Photos By Gail
Graffiti artist and Muralist Jules Muck (aka @MuckRock) has added this fun likeness of guitar god Jimi Hendrix, alongside a border of multiple images of rabbits humping, to the façade of vintage clothing and record store Rags-A-GoGo. It looks like a fun place to shop! You can see more of Jules work at This Link!
Rags-A-GoGo is located at 218 West 14th Street, NYC.
Photos By Gail
I spotted this fabulous Jimi Hendrix mural as I was out for a post-snowstorm stroll through my East Village neighborhood one Saturday afternoon. The mural can be found on the security gate for Mikey Likes It, an ice cream shop located at 199 Avenue A. According to their website, Mikey Likes It is the world’s first Pop Culture-inspired premium ice cream brand! I’ll have to make a point to stop by for a cone during their regular business hours!
All Photos By Gail
Do you love a good pop culture mash-up? I sure do, and Joseph Gross Gallery has an excellent one up right now for just a few short weeks, so don’t even wait until you’re done reading this review (kidding) to run over and check out James Charles’ Monstro Eyegasmica, which, I will just say right now, is completely fucking insane.
Monstro Eyegasmica — great title! – collects five of Charles’ large, mixed media paintings in which the artist combines illustration, painting and collage-style composition to create works that are at once strikingly familiar and gloriously unsettling.
For example, the exhibit’s eponymous work (seen above) combines The Kiss by Gustav Klimt and that famous scene in the original Planet of the Apes where Charlton Heston’s character kisses the monkey lady. Seriously, this is a work of genius.
Elsewhere, Charles’ brand-jamming artwork irreverently combines pop culture characters with traditional iconography and embodies a sarcastic sense of humor. Here we see an enlightened Ronald McDonald sitting in for Jimi Hendrix of the cover of the album Axis: Bold As Love.
T.R.I.A.P.S. (Two Rats in a Psychedelic Sock) puts an R Crumb-esque spin on Mickey and Minnie Mouse.
Bride of Pinkenstein marries the Bride of Frankenstein as portrayed by Angela Lansbury with one of the world’s most famous paintings, Thomas Lawrence’s portrait of eleven year-old Sarah Barrett Moulton, better known as Pinkie.
How absolutely perfect then that Charles dresses his likeness of Frankenstein’s Monster in the outfit worn by Thomas Gainsborough’s Blue Boy, which hangs directly opposite Pinkie in the permanent collection of the Huntington Library in San Marino, California.
Charles has also worked as a commercial sculptor, creating toy prototypes for the likes of Disney, Mattel, and Hasbro, so you can see where his irreverence and keen humor is coming from. His work reminds me very much of Ron English’s Popaganda movement, but with a more refined sense of the absurd.
James Charles’ Monstro Eyegasmica will be on Exhibit Through November 25th, 2015 at Joseph Gross Gallery, Now Located in a Fabulous Street Level Space at 548 at West 28th Street, in the Chelsea Gallery District.
All Photos By Gail
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 17th (6-8pm)
Bertrand Delacroix Gallery is thrilled to announce FAME/SHAME, a one-time special collaboration between the gallery and famed British artist Russell Young. The artist is internationally renowned for his colorful enamel screen-print paintings of celebrities, often coated in shimmering diamond dust. In Anna Wilding’s documentary on the artist, he states:
“My art is best described as fame and shame.”
This is exemplified in this exhibition’s mix of glamorous celebrity photos and mug shots. Continue reading Preview: Russell Young’s Fame/Shame at Bertrand Delacroix Gallery, Reception September 17th
From Left, Kaleidoscope Vision (1 and 2) and Third Eye Vision, Collage Layered in Resin, 2014 (All Photos By Gail)
Because it is up for only one more week, you should make every effort to head to the Joseph Gross Gallery for Sebastian Wohl’s amazing solo exhibition, Psychedelic Gravy For the Receptive Mind.
Wahl is a Swedish artist now living in NYC who works with collage and lacquer in a manner similar to that of artist Fred Tomaselli, but on a much more cerebrally expansive scale. Geoffrey and I were fortunate to meet and chat briefly with Sebastian at the exhibit’s opening reception, back on February 12th, and when I mentioned how much his work reminded me of Tomaselli, he did confess to also being a fan, and offered that Tomaselli’s use of lacquer had been a tremendous influence on this new body of work.
Vahalla
To achieve his multidimensional effect, Wahl carefully places handmade papers and images between layers and layers of resin. The result is a collage time capsule with real shadows cast within each piece. “Collage is my medium, resin is just the gravy on top,” the artist states in the exhibits press release, adding that, “The mystical experience has always been a point of reference for my work so Psychedelic Gravy For the Receptive Mind seemed like a fitting title for the exhibition.”
Mandalla 4
Wahl’s goal is to trigger an awakening of imagination, spirituality and vision. In his work everything is balanced with the attention of a tightrope walker. This attention to balance transforms into symmetry and repetition in the three new circular works that he created for this exhibition. These three pieces are titled Kaleidoscope Vision (1 and 2) and Third Eye Vision (see the first photo in this post) and are loosely inspired by traditional Thangka painting.
The Conductress
Juju Elves From Left: Flying Lotus, VooDoo Chile, Kaliucifer
Sebastian also created a new series of 7 small pieces that he refers to as the Juju Elves. The works are charged with positive energy and the intention of protecting their owner’s home.
Jimi Hendrix 4 and Jimi Hendrix 3
He also did series of portraits of Jimi Hendrix, each one unique from the others.
Detail of Jimi Hendrix 3
12/21/12
Sebastian Wahl’s Psychedelic Gravy for the Receptive Mind will be on exhibit only through February 28th, at the Joseph Gross Gallery, Located at 548 W. 28th Street, Suite 243, in the Chelsea Gallery District.
Mandalla 1
Detail of Mandalla 1
