Chris Stain Veng Taka Sudo
“Ali: The Greatest”
A fine art exhibition and tribute to boxing legend Muhammad Ali’s 70th Birthday
January 12 – 28, 2012
Featuring: Adrian Pickett, Alvin Burts, Alex Forster, Corey Pickett, Charly Palmer, Gerry GOS” Simpson, Frank Morrison, Joe Iurato, James Gayles, James Henninger, Kadir Nelson, Kevin OKeith, Kelvin Curry, Kinzie Davis, Lauren Gillette, Lisa Alonzo, Paul Goodnight, Tim Okamura, Charles Bibbs, Michael Grattan, Michael Brennan, and David P. Flores.
Preview Reception – Thursday, January 12th (6pm-9pm)
Opening Reception – Saturday, January 14th (6pm-10pm)
Evolve Gallery
2907 35th Street, Sacramento, California 95817
Gallery Hours: Thursday through Saturday |1-6pm | Please call first (916) 572-5123
Under cover of night Street Artist Anthony Lister just monkeyed around with some cans on a wall in LA to do his own interpretation of “Rise of the Planet of the Apes”. The wall on Melrose is on the building “De La Barracuda”, “a well known wall that gets a lot of Street Artists on it,” remarks photographer Birdman. Mr. Lister says he likes the job because it gives him a challenge. As you can see, he’s an excellent choice by wall producer Roger Gastman to interpret this modern jungle scene; a story with enough psychological layers and undertones to make any social scientist go apesh*t.
Five stars to photographer Birdman for showing these cool shots for BSA readers.
“Original Art Murals comprise a unique medium of expression that serves the public interest.”
Shocking as that may sound, it is just one of the statements contained in a proposed new mural ordinance in Los Angeles. We don’t usually dip our toes into policy discussions regarding public art, preferring to concentrate on the art and the artist and where we’re headed from that perspective. But it has been a bit of high theater to see the machinations at work in a city prized for it’s history of public murals as official policy has wiped out perfectly legal community approved artworks and secured the rights of corporations to blight neighborhoods with billboard messages to buy goods and services.
”For months, the L.A. Department of City Planning has been teasing street artists with announcements of a new ordinance that would lift the current ban on all pre-approved murals on private property in Los Angeles,” says the LA Weekly Blog yesterday, as they take the council of the celebrated local graffiti artist Saber and his community arts activist buddy Daniel Lahoda, among others, to pound out an agreement that puts public art back in peoples hands. Without talking about vandalism, the current laws on the books actually prevent a property owner from commissioning artwork on their own buildings. The new policy will re-classify murals as “original works of art” as long as they are not shilling for a business. Also, puppies are cute. And boys like girls in short skirts. And the Pope is Catholic.
Below a selection of images from the murals in the Arts District of Downtown Los Angeles as part of the LA Freewalls Project spearheaded by Daniel Lahoda.
Street Artist Cryptik just opened with a new solo show, “Sacred Syllables” at Hold Up Art Gallery, located in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Little Tokyo. The enigmatic, L.A.-based artist has been hitting the streets of for some time with his signature style which includes references to Eastern, Buddhist and Hindu religions. Unlike other street artists, Cryptik’s art holds a spiritual tone that is rarely seen in a city like Los Angeles. Without being overtly religious, the work speaks to those who are looking for more than the flashy, bright palette you might normally associate with Street Art.
This exhibit is an perfect example of this mindset. As soon as you enter the gallery space, you feel like you are entering an alley somewhere in India or a market in a distant part of Asia. Still, Cryptik’s artwork is the main attraction. Utilizing a variety of materials ranging from candles to wood, the collection of work gracefully walks a thin line between street art and spiritual text. The style incorporates a precise use of Sanskrit lettering which he has perfected through out the years, and his lines seem flawless as letters create circular patterns inside the confines of a wooden frame. Without jumping at you, screaming for attention, Cryptik’s work rewards a careful observer.
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See more images by Carlos Gonzalez on his Flickr.
Birdman
“Wish You Were Here” solo show by Birdman
December 9- December 31, 2011
Opening Reception: Friday, December 9, 2011 6-8:30 pm
LOS ANGELES, CALIF.- After taking pictures of gallery openings, artists and street art, Bryan Meyer or Birdman is stepping out from behind the camera and displaying his collection of photos for the first time at Novel Cafe in Los Angeles on December 9 at 6pm.
Birdman’s exhibition, “Wish You Were Here,” will feature his adventures in the art world. Including shots on roof tops, night sessions and rare images of artists up close working on murals.
“While climbing buildings, going wheat pasting, and watching murals being painted I try to capture an artist’s process that not that many are able to see,” comments Birdman on his work. “The night photography gives the average person a glimpse at the world we see at night; the amber glow of street lights and the dangerous installment process of donating art in the streets.”
Due to legal restrictions, street art’s lifespan is considerably short. What Birdman has accomplished with his photography is preserving the artists‘ work so that others can enjoy.
He is also unveiling his collaborative project with artists Phil Lumbang, David Flores, Lydia Emily, KH no 7, Gregory Siff and Cyrcle. Using photos taken by Birdman, each artists painted on images of themselves further personalizing the average environmental portrait.
Birdman has contributed to: Brooklyn Street Art, Huffington Post, Hi Fructose, Street Art News, The Dirt Floor, The Site Unscene, and Warholian. Is the in house photographer for Lab Art Los Angeles, and the Maximillian Gallery. A street art correspondent for LA Canvas magazine and featured in the October Juxtapoz center spread in a Dabs Myla interview.
On behalf of LAB ART Los Angeles we would like to invite you to the opening of “Everything Popular is Wrong” on Saturday, December 10. The show will be a spotlight on the artist collective DD$ ( Double D’s) who are also known as CYRCLE. Their alternative name for their different style of art transcends their humorous nature that they merge into beautiful paintings.Please let me know if you plan on attending.
C215
C215. (Image © courtesy of C215)Shooting Gallery is pleased to present Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: Recent Works by C215 the new collection of work by Parisian street artist C215. This will be C215’s first solo show with White Walls, with the opening reception on Saturday, December 10th, from 7-11 pm, and the exhibition is free and open to the public for viewing through January 7th.
Christian Guémy, also known as C215, is a Parisian street artist known for his intensely emotive stencil portraits. C215 began painting six years ago, and has since brought his work all over the world, from New Dehli to Istanbul. His expansive career in public art
has made him renowned in more than just the usual circles of stencil-based art fans and collectors. With two masters in history and art, C215 is well-versed in how art impacts society. By integrating layers of found objects in the backgrounds, and focusing on portraits of everyday people, C215 captures snapshots of the streets he walks and the lives that inhabit them. Simple detailing lends an honest aesthetic to the always changing facial expressions in C215’s portraits, almost all of which present us with the feeling of looking beyond mere visage into each person’s true character. The concept of revealing the things most often kept unseen is one that reoccurs throughout the works, often drawing attention to the harsh sides of poverty. This study of hidden elements also shapes the body of work presented in “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” investigating the motives of Cigarette ads and the iconology of smoking.
With a minimum of pieces to be included in the show, most of the artists stencils focus on old ads, images of friends smoking, the hands of smokers, and a few portraits of smoking artists (Painters George Braque and David Hockney, street artist Indigo, and photographers Jeremy Gibbs and Jon Cartwright). The works will be on recycled objects including cardboard, vintage advertising papers, and antique burned canvases. Through a look at the humor and irony in tobacco ad campaigns of the past, C215 asks us to question how modern advertising sells the idea and image of smoking to us now. The works highlight the perversion of smokers’ imagery, the manipulations of marketing and how thoroughly advertising can shape the public mind.
From the Artist:
“By smoking, teenagers think they will look classy, as one 70’s advertising ironically said: “Smokers are somebody special”.
I personally think nobody should begin. I, myself, had been a cigarette smoker for 20 years; I finally got rid of it in 2009 so I am now really happy to explore the social and psychological impact of smoking. This show will mainly deal with old cigarettes ads in order to show how crazy tobacco advertisings could have been in the past. Cigarette lobbyists have always tried to persuade ordinary people that, by smoking, they can get the style and attitude of dominant social groups: intellectual white men. The tricks used to persuade the smoker of the benefit of smoking show how cigarette brands use the psychological weakness of smokers to sell them an illusory dream. The ordinary targets of these ads are minorities and dominated social groups: woman looking for self-confidence, lonely mums and housewives looking for a relaxing moment, immigrants trying to look like western people, workers getting bored of a harassing daily life etc. And most of these ads try to persuade people that smoking their brand is not so dangerous…the show looks at how
we can sell death to people and make them feel safe and happy with it at the same time. This show could be another modest attempt to show what everybody should know- that any kind of advertising is always lying.”
Christian Guémy, also known as C215 is a street artist known for his revered stencil graffiti. Born in Paris in 1973, C215 has spread his art around the globe with a public art career that began in 2005 and quickly established him as a man meant to be a legend.
The Shooting Gallery opened its doors in 2003 to the historic Tenderloin district of San Francisco; known for its lively street culture. Growing up in Southern California gave owner and curator, Justin Giarla, a love for everything lowbrow: pop art, street art, outsider art, punk rock album art, comic book art, surf/skate art and hot rod culture. Giarla recognizes how important it is to provide lowbrow artists with a platform for their work, which is exactly what Shooting Gallery has done for nearly a decade.
Event Information: Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: Recent Works by C215
Opening Reception – December 10, 2011, 7-11 pm
On View Through January 7, 2012,
@ Shooting Gallery (www.shootinggallerysf.com)
83 Larkin St,
San Francisco, CA
Cryptik
CRYPTIK
SACRED SYLLABLES
With Live Screen Printing
by the Hit + Run Crew
OPENING RECEPTION ON SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2011
From 7:00 PM to 11:00 PM
at
Hold Up Art
358 E. 2nd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Exhibition will run through December 14, 2011.
Hold Up Art presents a new exhibition, Sacred Syllables, by Cryptik, whose bold calligraphy style and eastern-influenced graphics have become a Los Angeles street art staple. Inspired by the philosophies of the far-east and the historical importance placed on the written word, Cryptik’s wheat paste posters, stickers, and t-shirts, which feature traditional mantras and poetry, have become an artistic movement.
“The Cryptik Movement is a public art campaign dedicated to helping humanity evolve towards greater awareness and understanding through the use of compelling, iconic imagery that demands both scrutiny and reverie,” writes Cryptik in his manifesto. “The purpose of this organization is to facilitate the development of a deeper, more meaningful philosophy of life. Our main objective is to challenge people to think of other possibilities and to see a different reality; one that encompasses many ideologies, philosophies, and belief systems in order to help us better understand our place in the universe.”
Free of religious or political messages, Cryptik’s art is meant to provoke contemplation and act as a catalyst for a shift in consciousness. With an interest in concepts that don’t necessarily fit into any scientific paradigms, Cryptik plans to expand his exploration of words and imagery to include more esoteric and occult philosophies.
“If Art is a reflection of the artist’s soul, it is up to the artist to understand themselves before the audience can,” says Hold Up Art’s curator Brian Lee. “Cryptik is one of the very few artists in the street art scene who truly understands who he is, and how to visually communicate his message to an audience.”
Cryptik will be joined at the opening of Sacred Syllables by the Hit + Run Crew, who will be custom screen-printing throughout the event. Early arrival is suggested to guarantee custom printed shirt availability.
For more information about this and other exhibits,
please visit www.holdupart.com.
White Wash
POSE & KC Ortiz | Whitewash
Opening Reception Saturday, November 19, 2011 from 8‑11pm
On View November 19 – December 10, 2011
Known Gallery
441 North Fairfax Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90036
T: 310-860-6263
On Saturday, November 19, graffiti artist POSE and photojournalist KC Ortiz will unveil Whitewash, their second exhibition at Known Gallery, and their most cohesive to date.
For POSE, Whitewash references society’s attempt to eradicate graffiti and stifle human expression. “Shortly after I started writing graffiti, Chicago took an extremely hard-line stance on its eradication, outlawing the sale of spraypaint and implementing Mayor Dayley’s Graffiti Blasters program,” POSE explains.
With this exhibition, POSE will recall a time before the buff. “I am digging into my fondest childhood memories of riding the train and seeing all the colors, letters and cartoon characters along the lines. Making these paintings has been an incredibly rich process, and it makes me thankful that no city official can eradicate my memories.”
POSE will show 15 new works in the main gallery. The work is rendered in his signature style—aggressive, hand-painted collages of pop-culture icons and ephemera—but feature deeper abstractions and new mediums. “I have six paintings on Plexiglass that were kind of an experiment,” POSE explains. “I wanted to be challenged by a new medium and process.”
For KC, Whitewash is about the people and places he photographs. “Much of the work I do covers those who have been ‘whitewashed,’ so to speak, by history and policy,” KC notes. “Specifically, the work I will be exhibiting is from West Papua and Burma. You won’t find either of those ‘nations’ on the map, as both have been essentially ‘whitewashed’ away. Burma has been renamed Myanmar by its ruling junta in order to establish the fantasy of a unified nation, and West Papua has been occupied by Indonesia since 1963 after a very controversial handover from the Dutch that was orchestrated by the United States.”
In the project room, KC will show 12 photographs of West Papua and Burma’s armed struggles. “The struggles are unified in their nature under the theme of resistance, the victimhood of whitewashing by the world at large, the beauty of their people, and the strength of the human spirit and dignity,” KC notes.
About the artists:
POSE
Hailing from The Windy City, POSE has made an indelible mark on a multitude of cities around the globe. Best known for his progressive letter style and technical precision, POSE is an influential contributor to the contemporary graffiti movement, and his work has appeared in numerous magazines, books and films. POSE grew up a half block from the CTA’s elevated train line, and started sneaking out to practice graffiti there in 1992. Coming of age during the golden era of Chicago graffiti, POSE put in endless work on the streets. His prolific output led him to become a local legend, and the city’s most internationally recognized graffiti artist. In addition to his achievements in graffiti, POSE set out to conquer every medium visual art has to offer—both on and off the streets. His artistic exploration led him to become a jack of all creative trades, with successful endeavors in the commercial and fine art worlds. POSE currently lives and works in Chicago, Illinois. He is a member of the acclaimed West Coast artist collective The Seventh Letter, as well as a founder of his own Chicago based design and art firm We Are Supervision. He has traveled internationally on his own and with The Seventh Letter, specifically to showcase his skills as one of the best graffiti artists out there. Almost two decades into his artistic career, POSE shows no signs of slowing down.
KC Ortiz
KC Ortiz is an award-winning, self taught photojournalist with a split base between his hometown of Chicago, Illinois and Western Thailand. Ortiz’s work focuses on the world’s forgotten and overlooked people and issues. He has covered conflict throughout Southeast Asia, focusing on the human suffering and the policies that enable conflict, as well as humanitarian issues throughout the world. The aim of his photography is to bring awareness to the masses of those that are suffering most, often times completely unseen by the majority. His work has appeared in A-Magasinet, Global Post, Juxtapoz, Newsweek, Time, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications across the globe. Ortiz’s work has been exhibited in a number of museums and galleries including The Newseum, The Corcoran, The Frontline Club, Known Gallery, Rivera and Rivera Gallery, Guerrero Gallery, and others. In 2011, Ortiz’s work was recognized with a first place award from the prestigious Pictures of The Year International.
Known Gallery
441 North Fairfax Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90036
info@knowngallery.com
I think I missed the morning rush today because I hit the street earlier than usual… and got a seat on the subway (!) because I woke up at 5 a.m. thinking about Papandreou, Berlusconi, Merkel, Obama, and the 3 ring circus shaping up as the 2012 election. The great thing about worldwide impending calamity is, political hypocrisy and economic depression makes artists dig deeper for ways to portray both. That’s why we’re starting today’s Fun Friday with hi-larious satire by the number 16 puncher of all time, Mike Tyson. Always look at the sunny side peepul!
1. CAIN! Mike Tyson for Herman Cain 2012
2. K-Guy’s solo show “Iconic Irrigation”
3. TEEBS at Pawn Works (Chicago)
4. Gregory Siff’s solo “G” at The Site Unscene (LA)
5. Poster Boy in Brooklyn at Might Tanaka Saturday
6. Augustin Kofie “Circulatory System” at White Walls (SF)
7. “Art As A Weapon” (VIDEO)
8. “Luck Be A Lady” – a Frank Sinatra 1965 performance
Give it up for Mike Ya’ll! He don’t know karate but he knows KaRazy… just like in the Matrix!
Opening today to the public at the London West Bank Gallery, a solo show by Street Artist K-Guy, who’s political and social indictments range from Catholic Church hypocrisy to international banking scams portrayed as “crisis”.
For further information on this show click here
A multi-talented California based artist and musician, Mr Teebs’ solo show is called “Lady Luck” opening today in Chicago at Pawn Works Gallery.
To see the video click here
For further information regarding this show click here
Brooklyn born actor, film maker, Street Artist, fine artist Gregory Siff has his solo show “G” today in Los Angeles.
For further information on this show click here
See Greg hitting up a wall on BSA from this week.
There is only one, or maybe there are many, Poster Boy/s. The subterranean subway poster slicing hasn’t been so apparent for a minute, but maybe it’s because PB has been slicing at the old kitchen table in preparation for a proper show. “Not for Prophet” is the title, summoning up the Pharisees, the tax man, and the folks down on Wall Street. Let’s see who and what gets cut.
Augustin Kofie solo show “Circulatory System” opens tomorrow at the White Walls Gallery in San Francisco. Graffiti writer and fine artist. Old Skool Bomber. Wildstyle. Mid-Century Abstractionism. American Modernism. Choose One and Stick with it, right? Read our interview with him – Augustine Kofie in Studio
Jeff Durkin documentary “Art As A Weapon” explores the intersection of Street Art, Democracy and Buddhisim. View the film’s teaser here.
Jeff’s film is currently in production please help him complete his film with your generous contribution by clicking on the Kickstarter link below:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/artasaweapon/art-as-a-weapon
Stick with me baby I’m the guy you came in with.
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BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
