Even as they shoot spit-wads at the windows and doodle intensely in the margins of their notebooks while constantly shifting in their chairs in the back row of English class, these two ADHD kids are paying sideways attention to the teacher and not really trying to cause trouble. If you want to keep their attention you just need to keep them engaged and help them channel their energy productively because the next thing you know Overunder and ND’A will be eyeballing the fire extinguisher or pulling apart the wall clock to see what makes it tick…
Two of the new crop of painters on the street who can’t keep their metaphors unmixed, Overunder and ND’A are sprinting through Brooklyn looking for new walls and ladders right now, and they’ve covered a lot of space already this new fall semester. The fast talking buddies have a way of playing off each others’ fantastic ideas and stories that will get you lost if you try to follow them, with words and symbols and meanings tossed into a clothes dryer and tumbled. Give ’em a spot, some bucket paint, and a couple of cans, and who knows what you’ll get. But you won’t be bored.
While their individual styles are distinct, with OU blending realism and figurative forms with architectural elements and ND’A giving a gritty low-brow cartoon monster treatment to his symbols and characters, the fluidity of undulating shapes and the free flow of ideas keeps these two in the same school. Here are a couple of new pieces of theirs for you to grade as they run down the hall and out the double back doors onto the playground to swing from the monkey bars and look up girls skirts. Here on this wall Overunder found a way to interact with that other devilish, horns ‘n all bad boy LNY. The results are well balanced with both pieces complimenting each other.
This week seemed busy on the streets of New York after LA graff writer Saber started us off on Sunday with a sky-writing campaign that was politically charged arts advocacy and a social media-soaked smackdown of the right wing in the US. From culture-jamming to political commentary to social advocacy, it looks like some Street Artists are getting back their voice in many pieces that are espousing a message. Not all of them of course.
So here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Bast, Billi Kid, Creepy, Classic, Espo, Home Sick, JB Rock, Jeice 2, Meer Sau, ND’A, Olek, OverUnder, PM AM, Reader, and Ugo Rondinone. Locations include New York, Istanbul, London, Portugal, Sicily, and the Pilbara desert in the Northwest of Australia.
As he paints the giant 8-shaped snake biting it’s tail, the Italian Street Artist JB Rock explains his new piece this way, “This is a portrait of our modern society and especially of my beautiful but very counterproductive country. For this work I’ve been inspired by the UROBORUS concept, remixed with the Infinity symbol”.
“I traveled up to Port Hedland which is an industry Port in the North West of Australia and painted some walls and found objects in the desert as part of a residency with FORM gallery,” says the Perth-based Creepy.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets (and sometimes inside), this week featuring new shots of Barry McGee, Buttless Supreme, Dain, Elle, Etnik, Ive One, Jose Parla, Kashink, Klepto, Matt Siren, ND”A, Overunder, Pork, Swil, This Is Awkward and Zor.
Here are shots of the new GEOMETRICKS show as installed and opening this evening in Red Hook, Brooklyn at Gallery Brooklyn. These images look so austere and crisp, unlike the wildness on the canvasses, and nothing like the visual cacophony of the streets, where so much of this new abstractionist movement is happening. Guess that’s why they call this the “fine art” portion of the story, right?
Congratulations and thanks to all the artists, the gallery, the interns, and our Vandal/Visionary curator for this show, Hellbent. GEOMETRICKS runs for 6 weeks so if you would like to see it in person you are more than welcome.
The show’s up and the bubbly is waiting for the iceman to cometh and of course we hope you’ll be rolling through as Hellbent curates our first “Vandals or Visionaries” show, entitled GEOMETRICKS.
Tricks are for kids, and for Olek, who has reserved one of her raunchy text messages for you to discover crocheted into her sculpture, and for Overunder, who is hanging his free wheeling story-telling metaphors with pattern overlays on large sheets of draftsman paper. It’s also tricky to make your eyes focus through multiple abstractions, line plays, blinding colors, and rippling patterns that jump off at you as you walk through the gallery space.
All of these artists have been bringing it to the streets, and all come at it from different perspectives. See One developed his through the NYC graffiti scene, Augustine Kofie evolved his draftsman approach out of his days as a writer in LA during the 90s, and Jaye Moon is a fine artist from Korea who’s had a gallery career before she started taking Legos to the streets. But when you see it all together, you realize there is one new language in formation in the Street Art AND Graffiti scene.
“Art from the streets has been heralding a new eye-popping geometric disorder that can now fairly be called a movement.
With roots in recent art history and the rhythms of the street, artists are giving themselves over to pungent color, pattern, grid inspired line, and a sharp edged abstraction. No one can say what has moved the conversation toward this aesthetic — it all mimics the repetitive patterns that are found in nature as well as the cool symmetries programmed by human industry. These modern alchemists from across the globe are somehow pumping the Street Art scene with an oxygen-rich supply of lifeblood and a variety of possible directions to explore.” ~ from Color, Geometry and Pattern on the Streets, our recent piece on the Huffington Post.
Yo Yo what’s up all the Brooklyn peepuls and the New Yorkers and the LA’ers and the Chicago’ers and the Stavanger Norway buddies and shout out to Martha as she hangs in Johannesburg today and to everybody who’s brave enough to tap into the creative spirit. Today in Brooklyn it’s sunny and bright and there’s a bird singing on the chain link fence outside my house. As usual the place to be is where you’re at. Also, we’d be really happy to meet you tomorrow at our show in Red Hook if you can fly by.
1. Kit Kat Flex Dancer in Brooklyn (VIDEO)
2. GEOMETRICKS Opens Saturday (BKLYN)
3. Shai Dahan “Broken Window” (Sweden)
4. Fall Group Exhibition at C.A.V.E (LA)
5. Sydney curates a show on the Street (Australia)
6. “Luchadores” by El Hase is now open to the public at One Art Space in Manhattan.7. Ricky Powell is “Back in BK” and you can catch him tonight at Mishka in Brooklyn
7. PUBLIC WORKS PART I By Jason Wawro (VIDEO)
8. PUBLIC WORKS PART II By Jason Wawro (VIDEO)
9. Narcelio Grud: “Spiral” Invention and Graffiti (VIDEO)
10. TEJN Has a lock on Street Art (VIDEO)
11. Don John in Copenhagen by Alexander Lee (VIDEO)
Let’s start Friday by getting inspired by KitKat – a Brooklyn flex dancer who knows her stuff. (VIDEO)
GEOMETRICKS Opens Saturday (BKLYN)
Of course we had to put this one first because we have 11 cool artists showing work that collectively illustrates one of the major new directions that Street Art and Graffiti are going in right now.
The Red Hook neighborhood is where the fun will be this Saturday as the opening of “GEOMETRICKS”, curated by Hellbent, takes place at Gallery Brooklyn. With a FREE shuttle from the G/F Trains on Carroll St to the Gallery courtesy of local Brooklyn Crab restaurant, a Young Collectors Wall with dope pieces by the artists in the show all priced at $200 each (you must have valid student ID for these pieces), and music provided by Sleptember, you are going to see a slice of community we’ve all grown to love.
Support the inaugural show of “Vandal or Visionaries” Series by BSA and enjoy the beautiful art works by: Augustine Kofie, Chor Boogie, Drew Tyndell, Feral Child, Hellbent, Jaye Moon, Maya Hayuk, MOMO, OLEK, OverUnder, See One. Then join us at Brooklyn Crab to hang after the show – and the restaurant will be offering a FREE shuttle back to the G/F Trains. So what’s there not to like? And we thank our local Red Hook based sponsor, SixPoint Brewery.
For further information regarding this show click here.
Sydney curates a show on the Street (Australia)
It looks like the Australians’ love affair for Street Art continues strong. Ambush Gallery has teamed up with Darling Quartet, Sydney’s new precinct and public arts space to mount an outdoor exhibition opening to the public today. The works of art on view are by a handful of well known and respected Street Artists working today including: Anthony Lister (Bris/NY), Beastman (Syd), Shannon Crees (Syd) and Hiroyasu Tsuri/TWOONE (Melb). The exhibition is FREE, open 24/7 and it will be illuminated at night.
For further information regarding this show click here.
Also happening this weekend:
“Luchadores” by El Hase is now open to the public at One Art Space in Manhattan. Click here for more details on this show.
Ricky Powell is “Back in BK” and you can catch him tonight at Mishka in Brooklyn. Click here for more details on this show.
PUBLIC WORKS PART I By Jason Wawro (VIDEO)
PUBLIC WORKS PART II By Jason Wawro (VIDEO)
To learn more about LALA Arts Public Works Project with the participation of Ron English and Shepard Fairey, as well as How & Nosm, Insa, Push, Revok, Risk, Seen, Trustocorp, WCA Crew, Uglar and Zes click here.
Narcelio Grud: “Spiral” Invention and Graffiti (VIDEO)
TEJN Has a lock on Street Art (VIDEO)
Sculptor TEJN from Copenhagen broadens our conception of what street art and public art and sculpture are with his installations that he chains and locks and leaves. Basically, he’s just giving you his art, and if you really want it probably you will need a blow torch.
Overunder continues to expand, explore, rework, reveal – a surrealist stretching the figurative and coupling it with the symbolic and architectural, and finishing it with overlays of patterning of tattooing or circuitry. In a rising tide of sameness, Street Artists like Overunder are weaving storyline and imagination, innovation, experimentation. His characters are mid-thought and on the move, rooted in history and with a sense of self, these paeans to people and to place. Also it’s interesting to see this new symbol pop up suddenly, this distortion of the smile icon – we’ll have to find out about that and get back to you…
Seth and Nick of Pawn Works continue to curate this, their summer project “Art in Public Places” in the Pilsen Neighborhood of Chicago, and to be on the look out for spots that are choice. Many of the pieces have dealt thematically with the populations and the history of Pilsen, giving a distinctive voice to the neighborhood. With these recent contributions from Overunder and fellow traveler/ painter Labrona just capping off the humid summer season, the character of this project is going wide, and deep.
Chicago contributor and talented photographer Brock Brake captured Overunder and Labrona at work and shares the view through his lens here with BSA readers.
The show is looking great! And we’re happy to make a few new announcements below. We sent this out to the email list with an incorrect photo for the Kofie Augustine image below so if you got one of those in your email box we apologize.
JUST ANNOUNCED – FREE SHUTTLE BUS SERVICE courtesy Brooklyn Crab! Service from F/G train at the Carroll Street Station to the Gallery and crab house and back to the train, free.
Brand new gallery work from 11 Street Artists, including Augustine Kofie, Chor Boogie, Drew Tyndell, Feral Child, Hellbent, Jaye Moon, Maya Hayuk, MOMO, OLEK, OverUnder, See One.
Seth Mooney and Nick Marzullo from Pawn Works are curating the ongoing “Art in Public Places” project in the Pilsen neighborhood on Chicago’s north side. Here are pictures they sent of Over Under and Labrona.
As part of their Vandal or Visionary Series, where BSA selects one Street Artist to curate a show that follows their specific vision of the scene, BSA is proud to introduce Hellbent as curator of the inaugural show of the series titled “GEOMETRICKS” at new Gallery Brooklyn in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn, New York City, opening September 22, 2012.
GEOMETRICKS turns the spotlight on the movement on the streets that boasts bold color, wild patterning, sophisticated lineplay, and a modern approach to abstraction.
As the stylistic circle widens on the street, GEOMETRICKS grabs a razor-sharp cross section of the growing number of graffiti artists who depart from traditional forms of lettering, Street Artists who are not interested in Pop-inspired icons or irony, and fine artists who never considered the “rules” of the street to begin with.
GEOMETRICKS references modernists, tribalists, and the rhythmic symmetry of the natural world, with it’s hexagons and spirals and comforting repetitions. Old labels about graffiti and Street Art mean little; this group takes the formalist clarity that references geometry, folk art, and science, and often smashes it with an abstract hammer.
Parallel, perpendicular, rigid, curvilinear; lines and shapes intersect and play off color-rich pattern – challenging the shape, form and expectations of many in the Street Art scene. GEOMETRICKS show how graff and Street Art right now are exploding in a new direction together without first asking for permission, again advancing the conversation of art on the streets.
“I’m stoked to be able put together this GEOMETRICKS show with some artists who I’ve really admired for a long time as well as some of the new players on the scene. This show is a great opportunity for me to create a vision and really put a dream team of artists into one room and show people what I am diggin’ right now.” – Hellbent
The Vandal or Visionary Series presented by BSA GEOMETRICKS
Curated by Hellbent
The Vandal or Visionary Series calls into question the simplistic characterization of artists who work on the street as one dimensional vandals and it wonders aloud what a gallery show would look like if viewed through their eyes. Many artists have always had a better understanding of the scene than academics or experts who talk about it and this series allow us to see a show curated by someone with a direct view and a very unique perspective.
BrooklynStreetArt.com is a daily source for Street Art reporting, interviews, and photography in New York and around the world.
We’ve been thinking a lot about this show and recently published examples on the street that are indicative of one new direction;
“Art from the streets has been heralding a new eye-popping geometric disorder that can now fairly be called a movement.”
~ From our recent piece on The Huffington Post : “Color, Geometry and Pattern on the Streets”
As part of their Vandal or Visionary Series, where BSA selects one Street Artist to curate a show that follows their specific vision of the scene, BSA is proud to introduce Hellbent as curator of the inaugural show of the series titled “GEOMETRICKS” at new Gallery Brooklyn in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn, New York City, opening September 22, 2012.
GEOMETRICKS turns the spotlight on the movement on the streets that boasts bold color, wild patterning, sophisticated lineplay, and a modern approach to abstraction.
As the stylistic circle widens on the street, GEOMETRICKS grabs a razor-sharp cross section of the growing number of graffiti artists who depart from traditional forms of lettering, Street Artists who are not interested in Pop-inspired icons or irony, and fine artists who never considered the “rules” of the street to begin with.
GEOMETRICKS references modernists, tribalists, and the rhythmic symmetry of the natural world, with it’s hexagons and spirals and comforting repetitions. Old labels about graffiti and Street Art mean little; this group takes the formalist clarity that references geometry, folk art, and science, and often smashes it with an abstract hammer.
Parallel, perpendicular, rigid, curvilinear; lines and shapes intersect and play off color-rich pattern – challenging the shape, form and expectations of many in the Street Art scene. GEOMETRICKS show how graff and Street Art right now are exploding in a new direction together without first asking for permission, again advancing the conversation of art on the streets.
“I’m stoked to be able put together this GEOMETRICKS show with some artists who I’ve really admired for a long time as well as some of the new players on the scene. This show is a great opportunity for me to create a vision and really put a dream team of artists into one room and show people what I am diggin’ right now.” – Hellbent
The Vandal or Visionary Series presented by BSA GEOMETRICKS
Curated by Hellbent
The Vandal or Visionary Series calls into question the simplistic characterization of artists who work on the street as one dimensional vandals and it wonders aloud what a gallery show would look like if viewed through their eyes. Many artists have always had a better understanding of the scene than academics or experts who talk about it and this series allow us to see a show curated by someone with a direct view and a very unique perspective.
BrooklynStreetArt.com is a daily source for Street Art reporting, interviews, and photography in New York and around the world.
We’ve been thinking a lot about this show and recently published examples on the street that are indicative of this new direction;
“Art from the streets has been heralding a new eye-popping geometric disorder that can now fairly be called a movement.”
~ From our recent piece on The Huffington Post : “Color, Geometry and Pattern on the Streets”
Art from the streets has been heralding a new eye-popping geometric disorder that can now fairly be called a movement. With roots in recent art history and the rhythms of the street, artists are giving themselves over to pungent color, pattern, grid inspired line, and a sharp edged abstraction. No one can say what has moved the conversation toward this aesthetic – it all mimics the repetitive patterns that are found in nature as well as the cool symmetries programmed by human industry. These modern alchemists from across the globe are somehow pumping the Street Art scene with an oxygen-rich supply of lifeblood and a variety of possible directions to explore.
An uncanny blending of the cans, both the graffiti tradition and the Street Art practice each find common ground to be a place where tagging and Pop irony all dissolve together into form and shape. On walls around cities where these two practices were once polarized, we’re seeing that everybody can drop their guard and just paint, bro.
In these images collected by photographer Jaime Rojo over the last couple of years, you can see elements of mid 20th century modernism, sci-fi fantasy, retro-futurism, imperfect folk patterning, and the distinct echoes of Wild Style. The common thread in this new discovery of graphic geometry is not just what it is, but as it pertains to art on the street, also what it’s not.