Happy New Year to everybody! Can you believe it's 20-fucking-10 already? We're back and had a nice video of our friend Galo waiting for us to start things off.

Space Invader was back in London in December and put up some majorly big pieces. This isn't one of those pieces, which is one of the reason we like this video so much. It's just him doing his thing and taking the time to explain it in a great way.

Upper Playground and Gingko Press team up for a huge catalogue of the brand's 2000+ t-shirt designs over the last 10 years. This bulky volume consists of quite a few treasures and is a definite reference book for what the future may bring!

This Friday Thinkspace Gallery will be hosting a ridiculously large group show with over 100 artists, many of them friends of ours and many of them new comers to us. 'A Cry for Help' is a benefit show about raising awareness for animal protection issues and 20% of the artwork prices will go towards Born Free USA, a non-profit animal protection group. Included in the lineup will be work from Faith47, Buff Monster, Gaia Elbow Toe, Imminent Disaster, Joshua Mays and plenty more representing a wide range of contemporary styles.

A legendary skater revisiting a legendary NYC spot before the city turns it into a construction site. Mike Vallely reminisces about the Brooklyn Banks. via

We first told you about the Ghostvillage Project a few months back when they first released a video before putting the art in it. You've probably already seen this since it's been floating all over the Interwebs for a few weeks now, but anyhow. Here's the fun part.

ATM Gallery is back with a solo show by Incubus Project, a Russian duo whose work indoors and and on the streets evokes thoughts of mechanical architecture and the aesthetics of Eastern propaganda collage. We might have at one point used the word "futuristic" to describe some of it, but it doesn't seem true and that word doesn't seem to hold as much weight anymore does it? The show opens this Friday.

Dickchicken has been getting up in NYC pretty hard this past year or so. If you've been there you've probably noticed his stuff around. Here's a profile of him done by none other than Playboy TV. Guess they're trying to build their "street cred"?

via

Ekosystem has been posting a series of mini-interviews, 9 things from 2009. So far Roa, Ripo, Aryz, Jaz, Suso and more have been posted with more to come. Here's the link to Roa's, the rest are linked on the right of the page.

A few weeks back we showed you a video of a guy who loves to jumps on stuff (aka Parkour). Here's a great animation made by Serene Teh, a graphic design student in Singapore with the same theme.

The big news around the American art world is the announcement of Jeffrey Deitch as the new director of Los Angeles' MOCA Museum. All of you probably know about his infamous gallery and its reknown for extravagance and experimental shows as well as bringing artists from the "underground" to the fine art world, including Os Gemeos, Barry McGee, Stephen Powers, Swoon, and more. His appointment as the director of a museum is controversial in the fact that he is first a businessman and a private dealer and the possible conflict in interest between that and being the director of a museum is obvious. You can read more in the LA Times article here, and more interestingly a very in-depth three part interview by Tyler Green with Deitch since he's been named director of the museum. It's worth reading as he asks him directly a lot of the questions floating around about the new, you can read that here.

Josh Keyes, Doze Green, and Saelee Oh (who actually we didn't know... until now). All three will be opening their own solo shows at the Jonathan Levine Gallery this Saturday, Jan. 16th.

At the invitation of our own Ephameron the originally-Parisian-now-nomadic lo-fi graphics gallery, Arts Factory, is coming to Galerie Mekanik in Antwerp this Saturday. On show will be an amazing selection of art, books and prints featuring Atsuko Ishii, Blanquet, Daniel Johnston, Amandine Urruty, Killoffer, Blex Bolex, Moolinex, Ciou, Veronique Dorey, Camille Lavaud, Rocco, Charles Burns, Thierry Guitard and many more.

JanaundJS have carved out a recognizeable style of stenciling for themselves both in the streets and a number of gallery shows over the past few years. This Saturday they will be bringing their new 3D stencil experiments to the Inoperable Gallery in Vienna.

What a news report about graffiti and London legend Tox in the Underground! Originally aired in 2004. Also an interesting Flickr account here, is it what we think it is? via

"Historically, Jolly Roger is the name given to a flag, which identifies a ship’s crew as pirates. While the 20th Century brought pop culture and icons like what we recognize as a pirate flag, prior to that a Jolly Roger had no skull and bones graphic or standard logo. Most ships had their own unique style signifying their independence and meaning to scare the shit out of those who encountered it. "

To read about a meeting with Influenza and his unbelievably placed plastic bag Jolly Rogers make your way to www.nonewenemies.net.

Just saw this beautiful new painting from our good friend Will Barras up on his website.

We've all heard about the devastation that hit Haiti last week rom the massive earthquake and should all also be conscious of the enormous problems it's faced for years before that politically, socially, and from other natural disasters. Many people have been mobilizing and trying to do their part to help out. The Poster Cause Project has organized their own quick response effort with the release of these three poster prints by Dalek, Shane Jessup, and Patricio Oliver with 100% of the profits going to Doctors Without Borders, a great charity to support and that has already been doing a lot on the ground in Haiti. The prints aren't large (6"x11") but neither are the price tags ($15) and we all should know that every little bit counts. You can get yours here.

Mark Jenkin's work is all too often short lived in its "natural environment" in the streets. He's done a good job at pushing his work in the gallery setting as well, although perhaps it loses those moments and experiences that have stopped pedestrians in their tracks and caused bomb squads to be called in. He'll be opening a show of his new non-temporary works at the Carmichael Gallery this Thursday.

If you haven't seen the amazing documentary 'Inside Outside' yet (produced in 2005 from Rosforth) you absolutely have to. To make it easier it seems the entire hour-long movie has been posted online for streaming. Get some popcorn, sit back, and enjoy. seen on ilovegraffiti

im lucky enough to have this painting on my lounge wall at home..
bruce mackay.. up and coming cape town artist... sharp*
check his flckr account..

from faith47's blog

The newest issue of Maguila, a solid PDF zine out of Sao Paulo, Brazil, is available now. It's put together by the good people from Base-V. This issue boasts 122 pages of pure visual content by 30 artists, including previous Modart contributor Fernanda Cohen. Well worth checking out and they are also taking submissions for the next issue. Download it here.

Will Barras is insanely prolific and his blog itself only gives a glimpse of an ever growing body of work. No New Enemies has just posted a massive photo report of his work but more importantly what you MUST make time to read is the essay at the end discussing his work. While it specifically talks about Willy B it touches on a lot of important issues about the practice of painting and being an artist today.
Go read it here.

In Milan? Head to the Don Gallery tomorrow night for the opening of Puck Show and the launch of the new comic zine.

MC RQM and his friend Remed team up for a new collaboration in Berlin. Remed did a limited edition of 100pcs of RQM's new 7" record and shirtdesigns for Carharrt.

Opening: Sat. January 23rd, 2010, 6 pm, HHV.DE Selected Store (Revaler Str. 9,
10245 Berlin-Friedrichshain)
The Visual Presentation ends on January 30th, 2010

StolenSpace gallery has teamed up with the noted war-photographer Jeff Antebi to release many of his previously unseen photos from his trips to Haiti in 2009. Each photo is released in a 150 print limited edition and go for £40 a piece. All of the proceeds will be donated to Doctors Without Borders and Oxfam. The exhibition is up on Stolenspace's website, check it out here.

72hoursgallery will be hosting their second installment in Berlin with the 44flavours artist collective. The show will begin on February 5th and run through Sunday Feb. 7th. Starting with a blank slate and all the necessary tools and space needed the artists will begin working on Friday at 10am. There will be 36 hours of production and 36 hours of exhibition. The vernissage will take place on Saturday Feb. 5th and to top it off all the proceeds earned from the event will be donated to the NGO "Licht fur die Welt", a non-profit-organization providing eye surgery and therapy in third-world countries.

Thursday February 4thRoa will be opening his first solo show in Paris at Galerie Itinerrance. He's been feeding on a lot of paint and travel these days, we can't wait to see how he builds his nest in Paris.

Although Ad Hoc Art threw the closing party for their gallery space back on January 13th they're still at it and will be opening up a new exhibition with the French stencil artist Jef Aerosol this Friday, Jan. 29th at the spot next door. The show, entitled "All Shook Up," will include new and older stencil works.

Thinkspace Gallery just sent us news about their latest print release with the Brazilian artist Joao Ruas. He's been showing with their gallery for a few years now and this 12"x12" giclee print, entitled "Enkindu & Gilgamesh," looks proper. You can find out more about the artist and the edition here.

David Choe has just self-released a new "Haitian Girl" print with all proceeds going to Yele Haiti, Wyclef Jean's Haitian Relief Organization. The print is limited to an edition of 50 giclee prints measuring 18"x24" (46x61cm). It's hand-signed by David Choe and costs $300. It's available now for presale here (although it appears it might already be sold out). Great that Choe has put in such fast work with this one. He's also now preparing for his new show opening Feb. 5th at Fifty24SF Gallery in San Francisco.

Last weekend I was in Rotterdam to see this group show curated by Gerben Willers. The exhibition included work by Abner Preis, Wayne Horse, Richard Colman, Jeff Soto, BFree and others. Recession. Natural Destruction. Suffering. Millions of examples around us and we’ve all had a taste. I appreciated the nature of this show, and the opening was rowdy and fun. This was not a rainbow gathering, but everybody did appear in a pretty generous mood. Via No New Enemies.