Artomatic opens in 9 days!

Artomatic (or AOM) opens in nine days!

The Pittman WPA Scam

Some asshole is using the WPA Online Artfile to try to scam artists. If you get an email from ssgpittman115@yahoo.com, claiming to be from a soldier in Iraq, delete it and send the originator a mental curse in the name of some ancient god.

Artists' Websites: Catherine Tafur

Catherine Tafur, The Three Graces
Catherine Tafur was born in Lima, Peru in 1976 to a Peruvian father and a Japanese mother. She studied at the Cooper Union School of Art where she earned her BFA. The artist has since shown her work at venues throughout Brooklyn and Manhattan. Tafur's work "uses the image of the body as a way to explore ideas of gender deconstruction, confrontational sexuality, disillusionment and loss of innocence. She transforms personal experiences into allegorical works of poetic representational symbolism, often through painful disfigurements, idealized androgyny, and mutilation."

Tafur now lives and works in New York City and is an artist-in-residence at the Brooklyn Artists Gym. Visit her website here.

New Baltimore Gallery

TAG Gallery is a new space that opened last year in Baltimore. They're located at 732 S. Broadway, Baltimore, MD 21231.

Visit them online here.

Review of Aqui Estamos

Aqui Estamos, the group show of Cuban art that I curated for Projects Gallery in Philadelphia and which is currently on display at that Northern Liberties' gallery gets a cool review in Fallon & Rosof's Artblog.

Juego de Roles (Role Game). Oil on canvas by Aimee Garcia Marrero
Read the review here.

TAKI 183

Graffiti artists all around the world know the name that started it all: TAKI 183.

As a High School student who lived in Brooklyn but went to High School in Queens, I had about a 90 minute subway ride each morning and each evening going and coming from my High School in Long Island City. It all started in the LL line and finished in the number 7 Flushing Line. All along those trains I was very familiar with TAKI 183's tag, which seemed to be all over and everywhere at once. In fact, I even developed my own little tag back then. I would draw (with a magic marker) a little tombstone and write UNDERTAKER ASH underneath it. I have no idea how I came up with it and what it meant, or even if I had seen it somewhere, but back then any train or subway station that I used to ride had both TAKI 183 and UNDERTAKER ASH all over them.

TAKI 183 was then a kid from 183rd Street in upper Manhattan, TAKI 183’s simple signature (he said it was a diminutive of his Greek name Demetrius) captured the attention of a reporter and, on July 21, 1971, the article “TAKI 183 Spawns Pen Pals” appeared in The New York Times.

Just like that, TAKI 183 became a graffiti legend, but TAKI 183 remained silent. Now, almost four decades later, TAKI 183 has emerged to tell his story.

This new website includes photos of TAKI 183’s work, images of his friends and contemporaries, his true story and, for the first time, official TAKI 183 limited-edition screenprints.

Check the first graffitti superstar here.

Congrats!

The Association for Alternative Newsweeklies announced finalists for its annual prizes today, selecting the Washington City Paper as a top contender in four categories: Photography, Arts Criticism, Media Reporting/Criticism, and Innovation/Format Buster.

My good bud and theory knucklehead and superb painter Jeffry Cudlin, who won the top prize for arts criticism last year, was again named a finalist for 2009. Yay Jeffry!

The great photographer Darrow Montgomery, who’s been shooting for City Paper for 23 years is also a nominee! This is the fourth time Montgomery has been a finalist.