“It’s so rewarding to know that we’re positively influencing the community by doing what we love,” says Street Artist Gilf! as she reflects about a bit of wall painting she organized this weekend in Williamsburg. “The best part of getting this fantastic lineup of artists in one place was the community’s super positive reaction. I was blown away- not only at the amazing pieces that everyone created, but also the neighborhood’s response.” On board were Cake, Gilf!, Joe Iurato, LNY, Veng (RWK), and special guests from Iran, Icy & Sot.
ICY & SOT (photo & Jaime Rojo)
Gilf! getting up (photo & Jaime Rojo)
Gilf! (photo & Jaime Rojo)
Joe Iurato . LNY (photo & Jaime Rojo)
J0e Iurato (photo & Jaime Rojo)
LNY (photo & Jaime Rojo)
Sometimes looking at a piece I just get a lump in my throat. Cake (photo & Jaime Rojo)
Hells yes, it’s the invasion of the art fairs in New York – and all the associated events around them, including Bushwicks Beat Night and Williamsburg’s Arts Not Fair in the People’s Republic of Brooklyn and many galleries have special programming planned for the weekend around the city. The big fish is the Armory, which is apparently taming itself down a bit if last nights opening was any indication, and their door is a hefty $30 – boutique indeed. But the hardy street art fan never pays anyway, from what we’ve seen.
Also this weekend are Fountain,PooL Art, Scope New York, Volta , Art Now, and Theorize which are more affordable or free and can be a lot more interesting frankly. Or, just hang out on the street with your bagged container and check out the street art on selected streets and abandoned lots in neighborhoods like the L.E.S, Bowery, Chelsea, Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bushwick, Red Hook, Long Island City, Dumbo. It’s cheap and you might get invited inside for a party if you bring a couple cans of beer. As you know, it doesn’t cost money to access the creative spirit.
1. Armory Arts Week
2. Fountain
3. Volta
4. Scope
5. Lisa Enxing at Le Salon d’ Art
6. Ambush Gallery, “Project 5, Volume 4”
7. “Beat Nite”
8. “Hyper/Hypo” at Secret Project Robot
9. OBLVN “100 Paintings at Klughaus Gallery
10. Jef Aerosol “Hot Spots” @ Galerie Austral
11. Street Artist Ives.One (Video)
For further information regarding Armory Arts Week click here
This year Fountain has provided a 200 foot long wall for a slew of Street Artists, including Chris Stain, Know Hope, GILF, Imminent Disaster, Joe Iurato, LMNOP, Elle, ShinShin, LNY, Cake, En Masse, Sophia Maldonado, Hellbent, Radical! and Wing. See some behind the scenes photos posted yesterday here.
Fountain include a great line up of galleries that promote, support and represent Street Artists including: Kestin/Ray Gallery, Mighty Tanaka Gallery, The Market Place Gallery and Marianne Nems Gallery.
The Brooklyn gallery Mighty Tanaka will be having a greatest hits collection of work by almost everyone in their stable of untamed horses. One of the best walls is the dual red white and blue side by side 3-D sculptural wall installations by Skewville and Miguel Ovalle – including swords on the bottom of the Ovalle piece for the kids.
Featured at Might Tanaka are Abe Lincoln Jr. Adam Leech, Adam Void, Alexandra Pacula, Alice Mizrachi, Andrew H. Shirley, Burn 353, Cake, CAM, Celso, ChrisRWK, Conrad Carlson, Criminy Johnson, Curtis Readel, Don Pablo Pedro, Drew Tyndell, ELLE, Ellen Stagg, EVOKER, Flying Fortress, Gigi Bio, Gigi Chen, Greg Henderson, Hellbent, Hiroshi Kumagai, infinity, JMR, Joe Iurato, John Breiner, Katie Deker, Lamour Supreme, Masahiro Ito, Matt Siren, Max Greis, Mike Schreiber, Nathan Pickett, Nathan Vincent, NEVER, Peat Wollaeger, Robbie Bush, See One, Sofia Maldonado, TooFly, UFO, Vahge, VengRWK, VIK with exclusive murals by Miguel Ovalle & Skewville.
For further information regarding Fountain Art Fair click here
Volta
Carmichael Gallery from Culver City, CA will be exhibiting new works by Aakash Nihalani.
Armory Week is back in town and Fountain Art Fair is nailing it. At the moment – literally. Walls are going up as you are reading this. 200 feet of walls are dedicated to Street Artists – Enough said. Fountain has moved inland this year from the floating, sometimes harrowing, gallery and submarine Murder Lounge on the Hudson waterfront, and in many ways the new Fountain also feels more grounded. Don’t worry, not too much.
Apart from being in an actual Armory building, a 106 year old institution that lends a certain New York Beau-Arts grandness to it all, Fountain is still anybody’s guess in terms of content and execution; which in our minds is precisely the point of going. The chaotic nature of the creative spirit as wielded by many of these youngish artists means that they are better thought of as corralled, rather than curated, into this grand sweeping space that has plenty of headroom. Part punk D.I.Y. art party and part Occupy Art Fair, the promise of Fountain lies in the work and your own sense of exploration, rather than the prepackaged pomp of slick-talking retailers.
Naturally there are a slew of Street Artists in Fountain this year, including Chris Stain, Know Hope, GILF, Imminent Disaster, Joe Iurato, LMNOP, Elle, ShinShin, LNY, Cake, En Masse, Sophia Maldonado, Hellbent, Radical! and Wing. BSA caught some of them working in the last couple of weeks as they completed pieces and we give you some sneak peeks here.
LNY, one of the newer Street Artists of New York at the moment, talked to us as he prepared his Fountain piece deep in Bushwick. His careful illustrative style has an unassuming quality, a sort of hand rendered fantasy he is channeling, and discovering, mixing and remixing symbols and imagination.
Brooklyn Street Art:How did you arrive at your current hybrid style of human/animals? Your depictions keep the humans remaining wholly human and the animals remaining wholly animals. They just seem to be attached to each other? LNY: Animals are very interesting on their own but at the same time they have been used symbolically so much everywhere. For instance I noticed that many countries use the eagle as a national symbol: Egypt, USA and Mexico all have eagles in their national symbols. When I have an inclination to draw I often find myself drawing animals.
Brooklyn Street Art:On this piece you are working on for Fountain you have NYPD Mounted Police with wings on them? LNY: Usually my ideas just sort of pile up and then they get to something else. For instance the wings are going to be fire actually. I will add a couple more riders and they could be an apocalyptic kind of scene. The fun thing about symbols is that you can read whatever you want into them. I like the ambiguity of symbols a lot.
Brooklyn Street Art:How do you find the process of painting? LNY: I really don’t paint anymore. I used to paint. What I used to do with painting doesn’t work anymore because I lost faith in the idea of painting – so I have to find something else.
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
