In the art game consistency is paramount. When your audience has come to expect the best you’ve got to keep it coming. Luckily, Yves Laroche Gallerie D’Art in Montreal seems to have a firm grasp on this concept. Since 1991 Yves Laroche has unfailingly brought quality artists and exhibits to Canada. Specializing in art stemming from the underground worlds of tattooing, graffiti, and comics Yves Laroche represents Canada’s best emerging and established artists as well as an impressive line up of international talent. Their roster of artists includes Canadian art stars Martin Whittfooth, Dave Cooper, Jon Todd, Timer, Juan Carlos Noria and Jonathan Bergeron. From further afield they represent Cuban artist Adonis Flores, Rotterdam based art duo Sauerkids, and France’s Turf One. And they must have their pick of the litter when it comes to the States, because they represent some of the best including Van Arno, Shawn Barber, Liz McGrath, Ron English, Blaine Fontana, Chris Ryniak, Mike Shine, Greg Simkins and Amanda Wachob.

Opening Wednesday September 1st, Yves Laroche will launch a monumental group show with the US’s famed graffiti family 7th Letter Crew entitled “Will Rise”. Formed by graffiti granddaddy Eklips as a commercial launch pad for his two legendary crews MSK (Mad Kings Society) and AWR (Angels Will Rise/Art Work Rebels), 7th Letter Crew reps some of the most talented and prolific graffiti artists in the game including Revok, Saber, Norm, Reyes, Rime, Sever and Krush to name a few. Eklips merged AWR and MSK under the 7th Letter umbrella in 1999 with the intention of making inroads for graffiti in the realms of corporate sponsorship and merchandising. By now, more than a decade later, 7th Letter’s artists have taken the world by force, painting commissioned murals around the globe, branding a widely distributed clothing and accessories line and landing solo and group shows at the world’s top galleries.

From Yves Laroche’s press release: “Held in conjunction with Norm AWR & Basta!, YL will be presenting The Seventh Letter crew’s first Canadian group exhibition. In September, Montreal will join the esteemed list of Barcelona, New York, Seoul, Miami, Milano and other select The Seventh Letter destinations. Eponymously, named after the seventh letter in the alphabet, these ‘Gods of Graffiti’ represent one of the world’s most inspired, racially diverse and prolific graffiti crew ever assembled. Yves Laroche Galerie d’art will be showing new and exclusive works by six of the most influent members of the collective: REVOK, PUSH, NORM, POSE, REYES and RETNA.

Los Angeles based, The Seventh Letter is an institution born from street culture and taking form as iconic graffiti-based visuals and street references. More so, The Seventh Letter is a powerful trademark known by every avant-garde connoisseur. The influence of the crew is tremendous, since they are multidisciplinary artists with roots in graffiti and beyond; including fine art, tattooing, graphic design, sculpture and music. Always pushing the traditional limits imposed by media associated to the graffiti. Demonstrating a consistent pride in their craft and foresight for future generations of young and upcoming artists, Yves Laroche Galerie d’art is proud to commemorate this visual representation of unique individuals.”

All are invited to the opening, scheduled for Wednesday, September 1st 2010 from 6-9 pm at Yves Laroche Galerie d’art- 6355, Boul. Saint-Laurent, Montreal CAN. Music provided by DJ Sagewondah (French Connection) & special guests. Artists will be present.

YVES LAROCHE GALERIE D’ART PRESENTS
WILL RISE – THE SEVENTH LETTER
From September 1st to 15th 2010
Vernissage : Wednesday, September 1st 2010, 6pm to 9pm

Norm Photo Credit: Luna Park on Flickr

“Tibet Imprisoned” by New York based artist Jeffrey Pena aka Once5 is a graphically captivating image of Palden Gyatso, the Tibetan Buddhist monk who was arrested for protesting the Chinese invasion of Tibet. As a result Gyatso spent 33 years in Chinese prisons and labor camps where he was severely tortured until he fled to live in exile. The print is an edition of 20 spray paint on handcut paper mounted on chipboard. Each piece is hand embellished with different ink and coffee staining techniques used by the artist. Each piece measures 18″ x 24″ and will be available through My Addiction Gallery starting September 4.

As a show teaser for his solo show “What Keeps Me Radicalized.”, Once5 put up “The Self Immolation of Thic Quang Duc.” in his Bushwick neighborhood. The street version of the piece stands majestic on a rusted door in the middle of a sea of tags in an industrial part of town. To read more about the paper cut piece click here. To go to the artist’s website click here. To check out the gallery’s website click here.

The streets a graffiti writer paints can lead in many directions. They can chart a path to creative self-expression, friendship and fame, but they can just as easily twist their way towards conflict and defeat. Of the thousands of youths across the world who are active in graffiti art every year, few is the number who translate their participation into an art career that grows out of the streets and into galleries and art institutions. In recent years the number has grown, with graffiti aesthetics serving as the foundation for so-called urban contemporary art, but it is still difficult for a writer to become a professional working artist. While art school is not the only road that leads to a successful career, it is often an excellent way for a writer to harness the potent competitive energy of street art and combine it with new skills and frame works. Adam 5100 started doing graffiti art in his home town of Albuquerque, NM. He followed the passion for art that graffiti gave him to California where he studied printmaking and illustration at the California College of Arts and Crafts (recently renamed California College of the Arts). There he excelled, beating the odds, to graduate with distinction, winning the Yozo Hamaguchi Award in printmaking along the way. Today he boasts an impressive exhibition history and a singularly recognizable style.

At CCAC Adam 5100 was exposed to the whole breadth of creative arts. He absorbed it all, and drew inspiration from a variety of mediums. From classic American photography he culled a candid approach to portraying history and the reality of the present. He distilled a sense of creative flexibility from the freedom of modern and contemporary painting. All in all, the lessons of art’s history were not lost on the young painter, and he emerged from school with a unique perspective through which to communicate his particular style. Uniting his mastery of printmaking with hard earned aerosol can control, Adam 5100 fostered an interest in painting with stencils, which he has developed to a virtuosic level.

The soul of the street, an intimate acquaintance to any graffiti artist, remains a major focal point of Adam’s work. Through hundreds of hours of meticulous work and detail, he crafts visions of the city “using spaces as a language to describe forgotten places.” His elaborate gray scale compositions utilize light as a story telling vehicle. Like classic film makers – Alain Resnair, John Alton, Alfred Hitchcock – Adam is able to use shadow and light to imply narrative in a single frame. His spaces are quite, but not silent. In a persistent, but war-weary whisper they tell their tales. Often using reflection and repetition his compositions are mind boggling in their complexity and yet the images remain accessible and relevant. He strikes a rare balance between hard and soft, portraying the concrete, wire and hard angles of the city in supple, lace-like visuals. He has amassed an impressive following and shows on a regular basis throughout America, as well as internationally. He has shown at White Walls and Carmichael Gallery and recently had pieces in the inaugural group show at the highly anticipated new space Guerrero Gallery in the Mission District, San Francisco.

A rat lynched from a lamp post, a solemn warning to a snitch. A toddler with a hand gun, curiously and terrifyingly pointing it towards himself, finger on the trigger. Bombed out subway windows; street corners populated by living ghosts, shrouded in their hunger and anonymity. Scenes of desperation, scenes of hope and hungry triumph. Boogie’s photographs are as raw and unbridled as the streets he makes his subjects. It takes a keen eye and fearless approach to get the kind of gutsy, affecting images that Boogie’s lens captures.Nothing seems to scare the man. No scene too ugly, no story too sad. The NYC based photographer focuses his camera on events and people that many of us train ourselves to look right past on a daily basis, particularly those of us with the requisite tough skin of a city dweller. Like Arthur Fellig before him, Boogie uses an objective, documentarian eye to find aesthetic beauty in the harsher, seedier realities of life.

Born in Belgrade, Serbia and exposed to violence and inequality at a young age, Boogie has been traveling the globe giving voice to the typically ignored factions of the world for years. A fine art photographer, who also does phenomenal commercial work, Boogie’s photographs have a highly journalistic feel to them. However, unlike the work of a photojournalist, Boogie has no responsibility to censor his images, or find an easily digestible way to show the world’s pain. His images of gangs, drugs and poverty are stripped entirely bare. Being from the streets himself, Boogie is able to engender a trust in his subjects which allows him to capture the most intimate moments of their pain, frustration and hopelessness. He has traveled extensively, shooting in places like Turkey, Paris, Japan and Brazil (where he captured amazing shots of prostitutes and gangsters for his book Sao Paulo).

Opening next week at Carmichael Gallery in Culver City, CA Boogie will present new works in his show “The Uncovering.” Opening reception will be held from 7-9 Saturday July 10th, with the show running through August 7th.

Lapiztola is a Oaxaca based art collective that mixes brightly colored screen printed patterns with masterful monocromatic stencils. Their name, a play on words combining the spanish word for pencil (lapiz) with the word for pistol (pistola), demonstrates their guerilla approach to spreading their art work. The collective’s logo is an armophus pencil- handgun, an icon that they often use to sign their large scale urban insertions.

The collective produces politically engaged works that respond to local conditions. Lapiztola wants their work to relate to real human conditions, for this reason they often paint life size. For example, a large police car is stenciled across 15′ of a wall with a series of vandals jumping on top of the car. Thankfully, their work does leave the walls of Oaxaca. They have exhibited in some exciting art spaces through out the world, including Million Fishes in San Francisco, Concreto 2 in Mexico City, and a one of a kind show at University of Michigan.

Curbs and Stoops payed a visit to Lapiztola’s Oaxaca based silk screen and art studio where we had peeks at new pieces and the unique process Lapiztola uses for making images. The group doesn’t generally use source images. Instead, they take turns photographing each other in elaborate costumes which then become street pieces. Stay tuned for two exclusive limited edition prints coming out through Curbs and Stoops this spring.

You can follow Lapiztola on their blog here.
Studio visit photo credit: Philippe “As A Photographer” Dwyer