Features

Getting High on Public Space: Old Rollers and Urban Planning

June 23, 2011 Artists, Features, Manhattan, NYC, On the Street

Seen from the perch of the Highline, surrounded by a carefully curated urban wilderbush and postmodern biosculpture, the boisterous cacophony of the honking screeching streets below fades into a minimalist Phillip Glass plain, peppered with sharpened and sweet Sufjan Stevens sonnets and Nina Simone longings. Sometimes NYC is best viewed and enjoyed from its high points. Most of the city is up here anyway.

Revs and Cost. This tag by these legendary duo echoes despite power washing (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Summer streets are a swirling gritty brew of culture and commerce, happenings and happenstance. To have the opportunity to go to heaven without leaving earth or NYC for that matter is what a well designed public space like the Highline is successful at. Of course it took years of fostering, finagling, financing. A melding of vision and vitriol, the outcome has been an astounding urban oasis. Opened in June of 2009 it has been an instant success, attracting thousands daily.

Ceptr (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A once abandoned carcass winding through this lower west side swath of Manhattan, the reclaimed former elevated freight railroad once connected factories and warehouses. Unused for nearly 30 years except by youthful graffiti artists and couples in love, it has debuted as on open pedestrian thoroughfare, a private and public place for citizenry, born from the vision of people and planners. As the second section opened last week the talents of so many are on display : architects, landscape designers, furniture designers, lighting designers and engineers all continue to work on its development (a 3^rd phase is in the works) exhausting the limits of their talents and imagination to make this urban gem; a work of art in a city famous for being a difficult place to make things happen.

Photo © Jaime Rojo

Here is a taste of the visual experience on the new section and some of the neighborhood it rises above and amidst; Blending the architecture with a bit of archeology, you can see old graffiti that was on the walls of the buildings next to it. It ads relevance, and interestingly, a sense of history, complimented by new commissioned public art installed along the park’s pathways and today’s Street Art below. Despite efforts to pressure wash some of these burners and rollers, one can still appreciate the outlines of the tags and the remnants of the paint on the brick walls; strains of an eroded and beautiful decay rising from the orchestra.

Photo © Jaime Rojo

A view of the old rail tracks and the possible future Section 3 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sarah Sze. An installation entitled “Still Life With Landscape (Model for Habitat)” Photo © Jaime Rojo

Ms. Sze’s sculpture is for birds, butterflies and insects wtih perches, feeding spots and birdbaths. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sarah Sze. Animal dwellings against the backdrop of their fellow human dwellings (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Photo © Jaime Rojo

An old Skullphone wheat paste (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The Park has been successful for business below with some new impresarios bringing amusements for children and adults (next to these balloons there is the beer garden). (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The view looking south (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The view looking East (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Gaia installed this piece right below the park on the 20th St. entrance (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kenny Scharf right below the park near the 30th Street entrance (photo © Jaime Rojo)

For information about The High Line Park click on the link beow:

http://www.thehighline.org/

Public Interventions: Swings and Hammocks Make People Really Happy

June 16, 2011 Artists, California, Features, London, Los Angeles, Manchester, On the Street, U.K.

Summertime, and the Swinging is Easy

Screenshot of swing installation project ( © Jeff Waldman)

Swinging over to the topics of public art and public engagement for a minute, here are two artists doing the heavy labor of providing a place to relax, to access the reverie of the sky and leaves and a moment of solitude. Appearing to be gorilla actions acting independently of one another on two different continents, artists Jeff Waldman and Narcelio Grud were inspired to ask friends help them place swings and hammocks in public places for people to enjoy. The process and results are here in some screen shots of the videos.

Screenshot of swing installation project ( © Jeff Waldman)

Swings: Los Angeles, by Jeff Waldman

The L.A. chapter of something called The Awesome Foundation awarded a grant to install $1000 worth of swings throughout Los Angeles. In spots all over the city conceptual artist Jeff Waldman installed a series of illegal swings and, judging from this video, Los Angelinos loved them.

Screenshot of Jeff Waldman and friends doing their swing installation project ( © Jeff Waldman)

Narcelio Grud: Brazilian Hammock Interventions

In another Urban “intervention” created by Brazilian artist Narcelio Grud with the traditional Braxilian hammock, displayed in public spaces in European cities for the free interaction with the population.

Screenshot of hammock installation project ( © Narcelio Grud)

Alternating between tentative to full body immersion in the simple movement, it looks like it is a lot of fun for people to interact with this installation.

Screenshot of hammock installation project ( © Narcelio Grud)

Here we see hammocks installed in the Manchester Town Centre in England. Lindenberg Munroe captured the experiences on this video.

Screenshot of hammock installation project ( © Narcelio Grud)

A Visit to La Biennale Di Venezia 2011

June 13, 2011 Art Fair, Artists, Events, Features, Italy, Venice

ILLUMInazioni – ILLUMInations, la Biennale di Venezia

54th International Art Exhibition

Writer Lea Schleiffenbaum was recently in Venice for the Biennial and she kept an eye out for Street Art for us, but quickly discovered the streets were under water. With art from 89 countries, however, she found the city to be rich with spectacle and possibility.

by Lea Schleiffenbaum for BSA.

Installing The Golden Lion (photo © Lea Schleiffenbaum)

Everything takes a bit longer in Venice. The small, north-Italian city is car-free, the only modes of transportation are so-called Vaporettos—boat-buses—or water taxis, both hard to find and slow. Walking is usually the fastest solution, as long as one does not get lost in the city’s maze of canals and narrow alleyways. I arrive at three in the afternoon—I am here to attend the opening of ILLUMInazioni – ILLUMInations, the 54^th Venice Biennial—by the time I get to the apartment I am staying in, it is five. Getting lost or helping others trying to find their way is almost part of the Biennial experience. The best thing to do is to let go, adjust to Venice time, wander, and allow one self to be surprised. In the end getting lost might not be the worst; from the months of June to November every corner, every piazza, and every palace in Venice might hide another national contribution, a Pavilion, or a small exhibition.

US Pavilion. Allora and Calzadilla performance outside (photo © Lea Schleiffenbaum)

This year’s Biennale is curated by Bice Curinger, director of the Kunsthaus in Zurich and founder of the contemporary art publication Parkett. With ILLUMInazioni – ILLUMInations the Swiss curator set out to explore contemporary art for its inner essence. “Popularization,” she warns, “should not be at the expense of complexity.” Following such rather elitist ambitions in search of value, self-reflectivity, and depth, Curinger turned the 54^th Venice Biennial into a serious, well-organized, but rather sober exhibition. Aiming to connect contemporary art with its pre-modern routs, she decided to include three paintings by old master Tintoretto, the painter of light. The masterpieces are hung in the first room of the Central Pavilion in the Giardini, following Philippe Parreno’s light installation Marque. The exhibition continues with big names, including works by Seth Price, Christopher Wool, Sigmar Polke, and Cindy Sherman. On display are high quality works by high quality artists. Everything fits; nothing is too crazy, nothing very surprising.

A steady stream of attendees at the Central Pavilion in the Giardini (photo © Lea Schleiffenbaum)

My slight disappointment with the Central Pavilion is softened by a visit to the Arsenale, the second venue curated by Curinger. The pace here is good. Curinger takes her viewers from large-scale installations, to smaller more intimate sculptures, paintings, and photographs. Monica Bonvicini is followed by Klara Liden, Rosmarin Trockel, and Urs Fischer whose candle wax replica of Giambologna’s famous sculpture The Rape of the Sabine Women will slowly burn down as the exhibition continues. Video work interrupts the general flow of the show in regular intervals, giving the viewer a chance to stand still for a moment and watch. Christian Marclay’s wonderful film The Clock stands out especially. Three days later I hear he won the Golden Lion for best artwork—which he fully deserves.

Promotional still from “The Clock” by Christian Marclay

By far the most interesting concept Curinger introduced to this year’s Biennale is the so-called Para-Pavilion: Pavilions created by artists for artists. It is great to see artists set their work into a dialogue with other artists and cultures. Young Chinese artist Song Dong for example, collected one hundred old doors in Beijing and reconfigured them in Venice inviting African-French artist Yto Barrada, and British artist Ryan Gander to show their work within them. Eccentric as always, Austrian artist Franz West asked a total of 40 artists to fill his Para-Pavilion – a reproduction of his kitchen in Vienna – among them Mike Kelley, Sarah Lucas, Josh Smith, and Anselm Reyle.

US Pavilion. Allora and Calzadilla performance inside (photo © Lea Schleiffenbaum)

This year’s Golden Lion for best national Pavilion was awarded Germany, for its reconstruction of a stage set by artist and director Christoph Schlingensief. Last year, Christoph succumbed to a long fight against cancer. A Church of Fear vs. the Alien Within was the second part of a trilogy written by Schlingensief following his first round of chemotherapy. Sitting on church benches in a dark candle lit room, visitors become witnesses to an artist trying to deal with life, death, and illness. Video projections of decaying animals, war, and fight sceneries are occasionally accompanied by a Wagner symphony; sometimes the voice of a woman reads aloud from the transcript of the play. It is hard to settle back into Biennial mode after such an intense and engaging installation.

The US is represented by Allora and Calzadilla. Working with former Olympic Athletes that execute choreographed performances on old US airway seats and upside down tanks, the Cuban-American artist duo questions heroic gestures and national self-presentation. Just like the Olympic games, international biennials swing somewhere in between competitive performance and peaceful encounter. Thomas Hirschhorn transformed the Swiss Pavilion into a vibrating Gesamtkunstwerk made of aluminum foil, old magazines, cardboard, and ear sticks. The Crystal of Resistance is a very physical, almost organic installation. Asking what art can do, how it can change the status quo, Hirschhorn engages his viewers in questions of politics, aesthetics, and transience. Hany Armanious’ subtle yet beautiful sculptural installations in the Australian Pavilion present a nice contrast to the many large-scale installations and performance pieces. Armanious casts everyday objects to reconfigure them in poetic assemblages. The French Pavilion stands right in front of the Australian Pavilion, and this year it stars Christian Boltanski, who deals with birthrates, death, and arbitrariness. This year’s choice for the Polish Pavilion has caused quite a bit of turmoil. Rather than choose a local Polish artist, the commissioners invited Israeli artist Yael Bartana to represent the country. Under the title …and Europe will be stunned, the young artist shows a film trilogy that asks Polish-Jews from all over the world to return to their country of origin, which needs them.

Arsenale. Klara Liden Trashcans (photo © Lea Schleiffenbaum)

A total of 89 countries are represented in this year’s Biennial, the most of any Biennial so far. Those who don’t have a pavilion in the Giardini or the Arsenale are scattered across the city in one of Venice’s grand houses or palaces. Political statements are followed by aesthetic expressions, rebellious actions by poetic gestures. Of course, Venice is ridiculous, over the top, an incorporation of art-world glam and spectacle. But in between getting lost, queuing, and meeting old friends and acquaintances, one inevitably ends up discovering some previously unknown artists, and sees new work of already loved ones. In the end the visit is always worth it.

~ Lea Schleiffenbaum

Venice (photo © Lea Schleiffenbaum)

ILLUMInazioni – ILLUMInations, la Biennale di Venezia, 54^th International Art Exhibition,

June 4^th – November 27^th 2011

Bortusk Leer and Sticking Bubblegum Up Your Nose

June 2, 2011 Artists, Events, Features, Gallery, Interview, London, Street Talker Interview

Street Artist Bortusk Leer’s smiling and devious characters drawn and colored with a childlike mind continue to make people on New Yorks’ streets smile. As previous artist neighborhoods like Williamsburg are overrun with helicopter moms jogging behind strollers, the professional parents taking their progeny to playdates probably think the wheatpastes are the Universe’s welcome to their bundles of joy.

Bortusk Leer (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Actually, Bortusk’s demented and happy monsters predate many of the new arrivals and his googly eyed crew is now in many cities around the world, and more often these days galleries too. Mr. Leer sure gets around with these unruly companions who have a disarming way of bringing the hype all down a notch to the simple joys of swinging mindlessly on the monkey bars and giving Billy Blickstein a wedgy and pulling Danisha’s hair and sticking bubblegum up your nose.

Bortusk Leer (photo © Jaime Rojo)

On the occasion of his solo show now on view (extended to June 26) at Tony’s Gallery in Shoreditch, East London’s Don’t Panic conducted an interview with the artist and along with his answers they give us a good view of the multicolor mad man installations:

Bortusk Leer “Bortusk Took a Trip” (image © courtesy Don’t Panic)

“I get to Bortusk’s playground just as the rain starts to fall. An Oompa Loompa lets me in through the main gate and guides me across the psychedelic courtyard. I take shelter under the peppermint trees and wait for my maniacal host to arrive. The walls are lined with weird, nu-rave creatures; a colourful assortment of monsters and mismatched porcelain dolls, watching through beady, fluorescent eyes as I wait for their master…“

Click here to continue reading the interview and to see more images

Cyrcle + Muska at The Barracuda Wall “Post No Bills”

May 31, 2011 Artists, California, Features, Los Angeles, On the Street

The famed Barracuda Wall plays host to the Street Art conversation in LA once again with this ironic installation from Cyrcle and Muska, captured here by photographer Carlos Gonzales. Post No Bills, for readers who live outside of Metropolis, is a standard warning that appears on the walls of construction sites to discourage outdoor advertisers from plastering their entreaties for you to purchase deodorant, electronic devices, hair straightening goo, and cruises to Killarney.

(image © Fading Ad Blog http://www.fadingad.com/)

Naturally, poster companies routinely ignore the admonition and plaster thousands of ads every year upon them despite the warnings and usually with indemnity.

Cyrcle + Chad Muska (photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

Sandwiched between the ads you’ll find the Street Artist, whose voice jumps out from the commercial cacophony and this installation is a commentary on the claim commercial entities have on public space, while the tiny public voice is often squeezed out. While some real estate developers have actually hired Street Artists and others in recent years to adorn their construction sites with their work, the majority of these lots simply are a toggled message of “Post No Bills” one day and hoochie mamas in thongs shilling energy drinks the next.

In this installation Street Artists Cyrcle and Muska playfully draw attention to these signs and cast them as fine art installation, a deliberate postmodern repetitive rhythmic visual chant for pedestrians and drivers in the city to enjoy.

Cyrcle + Chad Muska (photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

For those who need to have their street art labelled, Muska and Cyrcle helpfully provide this placard. (photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

Cyrcle + Chad Muska (photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

Carlos Gonzalez is a LA based photographer and contributes regularly on Street Art topics to BSA. Click on the link below to see more of his work:

http://www.facebook.com/CarlosGonzalezPhotography

Over Under “Building on Building” at XY and Z Gallery (PLUS NEW VIDEO)

May 28, 2011 Artists, Brooklyn, Events, Features, Gallery, Minneapolis, NYC, On the Street, Opening

Brooklyn based Street Artist Over Under opens his first solo show in “Building on Building” opening at XYandZ Gallery in Minneapolis, transporting his architectural fever dreams to Minnesota for a hot minute. It’s all about relationships.

Over Under (detail of a piece for “Building on Building”) (photo © courtesy of the artist)

Artists who run in the streets of dense cities have a special relationship with buildings, seeing them as potential canvas, laboratory, love affair, and sometimes their perdition. In Over Under’s case, the very structures he was painting and pasting upon got recycled through his mind as worthy of caricature and portrait.

Approximately a year ago when the artist’s prolific output was hard to miss, his fascination with our built environment went on a full REM cycle with a continual metamorphose of architectural elements bending and bundled together with lyrically disembodied limbs. During his nearly two weeks in Minneapolis making work with his buddies Broken Crow, the arms and legs continue to poke into and out of roofs, windows and walls like so many orifices and protuberances entangled in one stately mass.

Over Under (detail of a piece for “Building on Building”) features a painting of a figure spraying across the door way, clearly under a watchful eye. (photo © courtesy of the artist)

Passersby here are sometimes astonished, and filled with questions. Is he exploring the relationship between space and personal relationships or is he examining the construct/construction that creates inside and outside, or is he reacting to the ongoing overtaking of Williamsburg and Bushwick real estate by dullard developers? Or is he just in love?

And what about this iconic flying plane with a stream-of-consciousness line of haiku diary entry arching over it? Is it a bird? Is it graffiti, a tag, Street Art or vandalism? Maybe these questions are at play because Over Under is still playing with them, or maybe because there are not clear answers. To us it’s all part of the conversation on the street, which never stops. Tonight, however, the conversation goes in through the doors as Over Under brings the buildings and bridges and foundations and superstructures and rolldown gates and lithe limbs inside for the night. We’ll see what sticks out.

A recently completed large scale wall in Bushwick, Brooklyn by Over Under (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Over Under (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A Video Completed Yesterday by Over Under

“BUILDING ON BUILDING”

Opening Reception Saturday May 28th 6p-10p
Runs through June 18th

XYandZ Gallery
3258 Minnehaha Ave South
Minneapolis, MN 55406

http://thexyandz.com/#/gallery

“Chicago Street Art” Debuts with an Exhibition and a Book

May 12, 2011 Artists, Book Review, Chicago, Events, On the Street, Opening, Street Talker Interview

Author Joseph J. Depre has been traveling around the world to photograph and write about Street Art for the last few years and and when he returned to his hometown of Chicago he rediscovered his love and appreciation for the art in the streets of his city. The images in his first book just released give a very good documentation of the current scene while his essays are personal, poetic and passionate.

Opening tomorrow at the Chicago Urban Art Society is a retrospective of work by many of the artists on that scene today. With brand new works curated in this not-for-profit gallery environment developed by Lauren Pacheco and Peter Kepha, visitors will have the chance to see the Street Art talent that is growing in their community, including pieces by Artillary, Bonus Saves, Brooks Golden, Chris Silva, CLS, Senor Codo, Cody Hudson, CRO, Cyro, Chris Diers, Don’t Fret, Emen, 80 Legs, Tom Fennell IV, “It’s Yours, Take It”, Goons, The Grocer, Juan Angel Chavez, Kepto Salem, Melt, Nick Adam, Oscar Arriola, Poor Kid, Safety First, Saro, Sighn, Solve, Tiptoe, The Viking, You are Beautiful, among others. More information about the show at the end of the post.

Debuting his book “Chicago Street Art” for the first time at the opening, Mr. Dupre is very excited to see the show come to fruition after nearly a year of planning. Brooklyn Street Art asked him about the Chicago scene today and his new book and he gives us some insights here. We also had an opportunity to shoot some art on the streets of Chicago last month – see photos by Jaime Rojo after the interview.

Brooklyn Street Art: How long have you been preparing this book “Chicago Street Art”?
Joseph Depre: I originally had the idea for a book on Chicago Street Art when I started to integrate into the Chicago Street Art community in 2004. I think that is about the time I started writing. I was fascinated by these unique artists and was lucky enough to be able to talk openly with a good number of them, bounce ideas off the artists and they helped me refine my thoughts. As I traveled I was able to get together with Street Artists in cities like New York, Berlin, Barcelona, and Sao Paulo. After experiencing the Street Art in these cities and got back to the States my thoughts reflected back to Chicago and the incredible history of Street Art we have here and I thought it was important to give Chicago the recognition it deserves. So I’ve sent the last 9 months talking to all of the Artists and putting this all together.

Brendan “Solve” Scanlon (photo courtesy of the author © Oscar Arriola) from “Chicago Street Art”

Brooklyn Street Art: Can you introduce us to the Chicago Street Art scene at this moment from an artist and creative perspective?
Joseph Depre: I won’t be so forward to say I can tell you anything from an artist perspective, but as a conscious observer I can say there are a lot of good things happening in Chicago at the moment. Nice-One seems have refined his characters with an air-brush technique that looks really nice. Don’t Fret has really been putting in his time and effort. His characters are always fun and expressive. He’s turning into to a great storyteller. Mental 312 has been hitting the streets hard and doing some really beautiful work. He’s one of my favorite artists right now.

TipToe (photo courtesy of the author) from “Chicago Street Art”

Brooklyn Street Art: Chicago has a very active anti-graffiti program, which cleans or “buffs” pieces, good and not so good, quickly with brown paint. Can you talk about how Street Artists have responded to the efficient and rapacious pace of buffing?
Joseph Depre: Most of the Street Artist I know really hate the buff and attribute the fact that Chicago has so little international Street Art respect to “the buff.” But all of these Artists just work harder in spite of the Buff. In New York one piece can stay up for years, in the Chicago the Street Artist has to do 20 pieces just to stay up through the season.

Brooklyn Street Art: Street Artists like Chris Silva and Cody Hudson have gone beyond two-dimensional painted works to create sometimes expansive sculptural set installations. Do you see more stuff like this around Chicago these days?
Joseph Depre: Oh Yeah. The first artist that comes to mind is CLS. It is really amazing what he has been able with scraps of wood and branches he finds on the street.

Photo courtesy of the author (© Thomas Fennell IV) from “Chicago Street Art”

Brooklyn Street Art: Borrowing a tenet from the flash mob street manifestations of the last decade, Street Artists like BonusSaves devised something called “It’s Yours, Take It”. Can you talk about this practice of giving art to the public and how it has become an international programmatic approach to engaging communities?
Joseph Depre: The Internet has really helped out with this. Through sites like Flickr, BonusSaves is able to organize and direct hundreds of people from all over the place. All with the same state of mind and love of giving art to people and bringing communities together through gifting creativity. But it is not solely his doing… All the artists really believe in the idea and have been running installations in cities all over the world all by themselves. It really is a testament to the power of people to come together and do something really good just for the sake of doing something good.

Nice One (photo courtesy of the author © Chris-Diers) from “Chicago Street Art”

Brooklyn Street Art: You dedicate a few pages of your book to the occurrence of a piece attributed to London Street Artist Banksy on a wall in Chicago, and the response of the city and other street artists to it. Is there such a thing as a “Banksy Revolution”?
Joseph Depre: I cannot say what Banksy’s actual intent is – only he knows what that is. For my part, I hope he’s attempting a revolution. If not then we are all the butt of a pretty sick joke. I also hope that he doesn’t get discouraged, I think people are just starting to listen. Maybe not the people who were introduced to Street Art through “Exit, Through the Gift Shop” but others.

Mental 312 (photo courtesy of the author © Thomas Fennell IV) from “Chicago Street Art”

Brooklyn Street Art: What do you think distinguishes the Chicago scene and why do you feel an affinity for it?
Joseph Depre: Other than Chicago being my home and my introduction to Street Art, I think there are quite a few things that distinguish it from the rest of the world. The sculptural history exemplified by the likes of Juan “Angel” Chavez, Cody Hudson, and Chris Silva would be a good place to start. The other thing is that all of the artists are personally close here. Everyone knows everyone. They don’t just meet up at shows and events but talk on a regular basis and are invested in each others’ lives and success.

Brooklyn Street Art had the fortune to be in Chicago for a day recently where photographer Jaime Rojo got an afternoon to run around shooting as much as he could find. Brooklyn artist Gaia had recently been in the city and he left some nice gifts for the Chicago art lovers to enjoy. The images below are from that visit to Chicago and are not a part of the book “Chicago Street Art”

Mars Dynamo (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Gaia’s tribute to photographer Martha Cooper (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Gaia (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Artist Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“Left Handed Wave” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Artist Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“Left Handed Wave” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Buffer Chicago Style (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Chicago Urban Art Society, 2229 South Halsted. The show will run until June 4. http://chicagourbanartsociety.tumblr.com/

Book Cover Artist: Chris Sliva

Ready for His Closeup: Sweet Toof Sparkles at Factory Fresh

April 28, 2011 Artists, Brooklyn, Day Of The Dead, Events, Gallery, Interview, London, Mexico, NYC, Opening, Street Talker Interview, U.K.

Sweet Toof Brings the Bling to Brooklyn

A detail from Sweet Toof’s new show at Factory Fresh, opening tomorrow. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The London Street Artist Sweet Toof’s new show, “Dark Horse” at Factory Fresh opens wide to a mouthful of gleaming new pieces as the artist debuts his first New York show solo, having previously been a part of the Burning Candy Crew with Cyclops and Tek33. A little frisky in the Brooklyn streets, we find that Sweet Toof is exploring more than the usual territory and challenging himself artistically, always with a healthy glob of humor. Yes, the pink gums and pearly whites continue to have prominence in each piece, but their permutations progress at a dizzying pace.

All along the gumline. Sweet Toof pimps the alley wall with some help from some friends from the hood. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sweet Toof has developed a recurring motif that perambulates through periods and platforms – aerosol mural, oil painting, or theatrical prop – with a certain frank guile and handmade disarming charm. Some of the new tableaus of madly grinning top-hatted drivers atop skeletal stallions are pure Dickensian wonder with animated allusions to extreme social conditions and the play of comically repulsive characters. Others touch on graffiti vocabulary and pop/advertising culture with cheerfully mocking glee, the winking enthusiasm and poppy color trumping your worries that it isn’t making any sense. All tolled, it’s a bit of a romp and a promise of tasty treats to come – and if you arrive early you’ll receive your own set of gold sweet teef atop a popsickle stick.

On the day we visited the gallery the place was a divine chaos of paint and construction materials, with works-in-progress laying on the floor waiting to be completed or hung. The partially lit space proved a helpful foil for the spooky pimped-out characters on the canvasses – the sort you wouldn’t trust with a bottle of milk.

Sweet Toof . Come in. We are open. It is sweet inside. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The Factory Fresh shopkeeper Mr. DeVille, looking very trim and sunny, murmured something about the current artist-in-residence being on a roof somewhere and after further inquiry, Mr. Toof appeared promptly with a warm and genial demeanor. After a brief tour we took to the street to watch him work. He told us a bit about his work and the upcoming show, after starting with the topic of weather of course.

Brooklyn Street Art: How has your experience been so far in Brooklyn?
Sweet Toof: I have really enjoyed it. The rain some days and then sun. But I can’t complain. I have just been eyeing out all these spots but yeah it has been really good. The weather has been very unpredictable but today is a beautiful day and I love Brooklyn.

Sweet Toof . Detail (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: Is there a difference between working in Brooklyn and working in London?
Sweet Toof: There is a little difference. I mean it’s quiet interesting. This is Bushwick and in London, in East London there is an area called Hackney Wick. That’s an area where a lot of people have been painting but they are cleaning it up now because of the Olympic buff – It is almost like a sister of Bushwick because of all the lofts spaces in warehouses and factories where people now live. So it is a similar type of vibe but I like the character here and the architecture.

Sweet Toof . Detail (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: And the people?
Sweet Toof: Yeah I forgot the people…my experience with the people so far is that everyone is really friendly and it is almost like everyone seems to be willing to help and in London none really says hello but here people would say hello…you’re engaged. Brooklyn is more engaging even when you go to the shop and you have been there for a couple of times people recognize you and they start talking and so it feels quite like a community.

Sweet Toof . Detail (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: Tell us about the use of gold dust in your work. Have you always used it?
Sweet Toof: Yeah I have used it before on paintings. I’ve used gold pigment, I’ve been using quite a bit of glitter and gold dust just to give it a little bit of extra “bling”. I like that whole sparkly thing, the way the light hits it and it gives it just like another layer in a way. But I just like to mix things up. Even pearlescent paint and I like all sort of paint; oil paint, bucket paint, spray paint – I love it all. But the pearlescent glitter is just like another element within that. You know I think teeth are like jewelry anyway but just with that extra bling, you know when you see people’s teeth and are like pearls.

Sweet Toof . Detail (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: Have you been to the south of Mexico and seen the Day of the Dead festival?
Sweet Toof: No but I’m intending to go to Mexico quite soon. I’m fascinated with the Day of the Dead and all of that stuff. It is almost like it has been with me since art school. Since I came across the old woodcuts and the imagery of Guadalupe Posada. The thing I like in Mexico, unlike in England, is that they celebrate death and in early age you are given these candy sweets and they eat it. It’s almost like you enjoy your days and you sleep when you are dead in a way. But death is not just doom and gloom.

Sweet Toof (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sweet Toof. Work in progress (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: Tell us about your sense of color. Where do you get your inspiration for bright colors?
Sweet Toof: England is very gray. I mean you do see color but I just sort of respond to the environment that I’m in but I love color anyway. When painting out on the streets I used to like the spontaneous part of it about not seeing your colors when you are painting in the dark. You’ve got a rough idea about what the colors are or you have written the colors on the can or you can see the tones in the dark, but then when you are in the studio and you are mixing your colors it’s almost like you have that whole understanding of color – and it’s the same in print making. You might look at the sky and you think “how I’m going to get that intensity?” It is about looking at the contrast with all the different hues and understanding color, which I think, comes from oil painting a lot but also from mixing colors for the stuff on the streets as well so you understand how the colors work.

Sweet Toof. Work in progress (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: Would you like to talk a bit about you not being part of Burning Candy or is that a sore subject?
Sweet Toof: No, not really. I left last September on my own decision but I really wouldn’t want to go into the politics of it. I just got to the time where I had to get on with my own stuff. I wish them all the best and I wouldn’t want to bitch. I want to keep it simple and getting my head down.

Brooklyn Street Art: What would you like to happen on Friday at the gallery for your show?
Sweet Toof: I’d like for everyone to have a good time and enjoy. Bring people together and just let people mind their own minds about it. It’s one of those things where you never know how people would react to stuff but I want people to enjoy.

Sweet Toof in Brooklyn with a roof top reflecting pool (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sweet Toof transforms FF backyard with minty fresh breath (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dude is so tall you need a ladder to floss. Sweet Toof at Factory Fresh. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sweet Toof. Action shot! (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sweet Toof (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sweet Toof’s party favor for the early birds at Factory Fresh (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sweet Toof
“Dark Horse”

Opening April 29th, 7-10pm at Factory Fresh
On view till May 22nd, Gallery is open Wednesday – Sunday from 1-7pm

New Pieces from Ludo in Zurich for His First Solo Show

April 12, 2011 Artists, Features, Gallery, On the Street, Zurich

French Street Artist LUDO is back in Paris and fresh from his first solo show at the Starkat Gallery in Zurich, which was very well attended and as they say, well receeeeeeived.

LUDO. Zurich (photo © Roman @ Starkat Gallery)

The Zurichian streets received LUDO too. Roman from Starkat took these photos on the streets of this “spic-and- span” wealthiest city of Europe and shares a few with you here. LUDO’s ongoing wild imaginary mutant plants look as futuristic and menacing as ever, and in a pristine mall-like environment like this Swiss centerpiece, you have to wonder how how far some of these contraptions can be from reality. There’s some chocolate for thought.

Nature’s Revenge is the name of the series LUDO has been working on for a couple of years; a commentary on a lust for high-tech weaponry and man’s unending ability to foul the earth. Looking at all those directional signs is apparently a sort of bureaucratic revenge from the Department of Transportation. Zurich (photo © Roman @ Starkat Gallery)

Thematically disturbing and humorous, Ludo’s work is usually finished with a few splashes of minty green, like a toxic sorbet. LUDO. Zurich (photo © Roman @ Starkat Gallery)

LUDO. Zurich (photo © Roman @ Starkat Gallery)

LUDO in the gallery produced a mummified mini-car. Zurich. Starkat Gallery (photo © LUDO)

LUDO. Zurich. Starkat Gallery (photo © LUDO)

Isaac Cordal’s Miniature Magic Moments in the Real World

April 6, 2011 Artists, Brussels, Features, Interview, London, Street Talker Interview

Fairy tales mash fantastic with ordinary, playing with perceptions of both. Street Artist and public artist Isaac Cordal lives in these two worlds and finds one that is a waking dreamscape. The fastidious and attentive scene maker somehow brings his little cement people alive by placing them in the real world; creating a new context where his figures take on stirring, humorous, nearly profound qualities.

“This is a project I’ve been working on since 2006. I make small sculptures with cement and many times when I go out these small sculptures come with me. Public space has become their habitat,” explains Cordal.

Isaac Cordal. Survivors. Anvers. Belgium. 2011. (photo © Isaac Cordal)

Recalling our childlike ability to transform everyday locations into kingdoms, realms, domains, and enchanted lands, Cordal impeccably places vignettes into ordinary settings. His miniature gray mortar people are often being wronged by totally evil monsters, human and animal but are frozen for you to study the dynamics at play. The portraits that emerge of his somewhat battered and banal humans plodding through life occur in a multitude of scenes: Here we have a picnic. Over there we see a wedding, a funeral. Sometimes his sculptures are in a kitchen or in a living room. Other times they are outdoors waiting in line to go to work, to buy consumer goods, or to be ground like hamburger in the wheels of The Machine.

Most recently Mr. Cordal has created ‘survivors’ who inhabit an environmentally taxed and burdened world, continually expecting toxic fumes or airborne viruses to invade their lungs. His cement fairies in these urban settings are stoic protagonists of our eternal misadventures, progeny of our excess. The lucky passerby who stumbles upon his vignette may be moved by its stoicism, may pause at the effort of an artist who creates such a scenario in the middle of their everyday, and may smile at the wit.

Brooklyn Street Art: There is a distinct uniformity the appearance of your little people – is the uniformity a metaphor for conformist thinking and behavior?
Isaac Cordal: I make copies of many of my pieces using molds. By repeating the same model in series I manufacture a prototype that represents a collective identity. I am interested in representing prototypes that represent human beings in modernity. I try to do scenes that summarize recognizable behavior patterns.

Brooklyn Street Art: Sometimes the staged scenes have elements of comedy and light heartedness. Does the process feel like play for you?
Isaac Cordal: I think my friends have begun to be worried about me. I really take it seriously and I always am perusing the streets with an unusual amount of interest. A couple of days ago, I was climbing a wall and suddenly the wall collapsed; I was very lucky because nothing serious happened. It was a curious situation because my mother was visiting me and she was the person who was helping me with my installation. I felt as if I was a child in the wrong place.

Brooklyn Street Art: With clever placement, the figures interact in the man made and natural environment in a surrealist way. Do you have any favorite surrealist painters?
Isaac Cordal: The world we have created is very surreal in itself. There are strong doses of surrealism in our society. Regarding Surrealism as a painting movement, I always liked Dali. Recently I quite liked the photo project The Architect’s Brother.

BSA……………….BSA…………….BSA……………….BSA…………….BSA……………….BSA…………….

Mr. Cordal’s new monograph Cement Eclipses: Small Interventions in the Big City will come out this spring, published by Carpet Bombing Culture.

To learn more about this book click on the link below:

http://www.brooklynstreetart.com/theblog/?p=19784

***************************

Read our article on Isaac Cordal last September in The Huffington Post :

Little Cement Urbanites: Isaac Cordal’s Street Art Installations

PANTHEON : A Photo Essay

March 31, 2011 Artists, Events, Features, Gallery, Manhattan, NYC, Opening

PANTHEON: A history of art from the streets of New York City is a labor of love.

This Saturday the PANTHEON mounts a show seen from the street, bringing visual story from the last 40 years of graffiti and Street Art alive in a space that once housed a city library across from the Museum of Modern Art on 53^rd Street. Like the real shows we follow on the public thoroughfare, this one is also open 24 hours a day.

An ambitious project spearheaded by Daniel Feral and Joyce Manalo, PANTHEON is truly grassroots, an academic and historic presentation by people who love it and study it and create it. Funded by modest personal contributions to their Kickstarter campaign, the show’s mission is to foster future understanding of how graffiti and Street Art has claimed a place as catalyst in the culture through it’s own wild and wooly evolution on the margins and in the mainstream. A small selection of some of the players on this now global scene, the resulting exhibit aims to be an un-hyped insight into the experience by people who are more concerned with the art than who collects it.

As their media partner, BSA got a behind the scenes peek at many of the pieces that will be shown and here is a photo essay by our own Jaime Rojo. These rich and storied detail shots will hopefully incite your imagination and peak your interest to check out the street show in person.

http://www.pantheonnyc.com/

PANTHEON:
A history of art from the streets of New York City
Windows exhibition runs April 2-17, 2011
On view 24 hours a day

EXHIBITION LOCATION
chashama at the Donnell
20 West 53rd Street, b/w 5th & 6th Avenue
New York, NY 10019 (across from MoMA)

PRESS EVENT – RSVP ONLY*
Saturday, April 2, 4-5 PM

PRIVATE RECEPTION – RSVP ONLY*

Saturday, April 2, 6-8 PM

* To attend either event, please email rsvp@pantheonnyc.com or call 646-269-9494. Location details will be announced at the latest by Saturday morning.

ARTISTS
Abe Lincoln, Jr., John Ahearn and Rigorberto Torres, Adam VOID, Cassius Fouler, Cake, Darkclouds, Droid, El Celso, Ellis Gallagher, Faro, John Fekner and Don Leicht, Freedom, Gen2, Goya, Groser, Richard Hambleton, infinity, KET, LSD-Om, Matt Siren, NohJColey, OverUnder, Oze 108, Quel Beast, Royce Bannon, Sadue, Jordan Seiler, Stikman, Toofly, UFO, and Vudu.

Creepy Gets Way Up in NYC

March 28, 2011 Artists, Brooklyn, Features, Interview, NYC, On the Street, Street Talker Interview

The Australian Street Artist Does a New Wall in Brooklyn (Video)

He calls it narrative-driven character-based folk art, and Street Artist Kyle Hughes-Odgers AKA Creepy has been taking his skinny armed and legged people to walls around the world since he started doing work on the street in 2005. Not uncommon for artists who work on the street, Creepy didn’t initially have any idea how to get his stuff into a gallery so his real audience began when he started hitting walls. Now New Yorkers are getting a chance to see the tightly droll and clean Creepy aesthetic.

Comfortable with tiny canvasses and massive walls installations, the startlingly sane Creepy had a pretty banner year in 2010 with his first solo show at Turner Galleries in his home town of Perth, including over 100 pieces on wood and 8 large works on canvas. He also painted for weeks on a commission for Murdock University’s art collection; a 7 piece project of large panels totalling 150 ft in length (45 meters) when finished. As the year ended he had some fun in Sydney with the Lo-Fi Collective on a show called “Microcosm” with Beastman, Max Berry, and Phibs.

Now he’s in New York for a visit to really get the rhythm of the street, meet cool peeps and hit up walls (and a van) while doing some sight seeing with his lady. Brooklyn Street Art had the opportunity to watch Creepy work with cans last week on a new piece in the BK that speaks of his signature brand of whimsy, and his affinity for textural patterns, symbols, and shapes. Peculiar and blithe, his illustrated characters go solo or hang out in pairs usually, contemplating ennui or maybe heavier thoughts, but somehow you can’t feel too dark looking at the playful juxtapositions and color palettes.

Brooklyn Street Art: Kind of cold up on the roof, no? Were you expecting it to be so cold?
Creepy: Freezing! I couldn’t bend my fingers at the end of the day.

Brooklyn Street Art: What is the inspiration for this piece?
Creepy: Currently my new works are based on ideas of burden, memory and nostalgia. I was trying to show a sinking feeling of lost time or of being somewhere else in your head apart from the immediate reality. I’m thinking of great moments of the past that you could never replicate – that kind of thing.

Brooklyn Street Art: Your sense of color, proportion, and geometry are excellent. Would you describe your style as being illustrative?
Creepy: I’m not sure – color and balance are really important to me. I came from a drawing background but I would rather paint these days. A lot of illustrators seem like painters to me. I don’t know what the different rules are that make you an illustrator or a painter.

Brooklyn Street Art: You like using patterns, and you sometimes you go back replace the pattern on part of the piece with something new. What are you evoking with the mix of shapes and colors?
Creepy: I like the idea that many smaller details (patterns) in life exist individually but make up a much larger picture or story, and each tiny detail is just as important as the next. They need each other to make up the bigger idea – like a city or a personality. Sometimes I replace the pattern while painting if I feel like the color balance is not quite right.

Brooklyn Street Art: We’ve seen a lot of monsters and women in your figurative pieces. Are they favorite topics?
Creepy: I just try to tell stories in my work from ideas and events I have experienced in life. Sometimes those stories need creatures, women and men.

Brooklyn Street Art: Thematically, where do you draw your inspiration?
Creepy: From dreams, memory and the harsh and humorous everyday.

Brooklyn Street Art: How has your visit to New York been? Have you seen any interesting art?
Creepy: It’s been such a great trip and really interesting. Scope/Volta/Armory week was on when I first arrived and I got tickets to those events (thanks to you guys!) which was a rocket launch into the NYC art world. I have seen a lot of inspiring works in galleries and on the street. My friend Sean Morris was in NYC for his show at Bold Hype in Chelsea, so it was great to be able to go to his exhibition as well.

Brooklyn Street Art: You have done tiny little 2 inch square pieces and massive building size mural installations. What size do you prefer to work in?
Creepy: I like working on all scales. It’s nice to get outside and paint massive works and then switch it up and head into the studio and do a small painting with tiny brushes.

Brooklyn Street Art:What are you going to try to do before you leave?
Creepy: Hopefully a couple more paints. I went to a Knicks game the other night so that pretty much made my year – even though they lost.

With a special thanks to Kara Peacock for her time lapse of the installation.

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