The genre of ‘calligraffiti’ owes its genesis to Meulman’s mentor Anthon Beeke, a self-taught design dust-kicker best known for his “Naked Ladies Alphabet”, who saw in Shoe a shared lean to rile and ruffle feather.  With Beeke’s signposts Muelman came to fuse The Sharpie with classic typography, seeing in the Bauhaus-murdered art of calligraphy a discursive space of high-to-low, which wholly informs Calligraffiti.

” For the record, calligrafitti belongs to the same family as ‘street art,’ or unsanctioned art, e.g., not government sponsored. And calligrafitti is ‘post’-graffiti — not ‘territorial’ graffiti, which is more like dogs peeing to create boundaries.” – Shoe

Also, Common Ground Gallery is no bunch of slouches: “The gallery is situated in the Hip Hop Stützpunkt in Berlin, which is also the base of the publisher. The Common Ground Gallery works closely with artists and activists involved in expressions of Urban Art. Relationships with many of the artists have evolved during a course of more than 25 years of experience and participation in the Global Style Writing Movement and numerous cultural projects, exhibitions and publications in various fields of urban culture.”

Shoe prepping the space for his 2007 show in Amsterdam:

For our KSpace people in Berlin, two events with Shoe happening this week:

Special Event: Calligraffiti, lecture by Niels Meulman and Adam Eeuwens
March 11th @ 8 pm
Basement Bar
Linienstrasse 154 A
10115 Berlin

Opening & Book release party with Niels Meulman and Adam Eeuwens
March 12th @ 7 pm
Special Guests: Die Schallplattenpolizei/Amsterdam + DJs Cat 22 (CTK) & Adrenalin
Common Ground Gallery
Mo-Sa, 2-7pm
Marienburger Str. 16 A
10405 Berlin

The videos below shows Queen Simone in France – railing, ranting, and singing in such confident not-give-a-fuckery we’re all left to wish for one with half her presence in our time of rubbery figures all posture and no compunction. A dozen and one places and memories cross her face: her royalty and happiness and sadness and anger and laser-sharp intelligence…her terribly useful schizophrenia in full demonstration.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The winning entries:

Zombieland

The Lord of the Rings

Seven

We’re fans of Ed Templeton’s work here at Kspace: hailing him as a “pioneer at the cross section between street art and street skating.” In his visual work spanning painting to photos, Templeton, a former pro skater, brings the energy of the street and half pipe to gallery walls. His latest exhibition, which opened February 26th at L.A.’s cutting-edge Roberts & Tilton Gallery and runs until April 3, 2010, exhibits images from the recent publication of his book The Seconds Pass, which takes a fresh, different tack from Templeton’s previous efforts, while continuing its vitality and sincere, raw point of view.

The Seconds Pass documents Templeton’s travels in search of sublimity, with photos taken largely from the moving vehicles getting him from place to place (per the quote above, the exhibition installation links the prints in one continuous line spanning the entire gallery cube, giving a sense of linear travel that one couldn’t get from seeing them in reproduction). In some ways, it’s Templeton’s asphalt-scarred take on Robert Frank’s classic The Americans, taking us to places we never knew existed, even in our backyards.

A film premiered at Sundance last night about an artist that couldn’t be filmed, or wouldn’t. “Exit Through the Gift Shop” is about a French shopkeeper and an amateur director that wanted to make a documentary about the prolific, and famously secretive artist named Banksy. An artist who’s sold millions of dollars worth of artwork, taken over complete galleries without so much as showing his face in public, Banksy is sort of the superhero to the creative class, which is why this doc sounds so perfectly apt. The film is about the effort it took to try and film the phantom artist.

Billed as “the world’s first street art disaster movie,” it quotes Banksy saying, “It’s the story of how one man set out to film the unfilmable. And failed.” It’s even more amazing that sometime last Thursday, Banksy struck on Main St. in Park City — one of the most trafficked by filmmakers and cameramen almost all year in the tiny mountain town. The townsfolk want to cover it up, and there are petitions going around to save it. Regardless, if this film manages to sell like so many other Sundance films do, it will be yet another meta moment for Banksy’s art career — or will it be another work of art?

More: UK Guardian

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Soundtrack for a Revolution is the story of how music played a significant, powerful role in the Civil Rights movement. From Mahalia Jackson’s “How I Got Over” to her mentoring of the inimitable Aretha Franklin who carried the torch to the numerous artists that held steadfast during their careers so that these young instruments like The Roots, TV on the Radio and John Legend could perform all over the world. The imagery is obviously rooted in Martin Luther King’s leadership, archival footage and interviews with the foot soldiers like Harry Belafonte and others. The soundtrack is today’s voices like Anthony Hamilton, who with the Blind Boys of Alabama, lendvocal arrangements to the sound of the day. Today, in tribute to Martin Luther King, we share a sneak peek at the trailer. Directed by Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman (Nanking), and executive produced by Danny Glover, SOUNDTRACK FOR A REVOLUTION is a vibrant blend of heart-wrenching interviews, dramatic images, and thrilling contemporary performances — a film of significance, energy, and power.

Richardson’s entrée into blogdom has been a long time coming, but it’s worth it. While not teeming with his trademark high-class T&A (yet), “terrysdiary” definitely gives a deep insight into the mind of this game-changing artiste. For one, it provides a record of all the hot models that saunter into his lair/studio (nice!). Two, Richardson documents all the cool t-shirts he snags (like a super-rare/cool Slayer shirt, and a Cro-Mags shirt I clearly shouldn’t have thrown away in 1989…). You also see his immense collection of plaid shirts, truly horrifying images of Richardson dressed as DEVO and wearing Uggs (this is a man that’s clearly unafraid to make fun of himself), and candids him gallivanting in St. Barts on a yacht with Anthony Kiedis, Orlando Bloom, and Marc Jacobs. In other words, essential stuff. Bookmark it now!

Terry’s Diary

Aaron Rose has long been a force in bringing marginalized artists and creators into mainstream culture, like skate, music and film. From his work with RVCA and Nike to his Alleged gallery (RIP) and Beautiful Losers art show and documentary, Rose has been at the flashpoint of many amazing artists careers such as Phil Frost, Barry McGee, Ed Templeton and many more. More recently his interests seem to be in film, and rightly so. His work and relationships have included folks like Mike Mills, Spike Jonze and Thomas Campbell, all who are represented in a new project called Projections, which is billed as “a festival of rare and hard to see films” and most certainly has some rare gems that will find their way out into the world on the back of some hip new filmmaker we’ve never heard of. One such filmmaker of the throwback variety is Jonas Mekas, who many probably didn’t realize his status as the godfather of American “underground” cinema who promoted and praised the works of directors like Kenneth Anger and Paul Morrissey. His Walden film will be on display at Rose’s opening for Projections, bringing the rare and hard to see to the forefront. No doubt this festival will be used to celebrate the art of cinema, and there will be no shortage of artists handy.

Saturday, January 16th

Roberts & Tilton

5801 Washington Blvd.

Culver City, CA 90232

I think no one but Arab can look back on the year in quite the way he did. At least in pictures it seemed like a pretty good year for the Parrot. Let’s hope next year is even better.

Cheers! to 2010 and beyond… Happy New Year!

Flashbeak: The Arab Parrot

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Ted Dansen as George Christopher in Bored to Death

HBO has been bringing quality shows to premium cable subscribers for years. Each year, they sweep the Emmys with their highly original programming and gain legions of loyal followers in the process. The good folks at the cable giant do this by continually introducing a cast of memorable characters across their plain of weekly shows. Ladies and germs, we present to you the a recap of the 5ive most interesting and entertaining HBO characters of 2009.

1. Leon Black from ‘Curb Your Enthusiam’
Leon first appeared as a member of the Black family in season six of Curb… but has continued to play a recurring role in Larry David’s antics. Played by JB Smoove, whom you might recognize as Trucky from Pootie Tang, Leon has helped craft some of the greatest Curb… moments.

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2. Kenny Powers from ‘Eastbound & Down’
Played by actor Danny McBride, major league pitcher Kenny Powers is doing everything he can to remain in the spotlight after saying “fuck you” to the sport that built him into the media monster he became at the peak of his career. Unfortunately, he’s an overweight degenerate equipped with a drug habit and the drive to achieve success at all costs. And weekly, his attempts at success are our entertainment.

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3. George Christopher from ‘Bored To Death’
Ted Dansen has been making a killing on HBO. Between his recurring role in Curb… and being the co-star of the exponentially eccentric series Bored To Death, he’ll have something to brag about when he links up with his old Cheers chums. As George Christopher, a rich and extremely bored magazine mogul, Dansen teams up with weird comedy duo of Zach Galifianakis and Jason Schwartzman to create the perfect indie comedy series.

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4. Johnny Drama from ‘Entourage’
As a cornerstone of the Entourage cast, Kevin Dillon, real life D-List actor and brother of Matt Dillion reprises his classic role as Johnny Drama, a burned out star on the wrong side of 40 and striving to hold onto what’s left of his carreer. The series 6th season has Drama dealing with the success of his new show and the prospects that lie ahead. As usual, he must balance his loyalties and his career at the same time.

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5. Lenore from ‘Hung’
Every protagonist must have an antagonist and Lenore is the ultimate antagonist. Played by Rebecca Creskoff, Lenore is out to boost a man-whore by necessity (Thomas Jane) from his rookie pimp (Jane Adams). Lenore is everything a nemesis should be. She’s rich, beautiful, ruthless and she shits on the little people. Could it get any more entertaining?

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Post created by “Landon A. of The TSS Crew”

Limited to 1,000 copies, individually numbered, and pressed on 180 gram vinyl (the highest possible quality for a record), this edition of “Splitting The Atom” is a class package worth whatever it will garner on eBay, certainly… What it makes the whole thing transcendent, however, is the cover art print from a painting by Massive Attack member Robert Del Naja, aka “3D.” Del Naja’s visual work resembles Francis Bacon remixed by Banksy (this is meant as a compliment), so it’s no wonder he’s been making waves on the gallery scene as well. Taken together, it just makes us long for the 2010 release of Massive Attack’s next, much-anticipated full-length album. We’ll be sure to pick that up on vinyl, too…

Animation wunderkind Mark Langan… Something about tennis balls and God.

Only at Opening Ceremony via Slamxhype

Ice Cube actually helped popularize the Raiders as a member of NWA: the iconic rap group would wear the team’s hats and shirts almost as an extension of themselves, using the Raiders’ bad boy image send a message about NWA’s own rough and tumble approach. Actually, Cube’s rap career dovetails explicitly with the film: the title evokes NWA’s classic breakthrough album “Straight Outta Compton,” and he even wrote a rap track, “Raider Nation,” to go with it (sample lyric: “You’re in the black hole with the black beast . . . This ain’t black gold, this is black silver. Commitment to excellence we deliver.”) It’s clear from his statements and actions that “Straight Outta L.A.” is a true labor of love – he could’ve made another popcorn flick, or the expected gangster rap record, but he chose to do this (“Straight Outta L.A.” is part of an ESPN series where established directors – John Singleton, Barry Levinson – make documentaries on sports about subjects that are dear to their heart). Most of all, we’re excited because we know Ice Cube can translate the Raiders’ explosive, unpredictable essence onto film in the same way his best rhymes still shock and startle. As Dan Durbin, a USC professor, said in the L.A. Times piece, said of the team’s trademark style, “If they didn’t cheat, they came damn close to it. But the other thing was, they were an excellent team.”

Flash-mobs are random, awesome, fun, and awe-inspiring!  Wikipedia defines a flash mob as a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual action for a brief time, then quickly disperse.  These spontaneous group performances reveal that there are people out there are working to make something fun and awesome, and giving it to others without expecting anything in return.

To find or participate in local flash mob and related events, check out http://www.flashmob.com/ and http://improveverywhere.ning.com/

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- get your own copy of THE calendar of 2010 now and props to director Rafael Rubira for his above gem of a short “The Making of the 2010 Pirelli Calendar”

More in KSPACE.TV Arts here

Say what you will about his career works, this Supreme collab is definitely destined to pique the interest of middle-road collectors (like me) looking to nab anything Hirst might have breathed upon. Certainly almost as prime as a limited edition pair of kicks by Fujiwara. The collection releases in-store in the US on November 19th and online on November 23rd. Japan will see a release on November 21st.

via Hypebeast

Walter Iooss and Neil Leifer are two of the most legendary sports photographers. Their work has become part of the cultural lexicon, as well as inspiration for new generations of photographers as well as athletes aspiring to be captured so artistically.

Iooss is best known for his portraits of famous athletes like Michael Jordan, Muhammad Ali, Brett Favre, Joe Montana and Wayne Gretzky. In his career, he has covered virtually every major sports event, including all 43 Super Bowls. Iooss has also photographed performers like the Rolling Stones, James Brown, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin.

Leifer’s photos have regularly appeared in every major national magazine, including the Saturday Evening Post, Look, LIFE, Newsweek, People and, most often, Sports Illustrated. Most notably, Leifer photographed Muhammad Ali on 80 occasions, including the photo above of his knockout of Sonny Liston. Along with celebrating these two titans, this exhibit, at the new innovative Annenberg Space for Photography, is also a rare peek at the artistry of Sports Photography, as it is not usually shown in an exhibition space.

The Annenberg Space for Photography
2000 Avenue of the Stars, Century City, CA. 90067
Tel: 213.403.3000

Open Wednesday through Sunday: 11am-6pm. Admission FREE
Closed Monday and Tuesday.