Seeing Baltimore With Martha Cooper

The Photographer Takes You On a Tour Through Sowebo

Walking in the street with Martha Cooper is part anthropology, part history, part celebrity, and always discovery. Known for 40 years of documenting with a clear eye the emergence of graffiti and hip hop culture and for introducing it to a world audience, Ms. Cooper will tell you that her primary interest has always been to simply observe closely and let the images speak for themselves.

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With a gentle frankness she repels your impulse to canonize her and her work and prefers to talk about the people she meets and her beloved hometown Baltimore, the site of her six-year photography project in the neighborhood of Sowebo. In much the same way her journalistic intuition led her to Brooklyn to meet graffiti king Dondi in the mid seventies, she has slowly earned the trust and friendship of many people in this neighborhood challenged by dire economics and the influence of drugs and guns.

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White Mike talks to Martha about the mural and some neighborhood news. Mural by Rams, Doke, Soviet and Arik (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tailing Martha, and that’s what you do in an effort to keep up with the photographer with yellow shoelaces, you soon hear young voices calling “Picture Lady!”, “It’s Picture Lady!”. Across the street, up the block, on the stoops, clusters of folk cooling themselves turn their collective heads to see Martha with her heaving backpack clipping up the sidewalk toward them. The littlest among them come right up and bob back and forth talking with animation to her and she answers each question and inquiry about her camera and what she’s been up to.

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Man and his best friend in the shade at the Sowebo festival (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Setting the backpack on the pavement under a tree, she unzips compartments and produces printed photos of the neighbors that she made since the last time she came by. With thanks and some storytelling and maybe another pose for the camera, Ms. Cooper smoothly departs up the block, scanning all sides of the street for more photo opportunities. Here we stop for a tour of a garden, there we see an abandoned lot converted to a grassy lawn-chaired community barbeque, and finally we are upon a large graffiti wall installation. “Welcome to Baltimore!” it cries and within moments some passersby greet her to talk about the piece and pose in front of their names on the rollcall – a tribute to some of the folks in the community.

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Napping on a landing at the Sowebo festival (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Your day includes a street fair with crafts and bands and crabcakes and lemonade that Martha thinks is too watery and skateboarders with tattoos and piercings doing a double take and figuring out how to approach this familiar lady with a giant camera and chat for a moment with her. Many times. Graciously. Finally a small crowd gathers as she shoots a new box truck being painted on this leafy street, with youth piled up on stoops and even sitting on the black pavement of the street for a front row seat while a skateboarder does tricks for just the right flick. It’s community. It’s creativity. It’s Cooper.

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A little girl with her puppy pose for Martha (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Three lil’ sweet rascals hop like popcorn when they see the “Picture Lady” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Action figure in a private garden (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Martha and her cousin Sally take us on a hike over the railroad tracks to a skatepark. One of the riders falls, and Sally digs through her purse to find a band-aid, which he’s too cool to accept. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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An unusual site that is normal for Sowebo; A stable with this beloved cart pony owned by an “Arab”, the old-custom name for local street vendors who sell produce from horse-drawn carts. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Tagged pigeons at the stables (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Street Artist Gaia in downtown Baltimore (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Gaia in downtown Baltimore pays tribute to Martha Cooper by interpreting a photo of hers and pasting it on the street. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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…upon close inspection, Martha approves (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Gaia pays tribute to important people in the history of Baltimore’s downtown  with a retro version of work similar to that of French Street Artist JR. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Gaia in downtown Baltimore (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Gaia in downtown Baltimore (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Unknown artist in downtown Baltimore (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Unknown artist in downtown Baltimore (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Nanook in downtown Baltimore (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Looks like AIKO was in Baltimore (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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As soon as artist Adam Stab got the news that Martha was in town he procured a small truck to paint, and waited until she arrived to begin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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A little lift helps the reach. Adam Stab (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Adam Stab (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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101 KSW in Baltimore (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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The sky going back to NYC (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Ya’ll Are a Bunch of Fashion Chimps! New Print from Faile

5 PM Today!

Faile, the Brooklyn Based Street Art Collective just released a new print today on Paper Monster titled “Fashion Chimps NYC”.

From Paper Monster’s site: “This brand new print from the guys at Faile was a long time in the making, and it shows.  Based on a piece from their 2010 show at Perry Rubenstein Gallery, this 25 color screenprint is done in their recent “block” style which gives the illusion of its 3D sister from the show.”

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Faile “Fashion Chimps NYC”. Detail of piece in progress (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Faile “Fashion Chimps NYC” (photo courtesy of Paper Monster)

Go to Paper Monster to purchase this print by clicking on the link below:

http://papermonster.net/item.php?item=177

From our previous gallery visit with Faile:

The first New York gallery show in three years for Street Art collective Faile opens tomorrow at Rubenstein Gallery; a heavy graphic quilt of past, present, and “jimmer-jam”. With the 12-piece “Bedtime Stories”, Patrick and Patrick debut a densely packed wood painting show of story, texture and humor in a quite intimate setting.

Checking on progress as they finished final pieces last week, Brooklyn Street Art was treated to completed block tapestries and works in progress in their buoyantly buzzing studio. Long days have turned to long nights at the end of this parsing of pieces, and the output exceeds the storage…”

Click below to continue reading:

http://www.brooklynstreetart.com/theblog/?p=15660

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Street Art Update: From Paris With Love

A city steeped in it’s own history and a deep respect for the cultural arts, Paris has also had a romance with New York – style graffiti since the early 1980s and has a thriving Street Art scene of it’s own making today.  In yet another example of institutional recognition of the contribution of graffiti and Street Art, the city hosted an exemplary tribute to graffiti history two years ago with “Graffiti, Born in the Streets,” an exhibition that took over the gallery space of the Fondazione Cartier. The popular show included the building’s façade and the surrounding garden as well as large scale photos of tags and pieces displayed in the Paris Metro on buses, and of course, trains.

Recently photographer Er1cBl41r did a small survey of the Street Art scene in Paris and shares some images here. In this collection we can see that the techniques of stencils (many one-color), wheatpastes, direct painting, illustration, and of course the glued tiles of local street artist Invader are in many locations around the city.

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Banom (photo © Er1cBl41r)

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Ema (photo © Er1cBl41r)

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Unknown (photo © Er1cBl41r)

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Unknown (photo © Er1cBl41r)

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Unknown (photo © Er1cBl41r)

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A classic New York style graff truck from FD Cru (photo © Er1cBl41r)

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Ludo (photo © Er1cBl41r)

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Invader (photo © Er1cBl41r)

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Invader (photo © Er1cBl41r)

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Invader meets Bullwinkle (photo © Er1cBl41r)

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Unknown (photo © Er1cBl41r)

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Popeye (photo © Er1cBl41r)

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Unknown (photo © Er1cBl41r)

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Unknown (photo © Er1cBl41r)

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Unknown (photo © Er1cBl41r)

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Unknown (photo © Er1cBl41r)

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BSA Debut: C215 Tells It Like It Is (Video)

French stencil artist C215 has just released this video, a stylized manifesto of sorts giving his view on his art, his work, and the current state of Street Art.

We are pleased he is participating in “Street Art Saved My Life: 39 New York Stories” this August in LA, and this short but powerful video shows why the stories behind C215’s very personal portraits are some of the most impactful and resilient on the street today.

“I prefer the poetry of small paintings instead of big walls, which are very popular right now in the graffiti scene, but a bit fascistic.”

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Images of the Week 06.05.11

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Our weekly interview with the Streets, this week including images from New York, Detroit, and Amsterdam, and work by C215, Dan Sabau, El Sol 25, Gilf!, Goons, Karma, Nice-One, and Specter.

brooklyn-street-art-c215-jaime-rojo-06-11-webC215 (photo © Jaime Rojo) C215 says he has put more than 90 stencils in Williamsburg in the last three years…we just found another.

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Street Artist Gilf! has been trying something new by adding to her stencils a bit of  toule, which is a departure from earlier work and a hard word to try and pronounce.

Gilf! (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Gilf! (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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El Sol 25 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Dan Sabau (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Goons meditates and levitates (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Nice-One continues with his series of fantastic space ships  (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Nice-One has suddenly appeared in many places in BK, including this large wall directly over a long running Lister (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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A portrait on a postal mailing sticker in marker, cut out. Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Specter on a flash trip to Detroit managed to paint this stark black portrait on a boarded up building (photo © Specter)

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Specter (photo © Specter)

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Karma in the Chinatown section of Amsterdam (photo © Courtesy of the artist)

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Karma in Amsterdam (photo © Courtesy of the artist)

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Raarrrrhhrhrhhrrr! Veng Chomps Through Another Giant Wall (Bushwick)

Street Artist and burly bear Veng came out of hibernation this spring with a roaring hunger for walls and so far he’s foraged plenty of them in BKLN. From the breezy shores of La Isla Conejo to the rusty thickets of Bushwick, the borough of Brooklyn has a few hundred feet more of aerosol paint since this guy poked his head out of the cave during the thaw.

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Veng (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Just this week we found him placidly smacking his choppers and savoring the last taste of lunch while sitting on a sidewalk and surveying the sweeping Veng Vista across the street; almost one entire block length wall that he’s completing this weekend for the big Bushwick Open Studios 2011.

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Now in it’s 5th year and produced by the volunteer army Arts in Bushwick, the studios and streets are fair game for visitors and artists of all stripes and abilities. Each year it is entertaining and educational to witness who’s moved on, who’s still hanging on, and who’s just arrived to claim credit for it all. Veng is one of the hangers-on; in fact one of the starter-uppers when it comes to Street Art here.

As we reported yesterday, Factory Fresh Gallery has two entries in this year’s festival, a veritable double bill of Indoor and Outdoor. Inside the gallery is “Surrealism,” perhaps in honor of the British-born Mexican Surrealist Master Leonora Carrington who passed away May 25th or perhaps to acknowledge Surrealism’s many currents running through pop culture and street culture today.

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Veng (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The Outside portion showcases the “Bushwick Art Park”, FF’s entry to the New Museum’s Festival of Ideas, which proposes to build an art park on this very block of Vandevoort Place where Veng is painting. No stranger to surrealism himself, Veng often depicts his characters in other-worldly portraits with birds as hats and hats as boats and intricately detailed scenes nested within scenes.

These process shots from Thursday show him trampling along on the immense wall and by Friday he told us he’d be done. You’ll need to check this one yourself to verify. While bears can move fast sometimes, they also tend to favor long naps.

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Veng (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Veng (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Veng (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Veng (photo © Jaime Rojo). Brick walls make Veng very happy as he loves this pattern and the demarcation of the bricks makes his job a lot easier.  He was beaming with joy.

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Ah Summer: At the base of Veng’s ladder this dandelion stood sunny and willful amidst the aerosol fumes and drips and the trash (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Veng (photo © Jaime Rojo)

To learn more about Factory Fresh “Surrealism” Show click below:

http://www.brooklynstreetart.com/theblog/?p=21418

To learn more about “Bushwick Art Park” click below:

http://www.brooklynstreetart.com/theblog/?p=21422

For a complete and detailed listing of all the events taking place at BOS2011 click below:

http://www.brooklynstreetart.com/theblog/?p=21389

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Fun Friday 06.03.11

Fun-Friday

1a. John Burgerman crosses Wburg Bridge with Bananas on head
1. BOS 2011 – Bushwick Open Studios This Weekend
2. 3rdEye(Sol)ation
3. “Surrealism” and “Bushwick Art Park”
4.  “Stay Gold” at Curbs & Stoops Active Space
5.  “Fine-Ass Art” at Kings County Bar
6.  GILF! Pop Up
7.  New Ludo “Green Beery” (VIDEO)

We really are so damn lucky to be here in NYC. The cultural offerings are always varied, plentiful, inspiring and in many cases FREE. Of course the rent is too high and your bedroom can accomodate a bed or a dresser but not both, but when you hit the streets the cultural stimulation never stops.

For example, newly arrived Noo Yawker Jon Burgerman practiced his good posture and accentuated his down jacket this spring by traipsing through the streets and across the Williamsburg Bridge balancing bananas on his head.

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You see! The cultural richness on the street is never ending! (© Jon’s Flickr)

From Jon’s most recent and exhausting email, “Sometimes the things you see (on the street) are rather lovely, like the blossom on the trees and people outside drinking coffee and graffiti so fresh the paint is still wet.”

BOS 2011 – Bushwick Open Studios This Weekend

Hats off to the BOS crew who have laid the foundations for the new artists and curators to grow upon.

BOS ’11 – Bushwick Open Studios is in it’s fifth year and many newly minted blogs and curators are discovering this once desolate industrial pit. It’s still a pit, but at least it’s not so desolate — it also helps that high rents elsewhere have created this steady river of people flowing out of the L train Morgan stop.

Speaking of which;

IMPORTANT TRAVEL ADVISORY: The L train will NOT be running between Manhattan and Brooklyn for the entire weekend. Take the JMZ trains instead and you’ll still get dropped right in the middle of it.

Below are our picks, and while our focus is primarily on Street Art artists and events, please hit the BOS site to take a look at the complete list of events and shows:

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http://artsinbushwick.org/bos2011/

Friday June 03

3rdEye(Sol)ation

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Jason Mamarella’s curated a group show featuring Billi Kid, Peru Ana Ana Peru, ASVP, Mike Die, Jos-L, dint wooer krsna, Quel Beast, Septerhed, Choice Royce, Kosbe, QRST, Trixtr Rabbit, Bankrupt Slut, CCB, Wisher 914, ZamArt opens this Friday at 3rd Eye(sol)ation 7-10 pm.

For more information, location and hours about this show click on the link below:

http://www.brooklynstreetart.com/theblog/?p=20970

Saturday June 04:

“Surrealism” and “Bushwick Art Park”

Factory Fresh Gallery is offering two events:  “Surrealism”and “Bushwick Art Park”

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Pufferella (image © courtesy of the artist)

SURREALISM:
twenty artists from the neighborhood wrestle their unconscious.

An exhibition at Factory Fresh for Bushwick Open Studios curated by Jason Andrew and Ali Ha.

Jim Avignon, Kevin Curran, Ryan Michael Ford, Paul D’Agostino, Ben Godward, Tamara Gonzales, Andrew Hurst, Rebecca Litt, Francesco Longnecker, Norman Jabaut, J.P. Marin, Brooke Moyse, Garry Nichols, Patricia Satterlee, Pufferella, Skewville, John Sunderland, Sweet Toof, Marjorie Van Cura & Veng

BUSHWICK ART PARK

A one day community event June 4th, 1-7pm
Located at the proposed Bushwick Art Park on Vandervoort Place

Factory Fresh is sponsoring a street event with art and murals to showcase their entry on this year’s Festival of Ideas that the New Museum produced and staged at the Bowery early in May.

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Skewville (image © courtesy of the artist)

Sculptures by Bast, Leon Reid IV, Specter, Skewville, Ben Godward, Infinity, Garry Nichols and El Celso. New Bushwick Art Park mural by Veng.

To learn more info bout this show please go to the gallery site at:http://artsinbushwick.org/bos2011/directory/?listing=787

“Stay Gold” at Curbs & Stoops Active Space

Opening party Saturday 7-10 pm at Curbs & Stoops Active Space

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QRST “Clay County” (image © QRST)

The group exhi­bi­tion fea­tures Don Pablo Pedro, Nathan Pick­ett, QRST, Quel Beast and Vahge.

http://www.curbsandstoops.com/blog/

“Fine-Ass Art” at Kings County Bar

Kings County has hosted a number of street artists for shows at this dark haunt for about four years and tonight a few more get their shine on. You may also coax a a go-go girl or boy onto the bar to add to the visual candy on the walls. Man, that’s some fine-ass art.

brooklyn-street-art-el-sol-25-kings-county-bar-bushwick-open-studios-2011El Sol 25 (image © courtesy of the artist)

Fine-Ass Art will feature: Quel Beast, QRST, El Sol 25, Gilf!, Rimx, Alden, Alicia Papanek.

For more information about this show click on the link below:

http://throwawayart.com/fine-ass-art-kings-county-bar

GILF! Pop Up

One of the newer Street Artists Gilf! on the scene pops up out of the pavement to give you a personal look in this intimate setting.

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GILF! (image © courtesy of the artist)

Gilf! Pop Up Gallery
107 Forrest Ave btw Flushing Ave and Central Ave (across from
English Kills Gallery)
Friday 7-9
Sat 12-9, opening reception from 7-9
Sun 12-7

New Ludo “Green Beery” (VIDEO)

The latest video from Parisian Street Artist Ludo:

Ludo will be part of the BSA curated show “Street Art Saved my Life: 39 New York Stories” this August in Los Angeles.

Ludo “Green Beery” by Laurie Grosset

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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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Bortusk Leer and Sticking Bubblegum Up Your Nose

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

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Bortusk Leer (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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

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Bortusk Leer (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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

brooklyn-street-art-bortusk-leer-dont-panic-tonys-galleryBortusk Leer “Bortusk Took a Trip” (image © courtesy Don’t Panic)

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

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

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Throw Away Art Presents: “Fine-Ass Art” At Kings County Bar for BOS 2011 (Brooklyn, NY)

Fine-Ass Art

Fine-Ass Art
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Throw Away Art presents Fine-Ass Art, a showcase of permanent and ephemeral works at Kings County Bar during Bushwick Open Studios.  Expect a full bar and no white walls in sight.


Participating artists include:
Quel Beast
QRST
El Sol 25
Gilf
Alden
Rimx
Alicia Papanek

Reception Saturday June 4 from 7:00pm – 9:00pm (bar open til 4am)

Kings County Bar

286 Seigel St off Morgan L
Bushwick, Brooklyn, NYC
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