NYPD raises Shepard Fairey threat level to 'high'

Heh. No! Just the NYPD protecting the Houston corridor for the Obama motorcade this evening...



Many thanks to EV Grieve reader Anna for the photos...

Thankfully the Penistrator didn't deface Shep's work for the President to see...

Behind the first book featuring the work of artist Steve Keene

Steve Keene, the prolific Greenpoint-based painter whose work on album covers for Pavement and the Silver Jews is likely well-known to indie-rock enthusiasts, is the subject of a new coffee-table book now in the Kickstarter phase.

East Village resident Daniel Efram,  a longtime Keene collaborator, is producing the art book.

"In my nearly three decades of working on various projects with Steve Keene, my home and many of my favorite SK moments came at 1990s indie rock shows at Brownies or the Lakeside Lounge in the East Village," Efram said in an email. 

Eric Ambel, the former owner of the Lakeside Lounge (RIP April 2012) on Avenue B, recalled how Keene helped give the bar-music venue its identity.

"I was in the process of opening ... with partner Jim Marshall (aka WFMU DJ The Hound). We had a name, the Lakeside Lounge, but we didn't have a concept for the decor," Ambel said. "I suggested we get Steve Keene to do a bunch of paintings for us that had a sort of 'lodge/lake vibe' to them. Steve was way into the idea, and after checking out the colors we had used in the bar, he created an amazing set of images for us. During our 16 years in business at the Lakeside, he would make three completely new sets of art for the bar."

According to Efram, "The Steve Keene Art Book: Live from Subliminal Projects LA, CA" is the first art book attempting to tell the story of Keene's career by showcasing the complete work from his 2016 show at Shepard Fairey's Subliminal Projects gallery. 

You can find more info on the Kickstarter page.

Photo by Daniel Efram

Parting shots for Shepard Fairey on the Deitch Wall

Last night, while Twist and crew were working on the new mural on Houston and the Bowery... several images appeared on the wall.... like the one above... Via the Flickr page of *niCOle* ... you'll find some other messages from last night there... (Thanks to EV Grieve reader T.E.V.B. for the link...)

A new addition next to the Shepard Fairey mural

Your Shepard Fairey/Cooper Square Hotel daily update!

A final look at the Beastie Boys mural on 14th Street and Avenue A

Photo by Jon Furlong 

Here's a last look at the completed 8-story mural of the Beastie Boys on 14th Street at Avenue A.

As previously noted, Shepard Fairey, in collaboration with the Lisa Project NYC, created this stories-high work from a photo by East Village-based photographer Glen E. Friedman. 

The mural is part of the ongoing celebration of 50 years of hip-hop.

Historic bombing on the Shepard Fairey mural

Epic.







Jeremiah has the history of the wall here ... he also posted the first reports of the mural being defaced back in April...

Logan Hicks mural tagged again

The stenciled painting titled "Story of My Life" by Logan Hicks has been on the Houston/Bowery Mural Wall for less than two weeks... and the work has now been tagged twice in the last few days...

Goldman Properties, who owns the space, has been quick to clean up the tags... Will be interesting to see if this escalates to the level of Shepard Fairey hating in 2010.

'Ramones and the Birth of Punk' coming to the Queens Museum in April

[Image via]

In case you didn't see this yesterday. As The New York Times first reported:

On April 10 the Queens Museum will present “Hey! Ho! Let’s Go: Ramones and the Birth of Punk,” a retrospective exhibition that will examine the group’s influence on both music and art, as part of a spate of spring programming under the museum’s new director, Laura Raicovich, that focuses on Queens as a Petri dish of global culture.

The Ramones show, organized with the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles, where a second part of the exhibition will open on Sept. 16, will include more than 350 objects, from the band’s archives and those of Arturo Vega, who designed the band’s logo; from artists like Shepard Fairey and Yoshitomo Nara; and from Mad magazine and Punk magazine, to demonstrate, as the museum says, how the Ramones “served as both subject and inspiration for many visual artists, resulting in a large body of works.”

Here's the Museum's official news release on the exhibit.

And via "Too Tough to Die" from 1984 ...

Images, 2010

A sampling, in no particular order...

• Too many fires, such as this one on 14th Street and Avenue A (photo by EV Grieve reader Sergey)

• RIP Michael Shenker

• Shepard Fairey



• A BP protest



• Sammy



• The year of the bedbug(s)



• A murder outside Sin Sin



• Smurfs, now and forever



• Saving Ray's



• Random street shot, Second Avenue



• Finding EV Lazarus



• World Cup fever



• The end of the Mars Bar?



• Random street shot, Third Avenue



• Loving and hating the new bike lanes



• Exit the Telephone Bar, enter the 13th Step



• Markey Hayden Bena, 1956-2010 (Photo by Bob Arihood)



• Just another Saturday night in the East Village



• A crash and chaos outside The Bean (Photo by Vautrin)



• A murder on Seventh Street



• Art Around the Park



• EVLambo, now and forever — Keep rollin' rollin' rollin' rollin' (Photo by EV Grieve reader Joe)

Your daily Deitch Wall update

The Lo-Down ... BoweryBoogie... and AnimalNY have more on the mural... Animal's Bucky Turco asked Kenny Scharf if he thought any graffiti writers might tag the new work here: "No, I’m not Shepard Fairey. Not to knock him or anything, but I’m not putting up wallpaper made safely in a studio.”

The Dee Dee Ramone Exhibition arrives at the Hotel Chelsea Storefront Gallery next week

Via the EVG inbox...

The Dee Dee Ramone Exhibition will be held in Dee Dee’s home turf of NYC for the first time ever at the Hotel Chelsea Storefront Gallery (222 West 23rd Street), from December 10th, 2014 – January 1st, 2015. The launch of this exhibit will offer a preview of the soon-to-be-released Fender Dee Dee Ramone Limited Edition Signature Precision Bass guitar, a tool used by the enigmatic Ramone to leave his indelible fingerprint on rock history for generations to come.

This historic exhibition sanctioned by the rock legends’ own estate, will celebrate all of the facets of Dee Dee’s long-lasting artistic legacy: a founding member of the Ramones, one of the most influential punk-rock bassists and primary, prolific songwriter of world famous group, as well as his work in the visual arts – proving that Dee Dee, who began painting more seriously in 1996, was an artist in every sense of the word. The breadth of Dee Dee’s art and achievements is so wide that one of his paintings, to be featured in the exhibit, was recently showcased in a question on America’s favorite quiz show Jeopardy.

In addition to featuring Dee Dee’s art, writings and fashions, the Dee Dee Ramone exhibition will also include iconic photographs by the likes of Bob Gruen, Mick Rock, Chris Stein (Blondie), Ed Perlstein, Stephanie Chernikowski, Keith Green and more.

Previous exhibits of Dee Dee’s work have been held at La Luz De Jesus and famed street artist Shepard Fairey’s Subliminal Projects galleries in Los Angeles, and is now being presented in New York for the first time.

Last day for the Os Gêmeos mural on Bowery and Houston?

This street mural by Brazilian street artists and identical twins Os Gêmeos went up at the Bowery and Houston last summer... Today is apparently the last day for the mural ... (The Deitch Projects Web site confirms this.) L Magazine (via BoweryBoogie) reported that Shepard Fairey will be the next (and last?) artist to paint the billboard space at this intersection.

Your Shepard Fairey/Cooper Square Hotel daily update

Previously.

Tomorrow is Record Store Day

It's that time of year again, when I receive news releases like this:

Longstanding Fugazi fans, JuiceheaD and Osaka Popstar, teamed up and took on the challenge of covering the punk classic, “Waiting Room.” A limited copy of the cover’s 7” will be released on Record Store Day (April 21st) with exclusive artwork by world-renowned Shepard Fairey (Obey Giant Art/Studio Number One).

Meanwhile, Iggy Pop is serving as the 2012 Record Store Day Ambassador. (Which means, basically, that you can enter to win this poster.)

Several East Village shops are participating... such as!

Here is a list of area stores participating. Right here. And Pitchfork has a listicle titled The Top 45 Releases of Record Store Day 2012 here.

Finally, found this chart at the Times from 2008 ... showing how many record stores had closed in recent years... and look how many more stores have closed since then...