Brian Sherwin: Tell us more about your thoughts on consumerism and popular culture– and how your work offers, or at least explores, an alternative. For example, would you say that most people live in contradiction– in the sense that they strive to be individuals while embracing every message that flashes on the TV screen?
D*Face: The thing is life is full of contradictions, it keeps things interesting, certain people try to live out their lives through products and brands, it’s excepted in our society that shopping is a ‘hobby’ and wearing brands depicts your of a certain ‘stature’ or ‘class’. What I noticed recently with the down turn in the economy is that people are still going to the shops, it’s as if their lives have become programmed to do that, no matter whether they have money or not.
I was at a shopping center recently and it was strange, people were walking round the shops but like zombies or vultures circling a giant rotting corpse looking for a ‘bargain’. It was surreal, but at the same time really interesting, the backdrop of most shops ‘Sale’ or ‘Closing down’ signs covering the windows, made it feel like a film set or art installation.
I really don’t want to come across like I’m preaching, because I wear Nike, I drink Coke, but if there’s an alternative it should be considered.
My work has always been about a subversive intermission from the media saturated environment that surrounds us, I always saw the characters I was putting up as a break to to the advertising bombardment, it was also my escape from this world, I was surrounded by it, not just in the public domain, but at the time the marketing mumbo jumbo speak that I’d hear at work… it made me really cynical, I guess seeing and hearing it with my own eyes and ears made me want to spread the rot from the inside out.
You know, I’ve never said ‘don’t buy this brand or wear that label’ what I’ve wanted to do is get people to consider an alternative or look at the brands that surround us with different eyes. The billboard liberation’s I’ve created are my most direct way of instigating this.
Work by Posterboy, Ellis G., and Aakash Nihalani. Photo by Jim Kiernan
Yesterday The Gothamist reported that Posterboy was arrested on Friday night. Jim Kiernan, who was supposed to be photographing Posterboy on Friday, has been kind enough to give us his take on what happened.
The back story is that I started as a writer way back in the day. I dropped that a long time ago but never lost interest in all things street-related. I’m fully digging the Street Art movement that’s popped up in earnest over the last few years. I have many favorite artists but Poster Boy just really struck a chord with me. In my opinion he’s the latest branch of the family tree that begat Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. For real, I think he’s that talented.
Anyway I’m always documenting the underground. For many years I videotaped bands (mainly Punk Rock stuff but other genres as well). Mayor Guilani effectively snuffed out many of the venues that I used to shoot in and the NYC real estate market killed most of the rest. So what to do? Well, I picked up a still camera and have made that my thing for the last several years. Of course I’m still all about the underground, the offbeat, the artistic. So I decided to start shooting street art. Not all that original but fun and visual and very satisfying. I started seeing Poster Boy’s stuff underground and didn’t know who he was. After researching a bit I figured out who he was and started following him.
Long story short I contacted him and asked him if he was down for me to tag along and shoot while he did his thing. I sent him a few shots from a session I did with Chico L.E.S., an old school Lower East Side NYC graf muralist. He dug my stuff and we were supposed to hook up some time in February. Yesterday afternoon at around 3:30 my phone rings. I usually always screen everybody but I manage a literary fiction author on the side named Mike Guinzburg and I thought the number was Mike’s. He goes “you know who this is, right?” and I said yeah, Mike. “Nope, it’s Poster Boy man. I’m doing a collaboration with Ellis G., (the chalk artist) and Aakash for a ‘friendswelove.com‘ benefit. Can you grab your cameras and get down here in about an hour?”
Well, the bad news was that I was at work and my cameras were at home. I told him I’m try to borrow a camera and get down there. He gave me the cross streets and told me to call him when I was in the area. I couldn’t get my hands on a decent camera so I said fuck, bailed from work, bolted home and grabbed my gear. By the time I got downtown it was about 6:30 give or take. I tried calling him but got voice mail. Left a message, said fuck it and started walking around shooting street art (I was one block from where Banksy just put up on of his three big NYC full building pieces and there’s a ton of good spots that get hit). I walked around shooting for about an hour, called him again, left another message and then kept on shooting on the streets.
About half an hour later, I was freezing my ass off and my cell phone battery was about to die. I ducked into an ATM on the corner to get warm and to call him one last time. Again, voice mail. I told him I was going to bail and that we’d have to hook up next time. BUT, when I walked outside and there were a bunch of Ellis G. pieces on the sidewalk, including the exact address of the event (which I hadn’t known). While I was on the phone leaving Poster Boy a message telling him I was bailing, Ellis G. was hitting the sidewalk. If that’s not a sign I don’t know what is. Streets are talking, indeed.
So I went to this loft space on the 5th floor. There were collaborations and other pieces on the walls and a DJ spinning. I grabbed a drink and started shooting. Ellis G. came up to me to ask me who I was shooting for and I told him I was supposed to meet up with Poster Boy, etc. That’s when I found out he got popped. The cops had been trying to track him down for a while I guess and his name was on the benefit flyer and said he would be in attendance. They had a plainclothes cop on the street and that’s who nabbed him. Talk about bullshit. We’ve got major shit going down on the streets in NYC every day and THIS is what the cops are spending their time on? Unreal. It was definitely a bummer but Ellis and Aakash got right to work throwing up a tribute collabo for Poster Boy.
I was talking with PB’s cousin for much of the night and there was no update on his case or his bail or anything. I offered to personally post bail on him but we couldn’t get any info. I still don’t know what’s going on but I’m sure that all of this is just a speed bump. No way are the cops going to keep Poster Boy down. He’s got all of the right ideas and some of the purest artistic intentions I’ve seen so I’m sure we’ll be hearing from him again soon.
Thanks to Jim Kiernan for his help and for the photo at the top of this post. Hopefully Posterboy will be back out on the streets soon.
Looks like Shepard Fairey is getting ready for his big show at ICA Boston February 6th. Arrested Motion has images of Fairey’s new street work in Boston, as well as preview images for the exhibition.
Shepard Fairey at ICA Boston. Photo courtesy of the ICA Boston.Photo by Hargo
Also, USA Network has given Shepard Fairey some sort of award for being a cool guy. Along with that, they’ve done a great video interview with him. Check it out below:
Since Vandalog started 100-some days ago, I’ve mentioned Veng four times. Why is that? It’s not just because I have nothing to talk about. It’s because one, I wanted to feature him and his crew, Robots Will Kill; two, Andrew Michael Ford from Ad Hoc Art mentioned them as well when he spoke about great street artists in NYC; three, Veng knows New York graffiti and street art, so he was part of my Great in ’08 series; and four, he was recently had some work in the From The Streets of Brooklyn exhibition at Thinkspace Art Gallery. But mostly, it’s because he’d good at what he does.
Veng is one of those artists blurring the line between street art and graffiti. I’ve been looking forward to this interview for a while. I think Veng is one of the most important artists to be watching in 2009, and I had to make sure Vandalog readers get to know him. Sorry if I sound like a bit over-enthusiastic, but it’s rare to find an artist of such talent who is not very well known outside of his home town.
I would try to describe Veng’s work, but he does a much better job, so I’ll just get to the Q&A.
RJ: How long have you been painting, graffiti/street art or otherwise?
Veng: I have been painting and drawing since I was little kid, and got into graffiti around the age of 12.
RJ: Why do you paint on the street?
Veng: For me painting on the street is in the excitement that each time you go out it’s different from the last time. The people you can meet while out painting or pasting can give you opportunities for stories I normally never would have had if all my time was just spent traditionally in a studio. Also the architecture of a city and how it gives you countless surfaces to place your work within is also a draw. Continue reading “Finally: The Q&A with Veng”
While I was surfing around YouTube today, I found this 2-part interview with URB.com and Futura from back in October. Looks like not too many people have seen it though. If you like Futura, you should definitely check these out:
New York street artist Imminent Disaster recently did an interview with Commandax, and I have to say it’s 10x more detailed and better than 99% of interviews with street artists. Anybody who likes Imminent Disaster should read it, and if you don’t know who she is, you’ll probably like her by the end of the interview.
My favorite little factoid from the interview: Imminent Disaster once played Janet in The Rocky Horror Show.
This is probably the best interview I’ve seen with Shepard Fairey about his Obama poster. Boing Boing does a great job. Well worth watching because they discuss the concern I originally had with the image, which I think many people shared: THIS IS SHEPARD FAIREY AKA OBEY DOING A POLITICAL CAMPAIGN IMAGE!
A few new videos with Posterboy have popped up recently. I’ve featured Posterboy on Vandalog before, but for those who don’t know, Posterboy is a New York artist who goes through the subway system ripping up advertising and creating mashups of the ads to change around the message. Recently, he’s also branched out into just ripping billboards down and collaborations with aakash nihalani.
LukeDaDuke is an artist I’ve had my eye on for a while. He’s part of the VST crew (check out a great interview with fellow VST crew member FarkFK at Concrete Canvas), and it sounds like 2009 will be a big year for LukeDaDuke and his dog.
RJ: How did you get started in art/graffiti/whatever you consider what you do, and what do you consider what you do? Is it street art, urban art, graffiti art, just plain art, or something else?
LukeDaDuke: I started somewhere in 1997 or 1998. I was intrigued by graffiti since I was young, and I decided it was time for me to get noticed.
Noticed I got… 2 tries, 2 times busted.
I still wanted to go out and make myself known. In Eindhoven, a city in the Netherlands that I often visited, the stickerscene was boiling hot and I went along with it.
First a little tag on a sticker, later nude girls, and after a while, I came up with the dog.
I think my work comes close to streetart. But perhaps stickerart is a better word for it… and posterart.
If you took Gaia to a high school drawing contest he might place first or second, but put his efforts on the street and it becomes worth half as much as a real Swoon. It may be a testament to street artist Swoon’s influence and popularity, that an influenced artist can find a ravenous audience without a new style, technique, or thought for where/how to install it. As a derivative work, its more saccharine, dim witted, but just about as popular. Gaia plays the Monkey’s to Swoons Beatles.
That’s one way to think about Gaia. In fact, that diatribe is a portion of a faux New Yorker article which was wheatpasted right next to a Gaia piece.
By Gaia
On the other hand, Gaia might be really good. That’s what I’d say. His work is powerful and the melding of man and animal creates some very beautiful results. Gaia’s the first to admit that his work is influenced by Swoon, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. All artists have influences. I asked Gaia about his, and about his thoughts on people who say he is too much like Swoon.
Gaia: I think that it is quite apparent in my work that Swoon is a strong influence but I believe that the comparison is a little tired now because I really do feel that my pieces are distinguishable. I believe that these comments and mistakes also stem from a real lack of understanding of the the Street Art scene. Once the viewer has a true awareness and visual literacy for the work that is on the street, then such confusion is avoided. Continue reading “A Very Different Post About Gaia”
