All posts tagged: Jef Aerosol

Wish #7: Jef Aerosol

December 28, 2009

10-Wishes-for-10No 7Names_Aerosol

10 Wishes for 2010, #7, Jef Aerosol

For ten days we’re presenting ten artists and their wishes for the new year, 2010, in no particular order.  Together, they are a tiny snapshot of the people who are part of the giant explosion of street art in New York.  Individually, each has added their expression of the creative spirit to the decade now ending.

Today’s wish comes from Jef Aerosol, who painted his first stencil in 1982 and is widely credited as being one of the original street artists in Paris, along with artists like Blek Le Rat and Miss Tic. January 2010 brings him to New York for “All Shook Up”, a powerful new solo show of cultural icons at Ad Hoc in Brooklyn.

“I wish one very simple thing : let’s all open our eyes and realize once and for good that all human beings on earth are brothers and sisters…
You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one !”

© Jef Aerosol

© Jef Aerosol



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Collaboration without Consent

June 8, 2009 ,

So, when two artists do it together, it’s a collabo, right?

(That’s a fancy abbreviation for collaboration, for those of us who are sequestered on the inside of coolness.)

And when one artist smacks their stuff over top of another artist’s piece, that is a sign of disrespect right? Diss.

How about when one artist deliberately puts a piece on top of the work of another artist and subsequently a NEW piece of art is created by it?  Serendipity?

Who the heck knows these things?  And who the heck put this Audrey Hepburn head on top of a 19th century “call-girl” body by the artist Imminent Disaster?

Breakfast at Disaster (photo Steven P. Harrington)
Breakfast at Disaster (photo Steven P. Harrington)

It sort of looks good though, right? This stuff can only happen on the street, by the way – where the rules seem to be rather unruly, and completely ineffective anyway.  As soon as you try to write a definitive statement about the rules of the street, you will suffer street-hotdog heartburn. Don’t even.

For example, you don’t find people bringing their handy Bob Ross Master Paint Set into the Francis Bacon show at the Met just to brighten up the pieces, do you?

Now that I mention it, did you see the arrows on that Bacon piece?

Francis Bacon "A Piece of Wasteland"

"A Piece of Wasteland" by Francis Bacon

Holy Canoli! Do you see what I see?

Do you think street artist Jef Aerosol went to see the show and smacked it up with some of those red arrows when the security guard was eyeballing the Miss Cataract’s 8th Grade Art Appreciation Field Trip? He seems pretty sneaky.

Probably not, but that would be a new twist wouldn’t it?

Les mythiques
Creative Commons License photo credit: kikozbi1

Francis Bacon has been dead for a while, so if somebody started doing their art on top of his art, that would be kind of like Natalie Cole doing a duet with her father Nat King Cole on that record, “Unforgettable”.  As long as it’s a “tribute” can it really be called “desecration”?  It’s rumored that on Frank Sinatra’s final “Duets” album he didn’t even sing with half of his other halfs.  They just sang by themselves and mailed his studio a disk.  Two alive artists making art together, separately.

And let’s not even talk about Jim Morrison’s grave.

Jim Morrison's Grave Graffiti, Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris, France.
Creative Commons License photo credit: Jim Linwood

Back to the “Breakfast at Disaster” piece at the top. Is this fine art?  Street Art?  Street Art 3.0?  Non-permission-based Art, Hybrid, Mashup, Sampling, Bootleg, Marbled Bundt Cake Art?

Damn, son, somebody better get some labels up in here!

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JEF AEROSOL “ALL SHOOK UP” NYC DEBUT AT AD HOC GALLERY

March 1, 2009 ,

All Shook Up: Jef Aerosol

All Shook Up: Jef Aerosol
January 29 – February 21, 2010
Opening Reception – Friday, January 29, 2010, 6-10pm

Ad Hoc Art
43 Bogart Street
Brooklyn, New York 11206
(via subway take the L Train to Morgan Avenue Station)

For an online version of this document and pictures to download go to this link http://mim.io/3a6f1

Ad Hoc Art presents international stencil master Jef Aerosol in New York City for “All Shook Up”, a stunning show of cultural icons by a Street Artist with 30 years in the game.**

The show with Ad Hoc Art, a gallery widely regarded as one of Street Art’s polestars, features brand new stenciled works as well as the now-classic pieces that have made Jef Aerosol’s name itself iconic; on paper, wood, and found objects.

A true originator who helped spark what is now known as “Street Art” when he sprayed his first stencil series across the city of Tours, France one night in 1982, the self-taught Aerosol has continuously rocked the streets with his oversized portraits and helped define a new public art nomenclature with other French artists like Blek Le Rat, Miss Tic, and Speedy Graphito.

Steadily from the ’80s to the ’10s Aerosol has cut and sprayed stunning portraits of his heroes; cultural icons who stand undiminished by the hype.  They connect directly with the masses and shake public opinion with humor and provocation; Strummer, Cash, Vicious, Hendrix, Bowie, Bardot, Cobain, Lennon, Smith, Jagger – all brainy agitators and vixens cut and sprayed in stark layers of black, grey and white. And each with Aerosol’s signature hot red arrows affixed nearby for exclamation.

In Street Art and in the gallery, Aerosol has not purely focused on those well-known personages. Among the faces you’ll find a number of self-portraits and portrayals of the more anonymous among us such as those living and working in the streets.

Like the best photographers, Aerosol catches the instant of truth in his portraits, and reveals a universal humanity in each subject.  “In my work I love to call up my feelings and emotions to honor these modern day heroes who have fed my life with their music, art and ideas.  This new show is a powerful and vivid collection of these inspirations that I am really excited to bring to New York for the first time,” Jef Aerosol.

Three decades of getting up on walls in cities including Paris, London, Lisbon, Chicago, New York, Bejing, Venice, Amsterdam, Rome, Zurich, Berlin, Dublin, and Tokyo have given him all the “street cred” Jef Aerosol will ever need.

Sighted in numerous books and by authors like Tristan Manco (Stencil Graffiti, Street Logos), blogs like Wooster Collective and Brooklyn Street Art, and newspapers like The New York Times as one of the lynchpins in the stencil art movement that came to be called “street art”,  Jef Aerosol’s work has become a perennial favorite of collectors.  His work resides in hundreds of private collections, has exhibited in numerous galleries in Europe, the U.S. and Australia (list below), and is regularly auctioned with Bonhams (London, New-York), Artcurial (Paris), Drouot (Paris), and Dreweats (London).

In 2007 Aerosol published a gallery of portraits in VIP Very Important Pochoirs (éditions Alternatives, Paris, 2007).

Galleries where the work of Jef Aerosol has been shown include: Galerie Brugier-Rigail (Paris), Galerie Raison d’Art (Lille), Signal Gallery (London), Zozimus Gallery (Dublin), Art Partner Galerie (Brussels), Galerie Anne Vignial (Paris), Galerie Storme (Lille), Galerie Onega (Paris), Carmichael Gallery (Los Angeles), ATM Gallery (Berlin), and Famous When Dead Gallery (Melbourne).

*********************************
Sponsored by BrooklynStreetArt.com
Brooklyn Street Art Loves You More Everyday

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New York Post says Aerosol’s Solo Show Soars http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/jef_aerosol_solo_show_soars_RX6reY7nAmqrUWWJK3aUJM

Jay-Z stencil done to commemorate this show by Jef Aerosol

Jay-Z stencil done to commemorate this show by Jef Aerosol

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First Splash from the “Street Crush” show

February 15, 2009 , ,

A Kisser-Packed Spectacular

Martha Cooper “Next I caught the L out to Greenpoint where Alphabeta was having a very cool (or should I say hot?) Valentine’s bash complete with a Kissing Booth and Strippers.”

Hrag Vartanian “Nothing like a blindfolded burlesque dancer twirling a hola-hoop in front of a wigless drag queen..

It’s kind of hard not to have fun when you are surrounded by art, artist, homies, kissers, and ladies with sequined tassles hanging from the ceiling.

Fun Valen-Times, a perfect street art/ graffitti marriage, and a mash-up of cultural influences swirling around that may not have happened since chocolate met peanut butter. No time to go into it all right now so here’s a few pics to sate your appetite.

But it is never too early to express a heartfelt Thank You to all the street artists, the burlesque performers, the djs, the projectionists, the electronic drummers, the kissing booth builder, the Kisser volunteers, and the family of Alphabeta.

Aiko (Detail)

"Girls Can Play" by Aiko (Detail)

Jes

Kissing Booth Happy; The show reflected in Jess's smile.

"Girl With No Thumbs" (Detail) by Broken Crow

"The Girl with No Thumbs" (Detail) by Broken Crow

Nasty Canasta and Mimi the Clown (photo Steven P. Harrington)

Nasty Canasta and Mimi the Clown (photo Steven P. Harrington)

"Wild In the Street" (detail) by Jef Aerosol

"Wild in the Streets" (detail) by Jef Aerosol

Jus

Kissing Booth Fun

ti

Tigger! and Madame Voulez-Vous debate the necessity of clothing.

s

"Sex Sells" (detail) by Royce Bannon

Harvest

Harvest Moon flies above the crowd (photo by Kat)

ti

"Mam'zlle de mon reve!!" (detail) by Titi from Paris

crowd

What did he just say? I can't look, but I can't stop staring.

Clams

Clams Casino Elegance

The gallery is open till the 28th!

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First Street Crush – Sneak Peak – Jef Aerosol

February 6, 2009 , ,

Deep in the frozen tundra of Greenpoint Brooklyn….. this group of artists have focused their gaze on one theme,

and each one comes at it from a different angle. They are each going up with a variety of ways to see love, sex, sensuality, and the streets.  The show is rockin’ it sexaaaay!

Starting us off is one example from stencil pioneer Jef Aerosol.

It seems appropriate to pay tribute to Bettie Page (Jef Aerosol for Street Crush Show)

It seems appropriate to begin with a tribute to Bettie Page: "Fishnets" (Jef Aerosol for Street Crush Show)

Jef Aerosol Myspace

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“Street Crush” coming up Feb 13 at Alphabeta

January 15, 2009 , , ,

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” Press Release Here

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“Street Crush” Street Art Show at AlphaBeta

January 14, 2009 , , ,

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

DJ Jesse Mann

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!

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

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

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

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

Year in Images 2008

January 1, 2009 , , ,

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.

A Winning Campaign (Shepard Fairey) (photo Jaime Rojo)

A Winning Campaign (Shepard Fairey) (photo Jaime Rojo)

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.

[svgallery name=”Images of Year 2008″]

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The Week in Images 10.26.08

The Week in Images 10.26.08

October 26, 2008 , ,
French Fab Four (Gouny, FKDL, Mimi the Clown, Jef Aerosol) (photo Jaime Rojo)

French Fab Four (Gouny, FKDL, Mimi the Clown, Jef Aerosol) (photo Jaime Rojo)

Resh is here joined by a dance troupe of a street-art Botero beauty by David Gouny, a fluid collaged FKDL figure, the disembodied head of Mimi the Clown (but no butt), and the good natured accompaniment of accordian boy Jef Aerosol.

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