There are a bunch of shows open now or opening in the next month that I’d like to mention, but there are only so many hours in the day. So here’s a bit of a round-up:

• Détournement: Signs of the Times is a group show that just opened at Jonathan Levine Gallery in NYC. It was curated by the legendary Carlo McCormick and features artists who “subvert consensus visual language so as to turn the expressions of capitalist culture against themselves.” Some of those artists in Détournement are Aiko, David Wojnarowicz, Ripo, Posterboy, Ron English, Shepard Fairey + Jamie Reid, Steve Powers, TrustoCorp and Zevs.
• Chris Stain and Joe Iurato are showing together for a two-man show at NYC’s Mighty Tanaka. The show opens on Friday. These are two great and underrated stencil artists. I highly recommend checking out this show, particularly given the superb quality of Stain’s recent indoor work.
• Sweet Toof has a solo show opening this week at High Roller Society a pop-up space in Hackney Wick, London.
• Contemporary Wing’s (Washington, DC) latest group show, opening on the 16th, is an exhibit of secondary market work, but there should some nice stuff, including work by Shepard Fairey, WK Interact, Gaia, Faile and Blek le Rat. I must admit that I’ve included a piece in this show, but I’m not going to say which one (so if you want to help me out, just buy the entire show…).
• Finally, Dabs and Myla have curated a show at LA’s Thinkspace Gallery which will open September 1st. In addition to their own paintings and installations, the show features 32 of their friends, plus a solo show in Thinkspace’s project room by Surge MDR. Those shows open September 1st.

Photo by Susan NYC

Dimitris Taxis in Barcelona

Usually I have something to say here about my week, but it’s all kind of a blur and I’ve been struggling to find any words to describe what’s been going on or excuses for not blogging about everything interesting I’ve seen this week. So let’s skip the pointless pleasantries and here’s the stuff I missed:

• Some thoughts from Alone One on graffiti and street art coexisting (and the inherent superiority of graffiti, according to the author). While I agree with the author that, in the case pictured, Aakash Nihilani and Posterboy did the smart and respectful thing by utilizing a piece of graffiti in their street art rather than covering it unnecessarily, the all-to-common argument that graffiti is always always always superior to street art really upsets me. Is there something beautiful/powerful about a tag that street art cannot capture? Sure. Are there street artists (and young graffiti writers) who stupidly go over important graffiti? Definitely, all the time. But warning that street artists can never go over graffiti under any circumstances is narrow-minded and naive, especially today when so much work blurs the line between street art and graffiti. It’s too bad when such a talented writer has such a narrow view of things.
• Here’s the latest work by Dal.
• Evol never fails to impress.
• MOMO is part of a show on at Space 1026 in Philadelphia and made this sculpture.
• Os Gêmeos have a show opening next week at the Museu Vale in Vila Velha, Brazil. Here’s a bit of a preview.
• Some stunning walls were painted at Meeting of Styles London this year, particularly by Shok1.
• S.Butterfly has a set of images from the Moniker fair. I’d like to hear in the comments what people who were there in the flesh thought, but it looks to me like a bit of brilliance (Dabs/Myla, Matt Small), a bit of goodness (Cash For Your Warhol, Aiko) and then a massive logo from D*Face and Scream Gallery’s booth which both just make me want to scream in a bad way (although I think D*Face’s piece actually looked a lot better once someone tried to mess it up and he had to change the piece to this). Update: It’s actually unclear if that simple D*face Ddog logo was intended to stay that simple or if the additions were part of the plan all along given this piece inside the fair.

Photo by Dimitris Taxis

Yesterday RJ and I got sent this video of a a mural being put up in Sydney sponsored by Lipton Iced Tea. Despite tagging over some work already put there, the mural isn’t half bad. Apparently this is part of an ongoing series sponsored by the brand to create urban art projects in Australia while showcasing their partnered artists talents.

It’s no secret that art and advertising have been hand in hand ever since graffiti style became popular in the early 1980′s. But where is the line drawn between advertising art and art for advertising? And as such, can the work stand on its own as an entity to be appreciated or is it less appealing because it has brand association?

The video led us to further question other examples of this practice in the past and how audiences reacted to the works. I can think of several just near my flat alone- Tron Legacy painted ad on Great Eastern Street and the large scale Converse painted ad that went over the Eine piece on the Village Underground. Last week Vandalog posted about the annual Supreme paste ups depicting a celebrity photographed by everyone’s favorite “alleged” model molester, Terry Richardson. This year it was Lady Gaga who graced the streets of cities and my Tumblr dashboard as the photograph went viral. An annual event though, these flyers usually get bombed on their own by artists. In their own right, these photographs are artworks and can stand next to any Rankin or Chapelle portrait. But does the added connotation of being associated with Supreme lessen its artistic value? And what about artists like Faile and Poster Boy and Aakash Nihalani who amended the Lou Reed Supreme ads? Are those also further removed from the brand because the artist chose to alter the ads of their own volition?

I just wanted to put this idea out there and would love to hear what you guys think.

Photo by Steven P. Harrington for Brooklyn Street Art

Photo by Steven P. Harrington for Brooklyn Street Art

El Celso isn’t the only artist who is experimenting with Peru’s unique Chica style of posters, a style pioneered by the Urcuhuaranga family in Lima, Peru. In Miami, Primary Projects have a group show opening this Saturday in homage to Chica posters. For Para Mi Gente, more than 50 artists have contributed designs to a Chica-style collaboration. Shepard Fairey, El Celso, Tristan Eaton, Skullphone, Posterboy, El Tono and others have sent designs to the Primary Projects crew who will combine all these designs by hand painting them throughout the gallery. The artists have little control over how their designs will look on the walls, where they will appear, or next to what. This sounds like a pretty unique and risky show. It should look cool, and it will definitely mess with the standard notions of what gallery art should be and look like.

Here’s the flyer with all the critical info you may need:

PosterBoy recently posted this photo on his flickr. It’s described as a “collaboration” with Hargo, who does the Cash For Your Warhol billboards and signs. Besides reminding me of Specter‘s sidebusts, it brings up some interesting questions. Like a lot of work that critiques advertising and a capitalist art world, Cash For Your Warhol’s work seems to have become, to a small community, an advertisement for the art as much as a critique of the art world. While I like what Hargo does, I think there’s also a lot of value in PosterBoy modifying the billboard. Jordan Seiler, someone I consider an authority on this subject, has said that the best advertising takeovers are those where there are no identifying features to turn the disruption into an ad of its own, and Hargo’s work certainly doesn’t fallow those rules. Nonetheless, the vast majority of art-fair visitors who say the above billboard outside of Scope this year in Miami would have had no idea about Hargo and not seen the work as advertising.

And of course, I could be misinterpreting this and PosterBoy could essentially be agreeing with Hargo’s sentiment about the absurdity of the art market by ripping apart the billboard as if it were a real ad promoting a sort of Warhol pawn shop.

Photo by Poster Boy NYC

On July 27, Poster Boy will release a retrospective of his work in a published book entitled, The War of Art. Known for his advertisement mash-ups in city subways and streets, Poster Boy’s book will feature an array of his work thus far. The book is broken into three parts including his ad alterations, collaborations and odes to other street artists, and exhibition work. I am personally really excited to see the sponsored MOMA ad campaign altered pieces that caused so much controversy in NYC subways on whether it was vandalism or not. Read a great review of the book here on Subway Art.

Poster Boy is still thought to be one person, but rumors circulate that it is actually a NYC collective, since his work still appeared after his arrest and sentencing.

To pre-order the The Art of War, visit Amazon

All Photos by Subway Art

I’m loving this latest Aakash Nihalani Poster Boy collaboration.

And remember, free Henry.

Photo by Aakash Nihalani

Poster Boy, more accurately Henry Matyjewicz who is one of the artists involved with the Poster Boy movement, was recently sentenced to 11-months in prison for a just few hundred dollars worth of “damages” (depending on your point of view) to ads on the New York subway system. Mark Batty Publisher, the publisher of Poster Boy’s upcoming book (can’t wait to get this in my hands), has started a Facebook group in support of Poster Boy. There are just a few hundred members of the group so far, but I’ve joined and I hope you will too.

This whole thing is absurd. Henry should not be in prison for making the world a less ad-filled cesspool, and even if he did damage a few ads and the advertisers think he needs to pay for that, 11-months is a vindictive and cruel sentence.

What really upsets me is that Poster Boy has clearly been targeted and is being made an example of solely because he modifies advertising. Poster Boy has done a great job of trying to stay anonymous, but the police crashed an art opening last year just to find him. And yet, much more public street artists like Mr. Brainwash and Swoon seem to avoid arrest without much difficulty. I’m not saying that they should be arrested, just that it’s clear that police specifically targeted Poster Boy. Maybe this is a stupid argument to be making. I dunno. At the very least, I think it’s fair to say that disbanding NYPD’s Vandal Squad and reassigning those police to investigating drug dealers would be a better use of taxpayer dollars. Anyway, that’s my rant about a crappy justice system.

Here’s a good quote from Poster Boy’s flickr:

“I don’t care if I fall as long as someone else picks up my gun and keeps on shooting.”
-Che Guevara

Free Henry!
-Poster Boy

Once again, please join this Facebook group in support of Poster Boy and Henry.

Seth and I were really sad to hear this morning that our good friend Poster Boy has been sentenced to 11 months in jail. Things weren’t looking good for him, but it’s just awful to hear that they have come to have this.

Animal New York reported the news here and also commented on the fact that PB missed his court date on May 6^th. It seems that if he had been present that day, all of this could have been avoided. I couldn’t think why he wouldn’t have gone so I talked to a mutual friend and the truth is that Poster Boy simply got the date wrong; he thought he was supposed to come in the next day. Unfortunately, now he’s really paying for his simple mistake. As Animal goes on to note, he came in on May 7^th to apologize, but it was too late:

Although PB did miss his May 6th court date, he did come in the following day around 2PM on May 7th to apologize, however the court wasn’t hearing any of that and he was taken into custody. He spent the weekend at Rikers and it was this morning that he was sentenced to the 11 months. “It was unwarranted,” says Gotlib, who promised to absolutely appeal the “shocking decision.” He was expected to get 3 years probation, not jail time.

On April 30th, sensing the urgency of his case,  PB sent an email out asking for support from the greater art community.

Here’s an extract:

“A graduate of NYU, Henry is a working artist and activist based in Brooklyn. His most recent participation with the Poster Boy street art movement resulted in legal trouble. Initially, Henry was hit with misdemeanor charges and community service as a result of these activities. However, the district attorney has since tried to pursue Felony Class charges based partially on the false testimony of a transit officer. It is important to note that this is Mr. Matyjewicz’s first offense. Despite these facts, the District Attorney is unwilling to view this case reasonably.

At one point during these proceedings the DA asked for bail to be set at an unprecedented $20,000. This extremely high amount is more in line with bail requests for violent felons accused of dealing drugs or for cases involving weapons.

Perhaps more telling, the DA is attempting to send Mr. Matyjewicz to prison for a year. All of this for the alleged defacement of a few ad posters, a victimless crime, and clearly not a felony.

Fortunately we have recently gained the support of prominent Civil Rights Activist and Best Selling author, David Mixner. David is best known for his important work in anti-war activities and gay rights advocacy. In light of these recent developments, Mr. Matyjewicz has decided to take his case to court and fight these outlandish charges.

Regardless of whether you agree with the views of Mr. Matyjewicz or the Poster Boy movement, we should all be able to agree that this is an assault on the art & culture community.

We respectfully ask for your signature to show your support of Henry and to help keep New York City safe for artists and independent thinkers. Many thanks for your support.”

When I last saw Poster Boy, which was when I was last in New York barely a month ago, he was really excited about the release of his upcoming book and was talking about some of the fun ideas he had to promote it when it came out. The book is mostly composed of work that has never been made public, so if you’re a fan, you’re in for a nice surprise.

The fact that he is in now jail for his art just disgusts me. Think of all the people out there who commit real crimes, yet live their lives unpunished, and compare them to the actions of an artist who was only making the streets and subways look a bit more interesting. This world is really messed up.

We need to do something about this and help get Poster Boy out of here.

-      Elisa

Image via Poster Boy’s flickr.

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.