Think Tank Gallery

PHOTOGRAPHER CREATES “PEEPING TOM” SERIES OF HIS...

Fri, 24 May 2013 13:12:00 -0400

PHOTOGRAPHER CREATES “PEEPING TOM” SERIES OF HIS UNAWARE NEIGHBORS THROUGH THEIR WINDOWS

Arne Svenson has come under fire recently after his show at Julie Saul Gallery in Chelsea unveiled his latest series; The Neighbors sees multiple photos of his unconsenting neighbors in the building next-door going about their lives, unaware that they are being watched. The series includes some images that the grown man took into the windows of children, and is prompting questions, and possible legal action, from the community about the morality of the series.

“For my subjects there is no question of privacy; they are performing behind a transparent scrim on a stage of their own creation with the curtain raised high,” Svenson says. “The Neighbors don’t know they are being photographed; I carefully shoot from the shadows of my home into theirs.”

He goes on to compare his actions to birdwatching.

It’s not likely any of those with potential lawsuits against Svenson will get anything out of him; none of their faces are printed in the images. Check out the video above to see the neighborhood’s response in a local news story.

PAT RIOT’S OUT OF LEFT FIELD OPENS AT KNOWN GALLERY ON...

Thu, 23 May 2013 13:01:25 -0400

PAT RIOT’S OUT OF LEFT FIELD OPENS AT KNOWN GALLERY ON SATURDAY

“Sure, I can fill the entire front room of your gallery.” I said. “I have hundreds and hundreds of re-faced baseball cards, six full-sized sheets of uncut cards with every head re-faced, and I’ll fill the rest of the walls with big, impressionist portraits of famous baseball players done entirely with chewed bubblegum.”

Pat Riot has been creating art work made of different colors of chewed bubblegum obsessively for his upcoming exhibit at Known Gallery, so much so that he has been diagnosed with TMD by his dentist and also had wisdom teeth pulled for becoming abscessed. But that hasn’t stopped the artist, who is covering the walls of Known with work documenting the importance of things like baseball to youth culture and black history. The show opens on Saturday night. First 500 in the door get a free artist portrait! Details below.

Out of Left Field - Pat Riot
Known Gallery
441 N Fairfax Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90036

Show opens: Saturday, May 25th 2013, 8-11PM

Show runs: May 25th - June 8th, 2013

A BRIEF HISTORY OF JOHN BALDESSARI John Baldessari is one the...

Wed, 22 May 2013 10:01:23 -0400

A BRIEF HISTORY OF JOHN BALDESSARI

John Baldessari is one the most influential artists of our time, and one of the greatest designers ever. He has revolutionized everything from film to graphic design, portraits to photography, and painting to typography. The artist is so huge, in both stature and persona, that he got fellow artist extraordinaire Tom Waits to narrate this quirky short film about his career. If you don’t know much about the artist that influenced the lady who put all those big words on your museums and busses, you will enjoy the next six minutes. And if you are a fan of his, you will be further impressed at the lack of boredom and charisma that follows John Baldessari onto the surfaces and screens he possesses.

ARYZ AND CHOE COVER DTLA IN MURALS, TEAM UP WITH RETNA Aryz is...

Tue, 21 May 2013 13:01:33 -0400

ARYZ AND CHOE COVER DTLA IN MURALS, TEAM UP WITH RETNA

Aryz is one of the hottest names in large-scale mural street art, and David Choe is one of the hottest names in the history of art, period. Even before Choe hit it big with the Facebook story, he was searching out some of the biggest and best opportunities to collaborate with other talented artists and cover large walls with his expressive work, and downtown Los Angeles (Matteo St in particular) was recently blessed with what might be his best collaboration yet. In a gift from graffiti paradise, the bright colors and fragmented faces of Aryz blend perfectly into the scratchy lines and exploding scalps of Choe’s work.

What’s more, immediately following the collaboration they teamed up with fellow graff titan Retna on a second piece in downtown LA, also featured above. The artist’s classic LA-hieroglyphics fill a kneeling sneakerhead-creature being ridden by a bodacious lady, outlined by Choe and Aryz. We will keep an eye out for future pieces.

WBR | YES/NO: A 10-YEAR PLAN Whole Beast Rag, whose...

Mon, 20 May 2013 11:14:42 -0400

WBR | YES/NO: A 10-YEAR PLAN

Whole Beast Rag, whose two founders Grace Littlefield and Katharine Hargreaves are collaborative artists at Think Tank, hosts Mondays on the Think Tank blog. WBR is a print and online publication and project label working to bring together stimuli that fertilizes the brain.

I haven’t had Kat (Creative Director and Co-Editor-in-Chief at WBR) around for nine days now.

Nine. Days.

And she’ll be gone another day, until tomorrow morning (“today,” when this is posted/Monday; at which time we will hug and cry and talk and squeal ‘til we go to bed).

Because I didn’t have my roommate/business partner/closest friend around for this long, and because we’d been together every day for a solid five and a half months prior to her visit to Minnesota (where we’re both from, btw), I was somewhat at a loss for what to do. List of activities:

1. Give myself the most perfect manicure the world has ever seen (it took two hours; I could not apply the light-pink well enough so I used the clear polish after several attempts).

2. Edit all non-poetry and columns for WBR’s CHTHONIC Issue (online June 1).

3. Use my electric razor to take care of my bikini line with the bathroom door open (the radio had to be turned on because it sounds just like my vibrator and we have thin walls, you know what I mean, Girls?)

4. Go to the grocery store to buy food after having puked that morning from watching a basketball game with your new neighbor and accepting his offer of SoCo and CocaCola all night.

a. The only things I managed to buy were Fat-Free cranberry and orange scone mix, aloe vera juice, club soda, Gatorade and three Red Box movies. I also bought a Cosmopolitan, because unfortunately it was that or an actual tabloid (as opposed to a tabloid masquerading as a magazine masquerading as something that exposes the deepest secrets in the sexual world)

5. Flip through my newly-bought Cosmo mag and get sucked in.

After reading the magazine for about 20 minutes, I came to the big story: DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR EGGS ARE? (With a picture of a woman holding a bunch of eggs right in front of her light blue dress covering her flesh and ovaries.) The piece, its title being written in the least sensitive way possible, is about women ages 18-40 who are allfreaking out about not having kids within their “prime” timeline (by the time they’re 30, according to the ideals of those who are quoted).

The content in Cosmopolitan is poor. I haven’t read it since I was a freshman in college, and I’d remembered why when I started reading it this time, and especially with this piece. It was, as with most of its content, very naïve and glitz-driven with an out-of-context statistic tossed in here and there. (I am unapologetic to those who think its former editor was some sort of hero for women.) They fought with themselves over whether or not to support the hype of uninformed individuals or to give the facts as they are told by medical professionals—the mixed signals were distracting.

Aside from all of that, I do not discount the anxiety that women my age and otherwise have about having babies if they want to have babies. This—if you didn’t already know or joke about, gentlemen—is a pervading conversation and thought process for women, whether they want to have a baby/babies or not. But the question, as our generation is dealing with more so, perhaps, than those previous to ours, is whether or not marriage and child-rearing are going to be part of our personal and professional portfolios a.) at all, and b.) within a time frame that’s healthy for us and for the creation of life.

That is heavy.

I don’t get to stick my finger in a light socket and have a baby emerge, then put it back. I can’t create one with InDesign CS6 (or CS5). Will I leave my job permanently after maternity leave? What if my child is an asshole? What if I don’t have a child at all? Will I be content? Will I thrive? There is literally no one else who will have the exact same idea/concept/perspective on babies nor who will have the same experience raising a child or not raising a child. This, like experiencing life itself, can be really difficult to bear. So it’s nothing to be laughed at or tossed aside.

What I will do right now is shelve that part of the larger question: Why can’t I just figure it out along the way, and what do I need to do to get to a place that’s balanced? (Am I becoming Tony Robbins?)

Since my last blog post for TTG, I’ve been trying to muddle through all of this for myself. (I did not have a pregnancy scare or anything like that, no, do not even go there.) Part of the reason I continued reading the piece is because it kept talking about a “10-Year Plan,” which is apparently supposed to include if and when you’re going to have a child/children (this plan needs to be in place by the time you’re 25, or so it seems, otherwise all is lost). What I was looking for and did not find was any discussion of how these girls were approaching their individual situations outside of the part about parenthood—it was more of a “Shit! I don’t know what I’m gonna do! I’m 23 and I haven’t found the potential father of my children yet? Do I want to be a mother? Why am I so behind!” kind of piece. Their job descriptions beneath their names weren’t particularly helpful, either.

I am the ripe old age of 24 right now (will be 25 in September). Instead of reading a magazine about how to fit children into the picture, I need to know what the picture is. Instead of reading about 29 year olds who feel like they’ll be tired old biddies in five years going through menopause early because their careers were more successful than their relationships, I need to navigate the basic necessities for self-sustenance and—hopefully—become better at having my bases covered on a foundational level before thinking about another person/persons.

Today I wrote a 10-year plan with the big things that I know to expect (though not everyone needs to do this), minus the variables I can’t predict or decide on at this moment. Right now I’m in a position where thinking 10 years ahead is becoming a reality, and part of my professional and personal life. But if you don’t feel ready to start thinking that far ahead, then don’t. Then you’re not ready. You’ll know when you are.

Written by Grace Littlefield.

More here:

http://wholebeastrag.org

INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION COMMANDER CHRIS HADFIELD INSPIRES...

Fri, 17 May 2013 13:01:15 -0400

INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION COMMANDER CHRIS HADFIELD INSPIRES MILLIONS TO KEEP WONDERING ABOUT OUTER SPACE

In a video that is doing an incredible job at making its internet rounds of late, Astronaut Chris Hadfield achieved what he set out to do by soaring into viral video stardom this week with his cover of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” from 1969. The former commander of the International Space Station (who handed over his position on Monday, after a six-month stint, to Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov) has long been an active proponent in the cause of human exploration of outer space.

The video comes at a time when mankind ponders its power over the universe, as we have successfully sent machines we’ve built to the surface of another planet in our solar system, and sent back images from that planet. Hadfield’s massive popularity online has got many people curious about outer space again, looking toward some of the more innovative ways we are thinking about moving through it. We are also contemplating what our capabilities and resources are in expanding our adventurous horizons of exploration, taking the most widely effective methods of communication, in the internet as well as documentary and reality television, and using them to finance human expansion…

Mars One is on the list of the most ambitious feats ever attempted, taking the power of reality television and harnessing it to send a group of individuals to colonize Mars. Straight out of a sci-fi novel, applicants to the program are submitting their “casting calls” online, and being voted into top positions of consideration. Those selected will receive training, and by 2023 will arrive on a prepped surface of the first ever alien planet to support human life, where they will live out the rest of their days. Mars One’s plan is to broadcast this to all of the world, financing the expensive project through the inevitable media frenzy that will come with the greatest scientific and social human accomplishment of all time.

Hadfield, along with others who have used the internet to share the wonders of the area outside of our atmosphere, has proven that reaching individuals through things like art, music, and social sharing can be the important next step in inspiring the conscious and formidable expansion of human evolution - an evolution that has above all valued exploration and progression.

PORTRAITS OF PEOPLE CRYING IN THE PRESENCE OF MARINA...

Thu, 16 May 2013 12:16:20 -0400

PORTRAITS OF PEOPLE CRYING IN THE PRESENCE OF MARINA ABRAMOVIC

Three years ago, famous Yugoslavian artist Marina Abramovic created one of the most popular performance pieces of all time when she sat in the New York Museum of Modern Art for 716 hours and 30 minutes, peering into the eyes, and some say the souls, of over 1,500 people. All sorts of content has poured forth from this artistic experiment for those unfortunate enough to miss out on its mystifying happening, like the video game based on the experience by popular art world-mocking game developer Pippin Barr.

Design Taxi recently reported on an intense photography book (that we somehow missed) that captures the essence of this piece quite well. Portraits in the Presence of Marina Abramovic documents the faces of those who cried looking into the artist’s intense gaze, and records the amount of time it took to reach this point, from 164 minutes all the way down to just two. Check out more here.

LA WEEKLY’S ARTOPIA OPENS TOMORROW IN CHINATOWN Here’s...

Wed, 15 May 2013 13:01:15 -0400

LA WEEKLY’S ARTOPIA OPENS TOMORROW IN CHINATOWN

Here’s what LA Weekly’s Artopia will NOT contain:

• Fancy schmancy people sipping bad wine and making awkward small talk in front of boring paintings

That’s what Standard Culture has to say about the upcoming festival of fun that LA Weekly’s Artopia promises to present. The event explored a few different venues in its search for a home when planning began many months back (Think Tank was even in the running, alongside places like the Brewery Art Colony), and its final resting place became Chinatown’s Central Plaza. Good thing, too, because the beautiful and spacious, historic part of the neighborhood will do a great job at housing the amazing list of art experiences attendees can expect to enjoy.

From a hand-painted bouncy castle by Alia Penner to a punk dance party DJ’d by Black Flag’s Keith Morris, and a “poppybombing” by land artist Christy Roberts to a “paper architecture” performance by Amy Fortunato, the event is shaping up to be one of the coolest ways to wrap up your spring before we head back into the heat of summer.

Get your $15 tickets here.

ADOBE ENTERS THE WORLD OF SUBSCRIPTION-BASED SERVICES While it...

Tue, 14 May 2013 12:37:51 -0400

ADOBE ENTERS THE WORLD OF SUBSCRIPTION-BASED SERVICES

While it makes sense for companies like Spotify and Netflix to offer their services for a monthly fee - they are, after all, providing a regularly renewing flow of originally-created entertainment content - the subscription model is something that might be hard to swallow for other services. Perhaps the largest victim since the dawn of the web of stolen services, Adobe is turning away from their one-time program purchase model and into one that will offer programs up for as little as $20/month. The world has moved into one of apps, and one where content is provided through cloud services and less dependent on physical copies and outright purchases. But what does this mean for those who work through Photoshop or Illustrator? Is it like a carpenter paying a monthly rate to use his hammer? Complex’s Michael Thomsen contemplates that question here.

ANIMATED 50-YEAR-OLD PHOTOGRAPHS Cari Vander Yacht has a pretty...

Mon, 13 May 2013 12:49:24 -0400

ANIMATED 50-YEAR-OLD PHOTOGRAPHS

Cari Vander Yacht has a pretty awesome website full of all sorts of art and animation. Her TGIMGIF (Thank God It’s Monday’s Graphics Interchange Format) series took around 50-year-old photographs and animated them for the purpose of a nice smile to start your week. Check out a few above and the rest of them here.

ARTIST TURNS GALLERY INTO THOUGHT-PROVOKING CAKE WALK Following...

Fri, 10 May 2013 12:58:00 -0400

ARTIST TURNS GALLERY INTO THOUGHT-PROVOKING CAKE WALK

Following a series of tragedies that have seen gun control become a major topic in American conversation, installation artist and mixed-media sculptor Scott Hove takes a fresh perspective on the discussion with his new exhibit, Guns and Ecstasy, which runs until May 25th at Spoke Art in San Francisco. The work is as much about the inherent danger in attractive things as it is a way to provoke alternative thought on a now-overbearing conversation - artificial frosting with fake oranges, cherries, and strawberries crowding the halls. The fact that beautiful things are equipped with defense mechanisms, and the relationship that creates with predators was a major driving factor for Hove, who also had this to say:

“Why then, to use an absurd media like fake cake to describe such a story? We all love cake and what it signifies. Celebration. Important occasion. Indulgence. Reward. It is fortunate for myself and my sculptures that our minds are highly suggestive, and that we are willing to tolerate the idea of something artificial to represent what we desire. The representation itself becomes that which is most desirable. These sculptures celebrate the beauty, rapaciousness and absurdity we all participate in.”

More here.

NATIVE AMERICAN INFLUENCE ON THE NEW YORK SCHOOL In a new...

Thu, 09 May 2013 12:09:19 -0400

NATIVE AMERICAN INFLUENCE ON THE NEW YORK SCHOOL

In a new exhibit that attempts to begin measuring the importance of Native American art in the spectrum of the biggest American contribution to the institutional art world, Everything Old is New Again: Native Americans and the New York School explores an often overlooked aspect of the AbEx movement. While artists like Jackson Pollack made strong connections to Native art throughout their careers, and while Rauschenberg may have proudly proclaimed his 1/4 Cherokee heritage, there was still a great absence of recognition for the oldest art in North America when the New York School made its takeover.

Everything Old is New Again observes this absence, avoiding the usual trap of chalking Native art up to primitive inspiration. Visit the show before June 2nd and check out more details here.

AMAZING PHOTO SERIES OF HITCHHIKING, RUNAWAY TEENS This is one...

Wed, 08 May 2013 11:38:00 -0400

AMAZING PHOTO SERIES OF HITCHHIKING, RUNAWAY TEENS

This is one of the most compelling street photo series’ you’ve ever seen. That much can be pretty much guaranteed. A huge collection of legal and not-so-legal images captured by Mike Brodie has been put together into a book of the series, after he ran away with his teenage friends and found a discarded Polaroid stuck behind the seat of a car. Once he picked it up, he knew that he had to document the adventurous hitchhiking that would take him across the country and back, through 46 states and over 50,000 miles.

We’ve rarely seen photographs with such character and soul. There’s a rawness to Brodie’s work, a reflection one would think on the ramshackle nature of his environment. The images below were shot using 35mm film, providing a rich tapestry to his exhilarating and unique journeys.

You can see more from Mike’s compelling collection via his website or better yet purchase his book A Period of Juvenile Prosperity which contains the entire series.

MOCA ARCHITECTURE SHOW COULD BE CANCELED, GEHRY COULD WALK While...

Tue, 07 May 2013 13:01:11 -0400

MOCA ARCHITECTURE SHOW COULD BE CANCELED, GEHRY COULD WALK

While other museums contemplate an LA that never was, and in much cheaper fashion, the Museum of Contemporary Art continues its financial troubles, getting assistance from yet another art institution and exhausting the funds without following through on purpose for its show that focuses on the last 25 years of Los Angeles architecture. There is a chance the show will still happen, but it seems as though it will at least have to be pushed from its promised June 2nd opening night. There are also talks that the show may be moving from the MOCA Geffen location to the Ace Museum on La Brea.

Worse yet, star player in the show Frank Gehry has had some harsh words to contribute about his experience in the planning of the exhibit.

“I didn’t feel comfortable in it,” Gehry said. “It didn’t seem to be a scholarly, well-organized show.”

He added, “I’m subject to misunderstanding about the seriousness of my work. People assume I am just crumpling paper, and so forth. This was feeling a bit that way, a trivialization.”

Check out the full story from the LA Times.

WBR | SHAM(E)LESS SELF-PROMOTION AND EXPRESSION Whole Beast...

Mon, 06 May 2013 13:01:24 -0400

WBR | SHAM(E)LESS SELF-PROMOTION AND EXPRESSION

Have you ever tried to throw an event for 300+ people in a major metropolitan area after living in said area for only like five months or so while simultaneously trying to figure out CADD, SketchUp and InDesign minutiae at a new job (as a writer at a design firm) and are struggling to find a place to live with a cat sans energy for bourgeois party animals at an AirBandB?

I am in the midst of that shit show right now.

It’s hard to find the time to think holistically about and trust people involved with something so personal to you when your world is suspended and also somehow heavier than you can bear. Event planning, especially for something like my magazine’s upcoming Heart of Darkness: Ball of Shadows event on June 1, is never quite the gravy train you expect it to be. As Kat, my co-editor, and I have repeatedly encountered in conversation recently, the solstice is in full swing as we try to ride out this tumultuous month and make the event a success—creatively and otherwise.

But who knew that ticket sales would be stagnant until one week before the show? Who knew that bar permits were about as much as the fine for public drunkenness in California? Who knew that two living situations would be ripped from beneath us after we gave notice to leave a preferable (though a bit cramped) living situation? I’m grateful to have a job and also be doing things with Whole Beast Rag, but where do I focus my energy when basic needs are unstable?

The past few weeks have been rough (the past eight days, in particular). And there is only one way for me to feel halfway decent—I talk to people I encounter about what I’m going through as frankly as possible (usually with Kat, because when are we ever apart). Then I laugh. Really hard.

There are great things happening, too, and for Christ’s fucking sake I know that. And I know that “things are never as bad as they seem” and that “we’ll figure it out.” I’m not an invalid or otherwise unaware of these things, but that’s not what I want to hear when lay some real talk on someone—I just want reassurance that this is all part of a larger struggle for balance (which sounds like an oxymoron, but that’s just life smacking you in the face and growling).

Just listen to me, and let’s level with each other.

///

Heart of Darkness Ball of Shadows

Time: 7 p.m.-2 a.m.

Date: June 1, 2013

Location: Think Tank Gallery

Contact: Me (Grace Littlefield)

On Facebook

Tickets

INTERVIEW WITH PSYCHO DE MAYO CREATOR EVAN HAGEN OC Weekly...

Thu, 02 May 2013 11:54:41 -0400

INTERVIEW WITH PSYCHO DE MAYO CREATOR EVAN HAGEN

OC Weekly recently sat down with resident Think Tank artist, Thief Presents founder, all-around trippy dude and first-time festival creator Evan Hagen to discuss his venture from overwhelmingly successful concert series into the world of festivals. The creator brings together some of the most respected performers in psych-rock - a ton of them his own personal friends - this weekend on May 5th in a four-stage festival that promises to fill fans with an inclusive feeling with any one of the large number of bands included.

…Hagen’s eyes were opened to the far-reaching power wielded by the psychedelic scene. “When [Dead Meadow] walked onstage, Jason [Simon] just rolled out this solo. He was frying—he did an eighth of mushrooms before he walked onstage—and there were 5,000 people there,” Hagen says. “It took my breath away.”

Check out the article here and get your tickets here.

NOSEGO FEATURED IN HUFFINGTON POST We have known Yis Goodwin,...

Wed, 01 May 2013 20:14:41 -0400

NOSEGO FEATURED IN HUFFINGTON POST

We have known Yis Goodwin, also known as NoseGo, since our show Dude, Monsters! took place way back last summer. The artist has been killing it ever since, and we are extremely excited to check out his show this weekend at Thinkspace Gallery in Culver City, where he is showing with a few other artists of equal talent. The street artist recently featured in the Huffington Post to speak on the totemic qualities of his work and what got him into the style in the first place. Check it out here.

WBR - SUFFERING FOR LIGHT AND OTHER OBSERVATIONS Whole Beast...

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 14:28:00 -0400

WBR - SUFFERING FOR LIGHT AND OTHER OBSERVATIONS

Whole Beast Rag, whose two founders are resident artists at the Think Tank, host Mondays on the Think Tank blog. Their audience flirts with fringe, and you can find a link to their editorial at the bottom.

The irony of riding the bus with a VIP pass for an international photography exhibition is not lost on me. As a broke artist and first-time attendee of Paris Photo, the fact that I was there at all was enough to celebrate. But thanks to the generosity of Eric Kim, street photographer and friend of the gallery, Whole Beast Rag was given the chance to get inside the guts of this event and see what’s up.

To say it was a surreal event skims over the actual meat of the subject. Sure, the giant wall of sky in front of more sky was like standing in front of the world’s largest Magritte painting, and the New York set made for an interesting juxtaposition given the choice of location. However, it can be hard for the casual observer to navigate events of this scale. The first question for me is usually: where do I begin? Some pros come prepared with a schedule of things to see. I, on the other hand, drifted around, entirely alone, listening to conversations and waiting for that moment when I realize why I’ve come.

It wasn’t until after I stood in front of Alex Webb’s incredible photos that something inside me moved—or rather, coalesced. Sure, I stood in front of Gregory Crewdson’s gorgeous 6 ft photo of a boy alone at the edge of a lake, and I finally had the chance to see John Divola’swork on a wall and not my tumblr dashboard. I stalked Alec Soth until I grew dehydrated (I’m a fanboi okay), and then finally wandered into one of the fake New York’s storefronts, where on the wall in front of me several men were being frisked in a field of sunflowers. It was one of those images that stop you completely. Even with hundreds of attendees, I was the only audience for several minutes as I took in his photos, surrounded by classical music the gallery was playing. Everything slowed.

Alex Webb is by no means a new photographer to the field, but he was new to me, and his photos spoke deeply about things that aren’t easy. A photojournalist who blurs the lines between documentary and fine art and arrives at a space in between, his work is not easy to categorize. The title of his book, The Suffering of Light, seems to capture it best, for as Alex noted in an interview: color comes from tension. The friction between light and dark is tangible in Mr. Webb’s images and while many photos document lands I’ve never visited, he captures a human resonance I understand. On the surface, these photos do the opposite of most flat images: they release you into the moment happening. This isn’t about detached witness—and there is a difference. Mr. Webb makes no attempt to shield us from the grit of life here and in this I found relief.

This past week I’ve struggled to overcome a series of obstacles and when I arrived at Paris Photo I was feeling a bit raw for public consumption. Standing next to photos of people in far more desolate places, I tried to place my issues within a larger context. Those men in the field in between two lives—is this art to them? The woman we witness just moments after her husband’s murder in a bar—is this beautiful? It feels to me like something more. Maybe there’s not even a word for it yet—what we feel when the small and large collide inside us. The architect Le Corbusier said that we need both “light and shade to see form” and I agree, for it is only when we have the interplay that an entity—or image—emerges.

What I remembered leaving Paris Photo: art is not an antidote to reality. It doesn’t erase the space around us. It will not protect you from what happens in the world. In the end, art is not enough. But I say this with the conviction that it still holds a power over our response—we are shaped by shadow and light both. When a struggle surfaces, we must listen. As Mr. Webb eloquently demonstrates, tension points the course toward color.

Photo by Nicholas Cope

Writing by Katharine Hargreaves

More here:

www.wholebeastrag.org

www.puppetmouthe.tumblr.com

GRAFFITI ARTISTS TURN TO TATTOO ART Graffiti and tattoos are...

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 13:01:18 -0400

GRAFFITI ARTISTS TURN TO TATTOO ART

Graffiti and tattoos are naturally two sides of the same coin. On the one hand, graff is the most temporal of all art forms, with each piece pretty much guaranteed to not exist at all sometime in the near future. Tattoos outlast even their wearer. But both are lowbrow art forms that have recently gained popular acceptance, and thus tattooing has become an easy transition for some of the biggest names in graff. It’s difficult to make a living on graffiti, and while tattooing is competitive enough to ensure it’s no cakewalk, an artist with a name that precedes him, even if it is four capital letters, might have a good chance to break into the tattoo industry by carrying his fans along with him.

In Skin Graf: Masters of Graffiti Tattoo, being published by Prestel on April 25, one of these graffiti writers, Michael “Kaves” McLeer, and producer/director Billy Burke compiled the work and stories of some of these graffiti-to-tattoo artists. This Wednesday, Kaves is giving a talk at the New York Public Library with Burke on this crossover culture.

Check out more here.

KENNY SCHARF ON HIS RECENT ARREST FOR TAGGING World-renowned...

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 13:01:10 -0400

KENNY SCHARF ON HIS RECENT ARREST FOR TAGGING

World-renowned graffiti artist Kenny Scharf was recently let out of jail after serving 20 hours in Brooklyn booking, with “vomit and shit everywhere.” This was the artist’s second arrest for tagging, though this time around he wasn’t treated quite so harshly. Hyperallergic interviewed him about the incident and his views on graffiti’s illegality:

“The weird thing about things done in the street is that it is an outlet for things to get out and there are no sanctioned ways for most people to express themselves, and this is what people need for self-expression. It’s going to happen no matter what, people will never be able to keep from being controlled,” he says. “Graffiti is a big expression of not being controlled. And we’re not puppets like the government wants us to be … I think they should let it happen, and if an owner of a wall on a building or gate don’t like it, they can paint it or give it a protective coating which let’s them rub it off later. Writers will know they can’t do that again without being erased. The artists don’t want to put effort into something that will get cleaned off … [The cops] should concentrate on real crimes. It’s all the walls that no one cares about that are getting tagged up. I felt like I was improving the way it looked,” he says.

More here.