Earlier this month, Hush and OneThirty3 Projects held an installation at Hush’s OneThirty3 space in Newcastle, UK. The show featured a new installation by Hush and the works of photographers and film makers documenting previous installations in the space by artists such as Titifreak, Paul Insect, Sickboy, Herakut and Gaia.
Photos courtesy of Hush and OneThirty3
Wynwood Walls is a noteworthy mural program in the Wynwood District of Miami. It has brought a number talented of artists to Miami to paint walls, and I’m under the impression that these artists are rewarded handsomely for their work. So far, so good. The project was started by Tony Goldman, a real estate developer. For this reason, Wynwood Walls has always been a bit controversial. To put it simply, Goldman is banking on commissioned murals by street artists and graffiti artists/writers to help quickly gentrify the neighborhood of Wynwood, where his company has significant property holdings. Okay, so that’s going to be controversial, but personally I think both sides of that issue have some good points. While Wynwood Walls has made me uncomfortable in the past with their high-culture and very dollar-sign focused take on murals, at the end of the day Wynwood has more walls painted by great artists because of Wynwood Walls and the neighborhood is on the upswing. But I’m digressing with history and politics before I even get to my main point: Wynwood Walls was not the first mural project in Wynwood, nor the largest, nor the most important. Before Wynwood Walls came along, the district was known in the street art and graffiti worlds for Primary Flight, quite likely the largest mural festival ever held with over 250 participants since 2007. While Primary Flight is not going to have quite as strong of a presence this year as it has in years past (both festivals are held over the first week of December), Primary Flight has undoubtedly been the superior festival to Wynwood Walls in size and the locations of walls in the past. This year, Wynwood Walls has ramped things up and Primary Flight has slowed things down, so it remains to be seen which will be the bigger festival, but the idea of Wynwood as a mural district certainly stems from Primary Flight’s work. Wynwood Walls took a version of Primary Flight’s idea, added their personal spin to it and started up a few years later in the same neighborhood as Primary Flight.
Given that history, I at first found it surprising that a recent docuseries about Wynwood is telling such a different story: Here Comes The Neighborhood. The series is described as “a Short-Form Docuseries exploring the power of Public Art and innovation to uplift and revitalize urban communities,” and supposedly tells the story of how Wynwood has been improved by murals. Unfortunately, the series is not at all what it claims. Tony Goldman, the man behind Wynwood Walls, is the executive producer of Here Comes The Neighborhood. When you know that, it becomes a lot more clear as to why the video series is, so far, a bit of a circle-jerk of Wynwood Walls participants talking about how great the project is, save for about 20 seconds mentioning Primary Flight and Gaia’s joke that the main Wynwood Walls complex might be “where art goes to die, to a certain extent.”
The Wynwood Walls website and the Here Comes The Neighbordhood website are even worse, with absolutely no mention of Primary Flight or the graffiti and street art in Wynwood that preceded either festival. Of course people and companies can say what they want about their projects so Wynwood Walls and this video series could just tell the story of Wynwood Walls and not mention Primary Flight, but I do take issue with them claiming to tell a history of art in the area and practically writing out the organization responsible for the majority of Wynwood’s murals. Based on a quick estimate, the Here Comes The Neighborhood trailer includes at least 6 of the murals affiliated with Primary Flight rather than Wynwood Walls, as were 8 artists affiliated with Primary Flight rather than Wynwood Walls, 9 artists shown who worked with Primary Flight before Wynwood Walls and 1 who worked with both Primary Flight and Wynwood Walls during her first trip to Miami. So clearly the makers of Here Comes The Neighborhood like and know about the murals for which Primary Flight is responsible, but have for some unknown reason neglected to give Primary Flight due credit for their contribution to Wynwood.
So with their twisting of history in mind, here’s the trailer for and the first two episodes of Here Comes The Neighborhood, which at least does show some great artwork if you can get past their gross distortions:
Photo by Hargo
Many thanks to C215 for all the walls in Vitry and John Cunningham at the Sunnhordland Folkehogskule for the hospitality in Norway
The golden geese of StatOil. Petroleum has completely changed Norway since its discovery and development in the North Sea since the early 1970’s. Now the country has the second highest GDP per capita in the world.
In 1918, painter Amédée Ozenfant and Le Corbusier established the journal L’Esprit Nouveau, a publication advocating pure, geometric form in art and architecture. Their conceptual legacy has been felt tremendously in our approach to pre-fabricated housing throughout the world and was a small seed for defining the modern aesthetic. The material for the image is derived from a pamphlet for Corbusier’s lecture series in 1920.
Montry is a small town outside of Paris. Their refusal to sell land to Disneyland Paris set Montry apart from its neighbors who ceded public land to new development. Many thanks to Galerie Itinerrance.
Photos by Gaia and Aaron Wojack
Title: “Byker Wall” by Gaia : Edition: 33 , 2aps – 760mm x 540mm
Medium: Screen printed with 2 colours and hand painted on 300gsm somerset velvet
Paper: Somerset White Velvet 300gsm. Signed, Dated & Numbered by the Artist. £275.00 inc vat to purchase please visit OneThirty3’s online shop
Thomas Daniel Smith (11 May 1915 – 27 July 1993) was a British politician who was Leader of Newcastle upon Tyne City Council from 1960 to 1965. A visionary of his time, Smith wanted Newcastle to become “the Brasilia of theNorth” through the implementation of massive redevelopment projects and slum clearence programs. His legacy included the Swan House in the center of the city which replaced the original Medieval streets with a large motorway and roundabout. Smith`s political career would eventually be destroyed by offering lucrative building contracts to local architects, the result of which were housing estates such as the infamous Cruddas Park project. Props to GMC crew for the wall and all of the help! Of course a big shout to Onethirty3 for flying me out and organizing the installation.
Bijlmer was designed by the department of City Development according to the strict tenets of CIAM. Constructed throughout the 60’s in striking resemblance to Le Corbusier’s Radiant City plan, by the time the massive towers were constructed, high modernism was already under vitriolic scrutiny by the architectural community. Intended to alleviate Amsterdam’s housing shortage, middle class never moved to the housing project in the wake of burgeoning suburbanization and a plummeting population in the center city.
Bijlmer became the dumping ground for unwanted immigrant communities and the city’s excessive drug problems. Only until recently, has the massive housing project been redeveloped into more mixed income housing with a diversity of uses and styles. Many of the block slabs have been leveled due to poor construction and maintenance but the remaining towers have been renovated into exceptional apartments. This piece was created on one of the last remaining vacant houses.
Photos by Gaia
UPDATE – LOCATION CHANGE: The Underbelly Show has moved to 78 NW 25th Street in Wynwood, Miami to accommodate the large scale of the artwork in this show.
The Underbelly Project is back. Last year, I posted a lot about the project where 103 artists from around the world secretly painted an abandoned/half-completed New York City subway station. After that initial burst of press here and around the web, The Underbelly Project organizers stayed silent. With only occasional vague tweets from a mysterious twitter account and the appearance on Amazon of an upcoming book about the project. Yesterday though, The Underbelly Project announced that they will be participating in this year’s Basel Miami Week madness with a pop-up gallery in South Beach Wynwood.
The organizers of The Underbelly Project and The Underbelly Show, Workhorse and PAC, have this to say about the show:
Workhorse: The New York Underbelly was an important chapter for us, but the story hadn’t been comprehensively told. The Underbelly Miami show gives us a chance to present the broad scope of documentation – Videos, photos, time-lapses and first hand accounts. The project is about more than just artwork. This show gives us a chance to show the people and the environment behind the artwork.
PAC: While the experience each artist had in their expedition underground can never be captured, it is my hope that this show will highlight some of the trials and tribulations associated with urban art taking place in the remote corners of our cities. Too often the practice of making art in unconventional venues remains shrouded in mystery and I hope this exhibition will shine a faint light on those artists who risk their safety to find alternative ways to create and be a part of the cities they live in.
35 of the 103 artists from The Underbelly Project will be exhibiting art in The Underbelly Show, plus video and still footage of the artists at work in the tunnel. Here’s the full line-up: Faile, Dabs & Myla, TrustoCorp, Aiko, Rone, Revok, Ron English, Jeff Soto, Mark Jenkins, Anthony Lister, Logan Hicks, Lucy McLauchlan, M-City, Kid Zoom, Haze, Saber, Meggs, Jim & Tina Darling, The London Police, Sheone, Skewville, Jeff Stark, Jordan Seiler, Jason Eppink and I AM, Dan Witz, Specter, Ripo, MoMo, Remi/Rough, Stormie Mills, Swoon, Know Hope, Skullphone, L’Atlas, Roa, Surge, Gaia, Michael De Feo, Joe Iurato, Love Me, Adam 5100, and Chris Stain.
For this show, the space will be transformed into an environment imitating the tunnel where The Underbelly Project took place, right down to playing sounds recorded in the station while The Underbelly Project was happening.
If you absolutely cannot wait until February to get We Own The Night, the book documenting The Underbelly Project, a limited number will be available at The Underbelly Show in a box set with 9 photographic prints and the book all contained in a handcrafted oak box. Additionally, you will be able to your book signed by the artists participating in The Underbelly Show.
The Underbelly Show will take place at 2200 Collins Avenue, South Beach, Miami 78 NW 25th Street, Wynwood, Miami. There will be a private opening on November 30th, and the space will be open to the general public December 2nd-5th, with a general opening on the 2nd from 8-10pm.
Photo by RJ Rushmore
We’ve been coming upon some newly-painted shutters these past few weeks. Here’s a sampling:
This Thursday, 13th October 2011, 6:30pm till 9.00pm @ onethirty3
6.30-9.00pm Open for one night only
Venue: OneThirty3, Unit 22, Hoults Yard, Newcastle upon Tyne NE6 2HL
EACH SHOW WILL BE ACCOMPANIED BY ONE ORIGINAL PAINTING & 33 LIMITED EDITION PRINTS, SIGNED & NUMBERED.
PLACES WILL BE LIMITED: info@onethirty3.com
Photos courtesy of OneThirty3
On Every Street is a show opening this Thursday at Samuel Owen Gallery in Greenwich, CT. Curated by Michael de Feo, it features the work of dozens of street artists. On Every Street includes a diverse of street artists both in style and (from Hargo to Tony Curanaj) and when they were active outdoors (from Richard Hambleton to Gaia).
Here’s the full line up: Above, Aiko, Michael Anderson, Banksy, Jean-Michel Basquiat, C215, Tony Curanaj, Michael De Feo, D*Face, Ellis Gallagher, Keith Haring, Ron English, Blek le rat, Faile, Shepard Fairey, John Fekner, JMR, Gaia, Richard Hambleton, Hargo, Maya Hayuk, Don Leicht, Tom Otterness, Lady Pink, Lister, Ripo, Mike Sajnoski, Jeff Soto, Chris Stain, Swoon, Thundercut, Dan Witz.
Images courtesy of Michael de Feo
Last year, Vandalog released a series of t-shirts with designs by Troy Lovegates aka Other, Faro and Gaia. Since the last of those shirts are taking up some valuable space in a box under by bed, they are now on sale at 50% off at the Vandalog online store, making them just $15 each. Unfortunately we’ve sold out of mediums in every design, but small, large and XL shirts are still available. You can buy a shirt here.
Brooklyn Street Art have been up in Albany for Living Walls Albany. These are some of my favorite photos so far, but check out way more images here and here.
Photos by Jaime Rojo
