Willem de Kooning (April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. During the 1930′s, De Kooning made his first trip to New York. In 1939, he was invited to be part of a small group of artists that designed murals for the New York World’s Fair. He was part of the abstract expressionist movement, and since his passing, he has been honored at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, which displayed almost 200 pieces of his work! He taught at Black Mountain College in North Carolina in 1948 and at the Yale School of Art in 1950-51. On September 14, 1964, De Kooning was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Lyndon Johnson. In 2010, the Pace Gallery was given the rights to the estate of Willem de Kooning. The estate had previously been handled by the Gagosian Gallery.

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Self Portrait as an Artist (1888)

In Philadelphia, one of the most widely visited museums to check out visual art is Philadelphia’s very own Museum of Art. The Museum of Art is one of the largest museums in the country and is one of the most beautiful attractions in Philadelphia. From now until May 6^th, the Art Museum will be hosting Van Gogh Up Close, an exhibit that will be presenting work from Van Gogh that he created during the final years of his life; years that can be marked by artistic experimentation that had not previously been apparent in Van Gogh’s work. This artistic experimentation period included playing with the concepts of depth of field and focus. Van Gogh began to focus subjects in his paintings in different locations in order to change the desired message or object of focus he wished to convey to his audience.

This is especially interesting, as Van Gogh was one the first painters to experiment with this concept of depth perception and focus. Van Gogh realized that, by changing the focus of certain objects or subjects in his work, he was able to change the viewer’s perception of the work as a whole. This is great for people like me who don’t know exactly what they “should” be looking for when viewing art by famous artists such as Van Gogh. I feel that the more credible an artist and his work are, the more likely it is that the viewer will feel he should have set expectations of what he “should” be taking away from the work. However, with Van Gogh, his pieces are made to draw the viewer to specific aspects of the piece while also allowing the viewer to perceive this object of focus in relation to the rest of the piece in any way he/she wants to.

Last year, I visited the original Van Gogh museum while I was in Amsterdam and I was pleasantly surprised to witness some of the original, famous Van Gogh pieces that seem to pop up all over popular culture today. Van Gogh is an artist whose work has seemed to stand the test of time; even after hundreds of years, many people still find his work to be beautiful, inspiring, and thought-provoking.

Some famous pieces that are on display at this exhibit include Van Gogh’s famous “Sunflowers” painting and his “Field of Flowers” painting. These works showcase nature in a surreal format and are well-known by many. If you’re interested in pieces that are famous world-wide and that have been around for hundreds and hundreds of years, then you should definitely check out this exhibit! Philadelphia’s Museum of Art is open seven days a week; times vary from 10:00am-9:00PM, depending on the day of the week. Tickets to this exhibit can be purchased at the museum or online for $20.00-$25.00.

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Many of those who know me, know that I am not shy about stating the obvious. For instance: If you invite me to a party and the party is boring, I am not going to lie to you and say “It’s an O.K. party”, which will be the polite thing to say. I am going to speak the truth and say, “this party sucks”. Some people might not view this as prudent, especially my mom, but why beat around the bush?

With that in mind, I would like to share with you my experience last week during my visit to the Whitney Museum.

I was very excited, especially after the Whitney Biennial exhibit was mentioned by Viveros-Faune from the village voice in his predictions article

and decided to invite my fellow Artsnapper team member, Sofia and  my good friend, DJ Alex Edge. I cannot speak for them, but based on our conversation, they didn’t seem overly thrilled with their visit.

I can honestly say I did not enjoy the art aside from Jasper Johns 3 flags and Lee Krasner’s “The Seasons,” both located on the 6^th floor and a window that has the NYC skyline as a backdrop located on the 5^th floor.  The rest of it was a bit too “out there” with too much cultural context, which doesn’t speak or make me feel anything aside from wondering how can this be at a museum. To top it off, as I was exiting the building, visitors were howling like wolves to live music being performed in the lobby. Strange.

For those of you who have not visited the I am not deterring you from going, but just giving you a fair warning. The exhibition will be available until May 22nd. For those of you who don’t agree with what I am saying, please do share your thoughts.

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I am not big fan of the surrealism movement, which includes artists such as  Salvador Dalí, Georges Limbour,  Joan Miró and  Marcel Duchamp, therefore when I was told by my friend, John McAllen, about his new obsession with artist, Jaroslaw Jasnikowsk, I was not phased. He kept insisting that I check out Jaroslaw’s work. He kept telling me about Jaroslaw’s use of imagery that plays with physics, architecture, and the human body. Finally I decided to Google Jaroslaw and I came across his website.

The first picture I saw was “Koniec XX Wieku,” 2004 and literally my jaw dropped.  This painting includes theNew York Cityskyline, including the Twin Towers. Many of my friends could attest to the fact that I loveNew Yorkand no matter where I have been, no city compares. So the painting gets a check plus. But then I scrolled down on my screen and saw that the city sits on a cracked column that is ready to collapse, but it is suspended on a stick that is held by a young boy. As I see this, my imagination goes wild. I notice fragmented arches and columns, which appear to represent the collapse of the Roman Empire and I start to think how this translates to the collapse of the reigning power, which is New York, and the demise of Wall Street and the economic crisis.

I start to think about the perception of others and how from the outside, things are not what they truly are. I also start to think about the power of humanity and our ability to change the course of our future.

I probably stared at this piece for a good 15-20 minutes. I was pleasantly surprised. After going through the majority of his work, I sat back, called John, thanked him for the recommendation and hung up.

I love Jaroslaw Jasnikowsk’s work and recommend that you guys check out his work.

I’ve been very fortunate to have traveled a good amount and to have seen some of the most amazing art collections in the world.  When traveling in Europe with a friend a few years ago, we even used our art history class’s syllabus of important art works as a sort of checklist. Paris? Check David, Ingres, and Delacroix.  Madrid?  Check Velazquez and Goya.  Florence?  Check Michaelangelo, Raphael, and Da Vinci.  Etc.  Discovering these masterworks was really exciting and important to us at the time, as we were eager to take what we were seeing in class out to the larger world.  To live what we’d already learned.

Now over a year out of college, back from another grand adventure in Europe, it’s exciting to encounter some of these images again.  Last fall I interned at a company that archives images, and though I was charged with a somewhat tedious task of sorting slides of images, it was fun to discover works that I know or have seen in person or otherwise have a connection to.  Some examples:

Now living in New York though, I am at no want for seeing great art.  I’ve already been able to tick off many more works from my art history syllabus, and luckily, there is always more to discover.

If you’re starting your own art history expedition in New York, here are some great works of art not to be missed:

Metropolitan Museum of Art

• View of Toledo, El Greco
• The Harvesters, Pieter Bruegel the Elder
• Young Woman With a Water Pitcher, Johannes Vermeer
• Washington Crossing the Delaware, Emanuel Leutze
• Madame X, John Singer Sargent

Museum of Modern Art

• The Dance, Henri Matisse
• Starry Night, Vincent Van Gogh
• Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, Pablo Picasso
• The Persistence of Memory, Salvador Dalí

These selections barely scrape the surface though of these two museums’ collections, let alone the dozens of other museums in New York.  But it’s a start!

Please enjoy a few of his creations below, my favorite is the cheese platter and wine, hence I am on my second glass of wine as I write this post.

You can also purchase his art at etsy, I suggest you buy now while supplies last. http://www.etsy.com/people/shayaaron

In homage to Instagram and the artistic movement we at Artsnapper believe in, here are some of the most popular and beautiful Instagram snaps.

If any of you would like to share your Instagram photos with us please do not hesitate to send them at info@artsnapper.com

Some of the artists who are using shadow to make art: Kumi Yamashita, Tim Noble and Sue Webster, Shigeo Fukuda, and Larry Kagan.

Kumi and Shigeo (who passed in 2009) are Japanese, Tim and Sue are British and Larry is American.

After art, my next great love is books, so naturally I was drawn to this collection of works of art inspired by literature.  They are part of a long tradition of different media influencing one another, from plays based on books and operas placed on plays to current movies based on novels, video games, and the like.  I think it’s cool to see in these examples how they play off of and respond to one another in different ways.  Each work of art illuminates its source in a different way.  Naturally, some of my favorite works of fiction are themselves based on art and artists, such as Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy  Chevalier and The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver.  And though this article doesn’t include illustrated books, I believe illustration to be an incredible art form and a beautifully illustrated book to be a physical work of art unto itself.  And as I go through in my head all the book illustrations I love, I figure I should save that for a whole other post unto itself.

Anyway, what do you think of this literature-inspired art? Any favorites? Any pieces to add?

“Great Works of Art Inspired by Great Works of Literature” – Flavorwire

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When I saw the Diego Rivera frescoes at the MoMA, what immediately came to mind was the timeliness of the exhibit.  The frescos were originally commissioned by the museum in 1931, during the Great Depression and a time of great social unrest in Rivera’s native Mexico.  And here we are, looking back at these frescos for the first time since they were originally exhibited, in a new age of economic hardship and social movements.  Though the circumstances are of course very different, works like Frozen Assets neatly illuminates the contradictions of city life that exist then and now.

The author of an article in Art In America makes an interesting point about the physical nature of the MoMA frescoes, which due to practical constraints had to be painted on freestanding supports rather than on walls (as Rivera’s work is known for).  He considers the frescoes to be “snapshots” of Rivera’s original murals, which on the one hand can be seen as a watering-down of his original revolutionary message, to be viewed within the safe confines of a private museum.  However, when set against the backdrop of the current Occupy movement–which finds its home in public spaces–there is a certain appeal to these portable murals that are “awaiting their buildings”: we have yet to build the structures in which such ideals can flourish.

Though anachronistic to the time in which the frescoes were created, I think this is a compelling idea, and a rather hopeful way of looking at Rivera’s work today.  I love murals—especially social-minded ones—for the way overtake a space, demand attention, and promote a new way of seeing and thinking about the world.  These individual panels clearly do something else, but to me, they represent parts of a whole.  Especially by looking back on them and at that time, the murals suggest what was absent then, and what still could be.

“Occupy Wall” from Art In America

I don’t have any personal investment in the Mona Lisa — don’t love it, don’t hate it, it is what it is — but as arguably the most famous painting in the world, I was surprised to see how little buzz there was surrounding the discoveryofitsearliestcopy. Art conservators at the Prado museum in Madrid have identified a copy of the Mona Lisa that they believe was painted simultaneously with the original. Infrared photographs of the layers of paint beneath the Prado replica and the original reveal that both shared similar changes in composition as they were painted. Experts are proposing that the Prado copy was painted at Leonardo’s side by one of his favorite pupils — either Andrea Salai or Francesco Melzi.

Even as someone who feels a level of ambivalence toward the Mona Lisa, I think this is an exciting find. With a painting as old and world-famous as the Mona Lisa, I assumed there wasn’t much left to learn — but modern technology has unlocked yet another door for us. The amount of information that could be learned from this discovery makes it nothing short of thrilling for both art and history enthusiasts around the globe. I think it would be fantastic if the copy and the original could be exhibited side-by-side, the way they were created over 500 years ago — a “class reunion” for the ages!

Written by:

Chelsea

http://theartnewspaper.com/articles/Earliest-copy-of-Mona-Lisa-found-in-Prado/25514

Terry Richardson’s first solo exhibition, aptly titled “Terrywood,” opened last weekend in Los Angeles and will run until the end of March. While I’ve never cared for tabloid culture, or who’s who in Hollywood, Richardson’s lens brings to life an area so plastic and commercialized I can’t help but find myself excited.

Richardson, a force unto himself in the world of photography, explores the center of the entertainment industry with over 25 of his latest photographs. Like the locale covered, Richardson’s images at times contain a vulgar clarity and level of purity that we’ve become used to in an industry where make up and computers erase all faults. Photos such as “Nude” and “Hooray for Hollywood” play on expectations and representations of the area whereas others like “Red Lips” recall Man Ray  and, much like Hollywood, focuses on sexuality and its isolation from the body. I don’t know if this is part of Richardson’s ideals, but “Terrywood” gives an informative look either way to the most seedy and glamorous place in the world.

I love this piece about outsider art, written after the Outsider Art Fair hit New York the weekend of January 28^th-29^th.  If we need a pithy definition of outsider art, it refers to “art created outside the boundaries of official culture” (Wikipedia), such as art by self-taught, mentally disabled, or folk artists.  But as the various quotes in this article demonstrate, it is a fraught term, which calls into question much more than they type of art it encompasses.  If there’s outsider art, then there’s insider art, and there’s the insider art world that defines what is outsider art, but by nature, true outsider art resists definition.  Often, it seems that the “insider” art world has a specific canon that is prescribed by art schools, art history, galleries, collectors, etc.  Even when artists push boundaries, they are still working within an established framework.

Outsider (or whatever you want to call them) artists don’t regard these rules, however implicit they may be.  They create for the sheer love or obsession for creating, which I think is why I (and many people) am so drawn to them.  To me, the artists ways of thinking are so frank and evident in the work they produce.  Often, outsider artwork feels more honest and personal, which is something I feel such a strong connection to as both an artist and a person who has a unique vision in this world (as we all are).

In terms of appreciating art, too, I think outsider art presents a worthy model: you don’t have to listen to anyone’s rules but your own.  Dare to call something art, even if not everyone would agree with you.  As some of the quotes suggest, outsider art is gaining in popularity and exposure, so hopefully there will be much more room for outsider artists and art lovers—and maybe even one day, we’ll all be outsiders.

“Seeking a Definition of Outsider Art at the Outsider Art Fair” from Flavorwire

Photography is an artistic medium that we entirely take for granted.  Today, anyone with a cell phone can be a photographer.  Anyone with Facebook or Flickr or Instagram can share their photos with the world.  The world as we know it has never been so thoroughly documented in images.

Recently, I viewed The Radical Camera, an exhibit at the Jewish Museum.  The exhibit focused on the work of the New York’s Photo League from 1936-1951, a period that saw the Depression, World War II and the rise of the Red Scare (which itself led to the disintegration of the League).  League members were ardent documentary photographers, who candidly captured everyday life, social interactions and tensions: despite the ordinary nature of their subjects, they so clearly recorded history as it was happening.

I have always been captivated by old photographs.  Perhaps because it is such a familiar medium and seems to so honestly capture its subject, photographs represent such a close link between then and now.  The faces staring out of photographs look like faces we know today; we feel like we can instantly relate to their joys and sorrows.  And yet the context is so different—the clothing, the cars, etc.—that we are transported and connected to a different time.

Looking at the exhibit, I couldn’t help thinking about the relationship between photography then and now.  In a sense, documentary photography is alive and well—just ask anyone wielding an iPhone camera to snap pictures of their friends or oddities in the streets.  There may be no defining school for this sort of photography, and most people may not be concerned with creating art.  However, today’s digital media has definitely developed its own kind of aesthetic, and in 50 years it may indeed be looked upon as art, or as a unique representation of this time.

See the exhibit for yourself! The Radical Camera is open until March 25.

A collaborative effort by Shauna Holiman and Penny Putnam, “Piano as Art” is an exhibition in which old pianos have been dismantled and worked into various designs and shapes.

What took me immediately about this body of work wasn’t the novelty behind using a musical instrument for visual art, but rather that most, if not all of the parts used had once been used by a numerous people; because of that every single piece was unique, especially the keys. Another plus is that the body of work ranges from somewhat abstract pieces like “Elegy” to more direct and recognizable works like “Dragon;” this, for me, gives the artists immense creditability as they’re not simply just separating parts and putting them on display, but creating unique entities with the parts they’ve found.

Both Ms. Holiman and Putnam find a great balance between each piano part’s own structure and how to use that said structure in a larger effort.

Fascination with fire ain’t nothing new, I’m sure a good lot of us spent time burning green army men and lighting other combustibles just to see that glow… or maybe that was just me and why I spent time in that facility…. Anyway; Studio Glithero, run by Tim Simpson and Sarah Van Gameren have found themselves lighting flammable screen printed paint in various shapes to create a piece of art that’s arguably more interesting while it’s happening then in its aftermath.

I like the premise of watching the flame intricately spread across the wood panel like a well done set of dominos. Unfortunately, the product of this process isn’t too special and I wish Simpson and Van Gameren would work on more designs that not only look cool, but bring more attention to the burnt wood aesthetic. Such an aesthetic can look really good and bring an archaic feeling to the piece. I can see this shtick taking off (if someone hasn’t done it already) if the duo can bring a twist to it like I previously mentioned.

Fire drawing from Glithero on Vimeo.

Tim Doyle’s latest collection, entitled Unreal Estate showcases some of TV’s most iconic locales rendered in his own unique style. Beyond my fanatical affinity for The Simpsons, it’s Doyle’s attention to detail and texture and his rich use of a narrow spectrum of on particular color that makes each print so engrossing. Take “Night Falls on the SNPP” for example: the deep shades of blue which venture into purple create a forlorn and magical sensation that’s drastically different from the comical style that’s made The Simpsons so recognizable. The lack of characters and extensive use of the horizon and contrasts in light make the Kwik-E-Mart a gritty hangout that wouldn’t be too foreign in the world of someone such as Frank Miller. Doyle’s work is not quite satire, but not just homage; we see extensive attention to mood and atmosphere that plays on what we’d expect from images we’ve grown up on or grown used to. I love the whole collection, even the shows that I’ve never cared for (King of the Hill and Seinfeld) provide for great works.

Sakaguchi, along with 199 other artists will take part in London’s Big Egg Hunt which will have the artists decorating massive eggs to be scattered throughout the city. Sakaguchi’s intricate style will be a pleasure to see on such a large and interesting surface; I can’t imagine how long it will take to appreciate every little detail of his work. The event itself will support the “Elephant Family,” an organization dedicated to protecting Asian elephants and “Action for Children” a UK based organization dedicated to helping vulnerable and neglected children.

While I’ve never experienced the whole Easter egg hunt thing, if I were in London I’d make it a goal to catch as many as I could as competitions exist and it’s just a good way to explore a city.

I won’t lie, what appeals to me most about Mark DeMaio’s latest gallery, Pop Goes the Bible is not only the humor in his work, but the 1-2 punch that hits both Christianity and media tyrants such as Disney (who aren’t too far from religion themselves).

The easiest way to build empathy to your cause or idea is through humor, think of any good date you’ve been on, unless you’re some kind of number crunching robot, chances are making your date laugh was what worked the best.  DeMaio does just that, (not the dating part, I’ll have to ask around to know how he fares there) as his iconoclastic works satirize famous Biblical scenes making them seem all the more absurd. Figures like Popeye and Poopdeck Pappy replacing Adam and God (respectively) in mock of Michelangelo’s most famous work or Mario (of Nintendo fame) beating his brother to death in The Caning of Able are two of my favorites. Beyond what’s invoked, DeMaio’s mastery of the two dimensional style of early Disney, Warner Brothers, and Hanna Barbera cartoon characters against biblical backgrounds invokes comparisons in style to early religious Renaissance art.

Inflammatory, sure, but relatable and well developed; Pop Goes the Bible is a fun poke at both Christianity and mainstream popular culture.

Images courtesy of Art Sucks

A career retrospective of one of the most important photographers of the last 50 years, Cindy Sherman, opened yesterday at the Museum of Modern Art with 175 images spanning her entire career.

What I like most about Sherman’s body of work is her ability to meld disciplines and recreate herself time and time again. Her rise to fame in the late seventies came by way of her Untitled Film Stills series in which she made photographic portraits of herself in settings and costumes that look as if they were still shots from films made in the 40’s or 50’s.

Often movies are debased as not having as much artistic merit as fine art, through that first  series of hers  I think she easily discounts that notion. Her style continued in that way, with labored sets and heavy use of make-up and costumes to make her portraits look as if someone pressed pause while watching a movie. I love this quality because it feels so surreal, you expect the image to move as if it’s a film, and when it doesn’t it’s a bit unsettling. The unsettling factor has been pushed to an extreme in recent years as she’s glommed on make-up and adored herself to look like various Joan River clones that’ve had botched plastic surgery jobs.

Sherman’s chameleon like effort is also somewhat rare because it’s put her in the spotlight of her own work throughout her career. Her ability to transform from one shoot to another is reminiscent of some bygone era when a sideshow might feature a man who could transform his appearance to almost any way he’d like.

Be sure to check out this expansive gallery if you’re in NYC as it runs til mid June 2012

While Banksy is as much a home name as any graffiti artist could be, Bristol, the city in which he’s from (maybe the only thing besides a possible name [Robin] that is known about Banksy), has become a center for street art.

In August of 2011 a festival was held titled “See No Evil” which gave free range to artists from all over the world to paint the exteriors of ten buildings for six days in the heart of Bristol. What a great role reversal it is when graffiti and street art are used to beautify an urban district that’s as stereotypically Britishly drab as you could get. Fathom, a great travel blog, highlights the city’s appreciation for not only its native son, but other artists as they’ve come to embrace the movement that’s put them on the map in the art world.

The local joke, because no one knows who Banksy is, is that everyone’s Banksy. The admiration and further support for the art scene is a special sort of great as it allows a “deviant” movement space for appreciation, and rightfully so. This is a leap forward for street artists as it demonstrates that if given the proper means to express themselves and create, other cities/towns could crackdown on vandalism by promoting the art behind it and using it to better the appearance of their own area.

Contemporary artist Damien Hirst is no stranger to provocative art.  He’s displayed dead animals, some preserved in formaldehyde (such as “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living”) and others left out to rot.  He made a platinum cast of a human skull, and encrusted it with 8,601 diamonds—the piece cost $23.6 million to create (“For the Love of God”).  Now, Hirst is striking new controversy with artworks that seem pretty innocuous in comparison: paintings of polka dots.

These paintings are taking the art world by storm, literally: he’s showing 331 “spot” paintings in Larry Gagosian’s 11 galleries, which span 8 cities on 3 continents.  And pretty much every art critic has something to say about it.

Basically, the critiques boil down to some pretty big questions: is this art or a publicity stunt?  Is it fueled by talent or by money?  Are the works original or factory-made drivel (almost all of them were produced by Hirst’s studio assistants)?  Interestingly, many critics show concern for posterity.  Because of this huge (superficial, self-involved) show, what if future art historians look back and think Damian Hirst was actually a significant artist?  The horror!

Like it or not (and here’s a good example of not having to like every work of art), Hirst’s spot paintings probably are significant, at least for the moment.  Not for the number of galleries filled or amount of money indulged, but for how many people have freaking been talking about it.  And personally, while I don’t think the paintings are artistically interesting on their own, I do think this is an interesting artistic moment that leads us to question what makes art good and history-worthy and what role money and fame play in the art world.  If we’re lucky, hopefully we’ll actually get some good art out of it all.

Read what some of the critics are saying:

• “Hirsts Spotted at Gagosian” at Art Fag City
• “Hirst, Globally Dotting his ‘I’” at The New York Times
• “Hirst’s Power to Piss People Off” at Hyperallergic

When talking about art my reference point is always Jackson Pollock. Do I like Jackson Pollock? I never met him, but as for his art, no. So why then do I bring him up? I bring up Jackson Pollock because his artwork was the first time I understood, clear as day, that art isn’t just about the image created. While my understanding of art isn’t that of a scholar, or a practicing artist, but rather a typical middle class kid from Brooklyn who’s attended a fairly small upstate liberal arts school, my understanding of Pollock came to me through music.For those of you unfamiliar with Pollock, he’s the revered (or maybe notorious) painter who covered huge canvases with seemingly indiscriminate streaks and drips of paint.

Anyway, I bring up Pollock because my years of wadding through heavy metal and punk music made me realize that skill and technique weren’t everything. What the Sex Pistols, Misfits or Ramones were doing didn’t require great skill or creativity, but then why hadn’t anyone done this before? It was their approach and how they expressed themselves (just like Pollock) that made them as great (or bad) as they were. As you get further into smaller, more obscure niches of music, the comparison becomes stronger as casual listeners might say “I could do that, all they’re doing is ___.” This is no different with Pollock as I’ve heard “all he’s done is throw paint around, I could do this” too many times to count.

What Pollock was doing was more of a primitive and nontraditional expression of his emotions, a focus on the process and the creation rather than the final appearance. If he was upset, he wasn’t going to paint a picture of some sad lady with cold colors and her head hung low, instead you would get works of incredible volume with layers upon layers of varying splashes of paint made in different ways. Beyond the emotion, there was also the rhythm and process of painting, something that might have been foreign to the viewing audience at the time (maybe still is). It is because of Pollock that I’ve learned to appreciate many works of art, regardless of medium, because of what might have sparked the artist to create it, or to continue making it. Art for me, is no different than music or literature, sometimes the manner in how it is expressed and the intentions behind it create more of an impact rather than the piece itself.

As both a fiber and street art enthusiast, I absolutely love the concept of yarn bombing (if you’re not familiar, prankster knitters and crocheters stealthily cover objects in public places with a yarn sheath).

The work of artist Olek takes the movement to a whole different level, and makes me downright giddy.  Last year, in an act that was part political statement and part compulsive crocheting, she covered the Wall Street bull in a hot pink camouflage cozy, though unfortunately the work was stripped before the morning business rush.  She’s now exhibiting an entire room covered in crochet in a gallery in London.  I love the idea of taking this seemingly docile, domestic medium, and making such a strong statement.  And when it comes to the streets, the unexpectedness of the act makes it all the more exciting, and even subversive.

“Olek’s Crochet Graffiti Strikes Tony’s Gallery” – The Huffington Post

Damien Hirst’s “spot” paintings are being shown in over 11 galleries across three continents in a recent blitz which promises a signed piece of a work to anyone that makes the trip to all 11 galleries. The works themselves are boring, replicated organizations of colored dots which aren’t even done by Hirst himself. Hired help adheres to two rules whilst producing these works:

1. Spots must be equidistant from eachother and

2. No color repeated in any dot within the same painting.

In this instance, Hirst has more in common with Andrew Carnegie then he does with Claude Monet. What Hirst is doing is commercializing art and profiting from it. I invite defenders of this latest body of work to tell me this isn’t about spreading his name and ego and making money from it. I understand art and its place with technology and our society of today, but whatever half-assed defense there exists for this is moot because there is no spirit or heart here, and that’s the key to any artistic expression.

While I’m admittedly a lightweight in the world of street art and graffiti, there was something about Futura 2000’s latest exhibit, Expansions, which clicked with me immediately. After reading a small quote about his recent work, a quote in which he drops the dreaded word “abstract” I became a bit hesitant as “abstract” is one of those danger words that sends you into a superhuman state, awaiting something stupid and preparing for the best means of escape. Luckily, this is far from the case with Futura 2000’s latest gallery as the abstractness of his recent work highlights the mood, tone, and overall attention to rhythm and feel that makes his work so engrossing.

Tell me that’s not some calming stuff (I know the music helps, but try and just focus on the work).

Futura 2000 – Galerie de Noirmont – Paris – Live Painting from Guillotine on Vimeo.

This is awesome

The following mural was created by LNY & Sean 9 Lugo.  Both artist collaborated on this wall- in addition to their art show tonight.    When I asked Sean 9 Lugo how it felt working on the wall – his response – “I’ve worked on walls before, thought it was easy (pause) .. but this s#it was hard!” lol

To view both the mural and LNY & Sean 9 Lugo’s work visit 58 Gallery located on 58 Coles St, Jersey City, New Jersey City.   Opening Reception

Photos provided by Joe Iurato

Pongtopia! displayed extraordinary, creatively painted Ping-Pong tables and paddles which was curated by the renowned graffiti artist Billi Kid, of Public Works Department www.flickr.com/photos/billikid. The proceeds went to support creative programs through Operation Design, and raised over $25,000 in the 3 days! (www.opdesign.org)
Presented by Brookfield Office Properties
Partnership with SPiN Galactic.
Curated by Billi Kid.
Supported by Public Works Department.

Participants: Cern, Cope2, Joe Iurato, Shiro, Jim McHugh, Cake, UWP (UnderWaterPirates), CzrVII, David Cooper, Ticky Tock, Seamo, ChrisRWK, Franck de Las Mercedes, Frost215, Peat Wollaeger, VengRWK, Indie, El Celso, ZAM, Dint Wooer Krsna, Sand One, Question Josh?, Blip, COL Wallnuts, Rednose, NohJColey, Peru Ana Ana Peru, Carly, Ivan Garcia, Ian Ross, Fumero, Street Grapes, Dashdoe, Mike Die, Dave Warnke, Geoff Hargadon, Buildmore, Jaxiejax Art, Elijah Arts and ART¹

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