VERT SUMMER TOUR....FROM THE ART SIDE

Ok so I started my summer tour in New York and I went to the Brooklyn Museum as you suggested. I have to say that I was quite disappointed in the exhibits that they had open and also with the museum as a whole. I really thought that there was a permanent Basquiat display there! I don't know why i thought that, maybe its because there was one 3 years ago, that was temporary, that i had read about, but i really thought it was always there! booooooo......I literally skipped over everything in there on a frantic rant to find Jean Micheal non existent...... later a guard there told me that ALL of basquiats collection was in storage! argh!!!!

After my nerves settled and i came back to reality and realized that TRUELY there was NO Basquiat in the whole building, i calmly walked through the huge building and discovered that there was actually a lot of really nice stuff to look at!

Judy Chicago's place setting was amazing! I'm really glad we covered that in class, otherwise i might not have appreciated it as much as i did. The fact that the Brooklyn Museum has a permanent triangular room with special lighting just for that was really something. (especially knowing that Chicago didn't want to sell it unless it was permanently displayed.) The individual place settings look a lot more interesting in person than in the text for sure. And they do look like vaginas....Everyone of them! haha. I felt like an art history expert in that room when i was explaining it to my wife. People were asking me questions that i actually knew the answers to.....weird.




There were a few paintings on the European paintings floor that took me by surprise, a Mattise, and a couple Goya's. The Goya's were SO huge and H. Mattise's stuff was SO small......surprising, again never would've known from the text.


The artist that really captured my attention in the BK museum though, was Herman Bas. A perverted miami native, whose art was primarily painted in the 1970's. He was fascinated with masturbation and orgies and weird uncomfortable sex. At first, i couldn't understand a thing he was trying to convey, and wrote him off as another troubled sexually confused artist with no way of expressing his closeted sexuality except to paint little boys whacking off. But then i realized that one of the boys looked like Harry Potter, and another reminded me of a seen from Moby Dick. Then I found a bit of literature on the wall that explained that Mr. Bas loved to poke fun at 19th and 20th century literature and novels. Such as Moby Dick, the Hobbit, 2000 Leagues Under the Sea and so on. It made a lot more sense. Herman Bas, was a perverted comedian. I may not have unlocked the whole story as to what his art is or represents but I felt like I was a step closer. As apposed to when I walked in the room and first saw a projector of a man hugging himself in the corner, while in the other corner sat a table fully decorated with gold and sea shells......





(I've attached a few of my fav pics from The Brooklyn Museum)

After NYC we traveled to Seattle and Tacoma Washington for a couple days. Seattle was Really rushed and we were in the studio for most of the trip but I did manage to sneak away to check out some of the art at a locals only gallery and shop called Frank and Dunya (spelling not sure). They are located on Fremont Ave., conveniently close to the studio. But the interesting part about the art at this small gallery, was that it was all functioning art. There was clocks, and chairs, shelves and coffee tables,as well as jewelry and clothing, all uniquely decorated in a new colorful way. There was this one clock that stood as high as a grandfather clock, but was constructed out of sticks and thin ply wood, made to look like a character, and a house at the same time. Really colorful and really cool....too bad it cost nearly 700 bucks.


(there was no pictures allowed, but luckily I found the same clock online as a jpeg...see attached)


With Seattle behind us we took a nice long break back in Chicago and geared up for Europe.


Our first stop in Europe was Berlin. Overwhelmed and jet lag I waited a few days to dive into the art of the city! THERE WAS SOOOOO MUCH TO CHOOSE FROM!!!!!!


I kept seeing huge posters for the Dali museum, and i had just seen a movie about Dali, so I thought it would be the most interesting thing to see. Man was it EVER!!!




Inside the Dali museum there was over 400 pieces from his private journals and sketch books, and a ton of watercolors and huge paintings. I was sooo impressed. I immediately started taking pictures, no sooner than i did, i heard a security guard yelling at someone else threatening to take there camera away. So my mission to document this place became super stealth! but i had to do it!

my favorite out of all the sketches, silkscreens and watercolors was a series that he did that was more geographical than anything. Im not sure the name of the series, but each piece represented a different city. You could clearly see the personal relationship that Dali Had with each city, and the colors and images that he chose also gave the feel of the cities, to where you didn't even need to know the title of the piece, because it named itself. Paris, Moscow, the Alps, Barcelona, and others. The only similarity to each painting was that they all contained some form of butterfly, a subject that seemed to be very consistent in Dali's less gruesome or sexual pieces.

HERE IS THE ALPS:



The other topics that Dali tackled, were not so easy on the eyes, beastiality, homosexuality, perversion, murder, satal masochism, or a combination of all of they above.
There were a few screenings of his short films as well, which also dealt with the above insane subjects, but there was not a lot of information or tutorials about the artist. I was overwhelmed with the amount of quality pieces that were in the fair sized gallery, but disappointed that I really didn't learn more about the artists background or his own history.
definitely worth seeing though, and cheap too, only 9 euros, bout 11 bucks!






(attached are a couple of my fav Salvador Dali pieces that I managed to capture on the spy cam! haha)


After Berlin we went to Austria for a week. Vienna, Linz, and Innsbruck. We were honestly pooped from all the shows and didn't really get a chance to see any of the galleries or any of the cities at all during that part of the trip. We shot a video in Innsbruck at a castle called Rattenberg. which was created for a group of very poor and common people who needed protection from the wealthy and vulgarly rich who threatened them daily. Rattenberg, actually translates to Rats Mountain and the people who lived in the castle almost 500 years ago, where treated as such. Interesting though that the common and poor also had castles.

sorry no pics! VERTUAL VERTIGO "WOWZERZ" video coming soon!!! yaaaaaaaaay!

In Linz We did a show in-front of the Lentos Kuntzmuesum, which is the most beautiful building at night. Although the museum was closed the actual building itself is the main attraction for tourists. Its actually a series of 3 buildings that are all attached underground and across a river. One is a L shaped building with a huge stair case that goes up to nothing, directly across from it is a large glass building that stands straight up, and the final building is across the river and looks like an upside down u bolt. I found out all this information at night when all three buildings lit up at once and i asked a local what it was. Apparently the LENTOS is museum for modern art as well as the house for one of the biggest modern art competitions and exhibits in Europe. The first contest was held to design the building and the architect who won the contest was the won who designed the LENTOS. Very cool! a must see at night!!
Coincidentally, i had NO knowledge of this place prior and had NO idea that the venue that we were preforming at was anywhere near it, but it was a very nice surprise!






(attached are a few shots of the Lentos in LINZ and a pic before dark....and before we knew what it was, of us with a local snow monster)



MORE TO COME!!!! IM HEADING TO DENVER THIS WEEKEND FOR SOUTH PARK MUSIC FEST.....AND THEN TX FOR JULY 4TH......BOSTON AND NEW HAMPSHIRE ALONG WITH NIAGRA FALLS AND CAPE COD!!!! LOTS MORE ART THIS SUMMER!!!!!

BANSKY vs KATRINA New Orleans

Banksy is an emerging graffiti and cartoon artist from London England, has been on my top artist list for the last 5 or 6 years.
I had the pleasure of seeing some of his street art in Amsterdam and London early on in the century.

This piece in-particular is one of my newest favorites though. On a recent trip to the demolished city of New Orleans, Banksy, who is known for exploiting government policies and tyrants, left no stones unturned in ghost land of the once beautiful town.

"Marching Band" in acrylic spray paint done first in stencil on huge sheets of cardboard, stands about 6 1/2 feet in height and is located on an unknown street in the lower 9th ward, in New Orleans Louisiana.

It symbolizes so well the culture of New Orleans and that the music of the City will forever be present in the city. It also depicts that the backbone of N.O will never be broken by the government of natural disaster.

Banksy's art has gone on to influence many in the world and has created a series of chain reactions and similar styles of both graffiti and prints world wide.

Here are a couple more of his pieces from his trip to N.O.















More Banksy:

My favorite thing about this artist, is that he never seeks huge amounts of money for his art. He has never stopped painting illegal walls and his messages are always very clear and very clever.

shipment
The two of them together managed, in record time, to replace the LP with Dangers new Version of Complete remixes of the Paris Album, and revamp the artwork on the cover only slightly, to create a completely different LP. The CD's were then re-shrink wrapped and placed back in the hands of the distributors as if nothing happened.

The pure genius of this scandal, was that the record company that released the LP, also had ties to Danger Mouse's Music, in that if the company sued Danger and Bansky, they in turn would be suing themselves!!!

BRILLIANT!!!!!

When the CD's hit the shelf, a huge uproar was created, Paris was outraged and the papers were calling Bansky a "Guerilla Graffiti Artist" and "menace!"

Here is the Two different covers!

BEFORE





AFTER









FOR MORE BANSKY VISIT

WWW.BANSKY.CO.UK

THE CHICAGO BEAN.

After all the controversy and hype about the chicago "Bean" in the last years, I decided that I would actually get out of the car this time and check it out.

By "controversy" I mean that, when the "bean" was being erected some complained about the amount of money it cost to build the sculpture and many believed that there was a much better way the city of chicago could've spent the millions of dollars.

However, after visiting the "bean" and reading a few articles about the piece, I came to appreciate it a lot more, as do the hundreds of tourists and chicago natives that visit it each day.

The actual name of the piece is the "Cloud Gate" and it was constructed by British Artist Anish Kapoor in 2007.

The cloud gate is a monstrous, seamless, stainless steal "kidney bean" shaped object that sits right in the center of Chicago's new Millennium park. The gate part of it stretches 12 feet high and allows observers to walk underneath the mirror like object and see themselves joined with the beautiful skyline of chicago. (millienumpark.org)

Kapoor's idea for Cloud gate has been said to come from looking at and playing with liquid mercury. You can fully see the resemblance on a clear day when you can see all of yourself, the sky and the skyline reflected back at you.

Unfortunately when i arrived at the bean it was dark out, so the pictures I captured of me and my daughter playing with our reflections didn't turn out too well. The most impressive thing that stood out to me though, was that the entire sculpture does not have one cut, rivet, or seam visible on the entire thing. It literally looks like a drop of liquid mercury and reflections are distorted from side to side depending on your placement around it and perspective.

the 475 million dollar millennium park, is well worth both the money and the visit. Besides the cloud gate "bean" there is a lot more for both enthusiasts and families to check out!

Dead or Alive South African Graf

Since the graffiti of graffiti in New York City in the mid 1970's, many have come and attempted to bring the same elements to the original art form. Thousands of "writers" have splattered trains, buildings and have gone above and beyond to prove their credibility as an artist in the streets of both their home city and to the world.

But today as the police are getting smarter and the punishments for graf writers harsher, the ability to paint relies mostly on swiftness and location.

One of the major up and coming Hip Hop scenes that has been quietly brewing for over a decade has finally unleashed in full force and has also brought out some of the most beautiful pieces of graffiti in our time. That scene is Johannesburg South Africa.

Taking back to the original roots of speaking with not only beauty and amazement of talent, but also message and education for all those who are privileged to look.

Germany and Most of Western europe have been blessing the art wold with hundreds of beautiful pieces and collages on trains for quite some time now, and of coarse the US and Canada have been the founding contributors, but the struggle of South Africa rings in a different style and purpose.





In the piece above I wanted you to focus primaraly on the words "What Happened to Hip Hop?". The reason this speaks so much to me, not only as an active member of the hip hop community in chicago and music fan, is because it has been sent to america from across the world as a bomb to those who have stolen and raped our culture.

The pictures of the characters that the artists are making fun of are typical american "thug", "gangster" stereotypes of hip hoppers or rappers.

It shows me that, not only are our politics effecting the world view of america, but so is our music and entertainment.

Obviously right?




Well I may have know that to some degree, but then looking at this piece, I realized, how much the culture of america matters to others that are so far away.

Another ref, to further prove that point is the Quote from old school emcee "Flava Flav", who ironically is the star of an MTV reality show exploiting his celeb status, which reads:

"I wore a clock so you would know the time!"


Also little things inside the piece conclude the same thoughts; the "FAPE" gorilla logo making fun of "BAPE" footwear, a very new hip hop must have for the mainstream. The MTV belt buckle and watch breaking apart on the two characters either side of the magic mirror portrait of what looks to be TI wearing lipstick. THe FONG KONG belt buckle maybe indicating globalization as well as fake people, and the "SHEEP GEAR" which several other characters are wearing, unveiling the followers of the fashion side of our culture.





The letters from each artist are insanely beautiful and very well executed.
I cant make out the second one, but the "ANGEL" letters on the right are also very reminiscent of early wild style graffiti and blends.

Over all I wish graffiti was still around like this in Chicago. I also have no idea if this is a "permission wall" or if it was done illegally. One can only assume that the writers in South Africa have been practicing allot and I believe the noise heard from there will soon be heard around the globe.

Very 1988 B. boy esq. The crew of painters who painted this piece are named:

Toe 007
RASTY
HACONE
and ANGEL

this is the first piece that i have seen from them and I am anxious to see more!


HERE IS A LINK TO DOWNLOAD THE WHOLE PICTURE FOR YOURSELF TO GET A BETTER LOOK!!!

http://www.sendspace.com/file/qlwrlg