Mid-City Arts is pleased to present the first solo show ever from the infamous LA tagger, Chaka. Resurrection opens April 25th and will feature highly anticipated new work from the mysterious Chaka.
Daniel Ramos, AKA Chaka, was 18 when he was arrested and charged in 1991 with 48 counts of vandalism, trespassing and causing $500,000 in property damage. Chaka’s signature tag had appeared in a staggering 10,000 locations from Orange County to San Francisco. At the height of his notoriety Chaka was demonized by mainstream media and culture as being little more than a prolific vandal. At the same time he was celebrated by street artists who admired the ability of a teenager from the projects to literally make his mark on the vast, glitzy LA cityscape in such a ubiquitous manner. He is credited with breaking away from the New York “wildstyle” popular at the time and introducing clearer, more blockish lettering into tagging. Chaka was one of the first to create a reputation as a recognizable individual tagger, and spawned many imitators. However Chaka was not just a lone operative. He was part of the LOD crew and as such, his work in reclaiming hard to reach places of the cityscape (freeway overpasses, walls, trains etc) on behalf of his crew is recognized by fellow taggers as a selfless achievement for LA’s graffiti scene as a whole.
After spending a year tracking down the once unavoidable Chaka, Mid-City Arts presents his first solo show. For Chaka’s fans as well as street art collectors, this will be a rare opportunity to revisit the nostalgia of the early 90’s, and own a piece of LA’s cultural history. Chaka himself will be in attendance and there will be a limited number of signed posters in addition to his works available for sale.
Opening Reception: April 25th, 7:00-9:00pm Mid-City Arts 5113 West Pico Blvd in Los Angeles
*Note: the above is the official PR from the show / we’ve edited this post just a bit / see first comment post to read another viewpoint on this story…
Edward Walton Wilcox (opening this Sat @ Merry Karnowsky)
Sat, April 25th 8-11PM Merry Karnowsky Gallery 170 South La Brea Ave. in Los Angeles / 323.933.4408 New works from Edward Walton Wilcox (On view through May 23rd) http://www.mkgallery.com/
Sat, April 25th, 7-9PM Mid-City Arts 5113 West Pico Blvd in Los Angeles “Resurrection” features new works from Los Angeles’ one and only graffiti legend “Chaka” – own a piece of LA’s cultural history – a not miss show! http://www.chakaone.com/
Sat, April 25th 6-10PM Swiv-Tackle Circus 530 South Coast Highway in Oceanside “Native” group show featuring art, film, furniture, bikes, headdresses & other native curiosities from Miki Iwasaki, Josh Higgins, Jeffrey Durkin, Thatcher, Tocayo, Stacy Kelley, Sean Kelley, Shaney Jo Darden & Jeff Black (On view through mid-May) http://swivtacklecircus.com/
Sat, April 25th 7-11PM Tylerspencer Studio 3362 Glendale Blvd in Los Angeles “Cornish Acid” – the return of Tofer Chin’s signature Eggman – a collaboration with jewelry designer Han Cholo – limited to 250 pendants – each signed and numbered by the artist http://www.tylerspencer.com/
Tue, April 28th 7-10PM Gallery 1988 Los Angeles 7020 Melrose Ave in Los Angeles / 323.937.7088 “The Lost MacGuffin” new works from Mark Brown (On view through May 21st)
Check out a brand new interview Fecal Face just did with Damon here.
As a child Damon Soule (b. 1974) became so engrossed in his drawing that it became a distraction; at age 16 he dropped out of school opting for the immediacy of GED. At 19, with $300, a packed bag of clothes, and small box of art supplies, Damon moved to San Francisco, CA and enrolled in the Interdisciplinary Program at the San Francisco Art Institute. In 1996 Soule became the Art Director and Co-founder of FIT skateboards and Civilian Clothing. After art directing the brands for a number of years, he sold his portion of the business to pursue art full-time.
Soule’s paintings and drawings have since been featured in group exhibitions in San Francisco at 111 Minna Gallery, White Walls, Punch Gallery, Southern Exposure Gallery, Rizzoli Gallery, Culture Cache, New Langton Arts (“I Dart SF”, 2003) and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (“Outside Art”, 2002). Recent shows also include “New Works” by Oliver Vernon and Damon Soule at BLVD Gallery, Seattle (2007); “Green Art Exhibition” at Robert Berman Gallery, Santa Monica (2007); and “Stories From the Wonderland” at Dorothy Circus Gallery, Rome, Italy (2008). His show “Amused Loon” ran to praise reviews at Joshua Liner Gallery in New York City this past Oct.
Fecal Face Gallery 66 Gough St @ Market San Francisco, CA
Juxtapoz also just posted a fresh set of ’20 Questions’ with the man, check it out here.
ARMSROCK’s statement on his new series for “A Horrible Jungle”:
Because I used to regard art and its attached institutions as a method and a space, through which and where I could examine and convey things, I have become a collector of information and images. Because I was secretly hoping that the collected amount of visual debris and human byproduct would yield some kind of answer from which I could wrench out some kind of sense. Therefor it seems only natural to me, that I would set out to create an archive. Most of everything I do seems to be connected to the assembling of information for this notebook on the human condition. Therefor it is not easy for me to identify or name the specific nature of this archive. It is a traveling black box…
It is a unsorted pile of vicious and unvictorious information that they brought in the newspapers, the books, the televisions. It is an echo of something that they shouted in the streets, and it is the smell of smoke from its own burning. It’s a theatrical violence report. A letter of acknowledgment of my own subjective fear andfascination combined with that which is dreadful and violent, grotesque and morbid. It is a paradox. It is pathos. It is a collage of registrations and colliding observations. An examination of the riddle that lies within that which is made visible as well as a study of invisible mechanisms. It is an attempt to,create comprehensibility while also striving to break it apart. An axis of accumulated signals and mis-communication…
To “know” each thing and its form. To make “signs” of the multitudinous, the incomprehensible, the impassable. To make these thing graspable. All the while acknowledging their fleeting and in-graspable nature. An attempt of decoding through the creation of form in imagery. To strive to identify those abstract powers that propels us into action. To make the human figure into a tool, as it has been so often and for so long, through which the language of form can transmit the identity of ”deed”. It is an attempt to keep nihilism at bay, and positivism in check.
We first posted about this special show here back in late March. Audrey has recently updated her blog with a new image of works in progress (above). She continues to excel and the new works are just beautiful. Very much looking forward to seeing all the works in the show, as I’m sure many of you are as well. Soon as we see more, we’ll be sure to post here to share.
