Manhattan

Woodward Gallery Presents: Kenji Nakayama Solo Exhibition “Kenji Nakayama” (Manhattan, New York)

April 30, 2012 , , , , ,

Kenji Nakayama

KENJI NAKAYAMA
May 5 – July 7, 2012

Announcing the first, New York solo exhibition by Japanese born and Boston-based Artist Kenji Nakayama. Simply entitled Kenji Nakayama, this must-see exhibition will be the most extensive presentation of his art to date, featuring photorealistic, hand-cut stencil, spray enamel, acrylic and mixed media paintings.

Nakayama’s dedication and work ethic is unprecedented and very well respected. A mechanical engineer by formal education, Kenji Nakayama made a significant and resolute life change in 2004 moving from his home in Hokkaido, Japan. Bringing his cultural heritage to the United States, Nakayama incorporates Japanese and American influences within traditional sign painting techniques.

Kenji became involved with street art to document and respond to his surrounding environment, and as a method to capture significant moments in his daily life. His elaborate process involves crafting original, hand-cut, multi-layer stencils which become one complete image when illuminated with colorful spray enamel. This deeply personal technique serves as a diary from start to finish. In the studio, each intricately cut stencil painting often takes months to complete combining hours of concentration with a spiritualistic and meditative-like disposition.

Soon after Kenji’s arrival to the States, he met Director John Woodward and was challenged with the opportunity to paint the outdoor wall on their Project Space. This was followed by an invitation to exhibit another large scale installation in the Bank of America, SoHo. People were in awe of Kenji’s complex murals. The public continues to show great support by embracing this Artist for his quiet determination, skill and exciting new contribution to our culture.

Kenji Nakayama left his homeland driven to develop and master high levels of detail with an intense discipline in his art. Kenji describes, “My process is like dust. Each little grain and speck adds up, and soon becomes a mountain.”

Woodward Gallery welcomes Kenji Nakayama for an exhibition not to be missed.
Please join us at the Artist Reception Saturday, May 5th, 2012: from 6-8 pm

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Images of the Week 04.29.12

April 29, 2012 , , , ,

It’s all hot chicks and fast space shuttles this week on BSA’s Images of the Week as Street Art duo Faile’s new surprise mini-show ties both themes together quite powerfully. In a sudden burst of sexy serendipity the streets have been popping up with Street Art depictions of poised and purty dames and Faile’s quickie opening Thursday night had some of the same ladies in their artworks, gazed upon by the real thing in attendance. As one of the Patricks talked about their new tiled project down the street and the reoccurring imagery of the Space Shuttle “Challenger” in their canvasses, we could not have imagined the throngs of New Yorkers running to the Hudson River the following morning to watch the real Space Shuttle Enterprise fly across our sky, piggy-backing a 747.

The shuttle “Enterprise” will be at the Air and Space Museum, most of these Faile pieces will go to happy homes, and with any luck we’ll all have these pretty women on the streets all summer.

All photos courtesy BSA’s own Jaime Rojo – also featuring work this week from Dain, Stikman, and Free Your Mind.

Faile (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sincere Thanks to Hotel Wythe, Vice Magazine for their hospitality at the show.

Faile (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Faile (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Faile (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Faile (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Faile (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Faile (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The Space Shuttle “Enterprise” taking a ride over New York City on Friday. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Faile’s work often has included recurring images, including this one of the space shuttle “Challenger” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Faile (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Faile’s arcade pieces from the Delux Fluxx show two years ago with BAST   (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Artist Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Artist Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dain (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Stikman (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Free Your Mind (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Free Your Mind (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled (photo © Jaime Rojo)

To read about Faile’s 104 N. 7th Project click here.

 

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Dorian Gray Gallery Presents: GroupGraff: 30 Years of Public Dialogue (Manhattan, NY)

April 27, 2012 , , , , ,

Dorian Gray Gallery

30 years of Public Dialogue

Exhibition Dates: April 13 through May 16, 2012
Reception April 28th, 5-8 pm. RSVP

Dorian Grey Gallery presents an exhibition spanning thirty years of pivotal graffiti artists and writers whose work have helped define the medium and style. Featured works include such iconic New York names as Keith Haring, LA 2, Futura, Richard Hambleton, COPE 2, & CRASH. International artists such as Bansky and DOLK are paired with the modern innovators XAM, SeeOne, Penn & AVone.

The Dorian Grey Gallery, 437 East 9th Street between 1st Ave and Ave A., NY, NY
Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Sunday 12a-7p.
Subway stop: #6 Astor Place. Free Admission.
CONTACT: Christopher Pusey, 516-244-4126, info@doriangreygallery.com
Official Dorian Grey Gallery music site: www.crackedlatin.com

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EVOL “Repeat Offender” in Manhattan

April 19, 2012 , , , ,

Berlin-based Street Artist Evol is now having his first solo gallery show in the US at New York’s Jonathan LeVine in Chelsea and it is an uncommon opportunity to see his ingenious mind up close.  As many artists working on the street know, it is possible to imagine a world in the mottled scarred façade of a surface, and here Evol shows what he can do with cardboard and metal.

Evol “Repeat Offender” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A product designer by training, Evols’ detailed lines and careful attention to the finer points of the most unromantic architecture of the metropolis somehow makes you smile, even as it attests to his command of the multi-layered stencil technique. Repeat Offender miniaturizes the large-scale impersonal utilitarian repetitiveness of institutional design and brings the buildings into your careful consideration of their exterior and the possible nature of their interior.  At that moment, he’s got you – having successfully transformed a surface into a world.

Evol “Repeat Offender” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Evol “Repeat Offender” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Evol “Repeat Offender” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Evol “Repeat Offender” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Evol “Repeat Offender” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Evol “Repeat Offender” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Evol “Repeat Offender” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Evol “Repeat Offender” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Evol “Repeat Offender” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Evol “Repeat Offender” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Evol “Repeat Offender” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Evol “Repeat Offender” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Evol “Repeat Offender” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Curious to know how Evol makes his stencil art? Find out the answer in the vid below from Evol:

 

 

Evol “Repeat Offender” is currently on view at the Jonathan Levine Gallery. Click here for more information regarding this show.

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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!

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Kraftwerk At MoMA

April 16, 2012 , , , , , , ,

Stylized Leaders of the Computerized Electronic Revolution at MoMA

First as D.I.Y. experimenters and visionaries, then leaders in a nearly empty field, then as inspiring catalysts for man-machine marriage, Kraftwerk paved the way for millions of musicians, programmers, DJs, rappers, and fans to integrate a mechanized electronic precision into the modern musical oeuvre.  At a time when the youth movement was peacing out and getting high with arena rock and disco, Kraftwerk was turning itself into robots and its vinyl platters were getting play in New York house parties as an ideal futuristic soundtrack to integrate with lyrics, riffs and samples.  With New Wave, House, and Techno music all spawned with those same programmed beats, voices, and influences, now in the 2010s we acknowledge that a wide spectrum of musical categories, recordings, and performances contain a significant part of Kraftwerk’s digital DNA.

 

Kraftwerk. Museum of Modern Art, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A teenager in the early 80s listening to Man Machine and Computer World would have thought that Kraftwerk were geekily impressing each other with their sweeping vision of a future daily existence where people and robots interact via  smart electronic devices and programs. Not only did each year afterward bring us many steps further into their outlandish computerized vision, it may be that they partially ushered it in with their undulating funky precision and robotic wit. And so it is in New York now that “Kraftwerk Week” is blowing away a roomful of people who are holding up their personal glowing rectangles toward the stage at the Museum of Modern Art. Over the course of 8 consecutive nights they appear as slightly human robots to perform one of their albums in it’s entirety, followed by a very satisfying collection of favorites.

The retrospective Kraftwerk 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 brings a vision of the current band members poised before their master controls while 3-D visuals crisply fly into your face with elements of aerospace, rail travel, and the pumping machinations of human propelled progress.  Swelling pulsating vistas are punctuated by text and funnily low-tech robotic movements – all infused with a sense of classical European styling. As pure and total fans we were extremely lucky to have attended one of the performances and we felt like witnesses to an historic event that testified to the influence of 4 decades of experimentation but also displayed a delightfully stellar quality of skill and performance.

Naturally, these photos were shot on our personal hand-held computers.

Kraftwerk. Museum of Modern Art, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kraftwerk. Museum of Modern Art, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kraftwerk. Museum of Modern Art, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kraftwerk. Museum of Modern Art, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kraftwerk. Museum of Modern Art, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kraftwerk. Museum of Modern Art, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kraftwerk. Museum of Modern Art, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kraftwerk. Museum of Modern Art, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kraftwerk. Museum of Modern Art, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kraftwerk. Museum of Modern Art, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kraftwerk. Museum of Modern Art, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!

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Images of the Week: 04.08.12

April 8, 2012 , , , , ,

Our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Anarkia, Gaia, Sien, Stem, Tats Cru, Woebots, Velma from Scooby Doo and XAM.

Anarkia (photo @ Jaime Rojo)

Gaia (photo @ Jaime Rojo)

This version of Velma looks a little sexified. Mysterious. Artist Unknown (photo @ Jaime Rojo)

Tats Cru (photo @ Jaime Rojo)

Who’s your Daddy? Here is a brand new DNA testing truck coming soon to a corner near you. Tats Cru redefines the use of the taco truck in this work in progress for a commercial company…stay tuned. (photo @ Jaime Rojo)

How’s this for a tag? XAM. (photo @ Jaime Rojo)

The new right wing Republican slogan? Artist Unknown (photo @ Jaime Rojo)

Woebots (photo @ Jaime Rojo)

Sien and Stem (photo @ Jaime Rojo)

Artist Unknown (photo @ Jaime Rojo)

Artist Unknown (photo @ Jaime Rojo)

Untitled (photo @ Jaime Rojo)

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OLEK Queen of Crocheted Expressionism – With Balloons

March 29, 2012 , , ,

Crochet and knitting used to be for girls only. They would learn how to knit early in their training for their married life. Some girls were trained at finishing school while others learned it in an arts and crafts class.  Often the trades you learned were split by gender – Mr. Arbunk, the Shop teacher, was teaching the boys how to make bird houses or hammered metal ashtrays while across the hall Miss Fortune, the Home Economics teacher, was showing the girls how to calculate the amount of dry pasta per person to put into the pot. Meanwhile your friends, who were skipping  school, were at home calculating how much pot per person to put into the brownie mix.

These days crochet and knitting is no longer for girls only and is out for all to enjoy and there are actual knitting and crochet classes and clubs for the D.I.Y. generation.  Just take the L train on an average Wednesday and you’ll see one or two young pretty boys and girls busy with their needles or hooks and their Ipods.

Olek and David Peterson “Synthetic Nature” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Maybe that is why the last decade has sprouted knitted art in new ways, and in recent years a handful of Street Artists have been using crochet and knitting as the the medium for their art. Two of the most prominent names, Olek and Knitta Please! have been industrious on the streets of New York, leaving large and small pieces, frequently full of color, their implicit humor lightening our heavy daily routines.

Olek favors covering practical objects that you use on a daily basis such as bikes or shopping carts or baby strollers.  She also likes to make big statements by taking over large iconic monuments and giving them a poppy camouflage coat, literally covering entire sculptures with her art, like the cube at Union Square or the bull at Wall Street.

Olek and David Peterson “Synthetic Nature” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Currently Olek is teaming up with sculptor David Peterson for a new show at the Krause Gallery on the Lower East Side entitled “Synthetic Nature“. Mr. Peterson created a series of boxes/machines to simulate synthesizers and Olek, using balloons this time instead of yarn, interprets the movement of the sound that might emanate from those boxes.  The entire installation is a cacophonic celebration, a sort of kinectic African folk expressionism in neonic color and neo-punk energy.

Speaking of music, if you put Olek’s pieces on and dance you’ll be transformed. In recent exhibitions, Olek has costumed actual people onto the street – 3-D installations with an organic rhythm and movement – balloons and mutlti-colored tentacles bobbing from her form fitting sculpture skins. The movement might recall for some the 1990s nihlist costume rockers Slipknot, minus the Aryan overtones and extended middle finger.  It’s conceivable, even knittable, that this kind of handmade expression could take hold of the popular imagination and spread through the streets of Occupy Nation, given the enthusiasm of this professor.

Olek and David Peterson “Synthetic Nature” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Olek and David Peterson “Synthetic Nature” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Olek and David Peterson “Synthetic Nature” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Olek and David Peterson “Synthetic Nature” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Olek and David Peterson “Synthetic Nature” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Olek and David Peterson “Synthetic Nature” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“Synthetic Nature” By Ian Sklarsky

“Synthetic Nature” is currently on view at the Krause Gallery in Manhattan. For further information regarding this show click here.

 

 

 

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Rusted Metal: Canvas and Collaborator on the Streets

March 27, 2012 , , , ,

Street Art is ephemeral. That, for the most part is true. Unless we consider the role that the Internet plays in the way most people experience it. Then it doesn’t seem ephemeral at all.

From the moment a piece of Street Art appears, its evolution begins. Transformed by the elements; rain, sun, the rusting and oxidation of metal, the fading of paper. If you become familiar with a piece on the street, you might see it daily on your way to work or school or the laundromat. Over time it matures, evolves, takes on new characteristics, and eventually disappears.

Today we look at metal and it’s collaborative behavior as art material, its personality, its natural qualities. Industrial lots, garbage bins, heavy old gates secured with chains and locks, scrap yards, untreated wood facades – they all provide a myriad of surfaces, textures, shapes that serve as canvas and collaborator. Over time you observe the aging process of a stencil on a metal plate, or a decaying wheat paste peeling off of it or rusting into it, masking it’s shape onto it. The collaboration of materials and elements can be one of the most beautiful experiences one encounters on the streets, even an enduring one.

Here are some pieces on metal for you to enjoy.

Revs (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Elbow Toe (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Elbow Toe (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kaws (photo © Jaime Rojo)

C215 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

C215 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

C215 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

C215 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bast (photo © Jaime Rojo)

See One (photo © Jaime Rojo)

See One (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The Dude Company (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Anera (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jef Aerosol (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jef Aerosol (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Skewville (photo © Jaime Rojo)

White Cocoa (photo © Jaime Rojo)

NohjColey (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Artist Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The 1% (photo © Jaime Rojo)

QRST (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jolie Routine (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

 

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Images of the Week: 03.18.12

March 18, 2012 , , , ,

Our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Buttless, Curly, Don’t Fret, Droid, ENO, Enzo & Nio, ENO, Eras, Keith Haring, Memo, ND’A, Nev1, Never, Pakpoom Silaphan, Radical!, Read, Sheepman, and Skewville.

Skewville IS NOT ON SALE but you could make him an offer he can’t refuse. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Curly wants to know how much longer he has to toil…any answers? (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Radical and ND’A making a connection.  (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Punk wheat paste. Who is the artist? (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Never . Eras (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sheepman (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sheepman (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nev 1 with girl in her panties. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Enzo & Nio (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Droid . Read (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Buttless helped out Supreme with their ubiquitous yearly banal postering campaign, in much the same way that Faile assisted in 2009 with tiger heads over Lou Reeds’ face. Their big Kate Moss repetition irked a number of Street Artists again this time by mindlessly papering over the individual with the mass message. By the way, is smoking cigarettes the new heroin chic? (photo © Jaime Rojo)

MEMO (photo © Jaime Rojo)

MEMO (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Don’t Fret in Chicago (photo © Don’t Fret)

Pakpoom Silaphan did this portrait of Keith Haring on a vintage Pepsi sign spotted at one of the art fairs last weekend. Might this have been a calculated effort to ride on the success of the Keith Haring retrospective currently on view at the Brooklyn Museum? Maybe it is simply another expression of the well worn practice of re-appropriating pop culture, with Haring clearly now in icon territory. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

We listened for some ambient synthesizer music when this was discovered. ENO (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Artsee Presents: Kemp “Behind her Disguise” (Manhattan, NY)

March 15, 2012 , , , , ,

Kemp

KEMP is an intriguing Irish artist, making his debut solo exhibition in New York City.

KEMP digresses from the traditional features of stencil art, which tend to be represented as flat simple modes of mass-communication sprayed in public spaces. By taking the concept from the political and urban sphere into a studio environment, more akin to the screen printing process, he breaks down the customary limiting stencil strucure by creating multiple layers of depth from light through to shadow. He attacks the formal representations of his selected images by re-introducing detail in certain areas and pulling out and accentuating shapes, where the order of dark to light is not always regarded.

KEMP’s unusual colour choices move away from the type of palette often used by other artists of a similar visual nature, generating vibrancy while still using a predominantly muted palette.

During a trip to Ireland, the co-owner of Artsee, Oleg Rabinovich, became aware of KEMP and invited

him to hold his first American exhibit in the unique space that is Artsee, Battery Park City, NYC.

Behind Her Disguise is a collection of seventeen wood-panel iconic visuals of women, as seen through the KEMP filter. This exhibition was inspired by subculture, pop-art and the cult of celebrity. KEMP emphasises eyes and lips, while preserving the subject’s beauty as other features are flattened, obscured or masked. In selecting the subjects for the exhibition, KEMP chose sometimes beautiful, sometimes dysfunctional, sometimes disturbed women. He elicits an alternative underlying meaning during the process of production, as reflected in the titles of the pieces. KEMP invites the viewer to climb into a piece, wander around and unveil the truth behind her disguise.

KEMP is excited and honoured to introduce the city of New York to his collection and is enthusiastic about building connections with the city and its inhabitants as inspirations for his future work.

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BSA Goes To The Fairs

March 13, 2012 , , ,

So you had to work over the weekend, and then catch up on laundry? No prob!  Check out some of the eye candy we caught at Scope and Fountain. We also walked by Amory but decided against it and checked out the crocuses in the park since it was a warm and sunny day and too much art is too much! No terrific insights except to say that there is a lot of derivative work out there, amongst the rock hard gems, and the chocolately delicious. It’s all subjective of course.

You are all winners, don’t you ever forget that. The Kenton Parker Mirrored Trophy Room for Primary Flight Projects at Scope (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Miru Kim at Scope (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Zevs at Scope (photo © Jaime Rojo)

UFO at Fountain (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dad, what’s a douchbag? Gilf! at Fountain. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A Keith Haring photo from 1985 by Tseng Kwong Chi at Scope. Don’t forget the Keith Haring exhibit opening at the Brooklyn Museum Friday. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon at Fountain for Kesting/Ray Gallery. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A vintage photo of Richard Hambleton at Scope. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Shin Shin and Wing did this photo-collage and then installed on top of it at Fountain. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Reko Rennie at Scope. Would you guess that he’s a street artist from Australia? (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Peter Gronquist at Scope for Shooting Gallery. Get it? (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Blek le Rat at Scope for White Walls Gallery. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Olek welcomes the baby-making set to Fountain. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nick Walker at Scope for Corey Helford. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Crucified by corporations; D*Face’s carved and ebonized cross at Scope for Corey Helford. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A pretty overwhelming photo collage fantasy C-print by Jean-Francoise Rauzier at Scope. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

En Masse paints a van at Fountain. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Performance Art at Fountain. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

Every 1’s a Winner by Hot Chocolate

 

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