Tag: Emory Douglas

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Emory Douglas at The Outsiders in London

Emory Douglas, aka the former ‘Minister for Culture’ for the Black Panthers and a major influence on artists like Shepard Fairey, has a show opening this week at The Outsiders, Lazarides’ Greek Street space in London. I’m a huge fan of Emory Douglas’ work, and I think he has been massively underrated, in large part because a lot of his original work was destroyed, but also because it was so controversial. Decades late, he is finally getting the recognition he deserves. Douglas is the master of revolutionary and political artwork. This show runs from August 18th through September 10th. I highly recommend that anyone with an interest in the intersection of art and politics check it out. Douglas’ work is political art that actually means something and changed things, compared to a lot of today’s “political” street art.

Images courtesy of The Outsiders

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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

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Playing catch-up: It’s a link post!

Been in NYC for the last few days. Besides being busy, it seems like the hotel I was at still hadn’t quite figured out the concept of wifi extending to all rooms in the hotel… So now I’ve got a lot of stories to post about. Here’s what I missed while I was away, though you may have read about it elsewhere:

  • I’ve actually been meaning to post about this for a while. Ken Harman from Arrested Motion and the Hi-Fructose Blog, just curated one of the better group shows I’ve seen. Some artists of particular note would be Emory Douglas (a major influence on Shepard Fairey and important propaganda-maker in his own right), Dabs, Myla, Mike Shine and Monica Canilao. A Decade With No Name is open on Saturdays and Sundays through September 12th at 54 Washington St. Oakland, CA. My Love For You Is A Stampede of Horses has photos of Monica’s installation, and Spoke has photos of everything else and is where you can purchase the artwork.
  • Papergirl NY is bringing Germany’s Papergirl concept to the USA. Basically, artists get together to distribute a bunch of free art to members of the public by riding around on bikes. Their YouTube video shows what happens in a bit more detail. Papergirl NY events are taking place in New York City this week. On Tuesday and Wednesday they will be at the DUMBO Arts Center, and then Papergirl will move to The Armory where you can find them Friday through Sunday.
  • Mobstr hasn’t been around forever, but his humor can already rival Banksy.
  • Blu and Ericailcane are in Stavanger for Nuart, and their wall is one of Blu’s boldest political statements yet (after all, Stavanger is an oil-funded city, and oil money from taxes pretty much funds Nuart). Nice stuff.
  • I’m loving Shepard Fairey’s portrait of Johnny Ramone at Signal Gallery’s Beyond Punk show.
  • Graffiti in New Orleans after Katrina.
  • Luzinterruptus has made some “urban nests.”
  • I’m hoping to post some more about this in the coming days, but Jordan Seiler as written on his blog about his experiences at Living Walls.
  • Once5 aka Jeffrey Pena has a solo show coming up at My Addiction Gallery in Tucson, Arizona. Pena has a nice timelapse on YouTube of him putting up a large paper-cut in Brooklyn.

So that’s it for now, but I should be back to daily posts now.

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Some new art at Oakland Museum of California

Barry McGee

Oakland Museum of California has just opened a group show with artists like Barry McGee, Date Farmers and Emory Douglas in their Gallery of California Art. So cool. Oh and for those who aren’t familiar with Emory Douglas’ artwork (as I was until recently), Douglas did much of the artwork for The Black Panthers and is one of Shepard Fairey’s most clear influences.

Emory Douglas
Date Farmers
Barry McGee
Barry McGee
Barry McGee

Plenty of more photos can be found on fresh888’s flickr.

Via Arrested Motion and Hi-Fructose

Photos by fresh888