Two twin brothers from Brooklyn, Skewville brought the fun to their opening at White Walls last Saturday night with their new show, Amusement. After all, you can't take a show that starts with a sign reading "Sucks either Way" too seriously. Besides the simplistic yet detailed paintings, visitors got to ride on a bike-powered merry-go-round and throw bean bags at bottles like a carnival game. Even the works made of found materials, like the Battleship boombox and the suitcase made of tin lunch pails, brought a sense of humor to the night. After seeing the work in the back of the gallery, which was much more crowded, Skewville provided a light-hearted atmosphere in which viewers could drink beer, play games, and see some really great artworks.
Words & Photos: Rachel Ralph - rachel(at)fecalface.com
Skewville is an art collective consisting of two twin brothers born and raised in Queens, NY known for their public art, the most popular example being their hand made wooden sneakers that they have been tossing over telephones lines and documenting since 1999. Since then thousands have been silkscreened, hand cut, drilled, laced, and then tossed all around the globe.
RIPO @White Walls Tuesday, 26 March 2013 /// Written by Rachel Ralph
During their 10th anniversary celebration, White Walls gave one of their smaller back project rooms to Max (RIPO) Rippon (Barcelona, Spain) for his new show, Cut From the Chase.
The subtle word play between the written letters and the cut letters on which they sit is complex and inviting, and the wastebasket with paper shreds was a great touch. This room was a nice little sanctuary during the chaos of the opening and would probably be an even better experience any time between now and when the show closes on April 6th.
Words & Photos: Rachel Ralph - rachel(at)fecalface.com
White Walls and the Shooting Gallery opened their new space with a bang this last Saturday night. After going through a boarded-up doorway with the names of the galleries and their new address of 868 Geary St tagged on it, you can no longer believe you are in the Tenderloin. 5,000 square feet of pristine gallery space, complete with cathedral ceilings made of reclaimed wood, open up to a truly amazing exhibition space, and it just keeps going. You're now going through White Walls, into the Shooting Gallery, and then into several separate project galleries and the multi-million dollar renovation was definitely spent wisely.
For this show, White Walls opened with the grizzly paintings of Chad Hasegawa. I've been a fan of this local artist since I saw his bear in Clarion alley, and he used this opportunity to bring his bears to the space of fine art, titling them appropriately for the role. Several paintings are titled with the names of modernist masters and their styles are replicated in the bears themselves. While Motherwell has thick, black brushstrokes, Rothko has a washed background and a fluid texture.
Moving further back brought visitors into Charmaine Olivia's Muses. This girl can paint with incredible detail and the works are undeniably beautiful, but this display was repetitive, they all kind of look the same. Her Muses are girly and pretty, which was seen in the audience attending, but they don't leave much room for anything but sexual femininity. But, that's ok. Sold individually, I can see any one of these works hanging in a girl's apartment anywhere in the city and it was great to see so much space devoted to a local artist.
Moving further back brought visitors into two project galleries, one by Sickboy and one by Word to Mother. Sickboy's installation, complete with a working coffin toy train, was my personal favorite of the night. The paintings are colorful and detailed, and I only wish that I would have been able to see them better. Moving around the train, it was really difficult to get to the paintings themselves, and I kind of wish they would have switched his gallery with Word to Mother, because that one is a little bigger. Word to Mother opened Fuck You Pay Me, a Giants-themed installation complete with baseball bats, foam fingers, and astro turf. Since there was only one painting, I popped in and out, but managed to score some cracker jacks and bazooka bubble gum before I left.
Saturday night really was more of an event than an exhibition, this is a new upscale version of the galleries, and I should but an emphasis on the plural, this place just keeps going and going. It was a suit and dress kind of night, fancy for any Tenderloin event, but frankly, the space is fancy and deserves if not your Sunday best, then at least Thursday's finest. These galleries have really transformed themselves in this move and I cannot wait to see what they do next.
Words & Photos: Rachel Ralph - rachel(at)fecalface.com
Chad Hasegawa, Motherwell, House-paint on canvas, 108x72"
Charmaine Olivia, Anya/Queen B, Oil on panel, 30x40"
I am totally over artwork depicting guns. It has been played out as a way to shock viewers and draw inaudiences, and recently, it seems like we just can't escape. Much to my chagrin, D Young V's newestshow at White Walls here in San Francisco is different. There are guns everywhere, but they aren't ploys for attention. Instead, The New Race employs the weapons as commonplace tools necessary for survival in the post-apocalyptic world D Young V has created in the gallery. The entire space is covered in works of ink on paper, reading as militaristic propaganda, complete with ammo and helmets to protect yourself. Arrowsextend from the bottom of several works ending at a pair of footprints, directing the viewer's distance from the piece, suggesting more intimate or more encompassing perceptions of the images.
More importantly, the show starts in the street, tying the space of the gallery to that of the Tenderloinon Larkin Street. Because of this introduction, it is easy to read the work within the gallery as what San Francisco might look like 300 years after civilization has ended. The script extending across the gallery and the pieces themselves intermingle English characters with numbers and symbols, an allusion to the disintegration of language through time. Will we really be speaking English in 300 years? Are we even really speaking English now?
With recent violent events including school shootings, this dystopian future may not be that far off. We may need to arm ourselves and embrace community over individualism, much like D Young V has done within his work. Instead of using the guns as symbols of power, he has introduced them as necessary tools for survival for the entire new race. Through incredibly detailed work, this show emphasizes the need to protect ya neck.
Words & Photos: Rachel Ralph - rachel(at)fecalface.com
Jonathan Darby has completely transformed White Walls gallery into an African setting with his newest show, Congo which runs through December 8th. You can no longer even see the White Walls from which the gallery gets its name. The entire space has been covered with wood panels, pieces of garbage bags, windows, signs, wires, and all kinds of other authentic materials. These have been installed to completely change the interior flow of the space of the gallery, with hidden corners and windows looking like a shop keeper just went to the back to get something for a customer. The space is further emphasized by the quiet rhythm of African drumming and music heard in the background.
All of this would be well and good, but it is the mixed-media pieces hung on these new walls that are really special. Each piece shows the face of a child, presumably one of the children Darby worked with while in Goma, where he taught art lessons. The faces are pasted over a collage of money, newspapers, and patterned papers with things like guns and diamonds on them. The works seem to flow with the walls on which they are displayed and look like they were just panels removed from a building in Goma. However, the careful treatment of the children's faces separates them from any street poster. They are enlarged so that you have to look at them, and they look right back at you. Endearing, powerful, and heartbreaking, these works evoke the spirit of the children themselves, even across the globe.
After winding through the gallery, visitors will find themselves in a very small back room in which a video of Darby's trip to Goma is displayed. The music is much louder here, and you see the children in the pictures, but this time they are actively taking part in their own creative expression. The video shows the children both playing instruments and taking part in art-making practices giving them an active presence of which the medium of the mixed-media panels denies them. The bright colors and movement of the video starkly contrast to the rest of the gallery, overshadowed in brown hues, and provides what seems like a window into another world. This is strategically emphasized by the environment Darby created in which to situate his viewers as conscious and understanding of the people and things around them. The British artist also further emphasized this understanding by contributing a portion of the proceeds of all sales to the children in these school programs you see in the video. So, go take a look at this work. If you decide to buy, it all goes to a good cause, and if you can't buy, you can at least educate yourself in an environment that will take you far away, and some works that will make you both look and think.
Words and photos: Rachel Ralph ~ rachel(at)fecalface.com
We swung through White Walls last night for the opening of RIPO's current solo show "Signs, Fines and Cheap Wines".
Next door at The Shooting Gallery was the opening of Peter Gronquist'sWoulda, Coulda, Shoulda where taxidermied animal's are adjorned with plastic guns and light fixtures. Dug the paintings.
Next door at The Shooting Gallery to view Peter Gronquist's show.
RIPO emailed over a few images as preview for his show "Signs, Fines and Cheap Wines" that opens Thursday, August 9th (7-11pm) at White Walls here in San Francisco.
White Walls here in SF opens their winter group show on Saturday (7-11pm) featuring works by EINE, Casey Gray, Blek le Rat, Apex, Know Hope, ABOVE, D*Face, Kofie One, D Young V, Greg Gossel, Chad Hasegawa, Ernesto Yerena, Robert Burden, Peter Gronquist & Georgi Tchkhaidze. 835 Larkin Street ~details
Something About Everything About Something Mark Warren Jacques
December 10 - January 7, 2012
We've been so busy getting our new space together, we haven't made it to many shows this last month. We're lucky enough to have a few images of Portland, Oregon based Mark Warren Jacques show at White Walls running through Saturday here in San Francisco to share.
Besides the show, Mark has a new print Still Dreaming of You available here for $35.
Style of Eye Stencil works by Casey Gray
@White Walls October 1, 2011 - October 29, 2011
Stencil and spray paint works. This SF based artist got his MFA in Painting from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2010. We checked out his opening last Saturday.
FF's Kid Yellow swung through Casey's studio before his show opened at White Walls last Saturday. More photos below of the visit and from his opening.
Pedro Matos just swung through FFDG and introduced himself. About to move to London from his native Portugal, Pedro is here in San Francisco to open his solo show at White Walls (or Shooting Gallery as he's on The Shooting Gallery's calendar) entitled Ephemera featuring oil-on-canvas works this Saturday, Sept 3rd (7-11pm).
Check our interview w/ him from last year. We'd imagine the work is going to be great. I mean, check the prewview below. Crazy talented painter.
Yeah, like the title of show suggests, David Young V has made an effort as every wall of the large gallery was covered in works featuring millitant, Mad Max, B/W, machine guns, tanks, punk-rock and a post-apocalyptic San Francisco. To hear what the show is about and to get some insight into what makes David Young tick, check our interview with him.
David Young V is on a mission. Shuttling between two studio spaces in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco— frequently in the dead of night—he engages in the business of recovering fragments from a future world. To hear him speak about the tomorrow he foresees; a world of zealots, martyrs, psychotic orphans and armed bike couriers, one is reminded of Mad-Max… if it had more military training and dabbled in cryptography and linguistics. The hard edged, high contrast, near religious iconography of David’s new work is an encrypted enigma, gnashing it’s teeth at you, challenging you to decipher it. It wants you to look hard. Maybe it will tell you…if you make an effort. — Shaun Roberts
David Young V’s show “Make an Effort” opens Saturday July 9th, 7pm at White Walls Gallery on 835 Larkin St (@Geary), San Francisco.
D Young V, Are you actually the fifth David in your family?
Yeah, my father is David and it goes back five generations, but it got restarted, so it really goes back about
eight people. The original David Young III got killed so his brother named his son after this guy. So the son became the first in my line.
Were there a lot of creative people in the Young family line?
No, there wasn’t a lot of artistic people in my family.
Then how did you get involved in art?
It’s all I really know, I’ve been doing art for so long...I’ve always wanted to do it. I’ve been doing it my whole life and I never want to stop. I was always drawing on the backs of my papers and on tests during class. I loved free drawing sessions, I always had fun in art class. I never really liked art projects, I always just liked drawing whatever I wanted to draw. Honestly I don’t think I was ever that good at it, but I just enjoyed it.
I didn’t decide to take it seriously until I was in college, I didn’t even know what a fine artist was but if it let me do anything I wanted to do, then I’ll try to be a fucking fine artist.
What was your work like back then?
Well when I was 18 I was doing these Micron pen drawings but they were totally different in nature, they were much more intricate than the work I do now, and they were more fantasy based. After that, I really got into abstract art using charcoals as well as murals. I was really into de Kooning, Pollock, Basquiat, Picasso, Braque, Kandinsky and other 20th Century Abstract art. I was obsessed with that for a number of years and I was just continually making abstract work.
White Walls Gallery - San Francisco || April 9- May 7, 2011 || Street artist ROA got his start by painting intriguing murals of animals in hidden places – underneath bridges and on walls that strayed from the beaten path. A darling of the underground street art scene, photos of his work regularly appear on Vandalog, Brooklyn Street Art, Wooster Collective, Unurth, and a fury of London newspapers and blogs running to his defense when a street piece he did in Hackney faced removal late last year. ROA is earnestly repopulating the cityscape with animals, as a way to have them re-enter the contemporary landscape that was once theirs. With a style all his own.
There are A LOT of great shows opening up this weekend and here's another. London based EINE opens up Greatest this Saturday at White Walls. He's been around San Francisco painting roll-ups like the one below filling the entire alphabet. Can you find them all around town?
Also in the Tenderloin (next door actually), The Shooting Gallery celebrates their 8th anniversary w/ works from Japanese artist Yumiko Kayukawa
San Francisco, CA-White Walls gallery is pleased to present, 'GREATEST' a solo
exhibition by London-based artist, Ben Flynn a.k.a. EINE. The opening reception
for 'GREATEST' will be held on Saturday, March 12, 2011 from 7-11 PM. The exhibition
will be on view from March 12, to April 2, 2011 and is free and open to the public.
'GREATEST' is an art exhibition by the artist, Ben EINE, that will utilize both gallery
and public space as a two-tiered platform for the artist’s visual expression. EINE'S work
is a large-scale study of the shape and structure of the 26 letters found in the modern
English alphabet in varied typefaces, color configurations and word arrangements. In
the public spaces of San Francisco, EINE will be painting each letter of the alphabet
on various walls around the city. A further ten canvases of his work using spray paint,
acrylic, and glitter will be on display at White Walls gallery.
Yumiko Kayukawa Saturday at The Shooting Gallery --> 7-11pm
Street artist and Brooklyn based Dan Witz opens his show What The %$#@? Saturday at White Walls. Be on the look out around San Francisco as Dan's been going to town leaving his work round the streets of our grand city --> PHOTOS.
White Walls is pleased to present What The %$#@? (WTF), an exhibition by prolific Brooklyn-based artist, Dan Witz. The WTF exhibition will be showcasing the artist’s Dark Doings series, both inside the gallery as well as on the streets of San Francisco. Witz is known for using his mastery of the visual deception of trompe-l'oeil and photorealistic painting techniques to create conceptual visual pranks, producing a definitive and unparalleled street art practice. The artist’s debut San Francisco solo show will be comprised of approximately 30 mixed and digital media works in custom framing hand-created by the artist. The opening reception for What The %$#@? (WTF) will be held at White Walls on January 08, 2010 from 7-11 PM. The exhibit will be on display through February 05, 2011 and is free and open to the public.
Some recent San Francisco activity. Click the image or here to view more.
Group Show "Broken Meter Zine Release & Art Reception"
December 9th
@White Walls
December 9th was the premiere release party and art reception for “Broken Meter”, a new zine celebrating texture and decay in the urban environment. I was honored to be invited to show some of my pigeon works alongside the works of Hugh Leeman, Dave Warnke, Skinner, Brett Amory, Chris Brennan, Dan Plasma, NART, Eddie Colla, D Young V, Jessica Hess, and Aaron Bo Heimlich. Of course, I also brought back a few photos from the event! -Megan Wolfe
Ashley Taylor and Megan Wolfe both swung through White Walls last Saturday to have a look see at their current winter group show running through Jan 1st.
LOS ANGELES --- mark down Saturday, June 22nd on the calendar as New Image Art will be opening Tonight We Fight featuring works by John Malta, Pacolli, Mildred, Dillon Froelich, Eric McHenry, Teddy Kelly, Luke Pelletier, Sean Morris, Yarrow Slaps, Ben Jensen, Nathan Brown and Miles Jackson.
Tucker Nichols emailed over this Whole Foods poster (below right) which looks a lot like one of Corey Arnold's photos (bottom left). Coincidence? Where they inspired by Corey's photo? Did Corey actually shoot the photo? Who knows and Corey is fishing for salmon right now (like this), so we can't ask him to find out.
Yeah, bad tattoos are basically a bummer, right? But they're also pretty much a rite of passage for bored and disenfranchised-feeling teenagers the world over. At least it was for about 95% of the people I know. Going to a reputable tattoo shop and getting a wizard or unicorn drilled into your lower back is totally fine, but nothing really takes the place of sitting around with a bunch of friends and some beers, enthusiastically taking turns poking each others' arms full of bad ideas-which actually is fun at any age.
OAKLAND -- First Fridays is hoping Oakland hasn't seen the last of the one of a kind event... The street art party is free to attend, but organizers say with police and other costs the price tag to throw the monthly party is $20,000... The City of Oakland has been footing the bill for months and after kicking in $500,000, it's pulling the plug... Organizers are now asking for donations and developing a vendor fee schedule to try and keep the party alive. ~continue reading
SAN FRANCISCO -- Guerrero Gallery, here in the Mission, opens their summer group show this Saturday, June 15th, featuring works from a steller lineup: Daniel Albrigo, Ryan Travis Christian, Alejandro Diaz-Ayala, Frohawk Two Feathers, Michelle Guintu, Justin Hager, Cody Hudson, Terry Powers, Rye Purvis, Victory Reyes, Jamie Williams, and Yarrow Slaps.
SAN FRANCISCO --- Southern Exposure hosts thier annual Monster Drawing Rally Friday, June 14, 2013 at THE NWBLK, 1999 Bryant Street (at 18th). Tons of great artists auctioning works at a starting price of only $60.
A live drawing and fundraising event with 120 artists working side by side. The event lets spectators to observe artists in the act of creation, providing the opportunity to watch a drawing come to life, and to purchase a work of art minutes after its completion. Drawings are available for purchase immediately for just $60 each.
~complete details
Wonder if our old emails with Banksy are worth a few thousand dollars. It seems everything the dude touches is worth a million dollars these days! Nutty and much deserved.
A disputed Banksy graffiti artwork removed from a gritty London neighbourhood has sold for approximately $1.1 million US at auction. The provocative Slave Labour (Bunting Boy) sold at a private auction held by concierge firm The Sincura Group at the London Film Museum on Sunday, according to Bloomberg news service. The spray-painted, stenciled work depicts a child labourer using an antique sewing machine to create a Union Jack bunting. -Continue reading
Daniel Cronin was hired to shoot photos for the ongoing feature series: the Road Trips USA: Pacific Coast... An interesting idea where the trip was live blogged/ tweeted/ Instagramed with people making suggestions for what to check out, and well, into FFDG they stopped.
Look ma, we made The Guardian U.K.
Come on, guys. Don't call San Francisco "San Fran".
SAN FRANCISCO --- Local painter Ian Kimmerly opened his newest show Continuous Wave at Dolby Chadwick on Thursday night, and these are some of the best paintings I've seen in a while.
This editor has been posting images from his life for the last 13 years. Cats, sailboats and living one's life in the city of San Francisco. Visual randomness.
Spoke Art opened The Black Robe on Thursday night, with the work of Barron Storey, Mike Dringenberg and Keita Morimoto, and was curated by Eidolon Fine Arts.
These days New York-native multimedia artist, Michael Alan, has been incredibly active artistically in the big city. Between staging hours-long Living Installations at the New Museum and other DIY spaces, exhibiting his drawings and paintings in group exhibitions and hosting an unusual solo show in the home of his mother, Alan proves that there is no rest for the wicked. I caught up with him recently to hear the latest, the backstory, and what's next.
Henrik Haven, who keeps us up to date in all that's Copenhagen, emailed over some photos from the Viborg International Billboard Painting Festival that's running throughout June. In this short installment he introduces us to the work of urban/graffiti artist and illustrator NYCHOS.
Kelly Tunstall, who's showing w/ Ferris Plock at FFDG this August 16th, recently finished some commissions for A16 in Oakland. Here's a little taste, and check out her last year's show at FFDG.
Brendan Monroe, whose show Melting Into the Floor runs through June 15th at LA's Richard Heller, creates these great wooden sculptures and featured a bunch in the show... He's often asked how he goes about making them and gives us at Fecal Face a little 'how to' on the process.
Mexico City based Curiot, whose sold out solo show Age of Omuktlans ran last March at FFDG, just finished this great mural entitled "El Retorno de Akhankutli" in Mexico. He recently completed one in Berlin too which we'll be posting in the coming week. The guy is very very talented in our eyes.
This made our day. Not only do we love pizza but we also love Henry Gunderson... So a board shapped like a hot slice designed by Henry Gunderson for The Good Company, well... this writer needs to go for a slice right now.
Wendell McShine (lives in Mexico City, from Trinidad) opened his newest show, Raccoon's Law, at Fifty24SF on Saturday night. ARYZ was a tough act to follow, but McShine held his own in the space... With a combination of a mural, a video, and both drawings and mixed-media works on paper, the diversity of this solo show was impressive. The Raccoon drawings were especially attractive as the way he executed them looked like they actually had fur coming off the page, and you can only imagine how soft it would be to touch. I was lucky to see his work in person through this show, and I hope to encounter more in the future.
Ingrid Wells just got her MFA from The San Francisco Art Institute and these oil paintings from her Honey Boo Boo's Amurrican Starquest were on display as part of the recent MFA exhibition... Ingrid Wells works and lives in San Francisco.
Henry Gunderson emailed over some photos from his recent group show with Andrew Luck, Jordan Bogash, and Mario Ayala "Out The Window" which ran at the Los Angeles based Prohibition Gallery.
I got there the day after the tornado came through. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. My mind just could not grasp what my eyes were seeing. It was just too much to take in, too much to process. So, I did what comes naturally and took images. It sort of helped me separate from the chaos and helped me focus.
Check out this, what could be, one of the longest murals ever created. Hyuro from Valencia, Spain was recently in Copenhagen for the solo show "In/Between" at ArtRebels.
Rachel Ralph spotted Barcelona-based ARYZ working on his mural in the TL a couple weeks back, and we forgot to share the pics. His show at Fifty24SF opened back in April.
Jeffrey Cheung emailed over some photos from a recent one night show he had at Terra Gallery/ event space. The May 19th show also featured live music by Oakland garage rockers Twin Steps and Coldtergeist.
Great solo show by LA based Alison Blickle (Born 1976) up now at San Francisco's Eleanor Harwood gallery. History of Magic Part 1... The Hermitage runs through June 15th 2013. -- 1295 Alabama St. Hours: Wed thru Sat (11-6pm)
Well, it looks like John Felix Arnold rocked Tokyo with his opening with Koutaro Ooyama at Spes Lab a few weeks back. Even a language barrier couldn't prevent the success of their collaboration. They invited everyone they met on trains, in cars, cafes, bars, restaurants, and people responded by attending, and bringing their families and friends as well.
Last Thursday evening, I was lucky enough to get invited to Nickelodeon's premiere party for their newest cartoon, Sanja & Craig, created by three awesome dudes - Andreas Trolf, Jim Dirschberger, and Jay Howell. Hosted at Tony's Salon with pizza provided by Pizzanistas, the premiere party was filled with libations and celebrations, even a break-dance battle broke out. Congrats to everyone who worked on the show, and especially Trolf, Jim, and Jay who all have been working tirelessly on it. Sanja & Craig premiered Saturday 10:30 am 11 am on Nickelodeon. You can watch Sanjay and Craig Episode 1: Brett Venom on hulu. and read about how the guys came up with it in this interview with The LA Times. Now, here's some photos from the premiere.
Drawing Stories is a new series from our buddy Travis Millard. Grab a cup of hot coco, get your slippers on and enjoy some time with your uncle Millard.
Los Angeles Christofer Chin (Tofer) emailed over some install shots of his current show Ar running in NYC at Lu Magnus through June 29th. Simple/ clean and continuing his op artstyle Tofer Chin features new paintings, photographs, and sculpture continuing his exploration of geologically and architecturally inspired Minimalist forms.
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