HEADS UP: IT’S A BRIT INVASION !!!
BIG !! PARTY !! TO-NITE AS WELL !! / SAT MARCH 9 / STARTS at 6 PM
DRINKS, MUSIC, GREAT ART & GOOD COMPANY !!!
DISTASSI ART X CONTRA GALLERIES !!!
LONDON X NEW YORK !!!
A LDN X NYC COLLAB / SHOWCASING . . . THE GREAT SCHOONY !!!
at CONTRA GALLERIES
122 W. 26th St, Floor 5, NYC 10001
HRS: FRI til 6 PM / SAT & SUN: 12 – 6 PM
RUNS THRU . . . SUNDAY MARCH 10
PIX FROM THE WILD, OPENING PARTY . . LAST NIGHT / MARCH 7, 2019:
great to finally see them up, up close & personal.
capturing the maybe / could very well be . . future in a heartbeat.
beautifully rendered.
Schoony, ‘Boots’ graphite Edition, 1/10
Fiberglass, 2019
($19,500)
Schoony, ‘Boy Soldier Panel’
Fiberglass, 2019
($13,000)
detail, ‘Boy Soldier’
unbelievable . . what a statement.
a promise.
a dare.
classical modelling – with a determination,
that seems . . ingrained into the very DNA.
just you – dare me !!
KA-BOOM.
get it together, world / or . . this I promise you.
street fashion . . meet up.
I see your true colors . . .
from left:
Schoony, ‘Branded Off White’, 1/10
Fiberglass, 2019
($19,500)
Schoony, ‘Branded Louis Vuitton’, 1/10
Fiberglass, 2019
($19,500)
Schoony, ‘Branded Supreme’, 1/10
Fiberglass, 2019
($19,500)
that is, so !!! so !!!
in-your-face / in your arm.
Schoony, ‘Branded Louis Vuitton’, 2019.
‘XL’
in-your-face.
in-your-arm.
The Love Child kills the . . DJ station.
the party temp goes way way up, when this ‘artist/dude’ gets behind the audio.
as JOSHUA will attest to.
the show attracted . . a supremo, gritty / edgy crowd.
CHRIS MARTINE of . . Contra.
DISTASSI X CONTRA !!! . . . . . LONDON X NYC !!!
KA-BOOM !!!!!
MICHAEL HOWES/LONDON, MATT McGLYNN of CONTRA, ED SANDERS/LONDON, BOE/DISTASSI/LONDON.
see: DISTASSI ART
also noted, Delta2 got the color up and running, on the custom subway car.
Delta2, Aluminum subway train, 2019.
($3,000)
they . . moved the RICHARD HAMBLETON down lower . . all the better to see.
the large, horizon-focused, gloriously metallic ‘landscape’, had been hung high up previously.
now it was eye-level, an eye-poppin’ eye-level at that.
it’s outrageously . . gorgeous.
if he hadn’t been so street bitter, Hambleton could have been a modern-day . . Turner.
RICHARD HAMBLETON, ‘Beautiful Painting’, acrylic on wood panel, 1994.
signed & dated. incredible condition.
(price upon request)
you could feel Hambleton’s tightly wound, aggressive energy . . in the way the surface was obsessively . . incised.
even his signature – was like a knife wound.
a branding, not unlike the Schoony arm-branding . . above (!!)
ALFREDO MARTINEZ, Gun Drawing.
I’m always going to be a die-hard fan.
ALFREDO MARTINEZ, gun drawing. 2017.
on hand-made collage paper, with colored marker.
at $1,000 / an outright . . steal.
wake-up . . my peeps, run & jump. & put your $$$ down.
just as we were about to say good-bye . . .
AL DIAZ (SAMO) shows up . . .
to make his mark !!
SCHOONY X AL DIAZ
LDN X NYC
DISTASSI X CONTRA
I always thought, or imagined, that ‘Schoony’ . . stood for: schooled by NY ???
LDN X NYC
DISTASSI X CONTRA
HERE’S YOUR – TICKET !!!
THIS WEEKEND ONLY / DON’T MISS THE . . . JOY-RIDE !!!
PHOTOS: NANCY SMITH
~SCHOONY . . DISTASSI X CONTRA / POPPIN’ MAD . . GREAT !! / & BIG PARTY TO-NITE SAT MARCH 9 |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | March 8th, 2019, 2:14pm
‘NYC X LDN’ !!!!!!
‘DISTASSI X CONTRA’ !!!!!!
CONTRA GALLERIES & WHITEHOT MAGAZINE . . .
present . . ‘NEW YORK via LONDON’
a ‘transatlantic’ collaborative exhibition during Armory Week which will feature works . .
from the esteemed collections of London’s Distassi Art and New York’s own . . Contra Galleries.
Original pieces by such legends as: RICHARD HAMBLETON, SCHOONY, and Delta2 will be on show . .
“giving contemporary art fans a unique opportunity to see them all in the same room.”
see: ‘NEW YORK VIA LONDON’ / CONTRA
OPENING – THUR MARCH 7 / 6 – 9 PM
and running thru . . . SAT MARCH 9, 2019
CONTRA GALLERIES, 122 W. 26th St, Floor 5, NYC 10001
@mistermatttoyou: The Kids Are Alright . . . Come see our special collaborative exhibition ‘New York via London’ . . . featuring works from the esteemed collections of London’s @distassiart (Distassi Art) / thanks to my guys across the pond @howzi888 and @boe_distassi (Boe Distassi). The show will include never before seen works by British sculptor . . @schoony_art . . aka SCHOONY (!!),
and NYC street legend . . Richard Hambleton.
image via Instagram @mistermatttoyou
@mistermatttoyou: From London with Love.
ps: in the background . . work by @_smetsky / Art of Smetsky
image via instagram @mistermatttoyou
~SCHOONY !! . . at CONTRA / OPENS TO-NITE / THURS MARCH 7 |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | March 7th, 2019, 10:52am
NANCY SMITH – INTERVIEWED ON . . ‘SURVIVING – THE 80s ART SCENE’ !!!
EDITED BY NOAH BECKER, who chose . . the BEST PHOTOS, btw !!
thank you, Noah !!
so sweet.
**
**
**
check it out: INTERVIEW WITH NANCY SMITH – BY NOAH BECKER / WM / WHITEHOT MAGAZINE
ps: loving some of the feedback, all the way from: go girl, to “omg you ROASTED Walter Robinson”,
to . . “you were such a natural beauty”. (!!)
pss: Oh Walter, hush up, that’s the way it was !!
I don’t know why people are driven, to kill the very things – they love ?
he gave me my first break, and then he gave me . . the pink slip !!
keep the pink slips, in the paintings – darling !!
back in the early naughts, (lol)
at artnet, we used to have a saying: ‘what Walter giveth, Walter can taketh away’,
because he was quite fickle in building somebody up, art critic-wise, and then – giving them cold shoulder, next time.
little did I know, how true that was.
of course, the elephant in the room – is MARY BOONE.
she just got a little more time in the Big House, 2-1/2 years / 6 months more than Alfredo got – for his Basquiat scam.
I remember going to her openings, and being just dumbstruck, speechless.
everybody was there, it was electric, and that’s not even the half of it.
she was so cute and chic, a gamin, and she had everybody . . around her little finger.
now, she’s going to jail, for fraud, and I’m . . an indie cult star.
it’s . . def hard to grow old, esp coming up through the rough & tumble / stab-you-in-the-back art world,
but, there’s also something ‘irresistible’ about hanging around long enough,
to see how it all – shakes out.
Thank you again . . Noah !!
and, a big, big shout-out to my friends at ESSEX FLOWERS, who blew the interview up so big – on Insta !!
I’m really grateful, it’s been a hard-knock / hard-core life.
hey, but at least I ain’t . . ‘art blind’.
life is good.
~MY . . INTERVIEW / on WHITEHOT MAGAZINE – BY NOAH BECKER |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | March 6th, 2019, 9:12am
MADAME ROSA’S 80s ART PARTY
CONTRA GALLERIES
THURS FEB 28, 2019
note: the exhibition – is still up, and running.
things were really – starting to come together.
a great series of clips, focusing on goth street legend, RAMMELLZEE,
screening at the entrance.
looks like the ‘subway car’ was taken over by Delta2 !!
in clean black script.
Delta2, aluminum subway train, 2019.
($3,000)
left: street legend COSE TDS, with the show’s curator: LINUS CORAGGIO.
COSE shows me his work, on his iPhone !!
in the back room, custom ‘motorcycle’ by LINUS CORAGGIO, in the foreground.
in fact, all the metal work sculpture was by the show’s curator, LINUS CORAGGIO.
the first painting on the left, looking very Mondrian, with the big Keith Haring influence is by LA II.
and, yes !!
that is an early KEITH HARING on cardboard – at center, 1983.
a much smaller, metal ‘bike’ sculpture, by LINUS CORAGGIO.
great display table, btw / Restoration hardware !! Airplane series.
yes, that’s my famous Keith Haring, ‘chalk Angel’- on cardboard, from 1983.
Keith drew this white chalk angel, on a large discarded refrigerator box he had picked up off the street, outside the Red Bar, in the East Village . . one night – drew the chalk angel, and then handed it over to me, as thanks for returning his sketchbook, which he had passed on to me, for safe keeping – at his super chaotic, wild, & scarily over-crowded opening, at Fun Gallery, a few months back.
when we got it back home to our storefront on Rivington St, my hubby, East Village gallerist, collector, and artist . . SIMON CERIGO, painted the background white / thinking to add it to his appropriation work (!!). a few days later, Haring had sky-rocketed to international fame, and we framed it. so, it’s in pristine condition, Simon’s ‘signature’, and all.
KEITH HARING, chalk Angel on cardboard. 1983
60 x 23 in. (unframed)
the area of the actual drawing, approx. 19 x 23 in.
collection: NANCY SMITH, KATE & THEO CERIGO.
ANTHONY HADEN-GUEST.
my KEITH HARING 1983 chalk angel, behind him.
RICHARD HAMBLETON’s art works at Contra, they command a pretty hefty price, the larger ones – in the hundred thousand $$$ range.
ALFREDO MARTINEZ gun drawing. colored marker on DIY collaged paper.
I guess Alfredo is pretty much, 80s – in spirit.
($1,000)
Delta2 at Rosa’s Art Party, a peep of his new work to the side.
Delta2’s new work looked supremo – in the all-white ‘film shoot’ room.
RAMMELLZEE, mixed media , 1988.
I had never seen these before. very cool. very nice.
a newer work by Fab 5 Freddy. 2018.
M. HENRY JONES, with one of his signature lenticular portraits.
fun fact: his (bouncing-off-the-walls) studio on Ave A, was the original site of Simon’s early East Village gallery,
SIMON CERIGO GALLERY on AVE A.
PHOTOS: NANCY SMITH
~MADAME ROSA’S 80s ART PARTY / CONTRA / PARTY PIX !! |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | March 4th, 2019, 12:25pm
HEADS UP:
if you are too hardcore to score $25 tix to the event, tell the doorman: Alfredo sent you.
that should get you in, no prob.
BIG ART PAR-TAY !!!!
THURS NIGHT / FEB 28, 2019 / 6 – 10 PM !!!!
BE THERE !!!!
MADAME ROSA’S . . . ‘SPIRIT’ . . . is in the house !!!!
CONTRA . . . where the BIGGEST BUZZ in the art scene – is happening, RIGHT NOW.
122 W 26th St, FL 5 / just west of 7th AVE / so, is that . . . ‘midtown’ CHELSEA ?!!!!
because it sure is . . gritty !!
hit: their website for VIP TIX – $25 !! and party like a KING.
@alfredomartinezartist . . “the subway car I had made in aluminum for a graffiti project at CONTRA.”
image via Instagram @alfredomartinezartist
@delta2nyc . . “Style from N.Y.C. the realist” (!!)
image via Instagram @delta2nyc
YEAH !! YEAH !! THAT’S RIGHT – FOLKS !!!!
DELTA2 . . is gonna paint up Alfredo’s subway car !!!!
that’s a WIN / WIN !!! if I ever did see one.
and, I’ve seen some, trust me.
~ALFREDO MARTINEZ x DELTA2 / BIG ART PAR-TAY !! MADAME ROSA’S at CONTRA / THURS FEB 28 |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | February 27th, 2019, 6:39pm
CONTRA GALLERIES PRESENTS: MADAME ROSA’S 80s ART PARTY
THURS FEB 28, 2019 / 6 – 10 PM
CONTRA GALLERIES, 122 W 26th ST, Floor 5, NYC
go to the gallery website: & hit: ‘TAKE ME To THE 80s’. . . for VIP TIX $25 / INCLUDES LIMITED EDITION DELTA 2 PRINT
~MADAME ROSA’S 80s ART PARTY at CONTRA / THURS FEB 28 / 6- 10 PM |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | February 23rd, 2019, 11:51am
‘THE ART OF NEW YORK: 1980s’ – CURATED by LINUS CORAGGIO
OPENED FEB 13 & RUNS THRU . . FEB 28, 2019
CONTRA GALLERIES, 122 W 26th St, Fl 5, Chelsea / Midtown Manhattan
read more: ‘THE ART of THE 1980s’ – CONTRA
PIX FROM THE OPENING – FEB 13, 2019 / PART II
the show’s curator . . LINUS CORAGGIO stands beside his own work.
Linus founded the notorious ‘Rivington School’, and ‘Gas Station’, alternative spaces that played a dynamic role,
in the 80/90s Lower East Side underground art scene.
LINUS CORAGGIO, ‘Multi-Chop’, 2018.
the ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’ lightbox by JOSH HARRIS – seems to have found its . . niche.
metal chairs by LINUS CORAGGIO.
left: painting by FA-Q / right: painting by FA_Q / LINUS CORRAGGIO.
watercolor on paper, 1985.
great piece by FA-Q aka KEVIN WENDALL !!
‘Untitled’, 1985.
mixed media collage. 48 x 36 in.
great piece by FA-Q / LINUS CORAGGIO
works by AL DIAZ aka SAMO and LINUS CORAGGIO, 2017.
AL DIAZ . . was at the opening.
left, NIK LESANTE, creative director and studio manager/production at Contra, with Contra founder STEVE MAZZ.
NOAH BECKER of Whitehot magazine, helps ALFREDO MARTINEZ tour the show.
they both contributed input to the event.
M. HENRY JONES . . ‘KEMBRA’.
PHOTOS: NANCY SMITH
~’THE ART of NEW YORK: 1980s’ . . CONTRA GALLERIES / OPENING PIX – PART II |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | February 23rd, 2019, 11:17am
think: raw !!
think: from the street up !!
don’t let . . ‘scruffy’ fool ya.
coz that’s ‘scruffy’ – as in . . GRITTY / NYC GRITTY.
there’s a lot of heart, soul, & big big ambitions . . in this here place.
a real, hardcore . . old school / ‘downtown’ vibe.
‘THE ART of NEW YORK: 1980s’ . . CONTRA GALLERIES
122 W 26th St. Fl 5, Chelsea / Midtown Manhattan
OPENED FEB 13 / & RUNS THRU . . . FEB 28, 2019
more on the exhibit: ‘The Art of New York: 1980s’ – CONTRA GALLERIES
PIX FROM THE OPENING FEB 13, 2019 / PART I: DELTA 2 & RICK PROL
Delta 2 . . . painting, 2019.
detail . .
detail . .
detail . .
bottom right-hand corner.
Delta 2, not really a ‘revival’ / not just history.
the painting is current, 2019 – raw, powerful. free flying. & attracting new fans, like a . . magnet.
I really like how this painting is presented on boxes / something real real street about that.
something improvised, of the moment.
‘scruffy’ – as opposed to, hmmm: staid / minimalist / staged.
there’s a real life force flowing – thru the show.
Delta 2.
yeah, that right-hand corner !!
Delta 2 . . .
some small RICK PROL paintings to the right.
RICK PROL.
RICK PROL.
RICK PROL / NYC RIP.
that’s so DARK. Mack the Knife.
maybe it’s a portrait of Richard Hambleton ?
one of my fav pieces in the show / sccruffffy.
skin off your teeth – raw. ragged. true.
what . . ?
‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’ – ?!! in an 80s show ?
you know what ? damn yes !! hardcore as hell.
JOSH HARRIS, ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’ lightbox.
at the opening, ROBERT FERNANDEZ aka NOVA THE WRAITH.
most def: YES.
YiYi . . making the scene / she just re-located to New York – from Texas.
PHOTOS: NANCY SMITH
~’THE ART of NEW YORK: 1980s’ . . CONTRA GALLERIES / OPENING PIX – PART I: DELTA 2 & RICK PROL |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | February 20th, 2019, 2:46pm
‘The Art of New York: 1980s’ – CURATED by LINUS CORAGGIO
OPENS TODAY – WED FEB 13 / 6 – 9 PM
the show runs thru . . . FEB 28, 2019
CONTRA GALLERIES, 122 W 26th St, Floor 5, Midtown Manhattan
The work of both late and living legends of 1980s New York City street art, graffiti and other seminal styles of urban work has been assembled by curator LINUS CORAGGIO – sculptor, painter and instigator of the notorious Rivington School & Gas Station spaces in the 80s/90s Lower East Side underground art scene.
The creative luminaries featured include living pioneers such as Fab 5 Freddy, LA2 (Angel Ortiz), Al Diaz (SAMO), Delta 2 & Rick Prol: as well as departed masters like Richard Hambleton, Keith haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat & FA-Q, along with surprise notables.
~CONTRA GALLERIES PRESS RELEASE
~’THE ART of NEW YORK: 1980s’ . . CONTRA GALLERIES / OPENS WED FEB 13 |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | February 13th, 2019, 10:03am
when a little slice of the hard-core downtown art scene – was WIRED !!!!
and I mean . . w-i-r-e-d in every great way & sense of the word / you can imagine.
from 24/7 surveillance, (wired) to public real-time monitors (wired) . . to outrageous art & thought, beyond the beyond !!
wired . .
beyond your wildest dreams.
talk about . . spinning out.
guns, quilts, & orgies to . . light shows, politicians, extreme video games, and goths.
survival, comfort, Americana – before it hit / Calvin Klein & RAF SIMMONS 2018 . . big.
‘bio’ drives, zen gardens, & interrogation rooms,
and always, lots & lots of that green stuff / as Cardi says: money money money !!!!
open bars on every floor, and a 4 star chef in the kitchen.
talk about . . wired !! this was so wired.
and,
way, way before . . YOU were wired !!, on your cellphone, FB, SNAP & IG / believe it.
while, catching up with ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’, this review by the renown movie critic ROGER EBERT, popped up.
published back in OCT 14, 2009 – it makes some interesting insights.
JOSH HARRIS . . in the MARIA ALEJANDRA GIUDICI / MARIANO AIRALDI transparent, communal shower at ‘Quiet’ – the millennial party / downtown art residency . . that kick-started ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’.
it starts off:
“I’d never heard of Josh Harris, who is billed in ‘We Live in public’, as “the greatest Internet pioneer you’ve never heard of.’ I can be excused for thinking Harris was the fictional hero of a pseudo-documentary, until the film quickly and obviously became authentic. It’s not often you see a doc that’s been filmed over a period of 15 years.
Josh was involved in the early days of Prodigy, back in the CompuServe era, and in 1993 founded Pseudo.com which forecast audio and video Webcasting, YouTube, Hulu and countless other streamers. he was, to put it kindly, ahead of his time. In 1993, 300-baud modems were commonplace, and 1200 was fast.
Harris was a myopic visionary, a man who saw the future more vividly than his own life. He was a prototype nerd, a lonely kid who raised himself while planted in front of an old black-and-white TV set, using ‘Gilligan’s Island’, as a vistual famly . . .
In the 1990s, he became one of the early dot.com millionaires , a celebrity on New York, where he threw lavish parties intended not so much for the famous as to attract brilliant and artistic kids to work for him.”
correction: Mr. Ebert gets his $$ facts a little confused here / although he does real good with the gist of it. It was Josh’s first company ‘JUPITER.COM’ . . the very first internet / trend tracking service . . which Josh started with $700, & went on to sell, shortly thereafter for $81 million dollars (!!) / then those mega $$$$ funds when into ‘Pseudo’ – which was to become the multi-channel incubator online streaming endeavor & which threw the real wild parties.
this is true: “Pseudo.com is remembered from that time as Nerd Heaven, with good pay, perks, free creature comforts — demanding only your body and soul”, and this was esp true for the other side of the Pseudo game plan – the artists who put on the outrageous parties.
this also true, when modified: He sold Jupiter, not Pseudo . . for something like $80 million dollars, and that was the end of his good timing.”
well, financially.
he did go on to become the star of a Sundance winning doc, & is still being hailed as the godfather of ‘social media’, for better, or for worse. and now his story is about to become a bonafide Hollywood feature directed by BEN STILLER, ‘Escape From Dannemora’ (!!), and the super bad / super hot . . JONAH HILL will play Josh . . !!
Josh always claimed his goal was to be known as an artist, so if it took losing it all – so be it.
down with good timing, & up with the creative respect & social media ‘props’.
ok – back to the review !!
excerpt: “The filmmaker ONDI TIMONER had already started to document Harris’ life,”
(ps: Josh hired her after seeing ‘DIG! – nancy / for all you Brooklyn ‘DIG!’ fans ),
“and was on the scene when he began a notorious project named ‘Quiet’. Try to imagine this: About 100 of the best and brightest he could find agreed to live 24 hour a day in a cavernous space below street level. They would be under video surveillance every moment. Their lives would be streamed on the web.” (remember, this is 1999 – dial-up internet !! – nancy)
“They shared dining and recreational (!!!) facilities and even a shooting range. They were given state-of-the art computers . They lived in cubicles with the square footage of perhaps six coffins.” (actually much less, maybe 2 coffins – nancy)
“These were stacked atop each other like sleeping pods in a Japanese airport.”
“And this was to be the future, in which we would all live virtually on the Internet.”
& my fave line of all:
“Remarkably, no murders claimed any of Quiet’s eager volunteers; whether any births resulted is not reported.”
& one last correction: we were NOT volunteers – we were paid, and . . well !!!
no wonder the well, ran dry.
performance artists ? I guess so, but certainly – not scripted !!!!!!
damnit, I can’t do your homework, all the time.
well, here’s the link: go read it for yourself !! – ROGER EBERT REVIEWS ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’.
‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’ / ROGER EBERT review from 2009 (!!) |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | February 12th, 2019, 6:33pm
