Monthly Archives: June 2005

“Dr. Sex” at the Slipper Room

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Here’s a nice up by “Dr. Sex,” whose tag is no stranger to the Lower East Side, in New York City. We found this tag on Orchard St. at Stanton on the front shutter of the popular bar and cabaret club the Slipper Room. The club was opened at the height of the dotcom boom by the founders of Razorfish, the biggest web design agency, that is, until the tech bubble burst a few years ago and the company was swallowed up in a merger. Anyway, the Irish rock band U2 filmed a music video on location at the Slipper Room a few weeks ago.

Style Notes:
Currently listening to: Iggy & the Stooges’ “Search and Destroy”
Sneakers on my feet: Puma “California” (w/ Velcro strapping)

Ivan Corsa Photo

Katsu

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Snapped this bold and tidy up by Katsu in Soho, on a wall along an alleyway amid the lofts.

Style Notes
Kicks we were wearing at time of photo: Puma 5000M
Music to which we’re currently listening: Deerhoof “Green Cosmos” CD

Ivan Corsa Photo

Nomadic Museum by Shigeru Ban, New York City 10

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NYC was recently treated to the work of experimental Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, who is known for his use of low-cost, re-purposed and recycled materials to create stunning cleverly designed structures. These buildings can be built and torn down quickly. Pictured above and below in this Global Graphica series, is Ban’s Nomadic Museum on Pier 54 in lower Manhattan. The Nomadic Museum was designed for a massive exhbition of photos and film by the artist Gregory Colbert. The structure is a long cathedral-like building that fills the full length of what was disused pier on the Hudson River. The museum’s walls are made of box-car-sized shipping containers, which still bear the colors and logos of the shipping companies that once used them to ferry goods across the world’s oceans and seas.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Blank Canvas 01

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Time Magazine is engaged in an unusual billboard advertising stunt. On a white fabric screen hanging from the side of a building at Houston and Wooster streets in Soho, a large colorful tag has been aerosoled. The graffiti is first rate and unhurried (unlike a lot of “ups,” which are often written with hasty economy). The artist, or “writer,” is Cope2 (or “CopeII”), a well-known veteran of the NYC-graf underground. According to sources, the idea is that each week, more aerosol art will go up on the screen. By the end of a month, Time magazine’s branding will go up in the space. Now who said advertising wasn’t fun anymore? We’ll document the series here on Global Graphica in the coming weeks. Stay tuned.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Castle Garage, West Village

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Found this faded massive advertisement on the side of a building in the far West Village, where the hood morphs into the Meatpacking District. This sign is really old. The neighborhood must have been quite different back when this ad pushed parking space and a car dealership. The nabe has changed dramatically since the sign was put up and the car dealership — despite our best search — no longer exists. Now the area has the most desirable apartments, brownstones and townhouses in New York City and — per square footage — the most expensive residential real estate in all Manhattan. That real estate boom and the local trendiness of the Meatpacking Distirtc has fueled the numerous nearby loft conversions.

Ivan Corsa Photo

ALife Guerrilla Mixed Media

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Okay, this is as originalas this stuff can get. Alife, the style collective whose inspired Lower East Side store stocked all sorts of cool sneakers and tees by the various likes of Paul Smith and Nike, has been on a sticker bender recently, but here we have what could pass as a mixed-media art experiment in and of itself. We found this in the ultra-trendy Meatpacking District, formerly a mostly industrial-commercial area that is now home to multi-million dolar condos and luxury loft, as well as high-end boutiques, restaurants, clubs and hotels. New York never fails to offer contrast — street art as guerrilla marketing set amid the beef-packaging warehouses and ultra-hot urban real estate.

Ivan Corsa Photo

OK Bandit SoHo 01

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So we were walking down Broome street after work last week in the heart of Soho, where all those amazing luxury lofts and apartments are, and we came across this “OK” sticker art. “Woah, that’s cool,” we said to each other. The boy’s face in this image looks like it was inspired by Japanese manga comic books. But he’s rendered in stark black and has the bandanna or kerchief on his face like he’s some ol’ school bandit. It’s weird and it’s more so because it’s got the power to be cute while ever so slightly hinting at something subversive at its core, beneath the surface.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Empire

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Wow! Empire of what? We don’t know and we don’t care. For all we know, this wheat-paste up we found in the lofts-filled Meatpacking District in NYC might be some guerrilla marketing for the next big underground clothing brand, the next A Bathing Ape or the next Built by Wendy or the next United Bamboo, except that it’s called Empire and its logo is of a film-noirish punk girl with a Medussa-like mane and a thing for grabbing her crotch a la Marky Mark in that famous ’90′s Calvin Klein ad. Whatever the case, this has impact.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Spooky Sunglasses Man Stencil

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We don’t know who this is. We don’t know who the subject of this stencil is nor do we know the artist responsible for this work. But we like it. When we look at the person rendered in this image, we feel like we’re look at some late Soviet-era East German spy hanging out in a Prague cafe waiting to meet his “secret” Czech contact. But this is the year 2005, so such a character would have shed the Cold-war look ages ago. Now he’d be clad with brand name logos — a pair of Nike sneakers on his feet, an Izod Lacoste shirt on his back, and Diesel jeans on his legs. Go consumer culture, go!

Ivan Corsa Photo

WK Interact – Massive New Lower East Side, New York Wheat-Pastes 07

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In this detail shot, note the visible Krylon brand can of aerosol paint and the vague but indeterminate branding on the sneaker — it could pass for the Nike “swoosh” at a glance or maybe the Puma mark.

This is yet another in series of life-size black-and-white wheat-paste ups at the corner of Chrystie and Rivington streets in the Lower East Side. The ups are by well-known New York City artist WK Interact, whose studio and shop are on Stanton Street near Ludlow, in the heart of what is now the ultra-hot real estate market for apartments and condos in the LES.

Ivan Corsa Photo

WK Interact – Massive New Lower East Side, New York Wheat-pastes 06

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Note the downward double-arm movement of the graff writer depicted in this up, another in the recently upped series of life-size black-and-white wheat-paste ups at the corner of Chrystie and Rivington streets in the Lower East Side. The ups are by well-known New York City artist WK Interact, whose studio and shop are on Stanton Street near Ludlow, in the heart of what is now the ultra-hot real estate market for apartments and condos in the LES.

Ivan Corsa Photo

WK Interact – Massive New Lower East Side, New York Wheat-Pastes 04

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In this detail shot, the graf writer is on the one-knee stance. This is yet another in series of life-size black-and-white wheat-paste ups at the corner of Chrystie and Rivington streets in the Lower East Side. The ups are by well-known New York City artist WK Interact, whose studio and shop are on Stanton Street near Ludlow, in the heart of what is now the ultra-hot real estate market for apartments and condos in the LES.

Ivan Corsa Photo