Menu
The New Contemporary Art Magazine
The Royal Ballet at the Royal Opera House in London recently commissioned Phlegm to create work for their annual contemporary arts festival, Deloitte Ignite. Curated by The Royal Ballet and The National Gallery’s Minna Moore Ede, the theme of this year's festival is mythology. In particular, the major focus is on the stories of Prometheus, the Titan who creates man from clay and tricks the Gods; and Leda and the Swan, the union of a mortal woman and the god Zeus disguised as a swan.
A couple of weeks ago, Pejac shared a simple window drawing on his Facebook profile, as a tribute to legendary French high-wire walker, Philippe Petit. The drawing was done using acrylic on a window glass to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Petit's walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. This simple idea, captured on camera by his friend Silvia Guinovart Pujol, shows the riskiness and fragility of the art of tightrope and is a great example of the Spanish artist's style: simple, minimalist yet effective.
Emerging NYC-based artist Lala Abaddon's journey through the art world started with analog photography and poetry. The idea of creating works that carry more than one story always fascinated her, and Abaddon felt like she found the answer when she wove her first piece. Interested in the process of deconstruction and reconstruction, she decided to cut up multiple existing photographs and weave them into new images.
Ludo is a French artist known for pasting up black and white images with neon green accents on the streets on Paris and worldwide. His imagery often shows mutilated insects, animals, plants or different life forms with added mechanical parts. Strongly influenced by the skateboarding logos and punk imagery from the '90s, his works comment on the way humans interact and interfere with nature. His limited color palette is a nod to DIY punk culture with its lo-fi, self-published zines and records, and certainly adds a feeling of rawness to his work.
Ukrainian artist duo Interesni Kazki teamed up with Studio Cromie from Grotagglie, Italy for their solo show "Inter Arma Silent Musae." The show features new ink drawings and paintings created over the last couple of months. This exhibition is a rare opportunity to see studio works by Waone and Aec, who are better known for the fairytale-like murals they've painted everywhere from Mexico to India. "Inter Arma Silent Musae" was staged in an impressive tomb-like interior of Bottega Papocchia and their fantastical, detailed works felt at home on these antiquated stone walls.
Chinese-born, South Africa-based artist DALeast was recently in Poland painting a new mural for the Street Art Doping mural festival in Warsaw. This is one of the few murals he has painted as of late, as he has been focusing on studio work this year. DAL's distinctive style evolved from his effort to paint large pieces without using much paint, a technique he came up with back in his homeland. As time went on, this technique became his unique, recognizable signature.
John Dolan is one of the East London's most unique artists. He spent 20 years living on the streets of London and was in and out of prison during this period, stuck in what he refers to as a "revolving door of prison and homelessness" with no hope in sight. Hope came around five years ago when Dolan adopted a Staffie puppy from a homeless couple for the price of a strong can of lager. Having to take care of a new friend was a life changing moment for Dolan as going to prison again would mean losing George.
Prolific French artist Christian Guémy aka C215 recently opened a double solo show interpreting the cultural history of contemporary France. Showing both at Itinerrance Gallery in Paris and Le Palais Benedictine in Fecamp, "Douce France" is a two part show that examines French culture and history. Featuring both positive and negative aspects of country's past and present, the show includes stencil portraits of important figures from the worlds of politics, literature, music, sports, cinema, architecture, science and popular culture in general.
While most of the world is looking towards Brazil for the FIFA Word Cup, art lovers were anxiously waiting for the 29th of June when Os Gemeos opened their long awaited solo show in their hometown. It's been five years since the last time Otavio and Gustavo Pandolfo exhibited in Sao Paulo, so after showing and painting murals all over the globe, they opened "A Opera da Lua" (The Moon Opera) at Galeria Fortes Vilaça. Staying true to their tendency to create elaborate shows that cover every inch of the gallery space, their installation features about thirty paintings, three sculptures and a video installation covering the floors and walls of the large space.
On June 28 graphic artist, designer and musician, Piet Parra will be opening a solo show at HVW8 in LA. Titled "Same Old Song," the exhibit shows new snapshots from his red, blue and pink world filled with curvaceous, naked women engaging in debauchery.
Thinkspace Gallery in Culver City is opening a solo show by Jacub Gagnon on June 21. Titled "Worlds Collide" this body of work is a step further in Gagnon's exploration of his surrealist paintings that tell stories of animals, the way they interact and the way humans interact with them. The intersection of the human world and animal kingdom has always been the main focus of his work and with this show he pushes it further with new concepts and unseen characters.
Mexican artist Pablo Delgado might not be well-known across the world, but he is a local hero in London where he lives and works. The fact that his miniature public works got noticed and recognized in a city with the one of the busiest street art scene in the world makes his story even more special. Though small and hard to notice, his work usually offers a social commentary and is always created specifically for its surroundings. The placement is carefully chosen in order to contribute to and complete the idea of the piece.
Italian artist 2501 recently started a series of big trips and will continue traveling through October. The artist will visit such places as Australia, Mongolia, Canada and different parts of the USA and create works for his ongoing project titled "Nomadic Experiment." Aside from painting public works and murals, 2501 will also make and collect parts for the indoor works that will be exhibited later this year. With a distinctive, abstract style that includes repetitive use of black lines and gold paint, his murals vary from geometric and precise to organic-looking.
British artist Phlegm recently took off on another world tour during which he will be creating some new murals around the globe. He started off with painting this mural in Perth, Australia for the Public mural festival. The festival took place from April 5-13, 2014 and included 45 artists from around the world painting 30 big walls around the city. The Sheffield-born artist was chosen to paint this large orange wall, just around the corner from Belgian artist Roa. With both artists using strictly black and white colors, their massive and super detailed murals looked impressive on these large walls.
Thierry Noir is a French-born artist who is considered to be one of the pioneers of the global street art movement. According to some sources, he was the first person to start painting the Berlin Wall when he moved to Berlin in 1982. Inspired by artists such as Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro, Fernand Leger, Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring, he started creating public art work by painting the infamous wall that was stretching in front of the squat where he lived in for 20 years. The combination of the bustling underground art scene, and the political circumstances in the epicenter of the Cold War conflict, resulted in one of the biggest unorganized and underground mural projects in history. Noir's most iconic pieces were huge cartoonish colorful profiles that later became one of the most recognized images of the wall. Along with such flat imagery, he was also creating abstract works, as well as sculptural installations as a nod to the artists whose work he enjoyed and respected. In 2012, Thierry Noir got invited to London where he created couple of new murals, and on April 3, 2014, he will be opening his first ever gallery show: a retrospective at Howard Griffin Gallery in Shoreditch, London. For this historic occasion, he opened his vault of photos and memories from his early days in Berlin. He shared with us some previously unpublished photos and untold stories in his own words about his life, his work and Berlin underground scene in the '80s and '90s.
British artist Phlegm is opening an installation-based show titled "The Bestiary" at Howard Griffin Gallery in London on February 1. Even though this is his first show in an official gallery space, he stayed true to his street art origins and created a completely non-commercial exhibit. Strongly influenced by medieval bestiaries, the artist created a 3D version of his own catalogue of characters with a large scale installation in wood, clay and plaster. Just like these antiquated guides, Phlegm created pseudo-scientific texts in which some descriptions of the creatures are accurate, while others are completely fanciful and refer to the recurring characters featured in his murals. Read more after the jump.