Improvise Combustion with Chris Mendoza and the Con Artist collective

While walking down Suffolk Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side yesterday, I chanced upon two spaces brimming with vibrant, playful, infectious images.  Exuding a raw, yet almost mystical charm, these collaborative improvisations – I soon discovered — are the work of a group of artists whose works I’ve seen and loved in a variety of other settings. Opening this evening, Saturday May 26, from 6-10pm at 154 Suffolk Street, Improvise Combustion, organized by Chris Mendoza, features collaborations and new work by Michael Miyahira aka Mike Ming, Kenji Hirata, Pablo Power and Naomi Kazama, members of the collective Con Artist.  Pablo tells me that the group will be working on an outdoor mural this week. I’m certainly looking forward to that!

Pablo Power of the Con Artist Collective

Photos by Lois Stavsky

So many stickers at Maxwell Colette Gallery

Sticker wall organized by DB Burkeman for Wynwood Walls 2010

Chicago’s Maxwell Colette Gallery is kicking off the new year with STUCK UP: A Selected History of Alternative & Pop Culture Told Through Stickers, January 20th from 6-10pm. The show is curated by DB Burkeman, author of the ultimate book on stickers, and is a chance to see some of the best stickers from DB’s collection, including stickers by Barry McGee, Jenny Holzer, Banksy and Kaws. On January 21st from 1-3pm, the gallery will host a book signing with DB and seminal graffiti photographer Martha Cooper, who has had two books of her photos of stickers published.

In addition to Stuck Up, there will be work at the gallery by Chris Mendoza and a version of the Slap Happy charity project that DB and Paul Weston curated for SCOPE Miami last year.

Photo by Lulu Vision