Monograph

Artist Franco JAZ Fasoli Goes “Publico Privado”

Artist Franco JAZ Fasoli Goes “Publico Privado”

June 10, 2020 , ,

Taking a decade long view of your creative life can be astoundingly instructional if you are brave enough; perusing over the body of work that you have taken with eyes focused and blurred may reveal broad outlines and finer features of a creative life-path – a psychological mapping of the inner world and its outer expression with all its impulses, longings, expressions of received truths and newly discovered wisdom.

Publico. Privado. Jaz Franco Fasoli. 09-2019

Franco Fasoli aka JAZ has looked over his last decade (2009-2019) of work as a street artist and fine artist and offers you the opportunity to examine his public and private side as well in this new two-volume compendium. Painting on the streets since the mid-nineties and his mid-teens in his hometown of Buenos Aires, the visual artist knew his path would be a creative one. His family and role models, comprised of well-schooled artists and educators, had provided a foundation of critique and appreciation for him to build upon from the earliest years.

JAZ. Publico. Publico Privado. Jaz Franco Fasoli. 09-2019

Now with many miles of travel on his personal odometer and introduction to greater opportunities and institutions his visual output is here codified, examined, and assessed in printed and bound form, to be respected and valued. As observed in an essay by his street painting compatriot Elian, “Today it is no longer about what physical space we select for each of these terms and their respective experiences, it is about extremely sensitive decisions on what we decide to transport from mental territories to others.”

JAZ. Publico. Publico Privado. Jaz Franco Fasoli. 09-2019

Extremely sensitive is an appropriate descriptor. These massive and fragile and indestructible works all respond to weighty matters of history, struggle, nationalism, mythology, archetypical roles; now mingled uncomfortably with the ethereal nature of modern living that collapses, compresses, cheapens aesthetic values and relationships. Here is adolescence clamoring for maturity, idealism melting with monsters of the imagination, truth abutting uncomfortable irony.

In “Publico: Privado” JAZ has invited you to go on the trip with him. Artist, teacher, and curator Diana Aisenberg writes in her essay, “I imagine the work as a ship, a means of transport, as close to teleportation. It is the one that moves and finds its place, there where it is necessary.”

JAZ. Publico. Publico Privado. Jaz Franco Fasoli. 09-2019
JAZ. Publico. Publico Privado. Jaz Franco Fasoli. 09-2019
JAZ. Publico. Publico Privado. Jaz Franco Fasoli. 09-2019
Franco Fasoli. Privado. Publico Privado. Jaz Franco Fasoli. 09-2019
Franco Fasoli. Privado. Publico Privado. Jaz Franco Fasoli. 09-2019
Franco Fasoli. Privado. Publico Privado. Jaz Franco Fasoli. 09-2019
Franco Fasoli. Privado. Publico Privado. Jaz Franco Fasoli. 09-2019
Franco Fasoli. Privado. Publico Privado. Jaz Franco Fasoli. 09-2019
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Dont Fret: “Life Thus Far” to Be Released

Dont Fret: “Life Thus Far” to Be Released

October 30, 2019 , ,

Nothing to lose your head about, but you’ll be thrilled to hear about the long-anticipated release of the new monograph by the ingenious troublemaker and largely incognito Chicago Street Artist DONT FRET.

Emerging on the streets for a decade or so with painted wit and misshapen characters wheatpasted where you least expect them, he’s the sharp observer and human humorist whose work is as brilliant as your cousin Marlene, as funny as Johnny at the funeral home, as handsome as the guys behind the counter at Publican Quality Meats.

Well, maybe not that handsome.

“This is place-based Street Art, a running commentary on life in this neighborhood that captures the off-the-wall imperfect nature of humans in a pock-marked and still proud American city after capital leaves it, slowly imploding, coasting on fumes, hopefully rallying, quickly stratifying into luxury lofts and the rest of us,” writes Steven P. Harrington in the foreword to this hefty chunk of comedic meat. Peering through these pages, the feeling is inescapable; Somehow you sense like you know DONT FRET’S people – probably because many of them came directly from these streets.

An image by BSA’s Jaime Rojo in DONT FRET’s new book, “Life This Far”, published this December by Schiffer

We wanted you to have an opportunity to take a quick look inside the massive quirky tome yourself, because it is as eclectic and disarmingly insightful as this sidewalk bard and documentarian, and to let you know the book release is in December. Also, DONT FRET’s got a special gig going for its release with a limited edition screenprint and original sketch with signature in the book.

“I think you have to live life like you are invincible,” says the artist on the back cover of Life Thus Far, “but I also think you have to live life understanding that that sort of thinking is a result of a serious psychological disorder.”

We’ll talk to you more about this in a few weeks, and with the artist, and we’ll find out about his circuitous route to the streets of working class Chicago, how a fish rots from the head, the significance of the original Billy Goat on lower Wacker, and why Studs Terkel is more relevant today than ever.

DONT FRET “LIFE THUS FAR” Schiffer Publishing, Atglen, PA. 2019

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“Few Moments Ago I Was Here” says Klone

“Few Moments Ago I Was Here” says Klone

January 24, 2019 , ,

Stateless.

Klone is prowling between states, transitory and without volume, beams of light and color washes and flickers of memory, or false memory. The Ukrainian born, Israel bound Street Artist is as good with the unforgiving street as the undefined gallery, muting features from common characters and tracing shadows, summoning foxes, crows, cats as guardians and confidants.

Klone “Few Moments Ago I Was Here”. Hell No. Publication and Distribution. Tel-Aviv 2018.

A mark-maker on the streets of Tel-Aviv since the 90s, his practice is by necessity within a hidden realm, and if you stay there long enough, it becomes yours; carefully and boldly speaking, summoning folklore and mythology, mastering the art of masked meaning and inference.

Klone “Few Moments Ago I Was Here”. Hell No. Publication and Distribution. Tel-Aviv 2018.

Tagging and graffiti gave way to other urban traditions he has been eager to author, organic in his methods for discovery. His expanding practice of multiple disciplines has led him to the street and into the gallery and back to the street in Europe, the Middle East, the US, back to Kiev. This collection of excursions appears natural, rendered and even intimately warm even when mimicking, forgetful, fragmented.

Klone “Few Moments Ago I Was Here”. Hell No. Publication and Distribution. Tel-Aviv 2018.

Even his “Movement” chapter, a section of selected works laid out in stop motion frames, stays safely within an imaginary place, fables of connection, disconnection, alienation. Perhaps most powerful are his ‘digital interventions’ imaginary hybrids of photography, illustration, aspiration. Hulking eyesores of uninspired architecture or remote land masses are embraced, supported, frolicked within, rested upon.

Here I am, even though you do not see me.

Klone “Few Moments Ago I Was Here”. Hell No. Publication and Distribution. Tel-Aviv 2018.
Klone “Few Moments Ago I Was Here”. Hell No. Publication and Distribution. Tel-Aviv 2018.
Klone “Few Moments Ago I Was Here”. Hell No. Publication and Distribution. Tel-Aviv 2018.
Klone “Few Moments Ago I Was Here”. Hell No. Publication and Distribution. Tel-Aviv 2018.
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