Tag: shepard fairey

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Weekend link-o-rama

Veng in NYC

Well, I’m just gonna brag for a second. Haverford College just got way cooler. M1 from Dead Prez is doing a residency here. Gonna go see him perform tonight in our tiny music venue. And yes, I am aware of the apparent hypocrisy of being a white male at a private educational institution and getting excited to see M1 perform. Anyway. Back to the art.

Photo by Luna Park

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Faust, Fairey, Katsu and Skullphone at Mallick Williams

New York is (slowly) recovering from what one could call its monochromatic season. So as much as I’m ready for all the black and white and grey to be over with, I still ended up catching Mallick Williams‘ grayscale show Hueless a couple days ago before it closes on April 13th. Turns out, in some cases, lack of color isn’t so bad.

Opening just over a month ago, Hueless is a “monochromatic exhibition” with some paradoxical diversity. It’s got black and white and grey, but also silver, cream, brown-black and pretty much every non-pigmented hue in between. With work from Shephard Fairey, Faust, Katsu, Skullphone, and others, the work under color-constraints was (thankfully) more unified than most group shows, and showed off medium/form (there was sculpture, a neon sign, screenprint, paper cut and painting) and content in color’s absence.

There was a requisite Andre the Giant (not for sale, just for show), but the other two pieces from Fairey were among my favorites.

Fairey's "Glass Houses" and "Rise Above Control."
Katsu's "Self Portrait."

Also enjoyed Skullphone’s “Here’s Your Nightmare.” It’s enamel on aluminum, but in person looked sort of like a micro, non-electronic version of his billboards.

Skullphone's piece, photo via Arrested Motion.
"I Want to Go Home" by Distort.
"Tree" paper cut by Nathan Pickett.

Hueless runs through  April 13th, and the gallery opens the color-themed group show Spectrum on April 21st, with pieces from Word to Mother, Erik Otto, and others.

Skullphone photo by Arrested Motion, other photos by Frances Corry.

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Weekend link-o-rama

Galo, 2051 and Ottograph

So much going on behind the scenes this week for a couple of upcoming events. Can’t wait to say more. Hopefully next week I’ll be able to write about one of them. Here’s what I didn’t have a chance to post about this week:

Photo by Galo

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It’s finally (almost) over: OBEY and Shepard Fairey versus the AP

While the lawsuit between Shepard Fairey and the AP was settled in January, there was still a suit between Obey Clothing and the AP. That suit was finally settled, according to PDN Pulse. Both suits surrounded Fairey’s Hope portrait of Obama from a few years ago.

The terms of the settlement with Obey Clothing (as well as some of the retailers who sold clothing with Hope on it) include three important points:

1. Neither side is backing down and admitting that they were wrong. They both get to stick to their beliefs (the AP that the use of a photo they owned as the basis for Hope being infringement and Obey Clothing that it was fair use).

2. Obey Clothing “will not use another AP photo without obtaining a license from the AP.”

3. (and here’s why I say this series of unfortunate events is almost over) Obey Clothing “will collaborate to create and sell apparel using Shepard Fairey’s graphics based on photographs owned by the AP.”

You may remember these terms as sounding pretty familiar as they are pretty much identical to the terms of the settlement with Shepard Fairey, except dealing with clothing.

And yes, condition #3 does mean that there will probably a series of half-assed-and-photoshopped-in-5-minutes-to-OBEY-specification prints and t-shirts based on some famous photographs that the AP owns the rights to. Does the AP seriously think this is going to make them look good? I know people (including myself) have criticized some pretty low quality prints from Fairey from time to time, but damn, besides just the very real possibility of Shepard making some poor designs in a large enough series, I wouldn’t blame the guy if these upcoming designs based on AP-licensed images were intentionally half-assed just to spite the AP.

Or maybe I’m just writing spitefully because I wish Shepard had seen his day in court to patriotically defend the right of fair use… After all, I did buy a print from him last year.

Photo courtesy of Obeygiant.com

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Shepard Fairey’s “Revolutions” opens this weekend in Santa Monica

This Saturday, March 12th, Shepard Fairey‘s latest solo show opens at Robert Berman Gallery in Santa Monica, CA. The art in Revolutions will be a series of  Fairey’s album cover-scale pieces, plus two boxed print sets. Like how skateboard graphics inspired Aaron Rose (as mentioned in an interesting conversation between him and Jeffrey Deitch in Interview Magazine recently), a lot Fairey’s early inspiration came from music and album artwork and he’s done artwork like this before, but I don’t think there’s ever been an entire show of it. Arrested Motion recently visited Shepard’s studio and got some shots of the artist working on this show.

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Para Mi Gente – Chicha poster style art at Primary Projects

El Celso isn’t the only artist who is experimenting with Peru’s unique Chica style of posters, a style pioneered by the Urcuhuaranga family in Lima, Peru. In Miami, Primary Projects have a group show opening this Saturday in homage to Chica posters. For Para Mi Gente, more than 50 artists have contributed designs to a Chica-style collaboration. Shepard Fairey, El Celso, Tristan Eaton, Skullphone, Posterboy, El Tono and others have sent designs to the Primary Projects crew who will combine all these designs by hand painting them throughout the gallery. The artists have little control over how their designs will look on the walls, where they will appear, or next to what. This sounds like a pretty unique and risky show. It should look cool, and it will definitely mess with the standard notions of what gallery art should be and look like.

Here’s the flyer with all the critical info you may need:

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Hueless: A group show in grayscale

A taste of Hueless

The latest show at the relatively new gallery Mallick Williams & Co is Hueless, a group show of 21 artists, but all the artwork is in black, white and shades of gray. The show opens this Friday, March 4th. I chanced across the last show at Mallick Williams & Co when I was last in NYC and really enjoyed it. With Hueless, the line up looks strong once again, with highlights including Shepard Fairey, Skullphone, Faust and Katsu (yes, the writers Faust and Katsu!). Here’s the flyer:

Photocollage courtesy of Mallick Williams & Co

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Weekend link-o-rama

Escif, whose interview in a recent issue of Juxtapoz is really good

It was sunny and 65 today in Philly. It’s going to be back to snow by next week, but in the mean time, it looks like those of us on the East coast are having a great end to our week are hopefully spending some time outdoors. If you do happen to be inside this weekend though, here are some things worth checking out:

Photo by Escif

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Printmaking Today at Black Rat Projects

Last night hosted a packed opening at Black Rat Projects entitled Printmaking Today. Normally print shows tend to be a bit tedious, since they are usually reproduced images of originals or have been so before upon their initial releases. But Black Rat hosted a refreshingly eclectic display of prints by artists ranging from Damien Hirst, Banksy, Matt Small, D*Face, Shepard Fairey and more. As much shit as I got for a previous post of mine about street artists becoming accepted into the art canon, this show only adds further evidence to my point. While many high end fine art establishments look down on street art and find it a passing trend in galleries, this show saw Hirst’s work next to D*Face and Bridget Riley (whose work is in the Tate) close to a Shepard Fairey, without any work looking out of place. My friends and I were discussing how not only does street art borrow from fine art, but fine artists are definitely borrowing from the work of street and outsider artists. The lines are quickly blurring between low brow and fine art, so it is finally nice to see the two in such a show, and not just in an auction.

The show also boasted an incredible pop-up project space by ROA. Each angle showed a new image, and I swear you could walk around it ten time and would still see something different. The works may not be new, quite similar to the LA and NY shows, but the concept is so much more complex and is worth checking out just for that reason.

My favorite of the night had to be Pure Evil‘s “Dripping Liza” work that culminated with a puddle of teal paint down on the floor near the canvas. Andy Warhol may be done to death, but Pure Evil still manages to put a new spin on an over-saturated piece of art that needs to be seen in person to attain the full effect.

Pictures by butterfly. View the whole set here