Posts filed under 'Miscellaneous'
Imagine a mix drink made from Diego Rivera’s murals, Graffiti, hippies and lots & lots of Rock n’ roll. That would be the true San Francisco cocktail. As time goes by, though, Rivera is nothing but a forgotten myth, hippies are no longer what they used to be, Graffiti has lost its status to Street art and Rock seems to be taken for dead. The recipe would be a total disaster if we weren’t talking about the city of the never-ending hills and beautiful Victorian houses. In the new century, though, people still manage to keep wearing flowers in their heads and staying, thus, true to the bohemian laws of live, Rock n’ roll denies it’s own grave rocking loud and clear wherever you go and Graffiti still rules as a counterculture symbol, as everything else in this amazing city.
In order to understand the art that is being made in San Francisco one has to know about two things: Mexican art and Barry McGee. And the Mission is the perfect example of how these two factors combine. Here you live under Mexican laws, and through tacos and quesadillas an endless number of colorful murals and art graphics are being created as we speak. The savoir-faire is all about pure tradition and strong culture that just doesn’t easily blend in. Hairdressers, grocery shops, restaurants etc all get to be stamped with latex and lots of handmade artistry that comes from generations and generations of just being one thing: Mexican. Culture can be felt, or shall we say, seen in this neighborhood.
Image on the wall from the “Senacional, Mexican graphics” show
“Sensacional! Mexican Street Graphics”, at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, talks exactly about that. And after seeing it, a strange feeling stroked me, that maybe, it was just to easy for San Francisco to adopt this style, the colors, the flatness… the “naiveness”… What’s missing then? The touch of pure California dreaming. Here is when Twist makes it happen and turns it all upside down.
Barry McGee, aka Twist, brought revolution to the streets of San Francisco. Even if it’s almost impossible to find pieces of the good old days, nowadays, everybody knows who he is and what he represents. And for those who just got to this strange funky world that we call art, Barry McGee is the one artist that took the old school out from New York and brought it to the other side of the country under a new name, new technique and new influence. The new school was born and Mexican fingerprints were all over it.
Street piece by Barry McGee
Graffiti as we know it changed in a way that was needed and waited without knowing. A new wave of American artists emerged and conquered glory. The Beautiful Losers (www.iconoclastusa.com) were born with a style that rose and shone everywhere in the American country. Well-known galleries like the New Image Art in L.A., ., The Luggage Store in San Francisco and Deitch Projects in New York showed them and chose them as their favorites. The new generation was picking up from where Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix had left it and making San Francisco a reference point for the arts and ways of living again. Museums treated them as guests of honor, and names like Margaret Kilgallen, Chris Johanson, Claire E. Rojas, Thomas Campbell, etc became unforgettable.
Claire E. Rojas, “Sights of Sounds” at Parklife
Jake Watling and Bill Dunlap at Receiver Gallery
For us in Europe news don’t travel as fast as we wish, so nothing better than to cross the Atlantic and see, with my own eyes, what’s happening on the sunny side of the USA. Just walking trough the Mission is a whole new and interesting experience, to cross the street and get to the Clarion Alley Mural Project Project where you won’t find a free space to paint, and where everything is art, is priceless. San Francisco breathes art and you can see it easily. Many are the non-profit organizations that fight for this to happen. Each week there’s an incredible amount of cultural events, art openings, music concerts and foreign art guests coming. This time the attentions were on Onesto. The Brazilian artist took two weeks to prepare his show at 111 Mina Gallery (www.111minagallery.com) presenting a variety of his work that combined a mix of styles and formats. For a young artist is remarkable the maturity and experience he showed on deciding to show so many works.
Detail of Onesto’s work from his show at 111 Mina
And so the days just go by to fast. For some the street days are just coming to an end, for others they are just beginning. The important thing is to never stop making art. And the things that are still to come! With Robert Crumb’s show, or Andrew Schoultz and Precita Eyes Muralists my agenda gets busier by the minute. Time is money here but while there’s art to be seen and rock to be listening to, I’m staying man!
Ana Neto
March 20th, 2007 08:44pm
Administrador
This coming saturday, 20th of january, from 20:00h on we will be opening a solo show by british artist PMH. Better known for his restless activity curanting shows and coordinating collective projects such as “The Dilly” or “Finders Keeper” his individual work receives now the due attention. If you are in Madrid, please come by and join us and the artists for his first ever solo show. If you are not familiar with PMH’s work check this interview we recently made with him for this same website right here.
January 17th, 2007 11:35am
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You have to catch the train at King’s Cross Station and get out in Newcastle Central Station. During the three hours that takes to get there, I reach the conclusion that I only know two things about Newcastle: its football club and the Baltic Mill Museum. What’s there to see? One thing: Spank the Monkey, the biggest urban art exhibition of the year.
There’s no way you can ignore Spank the Monkey (www.spankthemonkey.uk.net)after Beautiful Losers. It’s its natural progression. A mature version of something that is now impossible to turn your back to, something that you can no longer think is an “expression” from a lost youth. Urban art is not about the Graffiti made in the 80’s and it doesn’t have to be related to the Hip Hop movement. It’s a way of thinking, so close to the popular, to the everyday life, that makes it somewhat difficult to call it art.
Two well-known names deal with so many taboos: Peter Doroshenko and Pedro Alonzo, the curators of this show. It’s not the first time that they try to introduce urban art into the institutional art world. During ARCO’s last edition they were well into it. I imagine that they don’t see why museum art has to be complicated or only for VIP people. Maybe that’s why they decided to bring a half pipe inside museum walls, to invite a whole new culture, the street culture, to enter and play the game of the “artistically correct”. If you can’t beat them you might as well join them…
So, I have to go up to the 4th floor. The glass elevator lifts me almost to heaven and presents me with an overall view of Newcastle. Impressive. The doors open and I’m instantly reminded of the purpose of my visit. The first feeling is of pure impact. Behind Groovisions’ half pipe I find the bright red letters that I was longing to see, Barry McGee’s truck was there. This thing looks good. Four artists fill the gigantic 4th floor, there’s no given route, and instead I find myself with total freedom to choose my way. There’s space to breed, there’s time to take the most out of each artist. Four artists to start with are more than enough, and then again maybe not…
Groovisions
Groovisions half pipe is the central piece to make the public feel at ease, and shows that there’s many ways to enjoy an exhibition: you can and should skate on the half pipe, you must look inside Barry McGee’s truck, and you will be circling every column of the room searching for Faile’s well known details. Instantly the space fills itself up, and the public mingles and communicates with the actual oeuvres. There’s a lot of hidden information, there’s so much to be said. Getting back to the elevator I turn my head to once again be stroked by the visual strength of the 4th floor. Only one doubt comes to my mind: “One wall would have been enough for Faile. Why two?” Neasden Control Centre divides itself between the 4th and the 3rd floor and so accompanies me while I change from light to darkness.
Barry McGee
Day becomes night and I enter the second part of the show finding that there’s much more to be seen, and that it’s never to late to be surprised. If this was a contest then Kozyndan, Aya Takano and Takashi Murakami would have won the first prize. And a smile comes to my face while entering inside Os Gemeos giant box installation. One even might say:” Home small home”. Ed Templeton, Ryan McGiness and Shepard Fairey could have been guests of honor, for these beautiful losers are one generation above. The Americans turn classical while Bansky goes one step further.
Os Gemeos
Ayo Takano
Spank the Monkey is everywhere in Newcastle and, between Americans, Europeans and Japanese, insist in making its public run wild. Many interventions were made in the city so one has to search and find the marks made by urban heroes also to be known as contemporary artists. The boundaries are becoming more and more invisible; let’s see who is still resisting. David Shrigley, one more surprise, made a big sign on the outer wall of the Baltic saying: “ You cannot help looking at this”. With that single sentence, Shrigley says it all. It’s impossible to keep ignoring the facts. It’s only natural. Let’s see who comes next.
Newcastle, it was my pleasure!
Text by: Ana Neto
January 16th, 2007 04:01pm
Administrador
I would say that there’s a big difference between exhibiting something and showing it on some kind of publication. An exhibition on a gallery should be a big step, where one has the opportunity of showing one’s work in a way the artist really pleases. Of course one should never forget one simple thing: the exhibition is like a presentation card, so it should be well done. There are those who choose the fastest and simple way, there are those who complicate things, and there’s those who, like Catalina Estrada (www.catalinaestrada.com), knows how to do it well.
Preparing an exhibition is like playing a game. You have to be aware of a million things and you have to know how to play with what you’ve got. You need to find that equilibrium between what you would like to do and what you are going to do for real. And Catalina knows it well: “To start preparing any exhibition I need to know how many paintings I’m going to exhibit, the colors I want to use etc I want that each painting lives by itself and at the same time can find its place among the other paintings, and that the space functions as one”. The money is never enough, there’s always things that are left undone and the silly feeling that everything will be perfect for the next exhibition haunts you every time.
For the moment the talk is on “No me quieras matar, corazón”, at Iguapop Gallery. And for once I would say that the artist did what she wanted to and achieved victory. The presentation card worked out fine and Catalina Estrada introduced herself for the first time in Barcelona in the best possible way: her own way. And it’s easy to recognize her style for everything is hand made. The exhibition smells tradition, something that comes from unknown times, something that more than culture resembles pure remembering. Barcelona turns into Colombia, for a moment, and the sound of old folk songs are everywhere: “The Latin American folk music is what gives life to all the ones that are in love, to all the ones that are lovesick, to the ones that want to die for love and find comfort in these songs”. To do all that Catalina uses spray paint and stencils and lots of imagination. Pieces of wood, doors found on the street and paper panels are painted in a new fashion forgetting those old ways, and in all this the surprise is on the third dimension. Little pieces of colored reliefs can be found in almost every painting: “I like the idea of touching the paintings and feeling its texture…”
This is “No me quieras matar, corazón”, the perfect moment and opportunity to say and show things that were kept inside for too long, to deal with the ways of love personally, and to do it by using the fastest way to the heart, music. If it wasn’t personal it wouldn’t be Catalina. That’s the way to know Catalina Estrada, by going to one of her shows.
Text by: Ana Neto
November 15th, 2006 02:06pm
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For Rich Jacobs things can, actually, be pretty easy. It’s just a question of if things move him or not. I mean that was how everything started, with “Move”, the first show that put together a series of unknown names at the time, more than famous names at this point. We are talking about 1997, when people like Barry McGee, Phil Frost, Thomas Campbell or soon to be myths like Margaret Kilgallen were nothing but strangers to the art galleries universe. “Move was based on not seeing enough of friends work that I liked and wanted to see shown together. It was fun and kinda loose. Just the things that moved me” says Jacobs.
So who is Rich Jacobs? A person that is able to move freely and do what he likes without a lot of interruption and hassle, or in some instances much notice. Someone who likes sloppy punk and at the same time releases a folk album
with long time friend Tim Kerr. An artist who never stops creating and curating: “I started curating about ten years ago out of necessity, in a way to see things I liked in the place where I lived and wasn’t seeing there. I never stopped creating though, I feel it’s important to always try to do both if posible.”
Talking about his characteristic style and where he finds his strange characters Jacobs says: “My style was a natural progresion of constant drawing, looking, and experimenting. The characters came in my childhood so early it’s difficult to remember, they are pieces of everyone I see around me. The environment can have an impact but it is usually kinda subtle in my work as an influence, maybe more in colours and that kind of things…”
But why are we talking about Rich Jacobs? Because we found the perfect excuse to finally meet the artist in person. Jacobs is touring with the brand Eastpack to release a new limited series of bagpacks, designed by the artist himself, and this time Madrid was one of the chosen cities. So we just decided to invite him out for lunch and see if we could find some record stores to buy some good old punk records.
Jacobs turned out to be as we expected, an example of politness and creativeness, always finding time to draw one of his characters on a sheet of paper or even in a passport as a way of saying thank you, and patiently answering to all our questions and doubts while going up and down the streets of Madrid. He felt us feel at ease with him and showed us that the nameless, the invisible, or even talentless just everyday people are the best influence he can find to create art, and using his own words: “…well, aren’t we all just people?”
Thank you Rich!
By: Ana Neto (ana@subaquatica.com)
October 13th, 2006 12:48pm
Administrador
On July 27th and 28th, the art gallery “ABC no Rio” in New York City (www.abcnorio.org)hosted and Art auction to raise funds for the Daniel McGowan cause (www.supportdaniel.org). Called “If They Come For You In The Morning”, the show featured art works from artists like Swoon, MoMo, The Barnstormers, Elbow Toe, Judith Supine, David Ellis, Brandon Bauer, Kelly Burns, Sunny Chapman alias Flower Face Killah… … that donated their works for the cause. Some of the pieces had a set price, varying from 10US$ to 100US$ and 150US$. Artworks from better known artists as Judith Supine, MOMO or Swoon were sold at silent auction.
Daniel McGowan is an environmental and social justice activist, part of the Military Counter-Recruitment project incidentally, who was arrested in 2005 and now faces a minimum of life in prison if convicted. He was charged in federal court on numerous counts of property destruction and conspiracy. McGowan plead not guilty to all charges.
His detention was coordinated by the federal government in the Northwest US, in the state of Oregon, a part of a multi-state sweep of numerous activists who were charged with practically every earth and animal liberation case left unsolved in the area. Many of the charges, including Daniel’s, are for cases that were to due to expire. The legality of this detentions is unlikely and for this reason many have protested the charges, specially McGowan’s.
The show coincided with the summer’s biggest heat wave, temperatures reaching 100º F (38º C) and 102ºF (39ºC). The space only had a small fan to refresh but nevertheless the show was crowded and many pieces sold for more than 300US$.
Patricia Yague
September 5th, 2006 11:22am
Administrador
For those who live in Barcelona and are well acquainted with it’s artistic contemporary scene the sixth of July was an important day. A hot Thursday marked by two important exhibitions, or as one might say, one great collaboration.
Almost in the same block of the street, Iguapop Galleryand Mercado del Borne did something that should have been done a long time ago, work together. Two american artists, two separate spaces, one single audience. On one side Gary Baseman (www.garybaseman.com)with “Venison”, at the Mercado, on the other side, at Iguapops’, Tim Biskup (www.timbiskup.com) and “American Cyclops”. Two artists that are used to work together wouldn’t do it any other way, here in the condal city.
In “American Cyclops” one feels totally in american ground. The californian style can be felt in every corner of Iguapop. Tim Biskup is the first to confirm this sensation: “I am really inspired by California as a place and culturally”. He lives in Los Angeles and as much as he likes to travel he wouldn’t trade his home, in the village of Las Cañadas where he lives with his wife and child, for nothing in the world : “I really feel traditionaly based in California, and I really feel that my way of thinking about art is tipically californian”.
So, what is this kind of art that little by little is reaching our lands? An art that searches for inspiration in the history of a country, it’s own. A country that is still too young to tell a long story. An art that has as brothers the Punk-Rock movement and the Skate scene, that lives under the laws of the Do It Yourself movement. An art that never stops to criticize, that likes to put the finger where it hurts the most, and best of all, an art that uses it’s own poison, it’s traditions. In this Biskup rules, by using Folk art, the most traditional of the american way of live, he plays dangerously by using naif motivs like animals, plants and all the well known lettering that always takes us to the western world.
It’s a finger strongly pointed to the country’s ideological believes, but the irony of the situation is in the way Biskup does it visually. The worlds of animation, comics and the endless trips to Disneyland can be easily seen in every single detail of his work. His technique will leed him, eventually, to another level, the conceptualization of his work: “ Much of my work is an intelectual comment on american life, but it’s also an emotional connection for me because there’s a lot of themes about what I see inAmerica that I see in myself. The sense of trying to maintain a belief, trying to make life follow what you truly believe, and that’s what been great about America and also been wrong with America, where it’s easy to choose the easiest way, the way of corruption, lies and hate”.
Because of all this The cyclops is born. For Biskup it represents an actor that he can use for whatever he needs, he calls him “the helper”: “ I think what man does in a lot of situations is, he uses God as an excuse to do things that are really horrible, so the image of the eye of God in a picture where these peolpe are killing each other is about these people trying to make it alright, and so the “helper” to me, because it’s one eyed, he kind of feels like a symbol of this abomination that is created when you lie to yourself, when you’re trying to prove that what you’re doing is ok but you don’t really believe it, you create a monster. You turn yourself into a monster.”
When trying to define his work terms like barroque modernism, modern pop, pop surrealism or cartoon modernism show up but when asked about it Biskup easily answers: “The work defines itself”. And so it is, the message has been sent and it has reached its goal, the exhibition was a success and the book, especially done for this occasion, was bought by many.
Talking about future plans Biskup advances something about a carrousel inside a museum, but that will take a while, for the moment he seems happy with this experience and hopes to return to Spain for, who knows, new collaborations.
Ana Neto
July 20th, 2006 12:14pm
Administrador
Less than 5 minutes from midtown Manhattan, at the end of Queens Midtown Tunnel, sits the Queens neighborhood known as Long Island City. To arrive there from Manhattan you can take three different trains, the E, the V or the 7 and you’re there in just one stop. If you take the E or V lines, the train will travel underground. From the 7 train though, wait two stops and you’ll have an amazing view from your coach… Arriving at 45th Road-Court House Square the train runs over a building fully covered in Graffiti. The view is spectacular; Manhattan with the East River appears in the immediate background and sometimes you’ll catch a group of youngsters on the roof with ladders and scaffolding finding spots out of reach.
This building is known as 5Pointz due to the 5 boroughs of NYC: Manhattan, Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island. 5Pointz took this name in 2001 when Jonathan Cohen aka Meres assumed its management. The story of this warehouse started years ago though, in the mid 90’s when Pat DiLillo began a Graffiti buffing service for businesses upon request. He realized the loss of this urban art he was covering so he decided instead to ask one of his clients for walls to let writers create large scale mural pieces with an advantage of being able to finish their artworks. This way color is added to the neighborhood and walls are kept looking neat, adding prestige and publicity to the building once It’s become a place of pilgrimage for Graffiti artists. And so “The Phun Factory” was born, a project that lasted 6 years total, from 1994 to 2001 ending with a dispute between the landlord of the building and Pat. When the program closed it was hosting an average of 20 kids in the wintertime and up to 100 to 150 in the summertime. That year Meres took over the management of the place initiating some changes in the project; starting with the name: “The Phun Factory” became “5Pointz”. Artist selection changed as well; with more than 20 years as a Graffiti artist, Meres brings a different kind of artist and public than Pat, who only worked as a patron.
Meres also agreed with the landlord to take all the walls for painting, from sidewalk to rooftop instead of just half of some of the building front walls. This meant more space to paint with more artists getting up. Things are not easy anyways. Some of the tenants, mostly artists surprisingly, didn’t like the result of the paintings and wished to stop the project. This began debates and included the police, and for some months the project was stopped again. After 6 months of no work, agreements and some headaches, Meres decided restart the program again.
So what is this program about? 5pointz takes an average of 15 to 20 kids each Sunday from noon to 3p.m. who want to learn aerosol techniques with Meres and help him rebuild the space; they paint the walls, clean old paintings, take care of the area… The length of these classes is four weeks. The best students go on to help Meres with bigger projects. Besides that, there is the chance for everyone to paint there, once they ask for permission. That’s the most important rule for the project, to ask before you paint on the walls. If someone creates a piece without permission, it’s removed.
In the summertime there are BBQ’s and linoleum to break-dance on, and sometimes well known Graffiti artists come over to sign books and be with the kids. Artists from NYC and the West Coast, and Europe have been here to paint. The building is acquiring prestige. Magazines such as “Glamour” write articles about it, and big fashion corporations as H&M use the walls for backgrounds in their catalogue photo-shoots. 5Pointz is located very closed to the P.S.1, an affiliate of Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), where then focus is young and contemporary. Meres is discussing with the museum ways to host a show with some of his buildings more important pieces. The show would give support and publicity to all the people who are working hard to make this warehouse project something pioneering inside the Graffiti world.
Patricia Yague
June 30th, 2006 11:05pm
Administrador
Blu started out his artistic career without a well-defined artistic project, following his passion for drawings, Street art, particularly unauthorized, illegal art. His work is developed in two stages and two different spaces. It originates from sketches jotted down in sketchbook, which represent a diary as well as a skeleton draft for the second stage: the mural. The actual project starts in front of the building, with size and load bearing elements of the wall, in effort to identify an impossible combination between painting and surrounding architecture. He avail himself of the most traditional and essential painting tools: brushes, paint roller, one colour and black; he often use techniques drawn from scenography as well as long sticks, which act as supports when working on large surfaces. The language adopted is strictly based on drawings: it originated from comics and cartoons alike, although it is best and provisionally epitomized by urban Graffiti. The work remains on paper once the mural has disappeared or faded, when it has been taken down, covered or destroyed together with its supporting frame.
Blu works and lives in Bologna (Italy) and has prepared a series of previously unseen drawings for his show at Subaquatica, entitled “La nada” (”The nothingness”).
Blu’s works can be seen on his site: www.blublu.org
June 22nd, 2006 05:38pm
Administrador
Fortunately it’s increasingly more and more common to find new shows and exhibit from street-artists in different galleries and art spaces in Madrid. In this ocassion it’s the Cruce space in Doctor Fourquet Street (near Museo Reina Sofia) that’s recently opened a new show with 5 artists of this scene: 3 locals : Nuria, Nano4814 and Eltono and 2 french visitors: Olivier Kosta-Théfaine (aka Stak) and Samuel François (aka Sam, from Inkostruction collective). Each of these artists have defined its own space inside the gallery showing some previously ellaborated elements but mostly creating ad-hoc installations for this place.
One of the first pieces we find as we enter is a scale model of a city, omnipresent theme in the show, ellaborated by Samuel François. In this model we can find a single family small house, with light inside (therefore showing is inhabited9 surrounded everywhere by tall apartment buildings. It’s seems like a simple but effective metaphor for the conflict between indiviudual expression and freedom and alienation in the big city (well, I guess that’s what it means). Next to the model, and surrounded by small color dots all over that wall, we can find some small drawings and mixed technique on paper pieces by this same artist that have been framed but which glasses have been broken. Also my guess that showing a contrast between those nice colorful drawings and the vandalic side of art on the streets.
Samuel François
Precisely vandalism seems to be the prefered subject for the other french artist, Olivier Kosta-Théfaine. His peculiar vision of the visual aspect of the most basic kinds of vandalism is portrayed through the “drawing” of a one of those classic rose-flower shaped molding in the ceilings of all apartments and houses. The drawing has been made using a lighter and slightly burning and thus, darkening, the surface, as seen in public restrooms everywhere. This contrast between the high class motif and the purely vandalic and low class technique is similar but opposite to the installation consisting of a collection of really beautifully colored molotov coctel bottles. His ironic vision of the most hooliganesque side of contemporary urban culture is completed by the installation of a typical football scarf of a non-existent team with the name of a suburbial residential city outside of Paris.
Olivier Kosta-Théfanie
Olivier Kosta-Théfanie
In this ocassion Tono and Nuria have opted for the more visual and decided not to include direct references to their street work, that is besides the fact that they have chosen not the gallery walls to paint on but precisely elements taken from the streets. The importance they give to the places the carefuly look for and choose to paint on the streets and how in these spots textures are very important gives us the key to the material used here. They have built a structure made of recycled fruit wood boxes. Usually decorated with colorful drawings these boxes prove to be an adequate substitute for the wooden doors or panels they often look for.
Eltono y Nuria
Nano4814 is the artist that has delimited and defined more clearly his space fencing the area with wood boards directly taken from his visual universe, whose characters occupy the space through the use of different techniques. The iconography is familiar to those who know his work: bearded men, cut fingers, tied-up extremities, faces with ski masks… Specially original is the pixel-like composition made with spraycans. It seems as if Nano’s world is overpopulated with a myriad of characters needing to scape into our world.
Nano4814
Nano4814
Nano4814
Open until 15 of july at Cruce (Doctor Fourquet 5, Madrid. Subway station: Atocha)
June 20th, 2006 10:36am
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