Surge, Gaia, Stormie, Remi/Rough and in The Underbelly Project

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

Primary Projects, the gallery that came out of Primary Flight, has a group show opening next month called His Wife and Her Lover. The show centers on the themes of “destruction, secrecy, violence, social class, pride and desire.” Two artists of note for Vandalog readers will be Mark Jenkins and Cleon Peterson. Also included in the show are Valerie Hegarty, George Sanchez Calderon, Dead Dads Club Corporation, Manny Prieres, Emmett Moore, Franky Cruz, Andrew Nigon, Nick Klein, Johnny Robles, Jessy Nite and Edouard Nardon. His Wife and Her Lover opens on September 10th and runs through October 1st.

Cleon Peterson

Image courtesy of Primary Projects

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

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

Here are some new works by French street artist Milo Project. Reminding me a lot of Mark Jenkins, Milo Project places realistic mannequins in the fetal position all over France. Below is a video of people’s reactions that is pretty funny even if you don’t speak French.

All photos by Milo Project

Beautiful night. Photo by Workhorse

One of my roommates came by a few minutes ago and asked “So, did shit hit the fan?” He knew I was posting something about Underbelly yesterday, but he’s not really the artsy type so he didn’t know quite what it was.

Well indeed shit has hit the fan, but mostly in a good way so far. The Underbelly Project made it into The New York Times and The Age. Also, Ian Cox and Luna Park have posted their photos on their respective blogs. And their photos are much better than mine, so check them out.

It seems most people are liking the project, even if some have some reservations. As one commenter on my last post pointed out, maybe you had to be there to experience some of the awesomeness, but it’s still pretty cool. I think that’s a fair assessment. Some artists’ work is best viewed in person, and the best artworks in The Underbelly Project tend to fall into that category. Posterchild put up an interactive sculpture, and Dan Witz’ art is definitely more powerful when it comes as a surprise and in person.

But there’s been one criticism that I absolutely don’t buy: That The Underbelly Project was conceived and executed purely for commercial gain. Yeah, later this week I’ll be posting a trailer to a documentary about the project, but the organizers, who I think are two very bright people, would have to be complete idiots to do this project if their only interest was a sick book deal. Yeah, there are street artists and graffiti writers out there who do illegal work to get attention and doing well-promoted street art can sell a painting or two. I’ve called out people on doing things like that before. That said, the scale and risk of The Underbelly Project is greater than what could be often by any likely monetary rewards. It would be much easier and less risky to either fake the entire project in a warehouse somewhere or just do something that relies on one or two big events instead of a year of secrecy and dangerous activities. I highly doubt that The Underbelly Project will be an efficient way to make money for the participants, even with any future books or films or anything like that. When I was first told about The Underbelly Project, it was little more than an idea, and the idea was to create a secret street art and graffiti Mecca, not to make a million bucks.

Here are some more photos from down in the tunnel:

Lister. Photo by Garrett

Sinboy. Photo by RJ

Surge, The Flower Guy, Stormie, Indigo and somebody I don't know. Photo by RJ

Photo by Garrett

Photo by Garrett

Gaia. Photo by PAC

Mark Jenkins and Con. Photo by Workhorse

Paper Twins and 1010. Photo by PAC

M-City. Photo by Workhorse

Lister. Photo by RJ

Jeff Soto. Photo by RJ

Roa, Revok and Ceaze. Photo by RJ

I’ll continue this week to post more photos, but you can check out a more full set of my images on flickr.

Photos courtesy of The Underbelly Project (by Workhorse, PAC and Garrett) and by RJ

This summer, I sat in a massive pitch-black room and muttered “Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit…” over and over again. I couldn’t stop repeating “Holy shit” for maybe for five minutes. I’d been anticipating this moment for nearly a year. I was somewhere underneath New York City. I was waiting to be shown The Underbelly Project. Technically, I was there to take photos, but really I didn’t care at all if images came out or not. Really, I just wanted to see firsthand what was going on 4-stories below the streets of New York City.

Revok and Ceaze. That light comes from the lights that were set up temporarily for an artist who was painting that night.

Imagine Cans Festival, FAME Festival or Primary Flight: Some of street art and graffiti’s best artists all painting one spot. That’s kind of like The Underbelly Project. Except that The Underbelly Project took place in complete secrecy, in a mysterious location and without any authorization. Over the past year, The Underbelly Project has brought more than 100 artists to an abandoned and half-finished New York City subway station. Each artist was given one night to paint something.

Know Hope had this entire room to himself. What was this room meant to be? An elevator shaft? An office? I have no idea.

Workhorse and PAC, the project’s organizers, have put countless hours into their ghost subway station, and now they’re finally ready to unveil it to the world, sort of (more on that later). So I guess that’s why I was in that dark room, sitting in silence, waiting for them to give me a flashlight. I’m still not sure why I’d been extended the invitation to see the station firsthand, but I couldn’t be more grateful for the opportunity. The Underbelly Project is going to be part of street art history.

Surge, Stormie Mills, Remi/Rough and Gaia

Eventually, Workhorse and PAC came over to where I was sitting and lent me a flashlight. I stood up, already coated in dust and probably dirtier than I’ve ever been, and got a full tour of the station. I’m not somebody who is good at estimating the size of a space, but The Underbelly Project took place in a space that was meant to be a subway station, so I guess it was the size of a subway station with a few tracks. The station is like a concrete cavern: random holes who-knows how deep into the ground, dust thick like a layer of dirt, leaky ceilings and hidden rooms. Except the whole station is covered in art. Think of FAME Festival’s abandoned monastery transplanted to beneath New York City. I’m not an urban explorer, so I had no idea that there are abandoned subway stations throughout New York, but The Underbelly Project seems like just about the best possible use of one.

Of course, having been down there myself, I’m going to be prone to hyperbole. Even at it’s simplest, even if The Underbelly Project is “just another mural project,” it’s a story that the artists can tell for years, and it may even be evidence that street art isn’t so far gone and corporate as some people have suggested.

Swoon and Imminent Disaster. Disaster's piece is stunning beyond belief and fits the space so perfectly.

The list of artists who painted for The Underbelly Project goes on and on, but here are just a few:

Swoon

Gaia

Know Hope

Revok

Roa

Dan Witz

Jeff Soto

Faile

Mark Jenkins

Elbow-toe

TrustoCorp

Mark Jenkins and Con. This is at the end of a long and dark tunnel that, at the time, was not otherwise painted.

On my visit, The Underbelly Project wasn’t finished. In fact, somebody was painting there that night. Nonetheless, the space was already substantially painted and postered. I spent that night wandering around the tunnels, taking photos and getting lost (and also scared – Damn you Mark Jenkins! You can’t put a sculpture like that at the end of a darkened hall. I thought it was a person!).

TrustoCorp

And what now? The walls have all been painted and the artists have moved on to new projects. When the last artist finished painting the last wall, Workhorse and PAC made access to The Underbelly Project nearly impossible by removing the entrance. Even if any of us wanted to go back (and I do), even if we could remember how to get there (and I don’t), we can’t. Nobody can. For now, The Underbelly Project has become a time capsule of street art, somewhere in the depths of New York City.

Meggs

Brad Downey once explained to me why he thought Damien Hirst’s diamond skull is interesting. It had something to do with what people would think of the skull in 1000 years, when its original meaning has been lost to time. That’s when the skull is going to become a true icon and object with immense power. In some ways, The Underbelly Project is like Hirst’s skull, without the price tag. One day, decades from now hopefully, somebody may rediscover that old subway station and have no idea what they’re looking at. Hopefully, they’ll just feel that it’s something incredibly special.

Dan Witz. This was the first time I'd seen his street art in person. It's the perfect setting for Dan's Dark Doings series.

Here are some more images from The Underbelly Project, and expect more over the coming days on Vandalog and around the blogosphere… Or you can pay £1 to read an in-depth article about it in today’s Sunday Times.

Stash (well, part of his piece). This is another room like Know Hope's area.

Swoon and Lister

L'Atlas, Mr Di Maggio, 1010, Paper Twins, Bigfoot, Control/Jice. Photo by Workhorse

Faile. Photo by PAC

Skewville, PAC, SheOne, Revok/Ceaze. Photo by PAC

Photos by RJ Rushmore, Workhorse and PAC

Mark Jenkins

After a series of shows in LA over the summer, Lazarides Gallery‘s next pop-up show is taking place back home in London. Next month, they’ll be at The Old Vic Tunnels (aka, the Leake Street tunnels) for a group show: Hell’s Half Acre. The is only running from October 12-17th, but the list of artists is top notch: Polly Morgan, Vhils, Mark Jenkins, Bast, Todd James and more.

The entire show will be inspired by Dante’s Inferno and all the artists will making work based on their interpretations of hell.

For more info, go here (sorry, it’s a PDF).

Photo by Jack Two

The first few weeks in July, Mark Jenkins, and friends will be running around France installing interactive street works.  Here are some of the pictures from their time in Royan.

July and 6th and 7th the band of artists will be in Pointe du Medoc, and in Bourdeaux from July 8th-10th

The full list of artists from the Jenkins run festival include:
Ruskig
Aakash Nihalani
Theo Watson
Charlie Todd
Tim Conlon
Jared Gradinger
Masagon
Paul Notzold
Erell
Evan Roth
Chris Sugrue
Truthtag
Benjamin Gaulon

Mark Jenkins

Masagon

Banjamin Gaulon

All Photos courtesy of Les Grandes Traversees