The artist and graffiti writer by the names of The Reader, Read More Books, Books, Boans and others (who has a big new piece up in NYC) has a show on earlier this month at Ditch Projects in Springfield Oregon. The closing party for the show is Halloween night, where there will be a concert at the gallery by White Manna, Midday Veil and Testface. Entrance will cost $5.
Read up in a down economy does not look like the show of an artist struggling with the transition from street to gallery, something that most street artists and graffiti writers who eventually work indoors under that outdoor identity seem to experience as a challenge. While this isn’t The Reader’s first time indoors, he’s definitely more well-known for his graffiti. It’s so great to see an artist whose outdoor work I love so much transition indoors so smoothly.
UPDATE: THIS OPENING OF GILF!’S SHOW HAS BEEN DELAYED DUE TO THE HURRICANE. IT WILL NOW BE ON NOVEMBER 8TH FROM 5-9PM (SAME LOCATION OF COURSE).
This ThursdayNEXT THURSDAY from 5-9pm, Gilf! there will be a public opening for Gilf!’s solo show at Galerie Swanström (136 Sullivan Street, 3rd Floor, New York City). I was really impressed with Gifl!’s booth at Fountain New York earlier this year, and so I’m excited to see what she’s done for this show. Check back later this week or early next for photos from the show and from The Art of Comedy, which Gilf! is a part of along with Hanksy and Ron English.
Faile recently returned from a trip to Mongolia sponsored by Tiger Translate, where they unveiled their latest sculptural creation and some street work. Over the past few months, Patrick McNeil and Patrick Miller (aka Faile) have been working closely with Mongolian sculptor Bat Munkh to bring this colossal piece to life in its permanent home. Faile was kind enough to invite me to their studio and talk about their experiences unveiling the sculpture in Mongolia and their thoughts on creating their first permanent piece. – Caroline Caldwell
Patrick Miller: We made this sculpture, which is of an image we did in 2009 called “Eat With the Wolf” and it’s sort of this businessman tearing away a suit, wearing a wolf pelt. He’s placed in their national park, Ulan Bator. Behind the sculpture is this mountain preserve and then he’s looking on to all this new development. So this will all be a grassline, 1600 acre park. It’s wild to have a permanent sculpture in this city.
It’s pretty amazing. It really couldn’t have been a better sort of symbolic thing of what’s happening in Mongolia right now. Basically, they’ve come across all these minerals in mining, copper and gold, and the Russians and the Chinese are descending upon Mongolia to really try and mine the shit out of it. It’s sort like, what’s gonna happen to the city and how will the people actually benefit this? Or will the country just be mined for its resources and kind of left as a shell? So there are a lot of these issues going on there right now, which made this sculpture feel pretty timely.
This image came out of a series we did called “Lost in Glimmering Shadows” and it was sort of imagining if Native Americans had come back to the city today and retaken the land. This image was really about this crisis within of battling between greed and a connection to nature. So we’d been working on this sculpture for awhile on its own with Charlie Becker, who’s a sculptor we work with a lot, and Tiger Translate and the Mongolian Arts Council approached us and asked if we’d be interested in doing a sculpture out there which essentially led to doing that.
Patrick McNeil: We submitted a couple different ideas and this is the one that the arts council kind of gravitated to because of, I think, the wolf symbolism. We did a couple other things but this one just kind of resonated the best. There were a couple pitches that we did that got lost in translation, or it just didn’t make sense with the Mongolian culture.
It was a really tight timeline too, and we already had this sculpted since we’d been working on a miniature version of this one. So with the timeline and everything, this one seemed to make the most sense to execute in the 3 months that we did it in.
Caroline Caldwell: Do you think the Mongolian people will understand the Native American symbolism or do you think they’ll interpret it within their own culture?
McNeil: You know, if you look at their culture, it’s very similar to a lot of the symbols and things that weave through the Native American culture; with wolf being a power animal and horses, the shamanism, and even just the nomadic lifestyle.
Miller: They actually think that the Native Americans came over from Mongolia and Upper Asia. So yeah, I definitely think they’ll have a strong connection with that idea.
Ron English‘s latest solo show opens this Thursday evening at Opera Gallery‘s NYC location in SoHo. The main theme of Crucial Fiction is an attempt by Ron to paint the sort of images that his 8-year-old self would dream up but couldn’t express with such technical excellence. From what I’ve seen, the results center on maddening scenes of Ron’s custom-toy dreamworlds, like the one above. And by “custom-toy,” I don’t just mean the stuff that he turns into vinyl gold with brands like Kidrobot but also the one-off creations and strange combinations he comes up with that look something like very advanced versions of Sid’s mutant toysToy Story.
Weather permitting, I’ll be coming up from Philadelphia for this show (as well as Hanksy and Gilf!’s openings the same night), so New Yorkers really have no excuse not to be there.
All crew members. Photo courtesy of Michael Danischewski.
Since forming in 2006 the AWOL Crew have been producing some amazing work. (The crew is: Adnate, Deams, Itch, Li-Hill, Lucy Lucy and Slicer). This is the collectives first group show since they painted the NGV studio (National Gallery of Victoria) mural back in 2011.
With backgrounds predominately in graffiti it’s great to see the guys pushing their artistic skills. Each artist with their own signature style, but also as a group, the collaboration between the crew for Fabric, seamlessly combining elements of each others work into pieces is hands down the best work I’ve seen from the crew.
The exhibition itself was also somewhat unique and different to most shows. The show was announced a while ago and was to be held at a secret location (announced the day before the show). Not knowing what to expect when I arrived made it even more special. The space was amazing. An old gas works warehouse suited the show really well and provided the perfect backdrop for the art.
Make sure you check out the video. Also, here’s a few shots from the show.
Early Saturday morning, Rhiannon Platt joined Hanksy as he worked on two of his walls for The New York Comedy Festival‘s The Art of Comedy, which was curated by myself and Wayne Rada and also supported by Montana Cans and Little Italy. The walls feature Jim Gaffigan and Aziz Ansari, who are both performing at the New York Comedy Festival.
Completed mural, “Explanation of how freedom (in the male form) and revolution meet to create a liberated Puerto Rico”. Photo by Nicolás Romero aka Ever.
I discovered Ever’s extraordinary aesthetic when I visited Baltimore earlier this year. I was mesmerized — from blocks away — by his distinct fusion of the photorealistic and the abstract. I was delighted to see him at work on my recent visit to Puerto Rico, but I didn’t get to see the completed mural — until now, courtesy of the artist.
Ever at work in “Los Muros Hablan”. Photo by Dani Mozeson.
Hanksy at Freeman’s Alley. Photo by Rhiannon Platt.
Often working alone, this past year Hanksy has remained the mysterious comedian of New York’s streets. Without a typical striking pattern, the artist’s pieces can surprise you in desolate alleys and corners throughout the Lower East Side, always there with a quick quip to brighten your day. When we met for this interview in an equally-hilarious tiki-themed bar, what ensued was a discussion that was as illuminating as it was entertaining. Surrounded by top forty tunes and the kitschiest of decor, I sat down to talk with Hanksy about the million punny events the artist has coming up this month. From a show at Krause Gallery, walls for the New York Comic Festival and Bushwick 5 Points, a new shirt, and a scavenger hunt, Hanksy is prepared to demonstrate how to stay young at heart, one cheap punch line at a time.
Rhiannon Platt: You mentioned that you had written graffiti before you moved to New York. What made you want to start creating new work after you relocated?
Hanksy: After a good few years doing fun little street scribbles, stickers, and minimal stencils throughout the midwest, I took a break. Nothing was really coming of it. Maybe I got bored, maybe I tried to grow up. I went to law school but ended up dropping out. It wasn’t until I moved to NYC that I got inspired again. I guess it must be something with the city’s pulse. The vibrancy, the visual stimulation. The thousand or so 30-year-old semi-adults with Peter Pan Syndrome. I mean to hell with growing up, right?
R: And what keeps you going back for more?
H: It’s everything really. The public response both good and bad, the little adrenaline rush one gets from doing something moderately illegal. The fact that something I made and created gets viewed on a daily basis whether you like it or not.
Plus, everything I put out and up makes me laugh. That’s the bottom line. If I didn’t find amusement in my work, I’d stop creating it.
Photo Courtesy of Hanksy
R: You’ve since expanded your work to other pop culture icons of your childhood. What determines who will be the next punch line?
H: I’ll never send up a celebrity or pop culture figure that I’m not a fan of or don’t admire. I grew up on The Cosby Show, so I worked Bill into a piece. Same with Vanilla Ice. As silly as Rob Van Winkle is, he was in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. “Go ninja go ninja go?” As far as I’m concerned, that dude gets a life pass.
But in the future that might change. I might do a riff on some celebrity that I despise. Maybe a Kardashian or some shit. But if I do, don’t be mistaken. It won’t be out of love or adoration, it’ll be out of loathing. Because being famous for a blow job or a grainy pre-iPhone sex vid is nonsense. I don’t care how many perfume bottles you sell or reality shows you’re on. A horse is a horse is a whorse.
R: Were you the class clown growing up?
H: When I’m comfortable and familiar with my surroundings, I’m fairly gregarious. Cracking jokes and whatnot. But I was never the class clown. That honor was bestowed upon someone else. His name was Gary. He was kinda chubby and dirty, came from a somewhat poor family, but was a fucking professional at physical comedy. Very roly poly and animated. Think of a young Chris Farley. As I switched elementary schools during my fifth grade year, I’ve always wondered what happened to him.
Hanksy on an Abandoned Church in Bushwick. Photo by Rhiannon Platt.
R: What made you decide to parody art, rather than the more serious path most street artists take?
H: I’m not a serious guy. I’ll laugh before I cry. Forever and always. Besides, life is so goddamn serious. All that political or solemn stuff? I’ll leave that to someone else.
But if you boil it down, you have to be reasonably talented to make the somber stuff believable. And I’m anything but talented. I’d probably get washed away in a sea of mediocrity as the cream always rises to the top. So I’d rather exist on my own or next to a few lighthearted painters than be lumped in with the other bunch.
R: What is your favorite joke?
H: It’s a knock knock joke. And a childish one at that. Read it out loud –
Knock Knock
Who’s there?
I eat mop.
I eat mop, who?
Say it one more time. Get it?
Work put up near Krause Gallery for Hanksy’s last solo show. Photo by Rhiannon Platt.
R: Speaking of jokes, you are creating work for The New York Comedy Festival this month and a solo show to boot. What can we expect to see from you in these next few weeks?
H: Yeah! The solo show will be a blast. The guys at Krause Gallery have all been champs when it comes to working with me. They put on my first show back in January and were incredibly accommodating to my schedule this time around. The show, which opens on November 1st, is also being coordinated with the NY Comedy Festival. I’m doing a bunch of legal walls in Little Italy, as well as a large piece in Times Square. There’s also a scavenger hunt being planned for the Lower East Side. Lots of free art and crap. Should be fun.
Young Puns 2: Now with More Pun flyer
R: If you had to create a pre-wheatpasting psych up playlist, what would be on it?
H: Alan Silvestri, Operation Ivy, and Bob Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited.” There’s also a band from Chicago called Yawn that I really dig. They get me all pumped up.
R: Anything else you want to say that never comes up in repetitive interview questions?
H: Despite the undying flame that burns in my very crowded heart, my love of all things Haribo have turned my teeth against me. Crumbling like shale, those fierce little gummi bears have dug various holes and tunnels and passage ways in my otherwise perfect smile.
I’ve required two root canals over the past three weeks. Not the most convenient pastime to partake in for a poor kid prepping a solo show with no dental plan. See, beyond my pearly white storm door incisors, it’s a fucking cavity party. Maybe I should just waterboard myself with wheatpaste.
Photo Courtesy of Hanksy
“Young Puns 2: Now with More Pun” opens Thursday, November 1st, at Krause Gallery with an opening from 6pm-10pm, which will feature new Ice Ice Babies t-shirts as well as a metric ton of puns. Following the opening, you can be sure to see his new pieces on walls and doors in previously untouched parts of the city. For The Art of Comedy with the New York Comedy Festival and Vandalog, Hanksy will have work inside of Carolines on Broadway November 7-11th and murals up on Mulberry street between Canal and Grand.
