Arts Archives - Page 13 of 40

Jorge Chamorro: Exercising Freedom with Graphic Design

Spanish artist Jorge Chamorro‘s past jobs have shaped him to value art for enjoyment and personal expression rather than the corporate mindset of making for profit. His artwork embodies simplicity and personal creativity, with surrealist images drawing similarities to Salvador Dali.

Gallery Spotlight: Factory Fresh

Ad Deville and Ali Ha, the co-owners of Factory Fresh Gallery, are considered venerable street artists operating as Skewville and Pufferella, respectively. Yet they didn’t quite realize how to define their work until attending a Wooster Collective art walk along New York’s Lower East Side in 2002. During the event, some attendees inquired whether they were street artists, to which Deville responded, “Well, I put sneakers on wires, and it’s in the street.”

As Skewville and Pufferella, Deville quietly strung sneaker-shaped wooden blocks along the telephone wires of New York and other international cities while Ha delved into her fascination of creating plush fabric images. But the cohesive street-art community that was quickly taking shape along the Lower East Side intrigued them. They introduced their new friends to Orchard Street Gallery, which the couple opened in late 2002. Deville and Ha began collaborating with other contemporary art galleries and featuring shows by Gore B, Meeka, and Jet + Rubble.

Netflix vs. The Little Guy: A Battle of Algorithms and Emotions

Though independent movie stores have been weakened by various Internet services, their ability to provide unique human connections and personalized customer service remains unmatched.

Zine Scene: Rummaging through Nostalgia (guest column and playlist by Katie Haegele)

Zine creator Katie Haegele is author of the found-poetry publication Word Math and The La-La Theory and has been a contributing writer for Bitch, Adbusters, Venus, and a number of major newspapers. She discussed her witty wordplay for a previous installment of Zine Scene, and now the language-centric writer is back to pen this guest column.

Rummaging through Nostalgia
by Katie Haegele

I’ve been thinking a lot about nostalgia lately. Actually, I’ve thought about it in one way or another for years, since I was old enough to want to buy my own clothing but didn’t have any money and started hunting the Salvation Army for the grandma jewelry and waitress uniforms I turned into outfits.

I love old things, especially kitschy, outmoded, and obsolete ones, and I spend a fair amount of time digging for them at rummage sales and thrift stores, even in the trash. These things call to me, and I have spent a lot of time trying to understand and articulate exactly why that is, but it’s hard to grasp the feeling. There’s something about the sadness of castoff things that touches me, for sure, but it’s not only that. It’s also the feeling that each object has a story, a history that’s not my own. That history is both loaded and freeing at once. For next to no money, you can buy the thing and take it home. That coffee canister or wicker handbag or owl figurine will be yours, but it will never feel like it’s only yours.

More than an owner, you’re like a caretaker. In exchange, you get to borrow the thing’s history and have a piece of its ready-made comfort — a comfort like the feeling you had in the cozy living room in your grandparents’ house, or the kitchen of a friend from grade school who’s grown fuzzy in your mind over time. You can, in fact, feel nostalgic for something you don’t even remember.

Gallery Spotlight: Odessa

An interactive and progressive gallery space in Memphis, Tennessee, Odessa is slowly gaining attention as a unique underground arts and music space in the South. It’s situated in the Broad Avenue Arts District of the Binghamton community in Memphis, a neighborhood that originally was on the railway line between Tennessee and North Carolina. Eventually, the suburban area was annexed by the city of Memphis. Although the neighborhood remains underdeveloped, it boasts a strong sense of community and is gradually emerging as an important addition to the city’s aspiring arts scene.

Surrealists Sonny Kay and Jeff Jordan exhibit Parallel Universes at LA’s Hold Up art gallery

California-based artists Sonny Kay and Jeff Jordan were brought together through the distinctive artwork that they created for the progressive-rock darlings The Mars Volta. Jordan’s contributions to the band include multiple paintings used for album artwork; Kay’s ties with Volta songwriter Omar Rodriguez Lopez span back to his days heading Gold Standard Laboratories, and most recently, he has designed the band’s stage backdrop and tour merchandise.

Gallery Spotlight: Cinders Gallery

Steep rent increases within Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood forced the independent Cinders Gallery to find a new home – and fast. The cooperatively run space on Havemeyer Street was recently informed that its rent would increase an astounding $1,000 this January. But those familiar with the neighborhood know that rent in Williamsburg – as well as other less-hyped areas of Brooklyn – has been skyrocketing non-stop for the past decade.

Zine Scene: Eugene S. Robinson’s A Long Slow Screw

With his band Oxbow, Eugene Robinson has become known for his simple, primal lyrics howled over increasingly complex arrangements and for his fearsome live performances. But with his first novel, A Long Slow Screw, the howls have been translated to a new format, and live readings take the place of the concert hall.

Gallery Spotlight: Altered Esthetics

In 2004, Jamie Schumacher founded Minneapolis’ Altered Esthetics Gallery with the intent of “bringing artists together and creating a community dialogue.” The non-profit gallery is a space where both emerging and established artists can interact and explore their own creative interests without the pressure of producing work that is commercially viable. Since opening, Altered Esthetics — which is currently one of 18 galleries operating out of Minneapolis’ historic Q’arma building — has built a solid reputation within the Twin City’s creative community.

Apenest and Cinders Gallery present: Plain Air

Plain Air, the brainchild of artists Brian Willmont and Cody Hoyt, is the second in a series of exhibitions put together by the artist collective / publishing-printmaking project called Apenest. Apenest’s origins can be traced back to when Willmont and Hoyt began collecting artwork from their favorite artists, selling it, and taking the proceeds to self-publish a book featuring the contributors.

Plain Air will explore the theme of landscape as somewhere between reality and fantasy. The opening reception will be held Friday, October 15 from 7-10 p.m., and the show will run through November 14 at Cinders Gallery in Brooklyn, NY.

Gallery Spotlight: Western Front Society

Vancouver’s Western Front Society was created back in 1973 when eight artists got together, bought a former Knights of Pythias lodge, and renovated it into an alternative art space. Over the years, the multidisciplinary art center has developed an international reputation similar to the way that Vancouver itself has transformed into a cosmopolitan city.

“If you think back to even the early ’90s, Vancouver wasn’t much of a booming town,” Western Front exhibits curator Jesse McKee says. “But in the past 15 years, it’s kind of come into its own.”

Zine Scene: Megane

Star Graphics’ Yoshi Shimura cites a simple reason for publishing the zine Megane: “I want to liven up the Japanese art scene.” Megane does exactly that by highlighting young, new Japanese visual artists in a society usually more interested in consumer products.

The Tokyo-based Star Graphics group, formed in 2003 by Shimura and a few friends, has published only two issues of Megane and a comic book, but its goal — recognition for its featured artists — is becoming reality. By selling the zine in the United States and other countries, Shimura hopes to “introduce them to the world.”