Show & Telltag:blogmodart.rebelmobile.de,2008:/blog/showtell//52007-09-24T10:22:05ZMovable Type 3.35Adam Neate / SELL OUTtag:blogmodart.rebelmobile.de,2007:/blog/showtell//5.482007-09-21T13:49:30Z2007-09-24T10:22:05Z From modart issue #8 SELL OUT - the attitude of Adam Neate We are born with a scream; we come into life with a scream, and maybe love is a mosquito net between the fear of living and the...tobias
From modart issue #8
SELL OUT - the attitude of Adam Neate
We are born with a scream; we come into life with a scream, and maybe love is a mosquito net between the fear of living and the fear of death. – Francis Bacon.
The story of street art was always a love story. What started with candlelight and homemade wine has turned into an all-out orgy. From sprayed murals or stencils, to stickers, sentences and detailed illustrations, people around the planet have taken to speaking up on the streets, using art to give the silent majority a voice, transforming forgotten concrete or instructive advertising into palettes of new possibilities.]]>
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SKATE*tag:blogmodart.rebelmobile.de,2007:/blog/showtell//5.472007-09-21T13:48:05Z2007-09-21T13:49:09Z From modart issue #8 Skaters by their very nature are urban guerrillas: they make everyday use of the useless artefacts of the technological burden, and employ the handiwork of the government/corporate structure in a thousand ways that the original...tobias
From modart issue #8
Skaters by their very nature are urban guerrillas: they make everyday use of the useless artefacts of the technological burden, and employ the handiwork of the government/corporate structure in a thousand ways that the original architects could never dream of.
- Craig Stecyk]]>
For the past three decades, as far as this definition goes, ‘Skaters’ could be freely swapped with ‘Street Artists’… the two labels share common characteristics like: risk, adrenaline, imagination and the pointing out of new possibilities… they share a kindred spirit, something we might refer to as folk… rising out of the concrete, coming together as an uncommon community, rejecting that things ‘should’ be this or that. Rejecting ‘is,’ and replacing it with ‘could be.’ They share a DIY ethos and bloody knees. They share the fact that the labels, skate or street, reveal interests not identity.
The Skate* Expo at the Tri Postal in Lille recognised that in addition to taking inspiration from their environment, these communities have recycled this drive and with or without intending to, given it back. The show commenced with comments from the Mayor of Lille, a strong sign that the city is supporting what it once wanted to escort out of its gates.
The show explored the culture of skateboarding and some of the energy and attitude that have spun out of it. The lower level of the venue, used architecture and imagery to emphasize how skateboarders used their environment for possibilities never outlined by the original design(er). The old post office became a virtual skate park, which doubled as the fragile lines of crowd control. Up on the walls were strong black and white photos of urban athleticism, skateboards and scaling walls, the work of Fred Mortagne along with that of the Moving Unit Boys and Interstices.
Upstairs, viewers could see the peacock colored La Chienne full of non-polished punk aesthetics and the now-famous Beautiful Losers Show.
Beautiful Losers (BL) fits into the exploration of Skate culture, but it is not a Skate or Street art show. As one of the show’s curators, Christian Strike points out: “To me, ‘skate art,’ is limited to art on skateboards or for some other type of direct and overt use within a skateboarding context.” He stressed that although skateboarding is a cultural reference point and one of the common denominators to be found in the BL show, it is not a Skate Art exhibition.
“I think anyone looking at any of the main artist’s installations (Phil Frost, Harmony Korine, Geoff McFetridge and Mike Mills for example), would have a hard time looking at them and calling it “skateboard” or “graffiti” art … though I do want to be clear that I think skateboarding is a wonderful and important culture, and has a profound influence on the BL project. It has been nice to show the general public the creativity coming from skateboard culture.”
Like Skate*, BL has multiple layers and levels. The show denounces singularities as it does hierarchies. It’s part historical retrospective, part anthropological/culture documentation and part recognition of a generation of artists who may not share medium, but have a common aesthetic, ethic and love of trash – trash- as recyclable urban decay –trash- as figurative or social metaphor … even as slang – trashed- which surely is another theme common in this collection … bodies, cities, American dreams, all binned, burned and pushed to the limit.
So much garbage in circulation, yet at SKATE*, there was a distinct mood of celebration, a diverse audience, and when the free bar finished, nobody seemed to bail.
One tip: if you visit the show, there are two train stations in Lille and if you end up at the wrong one like we did, be prepared for bad Brasseries, amusing local drunks and the hangover of Belgian beer.
One comment, SKATE* was a great example of how art is the negation and destruction of truth as opposed to images … yet it takes these images to realize this.
Massive Biggups to the folks behind EXPO SKATE, the city of Lille and all you Beautiful Losers …
(incidentally the spin off, or satellite show of BL@SKATE which was on at Agnes B Gallerie du Jour in Paris was called Ugly Winners, a choice, which may or may not have anything to do with the bombing at BL Milano, which tagged the same name all around the event, but that’s a whole other story.)
Photos: Mamz’l Ka, Tseou.com and Rich Holland // More images from the show:
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Lazarides / SWISHtag:blogmodart.rebelmobile.de,2007:/blog/showtell//5.462007-09-21T13:46:47Z2007-09-24T10:23:41Z From modart issue #8 To an American ear, Swish is the sound a basketball makes when it enters the net without rattling the rim – the perfect arc and spin, a sinking orange sphere sensually grinding against air then...tobias
From modart issue #8
To an American ear, Swish is the sound a basketball makes when it enters the net without rattling the rim – the perfect arc and spin, a sinking orange sphere sensually grinding against air then vinyl. To anybody swaggering through Soho, it might seem more similar to the sound of a whip cracking against sky or skin. Before there was the Lazarides Gallery, the venue for this show specialised in spanking. Basketball or bondage, both go Swish with a flick of the wrist. Swish was also the name of the cherry popping event of the Lazarides Gallery in London, which had too much edge to produce such a sweet and gentle sound. Located smack in Soho, the whips are gone, but the spanking continues.]]>
The gallery aims to provide an exhibition space for artists “who don’t conform to established standards.” It does well to provide a context for this to occur; the stink of the London sewage, the neon memories; the space hasn’t been polished or Ikea’d up, but like the artwork, remains raw, a warm antithesis to the conventional white cube.
Swish featured work from artists who are and will continue to bust up the house that fine art built: Banksy, Jamie Hewlett, Antony Micallef, Stanley Donwood, Paul Insect, Polly Morgan, Anthony Gray, Joe Rush, Mode2, Lucy McLauchlan, Faile, Kelsey Brookes, Gee Vaucher, Zevs, Invader, Eine, and Dan Baldwin.
They may not conform, but they’ve certainly have earned their places in the spotlight. Some are a big as they come, though most won’t know their names (at least not those they were born into).
They took to the walls and came in through the speakers, entered our lives via glossy magazines, main streams, main streets and off route alleys all across the planet. If we talk about the cute, but disturbing taxidermy of Polly Morgan, the interactive urban games of Invader, Banksy’s recent columns for The Guardian, the way Jamie Hewlett or Stanley Donwood shwook up the music scene or Faile’s gifts left in capitals across the continents, it’s quickly crystal that the artists brought together for the Swish show have influenced many via their imaginations, critical thoughts, work ethic and technical mastery, via their search for new forms of communication and the poetic risks this demands. Swish, is the sound of poetry.
The red thread between these artists cannot be found in predicate. It is not a question of nationality or medium, of sensibility or experimentation, of gender or genre. On the contrary, what connects this group is their passion, care for community and willingness to produce art outside the limits of other predicates, like high or low, good or bad, committed or commercial. There is no predicate. The subject is art. It is imagination. It is collaboration. It is paranoia. It is often simply the proposition of something other. While many of the participants contribute to the design of culture, Swish was all about the art.
The duel aim of the Lazarides Gallery is to provide space for experimental arts while employing art as a catalyst towards community, to make art something accessible to the public at large. Lazarides desires to create an informal atmosphere where any and everybody can feel comfortable to take their time taking in art, or simply seek shelter from the drip drop of London’s bleeding skies. If the quality and diversity of this show is evidence, this ain’t at all a bad place to stop, think and see what’s around.
For more on all the artists, check the gallery’s site: www.lazinc.com]]>
Blu / The Nothingnesstag:blogmodart.rebelmobile.de,2007:/blog/showtell//5.452007-09-21T13:44:30Z2007-09-24T10:23:58Z From modart issue #9 The Nothingness - The Street Artists’ favorite Street Artist hits Madrid. Most screens are tinted with numerous shades of BLU ... By now most of us are accustomed to viewing the Internet as a window...tobias
From modart issue #9
The Nothingness - The Street Artists’ favorite Street Artist hits Madrid.
Most screens are tinted with numerous shades of BLU ...
By now most of us are accustomed to viewing the Internet as a window to worlds once too far away to imagine. But just as a photo usually fails to properly convey the moment it captures, all the evolving online medias still don’t quite cut it when it comes to sharing certain things, like street art.]]>
Part of his sudden success can be attributed to the sheer size of the murals he’s created and Blu himself acknowledges this: “(Size) is the aspect that has changed the most with my approach to street work compared to when I used to do traditional Graffiti. Now I put a lot more attention to the structure of the building, the wall where I intend to paint, and I try to find some proportional relationship to the site and city”. Precisely those contextual elements are the starting point for Blu when planning a new mural. As he confesses: “Most of my works start with the context, I never do sketches before painting a wall because i want to be inspired by the wall and building so that this particular piece only could have been done in that wall and not somewhere else”. This is perhaps the same approach that he has used for his first solo show at Subaquatica in Madrid. Entitled “The Nothingness”, the show consists of a series of drawings on paper and 4 pyroengravings, for which he had to confront himself with the challenge of a series of empty white pieces of paper, with no texture, context or pre-existing condition to dictate towards creative choice. Of course, this isn’t a totally alien experience to Blu. He’s used to this, but only when drawing on his sketchbooks. For some of the new drawings he chose to splash some watercolors on the empty papers and improvise on top of the resulting stains. For others, he simply adapted some previous sketches. The result of this personal experiment is an impressive collection of impossible characters in disturbing attitudes and situations, taken directly from Blu’s subconscious into the nothingness of the empty pieces of paper.
Words and show photos: Sergio Aguilar PereiraStreet // Work photos: Blu
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Rinzentag:blogmodart.rebelmobile.de,2007:/blog/showtell//5.442007-09-21T13:43:18Z2007-09-21T13:44:27Z From modart issue #9 EMOTION HEATING. OF TREES AND STARS. A report on preparing an exhibition with RINZEN.Process is an art in itself, an art, which often can be seen only by deconstructing an end work – and even...tobias
From modart issue #9
EMOTION HEATING.
OF TREES AND STARS.
A report on preparing an exhibition with RINZEN.Process is an art in itself, an art, which often can be seen only by deconstructing an end work – and even all those French Post Modernists will admit that this dulls the fires. In this Show and Tell, Joern Vater talks about the process of collaboration and staging a show]]>
This collaboration dates back before an original introduction. It was April 2005, Copenhagen. I was booked for setting up a temporary art-shop at a project called PROJECT FOX, financed by VW, organised by an incredibly ambitious bunch o’ freaks, who wanted to make something big, something unique. It was a massive press oriented event to present a car, but one that included a hotel completely redesigned by street artists, illustrators and writers. Yes, this article could result in some story about the rise of using art for marketing purposes... But not here, not now. This is more personal.
Getting introduced to Project Fox, I check out the unfinished hotel rooms, one by one, about 60 in total. One hits me in the gut: I’m breathless. The walls are covered with a tapestry of illustrated trees, children sleeping soundly in the bed of their roots. Around the trees, animals like wolves, deers and birds are gathering. It is extremely cute, but somehow deep, yet not cheesy at all. I’m honestly touched. The room was designed by RINZEN. Before stepping into that room, all I knew of RINZEN was from a quick flick through their RMX book.
Days after, I’m at a place where I was supposed to organise the temporary store. There are two people sitting, painting, whatever it was, not taking notice of the surrounding madness of cocky journalists, over-excited artists and buzzing crew. The two detached were RILLA and STEVE from RINZEN. I shared a sentence or three with them and left them to their thing. They seemed pretty much preoccupied, stressed out and not really the most communicative people around, on first impression...
About half a year later, back in Berlin, I run into Steve and Rilla at this terribly packed opening for BACKJUMPS. Through some electronic music producers we both know, we end up hanging out (remember SMALL WORLD THEORY by Stanley Milgram?). Didn’t take long to learn that my previous perception of them being reserved was just severe stupidity. To make it short: By the end of the night, it was obvious for me to invite them to do a show at NEUROTITAN.
Luckily they moved to Berlin permanently, sparing the hassle of organising funds for flights and accommodation. Time went by and I got a bit nervous as there was nothing really organised from our side - we are pretty chaotically structured sometimes. Finally Rilla comes up with their title for the show. IN THE MILKY NIGHT. I loved that instantly.
We try to get the press sheets out in time, organise flyers, get the idea to print stickers instead. For sure the printers fuck up and all is damn late. The usual madness before an opening is just about to take over. Steve seems to be ultra relaxed, while Rilla’s seriously worried about the missing prints which got lost in the parcel. I still don’t know any of the works for the show, but this time I don’t have to. I trust them to make something special.
It’s three days before the opening, and huge parts of our white walls get a decent matte black backdrop by Bart (organizer extraordinaire), a friend of Rinzen. I’m worried though, we will never make it in time for the opening. You always think that, but this time there was definitely not a single reason not to. Prints are still lost, the digital processed canvases late, walls half empty, no musicians for the opening booked yet. All be fine, we tell each other. Steve’s taking it easy and starting to spray doodles instead of finishing his painting. Rilla is badly tired and so am I. We decide to leave it for the day.
Next day luckily the works arrive – a small relief. But no time to rest, the pictures have to be hung. Shifting them from one corner to the other, discussing: “This goes there.” – “No, I like it better over there” – “The light is just shitty here, lets try it with this wall” – “Hey I’ve just had an idea.”...
One of those ideas led to think about a small locker with a tiny window. So we ended up painting that too and were enthusiastically building a little shrine for monster-bubbles instead of concentrating on the pictures. I think anyone who is not joining in the construction is missing the best part of the show. The process of creation. Such a stress but such fun, too. Another night passes quickly. The music not sorted yet, we decide to get some turntables, to spontaneously play some recs. Alright, we relax and rely on the next day, there is nothing else we can do.
One day before the opening. More paint needed, stronger, hardened nails needed, the walls proudly reminding us of their hundred some years of experience. Steve knows a guy doing light design for theatres and asks him if he could just put a little spot here and a little beam there. Christian, the light guy, is about to take that task to a personal perfection level. He starts to go through all our madly wired electric system; to reorganize plugs, fuses and connections. I’m sweating. I know that it could be a bad mistake to touch this crazy electrical cobweb, of which everybody lost a clue about years ago. But Christian is calmly jumping on and off the ladder, installing his light system. So I keep myself from being worried by trying to convince the new nails and the walls to like each other. I barely succeed. It’s now four in the morning and we decide to leave everything unfinished for the next day, opening day. That includes the still unfinished DVD which has to be projected. Forgot to mention that one. It’s so much to do still, but somehow we are all sure we’ll make it.
Opening day was just a rush. Overly tired, mechanically sorting the things which are still left. The time is running. Steve still has to finish his doodles, Rilla is printing off little signs. Bart is helping out Christian who is still on creating the final ambient light and spots and beams and projector sets. Suddenly its 8pm and people already waiting outside. I get a beer to cool down. I know its all done in a minute. And just a little late we finally open IN THE MILKY NIGHT.
Later, behind the turntables spinning some recs, I’m in a bubble of being separated by everyone and everything under the headphones. I suddenly remember being a child watching the stars. I look up and around, realizing it’s really done, finished and just perfect. The process of creation becomes less important, it’s the whole show in it’s completeness that stands out for itself now. And I’m overwhelmed and emotionally touched by the RINZEN again.
Words and Photo: Joern Vater
Moving Unitstag:blogmodart.rebelmobile.de,2007:/blog/showtell//5.432007-09-21T13:41:44Z2007-09-24T10:24:19Z Units Moved - What makes a bench a bench? From modart issue #10 “What’s that,” said the boy. “It’s a bench,” the man answered as if it were a fact that had fallen straight down from the heavens. The...tobias
Units Moved - What makes a bench a bench?
From modart issue #10
“What’s that,” said the boy. “It’s a bench,” the man answered as if it were a fact that had fallen straight down from the heavens. The man was no longer capable of seeing anything but a bench in the wooden object before them. He was not even certain he could describe the bench if he had to. He simply, though surely, knew it was a bench. The boy accepted the response, but the question isn’t answered: what makes that bench a bench?]]>
“... what does it matter, so long as they are talking about the same thing, about the quasi-object they have all created, the object-discourse-nature society whose new properties astound us all and whose network extends from my refrigerator to the Antarctic by way of chemistry, law, the State, the economy, and satellites [...] However, we do not have to create this Parliament out of whole cloth, by calling for yet another revolution. We simply have to ratify what we have always done [...] Half of our politics is constructed by (and) in science and technology. The other half of Nature is constructed in societies, Let us patch the two back together, and the political task can begin again.”
- Bruno Latour (We have never been Modern)
Units Moved, slipped right into this discussion about the politics of an artifact and the loss that is suffered with every definition or name. Thinking we know what something is, makes it easier to communicate. There is birth in a name, but death in it too and Units Moved looked for life between the two. It was a group show, where eleven different artists were asked to explore re-appropriations of urban spaces. Some of these appropriations related to specific urban streets and places, showing how different places can be temporarily reconfigured, such as Toby Paterson’s interpretations of modernist tower blocks and Sam Griffin’s reconstruction of Nazi plans for Jersey. In other works, such as the video piece from Alex Hartley and the site specific installation by Kathy Barber, there was an evident concern for the ways in which we design, draw, write and remember. These investigated the notion that specific artistic practices are in and of themselves open to unusual borrowings and interventions and what some of the implications of this may be.
Whatever the exact motif or modus operandi behind each of these works, the thin red line scaling the bumps and tying Units Moved together, was the idea that with appropriated space comes a particular kind of beauty that is born of strange and unpredictable sites and moments – sometimes a flash of colour or a turn of form, sometimes a sparkling idea or odd proposition, sometimes an uncertain action or provisional event, but always an imaginative reworking of the myriad possibilities of city life. Possibility is perhaps the blueprint for the Units Moved project … the scratches on what ‘should be,’ that reveal what ‘might have been’ or give us something to dream about.
“We tried to reflect interesting and different ways in which architecture can be re-appropriated, recycled and re-used. Just like a skateboarder views a bench as something more than a surface to sit on, or how a homeless person perceives a doorway as a place to sleep.”
-R.Holland
The sum of the work is a conversation of skillfully expressed opinions. As part of this event, two solid stone (and skateable) sculptures were installed at the South bank centre, London. These sculptures are a continuation of the ‘Moving Units’ project produced by the TSEOU back in 2004. The sculptural pieces, the ‘Moving Units’ are stand alone forms playing with the perception of public furniture; when is a bench a bench and what is a bench anyway? These pieces are intended to challenge the concept of what street furniture ‘should’ be used for and the aesthetic value of an artifact in direct relation to its use(s).
“Because we are told and perceive that a bench is an object to sit on, is that all it might be?” From my perspective a bench is a skateable object or sometimes a sculpture, which, you can also sit on. The more I dive deeper into such topics, the more I explore the complex interrelationship between people and the constructed modern environment, commenting, exploring and visualising ways in which architecture is reappropriated. Skateboarding just so happens to be a great example of this” - R.Holland
Years later, the boy saw what he had once called a bench. It had the strong four legs of a bench. It had the flat, long, hard shelf of a bench. It even had two wooden planks where you can rest your back. “Bench,” the boy said to himself. He knew the dictionary definition by heart. He remembered the man’s words. Still, he could not see a bench.
So how does this story, end? Well, based on the video that just came into my mailbox, it doesn’t … at last look, the organizers of Units Moved were rolling one of their sculptures off a ramp and onto a virgin street about to be scraped. What’s underneath?
To answer this we turn to the cemetery of Pere Lachaise, the corps of Victor Hugo who never saw a skateboard and still manages to reinforce Holland’s thought that skateboarding is a great example of all this and if we follow Holland, we can replace ‘art’ with ‘skating’ in this quote:
“The aim of art is almost divine: to bring to life again if it is writing history, to create if it is writing poetry.” – Victor Hugo
Words: HL]]>
Don't Hang Uptag:blogmodart.rebelmobile.de,2007:/blog/showtell//5.422007-09-21T13:37:48Z2007-09-21T13:39:30Z From modart issue #10 Coinciding with the annual European Open skateboard championships in Basel, Don’t Hang Up On Me brought together a selection of well-known and not-so-well-known artists whose credentials within the skate scene are impeccable. The location was...tobias
From modart issue #10
Coinciding with the annual European Open skateboard championships in Basel, Don’t Hang Up On Me brought together a selection of well-known and not-so-well-known artists whose credentials within the skate scene are impeccable. The location was an old printery that used to churn out a Socialist Worker’s newspaper, and with walls scarred and spattered by its former trade, its credentials were also impeccable for a skate art exhibition.]]>
The work presented came in a variety of media. Stefan Marx, Vaughn Baker, Foz supplied the prints and paintings, Eric Antoine’s photography filled a wall with an impressive collection of prints, as did Bertrand Trichet and Stephanie Solinas, complimenting each other perfectly with their series of skate and non-skate photographic diptychs. In the video room Pierre Prospero and David Couliau’s short films were in turn charming and inventive, although Neil Stubbing’s motion graphics showreel was disappointing.
For me, top props go out to the young French street artist Ben Thé and Swedish filmmaker and freethinker Pontus Alv. Ben’s sketchbook spreads were funny and inventive, and his pasted-up photographs of street paste-ups fitted the gritty décor of the venue perfectly. Meanwhile, Alv’s ‘work’ was on the other side of town: he’d spent the previous three weeks with a local crew of skaters, building a blue bowl with a huge adjacent black cross.
Back in the gallery, photos of his legendary Savanna skatepark in Malmö were accompanied by a scrawled line drawing of the cross, with the thought-provoking words: “Can we hang skateboarding on a wall?”
Words and photos: Jason Horton
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The "Instable Artshow"tag:blogmodart.rebelmobile.de,2007:/blog/showtell//5.412007-09-21T13:36:13Z2007-09-21T13:37:43Z From modart issue #10 Itinerant is a word that can be easily attached to board cultures; wandering, working here, then there, migratory, unsettled, roving, roaming … often like the birds, following the sun towards the deep south. Last year...tobias
From modart issue #10
Itinerant is a word that can be easily attached to board cultures; wandering, working here, then there, migratory, unsettled, roving, roaming … often like the birds, following the sun towards the deep south. Last year Volcom holed up down south in their Hossegor shop, and let all the itinerant inhabitants of this beach town take a look at exhibitions from four of their talented artists.]]>
The success of these fixed features, encouraged Volcom to let the presentation of the work morph into something more similar to the source of inspiration, and the exhibitions became itinerant and intertwined at the same time as Volcom regrouped art work from Pierre Marre (Fr), Ben Brough (USA), Ozzie Wright (AUS) and Martin Fischer (CZH), putting together a selection for a show that would set up camp in five European cities during 2006.
Itinerant and instable, the show consisted of approximately 30 artworks, bios of the 4 artists and descriptions of their relation to the Volcom family. Every stop was a community event; packing stores with guests who were invited to take in the art, the edibles, the drinks and live music.
After the opening party, the exhibition stayed in each shop for no longer than a month. Those who got an itch to transport a piece to their home wall were told that some work was available for purchase, but not until the end of the tour. From start to finish, tour art stayed in tact and together, allowing every city to soak in the same images from different angles.
While company after company scrambles to get in on the undefined art scene, Volcom has supported the arts since the inception of the brand back in 1991, continuing to showcase friends, team riders and employees artwork, stating that this has always been a priority for the brand – supporting friends and family who inspire them … and eventually us. None of the work in this show was intended to appear with the rest; all created separately, but all intended to go on the walls of the Volcom Store in Hossegor (France), eventually resulting in the stimulating juxtaposition of four very different bodies of work.
The driving force behind the Instable Artshow, was a will to enlarge the audience with access to these pieces on a pan-European scale, and unite communities and clients, drawing the brand in the sand to the backdrop of good times and skillful expression.
Words: HL Photos: Volcome
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Iguapop 3rd Birthdaytag:blogmodart.rebelmobile.de,2007:/blog/showtell//5.402007-09-21T13:33:26Z2007-09-24T10:24:50Z From modart issue #11 This was the slogan chosen to promote an exhibition marking 3 years of the life for the Iguapop Gallery in Barcelona. A slogan, which smirks at the sound of itself and sounds like a sigh…...tobias
From modart issue #11
This was the slogan chosen to promote an exhibition marking 3 years of the life for the Iguapop Gallery in Barcelona. A slogan, which smirks at the sound of itself and sounds like a sigh…]]>
It’s hard for many artists to find a space to work in and a space, which then pays its way on the crust of what was created in and around it – this is an accomplishment.
Many artists today have strong business acumen. They are not waiting to die and don’t aim to live in struggle. This is a tough one for the rest of us though. Society may very well need art that turns its back on the world in order to become authentic and make things bloody or beautiful. The individuals who make up society however all share a common drive to live better and though this means different things to each of us, we are all artists of our own lives faced with the question of how to live on our own terms and pay rent and accept or navigate “civil” law. The rent part, for example, screws things up. It makes us take day jobs that devour our energy and insist that our lives don’t parallel our passions or desires. It becomes easy to be lazy.
Iguapop never was and neither were the growing list of talented artists attached to the space: Boris Hoppek, Miss Van, Adolf Gil, Blami, Tim Biskup, Victor Castillo, Catalina Estrada, Jaime Hayon, Sergio Mora, Paco y Manolo.
Iguapop makes money.
Artists make money.
Artists make art.
Iguapop makes possibility.
Possibility, which itself is an art that shouldn’t be overlooked.
The Birthday show consisted of nearly symmetrical works from these artists mounted on a clean wall, a buzzing vernissage and an after party that saw Jon Kennedy exporting his Brighton beats to Barcelona and managing not to get robbed on the Ramblas.
My only disappointment with the show is that Adolf Gil’s piece wasn’t mounted in the toilet – I’d seen in there the night before and it’s created in a way that varied light provides varied images – absolutely different, absolutely stunning images, 3 paintings embedded in one canvas. Something we tried to highlight in Illustrated Works, knowing well that his work is one you really need to see for yourself – absolutely sic.
Iguapop makes money, not art and here’s the twist, they can say that and feel proud in place of embarrassed cuz they appear to make money in a beautiful way.
www.iguapop.net
Words: HL]]>
FriendsWithYou - Bootleg Showtag:blogmodart.rebelmobile.de,2007:/blog/showtell//5.392007-09-21T13:29:45Z2007-09-21T13:32:09Z From modart issue #11 23 Aug 2006 FriendsWithYou are suffering from the myspace syndrome. They have so many friends that they are being stretched like elastic Malfi’s and pulled through new mysteries all over the planet. Fortunately, they also...tobias
From modart issue #11
23 Aug 2006
FriendsWithYou are suffering from the myspace syndrome. They have so many friends that they are being stretched like elastic Malfi’s and pulled through new mysteries all over the planet. Fortunately, they also have the remedy, real friends and fans willing to give them a push when they need it. The pains of a cancelled show, became seeds of a bizarre collaboration.
It’s a love story, and like any good adventure of the heart, it began in a romantic place in early spring ... ]]>
Copenhagen, 2005: At Project FOX, Sam Borkson and Arturo “Tury“ Sandoval III from FriendsWithYou and gallerist Jörg Heikhaus from Hamburg’s heliumcowboy artspace met for the first time. It was love at first sight and for a few weeks, they worked together hand in hand, discovering the beauty of Denmark’s capital and having long candlelight talks about art, love and friendship. But every good time comes to an end, and usually promises are made never to let go of each other and meet again as soon as possible. In the case of a gallerist meeting two exceptional artists, this means pinning down an exhibition date.
That happened quickly, and soon it was official: the friendliest artist duo in the world come cross the Atlantic for their first solo show in Germany, bringing universal love and happiness
to Hamburg.
Smiles went upside down and turned to frown as FWY acknowledged that they’d over committed and wouldn’t make it. Disappointment traveled from mouth to ear and screen to screen until Jorg decided he didn’t need FWY to bring them to Hamburg. Jorg then turned to a group of artists he knew had one thing in common: their respect for and appreciation of the FriendsWithYou concept. Global nomads like Boris Hoppek, Neasden Control Centre, Via Grafik, Eliza (formerly one half of Freaklüb) and Alex Diamond were brought together to work with local heroes such as Kingdrips, Moki and Nina Braun.
The first ever authorized FriendsWithYou bootleg show got the green light and things started happening. Only Sam seemed confused:
“This is a really exciting new moment for FriendsWithYou, we’ve just finished designing our first public playground, our new book and are working on a huge parade of blimps to fly over the Art Basel sky, not to mention the European tour and the genius idea of Jorgy bear doing his FWY bootleg show. It’s the most genius trick ever! Even though it says it is authorized, this is complete bullshit! We never said anything to Jorg to do this, so on our trip to Europe there will be an all out attack on his gallery with all of our magic and spells. Luckily the artists inside are loving friends and genius magicians as well so maybe we will exercise the evil from Jorgy bear together and cure him of his bizarre delusion of the FWY bootleg show!!!” Sam Borkson
Delusional or not, the result of Jorg’s idea was fantastic: A full week of hard work and the gallery was converted into an interactive installation with carpets, paint, fake grass and flowers, TV-projections, curtains and much more. Boris Hoppek provided a brand new installation with two punching bags, loveable (and beatable) look-alikes of Sam and Tury. Freshly founded Hamburg Grafitti-Gang Kingdrips worked for 2 weeks on a large wall installation, taking adaptations of FWY-characters into a weird model-train landscape with roots and mud brown bodies where the mountain monsters emerge like gophers from the ground below. Eliza, Alex Diamond and Neasden Control Centre came up with large format drawings, giving a new individual, and slightly mean twist to the worlds of Sam & Tury. There were LEGO-brick King Albinos (by Haina), fairytale paintings by Moki, stencils on IKEA-Tables by Via Grafik and cuddly hanging chairs in the shape of FWY-character Barby (by Violetta). And everything set inside a playground installation with murals, flowing carpets and a
fake meadow.
It was well worth it: 400 people came to the show opening, squeezing into the gallery and out onto the terrace, celebrating a night of magical powers, universal love, friendship and entrancing, childlike happiness. And all that without personal appearances of FriendsWithYou ... who are supposed to join the show towards the end of the exhibition, adding their own artworks, and presenting their new book „FriendsWithYou have powers“. And boy, do these guys have powers – and an imagination inspiring all these great artists, who turned the FriendsWithYou-Bootleg Show into one of the most successful exhibitions at the heliumcowboy artspace
to date.
www.heliumcowboy.com
Words: HL
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Bansky in LAtag:blogmodart.rebelmobile.de,2007:/blog/showtell//5.382007-09-21T13:27:15Z2007-09-24T10:25:15Z From modart issue #11 If you conduct interviews, you learn quickly about the relevance of media. It’s much different to do it on film, face to face or by phone. It’s soon obvious, that there are people who master...tobias
From modart issue #11
If you conduct interviews, you learn quickly about the relevance of media. It’s much different to do it on film, face to face or by phone. It’s soon obvious, that there are people who master the art of communication, but don’t have much to say. There are others, full of knowledge and beautiful ideas, but if you’re interviewing on film, for example, they might provide you with even less useable footage than the vacant, but charming guy before them.]]>
Then, there are people who master subject and medium. People who understand their profession as well as they do how to communicate it. Banksy has proved not only a talented artist and thinker, but a master marketer as well. Imagine the evident perversion. Hollywood stars are instructed by their PR agent to attend his show. The message for the masses might be: it’s fashionable to support criminal art. So how do we define a fashionable criminal? What gives street art credibility in the same circles that shunned it only oh so recently? Here’s Cameron Bird’s take on things.
In a city such as Los Angeles, where industry and celebrity yield to the same bottom line, even the most unwieldy artists can melt in the face of high bidders and the promise of star sightings. But when Banksy dropped by in September to fill a back-alley warehouse full of his musings, he opted out of the flourish and kept his anonymity in tact. But the crowd, a blur of pink dreadlocks, beaming monkey suits and everything in between, posed something worth unpacking: what lends popular credibility to street art?
After earning a handful of warrants in the U.K. (which apparently remain outstanding), Banksy is at an on-the-up season of his career, a significant crossroads. In the preceding months, his work has been as widely publicized as it has been prolific - drop-lifting hundreds of debauched Paris Hilton CDs across British music chains, marking up the West Bank wall with images of Palestinians digging through to the Land of Milk and Honey, and depositing an inflatable version of a Guantánamo prisoner in the shrubbery next to a Disneyland ride.
It’s the kind of half-poignant guerilla work that rattles against stigmas about property rights. Traditionalists (at least in the Lockeian sense) have an automated response to their clean walls being blotted out or their products being hampered with when the actions are done in stealth. Though rooting out the deep-seated reasons for this is beyond the scope of a pedestrian analysis, it’s clear where an ownership society decides to draw its lines. An artist’s right to swing his arms ends where the public’s nose begins.
But transplanted to a different venue - a gallery in a sweltering warehouse - the fiery impulses seemed to simmer themselves. Banksy’s show was met with all flavors of locals, and for the most part, observation was kept civil. This is despite the fact that most of the exhibit’s offerings were peeled from Banksy’s previous rogueries, which received harsh scolds from the powers that be upon conception; namely, a stuffed and sunglassed rat originally spirited into London’s Natural History Museum, a black-and-white stencil of two male cops coupling, and a series of framed pieces, such as one of an emaciated African tribe studying the creature comforts of the West.
The only real surprise (which quickly turned into a word-of-mouth non-surprise) was an elephant painted to match the wallpaper of a makeshift living room. The metaphor, if not thinly veiled enough, was spelled out on a placard: “There’s a problem we never talk about.” It went on to cite stats about the poverty line, clean drinking water and art that promotes introspection, but not immediacy about global giants.
That trope-turned-centerpiece also introduced the only real controversy into the show, in which the city’s Animal Services Department decided the display was frivolous and abusive (even though the organization approved it weeks earlier). Spectators, who lined up around the block in intervals, didn’t seem fazed by any of it. To even the staunchest animal lover, a competing sentiment took over. Truly, how can one deny the sheer coolness of a patterned elephant?
Therein lies the rub. Banksy’s art, when viewed at a standstill, trades a good percentage of its gravity for levity. To see messages scrawled in exposed space is one thing - it stimulates discussion because of the nature of its placement. To see it in a conventional, uncontested setting is another - it makes people grin and maybe even inquire about purchasing it. No matter the intentions, it begins to enter the system of buying-and-selling for which its substance sharply calls to task.
Granted, conceding to pragmatism is nothing new in street art. After his partner in crime was arrested in 1994, New York graffiti innovator Revs decided to switch to a format that would appease the authorities and started asking permission to build metal sculptures outside buildings. Shepherd Fairey followed the more beaten path, turning his subversive Obey campaign into accessible graphic designs that could be sold at mid- to upper-level department stores in the shape of a clothing line (50 euro for a wallet). Unlike Shepherd though, Banksy is toying with the idea that he’s both an artist by choice and a merchant by necessity. It’s a clever, candid inside joke that lends him an extra dose of under-the-table credibility.
At the same time, the show also confirmed that the message-in-the-medium cliché stands as a truism for street art, and Banksy’s in particular. People who raise red flags about painted walls and pachyderms are considering the canvas, not the content. A gallery then may be the best setting to warm a reactive society to the idea of the public sphere as the most appropriate spot for provocation, for idea-sharing. Whether he’s tripping the social alarm or mesmerizing clammy Los Angeles, Banksy’s capital is growing by the minute.
Words: Cameron Bird Photos: Logan Hicks
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Thomas Campbelltag:blogmodart.rebelmobile.de,2007:/blog/showtell//5.372007-09-21T13:25:56Z2007-09-21T13:27:10Z From modart issue #12 Thomas Campbell has produced an important and impressive body of work over the last fifteen years. Emerging from a background inspired by skate culture, the Californian native has a plethora of strings to his bow:...tobias
From modart issue #12
Thomas Campbell has produced an important and impressive body of work over the last fifteen years. Emerging from a background inspired by skate culture, the Californian native has a plethora of strings to his bow: he’s edited, written and photographed for Skateboard magazines, he’s participated in solo and group shows all over the world, he’s had his work adorn album covers and skateboards, appeared in books and magazines, made two, acclaimed full length films on surfing, with more films in the pipeline.]]>
He’s taken iconic photographs, and cultivated an ambiguously ponderable, fantastical world through his distinctive, figurative paintings, collage, wooden structures and now bronze sculpture. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. His latest solo show at the Museum Het Domein, Sittard, NL, entitled Sing Ding A Ling, was two years in the planning. It saw Thomas pack up his Santa Cruz studio and relocate to Holland for a month prior to the show’s opening. Welcome to the world of Thomas Campbell...
For the show you relocated your studio in Santa Cruz to the Museum in Holland. Were you actually working in that public space?
Not really, it was just more of a recreation. All the pieces that make up my studio at home were there, like the dry wall that I’ve had up in my studio for the last six years, but it only got there ten days before the opening, and I’d already been there for one month and set up a studio at an apartment. So I wasn’t painting in the studio at the show, I’d just set it up exactly how it would be. It had all the components of my home studio.
So it was more an installation of your studio rather than a functioning studio?
It was a totally functioning studio, but I just wasn’t working in it. I think the main thing for me, is that the finished product is not really the motivation for making art: it’s the making of the art which is art to me. And so I was interested in showing the process, because I work on probably over a hundred pieces of canvases, and sculpture and works on paper at one time, and I just kinda move from one to the next. Like I’ll paint on one thing, let it dry and work on another thing, and then another thing. It’s more the process orientated movement that I thought would be interesting, and that people could get a more in depth viewing of the work. So that was the purpose of doing that installation.
One of the things I’ve noticed about your work, is that you always sign it ‘Via’ yourself, whether T.Moe, T.Moeski etc, which suggests to me that you see your work as coming through you rather than directly from you…
When I sign the pieces I use different names, Via T.Moeski or T.Muckluck, or T.Motorhead, different things as a derivative of my name, because you kinda always feel different y’know? I mean just as a person you’re always molecularly changing and life is different. It just seems interesting to me also to make funny names, each time you’re doing something you’re probably feeling a little bit different. So it’s fun to play with those names. I think we’re all, kind of a conduit, I mean, the earth is kinda a big mass of energy anyway, so claiming any particular thing’s origin is from yourself is kind of ridiculous. So yeah, I would say I am more of a conduit and my work is just kind of coming through me and I’m doing what I’m doing. In a lot of ways, a lot of the words I use in my work are almost like self referential affirmations, like ‘The Present is the Present’ or ‘Sing Ding A Ling’ - the name of my show, are kind of like little road signs to help me stay on a path that I want to be on, just to be more present and be more engaged in life.
Going back to the reference you made about the earth being a mass of energy, the lines in your work always suggest movement, they are never static, like your work is vibrating with energy…
Yeah, reverberation, but it’s more on the level of any action causes a reaction, and we’re all just moving in this world and every movement has a responding movement. I don’t get super philosophical about it, it’s just kinda what happens, but if I really need to sit down and pick it apart that might be some aspect of the reasoning behind doing that.
What would you say are the main recurring themes in your work?
Well, I tend to use a few different recurring characters. I have the characters that kinda look like trees or Eskimos. I’m really interested in creating settings. The characters are kind of androgynous - there’s not really a male or female feeling to the paintings. I like that because anyone looking at it can have whatever experience they want, it gives people room to have their own story. And also the facial expressions are quite mid range, like not really happy, and not really sad, I like that because that can go either way also.
The show included a 3D bronze sculpture of one of your characters. They work so well in 3D, were you pleased with the result?
Yeah, it was super fun. The way I made this one is to first mould it out of oil based clay. When I was in High School and Junior College I had about five years of ceramics, so I’m familiar with working with clay. It took quite a bit if work to make it, then I then took it to a guy that made the cast, and cast the bronze. He did it in six different parts I think, and then welded it all together and did the colouring process. It’s really cool, now I have a much bigger appreciation for bronze. I have some more ideas that I want to do in bronze. It’s pretty awesome and it’s heavy, so it has a real feeling of permanence that interests me.
A book/catalogue accompanies the exhibition and documents the whole process and progression of this outstanding show, and is available from the museum website.
www.hetdomein.nl, www.thomascampbell-art.com
Words and Photos: Jo Waterhouse]]>
Meeting of Stylestag:blogmodart.rebelmobile.de,2007:/blog/showtell//5.362007-09-21T13:23:59Z2007-09-24T10:25:40Z From modart issue #12 Yes, mom, Graffiti is violent. It’s violent for at least two reasons. First, it’s born in and out of violent environments and second, there is no such thing as consent. Spots were bravely and sometimes...tobias
From modart issue #12
Yes, mom, Graffiti is violent. It’s violent for at least two reasons. First, it’s born in and out of violent environments and second, there is no such thing as consent. Spots were bravely and sometimes intelligently taken. Like countries throwing down flags to claim space, writers threw up letters and characters to call attention to a pain most of America would have preferred to pop pills to get rid of.]]>
But the rush, and the freedom of expression, the virus of writing or re-writing reality, spread, and as all viruses do, it built its own immunities and evolved as global citizens shared their love for art and their need to speak… the silent majority continues to turn up the volume.
Today, Graffiti culture has no country, no passport, no papers, and its members are still arguing about who is true and what is what, but nobody is arguing that this undefined culture is continuing to grow. 6000 some miles away from the apple of America, in Wiesbaden, Germany a slaughter house became a womb and Meeting of Styles was born.
This is a project about community and evolution, about activism and resistance, about shared pleasures, pains and the power of uninterrupted painting.
Since coming to life in the early 1990’s, the event (earlier known as “WallStreetMeeting,”) spoke up and as the digits dropped and the years went by, has invited thousands of artists to throw their individual styles into the mix, bringing with them their various cultures, backgrounds, frustrations and dreams… transforming wall after wall into something other, something else, something searching for a beauty not bound by institution.
Mode2, Blade, Dare, Toast, Loomit, they were all there at the first one, and since then, hell, too many names you’ll know or won’t that it don’t even matter if we start listing them… who are ‘they’ anyway?
The spirit is this: come together, work together, paint positive and unite ‘we the people’ in the spirit of imaginative dissent – exchange, cooperate, grow …
And it has, and we hope it will continue to do so ...
For a full history and more information on the dozens of countries where you’ll find these rowdy get togethers or can witness the results on the wall for yourselves, please visit: www.meetingofstyles.com
To learn more about how this project began: www.wallstreetmeeting.de
Words: HL]]>
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They took to the walls and came in through the speakers, entered our lives via glossy magazines, main streams, main streets and off route alleys all across the planet. If we talk about the cute, but disturbing taxidermy of Polly Morgan, the interactive urban games of Invader, Banksy’s recent columns for The Guardian, the way Jamie Hewlett or Stanley Donwood shwook up the music scene or Faile’s gifts left in capitals across the continents, it’s quickly crystal that the artists brought together for the Swish show have influenced many via their imaginations, critical thoughts, work ethic and technical mastery, via their search for new forms of communication and the poetic risks this demands. Swish, is the sound of poetry.
The red thread between these artists cannot be found in predicate. It is not a question of nationality or medium, of sensibility or experimentation, of gender or genre. On the contrary, what connects this group is their passion, care for community and willingness to produce art outside the limits of other predicates, like high or low, good or bad, committed or commercial. There is no predicate. The subject is art. It is imagination. It is collaboration. It is paranoia. It is often simply the proposition of something other. While many of the participants contribute to the design of culture, Swish was all about the art.
The duel aim of the Lazarides Gallery is to provide space for experimental arts while employing art as a catalyst towards community, to make art something accessible to the public at large. Lazarides desires to create an informal atmosphere where any and everybody can feel comfortable to take their time taking in art, or simply seek shelter from the drip drop of London’s bleeding skies. If the quality and diversity of this show is evidence, this ain’t at all a bad place to stop, think and see what’s around.
For more on all the artists, check the gallery’s site: www.lazinc.com]]>
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After the opening party, the exhibition stayed in each shop for no longer than a month. Those who got an itch to transport a piece to their home wall were told that some work was available for purchase, but not until the end of the tour. From start to finish, tour art stayed in tact and together, allowing every city to soak in the same images from different angles.
While company after company scrambles to get in on the undefined art scene, Volcom has supported the arts since the inception of the brand back in 1991, continuing to showcase friends, team riders and employees artwork, stating that this has always been a priority for the brand – supporting friends and family who inspire them … and eventually us. None of the work in this show was intended to appear with the rest; all created separately, but all intended to go on the walls of the Volcom Store in Hossegor (France), eventually resulting in the stimulating juxtaposition of four very different bodies of work.
The driving force behind the Instable Artshow, was a will to enlarge the audience with access to these pieces on a pan-European scale, and unite communities and clients, drawing the brand in the sand to the backdrop of good times and skillful expression.
Words: HL Photos: Volcome
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Possibility, which itself is an art that shouldn’t be overlooked.
The Birthday show consisted of nearly symmetrical works from these artists mounted on a clean wall, a buzzing vernissage and an after party that saw Jon Kennedy exporting his Brighton beats to Barcelona and managing not to get robbed on the Ramblas.
My only disappointment with the show is that Adolf Gil’s piece wasn’t mounted in the toilet – I’d seen in there the night before and it’s created in a way that varied light provides varied images – absolutely different, absolutely stunning images, 3 paintings embedded in one canvas. Something we tried to highlight in Illustrated Works, knowing well that his work is one you really need to see for yourself – absolutely sic.
Iguapop makes money, not art and here’s the twist, they can say that and feel proud in place of embarrassed cuz they appear to make money in a beautiful way.
www.iguapop.net
Words: HL]]>
The first ever authorized FriendsWithYou bootleg show got the green light and things started happening. Only Sam seemed confused:
“This is a really exciting new moment for FriendsWithYou, we’ve just finished designing our first public playground, our new book and are working on a huge parade of blimps to fly over the Art Basel sky, not to mention the European tour and the genius idea of Jorgy bear doing his FWY bootleg show. It’s the most genius trick ever! Even though it says it is authorized, this is complete bullshit! We never said anything to Jorg to do this, so on our trip to Europe there will be an all out attack on his gallery with all of our magic and spells. Luckily the artists inside are loving friends and genius magicians as well so maybe we will exercise the evil from Jorgy bear together and cure him of his bizarre delusion of the FWY bootleg show!!!” Sam Borkson
Delusional or not, the result of Jorg’s idea was fantastic: A full week of hard work and the gallery was converted into an interactive installation with carpets, paint, fake grass and flowers, TV-projections, curtains and much more. Boris Hoppek provided a brand new installation with two punching bags, loveable (and beatable) look-alikes of Sam and Tury. Freshly founded Hamburg Grafitti-Gang Kingdrips worked for 2 weeks on a large wall installation, taking adaptations of FWY-characters into a weird model-train landscape with roots and mud brown bodies where the mountain monsters emerge like gophers from the ground below. Eliza, Alex Diamond and Neasden Control Centre came up with large format drawings, giving a new individual, and slightly mean twist to the worlds of Sam & Tury. There were LEGO-brick King Albinos (by Haina), fairytale paintings by Moki, stencils on IKEA-Tables by Via Grafik and cuddly hanging chairs in the shape of FWY-character Barby (by Violetta). And everything set inside a playground installation with murals, flowing carpets and a
fake meadow.
It was well worth it: 400 people came to the show opening, squeezing into the gallery and out onto the terrace, celebrating a night of magical powers, universal love, friendship and entrancing, childlike happiness. And all that without personal appearances of FriendsWithYou ... who are supposed to join the show towards the end of the exhibition, adding their own artworks, and presenting their new book „FriendsWithYou have powers“. And boy, do these guys have powers – and an imagination inspiring all these great artists, who turned the FriendsWithYou-Bootleg Show into one of the most successful exhibitions at the heliumcowboy artspace
to date.
www.heliumcowboy.com
Words: HL
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