TrustoCorp have a show opening this month at LeBasse Projects in Los Angeles. The Future is Blight opens April 13th from 6-9pm and runs through May 11th. The show will tackle issues of income inequality in LA. TrustoCorp say, “Underneath the glossy veneer of tabloid magazines and Hollywood movies, the former middle class is struggling, families are facing poverty and America is slowly becoming a third world country. In the absence of any real help or solid solutions, there is hypocrisy, greed and hopelessness. Through our work, we hope to call attention to this reality, crack a few smiles and hopefully make some people think along the way. After all, when the mistakes of the past are repeated, the future is blight.”
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.
Safwat Riad
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.
Adam VoidJeffrey VincentChelsea RaganAndrew H. Shirley
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).
Last summer, Aryz painted a few works on wood panels in Næstved, Denmark while he was in town to paint a mural. The wood panel pieces are now on display for the first time. They can be seen in the waiting room at the Næstved bus station. Why can’t American bus stops be this cool? Henrik Haven sent over these photos of the work.
KAWS’ 16-foot-tall sculpture Companion (Passing Through) is making a stop in Philadelphia soon thanks to The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA). The sculpture has already visited The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, The Standard Hotel in NYC, and other locations. From April 11th through May 14th, it will be on display at 30th Street Station, Philadelphia’s main train station.
Then, in October, KAWS will have two sculpture projects at PAFA. One, in a PAFA project inspired by the Fourth Plinth in London, will be a public sculpture placed outdoors atop the entrance to PAFA’s museum in Philadelphia. The other project, an exhibition of KAWS’ sculptures inside PAFA’s museum, will go on at same time.
Three KAWS projects in Philadelphia in one year, with two of them taking place outdoors. Good stuff. For more info, check out PAFA’s site.
PS, the following excerpt from PAFA’s blurb about these projects is hilarious:
The exhibition offers an exciting opportunity to engage in an artistic dialog about PAFA’s past and present, and to link the exterior of the Historic Landmark Building to the work on view inside. Placing KAWS’ sculptural works throughout PAFA’s historic galleries will further the ‘graffiti effect,’
Dabs Myla at Metro Gallery – Photo by Dean Sunshine
Here’s some of the amazing stuff that happened in Melbourne last month. I’m sorry it’s so late – I am already working on the March post. Damn I am proud to post about my home town. So much goodness every month. Enjoy!
Things Left Standing Behind is the second part of Know Hope‘s two-part series of solo shows at Gordon Gallery in Tel Aviv. If you missed Things Standing Between, the first show in the series, we posted photos last week. Things Left Standing Behind is open now and runs through April 6th. For those of us not in Tel Aviv, Know Hope sent over these photos of the show.
One of the reasons I really love Know Hope’s artwork is that I find individual works interesting and precious, but taken as a whole, his overall body of work has a lot of depth to it too, a balance that I sometimes fear is missing with a lot of street artists. These two shows really exemplify that. The first primarily consisted of illustrative paintings and drawings hung on the walls of the gallery, while this part of the show continues the same narrative but centers on an installation titled The Tangled Hollow. Both shows dealt with the idea of fences and walls (things that stand between). Know Hope explained that the wall that makes of The Tangled Hollow is meant to have been constructed by the tree stumps in the center of the wall, which have now been cut down to nothing as a result of building the wall. So what does the wall protect now? Nothing except an idea of what once was. The paintings on the wall are whitewashed so that images only barely show through, like memories of events that were portrayed in the first part of the show.
Opening this Friday, Australian paint-roller connoisseurs “Rawhide” (aka Ankles and Smile) have decided to display their craftsmanship through collage in their show • C R E W / C U T S •. The video echos a few themes of the show, which Ankles describes best: “the visual equivalent of sample-heavy scratch DJs such as Cut Chemist, Kid Koala and The Avalanches. It is a time-consuming process digging through crates of pre-1970s magazines and books, removing type and image from their original context and rearranging it to form some self-referential narrative.”
If you’re in the Adelaide, South Australia area on Friday, March 19th, stop by Magazine Gallery to check out the work!
Mumbo Sauce, a group show co-curated by Roger Gastman, opens next month at The Contemporary Wing in DC. The show includes work by BORF, Mark Jenkins and others.
Shepard Fairey has designed the official mission patch for a space mission. Yes, it’s kind of an odd collaboration and other 100 artists probably could have designed something good for this patch, but I really like Fairey’s design. Great art? I dunno. Solid design? Definitely. Hyperallergic has more examples of patches for space missions.
A huge fan of Cosbe — aka Cosby, Kosbe and just about any variation of his name — since I first discovered his stickers and paste-ups on NYC streets, I stopped by Chinatown’s Suck Store at 88 East Broadway yesterday evening to check out his latest venture, “The Cosby Show.” Bits and pieces of his life — with everything from random sketches to a photo of his late friend and master hand-stylist SURE — make up a huge installation, intriguing and raw. The highlight of the exhibit that opens this evening, Friday, is the 6pm release of a super limited edition of a SUCKLORD x COSBE collectible toy. In addition to Cosbe’s works, a range of Sucklord collectibles are on sale, along with the latest issue of Carnage.
Close-up of huge installation featuring Crasty sticker on baseball cardCosbe on canvas — close-upCollectible Suckadelic trading cardA page from Carnage — one of many on view
