Voices from the AGENDA abyss! New ARTSPROJEKT artist Chor Boogie (SD/SF), AP founder Andy Howell, Mike Kershnar (of Element and Obey fame), Jim Mahfood aka FOOD One (40 oz Comics), Andrew Brown (Soldier Leisure), EVOLVE (Writerz Blok), CROL, and LA graff icon SLICK crushed 2 large format canvases (each a whopping 18’x5’) during the 3 days of the AGENDA show.
AGENDA founders Seth and Aaron invited ARTSPROJEKT to do a live painting exhibition at this year’s independent brand tradeshow in San Diego. We brought down some of our art in limited edition format including our giclee skateboard decks, and the newly unveiled Elite Edition LABz Drifter shirt.
The collaborators assembled at around noon on Thursday to start the first canvas, using acrylic paints, inks, markers, and latex paints. Chor Boogie flowed with his patented stain glass technique and the artists that were in on Thursday laid down the foundation. Jim Mahfood, aka FOOD One showed up Friday and just started wrecking shop. He painted on everything in sight, including boxes, paper, found pieces of a wood shelf, and of course the big canvas. Click here to see many more flickr pics.
Mike Kershnar brought a whole set up, and painted about 10 street signs, some watercolor pieces, and added some endangered species in his Neo Folk style to the canvas. I dropped a snake-necked woman with a distorted hand reaching out of the matrix. Ginger Che practiced some visual witchery with a folkish representation of what she called “Snowfish”. CROL rolled through for a day, as did Andrew Brown from Soldier Leisure. By Friday at 6pm the piece had taken shape and we were starting to throw on the finishing touches.
Friday also marked the launch of ARTSPROJEKT LABz by LUCA from Like Minded Studios, and I wore one of the production samples to paint in. The remarks from AP artists included “I’ve never seen anything like that before,” and “That’s sick, who did that?” Chor Boogie announced he loved it and wanted to do a big painting of NEON DREAMS himself. Well, we are hoping he’ll bless the AP offices with it if he does.
Friday night we found ourselves in southeast San Diego at Writerz Blok, a non-profit graff yard dedicated to empowering at-risk youth through aerosol enlightenment. Kutfather, the DJ patron representing Writerz Blok, welcomed ARTSPROJEKT artists, and Montana was kind enough to sponsor the event with 100 cans of paint. We painted from around 7:30pm to 1:30am, with Kut playing one of his mixes of the illest hits of the last 3 decades. Beer flowed, cans were hollowed out, and my hands were black in the first half an hour. Slick and crew showed up to bless the spot as well.
An unspoken respect between artists of the graphic, fine arts, graffiti, and comics genres was the backdrop for aerosol and marker assault on about 40 feet of wall in those few hours. Peace to everyone in attendance, thank you for your hospitality.
** For all the photos from last week's show, hit up the Artsprojekt Flickr page.
