Hasta La Ideas

British artist Robert Montgomery lights up Berlin with his haunting statement pieces

If designer James Victore is right and advertisers do think you’re stupid, artist Robert Montgomery shows where they’re missing out. His poetic text-based works—which he typically plasters across existing billboards—are hardly dumbed down or subliminal. Instead, Montgomery challenges the general public with eloquent statements on relevant topics spanning world politics to modern hipster aesthetic. This summer Montgomery is taking over Berlin with a new range of works at the unused Tempelhof Airport and beyond, in a citywide exhibition dubbed “Echoes Of Voices In High Towers.”

Working in what he calls “melancholic post-situationist tradition,” Montgomery creates his own black-and-white signs that tap into the collective conscious and shake it up with extensive thought-provoking assertions, which include sound bites like “Here comes the cabriolet edition of capitalism and the end of an empire you were too conceited to even protect.” His prose-like style feels like a Missed Connections ad addressed to the world passing by, reminding us of our potential while letting us know of opportunities lost.

Montgomery seemingly has a small fascination with light and the effect it can have on a person. Several of his works make mention of this in a series dubbed “Recycled Sunlight Pieces.” Still as potent as his socio-political works, these lyrical pieces—done in both billboard style and as neon installations—speak to the universal truth that we’re all human and no matter our religious beliefs or other differences, everyone has dreams, everybody hurts sometimes and essentially we’re all in this together.

Curated by Neue Berliner Räume, Montgomery’s first solo exhibition in Germany currently includes ten billboard poems around Berlin, five at the Tempelhof Airport (including two neon Light Poems) and more to come this September. “Echoes Of Voices In High Towers” runs through October 2012.

See more images in the slideshow below.

Recently captured street art in Hong Kong

by Joanna Prisco

The art scene in Hong Kong is an exercise in contradictions. While the city plays host to one of the most well respected and largest international art fairs in the world, very few Hong Kong galleries represent local artists and the city seriously lacks in fine art colleges. Knowledgeable natives often tell visitors in search of local culture that it’s best to skip the government-run Hong Kong Museum of Art and hit the sidewalk instead. On a recent trip to Hong Kong I took that advice, and below are a few works that caught my eye along the way.

Hong Kong has a long history of street art and graffiti. Tags, throw-ups, stencils and stickers are legion throughout the area, but they appear most prominently in the Lin Hok Lane garden in Sheung Wan and down the side streets of Causeway Bay.

One of the most famous Hong Kong street artists was Tsang Tsou Choi. The self-titled “King of Kowloon” Tsang painted calligraphy all over the peninsula, claiming royal lineage that entitled him to ownership of the area. When he died in 2007 at the age of 85, many tried to photograph or preserve his rants. But to date there are only four remaining, including a concrete pillar at Tsim Sha Tsui Star Ferry Pier, which was given a protective sheath. The rest have been sold off at high auctions in institutions that likely would have barred Tsang while he was alive.

Another controversial and prevalent graffito that has dotted Victoria Harbor since 2011 is the stencil “Who’s Afraid of Ai Weiwei?” by 23-year-old artist Tang Chin, AKA Tangerine. Chin’s stencils pose a reaction to the detention of Chinese contemporary artist and political activist Ai Weiwei on 3 April 2011 at Beijing Airport.

While many of her original messages have been painted over by Hong Kong authorities, we did come across a “Death Ai Weiwei” stencil on a ladder street in Sheung Wan, revealing that there is still hostility toward the Chinese government’s treatment of the activist—and an underlying fear that the city’s freedoms are increasingly at risk.

Deadstock film recaptures a decades-old conflict in a new exhibition

As pro-am DSLRs and post production software make photography increasingly accessible, photographer Richard Mosse seems set on making his life more difficult. Armed with dead-stock Kodak infrared film—originally developed to detect camouflage for military aerial surveillance—Mosse ventured into the heart of the Congo to take some pictures. The forty-year-old technology was a cumbersome addition to his rural exploration, with Mosse playing the role of a time-traveling photographer under the hood of his camera. Consciously drawing from the photojournalistic tradition, Mosse’s collection “Infra,” on display at NYC’s Jack Shainman Gallery through 23 December, is a revisitation of familiar themes. He plays a dangerous game, trying to imbue life into themes so commonplace that viewers have become apathetic. The result is a new meditation on the problematic genre of photojournalism in regions plagued by conflict, one that uses art to decontextualize the familiar.

The obvious narrative is simple. Hardened rebels stand among expanses of eye-popping magenta, a comic irony that contradicts the gravity of war. Mosse is using a discontinued technology to revisit an old yet ongoing problem, creating a dialogue between the generations of inhabitants affected by war and the omnipresent lens of western civilization. “Infra” forces the viewer to look with fresh eyes at images to which they have become blind. This experience holds true not only for viewers, but for Mosse as well. Without the perspective of his camera’s infrared film, Mosse experienced his subjects for the first time during development.

Beyond the political ramifications of his work, Mosse’s images are compositionally stunning. His ability to find geometry in figures and landscapes is especially apparent in infrared, where the contours of trails and human limbs soberly interrupt the mass of color. While child soldiers supply the initial interest, Mosse’s landscapes are the surprise pleasure of the exhibition. Vegetation gives off a high amount of infrared light, which makes the Congo’s lush terrain a particularly gorgeous subject for Mosse’s lens. A stunning 3×3 series showcases the fragile structures of the Congo, lending valuable insight into village life.

The project marks an ongoing fixation for Mosse and next year the photographer will return to document the texture of the Congolese topography. To catch his current work, check out the exhibition at Jack Shainman, on display through 23 December 2011. A monograph of Infra is also available from Aperture for $80.

Images courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, NY.

A South African artist’s satirical comics take on the country’s political state

Controversial Cape Town artist and Bitterkomix co-founder Anton Kannemeyer creates satirical socio-political comics to highlight the absurd aspects of South Africa’s post-apartheid culture. In “After The Barbarians,” his second solo show at NYC’s Jack Shainman Gallery, Kannemeyer continues to shake things up with colorful, large-scale paintings and works on paper, questioning those in economical and political power.

His politically-charged art often criticizes conservative Afrikaans values and issues specific to South Africa, but his new work shines a spotlight on the continent at large. Named for the J.M. Coetzee poem, “Waiting for the Barbarians,” the show depicts how life in Africa has been affected by Western colonization, and the corruption that came with it.

Kannemeyer, a well-read political pundit, nevertheless makes the distinction that he’s not a political cartoonist but, rather, an artist reacting to the world around him, free of deadlines or forced thought.

Often borrowing the simplified illustration style Hergé made famous with his “Adventures of Tintin” books, Kannemeyer turns complex issues into informative and entertaining illustrations. Case in point, his “Alphabet of Democracy,” where he uses the cast of letters to identify various issues. “B is for Blame,” which references a 19th century Giovanni Battista Casti poem, poses the question of who is actually responsible for the current climate when an “enslaved humanity” does nothing themselves.

Kannemeyer’s provocative portrayal of post-colonial Africa opened 13 October 2011 and runs through 17 November 2011 at Jack Shainman Gallery.

Team Romney appears to be pulling out all the stops to assure victory next year. Recently he unveiled the brand new Mitt Romney logo which a New York Magazine staffer likened to the Aquafresh emblem. The commentary is as follows: You know [Romney’s] pretty serious about this because he’s already come up with a slogan […]