RAE, close-up; photo by Lois Stavsky

I can never get enough of RAE‘s zany characters that surface regularly on a range of public surfaces in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn. TriBeCa gallery Masters & Pelavin is hosting two wondrously fashioned ones in the group exhibit, Legend Tripping, opening this evening from 6-8pm at 13 Jay Street.

RAE close-up; photo by Sara Mozeson

Photos by Lois Stavsky and Sara Mozeson

It was great to see RAE included in RJ’s list of 10 Street Artists to Watch in 2013 published over at Complex, as I’ve been a huge fan of RAE since his folksy, endearing characters first started surfacing on the streets of NYC. Here’s a bit of a preview of what the folks in London will get to see beginning tomorrow — Thursday – evening over at Signal Gallery:

Photos courtesy of RAE

Rae just put up this nice new sculptural piece in Brooklyn. And remember, Rae’s show Nocturnal Trips opens at London’s Signal Gallery on January 24th.

Photos courtesy of Rae

Tellas and Ciredz

Looks like the art world has gotten back on track after the holiday season. Lots of links this week.

• Over at Complex.com, I wrote about the 10 (well, actually 12) street artists that I think people should be watching for in 2013.
• Rae, one of the artists on that list of mine, has a solo show opening at Signal Gallery in London later this month.
• Broken Fingaz are also on that same list, and it looks like they have some new work up in London.
• Sten and Lex get up in an ancient church.
• I’d never heard of Kraser Tres before, but damn can he paint.
• And so can Sokram.
• Faile are working on a huge project with the New York City Ballet. It sounds like a bit of a strange collaboration at first, but I’m excited to see the results. It seems like this has given Faile an opportunity to develop new work in a direction that they would have otherwise never gone, and the results that have been teased so far look strong.
• 2501 has a show opening this month in Bologna.
• A lot of Rammellzee’s work is on display now at New York’s Children’s Museum of the Arts.
• There’s some great work available in the Iron To Gold/Ashes To Hope benefit auction which will help to fund an artist residency program in Detroit.
• Here’s a nice video of Kid Zoom at work.
• I might have asked this question before, but can someone please explain the appeal of Barry McGee’s recent Brooklyn mural to me? The first of the videos here has some info about it, but I need more. McGee has previously stated his objections to painting so-call beautifying murals. The only time in recent memory that I can recall seeing anything similar to the Brooklyn mural is the one he painted a few years ago in Miami, but even that piece included a fair bit of traditional graffiti. Plus, the Brooklyn mural was painted by the billboard painting company Colossal. I’ve got no problem with artist assistants or anything like that, but the whole thing strikes me as McGee just saying “Sure, if Cadillac wants to pay me a bunch of money to license one of my images and hire someone else to paint it on a building, I’ll take that paycheck.” And hey, more power to the guy if he can get Cadillac to pay him for that, but is that all that’s going on here or am I missing something? Has McGee’s philosophy about public art changed?

Photo by Tellas

RAE recently installed the above piece in a New York City subway station where there had previously been a random blank spot in the wall. Maybe a sign that had been removed and never replaced? Well now he spot has been filled with some great art. I love how this piece looks like an official installation, but really RAE just saw something wrong and fixed it.

Photos by Michael Fales

Click here to view large

RAE was in my hometown of Chicago a couple of weeks ago showing them how it’s done. RAE was in town thanks to Pawn Works, who had this to say about the visit:

We were very excited to be able to host Rae in Chicago to kick off an on-going mural project in the Historic Pilsen neighborhood on the Southside of Chicago of which we’ve been asked to participate in. We are working with the Alderman’s Office, The Mexican Museum of Art, The Chicago Urban Art Society and other partners to beautify a stretch of wall in the Pilsen neighborhood. With an array of amazing artists planned to come out to participate on our end we look forward to keeping everyone caught up.

Photos by Brooklynite Gallery

We don’t visit Bedford-Stuyvesant as often as we should, as its walls are among the most interesting – and least documented – around town.  But we did get over there earlier this week, where we discovered new work by RAE and Gaia and found a huge mural — overlooking a community garden — by Lelo, a street artist from Rio de Janeiro.

Close-up of huge mural by RAE

We love the way RAE has integrated the tree into his most recent public piece

Huge Gaia paste-up

Gaia goes green

Lelo

Lelo close-up

Photos by Tara Murray & Lois Stavsky

A lover of street art, outsider art and folk art – and especially anything fashioned from found objects – I look forward to every new Rae piece to surface on the streets.  I especially got a bang out of his two recent ones reflecting Rae’s great wit, as well as his skills.

 Photos by Lenny Collado and courtesy of the artist

I rarely walk along the blocks on and off Avenues A,B,C, and D between Houston and 14th Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side/East Village aka Alphabet City. But I did earlier today, and discovered works by some of my favorite artists, along with some alluring legal walls. Here’s a sampling:

By Veng

By Dain

Rae Installation (photo taken at night; I will revisit in daylight)

By Jonathan Matas

by Gary Fernandez

Photos by Lois Stavsky

Ranging from first-rate graffiti to folksy installations, the walls in Bushwick, Brooklyn are among the most intriguing anywhere. Here’s a sampling of what we saw today:

Dain

Dos and Dasic Fernandez

Ewok

Never -- whom we caught in action last week

Rae