Brooklyn based Street Artist Over Under opens his first solo show in “Building on Building” opening at XYandZ Gallery in Minneapolis, transporting his architectural fever dreams to Minnesota for a hot minute. It’s all about relationships.
Artists who run in the streets of dense cities have a special relationship with buildings, seeing them as potential canvas, laboratory, love affair, and sometimes their perdition. In Over Under’s case, the very structures he was painting and pasting upon got recycled through his mind as worthy of caricature and portrait.
Approximately a year ago when the artist’s prolific output was hard to miss, his fascination with our built environment went on a full REM cycle with a continual metamorphose of architectural elements bending and bundled together with lyrically disembodied limbs. During his nearly two weeks in Minneapolis making work with his buddies Broken Crow, the arms and legs continue to poke into and out of roofs, windows and walls like so many orifices and protuberances entangled in one stately mass.
Passersby here are sometimes astonished, and filled with questions. Is he exploring the relationship between space and personal relationships or is he examining the construct/construction that creates inside and outside, or is he reacting to the ongoing overtaking of Williamsburg and Bushwick real estate by dullard developers? Or is he just in love?
And what about this iconic flying plane with a stream-of-consciousness line of haiku diary entry arching over it? Is it a bird? Is it graffiti, a tag, Street Art or vandalism? Maybe these questions are at play because Over Under is still playing with them, or maybe because there are not clear answers. To us it’s all part of the conversation on the street, which never stops. Tonight, however, the conversation goes in through the doors as Over Under brings the buildings and bridges and foundations and superstructures and rolldown gates and lithe limbs inside for the night. We’ll see what sticks out.
The Mineapolis Twins (Broken Crow) and Overunder have once again combined their talents for this video – just released minutes ago. Part of the New Guard of storytellers, we’re very excited to see what they’ll be coming up with for “Street Art Saved My Life” this summer.
Veng and Chris of RWK Plus Overunder, Never, Peeta and ECB Finish a Wall in Bushwick
Sometime in April we brought you a wall in progress with the tireless Veng and Chris of RWK in collaboration with Overunder, Never, Peeta and ECB for good measure. The guys finished their work a while ago and finally last week we had time to go and check it out. Not surprisingly, each member continues to tighten their individual visions and the wall is richly painted with beautiful details, vivid imagination and a mastery of the can.
The walls of Robots Will Kill and friends can sometimes resemble an open sketchbook of imagination, predilection and pursuit; with Western and urban styles that coexist and interact, if not merge. A 90s 3-D wild style meets 2-D cartoon while a molten white man’s dinosaur heads floats nearby ominously. An ever evolving collective of painters, these friends have worked together often, watching their individual interests and styles develop and articulate.
In this fresh spring collection, the new element of an absurdist nature comes from the mind of Overunder, who sweeps up Veng’s 15th century oil portraits with the roll down gates of city bodegas, depositing them in a ramshackle pile of human limbs and signage like a receding tornado. Another subtle humorist, Overunder gives his gates appropriate adornment; graffiti throwups, tags, a robot from Chris RWK and the time honored graff dis – “Toy” sprayed across a Nike logo.
Somehow Veng’s formalist portrait retains its character and remains drolly poker-faced and disinterested among the debris, and Chris RWK’s robot rises above quizzically in a Shakespearian robe from the Costume Department. The crowning achievement is the deli-canopied cladding Veng’s character head gets – a surreal Star Wars / Escape From New York helmet that flies him here from a Van Ecykian past.
This weekend is a perfect storm of shows that are opening on the East, West and points in between.
Up Close And Personal: RJ Curates Street Artists Into an Upper West Side Apartment (NYC)
In the intimacy of a private residence in the Manhattan suburbs of UWS, RJ Rushmore of Vandalog fame along with Keith Schweitzer and Mike Glatzer of newly minted M.A.N.Y. have mounted a fresh new open house show just off Broadway. An exquisitely curated show with marquee names and a few newbies the selection is solid in quality and unusual in it’s scale.
Troy Lovegates aka Other (image courtesy of the curators)
Participating artists include:
Aiko, Chris Stain, Clown Soldier, Don Leicht, Edible Genius, Elbowtoe, Gaia, How & Nosm, Jessica Angel, John Fekner, Know Hope, Logan Hicks, Mike Ballard, OverUnder, R. Robot, Radical, Retna, Skewville, Tristan Eaton, Troy Lovegates aka Other and White Cocoa.
Aiko’s cans are on proudly on display at the bachelor pad, and that’s not all (image courtesy of the curators)
Dates: May 12th– 15th, 2011
Times:
May 12th, 7 – 9pm
May 13th, 7 – 9pm
May 14th, noon – 9pm
May 15th, noon – 7pm
Note: Due to the limited exhibition space, people may be admitted in block times every half-hour.
Location: Apartment on the Upper West Side (217 West 106th Street, Apartment 1A, New York, NY 10025) – Between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenues.
Cost for entrance: Free
Go to Hellbent and John Breiner Tonight in Brooklyn (NYC)
Mighty Tanka is presenting a show with two Brooklyn based artists: Hellbent and John Breiner.
Mr. Hellbent says of the show: “The best part of making a show like this is to finally see it up on the wall and the way that everything interacts. I have been thinking of these pieces as parts of a quilt, different fabrics being stitched together. The different colors, floral stencils, animals, and jaw bones melding together and playing off one another, even down to the different depths and sizes of panels, but until it was hung they were just pieces, not yet a whole. Its given me an opportunity to show the different elements that i am working with and how they have grown out of one another and to display all the different carvings and stencils patterns together, where on the street they are separated in different locations.”
To learn more about “Smiled Distress” at Mighty Tanaka tonight please click on the link below:
Matt Siren and My Plastic Heart present “Ghost in the Machine” (NYC)
25 spirits in the material world have made tributes to Street Artist Matt Siren’s Ghost Girl character for this show on the Lower East Side tonight. The custom toy show transforms the character that appears in doorways around New York, each putting its own unique spin on his character.
The show includes work from 64Colors, Royce Bannon, Steve Chanks, Chauskoskis, DarkCloud, Deeker, Gril One, J*RYU, Jester, Keely, Abe Lincoln Jr., Map-Map, Marka27, Brent Nolasco, Lou Pimentel, Reactorss, Marc Reusser, Todd Robertson, Robots Will Kill, Chris Ryniak, Matt Siren, Scott Tolleson, Julie West, Wheelbarrow, Wrona
Click on the link below to learn more about this show:
Ghost in the Machine May 13th 2011 – June 12th 2011
Chicago Street Art Show Tonight (CHI)
Tonight the book “Chicago Street Art” is being released at the the Chicago Urban Art Society in conjunction with a show titled “The Chicago Street Art Show”
Brooklyn’s AD HOC has a New Puppy in Los Angeles (LA)
On the West Coast the dynamic duo and husband and wife Garrison and Allison Buxton have curated a group show “I have a dream, I have a nightmare: Friday the 13th” at The New Puppy Gallery opening this Friaday from 7:00 to 11:00 pm
Artists include: Alison Buxton, Beau Stanton, Bill Fick, Broken Crow, Bunnie Reiss, Chor Boogie, Chris Stain, CRASH, Dabs & Myla, Daryll Peirce, David Loewenstein, Don Leicht, Ezra Li Eismont, Garrison Buxton, Hellbent, Joe Iurato, John Breiner, John Carr, John Fekner, Jordan Seiler, Know Hope, Lady Pink, Michael De Feo, Mikal Hameed, Paul Booth, Peat Wollaeger, Ray Cross, Rex Dingler, ROA, Robert Steel, Sean Starwars, TheDirtyFabulous, & Thundercut.
WHERE:2808 Elm Street, Los Angeles, California 90065
English Kills Group Show Saturday, “The Mother Ship” (NYC)
Chris Harding, owner and ringmaster of the Bushwick Brooklyn-based space station English Kills brings out his strong stable of artists for this group show aptly titled “The Mother Ship” opening this Saturday at 7:00 pm. It’s not necessarily Street Art – but this is a hotbed of new ideas so it is always worth your trip.
Participating artists include:
Brent Owens, Andy Piedilato, Vilaykorn Sayaphet, Jim Herbert, David Pacheco, Hiroshi Shafer, Gyles Thompson, Sarah H. Paulson, Holly Faurot, Tescia Seufferlein, Peter Dobill, Steve Harding, Judith Supine, Lenny Reibstein, Andrew Ohanesian, Jason Peters, Don Pablo Pedro, Steven Thompson, Andrew Hurst and Rob Andrews.
English Kills is located at:
114 Forrest St. Ground Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11206
(718) 366-7323
Specter is a “Repeat Offender” 5/14 at Pawn Works in Chicago (CHI)
Brooklyn based artist Gabriel Specter’s solo show “Repeat Offender” opens this Saturday at the Pawn Works Gallery.
Opening Reception Saturday, May 14, 2011/ 6-10pm
PawnWorks
1050 N. Damen Ave.
Chicago, Illinois 60622
Ph: 312.841.3986
London Police in Denver, “Amsterydynasty”
In Denver Colorado Black Book Gallery brings back the glamour of the 80’s with The London Police and Handiedan in a show titled “Amsterydynasty”
SABER at Opera Gallery now and Print Release Saturday
Los Angeles based artist SABER is in New York City for his solo show at Opera Gallery “The American Graffiti Artist”. The gallery is open from 11 to 7pm.
The folks at Pandemic Gallery really know how to throw a party that is at once welcoming, neighborly, and debauched. Tonight they invite you to the closing party for Leon Reid IV “Identity Theft” A Decade of Public Art.
After half decade, Elik returns with a big opening in BedStuy tomorrow at Brooklynite Gallery. Always a good show and a good time – special guest music maker the legendary DJ Kool Herc.
According to Rae and Hope at Brooklynite, “ELIK’s been hoarding scrap wood, furniture, metal signage and a hell of a lot of city trash with plans to turn this place into some sort of ‘shanty town’. He’s politely insisted we turn the space over to him and find something else to do until opening night.”
Musical Guest: DJ KOOL HERC Brooklynite Gallery is located at 334 Malcolm X Blvd., Brooklyn, New York 11233.
Phone 347-405-5976 • BrooklyniteGallery.com
Martha Cooper “Remix” Ends this Weekend
In Culver City, California Carmichael Gallery invites you this Saturday to view the landmark show Martha Cooper “Remix” before it closes. This is the last weekend this show will be on view and if you have not seen it you must go!
“Hi-Graff” is an installation-based street art exhibition that explores the concept of Graffiti as a contemporary art movement. The exhibition, which opens on May 7th 7-11pm, showcases graffiti in its most original form –collaborative murals applied directly to walls.
Artists and humanitarians Jeffrey Waldman and Dave Harmatz came up with a nice little project for Mother’s Day in The Mission neighborhood of San Francisco.
Forever Stamp
“Mission Statement: To send some much deserved love to moms and to be a part of strengthening a relationship. More than that, it was to inspire and motivate people to go out and create works of their own. To showcase how simple and cheap a project can be while still delivering a tangible product amid a fantastic and universal message. Plus we had all these old envelopes to get rid of.”
Troy Lovegate AKA Other (image courtesy of the curators)
Startingon May 12th, a New York City home will play host to a new type of street art exhibit. While the community concentrates on artists creating larger murals in often controversial public spaces, the subtle nuances of the genre are lost in the hype. Up Close and Personal explores the craft of artists who usually work in large-scale formats outdoors, by challenging them to create pieces that conform to the intimacy of a residential indoor setting. The works will be no larger than 30 x 30 inches, as small as a Metro card and exhibited on the walls of a small city apartment. As street art continues to morph into an all-encompassing art genre, Up Close and Personal will showcase works by talented artists whose work is impressive both indoors and outdoors. Up Close and Personal is curated by RJ Rushmore of Vandalog, and Keith Schweitzer and Mike Glatzer of M.A.N.Y.
Participating artists include:
Aiko, Chris Stain, Clown Soldier, Don Leicht, Edible Genius, Elbowtoe, Gaia, How & Nosm, Jessica Angel, John Fekner, Know Hope, Logan Hicks, Mike Ballard, OverUnder, R. Robot, Radical, Retna, Skewville, Tristan Eaton, Troy Lovegates aka Other and White Cocoa
Logan Hicks. Detail on anodized aluminum. (image courtesy of the curators)
Dates: May 12th– 15th, 2011
Times:
May 12th, 7 – 9pm
May 13th, 7 – 9pm
May 14th, noon – 9pm
May 15th, noon – 7pm
Note: Due to the limited exhibition space, people may be admitted in block times every half-hour.
Location: Apartment on the Upper West Side (217 West 106th Street, Apartment 1A, New York, NY 10025) – Between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenues.
Cost for entrance: Free
M.A.N.Y. (Murals Around New York) is a team of artists and curators who organize street and contemporary art exhibitions around the United States.
Vandalog is an international street art blog that covers the art scene as it evolves. Posting interviews, art news, show critiques and photographs of relevant works, Vandalog has gained a loyal following among the street art world. Founded in 2008 by then teenager RJ Rushmore, Vandalog now includes various writers and publishes across a number of social media platforms. Vandalog was Arts Media Contact’s top art blog of 2010.
Veng and Chris from RWK gathered their paint tools and called a couple of their friends over to hang out and paint on their spot in Bushwick, BK. The results have been like chocolate and peanut butter together – you are not sure how it works, but it does. Overunder, ECB, Peeta and Never collaborated on this brand new wall, still in progress.
The PANTHEON show in the windows of the former Donnell Library across from MoMA on 53rd Street in Manhattan opened with a lot of fanfare and excitement on Saturday night. Within minutes of the unveiling of the giant windows there were clusters of tourists and art fans and regular New Yorkers gathering around the brightly lit windows to inspect the collection of a small sampling of the work by graff and Street Art artists during the last 40 years in New York.
At the Hilton across 6th Avenue a packed lounge of artists and press and honored guests and looky-loos were milling around and celebrating the opening while a live streaming discussion of the event and interviews with organizers and artists took place on screens and online. The grassroots organized and run show will be open to the public for the next week and a half, 24 hours a day.
One of the peeps on the street looking at the show was wiseacre Ad Deville of Skewville (below), who posed in front of PANTHEON and offered this succinct assessment.
1. Birdsong ZINE Benefit
2. Nomade on LA Freewalls
3. 10th Anniversary of Robots Will Kill in Philadelphia Tonight
4. PANTHEON Opens in Manhattan on the Street Tomorrow
5. EL Celso Closing Party Saturday at Pandemic
6. Spring is Just Around the Corner! Time For Wedding Planning!
7. GAIA Does Giant Martha Cooper Tribute in Chicago
8. BSA Was in the Newspaper Yesterday
9. Happy April Fools! Insane German Synth Pop “Razor Scooter” Video
10. Banksy Revealed as Nude USC guy having sex on the roof
Birdsong ZINE Benefit – Support Your Local ZINE – Tonight at Brooklyn Fireproof
The Birdsong Zine birthday party and benefit — celebrating 3 years of the Brooklyn artist small collective that produces birdsong among other zines, celebrate with a print show and sweet live music.
–art: featuring limited edition $20 prints by a group of artists who have contributed to, or who have been interviewed by, birdsong over the past three years: Blanco, Cara Fulmor, Cat Glennon, Elizabeth Hirsch, J. Morrison, Julia Norton, Joey Parlett, Danielle Rosa, Will Varner, and Michelle Yu
Haven’t seen these fellers in action before, now, have ye? Bunch of black blobs on their faces though. Did you see the pictures of the final installation here a couple of days ago?
10th Anniversary of Robots Will Kill in Philadelphia Tonight
And if you find yourself in Philly today and want to have a good time and experience great art and excellent company head over to the Vicent Michael Gallery where RWK Art Collective is celebrating their 10th Anniversary of art making
At the Robots Will Kill show will be this piece “Winter Flower” by Veng RWK
PANTHEON Opens in Manhattan on the Street Tomorrow
Curators Daniel Feral and Joyce Manalo invite you to go window shopping this Saturday April 2 to view and buy the art on display on the windows of the old Donnell Library across from MOMA for their exhibition PANTHEON: A History of art from the streets of New York City. See some detail pics from the show here:
PANTHEON:
A history of art from the streets of New York City
Windows exhibition runs April 2-17, 2011
On view 24 hours a day
EXHIBITION LOCATION
chashama at the Donnell
20 West 53rd Street, b/w 5th & 6th Avenue
New York, NY 10019 (across from MoMA)
Image Credit: GRAFFITI & STREET ART diagram by Daniel Feral is a 75th Anniversary celebration of Alfred H. Barr’s CUBISM & ABSTRACT ART diagram.
EL Celso Closing Party Saturday at Pandemic
Pandemic will be hosting a closing party for their El Celso show tomorrow night (1/2) from 7-11pm
It’s your last chance to dance like a maniac in their exclusive…El Celso Mini Discoteca.
Pandemic
37 Broadway (between Wythe and Kent)
Brooklyn, NY 11211
(917) 727-3466
pandemicgallery@gmail.com
Spring is Just Around the Corner! Time For Wedding Planning!
Fools rush in …. where angels fear to tread. Enjoy some of these inspiring Photoshopped delights from romantic Russia and your friends at Sad And Useless
GAIA Does Giant Martha Cooper Tribute in Chicago
Pawn Works and Maxwell Colette Gallery recently hosted New York Street Artist GAIA in Chicago for his “Resplendent Semblance” show and helped him find some walls, like this one in an image from the Pawn Works site, which doesn’t mention that the original image is a photograph from Martha Cooper. Ms. Cooper’s Remix show prep begins in earnest today as she touches down in LA to start installing the her photos and the 50+ original works by graffiti and street artists who have reinterpreted them.
Image of GAIA piece courtesy and copyright of Pawn Works
From our piece with Chris Stain, Billy Mode, and Ms. Cooper a couple of weeks ago:
Brooklyn Street Art:Oh yeah! Gaia is doing that one for this show!
Chris Stain: He is? Cool, that’s cool.
Brooklyn Street Art: Well he loves doing birds, and feathers, and animals. Chris Stain: Well Gaia’s a bird brain, that kid, so it makes sense.
BSA Was in the Newspaper Yesterday
Yes we geeked out to see Brooklyn Street Art in the AM New York newspaper yesterday morning! Plus we were all over the fact that NohJColey and El Sol 25, two of the newest talents on the street got some props. Oh yeah, and that guy Shepard.
PANTHEON: A history of art from the streets of New York City is a labor of love.
This Saturday the PANTHEON mounts a show seen from the street, bringing visual story from the last 40 years of graffiti and Street Art alive in a space that once housed a city library across from the Museum of Modern Art on 53rd Street. Like the real shows we follow on the public thoroughfare, this one is also open 24 hours a day.
An ambitious project spearheaded by Daniel Feral and Joyce Manalo, PANTHEON is truly grassroots, an academic and historic presentation by people who love it and study it and create it. Funded by modest personal contributions to their Kickstarter campaign, the show’s mission is to foster future understanding of how graffiti and Street Art has claimed a place as catalyst in the culture through it’s own wild and wooly evolution on the margins and in the mainstream. A small selection of some of the players on this now global scene, the resulting exhibit aims to be an un-hyped insight into the experience by people who are more concerned with the art than who collects it.
As their media partner, BSA got a behind the scenes peek at many of the pieces that will be shown and here is a photo essay by our own Jaime Rojo. These rich and storied detail shots will hopefully incite your imagination and peak your interest to check out the street show in person.
PANTHEON:
A history of art from the streets of New York City
Windows exhibition runs April 2-17, 2011
On view 24 hours a day
EXHIBITION LOCATION
chashama at the Donnell
20 West 53rd Street, b/w 5th & 6th Avenue
New York, NY 10019 (across from MoMA)
PRESS EVENT – RSVP ONLY*
Saturday, April 2, 4-5 PM
PRIVATE RECEPTION – RSVP ONLY*
Saturday, April 2, 6-8 PM
* To attend either event, please email rsvp@pantheonnyc.com or call 646-269-9494. Location details will be announced at the latest by Saturday morning.
ARTISTS
Abe Lincoln, Jr., John Ahearn and Rigorberto Torres, Adam VOID, Cassius Fouler, Cake, Darkclouds, Droid, El Celso, Ellis Gallagher, Faro, John Fekner and Don Leicht, Freedom, Gen2, Goya, Groser, Richard Hambleton, infinity, KET, LSD-Om, Matt Siren, NohJColey, OverUnder, Oze 108, Quel Beast, Royce Bannon, Sadue, Jordan Seiler, Stikman, Toofly, UFO, and Vudu.
Amazing new work has been appearing around New York by Street Artist Overunder for about a year and a half. An illustrator, painter, and text writer – the styles are quite varied and intermixed and the themes are often symbolic, fantastic, and blurred. One recent piece, a large scale realistic collaboration with a street artist named No Touching Ground, is a memo-pad tattooed arm with a short list to accomplish, finished with a cluster of rollup gates. While the wall was permissioned, the rain was not and it complicated matters for the two artists. In fact, weather is always a component in the work of the street.
When describing the new piece, Overunder explains how one must plan for a works degradation when it is created for the street:
“So pre-production consisted of picking out bits and pieces from my sketchbook followed by an impromptu photo shoot of my arm and tattoo. But the real genesis of the piece was admitting it’s faults. Like saying no matter how good the work is it’s still going to chip, still going to tear, and rip, and fade. It’s going to do everything that we’ve become accustomed to when choosing to work outdoors. So the spin was how can we use deterioration to our benefit?
“Helping Hand’ is our hypothesis to what I would call a “slow” painting. Painting, as I’ve always understood, is based on getting to that point when you say, “it’s done, it’s a masterpiece.” The slow painting anticipates elements of change and works subtractively. So when it starts it’s finished, and then you create layers on top to allow that finale to be postponed.
It was a list of things to do that I wrote on my real hand and then sprayed on this larger-than-life hand. I added a new note on the list: DONATE TO RED CROSS JAPAN. I then left one note undone: PAY RENT. I hoped this subtle prioritizing would get people to question how much they really could help.”
“Lastly I worked on the gates and the names. The longer I’m in NY, the more I’ve become infatuated with roll-up gates and use them in my work, either for imagery or as canvas. The gates are stacked against one another like they are in the city but further abstracted. I then took names of writers; Optimist, Cope, Heart, Give, Host – to be read by writers or non-writers to get two different yet similar perspectives. “
OPENING RECEPTION
Saturday, April 2, 5-7PM
Press preview with curators: 4-5PM
Exhibition runs April 2-17, 2011
LOCATION
chashama/Donnell Library Building
20 West 53rd Street, b/w 5th & 6th Avenue
New York, NY 10019 (across from MoMA)
ARTISTS
Abe Lincoln, Jr., John Ahearn with Rigorberto Torres, Adam VOID, Cahil Muraghu, Cake, Darkclouds, Droid, El Celso, Ellis Gallagher, Faro, John Fekner, Freedom, Gen2, Abby Goodman, Goya, Groser, Richard Hambleton, infinity, Ket, Don Leicht, LSD-Om, Matt Siren, NohJColey, OverUnder, Oze 108, Quel Beast, Royce Bannon, Sadue, Jordan Seiler, Skewville, Stikman, Toofly, UFO, and Vudu.
NEW YORK – On Saturday, April 2, 2011, 35 graffiti writers and street artists will unite to reclaim the former Donnell Library as a repository of visual information on the growing world-wide phenomenon of street art. This exhibition will present an art historical timeline that is a part of New York City’s unique legacy. The artistic contribution of these cultural catalysts and preservationists from the 70’s to the new millennium will address the ever-changing urban landscape and alternative modes of producing art in the streets.
Graffiti and street art are at the crossroads of historicism.
In the last five years, museums have organized exhibitions that present graffiti and street art in a broader scope; Brooklyn Museum’s, Graffiti in 2006; the Museum of Modern Art’s laser-tagging demonstration by Graffiti Research Lab in 2008; the Bronx Museum’s, Street Life Street Art in 2008; and the Tate Modern’s, Street Art in 2008, to name a few. Although these exhibitions have legitimized graffiti and street art as an art form, this genre has not been fully resolved by the art world. At present, this contemporary art zeitgeist signals a symptomatic dystopia created between the institutionalization of this art form and its anti-institutional tenets.
PANTHEON aims to maintain the aesthetic diversity of the genre.
The forthcoming exhibition at MoCA Geffen Contemporary, Art in the Streets, will be a worldwide survey of graffiti and street art and Los Angeles’ role in the movement’s evolution. Despite its focus on Los Angeles, New York City’s graffiti and street art cognoscenti partake in their exuberance. Outside the institutional framework of museums, PANTHEON is situated within the DIY fundamentals of alternative art spaces. It is important to call attention to this space as the convergence of public and private spaces, because it informs an innovation of contemporary graffiti and street art in terms of medium, content and style.
The axiom of this movement is its ubiquity in the streets of New York City. During its nascency, John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres’ casts of everyday people adorned buildings, John Fekner’s simple large-scale text stencils politically charged brick walls, Freedom’s representational art graced tunnel cathedrals, Richard Hambleton’s silhouette paintings emotionally moved sidewalks and alleys, and Ket’s prolific tags saturated NYC’s subway cars. These artists established the tone for style, medium and content in this genre. The radical style, guerilla approach and ephemeral aesthetic of this subculture have been challenged since the 80’s and today’s artists are exploring
new ways to respond.
chashama is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded by Anita Durst in 1995. The organization’s mission is to support creativity in New York City by repurposing vacant properties enabling artists a space to create. PANTHEON: A history of art from the streets of New York City was awarded the former Donnell Library as an exhibition space, which is part of chashama’s Windows Program. PANTHEON is Co-Curated by Daniel Feral and Joyce Manalo along with Debra Anderson and Royce Bannon of the Advisory Committee and the collaboration of dedicated and talented individuals, most notably, Abe Lincoln, Jr., Francesco Alessandra, Maura Barry, Jennifer Diamond, Valentin Farkasch, Karla Henrick, Ebi Kagbala, Luna Park, Ashlene Nand, Dan Nguyen and Mariette Papic. Thank you to Brooklyn Street Art (media partner); Gothamist, Hyperallergic, The Street Spot, Streetsy (media sponsors); Cresent Artists (exhibition sponsor); and WM Dorvillier & Company, Inc. (structural design consultation). Image credits courtesy of the artists. Special thanks to the Woodward Gallery, NYC for the loan of Richard Hambleton’s Fountain of Youth, 1982.
For more information, please visit pantheonnyc.com or chashama.org.
For further exhibition details, media relations, Kickstarter campaign, sponsorships, and partnerships please email info@pantheonnyc.com or visit www.pantheonnyc.com. For more information about the Windows Program, please visit www.chashama.org.
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
Over Under (detail of a piece for “Building on Building”) (photo © courtesy of the artist)
