When Roa sent me some photos of his recent work in Moscow, he mentioned that he’d arrived in LA. LA? What was he doing in LA. Then I remembered that his upcoming show with Thinkspace is almost here. I was thinking it was still months away, but no. The show is less than two weeks away.
The show opens November 13th and is going to be at a special pop-up location in LA (2808 Elm Street, Los Angeles, CA). Let’s hope that Roa has time to paint a few walls around LA in addition to whatever he’s up to for this solo show.
This June California’s Thinkspace Gallery will be teaming up with the UK’s very own London Miles Gallery for what promises to be a ground breaking group exhibition. Righteously titled The Next Generation; the exhibitwill feature a 45 strong selection of international artists from the burgeoning New Contemporary Art movement. The London Miles Gallery will be housing a number of works of art from a fastidiously handpicked selection of emerging and established artists as it aims to bring the best new international talent to the doorstep of London’s Contemporary art community.
The Next Generation opens on June 11th (7pm to 11pm) and will be on view until July 4th.
Here’s a full list of the artists that will be featured at the show
Aaron Nagel
Adam Caldwell
Allison Sommers
Amy Sol
Andy Kehoe
Anthony Clarkson
Anthony Pontius
Audrey Kawasaki
Brett Amory
Bumblebee
Caia Koopman
Cherri Wood
Chris Murray
Craig “Skibs” Barker
Dabs Myla
Dan-ah Kim
David MacDowell
Derek Gores
Gaia
Jacub Gagnon
Jeff Ramirez
Jen Lobo
Jesse Hotchkiss
Joseph “2H” McSween
Josie Morway
Kelly Vivanco
Lesley Reppeteaux
Linnea Strid
Liz Brizzi
Mari Inukai
Mike Russek
Moki
Nathan DeYoung
Nouar
Pakayla Rae Biehn
Paul Barnes
Peter Taylor
Rebecca Hahn
Sarah Joncas
Seth Armstrong
Stella Im Hultberg
Timothy Karpinski
Tony Philippou
Tran Nguyen
Yosuke Ueno
Grab a sneak peak of the exhibition coming together here
Last night, Armsrock and Imminent Disaster opened Refuge, their two-person show at Thinkspace, and Seth and I went along to check it out. I’d been looking forward to this show for some time, and although the installation and overall presentation didn’t flow quite as well as I was expecting it to, I thought there were a number of fantastic individual pieces. I particularly liked Armsrock’s small drawings and large charcoal and graphite works on paper. It’s always so wonderful to see his work in person; the immense power of them doesn’t always come across online.
Across the room from Armsrock, I felt that Imminent Disaster’s piece, “Crossing The River”, needed a bit more breathing room than it was able to have in the gallery (it’s 96 x 108 x 120 in – gigantic!), while Seth admired her wall of smaller works.
My favorite part of the artists’ installation was their piece in the gallery’s front window – I like the minimal play with bright colors amidst their characteristic use of black and white.
Both Armsrock and Imminent Disaster are important voices in the street scene so I urge everyone in LA to visit Refuge while it’s on view, particularly because it’s Thinkspace’s last show in Silverlake before relocating to Culver City next month! They’re going to be on the same street (Washington Blvd) as us (Carmichael Gallery) soon!
Been meaning to get this up on Vandalog for a while. Armsrock, one of my favorite artists, is going to be very busy in the next couple months. Here are three great projects for fans and collectors to look forward to – a solo, an outdoor presentation, and a 2-person exhibit:
“Zettelkasten” will consist of a site-specific installation that draws upon the people and environment around Sankt Hans Gade, where Armsrock was born and raised. It opens February 5 at We Are Related in Copenhagen and runs through March 14 2010.
“Bispeengbuen”, also in Copenhagen, runs from February 10 – 28 2010 and will feature new atmospheric and rhythmic light drawings from Armsrock. I love it when he does this style of work. Find out more about the project here.
Now I’m particularly excited about this third show, as it takes place in LA and I’ll be able to go to it! Here, Armsrock will create a collaborative installation with Imminent Disaster at Thinkspace. More on all these shows soon!
A Cry For Help runs from January 8 – February 5 at Thinkspace in LA. Not only does it feature a long list of great local and international artists, the show supports animal rights and protection so there will be adoptions throughout the opening weekend and the opportunity to donate food, toys and blankets to local shelters. If you love art and care about animals, this is the show for you! We also previewed it in the January issue of The Art Street Journal.
Above are pieces by Bumblebee (who also did a big install in the gallery window, plus a cool street piece nearby: see below) and Gaia, but as there is a lot of great work to be found in the show, I recommend you go check it all out for yourself here.
The first issue of The Art Street Journal 2010 is out! Inside, amongst other things, you’ll find reviews on some of the best shows from December (like Grifters at Lazarides) and previews of some of the ones we’re most excited about in January (like A Cry For Help at Thinkspace). There are a lot of interviews in this issue, too – Martha Cooper, Mark Jenkins (who’s showing here at Carmichael Gallery with Aakash Nihalani in January) Stephan Doitschinoff and Zezao.
This month’s Unurth page is very cool (I love that this page enables us to fit so many different artists into the paper – it really is hard to include everything you want to cover in sixteen pages and Sebastian does a fantastic job of highlighting the best on the street), plus we’ve finally started the tasj bookshelf page. Each month, this page will feature a selection of the best publications out there (RJ’s The Thousands: Painting Outside, Breaking In makes it in first time, of course, as does Issue 10 of Very Nearly Almost).
As always, tasj is free and we’ll deliver it anywhere in the world. You can get it here.
It doesn’t get much better than Dennis McNett. I mean, this guy knows printmaking. Well he’s got a show coming up at ThinkSpace in LA, but it is only on for two days. So if you are in LA on August 8th or 9th, you’d best make your way down to see McNett’s work.
I’m sort of squishing three posts into one here, but they’re all related.
From The Streets of Brooklyn. Photo by Stephen_W
1. From The Streets of Brooklyn opened this weekend at thinkspace gallery in LA. The show, curated by Ad Hoc Art’s Andrew Michael Ford, has taken a bunch of Brooklyn’s best and most prolific artists and put them all together to pretty much transport Bushwick/Williamsburg to LA. Looks like an absolutely fascinating show. Maybe something like it will come to London in the future (are you reading this Andrew?) Read a review here, check out more photos here, and go here to see thinkspace’s wrap up of the show.
Work and photo by veng_rwk
2. One of the artists at From The Street of Brooklyn is Veng from Robots Will Kill. He’s being doing a few pieces lately which are a bit different, so I thought I’d post one of those. Woodcuts I think. There’s also a very nice little post on him at the Curbs & Stoops blog, a blog/gallery that I’ve just found but I really like (see item #3).
3. So basically I went to the Curbs & Stoops blog to read that post on Veng (hopefully you all have too). Then I clicked around the site a bit. Turns out, they are some pretty awesome folks. They’re all about getting art to people who normally wouldn’t have access to art. They have beautiful prints for sale at low prices, a blog that highlights some great artists, and 3 projects they are working on that sound great. The first project is Mission District Portraits. This summer, they went on the street and offered to take anybody’s picture for free. Good fun for all involved I’m sure. Then there is A Dollar For Your Story where you get paid $1 to tell a story on video to show the transformation that happens when people tell stories. Eventually, the stories will be shown online. Finally, their coolest project has to be the Mobile Art Gallery. This isn’t functioning yet, but it sounds like the best idea to come out of New York since probably ever. The Mobile Art Gallery is going to literally park wherever and sell art on a sliding scale so that anybody can afford it. Yes! Art for the people!
If you took Gaia to a high school drawing contest he might place first or second, but put his efforts on the street and it becomes worth half as much as a real Swoon. It may be a testament to street artist Swoon’s influence and popularity, that an influenced artist can find a ravenous audience without a new style, technique, or thought for where/how to install it. As a derivative work, its more saccharine, dim witted, but just about as popular. Gaia plays the Monkey’s to Swoons Beatles.
That’s one way to think about Gaia. In fact, that diatribe is a portion of a faux New Yorker article which was wheatpasted right next to a Gaia piece.
By Gaia
On the other hand, Gaia might be really good. That’s what I’d say. His work is powerful and the melding of man and animal creates some very beautiful results. Gaia’s the first to admit that his work is influenced by Swoon, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. All artists have influences. I asked Gaia about his, and about his thoughts on people who say he is too much like Swoon.
Gaia: I think that it is quite apparent in my work that Swoon is a strong influence but I believe that the comparison is a little tired now because I really do feel that my pieces are distinguishable. I believe that these comments and mistakes also stem from a real lack of understanding of the the Street Art scene. Once the viewer has a true awareness and visual literacy for the work that is on the street, then such confusion is avoided. Continue reading “A Very Different Post About Gaia”
