A “Decade With No Name”
54 Washington St. Oakland, CA
Open: Saturday and Sunday through September 12th.
For more info visit www.spokeart.net.
Curated by Ken Harman
A multi-disciplinary look into the works currently being created in our collective backyard, “The Decade With No Name” serves as a celebration of the sculptors, painters, photographers and street artists who call Oakland, Berkeley and the greater East Bay their home.
From the politically and socially inspired street art of Eddie Colla, to the three-dimensional monstrous cake sculptures of Scott Hove, to Brett Amory’s figurative paintings, Amanda Lopez’ Dia de los Muertos photographs, Monica Canilao’s found object installations and Emory Douglas’ historical Black Panther graphic agitation, this showcase serves as a veritable who’s-who of the East Bay’s emerging and established artist community.
Artists: Mike Shine, GATS, Brett Amory, Aaron Nagel, Amanda Lopez, Emory Douglas, Skinner, Eddie Colla, Scott Hove, Peter Gronquist, Owen Cook, Zoltron, Alika Copper, Ras Terms, Monica Canilao, David D’Andrea, Dave Correia, Jason Vivona, Deth P. Sun, John Felix Arnold, Brendan Monroe, James Swinson, John Coyne, Meagan Donegan, Lea Bruno, Annie Vought and Hangar 18 Print Showcase.
Last Week's Winner: was Brett Millard (Kansas City) for their "Fallin' Into It". Brett wins a bitchin' tee shirt from our good friends at African Apparel.
We continue interviews with artists in Fecal Face's 10 Year Anniversary Show opening September 10th @The Luggage Store with an after party @Mezzanine following right after w/ bands and DJs... Ian Francis is a London based artist who shows at Lazarides Gallery with the now infamous Banksy. We've been following Ian's work for years and have always been a fan. It's an honor to have him included in our 10 Yr. show.
What were you up to in the year 2000?
In the year 2000 I was in university studying illustration. I was terrible at illustration - I basically just wanted to do my own work, had no interest in following a brief, and I struggle with deadlines that are shorter than a couple of months - but I had no idea at the time that there were galleries who would show the kind of work that I wanted to do. Luckily the course I was on had a pretty broad interpretation of what illustration was. I think actually for the most part I was either getting drunk or sitting around with my friends drinking coffee, procrastinating and having pretentious conversations about artwork without really doing much.
How has your work changed in the last 10 years?
Over the last 10 years my work has changed quite a bit, particularly in the way I actually make pieces. Back in university I was doing mixed media work with a lot more collage, messing around with photocopiers and gluing things on to boards. The first few years after I graduated I was scanning bits of drawings and paintings I'd done into the computer and layering things together in Photoshop. For the last four or five years I've switched to doing mixed media work straight on canvas, primarily painting in acrylic or oil. Although the process has changed quite a lot, I think I'd have been happy back then with where my work has ended up conceptually and stylistically. I think having worked in various different ways helps what I do now.
What did you think 2010 would be like back then?
I've got no idea, I always like idly speculating about The Future, but I can't remember what I thought back then.
Brazilian artists Otavio and Gustavo Pandolfo also known as ‘Os Gemeos’ and pop culture legend ‘Futura’ have
partnered with New York City-based creative studio AKANYC and street art website 12ozProphet to create an eightyfoot
mural on the west-facing wall of P.S. 11, William T. Harris elementary school, in the Chelsea neighborhood of New
York City.
Last Thursday we stopped by San Francisco galleries Ever Gold & 111 Minna to have a look see at thier newest shows and took some photos with the image box.
From now until Fecal Face's 10 Year Anniversay Show (opening September 10th @The Luggage Store) we're going to be posting short interviews with the artists participating in it. The first is from LA's Jeff Soto whose been on Fecal Face from way back when and whose work we've always loved. Be sure to click the image to read the entire interview.
What were you up to in the year 2000?
I was still in art college, I was 25. Oh so young! I had my own car for the first time in my life, so my girlfriend and I got to explore a bit. Things I remember vividly- art openings in L.A., cactus hunting in the Mohave, and I was doing some of my last graffiti art for a decade. Art college stuff, you know.. and getting started in my career.
How has your work changed in the last 10 years?
I feel like right now I'm working on the types of paintings I wanted to make in 2000 but hadn't yet acquired the know-how. In the last decade I went through a more "crafty" experimental stage, making tons of small pieces, I tried stenciling, collage, drippiness, and a bunch of different techniques. At some point it all felt like visual gimmicks to me, so I began to just get back to pure painting the last couple of years and it feels great.
We're going to start going back over the last 10 years and coming up with classic Fecal Face photos for Photo of the Day up to our 10 Year Anniversary show on September 10th. This one of Simon Evans was shot Dec 2001 at The Howard House, a skate house in San Francisco, where Fecal Face got its start. Simon actually moved into the bedroom where the URL was purchased...
If you have a classic Fecal Face photo from the last 10 years, email it on in. potd(at)fecalface.com
//////////////////~ submit your photos to: potd(at)fecalface.com ~ make sure they're at least 700 pixels in width.
Wednesday, 11 August 2010 00:43 Written by Julian Duron
I've been a fan of his art since the early 00's. I remember the first drawings I saw; characters resembling something from Jim Hanson or The Never Ending Story rendered on a plain sheets of printer paper, tacked to the wall, and very reasonably priced. His drawings are kitschy and illustrative often rendered using some sort of low-end paper and a fresh set of sharpened colored pencils. The images are recognizable yet distorted, but not abstracting the themes within his whimsical portraits. If you're around our age, a Grimlin riding a bicycle is nostalgic and comical. He is obviously an 80's baby considering the imagery and themes within his work and I see traces of many characters - Muppet Babies, Darth Vader, E.T., Falcore, etc. - that molded my childhood. Hmm, maybe that is why I am so drawn to his art? He recently opened a solo show at Giant Robot New York. Here's some pics from that. Often mimicked but never matched, presenting new work by a notorious Fecal friend, Matt Furie. -Julian Duron
Here's some words Matt sent me regarding his new work:
"for the show i made a series of characters. Themes include mythology, anthropomorphism, star wars, underwater life, the gay community, sports, gothic chicks, exercise, food, medieval weapons, soul caliber, video games, muppets, in-n-out, latino E.T., ducks, and horror movie references."
From our buddy Kirk Dianda comes this awesome short. Michael Hsiung informed via email. Thanks, Michael!... Words below come straight from Kirk's computer typing fingers.
The FLATGROUND CASE STUDY is a short film I made, starring Chad Tim Tim, that played at the Love & Guts art show in Costa Mesa, on August 5th
The idea was to create a non-linear story that didn't rely on a musical soundtrack. This way people could watch from any point within the film, for any amount of time. So at the exhibition, the video looped seamlessly throughout opening night.
The film is an experiment in documenting style and technique, which was played back in a gallery setting (and now online) in a way that depicts the similarities of tricks through motion and style.
Most of the video is presented in slow-mo, with the hopes that you can observe the shapes and technique through overlapping imagery… The basics of skateboarding, silhouetted and colored, come alive and create a moving Rorschach test.
It was fun to come into this with a low-budget, creative way of thinking. The production process is simply Chad Tim Tim and myself, a white wall, two cameras, and a few lights, and then we edited it on Final Cut; no green screen or After Effects.
Tuesday, 10 August 2010 12:35 Written by Bill Dunlap
I was in Beacon, NY at the end of July for Electric Windows, an event where artists painted in the streets on big sheets of vinyl-ish stuff. Then the final pieces were hung on the exterior of an old building. It was a great event. I met lots of great artists, and ate good vegan Pad Thai. Beacon is a nice town. You should have a look. -Bill Dunlap
Beacon, New York - On Saturday July 31st 2010, OPEN SPACE gallery and Burlock Home presented Electric Windows 2010. 30 artists will converge in Beacon, NY to create live artwork and have their work installed on the exterior of a 19th century factory building. Electric Windows draws its name from the former electric blanket factory at the foot of Mount Beacon that will act as the backdrop for the event.
Artists included Big Foot, Buxtonia, BoogieRez, Cern, Chor Boogie, Chris Stain, Chris Yormick, Depoe, Elbow Toe, Elia Gurna, Ellis G, Erik Otto, Eugene Good, Faust, Gaia, Joe Iurato, Kid Zoom, Mr Kiji, Logan Hicks, Lotem & Aviv, Michael De Feo, Paper Monster, Peat Wollaeger, Rick Price, Ron English, Ryan Bubnis, Ryan Williams, Skewville, and thundercut
I don't think at this point it needs to be written since the last update to Fecal Face was a long time ago, but...
I, John Trippe, have put this baby Fecal Face to bed. I'm now focusing my efforts on running ECommerce at DLX which I'm very excited about... I guess you can't take skateboarding out of a skateboarder.
It was a great 15 years, and most of that effort can still be found within the site. Click around. There's a lot of content to explore.
Hit me up if you have any ECommerce related questions. - trippe.io
I'm not sure how many people are lucky enough to have The San Francisco Giants 3 World Series trophies put on display at their work for the company's employees to enjoy during their lunch break, but that's what happened the other day at Deluxe. So great.
SF skateboarding icons Jake Phelps, Mickey Reyes, and Tommy Guerrero with the 3 SF Giants World Series Trophies
When works of art become commodities and nothing else, when every endeavor becomes “creative” and everybody “a creative,” then art sinks back to craft and artists back to artisans—a word that, in its adjectival form, at least, is newly popular again. Artisanal pickles, artisanal poems: what’s the difference, after all? So “art” itself may disappear: art as Art, that old high thing. Which—unless, like me, you think we need a vessel for our inner life—is nothing much to mourn.
Hard-working artisan, solitary genius, credentialed professional—the image of the artist has changed radically over the centuries. What if the latest model to emerge means the end of art as we have known it? --continue reading
"Six Degrees" opens tonight, Friday Jan 16th (7-10pm) at FFDG in San Francisco. ~Group show featuring: Brett Amory, John Felix Arnold III, Mario Ayala, Mariel Bayona, Ryan Beavers, Jud Bergeron, Chris Burch, Ryan De La Hoz, Martin Machado, Jess Mudgett, Meryl Pataky, Lucien Shapiro, Mike Shine, Minka Sicklinger, Nicomi Nix Turner, and Alex Ziv.
"[Satire] is important because it brings out the flaws we all have and throws them up on the screen of another person," said Turner. “How they react sort of shows how important that really is.” Later, he added, "Charlie took a hit for everybody." -read on
As we work on our changes, we're leaving Squarespace and coming back to the old server. Updates are en route.
The content that was on the site between May '14 and today is history... Whatever, wasn't interesting anyway. All the good stuff from the last 10 years is here anyway.
Opening tonight, Friday May 23rd (7-10pm) at Park Life in the Inner Richmond (220 Clement St) is Again Home Again featuring works from the duo Jacob Mcgraw-Mikelson & Rachell Sumpter who split time living in Sacramento and a tiny island at the top of Pudget Sound with their children.
Jacob Magraw will be showing embroidery pieces on cloth along with painted, gouache works on paper --- Rachell Sumpter paints scenes of colored splendor dropped into scenes of desolate wilderness. ~show details
NYC --- A new graffiti abatement program put forth by the police commissioner has beat cops carrying cans of spray paint to fill in and cover graffiti artists work in an effort to clean up the city --> Many cops are thinking it's a waste of resources, but we're waiting to see someone make a project of it. Maybe instructions for the cops on where to fill-in?
The NYPD is arming its cops with cans of spray paint and giving them art-class-style lessons to tackle the scourge of urban graffiti, The Post has learned.
Shootings are on the rise across the city, but the directive from Police Headquarters is to hunt down street art and cover it with black, red and white spray paint, sources said... READ ON
Los Angeles based Alison Blickle who showed here in San Francisco at Eleanor Harwood last year (PHOTOS) recently showed new paintings in New York at Kravets Wehby Gallery. Lovely works.
We haven't been featuring many interviews as of late. Let's change that up as we check in with a few local San Francisco artists like Kevin Earl Taylor here whom we studio visited back in 2009 (PHOTOS & VIDEO). It's been awhile, Kevin...
If you like guns and boobs, head on over to the Shooting Gallery; just don't expect the work to be all cheap ploys and hot chicks. With Make Stuff by Peter Gronquist (Portland) in the main space and Morgan Slade's Snake in the Eagle's Shadow in the project space, there is plenty spectacle to be had, but if you look just beyond it, you might actually get something out of the shows.
Fifty24SF opened Street Anatomy, a new solo show by Austrian artist Nychos a week ago last Friday night. He's been steadily filling our city with murals over the last year, with one downtown on Geary St. last summer, and new ones both in the Haight and in Oakland within the last few weeks, but it was really great to see his work up close and in such detail.
Nate Milton emailed over this great short Gator Skater which is a follow-up to his Dog Skateboard he emailed to us back in 2011... Any relation to this Gator Skater?
Congrats on our buddies at Needles and Pens on being open and rad for 11 years now. Mission Local did this little short video featuring Breezy giving a little heads up on what Needles and Pens is all about.
In a filmmaker's thinking, we wish more videos were done in this style. Too much editing and music with a lacking in actual content. Just because you can doesn't mean you should.
Matt Wagner recently emailed over some photos from The Hellion Gallery in Tokyo, who recently put together a show with AJ Fosik (Portland) called Beast From a Foreign Land. The gallery gave twelve of Fosik's sculptures to twelve Japanese artists (including Hiro Kurata who is currently showing in our group show Salt the Skies) to paint, burn, or build upon.
FFDG is pleased to announce an exclusive online show with San Francisco based Ferris Plock opening on Friday, April 25th (12pm Pacific Time) featuring 5 new medium sized acrylic paintings on wood.
Backwoods Gallery in Melbourne played host to a huge group exhibition a couple of weeks back, with "Gold Blood, Magic Weirdos" Curated by Melbourne artist Sean Morris. Gold Blood brought together 25 talented painters, illustrators and comic artists from Australia, the US, Singapore, England, France and Spain - and marked the end of the Magic Weirdos trilogy, following shows in Perth in 2012 and London in 2013.
San Francisco based Fecal Pal Jeremy Fish opened his latest solo show Hunting Trophies at LA's Mark Moore Gallery last week to massive crowds and cabin walls lined with imagery pertaining to modern conquest and obsession.
Well, John Felix Arnold III is at it again. This time, he and Carolyn LeBourgios packed an entire show into the back of a Prius and drove across the country to install it at Superchief Gallery in NYC. I met with him last week as he told me about the trip over delicious burritos at Taqueria Cancun (which is right across the street from FFDG and serves what I think is the best burrito in the city) as the self proclaimed "Only overweight artist in the game" spilled all the details.
Ever Gold opened a new solo show by NYC based Henry Gunderson a couple Saturday nights ago and it was literally packed. So packed I couldn't actually see most of the art - but a big crowd doesn't seem like a problem. I got a good laugh at what I would call the 'cock climbing wall' as it was one of the few pieces I could see over the crowd. I haven't gotten a chance to go back and check it all out again, but I'm definitely going to as the paintings that I could get a peek at were really high quality and intruiguing. You should do the same.
The paintings in the show are each influenced by a musician, ranging from Freddy Mercury, to Madonna, to A Tribe Called Quest and they are so stylistically consistent with each musician's persona that they read as a cohesive body of work with incredible variation. If you told me they were each painted by a different person, I would not hesitate to believe you and it's really great to see a solo show with so much variety. The show is fun, poppy, very well done, and absolutely worth a look and maybe even a listen.
With rising rent in SF and knowing mostly other young artists without capitol, I desired a way to live rent free, have a space to do my craft, and get to see more of the world. Inspired by the many historical artists who have longed similar longings I discovered the beauty of artist residencies. Lilo runs Adhoc Collective in Vienna which not only has a fully equipped artists creative studio, but an indoor halfpipe, and private artist quarters. It was like a modern day castle or skate cathedral. It exists in almost a utopic state, totally free to those that apply and come with a real passion for both art and skateboarding
I just wanted to share with you a piece I recently finished which took me 4 years to complete. Titled "How To Lose Yourself Completely (The September Issue)", it consists of a copy of the September 2007 issue of Vogue magazine (the issue they made the documentary about) with all faces masked with a sharpie, and everything else entirely whited out. 840 pages of fun. -Bryan Schnelle
While walking our way across San Francisco on Saturday we swung through the opening receptions for Kirk Maxson and Alexis Mackenzie at Eleanor Harwood Gallery in the Mission.
Jeremy Fish opens Hunting Trophies tonight, Saturday April 5th, at the Los Angeles based Mark Moore Gallery. The show features new work from Fish inside the "hunting lodge" where viewers climb inside the head of the hunter and explore the history of all the animals he's killed.
Beautiful piece entitled "The Albatross and the Shipping Container", Ink on Paper, Mounted to Panel, 47" Diameter, by San Francisco based Martin Machado now on display at FFDG. Stop in Saturday (1-6pm) to view the group show "Salt the Skies" now running through April 19th. 2277 Mission St. at 19th.
For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to quit my job, move out of my house, leave everything and travel again. So on August 21, 2013 I pushed a canoe packed full of gear into the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Lake Itasca, Minnesota, along with four of my best friends. Exactly 100 days later, I arrived at a marina near the Gulf of Mexico in a sailboat.
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