Making history from coast to coast this week

Curiot
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

History of American Grafitti book signing w/ Taki183

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, Reminisce and KR. Photo by Jim Prigoff
Bisaro. Photo by Jim Prigoff

Photos by Caleb Neelon and Jim Prigoff

Weekend link-o-rama

TresOhUno

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:

Photo by TresOhUno

The Hole heads to LA – Facemaker

Ben Jones

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

Weekend link-o-rama

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: