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Art Mike Ming and The Barnstormers Collective

October 3, 2011 - 12:15 pm

Among the work on display in Mike Ming’s aptly titled solo exhibition, “All Over the Road” — at Nepenthes, a high-end clothing boutique in Manhattan — are three mammoth-sized paintings with abstract brushwork, a few smaller paintings with tousled and intricate lines, a couple of surfboards, a carved-out skateboard and two motorcycle helmets with enamel pin stripes.

“I don’t have that signature, ‘Oh, that’s a Mike Ming work,’” the artist said at his Brooklyn studio one recent afternoon. “I think it just runs the whole gamut. The stuff I’m showing is all over the place.”

The same could be said for his influences, which seem to flow effortlessly from his many pursuits, including surfing, skating and motorcycles. For one painting in progress, it’s been dolphins. Ming saw a few off the coast of Queens (or the closest thing Queens has to a coast).

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Art JR’s Inside Out Project in the South Bronx

by Richard S. Chang

September 15, 2011 - 8:48 am

Before it shut down last March, Bridges Juvenile Center in the Bronx was described by some, generously, as Dickensian. With dark cells, abusive guards and deficient rehab programs, the juvenile center had a reputation for turning its residents into hardened criminals.

But today, the white-brick building conjures a cheerier mood. Thanks to a local community group and the Inside Out project, created by the French artist JR in March, the center’s outer wall is covered with black-and-white portraits of those who live in the neighborhood.

“After we did that, we received emails from organizations thanking us,” said Paul Ramirez, co-founder of Mainland Media, an organization dedicated to enhancing the overall image of the Bronx.

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Art Artist Dalek: Pushing Boundaries

by Richard S. Chang

June 27, 2011 - 10:29 am

For his new exhibition at the University of Alabama, the artist Dalek (born James Marshall) works with only the color blue, manipulating various shades in a precise geometry to create dimension. The new work is a departure from what he is known for — painting with a bright and varied palette, most recently in abstract patterns that were simultaneously chaotic and ordered.

“That show was a definite departure, but it was fun to play with an entirely new direction,” he said of the exhibition in Alabama. “I think these sorts of things feel like a natural transition for me, or an expansion really. I don’t think it replaces anything, just sort of adds to the foundation.”

Soon, Dalek heads off to Oklahoma City to undertake another installation and, no doubt, reveal more surprises. Recently, I spoke with him to find out more about the new show and his no-fear attitude.

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Art You Gotta Break Some Eggs… The Art of Scott Campbell

by Richard S. Chang

June 10, 2011 - 8:34 am

Last October, Scott Campbell, the Brooklyn-based tattoo artist-turned-fine artist, arrived in Mexico for the opening of his solo show to find a vodka company’s logo plastered all over the gallery; he had agreed to only a small logo.

“Essentially, I had some issues,” he told Interview, “and when I confronted [the show’s organizer] with these issues in what I felt was a productive way, he came back with a personal attack.”

Campbell said he tried to rectify the situation, but when he realized they were at an impasse, he decided, “No one makes any money.” He lit a gasoline-fueled fire outside of the gallery and proceeded to throw all of his work — which sold out on opening night — into it.

It was a defining moment in his nascent career. But it came and went faster than the gallery in Mexico could extinguish the flames (and then sell the pieces for top dollar as “artist-intervened” works).

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Comic Books Comics To Hide From Your Parents: R. Crumb

by Richard S. Chang

May 19, 2011 - 10:52 am

There was a long line outside the door of the Society of Illustrators in the Upper East Side of Manhattan that stretched to the corner subway station.

The attraction was a retrospective for Robert Crumb, the gangly pioneer of the underground comix movement. Crumb produced his first comic book, Zap #1, in 1968, selling them on the streets of San Francisco; later books were sold at head shops.

Crumb drew and wrote about the hippie lifestyle, chasing women and sex, and marketed his comic books for “intellectual adults.” They were an instant hit.

Also known for living on his own terms, Crumb, who once turned down an offer to illustrate an album cover for the Rolling Stones because he hated the band, now lives in the south of France with his second wife, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, with whom he is working on a new book.

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Art All Hands On Decks: The Skateboard Art of Haroshi

by Richard S. Chang

May 6, 2011 - 10:53 am

A few years ago, Tokyo-based artist Haroshi, a passionate skater since his early teens, was faced with a common conundrum among his ilk: a growing collection of broken skate decks.

“Purchasing new decks is a never-ending cycle and this was evident by the tower of old decks that were reaching to the ceiling of my room,” he says on his website. “We can’t throw away these decks because they hold sentimental meanings to us. I looked at these unusable decks every day and thought there must be something I can make with these.”

Eight years ago, Haroshi started making sculptures out of the discarded decks — a skull, his limbs, a life-size moose head, a bear, Mario from Donkey Kong — with jaw-dropping results. Now some of his most spectacular works are on display in a solo exhibition at the Jonathan Levine Gallery in New York.

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Art Stephen Powers: “A Love Letter for You”

by Richard S. Chang

April 21, 2011 - 10:41 am

Stephen Powers, the legendary graffiti writer and artist, spent a year painting 50 murals on the walls of West Philadelphia. He solicited notes from the inhabitants and hired local muralists to help him paint the murals.

The effort, produced in conjunction with City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program and sponsored by the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, was documented in a book. And now it is a movie. But it’s not a documentary.
About Stephen Powers

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Art Art of Los Angeles: Patrick Martinez

by Richard S. Chang

April 15, 2011 - 5:52 am

Artist Patrick Martinez plants his flag in the Los Angeles that tourists don’t see, unless they take the Boyle Ave. exit by accident. Pawnshops, street vendors and people trying to make a dollar outta 14 cents inhabit Martinez’s colorful paintings and neon mixed media pieces. The palm trees and hills that LA is known for are always far away in the distance.

But Martinez, a graduate of the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, isn’t just an observer. He is a champion of his surroundings, humanizing the people on the street and their struggles, and a voice for their causes. He has employed foam hands, similar to those found in sports arenas but shaped as handguns, to distill the effects of a down economy and created hats for a fictitious Arizona Wetbacks baseball team to castigate the rhetoric of Arizona immigration laws.

Martinez recently opened an exhibition, “Hustlemania,” at Known Gallery in LA. It is an ambitious show. Its centerpiece is a beautifully executed sculpture made of bronze and colored resin. The subject is a thug holding two handguns, shooting streams of water that arc harmlessly into a pool at his feet. The softening of a hard archetype is a common theme in Martinez’s work, which the artist reveals in this interview to be as personal as it is political.

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Art/Design Touching the Brushstrokes with Google Art Project

by Richard S. Chang

February 9, 2011 - 10:52 am

Google unleashed its ambitious Art Project this week – a visual library of more than 1,000 images of art from 17 major museums from around the world. The paintings, sculptures and installations are rendered in such detail – around 7 billion pixels each – that you can zoom up to the brushstrokes of the individual strands of hair on Sandro Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

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Film Oscar Nomination for Banksy’s “Exit Through the Gift Shop”

by Richard S. Chang

February 3, 2011 - 10:35 am

We are firmly entrenched in awards season, though it could just as well be called Banksy season.

The famously incognito British artist is getting all sorts of accolades for his film “Exit Through the Gift Shop,” a documentary (or mock documentary, or neither) on a French filmmaker-turned-street artist, Thierry Guetta, aka Mr. Brainwash. The film is nominated for a BAFTA Award, and recently won the top prize at the Cinema Eye Awards.

And now it can add an Oscar nod.
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