Weekend link-o-rama

Unit 12, maybe. Photo by Dani Mozeson.
Unit 12 or Unit 112, maybe?

This link-o-rama is super helpful for me, because all week I’ve been working on my upcoming ebook instead of blogging. Hopefully the ebook will be out in November… Anyways, links:

  • I love that this show at LeQuiVive Gallery reframes a certain kind of work that often gets lumped in with street art or urban art as Neu Folk Revival, which describes the work much better than calling it street art or urban art or low-brow art. Some real talent in this show: Doodles, Troy Lovegates, Cannon Dill, ghostpatrol, Zio Ziegler, Daryll Peirce, Justin Lovato… It opens next month.
  • This piece by Part2ism needs to be seen. And look closely. That’s not just paint on the wall. Very interesting. I am glad to see Part2ism on the streets again, and I can’t wait to see what he does next. Once again, he has shown that he is ahead of the rest of us. This piece doesn’t look like graffiti. It doesn’t look like street art. It looks like art on the street, and that’s much too rare.Swampy has relaunched his website and posted a video diary sort of thing. I’m very curious what people think about it. Have a look and let me know.Check out this concept from Jadikan-LP: Art that only exists within Google Maps. Click the link. Explore the room. I normally hate lightpainting or “light graffiti,” but I absolutely love this piece. As far as I’m concerned, the internet is a public space and Jadikan-LP has invaded it with artwork, so this project is street art.
  • CDH wrote a really fascinating article in Art Monthly Australia about the commodification of street art. While I don’t agree with him entirely, I think it’s a must-read because at least it sparks some thoughts. It’s one of the best-written critiques I’ve read of the capitalistic nature of contemporary street art. Over on Invurt, they have posted CDH’s article as well as a response by E.L.K. (who CDH calls out in his critique). In his article, CDH called out E.L.K. for using stencils with so many layers that the work isn’t really street anymore, since stencils were initially used for being quick and a piece with 20 layers isn’t going to be quick. It’s just going to look technically interesting. Well, E.L.K. shot back in his response and made himself look like an idiot and seemingly declaring that all conceptual street art and graffiti is crap. There were arguments he could have made to defend complex stenciling or critique other points of CDH’s article, but instead E.L.K. mostly just attacked CDH as an artist. Anyway, definitely read both the original article and the response over at Invurt. The comments on the response are interesting as well.

Photo by Dani Mozeson

Weekend link-o-rama

Labrona, Gawd, Cam and Waxhead

Spending a few days in NYC, so this is a bit late, but here it is…

Photo by Labrona

The Bridge Is Over – a group show from Spoke Art

This should be good. Spoke Art‘s next show open’s this week at Lopo Gallery in San Fransisco and it has a few of my favorite underrated West Coast artists. Foremost among those is, of course, Emory Douglas, one of Shepard Fairey’s biggest inspirations and a great artist in his own right. I’m reading two different books right now about black liberation theology which pretty much say that I can’t appreciate Emory Douglas’ art because I’m white, but I can’t help myself.

Additionally, The Bridge Is Over includes Justin Lovato, Daryll Peirce and GATS (who I don’t think I’ve blogged about before, but whose work I’ve been admiring online for a while as similar to what people like Faro, Swampy and the Burning Candy and Everfresh crews are doing meshing street art and graffiti). Admittedly, the number of artists is this show is large enough to guarantee some bad art will find it’s way in, but that’s just the nature of large group shows.

The Bridge Is Over opens on Saturday, November 27th at Lopo Gallery.

Via Endless Canvas

Willoughby Windows v2.0

Skewville

Daryll Peirce sent me these photos from Willoughby Windows v2.0, the latest version of Ad Hoc Art’s Willoughby Windows project (the first event took place last June). Willoughby Windows v2.0 brought together 15 artists to fill 13 vacant storefronts in Brooklyn with artwork. C.Damage, Chris Mendoza & Pablo Power, Daryll Peirce, Faust, Hellbent, Jef Aerosol, Joe Iurato, Laura Lee, LogikOne, Ron English, Skewville and Thundercut participated in the project this time around. Here are some of the installations they created:

Ron English
Daryll Peirce (finished piece in his studio, later installed in a storefront)
C. Damage
Thundercut
Hellbent

Photos by Daryll Peirce

Daryll Peirce: a talented guy I met in Miami

Peirce

At Primary Flight, I happened to see Daryll Peirce painting the above mural with The London Police and others. Later that evening, I had the chance to chat with him and see some more of his artwork. Very talented artist IMHO, but have a look and decide for yourself.

Peirce

I love pieces like these on wood without any background except the wood itself.

Peirce

Here’s some info from Daryll’s bio:

Focused on exploring the connectivity within humanity and its claims of control over social systems, habitat, nature, and
future, Peirce’s artwork pendulates between the satiric and esoteric, optimistic and pessimistic, scientific and spiritual,
bold and poetic. Grotesquely exaggerated human forms, arterial-botanic city organisms, and flowering interconnected
building clusters currently inhabit his work. On a more intimate level, his influences instinctively stem from his past and
current environments, travel, exploration, skateboarding, surfing, dreaming, philosophy, and interacting with all forms of
the human animal with a focused lens on the social outcast.

Peirce

This piece was painted for Primary Flight last year, but unfortunately it isn’t there anymore:

Peirce

All outdoor photos by Jeremiah Garcia