Hasta La Ideas

Parisian street artist brings his gritty vision of Oz to NYC

As rebels against not just art world norms but against conventions for public space, many see graffiti as by definition disagreeable. Artists like Ugly-Kid Gumo embrace that position, providing commentary through art that originated on the street. Gumo’s raw, emotional figures and faces draw attention to the flaws and fallacies in our urbanized society by literally and figuratively staring straight at them.

The 30-year-old Parisian street artist Nicholas-Gumo first became involved in underground public art while he was still in high school. Going on to graduate with a degree in fine arts from Paris’ Ecole Supérieure des Arts Appliqués, since then he has taught art to children and dabbled in fashion design before turning back to graphic arts.

Gumo’s work emphasizes the cruelty of life in the city. “It’s a constant questioning and reinterpreting the brutal code of the city, again, especially in the suburbs—its plasticity, or rather the abstract figurative aspect of it,” he explains, continuing, “it depends on the moment, it depends on the music in the MP3. It’s brutal, romantic as a dinner with black light.”

Often the urban environment itself becomes the medium (like in his graffiti paint chips series, pictured top and below) with materials varying based on his location. When in Paris, the artist works mainly on the streets of the city, but while in NYC most of his process takes place in his studio location—even bringing in chunks of plaster from Paris to pursue his passion in the remote location.

Oz, the mythical city created by L. Frank Baum and perpetuated by Judy Garland, figures as a driving force in Gumo’s work. According to Gumo, attempting to understand the world around us is comparable to making sense of Oz. “These stories are actually metaphors for the social problems that plague the American society but which are transferable to every corner of the world or human lives. Oz is never far from us,” he suggests.

The mythical city is the only recurring thread in Gumo’s work, as he prefers to work organically from a feeling, rather than basing it on an abstract idea. “When people ask me to describe my work, to explain which wave I’m close to, I just want to answer: I don’t know. I’m honest. I don’t have a strategy or a project study, only maybe with OZ. I was too bored at school because we needed to justify our reasons and explain our influences. I find nothing more annoying. The important thing is that we’re here and together.”

New York got a preview of Gumo’s collection,”Oz, le visage du mal,” in a one-day gallery showing last fall, but his first solo show at Dorian Grey Gallery, curated by Marianne Nems opens tonight. It includes a wide variety of Gumo’s work, ranging from spray paint on paper and acrylics on canvas to cardboard and mixed media. The reception tonight from 6-7pm will have a live performance, “Mask,” by performance artist Blizard, and the show runs through 24 July 2011.

Paris’ secret renegade picnic takes its all-white affair to NYC

Good weather in Paris always brings out an army of picnickers carrying folding chairs and baskets. But when Parisians-in-the-know descended on the Louvre courtyard last week, they were actually participating in an annual dining event that’s some 20 years old. Known as “Le Dîner en Blanc, the city’s clandestine dinner party attracts a crowd dressed entirely in white that comes together at an undisclosed location through a word-of-mouth campaign.

The steadily-growing outdoor festivity makes a point to be as equally refined as it is fun, with guests dining on white linen at candle-lit tables, using cutlery brought from home. Live bands play in the background to crowds of over 8,000, who often end up dancing with sparklers in hand around the public space.

After successful picnics in Amsterdam, Berlin, Montreal and elsewhere, this year Le Dîner en Blanc is hitting NYC on 25 August 2011. Seating is limited to 1,000 guests—register for the wait list online and see more info at Le Dîner en Blanc’s New York Facebook page.

Skincare built for modern men using natural Australian ingredients

As the world’s driest continent, Australia’s climate requires more than the average moisturizer. Eshu skincare, based in the Land Down Under, draws on local knowledge to protect, heal and soothe battered skin in any conditions. We recently tested the new brand’s full line and found them to be a simple and effective solution to the often overcomplicated world of skincare.

Made entirely in Australia, the products use proven indigenous ingredients—some of which we’d never heard of such as Kakadu Plum and Paperbark Oil and others we had (Blue Cypress, Tea Tree Oil)—to get results. These naturally healing and protective properties have been used by aboriginal peoples for thousands of years and as household remedies to this day.

Aside from the focus on botanicals, the intelligent packaging solves a common frustration and cuts down on waste. A patented bottle design allows products to be stored on their “elbow,” using gravity so that you can get every last drop of the product.

Both functional and masculine-looking enough to leave out in the bathroom, the bottles are recyclable too. Now available both online from the Eshu shop and in stores from Sephora, the line sells from $15-30.

East-meets-West in Vietnam’s art celebration focused on growth

As the cultural center of Vietnam, Hanoi recently made the ideal location to kick off Tiger Beer’s latest event in its free art and music series, Tiger Translate. With more than half of the country’s population born after 1975, the theme focused on growth, providing a badly needed forum for local Asian artists to come together and show off their work on a bigger scale and international platform.

Overseas artists included Prefab77, a wheat-paste trio from Newcastle, England, and JabaOne, a street artist from Belgium who resides in Singapore. They were matched with locals Hoang Art, whose Western-influenced style earned him a first-prize award in Hanoi’s Long Bien Festival of Arts; Pham Huy Thong, a studio painter and teacher whose work doubles as social commentary; Linkfish, a name recognized for being one of the first pioneers of the street art movement in the country; and DungJoon, a painter who is also an architect and art director. “For us, the reason we have such shows is to create the exchange,” said Tiger Translate Global senior brand manager Patsy Lim, citing how the invitation of major-name international artists helps shine the spotlight on lesser-known ones.

Tiger Translate Hanoi unfolded on Hoa Lo, the same road where the infamous Hanoi Hilton prison is located. Although it took eight levels of approval by various city departments to close off the street for the event, the choice clearly worked to drive home the growth theme.

Under a cloudy sky, heavy heat, humidity and the never-ending honks of scooters and cars, the artists spent a few days before the event painting the wide walls installed along the block, occasionally switching their focus to six plywood trees. Nearby, workers installed pieces by international artists turned into mesmerizing 3-D by Tiger Translate. The final touches were made in front of more than 3,200 eventgoers on the evening of the show. While most of the Vietnamese artists already spoke a little bit of English, language wasn’t a problem. “Because it was all visual, it’s people who have sketchbooks,” said Marc Ross of Prefab77. “The language barrier doesn’t matter.”

While spray painting his own piece, Hoang Art observed Prefab77’s wheat-pasting technique and invited them to collaborate on an area of his piece. In fact, all of the collaborations worked similarly. Artists began their pieces, and as they checked out each other’s progress, they’d suggest how they could add their own signature.

For such a young street art scene—Linkfish told us it’s only about five years old, originating from hip-hop parties held in underground Hanoi locations—both Prefab77 and JabaOne were surprised with the art prowess of the Vietnamese. “They have a very good level for beginners,” said JabaOne. He was particularly impressed with their lack of access to more sophisticated types of spray paint. “When they move to the modern spray can, their technique will even be better,” he said. Prefab77 echoed the same sentiments about Hoang Art. “His style is incredible. I can’t imagine there’s many of that size of walls in Vietnam that you could paint and not get arrested,” Ross said.

The rapidity with which the Vietnamese artists did their work was also something Prefab77 found remarkable. Pham Huy Thong, who had never painted on outside canvases before, painted his tree with a picture of a baby—as a representation of the changing consumer habits of today’s youth—in under an hour and a half. Using brush and acrylic paint on top of Prefab77’s wheat-pasted posters, his piece ended up being the paradigm of the East-meets-West goal of Tiger Translate.

From the side of the local artists, they were most taken with Prefab77’s wheat-paste method, a style they had never seen. “We have spray cans, pens or brushes,” said Linkfish. “They have stickers and posters.” Whether it was a matter of tradition, the local artists said they never realized street art could be made outside of the use of conventional materials. Prefab77’s response was a little ironic, “They have the best glue we’ve ever used!”

Tiger Translate will run in other cities this year and continue exploring the themes of growth and metropolis.

FriendsWithYou celebrates the High Line’s latest addition with an immersive playground for kids and adults alike

To celebrate the glorious beginning of summer and the much-anticipated opening of phase two of the High Line, New York City’s acclaimed elevated park, AOL teamed up with FriendsWithYou to create “Rainbow City,” an interactive sculptural installation. The 16,000 square-foot outdoor space is filled with colorful inflatable artworks designed to “spread magic, luck, and friendship” as a playful destination for adults and kids alike. The blow-up playground will also host a series of educational programs for children intended to develop creativity in an artistic environment.

In addition to the towering inflatable guests, you will find the Rainbow City pop-up shop, aptly-named Boxer. Designed by NYC firm Hollwich Kushner, a mutli-disciplinary group specializing in architecture, design, urban development, branding and digital media. Named for its particular size, Boxer is just 8’x8’x6′ and opens horizontally down the center to unveil an unassuming retail space, which peddles t-shirts, stickers, coloring books and many other wonderful wares.

Complementing the area underneath the High Line’s current terminus at 30th Street and 10th Avenue is a Tom Colicchio-crafted beer garden serving site-specific beer from Brooklyn Brewery and an assortment of food trucks including the Kelvin Natural Slush Company.