i heART NEW YORK! part 2

Below are some gems from my trips to the art shows I visited this past two months.

First, here are some images I'd like to share from PULSE, which was one of the major fairs beside BRIDGE that were happening in the apple at the end of March.

My friend and fellow artist (peep his dope work here), Rodney and I checked out what's new at PULSE. All in all, both PULSE and BRIDGE had a pretty large selection of fantastic work and some forgettable pieces as well.










Like the Washington portrait made of different currencies that I was digging at BRIDGE, these pieces play with optical illusion...this SPOCK image on the left is made of thread rolls!! Cameron Gray's piece took me by surprise...I only picked up the face when I looked into my camera's view finder. pretty brilliant.


an intimate look into life in the matrix...

one of Rodney's picks...cyber architecture meets the developing world

this massive 88" x 177" piece by Asgar (?) was one of my favorites.

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Then, there was "COME CORRECT", curated by legendary Bronx-bred graffiti artist, COPE2.

I loved the fact that a sizeable portion of the crowd was probably under 20...finally, there are more art events that get the new generation of artists and audience out too see art. Street art and all its offshoots are the new pop art movement...soon the official art establishment is going to catch up and will crown the new Warhols and Lichtensteins and Basquiats...until then, we've got a still-growing, breathing, expanding global movement that haven't been completely co-opted and tamed by the mainstream. And let's not forget that we've gotta thank hip-hop for being at the root of all this!

on the left, Cope2 repping his piece

i'm wondering when is there going to be a Fafi cartoon series?

Ashley is gangsta....

hmmm...

packing it....i love the SHOWROOM, (I was part of the COLLABRO show there last year), but it's way too small!



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And last but not least, I had a chance to see the opening of the Joshua Liner's Gallery, another new show space in Chelsea's industrial art quarter. (Again, thanks to Steve Psyllos, fellow artist and my brilliant managing editor at TRACE, who forwarded me the invite.) Mr. Liner was co-founder of Philly's Lineage Gallery that represented some of my favorite artists, so when I heard that it closed it's doors, I was pretty disappointed...is the art consumer world still not ready for the new art movement that has way surpassed its incubatory, underground phase (though it keeps on getting new blood from the street)?

I was happy to find out that he's bringing his eyes for new art to New York City, a natural destination for anyone who is trying to make it in the art business. The Joshua Liner Gallery is a welcome addition to the growing number of galleries in the city representing next generation art, whatever you might call it--- lowbrow, pop surrealist, street, urban. Yeah yeah, no one likes boxes. The terms are still fluid and people are not 100% comfortable with them, but they make a relative reference point. Ok, so check some of my favorites.

These three below I call the Top3D series...they are all ingenius in the way they achieved a subtle sense of depth that will make you want to have a tactile encounter with an illusion. I like to get really close to the canvas, and I admit I spent a lot of time in front of this beautiful piece, entitled 'Powerhouse' by Robert Hardgrave aka Farmerbob. I love the layers, the blending and balancing of colors and the way he creates a dreamy sense of 3D with using a collage technique.

Oliver Vernon's 'Temple Alps' is another surreal trip. it's pretty mindblowing the way he's got one's eyes tricked with the false distances.

Futura's piece has the same effect...it is actually super hard to achieve this kind of illusion of depth with such minimal use of lines

two very different take on the female form. on the left Aiko Nakagawa's pop piece will be a sure seller. Ben Tour's dark and trippy stigmata-ridden 'Devil May Cry' is unsettling.

I loved David Choong Lee's Mindscape. pretty amazing.

Who else could rep your portrait better than the model itself? On the left, it looks like the young model of Ron English's amazing portrait has found the perfect spot to chill while the adult world was schmoozing around the corner. On the right, there is another trippy 3D mindblow; Damon Soule's 'Bird Brother' is another genius work.


Ron English's massive Superpop Cowgirl Guernica is a flip on Picasso's classic Guernica piece. This is only a detail and my camera doesn't do any justice to this dope piece.

Kenji Hirata's eye candy in the background.

If you are interested in art along this line, you should also check out another Chelsea-based art space, the Jonathan Levine Gallery. Interestingly, the JLG is another Philly import, but Mr. Levine has made the move to NYC back in 2005. I can't wait to see the solo shows of Camille Rose Garcia, Doze Green, Blek the Rat, and James Jean!