UPDATE – LOCATION CHANGE: The Underbelly Show has moved to 78 NW 25th Street in Wynwood, Miami to accommodate the large scale of the artwork in this show.

The Underbelly Project is back. Last year, I posted a lot about the project where 103 artists from around the world secretly painted an abandoned/half-completed New York City subway station. After that initial burst of press here and around the web, The Underbelly Project organizers stayed silent. With only occasional vague tweets from a mysterious twitter account and the appearance on Amazon of an upcoming book about the project. Yesterday though, The Underbelly Project announced that they will be participating in this year’s Basel Miami Week madness with a pop-up gallery in South Beach Wynwood.

The organizers of The Underbelly Project and The Underbelly Show, Workhorse and PAC, have this to say about the show:

Workhorse: The New York Underbelly was an important chapter for us, but the story hadn’t been comprehensively told. The Underbelly Miami show gives us a chance to present the broad scope of documentation – Videos, photos, time-lapses and first hand accounts. The project is about more than just artwork. This show gives us a chance to show the people and the environment behind the artwork.

PAC: While the experience each artist had in their expedition underground can never be captured, it is my hope that this show will highlight some of the trials and tribulations associated with urban art taking place in the remote corners of our cities. Too often the practice of making art in unconventional venues remains shrouded in mystery and I hope this exhibition will shine a faint light on those artists who risk their safety to find alternative ways to create and be a part of the cities they live in.

35 of the 103 artists from The Underbelly Project will be exhibiting art in The Underbelly Show, plus video and still footage of the artists at work in the tunnel. Here’s the full line-up: Faile, Dabs & Myla, TrustoCorp, Aiko, Rone, Revok, Ron English, Jeff Soto, Mark Jenkins, Anthony Lister, Logan Hicks, Lucy McLauchlan, M-City, Kid Zoom, 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.

For this show, the space will be transformed into an environment imitating the tunnel where The Underbelly Project took place, right down to playing sounds recorded in the station while The Underbelly Project was happening.

If you absolutely cannot wait until February to get We Own The Night, the book documenting The Underbelly Project, a limited number will be available at The Underbelly Show in a box set with 9 photographic prints and the book all contained in a handcrafted oak box. Additionally, you will be able to your book signed by the artists participating in The Underbelly Show.

The Underbelly Show will take place at 2200 Collins Avenue, South Beach, Miami 78 NW 25th Street, Wynwood, Miami. There will be a private opening on November 30th, and the space will be open to the general public December 2nd-5th, with a general opening on the 2nd from 8-10pm.

Photo by RJ Rushmore

Category: Featured Posts, Gallery/Museum Shows | Tags: adam 5100, aiko, anthony lister, chris stain, Dabs Myla, dan witz, faile, gaia, haze, i am, jason eppink, jeff soto, jeff stark, jim darling, joe iurato, jordan seiler, kid zoom, know hope, l'atlas, logan hicks, love me, lucy mclauchlan, m-city, mark jenkins, Meggs, michael de feo, momo, pac, remi/rough, revok, ripo, roa, ron english, rone, saber, sheone, skewville, skullphone, specter, stormie mills, surge, swoon, the london police, tina darling, trustocorp, underbelly project, workhorse

This week just keeps getting better. Looks like we’ve got a bit of NYC coming to Philadelphia with a show curated by Matt Siren. Here’s what I meant to blog about this week:

• Faith47 and DAL collaborated on this wall.
• If you’re a big fan of ABOVE, you need to see the special edition of his new book.
• Here’s a number of photos from Os Gêmeos’ latest museum show.
• Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel’s billboard takeovers from the 1970′s and 1980′s are great.
• Boe is doing something a bit different with his graffiti.
• Barry McGee has found new gallery representation in NYC.
• Blek le Rat, Aiko, Sickboy, Faile and Swoon give props to their favorite living street artists.
• Graffuturism are curating some walls in Miami next month and the line up is solid as can be.

Photo by Jaz

Category: Art News, Festivals, Gallery/Museum Shows, Photos, Random, Videos | Tags: above, aiko, barry mcgee, blek le rat, boe, dal, faile, faith47, jaz, Laguna, larry sultan, mike mandel, oz gemeos, swoon

Faile are back at Lazarides Gallery and this time it’s going to very different. After a 3 year London hiatus, they return to the city with a solo show that “strikes out in a sophisticated new direction.”

Fragments of Faile sees the artist’s work stripped down to its bare essentials, promising to explore the “archetypical structures” beneath their decade of remixed mass culture artwork.

As Lazarides Gallery states in it’s elaborately worded press release, “Assembled from the artists’ own archive, Fragments of FAILE represents not a radical departure, but a rare opportunity to see their iconic practice anew.”

It certainly sounds interesting, but I’m a little puzzled as to how the work is ‘new’ whilst also assembled from the their archive. I’m imagining single layered images that hark back to Faile’s roots and go some way to forming the multi layered work we are used to seeing from the duo – a bit of image recycling maybe. Although that view could have something to do with the following picture.

Images of the work are currently being kept underwraps, literally, but here’s a little sneak preview thanks to Steve Lazarides…

The show is open to the general public at Lazarides Rathbone from 4th November and runs until 3rd December, Tuesday – Saturday 11am – 7pm.

For more details about the show, including the press release, head over to the Lazarides website.

Photo courtesy of Lazarides Gallery

Category: Gallery/Museum Shows | Tags: faile, lazarides

One last post about Faile turn at the Bowery and Houston streets mural in NYC. Over the weekend, we posted Dani Mozeson’s photos of the duo finishing up the wall, but now that the wall has been finished, here are some photos and video of the final product by Matthew Kraus. His got a larger set of images over on flickr.

Photos and video by Matthew Kraus

Category: Photos, Videos | Tags: faile

As RJ mentioned earlier, the members of the Brooklyn-based Faile are the latest artists to hit the wall at Bowery and Houston.  These images were captured this afternoon:

Photos by Dani Mozeson

Category: Art News, Photos | Tags: Bowery, faile, mural, street art

Happy almost Halloween. It’s been a week of wasted energy, or so it seems. A potential legal wall that I was organizing has fallen through for the time being, but hopefully things are just delayed rather than cancelled. Here’s some of what I should have posted about this week:

• Reported, this sculpture at Occupy London was made and left there by Banksy, but that claim is unconfirmed by Banksy so far. Nonetheless, Zeus added this modification to the piece. And Above has also made some work in solidarity with the Occupy movement. Similarly to K-Guy’s work at Occupy London, I’m conflicted here. On the one hand, it’s great when artists who know how to get headlines do so in solidarity with a political movement of sorts, but on the other hand these artists are of course latching on to the movement and associating themselves with it in a way that they know will get headlines and potentially help them sell some paintings. Of course the same could be said of many of the celebrity speakers who have been generally well-received at Occupy events. So there’s that dilemma to think about.
• Faile are the latest artists to hit the wall at Bowery and Houston.
• Last time I was in NYC, I saw this billboard for Hennessy cognac with designs by Kaws. Just interesting to see the flip from a decade ago when Kaws would have modified that billboard illegal to insert his work onto it in an effort to associate with the Hennessy brand, and now Hennessy pays Kaws to associate with their brand. Also, this new Kaws/Snoopy toy goes on sale today on Kaws’ website. Okay, one last bit of Kaws news: I love this new painting by him.
• This is a nice video of ECB painting a wall in London.
• The Citrus Report interviewed Feral Child.
• John Baldessari’s views on street art.
• The Nuart festival book is available for pre-order.
• TrustoCorp’s show at Opera Gallery in NYC looks like a lot of fun.
• Here are two articles about street art and graffiti in Libya and other countries being impacted by the Arab Spring.

Photo by Bust

Category: Auctions, Books, Gallery/Museum Shows, Interview, Photos, Products, Random, Videos | Tags: above, banksy, bust, ecb, faile, feral, john baldessari, k-guy, kaws, nuart, opera gallery, trustocorp, zeus

This weekend I’ll be in Boston. If you have any ideas for what I should get up to, leave a comment. I’ll definitely be checking out Swoon’s installation at the ICA Boston. Here’s what’s been going on in street art while I’ve been locked in my room studying all week:

• Steve Powers aka ESPO designed some beer cozies for The World’s Best Ever. They’re pretty okay, but should your beer cozy really be more than pretty okay? I would honestly feel a bit weird of my beer cozy had some brilliant high-brow design on it. Much more impressive is the latest in Powers’ Love Letter series.
• Philips de Pury and MTV had a charity auction for MTV’s Staying Alive Foundation, with particularly nice work by Shepard Fairey and Faile.
• Stik’s latest solo show just opened in London.
• Some beautiful pieces by Sam3 in Porto, Portugal.
• AvoidPi designed the latest cover of Showpaper.
• Blu’s latest mural is in Greece.
• A nice booth for Joshua Liner Galler at Pulse in LA.
• Mr. Brainwash has a show opening soon in LA, but it’s going to be full of other people’s art. Anyone can submit work to be wheatpasted around the exhibition. On the one hand, yay, artists can benefit from Mr. Brainwash’s stupid fame and hype. On the other hand, I guess Mr. Brainwash has acknowledged that he doesn’t have any ideas for art, so he’s just openly benefiting from the art of others to further his own art career. So it’s mutually beneficial, except that individual artists submitting work will gain a lot less from this arrangement than Mr. Brainwash will gain overall.

Photo by Abode of Chaos

Category: Art Fairs, Auctions, Festivals, Gallery/Museum Shows, Photos, Products, Random | Tags: avoidpi, blu, faile, joshua liner gallery, mr. brainwash, philips de pury, sam3, shepard fairey, showpaper, steve powers, stik

Faile have been painting this week in Oslo in preparation for the T&J Art Walk taking place this month for the benefit of Human Rights Watch. Faile are the first artists to get to Olso and start painting for the event, but Shepard Fairey, Logan Hicks, D*face, The London Police, Seen, Fenx, Galo and others will be taking part as well. In addition to 10 murals in central Oslo celebrating the work of Human Rights Watch and memorializing the victims of last month’s terror attack, there will be an exhibition from August 18th through September 4th at the Norwegian auction house Blomqvist for the benefit of Human Rights Watch.

Check out some of what Faile has been up to in Oslo after the jump, and expect to see more T&J Art Walk murals on Vandalog soon… Read the rest of this article »

Category: Featured Posts, Festivals, Gallery/Museum Shows, Photos | Tags: dface, faile, fenx, galo, logan hicks, seen, shepard fairey, the london police, tj art walk

So I got the latest issue of Juxtapoz in my inbox today (I have a digital subscription), and realized that I still haven’t read the last issue yet. D’oh. So while I get on that, here are a few links to keep you busy.

• Contra Projects showed at Scope in Basel, Switzerland. They had work from TrustoCorp, How&Nosm and Tristan Eaton.
• This is perhaps a controversial statement, but Faile’s print show in LA looks great. I barely mentioned the show here before it opened because I didn’t have high expectations and the print release seemed silly, but damn was I wrong (about the show, still big on the print release). Faile get a lot of crap for their prints, but when they are on, they are really really on.
• This is a few weeks out still, but Subliminal Projects has a group show of female artists including Swoon.
• Lois has been posting on Vandalog about Ad Hoc Art’s Welling Court mural project, and the photo at the top of this post is from that project as well. Obviously I’m a fan. So here’s even a bit more from Welling Court, over at Brooklyn Street Art.
• This show over in Milan with Futura, Os Gêmeos, Delta and more looks great. Especially the Futura pieces.
• If you haven’t in a while, go check out Xylo’s website. Lots of good stuff on there. Especially his supermarket pieces.
• Someone, possibly associated with Banksy and possibly not, tagged this Banksy piece at MOCA. There has been work put up inside MOCA by uninvited artists, both in the bathrooms and throughout the McGee/James/Powers Street installation, but Banksy has also been changing up his section, so either option is definitely possible.

Photo by Beau Stanton

Category: Gallery/Museum Shows, Photos, Random | Tags: art in the streets, banksy, beau stanton, Darkclouds, delta, faile, futura, how, mocala, nosm, os gemeos, swoon, tristan eaton, trustocorp, xylo

This week the link-o-rama is coming from Steph’s room, where I’ve been staying. After all, got that beautiful baby boy to take care of… Here’s what’s been going on elsewhere in street art this week:

• Margaret Kilgallen’s show at Ratio 3 is open.
• Faile are releasing some gold prints at their print show in LA (opening tonight). Because gold = awesome. Or something like that.
• Cyop and Kaf painting for FAME Festival. And they now have a book.
• Definitely check out this video of Anthony Lister, Mymo and others in Berlin.
• Loving this portrait of a certain clown named Ronald by Zoltron.
• ABOVE has a book coming out later this year.
• This war memorial in Bulgaria has been taken over by superheroes.
• Mathieu Tremblin is interesting as always.
• West Berlin Gallery is showing some photos by Brenna.
• A nice interview with Stik.

Photo by Peter Fuss

Category: Books, Gallery/Museum Shows, Photos, Random | Tags: above, anthony lister, cyop e kaf, faile, margaret kilgallen, mathieu tremblin, mymo, peter fuss, stik, zoltron