Category: Gallery/Museum Shows

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This Is NOT Graffiti

One weird thing about graffiti is how pervasive it has become in the graphic design community. It seems like all these original writers ended up in graphic design after more or less giving up spray cans. Ever since the Beautiful Losers came along though, there’s been a new generation of writers who are able to strike a balance between a graphic design career and a graffiti life. AKACORLEONE is one of the artists who can strike that balance. Graffiti doesn’t just influence his design. Design influences his graffiti. I love when that happens.

Here’s some info on his latest solo show in Lisbon:

This is NOT Graffiti is the latest up coming exhibition from 24 years old graphic designer and illustrator AKACORLEONE

“Graffiti is not meant to be in a gallery, exposed as another art form, it should be on the streets, fighting the system!” says the Portuguese native. With this idea in mind the 24 years old illustrator with a graffiti background based in Lisbon, decided to create an exhibition about this strange world where kids run from cops, go underground, always looking for the perfect mission, the coolest style, the fame and glory that comes with becoming the king!

This is not a Graffiti exhibition, it’s a 6 step program to become a writer and blow it all up by entering the art world!

This is NOT Graffiti opens Thursday 29th April until May 29th 2010.
Montana Shop & Gallery Lisboa
Rua da Rosa Nº14G Bairro Alto
1200-387 Lisboa, Portugal

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Sticker Phiends

Sticker Phiends III opened last week in Arizona. Looks like one of those crazy group show that can really get people excited about art. Today I walked into a gallery and literally started jumping up and down because I saw an awesome painting. I bet that’s what happened to some of the Phoenix, AZ teenagers that walked into Sticker Phiends to see artwork by guys like Shepard Fairey and Chris RWK, artists whose work probably isn’t visible in Phoenix nearly often enough.

Photos from madone025’s flickr

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Female artists at Subliminal Projects + ARTnews

Subliminal Projects‘ upcoming group show, SUBject/subJECT, is an all-female artist show and will benefit LA Downtown Women’s Shelter. Out of the 13 artists involved in this show, Swoon is definitely the best-known, but I’m also very much looking forward to seeing what Monica Canilao will be showing.

Press release:

Subliminal Projects is pleased to present SUBject/subJECT, a group exhibition opening April 10, featuring works from over a dozen female artists handpicked by the gallery and co-curator Deedee Cheriel.

SUBject/subJECT examines women’s use of public platforms in mass media, inviting both artists and viewers into a dialogue about role models, self-image and the messages women project in both the mainstream and alternative media. Says Cheriel, “Now that women have ‘equal rights,’ what are we trying to say? What’s our subject? Since female artists remain underrepresented in galleries and museums, we created this show as a platform for emerging women artists to represent!”

Among the show’s artists are Swoon, whose gritty yet delicate paper cutout portraits and large-scale flotillas of otherworldly art boats have landed her on the cover of this month’s ARTnews; Elizabeth McGrath, who breathes beauty and life into the macabre through her creature sculptures and theater-of-the-mind dioramas; and Jen Stark, whose colorful paper sculptures, drawings and animations have been described by Wired as “coldly mathematical yet exuberantly organic.” Other artists include Cheriel, Monica Canilao, Kime Buzzelli, Mona Superhero, Meryl Smith, Mel Kadel, Jessica Hess, Marissa Textor, Jesse Spears and Nikki McClure.

Ten percent of proceeds from all SUBject/subJECT art sales will go to the Los Angeles Downtown Women’s Center, dedicated to providing permanent, supportive housing and a safe and healthy community for homeless women.

And speaking of Swoon on the cover of ARTnews, that article can be read online. It’s a very complimentary article, and it’s nice to see Swoon being compared to serious n0n-street artists. At once point in the article, Swoon is called a “young artist.” Sometimes I forget that Callie is still so early in her career. No doubt she’ll continue to innovate and mature artistically for many more years.

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Dale Grimshaw at Signal Gallery

Dale Grimshaw’s latest solo show at Signal Gallery, Arcana, opens on Thursday. Should be interesting to see what Dale’s new work looks like. The painting in the show’s flier looks pretty intense and is a departure from the things that I have seen from Dale in the past. I just wish he’d do some prints of his lino-blocks. Those always look nice and Dale knows the importance of placement.

Press release:

Dale Grimshaw’s third solo show at Signal Gallery promises to be his most powerful yet. Since bursting onto the urban art scene two years ago with his stunning first solo show at Signal, ‘Echoes and Exorcisms’, Dale’s career has gone from strength to strength. His works have been much sought after by international collectors and he shown in a number of prestigious group shows as far afield as Philadelphia, Berlin, Paris and Bristol.

Dale’s new solo show, ‘Arcana’, will be something of a new departure for him. Dale found his expressive style through the exploration of strong emotions; some of these relating to his own troubled childhood and teenage years. This exploration took visual form in a large number of highly stylized self-portraits and portraits. His very well-received self-portraits, ‘Exorcism’ and ‘Heart In Darkness’ show an artist brave enough to expose his inner demons in a startling and disturbing way.

In ‘Arcana’ Grimshaw is using the imagery of the Tarot to inspire a series of works with a similarly raw demonstrative edge. Moving away from self-discovery the artist is using this ancient and mysterious imagery to present universal states of mind. Taking a number of cards from the pack, he has created a modern, very personal interpretation of their symbolism. Each card has a very distinct atmosphere and many demonstrate more complex compositions than we have seen recently from the artist. Nevertheless, they still retain that same emotional candour that made Grimshaw’s work stand out from the crowd and communicate so strongly to a wide audience. “Arcana’ will be proof enough to convict this artist of the crime of being one of the most promising painters of his generation.

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Sticker Phiends III

Sticker Phiends III is the 3rd annual sticker show in Phoenix, Arizona and it opens on Friday. Two reasons that this is particularly exciting: 1. Robots Will Kill and Obey are sending some stickers and 2. it’s street art in the USA but not in LA, SF or NYC.

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Alex Young solo show in London

I know where I’ll be this Thursday night. The London opening of choice has to be Alex Young‘s solo show with London Miles Gallery. The show’s opening will be on April first at a pop up venue (47 Mowlem Street) in East London, but will move and reopen at London Miles Gallery on April 5th. Also, the opening lasts until 10pm, so that’s a nice touch.

Via Hookedblog

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Know Hope in a UK group show

I don’t know much about this JaffaCakesTLV show, but Know Hope is involved, so I’ll be checking it out.

Here’s the press release:

Very little of the groundbreaking art created in Israel in the last decade responded directly to [the political unrest], either because artists felt powerless to change a harsh reality, or because they chose to adopt a universalist stance in an attempt to rise above the purely local.” (Amitai Mendelsohn, Real Time: Art in Israel: 1998-2008, 2008).

The first ever exhibition in the UK devoted to contemporary art from Tel Aviv will open on April 16 as a pop-up exhibition in Kenny Schachter’s Rove Gallery. 33-34 Hoxton Square. Examining one of the most interesting, yet unexplored, groups of practicing artists today, JaffaCakes TLV will showcase works by seven artists who are inspired by the diversity and vibrancy of modern-day Tel Aviv. Although artists from Tel Aviv have started to gain attention in the United States and Europe, they have not been shown as a group in the UK until now.

Entitling the show after the well-loved biscuits is a play on words. Its familiarity provides the perfect combination of mundane and mischievous, yet it references a geographical location. Jaffa, one of the oldest ports in the world has become the centre of Israel’s fringe culture; it is youthful, daring and avant-garde. Like Tel Aviv-Jaffa, a city of contradictions, the works in JaffaCakes TLV are beguiling; a multitude of layers slowly reveals an underlying sense of mystery and fantasy.

The exhibition is inspired by renowned short story writer and Camera D’Or winner Etgar Keret. His stories “fuse the banal with the surreal, shot through with a dark, tragicomic sensibility and casual, comic-strip violence.” (The Observer, 13 February 2005). Within the recognisable streets and neighborhoods of Tel Aviv, Keret depicts conventional modern life with injections of irregularity that lead its viewers to question their preconceived notions of reality.The catalogue will feature a short story by Etgar Keret while the artists on show explore and reflect this notion of the uncanny in their work.

For more information, images and artists CVs please email info@jaffacakesTLV.com.

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Now’s The Time at Black Rat Projects

Black Rat Projects (formally Black Rat Press) finally has their first show of 2010 opening in a few weeks. It’s called Now’s The Time. It’s a group show and it brings together artwork by some of the top names in street art’s history: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Shepard Fairey, Swoon, Banksy, Barry McGee, Faile and Os Gêmeos. I’ve heard about this show coming together over the last few months, and I like to joke that the idea behind it is strikingly similar to The Thousands, but two artists really separate this show from The Thousands and other similar exhibition that have been put on in the past: Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. It’s not often that a gallery has put on an exhibition of what is claimed to be the world’s top street art and been able to include those two essential artists in the line up alongside newer artists artists like Faile. This is going to be a very interesting show. Now’s The Time opens April 22nd at Black Rat Projects in London.

Via Pimp Guides