El Euro from Italy, typically paints rural walls, outside of the city, or abandoned building. In an interview with Illicitexhibitions, El Euro stated “Usually in the big cities there isn’t good quality graffiti. I don’t like to paint in the cities. I prefer country side”.
Photos by El Euro
Faile shocked their fans and detractors alike last week when they unveiled their newest body of work at Lazarides’ Gallery’s Rathbone Place location in London. The show, Fragments of Faile, features two distinct series. One is pretty much what you might expect from Faile: Familiar trademark imagery, styles and themes, mixed with some small steps forward. As usual, it was the introduction of new ideas into the Faile repertoire alongside the classics. If you’re a fan of Faile, you’ll like those pieces, and if you’re not, well the new twists probably won’t convince you. Most people I’ve spoken with say these are their favorite pieces in the show, and I have to agree. But those pieces are also getting very little attention compared to the completely new body of work that Faile introduced at the show: 100% painted (no screenprinting) portraits of women made up of abstract fabric patterns and bits of Faile iconography on top of very calm and un-Faile-like backgrounds. While there are a large number of people speaking out and saying how much they enjoy this new twist from Faile, among the people whose views I respect, the majority would not hang these paintings on their walls (although some would). Nuart’s reviews seem to best exemplify the reaction that I’m getting most often from those that I respect. Among that group, the new style has been met with general disappointment and confusion, with some people comparing it to a less gritty Bast or derivative of Miss Bugs (of course, Bast and Faile have collaborated numerous times in the past, and Miss Bugs has in the past been thought of as derivative of Faile). Nonetheless, nearly everyone I’ve heard from has also expressed great excitement that Faile have tried something so unexpected. My thoughts and some perspective from Faile themselves after the jump… Continue reading “Split opinions: Fragments of Faile at Lazarides”
The Wende Museum has been doing some very interesting things lately, including the creation of an outdoor gallery wall (complete with framed work) on Main Street in Downtown Los Angeles, but its current project on Wilshire looks to be the most intriguing yet.
Now standing directly across the street from LACMA are several weathered sections of the concrete Berlin Wall. “The Wall Along Wilshire” is part of “The Wall Project,” the museum’s ongoing cultural history program.
For the front of the wall, the artists paired with Thierry Noir (one of the first artists to paint the Wall in 1984) were Kent Twitchell, Farrah Karapetian, and Marie Astrid Gonzalez. Yet, the museum also saw fit to invite several street artists to paint the back of the sectionals, asking Herakut, RETNA, and D*face to do the honors. It is expected that the other street artists will start Thursday or Friday evening, but Herakut have already completed their work.
I arrived last night when they had just finishing painting. One half of Herakut, Jasmin Siddiqui (Hera) explained that the Wall holds a very special significance for Herakut, not just because they are from Germany, but because she grew up in the West, while her partner, Falk Lehmann (Akut), grew up in the East.
“It’s amazing how small it looks now,” Jasmin said as she surveyed their work, “and it’s hard to imagine it kept so many people apart.”
Their piece on the left-most sectional, “Good Can Come From Bad Comes From Good,” was informed by the transformative circularity of history, and features two pregnant women crouched together in a yin-yang position. Their piece on the right-most sectional, “We Are All Just Kids, Right?” depicts a thin schoolboy tapering into a teddy-bear-like black and green shadow. Both showcase the dark, illustrative quality of their work, and are all the more poignant given the history of the material they are painted on.
“The Wall Along Wilshire” will be in front of 5900 Wilshire until November 13, 2011, where a private reception will be held with the artists from 1 to 4 p.m. After that, the sectionals of the Wall will shift to The Wende Museum’s permanent collection at 5741 Buckingham Parkway, Suite E, Culver City, CA 90230.
Photos by Ryan Gattis
The Tubú community is an indigenous group of families now living in the city of Bogotá, Columbia. Tubu Community is a project to help raise money to build a new home in Bogotá for a Tubú family. To learn more about the Tubú people, you can watch this video or read this info.
At their webstore, Tubu Community has begun to sell prints and original art by South American and European artists to help with the effort. 100% of the proceeds from these sales go to the Tubú people. Blu, Bastardilla, Buytronick and Stinkfish have contributed original art and Eine and Stinfish have contributed prints, including a new 7-color screenprint by Stinkfish. Expect more products to be added to the webstore in the future.
Photos courtesy of Tubu Community
This is a show that I’ll probably make the bus ride from Philadelphia to NYC just to see: OverUnder, Labrona and ND’A are showing together in Paperboys at Pandemic Gallery. These three guys make great images and do it with a smile and a drive for adventure (well, actually I can’t speak for ND’A, but I assume he smiles and searches for adventure too). It opens on November 19th and runs through December 11th and is practically guaranteed to be a fun show.
Photos courtesy of OverUnder
I saw artist ABCDEF on Graffuturism this week. Somewhere between minimal and chaotic. It works!
Photos by ABCDEF
Back in August I posted about Basick and his partner in crime Physe getting up in London. Now back in Lima, Peru, Physe has set about producing a couple of cool little videos. The first is about their experiences in London and the second is a documentary about the DA2Crew to which they both belong, and showcases street work from Basick, Physe, Prms and Deks. Despite you needing to speak Spanish to understand the interview in the second video, it’s definitely worth watching just for the nice shots of Lima and the crew’s work. Enjoy.
Two of Brooklyn’s most prolific muralists, Never and Cern, were captured at work this past week. We are looking forward to seeing the final pieces, but here’s a glimpse of the works in progress:
Photos by Lois Stavsky and Dani Mozeson
I’ve got to give a big thanks to Unurth for once again finding a talented artist whose work I would have probably never otherwise seen. Evgeniy Dikson is an artist based in Russia who paints street art and post-graffiti. Here are a few of my favorite pieces by him:
Photos by Evgeniy Dikson
UPDATE – LOCATION CHANGE: The Underbelly Show has moved to 78 NW 25th Street in Wynwood, Miami to accommodate the large scale of the artwork in this show.
The Underbelly Project is back. Last year, I posted a lot about the project where 103 artists from around the world secretly painted an abandoned/half-completed New York City subway station. After that initial burst of press here and around the web, The Underbelly Project organizers stayed silent. With only occasional vague tweets from a mysterious twitter account and the appearance on Amazon of an upcoming book about the project. Yesterday though, The Underbelly Project announced that they will be participating in this year’s Basel Miami Week madness with a pop-up gallery in South Beach Wynwood.
The organizers of The Underbelly Project and The Underbelly Show, Workhorse and PAC, have this to say about the show:
Workhorse: The New York Underbelly was an important chapter for us, but the story hadn’t been comprehensively told. The Underbelly Miami show gives us a chance to present the broad scope of documentation – Videos, photos, time-lapses and first hand accounts. The project is about more than just artwork. This show gives us a chance to show the people and the environment behind the artwork.
PAC: While the experience each artist had in their expedition underground can never be captured, it is my hope that this show will highlight some of the trials and tribulations associated with urban art taking place in the remote corners of our cities. Too often the practice of making art in unconventional venues remains shrouded in mystery and I hope this exhibition will shine a faint light on those artists who risk their safety to find alternative ways to create and be a part of the cities they live in.
35 of the 103 artists from The Underbelly Project will be exhibiting art in The Underbelly Show, plus video and still footage of the artists at work in the tunnel. Here’s the full line-up: Faile, Dabs & Myla, TrustoCorp, Aiko, Rone, Revok, Ron English, Jeff Soto, Mark Jenkins, Anthony Lister, Logan Hicks, Lucy McLauchlan, M-City, Kid Zoom, Haze, Saber, Meggs, Jim & Tina Darling, The London Police, Sheone, Skewville, Jeff Stark, Jordan Seiler, Jason Eppink and I AM, Dan Witz, Specter, Ripo, MoMo, Remi/Rough, Stormie Mills, Swoon, Know Hope, Skullphone, L’Atlas, Roa, Surge, Gaia, Michael De Feo, Joe Iurato, Love Me, Adam 5100, and Chris Stain.
For this show, the space will be transformed into an environment imitating the tunnel where The Underbelly Project took place, right down to playing sounds recorded in the station while The Underbelly Project was happening.
If you absolutely cannot wait until February to get We Own The Night, the book documenting The Underbelly Project, a limited number will be available at The Underbelly Show in a box set with 9 photographic prints and the book all contained in a handcrafted oak box. Additionally, you will be able to your book signed by the artists participating in The Underbelly Show.
The Underbelly Show will take place at 2200 Collins Avenue, South Beach, Miami 78 NW 25th Street, Wynwood, Miami. There will be a private opening on November 30th, and the space will be open to the general public December 2nd-5th, with a general opening on the 2nd from 8-10pm.
Photo by RJ Rushmore
