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‘Block Party’ Art Auction Helps Save Convicts

KAWS draws on event host Miss Info

Two evenings ago, The Horticultural Society of New York held their Block Party fundraiser in support of their Greenhouse Program, which prepares and trains rehabilitated felons on Riker’s Island for jobs in the New York City Parks Department. Hot 97 personality, and generally awesome lady, Miss Info hosted the event. Block Party Curator Dana Albarella, acclaimed editor of hip, and hop, classic tomes such as Bobbito’s Where Did You Get Those? and ego trip’s Big Book of Rap Lists, enlisted a slew of top-shelf artists to contribute original works for silent auction, and many incredible works moved at reasonable prices in support of the great cause.

Peep after the jump for flicks of the work—courtesy of headliners like Todd “REAS” James, Brian “KAWS” Donnelly, Steven “ESPO” Powers, Shepard Fairey, Eric Haze, Chris “DAZE” Ellis, and Barry McGee, among others—and candids of several of the contributors who showed face for the cause…

Susy Oliveira Turns Photos In 3D Sculptures

While most of us use photos for trivial shit like our social networking profiles, Canadian artist Susy Oliveira is making a living out of re-purposing flicks into sick 3D sculptures.

Combining photographs with foam, Oliveira has been churning out tricky-on-the-eyes paper crafts since 2005. Pictured above is Oliveira’s “The Girl and the Bear” piece, a more recent creation she’s added to her extensive portfolio that includes skulls, flowers, guts, and people re-interpretations. Sick. To see more of Susy’s work, check out the gallery below…

Mel Marcelo Illustrates The Stars

You’re mistaken if you think good illustrations are the result of just stenciling photos and tooling around with advanced computer programs. People who do it well have the ill skill-set, and while we can always Google image our favorite celebs, artist/illustrators like Mel Marcelo are making eye-balling famous people that ch more interesting.

Marcelo, a California-based illustrator, has had his art published in magazines like Newsweek, as well as several ad campaigns for brands like Oakley, but his recent work, like a shutter-shaded Barack Obama, and re-depictions of Seth Rogen, and Elizabeth Banks really impressed us. His Flickr is chock-full of bangers, but check some standout pieces below…

Upper Playground Teams With Boogie For ‘Istanbul’

Brooklyn-based Serbian photographer Boogie just released his second city series, Istanbul, through Upper Playground. The new collection follows on the tail of the Sao Paulo book, a similar collection of his signature gritty and invasive urban portraits.

For many photographers, a book takes years, but Boogie shot the Turkish city for 15 hours a day for a week, a technique that brought forth a portrait of the city and its inhabitants that feels surprisingly honest and entertaining in its street-level reality. Upper Playground will be releasing a T-shirt ($24) with the graphics and a 96-page book ($20) through their site. See more images from the book and the t-shirt below…

How To Decode Invader’s Street Art With An iPhone

With straight-forward socio-political imagery from folks like Banksy and Shepard Fairey, the messages of today’s crop of street artists are usually pretty easy to understand. But what are you supposed to think when you come across a life-sized monster from Space Invaders on the street? According to Invader, the artist who posts the pixelated ’80s arcade game character on walls around the world, there’s a method to his madness.

Within his mosaic tile art, Invader has started embedding secret binary code messages that can only be cracked with an iPhone app called iMatrix. After you take a picture of one of Invader’s pieces, the program decodes it and spits out messages like “This is an invasion” or “I Invade Varanas.” Watch the artist explain it for himself in the video below…

Hole Bassist Is Back With ‘Out Of Our Minds’ Exhibit

Everyone knows that Courtney Love is a human shit-show, but whatever happened to the other ladies of Hole? Well, it’s been three years since the once-bassist for the group Melissa Auf Der Maur performed, but now she’s announced her return to music with a sophomore album due in Spring 2009. The album is just one part of a three-tier project that also includes a short film and a impressive graphic novel called Out Of Our Minds.

The OOOM exhibit, which debuted last night at a gallery in New York’s East Village, evolved from Melissa combining her new songs with photography. The film’s dark visuals almost seem inspired by the Blair Witch movies, but with more of an emphasis on cryptic imagery. Watch the trailer and take a peek at a few panels from the graphic novel below…

Celebrities Immortalized In ‘Remember My Name’ Exhibit

“Amy Winehouse by Mikey Georgeson

When it comes to depicting some of the world’s biggest stars, things can get ugly. In a new exhibit called “Remember My Name,” which opened last week at London’s massive 6,000 square foot Sartorial Contemporary Art Gallery, a diverse group of artists painted well-known celebrities in some decidedly unusual ways.

Artists like Sarah Doyle, Jasper Joffe, Mikey Georgeson and Cathy Lomax profiled celebrity culture at it’s worst for the show. Images of everyone from Angelina Jolie to Michael Jackson get subverted, while artist Matt Humphrey immortalizes Kurt Cobain by re-imagining his suicide gun. See more of “Remember My Name,” which runs through November 11th, below…

Dean Fraser Turns Marvel Superheroes Into Simpsons

Last year when The Simpsons movie hit theaters, BK launched a promotion called “Simpsonize Me,” where you could turn a photo of yourself into a Matt Groening-style cartoon. But since then, Dean Fraser has been the only one still going hard, Simpsonizing a wide variety of pop culture icons for a little project that he’s calling the “Springfield Punx“.

Some of the characters Dean has rendered include Dwight from The Office, Neo from The Matrix, and even former Simpson’s writer Conan O’Brien. This month, Fraser is focusing on Marvel, posting a different superhero or villain from the comic universe each day. In addition to three of the Avengers pictured above (Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man), he’s dropped 12 other characters so far. Check ‘em out below…

Jose Parla Opens ‘Adaptation/Translation’ Show

Photos by www.wallkandy.net

New York City may not look like the colorful graffiti version of the ’80s, but luckily we still have legends like EASE to remind us of the work that the old school put in. Despite being rasied in Miami, EASE a.k.a. José Parlá came up like most of today’s crossover stars from graf’s golden era (HAZE, REAS), bringing his signature overlapping calligraphy style from the streets to fine art galleries worldwide. Last week, he finally took his work overseas for his first London exhibit “Adaptation/Translation.”

On display through November 8 at Elms Lesters Painting Rooms, a British gallery known for featuring installations from KAWS, Futura, and STASH, “Adaptation/Translation” finds Parlá using ruined walls as his canvas. The gallery is also commemorating the occasion by publishing 1,000 copies of a book that features Parlá’s work. See more images from the exhibit below…

Jim Kim’s ‘Sneaker Fiend’ Art Sanitizes Nike Design

Sneaker art can get a little nerdy, but Jim Kim’s latest re-creation of his favorite kicks makes for interesting browsing material when you’re stuck working on a national holiday.

Kim wanted to highlight his favorite sneaker designs without the flaws that come with actually manufacturing them, so he decided to recreate nine of his favorite kicks in Photoshop from scratch. He juxtaposed freakishly perfect renditions of iconic models like the Jordan 1, Air Force One Mid, Jordan XI and Air Max 95 over serene still-life paintings, proving that kicks can be fine art too. Kim has a long way to go before he can come for Tinker’s neck, but we give him props for his attention to detail. See more of his pieces below…