Paris street art

There is a pretty cool run down of Parisian graffiti writers over at Complex magazine.

The Wolf

Tom Neely's new painted book The Wolf has been out for a couple of months now and I still haven't gotten my grubby hands on a copy. Tom's stuff never fails to impress be it his work with the Igloo Tornado collective or his recent cover for Decibel magazine. His previous book The Blot was pretty amazing. He is taking the book on a little tour, unfortunately nowhere near Paris .If you live near any of these places check it out, he's a cool guy and the book will undoubtedly rock.

Tom has some great stuff for sale over at his web site.

Ron Swanson Awesomness

There are some amazing artist out there tackling the unfathomable depths of the subject that is Ron Swanson. Check them out here.

Neckface and Public Domaine

Neckface did this limited edition deck recently but sadly, it's already sold out. I would have liked to have gotten my hands on this piece but with a run of only 45 in this color and 30 in a brown background these were gone before I was even aware of them.

Alien Workshop x Warhol

Alien Workshop has come out with the second set of their collaboration with Warhol and I'd say this batch is better than the last (see below)! I love skateboards as art so it's nice to see recognized art set in the skate world.

I've got to say that Andy Warhol has been on my radar in a big way since his big retrospective last year at the Grand Palaise. That show really opened my eyes to what he had done outside of the soup cans and the boring movies he's probably best known for. The guy had vision and chops and got stuff done.

If anyone wants to send me one I'm partial to the pink and black self portrait.

JACE/ Shepard Fairey Print Show

My wife and I made it to the opening of the JACE / Shepard Fairey print show at Gallery Magda Danysz this weekend. Somehow I didn't take any shots of JACE's work which was on the ground floor. It could be due to the fact that the free bar was down there, but I did take a couple of short videos of the OBEY pieces on the first floor. The show was hipster thick, cider fueled and a lot of fun.

The JACE work was really cool and very funny. Let me take a shot at explaining the series. It looked like he had found a kids book from the sixties or seventies and then painted weird things or situations into them. Picture a page from a Dick and Jane book but one of them is stabbing an alien or taking a hit from a big joint. I think I'll go back and take a few pictures because my description just ain't cutting it.

The Shepard Fairey print show was cool. It was comprised of prints of some of his most famous pieces, from the classic OBEY Andre the Giant stuff to his series with Glenn Friedmann to the Obama print. Last year the gallery had a show of his original pieces and this paled a bit in the comparison but was still very impressive.

Undone by Robb Gentry

This amazing piece was done by my brother. I thought it was cool enough that he had a hand in the construction of Cowboy's Stadium(he didn't make the giant T.V.) but out of left field he created this amazing piece.

I suppose it shouldn't come as a complete surprise, anyone who is friends with him on facebook can see his creative side come out in his excellent writing that just drips with a bold, recognizable voice that's chock full of humor. The fate of this piece is up in the air but if anyone is interested in it email me and I'll put you in touch with him.

I don't know much about sculpture even though I'm surrounded by it here in Paris. But even as an art idiot it is easy to see the skill and vision it takes to create something in three dimensions whether the media is granite, steel or paper mache. To infuse that piece with life is even more difficult and rare.
Many apologies for the image quality, my photoshop skills are weak.
Full Disclosure: My favorite sculpture is Cupid and Psyche by Antonio Canova in the Louvre. My second favorite is in the Orsay and it depicts a dog with a giant penis. Humor and nudity are big pluses in my book.

Alicia Kelly :Good Web

A good friend and great artist from my hometown has a cool new website that features her art, check it out.

Igloo Tornado Curated Group Show

After the huge success of the hilarious comic Henry & Glenn it is the perfect time for a show curated by my favorite art collective, Igloo Tornado. The awesomeness is going down on Friday February 18th at La Luz de Jesus Gallery in sunny L.A.Besides all our favorite Igloo Tornadoers there is a shit load of other artists doing their takes on Henry & Glenn.
The crew is putting pictures of the art up on the Henry & Glenn Forever FaceBook page so swing by and check it out.
If you don't already have it the Henry & Glenn book is a must, grab it here. They also put out two great t-shirts, I'm not sure where to purchase them but if you hit the gentlemen up through FaceBook or their site I'll bet they will help you out.

Eiffel penis

This is the view from the Eiffel Tower last Friday. The question is was it tourists or Parisians? My money's on the French.
(from Boing Boing)

Octophant

This great group is putting out some great work. I love the Octophant idea, how cool of a tattoo would that make? These pieces are very reasonably priced, hello Christmas.
Check it out here.

Vuk Vidor Paris show

The amount of art in Paris never ceases to amaze me.
Our neighborhood gallery, Magda Danysz, is putting on a solo show by Vuk Vidor. From the galleries web site in wacky translated English:
The Magda Danysz gallery presents for the first time Vuk Vidor’s recent works, the second stage of his americain Quartet. A work focused on the modern world, current events and precisely the ultra power of the United States. We find in his works the American comics’ drawing style but here the super-heroes are mostly pathetic or discouraged.

Ryan Adams Art(visual)

Ryan Adams auctioned off around 50 pieces for charity(with Jesse Malin's help). The quality of the art is a little scattered but I liked the majority of what i could see. There are a couple of very Basquiat like pieces that really sang to me and as rough as it is I totally dig the video game painting. I'm sure RA will catch a ton of shit for daring to do something other then make music but I doubt he gives a shit(for Christ's sake he's married to Mandy Moore). While the paintings are priced a bit high they are for charity so more power to him. Check it out here.

Takashi vs. Versailles

G and I went to the opening of Takashi Murakami's portrait exhibit here in Paris it was a really interesting exhibit but it had a very artificial feel to it. Today I found out that Murakami is exhibiting at Versailles in 2010, this could be very cool. The artificiality of Murakami's work will really go well within the over the topness of Versailles. If i'm still in the country I'll be there.

Art Stuff

If you won't be able to visit us here in Paris don't fret, 35,000 of the Louvre's works are available as Hi res photos and it's in English.

Speaking of art Mike Giant and Mike Davis collaborated on a piece and are selling prints at the Skullz press.

Tom Neely is part of a group show in Portland, Oregon, he's done his take on several classic horror comic book covers and they are exceptional. Hopefully my brother will get out to the show and sent some pictures.

Eric White Interview

G and I had a great time at the Eric White/ Daniel Davidson opening last night. This piece was at the show last night but I didn't get a picture. I found a pretty cool interview with Eric White on Fecal Face. I can't stress enough what a great, easy going guy he was.

Tom Beil, throw in a fish

Tom Beil, my wife's cousin, has some sweet art on sale at YoWangdu along with a pretty cool interview.

Loser Goes 1st Love

I got some love from Scot over at Loser Goes 1st. Check out this latest series he's working on, it's amazing. I've never had the experience of intimately following one artists development over years and it is absolutely fascinating to see how far an artist can come and still retain that thing that makes their work instantly recognizable.
Check in on Loser Goes 1st on a regular basis, he's doing a monthly free art giveaway!!

Artist Milk

This work is really cool check it here. via neatorama

Art a choke

Mike Giant is back in SF(I'm not stalking him, it's on the Rebel 8 blog) and getting stuff done. The Rebel 8 blog as a nice post on drunk tattooing, this is why it's probably good that i'm not good friends with any tattoo artists or even people with tattoo equipment.
Fecal Face does a studio visit with Faile, the woodwork pieces are insane. I'd like to see how they did those columns.
Andrea has some sweet new pieces up(The Frida obsession continues) on her site Owl My Love. Congrats on the Etsy love.
Shepard goes off on Ebay resellers on the Obey site.
Scot has added a couple more letters to his most excellent ABC project. Obviously S is my favorite so far, check it out on the Loser Goes 1st site.