I’ve seen and loved Gabriel Specter’s lyrical artwork on the streets of Brooklyn. But it’s a delightful surprise to see it indoors on the walls of my local community center. Specter’s portraits — inspired by members of the JCC community on Manhattan’s Upper West Side — are now on view until March 1 at the Laurie M. Tisch Gallery of the JCC @ 334 Amsterdam Avenue & 76th Street. Wooster Collective’s Marc and Sara Schiller will join Specter for a talk and a reception this Wednesday evening, January 18, at 7:30. Here are a few of the images that grace the JCC:
It’s 2012, but trailblazing abstract graffiti artist Futura 2000 is still going strong. His latest solo show, Futura 2012 – Expansions, has just opened at Galerie Jérôme de Noirmont in Paris and runs through the end of February. Looks like a big hit. Arrested Motion has plenty of photos from the star-studded opening (and photos of the art too!).
If Chris Stain isn’t already in your street artist repertoire, this is someone you need to know. Baltimore bred and current New Yorker, Stain transitioned from graffiti writing in his early days to the stencil portraits and paste-ups that have made him known around the world today. The beauty in Stain’s work comes from his ability to capture the soul and often overlooked tenderness of the urban world.
1. Describe one of your first experiences with graffiti.
I got into graffiti after seeing the movie Beat Street in 1984. The only type of paint my friends and I had was Testors model car paint. The cans were small and you couldn’t get far with them but it was easily concealable.
We all lived in rowhomes in Balitmore so our main targets were houses on the end of the block because they had the biggest open wall space and traffic on the main streets could see our work. We also wrote in the alleys behind the houses as well, decorating the backs of peoples cinderblock fences. Once the neighbors caught on to who was writing all over the neighborhood we moved on. We really had no idea what we were doing. We mostly just wrote our new chosen aliases in a form of cursive and printing that we combined. Like the beginning of anything new it was incredibly exciting.
For (I think) the first time, Marc and Sara Schiller of The Wooster Collective have curated a show at a commercial gallery. For about a decade, the Schillers have been behind the most popular and well-respected street art blog on the web, they’ve been behind such events as 11 Spring Street and they are reputed to have one of the best collections of art by street artists in America, so I’m excited to see what they’ve put together for this show. Hybrid Thinking includes some Wooster Collective regulars and some surprises: Dal, Herakut, Hyuro, Roa, SIT, Vinz.
Artwork by SIT
Hybrid Theory opens this Saturday (7-9pm) at Jonathan LeVine Gallery and runs through February 11th.
When I stopped by Klughaus Gallery last week, Jesse Edwards was already at work installing his exhibit, “Dialogue of the Streets.” Featuring an eclectic range of artwork from traditional landscapes to graffiti-inspired ceramics, the exhibit opens this Friday, January 13, from 6-10pm at 47 Monroe Street on Manhattan’s LES/Chinatown. Here are a few favorites I captured (the first depicting the artist with the prolific graffiti writer, Adek):
Rone is finally back in Melbourne after his trip to the states for Basel Miami, but he didn’t go right home. Instead, he made a few stopovers along the way and put his work up in a few different countries. Here’s some of what he’s been up to since Miami.
Hong KongDominican RepublicMelbourne. Rone with Wonderlust and MayonaiseMelbourne. Rone with Wonderlust and Mayonaise (detail)
