Carmichael Gallery‘s next show is Playing Field, a group show of secondary market works. It opens this Saturday, June 18th and runs through August 9th. The line up hits most of the big names you’d expect to see as well as a few surprises: Banksy, Faile, Shepard Fairey, Sixeart, Os Gêmeos, Mark Jenkins, JR, KAWS, Barry McGee, José Parlá, Judith Supine, Swoon, Titi Freak, Dan Witz.

These sort of shows tend to be either really good or really bad. I’m liking the above piece by Barry McGee, so I’m thinking this should fall on the really good side of things. But LA residents can see for themselves starting on Saturday. The opening is from 6-9pm.

Photo courtesy of Carmichael Gallery

Mare 139

Carmichael Gallery in LA has a pretty crazy show on right now. Martha Cooper: Remix has street and graffiti artists giving their takes on classic photographs by Martha Cooper, one of the photographers behind the classic Subway Art book. Here’s a bit of the show, but check out Arrested Motion for many more photos. Remix runs through May 7th.

Anthony Lister

LA II on a photo of Keith Haring

Photos courtesy of Arrested Motion

I’ve always loved Kosbe’s zany characters and somewhat esoteric messages. Mostly on stickers, they occasionally make their way onto wheatpastes, as this recent addition to NYC’s East Village.

Photo by Lois Stavsky

Yesterday, Kosbe shared with me — via his iPhone — a photo of his piece currently on exhibit in Martha Cooper’s “Remix” at the Carmichael Gallery in Culver City, CA. A recreation of Cooper’s iconic 1980 photo of Dondi sketching in his room with friends in East New York, Brooklyn, it uncovers another side of Kosbe’s flair.

Photo courtesy of Kosbe

Martha Cooper is one of graffiti’s most influential photographers, particularly for being half of the duo (the other half being Henry Chalfant) who photographed and wrote Subway Art back in the 1980′s. For many street artists and graffiti writers, Martha is a large part of how they got started not just painting outside, but with art in general. Martha Cooper: Remix is the next show at Carmichael Gallery, and I just love the idea – Some of street art and graffiti’s greats from the 1980′s through today have reinterpreted Martha’s photographs in their own style and Remix will show the original photos alongside these reinterpretations. Remix opens April 9th and runs through May 7th, so it is timed to coincide with MOCA’s Art in the Streets show, which Martha Cooper is also included in.

Artists in Remix include Aeon, John Ahearn, Aiko, Bio, Nicer & B-Gee, Blade, Blanco, Mark Bode, Burning Candy, Victor Castillo, Cey, Cekis, Claw, Cosbe, Crash, Dabs & Myla, Anton van Dalen, Daze, Dearraindrop, Jane Dickson, Dr. Revolt, Shepard Fairey, Faust, Flying Fortress, Freedom, Fumakaka, Futura, Gaia, Grotesk, Logan Hicks, How & Nosm, LA II, Lady Pink, Anthony Lister, The London Police, Mare 139, Barry McGee, Nazza Stencil, Nunca, José Parlá, Quik, Lee Quinones, Kenny Scharf, Sharp, Skewville, Chris Stain, Subway Art History, Swoon, T-Kid, and Terror161. So yeah, this should be interesting.

With most other photographers, I might quickly right this idea off as gimmicky and I think artists might half-ass it, but there is so much respect for Martha Cooper, the line up is so strong (and varied) and the photos are so interesting that I think this has to be a success.

All the LA galleries are really pulling out all the stops for this April and Carmichael Gallery is no exception.

Photo courtesy of Carmichael Gallery

Galo, 2051 and Ottograph

So much going on behind the scenes this week for a couple of upcoming events. Can’t wait to say more. Hopefully next week I’ll be able to write about one of them. Here’s what I didn’t have a chance to post about this week:

• Sick burner by Jume.
• I wish I could have seen Mark Jenkins’ installation at Carmichael Gallery’s Volta booth in the flesh.
• OaKoAk: A french street artist who is kind of awesome.
• Some shots from Vhils‘ latest solo show in Portugal.
• Someone is placing “hipster traps” around NYC.
• Shepard Fairey’s Revolutions show looks pretty cool.
• Check out Contra Projects’ booth and murals from Scope NYC.
• The LA Police are trying to interfere with a graffiti writer’s art career by not allowing him to use his name (Smear) with anything relating to his artwork. And then they arrested him.
• Just rediscovered this piece from last year by WorldWarWon where he “graffiti-ed” an iceberg.
• Tika has a show coming up in Berlin.
• Galo, 2051 and Ottograph have a show opening soon in San Fransisco at Lower Haters Gallery.

Photo by Galo

EVOL will be at the WILDE Gallery booth at Volta

With two midterms exams tomorrow, I’m rushing this post, but here’s a simple list for some of what to check out at the art fairs in New York this week.

• The Armory Show:
  - Honor Fraser (Kaws and Kenny Scharf)
  - Ratio 3 (Barry McGee)
  - Stuart Shave/Modern Art (Barry McGee)
• Fountain:
  - 140-foot long street art installation, although it sounds like this might be the same installation as was recently at Fountain in Miami, or at least partially the same.
• Verge Art Brooklyn:
  - Arch 402 (Cept aka Mike Ballard)
  - English Kills Gallery (Don Pablo Pedro)
• Scope:
  - Contra Projects (D*face, How&Nosm, James Marshall aka Dalek, Ron English, Tristan Eaton, TrustoCorp and more)
• Volta:
  - Carmichael Gallery (Mark Jenkins)
  - Wilde Gallery (EVOL)
• Pulse:
  - Joshua Liner Gallery (David Ellis)
  - Ben Wolf’s installation (He has collaborated with Swoon and Maya Hayuk)

I won’t be in NYC for the fairs myself, but I’ll hopefully have some photos to post. Otherwise, the places I will be getting my art fair news will be Hyperallergic and Arrested Motion.

Photo courtesy of Volta Art Fair

In a lot of ways, Hargo sums up Miami's art fair week

With so much of the art world migrating to Miami this week in a frenzy, there seem to be too many events and parties (and I promise not to blog about the parties in detail. This isn’t a gossip site) and exhibits and festivals and everything else to keep track of. Here’s a roundup of some of the things that I’m most interested in seeing (or not seeing).

Things that have already been mentioned on Vandalog:

• This year’s Primary Flight mural project has an impressive list of artists including Roa, Escif, Retna and Boxi.
• Fresh Produce looks to be a solid group show of graffiti and street artists.
• There will be some new Cash For Your Warhol billboards.
• Retna has a solo show at the new Primary Projects space.
• Wynwood Walls is a mural project (among other things) with some big-name artists but questionable motives.

And things that I haven’t already blogged about:

• Elisa Carmichael has her list of Miami must-sees, which includes a Dan Witz book signing and a Trespass book signing with Marc and Sara from Wooster Collective and Carlo McCormick.
• Sorry to bring this up, but Sanrio’s exhibition of Hello Kitty art is just annoying. They got some great artists like Jim Houser to paint Hello Kitty characters. I’ll be avoiding this show like the plague.
• I mostly go for Ryan McGinness’ really abstract work and this isn’t that, but McGinness fans will probably want to check out his solo show.
• Barry McGee will be showing work and signing books at Ratio 3′s book in Basel Miami.
• Jonathan LeVine Gallery has a pop-up show as part of Wynwood Walls. Some of the artists include AJ Fosik, Judith Supine, Doze Green, Dan Witz and WK Interact.
• FriendsWithYou are filling a park with giant blow-up sculptures.
• Last year, OHWOW Gallery’s It Ain’t Fair show was one of the most interesting shows in Miami. Once again, they have a killer line up for the show including José Parlá, Rey Parlá (José’s brother who is, I believe, a filmmaker), KAWS, Phil Frost, Barry McGee and Neckface.
• OHWOW Gallery are also opening a bookstore at The Standard Hotel in Miami.
• New Image Art’s pop-up show includes Neckface, Judith Supine and Os Gêmeos. Probably going to be a must-see.
• Tristan Eaton and his partners are launching Contra Projects with a wide-array of events this week including a tent/lounge space, a mural (by Mr. Jago, Tristan Eaton, Ron English and others) and a TrustoCorp carnival aka TrustoLand. More info on the Thunderdog blog.
• Carmichael Gallery, Joshua Liner Gallery and others will have booths at SCOPE, and I think Maya Hayuk is painting a mural there, which should be awesome if I’m remembering that correctly.
• And of course there’s all the fairs I haven’t mentioned, because there are just so many. So many. Too many. It’s gonna be art overload. But if I’ve missed anything that you think is particularly special, please leave a comment.

Photo by Hargo

Boxi

Next week is going to be a difficult one for art fans in LA. On the one hand, Roa has a solo show opening with Thinkspace (but not at their usual space, which would make things easy because Thinkspace and Carmichael Gallery are practically next door as I understand it). And on the other, Carmichael Gallery has Block Party, a solid group show opening on the same night. Both shows open next Saturday. But this is about Block Party.

Dan Witz

In addition to street artists Boxi and Dan Witz (you have no idea the joy I felt when I heard that my dad picked up a good Dan Witz painting recently), there are some other interesting artists in the show. Of particular note is probably Gregor Gaida, whose piece was one of my highlights of Moniker last month.

In addition to original works, Boxi will also be doing an installation in the gallery, so that may just tip the scales in the Carmichaels’ favor over Roa for me, but both shows should be something to see for sure.

Photos courtesy of Carmichael Gallery

Our own lovely, Elisa Carmichael, is hosting the launch of the latest issue of The Art Street Journal tonight at Carmichael Gallery. Featuring interviews with Mark Jenkins, Rae McGrath, Angelo Milano, Martyn Reed, Jacob Samuel, Marc and Sara Schiller, Stefan Simchowitz and Sonja Teri, this is definitely an issue not to miss. Plus, as always, it’s free, so no excuses guys.

If you are in LA tonight, stop by the gallery in Culver City from 6-8pm to pick up your free copy and have a drink or two. Oh, and be nice to the lovely Elisa who has been feeling under the weather for days.

Carmichael Gallery
5795 Washington Blvd
Culver City, CA 90232

Seth and I just printed the newest edition of The Art Street Journal! It’s our longest issue yet and with the move to better paper stock and four color pages inside, it’s a big step toward where we’re hoping to take things in the future.

A lot of really great people helped out with this issue, including Vandalog’s Aaron and Steph! I’ve included previews of their pages (well, one of Aaron’s, at least – his article has the double page spread in the middle of the journal).

Steph's article on Viva La Revolucion at MCASD

Half of Aaron's interview with Boogie

One thing I’m particularly happy about is that our Unurth page has now doubled in size to a two page spread. It’s still not enough to fit all the great images Sebastian finds, but I packed in as much as I could this time around. Sebastian also did a great interview with Escif about the differences between his indoor and outdoor work. You can read an older conversation between these two here to get some context to it.

Other street artist-related articles in this issue include those on EuroTrash with Conor Harrington, Vhils, JR and Antony Micallef in LA, Herbert Baglione in Barcelona, Dan Witz in New York (although the article is actually on his last show of oil paintings), 108 in Grottaglie, Basquiat in Basel, Nina Pandolfo in Sao Paulo, M-City in LA and Ericailcane in Ancona.

Street Art New York, Dan Witz: In Plain View and Poster Boy: The War of Art all feature on the bookshelf page. I recommend you buy all three if you can and haven’t yet. I’m a bit biased, I guess, because all the authors are friends of mine, but I genuinely think they are great books and I know everyone involved worked really hard to get them out there.

If you’re not getting tasj in the mail yet and would like to, you can sign up at www.theartstreetjournal.com. It’s free, no matter where in the world you live.

If you’re in LA, we are having a release party for this new issue here at Carmichael Gallery on Saturday, August 7th. Come by for a drink, pick up a copy, see our Boogie/M-City shows (it’s the last day they’ll be up!), then head out to the other openings in Culver City – there are some fun things going on that night. Hope to see you there and spread the word if you can! Thanks!

- Elisa