News

Revok’s Detroit Project

Posted on by Mike

In 2011, Revok founded the Detroit Beautification Project, an ongoing project in which he and his peers create murals on abandoned properties throughout the city with the intention of helping to revitalizing the community.

Aside from murals, the Detroit project has also allowed the artist to source materials for his studio work, which he salvages from abandoned homes, schools, churches and businesses. The video below provides a sneak peek into the process of creating his vibrantly colored and richly textured mixed-media works.

 

Andy Kehoe videos on VINE

Posted on by Mike

In Luminous Reverie, a solo exhibition of new works by Andy Kehoe, the artist’s process of painting on (and submerging hand-sculpted objects into) multiple layers of resin makes the works particularly difficult to capture in still photographs. We highly recommend seeing the exhibition in person to fully experience the level of detail, depth and rich textures but for anyone unable to visit the gallery, we are pleased to share the following video clips created on Vine:

 

New Yorker Passport to the Arts

Posted on by Mike

Jonathan LeVine Gallery is pleased to participate in the 8th Annual Passport to the Arts in partnership with The New Yorker Magazine and Creative Time. The event will take place this Saturday, May 4th, 2013.

Passport to the Arts is a celebration of the New York art scene – participants will follow a self-guided gallery walk through premier art destinations in Chelsea and Soho, and enjoy surprise performances at The McKittrick Hotel (home of Sleep No More). Guest will be given a passport, which can be stamped with artist-created designs at each stop along the gallery tour. The day culminates in a wrap party featuring a special culinary experience curated by Immaculate Infatuation and a silent auction for which proceeds will benefit arts organization, Creative Time. One of the artworks in this year’s auction will be: I Invent Nothing (Rodin quote), a crocheted panel by Olek, courtesy of the artist and Jonathan LeVine Gallery.

Click HERE to purchase tickets and enter access code PASSPORT13 to receive a 20% discount.

SCHEDULE
11am—3pm: Sign-in and passport pickup at headquarters AFA 54 Greene Street
11am—6pm: Self-Guided Gallery Tour through locations in SoHo and Chelsea
6pm—8pm: Wrap Party at Hudson Studios (601 West 26th Street, 13th floor)

Further information on the event can be found HERE.

Aakash Nihalani at Signal

Posted on by Mike

Announcing ISLANDS, an exhibition of new site-specific installations by Aakash Nihalani at SIGNAL in Brooklyn.

Opening Reception: 
Friday, April 26th, 2013
7—10pm
 
SIGNAL
260 Johnson Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11206

Nihalani’s hand is recognizable across the wide variety of mediums his practice incorporates–bold, geometric shapes on a flattened visual plane, often employing techniques of contrast and forced perspective to convey virtual depth or movement. While his work can be digital or sculptural, his public interventions mostly require only tape and cardboard to create illusions that engage the viewer and surrounding architecture in a disorienting visual play. Two-dimensional objects may seem to recede distantly, be seen simultaneously from multiple points of view, or appear impossibly to be superimposed in space.

For ISLANDS, Nihalani foregoes a typically vibrant color scheme to create a series of site-specific works in high-contrast, monochromatic black and white. Along one wall, two distinct black masses resemble jigsaw fissures, submerged into the architecture. Elsewhere, a neatly lined procession of geometrical forms seem to emerge from the wall and diminish into the distance. The effects are illusory, activated only from certain points in the room, and appearing distorted or distended from others. The piecemeal negotiation of these viewpoints guides the viewer through the exhibition–fixing them at times to the footprints of the artist, the precise stance and angle from which the piece originated.

HOURS: Saturdays and Sundays, 1-6pm
Weekdays by appointment
www.ssiiggnnaall.com
 

Gary Baseman at Skirball

Posted on by Mike

Gary Baseman: The Door Is Always Open
Exhibition of fine art, illustration, animation, toy design and installation inspired by the artist’s childhood home.

April 25, 2013 — August 18, 2013
Opening reception: Thursday, April 25th at 7:30pm
The opening night event will include performers dressed in costumes based on Baseman’s iconic characters, a DJ set by artist Shepard Fairey, live music by Nightmare and the Cat, art making, piñata-breaking, tours and exclusive keepsakes.

SKIRBALL CULTURAL CENTER
2701 N Sepulveda Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90049
www.skirball.org

Enter the fantastic world of artist, illustrator, animator, and toy designer Gary Baseman in this first major museum exhibition of his life and work, opening April 25, 2013. Gary Baseman: The Door Is Always Open explores the influences of Baseman’s Jewish family heritage and American popular culture on his exuberant, boundary-defying art. Baseman’s creative universe comes alive with paintings, photographs, textiles, toys, sketchbooks, and videos presented in a setting that recalls his family home in Los Angeles’ Fairfax district, with furniture and memorabilia from his personal collection. The exhibition includes a vibrant array of Baseman’s illustrations for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker, and Rolling Stone, original paintings and sketches for the Emmy Award–winning animated Disney series Teacher’s Pet, and trailblazing artwork for the board game Cranium. Gary Baseman: The Door Is Always Open celebrates Baseman’s dynamic vision and inspires visitors to discover the creativity within themselves. Click HERE to read press release and a complete program of rekated events.

PRESS COVERAGE: Click HERE for Baseman’s Q&A with TIME Magazine, HERE for an article in LA Weekly and HERE to watch video of a feature story on the exhibition which recently aired on ABC 7 Evening News.

 

WK 360 video + Special Event

Posted on by Mike

This video offers a small glimpse of the installation set-up in preparing for 360, a 25 year survey exhibition of works by WK at 557 W 23rd Street.

To celebrate this momentous exhibition, Jonathan LeVine Gallery will host a special public event on SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013 from 4—6pm with an artist talk at 5pm. All guests in attendance will receive a complimentary copy of the exhibition catalog.

WK will be available to sign various exhibition-related materials which are available for purchase, including his monograph and a 30 x 40 inch poster which features a map of lower manhattan marked with placements of his iconic public interventions over the years (pictured below).

Olek in The Huffington Post

Posted on by Mike

THE HUFFINGTON POST
March 6, 2013

Photos and text by:
Jaime Rojo & Steve Harrington, Brooklyn Street Art (BSA)

For Crochet Street Artist OLEK "The End is Far"

For those who follow this sort of thing, street artist Olek has monopolized the category for pink and purple camouflage crochet sculpture on the street.

It wouldn’t be a stretch to say she actually invented the category, owing as much to the D.I.Y. and hand-crafting movements as to public artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude, whose work also lusts for custom wrapping everything that occupies space. Where Christo might prefer tarps and massive scale multi-week installations, Olek is content for now to hand-crochet her bespoke skin covers for bicycles, shopping carts, strollers, the Wall Street Bull sculpture, and every inanimate object in her apartment.

Now we can add to that list candelabras and human skeletons.

In her new solo show "The End is Far" at Manhattan’s Jonathan Levine Gallery, the Polish born street artist (please don’t say "yarn-bomber") again covers the entire interior of the exhibition space with the sweet poppy palette in which so much of her street work has been sheathed. Possibly new here is the focus on adornment; brocade and appliqué treatments that are deliberately fussy and feminine, and a dining set that curves toward Victorian.

Somehow this added ornamentation clouds the candy camo and cushions the blow of her cursively tart twists on homey axioms like "All We Need Is Love and Money," and "Being Beautiful on the Inside is What Counts Ha Ha Not Really." With metallic yarn stretched across skulls and wine bottles and chalices, the tough stuff is softened by the thickness of the cover, and the attitude of pure play.

Fresh from very publicly beating a rap for assault in London, she happily calls sexism on the carpet and champions human rights as part of her work, and you’ll see elements of this here too. Call this a show about candy-colored empowerment. Call her a creative force to reckon with, and possibly adore; but don’t be too saccharine; she’ll call you a pussy. With this much attitude and determination, you can expect expansion and refinement to intensify during this still blooming career, and one can imagine Olek crocheting a way to wrap an entire city before it is all over.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jaime-rojo-steven-harrington/for-crochet-street-artist_b_2803452.html