PREVIEW

Rory McCartney solo exhibition at Arch 402

Arch 402 is pleased to present the latest solo exhibition by acclaimed British artist Rory McCartney. Psycho Boogie introduces a new series of drawings and paintings that continue the artist’s investigations of abstract imagery.

Referencing the visual effects of Op Art, 18th century marbling techniques and 60’s pop-psychedelia, McCartney incorporates the erratic behaviour of materials to create powerful images that are spontaneously and organically formed.

Against McCartney’s flat graphic backgrounds, media such as oil, resin, pigment, and lacquer react to emit an explosion of colour and pattern that is both arresting and surprising.

McCartney’s work has been shown internationally in commercial galleries as well as public spaces including the Royal Academy and the Victoria & Albert Museum.He is the art director of Arena Homme plus magazine, and lives and works in London.

Words from Arch 402

When
25 March – 28 April 2011
OPENING PARTY Thursday 24 March 6:00-9:00 pm

Where: Arch 402 Gallery, Cremer Street, London, E2 8HD
www.arch402.com

REVIEWS

Ronzo art Pure Evil: creatures of Crackney

Even if you do not know Ronzo but hang out in Shoreditch or the City, you’ve probably come across his works, I want to talk about his ‘big teeth’ monsters who are (some have been removed) spread over the area, either in the form of small statuettes or on posters

Ronzo is well-known among street art fans in London so it was not surprised to see a large number of people up for his second solo exhibition at Stolen Space.

This show offers a large range of works and proves once again how Ronzo can be creative and juggle between mediums.

A series of paintings, collages, prints and sculptures stand proud in the gallery and should please a large number of people from various backgrounds or tastes. The theme of the show, Crackney’s finest, becomes clear quickly: Ronzo tells us the story of ‘Crackney’ (read Hackney) which he lives and lingers.

Crack smoking squirrels or giant cock-roaches delivering pizzas, Ronzo has gone for the surreal to give his vision of Crackney. And it is right: Hackney can be sometimes sort of surreal, mad perhaps but fun too.

This show also confirms Ronzo’s interest in sculpture, as in recent years he has use the medium more than anything else. The show proudly displays one such sculpture, a huge larger-than-life cock-roach riding a pizza delivering bike, emblazoned with the words: I love Crackney. This piece rotates right at the entrance of the gallery: unique and bold.

It felt good to be at that show and it was definitely enjoyable to look at works ranging from collage to sculpture. Anybody should find a special piece for their likings.

Ronzo’s show is an invitation to enter his vision of Crackney or Hackney. If you are an East London lover, you’ll love this show.

StolenSpace Gallery:
The Old Truman Brewery (Located at the end of the Car Park/ off Dray Walk)
91 Bricklane, London E1 6QL, UK
P: +44 (0) 207 247 2684

Crackney’s finest runs until this Sunday 28th November 2010

Opening hours: Tuesday – Sunday 11:00am – 7:00pm

Enjoy the pics below from the opening night as well as the video of the making of ‘Crunchy’ that can be seen on the Great Eastern Street side of Village Underground.

Related links
> Google map of Ronzo’s monsters from the Londonist website
> Ronzo on Vimeo

ART-PIE

 

CRUNCHY – The Credit Crunch Monster from Ronzo on Vimeo.

BLOG, LISTS

5 Batman related street art pieces you ought to see

With the release of the new Batman : Arkham night video game just around the corner, we looked at 5 remarkable street art pieces related to the broader ‘Batman’ theme.

JPS
JPS , UK street is our first artist. JPS’s does pop culture works with a witty slogan. JPS’ often depicts iconic comic book and movie characters including Ted, Batman, Spiderman, and even Freddie Kruger and normally stencils them. Read an interview with Street Artist United States

Batman by JPS | Art-Pie

Mario Calvo and Pato Kozow
The work below, ‘The Creation of Batman‘ was painted in a square in Buenos Aires and you may have recognised its reinterpretation of Michael Angelo’s ‘The creation of Adam’ he painted in the Sistine Chapel. God is played by The Joker and the part of Adam is played by Batman.

Creation of Batman | Art-Pie

memeIRL
This artist is France based and the piece is called ‘Batman and Robin kissing’

Batman & Robin kissing - Art-Pie

Artist unknown
This is actually an illustration but we thought we’ll throw it in there as we find it quite funny

Batman | Art-Pie

Artist unknown

Batman | Art-Pie

LISTS, STREET ART

10 Banksy facts – did you know?

He was behind a famous hoax in 2004, where Photoshopped copies of Paris Hilton’s album were distributed in HMV shops.
Banksy | Art-Pie

The same year, he created and distributed fake £10 notes.
Banksy | Art-Pie

This piece was commissioned by Bono when it was a guest editor at The Independent
Banksy | Art-Pie

He has had 6 exhibitions since 2002. These are Existencilism, 2002, LA. Turf War, 2003, London. Barely Legal, LA, 2006. Village Pet Store And Charcoal Grill, 2008, New York. The Cans Festival, 2008 London. Banksy vs Bristol Museum, 2009, Bristol.
Banksy | Art-Pie

The highest ever price for a Banksy work at auction was over £102,000 for his piece “Bombing Middle England”.
Banksy | Art-Pie

He visited New Orleans in August 2008, marking the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. But some of the pieces are now gone. Banksy told Time Out: “In New Orleans I painted on a dilapidated shop in a street littered with abandoned cars and rotting mattresses, then two hours later the piece was gone. It turned out I’d picked the side of a crack house and the proprietor didn’t like the attention.”
Banksy | Art-Pie

He designed the cover of Blur’s Think Tank.
Banksy | Art-Pie

He was nominated for an Oscar for his 2010 documentary Exit Through The Gift Shop.
Banksy | Art-Pie

He illustrated the opening credits to The Simpsons in 2010.
Banksy | Art-Pie

In 2007, a photo purporting to be of Banksy was released.
Banksy | Art-Pie

REVIEWS

Will Barras ‘Bad Reception’ at Stolen Space

I have always found that acrylic paint used in conjunction with spray paint is a definite winner and give you astonishing results. However, it is difficult to master both mediums for most of us unless you are Will Barras.

Bad Reception, his latest show at Stolen Space, brought to us a series of works never exhibited before which, for most of them, have been painted using acrylics and spray paint (oil and ink have also been used for some of the works).

I was walking towards the entrance of the gallery and could see some of Will Barras’ works and my first thought was ‘wow, it looks amazing from here’. I was eager to go in and check the show out.

The fact that most of the works are large scales pieces gives you the tone of the show – bold. A quick look around the gallery and it became obvious to me that the composition in his works is heavy and busy which, coupled with the large scale aspect make the whole experience very overwhelming. Add to this a varied and strong colour palette and often you get some sort of dramatic or epic feel to the painting, it is almost exhausting to look at his works as you need to look and look again to get the whole picture, to get the story behind it.

Indeed Will Barras intend to tell us a story, the story of Mr Benn – read more about iton the Stolen Space website

Will Barras’s technique is really remarkable, he manages to combine urban/graffiti techniques with more traditional mediums such as acrylics or oil and the result is breathtaking and definitely achieve to blur the line between abstract and reality – what is really going on these paintings?

“I want to maintain the natural flow and energy, the tension between abstract and figurative, while developing and elaborating on a narrative. To generate a multiple choice of possibilities of what could be happening Ideas usually develop from the everyday mundane, broken phone converations and awkward situations …” Will Barras

The show ran until the 14th November 2010.

NB: if you wonder whether the motorbike was part of the show, well not really. Will Barras decided to leave it there after the opening night. Random but it did fit well with the show!

ART-PIE

 

BLOG, STREET ART

EN MASSE mural at Village Underground

It was a glorious day when we had the chance to see the EN MASSE crew working on anew and huge wall at Village Underground

EN MASSE : (from French) “as a whole”, or “all together”

EN MASSE is a Montreal based, multi-artist collaborative drawing project. It draws life from the many creative individuals who take part in the project to create large-scale, highly spontaneous drawings in black and white.

EN MASSE | Art-Pie

EN MASSE explores the creation of a collective vision; works created together that are greater than any one person could create alone.

HISTORY

The project was created by Tim Barnard and Jason Botkin in 2009, at the Galerie Pangée. Now under the direction of Botkin and Rupert Bottenberg, the initiative has worked with nearly 250+ artists internationally.

MANDATE

The EN MASSE Project nurtures the broadening and solidification of artistic communities everywhere it goes, serving artists from extremely diverse backgrounds such as graphic novels, graffiti, tattoo, illustration, design and the fine arts.

EN MASSE | Art-PieEN MASSE | Art-Pie

For the most part, artists participating in the project are self-taught creative entrepreneurs. EN MASSE is a high-profile public platform for these people who have often found themselves in an awkward relationship with many contemporary arts institutions (resulting in their work often being excluded from mainstream galleries, museums, and funding agencies). This is a bridge for artist to institution, and vice versa.

EN MASSE | 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