Next week in London, Mike Ballard aka Cept is opening his latest solo show: Ultra Nomadic Def Smith Cycle at Edel Assanti Project Space. It opens Wednesday, March 23rd from 6-9pm, but I’m not sure how long it runs. I’m looking forward to Graffoto‘s review.
The next show at Shepard and Amanda Fairey’s Subliminal Projects promises to be one of my personal favorites there. Curated by Peter Frank and Lisa Kahane, Art, Access & Decay: New York 1975 – 1985 looks at one of my favorite periods of street art, one that I think is consistently underrated in favor of the graffiti from that time (or else solely represented by Haring and Basquiat, like representing today’s street art solely with Shepard Fairey and Banksy). The show draws heavily from CoLab, Fashion Moda and the East Village artists of the time.
Artists include: John Ahearn, Liza Bear, Andrea Callard, Thom Corn, CRASH, Jody Culkin, DAZE, Jane Dickson, Stefan Eins, Coleen Fitzgibbon, Mike Glier, Robert Goldman, Ilona Granet, Keith Haring, Julie Harrison, Jenny Holzer, GH Hovagimyan, Becky Howland, Lisa Kahane, Christof Kohlhofer, KOOR, Joe Lewis, Michael McClard, Ann Messner, Richard Miller, Joseph Nechvatal, Tom Otterness, Cara Perlman, Virge Piersol, Walter Robinson, Judy Ross, Christy Rupp, Teri Slotkin, David Wojnarowicz and Martin Wong. I don’t know everyone on that list, but it seems to me to be pretty comprehensive and catch most of the major names (minus Basquiat, John Fekner, Don Leicht and Richard Hambleton). Especially cool is the inclusion of Wojnarowicz. Most people don’t realize that he did street art. And I guess the same could probably be said of Jenny Holzer.
I’m excited to see that someone has put this show together, especially at a space like Subliminal Projects. Street art history does not go: Haring to Blek to Beautiful Losers to Banksy, and this early period is well worth a closer look.
And of course, the timing for this show is very intentional. Art, Access & Decay opens on April 2nd and runs through the end of the month. That mean that LA MOCA’s street art show will open dead smack in the middle of Art, Access & Decay‘s run. I will definitely be making my way over to Subliminal while I’m in town for MOCA’s exhibition.
Photo courtesy of Subliminal Projects
Very short notice on this one, but Brad Downey‘s latest show, We Are Beginning: Personal Projects in Public Spaces, is opening today at the Caudro Fine Art Gallery in Dubai. I don’t know what this show entails, but given that it is part of a residency program at Caudro, I’m thinking maybe some new Dubai-based street art. Brad is one of my favorite artists, so it’s cool to see that he is one working in such a unique city as Dubai.
This week is spring break, so I’ve been enjoying some relaxation and watching too many films on Netflix, but in the mean time, there were of course some stories that slipped by me. Here are some of them:
Photo by Overunder
Skewville, my second favorite street art twin duo (Os Gemeos kind of takes the cake in that category), will have a solo show next week at High Roller Society in Bethnal Green. Skewville make some of the most fun art around, both indoors and outdoors. This show, Slow Your Roll, will involve both new and old work, including some of their crazy sculptures. The opening of Slow Your Roll is going to be the place to be for art fans next Friday, March 18th. Don’t miss it. I’m also hoping that while Skewville are in London, they will get up to some trouble outdoors as well, but I haven’t seen anything yet.
This Saturday, March 12th, Shepard Fairey‘s latest solo show opens at Robert Berman Gallery in Santa Monica, CA. The art in Revolutions will be a series of Fairey’s album cover-scale pieces, plus two boxed print sets. Like how skateboard graphics inspired Aaron Rose (as mentioned in an interesting conversation between him and Jeffrey Deitch in Interview Magazine recently), a lot Fairey’s early inspiration came from music and album artwork and he’s done artwork like this before, but I don’t think there’s ever been an entire show of it. Arrested Motion recently visited Shepard’s studio and got some shots of the artist working on this show.
Elbow Toe aka Brian Adam Douglas is/was in London this week for the launch of his new book, Paper Cuts, and the opening of his show Due Date at Black Rat Projects. While in town, Elbow Toe put up a few street peices. Most of Due Date was recently at the Warrington Museum (photos here), but there is one major addition the version now on at Black Rat: A massive 5×7 foot collage called The Memory Of You Is Never Lost Upon Me.
Due Date is open at Black Rat Projects now, but I’m not sure when it closes.
Here’s Elbow Toe’s latest image for the street, which looks like it is up along the canal in Hackney:
Photos by HowAboutNo!, Elbow Toe and Hookedblog
El Celso isn’t the only artist who is experimenting with Peru’s unique Chica style of posters, a style pioneered by the Urcuhuaranga family in Lima, Peru. In Miami, Primary Projects have a group show opening this Saturday in homage to Chica posters. For Para Mi Gente, more than 50 artists have contributed designs to a Chica-style collaboration. Shepard Fairey, El Celso, Tristan Eaton, Skullphone, Posterboy, El Tono and others have sent designs to the Primary Projects crew who will combine all these designs by hand painting them throughout the gallery. The artists have little control over how their designs will look on the walls, where they will appear, or next to what. This sounds like a pretty unique and risky show. It should look cool, and it will definitely mess with the standard notions of what gallery art should be and look like.
Here’s the flyer with all the critical info you may need:
The latest exhibit at Show & Tell Gallery is Good Folk, a group show celebrating the gallery’s 2nd anniversary. Here’s the line up: Swoon, Monica Canilao, Jeremiah Maddock, Derek Mehaffey aka Troy Lovegates aka Other, Labrona and Troy Dugas. It’s an impressive line up of folk-art influenced art. Good Folks opened this week and runs through March 27th. Here’s a sample of what is in the show:
Photos courtesy of Show & Tell Gallery
Titifreak‘s one-night-only solo show at the new One Thirty 3 gallery in Newcastle, UK opened last week. Here are a few photos from the installation, and Wooster Collective has a video.
Photos by Dan Graham and David Bilbrough
