Category: Gallery/Museum Shows

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MOCA street art show book (and a small rant about the show)

Art In the Streets is an upcoming book by Jeffrey Deitch, Roger Gastman and Aaron Rose. The book, available April 12th, coincides with Deitch’s street art exhibition coming to MOCA next spring (Rose and Gastman are involved in putting the show together). While this will probably be just another nice exhibition catalog once it’s published, the official does provide further insight into what the MOCA show will be about (emphasis added):

The first large-scale American museum exhibition to survey the colorful history of graffiti and street art movements internationally. Graffiti has been a form of public communication and identification since ancient times. In its contemporary manifestation, it has redefined the urban landscape and influenced generations of artists. This landmark exhibition traces the birth and dissemination of styles through “writers” and street artists around the world—including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Blu, Martha Cooper, Shepard Fairey, Stelios Faitakis, Futura, Phil Frost, Os Gêmeos, Keith Haring, Todd James (REAS), Margaret Kilgallen, Lady Pink, Barry McGee (Twist), Steve Powers (ESPO), Lee Quinones, Retna, Kenny Scharf, Swoon, and Ed Templeton, among many others—focusing on New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, as well as international locations. Highlighting the connection between graffiti and street art and other vibrant subcultures, such as those that developed around Hip Hop in the Bronx and skateboarding in Southern California, Art in the Streets explores parallel movements in dance and music. A selection of new works created for the show is presented alongside the historical survey of approximately 30 of the most important artists seminal to the genre. The exhibition is curated by MoCA Director Jeffrey Deitch, working with a curatorial advisory committee that includes Charlie Ahearn, Roger Gastman, Carlo McCormick, and Aaron Rose.

It’s interesting to see the direction this exhibition is taking with the choice of artists, but a bit predictable as well:

  • Aaron Rose is best-known for Alleged Gallery and Beautiful Losers, the film about that gallery, and Deitch Projects picked up a number of artists who had been showing at Alleged Gallery (Steve Powers, Barry McGee and Margaret Kilgallen), and a number of the “Beautiful Losers” are included in Art In The Streets.
  • A number of the artists (Martha Cooper, Futura, Barry McGee, Shepard Fairey, Stelios Faitakis, Os Gêmeos, Kenny Scharf and Swoon if memory serves) were all involved in last year’s Deitch-curated Wynwood Walls mural project.
  • Blu painted a mural sponsored by Deitch Projects.
  • Deitch Projects also work with Basquiat, Fairey, Os Gêmeos, Haring, Todd James, Scharf and Swoon (or their estates).

People are going to give MOCA shit for this, but you know what… It’s probably gonna be a good exhibition. Obviously it’s not exactly the show that myself or anyone else would have put together, but Deitch and his curatorial committee have good taste. Of course there’s going to have been some financial ties to the artists they select. If that weren’t the case, the show would have been woefully incomplete. Deitch Projects and Alleged Gallery both worked with some of the best artists associated with street art and graffiti. I can hardly imagine a stronger team putting together Art In The Streets, and I hope that, when this opens, people can look past potential conflicts of interests and just appreciate the show on its own merits.

Photo courtesy of Rizzoli

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Open tonight only: The Community Serviced

This show is opening and closing in just a few hours at NYC’s Showpaper 42nd St Gallery. For The Community Serviced, 24 artists and writers have decorated 12 newspaper boxes for Showpaper. Faro, Darkclouds, Coolcat, Cahbasm, Infinity and others have collaborated on these boxes, which, after the opening, will be places on the streets of New York to distribute issues of Showpaper. Probably the highlight of the evening will be that the legendary Cost has decorated a box. Wonder how long before these got stolen off the street…

Also, Charlie Ahearn from Wild Style will be there to provide music.

But The Community Serviced is only open at Showpaper 42nd St Gallery tonight from 7-10pm, so that may be your only chance to catch all these boxes in person.

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Retna solo show next month at Primary Projects

As has been whispered around the blogosphere recently, Retna has a solo show coming up in Miami just a few weeks from now. The show, called Silver Lining, will be Retna’s first solo show since being on the cover of Juxtapoz earlier this year. Silver Lining is going to take place at Primary Projects, a new 4,500 square foot space run by the folks behind Primary Flight. It opens on Thursday, December 2nd and will include “paintings, drawings, an installation and an entirely new body of work” from Retna.

I just booked my flight to Miami and unfortunately I’m going to miss the opening, but this will be one of the first places that I stop by on Friday.

As you can see in the above invite though, I’ve got to make mention of something about Silver Lining which will be important for readers to remember whenever I blog about it: The show is being supported in part by The Rushmore Collection, which is basically my parents. While I’m not my parents and my parents aren’t Vandalog, I did talk with them over the phone twice in the past 24-hours and we are part of a family. My dad sparked my interest in art, but I probably introduced him to Retna’s artwork. Just something for readers to keep in mind when I write about this show.

Photo by Thomas Hawk

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Dran Invades London

I Have Chalks show

At the end of this month, Pow will play host to one of the biggest upcoming street artists in the game: Dran. Known for his cheeky socio-cultural illustrative commentaries, the young Frenchman has gained a loyal following both within the street art community an collectors alike. Two separate shows will take place, one in a secret pop-up location in Soho entitled “My Everyday Life” and the second is a print show at POW headquarters in Shoreditch entitled “I Have Chalks.” The pop-up show will center around of Dran’s fictitous characters, Scribouille, who does nothing in life but art. The secret location will be filled with Dran’s sculptures, installations and street work which are rare in solo form (He usually bombs with his crew Da Mental Vaporz)

“My Everyday Life” will open November 26th to the public and the location will be made known soon.

“I Have Chalks” will open at the print shop on December 2.

These are going to be the most talked about shows this winter, so make sure to check out the works of this rising art star. And I am not just saying that because I am a MASSIVE Dran fan.

Image for My Everyday Life show

Images courtesy of Pictures on Walls

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Richard Hambleton show coming to London

Richard Hambleton, one of the original modern street artists and active in the 1970’s and 1980’s, has a traveling solo show which comes to London next week. I wrote about why I like Hambleton a few months back. The show will have 45 artworks, many of which have never been seen before. So I highly recommend that you get over to The Dairy in central London sometime between November 19th and December 3rd to check this out.

Via CuratedMag

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Jordan Seiler in Philadelphia

Last week, Jordan Seiler from PublicAdCampaign was here in Philadelphia for Taking From The Tip Jar, his solo show at Vincent Michael Gallery. While in town, Jordan didn’t just hang his show. He also put up a few pieces outdoors. The piece below is, I think, Jordan first street piece that isn’t over advertising.

Outdoors, Jordan brought his usual energy and made the streets of Philadelphia a brighter place. I think his art going over advertisements is one of the most important things that street art can do. Often, people (including myself) have said that good street art is something that brings a smile to your face or makes you think because something has been added to your environment, but Jordan’s art can have just as powerful an effect (but not an impact) by removing branding from the environment. An example: Advertising can make people feel like crap about themselves and convince them to buy crap they don’t need to feel better about themselves. By removing that advertisement, somebody might not feel better about themselves, but don’t feel worse. They have a better day without even realizing it.

Indoors at Taking From The Tip Jar, the artwork was extremely conceptual, which was not immediately apparent. At first, the glance, it’s a drawing of a girl in high heel or underwear, so of course I’m drawn in to look at that. Clearly, Jordan has thought about advertising long enough to know that sex sells. Or he’s been listening to Bill Hicks. Realistically though, the drawings are average. Would they make good street art? Yes. Are they an improvement over the advertisements in phone booths? Hell yes. But the drawings just don’t have that much to offer if you intend to look at them for more than a moment or two. But the drawings aren’t what Jordan’s show is about. It’s about the frames. My favorite work in the show may have actually been an empty frame on the wall.

Everything in Taking From The Tip Jar is framed the same way: in stolen phone booth advertisement frames. Even with his indoor art, Jordan has been able to continue his mission of disrupting public advertising. Once you’re aware of the frames, the entire show is changed. Now it’s about how the frames should be used both indoors and outdoors, if at all. For this reason, Taking From The Tip Jar is one of the stronger shows I’ve seen this year. It actually got me thinking.

The show runs through December 3rd at Vincent Michael Gallery in Philadelphia.

Photos courtesy of Jordan Seiler and Vincent Michael Gallery

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RAE: Unconventional Conviction at Brooklynite Gallery

I know how much effort Rae McGrath puts in when he’s getting ready for shows at his gallery featuring other artists, so I can’t even begin to imagine how hard he must be working for Unconventional Conviction, his own solo show, which opens at Brooklynite on November 20.

I don’t normally copy press releases into posts, but I think this one is worth reading. I don’t believe too many people knew until recently that Rae is an artist, in addition to being a gallerist and filmmaker.

Long before the emergence of Brooklynite Gallery, owner and curator Rae McGrath was constructing artwork of his own in many forms. Schooled in fine arts, raised immersed in the graffiti/breakdance culture of the 80’s and holding down a diverse range of blue collar jobs, has allowed RAE to create an eclectic range of visuals for an exhibition aptly titled “Unconventional Conviction”.

Over the years RAE has spent countless hours on the streets of New York City and other parts of the world, engaging then photographing the everyday person. Usually drawn to the elderly or youth— because of their experiences or lack thereof, RAE often finds similarities to his own life, connecting the dots through his grainy black and white photos which are then hand-painted or silk-screened into pieces that include block text and hand-drawn areas. The second part to RAE’s work involves the gathering and transformation of found objects— namely hundreds of brightly colored plastic laundry detergent bottles. Spending ample time in and around laundromat dumpsters throughout Brooklyn, RAE has amassed quite a collection of these bottles which he then dissects, using cutting techniques once learned while working as a deli worker and butcher. His tales are told on top of mosaic patterns full of vibrant colors and textual information.

For RAE, the vivid and hopeful Pop Art color schemes and graphic detail of the laundry bottles prove to be the perfect juxtaposition to his own urban Brooklyn upbringing and the countless cast of characters of his youthful working class existence. In the end, RAE uses these dynamic combinations to his advantage creating rich and strange alternate realities.

Go visit the show if you live in New York – it should be a fun night!

Image of Rae’s “Snub-Nose” prints via Brooklynite Gallery.

See more of the gallery’s “Snub-Nose” series here.

– Elisa

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We Dream In Colors – Fefe, Remed, Zosen, Kinsey & More

Pedro Matos has curated a show (his first!) that opens at the Montana Shop & Gallery in Lisbon on December 9th. Some artists whose work I really like – Fefe Talavera (above), Remed, Zosen and Dave Kinsey – as well as several others will be taking part. I recommend checking it out if you will be in the neighborhood. It runs through January 3rd, 2011.

Visit Yellow Pants Gallery’s site for more information.

– Elisa

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Some upcoming shows

Here are a couple of shows opening this month that should be worth checking out…

1. C215‘s book launch in Paris: Community Service at Gallerie Itinerrance is a solo show for C215 and will also serve as the book launch for his upcoming Community Service book. The show opens on November 12th at 6pm.

2. Gallery Heist‘s 1-year anniversary exhibition: Till Death Do Us Part is a group show c0-curated by Allison and Garrison from Ad Hoc Art to celebrate Gallery Heist’s 1st birthday. The list of artists here is long but includes Gaia, Ludo, Mike Giant, Justin Lovato and Miso. The show opens on November 13th from 7-11pm, and runs through the 27th. And this show is not at Gallery Heist’s usual space. It’s at 1036 Hyde Street in San Fransisco.

3. Ghostpatrol and DeadLeg in Manchester: Mooch N4 in Manchester has a group show towards the end of November. I don’t know much about Mooch N4, but anybody who is showing Ghostpatrol outside of Australia is okay in my book. And DeadLeg has done some nice collaborations with Best Ever, so that should be interesting too. That shows opens on November 25th and runs through January 31st.