My Thursday Night

This week there were a number of great art openings in London. My friend and I went to 3 of them.

First was Charming Baker‘s show “The Meaning of Everything” at The Gallery on Redchurch Street. I know they say to save the best for last, but we decided to mix it up and start where I thought we would see the best work. I was right. Charming’s show was extremely cool. For me, his paintings either click and I think they are just fabulous, or they don’t click at all and I think they’re boing. Not much middle ground. Luckily, this show is full of pieces that really click with me. And the prints are extremely well made, which is always nice. I even went back today to check it all out in more detail. My only real criticism would be that the prices seem a bit high, even though the pieces are big. I saw a few works have already sold, so I could be wrong, but I don’t expect the show to sell out. Here are a few of the paintings. Photos are from S-Butterfly, and here is the rest of her set:

Charming Baker Panda Print

Charming Baker Train

Charming Baker Airplane

After the jump, my visits to Stella Dore and The Pure Evil Gallery… Continue reading “My Thursday Night”

Slinkachu @ Andipa

I haven’t been down to see this show in person yet, but it’s definitely on the top of my list. Slinkachu has a solo show at Andipa Modern. Slinkachu does interesting installations of tiny little people on the street and then photographs them. These could easily turn into really tacky and watered down street art, but I think Slinkachu actually does a pretty good job avoiding that. Here’s a few samples from the show. These photos of Slinkachu’s photos are from s.butterfly. The theme of the show is superheroes.

Slinkachu

Slinkachu

Slinkachu

Slinkachu

More photos here

JR’s Self Portrait

JR is awesome. I could go on about why, instead I’m just going to post this self-portrait by JR that will be at Circleculture Gallery from this Friday. Can’t believe I forgot to put this show in my post yesterday. It is going to be crazy-good and I can’t wait to get to Berlin in a few weeks to see all the work in person. More info at Arrested Motion.

Jr Self Portrait

Armsrock in Berlin

So these have been online for about two weeks, but I’ve only just seen them. Armsrock is one of the most promising young street artists I can think of, so I’m always interested in his latest work. Here are some street pieces from Berlin. More on his blog.

Armsrock

Armsrock

And here’s one piece from his show at Intoxicated Demons Gallery in Berlin. More info on Armsrock’s blog.

Armsrock Interogation

Opening this week

UPDATE 2: Due to weird technical faults for this post, it got deleted. I’ve tried to re-post it in such a way that subscribers won’t see it twice, but I’m sorry if you do.

UPDATE 1: My apologies to Fefe Talavera. Originally, I called her a guy, but she is a woman. Thanks to a few people who spotted this.

Here’s a sampler of some of the galleries with openings this weekend in London and abroad.

In California:

  • Gallery AD and the Scion Art Tour have “Installation 5” featuring artists like AJ Fosik, Blek le Rat, Ron English, Sage Vaughn, Jeff Soto and Stormie Mills. That opens Friday night at 8pm and Gallery AD is in San Jose.
  • At Carmichael Gallery in LA, two shows are opening. In their front gallery, Know Hope has an installation and solo show (go to Slamxhype for info on Know Hope’s newspaper, The Anytimes, that he is slipping into papers in LA this week). In the rear gallery is a group show, “Mood Swings,” with Asbestos, Imminent Disaster, and others.

In New York City:

And in London:

  • Charming Baker’s “The Meaning of Everything” is at 50 Redchurch Street. Private view night is the 4th.
  • At Stella Dore there is a group show with some of their new artists like ACE and Star Child. Private view on the 4th.
  • Je T’aime at Pure Evil Gallery is also on the 4th, with four new French artists. (Via ESPVisuals)
  • Adam Neate has a piece at the Olympia Art Fair. That opens in the 5th, but it isn’t free entry.
  • Meeting of Styles is on the 5th (from 10am) and 6th (from 6:30pm) at Sclater Street, and should feature some very talented writers.
From Je T’aime at Pure Evil Gallery:

From Je T'aime at Pure Evil Gallery
From Je T'aime at Pure Evil Gallery

And a couple pics from Mood Swings at Carmichael Gallery:

Retreat of Reason by Asbestos. He says the triangles are a new direction for his work.
Retreat of Reason by Asbestos. He says the triangles are a new direction for his work.
Masta by Fefe Talavera. I'd never heard of this guy before now, but really liking his work.
Masta by Fefe Talavera. I've never heard of Fefe before now, but really liking her work.

Look closely: Unique urban signage

One of the best thrills of street art is walking by a piece a dozen times before realize it is there. Here are a few pieces of unauthorized signage that might just pass at first glance, and then once you get the joke, it’s totally obvious.

Darius and Downey. Photo by Luna Park
Darius and Downey. Photo by Luna Park

This piece by D&D, perhaps the kings of this sort of work, has been up since 2003.

Work and photo by Vinchen.
Work and photo by Vinchen
Photo by Mickie Quick
Photo by Mickie Quick
Work and photo by d.billy
Work and photo by d.billy
Work and photo by d.billy
Work and photo by d.billy

Of course, there are hundreds of these sorts of signs. Leave your favorites in the comments section or shoot me an email. I’d love to do a Part 2 of this post.

Via Wooster Collective and Urban Prankster (Urban Prankster is an amazing source for these sort of things by the way)

Linking it up

So it’s 11:40 and I’ve been too wrapped up in what’s to come with Vandalog and almost forgot to post today. I’ll make it up tomorrow, but here’s a few links that I’d like to share:

  • Meeting of Styles London has changed the dates on us at the last minute. The great sounding graffiti event at the Sclater Street car park will now be held on the 5th and 6th of June. Head down to see some real quality graffiti being created.
  • Barry McGee has released some really expensive t-shirts ($99). When an artists shirts are out of my price range, I don’t even want to think about originals. Still, McGee’s work is sick.
  • Stopped by the Pure Evil Gallery today only to hear about an opening this Thursday. “Je T’aime” is being done in conjunction with Gallery Nosco. It features a number of artists I’ve never heard of (French artits Dran, Bom.K, Remy Uno, Jaw and Heng), but Pure Evil showed me one piece this afternoon from the show which looks very nice.
  • The Revs article from yesterday got a great response and some recommended links including this video clip from the film Bomb It sent in by Frankie at Camp Barbossa and this photo from Depoe of a piece Revs actually sold publically. Thanks guys.
  • I think these prints are new from London wheatpaster ACE. Yeah, he’s obviously influenced by Bast, but I’d probably prefer this one from ACE at £55 than Bast’s latest at Pictures on Walls for £285. I just don’t like that particular image from Bast, plus, I’m living on a student’s salary. I’ll have to include these if I do another 9 prints under £90 post.

So that’s my slightly last minute summary of awesomeness in street art today.

Revs is too good

Revs is just awesome. I was searching through flickr for recent pics of street art, and these came up. They just had to be shared. Not enough artists weld their work to things these days.

Revs

Revs

Photos by Hrag Vartanian

A Sequence of Events

Thursday was the extremely crowded opening of Nick Walker’s latest show at Black Rat Press, “A Sequence of Events.” People were queued for 13 hours just to buy a print. Just the usual sort of reception that Walker receives. The show was done in conjunction with the release of Walker’s book.

Walker Butterfly

Because all the work was only in one or two colors, prices were lower than usual. Also, the size of the work was generally smaller than Nick’s trademark pieces in the past. This means that prices were lower than usual and fans who might only be able to afford a print might to able to afford an original.

My personal favorite
My favorite piece

Nick Walker

There aren’t any new images in this show, so I doubt anybody who didn’t like Nick in the past will be convinced to buy his work all of a sudden, but if you like Nick Walker, this show provides a solid overview of all his most popular images.

Photos by unusualimage

The Toaster Show

Photo by Emily Webber
Photo by Emily Webber

Trespassers of The World Unite“, The Toaster’s collaborative show at Nelly Duff, was actually pretty interesting. Before it opened on Thursday, I twittered that the show could be awesome, but it could also be a complete wtf moment. After all, why does The Toaster really need a gallery show?

Well as it turns out, The Toaster did this show in an interesting enough way for it to be enjoyable. The work was varied, and the collaborations looked good. It wasn’t anywhere near as repetitive as the show could have been.

The highlight was undoubtedly the collaboration with Mr. Jago, an artist whose work I don’t usually like.

Photo by Emily Webber
Mr. Jago and The Toaster. Photo by Emily Webber