Had my mom in town, so I decided to take her down to Venice for the first time. After a dip in the ocean I decided to drop a freestyle for Sace. Painting this reminded me of doing Nace pieces. Not just for the similar letter combinations.

-JerseyJoe

Thank you Nekst...
Downtown Chicago, Massive in person.
Rest In Paradise

_{By ROBERTA SMITH}

With their first public artwork in Manhattan, which went up at the northwest corner of Houston Street and the Bowery on July 17, the Brazilian brothers Otavio and Gustavo Pandolfo, who call themselves Os Gêmeos, bring graffiti art to its Rococo phase. Which is to say that their fantastic, epic mural, on a concrete wall about 17 feet high and about 51 feet long, is light and frothy, a dream of happiness with an underlying chord of melancholy. And everything in it is exquisitely fine-tuned and detailed, a dazzlement of effortless technique that sustains long bouts of close looking. It will remain up until March.

The delicate black lines that thread throughout the entire image like drizzled charcoal dust are feats of spray-can painting. The prismatic color of everything else has a saturation unusual in graffiti art. The sky alone is half a spectrum. It begins with deep blue green at the top and descends through green and chartreuse to a golden, sunbathed yellow that serves as land, water, light, human skin and more.

And the storybook imagery is out of this world, yet not. Sure, people and things often levitate or are impossibly stacked, and the setting is a tad unreal — simultaneously wet and dry, or hard and spongy. But both the subways of New York and the favelas of São Paulo are here, and the figures wear brightly patterned garments (thanks to ingenious small-bore stenciling) that seem truly Brazilian. Plus, there are enough fish to placate the fish lovers of both cities. Sometimes these creatures have scales of many colors. Often they carry something in their mouths, like the bringers of good luck they are supposed to be: radiant little shacks, people or heads, whole figures. It’s magical realism with a touch of grit.

While the onslaught of figures, episodes and colors is at first overwhelming, a casual left-to-right reading suggests some narrative possibilities. Basically what we have here is a tale of escape and growth that begins in darkness and — after taking a few tips from the Bible, Hieronymus Bosch and M. C. Escher — ends in a stunning vortex of brilliant color. At far left, in the gray dimness of a narrow, cell-like space, a small figure strains toward the golden light seeping through a chink in the wall. Wearing pants, a jacket and a girlish scalloped bonnet and shouldering a bag, she’s leaving home, as the song says. A small spotted dog watches from the safety of a tenderly, elaborately wood-grained floor.

Through the chink the golden world awaits, arrayed around and above what seems to be a nearly circular waterfall; it’s a world populated by spirit guides, with or without gills. And it all adds up, or at least it is all visibly linked. You’re supposed to keep going, from one thing to the next, gaining wisdom along the way.

To sketch in some of the action, the connections begin with a boy on a four-poster bed (Dreamland’s point of origin) with a peacock on his back, using a second peacock as an ear trumpet. He listens to a whale whose skin, a mosaic of blues, is dotted with extra eyes. Atop the whale lies a girl (maybe our heroine, but older) so relaxed that the dots on her lavender-pink blouse are rising into the atmosphere like bubbles. The whale’s tail hooks over the rail of a snaking subway track, while the beast itself balances on a stack of three figures teetering on a rope bridge with iffy wood slats (San Luis Rey, anyone?) extending from one side of the waterfall to the other. (Don’t ask.)

Back on the tracks a subway car — the N train — is straddled by a large boy, who has human heads gathered around him like the day’s catch and a galleon on his head. A fish that is also a dirigible on its side is anchored to his hand. (Behind all this stretches a yellow out-of-focus landscape where the hills are faces.)

Next we are in the city where two boys who could be Os Gêmeos (Portuguese for the Twins, which the 35-year-old Pandolfo brothers are) are cramped inside a two-story, two-room house. The tracks continue into a station with an Escher-like mural of bright checkerboards receding to a vanishing point, and also the tag of Dash Snow, a New York graffiti artist who died last month and to whom the mural is dedicated.

The station is also part of a boat (touring the waterfalls?), with plush red seats tufted with yellow faces. At the front of the boat, next to a protective figurehead, sits a knowing young woman looking out at us amid bundles of patterned fabric. She has little houses in her green-and-black hair and wears a blouse whose planetlike dots are, this time, staying put.

The final third of the mural explodes in the rainbow vortex that is fabulously explicit in color but physically indeterminate. Sometimes it is a beach at low tide, sometimes a prison wall, sometimes quicksand, at least for a figure carrying a grandfather clock. Also here is a small Trojan horse (or maybe a mule), which brings back the lovely wood grain in warmer colors. Its neck is open and forms a double cameo for the faces of a boy and girl.

This telling omits many wonderful details. One of the best is front and nearly center in the image: a boy who seems to sit on a waterspout, wearing a fish mask and a T-shirt that is one of the painting’s best moments. It depicts a landscape: note the white stenciled stone wall, the changing greens of the tiny stenciled trees, the golden setting sun. It is an idyll of pastoral, escape-from-the-city living, cottage and all.

With the recent passing of downtown street heart Dash Snow there has been a major outpouring of support for the infamous graffiti artist and well known photographer. He was an artist that pushed the boundaries and confronted society by pursuing a life of a downtown street kid. Friends and family have come together to create an open memorial exhibition for the fans of Dash Snow. The show included never before seen Polaroids from Dash’s studio and other work Dash has compiled over his life time. The show was put together by Jade Berreau, Dan Colen, Jeffrey Deitch, Christophe de Menil, Kathy Grayson, Hanna Liden and Agathe Snow. The show will be running from July 23rd-August 15th. For images of the show check out the rest of the post.

Deitch Projects
76 Grand St.
New York, Ny 10013

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bloodwars Volume 2 / Issue Two is now out and ready to view! Featuring an interview with Bonus VTS / BKF, this issue is dedicated to all those who have passed recently. Download it and take a look.

Bloodwars is released quarterly. The next issue will be due out in about three months- November. Submissions are welcomed.

Download the new issue here: www.bloodwarsmagazine.com

A open memorial exhibition for Dash Snow will be held in his community in New York City.  It could open as early as July 21 at Deitch Projects.  Dash’s community of friends are invited to “participate in an exhibition that would include photographs or video of Dash, works of art made for Dash or in memory of him, and a small group of works by Dash in various media.”

More information from Peres Projects after the jump.

According to Peres Projects:

We thought it would be important and helpful to have an open memorial exhibition for Dash’s community in New York City. We are asking Dash’s community of friends to participate in an exhibition that would include photographs or video of Dash; works of art made for Dash or in memory of him; a small group of works by Dash in various media (just for exhibition); and an open wall where friends or admirers from the general public could write, paint, or paste something up on the wall. The outside of the gallery will feature a large recreation by his friends of his tag.

We anticipate opening to the public as early as Tuesday, July 21 at the 76 Grand Street gallery of Deitch Projects. The show would remain on view through mid-August. If you would like to participate in this exhibition by lending or creating artworks, please contact Kathy Grayson at Deitch Projects: 212 343 7300, kathy@deitch.com. We ask artists/friends who want to participate to bring artworks by the gallery beginning this Saturday, July 18th through Monday July 20th to begin installation that Tuesday. Artists are welcome to bring additional works anytime, however, that can be installed during the run of the show as well. All are welcome. Please pass this on to people you think would like to know about it

DASH SNOW