of murals with local artists. Watch Faith47, Make1one, Dal, and Freddy Sam at work. This privately funded project was sponsored by the Synthesis Collaborative, a non-profit based in Rochester.
Formaje In Romania
Here is a teaser for their upcoming show Cosmonotrips. Short but fun!
HOPE and Craola in Connecticut
The Beast Brothers presents HOPE X CRAOLA getting work done in New Haven, CT. Video by Carlos East.
Anthony Lister Plays with Fire
Anthony Lister talks to Frank 151 in West Hollywood, CA. while playing with fire. See our interview with Mr. Lister posted last week after you watch the video, if you like.
MOMO for FAME Festival (photo courtesy of the gallery)
Amber Dubois, Steven Riddle, MOMO.
October 7th – October 28th, 2011 Opening Reception: Friday, October 7th, 7 – 10 pm
Space 1026 is excited to present an exhibition of new works by Amber Dubois, Steven Riddle and MOMO. The work of these three painters eschews figure – instead exploring traditional issues of abstraction. Through their use of color, shape and form – each in their own distinct but related mediums of painting, collage and sculpture respectively – these three young American artists bring their unique vision to this storied tradition. Please join us for an opening reception with the artists Friday, October 7th from 7:00 – 10:00 pm at 1026 Arch St. in Philadelphia.
Amber Dubois creates paintings that explore the confusing and violent act of creation. Using varied ways of applying paint, she builds layer upon layer of cacophonous and conflicting information to build mass, and an almost ‘figural’ presence in the paintings. Born and raised in Philadelphia, Amber Dubois received an MFA in Painting from the New York Studio School in 2007. She is now based out of Brooklyn, NY and most recently has exhibited at Vox Populi and AxD Gallery, Philadelphia.
Steven Riddle, born in 1982, makes collages using handmade source materials, made with screen printing, monotypes marker, acrylic, airbrush, spray paint and bleach. Studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Currently an MFA candidate at Towson University, he lives and works in Baltimore. Steven has shown his work at the Andy Warhol Museum, Current Gallery, Together gallery and at Nudashank. He dreams of one day living in a house with a kidney shaped swimming pool
MOMO is known for thoughtful post-graffiti: experiments include tagging his name a tag the width of Manhattan, over-sized outdoor collage, tide powered sculpture, a computer script which makes his art for him, and prints, paintings, and videos that rely on chance and context for fun and substance. Born in San Francisco, he has traveled most of his life, discounting six years New York. He joined a graffiti crew in 1999 while living in Spain, found his use of color while employed in the Caribbean, and fell for outside art while living outside: in a cave for a year, in a truck for a year, and in a tent for a year.
SPACE 1026
1026 Arch St. 2nd Floor
Philadelphia, PA 19107
Here’s a question to the Street Artists out there; Have you ever knocked on the door before putting a wheatpaste or stencil or sticker on it? The work you put up is for the public to see, but what if “the public” who lives inside asked you to come in?
It sounds crazy – but it DOES happen. Last summer one Brooklyn landlord snagged two street artists on two occasions and paid them to put work up on walls inside her house – artists whose work has appeared on BSA with some regularity in the last 12 months. When Street Artist MOMO was invited to a residency program in Key West, Florida last year, he decided to try out a similar experiment and now some people are living with his work every day. In his own words:
“I was curious to try creating artwork for a sampling of “the public” for free and with no obligations, like I’d do in the street, but more directly. I really don’t know the public I’m working for when I make things anonymously, and often the idea of public becomes mythic and hazy. This seemed like a way to learn what different people thought of my work, and to experience some pressure from the close contact” MOMO
“A new generation is making street art that is conceptual, abstract, and even sculptural in nature,” says Carolina A. Miranda, in her new essay for Art News on the changing nature of art in the street. We couldn’t agree more, as we’ve witnessed young artists completely circumventing the established art school/gallery/museum route and taking their message directly to the public for the last decade at least. It still has the do-it-yourself, in-your-face attitude of it’s predecessors in graffiti, but what has changed is the number of influences and levels of engagement at play in today’s scene.
“Working with pure abstraction,” as described by Miranda – possibly evidenced in this piece by Street Artist MOMO. Photo courtesy the artist’s website, momoshowpalace.com.
And it Isn’t Just for the BK Either
Obviously, cultural and art movements are no longer simply local for more than about 12 minutes, and it is always interesting to see the permutations of Street Art as it moves through the world. And it’s always fun to see how it’s being observed in academia – like this piece about Northeastern University professor Doreen Lee, who is “examining broad social and political developments in Indonesia through a narrowed focus — street art.“
“She’s found some of the art to be political, some to be exploratory or ‘art for art’s sake,’ said Lee. But she’s also noted ‘recognizable’ international influences, giving graffiti in Jakarta a striking resemblance to graffiti in New York City or elsewhere around the world. The significance of this resemblance is one of acknowledging and assessing global connections and influences, she said.”
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
