Rhiannon Platt – Page 3 – Vandalog

April 2, 2013November 29, 2013

From the Outside: Vagrant Space at Tender Trap

At the heart of graffiti is the old adage “if there’s a will there’s a way;” this idea manifests itself through the practical application of fire extinguishers, home made etch, and other DIY solutions. Opening this week, Vagrants will focus on the work of what DIY curation Vagrant Space defines as “social outsiders.” On view will be the work of Adam Void, Peter Dear, George Charles Bates, Andrew H. Shirley, Jefferson Mayday Mayday, Chelsea Ragan, Craig Mammano, Jeffrey Vincent, Dylan Thadani, Edwards Harper, Margaret Rogers, Emily Campbell, Misha Capecchi, and Safwat Riad. A combination in the curation efforts of Andrew H. Shirley and Vagrant Space, this show is one not to miss for those who love the grime and DIY ethos behind graffiti.

For a more in depth look at the ideologies behind this project, the following press release offers a key to understanding the work of artists who position themselves outside of traditional contact and society.

From the press release:

Vagrant Space is an ongoing curation for a new generation of Outsider Artists. This new school no longer fits the caricatured confines of the self-taught, emotionally troubled, and uneducated recluse promoted by the Folk Art gallery world. Coming of age during the transformative years of globalization, internet proliferation, and social media, these artists share the affects traditionally ascribed to social outsiders: many of them don’t utilize contemporary social media skills, eschew the responsibilities of ‘maturity,’ and most importantly, genuinely reflect the homelessness that is hallmark to this era of twenty and thirty-year-olds.

The fourteen artists featured in the first round of Vagrant Space hail from Asheville, Seattle, Baltimore, Brooklyn, Portland, San Francisco, and Sydney. They all represent this new generation of outsider artist. Many of these artists are travelers, recluses, graffiti artists, and social outcasts. Vagrant Space seeks to share their work with the public at large through a series of pop-up shows, print publications, and an online gallery.

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Vagrants, the first group show from this collective, will take place Thursday, April 4th from 6-10pm at Tender Trap (254 South 1st St. Brooklyn, NY).

Photos courtesy of Vagrant Space

March 17, 2013May 5, 2013

As Much As You Can

“I felt always like I was part of a larger thing, that would encompass a lot of people. And all of those energies of all of these individuals and all of their unique talents and unique contacts is what came together to make that thing happen.”

-Aaron Rose

When Joe Ficalora (pictured left) brought me to the roof adjacent to Alicé Pasquini’s wall he said, “only family comes up here.” The deep personal connection I felt looking over a year’s worth of accomplishments with Joe and Alicé is the feeling that both individuals are trying to instill upon the community surrounding this intersection. A close Italian family who emigrated to Brooklyn only generations ago, the Ficaloras welcome any person to the neighborhood who shares their passion for beautification, like Joe’s grandmother who is always quick with coffee and snacks on cold days.

Although the nexus of this project was marked with personal tragedy, these losses became the impetus for change. Starting during Bushwick Open Studios last year, the area quickly became the Brooklyn hub for visiting muralists, which gave Yok and Sheryo some of their first walls as well as other notable visiting artists, such as Nychos and most recently Alicé Pasquini.

For her first visit and wall in the United States, the artist worked through the wind, which at one point toppled her ladder, to complete a deeply personal mural for the area. The wall that the Italian artist was given previously belonged to Jim Avignon, the yellows of which were incorporated into the space’s latest iteration. The figures in her piece, titled “As Much As You Can,” bustle around the streets of Alicé’s imagined vision of New York City. Having never previously visited the city, the artist imposed the dreams and ideologies of her imagined characters, who represent the beliefs of the many people who come to this city for a new life. Being aware the Ficalora’s roots in her native Italy, the artist painted this piece as a tribute to not only all immigrants, but specifically for his family.

From the sense of family I felt when standing on that roof to the kindness that the Ficaloras extend to any person who finds their way to the neighborhood from the Jefferson train stop, Alicé has distilled this sense of belonging into her mural. By reflecting the vibrancy and closeness that occurs in the small neighborhoods within New York City, one would think she had lived here her whole life, rather than a first visit.

Photos by Rhiannon Platt

March 13, 2013March 12, 2013

Two Ways to Ruin a Borough

After a cold several months in Germany, like many artists Cake has returned with the rising temperatures to complete new murals, the first of these for Fountain Art Fair. Covering her canvas with layers of paint, gold leaf, and a wash resulted in a halo’d figure taking scissors to her neck as the blood flowed away from the wounds and spun its way into gold leaf. A mix of beauty and intensity, these feature were only echoed in the work’s title “Two Ways to Ruin a Borough.” While the brush strokes may issue the end of her figure, the spring will see it as the beginning for Cake and many other artists.

March 12, 2013

Olek: Becoming One’s Art for “The End Is Far”

For Olek, the past year has seen endless legal battles in London, which led to a brief incarceration and house arrest. During this time, it must have seemed as if a long road was ahead of her. The majority of the work on display at her recently opened show at Jonathan Levine Gallery was made during this time in London, when the end was indeed far. However, don’t let the image of Olek crocheting away in a cell paint a disparate image of the installations that the artist created during this time in her life. The spectacle that one has come to expect from energetic and vibrant artist has only intensified. The speakers have been turned up to 11, if you will.

The entrance to Olek’s work hinted at the pageantry that would unfold in her exhibition upstairs. Harkening to her court trail, the artist has used her recent text-based body of work to draw upon these experiences. An anonymous figure, perhaps representing the everywoman, carries a flag with the empowering phrase “nobody can hurt me without my permission.” The ominous tone set in the entryway distinctly contrasted the whimsical tone set by her performers in the gallery space. Continue reading “Olek: Becoming One’s Art for “The End Is Far””

February 28, 2013February 28, 2013

Mata Ruda: Where nobody bothers to look

“I was leaving the South to fling myself into the unknown…I was taking a part of the South to transplant in alien soil, to see if it could grow differently, if it could drink of new and cool rains, bend in strange winds, respond to the warmth of other suns and, perhaps, to bloom.” –Richard Wright

Conceptually and visually intricate, Mata Ruda‘s portraits convey a history that is unfamiliar to those who remain unaffected in their daily lives. The idea of el otro, or the other, is something that permeates not only methodologies behind Latin American art history, but the lives of those who chose to emigrate from those countries. While the translation is literal, the word otro encompasses more than that; it’s the feeling of being pushed to the side by the government and others because of one’s origins. Whether undocumented, displaced, or otherwise without a home, these individuals are often left without a voice.

Director Alejandro González Iñárritu explains the feeling of otherness as, “we can’t understand what is happening to ‘something’ if we aren’t looking but nothing is going to happen to that ‘something’ if we don’t look deeply. That’s why so many things with incredible potential go unnoticed…..because nobody bothers to look.” In his most recent series, Mata Ruda draws attention to artisans who would otherwise go unnoticed, traditional Central American weavers who have since emigrated to Brooklyn. By immortalizing these individuals in a public space, the artist draws attention to several underlying issues, such as our lack of appreciation for craftwork, immigration, and labor standards.

Often seen as less than art because of its functionality, this portrait draws attention to the technical layers that makes up the complex patterns associated with Central American textiles. In order to create the zig-zags and vertical stripes associated with these patterns, you must be proficient enough to operate several huddles as well as have mathematical precision in order to accurately reproduce a specific image. This same attention to detail can also be seen in the detailed lines that form the shadows and creases of the weaver’s hands. While the right hand is busy manually picking the weft to create a pattern while the left tests the warp’s strength. It is in this intricate representation of the forgotten that Mata Ruda can be compared to other Social Realist public artists such as Gaia and muralist José Clemente Orozco.

During his life, Orozco saw his neighbors used as expendable bodies in the Mexican Revolution, which he envisioned in The Masses as a sea of faceless heads, yelling but not thinking. The harsh lines that define a field of overlapping reflect the hoards that barricaded towns into starvation during his childhood and eventually led to the loss of one of his hands. For Orozco, he called upon these experiences to give a voice that would otherwise be lost with the pulling of a trigger. A hundred years after the war’s inception, Mata Ruda follows in a similar path, but instead representing the inequalities that run through the 21st century.

Equally as important for Mata Ruda is the representation of homeland and histories. Visually, the artist draws upon the mythology of lunar planning that was integral to his predecessors. Used as a planning tool for practical matters and spiritual ceremonies, Mata Ruda has created portraits that symbolize this importance; the lunar calendars orbit his figure’s head on a series of rocks or become literally placed on their conscience.

It was not enough for the artist to display this meaning in a public space, he also took on a name that would convey this symbology. When literally translated, Mata Ruda means a rough or hardy plant, one that can survive when transplanted like the emigrants he depicts. Beyond the translation, the latter part of his name can be seen as a corruption of the spiritually vital herb Rue. As with lunar charts, this herb is used for its supposed spiritual properties, such as warding off evil and to bring abundance. Through his use of subjects and histories that would otherwise be forgotten, Mata Ruda can be seen as an embodiment of his chosen name. Although paper and wheatpaste may not weather storms, the ideas behind them will last.

Photos by Rhiannon Platt

February 26, 2013February 25, 2013

HOTTEA in Hollywood

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On a recent trip to California, yarn artist HOTTEA continued his experimentation with the public space. While stopping in LA, he chose a particularly risky fence near the Hollywood sign. Often thought of as being a relatively low risk form of illegal art, HOTTEA sends pictures that say otherwise. While, yes, you won’t go to jail for weaving some yarn through a fence, that doesn’t mean that the cops will leave you alone. In addition to this stellar location, HOTTEA shared some accompanying pictures of a stencil piece on Venice Beach and a fence near a wall by Dabs, Myla, How, and Nosm.

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Continue reading “HOTTEA in Hollywood”

February 19, 2013February 18, 2013

Gaia Erases Revisionism in Woodstock

A few weeks ago, Acrylic Walls shared photos of their mural residency in South Africa, which includes artists Gaia, Freddy Sam, Jaz, and Know Hope. Local Freddy Sam has brought together international artists for, what I termed, a love letter to South Africa. However, sometimes love bites back.

One local took to Gaia‘s wall to voice his disapproval of the piece with not enough buff paint. Being an advocate for community and public space, Gaia used what some would view as heartbreaking into an opportunity to engage with the surrounding neighborhood. A hand erasing his Edwardian-animal hybrid has been accompanied by the phrase “revisionisme, uit te vee,” or “to erase revisionism” in Afrikaans. By commenting on the methodologies behind his piece, Gaia acknowledges the temporality of his work as well as its effects on those who, by their proximity to the piece, become forced viewers.

Photos Courtesy of Gaia

February 18, 2013

Goal Crew: A way of life

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When I was first tipped off to Goal Crew’s work, I was told they were crushing the Buenos Aires subway and that I had to check it out. Scouring through their Tumblr archive I did find the kind of bold color blocky tags and characters that one would expect to see on a train. What I found even more attractive about their pieces is the precision timing and care taken into photographing each train.

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Rather than focusing on a perfect dead-on shot that would accurately show their skills at bombing, Goal Crew depicts each train as if it has its own personality. Light streaks and unamused passengers on their daily commute dot the backdrops of their trains. These happenstance occurrences during their photographs bring an atmosphere to the pieces’ vivid colors.

Continue reading “Goal Crew: A way of life”

February 12, 2013

Steel Canvases: NYC Legends Gather in the Bronx

While most of us in New York were sitting in our homes fearing the snowstorm, the Bronx Documentary Center gathered some of the city’s legendary writers and documentarians for a panel. One of a series of events, Steel Canvases brought together Bio and Nicer of Tats Cru, Henry Chalfant, Eric Deal, and Crash to discuss trains. Of particular interest is the groups discussion on the proliferation of imagery and styles pre-internet. Thanks to Ricky Flores, those of us who couldn’t make it for fear of snow or not can see an edited video of the panel’s highlights.

February 11, 2013

Cassius Fouler shows you “Withdrawal Anxiety”

Riddled with the obsessive need of more more more, Cassius Fouler’s compulsion to keep creating has found a home with Arlene’s Grocery. Opening Monday, February 11th at from 7-10pm, Withdrawal Anxiety catalogues the artist’s most recent work, which takes the form of sculptural wood tags, canvas, and paper. Much like the go hard or go home attitude behind the graffiti world that Fouler is drawing upon, he has been incessantly creating for Withdrawal Anxiety to avoid exactly that.

Fouler has shared several progress images for his upcoming show, we also have this from the press release:

When you’re compelled, you gotta do what you gotta do.

But what if you suddenly can’t do that anymore?

Then you gotta do what you can, and you work with what you’ve got.

In this collection of recent paintings and collages, Cassius Fouler has graffiti on the brain, and the work provides a glimpse into the nature of creative compulsion as well as the increasingly hazy line between graffiti and fine art.

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All photos courtesy of Cassius Fouler