Category: Gallery/Museum Shows

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Rich Simmons at Imitate Modern

It’s Frieze week and London is in full swing with pompous art enthusiasts and decrepit rich men buying art and prostitutes all around the city. While most people get excited about the Fair itself, here at Vandalog, we like the satellite events happening that let the galleries go all out and give us a break from snobbery that encompasses Frieze. So besides Moniker and Lazarides’ Bedlam, Imitate Modern is joining the ranks of outsider shows with Just Be You Tiful – a solo show by Rich Simmons.

While most of our readers know Rich as Opera Gallery’ poster boy for commercial street art, this guy has really come into his own in 2012. While he may get a bad rep from all of the publicity that Opera threw at him, Simmons is one of the most hardworking artists I have had the pleasure of knowing. Always willing to lend a helping hand and constantly scrutinizing his own work, Simmons is his own worst critic (not the naysayers on the Banksy forum).

For Just Be You Tiful Simmons has been locked in the studio producing an entirely new body of work to showcase during Frieze at Imitate Modern. Known for its sold out Stik show last year, Simmons has impressed the gallery with his own brand of stencil and collage works. The master of the exacto knife, these intricate multi-layered canvasses are sure to turn a few heads when they find out this is Simmons’ new style especially the Sailor Jerry homages and naked pin-ups. Ooh La La!

Just Be You Tiful opens October 12 at Imitate Modern in London.

All images courtesy of Rich Simmons

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First London solo exhibition from Bristol-based Acerone aka Luke Palmer

From the Crimes of Passion show at the Royal Academy of West England in 2009

Bristol holds a special place in the UK’s graffiti culture. Distinct from other cities it’s laid back attitude and independent spirit has been in part responsible for producing a number of pioneering artists since the 1980’s such as 3D, Inkie (who now organises the huge See No Evil street art festival), Nick Walker, Sickboy, Mudwig and of course Banksy. Over the last two decades one collective who have been representing Bristol at graffiti jams across the world with their impressive and progressive work are the TCF crew. Which brings me to the main subject of the post – Acerone aka Luke Palmer, a key member of TCF, has his first London solo show this week. Although Bristol has a number of galleries that support street art and graffiti sometimes its necessary to make the trip to the capital to step things up a notch…

ACER piece

This is exactly what Luke has done for his upcoming Where is Iron John? show. For some years Acerone has been experimenting in combining photographic techniques with painting. This mixing of media comes together in atmospheric murals that feature the inner-city at night with bursts of light and canvases that are inspired by double-exposure and motion blur while he also works with photographic prints and installations.

“2 Lovers”

Where is Iron John? is a new body of work which is inspired in part by the iconic Grimm Brothers ‘Der Eisenhans’ fairy tale. Luke uses his own photo shoots of London’s classical statues combined with painting to “explore representations of serenity and the complexity of modern masculinity and its links to the male of yesteryear”. It is certainly an interesting notion to look at the heroic statues that are fixtures of our historic cities against the fast pace world we live in and compare those effigies to our own complex lives and the pressures of the modern male. In subject matter and in innovative techniques this show looks set to be something out of the ordinary from Bristol’s extraordinary street art scene…

Opening night Thursday 11th October 6pm – 10pm
Then open Friday 12th October – Sunday 14th October 10am – 7pm
16-18 Heneage Street, Brick Lane
London, E1 5JL

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Logan Hicks at Opera Gallery Paris this week

Stencil pioneer Logan Hicks has a solo show opening this week at Opera Gallery‘s Paris location. The show opens on October 11th at 6:30pm, and runs through November 3rd.

As I mentioned back in July when Logan had a show in London, he’s been someone I admire as both an artist and a friend for many years, but with this show the Vandalog team got two more reasons to be especially excited: 1. One of the new pieces for this show is a portrait of Vandalog’s Caroline Caldwell. 2. That piece, along with portraits of Keith Schweitzer, Jordan Seiler and others is on anodized aluminum, which is my favorite kind of stencil-work from Logan. These pieces are basically solid pieces of aluminum that have been etched into chemically, if I half-remember the process correctly. Coincidentally, the first time one of Logan’s anodized aluminum pieces was shown was at Up Close and Personal, a show that Keith Schweitzer, Mike Glatzer and I curated.

Logan’s work really does need to be seen in person, so I highly recommend checking out this show in the flesh as soon as it’s open.

Photos courtesy of Logan Hicks and Opera Gallery

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MOMO at Bushwick Five Points and in “Geometricks” @ Red Hook’s Gallery Brooklyn

MOMO at work at Bushwick Five Points

It was quite a delight coming upon MOMO at work this past week, as the last time — and only time — I”d seen him paint was back in 2008. Here is the finished piece:

 

 

And the entire block as it is shaping out:

ND’A, OverUnder, LNY & MOMO

I also loved MOMO’s work in Geometricks, wonderfully curated by Hellbent with BSA, over at Gallery Brooklyn.

MOMO on paper in Geometricks

Photos by Lenny Collado, Dani Mozeson and Lois Stavsky

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Weekend link-o-rama

Veni

Here’s some stuff I missed this week while sitting under a giant stack of books and papers to read, mostly stuff I was supposed to read for school but avoided because I was at Nuart last weekend.

Photo by Colin Chazaud

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Hanksy – Young Puns 2: Now With More Pun

IMPORTANT UPDATE: THE OPENING OF “YOUNG PUNS 2” HAS BEEN POSTPONED DUE TO THE HURRICANE AND WILL NOW TAKE PLACE ON NOVEMBER 8TH AT 6PM.

Hanksy‘s next solo show opens November 1st at Krause Gallery on New York’s Lower East Side. Young Puns 2: Now With More Pun is Hanksy’s second show with Krause Gallery. When I first saw Hanksy’s work, I was not (too) amused. But as he’s expanded beyond the Tom Hanks-themed work, I’ve definitely become a fan. He’s a friendly and funny introduction into street art. I’ll definitely be checking the opening of Young Puns 2, and we’ll have more news about a project that Vandalog and Hanksy are involved in together very soon.

Young Puns 2 opens November 1st from 6-9pm and run through November 28th.

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TrustoCorp leaves LA with art, heads to Newcastle

TrustoCorp have a solo show opening at Lazarides’ Newcastle location this week, but before heading to the UK, they took over some bench-ads in Los Angeles. The International Bank of TrustoCorp opens on Thursday from 6-9pm and runs through November 10th. I’ve only ever seen TrustoCorp’s shows through photos or caught their work in group shows, but by all accounts their solo gallery events, particularly the opens, are can’t-miss, particularly thanks to their interactive installation works.

Check out more of TrustoCorp’s recent LA work after the jump…

Continue reading “TrustoCorp leaves LA with art, heads to Newcastle”

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While I was in Stavanger… link-o-rama

Ron English working on his mural at Nuart

For most of last week, I was in Stavanger, Norway for the 2012 Nuart Festival. Naturally, even though I was there in part as press, I spent very little time on my computer and didn’t do any blogging. So, expect a full post or two about Nuart later this week, but for now here’s what I missed writing about while I was away:

Photo by Ian Cox

 

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Futurism 2.0: Creating a Movement Within Public Art

Clemens Behr

Futurism 2.0, the brainchild of London-based Gamma Proforma owner Rob Swain and New York-based theoretician Daniel Feral, attempts to draw a thread between several artists, most of whom evolved out of tag-based graffiti backgrounds and are now created geometric forms within their art. The show opened yesterday at Blackall Studios in the Shoreditch neighborhood of London.

Remi/Rough

On display during the exhibition is the work of Augustine Kofie, Phil Ashcroft, Carlos Mare (Mare139), Boris Tellegen (Delta), James Choules (sheOne), Matt W. Moore, Mark Lyken, Sat One, Christopher Derek Bruno, Moneyless, Mr Jago, Nawer, O. Two, Morten Andersen, Keith Hopewell (Part2ism), Jaybo Monk, Poesia, Derm, Jerry Inscoe (Joker), Remi/Rough, Divine Styler and Clemens Behr. Following the movement through several countries, Rob Swain has delineated a movement that attempts to place graffiti in within the larger canon of art history.

Derm
O. Two

In addition to creating a ground-breaking exhibition, Rob Swain and Daniel Feral have teamed up to create a catalogue that will push this movement beyond the life of the exhibition. With a comprehensive essay tying the Futurist movement of the early 1900’s to a graffiti-based style happening nearly a century later, Feral has cohesively put words to awe inspiring work as only he can.

Boris Tellegen aka Delta

Futurism 2.0 is open now through October 2nd at Blackall Studios in London.

All photos courtesy of Rob Swain

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Stephen Powers: A Word is Worth a Thousand Pictures

A Word is Worth a Thousand Pictures is Stephen Powers aka ESPO’s latest solo show. It opened earlier this month at Joshua Liner Gallery in New York City. Caroline and I had a chance to stop when we were in town for the screening of his film A Love Letter for You (which is available on iTunes as of this week). At the screening, we had a chance to speak with Powers, and it was a pretty enlightening experience. I’d met him once or twice before, but only briefly. Simply having a conversation with Powers gave me a much better appreciation for his work. What you see on the wall is pretty much what you get when you talk to him. Maybe the puns aren’t hitting you at every five seconds like one of his paintings, but there’s a banter that he engages you in that carries over perfectly into his artwork.

A Word is Worth a Thousand Pictures is a good mix of Powers’ greatest hits from the last few years combined with some distinctly new directions. There is quite literally a “greatest hits” walls featuring some of most classic icons and phrases (plus one new design that just began appearing in this show), so no Powers fan can really go away from this show entirely disappointed. As for the new directions, I think his painting that just has a single period against a black background is something new and perfectly Powers, and then there are the ADORE pieces…

If there’s one thing I flat-out did not like at this show, it was the ADORE series. For each of these pieces, Powers got the word “ADORE” painted a bunch of times on metal, like usual, but the signs were put in a square-shaped pile and assembled them into one piece. The idea of layering the signs could yield some interesting results and it’s kinda funny to see a giant painting that orders you to adore it over and over again, but the work comes across as the sort of blah pop art that a gallery with no repeat clients would hang next to Warhol-like portraits of Tim Tebow. Like with Faile’s last show at Lazarides, it’s great to see Powers trying out something new, so there’s no need to pretend that he has succeeded in his first attempts at this new idea.

As for the rest of the show, it made me smile, so I’m happy. The jokes and visual puns are where Powers shines. He is unquestionably clever when it comes to words and simple graphics. His “metalations” are like the silly doodles that most people do in school, but developed to a level that the limits of class time and the margins of a notebook never quite allow for and (sometimes) much more serious than the typical random doodle.

I’ve never totally loved the way that Powers makes the artist’s hand so evident in his paintings, but that’s a minor detail to worry about when you’re laughing, and it’s clearly an intentional choice on Powers’ part rather than a lack of skill. I’m sure he could paint in a KAWS-like superflat style if he wanted.

A Word is Worth a Thousand Pictures is open at Joshua Liner Gallery through this Saturday, and it’s a great place to go if you want to laugh a bit at the fact that life isn’t easy.

Photos courtesy of Joshua Liner Gallery