modart*NEWS

While Pictoplasma dances around the city, Adidas launched their Urban Guide with a massive wall from Nomad, next to another from Kami and Sasu.

I spoke to Nomad at about 5 last night. He said that the crane was still there and the sun was still up so he was going to try to hit another high spot on the building.

Camilla d'Errico is an illustrator, comic book artist, fine artist, toy maker, clothing designer, and more. Whatever the hell you want to call her as you see her work you quickly realize you can't pigeonhole her into one thing. She has a very manga style with lots of delicate linework and a nice sense of color. She has been making noise in the comic book scene for some years now as well as showing in various galleries across the US. Check out more at: www.camilladerrico.com

We received another great report from our friend Ana Ferraz, this time about the Brazilian talent Mateus Grimm. He's worked for years on the streets of Porto Alegre, had shows all over Brazil, painted trains with Os Gemeos, and has now opened his newest show 'Atadura' at A CASA Gallery in Curitiba. Read more to learn about this artist and for a massive photo report of his work from the show.

Our friend Pez, the Barcelona legend, has got one more reason to be smiling and so do we. He's just launched his first official website and there is a ton of material on there. Fitting since he's been painting since '99 and has basically been going non-stop ever since. Take some today to check out la web del pez. www.lawebdelpez.com

Shida is a young Australian artist who's spent the past few months roaming around Europe looking to learn about, and leave his mark on, the world. This Thursday, May 21st he opens his first European solo show, 'Fate's Fantasy' at Vienna's Inoperable Gallery. He's already made an impression down in Australia and this is the perfect chance to come get to know his work for the first time in Europe.

Jason de Caires Taylor is like one of those divers in a fish tank except his fish tank is the ocean and he's actually creating the sculptural worlds that reside there. He's credited for building the first underwater sculpture park off Moiliniere Bay, Grenada and his work has become widely renowned as it creates amazingly surreal worlds that look almost ancient already. But much more than simply looking nice his works promote coral reef growth and help rebuild the environments they live in. We like it a lot. Check out more of his work at www.underwatersculpture.com. via

We are in South Africa these days and met some nice People here - Faith 47 connected us with some other local writers and artists...this is definetely one of the warmest welcomes i ever had when i went to a city where i knew noone before...check out the pictures..

Carolina Fontoura is a Mexican-Brazilian artist who just opened her first solo show, 'Connect,' at Upper Playground Mexico. Her chandeliers and lamps are made entirely from recycled bicycle parts, and aside from their delicate yet heavy hitting aesthetics the comments they lay down about DIY culture, class structures, power dynamics, reclaimed agency, and ecological responsibility are deeply embedded in each piece.

We received new pieces from Boxi, which he did in Athens.
He did a wall piece and a 240x190cm canvas work for Alpha Delta Gallery and the REMAP KM 2 event which opened on the 16th June and runs parallel to the 2nd Athens Biennial "Heaven".

Wendell McShine is an artist hailing from Trinidad and Tobago who has spent the last few years between his native country and Mexico. This hand-crafted stop motion video is a piece he did working with 12 the Band, also from Trinidad. Utlizing any and all mediums he spends years creating entire worlds filled with his characters telling mystical stories relating to the everyday life he grew up with. Check out more of his work at 72ironmen.blogspot.com.

Our friend ROA at WALLBREAKERS Festival....

Our good friend Kenor has just redone his entire website. Tons of work on concrete, metal, canvas, cardboard, glass and pretty much anything else that's gotten in his way in the past ten or so years that he's been putting in serious work in the streets of Barcelona. Check it out for yourself at www.elkenor.com.

Ibie and Royal, partners in crime who have been hitting the streets of Barcelona for years now, have circumvented the system in a way we fully appreciate and have launched their own online portal for moving their prints and fine artwork directly to those who appreciate it most. Red-Eye Fine Arts and Print Shop is their initiative to put the control of selling their work back into their own hands, and soon will have a number of other artists added to the roster. Check their website and support these artists directly. www.red-eye.es

Nomad just finished an enormous wall in Berlin as part of Modart and Rebel Media's Wallbreakers Festival. The production was organized in collaboration with Riot Arts and we give props to Just for the photos you're enjoying here. If you're in the neighborhood the building is located at Richard-Sorge-Str. in Friedrichshain.

Just just posted a whole bunch of new photos of the process behind Nomad's most recent mural. Some are posted here, the rest can (and should be) seen at just.ekosystem.org/NOMAD.html

Among a slew of other work Swanski has been designed a ton of skateboards in the past 10 years now and his latest exhibition, 'Wooden Canvas,' is a retrospective of that work. While the show is only up for another two days at the Veteran Shop & Gallery in Warsaw there are plenty of images to enjoy right from the comfort of your computer here.

East Eric's work is experimental, conceptual, and often gives an aggressive push to the line of acceptability and controversy. Among other things he straddles the border between art and vandalism, such as his monochromed redecoration of the train cabin above. His work is more than simply the final results however as he often builds his own tools to carry out his plots such as paint bombs (landmine looking objects stuffed with paint and firecrackers), enormous markers, an arsenal of fire extinguishers, bikes and other objects used as printing presses and more. He makes all of his tools himself and has recently released a series of high quality photographic prints of some of his outdoor experiments. Contact him on his website to support.

Brooklyn's in the house and Skewville's got a new website: www.skewville.org. Does a nice job telling the story behind these twins' artwork, so if you don't know now you know.

Leon Reid is already in Stavanger, Norway for the Nuart Festival. Here is part 1 of 5 of a talk he held about his past and current work. Nice intro and we're definitely looking forward to seeing what new work he's got in store for us. check out more at www.nuart.no.

Logan Hicks is at nuart and is sending us some pix, updates, extras ...

More Pics at FlickR
Nuart Festival in Stavangar, Norway

Logan Hicks turned the camera on himself for this timelapse of his gallery piece at Nuart.

Claudio Ethos has finally gotten himself a website and has plenty of work to show. His technique is unreal.

To coincide with the book release of Part One – The Death Squad, From Here To Fame and friends present a European black book session & book signing tour with the New York subway graffiti legend PART ONE.

Check all the dates by clicking the link below!

Epitaph is an exploration of lost spaces.
Known for her unique style and elegant gritty lines, Faith47 presents a visual diary from South Africa, including her latest video (created with Inge Beckmann and Rowan Pybus).

No New Enemies & Wallbreakers present "Epitaph". An installation and video presentation by Faith47, Inge Beckmann & Rowan Pybus.

Vernissage Saturday Oct. the 17th | 18:00 > 21:00 | with music by Dj Dark Matter
at MR-EGO | 29 Rue Des Pierres | 1000 BXL

East Eric once again reminds us of the importance of innovation and invention. He's just recently perfected his self-described "Ultimate Tag Weapon." His printing shoes are self-inking, discrete, silent, will stand out from most anything else out there, and in about 2 minutes of walking you can see just how much they can do. More than anything these are a nice reminder to all of us to not just be happy with whatever tools that are produced and sold to us. Make your own or improve on what's there. Click on for a full photo report of the creation process.

Wendell McShine just sent us this video where he discusses his work. Taking inspiration from his native Trinidad and his adopted-home of Mexico City it's amazing to see the details and variety of materials he uses in creating his world. He will be presenting new works at the 'Fresh Produce' group show opening at Anno Domini Gallery in San Jose, California next Friday, Dec. 4th.

Last year Above released a print around this time of year with 100% of the proceeds going to charity. He's back at it again this time focusing his efforts on helping the homeless in Portland, Oregon. He spent five weeks biking around the city and interviewing homeless people to find out what services and projects they thought really benefitted them. TPI (TRANSITION PROJECTS)was one that got a largely positive response so Above has made a print from his photo of Poet and will be selling it to raise $5000 for TPI. You can read the full story here and purchase a print here.

The Flower Guy just sent out his newsletter with the great piece of news that for the third year in a row he's been asked to do the cover of New York Magazine's "Reasons to Love New York" edition. He created the type as well as the heart drawing. Congrats!

A really nicely produced video of the crazy talented young Aryz painting a mural at Montana's new cafe and pizzeria located right next to their shop. If you don't already know about his work you should and you'll certainly hearing more about him soon. You can check him out at www.aryz.es.

This is what I love about art. Art of living. Communication. Action. Experiment. Evolution.

My friends Smash137 and Ripo recently wrote to me to tell me about a great week they spontaneously ended up spending together.

Smash137 had been scheduled to fly from Barcelona back to Basel, but a flight mishap and a phone call later, he and Ripo had other plans. As a professional artist or freelancer you get the joyful burden of inventing your own schedule most of the time, and on this occasion the two duders decided to take a day’s working vacation, which turned into a full week of fun in the sun, constant action though not really on the run. When you are the one to choose how you spend your time, what do you do with it?

Ripo shares the rest of the story over at No New Enemies...

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.

"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.

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.

Abner Preis will be telling his stories and spinning the heads of anyone who dares enter the Galerie Gabriel Rolt booth at Art Rotterdam. The show will be open from this Wednesday Feb. 3rd through Sunday the 7th and Abner will be on location everyday in top form. The gallery will also be showing works by Anna Bjerger, Nadja Bournonville, Nik Christensen, Xue Mu, Gino Saccone, Anami Schrijvers and more.

We met Davide Zucco (aka Rekal) a few years ago at the Wooster Collective's 11 Spring St. show and are always happy to hear from him. He's just redone his website and it looks great. Check it out for yourself: www.rekal.org

The Latino Amor Tour, mostly made up of the Spanish/French/Belgian HDA Crew (Hartos De Arte: Fed Up With Art), will kick off on March 1st with a three week whirlwind tour from Argentina to Chile. Streets, two gallery shows, plenty of miscelaneous beautiful desctrucion, and lots of Argentine meat are all the menu. They've set up a website with interviews and news from the tour. Follow it all here: www.latinoamortour.com

Alex Diamond's newest show 'Don't worry 'bout a thing 2: DEMON CIRCUS' just opened at Iguapop Gallery and we've got the video and photos to prove it. The show will run through March 6th.

Mr. Jago has just updated his website as an ongoing timeline of the past ten years, from the early days of the flyers and the Scrawl Collective, right up to date. If you're a fan of Jago's work like we are you'll be happy to have found your first stop to any news from his side of things. www.mrjago.com

Miss Van has just released two new giclee prints on watercolor paper. The first (image above) is based on an old school painting of her poupees from her first show at Merry Karnowsky Gallery in LA. The other, 'She-Wolf', is from her new painting that is being shown at the current 5 Year Anniversary Show at Jonathan Levine Gallery in NYC. Check out both the prints at the Princesas Market site.

Go Figurative is a an online gallery dedicated exclusively to figurative artwork. Tomorrow, March 18th, they will be opening their first exhibition, "Real," at the Heatherley's School of Art in London. 130 works from 42 international artists including Patrick Palmer, Alex Higgins, Nicholas Phillips, Mike Francis and more will be on display and it will only be on public view from Friday until Sunday. Not much time so if you're around go check it out.

This video is a must see for any fans of calligraphy, or graffiti for that matter, or better yet Calligraffiti as the Dutch graffiti legend Niels 'Shoe' Meulman puts it. He also has a book presentation and exhibition on at the Arty Farty Gallery in Cologne at the moment. It will only be up through March 25th, so make sure you don't miss it before it's down. More details and photos from the exhibition at the Arty-Farty Blog.

Dale Grimshaw is about to drop his third (and biggest yet) solo show at Signal Gallery in London this April 9th. His self portraits have shown raw emotion and at times a disturbing past. For 'Arcana' he has laid his sites on Tarot imagery, reinterpreting the ancient imagery to reveal something about our universal states of mind. This will be one of Signal Gallery's biggest shows of the year, mark your calendars.

We just received some really nice paintings in our emailbox and just had to share with you. Check out more of George Morton-Clark's work on his website: www.gm-c.co.uk

Labrona has been keeping busy these days. As well as having recently shown in NYC with Carmichael Gallery he's been hitting the streets. Here are two new pieces he sent our way.

Roa just dropped us this fantastic video of the decaying process of one of his animals. He'll be dropping a lot more on London this Thursday, April 8th with his solo show opening at Pure Evil Gallery.

Escif's work always hits us where it should. It's deceivingly simple while at the same time making some very poignant remarks and... how do I put this? It's fucking beautifully done. So needless to say we're happy to hear he'll be opening a major solo show, 'Around The Wall,' at Pictures On Walls in London next Friday, April 16th.

Looks like an old clip of Escif, also seen in Banksy's Exit Through the Gift Shop.

A great new interview with Os Gemeos over at ilovegraffiti.

Our good friend Galo is the taking the plunge and opening his own art gallery in Torino, Italy this coming Thursday, April 29th. The Galo Art Gallery will open with a bang, Galo's own 'Tamango Times' solo show. Whether you think you know Galo or not you cannot miss this brand new report on the man himself over at No New Enemies.

'Unless a life is lived for others, it is not worthwhile.' - Mother Theresa

Day two in Tirana and everybody wakes up early. There's work to do. Find some paint, rollers, buckets and extensions, borrow or buy ladders (and in my case clean socks). Print some photographs to show people more or less what you'd like to paint on their wall and start hustling. Within a couple of hours all of the guys are out hunting walls and many people are looking at us like we're nuts. They are understandably skeptical about why somebody would be volunteering to work for free. I guess you can be a Tom Sawyer hucked into doing it or you can be a sort of Mother Theresa and make a bold stance. As always, there is a third way and that's the one we're on. Nobody is being conned and nobody is being holy. Give to get and the more we give the more we get. I didn't even realize that Mother Theresa was in fact Albanian and grew up a few blocks from our hotel, until a search for a wall took us into a small and predominantly Muslim neighborhood. I am constantly reminded by how little I know. Often it is kids who call this to my attention.

You can get much more in the NoNewEnemies feature.
And of course in the Operation Tirana blog....

Opera Gallery in NYC will be opening up the three-person show with this great line up tomorrow, Wednesday May 19th. Logan Hicks made this video to discuss a bit about the work he's going to be showing. We've seen him go from simple technical mastery to really discussing issues of his own life and the urban situation in general. If you're in NYC this will be one not to miss.

Jeremy Fish has landed in Germany and already taken over the Arty Farty Gallery in Cologne. His show, 'The Road Less Traveled,' has filled the space with all new works as well as a mural piece. That show will be up until June 26th. The Gallery also is celebrating its first birthday. Congratulations guys! If you missed that opening last Saturday you still have time to make it up to Hamburg for his next installment at the heliumcowboy artspace on May 29th.

A few weeks back we received a nice email from Hyuro, an Argentinean artist who has been living between Barcelona and Valencia now for the past 10 years. While she has been making art all of her life it's only been in the past year or so, primarily under the guidance of Escif, that she's discovered the impact of putting her work on walls and the direct interaction it can have with the public. The results have been delicate and strong and she's already begun to get quite a bit of attention. We've selected of a few photos she sent us and you can see more on her flickr page here.

ElTono just sent us a massive update with news of his travels, artwork, experiments and a multitude of major shows since the beginning of the year. He's been all over Spain, Mexico, and Argentina with some incredible shows including the "Uncontrolled Mural" created in Madrid from the video above. His work is amazingly clever, fun, interactive, and continually growing and changing. He's one our favorites by far and we've included some more of the videos of his projects and the links to find out more.

Retna and El Mac just recently finished this powerful mural in the heart of LA's Skid Row. The project was their second collaboration with Estevan Oriol, who's photograph was the basis for El Mac's part of the wall. The mural is a tribute to the community members in Skid Row as well as the perseverance of the homeless who reside there. The image is amazing and the best part is the entire photo report on Retna's website, from start to finish. It's definitely worth checking out if you've ever enjoyed the amazing collaborations between these two artists. (sort of via Revok's blog)