Beginning in late December of 2012 and stretching into the new year, Freddy Sam brought together a group of artists known for creating art that engages their surroundings. The project, titled Acrylic Walls, is associated with his organization A Word of Art, which has been fostering contemporary art in the area through community outreach since 2009. While this project has the familiar ring of other blockbuster mural programs, such as Open Walls Baltimore, Freddy Sam has added a component that hopes to reach a larger audience than those who will immediately come into contact with their murals: a diary-like Tumblr for all on which all of the artists can contribute.
The Tumblr for Acrylic Walls allows all of the participating artists to post photos from their adventures as they travel from city to city painting and engage themselves with their surroundings. Whether they are recounting adventures in stick and poke tattoos, museums, or sharing stories of people they encounter, each artist brings a dimensionality to not only themselves, but this program through their photography. By sharing funny moments alongside those of poverty and historicism, Acrylic Walls gives an intimate and insightful view of personalities of the artists as well as the cities where they find themselves.
During the Renaissance, a cabinet of curiosities collected works of art, historical relics, and other artifacts in a room, or cabinet, for display. Through not only his style, but in the way that he inhabits his space, Beau Stanton harkens upon these old world ideas. Inspired by objects he finds exploring abandoned buildings, the shelves of his studio embody this Renaissance display technique. Photographs, bottles, and broken mechanisms touch upon Stanton’s affinity for craftsmanship of days gone by.
Deeply rooted in art historical tradition, the artist’s inspiration board gives direct insight into types of craft work that are replicated within his paintings. In addition to his collection of antiquities, stained glass windows from the same era act as additional visual inspiration. The stained glass forms that are displayed in the vaulted windows of Renaissance churches can be seen strategically flanking, or more often than not covering, the bodies of the women the artist chooses to portray. However, Stanton is well versed in the use of patterns throughout art history, not limiting his influences to a specific time or movement. The work of turn of the century artists such as Gustav Klimt and art deco furnishings can also be seen as driving forces behind his pieces.
It is not only the decorative flourishes of 19th century furnishings, but also the craftsmanship behind each piece that speaks to his aesthetics. With the smallest of brushes, Stanton replicates the minute details of the masters of carpentry and glass that he so admires. It is not only by drawing upon these visual elements that Beau Stanton stand apart from other contemporary artists, but also through the emulation of a work ethic that is sadly waning in our current mass production culture.
Those who read my posts about Baltimore graffiti have already seen the pieces, rollers, and tags of Maryland-based NGC crew. Recently, for the New York Art Book Fair, the group debuted a zine detailing their quests painting throughout the gritty spots throughout the city. Opening today,“Kids Eat for Free” expands the reach of their exploits from East to West coasts.This show as an extension of their earlier zine, both being accompanied by personal work, documentary photography, and inside jokes. Only instead of taking on Baltimore, NGC took on the entire country.
-Rhiannon
Press release:
On Thursday December 13, 2012 from 6pm – 10pm The Superior Bugout presents the opening night of Kids Eat for Free with artwork from North Carolina’s infamous NGC crew. Artists FISHGLUE, MTN, RODA and Thomas Bachman share their photos, sculptures, and diatribes of tales from their travels and mischief. Much of the work appeared in Miles Michaels’ 1480 Gallery in Detroit, MI earlier this year in August, and has now traveled with additional new work to Brooklyn.
The artists’ work documents the past Summer, traveling across America’s northeast corridor, southern and mid-western states and New York City stealing freight train rides and paint. Along the way they’ve reworked the visual landscapes of the towns they passed through with colorful signage, roller pieces, and urban scrawlings. The show will be on display throughout the new year.
Accompanying the artwork will be an experimental sound set with MIND DETRGNT BKF playing eclectic samples and sounds from his vast collection of tape cassettes.
Being the lighthearted soul that they are, Hanksy went out earlier this week to spread a little Thanksgiving cheer, but not without a signature pun in hand. With a holiday that begs for a Tom Hanks pun, the artist brought his work to the streets of Bushwick.
During a visit to Berlin, New York-based street artist Cake has teamed up with locals Various and Gould to plaster the city with an impressive array of images. Two of the prints that Various and Gould posted are part of their Modern Saints series, which brings to light current social concerns through the use of religious iconography. These religious influences are echoed throughout the pair’s work, from the symbology of the objects the figures are holding to the scroll-like patterns repeating in the background.
Cake
In a complimenting color palette, the Cake continued creating portraits of those close to her, accompanied by the signature sunset hues and facial expressions for which she is known. The surfaces on which Cake chose to wheatpaste her work add to the aesthetic intrigue. Part of a new series titled The Girls of Fortuna, the melancholic expressions on each figure looks off into the distance is further heightened by the layers of peeling art and tags that dot the walls. Each one seems to be trapped in the visual chaos that surrounds them, looking for a way out.
For those who have seen Cash4’s work on the streets, his solo show opening tomorrow presents a rare opportunity into the mind of the man behind the tags. The word play and puns seen in his stickers (Crash Floor, Cash IV, and so on) take a predominate role in his pop-inspired florescent paintings. These words of wisdom are paired with equally as humorous characters, some missing teeth while others roll their eyes at the nonsense they are surrounded by. If you were not fortunate enough to see his solo show earlier this year at Weldon Arts, this is an opportunity to not only see some astounding work, but to do so while hearing the premium tunes of Rap Gang, of which Cash4 is a member.
The press release:
On Thursday November 15, 2012 please join The Superior Bugout as it hosts the opening night of Cash4’s new body of artwork entitled CASH FOR…. Accompanying the artwork will be new sounds from the Cash4’s Brooklyn based hip-hop group Rap Gang.
The show will be on display at the Tender Trap through December 6, 2012 during hours of operation (4pm-4am).
Cash4 is a painter, illustrator, and architect based in New York City. Cash4’s fine art documents the American urban experience using simple iconography and colloquialisms (those often based on the New York Metropolitan area). Cash4 likes to see his work as bridging the gap between the naive disenfranchised hooligan street kid and the pretentious overzealous contemporary gallery artist.
The Superior Bugout (a Brooklyn based party aesthetic) has been curating art for Tender Trap since the Fall of 2012. The Superior Bugout seeks to bring a synergy of sight and sound, combining elements of the streets with contemporary sound visionaries.
In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, both gilf! and Hanksy returned to Little Italy to find parts of their walls for The Art of Comedy damaged and in need for repair. Pieces of the artist’s wheatpaste had been ripped in the storm and another artist had also added some work of their own to the street artist’s wheatpastes. Wedged between two of the final pieces in the panel, a stick figure girl had been draw in peach chalk on the wall beside the word “poop.”
Through the magic of Twitter, Hanksy confirmed that comedian Jim Gaffigan had in fact taken a stroll in the neighborhood past the wall recently. When paying a visit, his children decided to try their hand at some of their own childstyle street art.
Before the artist began buffing the wall I took a picture of the character that Gaffigan’s kids collaborative work next to Hanksy. Working from this photograph, Hanksy recreated the young artist’s drawing on mural, this time making it permanent through spray paint. The stencil is intended to be given to his daughter with the note “for the world’s youngest street artist.”
In addition to repairing existing walls, Hanksy also comepleted the final piece in his series for the New York Comedy Festival. Taking the imagery back to its roots, the artist chose to stencil an “OG Hanksy Rat” between two Italian restaurants. With handwriting similar to that of Gaffigan’s daughter, Hanksy doused the freshly primed space with red paint, bringing a more literal meaning to the saying “caught red handed.”
While Bushwick did not take the bulk of the damage in Hurricane Sandy, the area’s reliance on underground subways into parts of the city that are now without electricity left many artists trapped in Brooklyn. National and international flights, trains and busses were all canceled for days, leaving artists Pixel Pancho and 2501 with some time on their hands.
Pixel PanchoPixel Pancho
By way of Martha Cooper’s hospitality and driving skills, the pair made their way through the borough’s paint stores searching for the right colors before landing at Bushwick 5 Points. Enduring the smells emanating from the live poultry establishment on the corner, Pixel Pancho incorporated his style of rusted robots into the building’s gritty razor-wire and concrete exterior.
25012501
Meanwhile, 2501 added his geometric forms to the area of Bushwick 5 Points that is slowly housing the abstract work of fellow artists such as See One and Hellbent. Leaving town the following day, the artist put time to the test when creating his latest optical illusion.
2501See One and Hellbent in Progress
As 2501 wrapped up his wall, See One and Hellbent continued working across the street on their massive collaborative wall. Through slowly building up layers weekend after weekend, the pair near the completion of their largest wall date. With jobs and trains canceled into next week, weeks of bending color and form could come to a close soon.
gilf! is the type of person to engage you with her art, both visually and verbally. Though the messages are implicit in her imagery, she is quick to drop her paint can to discuss her pieces with anyone who catches her in progress. When entering into a curated mural project, I wondered how an area that was not known as a street art haven would greet these confrontational, but satirical, stencils. These issues as well as several others were discussed in an interview with gilf! for Vandalog as she prepares for her work with the New York Comedy Festival. – Rhiannon Platt
R: Could you talk a little about the overall message of your work?
G: It’s mostly social commentary about current issues and things that are affecting us a society, both globally and nationally. I feel like a lot of people don’t pay attention to shit. So, if I can put it on the street and get them to consider a different perspective about things concerning their everyday life that’s kind of why I do what I do.
gilf! for Welling Court
R: And you don’t restrict it to just politics?
G: It’s not always political. It can be environmental, social, government changes are I guess not what I would consider political always. I always focus on things that I’m passionate about and that I find to be unjust or problematic.
gilf! in Williamsburg
R: With working for the New York Comedy Festival, how do you think parody will play into this usual message of political or other contexts that you usually try to convey?
G: You can have something with a message that can also be entertaining. If you look at the Colonel Sanders piece I did it talks about things that are really nasty, like genetically modified situation going on in our fast food lifestyle, but it’s also kinda funny because the thing has six wings. Visually it’s not something you would expect. I think using parody in art can allow people to be more focused on the work because they are laughing at it, but then it maybe the message clicks a little afterwards. You’ve got to lure them a little bit, there’s got to be something appealing.
R: Will you be working with all new imagery for this event?
G: All but one I believe. For the most part it’s going to be all new and things based around the election and some political things that I find to be kind of entertaining and weird.
gilf! for the New York Comedy Festival
R: What does it mean for you to be working in a space like NoLita?
G: Well it’s funny because it’s not a neighborhood where I would usually put work up. Thinking about the type of people who walk through Little Italy. You get some native New Yorkers, but mainly my work will be interacting with tourists. It’s going to be the people from the middle of the country, or France, or wherever that go to Little Italy to see the character and novelty of it. That’s going to be cool because it’s not people that I usually talk to. The work is usually in Brooklyn or downtown. It’s usually in neighborhoods where I hang out versus neighborhoods where you get a lot of people who would never see street art. If you’re from Oklahoma or Virginia, there’s not a lot of wheatpaste or stencils or whatever going up. So it will be interesting to see how those people interact with what I’m doing.
gilf! and Veng in Baltimore
R: It’s probably an older demographic than your usual neighborhoods too.
G: Totally. It’s gonna be a lot of families I imagine. Kids and their parents and middle aged family of four kind of people. I was also excited to talk about the election because it will go up right before the vote, not that it’s going to influence anything because New York is going to go to Obama because it’s a Democratic state. Still, just commenting on it’s a weird façade and why our voter system is totally flawed will be interesting to see how people who are of the voting age would think about that.
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.
