PREVIEW

The London Original Print Art Fair

Click to enlargeHeld at the Royal Academy of Arts, the London Original Print Fair offers an opportunity to view works from all periods of printmaking, from the earliest woodcuts of Dürer, to the latest editions by contemporary masters.

The intimate, boutique Fair provides a friendly atmosphere for both budding collectors and seasoned print enthusiasts to engage with dealers and artists.

The London Original Print Fair brings together 50 print specialists from across the globe in London’s favourite boutique art fair. Works of art for sale span 500 years of printmaking: from old and modern master prints to the latest editions by today’s leading artists.

The London Original Print Fair’s dealers, galleries and studios offer a wealth of expertise and knowledge to engage with collectors both just starting out, and those building on established collections. This year is the Fair’s most international yet: alongside the UK’s very best dealers and print publishers are galleries and studios from three continents.

Artists represented at the Fair include Rembrandt, Goya, Whistler, Picasso and Warhol, alongside the latest work by Michael Craig-Martin RA, Bridget Riley, Sir Peter Blake and more.

CONTEMPORARY ART, REVIEWS

Cissy Cook at Smithfield gallery: chill out

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I had only gone once to the Smithfield gallery a while back ago to see DEUS – works from the UVA (United Visual Artists) and was happily pleased with it although I did not know what to make of it before seeing it. I headed down in the same state of mind last week end to check out their current exhibition – Cissy Cook – new work.

The only thing I know was that Cissy’s work is all about papercuts that mainly picture butterflies. Not the kind of things I am too keen on I first thought but getting to see things you know little of should be the attitude and I am glad I went that day. Continue reading Cissy Cook at Smithfield gallery: chill out →

CONTEMPORARY ART

Noise project – Challenge #1 The Pulse

We announced a little while ago that we were part of the Noise Intercepted project, a global art project curated by Labspace Studio (a creative agency & art house in Toronto, Canada). Noise Intercepted is a series of ten experience-activated noise challenges that prompt participants to listen, observe and interact with their urban soundscape in new and unlikely ways.

Challenge #1 is in and so is our entry – see below

Noise challenge #1: The Pulse

If your city had a defining sound, a defining pulse, a defining heartbeat, what would it sound like? look like? or feel like? …where would you go to find it? You have 1 week to venture outside and find the pulse of your city.

We thought for the obvious right away, we need to capture a sound, the pulse. And at night where sight is diminished by the darkness. But we were wrong, the pulse was visual. We started walking down the street trying to hear out for the pulse of the city but we found visual signs everywhere that we immediately associated to the pulse. We had found the pulse: the light.

Then focusing on the light, we sat back and listened and all sort of sound patters came to life. we had found the origin of the pulse: us, humans.

We make the pulse, we are the pulse of the city.

STREET ART

Alive heart by Promesto

We have come across this meaningful street art installation by Promesto and we like it so we talked to the artist and asked him to tell us a bit more about it.

Make sure to check out the video!

ART-PIE: What is “Alive Heart” all about?
Promesto: This installation is built to provoke and catch the reaction of the people as they pass by the broken-hearted mannequin and to intervene in the daily life of broken hearts and reminds them: no matter how broken your heart is now – tomorrow is another day!

A-P: How are people reacting to it?
P: People responded variously ‘heartbreak’ as a feeling of heaviness, emptiness, grief, sadness, confusion and even jealousy all at once. Our installation art on London’s famous Brick Lane made quite a few people ponder.

Some of the best quotes we got:
“it’s a bit “scary-tragic but true”
“My heart was broken once. It really hurt and I’m glad it’s over.”
“I still remember that B!$%H or BA%$!RD”

CONTEMPORARY ART

Confronted with Castration: Edward Kienholz’s "Five Car Stud"

Edward Kienholz’s Five Car Stud depicts a horrific scene of racial violence during the civil rights era. Actually, the term horrific does nothing to illustrate the nauseating effects of this life-size interactive work currently on display at the Los Angeles Contemporary Museum of Art.

The piece is set up in a darkened room with a sandy dirt floor.  Five cars form a circle, illuminating the focal point of the work with their headlights.  Life-sized, white male figures stand next to their cars menacingly wielding batons and other weapons.  One man holds a shotgun at his side.  Clown-like masks and sagging skin cover their faces. The eyes are hollow and insipid, yet smirk at inflicting pain upon another human.

The sense of entitlement emanates not only from their facial expressions, but also from the positions of the bodies and the looming presence of each of these men.  Garbed in jeans with the ruddy faces of moonshine alcoholics, they abuse and castrate another man, lassoing his foot like cattle, simply due to the color of his skin.

The victim lies in the center of the scene flanked by two men gripping his arms.  Instead of casting an entire figure, Kienholz installs a rectangular trough in place of his torso.  He filled the trough with water and six wooden alphabet blocks, two of the same letter, floating around, and leaving the viewer to piece together their meaning.

Kienholz spent three years working on this project between 1969 and 1972 during the height of civil rights era when activists had reached some victories for desegregation.  However, through his depiction viewers realize that prejudice and unfounded bias continue to infiltrate society.

Kienholz is best known for using found objects to create jarring sculptures that comment on social issues within the United States.  He created this work shortly before he relocated to Germany where it first appeared publicly.  A private collector acquired the work and for 40 years it remained in storage.  Los Angeles County Museum of Art is the first to display the work in the United States.

I do not exaggerate the gravity of this work. Guards stand at the doorway advising parents against allowing their children to witness it.

The pictures cannot convey the deeply unsettling feeling evoked by the piece. Perhaps it is the blatant intolerance, the flagrant violence, or simply the knowledge that things have not changed enough.  Whatever the reason, whatever the effects, Kienholz has created a penetrating work that shocks viewers with its content but awes with the undeniable skill and ingenuity it took to mastermind.

CONTEMPORARY ART, REVIEWS

Dale Grimshaw at Signal gallery – Moreish

Dale Grimshaw "Moreish" at Signal gallery | Art-PieWe made our way down to one of our favorite art galleries to check out the new set of works from Dale Grimshaw that makes up his new show entitled “Moreish”. Having seen a few previous shows from the same artist, we knew that we were up for another display of strong emotions from the artist and we were right.

This time, the artist looks at the notion of “excess” that is spreading in modern societies and which seems to affect an increasing number of people. Here is what the artist had to say about it “It is a case of enough is never enough. The ‘haves’ want more and the ‘haves not’ can pay for it. Once we get that acquisitive taste, we just want more and more”

As the title of this show suggests – Moreish, the food element is everywhere in Dale Grimshaw’s pieces and they are piling on top of each other and dripping down faces of the characters the artist using in his paintings. This certainly gives a sense of a “too much” but also of a “waste” which “moreish” behaviour might lead to. The color palette used here – black/dark background in most cases combined with fiery colours, clearly translate the negative artist’s view on that notion of excess spreading in our societies according to him. A a result, the atmospere of the show is rather thick and heavy and you can almost feel its weight on your shoulders.

It is also worth pointing out the variety of characters that are depicting in Dale Grimshaw’s work, from the sweet and soft women’s faces to the rather alien looking “thing” which, apart from perhaps warning us what will happen if we embrace “excess, will add even more tension to the show.

From a more technical point of view, Dale Grimshaw’s techniques are just amazing. Oil and acrylics are the main mediums for this set of new works while canvases  and wooden boards are the main supports used here. If we had to pick a piece out of the lot and on a pure aesthetic point of view, ” The Platter” (oil on board) would be the one. The color palette is striking. See pictures below

The Platter
Dale Grimshaw "Moreish" at Signal gallery | Art-PieDale Grimshaw "Moreish" at Signal gallery | Art-Pie

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The show runs until the 23rd November 2012
Signal gallery | 32 Paul Street London EC2A 4LB | 020 7613 1550

Dale Grimshaw "Moreish" at Signal gallery | Art-PieDale Grimshaw "Moreish" at Signal gallery | Art-Pie

Dale Grimshaw "Moreish" at Signal gallery | Art-PieDale Grimshaw "Moreish" at Signal gallery | Art-Pie

GRAFFITI, STREET ART

Keith Harring would have been 54 today

Keith Harring
Keith Harring

On February 16, 1990, at age 31, Keith Haring’s life was cut short due to an AIDS-related illness. He would have been 54 today and as a homage, here are a few words and a tribute to his most iconic pieces of art.

I wonder what Keith Haring (May 4, 1958 – February 16, 1990) would make of the global phenomenon that street art is now, art form very much confined to the street of New York City at the time when he decided to move there in 1978, aged 19.

Having studied commercial art and then Fine Arts, he took a keen interest in graffiti art, Haring would go out there and paste collages of fake New York Post headlines on lamposts or news stands. He explored the likes of SAMO (Jean-Michel Basquiat) or Fab Five Fred (Fred Brathwaite) graffiti art to quickly put in practice his own interpretation of this form of art and would develop his future vocabulary of primitive cartoon-like forms. The Haring’s chalk-drawn “radiant babies” and “barking dogs” were born (see pictures) and woud become familiar sights on the matt black surfaces used to cover the old advertisements in the subways.

Keith Harring Radiant babyKeith Harring Barking Dog

These chalk drawings in the subways of New York got Haring in the public eye and he would go on from there to have his first exclusive exhibition in the Tony Shafrazi Gallery which put together a retrospective a few years ago about it – see picture. Willing to reach a larger public, he immersed himself in popular American culture and befriended individials such as Andy Warhol, Madonna or Grace Jones (whom he would body-paint).

Haring was also a keen social activist and as a result of his ever increasing political involvement; he designed a Free South Africa poster in 1985 (see picture) and painting a section of the Berlin Wall in 1986 (see picture). Other works include design for Swatch watches or the Absolut Vodka advertisement (see picture)

Keith Harring work on the Berlin WallKeith Harring Free South Africa poster

Keith Harring’s work are just simply one of the best examples of how consumerism, popular culture and fine art merged in the 1980s.

Recommended readings
Keith Haring: The Authorized Biography by John Gruen (1991) includes interviews with the artist and those closest to him and is an invaluable source for understanding the art and life of Haring.

The early work is illustrated in Art in Transit: The Subway Drawings (1984) and Keith Haring (Shafrazi Gallery, 1982). An enlightening interview by David Sheff appeared in Rolling Stone (August 10, 1989).

Elizabeth Aubert directed an insightful video entitled Drawing the Line: A Portrait of Keith Haring (Biografilm, 1989).

Later an attempt was made to place Haring within a broader art historical context in Keith Haring, edited by Germano Celant (1992). □

STREET ART ENCOUNTERS