V1 Gallery in Denmark celebrates its 10th year with Tonight We Won’t Be Bored; a massive show of 100 new works by artists like André, Kenny Scharff, Futura, Faile, Lydia Fong (aka Barry McGee), Barbara Kruger, Shepard Fairey, Steve Powers, Todd James, Andrew Schoultz, Thomas Campbell, Erik Parker, André, Neckface, Eine, Wes Lang, Clayton Brothers, and many others. The show opened on November 30th and runs through January 12th.
The Copenhagen gallery got its start in 2002, in a space which had formerly been used as a bakery. With their first exhibition being with Faile, they got the ball rolling pretty quick. By 2007 they moved to a larger space and later started curating shows and participating in art fairs around the world.
Barbara KrugerShepard FairyFaileLeft to right: Jakob Boeskov, Misha Hollenbach, HuskMitNavn, HuskMitNavn, Eine, and Søren Solkær StarbirdA one of a kind zine by Lydia Fong (Barry McGee)
Niels “Shoe” Meulman paints a mural within sight of a former bank. Photo by Ian Cox.
In part 4 of my series of posts about this year’s Nuart Festival (here are parts one, two, and three), I’ve finally gotten to the murals and more traditional street work of this year’s festival. This year, Nuart is responsible for new murals in Stavanger by Niels “Shoe” Meulman, Ron English, Dolk, How&Nosm, Mobstr and Eine.
Ron English. Photo by Ian Cox.Mobstr. Photo by Ian Cox.
In my second post about Nuart 2012 (part one here) I’ve finally got some finished pieces to show. While Nuart is known for the outdoor work that they organized, the artists probably spend just as much time, some of them more, on the indoor installation component of the festival. This year, work was installed in a series of old beer halls at Tou Scene, a venue in Stavanger that Nuart has used a few times. These aren’t all the installations that Nuart had this year, but here we have the finished installations by Eine, Jordan Seiler, Saber, Ron English, Aakash Nihalani, How and Nosm, and Sickboy. Thanks to Ian Cox for all of the great photos coming out of Nuart.
How and NosmAakash NihalaniSickboyBen Eine and Jordan Seiler
I’ll be participating in three events at Nuart Plus, a 3-day international summit on street art taking place during the festival. Evan Pricco, Tristan Manco, Carlo McCormick and others will be speaking there too. Here’s what I’m involved in: On the 27th, Jordan Seiler and I will be giving a tour of some of the art (and ads) in Stavanger; On the 28th, Carlo McCormick and I will be at Martinique, a cafe and pub, to debate about whether or not one can truly appreciate street art on the internet; On the 29th, Evan Pricco, Tristan Manco and I will be on a panel about street art and the internet moderated by Eirik Sjåholm Knudsen. Sorry if I’m focusing a bit too much on my own stuff, but I’m really excited to be going to Nuart, especially since I’ll be speaking alongside so many of my friends and idols.
There will of course also be an indoor art component to the festival.
Nuart’s street work begins September 20th, the indoor show opens on the 29th at Tuo Scene and the panels and talks will take place on the 27th-29th.
WALL\THERAPY is a mural event in Rochester, NY being put together by, Dr. Ian Wilson and The Synthesis Collaborative, the same people who organized last year’s Visual Intervention. This year, artists from Rochester and around the world will be painting as part of WALL\THERAPY: Faith47, DALeast, Ben Eine, Liqen, Case, ROA, Cern, St. Monci, Mr. Prvrt, Thievin’ Stephen, How & Nosm and Siloette.
The murals will be painted July 20th-27th, so that might be a fun time to visit Rochester.
For more information about WALL\THERAPY and events surrounding the festival, check their facebook event page.
Jeff Soto recently worked with Chevy on an ad for the Chevy Sonic. I’ve got some problems with advertising, advertisers working with artists and advertising that co-opts street art and graffiti to sell dumb crap. But I’m pleasantly surprised that this advertisement actually kind of works. At the end of the day, the world is left with a new mural by Jeff Soto, and that mural doesn’t have a massive Chevy logo on it, just an engine block. Is the concept a bit cheesy? Perhaps. Is calling the piece “street art” irritating? Sure, but expected. Even I oversimplify at times by calling murals (or in this case, pseudo-murals) street art. And the ad still way better than 90% of the street-art-related advertisements out there. So, an awkward kudos to Chevy for not screwing this up, I guess…
In the aftermath of another fantastic gallery show, this time at White Walls in San Francisco, Sickboy took some time out from painting massive walls with Eine to answer a few questions.
Shower: How did the concept of the Wonder Club arise? Can you give some examples of the daydreams that have inspired this body of work?
Sickboy: I used to have an illustrated picture of the Mad Hatters Tea Party in my bedroom as a kid, and it’s still in my family home. To this day I pondered on the thought of its inspiration on my life and that opened up a chasm of ideas. I have also been known to have some crazy dreams, I won’t bore you with the details, but it’s possible to transcribe some of them from the Wonder Club body of work.
You delved into the world of ‘mixed media ephemera’ as part of the show. Can you explain how and why?
Yeah sure, I spent the month prior to the show working and living above a studio in San Francisco, courtesy of the gallery. In that time I collected many story books from local shops and found some great surfaces to paint on including some metal drawers. All of these were included in the show. Many of the books were used in the temple assemblage. I’d remove the covers and paint on the backs of them. It’s satisfying to know that those pieces would never have been created without spending time in San Francisco.
As part of the Wonder Club you aimed to revisit your inner child for inspiration. When I was a kid it was all about Lego and Thunderbirds. Was there a certain toy, film, comic or fairytale that inspired you?
I guess I refer more to what art has represented to me in my youth. I copied Sweeny, the toddler comic strips, and gave them as Christmas presents once, and later down the line my first graffiti pieces mean a lot to me in their naivety. I lost a big bag of photos that had my first pieces in it but I can remember their metallic holts duplicolour essence, that to me is my inner child. Continue reading “The Caravan King – An interview with Sickboy”
While I spend my day at my other job explaining to people how a skee-ball tournament is art (seriously), I hope you’ll enjoy these newsbites from the past two weeks:
You can listen to this conversation between Retna and his friend Med if you want a bit of insight into the Bowery/Houston mural, although it may just confuse things further in a good way.
GrafRank is an attempt to graph the popularity of street artists and graffiti writers online using data from flickr. Interesting idea, but they need your feedback to make sure they are getting things right.
There are so many interesting shows opening in the next week or two that I thought I’d just throw them all together into one post. Here’s what I think looks worth checking out:
Yesterday, the Museum of Sex in New York opened a show that sounds absolutely awesome called F*ck Art. It’s on through June 10th and features artwork by Aiko, El Celso, Lush, Mode2, Cassius Fouler, Miss Van and many more.
Love & Hate is a group show opening at StolenSpace this week and runs through March 4th. D*face, Dan Witz, Ronzo, Word to Mother, Jeff Soto, Eine, Charles Krafft and others are included.
Another collaborative group show will be in Da Mental Vaporz‘ (Bom.k, Blo, Brusk, Dran, Gris1, ISO, Jaw, Kan, and Sowat) show at Melbourne. That show, Le Venin, will be at RTIST Gallery from February 16th through March 4th.
All Talk at Pandemic Gallery will include Aakash Nihalani, Cassius Fouler, Gabriel Specter, Jesus Saves, NohJColey and others and runs from February 17th through March 11th.
