THE ARMORY SHOW:  March 6th – 9th 

General Admission: $40  |   Students – $20  |  Armory / VoltaNY Dual Pass: $50

Wednesday – March 5, 5pm – Midnight @ MoMA | The Armory Party $175 – $10,000 Tickets
Thursday – March 6, 12pm – 7pm
Friday – March 7, 12pm – 7pm
Saturday – March 8, 12pm – 7pm
Sunday – March 9, 12pm – 7pm

Website: https://www.thearmoryshow.com/

About The Armory Show (In Their Words)

  Loren Munk – James Kalm Report.
Jordan Eagles & David Meanix.

Featuring: 200+ Of The largest art galleries in the world showcasing their artist’s most sellable work, the worlds top collectors, art writers, etc.  Art wise you will see: Lots of Drawing, Painting, Sculpture, Neon, Random Artists In Costume, Collage, Interactive Art, New Media, Photography, Performance art, etc..

Celebrities / Celebrity Artists I’ve Personally Spotted Here: Peter Max

Unofficial Art Patriarch: Kenny Scharf & Damien Hirst.
Notable Artists / Gallerists Associated With This Show:  Damien Hirst, Barry McGee, Kenny Scharf, Tracey Emin, John Wesley, Jenny Holtzer, Olaf Breuning, Yayoi Kusama, Julian Opie. Nancy Chunn, Marina Abrovonich, Kehinde Wiley, Retna, Ryan McGuinness, Nick Cave, Chuck Close, Gagosian, Chitra Ganesh, David Kramer , Kim Jones, Pierogi, Warhol, Basquait, etc.

Coolest thing I’ve seen here: The variety of Bluc Chip and Museum Artists’ work in one place.
Possibility of Live Nudity: Not Good

Ever Seen Live Performance or Live Art at The Armory Show? Yes, I’ve seen a Marina Abrovonich performance, although it was with an actor not Marina.  Live drawing by Ai Kowada Gallery’s Fukuhara.  Also weird performance artists doing their thing in the crowd.

The Scoop on The Armory Show From An Artiholic:
This is the one show all the satellite shows revolve around.  It has anywhere from 200 – 300 international galleries represented in a given year, and is a lot to take in, and a lot of walking.  Make sure to wear your comfy shoes and prepare to see a lot of neon, glitter, and museum quality presentations.  The sculptures are as polished and pristine as it is possible to make them, the wall paint is flawless.  If you go to as many of the art fairs as I do will start to feel like you walking through a brand new IKEA after a while (the scale of the two piers are enormous) .  If while you are seeing world class art in this familiar Big Box Store format your eyes  become blurred and the work starts to become indistinguishable from Norwegian furniture, take a seat in their cushy bar areas and get a drink.  You don’t need to push your eyes that far, the brain can only accept so much eye candy before it goes into shock.

For the price of admission you get access to both the Modern show, and the contemporary (each with it’s own pier), so you can see work from older masters, as well as the masters that are still alive and working today (based on which pier you are checking out).

Positives: Buying the Armory / Volta NY combo ticket for $50 is the best deal in town.  There is a shuttle bus between the two venues, and you get to experience the opposite worlds of the big box store IKEA experience of the Armory, along with the intimacy of Volta NY. You will be seeing the best most sought after artists in the world hanging in a show that is only up for an extended weekend, buying frenzy is a thing to behold.

Negatives: The size and scope of this show can be daunting and overwhelming to a beginner, just start at one side and work your way through it to the other side, move to the next row and do it again.  Think of it like a giant supermarket, but instead of cereal and canned goods, you are looking at artwork worth 10’s to 100’s of thousands of dollars by artists you have seen at The Whitney and The Met.  You will not see these galleries taking to many risks. At SCOPE, The Unfair, and Fountain artists aren’t paying the insane per-square-foot rates as at The Armory so they can go edgier.  This show is squeaky clean – most booths on a factory produced precision.  If you prefer to see a little of the artist’s hand (blood, sweat, and tears) mixed into the paint, you might want to check out some of those other fairs.

Location: Piers 92 & 94:  711 12th Ave New York, NY (@55th Street & the West Side Highway)

Written and Photographed by Cojo “Art Juggernaut”

The post The Armory Show 2014: What to Expect appeared first on Artiholics.

If someone mentions the “Up” documentary series to you, and you haven’t got a clue what they are talking about, you have some catching up to do.  In 1964 a documentarian named Michael Apted filmed a group of 7-year-olds in England for a film titled “Seven Up.”  All were from different socioeconomic backgrounds, and each had a different dreams for the future.  Some were born rich and at 7 already had their route to college mapped out, some were living in orphanages.

The documentarian has come back and interviewed this group of 14 kids every-seven-years since, and we have watched them grow through these documentaries.  Each addition to the series has new footage of the participants now (many reluctantly) and what they are doing and have done in the intermediate seven years, how their lives have progressed (relationships, jobs, kids, etc.).  It is a marvel of editing as it beautifully intersplices between the various previous documentaries to show how they and their ideals have changed (or in some cases stayed consistent), as well as how they’ve aged.  It’s an amazing series that really examines full lives of ordinary people, not just one summer of seven strangers picked to live in a house and have their lives taped, but the real- real world.

The first one I saw was 42 Up, 15 years ago when it came out.  I then watched some of the older ones (you can find them online and on Netflix).  7 years later in 2005 49  Up came out, and then last year 56 Up when they were all 56-years-old, which I was highly anticipating, but never got to see on TV (they are made for British television), but was recently released to Netflix Streaming. If you are wondering if this series is any good, 56 Up has 100% on RottenTomatoes.

I highly recommend you add 56 Up to your Que, hell, even if you aren’t a documentary fan there is scene where one of the characters takes his family to a Kenny Scharf Exhibit.  Something for everyone.

Once you watch it, it will give you something to look forward to in 2019 when they all turn 63.

Written by Cojo “Art Juggernaut”

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New York, NY – Monday, April 22nd, 2013

If you are a fan of Kenny’s work, with just that simple description you can now draw a mental image of this snake in your mind.  This is how iconic the man’s work is, and it almost seems bizarre that he got arrested.  It would be on par to Howard Stern getting an FCC fine for using a few foul words on mic at a bachelor party.  After navigating all the crazy web traffic the article sent my way, I caught up with the artist for a quick interview about his twenty hours in the Brooklyn Tombs:

Andy Warhol, Jacqueline Schnabel, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Julian Schnabel & Kenny Scharf, NY 1984

Artiholics: “What was the first image or words you drew / painted on property you didn’t own, and where was it?  I personally have been asked many times if I do graffiti, and I never have.  There must have been something or someone that encouraged you to do it that first time.”

Kenny Scharf: “The first image I drew on the street was a TV set with the words the Jetsons inside probably 1978 and was somewhere in Chelsea I think and it was Jean-Michael {Basquiat} who handed me his marker after tagging Samo. We were both teenagers.”

Artiholics: “I guess it’s always been an unwritten law of the streets, that anyone who does any sort of “street art” isn’t really credible until they have been arrested.  How was your recent stint in the clink?”

Kenny Scharf: “I don’t recommend anyone to go to jail whether it helps you get street CRED. i have been there before for the same reason over 30 years ago but that’s another crazy story much crazier than the recent one. I didn’t really count going back I thought one time was enough so I’m definitely not planning on third visit. The only reason I got caught was there was someone with me and I assumed he was watching my back which wasn’t the case if I have been alone this would not have happened.”

Artiholics: “The amount of man hours you put into making the drabber parts of the city more colorful and vibrant, seems kind of weird to be throwing you in the same cell as hoodlums, rapists, and murders.  What was your prison experience like compared to your last NYC stint 30 years ago?”

Kenny Scharf: “The experience I had this time compared to 30 years ago is similar yet very different. the first time the cops physically abused me and this time nobody touched me except for the handcuffs and frisking. The whole system itself seems to be much worse than 30 years ago much more chaotic and the crowds we were all packed like sardines and it just felt like half of the black kids in Brooklyn were in there with me I mean I couldn’t believe HOW crowded it was.”

Artiholics: “You seem to love to work big, I remember that show you had back at PS1 in 2009, your pieces were gigantic.  Did you start out going big on walls, or canvas?”

Kenny Scharf:  “I always liked the New York school and wanted to be a part of that so big paintings were definitely part of that. I also love cinema and big paintings can have that vibe. As far as murals go the bigger the better.”

The finished Scharf Mural on Houston, December 2010. (Photo by Noel Y.C.)

Artiholics: “It is always weird to me to see people doing throw-up tags over your pieces, like the big mural on Houston you did which kept getting bombed.  Do they not know their history, or are they just trying to get some quick notoriety by being completely disrespectful?”

Photo by Ev Grieve.

Kenny Scharf: “I think the latter half of your question is the correct one just want to be noticed and by choosing the most noticeable wall in the city they feel some notoriety. I have the unfortunate luck to be the only artist on that group that didn’t get a protective coating which allows you to rub off the tags. so I had to fix it myself it was not Fun.”

Artiholics:“People are speculating, where exactly is this building you were tagged tagging?  It should almost get landmark status now. People should be taking Instagram #selfies in front of this now-iconic piece.”

Kenny Scharf: “It’s around the corner from my mural on Metropolitan there’s three tags and they’re all on Morgan Very close to Metropolitan. I was having a grand old time until the handcuffs.”

Thanks Kenny, and if anyone does find the piece, be sure to take a picture with it and send it here.  I’ll put together a gallery of them.  A little shrine to the piece that landed Kenny Scharf in jail. – Cojo

If you want to see the snake in question (and take a #selfie in front of it) , you will be catching an L Train to Brooklyn. If you want to see his most recent work that isn’t on the side of a building, Kenny Scharf is fresh off of the opening his new show titled KOLORS at Paul Kasmin Gallery featuring three large sculptures, and ten new paintings. The show is on view till May 4th at 515 West 27th Street, New York, NYC.

Interviewed by Cojo “Art Juggernaut” for Artiholics.com

The post Artiholics.com Exclusive Interview: Kenny Scharf – Unchained appeared first on Artiholics.

New York, NY – Monday, April 22, 2013

One of NYC’s own living art legends, Kenny Scharf was arrested in Williamsburg / Bushwick, Brooklyn late Friday night for spray painting a black and white cartoon drawing of a snake in his signature style on private property (pictured above).  Kenny is a contemporary of Basquiat and Keith Haring.  One of the last of a dying breed of graffiti artist-cum-art stars of the 1980s.

Prior to this weekend, his most recent stint in a New York Prison for Graffiti charges was 30 years ago.  The now 55-year-old’s initial post on facebook after his his prison stay was of the image above with the caption:

“Just Spent 20 hours in 2 Brooklyn jails for this.”
-Kenny Scharf

I broke the story in this article on ArtSucks.com, and in the 9 hours since that posting the article has been read thousands of times by people in 44 countries, shared over 900 times, and liked over 335 times on Facebook.  It has been sourced in articles on Animal New York, Gothamist, Bushwick Daily, and Papermag and retweeted, forwarded, and stumbled hundreds of times.  Thanks for sharing everyone!

UPDATE: Day 2:

ArtSucks is becoming a 10-year-overnight-success, as the article is only a few clicks away from  500 likes.  The story is spreading, and a whole bunch of new sites have picked it up:  GalleristNY, Mass Appeal, Juxtapoz, Fecalface, Blouin ArtInfo and coolest of them all The Huffington Post because they gave us major love by just reprinting the title and first two paragraphs of the article and sending traffic directly to the site with a Read the whole story : Art Sucks.

Because they used my words verbatim, I can now add The Huffington Post to my writing credits.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE INITIAL ARTICLE ON ARTSUCKS.COM.

I spoke to Kenny Scharf recently and conducted an exclusive INTERVIEW WITH HIM this evening- read it here.

Written by Cojo “Art Juggernaut”

The post Kenny Scharf Arrested – The Scoop appeared first on Artiholics.