<
Hyper-prolific portrait artist KEHINDE WILEY’s latest installment in his “World Stage” series “Africa: Lagos ~ Dakar” is now on view at Harlem’s progressive STUDIO MUSEUM and the array of new large-scale paintings is staggering. It’s a homecoming of sorts for the artist who, after graduating from the SF Art Institute, began his professional art career there in 2000 where he pioneered his now trademark baroque urban portrait style. Traveling to Africa where he set up residence in a satellite studio to seek out his models for the series, Wiley posed his “actors” to mimic historical public sculptures from Dakar, Senegal, and Lagos, Nigeria, which he then immortalized on the huge canvases comprising this installation. And while all the subjects in this series were unknowns he found in the streets, Wiley has some much bigger subjects in mind for an upcoming dream leg of his art tour: “I would love to do a series of paintings of African dictators. To have their company, do the photo shoot and make a whole series of paintings, that’s something I’ll try to work on. Because their egos are already out of this world, they would probably take the commission just because of that, to hang the portraits in their royal palaces.” HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »

Ewoks and George’s last 3 movies made us hate Star Wars but Usugrow’s gangster Darth brought us back… 

If you’re like us the last thing you wanna look at is another painted toy/object show. Keeping that in mind, we couldn’t help but be stoked to catch a look at the ill work of our boy USUGROW at the Japan touchdown of the VADER PROJECT 2008 at MAKUHARI-MESSE in Chiba this weekend. Lending his signature black ink linestyle and to-die-for lettering to a creamy vanilla Darth Vader helmet (a real one at that) for the show honoring the 3oth anniversary of Star Wars in Japan, the mysterious artist proved that there’s still fresh blood in the murky waters of this tired genre. Other good looks came from amazing Japanese toy sculptor T9G, and an amazing Vader as samurai helmet. Of course the hoards of Japanese otaku nerd girls in stormtrooper uniforms wasn’t too hard on the eyes. Now the only scary thing is knowing that a painted Han Solo-in-Carbonite sculpture show is undoubtedly on the horizon. HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »

Dutchies who took a break in their self-medicating long enough to hit the opening of DOZE GREEN & FEFÊ TALAVERA’s epic “Omega Bridge” art show at K-SPACE GALLERY in Amsterdam last week got a major dose of incredible new collaborative artwork by the visionary pair. Showing and working together for the first time, American painter Doze’s fluid figurative linework melded perfectly with 27-year-old Brasilian painter and street artist Talavera’s angular tribal style to produce an array of inspired works on paper, scratchboard, and a giant mural that was the exhibition’s centerpiece. Needless to say, the stoney crowd was in the proper headspace to truly appreciate the work’s metaphysical philosophies and spent their Euros freely. HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »

“My aim is to create beautiful objects of desire in order to explore the relationship between sex, commodity and art. I want to show how our longing for products, material objects and even artworks themselves can be sexual, almost fetishistic.”

So went the telling manifesto of Supertouch buddy INSA’s exceptionally decadent and aptly-named “Dirty Cash” exhibition that opened on July 3rd at the FLAWLESS GALLERY in London. Presented by luxury cellphone purveyors—and makers of the world’s first million dollar cell—GOLDVISH (think new money Russian gangster wives) in conjunction with London’s ultra high-end diamond & platinum encrusted bling dealers, FLAWLESS & Co, Mr Insa—tongue planted firmly in cheek—took a giant step into the world of the ridiculous as the ultimate extension of his creative M.O. and the wildly escalating street art market with an exhibition of his typically glorious, well-oiled, & Bode-esque naked lady paintings. Known for his steady street work and regular shows at counterculture galleries worldwide, the artist is more the type to be turned away from these diamond retailers than embraced by them, making the show an even better get. Needless to say, the monied & curious turned out in droves, wallets in hands, disturbed, no doubt, to find that none of the artist’s paintings incorporated any real diamonds affixed to the canvases. HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »

Yue Minjun’s “Mr Pink” gets shy…

As we mentioned previously, perennial ST homeboy KAWS teamed up with Chinese Pop Art god YUE MINJUN to create a special figure for the MUSEUM OF TOMORROW’s “fine art toy” show titled “Art For The Masses” that opened last week in Taipei. Featuring new sculpts displayed alongside original artworks by ZHOU TIEN HAI, LIU YE, JING YU, ZHOU CHUN YA, the show is the first to address the genre for a Chinese audience incorporating domestic modern artists. All figures have been produced in runs of 100 pieces for sale in complete sets only at the museum and are not being distributed domestically. And yes, they’re expensive. HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »

Expecting mass attendance, Jeffrey Deitch hired a crack security team…

The two-headed Brasilian art phenomenon that is OS GEMEOS (Portuguese for “The Twins“) brought their fantastic art circus to NYC when their phenomenal show of new work “Too Far Too Close” opened at DEITCH PROJECTS as the art party of the summer on Saturday nite. In it, identical 24-year-old twin brothers GUSTAVO and OTAVIO PANDOLFO have created a sprawling cityscape within superstar downtown art dealer JEFFREY DEITCH’s cavernous Wooster Street space. Mirroring their psychedelic storybook street paintings that cover the city walls of their native Sao Paulo, Os Gemeos have expanded upon a smaller show of non-commercial work first debuted at the Museum Het Domein in the Netherlands in late 2007 and constructed an immersive dream world of paintings, sculpture, and large-scale installations that transport viewers from the jaded streets of SoHo to the deepest reaches of their prodigious imagination. HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »

KAWS’ little blue men…

“Everything Else,” a group show curated by CHRIS CHURCHILL at FRANKLIN PARRASCH GALLERY in NYC features the work of 16 artists but to be honest, it’s notable primarily for the inclusion of just one: the ever-elusive gallery ghost known as KAWS. Sidestepping the formal art world almost entirely in recent years, choosing instead to sell paintings—many of which were top flight large-scale works—directly to private collectors, the streetwear & collectibles phenomenon known to his parents as Brian Donnelley put the brakes on a formal art career primed for takeoff following his debut installation at Manhattan’s New Museum in 2000. Choosing instead to publicly focus on a burgeoning merchandise empire in recent years, his inclusion in this show (one submission includes his 4′ Companion figure but it’s always been more of a sculpture than a “toy” anyway) is particularly relevant as it marks an official return to the gallery world with several large shows currently in the works. Also included in this show, which seeks to examine why “things” get made and questions “what are the demands of a culture that prompts such production and how do the products of everyday life touch on the spiritual and the immaterial?,” are original artworks by Jason Adkins, Bryan Bowie, Anthony Campuzano, Jason Frazier, Misaki Kawai, Michael J. Kelly, Wook Kim, Wes Lang, Sandra Eula Lee, Rebecca Potts, George Stoll, Keith Tallett, Xavier Veilhan, Jocko Weyland, and Jesse Wine. HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »

Art collectors Lance Armstrong & Kate Hudson get a closer look at Todd Schorr’s new masterpiece…

As the editor of JUXTAPOZ ART MAGAZINE from 1996—2006, I had a personal stake in scoping out the LAGUNA MUSEUM’s “Juxtapoz” retrospective group show “In the Land of Retinal Delights” last nite. Celebrating the so-called “Juxtap