In the tradition of modern street photography, Brock Brake is finding places for you to get access to. Sometimes these are physical locations, like under a cavernous underpass and skateboarder hangout at the moment when a police officer is looking at you. Other places are more luminous and ethereal – a singular plane overhead framed by high rise angles flat against the sky. No matter the place he takes you, there is a certain emotional power and a singularity of the experience as you travel in the urban landscape.
Featured tonight as one of the new artists who have been in the White Walls / Shooting Gallery ecosystem, it is good to see a talent developing and getting recognition among his peers. Brock has contributed his photos focusing on others work in the streets here on BSA a number of times, so it is a pleasure to see these shots that highlight his unique perspective.
If you are in San Francisco tonight, check out his photos at this very strong group show celebrating the 11th anniversary of the Shooting Gallery that surveys the contemporary and street influenced artists who have made this spot hot for more than a decade.
1. “Lost and Found” Tonight in Brooklyn
2. “On the River…”, Robyn Hasty AKA Imminent Disaster Open Today
3. SuperTwins Skewville in San Francisco Employing “Playground Tactics”
4. “Hybrid Thinking” at Jonathan Levine Saturday
5. Muhammad Ali Hits 70, and the Show Begins Saturday
6. Klughaus Gallery, Jesse Edwards show “Dialogue of the Streets”
7. Le Salon d’Art, Fumero and Joseph Meloy , “90 Stanton Street Art Show”
8. Jesse Edwards by Tom Gould (VIDEO)
9. Kophns One: Kophenjoy by The Site Unscene (VIDEO)
10. Ben Eine Off Canvas by Studio Stare (VIDEO)
“Lost and Found” Tonight in Brooklyn
“Lost & Found” opens today at Mighty Tanaka Gallery in DUMBO, Brooklyn with the participation of Adam Void, Alice Mizrachi, Curtis Readel, ELLE & John Breiner:
“On the River…”, Robyn Hasty AKA Imminent Disaster Open Today
Her first New York solo show “On The River…” is actually the joining of two strong and handsome rivers into one. Her Street Art work finds a sister in this new wet-plate photograph collection at the cozy Kesting/Ray Gallery in Manhattan.
For further information regarding this show click here
SuperTwins Skewville in San Francisco Employing “Playground Tactics”
The Queens natives and New York wiseguys are re-wiring an entire band from their imagined musical teen heartthrob youth – the one where Droo was adding more gel to his perfect hair and punishing his Fender onstage and Ad was getting high in the mop closet. White Walls in San Francisco takes the risk of letting the Street Art duo put on a show this time, and you can expect more “Playground Tactics” Saturday.
Skewville “Playground Tactics” (image courtesy of the gallery)
For further information regarding this show click here
“Hybrid Thinking” at Jonathan Levine Saturday
“There’s a growing creative movement that we’ve dubbed Hybridism: a blend of both street art and fine art – a hybrid – as the raw meets the refined,” as the 2009 group show at Brooklyn’s Mighty Tanaka observed while giving evidence of what was happening on the streets and in galleries in the Brooklyn show “Hybridism”. Of course, Daniel Feral’s diagram points to 2008 as the beginning of “Hybridism”.
Similarly a year ago at Hold-Up Gallery in LA there was the “Hi-Graff” show that excitingly merged many Graff and Street Art movements as we observed at the time, “Those Cold War years are being chopped away brick by brick like the Berlin Wall 20 years ago, and a new language borrowing vocabulary from graffiti, street art, fine art, advertising, and pop/punk/hiphop/skater/cholo/tattoo culture continues to emerge in ways we never thought of before.”
Now in 2012 Manhattan’s Wooster Collective continues the conversation to reveal “Hybrid Thinking”, their collection of an international roster (South Africa, Germany, Spain, Amsterdam, Beijing) of names that have been successful in the galleries and streets, illustrating what you have been seeing alive and expanding for the last decade. In the curators’ words: “Hybrid Thinking refers to the current zeitgeist of our time: disparate cultures coming together to create something completely new.”
This roster includes Dal, Herakut, Hyuro, Roa, Sit and Vinz.
For further information regarding this show click here
Muhammad Ali Hits 70, and the Show Begins Saturday
An culturally interesting thematic show honoring the fighter Muhammad Ali called “Ali The Greatest”opens tomorrow at Evolve Gallery in Sacramento, CA. With new stuff from Joe Iurato and David Flores among others, the show is expected to travel to Vegas and New York and celebrates the 70th birthday of the man.
Hush’s work has been described as a sensory assault of shape, color, and character. Inspired by the portrayal of the female form in art, the artist builds up and tears down layers of paint and images as he works, “letting the canvas and marks take their own path.” The result is an enigmatic synthesis of anime, pop-infused imagery and graffiti that exposes the conflict between power and decay, innocence and sexuality, and the fusion of Eastern and Western culture. Hush continues to evolve his style with this latest batch of pieces, which merges his early anime and pop-art influenced graffiti technique with an exploration of Romanesque iconographic imagery. The new works are bigger, deeper and richer than anything he has produced to date. About the Artist: Hush is stimulated, influenced and driven by his cross cultural experiences. Having originally trained as a graphic designer and illustrator at Newcastle School of Art and Design, his work has taken him across Asia and Europe, whilst simultaneously developing his prominence as a contemporary artist. Hush now resides in the UK painting in his studio daily. EMAIL: mail@studio-hush.com
Props to Blek Le Rat, who started doing street art in Paris 3 decades ago -and is pointed to as an inspiration by everyone from Banksy and Fairey to a posse of new stencil artists.
I remember him telling me how hard it was for him to get anyone’s attention when he first came to New York in 1987 with his portfolio. He even sprayed a stencil on the sidewalk in front of Gagosian Gallery – to no discernible result. Gallerists absent-mindedly thumbed through his portfolio pieces and told him there wasn’t much interest in his work. So, hang in there kids, there is room for everybody, if you are persistent.
Blek is opening tonight with HUSH and ABOVE, two more high quality artists with roots in the street art scene, with the addition of starting in graffiti.
Thanks to Mike Cuffe at Warholian for sharing some of his pictures with us.
Hush uses graff and fine art elements – it’s all fair game – along with Japanese graphic novels.
The artist “Above” is self-referential here, taking his heaven pointing arrows that one typically sees hanging over your head and creating very highly polished reworkings of national flags.
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
