SAMO

12.06.2010 | by Maxwell | Comment

What I Need & What I Don’t Need

11.18.2010 | by Leah | Comment

In the midst of changing attitudes toward ownership and consumption, the draw/photograph-everything-I-own/buy thing has been a popular project among artists recently. Kate Bingaman Burt‘s book chronicling everything she buys, Obsessive Consumption, is probably the best known. Berlin based Lisa von Billerbeck has her own take, the most beautifully done and perfectly understated collection of objects yet. It’s captioned simply, “Started to draw everything i own to figure out what i need and what i dont need.”

You Are What you Do

10.11.2010 | by Dylan | Comment

Hats off gentlemen… No matter how hard you try, The Invisible Children cannot be ignored. You have to commend them on the level of organization and creativity that makes up this activist group, not to mention, their knack for creating positive tangible change.

Learn more about their cause here.

Via Wooster Collective

Speak With Conviction

10.06.2010 | by Dylan | Comment

In case you hadn’t noticed,
it has somehow become uncool
to sound like you know what you’re talking about?
Or believe strongly in what you’re saying?
Invisible question marks and parenthetical (you know?)’s
have been attaching themselves to the ends of our sentences?
Even when those sentences aren’t, like, questions? You know?

Read more

Industrial Revolution: Barrio Logan

08.30.2010 | by Dylan | 1 Comment

OK kiddies, lace up your boots. This Saturday, September 4th, is a big night in Barrio Logan. Our friends at Set & Drift have invited us all (that’s you too) to the opening reception of Current at The Bakery in Barrio Logan. The show will be featuring Mercantile, a pop-up-shop showcasing hand crafted goods from 9 American designers as well as an amazing knitted lighting installation by Kwangho Lee.

As if this wasn’t enough, around the corner, Glasshaus is opening its doors for Device Gallery’s Creatures of Industry reception featuring the works of Greg Brotherton, Nemo Gould, Jeremy Mayer and Guillermo Rigattieri.

…There’s more, believe it. Across the street from The Bakery, the opening reception for the group photography show Keeping Time will be going off at Voz Alta. Allright, I’m tired of typing.

From Bushwick

08.19.2010 | by Leah | Comment

Every day on my way to the Jefferson St. L train I see this, read it, and think about it.  The creator is Skewville, a twin brother artist duo active in transforming the Brooklyn landscape.  A recent proposal, the Bushwick Art Park is visualized as a “green space” on a blocked-off Vandervoort Place, with murals painted on bordering buildings, and sculptures installed in the road.  With the park, Skewville aims to connect the long-existing population of bodega owners and industrial workers with the young people (often called “artists”) who arrived more recently, creating one thriving community.

Knitting Gets Radical

08.13.2010 | by Leah | Comment

This story, via my mom, a pretty radical knitter herself:

The book Yarn Bombing: The Art of Crochet and Knit Graffiti compiles photos of knit interventions all over the world, along with accompanying texts and how-tos.  They even give a handy guide of the measurements of major buildings, bridges, and monuments in case you want to go all Christo and Jean-Claude.

Though the book came out last fall, the phenomenon is nothing new. Magda Sayeg, a pioneer in yarn bombing, began taking her work to the streets in 2005 in “response to the dehumanizing qualities of an urban environment.”  Stephen Colbert reported on one knitter’s response to American institutions like guns and SUVs in 2008.

A lot more photos are here.

BLU goes big in Berlin

08.05.2010 | by Dylan | Comment

Street artist BLU gives his take on global warming in Berlin.

via JUST

Tijuego Street Art Bike Tour

07.30.2010 | by Dylan | Comment

Instead of spending the weekend inside watching cartoons, our friends, SEZIO and Set & Drift decided to organize a rad street-art-bike-tour for San Diego and Tijuana on Saturday and Sunday. So for god’s sake, set your TiVo to record Yo Gabba Gabba this week and get out there on your bikes. We highly recommend.

Here’s the schedule we pulled from Set & Drift. Click here for even more details.

TJ Ride // Saturday, July 31 // 1:00 pm
Meet at the gates on the South side of the pedestrian border crossing in Colonia Federal. After-party at Pop Diner starting at 4pm

…SD Ride // Sunday, August 1 // 11:00 am
Meet at Urban Outfitters, Hillcrest by the OBEY mural
The ride will conclude at MCASD Downtown at 2pm
After-party at Super El Camino in Little Italy at 4pm

BECOMING HUMAN

07.13.2010 | by Leah | Comment

What does it mean to be a human being? How do we create meaning and give form to our lives? We feel, we talk about our feelings, we think, we talk about our thoughts, we observe our surroundings, we are critical, we learn from seeing and doing and reading and hearing and we talk about it all.  We learn.  We touch and we kiss and we have sex. We also eat and we laugh. We eat and laugh a lot.  We move. We walk and sometimes run. We breathe. We make lots of noises. Funny noises but also painful ones and noises that let out our feelings. We cry. We cry a lot because we feel a lot.

Humans also do some things they probably shouldn’t do. We value things we don’t really want or need. We forget how to feel, think, learn, and cry. So what does it really mean to be a human being?

Mike Mills’ project, Humans, explores these questions through a line of products and posters that combine graphic design and a higher art.  Though his manifestos, texts, and images may provoke more questions, they also bring us a little closer to the answer.