Not quite spring, the Art Fairs are arriving in New York ahead of the tulips. We strolled the impossibly long aisles and peered into the booths to find the folks who have at other times been called “Street Artists”. This weekend they’ll be fine artists, and the list is quite a bit longer than years past as the professionalization of the street continues.
Shows like the Armory, Scope, Volta, and Fountain are good testing venues to see the commercial viability for many of these artists and some have foregone representation – preferring to foot the bill on their own. Since walking the streets to see their work requires multiple layers and hats and gloves – traipsing through the fairs can be far preferable than dirty old Brooklyn streets. It’s also nice to see how some of these folks look in a tie or a blouse – or even just hit a comb. Here below we include some possible gems for you to hunt down.
When your van breaks down and dies en route to Florida from New York, you might get a little cranky and freaked out because you have 40 people’s art in the back and are somewhat behind schedule.
You haven’t met the Buxtons.
Ad Hoc and Eastern District are in Miami as BKMIA Thursday Through Sunday
Brooklyn gallerists Garrison and Alison from AdHoc found themselves at a U-Haul truck rental agency when it was obvious that fixing their jalopy wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.
“Yeah we’re definitely making some tangy lemonade out of the lemons we’ve been collecting,” says he.
With a show to mount and open in 2 days (Today) in Miami, they asked for a 14 foot or 18 foot truck but U-Haul was out of that size. So they upgraded to the 26 foot, which made the whole process of moving art a lot easier, and together they steered the MIGHTY BKMIA SHIP southward.
“We just got another beautiful space today”, says Garrison, now that they’ve arrived with a truck of Brooklyn Street Art in the land of orange groves and mobs of art-hungry models in stilettos. They are spreading out into their new giant space on 4141 Northeast 2nd Avenue, which is right across the street from their original space. They had a lot of people’s work with them, “Yeah there was no way it all was going to fit in the original space we had”
And the art itself? One of the first things to be unpacked was this badass sculpture.
UFO and Ryan Doyle at BKMIA (photo courtesy Ad Hoc)
This is an interactive kinetic piece by Ryan Doyle and UFO of 907 crew.
What’r YOU lookin’ at? (courtesy Ad Hoc)
According to the artists, it’s made of found objects and crafted using caveman spaceship technology. Amazingly similar to the squidlike image in the photo below, this sculpture is mechanized with two worm head, gear drive electric wheelchair motors, and is fully operational with a joystick. And yes, Martha, he does look like a writer (check out the fat marker in his tentacle).
Ad Hoc is partnering with Brooklyn neighbor Eastern District in a conceptual gallery called AE District to show off some of Brooklyn’s finest street artists, graff writers, and related contemporary artists in a 40+ name show. Names you might know like London Police and Gaia and Morning Breath will be joining talented newbies like NohJColey and Mario Brothers.
After being in development for 13 years, Droo says the new Skewville site is ready to roll!
Actually, that’s not how long it took to build the site – just it’s content. This roll-through left-right scroller is a quick primer for the uninitiated on the history and accomplishments of Skewville and the multiple projects they have embarked on over the last decade plus.
Or, as Ad and Droo say, “If you don’t know – now you know.”
All the round the whirl with Skewville irony
From launching galleries to launching thousands of pairs of their wooden dogs over wires around the globe, to offering shows to their peers and participating in shows internationally, and always adding their smart-aleck commentary about the street art “scene” to the discussion, these brothers have piled a sizeable stack of HYPE.
Complexity and mastery comes with practice. Blah Blah Blah
This must be the place. Skewville actually was a physical location and a lifestyle for the middle class and unfamous.
No strangers to sarcasm, the brothers have conceived and built a number of contraptions to get their message out.
Currently the Skewville Corporation is participating inNuart, a festival in Stavanger, Norway that celebrates the contributions of Brooklyn Street Artists.
Check the Tubeness below to see a piece that MTV Brasil did – After the first minute in Portuguese, Ad DeVille pretty much takes the show!
Vandalog’s RJ Hard at Work on “The Thousands”
His first “Pop-Up” is taking shape this November in London
An open and sincere voice in the street art blog world, RJ Rushmore is a stone cold street art lover. Albeit still in his teens, this guy posesses a maturity and modesty that many of his peers may not develop for another 10 years. More significant; his industry is matching the size of his dreams.
This time the dream is a “Pop-Up” show featuring the big names in street art today, exposing a larger audience to the genre that has captured the imagination of the youth culture.
RJ has been planning the show for many months methodically and feels secure about it’s ultimate success but he is very aware that he is taking a big leap to undertake this labor of love, where most of the work won’t even be for sale.
So far the 40 pieces in the show are from most of the big names in street art – Adam Neate, Banksy, Barry McGee, Jenny Holzer, Bast, Swoon, Kaws, Os Gemeos, Shepard Fairey, Herakut, Blek le Rat and others.
People are jumping into “The Thousands” every day as word spreads, and RJ’s been sorting out the details that come along with this kind of show – Artists, Collectors, Permissions, Love. In addition he’s working on a companion coffee table book to be published by Drago in November with photos and bios and a few guest contributors like Gaia and Panik.
His first exhibition includes some of the better known names and he’s looking forward to doing a future show with more emerging artists, but he’s smart to limit the scope the first time out. “The purpose of my efforts is to bring street art to the attention of a wider art community, and the best way to do that is to take the very best street artists’ artwork instead of all the emerging artists that I might love and think are promising”, says Mr. Rushmore.
The Thousands will be open from November 18th through the 22nd of November at Village Underground in London. Keep up on the details at the blog for “The Thousands” HERE
Eastern District, a 400sf gallery opened for about a year in Bushwick is looking to extend it’s reach by asking street art veteran gallerists Allison and Garrison Buxton to curate a new show in the ED space next door. Most people know that Ad Hoc Art recently announced it’s downsizing it’s square footage due in their 49 Bogart space and stories of ED’s impending closure have been swirling around also.
Well, this is how neighbors do it in Brooklyn: by reaching out and working together. If either one of these parties had been the snooty white-box types, it never would have worked. But this is an arts community that knows that the resulting strength is greater with two. When asked by ED to partner on shows, Ad Hoc Art happily and quickly accepted the invitation to curate and bring their peeps too. Now they are looking at ways to bring more great shows to ED. That’s very good news for the nascent Bushwick gallery scene, not to mention the artists who get to show there.
And that brings us to today. Garrison says, “AHA & ED have a Bushwick-focused show opening specifically highlighting very local talent from the hood where it all started.” Included are AHA/Bushwick favorites like like Destroy and Rebuild, LogikOne, Michael Allen, Molly Crabapple, Pagan, and Robert Steel”
Ad Hoc Art’s is now planning a fall exhibition featuring the work of Joe Vaux and Gilbert Oh to open in November at Eastern District and more shows planned into the winter, such as veteren British/French street artist Jef Aerosol in January. For now, it sounds like the Ad Hoc extravganza and shenanigans will continue!
Prepare for exciting art extravaganzas and shenanigans in the present and continuing into the near future, for Bushwick and beyond.
SuperDraw Keeps Developing – Now it’s an Iphone App
Remember BSA’s Projekt Projektor last year at the Dumbo Festival, full of new projectionists stretching the definition of Street Art? Remember the projectionists at the end of our Street Crush Show in February?
Then you’ll remember Josh Ott, or SuperDraw. Dude developed an interactive interface for people to project their own art through a project with their iPhones, and at our shows he eagerly transferred it to your phone for free so you could slap your work all over the Manhattan Bridge.
True, GRL keeps setting some of the standards, but we firmly believe that the future of street art may be vibrating in your front pocket right now. There is a whole crop of projectionists and video and multimedia artists that are sharpening their skillz for that Brave New Street Art World as we chase the wheat-pasters.
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BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
