The 11th run of the legendary Crest Hardware Art Show will open on JUNE 30th, 2012. The opening day celebration, Crest Fest 2012, will bring the community together with art, food, drinks, live music and local vendors. This year’s event will take place at Crest Hardware, located at 558 Metropolitan Avenue, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Crest Hardware will offer over 10,000 sq ft of indoor and outdoor retail space & storefront windows. As always, submitted work must be about, made with or inspired by hardware.
Saturday was a magnificent day for creativity and Street Art in North Brooklyn – The Northside Music Festival and Northside Open Studios and Crest Fest all conspired to bring thousands of music and art fans to trounce and march and maraud through the streets and parks and abandoned lots to discover why the axis of culture has been shifting away from Manhattan these last few years. For many important and evident reasons, it is immensely easier to make stuff happen in Brooklyn for artists and the people who love them to aid and abet them in the creative spirit. We were immensely fortunate to be around to assist talents like near legendary Street Artists Skewville and Championship Doodler Jon Burgerman to make cool work this week and we’re happy as hell about it.
The foot traffic was heavy beneath the scissor lift as Street Art duo Skewville was finishing up a weeklong engagement with a wall across from the Brooklyn Brewery – a Grand Finale of a cityscape called “Last Exit to Skewville” that evolved over the 7 days to become a sweeping playland of sharp abstract shapes and poppy color. In many ways it is the culmination of a direction Skewville has been taking further away from representational and closer to abstract, less text heavy and literal – more implied.
The steady stream of inquisitors on this street and the unsolicited advice and comments brought a smile to Ads’ face and a wisecrack to his lips often. In particular he liked the observation that a guy had about the two crossed boxes he tagged in the yellow patch of color in the corner. “I like the eyes you put in the sun,” he told the artist. Others just stopped to take pictures or even get their picture taken with Skewville. At one point it was a family affair as Ad and Droo and his young son were all spraying with the aerosol – as the youngster tried his luck first on a dropcloth with the pros giving advice, and then he hit the wall with two hands clasped around the can. Good to see Father’s Day weekend in full effect and the skillz being passed down to the next generation.
Brooklyn Street Art Presents nearly legendary Skewville live in action creating a BRAND NEW artwork on a GIANT Brooklyn wall called “Last Exit to Skewville” for Northside Open Studios!
As part of the Northside Festival and Northside Open Studios June 16-19, 2011, New York’s famous Street Art high rollers Skewville will create a huge new street art cityscape installation on Williamsburgs’ North Side.
To celebrate the 150 studios, galleries, and organizations involved in NOS and to mark the completion of “Last Exit To Skewville” you are invited to the Northside Open Studios Launch Party Hosted by Crest Fest and Brooklyn Street Art at THE END, 13 Greenpoint Avenue in Greenpoint.
Date: 18 Jun 2011
Time: 6:00 PM – 11:00 PM
Where: The End, Brooklyn
Event Details:
Co-celebrated with Crest Fest and Brooklyn Street Art, NOS Launch Party brings together an art exhibition of participating artists including a confessional box by Eva Navon, Rooftop Bikini Reading Series by Boomslang, video screening curated by Sasha Summer, and an interactive rocking chair video & sound installation by Sara Sun. Music performances include Snowmine, Balun, Merrikans, Dinowalrus and Walrus Ghost. Launch Party: June 18th, 6 – 11pm.
The 100 foot long wall called “Last Exit to Skewville” pays tribute to the cityscapes of industrial and everyday blue collar Brooklyn and calls on the smart alecky humor and graphic finesse of one of NYC Street Art’s Finest, the near legendary Skewville.
Presented by Brooklyn Street Art as part of it’s curated walls project called BSA Outside, “Last Exit To Skewville” will appear on North 11th Street directly across from the famous Brooklyn Brewery and right around the corner from Brooklyn Bowl, two solid neighborhood institutions serving thousands of adventurous fun lovers every weekend.
THE LOCATION OF THE WALL: 82 North 11th Street, Between Berry and Wythe
ARTISTS BIO
Skewville is an art collective consisting of twin brothers born and raised in Queens, NY who are known world wide for the thousands of hand made fake wooden sneakers they silkscreened, hand cut, drilled, laced, and tossed over telephone lines around the globe since 1999. Known for their warped crooked sense of irony and humor, Ad and Droo have established Skewville with a specific style of lettering, abstract figures and cityscapes that are instantly recognizable by Street Art fans everywhere.
For nearly 10 years Ad Deville and his partner Ali Ha have shown Street Artists in their two galleries, The Orchard Street Art Gallery on Manhattan’s Lower East Side (2002-08) and Factory Fresh, arguably the centerpiece for the Street Art scene in the quickly booming art scene unfolding today in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
In addition to being Street Artists with a sarcastic running commentary on the hypocrisy and chicanery on the Street Art scene and gentrification of artist neighborhoods, Skewville has continued to stretch creatively with sculptural installations of industrial materials like wire, plastic orange mesh, and found building materials fished out of dumpsters. On the community tip, they created a mural for local North Brooklyn Public Art Coalition to revive part of the Greenpoint neighborhood, and built a miniature golf “Putting Lot” in an abandoned lot as partners with an artist/environmental group educating neighbors about sustainability. In recent years they have developed their fine art practice using their blocky lo-fi labor-intensive vocabulary and have participated in galleries and festivals around the world including London, Berlin, Amsterdam, Norway, Dublin, and Los Angeles, among others.
Local Family Business Showcases Artists Of All Stripes
You won’t find a more excited community-minded, artist-loving dude than Joe Franquinha, who is the second generation owner of a hardware store in Williamsburg/Bushwick, Brooklyn. Crest Hardware, founded in 1962 on this same block by Joe’s dad and uncle, is the hardware store for the multitude of artists who have moved into the neighborhood over the past decade or so.
Nine years ago they had the first Crest art show in the store itself using hardware materials to make and inspire the art. The eclectic and frequently humorous show drew attention to the bursting artist community and grew larger each year. In 2008 ago Joe expanded the show to include musicians and DJs from the neighborhood and started calling it “Crest Fest.”
This year the festival has 140 artists, 15 DJ’s and 8 bands. Joe says, “There is an abundance of musical talent in this area as well as art and I wanted to take the opportunity to showcase them too. It’s been getting progressively bigger, and it’s always free to attend. That’s the main thing. We want people to be able to enjoy it, come on in, have fun and take a day off and absorb culture in so many of it’s facets.”
Joe took a few minutes from installing art to talk about the show that left the white box for the tool box:
BSA:I see a lot of hardware of course, but do you also sell art supplies?
Joe Franquinha: Spray paint is definitely an option I’ve been weighing recently. I think probably in the next year or so our spray paint section will probably expand, including companies like Montana, maybe something like IronClad 1. But Montana seems to be what is on most people’s radar. Then it’s a matter of them figuring out which one they want, the Spanish one or the German one.
BSA: Do you have any people who do street art in this show? Joe Franquinha: Yeah there are a couple of people – there is Peat Wolleager from St. Louis, he goes by Stensoul. General Howe has a piece in the show and I’m excited for people to see the piece he made just for Crest Hardware. He’s doing some really cool work so I’m proud to have him on board. We still have a couple of days for people to be doing installing up to Saturday. (editors note: while the complete artist list was not available at press time, there are a number of street artists in the show including Royce Bannon, Celso, among others)
BSA: Why do think it is important to show the work of local artists? Joe Franquinha:One hand really has to wash the other as far as supporting your local artist goes. Artists shop at my store to get their materials and if I have the ability to help promote their art and their passion side by side with mine, I’m gonna do it.
But it is fun and artists are here every day in the store and in the neighborhood. They eat at these restaurants, they shop in these stores, they frequent these bars… so to be able to give them a chance outside a gallery show to showcase their work, not only to their fellow artists but maybe someone who has no idea about their work …. It brings your work to a whole different demographic. If they are a street artist, maybe someone has only seen their work out on the street. To be able to show people that the artist is capable of also putting their fine art work into a show – it can bring it to a whole other level for them and opens up people’s minds to different experiences.
Street artist Duece Seven entered this door in last year’s art show (photo courtesy Crest)
BSA: Do you have any favorite street artists off the top of your head? Joe Franquinha:Off the top of my head, I really love ROA’s work. I think it’s nice clean work – it feels like pictures ripped out of animal anatomy books. Like old books made of pulp paper that feel like they could crumble. But the animals he does are redrawn at this incredibly magnified size so I really dig his work a lot.
C215 is another artist who I really admire. I also really admire his world traveling capabilities and he just gets up everywhere he possibly can. I was in Morocco, a small town called Esoria right on the water and I was in this square and about 50 yards across from me I could see this stencil on the wall. It was kind of blurry from where I was and I was curious to see whose it was and sure enough it was his work. So it is pretty cool to see his work everywhere I go.
A very entertaining stop animation film made for this years art show in the store. Joe would like to thank Anthony Ferrara, James Peach, Gustavo Roman & Buck Merritt for their creativity, energy and support. You’ll also notice some street art by Chris Stain, Skewville…. who else?
BSA:Is there is a piece in the show this year that you are very excited about, either due to it’s complexity, or a new technique that was used?
Joe: Yeah every medium is different, and it’s not that I love one more than I love the other but I also have my personal preferences. In a show like this, it’s not just about hardware because it is in a store that has been here nearly 50 years, a lot of the people who are in the show aren’t just making their work for a hardware store, they’re making it for us, the Crest people. So one piece in particular that I’m excited to showcase is by Chris Collicot – when you look up close at this piece it’s just a bunch of washers and screws and you step back about 20-30 feet, and because it’s a perspective piece, it’s a picture of my father. To know that my dad struck a chord with this artist when he moved here from LA and he came into the shop looking for some help and he found something more than that. He found a place that he can rely on. So that is one of the more special pieces for me.
Street artists Peru Ana Ana Peru also participated in last years show (image courtesy Crest)
SPECIAL SILENT AUCTION at Crest Art Show (In Store)
NOMADE Piece to Benefit Free Arts NYC
Street Artist Nomade has donated this piece to be silent auctioned during the Crest Art Show. 100% of the proceeds go to the programs of Free Arts NYC, which serves NYC kids from disadvantaged backgrounds with arts and mentorship programs. Drop by the store to place a bid before July 31, 2010. Auction is in conjunction with BrooklynStreetArt.com
For general information regarding Crest Hardware Art Show and/or Crest Fest please contact Info@CrestHardwareArtShow.com
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