Tag Archives: les

Check Out the Super Cool Kickstarter Campaign for the “Under One Roof” Street Art Project

The Lower East Side-based street artist Lady Millard alerted us to a super cool Kickstarter campaign for an upcoming preview exhibition for the “UNDER ONE ROOF: Art for the Arts” project. The show is planned as a kind of guerilla exhibition of street art and its influence on contemporary popular culture. The show is part of a larger project involving a group of some 50 artists that is renovating and turning an old brownstone house in the Bronx into a shared, public live-in artist studio space. The campaign is to fund the exhibition, as well as a documentary about Under One Roof. The show runs from May 17 – 30 and will include artwork by artists such as Swoon, Ben Frost, Street Level Culture, and 4Fun, as well as work by Lady Millard herself.

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In New York … Revisiting the Awesome Street Art of Serban Ionescu & David Nordine

When we first saw this large street art piece by artist Serban Ionescu and David Nordine on Ludlow Street in New York’s Lower East Side in June 2013, they were literally watching the paint dry as they put finishing touches on their roller-shutter mural. At the time, the art work was shadowed and partially obscured by construction scaffolding, as their painting was on a building that was in the throes of renovations that would turn it into luxury condos. The scaffolding was taken down a couple of weeks ago allowing the work to be viewed anew in direct, natural light. We revisited the work and it looks awesome, as seen in the photo below. You can check it out in person on Ludlow Street between Grand and Hester streets in the LES.

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Cool Spaces … At Happy Bones Coffee NYC

Lately we’ve started popping into the recently opened Happy Bones Coffee a lot. (See pix below.) Happy Bones is an ~~Aussie~~ Kiwi-staffed espresso cafe in downtown New York City. It’s a tiny place with three tables on an short, less-remarkable stretch of Broome Street in the ill-defined, mashed-up border area where Chinatown, Little Italy, SoHo and Nolita all converge at the Lower East Side’s western edge.

Happy Bones serves up a solid menu of third-wave coffee brews and espresso drinks, including an honest “flat white.” Their coffee is roasted and supplied by Counter Culture (its barista training center is a couple of blocks away). But what really strikes us about the cafe is its decor, the clever design and clean style of the small space, which is drenched in a white minimalist color scheme that’s warm and inviting rather than cold and stark. A skylight and floor-to-ceiling glass frontage draw light into the place and give it some comfortable airiness.

The cafe has a legit downtown-culture and art vibe. A playlist of mostly 1980s and ’90s British music invariably is playing over the sound system (tunes by the likes of the Clash, Specials, Blur, etc.) and a collection of coffee-table art and photography books are on sale next to bags of coffee beans.

(BTW … what’s with all the Australian expat baristas and bartenders in NYC these days? Seems like an invasion, and we <3 it.) The Kiwi invasion, too.

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In New York … “No Kind of Superstar” by Russell King

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New York Street Art … “Snow White” by Invader

This street art mosaic image of “Snow White” is by the French artist Invader (a.k.a., “Space Invader”) on the wall of a diner in New York City. The artwork is made up of small tiles like all of Invader’s street art pieces, but the use of the animated Disney character Snow White represents a sharp departure in the pop-culture imagery the artist is famous for referencing, namely the iconic graphics of 1980s videogame Space Invader. The “Snow White” artwork pictured above is at the corner of Delancey and Essex streets in New York’s Lower East Side and near the famous “blue” condo building (left) by architect Bernard Tschumi.

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In New York … Terry Richardson Street Art Skull Portrait by Bradley Theodore

Artist Bradley Theodore‘s street art of recent months is a series of portraits depicting iconic fashion-world celebrities — such as Anna Wintour, Karl Lagerfeld, and Diana Vreeland — as colorful, impressionistic skulls. His recent work pictured below is of infamous downtown photographer and Vice magazine alum Terry Richardson on the exterior wall of a pizza joint on Allen Street in New York’s Lower East Side.

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Baby Face Street Art in NYC

This wheat-paste street art (or “wheatie”) of a super cute, larger-than-life baby face by artist “Mactrukk” has been popping up around New York City lately, including at a spot on the famous graffiti-covered former bank building owned and inhabited by photographer Jay Maisel at the corner on Spring Street and the Bowery in the Lower East Side, as pictured below.

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Cute Japanese Toy Cars at Our NYC HQ

We dug up this small collection of Japanese toy cars manufactured by Tomica. Among these are miniatures of a classic Japanese soba and ramen noodle truck, a Yamazaki bread company delivery truck, a taxi, and an unmarked police car. The models were designed in the 1990s based on real-life car makes such as the ubiquitous Toyota Crown Majesta and Toyota Cedric sedans, which are popular in Japan but virtually unknown in the U.S. The doors open on some of these toy cars, which we imagine makes these a little more fun to play with if you’re kid. Though designed by a Japanese toymaker in Japan, the toys were actually manufactured in China.

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Mural by Korean Artist Yoon Hyup at Rag & Bone NYC

Korean artist Yoon Hyup recently had a mural on the wall at the Rag & Bone Jean flagship store in Nolita, in downtown New York City. Rag & Bone has devoted the wall on the Elizabeth Street-side of its shop to showcasing art, with artists putting up new work every two or three weeks. Love it.

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Street Art … Fresh Artwork by Diana Garcia and Gabriel Specter at Woodward Gallery Project Space

This fresh new artwork by artists Diana Garcia and Gabriel Specter at the Woodward Gallery’s Project Space (in front of the Ghost space) on Eldridge Street on New York’s Lower East Side. The work is on view through February 14, 2014. The wall is yet another space dedicated to curated street art, a trend that will keep growing and we love to see.

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On the Scene … At the Brennan & Griffin Gallery

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On the Scene … Fake Film-Set S.W.A.T. Team in NYC

Yet another film shoot down the street from our HQ in the Chinatown area of New York’s Lower East Side (LES) yesterday, this one involving actors and extras dressed as an FBI SWAT team standing around a truck parked at the corner of Eldridge and Grand streets. Love it.

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In New York … Street Art on Broome Street

This recent wheat-paste street art piece in New York’s Lower East Side depicts a man in what appears to be traditional Arab headwear. The artwork has been partially peeled off and destroyed in a short time. The street art — if it’s still there — is on Broome Street, on that block between Bowery and Chrystie Street where there a handful of influential art galleries and the offices of fashion label Band of Outsiders.

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Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from New York’s Lower East Side!

Merry Christmas! Happy holidays! We’re in NYC this Christmas day and although we don’t usually get caught up in the holiday traditions — it’s just not our thing — it’s nice to see a Christmas tree as we sip a hot Blue Bottle cappuccino on this very cold Christmas afternoon in New York’s Lower East Side. It’s also really nice to see the downtown streets so quiet, as most businesses are closed, except for this recent cafe addition to the LES espresso coffee scene called Whynot on Orchard Street.

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In NYC … “I Am a Deus”

Among these billboard postings on Broome Street in New York’s Lower East Side is an ad for local classical-music radio station WQXR’s “Month of Mozart” program. As in some of the station’s previous marketing campaigns, the ads make reference to contemporary popular culture and employ a clever pun. In this case, the phrase ” I Am a Deus” references American hip-hop star Kanye West’s recent “I am A God” song and Mozart’s name. “Deus” is the Latin word for God and forms part of Mozart’s middle name, “Amadeus,” which was also the title of a 1984 film about the famous composer.

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In NYC … Cost x Invader Street Art Poster

The ubiquitous Adam Cost put up these Space Invader wheatpaste posters recently in the Lower East Side of New York. The iconic, classic videogame graphic images is a subtle nod to the presence of French street artist Invader who was visiting New York that week for a film launch and putting up a lot of his famous Space Invader mosaic street-art installations around downtown.

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Anna Wintour x Karl Lagerfeld Street Art Face-Off

This new street art mural by artist Bradley Theodore just went up last week on the commissioned wall space at L’Asso in New York’s Lower East Side. The images show the colorful profiles of a skull-faced Vogue magazine editor Anna Wintour literally facing off at legendary Chanel and Fendi fashion designer-photographer Karl Lagerfeld (she with the iconic bob haircut, he of the iconic white hair and ponytail). A heart symbol appears in the space between them. The images are simultaneously grotesque and playful.

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City Life … On the Scene at a Chinatown Protest in NYC

We stumbled upon this political-labor protest this morning outside the Grand Street subway station in Chinatown while on our way to a meeting at our offices uptown. What really struck us was the style of the the placards and signs, especially the hand-drawn illustrations depicting restaurant delivery men on their bicycles.

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New “Choose to Believe or Not To Believe” Mural at Rag & Bone

The new commissioned “Choose Not To” street art mural at Rag & Bone’s flagship store in New York’s Lower East Side is by acclaimed artist Joe Wardwell. The painting consists entirely of words in the phrase “Choose to believe or not to believe” loudly painted in all caps. We continue to be impressed by the variety, curation and frequency of art Rag & Bone is commissioning for their space. Keep it up, dudes.

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Cool Spaces … Wall of Framed Fruit Illustrations

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