Supertouch buddy AARON ROSE opened the doors to a little show he curated at the venerable CIRCLECULTURE GALLERY in Berlin this past Saturday, titled simply “McGee, Templeton, Pettibon.” Bringing “Zee Germans” a healthy dose of American street culture, the show aptly surveyed the recent work of all three of these iconic artists (all of whom also took part in Rose’s previous “Beautiful Losers” exhibitions), and included photographs and paintings by Barry McGee and Ed Templeton and a nice display of recent ink drawings by elder statesman Raymond Pettibon alongside a large array of neatly framed examples of his ultra-seminal Black Flag photocopied gig flyers (whose ever-elusive matching original artworks remain the ultimate holy grail for Pettibon collectors). HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »

Underground art stars BARRY McGEE (in the guise of alter ego LYDIA FONG), CLARE ROJAS, and ANDREW JEFFREY WRIGHT came together last weekend at West Hollywood art hotspot NEW IMAGE ART to present the artistic tour-de-force that was their stunning joint "American Realities" exhibition. Punctuated by a comedic performance by Mr. Wright (how many times has he introduced himself to the ladies as such?) and folk singer PEGGY HONEYWELL (who looks an awful lot like Clare Rojas), as well as the mandatory lengthy autograph session by Twisto (with daughter Asha Kilgallen-McGee tagging alongside him like a pro), the scene was one of the highlights of 2009's spring gallery season with an appropriately massive (and sweaty) crowd of admirers to match. HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »

This year's installment of the legendary SOUTH x SOUTHWEST music festival in Austin, Texas again proved to be one of the last fleeting moments of relevancy in a modern music world gone post-apocalyptic. Aside from washed-up metal has-beens Metallica playing a gig in honor of their new signature Guitar Hero video game (if only Satan would rise up and strike them down now, lord), the dusty Texas town played host to a staggering array of ripping new talent proving there might still be hope for Hollywood—if not the big box chain record store—yet. On the scene to wheatpaste the town red, white, and black was Supertouch's own SHEPARD FAIREY who went big on the side of LANCE ARMSTRONG's personal bike shop, MELLOW JOHNNY'S immediately after touching down. He pretty much slammed the rest of the town too. HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »

It was only a matter of time, Supertouch’s own SHEPARD FAIREY’s iconic OBAMA campaign artwork finally made its way to SOUTH PARK last nite where the Big O received the typical Matt & Tre makeover on the season’s latest episode. Watch it HERE…

Supertouch buddy JR continues his global street art installation, “28MM: WOMEN” campaign with a new residency in Delhi, India. He checks in with us from the ancient city this week with a sneek peek at his latest handiwork. Fresh off an epic run of installations in Cambodia and Kenya, JR will no doubt have claimed all of Delhi as his personal outdoor art gallery by the time this new stage of his grand global plan is complete. Stay tuned to ST for more updates from the road…

BOSTON VANDALISM CHARGES STIR DEBATE ON ART’S PLACE

By Abby Goodnough, NYTimes

BOSTON — This may be the only place in America where Shepard Fairey, the street artist whose omnipresent portrait of Barack Obama has become a touchstone, is not fully feeling the love.

Mr. Fairey’s court appearances came a month after he was arrested on Feb. 6 as he arrived at the opening-night party for his retrospective at the Institute of Contemporary Art. His cab was approaching the museum when the police stopped it, handcuffed him and took him to jail overnight. Click HERE to continue reading…

Amid the current wave of doom and gloom that washed over this year’s annual ARMORY art expo in NYC last week, OG Manhattan art star KENNY SCHARF reminded everyone that the art world was once a fun place to be with his one man “Scharfland” show at PAUL KASMIN’s booth. Consisting of a wide array of beautiful new paintings, a bronze cat sculpture, an outdoor installation of live spray paintings, and even a golf kart transformed into one of Sharf’s characters, Kenny brought back the spirit of the days when he and friends like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and Andy Warhol were literally writing the rules of the art world as they went along. Scharf is yet another artist participating in the “Stages” charity art show to benefit LANCE ARMSTRONG’s anti-cancer LIVESTRONG foundation during his run in this year’s Tour de France. Keep an eye on ST for more details coming soon. Meanwhile, HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »

A wise man once said “writing about art is like dancing about architecture,” but in a world where oceans of self-aggrandizing “artspeak” usually says much about an author’s ego and little to nothing about artwork itself, Supertouch’s own resident legendary art writer CARLO McCORMICK is the exception to the rule. This month finds him penning an incredibly astute piece on SHEPARD FAIREY for ART IN AMERICA from the rarified perspective of a genuinely street-level art world insider more at home on the Bowery than in Chelsea. At a time when the slow-moving mainstream art world and its legion of stiff-jointed scribes are playing years of painful catch-up on the “street art” game, this is a must-read:

SHEPARD FAIREY
By Carlo McCormick | Art in America

In a thank-you note written by Barack Obama to street artist Shepard Fairey for the pictorial provocateur’s singular contribution to branding his campaign for the presidency, the then senator wrote: “The political messages involved in your work have encouraged Americans to believe that they can help change the status-quo. Your images have a profound effect on people, whether seen in a gallery or on a stop sign.”

High praise indeed from such a highly regarded public figure. But what it ultimately says—that there is a cultural equivalence between fine art shown in established venues and artistic expressions put up illegally on private or government property—represents a tacit sanction of street art from the leader of the free world that is a dramatic shift in the perceived role of art as a radical tool of social intervention.

Emblazoned in our collective mind’s eye as a defining icon of optimism and change, Fairey’s Obama Hope poster, certainly one of his most endearing and personable images, is such a signature work that the original collage was recently acquired by the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, and related images graced the covers of Time and Esquire. It is, however, not a fleeting pop-culture sensation but simply the latest crossover hit in a long line of underground classics.

Fairey has made such an indelible mark on our visual landscape that it is difficult to avoid the platitudes we might otherwise eschew in the discourse of contemporary art. As he comes under greater scrutiny from the art establishment with a major retrospective of his work, now on view at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art, it is worth noting that his renown has grown organically from the streets and a global youth culture that the mainstream art world has only a vague grasp of. Click HERE to continue reading…