“… when we had nothing to worry about except finding more trains to paint.”
Painting trains seems older than horses, but of course that can’t be true. Outside of public transportation trains, which have been largely free of graffiti since the late 80s, the lust for hopping freights still runs deep for some. Like the current romantic fixation that many bars and rock bands and suspender-wearing, handlebar moustache-baring cads have for a hand hewn old-timey world they never lived in, some Street Artists still have a forlorn longing for the simpler freight bombing of yesteryear. Before streaming surveillance, cell-phones, Snooki.
Like migrant workers and hobos during the American dustbowl, some artists opt for the screeching low-cost traveling option of hopping freights across the country for a little paintcation – intrepidly forgoing comfort and regular meals and risking occasional close-misses with fate and dodgy dudes with irregular agendas. It’s like a rite of passage, like starring in your own old Western movie. It’s like putting your work up on Flickr, except all the Internet wires are thick heavy steel rails and your page is a rusty rectangular 100 ton boxcar. Also, images take longer to refresh.
For Labrona and Other aka Troy Lovegates the whole weighty freight topic is an exercise in nostalgia; now that everyday life has been getting in the way and they’ve been developing professionally as artists. But there are occasional exceptions, including these recent images that give you a taste of how art on freights has been updated lately.
Labrona says, “Other and I have been painting trains together since the mid 90s. I can’t believe it’s been that long. Frigg, we are getting old. These days we are both busy and located in different cities and don’t get to paint together anymore all that much. Getting to spend a week together painting trains was an amazing blast from the past that brought me back to the days before art shows, traveling, studios, careers, bills and responsibility. – Back to days of painting for the fun of it when we had nothing to worry about except finding more trains to paint.”
Summer jumped off with fires ablaze this week as Street Artists and all other manner of related plastic arts activity began flaring all over the place. It helps that finally the epicenter of Street Art has officially relocated to Bushwick years after Ad Hoc Gallery announced it’s arrival. Of course it’s also in Red Hook and Greenpoint and LIC and Ridgewood and Bed Stuy and even, dare we say it, Williamsburg.
But hot damn if we didn’t have more fun this week in Williamsburg watching a couple of leggily mincing models down by the waterfront kicking their shapely gams into the air and grasping the entire island of Manhattan between their feet (check out the coda photo at the end for a lick). It was extra fun because only 10 years ago this location was a garbage strewn dump where people went to get high and have sex in the wild brush and watch tall-bike sparring matches and the City didn’t even care about it. On a hot day you might find two portly Polish women in their 60s wearing wire bras and sunning themselves on plastic chaise loungers – in fact we used to call it the Polish Riviera. Now this is a public park created for shiny NYU students to play sports in and get ripped abs and clever “location scouts” have “discovered” it so it was especially fun to find this fashion shoot happening here and have one of the overheated stylist queens march over and try to shoo us away while snapping the free shoe show. Try.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, featuring Bishop203, Brett Amory, Essam, Dan Witz, ENX, Love Me, Mint & Serf, Mr. Toll, Nick Walker, Olek, Troy Lovegates (AKA Other), Sabio, Sheryo, Sonni, The Yok, and Willow.
Prints are often a good way for an artist to reach younger collectors and those with limited funds, and a good way for a gallery to get the doors open for traffic with a new generation of collectors. Hendershot Gallery new show in the Bowery opened last night with a Street Art centric collection of (mostly) prints that hit a nice cross-section of some of the current action on the streets. In addition they invited Gilf!, Clown Soldier, Chris Stain, and ASVP to hit some walls in the basement stenciling, screen printing or wheat pasting directly on the surface, so see if they’ll lend you the key to the dungeon while your are there.
Artists also included in the show are: Anthony Lister, Gaia, Gilf!, Icy & Sot, Imminent Disaster, Judith Supine, Know Hope, Labrona, Other and Paul Insect.
Anthony Lister, ASVP, Chris Stain, Clown Soldier, Gaia, gilf!, Icy & Sot, Imminent Disaster, Judith Supine, Know Hope, Labrona, Other, Paul Insectand more
New York, NY — Hendershot Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of (Re)Print, a group exhibition open to the public from May 23rd to August 15th, 2012, with an opening reception on Wednesday, May 23rd from 6 to 8 pm. This exhibition will transform Hendershot Gallery into a print shop and project space during the summer months, offering a place to see and purchase limited edition works by street artists from cities around the world. Throughout the course of the exhibition, (Re)Print will come to feature the work of over a dozen street artists, including Anthony Lister, ASVP, Chris Stain, Clown Soldier, Gaia, gilf!, Icy & Sot, Imminent Disaster, Judith Supine, Know Hope, Labrona, Other, Paul Insectand more.
While street art is increasing in popularity among the contemporary art world, the unique relationship between these artists’ public and print work is often overlooked. In their attempt to reclaim public space, street artists apply repetition with a multiplicity of familiar aesthetics or imagery, allowing anonymous artists to create an easily recognizable identity for themselves. Printmaking’s potential for reproduction and circulation offers an alternative vehicle for the artists in this show to make their work more accessible to the public. (Re)Print celebrates the connection found between these salient aspects of both street art and printmaking.
Often limited to an online market, (Re)Print aims to create a more direct interaction for street art lovers and buyers alike. While not always known by name, familiar motifs found in both their prints and street work are what popularize these artists and enable them to create a visual identity. The exhibition will evolve as the work on view changes and grows throughout the twelve week run, creating an informal experience that offers an alternative to the typical gallery environment.
In conjunction with the exhibition, a select group of artists have been invited to create temporary, site-specific installations at an undisclosed location and will be open to the public for the duration of the show. However, the location will be kept a secret, attempting to preserve the excitement experienced when one unexpectedly discovers a work of street art.
While the rest of the art world may slow down for the summer, Hendershot Gallery will be hosting a program of parties and events to celebrate new additions to the show, special performances and projects around the Bowery. For more information, check www.hendershotgallery.com or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
Ask a room full of artists living here in New York if anyone every feels like a chump for making soul-sucking mediocre commercial work just to pay the jacked up rent. Hands will fill the air like ‘Amen’s at the Brooklyn Tabernacle at a Sunday morning sermon. Compound the cost of live/work space with the fact that, if you were lucky enough to get an education, your student loans debts are like a massive cinderblock around your neck. Many of today’s artists are expecting to labor long hours doing commercial or corporate art for years, often now without benefits or security – leaving them with ever-less time and energy to build a career, let alone a body of artistic work.
Street Artist Troy Lovegates is colorfully skewering the King in this County of Kings with his new surreally comedic metaphor called “The King and the Artist”, painted directly on the wall at the Kunsthalle Galapagos Gallery in DUMBO, Brooklyn. Like days of olde when the Church and Royalty held the purse for most creative expression, the 99% is waking up these days to the unholy marriages that wield growing influence over the entire cultural and institutional landscape, including areas of creative expression. With “The King”, Lovegates depicts a well equipped megaspender imperiously dictating what will be art and claiming it as his own with his platinum sword waving wildly while the barefoot creator, a mind bubbling with a multitude of other ideas, tries to fend himself with tools laughably inadequate.
It’s a tug of war that is historical and contemporary of course – from faux communist capitalists to gold encrusted power families to religious gangs gilded in sanctity, artists have always procured the propaganda and painted a world view according to someone else’s vision. With signs ever more obvious around us, Mr. Lovegates informs us here that the game is still the same and some young artists are painfully aware of the rigged class system they’re working within. Hopefully someone will buy it.
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.
OTHER Talks About His Process and His New Show, “Thinkers of This”
Found stories on found objects. The Canadian Street Artist named Troy Lovegates AKA Other is just as surprised as anyone by the faces and forms and shapes and patterns that come spilling out onto his wood panels and canvasses. A collector of images and experiences, he has a penchant for travel, a continuous movement, self propelling his eyes past a static world as a way of animating his own streaming movie without much narrative. His bendable figures, pungent geometric patterns, and somber faced old white men all get tumbled together in a clothes dryer with whatever else has collected in his consciousness, or subconscious. A hard wired natural trust of the intuitive sense leads him to his work, or his work to him, he doesn’t really know.
Brooklyn Street Art:You’ve got a lot of stuff that is always spilling out of you in your work. Do these things mill around inside or do you discover them as they are coming out?
Other: I just do patches and chunks. I don’t really know what I’m doing until it is finished. Sometimes I have a basic concept but with this globby gushing stuff, I think it’s just cities and life and travel and all the junk that you go through – all mashed together. I’m a big fan of clutter. Maybe that’s why I travel so much because once you get me stopped, my space gets so full. I like clutter and repetition.
The cities and countries he’s been in over the last couple of years also tumble out while he is showing BSA his new show, a double bill opening tonight at Brooklynite with Colombian Street Artist Stinkfish: he’s been wandering through Germany, Croatia, Romania, France, Spain, Catalonia, Italy, Argentina. – A lot of it by bicycle, a lot of it on foot.
“I’m a walker and a biker and I’ll go out in the morning and I’ll walk till midnight. And I’m usually searching for something I can paint on – one of my next pieces. This work is “storytelling” and the stories happen while I’m searching. It’s my favorite way to produce art. Like you could maybe even find some paint, and an old part of a church, just an amazing old piece of wood. It’s stories that happen along the way, the work just comes to you,” says Other as he describes the process.
The show hangs together with glee, an unusual arrangement of usual things. Other’s work is a blind awareness, a collecting of the faces and handbags and mop buckets and shapes and patterns that he has ingested. Then like the piles of belongings that clump together in after flood waters descend, Other ignores relative value or hierchy in the delivery of heads and plumbers pipes and patterns and alarm clocks. On his daylong explorations through cities and towns and roads and streets he keeps his eyes open, looking into faces and into dark shadows and dilapidated buildings.
Brooklyn Street Art: And what about the heads? Who are these people? Other: I like to collect old magazines. I get these pictures of famous people and then look in the back ground and say “Oh that guy would be great to paint” I was taking a lot of photos.
Brooklyn Street Art:People you meet on the street? Other: I ask them, “Can I take a photo of you?”
Brooklyn Street Art: Do you ask them anything about themselves? Other: No. I usually can see a lot.
1. Checking in on the GAIA tour – Haarlem, NL
2. Faile “Fragments of Faile” at Lazarides in London
3. Anthony Lister in Sydney “Bogan Paradise”
4. “Thinkers of This” – “Other” and Stinkfish at Brooklynite Saturday
5. Jef Aerosol “Walking Shadows”
6. Lady Pink at Woodward Gallery Tonight “Evolution”
7. EL ORDEN IS INTANGIBLE BY BOAMISTURA (VIDEO)
8. MIKE SHINE. OUTSIDE LANDS BY JUXTAPOZ (VIDEO)
Checking in on the GAIA tour – Haarlem, NL
New York Street Artist GAIA is sending missives from the road as he travels – Here’s a piece employing one of his new techniques of overlaying historical portraits on architecture evocative of their time and geography. This one of W.E.B. Dubois creates the connection between cities and peoples.
“A simple portrait of WEB Dubois juxtaposed with three brownstones from Harlem, in Haarlem, NL. the village from which the name of the New York neighborhood is derived,” says Gaia.
In connection with the big “Outpost” festival on Cockatoo Island in Sydney’s harbor this weekend, Anthony Lister’s show “Bogan Paradise” ppens today at the Gallery A.S.
“Thinkers of This” – “Other” and Stinkfish at Brooklynite Saturday
These two talents are putting together a full installation at Brooklynite in Bed Stuy right now. The full story for you tomorrow here on BSA. Check it.
“THINKERS OF THIS”
Stinkfish • Other
November 5 – 26
Opening Night: Nov. 5, 6-9pm BrooklyniteGallery.com
Brooklynite Gallery is proud to present, “Thinkers of This”, an exhibition from two well-traveled, street artists, STINKFISH and OTHER.
Drawing inspiration from all things that make a city tick, Colombian artist STINKFISH turns faces of unsuspecting people into vibrant portraits full of energetic emotion.
With work created on reclaimed surfaces such as vintage record covers, magazines and metal shelving, STINKFISH’s work cleverly mixes beauty and grit. Using a color palate that captures the flavor of the South American streets, this artist’s imagery does often originate from his own camera lens, but with all the time spent hitting the pavement, it’s no surprise discarded snap-shots are used at times to tell a story.
Striking women, proud men or gaze-filled children are often the subjects before STINKFISH adds his signature touch —an intricate tribal pattern to their features. Whether it be using stencil techniques or hand-drawing these patterns, Colombia’s premiere street artist’s images evoke a sense of cultural pride all while mixing in his post-youthful discontent and love of punk music.
Canadian artist OTHER has been kicking around this scene long before the term ‘street artist’ was one. Beginning with his freight train paintings that often consist of chalk white, weathered-faced vagabonds, floating on top of colorfully patterned, twisting-limb figures, OTHER has always made it a point to immerse himself in the very same culture he depicts.
Symbolic shapes, utensils, and typography in and around figures are the “sign language” he uses to communicate thoughts, ideas and dreams aloud. Curiosity often takes OTHER down the most windy roads, in the most remote places to seek out locations to work outdoors. These journeys often later feed into the back story of his paintings. Sometimes old signage, numbers, text bits and tags from other artists who’ve left their mark can become unplanned collaborations of sorts. Traveling and painting in places like northern Serbia, Chile and Romania with stories that seems to rival those of Hunter S. Thompson, no city or town is too far off the beaten path for this nomad artist.
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.
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
