All posts tagged: Imminent Disaster
Brooklyn Street Art: 2010 Year In Images (VIDEO)
We’re very grateful for a wildly prolific year of Street Art as it continued to explode all over New York (and a lot of other places too). For one full year we’ve been granted the gift of seeing art on the streets and countless moments of inspiration. Whether you are rich or poor in your pocket, the creative spirit on the street in New York makes you rich in your heart and mind.
To the New York City artists that make this city a lot more alive every day we say thank you.
To the artists from all over world that passed through we say thank you.
To our colleagues and peers for their support and enthusiasm we say thank you.
To the gallery owners and curators for providing the artists a place to show their stuff and for providing all of us a safe place to gather, talk, share art, laugh, enjoy great music and free booze we say thank you.
To our project collaborators for sharing your talents and insights and opinions and for keeping the flame alive we say thank you.
And finally to our friends, readers and fans; Our hearts go out to you for lighting the way and for cheering us on. Thank you.
Each Sunday we featured Images of the Week, and we painfully narrowed that field to about 100 pieces in this quick video. It’s not an encyclopedia, it’s collage of our own. We remember the moment of discovery, the mood, the light and the day when we photographed them. For us it’s inspiration in this whacked out city that is always on the move.
The following artists are featured in the video and are listed here in alphabetical order:
Aakash Nihalani,Bansky, Barry McGee, Bask ,Bast, Beau, MBW, Bishop ,Boxi, Cake, The Dude Company, Chris RWK, Chris Stain, Dain, Dan Witz ,Dolk ,El Mac, El Sol 25, Elbow Toe, Faile, Feral, Overunder, Gaia, General Howe, Hellbent, Hush, Imminent Disaster, Jeff Aerosol, Jeff Soto, JMR ,Judith Supine ,K-Guy ,Labrona, Lister, Lucy McLauchlan, Ludo, Armsrock, MCity, Miso, Momo, Nick Walker, Nina Pandolfo, NohjColey, Nosm, Ariz, How, Tats Cru, Os Gemeos, Futura, Pisa 73, Poster Boy, QRST, Remi Rough, Stormie Mills, Retna, Roa, Ron English, Sever, She 155, Shepard Fairey ,Specter, Sten & Lex, Samson, Surge I, Sweet Toof, Swoon, Tes One, Tip Toe, Tristan Eaton, Trusto Corp, Typo, Various and Gould, Veng RWK, ECB, White Cocoa, Wing, WK Interact, Yote.
Images Of The Week 11.21.10
Our Weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring; ASVP, Burning Candy, Cake, Castro, Chris Stain, Clown Soldier, Deekers, DsCreet , Ellis G., Fumero, Futura ,Gaia ,Goya ,Hush , Imminent Disaster ,Infinity ,K-Guy , Kirby ,KRSNA ,OverUnder ,QRST ,Quel Beast ,Samson ,Showpaper ,Skewville , Sten & Lex ,Tek33 ,VUDU , and XAM
photo © Jaime Rojo
The block party in Bushwick provided by Factory Fresh Gallery and the app called All City turned out a number of new Brooklyn Street Art pieces on a block long installation, complete with friends, fans, and a taco stand. Included in the offering was this surprise collab with Faile and Bast, auspiciously appearing the morning of the event like a pre-Christmas gift wrapped in razor wire. The news of the piece travelled fast and while Ad Deville couldn’t find his red carpet, he did post a velvet rope to hold back the crowd. That didn’t stop Futura from climbing on top of his car to get the perfect shot.
Futura takes a photo of the Bast and Faile collaboration at the Factory Fresh Block Party (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Bast and Faile detail © Photo © Jaime Rojo
A box of chocolates from many of the newer Street Art confectioners; ASVP, Cake, Overunder, Quel Beast, Clown Soldier, Fumero, Krsna, QRST (Photo © Jaime Rojo)
Detail Photo © Jaime Rojo
Chris Stain busted out a new piece (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Gaia, Samson, Castro Photo © Jaime Rojo
Imminent Disaster, Goya, Ellis G Photo © Jaime Rojo
Burning Candy, Tek33, Dscreet (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Deekers is hanging out on the corner watching the rest of the proceedings (photo © Jaime Rojo)
And here we move to a British invasion of sorts with Geishas and Primates from Hush and K-Guy respectively. XAM has been installing some pretty cool looking bird houses around town equipped with LED lights on their porches that illuminate when the sun sets. Infinity and VUDU’s pieces for the Showpaper box project adds to the conversation on the street with a beaming signal tower atop the box.
K-Guy’s recent “Primates” piece, including this one that appears to be pretty fresh, have been appearing around Brooklyn suddenly. Apparently its meaning is reference to the growing perception of hypocrisy in the Catholic church, particularly as pertains to pedophilia coverups, its position on contraception, gay rights, among other issues.
K-Guy (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Hush (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Hush (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Infinity and Vudu piece for “Community Serviced” (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Infinity detail (photo © Jaime Rojo)
XAM “CSD Dwelling Unit 1.6” (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Close up of the birdhouse by XAM (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Samson, Sten & Lex (photo © Jaime Rojo)
And finally the 800 pound pink gorilla in the group, Samson from Albany, began his audacious cityscape project directly beside his hero/shero Sten & Lex. The neighbor next door liked it so much Samson will be back to continue the piece – which is part of a much grander scale piece on urban decay, development, and renewal that he hopes to stage in the future.
Fun Friday 11.19.10
Hush “Found” Show – New York Debut Tonight
“I’ve always been an artist in some form, or certainly always creative – it’s a lifestyle, I don’t think you choose art, its something you do, it is life. Well my life,” Hush explains to BSA. This week he’s been putting work up in the Lower East Side of Manhattan and tonight is his NYC solo exhibition debut at The Angel Orensanz Foundation For Contemporary Art. We’re not missing it.
172 Norfolk Street
New York, NY 10002
Tel: 212.529.7194
And there is a free print giveaway- read the details here: http://hushstudio.blogspot.com/
Rae McGrath at Brooklynite Saturday: Unconventional Conviction
The gallery is completely re-painted and Rae is standing on his head waiting for it to dry. Unconventional is right – the last two years as a ringmaster and co-proprietor of Brooklynite Gallery have put him squarely in the middle of a tornado of punchy Street Art and a panoply of personalities – always with a very defined focus, high level of quality, and total conviction. As a curator, marketer, and host, this modern carny is a font of new ideas and angles, backed up with straight up elbow grease.
Now Rae is taking a minute or two to let people see what snaps his elastic mind when it comes to making art. You can see how the curator and the artist merge in this poppy geometric collection; Bast, Miss Bugs, Dain, Ana Peru Peru Ana, Various & Gould and others each have a shout out. It’s all here; the dense graphic punch, the vibrant blue collar reverence, the deliberate slicing and refracting off a funhouse mirror ball. Always a surprise and always a reward, artist Rae MaGrath’s debut is bound to be a funkadelic bootilicious jam.
‘UNCONVENTIONAL CONVICTION” this Saturday November 20 6 to 9 pm at Brooklynite Gallery on 334 Malcom X Blvd, Brooklyn, NY 11233. Tel 347 405 5976
Bushwick Block Party Saturday
Tacos! And freshly painted street art by some of your favorite names on a street in Brooklyn. What’s not to like?
Factory Fresh and app maker All City Street Art are throwing a party for you and all you have to do is show up on the block Saturday afternoon.
Brooklyn Street Artists Paint a 200 foot wall and the Burning Candy Crew debut their new film!
• Live painting
• Calexico taco cart
• DJs
• Art for sale from participating artists
• Burning Candy’s Dots film premiere
Richard Hambleton New York — in London
James Brown was the Godfather of Soul, Aretha is the Queen of Soul, Michael was the King of Pop, and Jennifer Lopez is a judge on a TV talent show. Now we learn that one of New York’s first recognized street artists, having blanketed the L.E.S. with disconcerting shadow figures in the 1980s, is actually called “The Godfather of Street Art”. Thank Allah you don’t have to be the one in charge of handling these honorariums because you know that has got to be a thankless task. On the occasion of “Richard Hambleton New York”, The Dairy Gallery released this video.
Richard Hambleton. Image Courtesy of the Dairy Gallery
And Speaking of Dairy, Have You Seen the new Ron English Cow Painting?
Factory Fresh In Collaboration With All City Presents: Bushwick Block Party (Brooklyn, NY)
Brooklyn Street Artists Paint 200 Foot Wall, Burning Candy Crew Debut Film at Bushwick Block Party
All City, the international street art and graffiti app, is partnering up with Factory Fresh gallery in Bushwick, Brooklyn to open up 200 feet of wall and turn it over to Brooklyn street artists. Chris Stain, Gaia, Skewville, Imminent Disaster and several guests artists will be tackling the project. Tek33 and Dscreet of London’s Burning Candy crew will also be in town painting and premiering their film Dots.
All City Block Party
Saturday, November 20
2:00 PM, Dots premiering at 7 PM
Factory Fresh – 1053 Flushing Avenue – Bushwick, Brooklyn
* Live painting
* Calexico taco cart
* DJs
* Beer
* Art for sale from participating artists
* Burning Candy’s Dots film premiere
Street Art And The Day Of The Dead
“Dia de los Muertos”
Skulls are everywhere on the street today, and here is a collection to mark The Day of the Dead. The commemoration of people who have passed is observed nation-wide in Mexico every year at this time. Although it is not a national holiday, the strictly religious and cultural observance is revered and, depending on the region, it varies in the ways in which the holiday is marked.
The cultural aspect of this holiday has inspired many artists, filmmakers and poets. Here we have selected images of Street Art culled from our library to mark the Dia de Los Muertos, focusing on the most prominent symbol used to represent this holiday: “Las Calaveras” or skulls.
Mexico’s “Dia de los Muertos” or “Day of the Dead” takes place every year on November 2 to coincide with the catholic holiday of “El Dia de los Santos” or “All Saints Day”. The Day of the Dead is not the Mexican equivalent of Halloween. The Day of the Dead in Mexico is a celebration of Death and it does not carry any of the connotations of fear, fantasy and gore that Halloween does.
This religious and cultural holiday can be traced as long ago as 3000 years. Before the conquest of what’s now modern Mexico in the pre-Hispanic era the indigenous cultures celebrated death, rebirth and their ancestors by displaying human skulls as memento mori.
When the Spanish missionaries arrived more than 500 years ago they tried without success to eradicate such pagan and sacrilegious celebrations that seem to mock death while converting the indigenous people to Christianity. To the Spaniards death was the end of life but to the Aztecs it was a continuation of a journey not yet completed. The Aztecs embraced death and they celebrated it for the entire month of August, the ninth month of the Aztec Calendar, and the festivities were presided by the goddess Mictecacihuatl or “Lady of the Dead” presumed to have died at birth.
The Spaniards were met with fierce resistance in their attempts to vanish the rituals so in frustration they sought and found a common ground with the natives by moving the pagan rituals to coincide with the Catholic holiday of “El Dia de los Santos” or “All Saints Day” on November 2.
Modern Mexicans remember their friends and family members that have departed from life by honoring them with extravagant festivities that, depending in the region might include lavish offerings or “ofrendas” in private altars in the cemeteries at the tombs of their loved ones and/or at home. It is a day of celebration and many people elect to stay overnight at the cemetery for prayer, and remembrance but partying, eating and drinking is encouraged and expected always following the norms of respect and decorum for the defunct.
These “ofrendas” or gifts include the most favored dishes, foods and beverages that their loved ones enjoyed while alive. They also include photos and other personal mementos of the deceased ones. The “ofrendas” are meant to be eaten and shared by the relatives and friends of the departed and sometimes they are very elaborate five course dinners. Other times the relatives might choose to have a daytime picnic at the cemetery and return to their homes at dusk. The “ofrendas” are believed to nurture and help the souls of the dead while in their journey to heaven.
Some people use this day to just take their customary once a year trip to the cemetery to clean and maintain the tomb of their loved ones.
Regardless of the singular cultural distinction of each region two symbols are common throughout the country: “La Calavera” or The Sugar Skull and “La Catrina” or The Skeleton Lady. The Skulls can be made of sugar and chocolate and often are inscribed with the recipient’s names and are gifts to both the living and the dead. There is also “El Pan de Muertos” or “Bread of the Dead” which Mexicans give as gifts to the visiting relatives for their journey back home.
It is said that Mexicans not only celebrate death they also eat it.
Main Banner image credit: Jose Guadalupe Posada “Gran Calavera Eléctrica” Courtesy Library of Congress.
Addict Galerie Presents: ” L’ART URBAIN …du mur a l’atelier…” A Group Show (Paris, France)
Vernissage Samedi 16 Octobre à partir de 18H
Opening Saturday October 16 from 18H
Addict Galerie
Exposition Collective du 16 Octobre au 4 Décembre Mardi Samedi 11 :00 – 19 :00
Group Show from October 16th to December 4th Tuesday Saturday 11 :00 – 19 :00
La rue, laboratoire dun nouveau mode dexpression
Un art est né dans la rue parce que ses auteurs ne se définissaient pas comme des artistes. Cétait là, la révolution. Des jeunes aux doigts errants, voulaient simplement rappeler leur existence en prenant à partie un paysage urbain, prison de briques et de pierres, souvent délabrée, qui servait de décor à leur vie. Depuis maintenant plus dun demi-siècle, lesthétique des cités sen est trouvée modifiée.
On a souvent dénoncé le spontanéisme immature de ces peintres clandestins qui nobéissaient en réalité quà un besoin instinctif dexpression visant à déconstruire un certain académisme des formes. Dabord terrain dexpérimentation de jeunes amateurs, la rue est devenue le lieu dexposition dartistes issus des meilleures écoles allant à la rencontre dun public, souvent absent des musées.
A rebours de lindividualisme traditionnel du créateur, ces artistes ont su développer générosité et sens du partage pour élaborer des projets collectifs. Ils ont également renouvelé les outils traditionnels de la peinture en explorant toutes les techniques et tous les types de supports. Certains dentre eux en revisitent laspect figuratif avec lironie dun langage métaphorique. Dautres sapproprient aussi le multimédia pour nous sensibiliser aux dangers du monde virtuel.
Lart urbain est désormais un art de vivre pour beaucoup de ses adeptes, artistes authentiques à linspiration variée qui entendent créer en toute légalité, sur des supports autorisés.
Surgit alors un paradoxe : comment ces innovateurs nomades, ayant élu la rue comme terrain dexpérimentation, habitués à y exposer des travaux destinés à disparaître, comment ces acteurs du provisoire peuvent-ils se laisser enfermer dans un musée ou une galerie ?
Une chose est sûre : en investissant « lintérieur », en renonçant à leur clandestinité, ces artistes ne perdent rien de leur authenticité. Ils revendiquent simplement une inspiration différente mais fidèle à leur démarche créatrice. Tous se promettent également de retourner sexprimer dans la rue. Cette tendance nest pas nouvelle. Le passage du mur et du wagon au support léger, mobile et collectionnable se produit déjà à New York dès la fin des années 70, avec Crash, Lady Pink !
Face à ces tentatives qui se mondialisent que pense le citadin de ces « uvres » quon lui met sous le nez ? Il demeure sceptique, parfois choqué, souvent dérouté. Institutions et critiques en ont tiré prétexte pour tenir à lécart ces fabricants de signes indéchiffrables, ravalés au rang de propagateurs dune sous culture de ghetto aux slogans parfois subversifs.
La presse, de son côté, a fait preuve dune étonnante absence de curiosité à légard de ce mouvement quand elle ne la pas fustigé allant jusquà le traiter « dart dégénéré ».
Les musées lont largement ignoré. Les collectionneurs, mal informés, ne pouvaient que se montrer frileux à son endroit.
Un tel contexte assigne à lart urbain une place singulière dans lhistoire et ne facilite pas sa reconnaissance comme mouvement artistique à part entière. Même si la situation évolue lentement, à ce jour en France, très peu dexpositions lui ont été consacrées. Elles ont notamment peu pris en compte la variété des techniques quil met en uvre, ni la richesse de son inspiration, passant même à côté de certains de ses grands acteurs.
Il nétait que temps de témoigner de limportance dun des élans créatifs les plus révolutionnaires du Vingtième siècle car inscrit dans une époque condamnée à lentassement humain dont il réinvente les formes dart pictural.
Pour rendre compte de son ampleur, Addict Galerie lui consacre deux expositions, la première débutera le 16 Octobre 2010. Ce panorama voudrait témoigner du foisonnement des talents qui lirradie. Seront entre autres rassemblées les uvres de plus de quarante artistes internationaux, des pionniers tels Gérard Zlotykamien, John Crash Matos, Doze Green, Lady Pink, John Fekner et Don Leicht, Jean Faucheur, Toxic jusquaux jeunes talents tels Imminent Disaster, Jazi, Alexandros Vasmoulakis, 36RECYCLAB, Mambo Partageront aussi ses murs Jaybo, Marco Pho Grassi, Victor Ash, Herakut, Andrew Mc Attee, Nick Walker, Kofie, Boris Hoppek, Thomas Fiebig, LATLAS, Mist, TRYONE, Smash 137, Eelus, Dtagno, 108
Ce projet unique en son genre suppose une subjectivité dans les choix dont Addict Galerie a conscience et quelle assume librement. Il sagit pour nous de révéler, loin des sentiers battus, la cohérence dun mode dexpression qui, à travers sa multiplicité, saffirme comme imaginatif, inspirant et novateur.
La scénographie proposée scande en deux temps le parcours de ce panorama sans en briser lunité même si la première étape comporte une dominante plus abstraite et la seconde plus figurative. Cette approche conforte au contraire une vision globale qui voudrait souligner la réussite du passage de cet art en galerie.
Par cette initiative hors norme, Addict Galerie souhaite rendre justice à lart urbain et laider à asseoir sa légitimité artistique.
Laetitia Hecht et René Bonnell
Pour toutes demandes Contactez la galerie : +33 (0)1 48 87 05 04 / info@addictgalerie.com
Information available upon request Contact the gallery: +33(0)1 48 87 05 04 / info@addictgalerie.com
ADDICT GALERIE
Laetitia Hecht
14/16 rue de Thorigny
75003 Paris – France.
T: +33(0)1 48 87 05 04
info@addictgalerie.com
www.addictgalerie.com
Images of The Week 09.26.10
Our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Chris Stain, Imminent Disaster, Labrona, Lister, Oculo, Shepard Fairey, Shin Shin, Trice, White Cocoa, and a big piece of freshly baked CAKE.
The guys of Primary Flight, Books and Typoe are hosting street artist Cake while in Miami at The Fountainhead Residency in conjunction with Primary Flight.
Below are images of her new work “Two Sisters and a Peach”with photos by © Lena Schmidt.
Fun Friday 09.24.10
Nuit Blanche Coming to New York
An amazing array of artists working with light are transforming a portion of Greenpoint Brooklyn October 2nd for New York’s first actual participation in “Nuit Blanche” a celebration of Street Art from another perspective. NYC has long been a center of electronic arts experimentation and the field is now flooding with amazing new talent.
BSA is participating and encourages you to participate – you will definitely see stuff you haven’t seen before in a welcoming public environment. The entire event will also be simulcast live and will include cities around the world, including our sister city Toronto.
Bring to Light: Nuit Blanche NYC from Michael Zick Doherty
Volunteers are welcomed and needed, especially electricians, tech savvy folks, and people who support electronic art in NYC. To volunteer please email Jacquie at jacquie@bringtolightnyc.org
Dumbo Fest This Weekend
A number of Street Artists are participating in one of Brooklyn’s biggest art events this weekend, and all you have to do is wander the streets. Click the image to download a Map!
No Longer Empty
As part of the Dumbo Arts Festival a few Brooklyn Street Artists have already prepared some new street work for “Watch This Space”, including Chris Stain, Imminent Disaster, Jordan Seilor, and the piece below by Helen Dennis.
More information about the installations HERE
How to More Effectively Market Your Products Using Street Art
Street Art in NYC: Weathering Storms, Fending Off Predators
In New York City, unlike London, Chicago, and San Francisco, the art on the streets has a longer run. Street Artists love to get up in New York and come from all over the world and the rest of the country for the experience of it. The city has plenty of walls and the artists know that if they are lucky to get up their pieces can stay there for weeks or even years without being disturbed. If the piece survives predators or the capricious moods of New York weather, time will add a natural depth to the art. These pieces don’t simply surrender their character, they aggregate it, eventually attaining an aura of invincibility.
Some stencils acquire an ore patina against the rusted metal that is a wonder to behold, a finish that decorative painters strive for years to achieve. Layers of paint begin to peel and give the art a sense of movement and life. Wheat-pastes that survive summer storms and winter Nor’easters are imbued with a new whimsical life as they curl, buckle, shred: starting their transformation and ultimate disappearance.
Street art is ephemeral but it can also be resilient; a metamorphosis that, when underway, is always fascinating and pleasure to see. We present here pieces that have endured many a storm and lived to tell a story.
No Longer Empty Presents: “Watch This Space” A Group Show Including Logan Hicks, Chris Stain, Imminent Disaster and Jordan Seiler (Dumbo,Brooklyn, NY)
No Longer Empty
Watch This Space
Opens September 24th, 2010 to October 23rd, 2010
Runs Thursday through Sunday, 12pm to 5pm
As a start to the Dumbo Arts Festival, No Longer Empty will be working with exteriors of buildings as well as mounting an exhibition in a vacant gallery space. United under the title of “Watch This Space”, both the exhibition and the mural works will allude to Dumbo’s industrial past as well as its current process of gentrification as the area remakes its image and purpose.
Working with the scaffolding, which surrounds the buildings in Dumbo, Chris Stain and Logan Hicks’s works will portray hauntingly photo realist images of New York crowds in gritty, urban scenery to elevate a sense of the working class hero.
In the gallery space at 55 Washington Street, NLE will be installing a site-specific exhibition, which unites the outdoors with the inner space again referencing the intensive construction of Dumbo in its march to gentrification. Artists to date include Alexandre Arrechea, Alejandro Almanza Pereda and Cal Lane.
Cal Lane creates “soft” or delicate images through “hard,” industrial tools. For instance, the artist has carved floral lace patterns into gardening shovels and car doors and carved intricate tapestries from oil drums.
The interdisciplinary quality of Alexandre Arrechea’s work reveals a profound interest in the exploration of both public and domestic spaces. He creates wry comments on the rapid expansion/demolition of cities mediating between the two impulses with his own push-pull sense of artistic negotiation.
Alehandro Almanza Pereda transforms the most basic objects from daily life or construction sites into poetic ruminations, which often seem to defy the laws of gravity. At once playful and conceptually strong, the viewer is compelled to see wood chips, crates, cinder blocks or florescent bulbs as aesthetic entities capable of transcendence.
Alexandre Arrechea
Alejandro Almanza Pereda
Michel de Broin
Logan Hicks
Cal Lane
Lincoln Schatz
Helen Dennis
Imminent Disaster
Jordan Seiler
Exhibition at 55 Washington Street, Suite 200
Murals on Plymouth, Main and Washington Streets Dumbo Brooklyn
Images of the Week 07.25.10
Our weekly interview with the street; this week featuring Andy Kessler Foundation, ASVP, Bishop203, Brummel, Clown Soldier, Imminent Disaster, JC2, JJ Veronis, Mr. DiMaggio, QRST, Shin Shin, Special Graffiti Unit, Zako, Zhe155
This summer has the floodgates open for all manner of oddities and agendas evident on the walls in NYC. While there is beauty and skill of varying degrees, more often you’ll also encounter themes better categorized as anxiety-ridden. Don’t look to our street artists to shield us from the rawness of messy life that is lurking under the cosmopolish of a world city. The conversations on the street continue to contemplate war and violence, render social and political critique, create memorials, offer blunt opinion and propose existential questions. Conversations among street artists also continue before our eyes, making for progressive theater and on-the-fly “collaboration”.
We start off with something more along the lines of graff, framed by July’s succulent green.