Street and Studio
From Basquiat to Séripop
KUNSTHALLE wien , hall 1,
June 25th – October 10th, 2010
(Opens June 24th)

“… and the streets look really good to me, they look like art… I wanted to paint the town red, paint the town black.”
Jean-Michel Basquiat, Downtown 81 (1981)

“Where only a highway view is the outside and its monotone mobility relaxes me glancing at it, while inside I am in motion to clean up the biggest mess of multidimensional accidents on my paintings – and this is this Brooklyn studio.”
Rita Ackermann (2010)

With its major summer exhibition Street and Studio the Kunsthalle Wien brings the rough style of the street into the exhibition hall. Urbanity and mobility characterize a contemporary generation of artists who regard the metropolis both as their source of inspiration and means of expression: the US painter Jean-Michel Basquiat, whose work constitutes a landmark for various forms of painting and video art relating to urban or suburban cultures, provides the center of gravity for the show. From this starting-point, the presentation unfolds a network of positions that share a vitality induced by the street and urbanity and spans from the results of Basquiat’s productive collaboration with other artists such as Andy Warhol, Francesco Clemente, or Keith Haring to works by younger artists like Rita Ackermann or Séripop. Having never ceased to pervade pop culture since its emergence, this subversive pictorial language tells of the quest for identity, political responsibility, the commercialization of public space, and the fight for survival caused by social injustice.

With 32 artistic positions from 19 nations the show addresses both art historical key figures such as Blek le Rat, Jenny Holzer, or Sophie Calle and contemporary artists from Kader Attia and Brad Downey, Christian Eisenberger, Basim Magdy, and Ari Marcopoulos to Evan Roth and Rita Vitorelli, who are represented by new works created for the exhibition.

Curators: Cathérine Hug, Thomas Mießgang

Participating artists:
Rita Ackermann, Charlie Ahearn, Eric Andersen, Kader Attia, Banksy, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Dara Birnbaum, Blek le Rat, BLU, Sophie Calle, Francesco Clemente, Jane Dickson, Brad Downey, Christian Eisenberger, Futura, Dani Gal, Ingo Giezendanner (GRRRR), Shaun Gladwell, Keith Haring, Jenny Holzer, Mark Jenkins, Leopold Kessler, Lady Pink, Sol LeWitt, Basim Magdy, Ari Marcopoulos, miz JUSTICE, Ramm:ell:zee, Robin Rhode, Evan Roth, Séripop, Rita Vitorelli, Andy Warhol

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We will be showing a version of our most recent installation , Hoarding Skin and will be in attendance at the opening.

Screenprint on paper
24’ x 36’ x 10’
2010

Installation view at Secret Project Robot (Brooklyn)
Photographed by Rebecca Smeyne and Erik Zajaceskowski

As I mentioned in my last blog post , we are heading to Paris on Monday for our joint show with Montreal design studio Paprika at Galerie Anatome.

Paprika-Séripop :Un regard graphique sur Montréal
Opening May 6th 6:30-9:30
Runs until July 24th
Galerie Anatome
38 rue Sedaine
75011 Paris

PLEASE NOTE : The opening is invite only, so you have to tell the person at the door you are a guest of Seripop.

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We will be in Paris the 4th till the 10th and don’t really know anyone there or where the fun is. We’d be glad to make friends , collaborations , have scroungy noise jams , hit up some cool gigs , visit the studios of cool artist weirdos , eat vegan baked goods until we burst , talk shit , and go walking after midnight in the moonlight.
Hit us up if you wanna be our new best friend , tour guide or path to destruction.

Our recent mural , J’aurais pas été si j’avais su , will be part of this awesome group show in Chicago that opens this week.

The show includes our good pals Danimal , Mat Daly , Keith G. Herzik , Sonnenzimmer and many , many more.

Here’s the info::
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Following the success of last years’ Version Festival program: the Bridgeport WPA pilot project, we have asked artists from around the country to create works that raise awareness of social and political issues of our day.
Printervention debuts April 16, 2010 at the The Chicago Tourism Center Gallery and continues through Version Festival to include workshops, a mobile silkscreen cart, a window display at The Whistler and more. For more information and a complete schedule of events and participants please visit www.printervention.org

Opening Reception Friday, April 16, 2010 5pm – 7pm
@ Chicago Tourism Center Gallery
72 E Randolph // Chicago

Printervention, organized by Emily Clayton, Chris Roberson and Ed Marszewski, is part of Version Festival 2010, an annual arts festival in Chicago produced by the Public Media Institute that brings together hundreds of artists, musicians and educators from around the world.
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Hope you can make it out!!!
RSVP on Facebook

Hoarding Skin opens , come on out and see why I haven’t been updating our site for the past few months. This is our largest and most ambitious project to date.

Opening::
Saturday, April 10, 2010
8:00pm – 10:00pm
Secret Project Robot // 210 Kent Ave// Brooklyn
Runs until May 1st

Seripop presents Hoarding Skin, an installation piece, as their first solo exhibition in New York City. Debuting at Secret Project Robot Art Experiment in Brooklyn, Hoarding Skin will then travel to the Kunsthalle Wien in June.

“We see the street poster as the “skin” of a city , growing and shedding organically, in constant flux, allowing citizens to make their temporary mark. With Hoarding Skin we seek to engage in playful discussion about both the individual and community’s role vis-a-vis freedom of expression within the urban landscape, via the colloquial and/or the monumental.”

Bio :

Yannick Desranleau and Chloe Lum are visual artists and musicians who started collaborating in 2002 under the nom de guerre Seripop. Based in Montreal, Seripop has earned international attention for its stylistically distinct, silkscreened street posters. In 2005, Lum and Desranleau began experimenting with sculptural print installations which merge notions of city politics and visual perception. The duo has been speaking and exhibiting their work at various art institutions including Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, England, Peacock Visual Arts in Aberdeen, Scotland, and the University of North Texas, Denton, USA. In addition to Seripop, Lum and Desranleau play in AIDS Wolf, a noise-rock band and Hamborghinni, a drums and electronics project.

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts which last year invested $17.1 million in visual arts throughout Canada.

A Thanks yous go out to our Montreal production volunteers : Chris , Steve Wiseman, Vivien Le Jeune Durhin , Jessica Despres , Lucy Butler , Sarah Shimizu ,

And to our Brooklyn installation volunteers : Sarah Mead , Robert Lowe , Bill Wilson , Harrison Owen & Jake Friedman .

Mega thanks to our intern Jody Zinner & our NY production assistant Brian Maclaskey. You guys are a huge part of how we were able to pull this off.

RSVP on the facebook

Interviewed by Harrison Owen for Fingered DVDzine #4.

(invite image by Arthur Desmarteaux)

Our buddy Arthur Desmarteaux has put together a great show of screenprinted works. We’re showing our new mural and a few prints . Also in the show are Julie Doucet , Allison Moore, Le Dernier Cri, Jacynthe Loranger, Dominique Pétrin, Jesse Purcell, Valérie Sury, Pascaline Knight, Caroline Sury and Henriette Valium.

At Arprim 372, Sainte-Catherine O. #426
Show runs from January 16th to February 20th 2010
Opening Reception : January 16th from 3-6

RSVP on Facebook.

Invite by Allison Moore .

Invite by Valerie Sury.

See yas at the opening!

It’s been in the works for awhile but 25 of our posters are now part of the permanent collection of The V & A! They will be found in the Prints and Books collection.

We are so excited to be included in such a historically important collection and would like to thank print curator Catherine Flood and librarian Richard Loveday for bringing us into the museum.

Fun fact : The V & A has been actively collecting posters since 1910.

The inclusion of our posters in the V & A , along with our forthcoming Artist Music Journal on our gigposters and record covers will mark a change here at Seripop HQ.

For the past 8 years we’ve been producing screenprinted show posters in astronomical numbers and have gained international acclaim for our poster work. We’re celebrating our achievements and the start of a new decade by slowing down a bit on the gigposters front and placing more our focus on producing art prints , installation work and artist books.

We will still be taking design and illustration commissions as well as screenprinting contracts so please don’t hesitate to hire us. We’ll just be shifting the bulk of our output from posters to art prints and paper sculpture. We are still available to do posters , they will just no longer be the *main* thing we do.

We hope our supporters will be as excited as we are by the new work we have in the pipeline for 2010.

As previously mentioned , we are offering print subscriptions for 2010where subscribers get get one of everything we make this year at a discounted rate and thus help us out with production costs of our upcoming installations.

We’ll have this 5 1/8″ x 7 1/8″ signed original drawing in the show. Rapidograph and watercolor on Fabriano paper.

Details:
At Monastiraki , 5478 SAINT-LAURENT
Friday, December 11, 2009
7:00pm – 10:00pm

Everything will be under a 100$ ! There will be SNACKS! Fun!

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Some of the awesome folks showing :
Amy Lockhart
Marc Bell
Seripop (that’s us)
Jeremy Shantz
Mike Shantz
Rick Trembles
Skull Studio aka Corpusse
Amy Drover
Bernie Mireault
Matt Forsythe
Kiarra Albina
Guy Boutin
James Whitman
Maria Teresa Hincapie
Emilie O’Brien
Billy Mavreas

Hope you can make it out , it should be a fun night full of wit and candy canes. If there is any interest in internetland for our drawings , let us know in the comments and I’ll put some in the shop.

Mille Putois , Le Cheval Blanc and Seripop cordially invite you to the opening of
CACHEZ CE MUR #4 , an international group show of silkscreened concert posters
From November 2 -30th , 2009
Opening reception Tonight , Monday November 2nd @ 5pm
With a performance by Skip Jensen @ 9pm , no cover
Le Cheval Blanc 809 Ontario est , Montréal 514 522 0211

For the 4th edition of Cachez Ce Mur , 48 posters will be on display and for sale . Here’s the list of participating artists:::

Nate Duval (Westfield , MA , ) , Crosshair (Chicago , IL ) , Seripop (Montreal) , Young Monster (Chattanooga , TN ) ,
Mat Daly (Chicago , IL ) , Bongout (Berlin ) , Strawdogs (Holland), Mara Piccione (Holland) , Patent Pending ( Seattle , WA ) , The Bubble Process (Lakewood , OH , ) , Justin Santora (Chicago/Montreal ) & Mille Putois

Hope to see all Montreal poster fans , printmaking nerds and scroungy jammers in effect tonight. There are some seriously retina challenging prints in this show.

People of Print have put together a really impressive group show at Here Gallery in Bristol.

Opening Reception ::: Thursday 29th October 2009: 7.00 – 9.00pm

People of Print was started two years ago by Bristol based artist Marcroy Smith, as an online library of contemporary printmakers. This is an exhibition of selected works from the artists involved, including the likes of:
Urban Inks (USA), Halo Halo (Canada), Le Gun (London), Sac Magique (Finland), Karl Grandin (Sweden), Mike Perry (USA), Heretic (London), Cut-Out (Birmingham), Ryan Adair(USA), Seripop (Canada), David Foldvari (London), and lots lots more….

Exhibition continues
Fri 30th October – Sat 28th November

Opening hours:
Tues – Sat: 10.30 am – 6.30pm (5.30pm on Sat)
Sun & Mon: closed

Hope you can make it!