Double Break's (San Diego) show Digging A Hole, Looking For Something featuring new works by Michael Krueger and Travis Millard opened Friday May 18th and runs thru June 16th. Coming from Lawrence, Kansas and Los Angeles, CA respectively, Krueger and Millard's first connected at the University of Kansas and have long drawn inspiration from one other. Both artists explore the figure of the "common man," displacing the mundane and the mythic from everyday life, weaving threads between past and present. Their search for the sublime in this densely hyper-visual yet vacuous post-industrial age is rife with humor, longing and discovery, as is apparent in this selection of new works on view at Double Break.

A few weeks back Jay Howell opened a show of his recent drawings on book pages at the Secret Headquarters in Los Angeles. Michael Hsiung was there and got these photos.

My buddy Phil is the proud owner of this one. Good choice.

Pages From Books and Creep Club Foldout zine packet was a deal for $15. Check out the web store page for your own.

Jay getting ready for the show at Secret Headquarters. 21 new pieces for sale, many of which were already pre-sold.

Lost For Words
Dave Kinsey, solo show
May 18 - June 16, 2012
@FFDG, SF

Last Friday we were pleased to open up Dave Kinsey's first solo show in San Francisco since before 2000 when Dave was doing a lot of work in streets with his then work partner Shepard Fairey. A lot of the smaller works are homage to that era, i.e., the titles are San Francisco street names. Love his new direction.

From the P.R.: In his new body of work, Kinsey continues his evolution into more abstract representation while still incorporating elements of the figures which gained him fame during his influential, early career, street art campaign, "Unlearn." In combining and reducing his visual elements, Kinsey has refined his communication with the viewer to a more concise manner within each work. In this body, Kinsey flaunts his skill to say just as much with sometimes less, at times using fewer brush strokes to get to the same place; we see his iconic heads explode and break apart in bold and energetic compositions that provoke emotion and reflection.

The ceiling banners, the original work on craft paper, will go on sale online here the week of May 28th for $200/ each. Check back.

After our Dave Kinsey opening last Friday, we made our way down Market Street for Luggage Store's opening of STREETOPIA. Ran into a lot of friends and was amazed at how transformed the gallery was. Multiple rooms built out to include a Free Cafe, a theater, a gallery/studio, and a library. Streetopia will host free performances, teachings, and talks in the city every day for the show's month-long run and, thus, will provide a temporary space that offers opportunities for participation, agency, critical thinking, learning, sharing of ideas, and tools for community building that will reverberate in the real city after the city we build in the gallery is long gone.

Streetopia, a large-scale group exhibition to take place in venues throughout downtown San Francisco this coming May 18 through June 23. Curated by writer, Erick Lyle, and artists, Chris Johanson and Kal Spelletich, Streetopia will bring neighborhood residents together with at least 132 artists, performers, writers, filmmakers, activists, thinkers, and public policy makers in venues in the heart of?the city, to address the show’s themes of Utopian aspiration for the city.

For the calendar of events that will be taking place throughout the month, check: http://streetopiasf.com/ --> and it should be noted that all those events are FREE.

Didn't recognize the gallery where we had our 10 yr. anniversay show.

Dave Kinsey, Kyle Ranson, and Breezy Culbertson.

GRAVITY
Matt W. Moore
April 27 – June 16, 2012
SINCE.upian Gallery
Paris, France

From Matt Moore: A new series of (entirely spraypaint) canvas painting created during a 1-month residency in Paris. A true evolution from the purely geometric abstractions I have explored in my past few exhibitions : Sun Ray Ricochet (Moscow 2011) + XYZ Axis (Cincinnati 2011) + Crystals & Lasers (Paris 2010) + Parallel Universe (Sao Paulo 2009) + 20/20 (Barcelona 2008). An exciting new chapter.

Doug Neill emailed over a few photos from Barry McGee's opening last Friday at Prism in Los Angeles.

Speaking of Doug, he's hosting a party this Saturday on the roof at LA's Standard Hotel through his SurferxBlood.com

On the way home from Fecal Face a couple Fridays back we swung through Fifty24SF to catch the two day show with the LA based hip-hop photographer Michael Miller in celebration of his new book. West coast hip-hop iconic early 1990's hip-hop photographs, including numerous photos of 2pac, Ice Cube, Eazy-E, Snoop Dogg, Warren G... the bonus: Eazy-E touting a skateboard and a gun?!

'Hypnagogia' By ROA
Solo Show & Book Launch
20.04.12 - 06.05.12
@Stolen Space, London

Massive show from this prolific Belgium based sreet artist --> The exhibition is held in 2 spaces, Stolen Spaces' usual permanent gallery in the Truman Brewery and The Stone Masons, 17 Osborne Street London E1 6TD... Also ROA did some work in streets around London as well.

Hamishi emailed over some photos from his current show Nothing Special running at Melbourne's Paradise Hills through this Saturday, May 5th. If you're in Melbourne, view it in person as we're sure it looks even better in person.

Hamishi participated in last November's group show 11.11.11 @FFDG back in November with Mario Martinez showing a solo show... Man, that's was a nutty opening before the cops showed up.

Cigarettes, Phone Cards & Hip Hop Clothing
Works by Tom Betthauser, Kelsey Brookes, Ryan Travis Christian, Scott Greenwalt, Robert Hardgrave, Hiro Kurata, Mildred, Pacolli, Marco Zamora, and Alex Ziv
@FFDG, SF
April 20 - May 12, 2012

Henry Gunderson and Ryan De La Hoz

Hiro Kurata
Portrait of a Slugger
36" x 36"
Acrylic on panel, 2012
pricing and availability, email
info(at)ffdg.net

Pacolli and Mildred