Expect next week’s link-o-rama to be a big one. It’s mid-term week at school. Speaking of school, I’m organizing an artist residency for young artists at my college. If you are between 18 and 24 and could use $350 to do something creative, I hope you’ll consider applying for the Haverford College Undergraduate Artist Residency. Here’s what has been going on this week off Vandalog:
The Wall Street Journal followed Jeffrey Deitch around during the final day of Art in the Streets, so now you can see what a day in the life of Jeffrey Deitch is like.
Remember that beautiful Barry McGee piece in Sydney that we mentioned two weeks ago? That wall of tags? Turns out he wasn’t supposed to paint that, so it’s getting removed. He was meant to, and did, paint another wall, but not the wall that he tagged. Officially, this was an honest mistake and an unfortunate case of confusion on McGee’s part, but if you had a cherry picker or a scissor lift and some extra paint, how would you spend your nights?
Since visiting its wonderful HUELESS exhibit back in the spring, Mallick Williams & Co. has become one of my favorite Chelsea galleries. I’m looking forward to its upcoming exhibit SCRIPTURE featuring new works by Skullphone and Curtis Kulig, two artists who continue to maintain a strong presence in the streets of NYC. It opens next Thursday, October 6, from 6-9 @ 150 11th Avenue.
Ukranian duo Interesni Kazki (AEC and WAONE) are having a solo exhibition opening September 29th at the Avantgarden Gallery, in Milan. ‘Interesni Kazki’ loosely translates into “Interesting Stories” or “Interesting Colors”. The show’s name, Objects of the Universe, was inspired by the two’s cosmological/mind-trip subject matter: “As in a kaleidoscope, the shapes follow one another and float inside a suspended time, losing their original signification and adopting new meanings.”
Heavily symbolic stuff, some of it can reveal hidden images when flipped upside down, or viewed from a different perspective. Interestingly, every single piece contains a secret to decipher. All the fun of Highlights Magazines in a socially appropriate setting!
With the abundance of humbled limbs and littered flags
(How we got here, and where we are now)
Sincerely swindled, the troubles piled like broken accents
(Like stock, or others’ truths)
Burdens like trials like trying/broke-down trains
(Tugging along these two-timing traintracks, persuaded to sing/mumble this damned anthem)
We’re all too homesick and so housebroken
(Anxious like stubborn stock markets)
But in the distance
(And through these empty spaces and their signaled echoes),
A setting sun, like an allowing toll-booth, reassures us
that sand becomes mountains become monuments become sand
(Nothing can ever stay precious on a sinking ship)
and that barricades are only as decisive as we make them
(So we sway back and forth/forth and back with the motions, hoping to reach anywhere or elsewhere)
‘No homeland ever’, the tides hint; ‘No homeland ever’.
Charming Baker "Panda Boy remix" (2007) (£6,000 - £8,000)
This week sees the opening of Autumn’s most high profile street art “exhibit” at The Cumberland Hotel in Marble Arch. I say exhibit loosely since Urban Contemporary is a ten day show culminating in the 150 works being auctioned off by Dreweatt’s on October 10. As usual, there is a mix of crap and some rare works that haven’t been seen in a while. The two that stood out for me is JR’sAdama, Montfermeil, Portrait d’une generation (2006) and the Charming BakerPanda Boy Remix (2007). Not only is the piece an early Baker, but this is also the first time (I cannot find evidence to say otherwise) one of his works has cropped up in the secondary market. Other artists in the show include D*Face, Barry McGee, Shepard Fairey, Banksy, Blek le Rat and Eine.
The show opens September 30th at The Cumberland Hotel in Marble Arch.
The new space is deep and somewhat narrow, and feels a bit like being in a giant service hallway. Up the right wall, Neck Face’s work progressed from sketches to ink and gouache, while the left wall included the show’s mural, a series of Fuck This Life’s collages, and two large collaborative pieces.
Ranging from playful (a piece featuring wigged and rouged demons) to ultra-grime (a skeleton peppering a grave with feces and a demon vomiting colorful chunks into a toilet), Neck Face’s pieces delivered the skeletons and demons aesthetic that owes much to heavy metal–with plenty of pentagrams to spare, and even a detailed disemboweling piece–but what I particularly liked about Neck Face’s demons was his attention to detail in their tattoos.
The artist seemed to be suggesting that humans can be demons as well (or at least act that way from time to time), and although this isn’t an earth-shaking statement, it did add another layer of a meaning to a series of pieces that read like one-frame cartoons and featured a few dull jokes, like the exchange in “Untitled 7”.
Having only previously seen his lines in aerosol, I was impressed by Neck Face’s purposeful chaos in his sketches, especially in “Untitled 2”. The heavy charcoal mixed with scraggly fissure-lines of pencil skillfully evokes a creeping decay.
For his part, Fuck This Life created a series of rectangular collage works on white backgrounds with layouts reminiscent of Internet image searches. The artist could easily have created these by digital means, but the smaller images were clearly cut from newspapers and glossy magazines, and had a zine-like feel as a result.
The imagery most frequently tackled in each collage revolved around sex and death, with occasional appearances by hip-hop icons (Jay-Z, Chuck D, Little Wayne), celebrities (mostly women), and the odd transformation sequence from film or television (e.g. Bruce Banner becoming The Incredible Hulk or Michael Jackson becoming a zombie from the “Thriller” video). When mixed in this way, it was easy to wonder what kind of search word (or words) could create each grouping.
The two collaborative pieces were the most interesting part of the show. Done on square board, each featured Fuck This Life’s collage work, Neck Face’s character sketches, spray paint, and deliberate burn marks. “Lights Out!!!” was the stronger of the two.
The series of portraits that anchors its lower right corner–and rises up the right edge with Neck Face’s signature, hairy-clawed hand–appeared to be still frames of security camera footage (the lone color image in this grouping appears to show a defenseless man getting punched in the back of the head), mugshots, and police sketches.
This grouping was unsettling enough on its own, but when surrounded by Neck Face’s trademark imagery, it seemed as though both artists were unified in pursuing a visual representation of evil. The combination truly worked. It was haunting stuff and the highlight of the show.
Yet, I couldn’t help thinking that–rather than relating to the artists–this was a better expression of “Amerikas Most Wanted” in the show’s title, and perhaps even a missed opportunity for a stronger overall concept.
Neck Face/Fuck This Life, “2 of Amerikas Most Wanted”, runs through October 14th at New Image Art, 7920 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90046.
Neck Face, "Untitled 11"Neck Face, "I Shit On Your Grave" & "Wrong Lamp Little Nigga"Neck Face, "You Look Like I Need Another Drink" (detail)Neck Face, "Untitled 7"Neck Face, "Untitled 2" (detail)Fuck This Life, "Untitled 8"Neck Face x Fuck This Life, "Lights Out!!!"Neck Face x Fuck This Life, "Lights Out!!!" (detail)
Next month, Word to Mother will at Stolenspace Gallery in London for what is a bit of annual tradition by now: His solo show there. This latest show is called Essence Of Adolescence and runs from October 14th through the 30th, with an opening on the evening of October 13th. Here are a few preview images by Viktor Vauthier:
This week it seems like I’ve been appearing elsewhere on the web as much as here on the blog. I’ve been more active than usual on Vandalog’s tumblr, which I’ve finally getting a feel for; I was interviewed by Brian Sherwin over at FineArtViews; and I wrote a post for my friend at Hyperallergic about advertisers utilizing the style of Liu Bolin to sell stuff. Here’s what didn’t make it to Vandalog:
Revok called out Fab 5 Freddy for appropriating (or in Revok’s words “stealing”) letters from other artists including Sever and using them in his own work. You can read Revok’s post here, and hopefully I’ll have some thoughts about it in a post on Vandalog over the weekend. A commenter on Vandalog actually noted that Fred was doing this about two months ago.
New York Magazine published an article, and not a particularly brief one, all about a painting that is supposedly by Jean-Michel Basquiat but was denied by his estate’s authentication committee. Well, while the writer of the article tries to get readers to sympathize with going through a potentially daunting and certainly not transparent authentication process, there was really no point for the whole thing: The painting is clearly by Phil Frost, something that the article doesn’t mention at all. So, umm… good work. Thanks to Known Gallery for pointing this all out.
We visited Opera Gallery earlier today just a few hours before the official opening of “Abstractions,” a retrospective of the abstract movement that features artists who’ve used the streets as their canvas, alongside such “fine” artists as Miro and Matta. Here are a few images:
David Ellis
Ron English
Futura
SaberSixeart, close-up
The exhibit continues through October 16 at 115 Spring Street in SoHo.
Vinchen is Columbus, Ohio’s best-known street artist, but now Vinchen is taking things indoors with Art? Show, presented by Columbus’ Rivet Gallery. Art? Show won’t be taking place at Rivet Gallery, but rather at a (secret for now) pop-up location and will only be open for two days: October 21st and 22nd. The location will be revealed on October 17th. Just what exactly the show will be like is something else that Vinchen is keeping secret for now, but here’s an artist statement:
