I’ve got a drawer full of books and magazines to read and review right now, but Very Nearly Almost number 13 jumped to the front of the queue this weekend when I took a bus to and from Washington, DC. Why? Because it’s light and small and fits in my backpack way better than Trespass.
Regular Vandalog readers will know that I’m a fan of Very Nearly Almost, and issue 13 is no exception. Interviews with Elbow-toe, Dan Witz and Miso are great because I think they (particularly Miso) are overlooked talents. And then there’s Steve Powers who never responded to Vandalog’s recent interview request (kind of expected that to be honest). There’s even an essay by Dave The Chimp, who never ceases to entertain me, about the need to experience art in real life (as in not on blogs or in magazines). Oh and on page 74 there’s a photo of a topless girl.
Sorry if I’m sounding a bit glib. I really just want to write this post and get to sleep. Just got my flu shot and the symptoms are kicking in a bit. In all seriousness though, VNA is probably my favorite magazine and art lover should pick up a copy of their latest issue. You can get it online for £4.
This summer, I sat in a massive pitch-black room and muttered “Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit…” over and over again. I couldn’t stop repeating “Holy shit” for maybe for five minutes. I’d been anticipating this moment for nearly a year. I was somewhere underneath New York City. I was waiting to be shown The Underbelly Project. Technically, I was there to take photos, but really I didn’t care at all if images came out or not. Really, I just wanted to see firsthand what was going on 4-stories below the streets of New York City.
Revok and Ceaze. That light comes from the lights that were set up temporarily for an artist who was painting that night.
Imagine Cans Festival, FAME Festival or Primary Flight: Some of street art and graffiti’s best artists all painting one spot. That’s kind of like The Underbelly Project. Except that The Underbelly Project took place in complete secrecy, in a mysterious location and without any authorization. Over the past year, The Underbelly Project has brought more than 100 artists to an abandoned and half-finished New York City subway station. Each artist was given one night to paint something.
Know Hope had this entire room to himself. What was this room meant to be? An elevator shaft? An office? I have no idea.
Workhorse and PAC, the project’s organizers, have put countless hours into their ghost subway station, and now they’re finally ready to unveil it to the world, sort of (more on that later). So I guess that’s why I was in that dark room, sitting in silence, waiting for them to give me a flashlight. I’m still not sure why I’d been extended the invitation to see the station firsthand, but I couldn’t be more grateful for the opportunity. The Underbelly Project is going to be part of street art history.
Surge, Stormie Mills, Remi/Rough and Gaia
Eventually, Workhorse and PAC came over to where I was sitting and lent me a flashlight. I stood up, already coated in dust and probably dirtier than I’ve ever been, and got a full tour of the station. I’m not somebody who is good at estimating the size of a space, but The Underbelly Project took place in a space that was meant to be a subway station, so I guess it was the size of a subway station with a few tracks. The station is like a concrete cavern: random holes who-knows how deep into the ground, dust thick like a layer of dirt, leaky ceilings and hidden rooms. Except the whole station is covered in art. Think of FAME Festival’s abandoned monastery transplanted to beneath New York City. I’m not an urban explorer, so I had no idea that there are abandoned subway stations throughout New York, but The Underbelly Project seems like just about the best possible use of one.
Of course, having been down there myself, I’m going to be prone to hyperbole. Even at it’s simplest, even if The Underbelly Project is “just another mural project,” it’s a story that the artists can tell for years, and it may even be evidence that street art isn’t so far gone and corporate as some people have suggested.
Swoon and Imminent Disaster. Disaster's piece is stunning beyond belief and fits the space so perfectly.
The list of artists who painted for The Underbelly Project goes on and on, but here are just a few:
Swoon
Gaia
Know Hope
Revok
Roa
Dan Witz
Jeff Soto
Faile
Mark Jenkins
Elbow-toe
TrustoCorp
Mark Jenkins and Con. This is at the end of a long and dark tunnel that, at the time, was not otherwise painted.
On my visit, The Underbelly Project wasn’t finished. In fact, somebody was painting there that night. Nonetheless, the space was already substantially painted and postered. I spent that night wandering around the tunnels, taking photos and getting lost (and also scared – Damn you Mark Jenkins! You can’t put a sculpture like that at the end of a darkened hall. I thought it was a person!).
TrustoCorp
And what now? The walls have all been painted and the artists have moved on to new projects. When the last artist finished painting the last wall, Workhorse and PAC made access to The Underbelly Project nearly impossible by removing the entrance. Even if any of us wanted to go back (and I do), even if we could remember how to get there (and I don’t), we can’t. Nobody can. For now, The Underbelly Project has become a time capsule of street art, somewhere in the depths of New York City.
Meggs
Brad Downey once explained to me why he thought Damien Hirst’s diamond skull is interesting. It had something to do with what people would think of the skull in 1000 years, when its original meaning has been lost to time. That’s when the skull is going to become a true icon and object with immense power. In some ways, The Underbelly Project is like Hirst’s skull, without the price tag. One day, decades from now hopefully, somebody may rediscover that old subway station and have no idea what they’re looking at. Hopefully, they’ll just feel that it’s something incredibly special.
Dan Witz. This was the first time I'd seen his street art in person. It's the perfect setting for Dan's Dark Doings series.
Here are some more images from The Underbelly Project, and expect more over the coming days on Vandalog and around the blogosphere… Or you can pay £1 to read an in-depth article about it in today’s Sunday Times.
Stash (well, part of his piece). This is another room like Know Hope's area.Swoon and ListerL'Atlas, Mr Di Maggio, 1010, Paper Twins, Bigfoot, Control/Jice. Photo by WorkhorseFaile. Photo by PACSkewville, PAC, SheOne, Revok/Ceaze. Photo by PAC
Spiffy Films presents this short trailer for Dan Witz’sStreet Art Project for 2010: WHAT THE %$#@? (WTF)
If you’re not familiar with Dan’s work or have a taste for street art that’s a little more provocative definitely check this video out! Dan latest work focuses around a number of very surreal and realistic panels, placed in and around urban locations; depicting various characters looking out from behind iron bars, cages and window panes. Whether they are trapped, being held against their will or simply there for their own enjoyment remains to be seen, but this is certainly something that will have you thinking – “WTF?”.
Opening today and running until August 28 is a new group show at 941Geary (White Walls, Shooting Gallery, Gallery Three) entitled from the Street Art to the Cube. There are some pieces that I am really loving for this show, especially the following pieces by Greg Gossel, Dan Witz and Best Ever.
Dan WitzGreg GosselBest Ever
Yet, and this is my real issue with many group shows, there is not one cohesive theme to the exhibit at all. Street art is not really a theme anymore, when there are so many facets. This particular show just jumps around so much with the works, that I do not think it works at all. Plus, within the past few months other galleries exhibited many similar pieces (or other editions) from this particular show by Miss Van, Blek la Rat and Best Ever. When you are constantly seeing the same artists name mentioned every month, the work starts to blend and is not fresh anymore. Even worse, as RJ kindly pointed out to me, that most of the artists in this show are not even street artists, not even “once upon a time.”
I guess my point is exactly that- there is not really an interesting angle that catches my interest, which is a shame because group exhibitions either showcase high profile talent really well or brings to light a batch of new artists. This show does neither.
Dan Witz is one of street art’s legends. For more than 30 years, Dan has continued to develop and innovate indoors and outdoors, always staying fresh and above art-world trends. He’s one of the artists that inspired countless others to start painting outside. People, street art obsessed or otherwise, tell stories about discovering Dan’s work by accident.
This month, Dan Witz had a massive book published by Ginko Press. Dan Witz: In Plain View: 30 Years of Artworks Illegal and Otherwise is an overview of Dan’s artwork from the 1970’s all the way through 2009, as well as a very in-depth interview with Dan by Marc and Sara Schiller of Wooster Collective. It’s one of the most satisfying art books that I’ve seen, because you really do learn a lot about the artist and gain a new understanding of the artwork without too much effort. I guess that means it’s a successful book, not just a collection of images.
Recently, Dan was kind enough to answer some questioned that I emailed him:
RJ: You’re one of the original modern street artists. Off the top of my head, it was pretty much just Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jenny Holzer and Richard Hambleton doing significant “street art” before you. How did working outdoors start for you?
DW: I got started as an art student in the late 70’s. First wandering around Providence and RISD, then while I attended Cooper Union in New York City. In the days before the internet, our knowledge of what was out there was pretty meagre but I was definitely aware of people who were making street art before me. Charles Simonds did his little people dwellings on the lower east side in 1971. Gordon Matta Clark did his building interventions from the mid 70’s to the 80’s; and there were dozens of artists whose names I never knew. Band posters were big in the east village and were very creative and were generally considered to be more a medium for self–expression than for branding or advertising. Jenny Holzer was in that mix but Richard Hambleton—whose work I really admire–came a few years after I started. And Jean Michel’s Samo stuff, which also appeared a bit after me, I enjoyed a lot, but it was generally considered to be tagging or graffiti writing, not street art. There was a lot of like minded written stuff around at the time, if not as charming or original.
The first things that cracked my mind open and got me working on the street were mostly not from the traditional art world. First and foremost was the subway graffiti, the bombed train cars, how extreme and powerful and utterly original that was. Photos don’t do it justice. Still some of the most astonishing art I’ve ever seen. Seeing and feeling one of those freshly spray-painted trains come rumbling and squealing into the station was just an awe inspiring experience.
Then there was punk rock, and the downtown NYC band culture I was a part of. In that world, art, especially high art, was not highly regarded—it was pretty much looked upon suspiciously, as most likely some kind of scam. The galleries and art magazines of that time were dominated by conceptual and highly theoretical works: a lot of reading and deciphering of dense coded texts was required to appreciate it. To us it just seemed boring and joyless and smugly exclusionary and totally irrelevant to the reality of our lives struggling to survive. The default setting for young artists back then was total rebellion. Against whatever you had. So it seemed obvious to body slam the pendulum as hard as possible to the opposite extreme. Continue reading “Q&A with Dan Witz”
Ginkopress has released a 30 year retrospective of Dan Witz’s street work and fine art. From the site: ” A benefit of having one of the most sustained careers in street art, if such a thing exists, is the degree of growth, freedom and experimentation that such an extended period allows. Another advantage would be the influence of the aesthetic environs within the changing cultural landscape, especially if you happen to work in New York City.”
You can check out The Street Spot’s studio visit with the master himself over at The Street Spot.
A few days ago, Gaia wrote about Ad Hoc Art’s Welling Court Mural Project. Here’s a quick update with more of the finished artwork. Becki Fuller and Luna Park have a bunch more photos of the event over at their blog, The Street Spot.
Swoon any Royce BannonSweet Toof and R. Nicholas KuszykJohn Fekner
Dan Witz, who in my opinion makes some of the best and unpretentious street and gallery art out there today, just opened a show of new night paintings at DFN Gallery in New York. I didn’t make it to the opening on March 10th, unfortunately, as we had to head back to LA on the 7th to start prep for our next show here (Nina Pandolfo – I’ll post install pics soon!), but I did get to spend some time with Dan at his Brooklyn studio, so I can tell you that the works look spectacular in person. Make sure to stop by the gallery if you’re in New York to see them for yourself.
The lamp pieces below are inspired by Dan’s visits to Park Avenue lobbies near the gallery. His ability to transform something so simple into something you just can’t take your eyes off of is something quite extraordinary.
This is a while away, but I thought I’d mention that Dan Witz has a book coming out later this year.
In Plain View – 30 years of Artworks Illegal and Otherwise is the first and long overdue monograph on the work of Dan Witz. New York artist Dan Witz has been doing street art since the late 1970s. In his enduring street art career, he has specialized in a smaller, more intimate kind of street art. For Witz, a sense of wonder and curiosity are key. Strongly influenced by the changing cultural landscape of the New York City streets where he developed his craft, Witz has traveled the path from dark to light and back again. In the book, his wandering journey through the no-wave and DIY movements of New York‘s Lower Eastside of the 70‘s, the Reaganomics of the 80‘s to the flourishing of graffiti art in the new millennium is beautifully illustrated in 250 color photographs and narrated through an interview with the Wooster Collective. Whether stickers or paste-up silk-screened posters, conceptual pranks and interventions, or beautiful tromp l‘oeil paintings, Witz is inspired as much by the nature and subject of his art as by the mutating urban conditions in which the piece is executed. Not content with established boundaries between street and fine art, Witz seems intent on bursting contemporary art-world bubbles by refusing to confine himself to either. His monograph is a study of both the man and his art, with chapters chronicling the transformation of New York City from a once derelict Lower East Side to a shiny new Gotham.
The monograph is being published by Gingko Press and will be available from June 1st.
This is a seriously overdue book. Dan is just one of those names in street art that you have to respect. Usually, I’m not one to love tromp l‘oeil paintings, but Dan makes the style interesting and engaging by taking things a step further than most.
is an overview of Dan’s artwork from the 1970’s all the way through 2009, as well as a very in-depth interview with Dan by Marc and Sara Schiller of Wooster Collective. It’s one of the most satisfying art books that I’ve seen, because you really do learn a lot about the artist and gain a new understanding of the artwork without too much effort. I guess that means it’s a successful book, not just a collection of images.
