Tonight We Won’t Be Bored – 10 years of V1 Gallery

Stephen ‘Espo’ Powers

V1 Gallery in Denmark celebrates its 10th year with Tonight We Won’t Be Bored; a massive show of 100 new works by artists like André, Kenny Scharff, Futura, Faile, Lydia Fong (aka Barry McGee), Barbara Kruger, Shepard Fairey, Steve Powers, Todd James, Andrew Schoultz, Thomas Campbell, Erik Parker, André, Neckface, Eine, Wes Lang, Clayton Brothers, and many others. The show opened on November 30th and runs through January 12th.

The Copenhagen gallery got its start in 2002, in a space which had formerly been used as a bakery. With their first exhibition being with Faile, they got the ball rolling pretty quick. By 2007 they moved to a larger space and later started curating shows and participating in art fairs around the world.

Barbara Kruger
Shepard Fairy
Faile
Left to right: Jakob Boeskov, Misha Hollenbach, HuskMitNavn, HuskMitNavn, Eine, and Søren Solkær Starbird
A one of a kind zine by Lydia Fong (Barry McGee)

Photos by Henrik Haven

Weekend link-o-rama

Mural by Eduardo Kobra. Photo by Lord Jim.

Let’s do this:

Photo by Lord Jim

Weekend link-o-rama

Snyder in Beijing

While I spend my day at my other job explaining to people how a skee-ball tournament is art (seriously), I hope you’ll enjoy these newsbites from the past two weeks:

Photo by Snyder

2 of Amerikas Most Wanted

Interior Mural

As RJ mentioned a while back, the Neck Face/Fuck This Life show opened at New Image Art on September 18th, a few doors down from its old location.

The new space is deep and somewhat narrow, and feels a bit like being in a giant service hallway. Up the right wall, Neck Face’s work progressed from sketches to ink and gouache, while the left wall included the show’s mural, a series of Fuck This Life’s collages, and two large collaborative pieces.

Ranging from playful (a piece featuring wigged and rouged demons) to ultra-grime (a skeleton peppering a grave with feces and a demon vomiting colorful chunks into a toilet), Neck Face’s pieces delivered the skeletons and demons aesthetic that owes much to heavy metal–with plenty of pentagrams to spare, and even a detailed disemboweling piece–but what I particularly liked about Neck Face’s demons was his attention to detail in their tattoos.

The artist seemed to be suggesting that humans can be demons as well (or at least act that way from time to time), and although this isn’t an earth-shaking statement, it did add another layer of a meaning to a series of pieces that read like one-frame cartoons and featured a few dull jokes, like the exchange in “Untitled 7”.

Having only previously seen his lines in aerosol, I was impressed by Neck Face’s purposeful chaos in his sketches, especially in “Untitled 2”. The heavy charcoal mixed with scraggly fissure-lines of pencil skillfully evokes a creeping decay.

For his part, Fuck This Life created a series of rectangular collage works on white backgrounds with layouts reminiscent of Internet image searches. The artist could easily have created these by digital means, but the smaller images were clearly cut from newspapers and glossy magazines, and had a zine-like feel as a result.

The imagery most frequently tackled in each collage revolved around sex and death, with occasional appearances by hip-hop icons (Jay-Z, Chuck D, Little Wayne), celebrities (mostly women), and the odd transformation sequence from film or television (e.g. Bruce Banner becoming The Incredible Hulk or Michael Jackson becoming a zombie from the “Thriller” video). When mixed in this way, it was easy to wonder what kind of search word (or words) could create each grouping.

The two collaborative pieces were the most interesting part of the show. Done on square board, each featured Fuck This Life’s collage work, Neck Face’s character sketches, spray paint, and deliberate burn marks. “Lights Out!!!” was the stronger of the two.

The series of portraits that anchors its lower right corner–and rises up the right edge with Neck Face’s signature, hairy-clawed hand–appeared to be still frames of security camera footage (the lone color image in this grouping appears to show a defenseless man getting punched in the back of the head), mugshots, and police sketches.

This grouping was unsettling enough on its own, but when surrounded by Neck Face’s trademark imagery, it seemed as though both artists were unified in pursuing a visual representation of evil. The combination truly worked. It was haunting stuff and the highlight of the show.

Yet, I couldn’t help thinking that–rather than relating to the artists–this was a better expression of “Amerikas Most Wanted” in the show’s title, and perhaps even a missed opportunity for a stronger overall concept.

Neck Face/Fuck This Life, “2 of Amerikas Most Wanted”, runs through October 14th at New Image Art, 7920 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90046.

Neck Face, "Untitled 11"
Neck Face, "I Shit On Your Grave" & "Wrong Lamp Little Nigga"
Neck Face, "You Look Like I Need Another Drink" (detail)
Neck Face, "Untitled 7"
Neck Face, "Untitled 2" (detail)
Fuck This Life, "Untitled 8"
Neck Face x Fuck This Life, "Lights Out!!!"
Neck Face x Fuck This Life, "Lights Out!!!" (detail)

Photos by Ryan Gattis

Weekend link-o-rama

Neckface

With my mind still on Living Walls, I’ve got some catching up to do with what’s been going on outside of Atlanta. So here’s some of that catching up…

  • King Robbo is currently having serious health issues, and there’s a fundraising art auction at Cargo for him next month.
  • Brooklyn Street Art’s LA show, Street Art Saved My Life, opened and BSA has photo of the entire thing.
  • The Zoo Project are a major street art force in Paris, and this wall is one of my favorites from them in a while.
  • Tristan Manco contributed a list of his 10 favorite pieces of street art to The Guardian.
  • Shepard Fairey had quite an ordeal in Copenhagen. On the whole, I’ve got to agree with Shepard on this one. He made a mistake and tried to make it right, but people still beat him up and newspapers still sensationalized their stories in inaccurate ways. Uncool. That said, it’s worth pointing out that right in the midst of Shepard complaining about newspapers getting their facts straight and being ethical, he writes “I adhere to my ethical beliefs in all areas of my artistic and business practice.” I hate to kick a guy while he’s down, but it needs to be mentioned that Shepard did attempt to falsify evidence during his lawsuit with the AP, so those ethics aren’t always adhered to. Anyway, sucks that Shepard and Obey Clothing’s Romeo Trinidad were beat up.
  • Futura and Stash getting up in NYC.
  • James Marshal aka Dalek is trying something very different with his new work.
  • Nunca, Miss Van and others are at work on a mural project in Berlin.
  • Sao Paulo’s Museum of Art just opened a huge show of street artists including JR, Swoon, Invader and Remed.

Photos by Sabeth718

Weekend link-o-rama

Bast

You know what’s weird? Hanging out with all your friends from high school and then actually seeing current high school students from your school. Those kids are so young! While I was freaking out about no longer being a teenager and enjoying the beautiful London weather (I’m serious about this one), here’s what I almost missed this week:

Photo by Luna Park

Weekend link-o-rama

Neckface and Reader stickers in NYC. Photos by Sabeth718

If you looked at Vandalog this week, you’d think it was a slow week in street art. That’s not so, but I’ve been locked down working on Up Close and Personal (opening pics here). So here’s some of what I missed covering this week:

Photo by Sabeth718

Review: Art in the Streets

Retna. Photo by Lord Jim

Last week, The Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art opened an exhibit of street art and graffiti that promised to go down in history, Art in the Streets. It’s a massive exhibit of over 100 street artists and graffiti writers. I visited AITS three times, and still wasn’t satisfied that I’d appreciated the show fully. I think MOCA has delivered something special, but maybe did not quite fulfill that original promise.

I want to spend a good amount of time addressing criticisms of AITS, because that should not be ignored, even if they are far outweighed by the good of the show.

This isn’t the show that I would have put on. This isn’t the show you would have put on. AITS is the show that only Jeffrey Deitch, Roger Gastman and Aaron Rose would have put on. Artists that I would have included without a moment’s hesitation (Judith Supine, Faile, Brad Downey, Jenny Holzer…) were oddly absent, and some artists in the show were out of place or allotted too much space (Geoff McFetridge, Terry Richardson, Mr. Cartoon…). For a show attempting to paint the picture of a history, the historical timeline was given a strange second billing to a hodgepodge of individual artist installations.

The selection process for a lot of the show seems like it was a political battle rather than an ideal model of art curating. When the curators’ names were announced, a good chunk of the show’s line up could already be predicted based on their personal relationships. Luckily, the curators are connected to many of the same people that anyone would have put in a similar show to AITS. What would this sort of show be without a contribution from some Beautiful Losers and artists who had shown at Deitch Projects? The unfortunate thing is that there definitely could have been less of a focus on those well-connected artists, and the many talented artists who aren’t connected to the curators probably had a harder time getting invited to be part of the show (or weren’t invited at all).

Os Gêmeos. Photo by RJ Rushmore

Briefly, it’s worth mentioning the lack of strong political artwork in the show. Any political statements made were “safe” ones, and the most controversial (Blu’s message of “war sucks and people make money off of it”) was removed. But just as all illegal street art and graffiti is inherently political, putting work by street artists and graffiti writers in a museum is a political act, even if the content of the work is not explicitly political.

The outdoor murals and the way MOCA has generally dealt with truly accepting the “street” side of street art and graffiti has also been a bit of a mess, but I think that would be true of almost any institution of MOCA’s size. The buffing of Blu’s mural and then the buffing of Katsu’s tag both tainted AITS, regardless of MOCA’s right to do what they want their walls, and the murals that replaced those two are not fantastic (although Push and Futura’s contributions to Lee’s mural work pretty well). And just this past week, Deitch’s inability to publicly defend and embrace illegal street art being committed near the museum has been laughable and depressing. Critics of the show are right to point out the hypocrisy of his position on the legitimacy of street art being produced today versus that of a few years ago. But just like it is the critics’ job to point out that hypocrisy, it is Deitch’s job to say politically wise things to reporters. Simply put, MOCA haven’t been very ballsy when it comes to the “in the streets” part of “Art in the Streets.” This minor fail is maybe what best points out what AITS is and what it isn’t.

In essence, the show has the wrong name. It is not “art in the streets.” It is “documentation of art in the streets or art by artists who began their careers by making art in the street but probably don’t do that too much now, or maybe they do but this is a different side of their artwork.” Yes, a lot of these artists still get up outdoors, but, for many but not all of the AITS artists, it’s a different sort of thing these days: OBEY posters are advertising, Banksy stencils are tourist attractions that last a few days before ending up on eBay and Steve Powers paints amazing murals for an organization founded with the expressed purpose of covering graffiti like his. I’m not saying that artists can’t or shouldn’t evolve, but many of the street artists and graffiti writers that AITS focuses on make “museum friendly” art. And that’s great for them. But AITS is not a show of art in the streets but art by artists who have, as I’ve heard a few people put it, “graduated” from the streets, even if they still get up a bit. As Unurth points out, there is a general lack of names from the last 10 years. So let’s reframe this for what the show is, and look at it that way. Putting aside the politics and minor flaws that only a street art or graffiti fanatic will pay much attention to, AITS is a huge hit.

AITS has two main components: it has a brief history of street art and graffiti, and it has mini-shows of fine art from some of the most acclaimed street artists, street culture documenters and graffiti writers over the last few decades.

Part of the timeline. Photo by Lindsay T

The timeline is the most “museum-y” part of the show, and it should provide newcomers a history of what graffiti, street culture and street art are about, as well as give long-time fans some new insights. While visitors should also take a trip to see the show currently on at Subliminal Projects to get a better idea about 1980’s street art in NYC, the timeline definitely does its job as a brief overview of the history informing the rest of AITS.

Most of the highlights of the show can be found in the installations.

Three of the best installations make a point of acknowledging that their work is in a museum, even though AITS is meant to be about illegal outdoor art. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Street art and graffiti is about good placement and understanding context. Neckface, Os Gêmeos and the trio of Barry McGee, Todd James and Steve Powers all understand this very well, and it came across in their installations.

Neckface. Photo by Gelatobaby

Neckface’s section was billed as one of his “haunted house” installations, but ended up being a recreation of a dark inner-city alleyway (complete with a drunk, drugged up or just plain crazy homeless man) with some Neckface tags on the walls. Of course, suits and bloggers like me were lined up to check it out, but few of us would be smiling so much if we actually found ourselves alone in that sort of an alleyway at 3 in the morning. That’s the street, the thing MOCA is supposed to be celebrating. It is like a voyeuristic natural history exhibit for historically middle and upper class museum visitors, pointing out the impossibility and absurdity of bringing the streets indoors in the fashion that the title of the show suggests.

Os Gêmeos reinstalled a show that they had last year at a museum in Portugal. It was definitely a highlight of the show, with a little bit of everything from the twins. Hidden in a bit in their cluster of work was one piece of wood where it was written: “This is not graff the graffiti is outside!!” Simple. That installation is their fine art and it is awe inspiring and thought provoking and should be seen. The graffiti is outside. And so is the street art.

Os Gêmeos. Photo by RJ Rushmore
Street (Barry Mcgee, Todd James and Steve Powers). Photo by Gelatobaby

And then there is Street. Barry McGee aka Twist, Steve Powers aka ESPO and Todd James aka Reas reunited to make a new version of their historic Street Market installation, versions of which had previously been put on at Deitch Projects and the Venice Biennale. First of all, this might be the best installation in the show. Particularly when the area isn’t too crowded with other museum-goers, it’s like being transported into another, more Technicolor and mad, world. It’s a graffiti writer’s urban dreamworld where taggers can hide invisible bushes and bodegas sell cans of street cred. The space is an art-crowd friendly dreamworld of a street, where Style Wars isn’t a documentary but a musical without any real-world consequences. Again though, the installation touches on the impossibility of bringing a true street inside, going for the asurd illusion instead. Street is what would happen if graffiti writers could have a ride at Disneyland, and I mean that in the best way, but it’s still a ride at Disneyland rather than an actual street and the artists know it.

Street (Barry Mcgee, Todd James and Steve Powers). Photo by RJ Rushmore
Street (Barry Mcgee, Todd James and Steve Powers). Photo by RJ Rushmore

The show is just too massive to write about everything. This review is already far too long. Sections by Margaret Kilgallen, Roa (who again, understands that he is in a museum), Invader (who plays with the fact that he is in a museum), Shepard Fairey, Banksy, The Fun Gallery, Rammellzee, Retna, Chaz Bojorquez, Swoon, Kaws, Ed Templeton and many others add together to be the most substantial gathering of art by this group of artists that has ever been assembled. I rediscovered artists I’d overlooked, found new favorites and enjoyed revisiting the work of my old favorites. The show is so massive that a pessimist will undoubtedly find something that they do not like and many visitors will be overwhelmed, but it would be difficult to go through the entire show and not find a few gems, no matter your taste in art.

Swoon. Photo by RJ Rushmore

For a moment, forget about the BS and the politics and the buffing and Deitch-hating and Alleged Gallery controversies from a decade ago and the lack of this person and that person and why this person got an installation and that person painted a mural and blah freaking blah. Outside of our art-world BS political pissing contest context where AITS can and will be criticized on many levels, people are going to visit AITS and they’re going to see some amazing art by artists who were and are pillars of street art and graffiti history. I expect that the vast majority of visitors will like what they see and they will learn something. And that’s important. This is street art. It’s supposed to be for “the people,” and “the people” will still enjoy this show even if my or your 4th favorite artist was snubbed or whatever other minor flaw you can find. And if you go and visit the show and you can put aside your minor internal art world squabbles for a couple of hours, AITS should be a magical experience for you, just as it was for me. I highly recommend setting aside a day to visit AITS.

Photos by Lord Jim, Gelatobaby, LindsayT and RJ Rushmore

Miami Madness

In a lot of ways, Hargo sums up Miami's art fair week

With so much of the art world migrating to Miami this week in a frenzy, there seem to be too many events and parties (and I promise not to blog about the parties in detail. This isn’t a gossip site) and exhibits and festivals and everything else to keep track of. Here’s a roundup of some of the things that I’m most interested in seeing (or not seeing).

Things that have already been mentioned on Vandalog:

And things that I haven’t already blogged about:

  • Elisa Carmichael has her list of Miami must-sees, which includes a Dan Witz book signing and a Trespass book signing with Marc and Sara from Wooster Collective and Carlo McCormick.
  • Sorry to bring this up, but Sanrio’s exhibition of Hello Kitty art is just annoying. They got some great artists like Jim Houser to paint Hello Kitty characters. I’ll be avoiding this show like the plague.
  • I mostly go for Ryan McGinness’ really abstract work and this isn’t that, but McGinness fans will probably want to check out his solo show.
  • Barry McGee will be showing work and signing books at Ratio 3’s book in Basel Miami.
  • Jonathan LeVine Gallery has a pop-up show as part of Wynwood Walls. Some of the artists include AJ Fosik, Judith Supine, Doze Green, Dan Witz and WK Interact.
  • FriendsWithYou are filling a park with giant blow-up sculptures.
  • Last year, OHWOW Gallery’s It Ain’t Fair show was one of the most interesting shows in Miami. Once again, they have a killer line up for the show including José Parlá, Rey Parlá (José’s brother who is, I believe, a filmmaker), KAWS, Phil Frost, Barry McGee and Neckface.
  • OHWOW Gallery are also opening a bookstore at The Standard Hotel in Miami.
  • New Image Art’s pop-up show includes Neckface, Judith Supine and Os Gêmeos. Probably going to be a must-see.
  • Tristan Eaton and his partners are launching Contra Projects with a wide-array of events this week including a tent/lounge space, a mural (by Mr. Jago, Tristan Eaton, Ron English and others) and a TrustoCorp carnival aka TrustoLand. More info on the Thunderdog blog.
  • Carmichael Gallery, Joshua Liner Gallery and others will have booths at SCOPE, and I think Maya Hayuk is painting a mural there, which should be awesome if I’m remembering that correctly.
  • And of course there’s all the fairs I haven’t mentioned, because there are just so many. So many. Too many. It’s gonna be art overload. But if I’ve missed anything that you think is particularly special, please leave a comment.

Photo by Hargo

The Lost Ones in Mexico City

The Lost Ones is a group show opening this week at Fifty24MX, Upper Playground’s Mexico City gallery. The show is being curated by New Image Art Gallery‘s Marsea Goldberg and features some great street artists like Retna, Shepard Fairey, Judith Supine and Neck Face.  The Lost Ones opens on Friday. I wonder of Arrested Motion will have photographers there, because I certainly don’t know anybody who will be there taking photos and I’d like to see this once it’s open.