Opening

Iona College Arts Center Presents: “Street Legal-Gratiffyti: Seslow & Borbay on Canvas” (New Rochelle, NY)

January 20, 2012 , , , ,

Seslow-Borbay

 

GALLERY EXHIBITION “Street Legal – Gratiffyti: Seslow & Borbay on Canvas”
A notion verses the actuality of street art – two varying concepts, yet one in the same. By way of color, collage, composition and explosive impressionism; artists Borbay and Ryan Seslow delve into the pulse of “Gotham”, on canvas, on board, off the tax payers ledger. This exhibition biopsies the street art experience, with no mention of the inside, or outside, of a box.

When: January 22 – February 23

Where: The Brother Kenneth Chapman Gallery Iona College Arts Center

Admission:free admission

Opening Reception: Sunday, January 22, 1:00- 3:00 pm Meet the artist Gallery Tour: Thursday, February 16, 6:30 pm

Read more

Corey Helford Gallery Presents: Pure Evil. Pure Evil Goes Pop! (Culver City, CA)

January 19, 2012 , , , , , , ,

Pure Evil

Corey Helford Gallery
Los Angeles, CA
presents new works by
PURE EVIL – Pure Evil Goes Pop!

Opening Reception Saturday, January 21, 2012 from 7-10pm On View January 21 – February 8, 2012

On Saturday, January 21, 2012, Corey Helford Gallery will present PURE EVIL GOES POP! PURE EVIL’s first solo exhibition at the gallery.

“The show is inspired by Warhol and Rosenquist and by the 60’s and is a departure from a lot of the street art based work I have been doing.. I was inspired by Warhol’s diaries and his manic obsession to paint beautiful famous people. At a certain point he realised that he had kind of lost the plot, and he was kind of losing ground to new school graffiti artists like Basquiat and Haring and they gave him the boot up the arse he needed.

I was inspired by an email I got from a copy village in China, they sent me a list of all the paintings from the world of art that they could reproduce for me and I was struck by the fact that they had distilled Warhol’s entire career down to 3 works, an electric chair, a Jackie Kennedy and a Liz Taylor.. All available for cheap ! A whole life that had been turned into 3 tiny thumbnails available to buy NOW. Warhol would have loved the joke. I decided to run with the idea and turn myself into a copy village .

Edward Albee’s film ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ starring Taylor and Burton brilliantly illustrates a nightmare couple who use alcohol to fuel anguish and emotional pain towards each other. I was amazed at the film and so I did a painting of ‘Richard Burton’s Nightmare’ / Liz Taylor’ and a print in 2 POP colourways and 2 months later, Liz died… Sales started to grow as the obituaries and TV specials morbidly repeated the same details of her life and her loves over and over again. “

The upstairs gallery will feature new works by UK artist Pure Evil. Inspired by Warhol, Rosenquist and the 60s, the collection entitled -Pure Evil Goes Pop!- is a departure from the artist$)A&Ps street art work and cel- ebrates Warhol&Ps obsession with capturing beautiful, famous people. Icon Elizabeth Taylor is immortalized in the painting -Richard Burton&Ps Nightmare,- created from a palette of strange hues with subliminal meanings.

-I have kept this whole collection of paintings very simple,- Pure Evil explains. $)A!]The features of the women are simplified down to the most basic lines possible, cut into three stencil layers with a sharp blade, and labori- ously sprayed to build up the faces. The eyes drip painted tears, the product of broken dreams of love.!\
The opening reception for -Pure Evil Goes Pop!- and -It$)A&Ps a Jungle Out There- by Eric Joyner is on Saturday January 21 at Corey Helford Gallery. The reception is open to the public, and the exhibition will be on view through February 8, 2012.

8522 Washington Boulevard Culver City, CA 90232 T: 310-287-2340

Read more

Opera Gallery Presents: “Making Faces” A Group Show (Manhattan, NY)

January 18, 2012 , , , , ,

MPaking Faces

Paul Insect (image © courtesy of the gallery)

Eric Allouche and the Opera Gallery team are pleased to present Making Faces, a group survey show bringing together a global collection of artists from a variety of time periods and styles to interpret the theme of portraiture. A once and still great exploratory genre, portraiture is the tool in which the artist can tell a thousand stories about their subject, whether real or imaginary, with one brushstroke or one drop of ink. Through these artists, Making Faces demonstrates how the aesthetics of portraiture is one of the best vehicles for artistic creativity and expression, technical mastery and the evocation of emotional strength.

Each artist participating in Making Faces has the ability to widely manipulate and interpret their portrait through their own specific and unique artistic abilities encompassing a wide variety of mediums including oil on canvas, matchsticks and photography. Artists such as Yasmina Alaoui and Marco Guerra have the ability to evoke serene emotions through their photographs while contemporary Chinese artist Yan Pei Ming invites the viewer into his dark portrait through his use of rough charcoal strokes. Realistic master portraitists like Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Bernard Buffet share wall space with abstract and fantastical contemporary artists such as BÄST and B.

Additional Making Faces artists include Gerard Rancinan, Karel Appel, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Marc Chagall, Jean Dubuffet, Bengt Lindstrom, Henri Matisse, Joan Miro, Pablo Picasso, Simon Birch, Lita Cabellut, Sas Christian, Paul Insect, Dinorah Delfin, Lori Earley, John John Jesse, Kid Zoom, Ron English, Philippe Pasqua, Rostarr, Judith Supine, Xiao Gang Zhang, Tianbing Li, Alexandros Vasmoulakis, Maura Corda and David Mach.

Making Faces
January 27- February 19
Free admission: 11:00 – 7:00 daily
Read more

Anonymous Gallery Presents: “Casa de Empeño” A Group Show (Mexico City, MX)

January 16, 2012 , , , , ,

Casa de Empeño

Casa de Empeño

February 2 – March 31

Opening reception: February 9, 8 – 10 pm

———— Casa de Empeño is a group exhibition based conceptually on the function a pawnshop and serves to re-examine current systems of economy, currency and exchange.

This April 9 in Mexico City Anonymous Gallery is opening a group exhibition based conceptually on the function of a pawnshop and serves to examine current systems of economy, currency and exchange. The entire 3,000 sqft of Anonymous Gallery (D.F.) will be re-designed to replicate a pawnshop environment. Based on the value of the artwork, the gallery will provide unique opportunities for collectors to own distinctive works of art through sale, loan or even trade.

At any given time, pawnshops might have an inventory that includes jewelry, gold, coins, computers, digital cameras, radios, tools, musical instruments, DVD movies, cell phones, dj equipment, bikes, books, paintings, prints, weapons, clothes, furniture, and more. Casa de empeño will feature a compelling and diverse array of artists from all over the world who create relatable objects through painting, film, photography, sculpture, drawing, print, editions and merchandise:

Paintings by artists such as Kadar Brock and Matt Jones, sculpture that includes plush gold jewelry by Megan Whitmash and luxury accessories like Birkin Bags by Shelter Serra, jewelry by Orly Genger designed by Jacklyn Mayer jaclynmayer.com. Electronics and monitors showing films from Kasper Sonne and David Ellis. Editions from Clayton Brothers, Todd James, Evan Gruzis, photographs from Tim Barber and Richard Kern, and furniture design from Chic by Accident. The exhibition will also feature a library of artist developed books, zines, magazines, posters, and museum catalogues for sale from institutions including MUAC and Carillo Hill.

In a typical pawnshop customers pledge property as collateral, and in return, pawnbrokers lend them money. When customers pay back the loan, their merchandise is returned to them. Anonymous Gallery however, will be providing several opportunities for its customers:

1) Purchase
a. customers can purchase available inventory at the available retail price.

2) Trade
a. Customers can offer a provided service of equal or greater value in exchange for selected artwork.
b. Customers can offer another item of equal or greater value in exchange for valuable artwork.

3) Loan
a. Throughout the duration of the exhibition customers can loan and consign works of art to the gallery for sale at an agreed retail price.
b. Customers can borrow or rent artworks for a specified duration of time based on a fee established by the gallery and selected artist.

Read more

Fourth Wall Project Presents: “Street Wall” A Group Show (Boston, MA)

January 16, 2012 , , ,

Street Wall

 

Opening Reception February 4th, 2012. 7pm-9pm

Street Wall is an exhibition dedicated to artists who work on city walls to create public art.  The artists highlighted in the exhibition are creating an installation directly on the gallery walls.  Each artist is given a 2 to 4 panel section of wall space on the interior of the gallery for them to wheat paste work in the gallery resulting in pristine versions of their public work as well as initiating a collaboration in close quarters.  Curated by William Stitt at Fourth Wall Project in Boston. The show runs from Feb. 4 – Feb. 23

The Artists

LNY, Radical!, Tiptoe, Nanook, The Phantom, Geoff Hargadon, Zatara and Blackmath.  LA artist, The Phantom, has been working as a street artist internationally for over twenty years.  He has directed videos for Rage Against the Machine and has also done their cover album art for “The Battle of LA.”  Local Boston based artists Zatara and Blackmath have been working primarily in the area but have travelled all over to bring their unique work to the streets. Zatara uses collected screen printed images that combines visually overstimulating scenarios of apocalyptic visions of society.  Blackmath employs large woodcut prints in his wheat paste work.  Intricate and beautiful it plays on emotions that are both whimsical and dark.  Geoff Hargadon’s “Cash For Your Warhols” signs can be seen all over cities internationally. His collection of signs are part social experiment, making the viewer question its reality in our capitalist heavy landscape. New Jersey artist LNY’s work is both visually stimulating and carries an energy of offbeat images. New York based artists Tiptoe and Radical! have been populating the streets with their images. Tiptoe uses mythological imagery in his savage and beautiful images that cause the commonplace walls in which they are pasted to become something more ethereal. Radical! Works both on the streets and off employing scenes of darkly comedic characters. Nanook, from Baltimore, uses humans and animals in his animated line work wheat pastes. The style of his works moves perfectly on the walls of abandoned Baltimore buildings as well as in the gallery. Live screen printing by Antidesigns.

Fourth Wall Project

Founded in 2009, by the Bodega Crew with a goal of creating more places for punks to loiter, artists to flourish, and more voices to be heard.

The idea was to turn dormant commercial spaces into pop up gallery spaces reclaiming urban space for public art projects and progressive exhibitions.  We keep it independent/free form and curate cultural artifacts for the neighborhood. We settled into our current location at 132 Brookline Ave. Boston MA 02215 a wonderful 3,000 square foot gallery with many possibilities.

 

 

 

Read more

White Walls Presents: Skewville “Playground Tactics” (San Francisco, CA)

January 13, 2012 , , , ,

Skewville

White Walls is pleased to present “Playground Tactics,” an intriguing collection of new works by Brooklyn-based artists Skewville, curated by Tova Lobatz. This will be Skewville’s first solo project with White Walls, with approximately 30 pieces and an installation that w…ill encompass and connect the Skewville style to the indoor space. The opening reception will be Saturday, January 14, from 7-11 pm, and the exhibition is free and open to the public for viewing through February 4, 2012.

As the artistic duo known infamously as Skewville, twin brothers Ad and Droo, gained recognition in the late nineties with their fake wooden sneakers tossed over telephone lines. While continuing a heavy presence in the public art forum since then, Skewville has also entered galleries with varying size of artworks on plywood, and a focus on installation. A constant source of the brothers’ inspiration is the New York City lifestyle- including graffiti, fashion, and urban expression. To create this urban experience, Skewville looks for mediums outside the canvas and paints on found objects with house paints.

“Playground Tactics” will feature large-scale and complex fine artworks themed around the old school city playground, a place where Skewville spent much of their time during adolescents. These city playgrounds set the scene for the artists’ young minds to flourish and experiment with worldly ideas and concepts. Skewville will use the playground to go back to the roots of exploration and translate that imagination into the gallery setting. Stylistally known for using urban materials, the brothers will not disappoint on that front, and may incorporate found objects and vintage toys from their past.

From the artists:

“The Ideology of Skewville came outta a crooked building filled with our collectibles and antiques we got at yard sales…hundreds of board games, lunch boxes, Star Wars, all that good stuff. We collected a lot of stuff that our mother ended up selling off at yard sales so as young adults we tried to buy back our childhood. We intend on using a lot of these oldschool items in the work and installations.

As twins, growing up with a constant playground companion always put us above the curve, but always being given a single identity (i.e. “the twins”) has always made us separately want to strive harder for our own style. Even as Kids we were always on a mission to change things up, from building club houses to making Slingshots while the rest of the kids were playing stickball. Still decades later we are still making art outside and playing with their environment, as well as still building sculptures, painting, and now printmaking and installations. Most people try to relieve their youth, while Skewville has maybe never let it go. So this random childlike energy that keeps evolving our aesthetic into new mediums has tactfully become known as the Skewville Style.”

Playground Tactics opens this Saturday, January 14th, 2012
White Walls
835 Larkin
San Francisco, CA

Read more

Wunderkammern Gallery Presents “Nature’s Revenge” LUDO Solo Show (Rome, Italy)’

January 12, 2012 , , , , ,

LUDO

Wunderkammern presents the young urban artist Ludo for his first solo show in Italy,: nature, both magnificent and menacing, challenges humankind from the walls of the city.

On show in Rome from 21st January at Wunderkammern, where he is making his first appearance
in Italy, the young French artist Ludo is one of the most innovative and promising on the urban art
scene. He has left his mark in major cities throughout the world (Paris, London, Zurich, Oslo, New
York, Los Angeles and Chicago), with surreal and bewildering works that are perfectly integrated
with the context in which he places them.

Ludo’s creatures emerge from reassuring greyscale images blended with acid green that is poured
onto paper, sending out a message of humility for contemporary society. Elegant and vindictive,
the artist’s creations belong in fact to the series Nature’s Revenge and Bugs: plants and insects
drawn with botanic precision, which have evolved into mechanical, chemical and technological
hybrids as a way of defending themselves against people’s aggression.

With his latest series, entitled Co-Branding, major brands like Chanel, Dior, Calvin Klein, H&M and
Benetton are transformed into aggressive and inappropriate images that nonetheless seem
perfectly in line with the aesthetic canons of contemporary publicity, thus contrasting consumers’
inurement to bombardment by multinational brands promoting luxury and much more.

On the occasion of his exhibition at Wunderkammern, Ludo will present a series of works on paper
and canvas from the series Nature’s Revenge and Co-Branding, as well as sculptures created
specifically for the gallery. Images of a proud and haunting nature, where the aesthetic canons of
advertising are filtered by the artist’s ironic and mocking eye.

WUNDERKAMMERN
via Gabrio Serbelloni 124, Roma
web: www.wunderkammern.net
email: wunderkammern@wunderkammern.net
Tel: +390645435662
ingresso gratuito

Read more

Klughaus Gallery Presents: Jesse Edwards “Dialogue of the Streets” (Manhattan, NY)

January 12, 2012 , , , , ,

Jesse Edwards
“Dialogue of the Streets” will feature a selection of Edwards’ strongest paintings produced over the last two years, including the classic landscapes and unconventional still lifes he is known for. Edwards’ rare appeal lies in a uniquely successful ability to cross-pollinate the classical 19th Century style of the Old Masters he idolizes with a contemporary subject matter from his personal street life. His oils on canvas are as likely to depict a marijuana plant or a crack pipe as they are a calming Tompkins Square landscape. A still life of a Playboy, a sock, and a jar of Vaseline is rendered as tenderly as a sweeping view of a Pacific Northwest park.

Opening Reception:
Date: Friday, January 13, 2012
Time: 6:00pm-10:00pm
Location: 47 Monroe Street New York, NY 10002

Read more

Evolve Gallery Presents: “Ali: The Greatest” A Group Show (Sacramento, CA)

January 12, 2012 , , , , ,

Ali The Greatest

“Ali: The Greatest”  celebrates and commemorates Muhammad Ali’s 70th birthday.

“Ali: The Greatest”
A fine art exhibition and tribute to boxing legend Muhammad Ali’s 70th Birthday
January 12 – 28, 2012

Featuring: Adrian Pickett, Alvin Burts, Alex Forster, Corey Pickett, Charly Palmer, Gerry GOS” Simpson, Frank Morrison, Joe Iurato, James Gayles, James Henninger, Kadir Nelson, Kevin OKeith, Kelvin Curry, Kinzie Davis, Lauren Gillette, Lisa Alonzo, Paul Goodnight, Tim Okamura, Charles Bibbs, Michael Grattan, Michael Brennan, and David P. Flores.

Preview Reception – Thursday, January 12th (6pm-9pm)
Opening Reception – Saturday, January 14th (6pm-10pm)

Evolve Gallery
2907 35th Street, Sacramento, California 95817
Gallery Hours: Thursday through Saturday |1-6pm | Please call first (916) 572-5123

Read more

Robyn Hasty AKA Imminent Disaster: Journey Across The Heartland

January 12, 2012 , , , , ,

About a year ago you may remember the Kickstarter banner we ran on BSA to raise money for New York Street Artist Robyn Hasty AKA Imminent Disaster to travel across the US capturing portraits with a very old photographic process for a project called “Homeland”.  The campaign was successful, and despite an episode where her car “Cecelia” completely broke down and needed a new engine, Robyn set out to find another side of the country, seen through a new set of eyes. The first portrait result we saw was the image she put in BSA’s show last August in LA, but tonight you have the opportunity to see her first real exhibition of this work at Kesting/Ray Gallery in Manhattan. In addition she’ll be showing new cut paper  works that many will be familiar with from her work on the street as Imminent Disaster in the late 00s.

Robyn Hasty (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Over the course of 15,000 miles with her wet plate collodion camera and her chemicals in hand, Robyn set out on a road trip across the country to take photographs of people living outside the established urban settings and gridwork that forms much of the US. These simple and complex works are “magical alchemy”, according to Hasty.

“Every time I took a picture it just surprised me how it looks when it comes up. The camera doesn’t see like your eye sees. So every time you see what the camera sees – it’s a discovery.”

The new portraits bring to mind the work of the late master photojournalist from Hoboken, New Jersey Dorothea Lange (1895-1965). Ms. Lange documented with her arresting images the plight of the migrant workers during the great depression for the Farm Security Administration from 1935 to 1939. Now amidst our great recession, her wet plate collodian tintype produce beautiful portraits of her subjects that seem strangely akin to those subjects of that time – captured in their surroundings as they live today.

Robyn Hasty. New Orleans (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ms. Hasty took a few moments from hanging the show to talk about the new work with Brooklyn Street Art.

Brooklyn Street Art: What did you think you were going to discover
Robyn Hasty: I guess I was hoping to find relationships between a community that I’ve been working with in New York, and across the country in various ways, to see how that community kind of extended beyond those boundaries and was formulating into a movement. It is a national movement creating an alternative way of living that is different from the capitalist system.

Brooklyn Street Art: In a way you kind of envisioned, or saw in a some way, what happened at Zuccoti Park but in different parts of the country?
Robyn Hasty: I think the thing that was significant about Occupy Wall Street was that it started in New York and within weeks it had spread to most other cities in the country. That seems to indicate that there is actually an unrest and a unity between people who feel that they want radical change and I think I do see a lot of commonalities with the different people I met. An overlap in ideologies; they may not agree in ideologies and there may not be an established ideology that is stated, that has been formalized.

Robyn Hasty. Brooklyn, NY (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: You encountered people you didn’t know. Was it difficult for them to say yes to posing? How did you approach them?
Robyn Hasty: Most people were receptive to it. I just introduced myself and sometimes I would chat for a while and then eventually I’d show them the wet plates I’d already taken and ask them if they wanted to be involved in the project and have their portrait taken. Usually they said yes.  There were a few cases where they said no.

 

Robyn Hasty. St. Louis, MO (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: What sort of inspiration do you get from these people?
Robyn Hasty: I feel like I choose the portraits that I take because I feel a connection to my subjects, like as a cohort. I respect what they are doing. I am inspired by what they are doing, and I feel like there is kind of an overlap between what we’re trying to do in our lives.  Based on that relationship, it is the reason why I’m taking the portrait and what I’m trying to convey in the portrait to other people.

Brooklyn Street Art: What was it like traveling across the country? Was it ever lonely?
Robyn Hasty: I rarely felt lonely. I think I had a very positive experience because I realized how large the country is, how beautiful it is, how many opportunities there are to build and to re-envision it. I think I saw that from traveling across it.

Robyn’s large scale, cut paper portraits for which she is mostly known with her work on the streets are part of this show as well.

Robyn Hasty. Self Portrait (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Robyn Hasty. Detail (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Robyn Hasty (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Robyn Hasty (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Robyn Hasty (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

The original banner we ran on BSA for the Kickstarter fundraiser. (left)

For more information and complete details about tonight’s show “On the River…” opening at Kesting/Ray Gallery, click here.

Read more

Featured Video | Martin Wong’s “Houston Street”

Recent Articles on BSA