Archive for May, 2008
Wot you lookin at?...
As we reported earlier on Supertouch, downtown NYC-based street & gallery artist ESPO is currently living & working in Dublin, Ireland on a Fulbright Scholarship where he's been keeping himself very busy steadily turning the city streets into a museum of his artistic handiwork. The past several weeks have been especially prolific with more giant pieces popping up at every turn. HAVE A LOOK: Read More
And... FIRE! France's JR takes aim at the Tate Modern's finest...
Unlike a host of unmentionable urban art institutions that turn a blind eye to the burgeoning art movements erupting just outside their museum doors, London's TATE MODERN is paying homage this month to the city's most colorful and volatile movement through their inventively-named “Street Art” exhibition. With an eye for international talent, the museum has invited six artists with roots in graffiti including Brasil’s OS GEMEOS and NUNCA, France’s JR, Italy’s BLU, NYC’s FAILE, and Barcelona’s SIXEART to embellish the building's massive facade and partake in a group exhibition that will remain on display until August 25th. Of course, the most obvious omission in this list is the town’s resident street art kingpin BANKSY, but we suspect the Golden Child is above such institutional fare. And just when it seemed like London would have to build more city walls to support the nonstop barrage of wheatpaste posters and graffiti besieging it, the show has inspired a legion of artists to step up their wallpapering efforts turning the surrounding neighborhoods into an outdoor museum. It seems that Street Art is the British Invasion of the ‘00s (or at the very least, the new black). HAVE A LOOK: Read More
Self-portrait of the artist as an old buddha...
Japan's most omnipresent Pop Artist/star TAKASHI MURAKAMI brought his latest series of work to Los Angeles last week when his new curiously titled show "Davy Jones' Tear" opened at BLUM & POE GALLERY. Featuring eight large new paintings representing three distinctly different modes of artistic thought, Murakami's new work pushes further away from his more representational, manga/anime-influenced style and in large part embraces a more abstract, decorative mode. Represented again are more images from Murakami's Daruma series featuring portraits of the 6th century father of Zen Buddhism alongside new psychedelic abstract works that reflect a distinct graffiti influence, and two paintings that pay homage to the 18th century Rimpa school of Japanese decorative art. It's a must-see show for sure and even haters will find something of interest in the deceptively compelling new panels. HAVE A LOOK: Read More
Artist Benjamin Verdonck at home in his new skybox...
Belgian artist BENJAMIN VERDONCK has taken the usually verboten medium of performance art to new heights of greatness with his new NEST installation titled “The Great Swallow” in Rotterdam, Netherlands. Perched 50 meters above the city square on the side of the 13th floor of the Wenna Tower (aka: “The Pepperbox”), Verdonck’s windy new home is, according the artist, constructed of “the crowns of 23 silver birches, two straw bales, one bucket of spit, three bags of sand, twelve buckets of glue, and nineteen cans of polyurethane foam.” Residing in the perch since its construction a week ago, the artist has seen a lot of debris float down to his numerous fans at street level including feathers, a giant egg, and copious amounts of bird shit. No word yet on how long the installation will remain or what the artist’s final stunt will be, but we’re guessing it could quite easily include a caravan of ambulances. HAVE A LOOK: Read More
Click HERE to watch...
Proving that graffiti is beyond an above ground phenomenon these days, CNN has filmed a short piece on KRINK founder CRAIG COSTELLO (aka: KR) and the burgeoning brand he's created with his iconic drippy metallic ink. Click HERE to watch (come on, CNN, where's that embed code?)...
KR's masterpiece: Nike's Blu House in Venice, CA, covered in Krink, 2006.
Helper gets a makeover...
Supertouch's own TIM BISKUP unleashed his attack on the art world high and low last week when his show of new paintings "The Artist In You" opened at the JONATHAN LEVINE GALLERY. Packing in a crowd of admirers, gawkers, and stone throwers like lemmings in a tin, Mr Biskup revealed a new series of heavily cubist-inspired works reflecting his new, minimal aesthetic direction and released a new book of ponderings/vitriolic rants on the state of the art world that gave the show its name. Love it or hate it, Mr Biskup's exhibition was one of the most thought-provoking bodies of work to hit the so-called alternative art world in some time and one glance at the accompanying writings (which are available as a free PDF download HERE) will have you pondering your own artistic inadequacies and cursing the hypocrisy of the fine art world simultaneously. HAVE A LOOK: Read More
One of Vaucher's current anti-war billboards currently up in London...
VICE magazine founder and loyal Supertouch ally/proofreaer GAVIN McINNES has just dropped a fantastic interview with legendary punk artist and CRASS member GEE VAUCHER on his upstart STREET BONERS & TV CARNAGE site (imagine all the once legendary glory of Vice's "Dos & Don'ts" as a full website and you get the picture). HAVE A LISTEN:
If only the Decapitator could work his magic on the rest of Hollywood...
Seems like London's resident mad doctor of street art THE DECAPITATOR feels the same way about Sarah Jessica Parker's horse face and the impending Sex & The City movie as the rest of us do...
Sarah J's never looked better...
