Logopop – a Sickboy show

Photo by Viktor Vauthier
Photo by Viktor Vauthier

Sickboy has a new solo show coming up in London in a few days. Here’s the hype:

Acclaimed UK street artist, Sickboy presents ‘Logopop’, a special ‘one night only’ solo exhibition of new limited edition work and site-specific installations in east London this December 16.

Following the success of his major solo exhibition, ‘Stay Free’ last year, which saw Sickboy transform a Victorian building into a themed playground, the artist returns with this one-off extravaganza, inviting art fans to dive once again into the extraordinary depths of his imagination.

With ‘Logopop,’ Sickboy recreates the lysergic symbolism that underpins much of his work, and delivers it in his characteristically unexpected way.  Launching an eye-watering visual assault on audiences using installations and digital technology, Sickboy introduces a series of dynamic and surprising show features which have become a hallmark of this artist.

The new collection of work for ‘Logopop’ has been developed throughout 2009 and aims to unravel the relationship between the artist’s complex and imaginatively-detailed artworks and his signature simple, bold and raw urban interventions. In addition to original artworks, the artist introduces his innovative concept of Logopops – artworks sold in various sizes which can be connected together, giving fans the opportunity to create their own bespoke compositions and own a truly original piece of Sickboy art. The artist says: “Logopops are my visual bullet to the mind. They sidestep the layered meanings within my art and simplify the message into something tangible and understandable at the glance of an eye.”

‘Logopop’ is the pinnacle of 2009, which has been the artist’s most successful year to date, and the perfect interlude before his second major solo show in spring 2010.

While this does sound interesting, my very first though about these ‘logopops’ was that they sound a lot like Barry McGee clusters. Still, Sickboy can do some cool things, and McGee wasn’t the first artist to do clusters, it’s just a bit irritating that Sickboy (or his PR people) want to make these things sound so epically unique when really they aren’t (Know Hope sold pieces like this at Carmichael Gallery over the summer, but he didn’t claim that it was an ‘innovative’ practice).

But enough dissing Sickboy. He knows how to paint and he tends to paint cool things, so what more can you ask for?

Photo by Viktor Vauthier
Photo by Viktor Vauthier

Logopop takes place at The Rag Factory, 16-18 Heneage Street, London on December 16th. Register for an invite at thesickboy.com.

Grifters now open

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This show looks to be pretty good. The Grifters show at Lazarides’ Rathbone Place gallery opened on Friday, but I’ve been stateside and not had a chance to check it out yet in person. I’m particularly excited to see what Mark Jenkins and JR have done. Mark’s piece was a highlight of the Scope art fair in Miami, and JR never fails to impress me.

Black Dog Books

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This week was the opening of Black Dog Books at Black Rat Projects in London. The book store is in a small room constructed in the middle of the gallery and sells everything from art books to 2nd hand fiction novels.

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Looks like a fun project for the holiday season

Photos from Hookedblog

SCOPE: Judith Supine and Aakash Nihalani

Some really cool installations here at SCOPE! Here are a few:

Judith Supine

Judith Supine. While the 3D effect doesn’t really carry through in this photo, this piece is really eye-catching (as all his work is) in person.

Aakash Nihalani

Aakash Nihalani. Aakash isn’t quite finished yet, so I’ll post another photo when he is. It’s so much fun to watch him work!

Aakash Nihalani

Elisa x

MBW is headed to NYC

MBW

I really like The Opera Gallery. The put on good shows. They put Ron English and Banksy next to old masters. Great stuff.

Well now they are doing a Mr. Brainwash show at their New York City location. Check out the website, if you dare. Not 100% sure when the show opens, but I hear it’s sometime in December, and the website says he is already in NYC, so it must be soon.

I will probably go see this show in person just to be sure, but I have no faith that it will be any good. Portraits made out of broken records sounds like something you would buy at the Sunday market. But hey, I’m just one guy with an opinion. Does anybody disagree?

More Wynwood Walls Progress and a Peek at O.H.W.O.W.

As you may have noticed, Seth and I have been spending most of our free time away from SCOPE (not that we’ve had a whole lot so far – see what we (Carmichael) and the other galleries were busy with yesterday) down the street at Deitch’s Wynwood Walls, where many of our friends are hard at work on their murals for Thursday’s opening (Nina, osgemeos and Finok haven’t stopped since they arrived). Here are some pictures of what Nunca, Aiko and Clare Rojas’ walls were looking like last time we checked.

Nunca

Aiko

Clare Rojas

We also paid a quick visit to Al from O.H.W.O.W. the other night. This is a cool space. Here are some set up shots.

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First, a peek at It Ain’t Fair, large group show. The Parla is beautiful.

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This girl gave me one of her lollypop rings.

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Here are a few of the pieces in Dark Night of The Soul.

Carmichael Gallery - SCOPE

And here’s where I wrote this post from, in case you were wondering. It’s super busy in here (it’s the SCOPE preview day) so I better get back to work!