As 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 Bodega presents “Under The Influence,” the first curated art event to be held in conjunction with the 2011 Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival. Opening Tuesday, July 12th as part of the Festival’s week-long programming at The powerHouse Arena, 37 Main Street, Brooklyn, NY; the exhibit will celebrate the influence Hip-Hop has had for multiple generations within the artistic community.
“The idea is to pay tribute to the culture and bring together artists who have something special in common – an influence, a back-story, a motivation. Hip-Hop wouldn’t have become the same movement without the influence of the graffiti writers who created an aesthetic for a new generation. The artists in this show prove that the influence of the golden era keeps its roots and continues to inspire new creations. The influence is powerful and this show brings together both the pioneers and a new wave of artistic progression.”- Corrie Zaccaria, Event Captain, The Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival
Artwork on view during “Under The Influence” has been curated by Royce Bannon and Alex Emmart of Mighty Tanaka Gallery. We are also excited to announce Gawker Artists as media partners of “Under The Influence.” The opening night festivities include a public reception with refreshments provided by Brooklyn Brewery and music from a special guest DJ. A live music performance and more featured artists will be announced soon!
Featured inthe Show:
Photographs from Back in the Days Remix: 10thAnniversary Edition – Book Signing Upon its first publication in 2001, Back In The Days by Jamel Shabazz became an instant classic. This seminal and iconic title has been inspiring a decade-long, international revival in old-school Hip-Hop style, music and culture. Appearing alongside photographs from the book, Shabazz will be on-hand to sign copies of the limited-printing, tenth-anniversary edition of Back in the Days Remix. It includes a new edit with over 30 never-before-published photographs, a new essay, an interview with Shabazz and deluxe cloth binding.
Contributing Artists – Second Floor Gallery 212 Magazine, 907 Crew (UFO, SADU, DROID, Tony Bones, OZE 108 and GEN II), Ader, Ak5, Alice Mizrachi, Avoid, Cash4, Darkclouds, Destroy & Rebuild, Don Morris, Endless Love Crew (Royce Bannon,Matt Siren, Celso, Infinity, Abe Lincoln Jr), Ellis G, Eric Jordan, Jesus Saves, Joe Conzo, John Brenner, KA, Keely, Kosbe, Martha Cooper, Miguel Ovalle, Mike Screiber, Moody, Pesu, Robots Will Kill, Rodeo, The Me Nobody Knows, Toofly, Tuxedo, URNewYork and Vanessa Chew + more TBA.
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What: “Under The Influence” Art Event When: Opening BHF ’11 Reception: Tuesday, July 12, 6:00 – 10:00PM
Exhibit Dates: Wednesday, July 13 – Sunday, August 7, 2011 Where: The powerHouse Arena, 37 Main Street, Brooklyn, NY Who: Photographs from Back in the Days Remix: 10th Anniversary Edition. Gallery showing of influential artists.
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.
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:
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:
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.
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.
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:
Specter at The Festival of Ideas for the Bushwick Art Park 2011
BUSHWICK ART PARK
A one day community event June 4th, 1-7pm
Located at the proposed Bushwick Art Park on Vandervoort Place
Ribbon Cutting Ceremony with Council Member Diana Reyna at 2:30pm
The Bushwick Art Park hosted by Trust Art, Norte Maar and Factory Fresh, featuring works previously showcased at
the Festival of Ideas in May 2011, expands into a Sculpture Garden at the proposed Bushwick Art Park site on
Vandevoort Place. We invite guests to enjoy the fresh air and local views surrounded by outdoor sculptures.
Sculptures by Bast, Leon Reid IV, Specter, Skewville,
Ben Godward, Infinity, Garry Nichols and El Celso.
Political Podium by Seth Aylmer.
New Bushwick Art Park mural by Veng.
The PANTHEON show in the windows of the former Donnell Library across from MoMA on 53rd Street in Manhattan opened with a lot of fanfare and excitement on Saturday night. Within minutes of the unveiling of the giant windows there were clusters of tourists and art fans and regular New Yorkers gathering around the brightly lit windows to inspect the collection of a small sampling of the work by graff and Street Art artists during the last 40 years in New York.
At the Hilton across 6th Avenue a packed lounge of artists and press and honored guests and looky-loos were milling around and celebrating the opening while a live streaming discussion of the event and interviews with organizers and artists took place on screens and online. The grassroots organized and run show will be open to the public for the next week and a half, 24 hours a day.
One of the peeps on the street looking at the show was wiseacre Ad Deville of Skewville (below), who posed in front of PANTHEON and offered this succinct assessment.
1. Birdsong ZINE Benefit
2. Nomade on LA Freewalls
3. 10th Anniversary of Robots Will Kill in Philadelphia Tonight
4. PANTHEON Opens in Manhattan on the Street Tomorrow
5. EL Celso Closing Party Saturday at Pandemic
6. Spring is Just Around the Corner! Time For Wedding Planning!
7. GAIA Does Giant Martha Cooper Tribute in Chicago
8. BSA Was in the Newspaper Yesterday
9. Happy April Fools! Insane German Synth Pop “Razor Scooter” Video
10. Banksy Revealed as Nude USC guy having sex on the roof
Birdsong ZINE Benefit – Support Your Local ZINE – Tonight at Brooklyn Fireproof
The Birdsong Zine birthday party and benefit — celebrating 3 years of the Brooklyn artist small collective that produces birdsong among other zines, celebrate with a print show and sweet live music.
–art: featuring limited edition $20 prints by a group of artists who have contributed to, or who have been interviewed by, birdsong over the past three years: Blanco, Cara Fulmor, Cat Glennon, Elizabeth Hirsch, J. Morrison, Julia Norton, Joey Parlett, Danielle Rosa, Will Varner, and Michelle Yu
Haven’t seen these fellers in action before, now, have ye? Bunch of black blobs on their faces though. Did you see the pictures of the final installation here a couple of days ago?
10th Anniversary of Robots Will Kill in Philadelphia Tonight
And if you find yourself in Philly today and want to have a good time and experience great art and excellent company head over to the Vicent Michael Gallery where RWK Art Collective is celebrating their 10th Anniversary of art making
At the Robots Will Kill show will be this piece “Winter Flower” by Veng RWK
PANTHEON Opens in Manhattan on the Street Tomorrow
Curators Daniel Feral and Joyce Manalo invite you to go window shopping this Saturday April 2 to view and buy the art on display on the windows of the old Donnell Library across from MOMA for their exhibition PANTHEON: A History of art from the streets of New York City. See some detail pics from the show here:
PANTHEON:
A history of art from the streets of New York City
Windows exhibition runs April 2-17, 2011
On view 24 hours a day
EXHIBITION LOCATION
chashama at the Donnell
20 West 53rd Street, b/w 5th & 6th Avenue
New York, NY 10019 (across from MoMA)
Image Credit: GRAFFITI & STREET ART diagram by Daniel Feral is a 75th Anniversary celebration of Alfred H. Barr’s CUBISM & ABSTRACT ART diagram.
EL Celso Closing Party Saturday at Pandemic
Pandemic will be hosting a closing party for their El Celso show tomorrow night (1/2) from 7-11pm
It’s your last chance to dance like a maniac in their exclusive…El Celso Mini Discoteca.
Pandemic
37 Broadway (between Wythe and Kent)
Brooklyn, NY 11211
(917) 727-3466
pandemicgallery@gmail.com
Spring is Just Around the Corner! Time For Wedding Planning!
Fools rush in …. where angels fear to tread. Enjoy some of these inspiring Photoshopped delights from romantic Russia and your friends at Sad And Useless
GAIA Does Giant Martha Cooper Tribute in Chicago
Pawn Works and Maxwell Colette Gallery recently hosted New York Street Artist GAIA in Chicago for his “Resplendent Semblance” show and helped him find some walls, like this one in an image from the Pawn Works site, which doesn’t mention that the original image is a photograph from Martha Cooper. Ms. Cooper’s Remix show prep begins in earnest today as she touches down in LA to start installing the her photos and the 50+ original works by graffiti and street artists who have reinterpreted them.
Image of GAIA piece courtesy and copyright of Pawn Works
From our piece with Chris Stain, Billy Mode, and Ms. Cooper a couple of weeks ago:
Brooklyn Street Art:Oh yeah! Gaia is doing that one for this show!
Chris Stain: He is? Cool, that’s cool.
Brooklyn Street Art: Well he loves doing birds, and feathers, and animals. Chris Stain: Well Gaia’s a bird brain, that kid, so it makes sense.
BSA Was in the Newspaper Yesterday
Yes we geeked out to see Brooklyn Street Art in the AM New York newspaper yesterday morning! Plus we were all over the fact that NohJColey and El Sol 25, two of the newest talents on the street got some props. Oh yeah, and that guy Shepard.
PANTHEON: A history of art from the streets of New York City is a labor of love.
This Saturday the PANTHEON mounts a show seen from the street, bringing visual story from the last 40 years of graffiti and Street Art alive in a space that once housed a city library across from the Museum of Modern Art on 53rd Street. Like the real shows we follow on the public thoroughfare, this one is also open 24 hours a day.
An ambitious project spearheaded by Daniel Feral and Joyce Manalo, PANTHEON is truly grassroots, an academic and historic presentation by people who love it and study it and create it. Funded by modest personal contributions to their Kickstarter campaign, the show’s mission is to foster future understanding of how graffiti and Street Art has claimed a place as catalyst in the culture through it’s own wild and wooly evolution on the margins and in the mainstream. A small selection of some of the players on this now global scene, the resulting exhibit aims to be an un-hyped insight into the experience by people who are more concerned with the art than who collects it.
As their media partner, BSA got a behind the scenes peek at many of the pieces that will be shown and here is a photo essay by our own Jaime Rojo. These rich and storied detail shots will hopefully incite your imagination and peak your interest to check out the street show in person.
PANTHEON:
A history of art from the streets of New York City
Windows exhibition runs April 2-17, 2011
On view 24 hours a day
EXHIBITION LOCATION
chashama at the Donnell
20 West 53rd Street, b/w 5th & 6th Avenue
New York, NY 10019 (across from MoMA)
PRESS EVENT – RSVP ONLY*
Saturday, April 2, 4-5 PM
PRIVATE RECEPTION – RSVP ONLY*
Saturday, April 2, 6-8 PM
* To attend either event, please email rsvp@pantheonnyc.com or call 646-269-9494. Location details will be announced at the latest by Saturday morning.
ARTISTS
Abe Lincoln, Jr., John Ahearn and Rigorberto Torres, Adam VOID, Cassius Fouler, Cake, Darkclouds, Droid, El Celso, Ellis Gallagher, Faro, John Fekner and Don Leicht, Freedom, Gen2, Goya, Groser, Richard Hambleton, infinity, KET, LSD-Om, Matt Siren, NohJColey, OverUnder, Oze 108, Quel Beast, Royce Bannon, Sadue, Jordan Seiler, Stikman, Toofly, UFO, and Vudu.
OPENING RECEPTION
Saturday, April 2, 5-7PM
Press preview with curators: 4-5PM
Exhibition runs April 2-17, 2011
LOCATION
chashama/Donnell Library Building
20 West 53rd Street, b/w 5th & 6th Avenue
New York, NY 10019 (across from MoMA)
ARTISTS
Abe Lincoln, Jr., John Ahearn with Rigorberto Torres, Adam VOID, Cahil Muraghu, Cake, Darkclouds, Droid, El Celso, Ellis Gallagher, Faro, John Fekner, Freedom, Gen2, Abby Goodman, Goya, Groser, Richard Hambleton, infinity, Ket, Don Leicht, LSD-Om, Matt Siren, NohJColey, OverUnder, Oze 108, Quel Beast, Royce Bannon, Sadue, Jordan Seiler, Skewville, Stikman, Toofly, UFO, and Vudu.
NEW YORK – On Saturday, April 2, 2011, 35 graffiti writers and street artists will unite to reclaim the former Donnell Library as a repository of visual information on the growing world-wide phenomenon of street art. This exhibition will present an art historical timeline that is a part of New York City’s unique legacy. The artistic contribution of these cultural catalysts and preservationists from the 70’s to the new millennium will address the ever-changing urban landscape and alternative modes of producing art in the streets.
Graffiti and street art are at the crossroads of historicism.
In the last five years, museums have organized exhibitions that present graffiti and street art in a broader scope; Brooklyn Museum’s, Graffiti in 2006; the Museum of Modern Art’s laser-tagging demonstration by Graffiti Research Lab in 2008; the Bronx Museum’s, Street Life Street Art in 2008; and the Tate Modern’s, Street Art in 2008, to name a few. Although these exhibitions have legitimized graffiti and street art as an art form, this genre has not been fully resolved by the art world. At present, this contemporary art zeitgeist signals a symptomatic dystopia created between the institutionalization of this art form and its anti-institutional tenets.
PANTHEON aims to maintain the aesthetic diversity of the genre.
The forthcoming exhibition at MoCA Geffen Contemporary, Art in the Streets, will be a worldwide survey of graffiti and street art and Los Angeles’ role in the movement’s evolution. Despite its focus on Los Angeles, New York City’s graffiti and street art cognoscenti partake in their exuberance. Outside the institutional framework of museums, PANTHEON is situated within the DIY fundamentals of alternative art spaces. It is important to call attention to this space as the convergence of public and private spaces, because it informs an innovation of contemporary graffiti and street art in terms of medium, content and style.
The axiom of this movement is its ubiquity in the streets of New York City. During its nascency, John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres’ casts of everyday people adorned buildings, John Fekner’s simple large-scale text stencils politically charged brick walls, Freedom’s representational art graced tunnel cathedrals, Richard Hambleton’s silhouette paintings emotionally moved sidewalks and alleys, and Ket’s prolific tags saturated NYC’s subway cars. These artists established the tone for style, medium and content in this genre. The radical style, guerilla approach and ephemeral aesthetic of this subculture have been challenged since the 80’s and today’s artists are exploring
new ways to respond.
chashama is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded by Anita Durst in 1995. The organization’s mission is to support creativity in New York City by repurposing vacant properties enabling artists a space to create. PANTHEON: A history of art from the streets of New York City was awarded the former Donnell Library as an exhibition space, which is part of chashama’s Windows Program. PANTHEON is Co-Curated by Daniel Feral and Joyce Manalo along with Debra Anderson and Royce Bannon of the Advisory Committee and the collaboration of dedicated and talented individuals, most notably, Abe Lincoln, Jr., Francesco Alessandra, Maura Barry, Jennifer Diamond, Valentin Farkasch, Karla Henrick, Ebi Kagbala, Luna Park, Ashlene Nand, Dan Nguyen and Mariette Papic. Thank you to Brooklyn Street Art (media partner); Gothamist, Hyperallergic, The Street Spot, Streetsy (media sponsors); Cresent Artists (exhibition sponsor); and WM Dorvillier & Company, Inc. (structural design consultation). Image credits courtesy of the artists. Special thanks to the Woodward Gallery, NYC for the loan of Richard Hambleton’s Fountain of Youth, 1982.
For more information, please visit pantheonnyc.com or chashama.org.
For further exhibition details, media relations, Kickstarter campaign, sponsorships, and partnerships please email info@pantheonnyc.com or visit www.pantheonnyc.com. For more information about the Windows Program, please visit www.chashama.org.
While Nick Walker is in town hitting up all kinds of fancy, he spent a little time with BSA to make this new stencil in The People’s Republic of Brooklyn, above. Coming from the printers to check on the progress of the new release tomorrow (see below), Nick and his merry cluster of “assistants” rolled through the BK to poke his head into a couple of windows. Full process pics and the installation come up Sunday on BSA’s Images of the Week.
Nick Walker will be releasing a print in collaboration with Opera Gallery, 115 Spring Street, New York, this Saturday, February 26th, 2011 at 3pm EST. A lottery has been set up making 50 prints available for collectors in the UK. In order to apply for a print please email info@theartofnickwalker.com with New York TMA lottery in the subject box.
Nick Walker’s “Morning After New York” print release at Opera Gallery Tomorrow at 3:00 p.m.
The print will be a signed limited edition of 150 with 18 hand-finished Artists proofs.
Royce Bannon Catches Unusual Suspects at 17 Frost Tomorrow
Check out Abe Lincoln Jr. Celso, Chris RWK, Darkclouds, Infinity, Keely, Matt Siren, Moody, Nose Go, and Sno Monster, all curated by monster man Royce Bannon at this eclectic show in Brooklyn Saturday night. Read more and see images from the show HERE:
Please Support the Pantheon Show Across from the MoMA in April
This spring at the former Donnell New York Public Library across the street from MoMA Joyce Manalo and Daniel Feral will bring you PANTHEON: A History of Art From the Streets of NYC. This artist’s initiative is a 40 year history of New York Street Art told by the people who actually did the work. Run with volunteers, this show promises an erudite assessing of this moment in the timeline, and a look at how we got this far – and daily demonstrations in the windows. With your pledge to their Kickstarter campaign they will be able to afford to print catalogues and mount the show. Please throw them a buck! Click Here to see their KickStarter.
Street Art can be a very singular activity, and if you desire, you can do your own thing without ever hanging with the crew. Royce Bannon has never been interested in the Lone Wolf approach, preferring to work with friends on projects. In fact, as part of the Endless Love Crew, he brought about the big “Work to Do” show in Soho a couple of years ago with a truckload of mostly New York Street Artists, all working collaboratively to pull off one of the most lively freeze-frames of the current scene, without attitude.
For “Unusual Suspects”, opening Saturday, the curator and artist invited some of these same artists to this nice open community space in Williamsburg with one important requirement; They all needed to collaborate on a piece with a least one artist in the show.
When asked why he wanted the artists to collaborate he explained that a lot of them work together in many shows but most of them have not painted together on a single piece. In a collaboration you are more cognizant of the working style of the other, and, while not losing your own identity, you are part of a conversation. The resulting work is something entirely different from what either one could have produced solo. The process here involved passing the work back and forth over a period of time with each artist adding his or her contribution. Instructed Royce “Do what you want – just make it look good!”
Most of these names are seen on the street and it is always interesting to see how the work translate to the framed pieces on gallery walls. Included in this offering are a number of individual pieces that span a wide range of styles and one can clearly see these Street Artists going forward in their personal explorations.
As we start a new year, we say thank you for the last one.
And Thank You to the artists who shared their 11 Wishes for 2011 with Brooklyn Street Art; Conor Harrington, Eli Cook, Indigo, Gilf, Todd Mazer, Vasco Mucci, Kimberly Brooks, Rusty Rehl, Tip Toe, Samson, and Ludo. You each contributed a very cool gift to the BSA family, and we’re grateful.
We looked over the last year to take in all the great projects we were in and fascinating people we had the pleasure to work with. It was a helluva year, and please take a look at the highlights to get an idea what a rich cultural explosion we are all a part of at this moment.
The new year already has some amazing new opportunities to celebrate Street Art and artists. We are looking forward to meeting you and playing with you and working with you in 2011.
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BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
As 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.
JR (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Crotched objects began appearing on the street this year. © Jaime Rojo
