the hole – Vandalog – A Street Art Blog

January 7, 2015January 8, 2015

Making history from coast to coast this week

Curiot’s piece for *La Familia* at Thinkspace Gallery. Photo courtesy of Thinkspace Gallery.

This week folks in LA and NYC have reason to celebrate with two historic shows opening in those cities.

On the West Coast, Thinkspace Gallery has their La Familia 10th anniversary group show, which will be historic in the sense of looking back over the first decade of a great gallery. Thinkspace is one of my favorite West Coast galleries, so it’s exciting to see them celebrating 10 years. For La Familia, Thinkspace are reuniting with the myriad of artists they’ve shown and supported over the last decade for a group exhibition of over 120 small wood panels from as many artists (panels provided by Trekell). I’m not usually one for overloaded group shows, but this is one that I can get excited about. La Familia opens on Saturday, January 10th. Learn more here.

Painting from KATSU's Android Selfies series. Photo courtesy of The Hole. — *Selfie: Feng-shui 1* by KATSU. Photo courtesy of The Hole.

And on the East Coast, NYC’s The Hole is holding Remember the Future, a KATSU solo show. Of course, this show has the potential to be historic for being KATSU’s first solo show. It’s no secret that I’m not usually fan of The Hole’s program, but this is an important exception. KATSU is one of the most mysterious, groundbreaking, and potentially influential graffiti writers to come to prominence in the 21st century. He’s a member of BTM and F.A.T. Lab, and he’s produced innovations in traditional graffiti as well as net art/digital pranksterism. The few pieces of KATSU’s gallery work that I’ve seen have ranged from absolutely awesome (see above) to hokey. Although the press release offers some ideas, I’m still not totally sure what to expect from KATSU’s first solo show, but I’m optimistic that it will be pretty damn impressive and I’m sure it will be something to remember. Remember the Future opens at The Hole on Thursday, January 8th.

Photos courtesy of Thinkspace Gallery and The Hole

July 20, 2011July 19, 2011

History of American Grafitti book signing w/ Taki183

COSTandREVS_GuilianiPortrait_NYC94_photobyCalebNeelon — Cost and Revs. Photo by Caleb Neelon

Tomorrow, the authors of The History of American Graffiti (Caleb Neelon and Roger Gastman) will be joining Taki183 at The Hole in NYC for a book signing. I haven’t had a chance to read the book yet, but from what I hear it is one of, if not the, best graffiti histories told so far. The book signing will take place from 7-10pm on Thursday at The Hole’s new location (312 Bowery). SNAKE 1, SJK 171, MIKE 171 and ROCKY 184 will also be there.

Here are a couple more images from the book:

TWIST_REM_KR_SanFran93_photobyJimPrigoff — Twist, Reminisce and KR. Photo by Jim Prigoff

Bisaro_AmericanGraffiti_88_photobyJimPrigoff — Bisaro. Photo by Jim Prigoff

Photos by Caleb Neelon and Jim Prigoff

May 6, 2011

Weekend link-o-rama

While I should probably be studying for final exams right now, I’m spending just as much time getting ready for Up Close and Personal, which opens next week in NYC. Check out a preview on Brooklyn Street Art. Here’s some stuff I would have liked to have covered this week:

Saber has a solo show open now in New York.
If you haven’t seen NohJColey’s flickrstream in a while, he’s been making some interactive sculptures.
Faile have a new prayer wheel in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
This article does a good job of showing just how messed up the current legal system is when looking at graffiti.
A reminder that street art and graffiti can have a real impact.
Check out Nuria Mora.
A Keith Haring show in NYC.
Peter Kennard is showing at Black Rat Projects.
New questions about if Banksy’s This Looks a Bit Like an Elephant piece left a man homeless.
Banksy is selling a poster on Saturday at the Bristol Anarchist Bookfair, and all the proceeds are going to charity. Just £5 per poster. The design is a “Tesco Petrol Bomb,” referencing the recent riots in Bristol over the construction of a new Tesco supermarket.
Herakut get up in LA.
Melrose&Fairfax have an article about Jeffrey Deitch’s continued ties to The Hole, the gallery that his right-hand woman Kathy Grayson set up after Deitch Project closed and Deitch became the director of MOCA in LA. Most of what they mention was already well-known or expected and a lot less explosive than Melrose&Fairfax make it out to be, but I’d still be curious to hear what The Association of Art Museum Directors think about this.

Photo by TresOhUno

April 13, 2011

The Hole heads to LA – Facemaker

Get ready for some irony: Jeffrey Deitch closes Deitch Projects and leaves to be director at MOCA in LA, Kathy Grayson aka Deitch’s right hand woman at Deitch Projects opens The Hole in NYC to fill the hole left by Deitch’s departure and now The Hole has a show opening in LA this Wednesday night to coincide with MOCA’s Art in the Streets show.

The Hole are putting on a show, Facemaker, at Royal/T in Culver City. Basically, Facemaker is a portraits show. Despite one of the silliest press releases I’ve read this month (“The show will explore interpretations of the most universal element of human perception: the face.”), the show looks to be something worth seeing. The line-up is beyond impressive. Here it is:

Ben Jones, Barry McGee, Kenny Scharf, Joe Grillo, assume vivid astro focus, Tomoo Gokita, Eric Yahnker, Jane Moseley, Olaf Breuning, KAWS, Ted Mineo, David Shrigley, Shepard Fairey, Eddie Martinez, Taylor McKimens, Francine, Speigel, Avery Newman, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Robert Lazzarini, Aurel Schmidt, Kembra Pfahler, Rivas & Tullie, Aaron Johnson, Brian Belott, Matt Leines, Swoon, Allison Schulnik, Clare Rojas, Jules de Balincourt, Michael Williams, Takeshi Murata, Anders Oinonen, Justin Samson, Misaki Kawai, Andrew Jeffrey Wright, Dennis Tyfus, Katherine Bernhardt, Todd James, Matt Greene, Stefan Bondell, Spencer Sweeney, Nate Lowman, Mat Brinkman, Jakub Julian Ziolkowski, Billy Grant, Adam Tullie and FriendsWithYou

So regardless of a crazy press release, this is still something to get excited about. I’ll be there Wednesday at the opening (8pm-midnight) and the show runs through June 30th.

Image courtesy of The Hole

December 19, 2010

Weekend link-o-rama

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — Galo and Pixelpancho in Miami (click to view large)

Well, I was expecting to see my family today, but snow in London have half of them stuck there. Luckily, snow where I am in Colorado is keeping me busy. Too busy to post very much unfortunately. Here’s what I’ve been missing:

Roadsworth is Lisbon. Definitely check this out.
Todd Seelie took some great photos of Monica Canilao and Saelee Oh making a beautiful installation in Detroit.
M-City killed it in Miami even though his stencils arrived days after he did.
While I didn’t care for Banksy’s latest print release at all, he did give the proceeds (almost £100,000 in total) to a great cause.
Yellow Pants‘ first show, at Montana’s gallery in Lisbon, looks fabulous. With art from Remed, Zosen, Maya Hayuk and others, how could it go wrong?
I’m way late on this, but Ron English made some shirts with Hurley earlier this year.
Sometimes Mint and Serf (who work together as Mirf) do some interesting things. Other times that say crazy things. In an interview with Brooklyn Street Art, Mint said this “So back in April I designed the original Mirf poster and put a bunch of them in Russia. It was one of the first times I’ve seen graffiti being put up on the street but with wheat paste.” While he’s not taking credit for inventing wheatpasting for graffiti, he’s definitely taking too much credit for something that isn’t particularly innovative in 2010.
DabsMyla and Greg Simpkins teamed up for this great mural in LA.
World War Won’s new logo for Hackney would be a perfect way to spice up their image a bit.
Postermat, the latest show at The Hole in NYC, sounds like it will either be awesome or really really terrible. If you go, let me know what you think.