The Lost Ones is a group show opening this week at Fifty24MX, Upper Playground’s Mexico City gallery. The show is being curated by New Image Art Gallery‘s Marsea Goldberg and features some great street artists like Retna, Shepard Fairey, Judith Supine and Neck Face. The Lost Ones opens on Friday. I wonder of Arrested Motion will have photographers there, because I certainly don’t know anybody who will be there taking photos and I’d like to see this once it’s open.
Jonathan LeVine Gallery‘s annual summer group exhibition is on right now, and there are a few noteworthy pieces that I just had to share.
EVOL is one of the artists really pushing forward the use of multi-layered stencils, and he doesn’t get enough credit for it. His cityscapes on cardboard are something special. And, unlike a few other artists who depict the urban environment and attempt to achieve something nearing photo-realism with stencils, EVOL’s style doesn’t look like a ripoff of Logan Hicks.
Simple Solutions by EVOL
And then there are the new paintings by Judith Supine. Like his painting at Shred, these two paintings seem to have that glossier-than-a-sheet-of-glass look. Personally, I think it’s great. Other people don’t like it. But I’m pretty confident that the super-glossy look makes theses paintings look even better. As usual, Supine has made something beautiful, mesmerizing and disturbing.
Among the street and low-brow art communities, the Shred show on now at Perry Rubenstein Gallery is probably the most-talked-about exhibition currently on in New York. Shred is a show of collaged-based artwork which has been curated by Carlo McCormick. While Shred is by no means intended as a show about “street artists,” there are works by a number of street artists hanging alongside classic collage artists like Gee Vaucher. Perry Rubenstein Gallery is a major New York City gallery, and to my knowledge, this is the first time they have exhibited work in their gallery by the current generation of street artists (although there is a Faile solo show at the gallery later this year).
Gee Vaucher
After speaking with a few people about this show, but not yet having seen it in the flesh myself, I was disappointed. Most of the people that I spoke with were of the general opinion that although the show might have one or two solid pieces, it wasn’t really worth stopping by and it was generally not as good as anyone had expected. Luckily, I didn’t listen to those friends and stopped by the gallery anyway while I was recently in New York. I can’t figure out what people were complaining about. The show has plenty of solid pieces along with some of the best work I have seen from Judith Supine and Shepard Fairey.
This piece by Judith Supine is one of my favorites that he has ever done (I always seem to say that when I see his work in the flesh, but he just keeps getting better). Unfortunately, this photo just doesn’t do the work justice. The varnish that Supine often coats his paintings with has been lapped on extra thick and reflective here and the green specks throughout the piece are actually fake nails embedded into the varnish. I’ve heard complaints that the work is too reflective, but I have to disagree. Besides, most any frame that the work’s owner might put on the piece would be reflective as well unless they decided to spend extra money on non-reflective glass. New Yorkers really need to go see this one in person. It’s a real beauty.
Judith Supine
And Shepard Fairey’s piece is a retired stencil; in fact, it’s one of the best retired stencils I’ve seen from Fairey.
Shepard Fairey
Shred marks the start of something new for Brian Adam Douglas (did you know that Vandalog recently interviewed Brian?), with his collages moving from portraits to a new narrative subject matter:
Brian Adam Douglas
Finally, there is Swoon’s contribution to Shred. While I’m not really liking this new image that she’s been using recently (the man’s head looks like more of a caricature than her typical portraits which bring out the inner beauty of her subjects), the collaged details are what makes this piece so interesting. It’s definitely not a typical Swoon. For this work, Swoon has taken to doing Fairey-like collages of newspaper artists and tiny screenprints in the background of the work. Unfortunately, I don’t have an image that really shows these off well, but the small screenprinted designs towards the bottom of the work are stunning.
Swoon
Shred runs at Perry Rubenstein Gallery in New York City through August 27th, and I urge you to go have a look in person.
Photos courtesy of the artists and Perry Rubenstein Gallery
It’s been a long time since Seth and I have had a group show this big at Carmichael Gallery – there will be over 35 artists represented on the walls when we open “Booked” on Saturday, June 5th! Some of the artists we’ve worked with for several years and others we’ll be showing for the first time. We’re also going to have lots of great art books and magazines from publishers like Drago, Gingko, Studiocromie (I really enjoyed opening up the box of Blu and Sam3 books!) and VNA. Books and art are two of the best things in the world, in my opinion, so it should be a fun event! We will be open from 12-8pm on Saturday for Culver City Art Walk (make sure to visit all the other galleries on the block if you come by; there will be lots of cool things to see) and the reception itself is from 6-8pm.
Here are some of the pieces in the show.
Martha Cooper
Escif
SpY
Anthony Lister
Lucas Price (aka Cyclops)
Bumblebee
Brad Downey
Here’s the full line up of artists and publishers:
Aiko, Banksy, Beejoir, Blek le Rat, Boxi, Bumblebee, C215, Henry Chalfant, Martha Cooper, D*Face, Brad Downey, Eine, Ericailcane, Escif, Faile, Shepard Fairey, Stelios Faitakis, Gaia, Hush, Mark Jenkins, Dave Kinsey, Know Hope, Labrona, Anthony Lister, Lucy McLauchlan, Aakash Nihalani, Walter Nomura (a.k.a. Tinho), Other, Steve Powers (a.k.a. ESPO), Lucas Price (a.k.a. Cyclops), Retna, Saber, Sam3, Sixeart, Slinkachu, SpY, Judith Supine, Titi Freak, Nick Walker, Dan Witz and WK Interact
A charity street art auction at the Factory Fresh gallery will see the largest array of street artists together anywhere so far this year in tandem with the book launch for Street Art New York.
The book by Steven P. Harrington and Jaime Rojo (brooklynstreetart.com), with a foreword by Carolina A. Miranda (c-monster.net), is published by Prestel – who have upped the ante with regards the front cover design. Instead of using a free download, ‘graffiti’ font, they have chosen one that doesn’t scream urban cool, tastefully adjacent to an image by Judith Supine. I’ve read that Harrington is a book designer by trade, so it makes sense. I guess the less said about the cover for the pair’s 2008 release, Brooklyn Street Art the better.
The art auction will raise money for the kids charity, Free Arts NYC, who aid children and families with educational art and mentoring programmes.
The list of participating artists thus far includes: Bishop 203, Billi Kid, Bortusk Leer, Broken Crow, C Damage, C215, Cake, Celso, Chris RWK , Chris Stain, Creepy, DAIN, Damon Ginandes, Dan Witz, Dark Clouds, Elbow Toe, Gaia, FKDL, General Howe, GoreB, Hellbent, Imminent Disaster, Jim Avignon, Jef Aerosol, JMR, Jon Burgerman, Keely, Know Hope, Logan Hicks, Mark Carvalho, Matt Siren, Mint and Serf, Miss Bugs, NohJColey, Peru Ana Ana Peru, PMP, Poster Boy, Rene Gagnon, ROA, Pufferella, Royce Bannon, Skewville, Specter, Stikman, The Dude Company, Tristan Eaton, Veng RWK.
The auction and launch will take place at the Factory Fresh gallery, Bushwick, Brooklyn, April 24, from 7-11pm.
Nylon TV has just posted this video of Judith Supine in his studio. It’s pretty short, but I love just about anything Judith Supine related, so a quick look into his studio is better than not seeing it at all.
We gallerists have all been extremely busy here at SCOPE today. Take a look below at some of the work we’ll be showing at the preview tomorrow! I’ve tried to stick to mainly images of urban-related art (and there’s a lot to be found here!) Allow my buddy Ellis G (below), one of the fair’s featured artists, to guide you.
Maya Hayuk at Anonymous Gallery.
Judith Supine at New Image Art.
Evol at Wilde Gallery
AJ Fosik at Jonathan Levine Gallery (not street but a very cool piece). That’s a chunk of a very long James Jean in the background.
Calma at Jonathan Levine Gallery.
Sixeart, Nunca, Mark Jenkins at our booth (Carmichael Gallery)
Hush (also at our booth)
Dave Kinsey, Tomokatsu Matsuyama, Cleon Peterson at Joshua Liner Gallery
Another piece by Tomokatsu Matsuyama at Joshua Liner (not a very nice photo, but this piece is beautiful in person)
An overdue post. Fame Festival opened almost 2 weeks ago now and I haven’t properly covered it. There were a few of us who traveled to see the festival (some from as far away as LA), and if you couldn’t make it for the opening, I have to recommend it for a weekend getaway or something. Everybody had a great time. There was good food, good company and good art.
The gallery component of the festival was nice, but the highlight of Fame isn’t the temporary gallery exhibition but all of the street work. Artists have painted all over the small town of Grottaglie, Italy. Here are some of my pictures:
Blu
Dem
David Ellis
Vhils
While it is great to wander around the town and see so much street art almost wherever you look, the highlight of Fame Festival is the monastery. There is an abandoned monastery where I am told the local teenagers usually go to bunk off school, and it has been transformed by artwork. It also happens to be where the Blu/David Ellis film Combo was filmed.
To enter this monastery, you have to go down a road out of town, walk past what I think was a small vineyard, find the wall that surrounds the monastery and follow it until you see some red drips of paint. Then you climb over the wall by standing on a shaky pile of rocks. The other side of the wall looks like a park that has been left to grow for a few decades. There are a few paths where you can see that plenty of people have walked, and you have to find the correct one to follow. Eventually, you realize that you’re on the roof on the monastery and you have to find your way inside. Once you’re finally inside though, it is immediately worth the trouble of finding your way there. I spent maybe 1.5 hours there and still didn’t see all of the artwork. Here are a few of the pieces I did find though:
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