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Category Archives: Art

Preview/Art Focus: Futura – ‘Breaking Out’ @ University of Buffalo

Retrospectives are rarely as overdue as the one opening on Saturday at the University of Buffalo Art Galleries. Breaking Out spans both of the university’s locations – UB Center for the Arts and the UB Anderson Gallery – and provides a comprehensive survey of the five decade-long career of Futura. So, it seems like a timely opportunity for us to take a look back at the life and works of one of the most innovative and influential artists of our time.  Leonard Hilton McGurr was […]

Showing: Banksy – ‘Cut and Run’ @ GOMA

After a sold-out 10 week run at Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art, Banksy’s first solo show in almost 14 years comes to a close next week. The exhibition, entitled Cut and Run, gives the public the opportunity to rediscover paintings which have appeared around the world over the last 25 years; many of these can no longer be found on the street and, in some cases, the streets themselves no longer even exist. The exhibition displays the original stencils used to create many of his […]

Showing: Beyond The Streets (London)

The art establishment has a less than distinguished history when it comes to embracing artists who fall outside of its comfortably familiar linear narrative of western art. Impressionism was a derogatory name bestowed by the art critic Louis Leroy and the fabled Salon des Refusés exhibition of work by the movement’s most prominent figures was comprised of pieces rejected by the the Académie des Beaux-Arts’s annual exhibition in Paris. With stylewriting – or graffiti, as its early detractors called it – history has repeated itself […]

Releases: Top 10 Books of 2022

Despite the indisputable importance of digital media in the art world, the appetite for physical books remains undimmed and this year has seen the release of some beautifully crafted works. So, in no particular order, here are our favorite books published in 2022. ‘4000’ by INVADER The Parisian-artist’s global invasion is undoubtedly one of the largest and most ambitious art projects that has ever been undertaken. In addition to photos of all the 4000 pieces which he has created in 80 cities worldwide over the […]

Release/Benefit: Banksy – ‘Fragile/Agile’

Continuing his support for humanitarian causes around the globe, Banksy is releasing a new screen print in partnership with Giles Duley’s Legacy of War Foundation. The proceeds will help those directly impacted by Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine by allowing the Foundation to purchase ambulances and generators as the country heads into the harsh winter months. The image features a white mouse whose claw marks, individually made by Banksy with a sharpened pizza cutter, have obscured the first two letters of the work ‘fragile’. The […]

Remembering: Mike Dring

Mike Dring, the gallerist and curator behind Bristol’s Art-El Gallery, sadly passed away last week. During an era when money was increasingly coming to the fore, the Bristol-native was always focused squarely on the art and the artist. He worked with several of the key figures loosely associated with the city’s graffiti scene including Rowdy, Acerone and Mr Jago ensuring they had someone in their corner as street art gained increasing public prominence. The latter remembers Mike as “always being there for encouragement…and for drinking […]

Releases: Barry McGee – ‘Reproduction’ Book

‘I don’t feel like a photographer’ Barry McGee once confessed. So it’s no small irony that Aperture has just released Reproduction, his first book dedicated exclusively to that medium. The book is printed on a contrasting combination of the kind of thick gloss paper which is familiar to the publisher’s usual fine art photography publications and the thinner matte stock which McGee’s images are more commonly printed on in his many zines.  The book collates just a small number of the many photographs that the […]

Recap: Maya Hayuk – ‘Spin Cycle’ @ Alice Gallery

Last weekend saw the conclusion of Maya Hayuk‘s Spin Cycle exhibition at Alice Gallery in Brussels. The influence of Hayuk’s history, identify and personal narrative stand visually proud in her abstract compositions: the X’s are evocative of the cross-stitching her grandmother taught her as a child, the kaleidoscopic rainbow of colors underscores her sense of queer kinship and the visual engagement of her work reflects her long history of social activism. But, her use of multiple transparent and opaque layers take individual paintings far beyond […]

Auction/Benefit: Totally Hammered

BombSquad, a York based non-profit art group, are currently running an auction entitled Totally Hammered in aid of York Food Bank. The Food Bank provide three days of nutritionally balanced emergency food and support to local people who are referred to them in crisis and they are part of a nationwide network of food banks whose work combating poverty and hunger is becoming increasingly important as the UK’s cost of living crisis deepens. There are 37 lots in total including a canvas by Al Diaz […]

Streets: Pejac – “WELCOME” (Nuart Aberdeen 2022)

Recently in Aberdeen, Scotland, Pejac completed his latest outdoor project which he entitled WELCOME. The whimsical and detailed work features his version of a classic doormat with a resulting piece that is more than the sum of its parts. The street intervention was placed in front of a building that the Spanish artist chose because it has hosted many charities as well as is a home for vulnerable residents facing social exclusion. Created for Nuart Aberdeen 2022, Pejac hopes the piece presents a “message of dignity, […]