Gallery/Museum Shows – Page 39 – Vandalog

March 27, 2012March 26, 2012

My Turn: Group Show at the Carmichael Gallery

As Lois mentioned, “My Turn” (curated by L.A.-based Bumblebee) opened at the Carmichael Gallery recently, showcasing global artists deserving of wider audiences. Although the show’s title and theme failed to carry through to the works on display, it’s worth noting that Bumblebee showed admirable range in selecting fellow artists from the UK, Colombia, Argentina, Italy, and the Ukraine.

Interesni Kazki stood out as capably transitioning indoors without losing the magic that makes their large-scale work so spectacular. Building on their solo opening at Mid-City last year, the duo contributed separate pieces this time (each attributed to either WAONE or AEC), employing acrylics, rather than aerosol, in all but one piece.

Moneyless also showed strongly, with geographical works that utilized similar techniques to his yarn sculptures. (In fact, I’d be very interested to see what Moneyless could do if given free range in an entire gallery.) Though I love the idea behind Jaz’s animal transformations, they weren’t nearly as impressive on a smaller scale. However, what was impressive about the show was the diversity of work on offer–from Hyuro’s detailed pen work to Klone’s watercolors–bringing a solid perspective on where street art is going, and how it might continue to transition into gallery spaces.

“Play Me” runs through April 7 at the Carmichael Gallery, 5795 Washington Blvd, Culver City, CA 90232.

Photos by Ryan Gattis. More photos available here

March 24, 2012

Sti(c)kman in all his glory at Brooklyn’s Pandemic Gallery

A huge fan of Sti(c)kman, I made it over to Williamsburg’s Pandemic Gallery yesterday to check out “20: CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF PLAYING WITH STICKS IN THE STREETS.” The exhibit — comprised of endless variations of my beloved character in different media — is the perfect celebration. Here are a few images:

The exhibit continues through April 6 at 37 Broadway in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and is definitely worth checking out if you’re anywhere in the vicinity.

Photos by Lois Stavsky

March 23, 2012May 10, 2013

Weekend link-o-rama

So I’ve been working a lot lately on Re:Humanities, a symposium of undergraduate work in the digital humanities. It’s taking place next week at Swarthmore College, just outside of Philadelphia. I hope you’ll come check it out if you’re nearby. I’ll be speaking about how the internet has changed street art, and there are a bunch of other great topics up for discussion for anyone interested in the digital humanities. Okay, that’s my personal announcement for the week, now onto the news:

Conor Harrington, Dscreet and Ronzo collaborated on this wall over in Dalston.
Sweet Toof and Paul Insect have also been painting some fantastic walls in London.
Okay so this video of a piece by Verbo isn’t the best quality, but the piece is pretty awesome and very different from a lot of what is out there. I wish I could have seen the animation in the flesh and I hope he continues to work with this combination of mural and digital projection.
2 Many Printers is a cool little clothing brand with t-shirts by Husk Mit Navn, Ian Stevenson and others.
This mural is probably my absolute favorite piece of public art that I’ve seen related to the Egyptian Revolution.
Glad to see I’m not the only one who thinks Anthony Lister’s “Planet of the Apes” mural was problematic and a disservice to the art community.
C215 has a show in Paris of stained glass windows based on his imagery.
Shepard Fairey is involved in a possible new film version of 1984. Could be cool, although it’s a bit ironic since Fairey was involved in trying to rewrite history himself when he submitted doctored evidence in a court case.
Niels Shoe Muelman has a show opening this week at 941 Geary in SF.

Photo by Jade

March 21, 2012March 21, 2012

Adam Void – an American Dream at MICA

Avoid pi aka Adam Void‘s latest solo show, an American Dream, opens this week at the MICA Decker Gallery at MICA in Baltimore. It’s always difficult to predict just what you’ll see at an Avoid pi show, but he says that the show includes work on themes including homelessness, evangelical religion, freight hopping, protest culture, surveillance and urbanization.

an American Dream opens on Friday from 5-7pm and run through April 1st.

Photos by Avoid pi

March 20, 2012March 20, 2012

New work by Hush and an upcoming solo show

That flared tag is chilling. Hush gave us this as a little sample of what we’re to expect at his upcoming solo show in May at Metro Gallery in Melbourne. The show will be displaying a large body of his work and wide range of techniques. RJ and I frequently debate Hush’s work since we have strong opinions and fairly different tastes, but even he liked this one. What do you think?

Photos by Cleo la Vel, courtesy of Hush

March 16, 2012March 16, 2012

Weekend link-o-rama

While I spend my day at my other job explaining to people how a skee-ball tournament is art (seriously), I hope you’ll enjoy these newsbites from the past two weeks:

Almost everything I’ve seen of this show looks absolutely amazing: Saner’s solo in SF opening today.
You can listen to this conversation between Retna and his friend Med if you want a bit of insight into the Bowery/Houston mural, although it may just confuse things further in a good way.
Escif has been doing some really cool work lately and I’ve been neglecting to post it, but here’s one of my favorites.
Steve Powers and Faile designed potential covers for New York Magazine. Powers’ was used, but I’m a sucker for anything Faile so I definitely would have gone that route.
I meant to put this piece by Marco Sueño as the image for last week’s link-o-rama, but then my hostel didn’t have wifi so there was no link-o-rama.
Jaz took it up a notch with this mural in Lima.
S.Butterfly’s photos of the DMV crew show in Australia are finally online and the show looks great.
Eine painted the outside of Village Underground in London to raise awareness of the Homes for London campaign.
GrafRank is an attempt to graph the popularity of street artists and graffiti writers online using data from flickr. Interesting idea, but they need your feedback to make sure they are getting things right.
Juxtapoz is turning 18 and they are celebrating with a show later this month in Santa Monica. Artists include Retna, Shepard Fairey and Neckface.

Photo by Snyder

March 16, 2012March 16, 2012

“My Turn” at Carmichael Gallery: Jaz, Hyuro, Klone, Stinkfish and more

Although I have yet to make it to its Culver City space, I became an instant fan of Carmichael Gallery after seeing its astoundingly beautiful 2010 Recreation II exhibit in collaboration with Ogilvy & Mather in New York City. If I were anywhere near the West Coast, I would definitely make it to its upcoming exhibit, My Turn. Curated by Los Angeles-based artist Bumblebee, it opens this Saturday evening featuring work by some of the most provocative and passionate artists working on the streets across the globe today. Personal favorites include Jaz, Hyuro, Klone and Stinkfish. Here are a few images:

Photos courtesy of Carmichael Gallery

March 10, 2012March 7, 2012

20 years of Stikman

3392484289_1e2d1cc3ac_z — Photo by Laura Padgett

Many people may not realize it, but Stikman has been putting up his street art for nearly 20 years. He started out in the NYC’s East Village during the summer of 1992. In celebration of this major milestone, Pandemic Gallery will be hosting a Stikman solo show called 20. The show opens on March 16th and runs through April 6th.

Besides his general coolness, I do have one story to tell about Stikman: Last year I hosted some people at Haverford College to talk about street art. It was a fun event. The immediate and obvious physical results of this event were Jordan Seiler work with Haverford students and Gaia’s mural. A day or two later, I noticed stickers by some Philly sticker artists, but that was somewhat expected. I had seen those guys in the audience at the discussion. The real surprise came much later, when I discovered that Stikman had put up at least two pieces at Haverford. Both artworks are still there to this day, almost a year later. Since I didn’t spot either piece until after the talk, my guess is that Stikman’s contributions to the Haverford campus arrived when he visited for that discussion, but I can’t be sure. However they arrived, Stikman’s pieces are always a bright spot on my day, whether I’m headed to another lunch at the cafeteria or off to work.

6507476199_2257460c95_b — Stikman at Haverford College. Photo by RJ Rushmore

PS, if anyone from Haverford College’s communications department is reading this because it has come up on your Google Alerts: That story was a fiction and the above photo is a faked. You will not find a blue Stikman sculpture outside of the Dining Center. Even if it is there, it must have been there for many years and has nothing to do with any event on campus that I had anything to do with. Sorry for confusing you.

PS, if you do not work at Haverford College, please disregard the above paragraph.

Photos by Laura Padgett and RJ Rushmore

March 8, 2012March 8, 2012

Rammellzee show opens today in NYC

5646695175_d169c3a98f_z — Rammellzee at the LA MOCA

The work of Rammellzee, one of the late great mysteries and legends of the New York graffiti community, will be on display in New York City starting tonight at The Suzanne Geiss Company. Letter Racers will have two complete sets of Rammellzee’s letter racer creations on display. By this point, you’re probably either in agreement with me that this show is a must-see, or you’re completely lost because you don’t know who Rammellzee is. Well, The New York Times profiled him last week, which is a better introduction than anything I might write about him.

Letter Racers opens on March 8th from 6-8pm and runs through April 21st.

Photo by RJ Rushmore, flyer courtesy of Suzanne Geiss Company

March 5, 2012March 4, 2012

After the Laughter: Herakut at LeBasse Chinatown

Herakut‘s recent solo installation at LeBasse Projects attracted quite a crowd to their Chinatown location. The exterior featured a carnival atmosphere–one with popcorn and cotton candy machines whirring and popping–but those belied the darker works on view inside.

It’s difficult not to compare Herakut and Os Gemeos after they had dueling openings on February 25th, but it’s worth noting that each was successful for different reasons, and in different ways. Although both featured triumphs of scale, and moved the bar up on what street artists can (and perhaps should) pull off in gallery spaces, Os Gemeos relied on playful lighting, bold color choices, and some instances of technological cleverness while Herakut combined their dark fairy-tale images with a flair for the dramatic.

The largest pieces in the show came straight from the stage of Downtown L.A.’s Palace Theatre, where Herakut collaborated with Lucent Dossier on “When Lucent Found Herakut” earlier last month. In fact, members of the troupe worked the crowd over the course of the evening, dressed in masks designed by the German duo. A unicorn was present, a monkey too. I was put off by this at first; I felt it distracted from the art on the walls. It took me time to see that the artistry involved in the mask-making is a large part of what Herakut do, and these simply delivered life-sized recreations of their trademark women and children wearing animal head hats.

"You Seem To Be Forgetting That There Is A Monkey in You, Too."

One of the most intriguing aspects of the show were the statues (also adorned with hats) that were done either completely in casting stone, or with papier-mâché and tape, as was the case with two different deer pieces. However, the standout work was a canvas: a portrait of a child wearing a monkey’s head atop its own. The point where both merge is taped over–as is the chin–and it’s left to our imaginations how this fusion came about, or perhaps even how violent it was. The text reminds viewers that we “seem to be forgetting that there is a monkey” in us, as well.

It is this awareness of nature–not simply of the natural world, but also of our own human natures–that suffuses this show. It’s in everything from the small prints to the larger pieces. As with some Herakut, the work is not always the most comfortable viewing, but it is clear-eyed: a persistent reminder that part of what makes us human is the presence of the animal within.

“After the Laughter” runs through March 17 at LeBasse Projects Chinatown: 923 Chung King Rd. Los Angeles, CA 90012.

More images after the jump…

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