The Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga (aka CAC Málaga) has increasingly included urban art in its program, starting with projects in the streets. In 2014, the museum invited D*Face and Shepard Fairey to paint two massive side by side murals. The pair returned to CAC Málaga on June 26th to present two adjoining exhibitions. Notably, D*Face's "Wasted Youth" marks his first major solo museum debut in Spain. Growing up, the British artist felt stifled by the curriculum set forth by his parents and schooling, which considered anything outside the norm to be a waste of his youth. 15 years into his career, the artist looks backs with this exhibition as if to proclaim the value of following your passions.
Shepard Fairey (interviewed here) is now working on his largest mural to date in Detroit. Located at ONE Campus Martius at "the Belt" and measuring 180' x 60' feet, it is a permanent fixture to the area playing host to his upcoming solo exhibition, "Printed Matters". Opening this Friday at Library Street Collective, the show will feature a variety of Fairey's latest printed materials, serigraphs on paper, collage, and editions on paper and metal. Check out our coverage of the mural in progress after the jump.
The face of American culture continues to change through the use of firearms. Weapons appear in our movies, music, nightly news and politics making them synonymous with contemporary culture. This could not be more relevant in light of growing concerns in recent months about aggressive police tactics. Mesa Contemporary's current group exhibition "ARTillery" looks at the art of the weapon as object and a major influence. The textbook definition of a weapon is "a thing designed or used for inflicting bodily harm or physical damage". Roughly 50 artists present their own definitions, including Charles Krafft, Shepard Fairey, Brian M. Viveros, Kevin Grass, Angel Cabrales, David Amoroso, Eve Plumb, Abel Alejandre, and more.
Hot off a mural tour that took him to Philadelphia, Chicago and New York, Shepard Fairey recently traveled to Berlin for to create a new street piece for Urban Nation's "One Wall" project. The arts platform is behind the interdisciplinary Project M (see our coverage here and here) and recently invited Fairey, Dutch collage artist Handiedan and Irish muralists Icy & Sot to create large-scale wall works. In his typical propaganda fashion, Fairey's mural champions creative freedom with the slogan "Make Art Not War." Read our recent interview with Fairey here and take a look at some photos of the piece by Henrik Haven below.
Some would say he's pushing art to a new level of accessibility while others call the proliferation of his imagery clever brand marketing. Either way, it's hard to argue that Shepard Fairey has made a major impact on the art world with his multitudinous endeavors in fine art, street art, fashion and design. No matter the medium is, the artist works from an underlying premise of making his aesthetic as democratic as possible — whether the viewer experiences it at an art show, the street or, in his latest project, a music festival.