Presenting “Chicago Street Art” By Joseph J. Depre in Conjuction with the Chicago Street Art Show At The Chicago Urban Art Society (Chicago, Ill.)

Images of Week 07.19.09

July 19, 2009 Artists, Brooklyn, BSA Images Of The Week, NYC, On the Street

Our weekly interview with the streets

Uhh, uh-huh, yeah
Its all about the benjamins baby
Uhh, uh-huh, yeah
Its all about the benjamins baby (photo Jaime Rojo)

A Rose on a bridge beam (photo Jaime Rojo)

Space Invader (photo Jaime Rojo)

Does this remind you of those cheap home-office printers you go through because they make them to last about a week and a half now? (Specter) (photo Jaime Rojo)

(Connor Harrington) (photo Jaime Rojo)

Stop or I shoot! (Connor Harrington) (photo Jaime Rojo)

Do you love KH1? (Nine) (photo Jaime Rojo)

MBW, Tian, HomeTown HiFI (photo Jaime Rojo)

Who knew he would turn out to be a cross-dresser? (MBW) (photo Jaime Rojo)

Oops, you may want to wax that. (MBW) (photo Jaime Rojo)

Door to door salesman (MBW) (photo Jaime Rojo)

(NINE) (photo Jaime Rojo)

Shin Shin, infinity, Stickman (photo Jaime Rojo)

Bees near the entrance of the hive. (Shin Shin) (photo Jaime Rojo)

Sweet-Toof-Mobile eyeballing the girls in their summer shorts (Sweet Toof) (photo Steven P. Harrington)

You, that’s the bomb! (Space Invader) (photo Jaime Rojo)

“The true artist helps the world by revealing mystic truths”, so sayeth the Stikman (Stikman) (photo Jaime Rojo)

Everybody knows that Einstein dude is just a total hippie. (Tian, MBW, DickChicken) (photo Jaime Rojo)

)

Perfectly balanced. (Elbow Toe) (photo Jaime Rojo)

These three homeys are spreading the good word. (Elbow Toe) (photo Jaime Rojo)

Under the ever-watchful and wise eye (Elbow Toe) (photo Jaime Rojo)

Revs on the East River with Mad-hatten in the back (photo Jaime Rojo)

WK Interactive motion portrait (photo Jaime Rojo)

On with the (Street Art) Show !

July 2, 2009 Artists

Action! That’s what is happening in the street art scene in New York,

despite the wretched economy and artists losing their dayjobs, and galleries of all types dreaming up new innovative ways to stay afloat, the street art keeps coming.

In one week only (the week we lost Michael Jackson) we hit only a few of the events going on that featured street artists – we’re considering rollerskates and interns at this point – and even if you can’t afford it, you feel rich! Plus the refreshments are usually free… just don’t take it on the street or you get a ticket.

Welcome to the new Brooklynite Pop Up Shop in the East Village. The main gallery remains in Bed Stuy, where Ray and Hope hope it will stay! (photo Steven P. Harrington)

New Specter Print at Brooklynite – he did 8 versions of this, and they are much more impressive in person (photo Steven P. Harrington)

Zbiok and Remed, Various and Gould at Brooklynite (photo Steven P. Harrington)

Cool Aiko pieces on cupboard doors at Brooklynite (photo Steven P. Harrington)

Michael in the Headlines (photo Steven P. Harrington)

Hundreds of fans crowded together to dance and shout and shake their bodies down to the ground outside the Apollo Theatre in Harlem on Friday (photo Steven P. Harrington)

Imminent Disaster at Ad Hoc – sorry no good pics from Gaia – you can check our interview with them a couple days back (photo Steven P. Harrington)

An impressive number of new canvas pieces by Bishop 203 at Eastern District (photo Steven P. Harrington)

Ever cheerful Dennis McNett (McMutt) at Eastern District (photo Steven P. Harrington)

The crowd at Eastern District (photo Steven P. Harrington)

The captions are the funny part. But no closeups here, sorry. Dick Chicken at Eastern District (photo Steven P. Harrington)

Can you name these 4 album covers? Invader at Jonathan Levine (photo Steven P. Harrington)

WK Interact wall sculpture at Jonathan Levine Gallery (photo Steven P. Harrington)

Vixen with cougar by WK Interact (courtesy Jonathan Levine) (photo Steven P. Harrington)

WK Interact courtesy Jonathan Levine Gallery (photo Steven P. Harrington)

A series of new portraits of WK’s friends adorned the gallery – with friends like these… (WK Interact at Jonathan Levine Gallery) (photo Steven P. Harrington)

A blur in motion, WK Interact signs fresh copies of the new Drago volume about him at Jonathan Levine (photo Steven P. Harrington)

Skewville’s donated piece at the fundraiser for NbPAC (North Brooklyn Public Art Coalition) in Greenpoint (photo Steven P. Harrington)

Invader Covers the Beatles and the Clash

June 16, 2009 Artists

Technology has an integral effect on contemporary culture – and it’s changes continue to change us individually – the new stuff always sucks us in. Remember radical new Friendster a few years ago and how your actual friend Clyde Fromage was nearly wetting himself because he had all these virtual friends on the computer and you thought he was raving mad and a shallow idiot? Did you just check Twitter twice during the previous sentence?

LOL!

A lot of today’s street artists grew up with video games around and they have a romantic nostalgia for the 8-bit characters of the “early” age of joysticks and chords and 2-color screens. For example Matt Siren bases his ghost-girl on his formative years with Pac Man.

The little orange ghost girls were greatly influenced by Pac Man. "Skinny Drip" by Matt Siren and Lee Holin (for "Street Crush" show curated by Brooklyn Street Art)

Reaching back to that same nostalgic simplicity, the street artist Invader references the 1978 Atari video game that featured Space Invaders. The pointillism of his countryman Seurat a hundred years earlier was updated by Invader when he began putting mosaics up in the streets of Paris in the late 1990s. The irony lies in the unique choice of medium – the tile; as old as fire urns, at once mass-produced and hand-hewn, makes up the “bit”.

This month Invader will be showing his new work, and his choice of medium is again unusual, but not out of character. The Rubik’s Cube was a mind-stumping 3-d mechanical puzzle invented in 1974 that became a “hot” toy for kids around the same time as the Space Invader video game. You can see pretty quickly why this toy is a turn-on to an artist like Invader. In the video below, Invader pays homage to famous covers of vinyl album, a technology that has since been digitized too.

TOP 10
by extermitent

Top 10, Invaders first solo show in the U.S. opens June 27 at Jonathan Levine,

See the BSA Calendar

Images of the Week 06.07.09

June 7, 2009 Artists, Brooklyn, NYC, On the Street

Summer Action Adventure Staycation (Aakash Nihalani, Poster Boy) (photo Jaime Rojo)

Fitful growths of irregularity (Pork) (photo Jaime Rojo)

Less boxy, more planular (I made up that word), Mr. Nihalani is experimenting with new abstractions. (Aakash Nihalani) (photo Jaime Rojo)

On the lookout for incoming battalions of duncery approaching in their cargo shorts and Abercrombie t-shirts (General Howe) (photo Jaime Rojo)

Hey everybody! Come look at this new Jack Black movie! I won't bite, promise (Hellbent) (photo Jaime Rojo)

A needed Herakut (photo Jaime Rojo)

Boy, the way Glenn Miller played.... (KH1) (photo Jaime Rojo)

Its a Revolution! (Nine Flies) (photo Jaime Rojo)

Nomade keeps good company (photo Jaime Rojo)

Roof Pork (Pork) (Photo Jaime Rojo)

Which way? I'm always getting lost in this part of town. (Space Invader) (photo Jaime Rojo)

Sexy Blossoms of Wisteria only this time of year (photo Jaime Rojo)

Akash Nihalani Poster Boy Passenger Pigeon

Akash Nihalani, Poster Boy, and Passenger Pigeon become far out and psychedelic (photo Jaime Rojo)

Welcome back to the hideout (Dain) (photo Jaime Rojo)

These beer-swilling men, they're all flat and grey to me. I need someone with excitement, know what I mean? (EllisG, Leif Mcllwaine) (photo Jaime Rojo)

Shark Toof flies the friendly skies (photo Jaime Rojo)

Sometimes we have no idea what is on the wall. One of the many mysteries of the street art scene. (photo Jaime Rojo)

A great dislocation (Hellbent) (photo Jaime Rojo)

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