I’ve loved Nina Pandolfo’s work ever since Seth and I showed it in our first show here in LA in 2006. Having her as the first artist to exhibit in the new Carmichael Gallery makes the experience of settling into Culver City even more special for me and the work she’s made for the show is her best ever, in my opinion. It’s always so good to see artists you respect push themselves to more innovative usage of media and develop deeper thematic layers within their imagery. Nina’s mural along the main wall of the gallery builds upon the piece she painted for Deitch Projects x Goldman Properties’ Wynwood Walls in Miami (pics here and here) with her husband and brother-in-law osgêmeos and friend Finok, while the piece in the progress shot below is a multi-layered combination of acrylic on linen and glass with metal, light and artificial flowers. “Mixed Media” doesn’t really describe the end result, which is simply incredible; I’ve never seen anything like it before!
Nina has made another of these pieces that, in place of flowers, incorporates little beads that look like candies, plus a piece made entirely from Swarovski crystals, a series of large canvases and three hand-made fiberglass sculptures that are perhaps my favorite works in the show. Here’s a progress shot of one, hanging out with her kitty while her friends were in hair and makeup (if she were a real girl, she’d probably kill me for posting this).
Below is one of Nina’s canvases. Before I post it, I’d like to talk briefly about the connection between Nina and osgêmeos. It’s something a lot of people understandably wonder about, seeing as they’re family and have painted all over the world together for so many years. From my perspective, as a fan of both, it’s the simple magic that exists in their work that draws us in. All three possess an innate ability to transport us to a place that, whilst drawing upon the life we live, is much happier, brighter and devoid of the pressures that so often weigh us down. This place is one we can escape to and immerse ourselves in simply by gazing at their pieces, then come away with a more tranquil understanding of why things are the way they are.
The three Pandolfos are intelligent without affectation, kind without condescension, and positive without pretending that there aren’t things wrong with the world. I think that’s why people are so floored by shows like Vertigem (osgêmeos’ touring exhibit), Too Far Too Close (their 2008 Deitch show), the castle they and Nina painted in Kelburn with Nunca, the Wynwood Walls mural, and what I hope they’ll see in Nina’s show here – these artists touch a very tender nerve in us.
This, for me, is the connection between the Pandolfos, and yet at the same time, I feel their work couldn’t be more different. Nina’s characters and landscape have a very different flavor (that’s actually the title of the show, Life’s Flavor). When I look at what she does, what I admire most is her sophisticated melange of surrealist motifs, craftmanship that is as polished as the best in the Asian contemporary movement, and her passionate acknowledgement of Brazil’s colorful street scene.
Then there are the trademark children who populate her work. Unlike the frankly disgusting amount of work in the world that employs imagery of pretty girls to appeal to the viewer’s erotic fantasies (it’s obviously not hard to understand why this work is popular, but (and I’m no feminist) I simply think it’s wrong and I struggle to respect it), Nina’s presentation of youth and the female form could hardly be more different. Her preoccupation is with the return to innocence, to the core of our natural, dreamlike state. Close to bursting with exuberance, her young figures and their world capture a lightness that exists in all of us, even if we can’t always reach it.
Anyway, if you live in LA or will be in town this weekend, come say hello to us all and see Nina’s work in person at Carmichael Gallery, 5795 Washington Blvd, Culver City.
Way back in December, I had the privilege to meet and interview Martha Cooper while she was photographing the artists at Primary Flight. Here’s the video from that day:
Martha Cooper’s photos from that video can be found in the books Subway Art and Street Play. Subway Art is a must-have for anyone interested in street art or graffiti, and I haven’t seen Street Play in person, but it looks interesting and is one of the next books I intend to buy.
Dan Witz, who in my opinion makes some of the best and unpretentious street and gallery art out there today, just opened a show of new night paintings at DFN Gallery in New York. I didn’t make it to the opening on March 10th, unfortunately, as we had to head back to LA on the 7th to start prep for our next show here (Nina Pandolfo – I’ll post install pics soon!), but I did get to spend some time with Dan at his Brooklyn studio, so I can tell you that the works look spectacular in person. Make sure to stop by the gallery if you’re in New York to see them for yourself.
The lamp pieces below are inspired by Dan’s visits to Park Avenue lobbies near the gallery. His ability to transform something so simple into something you just can’t take your eyes off of is something quite extraordinary.
Last week, Carmichael Gallery took over the Ogilvy & Mather offices in New York for Re-creation II, a show with installations and/or paintings from Will Barras, Simon Birch, Boxi, Ethos, Mark Jenkins, Labrona, Aakash Nihalani, Nina Pandolfo and WK Interact. The show will be on until the end of July, so there’s plenty of time to stop by if you’re in New York.
Ethos
Will Barras
All these Aakash Nihalani artworks look great next to each other:
Aakash Nihalani
Labrona
Boxi
My favorite part of Re-Creation II has to be all of the things that WK Interact did:
According to Artinfo, Kathy Grayson, the current director of Deitch Project space on Wooster Street, plans to open her own gallery after Deitch Projects closes later this year (Jeffrey Deitch is closing the gallery to become director of MOCA in LA). Deitch is such a unique space that it’s probably too early to say exactly what this means, but Grayson has already said that she plans to bring some of the staff from Deitch Projects with her. Also, she is hoping to open the space with a show with Todd James, Barry McGee and Steve Powers (much like the Street Market show at Deitch Projects in 2000), which would be just plain awesome. Unfortunately, it sounds like Swoon and Os Gêmeos could be less welcome at her gallery.
I’m pretty sure that I’m the only journalist/blogger/whatever to have taken a video camera inside Banksy’s Leake Street cinema, where he hosted the UK premiere of Exit Through The Gift Shop. If you didn’t have a chance to see the cinema in person, here’s your chance to check it out:
Anthony Lister can be one of my favorite painters. He was once described to me as “an extremely talented painter, who happens to use a spray can,” and I completely agree with that assessment.
Terms of Engagement by Anthony Lister
Lister’s next solo show is at Lyons Wier Gallery in New York City, and it opens on March 19th. Should be pretty awesome.
Also, Lister recently painted a mural at the Pulse art fair in NYC for the Lyons Wier Gallery.
The germ of this particular collaborative project (full PDF of the essay here) between Hrag Vartanian and I, began a little under two years ago when someone on flickr called a fake New Yorker article to my attention that had been pasted up on N7th and Bedford in the epicenter of Williamsburg. Entitled “Canal Street Swoons”, the scathing feature was pasted abutting a piece that I had committed to the streets entitled Rachel and the Wolves. While the anonymous author was particularly trenchant in its tone regarding my and Elbowtoe’s work in comparison to Swoon, I was excited that my pieces had engendered such a vehement reaction within somebody that they wrote, designed and pasted their own essay on the street.
Often, artwork in the gallery space is contextualized and its full scope realized by a supplementary text that provides the insightful background material and motivation for the piece. These auxiliary words help to complete the work and neatly establish the piece as apart of a larger narrative. Alternatively, what is so intriguing about street art is that it exists within the space that it occupies more autonomously and mysteriously. There is no description of materials employed or sources referenced; there is rarely even an associated name or moniker present. Such a floating image without any support gives the work an enigmatic character that is intriguing but simultaneously opaque.
This collaboration attempts to bridge that gap between the viewer and the art’s broader situation by producing more points of access into the work. The adjacent text fills in the art historical gaps and suggests at the intention behind the seemingly ambiguous figure. Furthermore, it extends the physical conversation on the street by demonstrating another form of interaction with the environment. Personally, this is an exciting moment because I am hopeful that it will spur more street art criticism that will exist physically alongside its subject.
Well the Oscars were Sunday night, and two good things came out of them: 1. Avatar didn’t win best picture, and 2. D*Face put some new statues in LA. D*Face made two 7-foot tall modified Oscars and put one outside of Mel’s Drive-In and the other in Runyon Canyon Park.
Personally, I think the giant Oscars are a bit much, but I love this regular-sized one. D*face aught to send them to all the actual Oscar winners.
These awesome photos of D*face’s studio are by Viktor Vauthier
Last year, I had the amazing opportunity to visit the FAME Festival in Italy. This year, the festival looks like it will be bigger and better than ever. It opens on September 25th, which is a long way off of course, but they’ve just announced a tentative line up:
and 
. Subway Art is a must-have for anyone interested in street art or graffiti, and I haven’t seen Street Play in person, but it looks interesting and is one of the next books I intend to buy.
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