So Fresh and So Green

Cabeça de Porco

One time I made this joke: I invited all those people to an art opening and I cooked this big feijoada for them.

That’s a traditional Brazilian dish with black beans and lots of pork.

Right next to the pots and dishes I put the deformed pig’s head on the table…

I think I created some new vegetarians that day.” ~Zé Carlos Garcia

What a wacky sense of humor! Maybe that’s the understatement of the year, but either way Brazilian artist Zé Carlos Garcia will continue making sculptures out of dead animals, among other things. (more…)

If you like it then you shoulda put a bookmark on it!

Last week I had the opportunity to head over to the “Graffolution” show at the Soapstone Gallery in New York City. Among the artists featured were friends to the blog bodega enthusiast Josh Goldstein and the non cubist Gigi Bio, who had a piece that featured our other friend artist Marthalicia Matarrita as a modern day Frida Khalo of Brooklyn. You can check that out and some of the other highlights I was tall enough to get pics of. (more…)

If you like it then you shoulda put a bookmark on it!

In one of my first posts I put up a pic of artist Shepard Fairey’s clean energy poster. He’s the guy responsible for making the now iconic propaganda picture of Barack Obama.

You can pretend to be Shepard Fairey and Obamanicon yourself at obamiconme.pastemagazine.com. You need a clear decent pic of yourself to do it though as I learned on several so so attempts to Obamanicon Jay Smooth during the Jay Smooth Black History Month Quotes Series. I had to settle for makeshift Simpsonizing.

Check out this interview with PBS’ Charlie Rose and street artist Fairey below where he discusses some of his beliefs on politics and art. (more…)

If you like it then you shoulda put a bookmark on it!

Sure it looks like that naked guy is about to jump off the top of that building in Manhattan but no worries. He’s not some crazy New Yorker with tons of issues (shout out to DMX, nobody lights up TMZ like him). Instead, this guy is art.

Confusing and alarming I know, but (more…)

If you like it then you shoulda put a bookmark on it!

Photo Credit: “Cylone Nathan’s Wonder Wheel Astroland” by Josh Goldstein

Today is the birthday of artist and bodega enthusiast Josh Goldstein. Josh has been doing some big things lately including participating in a huge Times Square ad for Target, museum exhibitions with fellow artist Gigi Bio and some new online treats at etsy.com.bodegaNYC.

You can get you very own (more…)

If you like it then you shoulda put a bookmark on it!

There are so many layers to Gigi Bio. She’s a painter, illustrator, a real deal fashion designer by day and “Urban Reconstructionist” photographer by night.

Layers are also a major feature of Bio’s work. In this part of the interview Gigi Bio explains where some of those layers came from by explaining where she came from. In case you missed it here’s Part 1. (more…)

If you like it then you shoulda put a bookmark on it!

The first time Gigi Bio showed me her work she said, “See, this is what it looks like in my head”. So what’s in her head are photos from multiple views, images of New York City’s urban landscape, herself, and those she meets in her travels. Each image layered upon each other is unique like the snowflakes that come together to blanket her adopted city in the middle of winter.

The single image formed can show anything from hard angles in architecture softened in a layered, loose, curvilinear composition or a reflection of the ever shifting energy of urban life swirling around a singular figure simply waiting for a walk signal on a street corner.

I told her my first thoughts were of cubism, specifically Marcel Duchamp’s cubist inspired “Nude Descending A Staircase No. 2″ pictured left, which depicts a woman at multiple moments while in motion through still images, abstract lines and planes presented all as one image. Gigi shut down that label with the quickness!

I set out to find out what the stuff in Gigi’s head is, how it got there and what she intends to do with it next. Oh yeah, and why she doesn’t want to be called a cubist! (more…)

If you like it then you shoulda put a bookmark on it!

p l a t o o n [#3] by Jesse Wright

During the holidays my attention turns to those in the military among others. And well, art, music and the environment are always on my mind so I decided to ask my former schoolmate, the incredibly passionate artist Marthalicia Matarrita, a few questions about the unique position of an artist in the military.

She is one of the founders M-Squared Art Productions; a collective grounded in the four elements of hip-hop. M-Squared integrates art and music into the party landscape of New York city with Marthalicia’s specialty in live painting. In this interview she explains how she managed to express herself in the military with her boots.

Madam Toussaint: Please state your branch or the military, your rank and your years of service.

Marthalicia Matarrita: Army National Guard, 91 Bravo Combat Medic. I enlisted on October 1999, and received my HONORABLE DISCHARGE papers on 2005, ending rank: e-4 Specialist. (6 years Active Reserve, and then 2 years inactive for emergency purposes, in case of a home war).

Were you ever in war when you were in the military?
I was called for duty while I was in college in New Paltz, on September 11, 2001 and (more…)

If you like it then you shoulda put a bookmark on it!