Last week, Paper Monster released the latest print from Judith Supine. It’s called “Give Up The Ghost And Put On Flesh” and like the other new piece we found from him recently, it seems that Judith Supine has been limiting the use of his formally trademark green tint. Each print in the “Give Up The Ghost…” series is unique. They are relief prints that have been individually handpainted with acrylic and watercolors. The series is an edition of 50 and they are available online for $625 each.

Photos courtesy of Paper Monster

Keely

This week the Occupy Wall Street live streams have been very effective at distracting me from Vandalog, which I’m not too upset about. The violent and suppressive eviction of Occupy Wall Street is certainly more important that the latest swindle that some art gallery is trying to pull. Nonetheless, I have been paying attention even if I haven’t been writing, so here’s what’s been going on in the street art world this week:

• AEC and WAONE aka Interesni Kazki have their first US solo show opening this weekend at Mid-City Arts in LA. Arrested Motion have a preview.
• This Saturday afternoon in Brooklyn, Todd James and Steve Powers are showing their work from their installation Street from the Art in the Streets show at MOCA in LA earlier this year. Other members of Powers’ ICY Signs studio will also be showing their work.
• Graffiti writer and notorious sticker-er BNE started a foundation for clean water projects earlier this year, and 12oz. Prophet has interviewed him about it. Great to see writers doing such admirable work.
• Hope has a flickr stream with photos that graffiti geeks (and I say that in the best possible way) absolutely have to check out.
• This show at MK2 Projects includes Shepard Fairey, Matt Small, Aiko and more.
• Here’s a new painting by Judith Supine.
• C-Monster has photos of two stencils in Tahrir Square.
• EVOL is to be the star of this year’s Pictures on Walls holiday extravaganza, and he is already in London putting up some of his signature stencil work.
• Swoon musical project in New Orleans, Dithyrambalina, is coming along. Artists involved in the collaborative installation are performing a show called The Music Box on November 19th and December 10th. Here’s a trailer, which includes some of their October 22nd performance. Beautiful work, but I’m sure it’s something that really needs to be seen in person.
• Complex has their list of the top 25 Parisian graffiti writers.

Photo by Damonabnormal

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

Last week I had the chance to check out Judith Supine’s solo show at New Image Art. While it probably doesn’t quite live up to the hype, Ladybody is definitely worth checking out. Supine’s head is a mysterious cacophony of strangeness, and the installation mostly left me confused, but I’m not sure if that’s my fault or Supine’s. Either way, it was interesting to see his art in the environment that he seems to prefer showing it. One part of the installation which is an exception and a highlight is this sculpture:

Smoke creeps out of the baby’s open mouth, and when you look inside, this is what you see:

Photos can’t really do justice to the creepiness of this piece and it is worth checking out Ladybody for this sculpture alone.

And then there were the more traditional pieces:

Whoever has the balls to hang the image of a doughnut dripping syrup onto a waffle in their home has my respect. It’s one of my favorite images from Supine in a while, but it’s definitely one of his most difficult to hang.

Oh and be sure to check out some photos of the crazy opening.

Photos by Sonja Teri

Judith Supine is one of my all-time favorite street artists, both for his indoor and outdoor work, which is why I am overjoyed to write this post. Supine has a solo show opening next week at New Image Art in LA. I’ve never been to a Supine solo show before, but by all accounts they have been something very unique. I expect this to be the case once again. Ladyboy opens on April 13th and runs for a month. While most people will say that the highlight of art in April will be MOCA’s street art show, I think Ladyboy may turn out to be almost equally unmissable.

Last time I was in NYC, I had the chance to speak with Supine, and he’s definitely got a few things up his sleeve for this event… One thing I saw when I met with him was an unfinished work that had me simultaneously laughing my ass off and absolutely disgusted, but in a good way. Arrested Motion has a preview of Ladyboy which I highly suggest checking out in full, but I’ve taken one image from their post because it is the completed version of the image that I found so interesting. It’s called “Cream Pie in the Sky”…

Photo coutesy of Arrested Motion

Photo courtesy of Arrested Motion

Ripo for the LA Freewalls Project

Before I head out to Vincent Michael Gallery for the opening of the Robots Will Kill show in a few minutes, here’s what’s been going on that I haven’t mentioned on Vandalog…

• Normally I really don’t care for Mr. Andre, but this wallet is cool.
• Laser 3.14 has another shirt out.
• Adidas screwed up pretty big by buffing graffiti in Poland.
• Jake Dobkin and Hrag Vartanian on street artists and selling out.
• Juxtapoz visited Judith Supine’s studio.
• When a tree falls in the forest, how do you make it into fun art?

Photo by Ripo

Looks like Judith Supine has been getting up a bit in NYC, which is always nice to see. These aren’t his most complex pieces ever, but I do like how the above piece interacts with its surroundings. It’s also kind of interesting to compare these to his recent indoor work. It seems to me like his street art is looking a bit more DIY while the gallery work is getting more refined (and I don’t just mean the super glossy coating on his canvases).

Photos by Becki Fuller

Dain has been quite busy in NYC lately. I am loving the new works found on BSA yesterday, not just because they are colorful collage and I wish I could walk by them every day, but the images are so rich in art history that it boggles my mind. Maybe it is jsut because I am sitting in Sotheby’s being lectured at about Documenta X and seeing slide after slide of artists, but DAIN’s work (as well as Judith Supine) really remind me of Hannah Hoch, a German collage artist known best for her feminist and political works in the DADA movement in the early 1900′s. Understanding that street artists come from so many backgrounds, I find it fascinating that the ones that don’t have any art history background are actually repeating pieces from the art canon and putting their own modern spin on it without even knowing it. Possible dissertation piece maybe?

I could be completely wrong, and maybe the striking similarities are not just purely coincidental, but influenced by Hoch and John Heartfield, and other participants from around the world (not just Berlin). We all know that artists are influenced by others in order to find their voice, and some are blatant copycats, but the inclusion of established art history in street, whether intentional or not, furthers the notion that street art does have a place alongside fine artists.

All Photos by Jaime Rojo for Brooklyn Street Art

Escif. Photo by Escif

Escif painted that mural outside of Graffiti Gone Global’s Fresh Produce show in Miami last week. While Basel Miami and the associated events aren’t all about money, it’s certainly on everyone’s minds. That doesn’t mean that the shows were bad though. There was actually a lot of great art on display for those who took the time to look. Here are some of the indoor highlights (unfortunately, I didn’t have a camera with me besides my cameraphone, so I have to link to other peoples’ coverage of everything):

• Amazingly, Sanrio’s Hello Kitty show was, by all accounts, actually pretty good. I stuck to my vow of not checking out the show myself (okay, actually, once I changed my mind and wanted to see it, the show was close both times I tried to stop by). Of course it looks like there was some crap and boring pandering to the brand, but there seem to be a few decent paintings in there too. Also, it was super crowded every time I walked by, so hopefully those visitors who were there for Sanrio’s show also saw some of the other great shows nearby.
• Hi-Fructose and Arrested Motion have some good photo-summaries of the main fair, Basel Miami.
• Retna‘s solo show, Silver Lining, at Primary Projects was his first show since being on the cover of Juxtapoz. After landing in Miami last Thursday evening, I went to straight from the airport to Primary Projects to catch the end of this opening. There was a little bit of something for everyone: installations, canvas, monotype prints, work on old doors and more. Oddly enough, it was the more refined work that didn’t appeal to me. For me, the canvases seemed to be lacking that spark that makes Retna’s work so amazing. Everything else was a real treat though. The watercolors and monotypes in particular were beautiful. This show is still running, so any Miami residents who haven’t seen it yet really should stop by. For the rest of the world Arrested Motion took photos.
• Jonathan LeVine Gallery put on a solid group show. The standout piece was a new artwork by Judith Supine. Unfortunately, Hi-Fructose’s picture of the standout piece is blurry (the super-glossy varnish must have confused the camera) and the gallery’s photo doesn’t show the glossiness of the piece. HF have photos of the rest of the show though.
• While it was technically mostly a mural project, I’m throwing Wynwood Walls into this post because the vibe was like a gallery show. Hrag and I are pretty much in agreement on this one. Although I’d give Logan Hicks’ mural more credit than Hrag.

Lastly, I want to mention New Image Art‘s pop-up show. There was some new artwork by Judith Supine, Os Gêmeos, Bast and others, as well as a bunch of photos by Neckface and his friends, which are 100x more interesting than I had expected them to be. Here are a few photos from that show:

Os Gêmeos

Bast

Judith Supine

This is probably most, if not all, if the coverage I’ll be giving to indoor things at Basel Miami, but I’ll be posting a lot more about the murals and other outdoor events in the coming days.

Photos by Escif and courtesy of New Image Art

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