Year: 2012

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The Art of Comedy with Ron English, Gilf!, and Hanksy

From left to right: Hanksy, Ron English and Gilf!

UPDATE: THE ART CRAWL / MURAL TOUR WILL TAKE PLACE ON NOVEMBER 10TH AT NOON RATHER THAN NOVEMBER 3RD.

The New York Comedy Festival, in association with Vandalog, Little Italy and Montana Cans, are bringing street art into this year’s New York Comedy Festival with The Art of Comedy. The Art of Comedy is a series of indoor and outdoor installations around Manhattan by some of New York’s funniest street artists: Ron English, Hanksy, and Gilf!. The installations include murals in Little Italy on Mulberry Street between Canal and Broome, and work inside of the historic comedy club Carolines on Broadway. I’m very excited to be a co-curator on this project alongside Wayne Rada. Caroline Hirsch, of Carolines on Broadway and creator of the New York Comedy Festival, says,”We’re always looking for new and creative ways in which humor is represented in art. These talented artists add a really unique element to this year’s festival, literally taking comedy to the streets.”

The installations inside of Carolines on Broadway by all three artists will be up from November 7th-11th, so if you’re going to check out The Wayans Brothers or maybe one of the other New York Comedy Festival shows at Carolines, be sure to have a look around the Carolines Lounge before you get seated for the show.

Over on Mulberry, the artists will be painting a mix of temporary and permanent murals. Ron’s mural is of particular note since it will be the first mural he has painted in Manhattan (excluding billboard takeovers) since 1987, and this one is going to be big enough that it may just be worth the wait. I’m also looking forward to seeing the election-themed work that Gifl! will put up and work by Hanksy starring some of the performers in this year’s New York Comedy Festival.

I hope you’ll join us on Saturday, November 3rd November 10th at noon on a short tour of the completed murals. We’ll be meeting at Caffe Roma (385 Broome Street).

The Art of Comedy and The New York Comedy Festival also line up nicely with solo shows from all three artists opening on November 1st November 10th. Ron’s show, Crucial Fiction, opens from 6-9pm at Opera Gallery NYC (115 Spring St) and runs through November 29th. Gilf! will be showing at Galerie Swanström (136 Sullivan Street, 3rd Floor) opening from 5-9pm. Hanksy’s show, Young Puns 2 – Now With More Pun, opens at Krause Gallery (149 Orchard Street) from 6-9pm and runs through November 28th.

As for the main events at the New York Comedy Festival, this year has some amazing headliners performing all over the city including Aziz Ansari, Bill Maher, Robin Williams and more. Personally, Caroline and I are going to try to catch Jim Gaffigan. The full schedule can be found here.

Photos courtesy of the artists

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Wild Style Wednesday!

Kuma in Paris. Photo by •G•

Run it.

Jaik, Foham, Emak and Gaser in Sabadell, Spain. Photo by Startape Photgraff.
Bio in the Bronx. Photo by soulroach.
Siks, Case, and Phro in Austrailia. Photo by baddogwhiskas.
Pirates in New Zealand. Photo by Datachump.
“Retro” by Toons in Paris. Photo by •G•.
Hamp and Inkz in Russia. Photo by FuckSabcat / HongKong.
Antes in East Bay. Photo by FunkandJazz.
Sista in Brighton. Photo by Datachump.
MadC, Klark Kent and Me in Offenbach. Photo by Startape Photographe.

Photos by baddogwhiskas, Datachump, FuckSabcat / HongKong, FunkandJazz, •G•, soulroach, and Startape Photgraff

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Egs at Unruly Gallery

Next month Amsterdam’s Unruly Gallery has a solo show with Egs from Finland. I’m really enjoying what I’ve seen of the work. Reminds me a lot of Futura, SheOne, or Shoe. Definitely the sort of thing that fans of Graffuturism will be interested in. Plus, Unruly is Niels “Shoe” Meulman‘s space, so you know there’s someone with a good eye curating it. Egs’ show opens November 2nd from 5-8pm.

Photos courtesy of Unruly Gallery

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Interview with Kaff-eine

After the Funeral, ink on cafe wall, Brunswick July 2012

Kaff-eine is another of my favourite Melbourne street artists. Since first discovering Kaff’s characters pasted in Melbourne’s alleyways, I quickly fell in love with her work.

Kaff-eine paints using a number of different media, including aerosol, pigment ink, watercolor and acrylic paint. Her characters light up drab grey walls and alleys and bring real character to Melbourne’s streets. Her characters evoke emotion and feeling, in particular the sorrowful character cradling a dying swan is one of my favourite works!

‘Reveal’, aerosol + acrylic paint on cardboard February 2012

Kaff-eine has been part of numerous group shows, and has her first ever solo show opening in November called “Boneyard” at “Just Another Project Space” in Prahran. I can’t wait!

I caught up with Kaff-eine a few weeks ago and had a great chat. Here’s some of what we talked about:

LM: Tell me about your background. How did you get into street art? 

Kaff-eine: I’d stopped drawing a decade beforehand. I was at Uni, discovering new street art all around Melbourne as I went to and from Uni, but never thinking about painting myself. Then I met a new bunch of friends who really encouraged me to get back into drawing, and a couple were into street art, so I thought about drawing again, kind of followed my street artist friends around, tried it and loved it. It changed the way I saw urban spaces, and my own artwork. I started pasting my work up, but discovered that I preferred to paint directly onto surfaces. So I’ve been doing it ever since.

A Funeral in December, aerosol on disused shop wall, Brunswick July 2012

LM: What does your name mean? 

Kaff-eine: Aw it’s pretty basic. Everyone who knows me knows that caffeine is my drug of choice. So I tweaked the name a bit, and used it. Without caffeine there’s no Kaff-eine! And the hyphen works too, I think in German it translates as something like ‘coffee one’. So yep, that’s suitable too.

Continue reading “Interview with Kaff-eine”

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Collective you should know: Run Don’t Walk

Hailing from Buenos Aires, Run Don’t Walk was formed in 2002 and consists of stencil artist Federico Minuchin and self-taught visual artist Tester. Though we’ve seen them in the Avant-Garde Urbano festival, I was prompted to look into them after reviewing Stencil Republic. Some of their work is not dissimilar from MBW, but RDW seems massively more imaginative, being that their work is pop art that doesn’t rely on buzz icons as a crutch. There’s not a whole lot out there by this collective, but I’m writing this post because I see a lot of potential and would like to see more.

Run Don’t Walk in Beunos Aires for Volkerkunde Hamburg museum

Photos by Run Don’t Walk

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Black and White and Theodore: New at Bushwick 5 Points

Overunder and LNY

This week at Bushwick 5 Points the lyric and the comedic collided with the completion of walls by both LNY and Hanksy. Depicting Malik, a student of his in the Young New Yorker Program, LNY brought attention to a cause that he has focused on for the past several months. By depicting the student against the backdrop of the city, the artist gives a voice to the problematic nature of New York’s legal system in his wall.

LNY Detail
Hanksy

Countering the stark color palette and serious tone of LNY’s work, Hanksy brought his typical pop sensibilities to this Bushwick neighborhood. For these walls, or doors rather, the artist used cultural icons Theodore of the Cosby Show and Thor to play on the surfaces that he was given to paint. By transforming Thor to Dhor and stenciling a Theodoor Huxtable, Hanksy brings his light-hearted nature to an area that was once notorious for its violent crimes.

Hanksy
Hanksy
Hanksy
Hanksy

Photos by Rhiannon Platt

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Nuart part 4: More outdoor work

Niels “Shoe” Meulman paints a mural within sight of a former bank. Photo by Ian Cox.

In part 4 of my series of posts about this year’s Nuart Festival (here are parts one, two, and three), I’ve finally gotten to the murals and more traditional street work of this year’s festival. This year, Nuart is responsible for new murals in Stavanger by Niels “Shoe” Meulman, Ron English, Dolk, How&Nosm, Mobstr and Eine.

Ron English. Photo by Ian Cox.
Mobstr. Photo by Ian Cox.

More after the jump… Continue reading “Nuart part 4: More outdoor work”

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Calle Esos Ojos from “Bogota Street Art”

In Bogota, Colombia, the walls don’t talk. They scream. Featuring the artwork of Bogota Street Art, a collective of four of Bogota’s most active street artists – Dj Lu, Gouache, Lesivo and Toxicómano — the recently released Calle Esos Ojos testifies to both the visual and political impact of street art in Colombia’s capital. Here are some of the images from the book:

Dj Lu has for years been altering the visual landscape of his city with his satirical stencils, targeting a range of issues from consumerism to sexism to the military.

With asymmetrical rhythms and striking colors, Gauche celebrates Bogota’s distinct multicultural mix of everyday people.

Lesivo tends to focus on the darker — or more frightening — underside of the city.

And Toxicómano is on a mission to divert the attention of passersby from commercial ads.

Along with texts – in Spanish — by noted Colombian authors, Darío Jaramillo Agudelo and Antonio Morales Riveira, the book also includes four stencil templates and 15 embossed collectible stickers.

Photos courtesy of Bogota Street Art and special thanks to Marcelo Arroyave of the Colectivo Sursystem for getting this book over to me, reminding me how much I love and miss the streets and people of Bogota.