Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category
Monday, August 30th, 2010
Accidents Will Happen :: Barry McGee Hits Houston Street
(All images and text © Jeff Newman/TheArtCollectors)
After a month away overseas (more on that to follow), I’ve come home to New York. Before leaving I had gotten word that Barry McGee and company would be coming to the city sometime soon to lend their treatment to the Houston Street mural wall on the Lower East Side. I thought for sure I would miss it, but returned earlier this week to learn I had made it back just in time. So, after several weeks of being absent from TheArtCollectors, I couldn’t have imagined a better way to jump back into things. I hope you’ll agree.
In an amazing twist, life imitated art in New York Sunday night when Barry McGee and crew descended on the Houston Street wall. Beginning at midnight, McGee, together with longtime collaborator Josh Lazcano (Amaze), began a massive spray-painting spree, bombarding the surface with hundreds of simple red tags. Working through the cover of night, the team created the ultimate graffiti writer’s roll call and a strangely beautiful, if not challenging piece of commissioned abstract art. By dawn, it would go much farther than even they could have imagined.
In the coming weeks, reactions to the piece are sure to be mixed, and it didn’t take long for questions to begin. Police made their first visit around 2am, clearly not knowing what to make of the Tony Goldman sanctioned property previously occupied by a Ketih Haring replica, a meticulously illustrated mural by Os Gemeos and the design heavy graphics of Shepard Fairey. No, this couldn’t be legit, this couldn’t be art. After a minor interruption a permit was produced and the police were on their way. They’d be returning though.
By 4am (with some added contributions from Chino) Twist and Amaze had completely filled in the wall with the names and crews of graffiti writers past and present. Seeing the project near completion, spectators, assistants and overseers had left the scene, leaving the artists free to “touch up” a few things. They were soon disrupted by a carload of ass-shaking club girls who briefly hijacked the sidewalk for a personal photo op. Acting as official photographer, Martha Cooper quickly stepped in keeping control over the site, and we turned our cameras on the drunken booty bunch. Barry and crew entered the frame. However amusing it was, this was clearly not how those involved had intended to end the night. Whatever – DFW – this bullshit would all be over soon and they could get back to what they were here for and waiting till dawn to complete.
4:45am and back to work. As it ascended to a few of the harder to reach spots, the buzz of the boom lift was suddenly drowned out by screeching tires. We turned our heads left just as a passing SUV smashed full force into a graffiti-adorned box truck, briefly taking flight and coming to rest on its side. The smell of oil and gasoline filled the air as it trickled out and drenched the pavement. “Call 911,” “Get that fucking cigarette away from here!” A few passersby rushed in and attempted to tear back the shattered windshield to reach the driver. Trapped on his side in an airbag filled compartment, they eventually opted to use the back end as an escape hatch. Bleeding from his forehead, but able to walk, he was pulled from the rear of the vehicle and helped into an ambulance.
By 5am the street was blocked off by police and fire department, bringing more unwelcome attention to the wall. Ordered down from their perch, the artists were subjected to another round of police scrutiny, this time focusing on their recent early morning final additions and concerns regarding the exact zone the work permit covered. Things seemed uncertain, if not dismal over the next hour.
What the hell had just happened? Walking west from the wall, a few hundred feet down the street to the accident and back up again, I started to take it all in – the totaled truck flipped on its side, the broken glass, the flashing lights and sirens all set the backdrop of 850 sq. feet of graffiti. I felt a certain sort of chaotic energy and unnerving excitement, as if one of Barry’s frenetic gallery and museum installations had spontaneously slammed full force into the middle of Houston Street. By 6am he and his mates were in there clear and off to the airport to get the hell out of New York City. Me? I walked up the block and back home where I couldn’t fall asleep for another three hours.
READ ON FOR MORE IMAGES Read the rest of this entry »
Wednesday, July 21st, 2010
No Sleep Till Moscow…
I’m off to the airport in an hour for the start of a one month trek through Russia, Poland, and Belarus to trace my family’s past and have a bit of fun along the way. For part of the journey I’ll be searching out our Jewish heritage (or the loss of it?). Aside from my maternal grandmother and grandfather most of my mother’s family was wiped out when the German army marched into the small towns of Divin and Kobryn in eastern Poland (now western Belarus in the Brest region). So, I’ll be off the map for a little while and you probably won’t hear from me for the next month or so. Maybe I’ll turn the site over into my travel diary for a bit when i return. We’ll see. With such heaviness ahead, the rest of the trip will be dedicated to general antics and seeing what sort of trouble i can find. Call it my Fear and Loathing is Illuminated. Until then, enjoy the rest of summer….
Thursday, July 15th, 2010
Interview :: TAC Talks with Curator Mónica Ramírez-Montagut about KAWS
(All Images: Jeff Newman/TheArtCollectors, except where noted)
Despite years of circumventing mainstream art circles and rarely showing his work publicly, KAWS has built up a massively dedicated following of collectors who obsessively seek out his creations, from limited edition toys and clothing, to even more elusive original paintings and drawings. After eight years of absence in the U.S and five years since exhibiting internationally, 2008 marked the artists’ return to gallery walls. With three consecutive solo shows in Miami, New York and Los Angeles, KAWS unveiled entirely new bodies of work that signaled a young artist on the verge of his most productive phase to date.
His most recent display is is no exception to this trajectory. On June 27th, the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Connecticut, opened the doors to KAWS’ first solo museum exhibition, providing a retrospective look at his graffiti roots, fine art, and commercial projects, as well as brand new sculptural and installation pieces that stand as his largest and most ambitious to date.
TheArtCollectors spoke with curator Mónica Ramírez-Montagut about the process of creating the landmark exhibition. Read on for the conversation, click images for larger views.
Wednesday, July 14th, 2010
Preview :: Around Town with Viva La Revolucion
JR installation in progress (Image: Geoff Hargadon)
Here are early images of several works in progress for the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego’s upcoming Viva La Revolucion exhibition, including a glimpse of outdoor pieces in progress (sanctioned and not) and museum installation shots from Os Gemeos, Swoon, Shepard Fairey, Barry McGee, Space Invader, JR, and Vhils.
In addition, Invader has unveiled a trailer for The Space Invader Walk, a virtual piece which will be presented in the museum as a movie. Watch it here:
Viva La Revolucion: A Dialogue with the Urban Landscape opens this week with a members preview ($20 non-members) Saturday, July 17, and general admission beginning on the 18th. On Thurs, Aug. 12 the museum hosts a party featuring live music from Wavves (for the kids). (Click through for additional images)
Os Gemeos (Image: Allasia Brennan)
Space Invader (Image: Invader)
Read on for more…. Read the rest of this entry »
Sunday, July 11th, 2010
Absolut ESPO + Aoshima
Absolut Vodka has teamed up with Stephen Powers and Chiho Aoshima for a new promotion called The Absolut Art of Sharing. For the campaign each artist has contributed two designs to a series of four unique drink pitchers. From what we can tell, they’ve been released in various sizes for different markets (1Liter in US, 700ml in Europe/New Zealand, 750ml in Mexico), making it a bit hard and confusing to collect them all if you are that obsessive or that much of a drunk. So far, only 3/4 designs have been released in the 1L and 750ml sizes, so your best bet is to go for the 700ml set, which so far have hit a limited number of specialty stores in the UK, France, Belgium, and Greece. If you are that inclined to figure it all out, check the antics on this Absolut collector’s forum, where we ganked most of these pics from. Oh, and there’s always the easy way – ebay.
Sunday, July 11th, 2010
Must See :: Blu’s Big Bang Boom
BIG BANG BIG BOOM – the new wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.
If you haven’t seen it yet, street art animator Blu has just unleashed another inspired short film. The frame-by-frame animation represents new ground for Blu, with the seamless incorporation of found three-dimensional objects into his already well know style of stop-motion surface animation. The project was completed with assistance from ARTSH.IT, with sound design by Andrea Martignoni, who has collaborated with Blu on previous animations. Impressive, bleak, and a must see.
Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010
Pop Will Eat Itself :: Lichtenstein’s Still Lifes at Gagosian
(All photos: Jeff Newman/TheArtCollectors)
Though Roy Lichtenstein is most remembered for his pioneering contributions to the early American pop movement of the 1960s, he continued to make new art up to the 1990s. From 1972 – 1986 he produced a large body of painting and sculpture that can be described as pop still-lifes. Technically, these were rendered in the same style of his popular comic-book based art, mimicking mechanical methods of production through the use of vivid primary colors, sharp lines, and his trademark simulation of the Ben-Day printing process. Thematically however, Lichtenstein’s subject matter veered away from mass culture and the recreation of commercial imagery. In place of D.C. comic panels we find the objects of traditional still life painting like fruits, vases or items arranged on tables.
Make the mistake of reading too carefully, and you might think there was some grand message here – that in the same way mass media has, the stuff of these works too has become part of our collective consumer conscience. However, like the rest of his art, Lichtenstein was quick to question any profound reading of this series, noting, ”When we think of still lifes, we think of paintings that have a certain atmosphere or ambience. My still life paintings have none of those qualities, they just have pictures of certain things that are in a still life, like lemons and grapefruits and so forth.”
For a body of work whose deeper meaning even the artist was quick to denounce, this is truly a site to behold. In the first exhibition devoted entirely to this series, Gagosian Gallery’s presentation of some fifty still lifes is one that rises to museum standards and deserves to outlive its summer gallery viewing. That being said, reflecting on his art with John Coplans in 1972, Lichtenstein remarked, “I don’t think that whatever is meant by it is important to art.”
Roy Lichtenstein – Still Lifes
Gagosian Gallery
May 8 – July 30
555 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011
212.741.1111
(All text and photos: Jeff Newman/TheArtCollectors)
Monday, June 21st, 2010
Amusing Ourselves To Death :: McGee + Rojas Together at Bolinas Museum
(Image: Bolinas Museum)
Barry McGee doesn’t watch TV. ”These are all things that Americans do, they sit at home and watch television, they go into work the next day and everyone talks about what happened on Taxi—that’s one of the last shows I watched on television, sorry.”
Mcgee is known for overwhelming his audience with an inundation of mind numbing geometric clusters that visualize the psychological and social effects of media bombardment. Like the troubled characters found in them, looking at these works can leave the brain both exhausted and confused in a cognitive haze that Jerry Mander predicted would ultimatley lead to the expansion of power by dominant controllers in society.
Have we been manipulated, or are we to blame? As Neil Postman later distinguished, Orwell’s vision of the future and Huxley’s Brave New World were not one in the same. One warned that we will be overcome by externally imposed domination. The other prophesized something far more unsettling – that we will come to love our oppression, freely trading in our capacities to think for the technologies and entertainment we cherish.
(Image: Bolinas Museum)
Mander urged us to be radical – to “kill our televisions” and dismantle technological civilization. Postman warned it was getting too late – we had already willingly given up and “amused ourselves to death.” Lately, McGee seems caught in the middle. His chaotic wall static has been disrupted, yielding to dense blocks of solid red, with only broken, fragmented shards of pattern remaining. These have given way to simpler forms – a few small floating cubes, a single triangle or an octagon. There are even recognizable objects like detergent bottles – the ultimate sign of the never ending mindless consumer choices that have replaced actual freedom of thought. If the pessimism of his work from the last few years rendered us helplessly adrift in a violent media frenzy, these newer installations show McGee pushing back against the noise, urging us to break through the clutter, recognize our own complicity, and regain control.
(Image: Gamma888)
Partner in life and art Clare Rojas explores similar new territory. The empty interiors of her recent paintings suggest spaces to be filled. Stripped of their belongings, we are pressed to find any identity in what remains in these barren rooms. In one painting a figure lays in bed staring at a TV on a nightstand. Another shows a simple house suspended against a white background. One sad looking woman sits at an empty table, while another reaches out her hand towards a garden of flowers. In an alcove, a woman’s face is partially covered by window blinds. In the same area, walls are cleverly paneled in central air vents and light switch or outlet covers that take on the look of morse code dots and dashes. But what does it all mean? While McGee reveals the brainwashing of our collective conscience, Rojas projects the effects of this dumbing down onto the trappings of domestic living, where we’ve cashed in our free will for freedom at the checkout line.
(Image: Bolinas Museum)
It is interesting that the Bolinas exhibition is being presented with two separate titles. While this isn’t the first time the artist couple has shown together, the two have joined here to deliver what is there most seamless presentation to date. When asked by fellow artist Andrew Jeffrey Wright where he’d like to be in five years, McGee said he “[hoped] to be entirely removed from society by that time. Off the map. Checked out.” With Leave it Alone we can understand why, and with Rojas’ Together at Last it’s clear that if the time comes, the two will disappear hand in hand.
Lots more images over on TAC member Gamma888′s flickr
Barry McGee – Leave it Alone / Clare Rojas – Together at Last
June 19 – August 1
Bolinas Museum
Hours: Fridays – Sundays, 1 – 5 pm
48 Wharf Road
Bolinas, CA 94924
phone: 415.868.0330
Friday, June 18th, 2010
Murakami to Exhibit in Qatar
(Image: Getty Images)
Reporting from Art Basel, the Art Newspaper says dealer Emmanuel Perrotin has revealed that a Takashi Murakami exhibition in Qatar is in the works for 2012, and will be more substantial than the show set to open at the Palace of Versailles this coming September.
Though Perrotin promises the Qatar show to be “a new concept and much broader,” we wonder just how much further it will go. Both exhibits are partly funded by the Qatar Museums Authority, largely an extension of the nation’s royal family (who were among the VIP visitors to Art Basel this week along with QMA director Roger Mandle). Considering the mixed civil and Islamic law code of the Arab emirate, don’t be surprised with a fairly reserved display showcasing the tamer side of Murakami, perhaps heavier on his smiling flowers and DOB characters, with less of the questionable body fluids.
Murakami tours his 2008 exhibit at MOCA Los Angeles. (Video via MOCA LA)
Monday, June 14th, 2010
Inside Out :: Ernesto Neto’s Largest Installation Opens in London
Ernesto Neto - anthropodino, 2009, commissioned for the Park Avenue Armory, New York, 2009 (Image: James Ewing via)
In what is being billed as his most ambitious exhibition to date, Brazilian sculpture artist Ernesto Neto will open a new site specific, all-encompasing environment at London’s Southbank Centre Hayward Gallery this Saturday, June 19. Viewers will act as participants, exploring a sequence of connected spaces that merge sculpture and architecture, at times recalling biological systems. For this new exhibition, Neto will create his first outdoor installations, including a sculptural pool that visitors will be allowed to enter.
Neto’s installation is part of The New Décor, an international survey of some 30 contemporary artists whose whose work explores interior design as a means of engaging with changes in contemporary culture.
Ernesto Neto – The Edges of the World / The New Decor
July 19 – September 5
The Hayward Gallery at Southbank Centre
Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX