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Faile Adorns Abbot Kinney with (Legit) Street Art
By Katherine Peach/Special to LAist
Street art is gaining notoriety in the mainstream art world plucking infamous artists such as Banksy and dropping their work in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. The outbreak of graffiti art surrounding the gallery, which cropped up all over the city of L.A. thanks to MOCA’s "Art in the Streets" event, is likely the major culprit for the controversial decision to reject the exhibit from appearing at MOCA in Brooklyn, NY.
However, not to be detoured by artist vandalism the newly opened Post No Bills working print shop and gallery space in Venice is redefining the perception of street art, making it even more accessible and print designs affordable. Located at the now-defunct Equator Books space, London art-dealer Steve Lazarides and co-founder Jordan Bratman are using their repertoire of enviable contacts to bring big names to PNB domestically and from overseas.
The inaugural show and private opening on Thursday, June 24 at the 2,200-square-foot building featured a decade of work from the Brooklyn-based art collective, Faile(http://faile.net/site/). Spearheaded by Patrick McNeil and Patrick Miller, Faile returns to Los Angeles after four years of further developing the brand and earning kudos around the world. The two pulled together the exhibit in just six weeks creating new work and compiling old favorites, according to this site (http://www.laweekly.com/2011-06-23/art-books/faile-comes-to-venice/). During a decade of production, Faile evolved from comic book-esq screen prints to sculptural work that has involved life-size ancient ruins and a complete arcade adorned with original artwork. The 125 Technicolor prints and mixed-media pieces covered the bare brick walls creating a cacophony of contemporary images. The number and placement of individual works boasting grit and whimsy unite to form an explosion of eroticism and satire. The sheer scope of the venture demands a closer look.
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Adapting the look of mundane want-ads from the Yellow Pages, “L.A. Sex Ad” captures the attraction of pop art with the concept of the city’s seedy underbelly. Limited edition prints were made on site for the PNB show, which will be the trend of the upcoming eight shows set to appear at the gallery space. The opportunity for securing affordable prints by the likes of Conor Harrington, David Choe and Sage Vaughn should be enough to make these events must-see and most likely impossible to get into.
Leaving a permanent stamp on the hipster Mecca known as Gjelina, the Faile collective decked out the newly minted take-away location adjacent to the Venice mainstay with their iconic stencils— as if it wasn’t hard enough to get a seat in that joint. The crew produced the renovation the night before the PNB soft gallery opening and finished well into the morning in true street-art fashion. (The space opened to the public on Friday). While the Faile: A Decade of Prints and Originals exhibit only runs to July 24, the Post No Bills concept shop is sure to stay on the radar in Venice from some time to come.
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