After enjoying lunch outside of the Graffiti Hall of Fame in the Harlem sun, a crossing guard attempted to aid me in locating the subway, at which point a very kind local said 'I'm heading that way, come with me'. We shared some pleasantries about Canada, and the area of Harlem he had lived all his life, and ended our jaunt with a hearty handshake at the stairway to the subway where we parted ways. Into the tubes and back to revisit some of the Chelsea gallery district and some major misses on my first tour there. I started at Tagialatella Galleries which housed on the main floor a solo exhibition by stencil artist Logan Hicks. I've been an Instagram follower of his for quite sometime and to see these intricate works in real time was beyond stunning. Unfortunately I had just missed the opening the previous Thursday, which, from the looks of his Insta-posts was jam packed with movie stars and the upper echelon of New York socialites. He also just acquired and painted the much sought after public mural location at the Bowery which I will have to make it out to in the coming days. The mural there took over 1050 stencils to render.
Upstairs was equally overwhelming as I experienced many 'firsts in real time', Basquiat's, Banksy's and Mr. Brainwash's. Surrounded by Space Invader, Keith Herring, and Jeff Koons, my mind was racing and I was full of trigger happy glee with my I-phone.
It was great to see many of these works, however, the Basquiat's were prints, as were the Space Invaders, but, at least I was lucky enough to catch a Space Invader original which is part of the Bushwich Collective outdoor Street Art initiative. Not so lucky with Basquiat though, his solo show at The Brant Foundation was sold out before I had even arrived in NYC.
From here I scooted next door to Jim Kemper Fine Art, where I ran into some riveting Robert Rauschenberg's and Rosenquist's, and their artist roster was filled with reams of represented contemporary and modern masters.
A few doors up I found some more 'firsts in real time' at Chase Contemporary where I saw some Shepard Fairy's and Retina's dispersed around a wonderful new figurative find, Ole Aakjær and his layered watercolour drawings.
"His huge success is like a new pop song that catches on, but Aakjær does it again and again. He has had 35 exhibitions in a row since his début less than four years ago, and almost all of them have been sold out...but now Aakjær has put a ceiling on the price of his works to avoid that the commercial success gets out of hand. Market forces are not allowed to rule unchecked. Ole Aakjær loves his audience and wants to avoid a situation in which only extremely wealthy people can afford to own an original work. The works should not be stored in safety boxes or be viewed as investment objects. They should be out in the world where they can make a difference – they must shine in real life." (http://www.oleaakjaer.dk/about). Though his sentiment seems authentic and comes across humbling, its tough to negotiate this 'situation in which only the extremely wealthy can afford to own an original work' with price tags of upwards of $18,000 for these large drawings.
Nonetheless, these works resonated with me, the bright punchy palette, organic wash backgrounds, and these layered and almost interconnected figures raised a line of questioning regarding the direction of my own figurative art practice.
As I zig-zagged once again through Chelsea I kept falling upon these quick and loose sidewalk line drawings. They appeared to be done in tar, what an appropriate medium to endure the day to day rigours of being constantly tread upon as a concrete canvas, this artist Paul Richard chose.
Upon some further research I found that this Brooklyn based artists has a very established studio career, and he sneaks out to the streets for these lovely line interventions onto the New York sidewalk spaces. These works immediacy and flowing lines spark a direct conversation with me. I find much more humility and authenticity to Richard's studio/street art practice than can be located in the sentiments of Aakjær's inaccessible accessibility remarks. Richard's has an interesting air about him, as I scrolled through his image bank on his website http://www.paulrichard.net/paintings it appears as though he is quite partial to a suit and tie with a close shave and suitable cap; you'll find him posed partially cropped by his paintings in his images where he posses as a stand in model for his own works. What's more interesting as these painting don't strike me as self-portraits, and he is rather a 'stand in' or model to base his compositions upon.
My last and final stop of the day was at 300 West Broadway @ the Scrap Yard. From 3332 @ the Martinez gallery earlier that day, one M4 bus to subway, and seven different train transfers later landed me at the Mecca of one stop graffiti shops. I indulged myself here, what better way to end a day of graffiti and street art gallery hopping?
Here I found a roll of Hello My Name Is stickers, which I am rapidly running low on and a whack of cap styles I'd never seen or heard of. Most notably an adapter cap for Krylon spray paint, this was the brand of paint to use back in the day, and in the mid 1990's this company rigged their cans so that graffiti artist's could use their interchangeable specialty caps with them anymore. I believe this was an attempt to distance themselves from the 'bad press' association with graffiti writing. Well, jokes on them I suppose, not only did this spur a slew of independent graffiti specific aerosol paint lines, but it also helped advance the technological research and invention of painting implements which only further specialized and tweaked the practice and process of painting with aerosol. I also picked up numerous variations of male and female adaptation spray caps, so I'm no longer hindered by certain brands attempts to limit the use of their aerosol with incongruent adaptors. And possibly to most innovative acquisition was a mixing tip. This allows me to create my own colour palette! Stick your lighter colour to be mixed in the freezer for an hour and press down on both caps simultaneously, and BAM my own colour wheel creations!
And so concludes Broadway, Uptown to Downtown. I met with colleague Elinor King for a bite to eat and some catch up. We attended NSCAD together almost 20 years ago, and she is now a professor at Purchase College and practicing artist with a studio in Bushwick. Stay tuned to check out my visit to Purchase and a studio visit with the most wonderful Darla Kitty @darlakitty (AKA Elinor King). Be well all!
Comments