who finds a lot of inspiration from people he has met on the street. He also is clearly influenced by the street art movement. “Ever since I started combining mixed media and street art…makes me more free when I’m working. No more stress, ” says Lee.
This posting isn’t really about street art – except it is about painting literally on the street in Brooklyn. We just received an email from a Brooklyn club inviting us to a memorial for a friend who was killed on her bicycle.
“In Loving Memory of Solange – DJ Reverend Soul. Yesterday, we lost one of our dearest members of the Rose family to a tragic accident. We were so lucky to have had this lovely lady spin for us every Monday night at the Soul Sessions. Her joyous spirit and soul was truly infectious and brought a smile to everyone she ever encountered” (image to the right courtesy Rose Live)
Yesterday, in a Brooklyn neighborhood named Greenpoint where she lived, Solange Raulston, an artist and musician originally from the U.K., was struck and killed by a flatbed truck while riding her bicycle. She DJ’d regularly at Rose Live and Bembe, two clubs in Williamsburg.
There have been a number of articles in the past couple of weeks regarding the mysterious disappearance of bike lanes in parts of Brooklyn and the efforts of people to restore them. The discussions taking place over the appropriate location for bicycle lanes are pretty firey.
It hasn’t been reported if there was a bike lane there yesterday, or if Solange was riding in it when she was struck and killed, but it has become more obvious that more and more intrepid and low-to-moderate income artists, professionals, musicians, dancers, photographers, pizza delivery dudes, construction workers – you name it – are using their emission-free human-powered bicycles to get around New York. It isn’t just for David Byrne anymore! Many people have begun riding bikes since the economy took a downward turn and they could not afford public transportation or car services, let alone a car.
The fact that bike lanes exist in the first place is the result of community-powered activists who have fought for them for years and worked with the City to get them in place. The streets, which everyone pays for, are largely unsafe for bike riders still and riding on the sidewalk can endanger pedestrians and will get you a ticket in some areas. Luckily, newly re-elected Mayor Bloomberg celebrates the plans to “green” our city with hundreds of miles of bike lanes over the next few years. And it’s universally acknowledged that bike lanes save lives and improve safety.
Rose Live club in Williamsburg will be having a memorial for DJ “Reverend Soul” and is raising money to send to her family. You can find them through their website www.roselivemusic.com
According to the new issue of New York Magazine , whose cover story “Reasons to Love New York” is on newsstands today, Reason Number 31 is because our street art is collaborative.
click to enlarge and see all the names they helpfully tracked down
Billi Kid provided pictures that document the ongoing conversation of street artists in one part of the city. And it’s pretty rare to hear about “Beef”, something that was a mainstay of graff culture back in the daze.
When reached by BSA for comment, street artist Billi Kid was big-hearted and magnanimous, full of Holiday Spirit, “It’s all about community. It’s all about collaboration. It’s all about joy. HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!”
That just makes me want to say “Ho-Ho-Ho!” or, as we used to say at Christmas when I worked at a mega-club on West 29th Street, “Whore-Whore-Whore!”
Now it is probably inpolitik to say such a thing, but “Sex Worker-Sex Worker-Sex Worker” just doesn’t have a Christmas ring to it.
Our weekly interview with the streets.
Their recent New York contemporary auction sold this silk screen called 200 One Dollar Bills for $43.8 million to an anonymous bidder.
You see! You CAN buy me that XBox 360 for Christmas!
“I think Warhol’s prices have held steady because he is considered the most influential postwar artist. He forged the path of being a creative director who invented rather than expressed himself and was acutely aware of both the business and kind of media resonance of his art.” said Sarah Thornton of The Economist
Listen to an audio interview at NPR here
“Unlike most of Warhol’s other pieces, which are screen prints made by his assembly line of assistants in his infamous NYC Factory, this Warhol Elvis piece is unique. Warhol only made one of the work he called Eight Elvises.”
Read more at Juxtapoz
“CASH FOR YOUR WARHOL?”
Artists ’round Brooklyn-World are taking Christwanzaakkuheid matters into their own hands….with art fairs and screen-printing parties and good old-fashioned holiday disco-burlesque-debauchery !!!!
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238 Melrose street
between Wilson and Central
Sat Dec 12 4:30 – 12
Honoring the Godfather of NYC skateboarding, who passed away in August
Come by the Volcom NYC store on Saturday, December 12th for the Andy Kessler Memorial Art Show. The show is from 8 pm – Midnight, there will be a silent auction featuring a ton of art, drinks and good times to raise money for a good cause!
Volcom NYC
446 Broadway (Between Grand and Howard)
Also open Sunday, December 13th – 11 am – 7 pm
4pm to 10pm
For your Jewish and Gentile friends alike a Menorah lighting at sunset
(they’re throwing a christmas/holiday party with Jonathon Toubin on the 17th as well)
German Measels
Jaques Detergent
The Mad Scene
Non profit Secret Project Robot supports the local weirdo arts scene consistently through-out the year
– whether it’s art shows, fashion shows, music shows, street art, conceptual art, performance pieces, parties, fundraisers -you name it. They are totally ART + COMMUNITY and many people have come through their doors that we know, and the doors are still open to struggling new people who are trying to make a go of it.
Make a Donation directly to Secret Project Robot (a 501(c) registered non-profit) arts organization by writing to them – they’ll make it easy for you to give back to the arts >>>secrets@secretprojectrobot.org
Professional art-party ambiance makers The Danger somehow mix the best elements of all holiday traditions while respecting none.
Limited Run 3, a group exhibition of prints and zines at Open Space Gallery in Beacon, New York.
Limited Run 3
Open Space’s 3rd Annual Print and Zine show
December 12th – January 31st
Opening Reception: Saturday, December 12th – 6PM – 10PM
Music by Knox Robinson
Open Space
510 Main Street
Beacon, NY
845.765.0731
Hours:
Thursday – Saturday 12 – 6pm
Sunday 12 – 4pm
Second Saturday Hours – 12 – 9pm
or by appointment
Limited Run 3 features prints and zines from:
28cents
Alex Lukas
Alex Purdy
Andy Rementer
Anna Crotes
Bill McRight
Bryce Edwards
Buxtonia
Chris Kline
Chris Whetzel
Christine Seymore
Dan Funderburgh
Elbow Toe
Eugene Good
e-IttyBittyPress
e-Leighwells
e-sugarloop
Garret Morin
Greg Pizzoli
Iminent Disaster
Jim Datz
Justin Fines
Landland
Luke Ramsey
Mark Price
Michael De Feo
Mike Perry
Wayne Pate
Rick Price
Roxy Johnson
Sesame Letterpress
Skewville
Wonting
Yellena
Factory Fresh welcomes The London Police, who get themselves into the oddest situations while in pursuit of art. (video still courtesy London Police)
Italian street artist Galo enjoys a glass of wine while painting a canvas (video still courtesy the artist)
A tribute to their host borough, street artists The London Police combine Brooklyn architecture and a stylized central discombulation of their “character” (photo Steven P. Harrington)
Blowing northward along the coast from Miami’s Art Basel like warm air from a subway grate up my homegirls’ skirt, this trio of street art brothers are some really fresh geezers here to warm you at Factory Fresh.
It’s The London Police and Galo – a motley joyfest of brotherly jest in color and black and white. Their hand work is a contrast of free-form (Galo) and pre-meditated crisp line control (London Police). There are still-wet canvasses and the newly constructed Factory Fresh Screening Room to see two cinematic features. Helpfully, the entertaining videos in this show are not conceptual, so you won’t need a brochure to accompany them.
This quickly mounted show (3 days) is only possible because these guys have a bit of mileage under their belts (12 years and 50 countries, in Chaz’s case), are complete professionals, and they know how to turn out the canvasses while having fun.
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Galo was previously a graphic designer who decided to dedicate his energies to his art, which is colorful, line-based, and concentrates on what he calls his “character” – who really turns out to be more than one guy.
“This is my character. I just draw until I’m satisfied, you know? I think it has a sort of graphic balance. Normally I’m pretty flexible with myself. I like to have the faces squeezed. It doesn’t matter if they have the perfect eye. It’s pretty much informal,” says Galo.
“It is a sort of family because I first started with the one character with the round eye and slowly I started to draw the same kind of lines but with different kinds of eyes and different position of the mouth and so let’s say that they are three brothers. They are always changing”
One of Galo’s favorites from the show. ” Normally I don’t paint big canvasses like this because it is troublesome to ship them. So I shipped the canvasses and I re-framed them here.” (photo Steven P. Harrington)
Upon his recent return to Brooklyn, Galo retrieved some old paintings stored here, which he says he wants to light on fire. “These canvasses basically disappeared for four years. They were in the storage of a friend of a friend who moved to Mexico. So I didn’t see them anymore, they just got ruined. Just to clean my hands I just want to burn them. So I nailed them together. I’m going to burn these and we’ll see what happens,” says the pyromaniacal artist.
Galo stands with a stack of canvasses destined for destruction in the back yard of Factory Fresh, which he painted in about 3 hours with a big fat cap. (photo Steven P. Harrington)
Galo shows some technique with the can. “Miami was great, absolutely amazing. The best I’ve ever seen – so many people out there. I painted a really big wall so I was busy painting every day, but for sure in the evening it was just partying, hanging out with other artists.”
Galo peers out through his work in this still from his new full length video premiering tonight at Factory Fresh.
GALO – a Brief Introduction – the full story tonight!
The London Police are Chaz and Bob – Bob does the crisp linear cityscapes and architectural detailing, and Chaz draws the “LAD” character (who is based loosely on the man himself), now happily morphing and shape-shifting into blobs and motifs that echo the original little happy fella they are known for.
On the topic of the endless interpretations and generally ripping apart of the original theme, Chaz explains that he felt their fans might have gotten a bit bored with just the one character, “Once you’ve done one head and then two heads and then three or four heads…after going out and doing the same thing it got to the point where I wanted to go out and do ten heads, fifteen heads.”
This year they limited themselves to strictly black and white, but do not rule out using color in the future.
The City according to the London Police; “”We’re really proud and pleased with the work we are doing this year. We enjoy it, and I don’t think you can really ask for more than that. We work a lot on these paintings. It takes a long time. Everything you see here is doubled, because we use the ink pens. The first layer leaves it a little bit shallow so it needs to be doubled up,” says Chaz (photo Steven P. Harrington)
A student of architecture, Bob worked for an architectural firm a few years ago, which sharpened his acuity, “I’m crazy about architecture but as a living it’s a little bit stale. But it was really good because it was so in-depth that your drawing gets better. Your understanding of architecture gets better and your world grows. Now I can pretty much close my eyes, remember an image and then draw it from my brain,” he says.
And about incorporating the architecture of his host city into TLP’s work, ” I did quite a lot of actual research, visually, and reading up on Brooklyn. The contrast between Manhattan and Brooklyn, obviously is huge. But I like the rawness of Brooklyn. I always have. I’ve been here a few times and I like that you have the low-level housing, three or four stories high, and then you’ve got this huge factory next to it. It’s really bold. That’s what is iconic about Brooklyn.”
In this still from the “Brothers in Arms” documentary to be screened this evening, Chaz takes a little catnap as his hand-cuffed art-mate labors on their deadline. (image courtesy the artists)
“In this show we are showing a documentary film we made in L.A. which was basically us handcuffed together twenty-four hours a day. We lasted five days. It was pretty intense. We didn’t break. I thought there would be a breaking point where I would just need personal space, especially at the obvious times”
The “Brothers in Arms” flyer is posted in the gallery just outside the cinema. Check your local listings for times.
Produced by Ashton Kutcher and Jason Goldberg, the brief documentary shows the “brothers” in a variety of natural and staged situations that come off as endearing, entertaining, and a bit goofy.
“It produced a funny, nice documentary so when people come to the show tonight there will be a bit of cinema about every 20 minutes and you can watch the film about Galo, and the film about us handcuffed together, which is stupid, corny, and funny,” says Chaz.
Chaz chats while doing some finer line-work in prep for tonight’s show at Factory Fresh (photo Steven P. Harrington)
Two new smaller canvasses feature scenes inspired by New York disaster movies that have proliferated in the last 25 years. Both Chaz and Bobbie site the movie “Ghost Busters” as a formative influence in their artistic careers. (The London Police) (photo Steven P. Harrington)
Chaz works on a canvas patiently while handcuffed to Bobbie, who is getting a tatoo. “It’s really simple, it’s just my girlfriend and my son’s name in script. She was really gobsmacked. She really loved it. I was really fearing showing her, and she was really touched,” says Bob. (still from “Brothers in Arms” courtesy the artists)
About the movie, we discovered that really the idea was Chaz’s and Bobbie just went along. Was there a point when Bobbie regretted the decision?
Says Bobbie, “Yeah, about after five minutes. I was having a terrible time”
“I just couldn’t, – Bear in mind you’re setting up for a very important show – you just couldn’t get anything done. The whole thing – it was okay hanging out with Chaz, you know we had a good laugh. But you couldn’t get anything done. You just can’t physically do anything, it get’s really frustrating.”
But don’t mind this brother, because later in the conversation, he reverses himself and says it would have been great to do it for 2 or 3 weeks. “We wanted to do more than five days but the problem was that show was to open so that was the maximum that we could do but if had had more time that’s when you would have gotten some really good material. It was all novelty, it was all fun. If you went to a party people were really interested – but it would have been great if you could have gone on for two or three weeks.”
Were people waiting for one or both of them to have a meltdown? Says Bob, “Yeah, that’s what they were hoping! But it was five days and because we’re best friends it was never going to happen”.
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A BSA Treat – Lady Aiko writes an essay remembering her early days in New York and her recent trip to Shanghai
Street Artist Aiko is known for her powerful and sexy depictions of women – whether they are stencils, silkscreens or collage.
The Tokyo-born founding member of Faile is a world tavelling artist, with her hometown these days in Brooklyn.
Among the shows she has participated in recently were the LOVE MONSTER solo exhibition at Joshua Liner Gallery NYC, the Apocalypse Wow exhibition at MACRO Future in Rome Italy, and three shows this past week in the Art Basel Miami Beach fair; “The Wynwood Walls” with Deitch Projects, “Graffiti Gone Global” with James and Karla Murray and “Mural for Electric Pickle” at Primary Flight.
Aside from all that fabulous globe-trotting, Aiko is a also a pretty down-to-earth person who enjoys work with artists and giving to the community. She has taken part in a number of murals in New York over the last few years as part of the Younity Collective, a 40+ member group of women in NYC who love to paint large projects together.
We are very excited that Aiko has written a very nice piece for BSA detailing her recent experiences in Shanghai, China this fall. In it she recalls a small event that recalled her early memories of starting out as a New Yorker and a street artist.
My Shanghai Evening
by Aiko
The last time I visited Shanghai was in the spring of 2006. It’s been only 3 years but it seems like the city became much more powerful, more of a commercial center, and more developed. Instead of finding my favorite local massage place and cute junk stores that I liked to go to, I found many squares with new buildings, luxury stores, offices, restaurants, bars, and international chains like Starbucks and Burger King.
The largest city in China, Shanghai is getting ready to hold World Expo next year. Shanghai’s landmark, The Bund, is getting fully renovated for the event and tall new buildings are flashing colorful lights and neon signs in the night sky. The whole city is full of dust caused by the never-ending demolition and construction.
The neighborhood of Mo Gan Shan Lu reminds me a bit of Chelsea and Soho in NYC; old industrial warehouses turned into Chinese contemporary art galleries. I’ve heard that there is a lot of tourist traffic from different countries that comes to shop for very expensive art there. As a sharp contrast, there are long graffiti walls and abandoned houses on the other side of the same street. I am sure they will be torn down and turned into more fancy buildings soon. Knowing this, I had a sudden impulse to leave a little piece of my art on this street before heading back to Brooklyn.
At 8pm that night, I arrived in Mo Gan Shan Lu on that same street. This was when I realized that some of those “abandoned” houses are actually not abandoned. Some of these darkened houses still have families living there; they were having dinner and drinking on the street with small chairs and tables. I got a little nervous. What if these people start to scream at me and call the police? What if they want to charge me money or create another kind of issue? I’ve had some trouble like that before in different cities and I was worried that this may be the moment when my first street art experience in Shanghai could be end up as the worst one…
I thought for a moment and said to myself, “Well. Let me just hit it. It takes only a few minutes anyway.”
As soon as I started spraying on the wall, people in the neighborhood also noticed the noise and the smell of a stranger. I had to keep going – I didn’t want to leave an unfinished piece there. A few people walked toward me and as they came closer they began talking to me. I don’t understand Chinese, but their voices were very loud. Their loud voices attracted other people, who began to gather around me. I kept only looking at the wall until I finished it.
When I was finished, I looked around. I didn’t realize until then but I had a large audience standing behind me watching and talking. Men and women, even a couple of security guards from across the street.
I said “Ni hao (hello)” with big smile, then “Hao?(good work?)”. A few of the guys started yelling at the painted wall, and it sounded to me like they were very upset. I asked my friend to translate.
“You don’t need a bikini on her. Next time you should better paint her just naked,” said one drunk man as he pointed out the breast. This made all of us begin laughing.
“Oh watch, a cop is coming!,” somebody else said. They pointed to an old lady slowly walking towards us to see what was happening. We all laughed at that joke too.
Amazingly, it seems like I was some entertainment for their evening and we all had a little moment together. My mission had ended very well!
A well-dressed friend poses in front of Aiko's new pieces (photo by Aiko)
That night overlaps with memories of my early street art experiences in NYC. When I arrived in NY, I was not able to speak English at all and I felt a great disability because of it. Art was (and still is) my language to communicate with people and to get to know about a city. I am happy to create art, share with friends and random people who I meet in the public sphere and I like to see them enjoying my art. My experience on that night made me think about how I first got into street art and why I love street art again.
Aiko in context. (photo by Aiko)
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Art Basel Miami Beach and all it’s satellite fairs have come and gone for this year for the 8th time and reports rolling in from down in America’s mainland tropical paradise are that sales were modest, and buyers were not as adventurous as previous years. Also, it rained.
Thanks to Primary Flight and the Wynwood District for putting on a showcase for the artists who created a ton of live public art for 5 days. Luckily, a lot of this will still be exhibiting for your enjoyment for a long time to come so book your vacation now. Sometimes it’s sunny in Miami Beach too, we hear!
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Hey to all!
This coming Saturday, Pandemic will be hosting a live silk screening and painting event! Feel free to bring whatever you would like to have screened! No item (unless ridiculously shaped or jagged) is inappropriate! Print the shirt right off your back!!
Pre-screened shirts, bags, and reasonably priced artwork will also be on display. More perfect Christmas gifts have yet to be discovered in the 5 boroughs!
Artists joining us in printing will be: Deeker, Royce Bannon, Matt Siren, Keely, Abe Lincoln Jr., Overkill studios (Philly), and Dave Tree (Boston)
Check our website for examples of our artists work.
Live Painting will be performed by Morgan Thomas and Thomas Buildmore of Overkill Studios. A group wall will also be available for painting because we know many of you are not good at standing idly by and watching!
Printing will start at 5pm. Drinks of some kind will be available (were not barbarians).
We hope to see you all there! Come and celebrate the holidays with us!
Pandemic Gallery
37 Broadway btwn Kent and Wythe
Brooklyn, NY 11211
www.pandemicgallery.com
Our Weekly Interview With the Street
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BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
