Kevin Lyons Brings His Monster Party to Movement Festival as 2019 Artist-in-Residence

1xRUN artist Kevin Lyons and his gang of merry monsters have been busy in Detroit this week preparing for Movement Festival Detroit 2019!

This weekend, come hang out with Kevin’s Monster Party at 1xRUN’s Artist-in-Residence installation at Movement. Kevin’s music-loving monsters will come to life in the form of a massive mural and freestanding wood sculptures in the center of Hart Plaza!

WDET radio personality and columnist Ryan Patrick Hooper profiled Lyons and his beautiful installation in the Detroit Free Press:

“There’s an energetic rhythm that radiates from Lyons’ line work and the color palette of his characters — and that’s because a love of music bleeds into the DNA of the pieces.” 

Read the full article HERE!

Check out our photo series below, and follow us on Instagram for more updates!

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-1xRUN

Camilo Pardo Talks Shop on “Jay Leno’s Garage”

This week, Detroit’s own Camilo Pardo was the featured guest on “Jay Leno’s Garage”, a prime-time television series about motor vehicles, starring Jay Leno.

The episode largely focussed upon Leno’s 2005 Ford GT, a project on which Pardo served as Chief Designer. Throughout the interview, Pardo discusses the challenges associated with updating a classic car while meeting modern safety standards, stories of heated arguments with engineers, and the pressures of competing with Ferrari.

At one point, Pardo details his experience arguing for his particular door design, which mimics the shape of the original 1967 GT-40:

“Lots of parts of the car have their story, but the door story was a heavy one, because you couldn’t full-open a door with a car parked next to it. So that was a huge issue, and I was out there measuring parking lots and distances … Everybody that was important in the company hit their head on it: Bill Ford, Jack Nassar, Jay Mayes, all of them. Makes you really nervous because you’re trying to get a green light from this guy.”

Pardo continued with another amusing story about receiving critique from racing legend Niki Lauda, who was leading the Jaguar team at the time.

“He told us paddle shifts is the only way to go right now. But, he respected the [stick] shifter. He had some things to say, and that guy doesn’t hold anything back […] He goes, ‘Why did you do that?’ [referring to the Pardo’s air scoop design] ‘It looks like shit!'”

Watch the full interview above, and check out more available works by Camilo Pardo HERE!

 

Sean Desmond + Hugh Leeman Are Steady Rollin

1xRUN Thru Interview
Rollin’ by Sean Desmond & Hugh Leeman

1xRun: Tell us a little bit about the original piece, when was it drawn and created?
Sean Desmond:   This is an original image edition made specifically for 1x Run, so this is the original! The photograph was taken in 2011 and the collaboration was done in 2012. It started out with the photograph here that I shot in The Tenderloin area of San Francisco.When I showed the image to Hugh Leeman we started to talk about adding an ornate border to the stark black and white photography.  We wanted to do something that evoked the feeling of wallpaper and that’s where Hugh came in with his stencil work.  For the actual pallet of colors we started out with the silver on gold that had a classic, almost Victorian sensibility to it.  From there we evolved into the brighter, more saturated colors while still remaining consistent with the stencil.  Hopefully viewers will find the color palette that best suits their own sensibilities.

1xRun: Tell us how the idea and execution came about?
Sean Desmond:  It has been a favorite image of mine for a bit now.  Hugh and I had both been working in The Tenderloin area for a while.  I reached out to him and he was down for the cause.  Easy as that.

1xRun: How long did the piece take?
Sean Desmond: A very long time.

1xRun: What is unique about this piece?
Sean Desmond: This is the first collaborative release that I’m doing with Hugh Leeman.  I think a big part of this print that I really like is that our hands truly touched each and every piece in this edition.  It’s not printed from an inkjet!  Being that it’s a hand embellished stencil on a screen print makes it very human, and I think that compliments the subject nature of our work as well.

 1xRun: Why should people buy these prints?
Sean Desmond:  If they like an all American photograph. If you like the imagery and it resonates with you in a personal, or aesthetic way, buy it.

1xRun: Describe the print in one gut reaction word.
Sean Desmond:  Rollin’

1xRun: When did you first start making art?
Sean Desmond:  First started taking photographs in 1999.
Hugh Leeman: I spent three years living out of a backpack traveling around the world, after all of that, I moved into a studio in San Francisco. Sleeping in the same room with strangers and “new friends” and then having my own private place really inspired me to start creating.

1xRun: What was your first piece?
Sean Desmond:  My first printed photographs were landscapes.  I soon got bored of them though and began focusing on people around 2004 while still in college.
Hugh Leeman: Mao Zedong portrait, I’d just come back to the states from China, and did a series called “Greatness and Suffering in the 20th Century.

1xRun: What artists inspired you early on?What artists inspire you now?
Sean Desmond:    Early on it was Diane Arbus, Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, Dali, James Joyce, Nan Goldin. Currently it’s John Baldessari, Barry McGee, Ari Marcopoulos, Mike Giant, Parra, Barbara Kruger.
Hugh Leeman: My brother in law does great impasto paintings that look and feel like David Park with some Diebenkorn, I was really inspired by him as a kid. Currently Olafur Eliasson, Ai Weiwei and Cai Guo Qiang.

1xRun: Do you listen to music while you work? If so what? If not then what is your environment like when you work?
Sean Desmond:  Four Tet, Aphex Twin and Yeasayer.
Hugh Leeman: Music always plays. The environment is a cluster fuck of a disaster, and I don’t clean, ever. My clothes are in a pile atop reclaimed bill posters.

1xRun: If you could collaborate with any living artist who would it be and why?
Sean Desmond:  John Baldessari.  He is a master of innovation, cross pollination and reconstructing mediums.  I’d love to send him a handful of my black and white prints and see the colors, textures and tones he’d  add to the images. He makes everything entirely new.
Hugh Leeman: My nephew is an emerging performance artist, he’s 14.

1xRun: If you could collaborate with any deceased artists who would it be and why?
Sean Desmond:  Probably Van Gogh.  I would’ve loved to have done a profile piece on him – a short documentary exploring his mind and his process.
Hugh Leeman: Basquiat.

1xRun: What was the first piece of art that you bought? What was the last piece of art that you bought? Do you still have them?
Sean Desmond:  The first real piece of art I ever bought was an acrylic painting done on wood by Oliver Black.  Oliver was also the first true artist who I ever started to engage with and develop ideas with about art and the process of making it.  He’d let me document his painting process and was the first person I ever did a completed stop motion video piece with.  It was of him painting an old map in an empty warehouse in San Francisco. I certainly still have the piece of his I bought back in 2009.  It’s the centerpiece of my living room. The last piece that I bought was a Parra screenprint at SF MOMA.  He’s definitely one of my favorite artists currently working.
Hugh Leeman: Years ago my girlfriend, at the time, and I went to a live nude female modeling session and drew the same woman for 2 hours. Four years and five different addresses in three countries later we’d broken up, she’d come out of the closet, I was still straight and we’d lost touch. Anyways long story short I walk into a gallery in San Francisco and framed on the wall is a full length nude of the woman we’d drawn together years before. I bought the piece and took it home that day.

1xRun: What else do you have in the works?
Sean Desmond:   I’ve been working on a lot of video based pieces with Mike Giant and I hope to put those out in a proper way sometime soon.  Also working on developing a feature length documentary.  A lot of video work right now in general, you guys will have to do a 1xRun DVD release!
Hugh Leeman:  I will be working with The Contemporary Jewish Museum in 2013 and vandalizing.

1xRun: Where can people find you across the internette?
Sean Desmond: Website
Hugh Leeman: – WebsiteFacebook

-1xRUN

Victor Reyes Makes His 1xRUN Debut With Outcast

1xRUN Thru Interview
Outcast by Victor Reyes

1xRUN: Tell us a little bit about these hand-painted screen prints, when were they drawn out and created?   
Victor Reyes:  The original piece is a painted on wood panel with gouache and acrylic. The image has been in my library for years, and this is my fourth and best attempt at re assembling my feeling about this image.  It is a classic image from mythology intended to provoke philosophical interpretation. They started out as a six-color screen print, but we added an addition two layers along with the fact that each layer is hand-finished with acrylic and Holbein gouache.

1xRun: Can you tell us how the idea and execution came about?    
Victor Reyes:  This piece was really created with the actual print making, I didn’t have the original painting, so we just made it as we went. It is based on this illustration that I’ve had forever that I used for a reference piece. This screen print is a real loose, abstract interpretation of the illustration. It’s essentially the arch angel Michael and he’s casting Satan out of heaven. Although it’s really loose, there’s this angel at the top and he’s literally standing on the devil with a spear in his heart. The whole thing is related back to a conversation based on classic literature, Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man, the James Joyce novel.  To paraphrase it’s about the idea of creativity and being an artist, in Latin they call in non-serviam, or not to serve. You’re not going to live by the classic upbringing, you’re going to make art and be creative. That’s what the print is about loosely and a bit of the inspiration. It’s also interesting and colorful to look at.

1xRUN: Can you talk about the color palette you’ve went with on this piece?
Victor Reyes: 
The color palette is loosely based on the painting, but unlike the painting, it’s a little harder to match the colors on a serigraph. But on this we have a lot of gouache between all the layers to create this kind of an aquatic feeling, like you’re seeing it through the water. It’s not in my normal body of work, it’s a bit out. Making screen prints to me is much more interesting than a giclee or a rock poster style. I’ve been into screen printing for years along with my studio-mate who helped me on this, so it’s fun to really go off the map, and with this that’s what we did. The eggplant layer, the dark purple with the whites in it was the last layer, the layer ontop of that is the stippling with the yellow and green, those weren’t  even in the painting, but we had to do that to satisfy the process of making these. We opted out of doing a lot drawing in these and went with a bit more of a messier, sloppier, suggestive palette.


1xRUN: Can you tell us about your studio mate who worked with you on these prints?
Victor Reyes:
Yes, my friend Nicholas Portalupi he is part of the company Moon Editions out here in California. He is the one who taught me how to screen print, but he is a great painter as well as a great print maker. He is always making great stuff so I was glad to have the collaboration between us. He made a lot of suggestions, he was really excited about it. It became a conversation between us, at one point I wasn’t happy with how loose it was, but he was very into the beauty of the meshed colors and that it is isn’t as much of a literal outlined poster.

1xRun: How long did the piece take?    
Victor Reyes:  34 years.

1xRun: What is unique about this piece?     
Victor Reyes:  Every print is different, they are painted acetate with hand touched layers.

1xRun: When did you first start making art?    
Victor Reyes:  1992.

1xRun: What artists inspire you now?
Victor Reyes:  Bacon and Brown.

SEVENTH DAY PROJECT ft. REYES from SAMI ANSARI on Vimeo.

1xRun: Where else can people find you?  
Victor Reyes:   WebsiteFacebookTwitter

-1xRUN

Theatre Bizarre Oct. 20th @ The Masonic Temple

Theatre Bizarre returns October 20th with The Summoning at Detroit’s Masonic Temple. Tickets are on sale now at TheatreBizarre.com. We took a few minutes to sit down with John Dunivant and Brett Carson to look over some early photos of Theatre Bizarre and hear some of their favorite memories of years past…

1xRUN: Do you want to talk about those first few years of Theatre Bizarre? How did things come together?

John Dunivant: The first year we had no idea what to expect, we thought to build this old carnival, but we were just flying by the seat of our pants. When it first started it was still a creepy carnival that first year, but everything was a bit more piece mealed, to start we had the dunk tank and lots of wood.

Brett Carson: All the wood for the initial structure was found at Tiger Stadium when they were filming that Billy Crystal movie 61. This photograph on the truck (below) was our first load of flats that we had and then after that we just went dumpster diving. We asked the movie people if they thought it was ok and they said sure. So we started to bring back all this crazy wood and paneling.

Jason Kowalski sits on a flatbed in the Theatre Bizarre Main Stage area in 2000 before the main stage was constructed.

 John Dunviant: Since they turned old Tiger Stadium into old Yankee Stadium in 1961, they had all these sterile institutional green pieces that were painted with all these fake rivets to make it look like steel work. Then I was painting these oranges and reds off of these, it really made all the colors pop. It was a great base to start. We pulled and used all the fake rivets and we’d use them for other things. It really determined the era and solidified some of the esthetic.

Brett Carson: We’ve got wood. Let’s build a party.

John Dunivant: After that backyard has never been the same since.

1xRUN: Can you tell us about how the stage went up?

John Dunivant: I remember when we first raised the original marquee into place the first year. A guy shows up on the clock from Detroit Edison with a 50 foot bucket truck. And he is drunk. So we are using a 50ft bucket truck while it’s on the clock to raise the marquee into place. Then afterwards he had harness that hung to the bottom of the truck, so he extends the arm to the full 50 feet and we’re just hanging from a harness below the bucket and he’s spinning the arm around so we can fly above the rooftops. So the first stage was a bit more of a lean to and the rough winter brought it down. We were so exhausted, it was supposed to come down after the first year, we had a rougher winter that year, but when it started it was not a real structure. The second year we decided to build this one:

The Theatre Bizarre Main Stage Beginnings…

1xRUN: What about the bands and aesthetic the first few years?

John Dunivant: The Demolition Doll Rods, Country Bob and The Bloodfarmers. I remember seeing The Ruiners play the first year. and they would ruin everything. They just had so many appliances, refrigerators…

Brett Carson: TVs…Ironing boards…

John Dunivant: Right, right, all this shit on stage, he’s singing Detroit Surfer Boy while surfing on an ironing board on fire, ontop of a refrigerator ontop of all this other shit. I mean the whole front of the stage was a mountain of rubble on fire. It was anarchy.

Brett Carson: The first three years were complete anarchy. Yea. It was a lot of fun.

John Dunivant: We wanted these side show acts and there weren’t really any around, not the way there are now. Most of the fire performers in town got their start with Theatre Bizarre, a lot of the groups came from directly like the Detroit Fire Guild. But we heard there was this sex circus, and they were basically a group of exhibitionists. We just sat back and watched not knowing what to expect. There was a 65 year old transvestite stripper who was deepthroating a six foot live boa constrictor. There was another guy stripping–we didn’t have a curtain the first year–and it’s 26 degrees and he whips his pants up and they get caught in the chandelier and the poor guy is jumping up and down naked trying to get his pants out of a chandelier. By the end there were 3 clowns going down on each other. There was a priest strapped to a cross. There was lady pain, she’s dead center with 14 closepins yanking her stuff apart. Backstage Monkey Boy was born.

Brett Carson: Another great thing that happened with Theatre Bizarre is that because we had this place that people could come and use to create tribes, the amount of performers here in town now has grown exponentially. You would go down there and there would be people working on their acts while we were working on the stages year round.

Leading up to this year’s event we will talk about the illustrious Theatre Bizarre Main Stage, which met it’s untimely end this past year. We will get a look at past photos over the years as the Theatre Bizarre main stage and hear both John Dunivant and Brett Carson recall some of the many memories of the annual Halloween Masquerade.  Read on below to see a quick glimpse into the madness that ensued on the fabled Theatre Bizarre main stage.

Bethany Shorb Unveils DDF Official Print

We are excited to present the debut RUN from Detroit artist Bethany Shorb as she unveils the Detroit Design Festival’s official print for the 2012 weekend festivities.

Bethany Shorb will be among the many local artists and galleries highlighted in the upcoming Eastern Market After Dark,which will feature a tour around Detroit’s burgeoning art scene throughout Eastern Market.

Although Eastern Market is often recognized as the food hub of Detroit–bustling with Saturday morning shoppers, slaughterhouses and specialty grocery stores– after dark a different hustle takes over the neighborhood, a creative movement hidden in lofts, studios and galleries living in the market.  The night tour will take guests into studios, galleries, artists’ residencies, hacker spaces, shops and letterpress studios.

The tour will give guests a chance to explore the market often not experienced. Allowing for a sneak peak into a creative community that works late nights and early mornings to create on every level. The tour will stop at over ten locations in the market, opening their doors for workshops, shopping and viewing. Studio doors will open at 7p.m. and close at 11p.m.
Locations include:
– Red Bull House of Art
(Sounds for the evening provided by House of Art artist, Red Bull Music Academy Alumni and “Punk Rock Warlord,” Jeff Risk)
– Cyberoptix tie lab + artist Bethany Shorb
– Salt & Cedar http://www.detroitdesignfestival.com/pages/the-anecdoted-city
– Signal Return
– Detroit Mercantile Company
– Division Street Boutique
– OmniCorp Detroit
– fo2la
– 1480 Gallery
– Art Effect Gallery
– Workroom Detroit
– Frontera
– NNII International Gallery
– The Loft (1234 Market Street) (RSVP Required) http://thecut.eventbrite.com/
– DeVries and Company 1887
– Transmat Gallery
– Christopher Samuels
– CAN Art Handworks
… and more.

Find out more at here and follow with the hashtag #EMAFTERDARK

-1xRUN

Poesia Reimagines Caravaggio In His 1x Debut

In the paintings themselves, Poesia creates a direct dialogue with art history and graffiti’s recently recognized, yet still contentious, central role in it in the new millennium. The compositions involve revised versions of old masterpieces that are influenced by the artist’s history as a graffiti artist and the techniques and materials that he uses. As his traditional subject matter, he repaints historical masterpieces from the High Renaissance through the Baroque period. As his challenging commentary, he utilizes geometric abstraction to slice into them and graffiti tools wielded with an expressionistic stroke to disperse and obscure them. Poesia uses this visual dialectic to create a simile between new millennium masters and their historical counterparts, thereby making a statement that elevates both the art form and their practitioners, as well as progressing it’s stylistic palette into the future.

Read on as Poesia takes us through his debut RUN St. Francis after Caravaggio and talks about past influences and more in the 1xRUN Thru Interview below…

Raft of Medusa Poesia

1xRUN Thru Interview
St. Francis after Caravaggio by Poesia

1xRUN:  Tell us a bit about the original, is still for sale?
Poesia:  It was created in 2012 and it is sold. It was painted over about a month.

1xRun: Tell us how the idea and execution came about?    
Poesia:  St Francis after Caravaggio was painted as part of a series of paintings I have been working on since late 2010. These old Master reinterpretations have evolved over the last 2 years from gestural abstract to fully rendered as this painting is. I was asked to exhibit at Anno Domini Gallery for a solo show. I figured this was the perfect time to work on the old master series for this exhibition as a whole. Other paintings I had exhibited and painted were not made as a group and always exhibited with some of my other abstract pieces. My show titled “More force than Judgement” would focus on these old master paintings. This enabled me to build a strong cohesive body of work. St Francis after Caravaggio was one of the most well received paintings in the exhibit.

Poesia

1xRun: Can you tell us a bit about the series this was a part of?
Poesia:  When I first painted the old master paintings I painted a piece by Caravaggio titled the “Kiss of Judas” this piece was a starting point of the whole series of paintings. Caravaggio is considered by many to be the most influential painter and arguably the talented painter from the renaissance. Studying art History I was always drawn to not only his paintings but his life story. I knew when I prepared for the new exhibition that i would again paint a Caravaggio. This time I chose St Francis. I was drawn to this work and felt it was perfect timing to evolve this series.

1xRun: Why should people buy this print?
Poesia:  St. Francis after Caravaggio is an important piece to my series as a whole and its progression. Anyone that buys this print will be able to have a piece of that as well.

1xRun: Describe the piece in one gut reaction word.     
Poesia:  Conceptual.

Run #00291 // St. Francis after Caravaggio by Poesia


1xRun: When did you first start making art?    
Poesia:  I started painting canvases a couple years after I started writing graffiti in the early nineties.     

1xRun: What was your first piece?
Poesia:  I can’t really remember but I would imagine it was some experimental mixture of graffiti and Art. When I was young I experimented a lot with graffiti and watercolors. Then later into paintings.

Poesia

1xRun: What artists inspired you early on?    
Poesia: Early on I was inspired first by other graffiti artists from my city. Then later I learned about subway art and so on. This was my introduction to art, a year or two later after meeting other artists through graffiti I started to pay attention to art. I studied a lot of art history after this delving into anything and everything involving art. Abstract expressionism, and the Renaissance where my 2 biggest influences outside of my peers and legends in graffiti. There is simply too many to list.

1xRun: What artists inspire you now?
Poesia:  I think now its more of the same. I just have more experience and time to actually work through my ideas. When I was younger it was all about making a name for myself in graffiti and art seemed to be my hobby. Now it seems the tables have turned and I focus more on my art and my current situation. There are more canvases than walls for me to paint currently so I that’s where my direction is. The influences haven’t changed graffiti and art history are my inspiration.

1xRun: Do you listen to music while you work? If so what? If not then what is your environment like when you work?
Poesia:  Yes, Its weird because I think this is the only time I actually listen to music now. I rarely have music on in the car or when I am not painting. Not sure why, I love music, but with some much to do sometimes it feels like a luxury to have time to listen to music. I prefer Pandora and quikmix, or shuffle. I have no real favorites, and i would say 75% of time I have no idea what I am listening too. I just plug in some bands I know I like and then it’s a journey from there. I feel that painting is the same way. You go in with some thoughts but painting takes over and you just follow the lead.

1xRun: If you could collaborate with any living artist who would it be and why?    
Poesia:  Living I would say Anselm Kiefer on canvas and maybe El Mac on the walls. To me Kiefer has been one of my favorite artists for some time, and what Mac is doing on walls is amazing. I really think this is just the beginning for him. Kiefer’s texture is unparallelled.

Anselm Kiefer

1xRun: If you could collaborate with any deceased artists who would it be and why?
Poesia:  Cy Twombly on canvas, and David Alfaro Siqueiros on a wall. Cy Twombly is an amazing painter who i am daily learning about more and more. Sequerios was a pioneer in Mexican mural art and a direct predecessor to what we are now doing on walls. He was one of the first artists to experiment with spraying paint on walls and his work some of the most powerful painted.

David Alfaro Siquieros

1xRun: What was the first piece of art that you bought? Do you still have it?
Poesia:  I don’t think when I was younger I even understood the concept of buying artwork. When your an artist you forget sometimes to buy work you like. For me I was always so involved with making it I didn’t take the opportunity to buy my peers art. A regret I still have till this day. We are so involved we sometimes forget. I will be buying 2 pieces this month from some of my transcend crew mates. One a limited edition screenprint from Joker, and the other an AP from Kofie.

Poesia vs. Kofie

1xRun:  What else do you have in the works?  
Poesia: Futurism 2.0 Group Exhibition  Gamma Proforma Presents:   FUTURISM 2.0  Blackall Studios  London, England  And I am curating a Large Exhibition over 30 artists in Los Angeles in Dec.

1xRun: Where else can people find you on the internette?
Poesia:  WebsiteFacebookTwitter & Instagram @poesiatranscend

-1xRUN

Jonathan Levine & His Delusional Dance Debut

Here for his debut RUN we are excited to present gallerist, curator (and now) artist Jonathan Levine, owner of the Jonathan Levine Gallery. Read on as we give a sneak peak inside Jonathan’s 1xRUN debut which features a 16 x 20 Inch 6-Color Screenprint and a signed hardcover copy of Delusional: The Story of The Jonathan Levine Gallery.

-1xRUN

BASK Brings His One Night Stand To Motown

One Night Stand with BASK – 1 NIGHT ONLY – This Saturday June 30th 5-11pm

Free Art Giveaway Online at 1xRUN.com & In Person At 323East + Detroit Beautification Project Mural and More…

It’s a little misleading to refer to a long-standing and mutually rewarding love affair between an artist and a city as ONE NIGHT STAND-DETROIT, but the visit BASK will soon be making to Metro-Detroit’s 323East Gallery is indeed equally constricted by time and filled with love.

The Czech-born artist – justly famed for his visually powerful and thematically rich “Thought Crimes” – is making the most of those evening hours. On June 30th he will arrive at the Royal Oak gallery, recently named Best Of Detroit, with a showcase of new works for public viewing.

This show will also feature, for the first time, an hybrid online and physical art opening from 5pm to 7pm – offering a rare opportunity for the same viewing public to purchase original pieces before many are made available as limited-edition offerings on 1xRUN, the gallery’s sister website for global art buyers.

At exactly 7pm on June 30th, all remaining pieces will be released on 1xRUN with local collectors having first chance to purchase a collection of BASK’s latest work from 5-7p.

Due to the limited time of this event, BASK would like everyone that purchased a work of art to pull it from the gallery walls and take it home the night of the show.

In addition to the exhibition BASK, 1xRUN, and 323East will kick off the event with Free Art Giveaways to fans and collectors in person and online. The last giveaway from BASK on 1xRUN caused a modest “Scenic Riot” and crashed the 1xRUN servers, thus building a great deal of anticipation for a subsequent exhibit.

In lieu of the fact that a series of street art pieces entitled Because Art Should Kill (released by BASK exclusively through 1xRUN) are intended for public domain and not for retail sale, BASK has decided to give them away oppposed to selling them as a commercial endeavor. The first chance to pick up a free work of art from BASK will be on 1xRUN starting at 12pm EST on Friday June 29th with only 40 pieces available.

On Saturday, June 30th from 5-7pm, everyone that attends the show will receive a raffle ticket with a hard cut off at precisely 7pm – the raffle for 10 unique pieces will then take place at 8pm at 323East.

If you expect to see imagery and messages indistinguishable from those rendered up by other artists working in street art, this particular exhibit of works from BASK will surprise you. He goes well beyond the predictable “agitprop” sensibility of his peers and as always finds uncanny and (for his targets anyway) uncomfortable degree of focus in his pieces. He is singularly aware of the most pernicious problem in our society today – a pervasive and self-perpetuating greed that lies beneath the seemingly mundane facade of our rapacious society. More than that, he is painfully aware that this avarice has all but replaced the discerning qualities that once marked us a democracy worth emulating.

The following week will see BASK remaining in Detroit to work on a large public mural for The Detroit Beautification Project. DBP is set this summer to create over 35 street and graffiti murals by such national and international names as ASKEW, SEVER, REVOK, RISK, Flying Fortress, Tristan Eaton, and Germany’s renowned Juke Box Cowboys. These expansive public arts projects are marked for over 20 locations in Royal Oak, Hamtramck, the Eastern Market, and throughout Detroit. BASK will lend his own signature style to the enterprise. His eyes are open – as is his mind, his heart, and his hands.

– 1xRUN