Manhattan

Crest Arts in Collaboration with BSA and MaNY Present: The Grassy Lot Show (Manhattan, NY)

Grassy Lot
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We’re proud to announce the “Grassy Lot Show” coming this Thursday presented by Crest Arts at the Timeshare Backyard. It’s been a little whirlwind of activity with 15 artists putting up brand new work on the walls of this oasis on the Lower East Side for you to come visit. With Keith Schwietzer and us helping Crest out here and there, and of course with Franklin doing lawn roomba duties, it is a bit of a community event. All it is missing is you! What are you doing Thursday?

Crest Arts invites you to the TimeShare Backyard for
“The Grassy Lot Show”

Thursday August 25, from 6-8 pm
145 Ludlow Street between Stanton and Rivington

Admission is free.

Take off your shoes and walk in the grass and do a cartwheel while looking at brand new outside work on the walls by Bishop 203, Creepy, Gaia, General Howe, Jake Klotz, Laura Meyers, Nanook, Over Under, QRST, Quel Beast, Shandor Hassan, Travis Simon, Veng, XAM, and Yok.

Check the event out on Facebook

The project is made possible with the help and support of partners Brooklyn Street Art and the MaNY Project.


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Crest Has a Posse in an Empty Lot on L.E.S.

Joe Franquinha and his executive personal manager Liza brought their pet pig Franklin to check out the abandoned lot on Ludlow Street on Manhattan’s Lower East side. Franklin surveyed the new sod while Yok put up a new piece.

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Yok and Franklin (photo © Mike Pearce)

Invited by a couple of entrepreneurs who have rented the open space for two months to make the outdoor location a little more welcoming, Joe looked at the ground, then up at the walls. Decaying, unfinished, rough, full of New York character, the walls immediately brought his mind to the many Street Artists busy in the city right now.

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With help from Keith Schweitzer, Joe has mobilized a handful of Street Art talent to convert the lot into an impromptu outdoor gallery installation – calling it Timeshare Backyard. With an NYC theme honoring his favorite city, the artists have been getting up here for a week. In Gotham, no story surprises you, so it’s unclear what the fate of this lot will be; New York is always knocking down and building up, the cycle of destruction and renewal never stops. By next spring this could be a new glass and steel condo, who knows. In this brief interlude in this grassy lot, why not mount a momentary show, a commentary on life here right now?

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Gaia working on his collaboration with Nanook (photo © Jaime Rojo)

As the owner of Crest Hardware in Brooklyn with his dad, stylishly moustachioed Joe celebrates the local community of artists that has boomed in BK and he’s known for opening the doors to any number of creative types – providing materials, suggestions, conversation, and great opportunities like these to show their stuff. As summer’s long days melt into the firey New York autumn these (mainly) street artists relished the opportunity to paste or paint just one more wall, at their leisure, while Joe and Liza put down giant garden plants and a wood-chip perimeter. If you get invited to some barbecue or bar or fashion show or something on the LES in the next 60 days, keep your eyes up above the gate to see these pieces peeking at you.

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Upper East Side represents in the Lower East Side. Gaia working on his collaboration with Nanook (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Gaia, Nanook (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Gaia, Nanook (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Gaia in the background (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Gaia sortin’ out (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Gaia, Nanook (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Nanook (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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“Too much art. Not enough grass,” thinks Franklin as he surveys his lunch options on the Lower East Side. (photo © Mike Pearce)

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Gaia (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Nanook (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Creepy was invited by Gaia and Nanook to add some of his organic patterns to their collab (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Gaia, Nanook with Creepy’s subtle additions to the finish wall (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Bishop 203 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“You have many ways to look at New York back here – love, anger, faith in the city,” remarks Joe while looking at the wheatpastes in the back of the lot.

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General Howe (photo © Jaime Rojo)

This is a very unusual wheatpaste by Street Artist General Howe, who is making some important decisions in life.  “General Howe is physically coming up on a crossroads, and looking at this kid who may be a younger him,” says Joe.

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General Howe (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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General Howe (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Creepy (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Creepy (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Looking skyward at Creepy’s integrated installation (photo © Mike Pearce)

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Creepy (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Creepy checking the sketch (photo © Mike Pearce)

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Creepy (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Laura Mayers (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Joe explains, “Laura Myers said she started sketching it and she started seeing the sacred heart, like the picture her grandmother used to have in her house. I love it! I love the way the heart is the apple, with the city coming out. “

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Yok (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Yok, Travis W. Simon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Yok (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Yok (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Yok, Travis W. Simon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Creepy, Yok (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Quel Beast (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Special thanks to photographer Mike Pearce for his contributions to this piece. See Mikes photos on Flickr at Pearce_Pics

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Images of the Week 07.17.11

Images of the Week 07.17.11

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Our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Adri, Banksy, Dan Witz, Deform, Demon, Gaia, Jon Burgerman, Ludo, Nick Walker, Olek, Rambo, Slayers, and XAM with dispatches from Paris, Dubai, and Chicago.

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Rambo, Gift, Demon, Slayers. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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“This new piece on the streets of NYC is an extension of some of the past work I have done connecting various concepts of catastrophe. I have found the imagery depicting the horrors of the plague especially pertinent to the state of our environment. Humanity has weathered and lived through various crises that have shaken our imagination and dramatically changed the way we organize our lives moving forward” Gaia

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Gaia. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Now is this called a sidebust?  Street architect to contemporary birds, XAM, is atop a faux sign by Street Artist Dan Witz (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Ludo. The Future of Fashion in Paris. (photo © Ludo)

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Ludo. The Future of Fashion in Paris. (photo © Ludo)

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Ludo. The Future of Fashion in Paris. (photo © Ludo)

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Ludo. The Future of Fashion in Paris. (photo © Ludo)

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“Banksy” in Da Bronx.  (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Jesus does a skateboard trick in this highly offensive image from Adri. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Deform in Dubai “My Grant” (photo © Deform)

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Olek (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Street Artist Olek is a participating artist at The Crest Hardware Art Show currently on view in Williamsburg Brooklyn. Click on the link below to get full details on this show and go check out some imaginative interpretations:

More about the show here http://www.brooklynstreetart.com/theblog/?p=22007

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Nick Walker. This is the remainder of an old piece from 2008. In the original the figure is remote controlling a very tall Giraffe to who is writing “Vandal” in red spray paint. The building got a fresh coat of paint recently but they decided to save him. We like that. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Rocking cans in Chicago (!), world famous doodler Jon Burgerman hits up a wall. (photo © courtesy of Pawn Works Gallery)

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Jon Burgerman in Chicago (photo © courtesy of Pawn Works Gallery)

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Untitled (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Street Art Summer Hospitality in NYC – OverUnder, Irgh, N’DA, Veng & Chris (RWK)

Somebody Brought Moonshine to this Picnic

You get a chance to go out to the park this weekend and sit under a tree or throw a frisbee? It’s not that far to walk really and its good to reacquaint oneself with nature and barking dogs and deviled eggs and other weird salad creations that Aunt Majiminy always forces you to try – even though you didn’t like it the last time she forced you to try it.

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But we don’t know what has been in that jug of punch at these little picnics that Overunder, ND’A and Chris and Veng from RWK have been throwing this summer. The characters, the proportions, and the mixing of elements are ever more stretched and eccentric and colorful. These kids are seriously playing with their food – mixing the olives with the jello ambrosia and spreading it on a grilled hamburger and crumbling some ranch potato chips on top.

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Just then, a truck booked by. Booker (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A distant Street Art relative from Berlin named IRGH is in town this summer and these Brooklyn based artists have put down the gingham table cloth and a wicker basket of aerosol cans in multiple locations to welcome their cousin and put him to work…painting walls. We’ve been chasing them around town in Brooklyn and Manhattan and here’s the wackiness we found:

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Overunder, IRGH, Veng RWK and ND’A (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“I’m so excited to have IRGH visiting and get to paint with him. We developed our painting style in the same direction, but in separate scenes, and different parts of the world and now get to combine forces” ~ Overunder

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Is this the beginning of Veng’s Blue Period?  Or maybe his Blue and Yellow Period? Veng RWK (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Come on in! The doors and the mind is open! Overunder and IRGH, and maybe a Celso over there in a frame? (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Looks like someone is making a very important decision, with counsel. Overunder, IRGH, Veng RWK and ND’A (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Can you pass me the ball of limbs please? Overunder, IRGH and ND’A (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Overunder, IRGH and ND’A (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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A classic silver Kuma is next to Overunder, IRGH and ND’A (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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“Don’t mind if I do.”, Overunder, IRGH and ND’A (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Overunder, IRGH and ND’A (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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“Can we talk about our relationship? I really would like to know where it’s going.” Overunder, IRGH and ND’A (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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IRGH and ND’A stop to smell the flowers (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Uncle Jimmy may have stopped smoking but he’s still hitting the bottle at this family picnic. ND’A and Chris RWK (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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ND’A with Chris RWK holding it down. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Images of the Week 07.03.11

Brooklyn-Street-Art-IMAGES-OF-THE-WEEK_05-2010As you scan the skies this weekend for bright lights at night you are likely to see a lot of new Street Art in NYC that has suddenly exploded.

At a steady march French Street Artist JR and company is taking over walls in New York during his campaign of installations culminating in multiples in the Bronx this weekend, bursting like the crescendo of fireworks at the end of a show. Similarly Shepard Fairey is in town for a few more days getting up with some new aesthetic and political stuff he’s been working on around the city. In time for this weekends celebrations and commemorations, Street Artist General Howe has put up a brand new hand carved print (his first?) of the skeletal remains of a soldier, expanding on his themes of war and Brooklyn’s historical connection to America’s bloody founding.  If anyone thought that Spring had given us a deluge of Street Art in New York City, it looks like Summer 2011 is going to set some records, and not just on thermometers.

Here is our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Billi Kid, General Howe, Infinity, JR, Obey, Olek, and Stikman.

brooklyn-street-art-jr-jaimJR (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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JR (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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JR (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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JR (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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JR (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Unknown artist minimalist painting on ceramic tile beautifully placed. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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An Unknown artist’s interpretation of the original King Kong in NYC (  (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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OBEY (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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OBEY (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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General Howe first lino-cut ever! (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Infinity (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Artist Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Billi Kid (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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A toddler sized Olek (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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An Unknown artist’s re-interpretation of a Banksy piece, possibly an advertisement (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Stikman continues to place his character in new contexts (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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This sculpture is on a wall of a private residence. We don’t know the artist.  (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Untitled (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Dan Witz’ Mind: A Cabinet of Natural and Unatural Curiosities

Anyone on the subway this morning knows what it is like to be mashed together with strangers and attitudes, a roiling mass of boobs and butts and sunglasses on the forehead, Rhiannon on the headphones next to you on the right, death metal on your left, and your upper arm is not as strong as you thought while you grab for something on the ceiling to hold onto. It’s a half sleeping mosh pit of commuters, with people who have just applied nice smelling things, but this ladies bag is still jammed into your back while you are pressing your already wrinkled summer pants against a messengers bike.  Here’s an opportunity right in front of me; Might as well smash the lights and crank up the metal and have some Subwaypalooza, people! Or just go see the new Dan Witz show at Jonathan Levine Gallery tonight, that’ll be fun too.

brooklyn-street-art-dan-witz-jaime-rojo-06-11-web-1 Dan Witz “In Plain View” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn based Street Artist and fine artist Dan Witz has been making art “In Plain View” as he likes to say it, for over 30 years. Throughout his prolific career he has been fearless in his exploration of art and the subjects that he likes to approach. He can paint beautiful photo-realistic canvases of still life scenes and humans in motion with the same ease as murky tormented scenes behind grimy windows and fragile and ethereal humming birds in flight or a lone tiny skate boarder gliding across a rusted metal wall. Pairing his study of light, his classically trained technique, and an enduring punk rock attitude, Witz’s body of work often takes it where you haven’t gone, and might be afraid to.

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Dan Witz “In Plain View” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Dan Witz “In Plain View” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mr. Witz’s new book, “In Plain View”, shows how in a span of 30 years he has pushed psychological limits with triggers in your periphery, a pursuit of interactive art with prickly engaging relevance in the public, if the public slows down and sees it. A storyteller out in the open, you’ll stop dead in your tracks when Witz hits you, commanding you to stay there until you can figure out what the hell that is, and ponder why is it there. What’s the story behind this faux door with two humans passionately kissing in the dark? Or this figure behind the wire crossed window; is she in pain? Is he dead? Is this real?

Dan’s solo show “Mosh Pits, Human and Otherwise” is opening tonight at the Jonathan Levine Gallery.

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Dan Witz “In Plain View” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Dan Witz “In Plain View” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Dan Witz “In Plain View” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Dan Witz “In Plain View” This is the limited edition version of the book with a hand painted cover (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Dan Witz Detail of his piece for this year Welling Court. You can see the full piece  here (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Dan Witz. Street installation from 2009 (still there in plain view)  (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Dan Witz “Mosh Pits, Human and Otherwise” at the Jonathan Levine Gallery  (photo © courtesy of the artist)

Opening Reception June 30, 2011
6 to 8 pm

Jonathan LeVine Gallery
529 West 20th Street, 9th floor
New York, NY 10011

212-243-3822

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The Market Place Gallery in Collaboration with Brooklyn Art Collective and M.a.n.y. Present: “Town And Country” (Manhattan, NY)

Town and Country
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Curated by Jason Patrick Voegele of Republic Worldwide, Samson Contompasis of The Marketplace Gallery, Keith Schweitzer of M.A.N.Y. and Tyler Wriston of The B.A.C.
Hosted by 320 Studios at 320 West 37th Street, 14th Floor
June 28 – June 30, 2011
6 to Midnight with VIP After Party
Concept by Jason Patrick Voegele

Much of what we know and how we learn comes through the study of explicit or subtle comparisons and contrasts. Meaningful opportunities for these comparative studies invite us into a more explicit and intentional approach that can both broaden our understanding of contemporary American art and help us draw connections and distinctions between the studio practices and conceptual intentions of today’s American Artist.

Produced and developed by four of New York State’s premiere curatorial teams, Town & Country presents just such an opportunity.

Much like the rest of the western world, our press, politics, and creative arts thrive on the institutions we have erected to illuminate our differences. We are often reduced to the divisive labels of righteous and heretical, pious and secular, liberal and conservative, formal and conceptual, urban and rural. Dressed up in the costume of duality it appears that we are a bisected people from the fundamentals to our personal tastes. This exhibition challenges those preconceived notions and offers a unique window into the collaborative state of American art. As a people, our founding fathers had faith in the principals of open dialogue, freedom of expression and the multiplicity of our intellectual and creative capacity to bind various philosophies into one singular union. As an exhibition, Town & Country celebrates these great strengths and offers up a chance to draw attention to the ties that bind us as a great creative culture wherever we are from. Through this lens, Town & Country proposes a new vision of American art reinterpreted for a new generation.

On June 28th through June 30th at 320 West 37th Street in New York City, Republic Worldwide, The Marketplace Gallery, Keith Schweitzer (M.A.N.Y.), and The Brooklyn Art Collective invite you to join the discussion and stoke the fires of debate as we present Town & Country: the very best of contemporary American art. Artists include: Scott Michael Ackerman, Doug Auld, Paul Brainard, White Cocoa, Hannah Cole, Annika Conner, Helen Dennis, Eric Diehl, Ira Eduardovna, Tara de la Garza, Charles Koegel, Elizabeth Livingston, Frodo Mikkelsen, OLEK, Sirikul Pattachote, Patrick Porter, Leon Reid IV, Julia Samuels, Tom Sanford, Chris Stain, Veng, Emma Wasielke, and Fedele Spadafora.

Much appreciation to John Stavros from 320 Studios.

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Getting High on Public Space: Old Rollers and Urban Planning

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.

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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.

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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 3rd 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.

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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.

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Photo © Jaime Rojo

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Photo © Jaime Rojo

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Photo © Jaime Rojo

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

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

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

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

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Photo © Jaime Rojo

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Photo © Jaime Rojo

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Photo © Jaime Rojo

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Photo © Jaime Rojo

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Photo © Jaime Rojo

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Photo © Jaime Rojo

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An old Skullphone wheat paste  (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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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)

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The view looking south (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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The view looking East (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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

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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/

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Logan Hicks Sings “Pretty Ugly” at Opera Tonight

Brooklyn’s Own Logan Hicks Debuts New Solo Show.

brooklyn-street-art-logan-hicks-opera-gallery-5Logan Hicks “Sleepy” (photo © Logan Hicks)

Opera Gallery, that is…as long as we are playing with words.

What you can’t play with is the cinematic experiences Logan is evoking with his black and white portraiture and his ever-growing love affair with architecture, street scenes, industrial machinations and the vanishing point.  Logan produces generously in this show of indoor and outdoor scenes, ever more complex, and now with some abstraction and laser etching for balance. Additional warmth of the regal sort emanates from his commanding portraits, many of them African Chiefs whom he met and photographed last year while working on a project in The Gambia, which he reported on here and here for BSA.

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Logan Hicks “African Chief 2” (photo © Logan Hicks)

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Logan Hicks “Downward Spiral” (photo © Logan Hicks)

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Logan Hicks “African Chief 1” (photo © Logan Hicks)

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Logan Hicks “Artery” (photo © Logan Hicks)

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Logan Hicks “Single Helix” (photo © Logan Hicks)

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Logan Hicks “Artery Study” (photo © Logan Hicks)

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Logan Hicks “African Chief 3” (photo © Logan Hicks)

Logan Hicks’ Pretty Ugly.
Opera Gallery, New York
Opening Reception Thursday, June 2nd
6:00 to 9:00 pm
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Fumero Presents “Fumeroism” At Phantom (Manhattan, NY)

Fumero
brooklyn-street-art-fumero-pahntom-galleryFumero combines the American pop culture of urban art with his caricature-like, figurative paintings. The “wildstyle” letter design, with its highly stylized alphabetical abstractions and decorative embellishments transformes into the dynamic energy of his abstracted human figure. The visually psychological power derives from a technique illustrating a harmonious interaction among bold contour lines, and shapes filled with vivid colors. Within the contours of the hard edged shapes are intense contrasting colors that interact with each other, creating a moving energy that powerfully projects outward to the viewer.

As a little boy at the age of four, Fumero discovered that he liked to draw. Beginning with stick figures to oval shapes, by age five he began to copy newspaper comics such as, Ziggy and Snoopy. At the same time, family visits from New Jersey to the Bronx exposed him to the graffiti painted New York City subway trains. Looking out of the car window and starring at the trains’ vibrantly painted cartoons and colorfully animated 3-D lettering fascinated him as a child and left an impression that would resurface later on.

At the age of thirteen, Fumero began to create graffiti-style lettering starting with colored markers on paper and ventured onto walls with simple tags and bubble letter throw-ups. By fourteen, Fumero completed his first 4 colored piece and graffiti became Fumero’s primary artistic focus. To Fumero, graffiti was simply an added extension of cartooning and provided a means to explore lines, shapes, colors and letter design in a new and exciting way. The remaining teenage years focused on graffiti art and the development of his cartoon characters, letter styles and color schemes which filled his sketchbook. After high school Fumero attended county college in New Jersey as a graphic design major and then went to the School of Visual Arts in New York City, as a cartooning/illustration major. At SVA, Fumero developed a personal style and the infancy of Fumeroism was born.


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