Category: Gallery/Museum Shows

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Weekend link-o-rama

Don't Fret

Lots of news to share this week and I’m late with this post, so let’s get on with it…

Photo by Don’t Fret

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All City Canvas – Mexico City’s Urban Art Festival

Herakut. Photo courtesy of All City Canvas.

From April 29th to May 6th, Mexico’s capital city was hit with some paint, color and talent. The good news is that Mexico’s All City Canvas had a fantastic line up, who appear to have done fantastic work. Artists participating included Roa, Escif, Herakut, Sego, Interesni Kazki, Vhils, Saner and El Mac. The bad news is that unless you were one of the lucky few who were able to see it in person, the rest of us had to bare with the insta-nostalgia, lo-fi photo processing of Instagram since this was primarily how images of the murals were being released online. Interestingly enough, Gonzalo Alvarez, one of the project’s creators, acknowledged that “many artists in Mexico have no money to travel to other countries, and many of their influences come from the pictures they see on the Internet.” All City Canvas’ PR people could be commended for adhering to Alvarez’s philosophy and releasing the images where the masses seem to be (namely Instagram). But to broadcast art to its global audience through heavy photo filters is kind of like putting ketchup on a steak. Perhaps this argument is irrelevant if the intended audience was the Mexican youth who were able to witness street art in person instead of online. That was the philosophy, right? Quality photos had eventually been released. I suppose I am a bit apprehensive to see Instagram used as a marketing device for art or as my only means of seeing a piece. But that is a total digression from what this post should be focused on.

All City Canvas was awesome. Take a look at these almost completely unedited photos. Or go to Mexico City.

Herakut. Photo courtesy of Brooklyn Street Art.
Roa. Photo courtesy of All City Canvas.
Vhils. Photo courtesy of All City Canvas.

In conjunction with the festical, gallery Fifty24MX in Mexico City is exhibiting a number of the artists participating in All City Canvas in a show entitled “Piezas“. The show opened on May 10th and will be running until May 27th, featuring work by Aryz, El  Mac, Interesni Kazki, Roa, Saner and Sego. Check out photos of the exhibition here.

Interesni Kazki. Photo courtesy of All City Canvas.
Interesni Kazki. Photo courtesy of All City Canvas.
Saner. Photo courtesy of Brooklyn Street Art.
El Mac. Photo courtesy of Brooklyn Street Art.
Escif. Photo courtesy of Brooklyn Street Art.
Sego. Photo courtesy of Brooklyn Street Art.
Sego. Photo courtesy of All City Canvas.

Photos courtesy of All City Canvas and Brooklyn Street Art

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Improvise Combustion with Chris Mendoza and the Con Artist collective

While walking down Suffolk Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side yesterday, I chanced upon two spaces brimming with vibrant, playful, infectious images.  Exuding a raw, yet almost mystical charm, these collaborative improvisations – I soon discovered — are the work of a group of artists whose works I’ve seen and loved in a variety of other settings. Opening this evening, Saturday May 26, from 6-10pm at 154 Suffolk Street, Improvise Combustion, organized by Chris Mendoza, features collaborations and new work by Michael Miyahira aka Mike Ming, Kenji Hirata, Pablo Power and Naomi Kazama, members of the collective Con Artist.  Pablo tells me that the group will be working on an outdoor mural this week. I’m certainly looking forward to that!

Pablo Power of the Con Artist Collective

Photos by Lois Stavsky

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ATG in NYC

Jack Murray aka Panik

London’s ATG crew is headed to New York City for a show this week at Klughaus Gallery. Silverlink brings together 4 members of ATG, including Vandalog-favorite Jack Murray aka Panik and photographer Will Robson-Scott, and should be an interesting test to see if ATG’s success in London will carry over to the NYC without as strong of a reputation locally. The show opens on Friday and runs through June 17th.

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The Re-Jects at (the new space) Reed Projects

Brad Downey

Martyn Reed, the man behind Nuart, is finally opening up a gallery space. Reed Projects, like Nuart, will be based in Stavanger, Norway and draw in contemporary artists from the world of street art and beyond. The Re-Jects will be the first show at Reed Project and it features a sampling of artists from past editions of Nuart: Vhils, Dolk, Escif, Evol, Brad Downey, Dan Witz and Roa. Nuart has never come across to me as something done half-assed, so I’m sure Reed Projects will be no different and I can’t wait to see how it develops. The Re-Jects opens this Thursday (7-10pm) and runs through June 22nd.

Photo by Tod Seelie

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Nug at Skalitzers Gallery

Nug, the artist best-known for basically going crazy with a spray-can in hand, has a solo show on right now at Skalitzers Gallery in Berlin. I’m not sure what I think of the work (which is a sort of installation), but I have a feeling that looking at it online is a very different experience to seeing it in person. Seems to me that Nug is most interesting when doing performance art, but it’s difficult to say based on only seeing jpegs. If anyone has seen the show in the flesh, I’d love to read your thoughts in the comments. Human Behaviour is open now through June 2nd.

Photos courtesy of Skalitzers Gallery

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Weekend link-o-rama

Lush. Photo by Lush

It’s that time of the week again… Here’s what I’ve been reading across the rest of the web:

  • Caber’s drips are fantastic.
  • Yes, there’s a new Banksy. Moving on…
  • I’d like to point out two fake Banksy social media accounts that I’ve been enjoying late. The first is the @BanksyIdeas Twitter account. It’s full of ideas for future Banksy pieces that will hopefully never be made. The other is The Real Banksy, a tumblr account made by Cardinal Burns. They are a comedy duo with a new show on E4 in the UK, and the guys behind this video. Their suburban Banksy character will feature in every episode of the Cardinal Burns show on E4. Here’s one of their new Banksy sketches.
  • Shepard Fairey has worked with Neil Young to make paintings inspired by Young’s latest album. The work will premiere at Perry Rubenstein Gallery’s brand new LA space in June during a one-day private event. Of the one piece previewed so far, the work looks distinctly Shepard Fairey, but also distinctly un-OBEY. I like it.
  • Saber is upset and taking to Twitter because this fantastic mural was buffed. While Saber seems to think that the wall was buffed for something related to the show Sons of Anarchy, The LA Weekly has the least biased overview of what’s gone down. Whatever reason though, it’s a real shame that that mural was destroyed. I must note that I find it interesting how, in the past, Saber has been all about the rights of property owners to do whatever they want with their walls, but now he has suddenly changed his tone and begun speaking out against public advertisements now that work by his friends has been destroyed. Glad to see the change of heart, but I’m disappointed that it took such an unfortunate incident for Saber to see some of the downsides to public advertisements.
  • Galerie F, possibly Chicago’s next art gallery focusing on street art, has taken to Kickstarter to help fund the repairs to their space that will make it usable a gallery.
  • Jordan Seiler’s latest endeavor is something quite different from PublicAdCampaign… It’s an augmented reality app for Android phones that will insert 3d murals onto potentially any building. Right now, it’s in the beta stages, but this could be huge. Sort of like what FriendWithYou did with Becks, but with even more potential.
  • Word To Mother’s show at White Walls looks great. That said, Word To Mother still seems to be finding his voice. He, as usual, experiments with some styles that are little-more than his own riffs on ideas by Barry McGee, Phil Frost and possibly Saber. In the past, he’s fiddled with things very reminiscent of Swoon and Monica Canilao. But the funny thing is that Word To Mother already has a style that is distinctly his own and almost all of his best work is in that style. While yes, the baseball bats inspired by Phil Frost are cool, it’s the original works on wood featuring characters and bits of text that are the stand-outs and the pieces that are most unique to Word To Mother. I understand not wanting to be boxed in and the urge to experiment, but this piece which clearly developed by spending a lot of time looking at Barry McGee/Phil Frost/maybe Saber is not the way to experiment. Still, overall looks like another cracker of a show from Word To Mother.
  • Two bits of Kaws news this week: He has a show in Hong Kong that his fans are going ga-ga for. I love the red Chum painting, but otherwise I’m not really bothered, although I think Kaws is, surprisingly, someone whose work is best appreciated in person so maybe I’m just plain wrong for being unimpressed by the jpegs. The big news for Kaws though is that there will be a balloon of one of his Companions in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade this November.

Photo by Lush

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Arrested Motion curates: City of Fire

The team at Arrested Motion have curated their second show, and it is set to open in LA next month. City of Fire opens June 5th at Stephen Webster. The show includes work by Ron English, Kid Zoom, Pedro Matos, Nick Walker, Rostarr, Jeff Soto, Judith Supine, TrustoCorp and others. For more info about the show, email exhibitions [at] arrestedmotion (dot) com.

Photo courtesy of Arrested Motion

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Ghostpatrol – “Cosmic Scale and the Super Future” at Backwoods Gallery

Opening this Friday is Ghostpatrol‘s new show “Cosmic Scale and the Super Future”. Once you see GP‘s characters you’ll know why he is so loved in Melbourne’s street art scene. I LOVE walking down Brunswick st, Fitzroy or around Collingwood and finding new GP pasties and characters. <3

I’m really looking forward to his new show opening Friday at Backwoods Gallery.

From the Backwoods Gallery press release:

The universe is a head-caving behemoth; an undefinable entity whose eternal expansion into the emptiness of space is too vast for a species aware of its magnitude yet too caught up in the minutiae of their own existence to contemplate, much less comprehend. Iconic Melbourne artist Ghostpatrol doesn’t claim to have the answer to its secrets, but his quest for understanding a time and place far beyond the blip in history that humans occupy now forms the basis of his forthcoming solo exhibition at Collingwood’s Backwoods Gallery.

Entitled Cosmic Scale and the Super Future and running from Friday 18 May to Wednesday 13 June, the exhibition comprises five large scale works – the size somewhat appropriate given the epic scope of the subject matter Ghostpatrol is tackling.

Across this new series of paintings on linen, the artist imagines shapes and forms created in the super future, beyond human kind in the great transformations of matter and dark matter in the cosmos.

That’s not to say that the work presented is intense in nature, with Ghostpatrol’s highly stylised worlds inhabited by characters as curious about their place on the canvas as their artist is about his in the cosmos. “My studies of cosmology and the evolving quantum theory set the scene for the worlds I create,” says Ghostpatrol, noting the recent work of scientists Michio Kaku and Brian Cox as inspirational touchstones.

And even if the empty space of the vast unknown is beyond you, Ghostpatrol’s passion makes the unfathomable not just real but a place not to fear.

More preview photos after the jump… Continue reading “Ghostpatrol – “Cosmic Scale and the Super Future” at Backwoods Gallery”

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Jaz heads to Barcelona for a solo show

"Chicos 2" by Jaz

Franco Fasoli, better known as Jaz, has his first European solo show this week in Barcelona at RAS Gallery. The show, curated by Maximiliano Ruiz, opens on May 17th from 7:30-10pm and runs through June 16th. Jaz is one of my favorite street artists, and his work really should to be seen in person to be properly appreciated. I saw him finished one of the pieces for this show when we were in Baltimore last week, and it was quite spectacular. Check after the jump for more of a preview of the show…

Continue reading “Jaz heads to Barcelona for a solo show”