ur Weekly Interview with the Street
All posts tagged: General Howe
Images of Week 07.05.09
Images of the Week 06.07.09
Images of the Week 04.19.09
Week in Images 02.22.09
The Street Crush Artists
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“Street Crush” coming up Feb 13 at Alphabeta
Whassup Brooklyn!
This show is going to be off the hooker.
It’s for all the fans, that’s you. 42 artists, that’s all we gotta say, and lots of fun because it is all about community, and creativity, and love.
You’ll be hearing more about it as we get closer – in the meantime read all about it here in the calendar.
And In Preparation for Street Crush…
And for those of you who will want to be practicing up on yer def mooves for the Ladaays of the Eightaaays – here is an instructional video below. Stand up in front of your computer please and practice according to the directions.
I only needed like two minutes and I totally got it. Some other people (no names please, people) may want to view it in it’s entirety.
“Street Crush” Street Art Show at AlphaBeta
STREET CRUSH:
Sexy New Work from the Street Artists
You Have a Crush On.
A Show for the Fans.
“Street Crush” a Brooklyn Street Art show and party, featuring brand new work by 42 street artists, 4 dazzling Street-Tart burlesque performers, and a Kissing Booth will be thrown at AlphaBeta in Greenpoint, Brooklyn on Friday, February 13th, 2009.
BROOKLYN, NY-BrooklynStreetArt.com and AlphaBeta are thrilled to be hosting a timely and sexy show of brand new art by veteran and rookie street artists who are on the scene today redefining our ideas of street art. Working around themes of “Love, Sex, and the Street”, well-known street artists like Aiko and Jef Aerosol dig deep for fresh takes on gritty street ardor alongside relative whipper-snappers like Cake and Poster Boy.
In addition to a salon-style show, the opening party will feature live art collaborations and installation.
Full Press Release HERE
THE STREET ARTISTS You Have a Crush On
An unprecedented killer lineup of many of 2009’s best in one Brooklyn location, “Street Crush” will run from February 13 until February 28 and will feature work from an artist list that includes:
Aakash Nihalani, Abe Lincoln Jr., Aiko, Anera, Bortusk Leer, Broken Crow, C. Damage, Cake, Celso, Charm, Chris Uphues, Creepy, DirQuo, Ellis Gallagher A.K.A. (C)ELLIS G., Eternal Love, FauxReel, FKDL, General Howe, GoreB, Imminent Disaster, Hellbent, Infinity, Nobody, Jef Aerosol, Jon Burgerman, Matt Siren, Mimi the Clown, NohJColey, Pagan, PMP, Poster Boy, Pufferella, Pushkin, Chris from Robots Will Kill, Col from Robots Will Kill, Veng from Robots Will Kill, Royce Bannon, Skewville, Stikman, The Dude Company, Titi from Paris, and U.L.M.
STREET CRUSH SHOW OPENING INFORMATION
Friday, February 13, 2009, 7-12 pm
Press Preview by appointment
Location: Alphabeta, 70 Greenpoint Avenue
Greenpoint Brooklyn, New York 11222
Suggested Donation: $8
For more information on Brooklyn Street Art and to see images of the “Street Crush” artworks in the days before the show please visit http://www.BrooklynStreetArt.com
CONTACT: Crush@BrooklynStreetArt.com
THE PERFORMERS
To entertain the Opening Party street art fans, exotic passions will be alerted with Street-Tart Burlesque performances by 4 of today’s award-winning NYC burlesque artists – thrilling, titillating, and Twitterpating the audience in the back-room gallery at AlphaBeta. The rollicking rollcall includes Nasty Canasta, Clams Casino, Harvest Moon, and your MC, Tigger!
THE KISSING BOOTH
A funky loveshack built by artist and set-designer J. Mikal Davis and lorded over by Madame Voulez-Vous, will awaken furtive crushes in the crowd AND raise funds for Art Ready, a mentoring program created by SmackMellon Gallery to serve NYC High School students who are interested in the arts.
For more Information about the Art Ready program for New York City high school students, please visit: http://www.smackmellon.org/education.html
MUSIC
Live DJ sets by DailySession.com will be pumping and streaming live from the “Street Crush” event over the internet all night.
The featured Street Crush DJ will be Jessee Mann, a Williamsburg hottie and self-professed music nerd who plays weekly at Bembe and has mooved booties all over the whirl.
Look out for a special performance by electronic drummer Kamoni, who flagellates the street-sin out of you with a solo live audio collateral collage of beats, sounds, and samples on stage. yeow!
AFTER PARTY AT COCO66 NEXT DOOR
Immediately following the “Street Crush” show opening, guests are invited next door to continue celebrating their new found love at Coco66 and the 68 bar/restaurant, where the booty-shaking music continues and site-specific installations by 2 Brooklyn projection artists, SeeJ and SuperDraw, will blow minds with their original forays into the next horizon on street art.
BIOS OF THE PERFORMERS
Jesse’s musical style encompasses all that is soulful and funky, incorporating familiar sounds with obscure forgotten classics and upfront remixes. In a single DJ set he can travel effortlessly between vintage funk and disco to Afro-Latin grooves, house, techno, hip-hop, and everything in between.
His DJing career has taken him far and wide in the last nine years; Paris, Berlin, Vienna and England, to San Francisco, Miami, and Puerto Rico. He has played at many of NYC’s biggest and most revered clubs, its most chic and exclusive lounges, and its most intense underground parties. Favorites include APT, Cielo, Limelight/Avalon, Love, Sullivan Room, Hotel QT, Socialista, Goldbar, Lunatarium, 3rd Ward, Cabaret Sauvage (Paris), Batofar (Paris), Watergate (Berlin), Roxy (Vienna). Currently Jesse is resident DJ at Bembe weekly with the BodyMusic party.
Download his mixes at:
http://www.jesse-mann.com/mixes.html
Live Electronic Drumming
Kamoni
Kamoni is a Brooklyn based sound designer, live performer and sonic experimentalist. His work encompasses everything from live electronic shows to commercial music production and sound library development. Kamoni has acquired numerous credits on TV, film and animation soundtracks while consulting with music software pioneers such as Ableton and Native Instruments. He launched Puremagnetik in 2006 and his work has been featured in Electronic Musician, Sound on Sound, XLR8R, Remix, Computer Music, Knowledge, Keys and numerous other publications.
See an example of Komoni’s work here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBPSRJAaubg
Street-Tart Burlesque Performers
Tigger! (the MC) is The Original Mr. Exotic World! – Best Boylesque 2006 at The Burlesque Hall of Fame in Las Vegas. Winner of Four Golden Pastie Awards including “Performer Most Likely to Get Shut Down by the Law” and “Most Unpredictable Performer.”, and “the King of Boylesque.” The New York Times called him a “hysterical and acrobatic man in drag,” Next Magazine called him “the taboo-defying dynamo,” and San Francisco tried to ban his striptease.
Tigger! has a MySpace page here:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=16832866
Nasty Canasta is the co-producer of Pinchbottom (“Best Burlesque in NYC” – NY Magazine, “Most Innovative” – Miss Exotic World Pageant) and the impresario behind Sweet & Nasty Burlesque. Her performances combine classic burlesque, pop culture, and a theatrical sensibility to create a dazzling mummery of perplexing proportions. The reigning Cheese Queen of Coney Island, Nasty is, quite possibly, too damn clever for her own good.
Nasty Canasta can be found here:
http://www.nastycanasta.com/
Harvest Moon otherwise known as the Sultry Siren of Burlesque has been sauntering on burlesque stages since 1995. She has performed in Sydney, Paris and many cities in the US. She is founder of award-winning troupe, The Cantankerous Lollies. In the summer of 2008, Harvest toured the Netherlands and Italy in a special showcase of American Burlesque “Cabaret New Burlesque”. From her homebase in New York City she continues to push the frontiers of modern Burlesque with each new act.
Miss Harvest Moon’s website is here:
http://missharvestmoon.com/
Clams Casino has been called a “Burlesque Queen” by the New York Times, and is the proud winner of the awards for Most Comedic and Most Innovative at the 2008 Miss Exotic World Pageant in Las Vegas. Clams is the co-producer of the Gameshow Speakeasy at the Slipper Room, AM Gold at Coney Island, Killer Queen Burlesque and Borderline Burlesque:Midnight Madonna Madness at the Zipper Factory, and many other pop-culture obsessed burlesque shows around New York City and the Eastern Seaboard.
Miss Clams Casino can be found here:
http://www.missclamscasino.com/home.html
PREVIOUS EVENTS from BrooklynStreetArt.com
An on-going celebration of the creative spirit, BrooklynStreetArt.com presents “Street Crush” as the 4th street art event thrown in the last 10 months.
Previous events include;
* April 2008: a benefit street art auction of work by 27 street artists at Ad Hoc Art in Bushwick that raised money for the youth and family creative arts and mentoring programs of Free Arts NYC (www.freeartsnyc.org) and launched the book “Brooklyn Street Art” published by Prestel worldwide and authored by Steven P. Harrington and Jaime Rojo.
See highlights on Youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP3by_SolwA
* May 2008: a street art showcase of 10 street artists at Fresh Kills in Williamsburg also benefiting Free Arts NYC,
* Sept 2008: “Projekt Projektor”, a first-ever curated show of projection artists as street artists in a live show by 6 projection artists on the side of the Manhattan Bridge and the Pearl Street Triangle during 2 nights of the Dumbo Arts festival on September 26 and 27.
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Year in Images 2008
Paradigm Shifting and Cave Writings
Looking back at the powerful changes in ’08,
it’s not hard to see their reflection on the Brooklyn streets, which may serve as tea leaves revealing the messages swirling around us and in us. Each individual act of creating is of significance, yet it is the cumulative effect of the groundswell of new participants that seems so powerful, so hopeful in it’s desire.
Naturally, at the beginning of this selection of images from 2008, we are featuring the most visible street art piece of the year by Shepard Fairey, which appeared here on the streets of Brooklyn and transcended mediums to reach millions of people. Shepard’s graphic design style and his images of the man who would be president helped many to quickly glimpse the character and message of Barack Obama.
The image was replicated, adopted, adapted, transformed, re-formed, lampooned even. It became an icon that belonged to everyone who cared to own it, and a symbol of the change the man on the street was looking for. Like street art, Obama’s message was taken directly to the people, and they responded powerfully in a way that brought a historic shift; one that continues to unfold.
Elsewhere on the street we saw themes from topical to fantastical; crazy disjointed cultural mash-ups, celebrity worship or destruction, Big Brother, icons, symbols, death, war, economic stress, protest, dancing, robots and monsters and clowns and angels, and an incredible pathos for humanity and it’s sorry state… with many reminders of those marginalized and disaffected. We never forget the incredible power of the artist to speak to our deepest needs and fears.
The movement of young and middle-aged artists off the isle of pricey mall-ish Manhattan and into Brooklyn is not quite an exodus, but boy, sometimes it feels that way. The air sometimes is thick with it; the creative spirit. The visual dialogue on the street tells you that there is vibrant life behind doors – studios, galleries, practice rooms, loft parties, rooftops.
Even as a debate about street art’s appropriate placement on public/private walls continues, it continues. From pop art to fine art, painterly to projected, one-offs to mass repetition, Brooklyn street art continues to grow beyond our expectations, and our daily lives are largely enriched by it.
This collection is not an exhaustive survey – the archival approach isn’t particularly stimulating and we’re not academics, Madge. The street museum is always by chance, and is always about your two eyes. Here’s a smattering, a highly personal trip through favorites that were caught during the year.
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Military in Brooklyn Streets! Cum Quick!
Dispatches From the Action and a briefing from General Howe
Recently we’ve been seeing soldiers in the streets of Brooklyn, and it has tapped into fears of an encroaching military state. These troop movements always start out small, but eventually they could take over the borough entirely.
During a briefing on these developments at BSACom (Command Center), artist General Howe talked about his installations, their formations around suspicious objects, and how the ’08 election focused his maneuvers on the field this year.
Brooklyn Street Art: The recent US presidential campaign inspired a huge number of artists to get into the conversation. How did it affect your art?
General Howe: Before this year I never made political art. But this year was clearly going to be history in the making, for better or worse. For me, making political art during the presidential campaign was my own way of saying this is an important time for our country and we need to consider our future.
as a side note...
During my summer vacations in college, and for a brief time after college, I worked in the United States Senate. My position was very low on the totem pole, and I did not work for a specific Senator or party, but I was constantly around Senators. I would pass them in the hall ways, listen to them in the Senate chamber, and on occasion have small talk with them. I was around Obama, McCain, and Clinton and when they became popular in this election season, I reflected on this past experience. I don’t know them personally, but I do know them in a way that is not translated through popular media. It would be a missed opportunity without making some kind of art relating to my experience.
Brooklyn Street Art: What made you start merging the candidates with superheroes? Was it the outlandish budgets that are spent on these Hollywood productions?
General Howe: The media and campaigns portrayed senators like McCain, Clinton and Obama into fantastical characters from a movie. I saw so many parallels to the Batman movie that came out this past summer. They might as well have worn masks and capes to events and interviews.
Obama was raised to a hero-like status, Batman, the only one capable of stopping the enemy. When Clinton lost to Obama, it was speculated that she would try to ruin his chances at the presidency, becoming his nemesis, the Joker.
In some cases what was being portrayed was very true. I made John McCain into 2face because the John McCain on the campaign trail was very different from the guy I would watch in the Senate.
As a young man, Benjamin Franklin wrote under the pseudonym of Mrs.Silence Dogood. He poked fun at aspects of colonial America through his writings. My work is poking fun at how ridiculous the media portrays current events.
Brooklyn Street Art: Your other work, installations of colonial armies, is less often seen, maybe because it is so small…
General Howe: They are very small, each soldier is about an inch in height. When I have gone back to see the installations they are often gone, maybe one or two broken figures remain. I wonder what happens to the rest of them. Do people take them and keep them for them selves? I sometimes imagine rats taking them away to their layers as prisoners of a world street war.
Brooklyn Street Art: Who are these little soldiers and who are they fighting?
General Howe: These are British colonial soldiers sent by the king of England to stop the American Revolution. They are at a serious height disadvantage but make up for it with bravery and discipline.
Brooklyn Street Art: Is this Howe you got your name?
General Howe: Yes it is. General William Howe was Commander-in-Chief of British forces during the American revolution.
I also thought back to childhood, playing with toy soldiers or toy guns and assuming the role of some sort of a commanding leader or hero. Why would I be a Private when I can make my self a General.
Brooklyn Street Art: Is your battlefield historical fascination academic or fantastical?
General Howe: It is definitely academic and fantastical along with old fashion play. I’ve done a ton of research on locations of revolutionary war battles in Brooklyn. Most of the battle installations I have done are at sites where actual battles occurred. Once I get to these sites the fantasy begins. I play around with the soldiers trying out different formations and I come up with all kinds of scenarios that the soldiers could be in. A whole narrative may play out while setting up the soldiers.
For example, one of the first times I went out to install some soldiers I came across a used condom on the ground. At first I was disgusted, but then I thought, “what would mini British colonial soldiers from the 1700’s do if they stumbled upon a used condom?” So the condom became part of the piece. Since then I always hope the locations I go to will have interesting or weird objects to use with the battles.
Brooklyn Street Art: What would you like someone’s reaction to be when they stumble upon one of your installations?
General Howe: One time while I was setting up a battle a man walked by and toward my installation, made motions and sounds as if he were blowing up the soldiers, and then walked away laughing to himself. Upon seeing the installation, I think he immediately tapped into his childhood spirit of play and acted out what he would do with the soldiers in that situation. The reaction I would really like from anyone that sees one of my installations is to have the urge to play.
More pics on General Howe’s fickr