Parallel to the major exhibition “David Bowie is” at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Opera Gallery London will unveil a collection of David Bowie-inspired art for their summer exhibition. The highly anticipated group show will offer a contemporary vision of ‘Bowie Mania’ with one-off masterpieces including tributes from some of today’s leading contemporary and street artists, including; Mr. Brainwash, Joe Black, Eduardo Guelfenbein, Nick Gentry, Marco Lodola and The London Police.
The Many Faces of Bowie will pay homage to the iconic rock star with artwork featuring a delicious juxtaposition of styles showcasing each artist’s unique interpretation of David Bowie’s unprecedented influence and inspiration on their lives.
Now through May 11 graffiti/fine artists Saber and Rostarr are on view at Opera Gallery in Soho in lower Manhattan in a dual show that contrasts the styles of both while revealing similarities.
The west coast graffiti celebrity Saber continues to build heavy layers upon his work, carved and chipped away to reveal what is underneath, a personal archive partially on display. It is a fitting metaphor for the residual buildup of a life and the identities that one assumes, curiously all amalgamated into one slightly grizzled presentation. Here the bombastic history of his throw-ups, burners, and tags are transformed into calligraphic letterforms and entwined with the symbolic patterning of a national flag. The muted industrial palette and battered and worn textures and finishes indicate that this has been a hard journey, but not without flourishes of beauty and flashes of style.
Rostarr’s less showy graphic symbolism may be due to a more conservative formative youth and plays more clearly with the letterform as pattern and rhythm. The New York artist shows passion in the repetition, restricting the palette to two hues and laying in a calligraphic line and a visual beat that feels solid and confident but still human. Like Saber’s work, it feels very personal, studied, and purposefully imperfect. Without the multiple layers, it is more a contemporary diary, cleanly raw and open for you to read.
It’s Friday yo! Tomorrow starts December but the tree is already up at Rockefeller Center and the city is flushed with wide-eyed tourists bumping into each other and we are busy touring graffiti covered abandoned buildings smashed with paint balls. It’s all good. Here’s some ideas for dope stuff to check out this weekend.
1. “Out of Chaos” Paul Insect (NYC)
2. “Organized Chaos” CYRCLE (LA)
3. The RAMMELLZEE Galaxseum (NYC)
4. VINZ “Batalla” (Chelsea)
5. DALeast “Powder of Light”
6. ROA by Makhulu (VIDEO)
7. “Dominant Species” by ROA (VIDEO)
8. IBUg Festival of Urban Art and Culture (VIDEO)
9. “Eyez Open” with Peat Wollaeger (VIDEO)
Paul Insect “Out of Chaos” (NYC)
London based Paul Insect has his “Out of Chaos” solo show at Opera Gallery in Manhattan.
For further information regarding this show click here.
To read our piece on a CYRCLE studio visit click here.
The RAMMELLZEE Galaxseum (NYC)
The Childrens Museum of the Arts is a good place to go to see the innerworkings of the visionary graffiti writer who turned his imagination into a galaxy. This kind of art-making gives inspiration to adults and kids because he fashioned toys and warships and costumes from everyday objects that were not expensive, and his output of mythic Gothic Futurism gods, heros, villains and storylines over three decades lays bare your excuse for not being creative.
It’s about the same price as a movie but the comprehensive collection of the artists work and the self-esteem mission of the museum is priceless. The Rammellzee Galaxseum is a great place to visit for an afternoon with the kids in your tribe and explore free expression – inside where it’s warm and your imagination can fly.
VINZ “Batalla” (Chelsea)
The VINZ solo show “Batalla” opens Saturday night at the Jonathan LeVine Gallery in Manhattan. This Spanish Street Artist plays with the realities of humans, using his own photographs of nude models and animals to construct hybrids by playfully merging their bodies with striking results.
1. Ron English “Crucial Fiction” at Opera (NY)
2. “Museum of Curiosity” at Black Rat (London)
3. “RELIEF” – A Brooklyn Fundraiser Tonight – Helping New Yorkers with an Art Auction
4. “High Class Trash”, Dotmasters at Reed Projects
5. “The Art of Comedy Art Crawl” (NYC)
6. Know Hope and “The Weight” (LA)
7. Lara Zombie and her “Blue Bird Lobotomy (NYC)
8. Krause Gallery has a new show featuring Hanksy (NYC)
9. “Once Upon A Time in The West” at Maximillian Gallery (West Hollywood)
10. JURNE has “Keys To The City” at Klughaus Gallery (NYC)
11. Jurne: “Keys to the City” (VIDEO)
12. OLEK “You Can’t Fool” (VIDEO)
13. Balai Seni Visual Negara (BSVN) (VIDEO)
14. HOPSCOTCH RHA RHA RHA 2012 (VIDEO)
Ron English “Crucial Fiction” at Opera (NY)
The new solo show by Ron English,”Crucial Fiction” is now open at Opera Gallery in Manhattan. The pop surrealist continues to mine the heroic and dark images of his childhood imagination and of those around him, technically masterful 3-D contortions pulsating with mischief and an attitude of play. Street Artist, commercial artist, anti-commercial artist, culture jammer, pop culture enthusiast; English continues to explore to the delight of his fans.
For further information regarding this show click here.
“Museum of Curiosity” at Black Rat (London)
An unusual group exhibition titled “The Museum of Curiosity” is now open at Black Rat Projects and includes a new installation titled “Dream Reliquary” by Brooklyn based Street and Fine Artist SWOON. The show also includes American artist Butch Anthony along with Tessa Farmer, Candice Tripp, Nancy Fouts, Giles Walker, Jessica Harrison, Taylor Shepherd, Delaney Martin and Oscar Rink. A very personal show for Black Rat owner Mike Snell, you also get to see as well centuries old taxidermy and a hippo skull, among other curiosities.
For further information regarding this show click here.
“RELIEF” – A Brooklyn Fundraiser Tonight – Helping New Yorkers with an Art Auction
Making Deals Zine and Trumbull Studios have teamed to put together a silent auction and raffle with the proceeds to bring relief to Sandy’s victims. They reached out to dozens of artists and friends to donate art for this cause. The event aptly titled “RELIEF” will take place today at the Trumbull Studios in Brooklyn. Please come out, have fun, purchase art and help those that are in need. Click on the link below the image for a full list of participating artists.
All proceeds from the sales will go to designated charities for the victims of Hurricane Sandy: New York Cares (nycares.org), Red Hook Initiative (rhicenter.org) and the Red Cross (redcross.org).
For further information and full artists list click here.
“High Class Trash”, Dotmasters at Reed Projects
In Stavanger, Norway the Reed Projects Gallery new show opens tonight with The Dotmasters “High Class Trash” solo show.
For further information regarding this show click here.
“The Art of Comedy Art Crawl” (NYC)
Hit the streets with Vandalog and The New York Comedy Festival, who are teamed to produce a number of murals in Little Italy in the Lower Manhattan. There will be an art crawl, “The Art of Comedy Art Crawl” to be precise this Saturday, Nov. 10 where Street Art fans are going to be guided to appreciate the newly installed pieces by Ron English, Gilf! and Hanksy.
For further information regarding this event click here.
Know Hope and “The Weight” (LA)
The Israeli based Street Artist named Know Hope has a solo show called “The Weight” opening tomorrow at the Known Gallery in Los Angeles, CA. Know Hope unique characters and words come together on walls and found wood as entire poems. His art aims to lighten the burden of living, while contemplating it’s weight.
For further information regarding this show click here.
Also happening this weekend:
Lara Zombie and her “Blue Bird Lobotomy” solo show is now open to the general public at Broome Street Gallery in Manhattan, NY. Click here for more details on this show.
Krause Gallery has a new show featuring Hanksy called “Young Puns 2 – Now With More Pun”. Now open to the general public in Manhattan, NY. Click here for more details.
The new group exhibition “Once Upon A Time in The West” at Maximillian Gallery in West Hollywood, CA opens tomorrow with new works by Andy Appleton, Mauro Caputo, John Carr, COL, COPE2, DD$, DeeKay, Dog Byte, Richard Duardo, Rene Gagnon, Gregos, Listak, Devin Liston, Septerhed, Smear, Steven Swimmer and Tazroc. Click here for more details on this show.
Klughaus Gallery in Lower Manhattan will give JURNE the “Keys To The City” at the opening of his solo show tomorrow. Click here for more details on this show.
Jurne: “Keys to the City” (VIDEO)
OLEK “You Can’t Fool” (VIDEO)
Balai Seni Visual Negara(BSVN), Malaysia for ART BOOK FAIR 2012 (VIDEO)
HOPSCOTCH RHA RHA RHA 2012 (VIDEO)
A good use of duct tape on the street in Indonesia. – And an effective way to engage the public.
David will be signing copies of the book in London on Saturday 10th of November at The Urban Masters exhibition, hosted by Opera Gallery at Factory Seven, 13 Hearn Street, Shoreditch, EC2A 3LS. Opera are also relesaing a print of my work on the same night: ‘Trickster: Access/Excess’.
Opera Gallery NY is thrilled to present Ron English’s “Crucial Fiction”
from November 2nd till November 23rd 2012
Monday to Saturday 10:30AM to 7PM
Sunday 11:00AM to 7PM
115 Spring St. NY, NY 10012
+1 212 966 6675
“I want to tell my inner child, help me remember what you saw, and I will make it for you…”
Inspired by Andy Warhol, Ron English created his own movement and was baptized “The Father of Street Art.” One of the most important and respectable artists of our time, Shepard Fairey, referred to English as “an artist who can paint an advertising satire with the skill of a Renaissance Master (one who’s been to the future and witnessed surrealism and 1984!).”
While participating in illegal public art campaigns from the early 1980s, English developed the skills of a master painter to become one of the pioneers of Pop-Surrealism.
He is one of the very few contemporary artists who still uses his oil dipped paintbrush to create masterpieces like a Picasso on acid would do.
English’s Guernica is one of his most popular pieces. It is a piece which demonstrates that he does not see as the rest of us. The intensity of the Pop Surrealists’ explosion, including his brilliant use of color and his nightmarish creatures, surely leads the viewers eye and mind towards a feeling of tripping while standing in front of his works.
In “Crucial Fiction,” a series of paintings revealing an inspired collaboration with his former self, English seems to have made an important decision to prove that a true artist is able to use his imagination and transform it into reality. His vision is willing to offer us a unique experience with the excitement and vitality of a child, a child who cultivated a bountiful career that has been spread across streets, museums, movies, music, books and television.
“…Give me your imagination, and I’ll give you my skills.” -Ron English
English lives and works in New York. His art is in the collections of the Whitney Museum in New York, Museum of Contemporary art in Paris, Today Art Museum in Beijing, Wynwood Walls in Miami (Art Basel), MOMA: screening of his documentary “The Art and Crimes of Ron English.” His collaborations include Puma, Absolut Vodka and the album covers of artists Chris Brown and Slash to name a few.
It’s a BSA Fun Friday and we’re gonna tell you all about some stoopendous Street Art shows this weekend from Brooklyn to Chicago to Paris to Vienna but first….Everybody get up and do some FF dancing like my homeboy PSY in Korea.
This sh*t is Gangnsta, bro.
SEOUL, YOU THINK YOU GOT TALENT…
1. VIDEO “Gangnam Style” Dance Frenzy from Korea
2. Bäst Sells Olive Oil and Opens New Show at Opera Gallery (NYC)
3. “Just Your Type” at Low Brow Artique (BKLN)
4. LUDO “Metal Miltia” at Galerie Itinerrance (PARIS)
5. “All Write You Scumbags” with Reyes and Steel at Klughaus (Chinatown, NYC)
6. “Dominant Species” by ROA at 941 Geary (San Francisco)
7. GAIA, MOMO AND MICHAEL OWEN in “Zim Zum” (Baltimore)
8. Don’t Fret in “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Chardonnay”(Chicago)
9. Tel Aviv: Israeli Street Artist and poet Know Hope “Others’ Truths”
10. The Black River Festival in Vienna, Austria
11. Stephen Powers AKA ESPO “A Love Letter for You”
12. “Permanence at Space 27 Gallery in Montreal, Canada
13. eL Seed in Tunisia (VIDEO)
14. When Lucent Met Herakut (VIDEO)
15. Voice Of Art “Graffiti Against The System” Presents GATS (VIDEO)
Bäst Sells Olive Oil and Opens New Show at Opera Gallery (NYC)
Street Artist Bäst has always mixed a savory chopped image salad. With his dicing, cutting, collaging and stencilling work on the street over the last decade, a lot of his recent stencils are twisted Bodega style signs advertising basic staples for the pantry. But of all the collaborative advertising that Street Artists have been getting into, we never could have predicted this; Olive oil. You can actually go to snooty classist foodery Dean and Deluca and buy a bottle of Bast style olive oil right now. Only 500 were made in this limited edition and the oil smells better than the petroleum-spilled brownfields in industrial Bushwick where you usually see his work, so why not?
This Brooklyn native artist has been amusing, hijacking, and inspiring with his work on the streets of New York for well over a decade and it’s also cool to see his gallery work at his solo show “Germs Tropicana” opened last night at Opera in Manhattan. If the pieces are too pricey, Dean and Deluca is just a couple of blocks away!
For further information regarding this show click here.
“Just Your Type” at Low Brow Artique (BKLN)
Outside is the brand new wall piece by ND’A and Dirty Bandits. Inside this art store/gallery they are joined QRST and Gilf! in this new small show called “Just Your Type”, opening tonight.
For further information regarding this show click here.
LUDO “Metal Miltia” at Galerie Itinerrance (PARIS)
Parisian Street Artist LUDO was in multiple shows around the world and blanketed the Paris Metro and bus shelters with his subvertisements for two years before a gallery in his native city invited him inside. Tonight Galerie Itinerrance will have LUDO’s first solo show entitled “Metal Militia”.
With a truly unique approach to social critique that serves as a cunning indictment of the advertising industry and the military industrial complex, you won’t find anything like the pretty disgust than the work of LUDO.
For further information regarding this show click here.
“All Write You Scumbags” with Reyes and Steel at Klughaus (Chinatown, NYC)
Ever the ballsy wiseguy, the Klaughaus Gallery in Manhattan continues to produce and present quality shows that challenge your possibly prejudicial pre-formed perceptions of propriety and pugnacity. This time they invited West Coast natives Reyes and Steel to exhibit at their space with a show titled “All Write You Scumbags”.
From the press release, “The New York debut for both artists and showcases a distinct chemistry cultivated over years working together as friends, creative partners and members of MSK, one of the highest regarded graffiti artist collectives in the world.” To find out what this means go to their show opening tonight.
For further information regarding this show click here.
“Dominant Species” by ROA at 941 Geary (San Francisco)
Street Artist ROA concludes his US Summer Tour 2012 in San Francisco at his own victorious opening Saturday at 941 Geary Gallery. The show is aptly called “Dominant Species” and will feature many of the cast of creatures you have grown to expect.
For further information regarding this show click here.
To read BSA’s feature on ROA this week and to see beautiful images of his work in Mexico, Africa and Cambodia earlier this year click here.
GAIA, MOMO AND MICHAEL OWEN in “Zim Zum” (Baltimore)
GAIA, MOMO AND MICHAEL OWEN are transforming the space at the Creative Alliance Gallery in Baltimore with a collaboration that promises to spill over the street and beyond. If you want to see what the trio is up to put the gameboy down and head out to the gallery for their opening tomorrow night with an exhibition titled Zim Zum.
Don’t Fret in “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Chardonnay”(Chicago)
Chicago based Street Artist Don’t Fret has a new solo show, “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Chardonnay” opening Saturday night at the Bizzare Gallery in Chicago. So if you are planning to arrive naked, BYOB and put your wallet under your armpit. Lo-fi comic book doodling that make most people look like family day at the tractor pull, Don’t Fret drawings are people you know and often dang hilarious.
For further information regarding this show click here.
Also happening this Weekend:
If you are in Tel Aviv: Israeli Street Artist and poet Know Hope is releasing a new zine titled “Others’ Truths” and he’s mounted a small exhibition of the drawings that illustrate it. This exhibition will remain open all day today until 4:00 pm. Click here for more details on this show.
The 2012 Edition of The Black River Festival in Vienna, Austria is now open. The festival has an important selection of Street Artists putting up works throughout an entire week of programs. Roster includes Blu, Evan Roth, Florian Riviere, Isaac Cordal, Mark Jenkins, and ZukClub. Click here for more details on this festival.
The film screening by Stephen Powers AKA ESPO “A Love Letter for You” is being hosted by the Joshua Liner Gallery in conjunction with their current show by the artist “A Word is Worth A Thousand Pictures”. The screening will take place tomorrow at The Tribeca Grand Hotel. The artist will be in attendance along with the director and a Q & A will follow the film. Click here for more details on this event.
“Permanence” is the title of the new group show at Space 27 Gallery in Montreal, Canada. With an ambitious line up international and Canadian artists this show aims to juxtapose the “ephemeral nature of street art with the permanence of collectible art.” From their press release. Click here for more details regarding this show.
In the spirit of Unity, we present Street Artist eL Seed in Tunisia (VIDEO)
This week there has been much news of sadness, discord, and suffering in Libya, Egypt, and Yemen. Street Artist and painter eL Seed gives us a moment to pull back and reflect on the beauty and poignancy that a religious belief system can contribute to the lives of some.
Here he creates ‘Madinati’ Calligraffiti on Jara Mosque in Gabes.
When Lucent Met Herakut by The One Point Eight (VIDEO)
“A short documentary which presents the show involving graffiti duo Herakut and the Lucent Dossier group, detailing both the rehearsal process and the final performance in a unique and different way.”
Voice Of Art “Graffiti Against The System” Presents GATS (VIDEO)
Brooklyn-based artist Bast has been an important part of the street art scene for the past 10 years both in New York and Europe, where his wheat-pasted images feature prominently across the urban landscape. An elusive character that has rarely been seen in public, and whose very existence has been debated, little is known about Bast’s work outside of what the public sees throughout New York’s urban environment. Fortunately, more has become known about the artists as his images have evolved to gallery-exhibition status in recent years.
Bast is held in high regard by his fellow contemporaries such as Banksy, Faile, and Paul Insect. In 2010, Bast collaborated with the artist collective Faile on a conceptual video arcade project called Deluxx Fluxx. This project allowed the audience to interact with both of these artist’s work in an arcade game form. While not reviewed heavily in art publications, Deluxx Fluxx received favorable reviews by noted journalists such as Stephen Heyman of the New York Times who argued “art can be diverting, but people sometimes need winners and losers to get in the game.”
For Bast’s first solo show in New York City in 2004 at Transplant Gallery, fellow elusive artist Bansky wrote the introduction to the exhibition’s catalogue. His words give a glimpse into the personality of the artist: “Bast is an artist who represents for Brooklyn. He does this by writing ‘BAST-BROOKLYN’ on other people’s property (and in one case when visiting London the side of a moving red double-decker bus). He does this by speaking with a deep Williamsburg drawl that makes Al Pacino sound like a girl, but mainly he does it by making art that actually feels like Brooklyn. The borough is said to contain every culture and race that exists on the planet earth but that doesn’t necessarily make it interesting- so does the United Nations building but who wants to look at that? The key to Bast’s appeal is not being very responsible. The work isn’t so much a ‘melting pot’ of culture as a food blender, set on max and left until the motor burns out…”
Banksy adds, “His art is fast and loose and cheap, which is strangely why it endures, it’s punchy and it has value. As the great disgraced film producer Robert Evans once said “it’s irreverence that makes things sizzle, its irreverence that gives you a chance of truly touching magic…”
Bast’s work is also appreciated by many in the fashion industry. He has collaborated with Agnes b. on several occasions, who was an influential figure in the art world in the 1980’s during the peak careers of Haring, Warhol, and Basquiat and continues to cultivate artist’s careers today. Bast also teamed up with renowned fashion designer Marc Jacobs to create a clothing collection for one season that eventually lead to creating a 5 season long collaboration. This was a career highlight for Bast as Marc Jacobs had only worked with Takashi Murakami and Kaws previously on his collection label.
Bast’s current show at Opera Gallery New York, “Germs Tropicana,” displays a new direction for the artist, one where Abstract Expressionism meets Pop-Art. In addition to this new style, this group of work continues to explore his already know collage style of faces. The imagery in these pieces appear similar to giant petri dishes, where his text and pop iconography, aka germs, take over the canvas. This body of work is the evolution of Bast, and ties together many of the different styles which he has created over the years.
Fellow contemporary artist Paul Insect describes Bast and his work as, “Coney Island’s original warrior, copied by many, stolen by all…New York’s modern day Basquiat, Bast’s eccentric style delivers a punch to where most people dream of hitting.”
Without much fanfare, the Opera Gallery is selling the streets of the world. The crossroads of many countries meet there tonight as the gallery presents a survey of some of the better-known Street Artists of the moment and a few predecessors; a show of their growing roster of names from the last decades’ explosion on the street and a reflection of the tastes of a new generation of collectors.
Take a survey of the action in auctions, galleries, art fairs, Flickr pages, and even blogs, and anyone would conclude that the streets are a source of life that ignites the imagination of many in the art world today. While the movement of Street Art and graffiti-inspired art into commercial sales always sparks debate about it’s rightful place (or definition), the undeniable fact is that the market for Street Art is now in full bloom.
So here they are, some of your favorite Street Artists, most of whom have been profiled here on BSA, collected in one space for you to view and appreciate under well lit conditions and protected from the elements. Watching the transition from ignominy to untouchable over a little more than a decade is positively head spinning as the identities of many of these same artists were once shrouded, and some still are. When you look at pieces made specifically for the gallery, it can be gratifying and illuminating to see whose talent can evolve and deepen when there is no need to hit and run, or look over your shoulder. As we cross this gossamer veil to see the work of these artists once more before it disappears into private collections, it’s worth noting that the creative spirit is always alive for anyone who wants to access it. That’s what keeps us running to the street.
BSA got a chance to see the show going up – and caught just a few of the amazing pieces – but many were not unpacked yet or hung. If you are in New York, this little show is a big one that you will be glad you saw.
Among the artists on view are Anthony Lister, Rone, Kid Zoom, ROA, Dal East, Blek le Rat, Herakut, How and Nosm, Alexandros Vasmoulakis, b., Know Hope, The London Police, M-City, Sixeart, Hyuro, Liqen, Interesni Kazki, Paul Insect, Remi Rough, Nick Walker, Mark Jenkins, Saber, Augustine Kofie, Revok, Faile, Bäst, Swoon, Ron English, Trustocorp, Mare 139, Jose Parla, Eric Haze, Logan Hicks, Aiko.
For the first time, Opera Gallery will be uniting forty of the most important contemporary artists to emerge from the Street Art Movement. These artists span the globe, including the United States, Brazil, France, Ukraine, Poland, Belgium, Israel, Spain and China, proving that the Street Art Movement has no borders. Opera gallery is proud to have put together this unique show. Thank you to all the artists for creating some of their best works for this occasion.
Featuring Anthony Lister, Rone, Kid Zoom, ROA, Dal East, Blek le Rat, Herakut, How and Nosm, Alexandros Vasmoulakis, b., Know Hope, The London Police, M-City, Sixeart, Hyuro, Liqen, Interesni Kazki, Paul Insect, Remi Rough, Nick Walker, Mark Jenkins, Saber, Augustine Kofie, Revok, Faile, Bäst, Swoon, Ron English, Trustocorp, Mare 139, Jose Parla, Eric Haze, Logan Hicks, Aiko.
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
