Modart » NNE recommends

Pictoplasma Conference

Maxi — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 10:00:51 +0000

The Pictoplasma Conference is packed with inspiring talks by some of the most innovative talents. The diverse line-up of 2011 speakers hails from around the globe, including Geneviève Gauckler (FR), Allyson Mellberg Taylor (USA), BeatBots (JP/USA) and Jon Burgerman (UK). They cover a wide range of media and disciplines, such as illustration, graphic design, game design, fashion, art and robotics.

Here are some of our favorites:

Geneviève Gauckler (FR)
Geneviève Gauckler is a French artist, illustrator and art director who is best known for her ever-evolving procession of lovable characters and Technicolor digital mashes. Her works are bright, fun and hectic – often combining symmetrical designs with soft-edged computer generated images laid against photographed backgrounds. She has exhibited all over the world and has had art commissioned by many advertising agencies and magazines. In recent years she has been dividing her time between advertising works and creating her own artwork, which she refers to in good humor as “silly and absurd”.

Mark Jenkins (USA)
Mark Jenkins, born 1970 in Fairfax, Virginia, is an American artist most widely known for the street installations he creates using box sealing tape. His work, through the use figure installation, explores absurdist and surreal themes. Projects include converting traffic circles to merry go rounds, parking meters into lollipops, and hyper realistic figures designed to create public spectacles that absorb passersby as actors on situations.

Ben & Julia (FR/CH)
French-Swiss Technicolor enfants terribles Ben & Julia joined forces in 2006 to make a name for themselves as a multidisciplinary talented directors and art directors duo. They create exceptionally Mixed Media work through water colour and drawings, puppetry, 2D and 3D animation and live action. To date their work has been enthusiastically commissioned and displayed on a wide spectrum of platforms, from commercial ads to exhibitions as Art Basel. Their distinct weakness for nature, forests and especially fungi, have lead them to be signed by Hornet Inc for commercial representation.

Jeremyville (AUS)
Jeremyville is an artist, product designer and author. He self produced his first 3D inflatable designer toy in 1995, and wrote the first book in the world on designer toys called ‘Vinyl Will Kill‘, in 2003. He has also written and produced his 2nd book ‘Jeremyville Sessions’, and has had several designer toys released through Kidrobot. Jeremyville has been in group shows at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburg, the Madre Museum of Modern Art in Napoli, the 796 Arts District in Beijing, and solo shows at Area B Gallery in Milan and Bunkamura Gallery in Shibuya Tokyo.

Allyson Mellberg Taylor (USA)
Allyson Mellberg Taylor’s drawings are intimate, reminiscent of things seen in an artist’s most personal journal/diary. Gentle figures find a stage on the page to breathe, to interact with others. Allyson makes her own ink, boiling walnuts to produce a dark brown color, and extracting pigment from pokeberries to make magenta. The characters she creates often suffer from some sort of malady or disfiguration. She pictures a world in which unseen toxins bubble up to the surface, making their adverse impact visible.

Raymond Lemstra (NL)
After graduating from Academie Minerva in Groningen with a BA in Illustration, Raymond Lemstra toured as part of the multimedia theatre collective PIPS:lab and worked for MTV Networks as a designer, before fully focussing on drawing in 2010. In his personal work he makes references to the illustrative nature of primitive drawing and sculpture, while his main interest is the distortion as a result of selective emphasis; parts of interest are emphasized, unimportant parts reduced or left out. His characters are often big headed, with a strong focus on the face while the body is trimmed to its essential properties. This contrast, between the naive and sophisticated, evokes a clash of intent, simultaneously assuming simplicity and complexity, randomness and reason, flaws and perfection.

Jon Burgerman (UK)
Jon Burgerman was born in the UK and has risen to be one of the prominent key artists in the recent boom of modern day practitioners who traverse the disciplines of urban art, design, illustration and entrepreneurism. A sense of British self-deprecation, dry humor and modern-day anxiety imbues his work along with an enthusiasm for salad.
Burgerman has pushed the character obsession of the late 90s into a new direction, with his monster-like characters layered into compositions where cartoon-like forms are crammed on top of each other until they create a screaming mass of energy.

Tim Biskup (USA)
Tim Biskup pursued his technical training through years of work in the illustration, animation and graphic design industries. When he finally reached out into the fine art world, it was not through any gallery, but by creating his own series of live art auctions, a novel move that launched not only his own career. What has followed are a string of sold-out gallery exhibitions and inclusion in several high-profile museum shows. Long recognized for his complex color and design theories and a decidedly populist aesthetic, Biskup has amassed a cadre of loyal fans, propelled further by his steady output of limited edition prints, vinyl figures, books and other objects.

The Pictoplasma Conference includes talks as much as special screenings. It will take place between November 3 – 4 at the PARSONS THE NEW SCHOOL FOR DESIGN / TISHMAN AUDITORIUM, 66 W 12 St, 10011 NEW YORK.

For more info check their website and No New Enemies.

Enlist for UK’s Largest Collab

Maxi — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 09:00:40 +0000

Close to Wembley stadium is a 175 metre wall that’s seen by hundreds of thousands of commuters every day, but it’s anything but eye candy. That is about to change with an enterprising scheme, supported by Brent Council and being championed by local waste management business, Seneca to whom the wall belongs.

The aim is threefold, to create a visually inspiring artwork; to overcome a persistent and ugly vandalism problem and promote the urgent need for us all to draw a close to society’s wasteful ways and to re-imagine and re-engineer our waste materials, domestic and commercial, into a valuable resource that can be reused.

“This project is a really positive use for the wall.” Says Shaun Rowberry from Seneca. “We’re aiming to transform it over a series of weekends in November, into a highly impactful, visually impressive sustainable message: Re-image Waste as a Resource to be Reused and Recycled”

A call had gone out in October to street artists around the country to ask for their hard hitting artistic interpretations of a world where waste is always a valuable resource:

“We want this wall to inspire all who see it. Seneca are delivering a “cradle-to-cradle” solution in Wembley; giving new life to discarded materials by recycling them or making them into something new. They “re-imagine waste as a resource” and would like your interpretations and visions for a “waste-less society”. Submissions need to be made before the 10 November 2011 when the final selection will be made.”

Submission process: Simply fill out the brief form here together with your selected image.

Montana Black paint will be provided to all those who are invited to participate and food and drinks will be provided by Seneca but no further production budget as such. It is anticipated that each contributing artist will be provided with a maximum of 8 x 3 metre wall space to create their artwork All health and safety requirements will be met by Seneca.

Judging process: This is intended to become a work of art that will be renowned for its relevance and collaboration. We are asking everyone to record their vote for the entry they want to win, on the site and asking leaders from within the local Wembley community and the art world to help us make this vision turn in to spectacular reality. Selection panel to be announced. Winner will be announced on the senecawall blog and there will be a high profile event to announce winners – taking place at the wall itself.

What the artist would gain from submitting work: This is a great opportunity for the artist’s work to be featured on the blog www.senecawall.co.uk, receive high profile media coverage when the wall is unveiled and get the chance to work alongside some of the most respected street artists around.

Submit your work HERE!

Minimaforms’ Memory Cloud

Maxi — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 09:00:15 +0000

For three nights the sky above Woodward Avenue was filled with bellows of smoke and light as the artist studio Minimaforms transformed the Detroit Institute of Art into a transient light environment. The ephemeral clouds acted as smoke signals, each cloud carrying a unique message and story. Memory Cloud Detroit was a platform that offered the people of Detroit an opportunity to engage in a dialogue about the city. This interactive space animated the DIA Woodward Entrance with stories collected from the public.

During the two weeks leading up to the event, messages consisting of memories, stories and personal aspirations for the city of Detroit were collected and archived on-line at Voice of Detroit. Each individual expression became a part of a continuous story about the city, a narrative written by participants over the duration of the project transforming the steps of the DIA into a dynamic space for communication. Audience members were also able to contribute messages via text-message during the performance each night.

Sample collected voices:

“They told me this city was dead. Instead, it brought me to life.”

“On October 14, 2006, for an hour, Adams Street and its slab of pavement, became the happiest place on Earth. And it was unforgettable.”

“I thought I would move back to live among the dead memories of my childhood. I’m more alive than I’ve ever been.”

“Rest in Peace Jessica~ Your body may have been left there, but your soul has risen above it~ Detroit was my home and I never feared it until now.”

“I was born in the D and I will die in the D, while enjoying every moment in between. Thank God for the D.”

These collected text messages will be added to the Voice of Detroit archive, becoming part of an evolving diary and a voice that will speak of Detroit’s past, Detroit’s present and Detroit’s future. A complete archive of collected stories and documentation of three day performance will go live at Voice of Detroit in the coming weeks.

Say No to Violence Against Women

Maxi — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 09:00:49 +0000

Say No To Violence Against Women (in Brussels).

And say No to Violence against Women everywhere else.

One out of three women will be affected by some form of violence during their lifetime. How do we define this? How do we deal with it? How do we prevent it? We could be talking about Femicide, Trafficking, Harmful Practices, Sexual Violence, Harassment and the various costs and causal relationships of all of these. It’s a big topic that gets smaller quickly. One out of three, means someone you love. How much more pressing could it be?

To raise awareness of the issue of ‘Violence Against Women,’ the United Nations Regional Information Centre for Western Europe (UNRIC) and UN Women, reached out to the European creative community asking citizens to make an ad that screamed No to Violence Against Women.

Over 2,700 Europeans from 40 countries across the continent participated.

Three prizes were awarded; the jury prize, the youth prize and the public vote prize. The first two were selected by renowned experts and the third by over 120,000 public votes.

All details about the jury and prizes can be located on the UNRIC Create for the UN website.

From October 22nd to November 6th, Harlan Levey Projects (HLP) in Brussels will host a UNRIC exhibition of the thirty finalists and three jury selected winners. Additionally HLP will host a series of lectures and screenings. While other activities will be announced shortly, confirmed is the screening of the engaging documentary Not For Sale on October 27th.

The film challenges traditional views and myths on prostitution. It includes interviews with survivors of trafficking, exploitation and prostitution: women sharing their life experiences and demanding governmental action and responsibility. Not for Sale was directed by Marie Vermeiren and produced by the joint CATW-EWL project on trafficking of women for sexual exploitation. The EU Anti-trafficking Coordinator Myria Vassiliadou, Secretary General of the European Women’s Lobby Cécile Gréboval and the director Marie Vermeiren will be present to discuss trafficking in women for sexual exploitation before the film, which will be followed by a Q & A session with all three women.

No New Enemies has 2 (+2) tickets to give away to both the VIP Preview (with keynote toasts from UNRIC Director Afsane Bassir-Pour and UN Goodwill Ambassador Goedele Liekens) and the screening of ‘Not for Sale,’ (Oct. 19th and 27th respectively).

First come, first serve. Mail to Maxi at maxi@nonewenemies.net

WHERE: Harlan Levey Projects / 37 Leon Lepage / 1000 Brussels / Belgium

WHEN: October 19th VIP Preview – Invitation Only
October 22nd Public Vernissage – 15:00 – 20:00
(drinks and music served from 18:00)
October 27th screening ‘Not For Sale’ – 18.30
(director Marie Vermeiren + discussion)

Other events to be posted soon

NUart

Maxi — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 09:00:25 +0000

The NUart festival is a established urban art festival in Stavanger, Norway is about to kick off and the detailed program is out! Artists from 9 countries tackle over ½ kilometers of wall space at one of the world’s leading contemporary urban art exhibitions. In addition, they present their most extensive support program yet.

A unique combination of street art and nature at Obrestad Lighthouse, exhibition in the Beer Halls of Tou Scene, street work and much more. That much more includes interesting workshops by Dan Witz, as well as artist talks and lectures by Juxtapoze, Tellas and Carlo McCormick. Not to forget film screenings of Vigilante Vigilante and Lights, Camera Pichação.

Renowned UK artist Lucy McLauchlan has been invited to bring her unique brand of mark making to Obrestad lighthouse off the shores of Jæren, this protected national heritage site, one of the most beautiful and isolated areas of coastline in the region is host to tens of thousands of visitors each year. In just two weeks she created a 36 feet landmark…on a landmark.

The artist line-up includes: DAN WITZ (US), DAVID CHOE & DVS1 (US), VHILS (PO), HERBERT BAGLIONE (BR), DOLK (NO), LUCY McCLAUCHLAN (UK), HERAKUT (DE), TELLAS (IT), ESCIF (ES), HYURO (ES) and PHLEGM (UK).

The NUArt festival will take place in Stavanger, Sweden from October 1 to November 1, 2011.

Dale Grimshaw – an Interview

Maxi — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 10:00:34 +0000

Dale Grimshaw is a London based representational figurative artist, who produces melancholic social realist oil paintings on canvas. His eerie portraits seem to bear a rather scary second nature of his subjects; something they probably prefer to hide. After studying at Blackburn College of Art Dale got off to a flying start. A few large commissions, competitions and a short jaunt into the music industry later Dale rapidly became one of the leading up-and- coming artists in the London Urban Art scene. On October 6, 2011 Dale will open his third solo show ‘Semi-Detached’ at Signal Gallery sporting a domestic theme. We met Dale to find out more about the artist behind the dark work.

How did you start your career?
I guess my first commercial venture rolled into production when I was very young, whilst still at school –drawing quick portraits of Adam Ant for girls in my class. Adam Ant bought some of my work from the Arcana show in 2010, so it completed the circle! I did creative stuff at home but I also painted punk record covers on the backs of leather jackets as a teenager. Looking back, all that fashion imagery seemed really tribal. Most kids would prefer to have a designer label or a logo by some god-awful, unethical company on their clothes these days.

On a more serious note, I sold my first canvases whilst at University in London.

What were your first projects/ideas?
I’ve always been interested in painting, mainly figurative art. We had a cheap copy of of John Constables ‘The Cornfield’ on our living room wall while I was growing up. I was fascinated by the narrative of the painting, along with the painterly-ness of it. Whilst living at an assessment center as a teenager I was encouraged to work big on the walls, I wish I had kept that up.

After that, I was influenced by the art on punk covers. One of my first serious themes was at Blackburn College of Art – I based all my work on my hatred of the meat industry and how we treat animals in The West. There were some woodcut prints, but mainly some big brash paintings of carcasses layered over collaged ten pound notes – it was all very over the top and obvious…somebody should have stopped me! Looking back though it was a damn sight more gutsy than what a lot of the other students were doing.

How did those ideas develop into what you do now?
In some of those early paintings there was a lot of painterly movement, lots of splashes, collage and texture too – this is in a similar vein, stylistically, to what I do now. They call it urban art now I guess.

My work just got more figurative after the early college days and that’s where it has stayed really. My work is at it’s best when it’s got a liveliness to it –I could never be just a straight-forward traditional figurative/portrait painter. I always have the urge to mix things up – if you give me an orchestra I’ll want to put them through wah wah peddles or add some punk musicians to the mix and vice versa.

People constantly compare me to predictable names in the urban art field but I did pretty much all the obvious stuff you could do with paint and figurative art over 15 years ago. It fucks me off.

by MAXI MEISSNER

To read the full interview and see more pictures go to No New Enemies

Stroke Art Fair

Maxi — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 09:00:27 +0000

The new gallery season is kicking off full speed -as you can see in the frequency of posts this month- with one hit show after the other. October’s big urban art event, Stroke Art Fair, will take place in Berlin.

“I’ve wandered around a lot of art galleries thinking: I could have done that, so it seemed only right that I should try. These galleries are just trophy cabinets for a handful of millionaires. The public never has any real say in what art they see.” (Banksy)

They say: “STROKE is a contemporary event for an unconventional and uncompromising art experience. Whether you have an art historical education, a serious collectors intention, the passion for form and color or pure curiosity – here you will find enjoyment. For the first time in human history, the majority of the earth’s population is living in urban residential areas. The urban environment and the corresponding lifestyle can be counted amongst the fundamental sources of inspiration for contemporary culture.

“Passion and dedication are still more important than business plans and projections. This has naturally led to a young generation that finds it difficult to kowtow to the dynamics and rules of the classic art market.

“Unbeatable participation costs combined with professional presentation and an uninterrupted passion for the art – this is where we see the starting point for STROKE, the world’s first and only Urban Art Fair. During the last decade, no other German art-show can compete the STROKE regarding growth and media interest.”

Highsnobiety TV: Stroke Urban Art Fair Berlin 2010 from Highsnobiety on Vimeo.

We say: Sure it is an art fair, but with live paintings, the Stroke Studio and Paintclub it exceeds your average art fair and their focus on making the sale….urban or not.

Stroke Art Fair will take place from October 14 until October 16, 2011 at Postbahnhof Berlin and, with an 8 Euro entrance fee, can make for a decent priced weekend.

On No New Enemies we will give away free tickets. So stay tuned!

Participants include:

AKA (Berlin/GER)
ALL YOU CAN ART (München/GER)
Andenken (Amsterdam/NL)
Argentina Team (Buenos Aires/AR)
ATM Gallery Berlin (Berlin/GER)
Bergerstrasse (Nördlingen/GER)
Box32 (Berlin/GER)
Doppeldenk (Leipzig/GER)
Dudes Factory (Berlin/GER)
Galerie Richter & Masset (München/GER)
Intoxicated Demons (Berlin/GER)
itsmy gallery (München/GER)
LA GRILLE (Yverdon-les-Bains/CH)
Lake/Thomas Naumann (Berlin/GER)
Leza/Army of Snipers Crew (Geneva/CH)
Limited No Art Gallery (Mailand/IT)
Mongomania (Stuttgart/GER)
Neonchocolate Gallery (Berlin/GER)
NeoVandalism (Basel/CH)
Quality Lovers (Berlin/GER)
Rooftop Amsterdam (Amsterdam/NL)
SOON (Berlin, Zurich/CH)
Streeticons (München/GER)
The Flashgib (Stuttgart/GER)
Traffic Gallery (Bergamo/IT)
West Berlin Gallery (Berlin/GER)
West Coast Box (west coast/USA)
XLAB Corrosive Art Farm (Berlin/GER)
Zozoville (Berlin/GER)

MacGyver and the Mousse

Maxi — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 08:00:07 +0000

This Saturday Harlan Levey, the founder of NNE, is proud to welcome you to the opening of ‘MacGyver and the Mousse,’ the first solo exhibition from Tobias Allanson at Harlan Levey Projects in Brussles, which takes place during Belgium’s premiere design event, Design September.

Harlan says: “I have had the pleasure of working with Tobias on several occasions, and for many years we collaborated on Modart magazine. Tobias isn’t like most graphic designers I have worked with. He likes to do things off the screen. This exhibition is no different as Tobias takes things that have become easy to do digitally and gives them an analogue tweak. During Design September, Tobias will exhibit 5 different projects in Brussels. All are being shown for the first time.”

Please join us for the opening this Saturday (Sept, 10th 14:00 – 22:00). The exhibition runs until October 15th.

About Tobias Allanson

Swedish Designer Tobias Allanson has earned recognition for his inventive use of common items and the emphasis his practice places on action and approach. Having begun his career as a Graphic Designer, he then worked as an art Director (Modart Magazine), a Creative Director (Freitag) and later a freelance Concept Designer engaged by brands such as Electrolux, L&G and Absolut Vodka. He prides himself on maintaining a rigorous DIY attitude and transforming all types of objects in ways that please him, considering his professional endeavors ‘pseudo-commercial’ as he manages to satisfy clients with his own playful artistic vision.

Find more info on HLP here.

VeryNearlyAlmost

Maxi — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 09:47:06 +0000

VeryNearlyAlmost is a love letter to street art and graffiti. Starting out as a hand-made black and white zine of photographs, today it has developed into the leading printed documentation of graffiti and street art in the UK and beyond. Each new quarterly issue features a highly limited run of 150 screen printed covers produced by the cover artist. Previous screen printed editions include OBEY, D*FACE, INSA, ROA and EINE.

For the 16th edition VeryNearlyAlmost (VNA) announces the Parisian legend Invader as the cover artist.

“Our exclusive interview with the Rubik’s cube enthusiast provides a rare insight into this secretive street artist’s work. We talk about people stealing his work, airlines classifying his tiles as ‘weapons’, and invader-shaped waffles. We also chat about his ‘cousin’ Mr Brainwash and how he narrowly avoided arrest in LA during the Art In The Streets show.”

As with every issue of VNA, there’s a Limited Edition version adorned with a screen-printed cover designed by Invader himself. 80 of these will be available exclusively at the London launch with 20 available in an online lottery and 50 being sent out Willy Wonka style for global distribution.

Issue 16 also includes Ron English’s protégé, the Australian wunderkind Kid Zoom, old-school mad scientist CHU, commercial assassins TrustoCorp, pictorial pirates The Dead Sea Mob, interviews with Cath Love and Will Barras, and a photo feature on Obsession Of Colour.

If you’re in London today, September 8, join them and their hosts Pictures On Walls from 6-9pm to celebrate the launch of VNA 16.

With space limited for this event, we ask you to please RSVP to: rsvp@verynearlyalmost.com

Visit the NNE profile of Kid Zoom.

Visit the NNE profile of Will Barras.

Nuart

Maxi — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 09:00:14 +0000

Stavanger on the west coast of Norway is a picturesque little city surrounded by breathtaking ocean views, steep cliffs, waterfalls and filled with public art. Which is not what you would expect from picturesque little cities, but Stavanger host to the annual street and urban art festival Nuart. Established in 2001 Nuart is celebrating their 10 year anniversary with an incredible line up of artists, films and support events such as talks and workshops set for 2011 and arranged tours.

Additionally Nuart produced the documentary Eloquent Vandals, which opened Oslo’s annual International Documentary Film Festival, Eurodoc 2010 and a book with the same title published by Kontur publishing is set for release during the festival.

From the first week of September an invited international team of street artists start to leave their mark on the city’s walls, both indoor and out, creating one of Europe’s most dynamic and constantly evolving public art events. Artists include DAN WITZ (US), DAVID CHOE (US), VHILS (PO), HERBERT BAGLIONE (BR), LUCY McCLAUCHLAN (UK), DOLK (NO), HERAKUT (DE), TELLAS (IT), ESCIF (ES), HYURO (ES), PHLEGM (UK), and DVS 1 (USA).

The day program will be published soon so you should keep an eye on their website.