The Electric Windows Project in Beacon was a great success this year, getting out some great art and bringing together Brooklyn hipsters and longtime Beacon residents…
But by Tuesday, dozens of outraged townies assembled at the Beacon city planning board meeting to protest a couple of pieces I did. After a quick briefing in closed session with the city attorney, who went over the first amendment with planning board members, the board announced that although it had no legal right to order the work taken down, it would allow the public to express their outrage over the fact that I used Jesus as a corporate spokesmodel and “Crack” as a criticism of fast food in a couple of “subvertisements.”
The board let me speak first, and I expressed surprise that my work created such a furor. I’m always surprised when this kind of thing happens… which is often and usually propagated by people who don’t understand or fully take in the work but instead attach their own agenda to it.
After I spoke, a wave of angry Christians took their turns at the mike. One woman wanted to know why she couldn’t paste up the photos of dead fetuses that she routinely held up at the health clinic. Others wanted to know what gave me the right to comment on the most powerful religion on the planet. And one board member expressed outraged that I was promoting crack… to the children. Afterwards, a teacher got up to helpfully explain that children don’t understand metaphor.
Then a self-professed stateside noncombat post traumatic stress-afflicted veteran informed me that he had notified Miller High Life about my offensive parody of their brand..
So English returned to Beacon and modified the posters. Check out the new posters on his Juxtapoz blog.
Last weekend, residents of Beacon, NY were treated to live painting by a couple of dozen artists, including some of street art’s finest. The artists were their for Electric Windows. Steph mentioned the event last month, but here’s the short version: artists paint panels which then go on display in the windows of a former electric blanket factory. An interesting idea, but I still think the best part of this event was the chance for members of the public to wait such talented artists work. Papermonster has over 100 photos from Electric Windows on his blog. Here are some of my favorite pieces from the event:
Papermonster
Elbow-toe
Gaia
Chris Stain, one of a few artists at the event who worked directly on walls
On Saturday July 31, Electric Windows will take place in Beacon, NY. Sponsored by Open Space Gallery and Burlock Home, 30 artists well venture to the town to participate in live painting on an abandoned factory building. This year’s event will include two other installation sites in addition to the factory.
Here is a video from Electric Windows 2008
The full list of artists include:
Big Foot
Buxtonia
BoogieRez Cern
Chor Boogie
Chris Stain
Chris Yormick
Depoe Elbow Toe
Elia Gurna
Ellis G
Erik Otto
Eugene Good
Faust Gaia
Joe Iurato
Mr Kiji
Logan Hicks
Lotem & Aviv
Michael De Feo Paper Monster
Peat Wollaeger
Rick Price Ron English
Ryan Bubnis
Ryan Williams
Skewville
thundercut
A few days ago, Gaia wrote about Ad Hoc Art’s Welling Court Mural Project. Here’s a quick update with more of the finished artwork. Becki Fuller and Luna Park have a bunch more photos of the event over at their blog, The Street Spot.
Daryll Peirce sent me these photos from Willoughby Windows v2.0, the latest version of Ad Hoc Art’s Willoughby Windows project (the first event took place last June). Willoughby Windows v2.0 brought together 15 artists to fill 13 vacant storefronts in Brooklyn with artwork. C.Damage, Chris Mendoza & Pablo Power, Daryll Peirce, Faust, Hellbent, Jef Aerosol, Joe Iurato, Laura Lee, LogikOne, Ron English, Skewville and Thundercut participated in the project this time around. Here are some of the installations they created:
Ron English
Daryll Peirce (finished piece in his studio, later installed in a storefront)
This looks like a really cool film. New Brow: The Rise of Underground Art is a documentary about the new brow/low brow/pop surrealism/graffiti art/street art/enjoyed-by-Juxtapoz art movements. The film made the rounds at film festivals in the states, and now next month is the UK premiere, thanks to London Miles Gallery.
The press release:
London Miles Gallery is proud to host the premiere UK screening of Contemporary Art documentary, New Brow – The rise of Underground Art, a feature film presented by Humble Pictures in association with The Shooting Gallery from San Francisco, California. The documentary features some of today’s most influential and groundbreaking artists from the New Contemporary Art movement, such as Shepard Fairey, Ron English, Silvia Ji, Gary Baseman, Shag and many more, who speak openly and enlighteningly about the growing art movement and its origins. The documentary not only includes first-hand accounts from an impressive list of pioneering artists, but also showcases the important galleries and collectors who adopted, and continue to drive the New Contemporary Art movement today.
New Brow has been the official selection of the San Francisco Film festival, Rader Hamburg Film Festival, The Tulsa United Film Festival, The Hot Springs Film Festival and the Golden State Film Festival. New Brow premiered at the 2009 Golden State Film Festival where it received the second largest attendance behind a special screening of Star Wars, the Empire Strikes Back. It has been screened in cities across America and has made its way to Europe, Australia and now to London this February.
London Miles will be screening New Brow on Saturday the 20th of February at 4:00pm and the 27th February at 2:00pm and 5:30pm. Tickets are £8.00 and the film will be shown in the Project Room in Westbourne Studios, 242 Acklam Rd, London, W10 5JJ. Please purchase advance tickets at www.londonmiles.com, or reserve by email to info@londonmiles.com.
While I acknowledge his importance in the scene, I’m not a huge Ron English fan, but this painting looks pretty cool. It’s Homer Simpson painting a Jackson Pollock-esque piece. Apparently it was used in a recent episode of The Simpsons in America, but I’ve yet to see the clip so I dunno. This time lapse painting of the piece turned out great though:
My highlight of Art Basel was almost definitely Primary Flight, the huge mural project in the Wynwood district. They had over 100 artists painting murals, from big names like Shepard Fairey and Nick Walker to local graffiti writers. Here’s some of what they did.
It’s the eve of the official Primary Flight event and two seasoned veterans of street art took to the streets early. Around midnight Shepard Fairey and Ron English started making their mark on the neighborhood of Wynwood for the Primary Flight event.
Shepard Fairey will be doing his largest mural to date this year for Primary Flight. With a wall that is nearly 20 ft tall, and 200 ft wide, this monster wall will be finished over the next few days. During this night session he was visited by KAWS and Jose Parla who got a sneak peek of what was to come over the next few nights.
Ron English worked into the morning hours doing the prep work on his mural which will be approximately 30ft wide by 15ft tall.
These are only 2 of the nearly 80 artists that will be participating in Primary Flight.
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