I’m a huge fan of David Ellis’s intensely rhythmic artwork. I’m especially mesmerized by his motion paintings, which I discovered almost two years ago at a brilliant street art exhibit at the Montserrat House in Washington, D.C.  Ellis’s current exhibit, True Value, at Joshua Liner brings all his amazing work together, as it features his motion paintings, his sculptures and his recent pieces on panel and tobacco-stained paper.

Here are some stills from his motion paintings:

And a small sampling of his paintings:

If you are anywhere in the NYC vicinity, this exhibit is definitely worth checking out before it ends this Friday, the 14th.  The Joshua Liner Gallery is at 548 W. 28th Street in Chelsea.

Photos by Lois Stavsky & Lenny Collado

Anonymous Gallery is launching their permanent space in Mexico City with Fresh Kills, a group show opening this weekend. The artists in this show are purported to, in an effort for renewal, reuse materials that most would consider trash, so the name Fresh Kills comes from Freshkills Park, an upcoming park project in New York to redevelop a site that used to be a landfill. As usual, Anonymous Gallery have put together an impressive group of artists for this show: Aaron Young, Agathe Snow, Barry McGee, David Ellis, Greg Lamarche, Hanna Liden, Richard Prince, Swoon and Tom Sachs. Fresh Kills opens on the 17th, this Thursday and runs through January 15th.

We visited Opera Gallery earlier today just a few hours before the official opening of “Abstractions,” a retrospective of the abstract movement that features artists who’ve used the streets as their canvas, alongside such “fine” artists as Miro and Matta. Here are a few images:

David Ellis

Ron English

Futura

Saber

Sixeart, close-up

Photo by Lord Jim

David Ellis is going to be Philadelphia soon for a talk at muraLAB, “an experimental creativity hub” within the Mural Arts Program. The talk, Thought Experiments, will take place on April 14th at 6pm. I wis I could be in two places at once, because I’ll be in LA then, but Philly residents should definitely check out this event. I’ve only met Ellis once, but it was one of my most memorable conversations of my life. Make sure to RSVP though by emailing muraLAB@muralarts.org. More info on the muraLAB website.

Photo by Lord Jim

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

David Ellis has a solo show, Mona Salsa, opening this Saturday night at New Image Art in LA. There are 15 new works, many of which look like a completely new direction from Ellis’ many-year-long artworks based on sound and painting sound. Should be an interesting show for sure. Check out more of the new work over at The Citrus Report.

Photo courtesy of New Image Art

I have to say that I really appreciate galleries that continue to do shows during the Holiday season. While most just shut down because “everyone else does” I find it admirable when a curator puts together a show, and a decent group show at that.

Martha Cooper Happy Holidays

Opening December 11 at Subliminal Projects is Wreck the Walls, a group exhibition of over 30 artists combining rebellious urban artists, street pioneers and young emerging fine artists.

The show includes the likes of some heavy hitters like McGinnes and Cooper and some of my favorite new names like Greg LeMarche and Kelly Berg. The full list includes: Alan Shaffer, Alejandro Gehry, Andy Moses, Bertil Petersson, Billy Al Bengston, Blek Le Rat, Craig Stecyk, Curtis Kulig, David Ellis, David Yow, Ed Moses, Ellwood T. Risk, Erik Foss, Eric Schwartz, Eric White, Evan Hecox, Greg Lamarche, Jason Alper, John Van Hamersveld, Laddie John Dill, Larry Bell, Martha Cooper, Monica Canilao, Retna, Robbie Conal, Ryan McGinness, Ryan Travis Christian, Skullphone, Swoon, Tim Biskup, Vanessa Prager, Kelly Berg.

Photo by Martha Cooper via Subliminal Projects

Some friends came over today and we had a bit of a photoshoot for the upcoming line of Vandalog t-shirts. More about that in the next few days. Here’s a teaser of the shirts. So next week is going to be an exciting one on Vandalog. In the mean time, here’s what I wish I’d spent more time covering (it’s kind of Swoon and Retna heavy this week though):

• David Choe and James Jean have a show coming up in Japan.
• This, I may actually write about again before the show opens and I’ll certainly be mentioning it after the opening: Street/Studio 2.0 at Irvine Contemporary in DC. It’s a group show in two venues with artists including Swoon, David Ellis, Gaia and José Parlá. The show opens on November 6th.
• Also on November 6th, Kaws has a solo show opening in Paris.
• The first two Untitled street art books were interesting, now there’s a third.
• Juxtapoz brought a bunch of artists including Swoon and Retna to Detroit to paint some houses.
• So apparently Swoon had a show open in Paris tonight?
• Os Gêmeos have been painting a bit in Brazil.
• Miso and Ghostpatrol have some nice new pieces up in Fitzroy.
• Bo130, Microbo, San and 2501 were recently busy painting some walls in Milan.
• I’m only half way through this video so far myself, but the producer and editor of Exit Through The Gift Shop recently took part in an in-depth video interview.
• Retna has just released 12 beautiful monotypes. As of this post, some are still available online.

I know I mentioned this show in the Invasion of San Diego post, but I figured I would go into a little more depth with it, since it is opening July 18th to the public.

The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD) will be hosting one of the first street art museum exhibits in the middle of July.  Citing the cultural influence of art in cities, “Viva La Revolucion” brings together some of the most high profile street artists today that have made an impact on city spaces with their socio-political works.  Not only will the exhibit be one of the broadest street art museum displays ever curated, but the city of San Diego will also pay host to several public works created in currently unknown locations by some of the featured artists.  Invader’s pieces are just one of the public works, with more pieces surly to follow by the likes of Shepard Fairey, Os Gemeos, and Blu and David Ellis, and possibly Banksy.  I cannot wait to see what comes of this.

Os Gemeos. Photo by apwbATTACK

Here is a complete list of the artists participating:

Akay
Banksy
Blu
Mark Bradford
William Cordova
Date Farmers
Stephan Doitschinoff
Dr. Lakra
Dzine
David Ellis
FAILE
Shepard Fairey
Invader
JR
Barry McGee
Ryan McGinness
Moris
Os Gemeos
Swoon
Vhils

For more information check out MCASD’s website

Photo by apwbATTACK

David Ellis with his sculpture

The latest David Ellis / Roberto Lange trash sculpture has been placed in Times Square (thanks to Anonymous Gallery and Times Square Arts), and will be there through March 8th. Here are a few photos. Videos should be coming soon. That’s when the sculpture will really make sense, since it’s actually a sort of robotic music machine disguised as a pile of rubbish.

The only downside to this piece is that it has to be surrounded by that fence and a sign that reminds people that they are looking at a piece of art. I wish there was some way they could just leave the piece unmarked and film people’s reactions. Then again, these piles of trash retail for up to $50,000 so that might not be the most financially sound idea…