Let’s say you own Black Rat Press. You want to do a group show with three of your artists who challenge people’s preconceptions about painting and street art. Who do you choose?
That’s right. You bring together Swoon, Matt Small, and Brian Adam Douglas (aka Elbowtoe).
And any art critic who says urban artists don’t know how to paint doesn’t know Matt Small. A few years ago, Matt was a runner up for one of the top prizes in the British art world.
Elbowtoe has had a presence on the street art New York City for years as part of the school of lino-block cutters that Swoon influenced, and now as Brian Adam Douglas he is making intricate collage works that look more like impressionist paintings than thrown together magazine clippings. For me, the collages can be hit or miss, but when they work, they really work.
Well that’s exactly what “Ways of Seeing Is,” BRP’s next show which opens on July 2nd.
I Love Graffiti reports that Iz The Wiz, one of the legendary graffiti writers featured in both the film Style Wars and the book Subway Art, has passed away. Snort This says that Iz died on the 17th of June of a heart attack. You can’t help but admire this guy. He wrote until the day he died.
Conor Harrington recently painted this in Italy as part of September’s FAME Festival, and it is, as usual for Harrington, pretty awesome.
I’d love to hear more about how Harrington came about with his signature style and about his history, because as cool as his work looks, it could definitely be seen as a fine artist trying to co-opt tags and graffiti culture for something unrelated. Just saying. (And, if you know more about Harrington’s history than I do, please let me know by emailing me or commenting on this post)
The photos are finally online from 2012 which is Avoid, Bloke, and Faro’s show at Factory Fresh. Their crew, the ADHD Kids, is doing some really great work in New York, so I’m excited to see them in a gallery as well. The work is very cool, and they seem to have completely transformed the gallery into a world of graffiti. And if you’re in the buying mood, I wouldn’t say these guys are an investment, but I love some of the work and the prices are super low on a lot of the smaller pieces.
It seems that a number of street artists have taken to referencing Damien Hirst’s spot paintings in their work. These are just three examples.
Paintings by Beejoir. Photo by nolionsinengland
Painting by Banksy (and Hirst). Photo by Sabeth718Painting by Blek le Rat. Photo by WallKandy
The other night, a friend of mine was trying to argue that of these Blek’s painting is most the important street art piece about Hirst, closely followed by Beejoir’s series, followed by Banksy’s. His argument is that Blek and Beejoir did their paintings long before Banksy did his, and so the Hirst reference is old hat now. In addition, this friend sees this as just another time that Banksy has made a stencil that Blek did better and way before Banksy.
If I had to order those three pieces in terms of importance, I would actually go in the exact opposite order as my friend.
Blek le Rat’s piece, especially when thinking about Hirst, is almost inconsequential. As Blek explained this piece to me, it’s about how it is time for conceptual art to step aside and how it is street art’s turn to be important in the larger art world. Makes sense, but then it’s not really about Hirst. Hirst is just used as a reference point. He’s the best known conceptual artist, so naturally Blek includes Hirst in his piece declaring the death of conceptual art, but only so that people understand better what Blek is painting about. Also, Blek’s piece just didn’t get the attention that the work by either Beejoir or Banksy got. It was a one time image, and not a particularly well known piece in that show (his 2008 solo with Black Rat Press). Beejoir turned his spots into a recognizable series just as Hirst did, and Banksy’s is in his Bristol Museum where it is hidden among other paintings by famous painters. I think what Blek has to say is important, but just not that important in terms of Hirst specifically and Hirst’s spots.
Beejoir’s series of spot paintings really said something that everybody else was thinking about conceptual art and Hirst in particular: “Hey, I could do that!” Also, it’s a great party trick. Hang one of those painting on your wall and see who spots what’s wrong with it. They were a series, so lots of people know about them, which adds to the work’s importance. And also, the work directly targets Hirst.
And then there is Banksy’s piece. It is done on an actual original Hirst spot painting. That, to me, puts it miles above the others. Banksy has said flat out “This ‘art,’ if it is art and not just wallpaper, is no more important than mine. If my work gets painted over, then Hirst should have the same privilege.” To me, that’s a much more important message than either Blek le Rat or Beejoir’s piece (plus, I think that Beejoir’s point is contained within Banksy’s painting as well since many art collectors might say “Hey. Anybody could do that and it’s not proper art!” about stencils and simple graffiti).
What do other people think, and do you know any other street artists who have been referencing Hirst and conceptual art in their work (this is another fav of mine)?
I recently had a chance to visit the Venice Biennale, and guess what my favorite work there was: The Swimming Cities of Serenissima. This incarnation of The Swimming Cities is Swoon’s third rafting project. In 2006 and 2007, the Miss Rockaway Armada floated down the Mississippi River. Last summer, The Swimming Cities of The Switchback Sea floated the Hudson River. And now the three rafts taking part in The Swimming Cities of Serenissima are docked in Venice.
My dad and I arrived in Venice on Saturday the 6th of June. After eating some lunch (amazingly good pizza), we went to the Arsenale, one of the two main exhibition areas for the Biennale. We got about half way through it that day, and not too much caught my eye. I mean, who really cares about a room full of walking canes?
That evening, we took at water bus to the island of Certosa. That’s where Swoon’s rafts are docked. The rafts and a crew of about 30 artists and performers made it all the way from Slovenia over the course of about 2 weeks.
There was no mistaking these rafts. As soon as we saw the dock, my dad and I could tell that we were in the right place. They look like beautiful floating shanty towns. We took some photos while it was still light, then headed onto the island where Dark Dark Dark (official band of trip) were preparing to play a short set before the main performance.
Dark Dark Dark is the perfect band for this project. I’d only heard their songs on myspace and was pretty intrigued, but the set they played was shockingly good and set the mood perfectly for what we were about to see on the boats, which we headed back to when Dark Dark Dark had finished playing.
While the rest of the crew was eating their dinner. Nona, a member of Dark Dark Dark, let us on board one of the boats and have a look around. Ol’ Hickory, the boat that Swoon and her team built in Slovenia from scraps they found there, was full of weird little things that they crew had found over the last few weeks of building and floating. The attention to detail isn’t immediately evident. There are little designs and papercuts that can’t be seen except if you are standing at one or two specific points on the raft. There’s even one of Swoon’s original linoleum blocks. We were booted off the boat after a few minutes when the crew started to prepare for that night’s performance and we found spots on the dock to watch from.
Swoon’s boat projects have always had a performance aspect, and Venice was no different. Instead of a stage, the show would be performed from the boats, with every single crew member having a role, and instead of seats for the audience, we stood on the dock. The three rafts were all docked right next to each other, and a crowd packed the dock in front of them.
The performance isn’t easy to explain, and there will hopefully be a video of the entire thing at some point so here’s a few photos and a short clip. I will say that Dark Dark Dark (plus crew member Harrison) provide a soundtrack to the show and it takes places across all three rafts. And it is absolutely amazingly beautiful, interesting, and at times funny.
After the show, we stood around for a while talking to the crew and even got the chance to meet Swoon. The we took Stinky, their fishing boat, back to Venice because the water buses weren’t running that late. On the way back, we met a few of the other audience members who had come to Venice to see the show. They were friends of Swoon’s from New York (including the model for this piece), and that seemed pretty typical of the crowd there. That realization about the audience and the fact that they arrived for the Biennale made me think the entire thing was a bit contrived and less organic than the last few boat trips, but nonetheless, it was an amazing journey that the crew were on.
On Sunday, my dad and I once again explored some of the main exhibits at the Biennale, but none compared the last night’s performance (except maybe the sculptures by Miranda July)
Then around 5:30 I checked twitter and saw that the Swimming Cities rafts were at the Arsenale. We got over there as quickly as possible, but it was too late. The exhibit space was closed and they wouldn’t let us to the dock. We wouldn’t have been able to see the rafts anyway because, as Mike and Sarah from Black Rat Press soon told us (they had ridden over to the Arsenale on the rafts), somebody had started shouting at them and cut the ropes tying the rafts to the dock, so they had headed back for Certosa.
Later that night, a large group of us went to Certosa for another performance by the Swimming Cities crew. It was another mesmerizing show, followed by chats with the crew.
Probably most interesting to this blog, I spoke with Imminent Disaster about her upcoming shows at Irvine Contemporary with Swoon, Gaia, Dalek and others (Martin Irvine was there with us enjoying the performance as well) and Ad Hoc Art with Gaia. I’ve had a number of people mention to me how much they loved her work at The Carmichael Gallery recently and I think she’s definitely an artist to keep an eye on.
Then, Mike, Sarah and I all took a midnight ride back to Venice on Ol’ Hickory. It was a completely mind-blowing experience. This raft SHOULD NOT FLOAT, but it does. Before we left the dock, our captain, Greg, said, “Now, this is the most people we’ve ever had on this raft at once, but don’t worry. We have enough life vests for everybody, and we should be fine so long as everybody does what I say.” So thanks to Captain Greg for getting us all back to Venice safely.
Here’s a video I took while we were on the raft of Spy, a crew member on Ol’ Hickory, talking about the trip:
And if this story doesn’t give you an idea of what Swoon is like in person, I don’t know what will: There’s a charity project that she and I might be working on together later in the year, but before Venice we’d only discussed it through intermediaries. I’d heard that she was excited about the project, but we hadn’t even discussed exactly what the project would entail. Then, as I’m getting off of Ol’ Hickory I shout “Hey! We need to talk about *****.” Within two minutes, the project is pretty much planned out. It was that easy, because she is just up for helping people.
So yeah. Amazing experience overall. Weekend of my life.
For more on Swoon and The Swimming Cities of Serenissima, check out these great videos and articles:
With the recession, we’ve seen an end to those “Urban Art Auctions” at Bonhams and Dreweatts which seemed cool but a bit let they were secluding Urban Art away from the the rest of the art world. Now, urban/street art is appearing more in Contemporary Art auctions, which, I think, is a good sign for the future of the genre.
That’s why I was excited to see this iconic Banksy canvas in Sotheby’s Contemporary Day Auction on the 26th of June in London.
Of course, a lot of Banksy work has gone unsold in auctions lately. Hopefully Banksy’s Bristol show will pique interest in this piece. I’d love to see some more street art get strong prices at a contemporary auction, and this could be Banksy’s chance.
Everybody’s talking about Banksy‘s new exhibition, Banksy Versus The Bristol Museum, which runs from today until August 31st. I went for the preview last night, and so I thought I’d write a little run-through of the show.
The first thing you see when you walk into the museum is indeed that recreation of Banksy’s Glastonbury Stonehenge, photos of which leaked on Thursday. For me, it was Banksy’s attempt at mocking cliched museum exhibits. At least, that’s what I hope it is meant to be.
The next room is the main hall (or whatever you want to call it) of the museum. As you can see, the centerpiece of this room is a burted out ice cream van with a melted ice cream cone. A bit like the burnt out ice cream van at Cans Festival. Along the sides of the room, where you might expect to see statues of Bristol’s most historic figures, there are sculptures of a woman carrying shopping bags and a Buddha wearing a cast (recreating this stencil). At first glance, some of them, particularly the Buddha and the David (as a suicide bomber) fit in perfectly with the museums regular exhibits. Upon closer inspection of course, the works are classic Banksy. Although I doubt Banksy actually had much to do with making this statues beyond coming up with the idea, they are some of my favorite pieces in the show.
This looks like a great event for a deal. Tomorrow, behind 93 Feet East on Brick Lane, artists like Peter Blake, Gavin Turk and Pure Evil will be participating in The Art Car Book Fair. Essentially, it’s great deals on art from a huge variety of artists.
The Art Car Boot Fair 2009
Sunday 14th June
12-6pm
146 Brick Lane E1
“The hippest car boot sale you’re likely to come across in quite a while” THE INDEPENDENT
“Hang out with some of the best contemporary British artists and pick up a few bargain buys to boot” SUNDAY TIMES, STYLE
“Expect the unexpected at this off-the-wall event” TIME OUT
“Happiness can’t be bought… but if it could, this is where you’d find it” URBAN JUNKIES
Yes that’s right. Banksy has invaded The Bristol City Museum for the next 3 months for his “Summer Show.” It is a flat out great show. Full review coming tomorrow, but this piece was one of my favorites. It’s a real Damien Hirst that Banksy has VASTLY improved. Some great photos in Sabeth718’s photo set.
