Art For Tibet ARTISTS UNITE TO SUPPORT TIBETAN FREEDOM AT 3rd ANNUAL NEW YORK CITY ART SHOW & SILENT AUCTION FUNDRAISER
Contemporary US and International Artists Joined by Tibetan Peers
New York – More than 50 acclaimed artists will exhibit art works together in support of the Tibetan freedom struggle on October 14th at the Joshua Liner Gallery in Chelsea, New York City. The third-annual Art for Tibet show will feature top contemporary Tibetan and international artists, including Shepard Fairey, Pema Rinzin, Richard Gere, Ryan McGinness, Tenzing Rigdol, Swoon, Gonkar Gyatso, The Sucklord (star of Bravo Network’s “Work of Art” Season 2) and many more.
All artwork in the show will be sold via a silent auction on the evening of October 14th. The evening event will feature a live-painting demonstration, DJ sets by Spirit Bear, and a silent auction that will offer excellent works with low opening bids. Drinks will be generously provided by Beerlao. Pre-bidding will be available online at www.artfortibet.com beginning October 7th.
“Art for Tibet aims to expose the persecution Tibetan artists and intellectuals face under China’s occupation. At the same time, it is a celebration of their defiance and commitment to free expression in spite of the Chinese government’s severe repression and censorship,” said Tenzin Dorjee, Executive Director of the New York-based Students for a Free Tibet (SFT).
This event is made possible by the support of Honorary Committee members Shepard Fairey, Richard Gere and Professor Robert A.F. Thurman, as well as Benefit and Curatorial Committee members Simeon Lipman (The Art Hustle), Joshua Liner, Pema Rinzin, Tenzing Rigdol, Bruno Levy, Joseph Ian Henrikson (Anonymous Gallery), John Peet (Union Gallery), Andrew Lockhart (prō jekt′ : nyc), Jonathan Hulland, Makiko Onda, Lisa Shimamura (Colab Projects), Kurt Langer (Colab Projects), Zahra Sherzad, Stefanie Rogers and Tenzin Dorjee. Auction and event information and a full list of participating artists are available at www.artfortibet.com.
BACKGROUND ON TIBET: Since Chinese troops invaded Tibet in 1949, China has denied Tibetans their rights and freedom while systematically attempting to wipe out Tibetan culture and identity. In March 2008, just months before the Beijing Olympics, protests against Chinese rule swept across the Tibetan plateau. Chinese authorities responded with brutal force in a crackdown that continues to this day and has left thousands of Tibetans in prison, dead or disappeared.
In defiance of this repression, Tibetan artists, writers and intellectuals in Tibet and in exile are engaged in a Tibetan cultural renaissance, using new technology and mediums to create and share their work. In response, the Chinese government has escalated the crackdown on writers, artists and intellectuals. Dozens of Tibetan artists and writers have been arrested, tortured and imprisoned since 2008.
All proceeds from the event will benefit Students for a Free Tibet, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization with international headquarters in New York. Through education, grassroots organizing, and non-violent direct action, SFT campaigns for the Tibetan people’s fundamental right to freedom and independence: www.studentsforafreetibet.org.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring: Elbow Toe, David Byrne, Hellbent, Jaye Moon, Colum Cunningham, Dain, David L, Left Handed Wave, Swoon, Samuel Mark, Know Hope, and Hanksy.
1. Fountain LA This Weekend
2. NUART 2011 – Stavanger, Norway
3. “Bring to Light” in Greenpoint Brooklyn for the 2nd Year – Saturday Night!
3. “Rituals” on 14th Street, Art in Odd Places
4. Pantheon Projects at THE NEW YORK ART BOOK FAIR AT MoMA PS1
5. Art Platform Los Angeles
6. RETNA at Art Platform (LA)
7. Brian Adam Douglas at Art Platform (LA)
Fountain LA This Weekend
New York’s own specially warped outsiders are in LA this weekend, and BSA is happy to sport support for whatever madness they can stir up, including the Murder Lounge, which Dave Ill says will be in full effect. (Murder- .slang. To defeat decisively). When you are milling around the big LA shows this weekend make sure you stop by Fountain and say hello to Señor Kesting and check out the Street Art contingent doing their thing on the Left Coast ya’ll.
NUART 2011 has arrived and the streets and buildings of Stavanger are a heating up with all the artists getting up and doing what they know what to do best: Paint. Brooklyn’s own Dan Witz already hit the streets with his “King Baby” street installations on faux city street signage. Tonight (Friday) their is a panel debate with artists, Carlo McCormick and Juxtapoz Magazine that we wouldn’t miss.
Artists include DAN WITZ (US), DAVID CHOE & DVS1 (US), VHILS (PO), HERBERT BAGLIONE (BR), DOLK (NO), LUCY McCLAUCHLAN (UK), HERAKUT (DE), TELLAS (IT), ESCIF (ES), HYURO (ES), PHLEGM (UK)
For a complete listing of events and schedules please visit the NUART site:
“Bring to Light” in Greenpoint Brooklyn for the 2nd Year – Saturday Night!
“All manner of projectors blasted on the walls with myriad images, forms, and shapes, some breathtakingly beautiful. Other artists created sculptures and installations that worked as light vessels and amorphous creatures while collaborative dancers entertained groupings of appreciative observers.” from BSA’s review on Huffington Post
OCTOBER 1ST, 2011, Greenpoint, Brooklyn New York. 6:00 pm to Midnight.
Bring to Light is a free nighttime public festival of art in New York City that takes place simultaneously with “nuit blanche” events in cities around the world. Inviting emerging and established artists to make site-specific installations of light, sound, performance and projection art, the event creates an immersive spectacle for thousands of visitors to re-imagine public space and civic life. Bring to Light will transform streets, parks and the industrial waterfront of Greenpoint, Brooklyn set against dramatic views of the Manhattan skyline.
Nuit Blanche (French for “white night” or “all-nighter”) is a global network of locally-organized nighttime contemporary art events. Originating in Paris in 2001, the nuit blanche concept now involves millions of people in cities around the world.
One performance we will NOT miss will be Chris Jordan and Josh Goldberg, who have serious chops in public projection work, presenting CHRONO GIANTS.
Art in Odd Places 2011: RITUAL features a wide variety of actions, participatory performances, theatrical presentations, public installations, and small and large-scale interventions all of which revolve around the concept of ritual.
Art in Odd Places (AiOP) presents visual and performance art in public spaces with an annual festival each October along 14th Street in Manhattan, NYC from Avenue C to the Hudson River.
Opening Reception for Art In Odd Places Festival 2011
Friday, September 30, 6-9pm
Theaterlab
137 West 14th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues
New York, NY
For a complete listing of artists and a full schedule of events and locations visit Art In Odd Places site:
This art book fair always rewards you – just walking around the floorplan of MoMA PS1 is a trip and the books are tripped out. This year we are in a new one – The Pantheon Catalog from Joyce Manalo and Daniel Feral;
“The street has always been the thumping beat that pumps the pulsing lifeblood through creative New York. Yes, there is a lot of action behind the walls in the offices and galleries and studios and stages and clubs and boardrooms, but everyone knows it is the kinetic electricity of life on the street that inspires New Yorkers to dig deeper and dream bigger and play hard.”
~ from the essay Street Art New York, The 2000s, Steven P. Harrington and Jaime Rojo of Brooklyn Street Art.
If that is not enough to make you absolutely plow down crowds to get there, consider the real talents who are going to be there to SIGN YOUR COPY:
***Catalog Signing on Sunday, October 2nd, 3-3:45 PM featuring***
Join Pantheon Projects at The NY Art Book Fair
September 30-October 2, 2011, 11AM-7PM, at PS1/MoMA, Free Admission
Hours: Friday–Sunday, 11AM-7PM
THE NY ART BOOK FAIR
September 30–October 2, 2011
MoMA PS1
MoMA PS1
22-25 Jackson Avenue at 46th Avenue
Long Island City, NY (map)
Art Platform Los Angeles
From their press release; Art Platform – Los Angeles will demonstrate the rich and vibrant cultural landscape of Southern California and underscore Los Angeles’ influential position within the contemporary art world. MMPI is one of the largest show producers in the world, including a growing portfolio of premium art shows. We have assured the continued development and enhancement of the Art Show division by bringing together some of the top minds in art fairs under one partnership”
For more information, location and a complete list of exhibitors please visit Art Platform at:
If you can’t wait to see the Retna spread as shot by David LaChapelle in October’s Vanity Fair you can check out these new pieces at Art Platform and see BSA’s photos from his New York show this spring.
New Image Art Gallery will be exhibiting at Art Platfrom Los Angeles Featuring new large-scale paintings on canvas and paper by RETNA Visit them at booth #108
Brian Adam Douglas at Art Platform (LA)
Andrew Edlin Gallery will exhibit Brooklyn Fine and Street Artist Brian Adam Douglas along with Henry Darger, Thornton Dial and Jeremy Everett. Visit them at booth 814.
Painter Anthony Lister is also a Street Artist. His surreal pop and celebrity culture-infused abstractions are candy encrusted apples which may have something sharp inside. Many are figurative studies and wire frames bending wildly into characters who cavort and mock with blunt swipes of color, overlaid by costumed sexual role play… or is that a personal projection? Did I mention elegance, defiance, wit? Wait, there is so much here! Truth is, his work can be a cock-eyed psychological tempest, jarring to the head, strangely sweet.
A decade of discovery under his superhero belt, Mr. Lister continues to analyze and build his creative practice and it always includes work inside the gallery and outside on the street. He’s currently preparing for his solo show in Sydney called “Bogan Paradise” at Gallery A.S. At the same time he’s part of a group show with a gaggle of his Aussie expats on view at 941 Geary in San Francisco for “Young and Free”, including Kid Zoom, Dabs & Myla, Dmote, New2, Ben Frost, Meggs, Ha-Ha, Reka, Rone, Sofles and Vexta. Not to mention his participation in our show last month in Los Angeles at C.A.V.E. with Thinkspace, “Street Art Saved My Life : 39 New York Stories“.
The artist took some time recently to talk to Brooklyn Street Art about his practice;
Brooklyn Street Art:How much of one of your painted portraits is autobiographical? In other words, what portion of Mr. Lister is super hero, super model, furtive schoolboy, or Homer Simpson? Anthony Lister: I don’t really think about myself when I paint. My figurative works are more like reflections of characteristics I absorb from real life day to day.
Brooklyn Street Art:If you were to wear colored glasses, which color do you think you would most likely screen the world through? Anthony Lister: Pink, like John Lennon.
Brooklyn Street Art:Francis Bacon said, “The creative process is a cocktail of instinct, skill, culture and a highly creative feverishness.” Would you drink that cocktail? Anthony Lister: Nice words. I agree.
Brooklyn Street Art:What role does analysis play in your creative process when bringing a painting to fruition? Anthony Lister: Analysis is the outcome of considered processing. Constant consideration is crucial.
Brooklyn Street Art:A big piece you did on Metropolitan in Brooklyn – you reworked that face a couple of times over a period of months, producing what appeared as a slowly morphing image. Were you covering up tags, or were you unhappy with the original, or maybe combating the effects of age with a little nip and tuck? Anthony Lister: When I re-work street paintings I think of it like I am a hairdresser. When something is in the public it has a different existence to something living privately in a residence. I’m like a hairdresser I guess.
Brooklyn Street Art:You have spoken about your work as reality, or a reaction to realities. What realities are you depicting these days? Anthony Lister: I just finished a body of work for a solo show in Sydney. This next body of work is about contemporary Australian culture. The exhibition is titled “Bogan Paradise.”
Brooklyn Street Art: When you consider the Street Art scene that evolved around Melbourne, how would you characterize its nature in a way that differentiates it from the work in other cities around the world? Anthony Lister: No different. This whole street art thing has sprung up post the turn of the digital revolution so it is on the Internet quick and the artists who inspire others and the ones who are easily inspired are constantly swimming in the same aesthetic pools of consciousness. Not to mention that most of the prominent artists travel lots so it is easy to see work of the same artist in multiple cities around the world at the same time.
Brooklyn Street Art:The titles you give your gallery pieces are entertaining, instructive, illustrative. Do you ever want to place a placard near a piece you’ve done on the street – just to make sure the message gets across? Anthony Lister: No. My street practice is less thoughtful and therefore needs less commentary.
Brooklyn Street Art:When is a painting complete? Anthony Lister: When it tells me so.
Opening Reception: Friday, September 30, 6-9pm at Theaterlab, 137 W 14th Street.
Rituals on 14th Street
Art in Odd Places 2011: RITUAL features a wide variety of actions, participatory performances, theatrical presentations, public installations, and small and large-scale interventions all of which revolve around the concept of ritual.
A ritual is generally defined as a series of established actions that are carried out in private or public spaces, by individuals or by groups, for their spiritual, social, or political significance. Tapping into the everyday significance of these habits, the artists in AiOP 2011: RITUAL continuously integrate these practices in their work to explore a broad range of issues in contemporary life such as politics, culture, religious beliefs, notions of individuality and community, the endurance of the body and the fragility of life, the relationship with nature, among many others.
The collective character of the public setting offered by one of the busiest New York City arteries as the context for the festival has opened up the possibilities for the ritualistic interactions between artists, objects and people along 14th Street. The street’s daily environment will be transformed by secular and sacred activities and the relationship and reaction of the people attracted by the festival’s ephemeral events. A new sense of place and time, inherent to the concept of ritual, will confront passersby as they flow through the sidewalks, subway stations and storefronts during their everyday commutes or their spontaneous visits to the neighborhood.
The work will be performed and made available along the east-west corridor of 14th Street. The projects may be different each time as they are informed by the varying interpretations of the spectators and their nomadic qualities as they travel through the street. Artists creating pilgrimages will bring new importance to particular places, shrines will be created as sites of worship, and the public will witness miracles. Reenactments of past events based on the collections of oral history, the use of symbols, the exploration of traditions and myths, and the use of magic and astrology are key to some of the artists’ work. Another group of artists create impermanent situations that are reminiscent of childhood and familiar events; worldly rituals that refer to identity politics, queer culture, dominance and submission, are experienced as organic and transcendental happenings.
The use of the body is central to artists that touch upon life and death, real and spiritual borders, love affairs, human relationships and the connection to nature. Through music and dance, walks, palm reading and the use of masks, wigs, and spraying perfumes and scattering ashes, some artists evoke mundane obsessions, venerate popular icons and reject and criticize certain aspects of today’s social values.
From kissing trees to making wishes, from healing souls to dreaming in a park, from washing feet to praying to the sky, the artists transcend the borders of the everyday space. By ritualizing actions and highlighting the different realities that coexist, the projects of AiOP 2011: RITUAL manipulate impressions, satisfy emotions, create effects, and most importantly transform – not only the surroundings in which they position their work, but also the audiences they engage, and who will become fundamental to the ritual itself.
Opera Gallery
Abstractions will be open to the public starting on September 23 at 11:00 am
September 23 – October 16
Free admission: 11:00 – 7:00 daily
Saber
Succubus Flux
Mixed media on panel
120 x 42 inches
Eric Allouche and the Opera Gallery team are pleased to announce the upcoming show entitled Abstractions. This exhibition will put on display a retrospective of the abstract movement from the 1940s through present day. Twentieth Century Masters such as Soulages, Hartung, Fontana, Miro, Arman, and Matta will share the space with some of the most creative contemporary voices such as Rosstar, Bast, Ron English, Gibby Haynes, Saber, Yasmina Alaoui and many others.
Abstractions aim is to explore the evolution of the movement over time and to showcase the artwork of the most influential and recognized artists of this style. The work of the master artists will be juxtaposed with the work of contemporary artists. Through the use of color and shapes, these artists are departing from the figurative and the depiction of imagery. The results are two types of abstraction, lyrical, as seen in Miro’s work, and geometric, as seen in Rosstar. Both types of abstraction are present within the 20th and 21st centuries. Geometric shapes and more organic strokes can both be seen in this exhibition, where one can experience first hand the ever-expanding concepts and ideas of abstraction.
To mark the 10th Anniversary of the events that took place in NYC on September 11, 2001 we asked Street Artist Dan Witz to share with us his images of a series of shrines that he installed in New York during the summer of 2002. It seems appropriate that Street Art paid tribute and facilitated the public mourning and remembrance of those we lost; All manner of artists took to the streets at that time – and it never really stopped. We are thankful for the time and the effort of the many talents, mostly anonymous, who claimed the streets as their own and who buoyed us during those days. And we are thankful to Dan for sharing with us his work here.
Dan Witz talks about his “WTC Shrines” –
“Starting at Ground Zero, following sight lines of the World Trade Center drawn in a star pattern on my map, I installed about 40 of these on the bases of light poles. At the time I was thinking a lot about art objects’ possible usefulness in the real world. For me paintings have often functioned as secular shrines—as visual instigators to reverie.
The week before September 11th I was up in the Bronx at a housing project photographing the shrine neighbors left at the doorstep of a murdered 9 year old girl (balloons, flowers, stuffed animals, family photos). I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do exactly, it was just my way of sketching. Then the planes hit and the city parks filled with thousands of candles and flowers and other offerings. Again, I went to take photographs, not knowing what I actually wanted, just on an instinct. At the time I used a large format camera, the old style with the hood and long bellows. Every time I put the hood on and focused the ground glass, I got an unmistakably eerie feeling from all those candles—it was bizarre and chilling, and definitely paranormal. I’ll never forget it”
don’t look for me anymore
it’s late and you are tired
your feet ache standing atop the ruins of our twins
day after day searching for a trace of me
your eyes are burning red
your hands cut bleeding sifting through rock
and your back crooked from endless hours of labor…
it’s my turn, I’m worried about you
watching as you sift through the ruins of what was
day after day in the soot and the rain
I ache in knowing you suffer my death
rest in knowing that my blood lies in the cracks and crevices
of these great lands I loved so much…
don’t look for me anymore
hold my children as I would
hold my brothers and sisters for me
since I can’t bring them up with the same
love you gave me
and I’ll rest assured
you’re watching my children
don’t look for me anymore
go home and rest…
Signed A. Vasquez, found on 9/14/01 on the “Wailing Wall” at Grand Central Station
This week many New Yorkers are thinking about where they were on 9/11/2001 when the planes hit the World Trade Center Towers and what the city felt like in the days, weeks, and months that followed. There are many questions that never were answered, and there are many consequences that are still to unveil. An incredibly diverse city in so many ways, our unity was automatic and sincere. We already knew each other and we knew we all had been hurt and we were all changed by those events. While others looked at it as an American attack, New Yorkers felt a wound to the place we had made together, our beloved dirty beautiful hard and scrappy city. Today it is painful to go back and contemplate those days and wonder what happened, why, and at what cost.
World renowned graffiti and Street Art photographer Martha Cooper had been documenting New York as a journalist and ethnographer for a quarter century when the streets of the city were flooded by raw sentiments and visual communications expressed with marker, pencil, paint, – whatever was at hand – in the days that followed 9/11. Those incredibly personal desperate acts of expression were gazed upon and reflected on by neighbors and strangers as we attempted in vain to explain the world to one another. To remember a little of what it was like, she shares with us her photographs from those days.
“9/11 happened to all of us. It was a collective experience that defined the outset of the uneasy, globally interdependent twenty-first century. Nowhere, however, were the raw terror and tragic consequences of 9/11 felt more personally than the metropolitan region of New York City, for which the Twin Towers had functioned as a conspicuous compass setting, hub of work and recreation, and symbol of America’s economic might,” Martha Cooper writes in “Remembering 9/11”
Martha Cooper is a featured panelist at today’s panel discussion in Brooklyn called “Return Remember: Ephemeral Memorials in the Legacy of September 11” At Power House Arena. 37 Main Street Dumbo. 6-8 PM.
Martha Cooper will be signing copies of a new slim volume of images “Remembering 9/11” following the panel discussion. For more information about this event please click on the link below:
On the heels of his highly successful “Inferno” exhibition in Italy earlier this year, Guy Denning presents the second of his three part series of oil paintings on Dante’s Commedia in New York City for the aptly titled exhibition, “Purgatorio”.
Originally drawing inspiration from Dante’s writings, Guy’s intention has not been to recreate the poem in a visual or literal sense, but instead let it act as a framework for his own personal interpretation. As with the writing of Shakespeare, Guy finds a perpetual relevance in Dante’s work where the specifics of name, situation and place are easily adapted to the modern world; as if time moves on but the problems of humanity remain essentially the same.
The events of September 11th and the emotional toll it took on the American individual is final and critical element to this body of work. Guy suggests that the suffering of America is too often defined by the media in terms of the political rather than the personal, leaving the individual voice of ordinary people sometimes unspoken in the narrative of history. His work sets out to make a small and personal amendment to that omission. Poignantly enough, this exhibition will be held in a NYC ‘Pop-Up’ location just blocks from Ground Zero and on the 10 Year Anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
The work, though tied to Dante’s writing will also feature elements of images found on the internet, particularly of people in New York City on that terrible day. Significant press images are also used as reference for Guy’s work in hopes that they will be scrutinized that much more intensely than the photos we glance at far too quickly in newsprint. He has also constructed one large landscape painting, in the fashion of the traditional ‘history’ genre, made from connected canvas panels. This oil painting, derived from studying still frame images from amateur video footage, aims to create an assumed and complete narrative of the major elements of the day from a New York perspective.
Guy states that this is a collection of work recognizing the suffering of the American people on September 11th and immediately thereafter – when the United States had the sympathy of the world. He wants it to be viewed as nothing short of respectful to the memories of all those that died and suffered as a result – both in New York and beyond. Guy quotes another English artist William Blake who wrote “Can I see another’s woe, and not be in sorrow, too? Can I see another’s grief, and not seek for kind relief?” Despite the many cultural differences of the peoples of the world we are all essentially united by our humanity; our common desires, hopes and despairs. It is the ordinary people’s common humanity that will take us forward and not politically inspired violence.
Our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Bast, Chris Uphues, Cyrcle, Dain, Enzo & Nio, Ja Ja, LMNOP, Shepard Fairey, Skewville, Swampy, and Willow.
More artists stopped by to put up pieces for “The Grassy Lot” show, an impromptu little get-together of 15 artists in a little bit of heaven on the Lower East Side. Jaime Rojo gives us some more shots of the lot.
Joe Franquinha, life long New Yorker, told us how he assisted Street Artist QRST with his decision of subject matter for this installation: “I told QRST – Rats have lived in this lot for years so rats should be represented here. Because we have the best f*cking rats and no one is going to take that away from us.”
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
