AndrewAndrew: Art Begets Art

AndrewAndrew photographed by Marcus Yam for the New York Times

I’ll be the first one to admit: I don’t know everything there is to know about art. With that caveat, AndrewAndrew is one of the most exciting and, dare I say, original, works of creativity that I’ve seen in a long time. The two-man “collective” have a bio that reads like a short list of a curatorial brainstorming session: guerrilla art interventionist, tech savvy, socialist  DJ duo in NY known as “the i-pad DJ’s” who have been dressing alike for more than a decade, eliminating any aspects of personal identity outside of the joint persona in a Gatsby-esque act of freedom. I can’t think of anything more inspiring. Be sure to check out the full feature on AndrewAndrew written by Michael Schulman for the New York Times, add them on Twitter for links to their latest mixes, and check out the AndrewAndrew blog which features their latest endeavor: instant theater reviews filmed, edited and posted using only and i-phone4.

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White Walls Gallery Presents Dan Witz: “What the %$#@? (WTF)”

Dan Witz’s integrity in expressing beauty through subversion and an enduring interest in realism has sustained the artist a copious 30-year career. Known for his hyper-realistic paintings, Witz challenges himself to keep representational painting relevant in the postmodern era and digital age.  This challenge commands that the artist must continually grow and experiment in his art practice which has contributed to him being cited as one of the most progressive and influential painters of our time.

White Walls Gallery is pleased to announce the debut solo show by Dan Witz entitled “What The %$#@? (WTF)”. The opening reception will be held on January 8, 2011 from 7-11pm. Witz is known for using  his mastery of the visual deception of trompe-l’oeil and photorealistic painting techniques to create conceptual visual pranks, producing a definitive and unparalleled street art practice.

The “What The %$#@? (WTF)” series is named for the universal reactions it often inspires within the viewer.  For this street art project, Witz is installing his Dark Doings pieces on walls beside highway ramps and interchanges–bottleneck locations where traffic backs up and a captive audience develops as cars pass by at low speeds. Dark Doings is made up of digital photo prints with extensive over-painting mounted on plastic and then framed.  For each piece that Witz will be showing within the gallery, a corresponding piece will be put up somewhere in the Bay Area.  The artworks come in an edition of 6:3 for the street and 3 for other distribution.  The street versions are unsigned, but marked with NFFS*.  The asterisk indicates (on the back of the piece) *NOT FOR FUCKING SALE.

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Donald Sultan to Give First AFA ArtTalk of 2011

"Poppies"

The American Federation of Arts is pleased to announce that artist Donald Sultan will be giving the first ArtTalk of 2011, to be held at Christie’s, located at 20 Rockefeller Plaza, on Tuesday, January 18, at 6:30 p.m. ArtTalks, the AFA’s lecture series, features notable figures in the art world. Following Sultan’s lecture, audience members are invited to participate in a question-and-answer session and a wine reception.

Internationally recognized for his painting, printmaking, and sculpture, Donald Sultan is best known for his sensual, large-scale paintings and monochromatic prints that incorporate images of lemons, flowers, dominoes, and other ordinary objects. At once representational and abstract, these works are rendered through an innovative use of unlikely materials such as linoleum, tar, vinyl, spackle, and Masonite.

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We Are Dust: New Work by Monica Canilao Opens April 30th at Cinders Gallery

Monica Canilao is a collector of moments and a reanimator of memories. Stitching together broken bits of salvaged history: a tea-stained doily, a tattered photograph, a lone feather, Monica creates contemporary artifacts that tell the story of our collective histories. Catch a sneak peek of work by Monica Canilao for her upcoming show “We Are Dust”, which opens April 30th at Cinders Gallery, NY.

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Do You Know About the Brucennial?

Brucennial Installation, via Art in America. Photo by Catherine Kron

“Given its radical scale and ambition, the inclusion of large scale (albeit unprotected, and acessible-feeling) works by Julian Schnabel, George Condo, and Rita Ackermann and many others, the Brucennial should be considered a serious curatorial gesture.” – Catherine Kron, Art in America

Coinciding with the inclusion of Bruce High Quality Foundation in the Whitney Biennial, the Brucennial is a collaboration between the group and Vito Schnabel. The Brucennial features the work of 420 artists from 911 countries working in 666 disciplines and is, as Holland Cotter says in his New York Times review, “…the most important survey of contemporary art in the world. Ever.”

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The New York Times Talks Street Art

Isabel Samaras "Wize", Oil on wood

The 5 Year Anniversary show at Jonathan Levine Gallery runs through the end of March. I was checking out the work online and just happened to catch the fact that Jonathan, his artists, and a run down of the street art genre was featured in a New York Times article. It’s a nice first attempt to bring the work of some worthwhile artists into the minds of the mainstream art establishment. Written by someone who I presume is completely outside the circle of artists he’s writing about, in terms of taste and life experience, the article does its best to define the work and give the group a nod of approval. Somehow, it still manages to rub me the wrong way, but that’s not difficult to do these days – especially when it comes to art and its criticism. I guess I just wish that the genre weren’t still in a stage of having to fight for recognition. Maybe “fight” isn’t the right word. It isn’t as though any of the artists referenced by the article are all that concerned with appealing to the snooty art establishment anyway. I guess to me, the piece just feels like a handout when it could have just been written about in terms that presented it as a capable art scene that’s been standing on its own two feet for a while now. It seemed the author was still validating it in some way. The name dropping at the end of the article didn’t help. And trying to re-define the entire genre as “pop pluralism” just sounds ridiculous. Whatevs.

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