A quick post for all of you who have been anticipating the November release of the upcoming KAWS monograph. The Aldrich Museum, which is currently hosting the artists’ retrospective exhibition, is offering 250 signed copies of the 264 page hardcover book, available for pre-order in their online store here.

Looks like Banksy’s gone to the English Channel to stage his latest commentary on the disaster in America’s Gulf Coast region. Amidst the heavily trafficked attractions of the Brighton Pier amusement park, the world’s most recognized political prankster has installed a modified children’s ride, featuring a dolphin trapped in the muck of a leaking BP crude oil barrel and tangled tuna net. Video documentation surfaced on the artist’s site last night along with images of several other new pieces (including the ones pictured below), and in typical Banksy form, it is perversely humorous. Entitled Pier Pressure, the clip is set to the backdrop of old time carnival calliope music and depicts two children eagerly mounting the suffering animal while their guardian happily snaps a cell phone picture.

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

(All images and text © Jeff Newman/TheArtCollectors)

Los Angeles’ art scene is all the more elevated by the emergence of Rivera & Rivera Gallery, located downtown. Their latest offering features Retna, an artist on the cusp of an explosive career trajectory. With underlying major critical support, Retna is shifting to the foreground of museums and serious collectors alike. In a bold move, Rivera & Rivera utilizes their entire gallery space in a thunderously glorious installation that signifies the magnitude of Retna’s voice. Every inch is transformed by the majestic visual landscape. In a fabulous knock-out of an exhibition, Retna and Rivera & Rivera are clearly ushering in a definitive art show.

OPENING DATE: Thursday July 29, 2010
TIME: 8:00PM -11:00PM
RSVP: rsvp@riveraandrivera.com

Sir Gerald Kelly (English, 1879-1972), Portrait of Mr. Frick in the West Gallery, 1925, oil on canvas. 48 x 40 in. Frick Art & Historical Center, Pittsburgh, PA

In this LA Times article, American art collectors are singled out as emerging in scholarly significance. Contrasted to older traditions, American collecting has evolved briskly, though failing to reach a mainstream level of visibility amongst the popular culture. In the last decade, the Internet has made it possible for young collectors to hone their taste and create highly-personalized art collections. Speaking from experience, the web has facilitated many aspects of serious collecting, including creation and utilization of channels like this blog and our forum. As American collectors begin to be studied, it’s a certainty to expect that there will be vast differences among us, yet astounding commonalities may also come as a surprise. With new forms of art such as ‘toys’ by KAWS and more galleries bravely appealing to nascent collectors, it’s an exciting time for art. As collectors, American or not, we each share a passion for art; a heritage that is established in the most classical notion of holding something beautiful, or at least endlessly fascinating, in our possession.

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….

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.

(Image: Aldrich Museum)

Hi, Mónica. Congratulations on such a strong opening reception. Unveiling seven new exhibitions on the same day is quite an undertaking!

Thank you for joining us on such a celebratory day for the Aldrich.

KAWS already maintains such a strong following, from kids who connect to his toys and graphic work, to seasoned blue-chip art collectors. At the same time he’s not a complete household name. Does producing a show that can simultaneously engage first-time, unfamiliar viewers, as well as such a varied and fanatical fan base, factor into developing an exhibition like this?

It is the mission of The Aldrich to advance creative thinking by connecting today’s artists with individuals and communities in unexpected and stimulating ways, and in that context KAWS is a perfect match. The Aldrich is also well known for having given many artists their first museum exhibitions, which means we are used to presenting artists that are not yet “household names.”

KAWS has an incredible body of work, including painting and sculpture, of quality and vision; he was more than ready for a museum solo exhibition. It is important to The Aldrich not only to bring new audiences to the Museum, but also to make them feel welcome so that hopefully they will start considering contemporary art museums as institutions they can visit and enjoy.

With such an eclectic body of both fine art and commercial projects to draw upon from the last 15 or so years, can you talk about the process of selecting work for the very first retrospective look at KAWS?  For example, some things were absent, like the phone booth/bus stop ads that many consider the beginning of KAWS’ recognition by a public audience.

We are showing two phone booth ads, the Calvin Klein ones from 1999 with the skull, x-ed eyes and crossbones. We did want to focus on his new work, since the past work is very well known among his collectors. However, as many visitors will be looking at his work for the first time, we wanted to provide a small peek into his vast output, including design and street art, so as to show the creativity that permeates everything. KAWS has so much work that we could have organized an exhibition four times this size, so we really had to narrow it down to what would give an overall view and also look good.

The exhibition was able to provide a broad survey, drawing almost exclusively from the artist’s own collection. Was there a decision early on not to incorporate works from private collections?  I imagine that could present a whole other set of challenges.

For the artwork (paintings and sculptures), we wanted to show exclusively new work. For design objects, since KAWS keeps copies of everything, we decided to consolidate our loan and have everything come from him. Borrowing objects from all over the world would have been too complicated and wasn’t necessary. We are showing work, like the collaboration with photographer David Sims, that KAWS has retained for himself because it is a unique series; it has never before been exhibited*. That is also the case with some of the ink drawings—he is the only one who owns that type of work.

*Note: The Sims collaborations have never been seen in the U.S. and were only shown once, in 2001 at the KAWS – Tokyo First exhibit, Parco Gallery, Japan.

The show is divided into two rooms with works spanning a multiple of distinct mediums including painting, drawing, large scale sculpture, a site-specific installation, various commercial products, and collaborative projects.  What was the approach and what challenges were there to incorporating all this into the Museum and show?

We wanted to mix the disciplines somewhat, so in the gallery with the paintings and the sculptures we included the prototype toy of Pinocchio, to enter into dialogue with the large-scale work with which it has a lot in common.  In the other room, where we placed more design objects, we included packaged paintings and the David Sims series that are also unique works. We tried to have them be in dialogue, showing what they have in common as opposed to what they do not.

I’m curious about the negotiation between curatorial decisions, the goals of the artist, and the practical matter of dealing with physical space available. How has that factored into this show?

We assigned the gallery space to KAWS hoping he would do a large scale intervention, like a mural or big sculpture. To our surprise he gave us both!  Once we assigned the gallery, KAWS built a scale model. He made a proposal that we discussed, but the overall layout was done by him. On site, during installation, we discussed what would look better where, what would be the first impression of someone walking into the room, if the show was well paced, etc. We did some tweaks during the install—you do have to see the things in the room before you make the final decision.

Prior to your current role, you served as Assistant Curator of Architecture and Design for the Guggenheim. Has your background in these creative fields informed your role as curator of The Aldrich and this particular exhibition?  For example, the newest set of exhibitions includes not only KAWS, but Rackstraw Downes and Fritz Haeg, who uniquely draw upon elements of design and architecture in their art.

Yes, my background as an architect and at the Guggenheim does indeed inform my decisions. What first caught my attention about KAWS and Fritz Haeg is that they do not really find a strict boundary between art, design, and architecture. I feel the same way. I believe all disciplines would benefit from feeding from each other, which would be a more natural and organic way of not only making new work but experiencing it as well. In my mind, it is important is to have a creative vision that is applied to many different disciplines, activities, situations.

I chatted with many fans and art world professionals that traveled from quite far distances to be at The Aldrich, even from across the country and overseas! There was a real sense that people were compelled to be there for the first look and to show their support. For you, what is it that makes KAWS so appealing?

There are several factors that come together in KAWS. His work is well done, perfect in technique, craft, and manufacture. People still appreciate something well done. Also, conceptually his work is intriguing because at first glance it is easy to understand, funny, and encourages an emotional response. On a second look, it turns out to be quite complex, not that funny, but rather bittersweet and extremely cerebral (criticizing consumer culture, while still a participant in it).

Also, KAWS makes a point of reaching out to diverse communities and being accessible; since his work spans many different disciplines, this creates a large base of followers. It is important to mention that he is extremely generous as a person, and incredibly kind. He maintains a childlike sense of humor which identifies with a lot of not-that-young adults. He has an impeccable work ethic—I would say he is a good role model for young people: work on what you like, don’t give up, and work hard. I guess the fans see that as well!

Thanks Monica!

KAWS
June 27 – Jan. 2, 2011
The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum
258 Main Street
Ridgefield, CT 06877
203.438.4519

(All Images: Jeff Newman/TheArtCollectors, except where noted)

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….

Images: Geoff Hargadon, Jonathan Padilla, Edward Wilensky, Allasia Brennan, NSubordinate

Brush Strokes, a joint exhibit from Barry Mcgee (under his Lydia Fong moniker) and Todd James opened this past weekend at V1 Gallery, Copenhagen. Though there are only a couple of collaborative moments, the themes explored by the two long time friends are a perfect match. Mcgee’s street photography and tag-like block lettered text paintings act as a crucial declaration of identity alongside confusing geometric patterns that mimic the mind numbing, dumbing down effects of constant entertainment and media bombardment. Laying somewhere between Saturday morning cartoons and a Noam Chomsky dissertation, the happy faced war planes, bloody sword wielding tanks and gumball filled soldiers of Todd James’ cartoon drawings provide a darkly satirical commentary on the culture of violence and militarism spoon fed by western media in easily digestible packages.

This is not the first time McGee and James have show together. In 200o the two worked with fellow graffiti turned gallery artist, Stephen Powers (ESPO) on their Indelible Market installation at the University of Pennsylvania Institute of Contemporary Art. The trio expanded the concept for Street Market, a large scale exhibition with Deitch Projects the same year, and were later reunited for the Beautiful Losers museum exhibitions.

Up next for McGee – Looks like he’ll be coming to New York soon

Read on for images from the show…

Lydia Fong and Todd James – Brush Strokes
V1 Gallery
Flæsketorvet 69
1711 Copenhagen V, Denmark

(All Images via V1 Gallery)

Videos for all the Art Salon Talks from Art 41 Basel Switzerland are now available to view or download on the fair’s website here. The above conversation, “Collector Power – Who Has It and Who Doesn’t,” between  Josh Baer, art advisor and publisher of the Baer Fax art industry newsletter, and heavyweight collector Adam Lindemann is worth a watch (click pic to launch video).