Last week the Bleecker Street Arts Club presented "Support, Therapy and Instability," over a dozen new paintings by the artists Mint&Serf. Using their famous graffiti techniques, these paintings successfully bring the street to the canvas, a context to the action. "Working within the parameters of contemporary painting, the duo has used their history with street art and graffiti-writing to build a new portal of painting, a new surface, space and vision, that has not yet been explored," says Laura Bloom, Director of Sandra Gering, Inc. The layers are full and rich with paint, ripped papers and markers making the canvas a never-ending sea of abstract - graf work.
Born in Moscow and Brooklyn, respectively, Mint and Serf (a.k.a. The Mirf) are Mikhail Sokovikov and Jason Aaron Wall. After meeting in 1997, the duo took to the streets of New York City. After moving into their larger Broadway Chapter studio in December 2011, Mint&Serf were able to realize these major collaborative works as visiting graffiti writers such as Jacuzzi Chris and Pablo Power were invited to hang out and tag the canvases. Their emphasis on team collaboration forms a major aspect of their practice and separates them from their contemporaries in this field. Marnell writes, "It was just like graffiti on the city walls, or in seedy cocaine bathrooms at the bars graffiti writers hone in on: ever-evolving, alive, and essentially unconfined." (-From the BSAC press release.)
This fabulous book can be purchased for $40 at Bleecker Street Arts Club
The famous Birkin bag, which cost approx. $15k on it's own then adorned by Mint&Serf, one can dream.
Visit http://bsacny.com,
http://www.mintandserf.com and the Huffington Post, The New York Post and Interview Magazine for more on Mint&Serf. You have until February 22, 2014 to view the exhibit at BSAC, located at 305 Bleecker St., in the west village.
Make sure you head upstairs also and view The Franklin Project's Andy Warhol works entitled "Portraits of Our Father" by the New York Academy of Art. This show closes January 31, 2014. The show looks like this:
