Category: Gallery/Museum Shows

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DOLK Vs M-City

Norwegian stencil artist DOLK and Poland’s most prolific street artist M-City are set to collide when they invade the Brooklynite Gallery on April 30th for what is sure to be a show for the ages.

DOLK – who is best known for incorporating strangely beautiful story-lines and a wry sense of humor in to his work will be showcasing a new collection of cutting imagery for the show. Often compared to Banksy; due to the similarities of their imagery – DOLK’s new body of work will convey more cynicism than the past, with most figures displaying enigmatic expressions. But that’s not all – Polish street artist M-CITY will also erect yet another of his infamously large scale murals using his unique graphic brand of stencil artillery that includes images of smoke-stack factories, cogs and gears, steam ships, and repetitive city blocks.

Who do you think would win this street art showdown?

M-city. Photo by Unusualimage
Dolk. Photo by Thomas Rockstar

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Inspiration Art Festival

It’s that time of year again. Inspire Collective is looking for participants in their 4th annual exhibition. This year they’ve expanded though. For Inspiration Art Festival 2010, they are planning to take over a massive abandoned building in central Tel Aviv. Shoot them an email if you’re an artist interested in participating.

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Preview of BRP’s “Now’s the Time”

Black Rat Press have just sent me a few images as a preview to their upcoming group show Now’s The Time. The line-up is pretty sick. Black Rat have really found some fantastic paintings from some of the world’s top street artists (past and present) including Banksy, Shepard Fairey, Barry McGee, Keith Haring, Swoon, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Os Gêmeos. The show opens Thursday April 22nd, and I expect the gallery is going to be packed. Here’s what I can reveal so far:

Shepard Fairey

That’s got to be the best Angela Davis (edit: okay apparently this isn’t of Angela Davis, but it still looks amazing) I’ve seen from Shepard Fairey.

Swoon

Swoon keeps getting better and better and better. Definitely my favorite living artist.

Jean-Michel Basquiat
Jean-Michel Basquiat

While it’s only a drawing, how often do you get a see a Basquiat in person? This is something special for sure.

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Escif solo show at Pictures on Walls

Two weeks ago I saw a painting by Banksy and jumped up and down with excitement. I think that I may once again jump up and down with excitement this Friday at the opening of Escif‘s first London solo show. Pictures on Walls is putting on Escif’s show, so you know it’s going to be something special. Last month, Elisa Carmichael wrote that this show would include a hundreds of small drawings. I’ve also heard a rumor that it will be more “conceptual” than people might expect from an artist mostly known for his painting and drawing skills.

Basically: Don’t miss this show. Last week was all about Roa, this week is all about Escif. But keep in mind, Friday is the opening night. Not London’s traditional Thursday. So don’t show up on Thursday. That won’t be as much fun as Friday.

Anyway, Escif has come Spain to London to work on the show as well as paint a few outdoor spots in the city. Here’s a mural that he painted over the weekend at Truman Brewery:

Photos courtesy of Pictures on Walls

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Art Monument 2010

In case you hadn’t already heard, one of this years most spectacular urban art events is already under way this month in Berlin. The event entitled Art Monument will see four famous street artists repaint a 46 meters high tower called Bierpinsel which stands tall in the center of Berlin. It promises to be one of the most spectacular open-air galleries in all of Europe. The aim is to create the ultimate piece of contemporary art and judging from what has already gone down over there these guys are not far off . The artists involved are Honet, Flying Förtress, Craig KR Costello and Sozyone – who can all be heard in the video below talking about their concepts and plans to combine their different styles. Other street art names such as Nils Kasiske, Form 76, Keramik, Mr. Nonski, Dave Decat, Dave the Chimp, Poch and Stak will also be presenting their artworks inside the prominent buildings.

For more info and photos please visit Urban Artcore

Photos from Urban Art Core

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Aryz and Herakut in Manchester

If you’re in Manchester next month, you’ll have a chance to see Herakut and Aryz painting live at Eurocultured, a street festival. I don’t know much more than that, but it sounds like something worth checking out. Plus Eurocultured has like 1000 other things going on at the same time (art, music, breakdancing…).

On a related note, Aryz and Smash137 painted this wall recently in Barcelona and it looks sick:

Smash 137 and Aryz – Montana Cans from Mazot Hiphop & Graffiti Shop on Vimeo.

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Roa at Pure Evil Gallery

Roa‘s first London solo show opened on Thursday night at Pure Evil Gallery. In short, it lived up to the hype. Roa is the man. Is he an artistic genius? Who knows (after all, he still hasn’t given a proper explanation for why he paints his animals and prefers to let the work speak for itself)? I just know I can’t get enough of his art. Here’s from the show (apparently Babelgum’s videos aren’t currently working in some RSS readers or the daily Vandalog email, so you may need to visit the blog to watch this video):

And here are a few photos:

Photos by unusualimage

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Hush at The Shooting Gallery

The Shooting Gallery‘s have a solo show from Hush planned for next month. Hush is a skilled designer who can paint some very beautiful canvases. Maybe the content isn’t groundbreaking (not much art is), and isn’t the sort of thing that I am looking to hang on my walls, but I’m not about to dis Hush or the people who like collect his art. After all, it’s very-well executed and nice to look at. Should be cool to see his new direction. Plus, his stenciled geisha at the first Cans Festival was one of the highlights of the free-for-all stencil area.

The Shooting Gallery says:

The Shooting Gallery is proud to present Passing Through: New works by Hush. This exhibit honors the empowered modern women while celebrating the creative expression of street art. Please join us for the opening reception on Saturday, May 1st 2010, from 7-11 pm.

Hush uses a collision of Eastern and Western imagery to celebrate the modern woman. His manga inspired female forms speak of the strength and power that present day women own, confronting the viewer with a contemporary take on traditional figure painting. These anime women overlay a graffiti style background that references Western imagery in appreciation of cross-cultural influences of Asian culture and Western values.

Passing Through is a darker body of work visiting the concept of life and death.This progression on the part of Hush reveals deeper, more mature paintings. Following in suit with themes of the ephemeral, these works are inspired by Hush’s frequent travels and the graffiti he documents along the way. Each transient mark is evidence of one action and one creative expression, despite its gradual degradation over time.

Hush has developed a process of layering and defacing his canvases to mimic years of tags and wheat paste on a city wall. To begin, Hush covers the canvas with paint, graffiti tags, and collaged photocopies from graphic novels and old comics. He then uses blown up hand drawings of manga girls and screen prints them onto the canvas, embracing the medium’s imperfections by masking off specific parts to be hand painted in later. Hush paints and tags between screens to achieve a complex multilayered texture, defacing the work to reference the weathered, transient quality of street art.

Hush lives and works in the United Kingdom where he has shown extensively with Urban Angel (London) and Opus Art (London and Newcastle). His international repertoire extends to Scope Miami, Art Basel Switzerland, Fifty24SF Gallery (San Francisco), and Carmichael Gallery (Los Angeles).

Please join us for the opening reception of Passing Through: New Works by Hush on Saturday, May 1st, 2010, from 7-11pm. The exhibit will be on view through June 5th, 2010, and is open to the public.

Hush has also made a screenprint for this show. Looking West (above) is a 4 color screenprint on top of a giclee and has been printed as an edition of 50. It’s might be available for pre-order now at The Shooting Gallery for $400.

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ABOVE and Blek le Rat at White Walls

This should be interesting. White Walls is doing two shows simultaneously next month. One is Faces In The Mirror with Blek le Rat. The other is Transitions with ABOVE. Blek is the grandfather of outdoor stencil art, and ABOVE is a”post-Banksy” stencil artist. I think this will be Blek le Rat’s first major show since the art market went kablewy, and it’s ABOVE’s first solo show.

I’m very curious to see what these artists are going to do here. You can’t ignore Blek le Rat’s historical importance for street art, but ignoring that, he’s just a guy who cuts stencils. Introducing new iconic imagery won’t be easy, but people will complain just as much if he just makes the same old rats and Caravaggio stencils. And ABOVE works hard to consider placement in his artwork. Will his stencils lose all their power indoors, or will he rethink everything and skillfully consider the placement of his artwork in a gallery space?

Well here’s what White Walls has to say about everything:

White Walls is proud to present a joint show: Faces in the Mirror by Blek le Rat and Transitions by ABOVE. This exhibition brings together the original pioneer stencil artist and his younger counterpart utilizing stencils to create public art in over 40 countries around the world. Please join us for the opening reception on Saturday, May 1st 2010, from 7-11 pm.

This homage to stencil art marks Blek le Rat’s first show in San Francisco as well as the debut indoor exhibition of ABOVE. The meeting of these two artists is a passing of the torch from the original stencil artist to a younger generation of urban artists following in his legacy. Blek let Rat first pioneered stencils in the early 80s as a bold, attention grabbing form of street art that was never before seen. ABOVE is the prominent stencil artist of the new generation, drawing on Blek’s methods to project a social message into the urban environment.

Blek le Rat resides outside of Paris, the very city he claimed 30 years ago as a platform for social commentary. He was the first of his time to employ stencils and spray paint for fast, high contrast images on city walls. Faces in the Mirror is a collection of Blek’s iconic imagery of beggars, sheep, rats, and Michelangelo’s David with an AK-47, combined with never before seen images such as Mona Lisa. These forms open conversation about consciousness, social relation, mass media, and commodity fetishism. Known as the godfather of stencil graffiti art, Blek le Rat has been the great inspiration for artists worldwide including Banksy, Shepard Fairey, Space Invader, WK Interact, and ABOVE.

ABOVE has devoted the past 8 years to creating street art in 45 countries around the world, refusing to take his focus off the streets even for gallery exhibitions. It is only because of Blek le Rat’s strong desire to show alongside him that ABOVE finally conceded to his premier indoor exhibition. Transitions is based on three themes from his outdoor works: sign language arrow mobiles, wordplay murals, and colorful figurative stencils. The overarching sentiment is one of optimism, honor, overcoming struggle, and a desire to rise above.

Please join us for the opening reception of Faces in the Mirror by Blek le Rat and Transitions by ABOVE on Saturday, May 1st, 2010, from 7-11pm. The exhibit will be on view through June 5th, 2010, and is open to the public.