MALLEUS, the artist collective of Urlo, Poia and Lu, the remarkable poster design team from Italy, will be unveiling their new works and limited art prints on Saturday, October 10 at ARTROCK GALLERY in San Francisco
Alan Forbes and Chuck Sperry / Ron Donovan of the Firehouse will exhibit with MALLEUS - each presenting art prints specifically designed for the event.
In addition there will be a live print demonstration, so you will have an opportunity to acquire an exclusive art print made for you right before your very eyes.
The event is a celebration of DARK NOUVEAU, a return to the roots of poster creation.
DARK NOUVEAU evokes equally the fin de siècle style of Toulouse-Lautrec and 1960's San Francisco Psychedelia - and operates here as a manifesto of reinvention and revision - aimed at connecting to the poster movement of the Decadent Period to the Belle Epoque and folding it into the Psychedelic Period to the present modern global silkscreen movement.
DARK NOUVEAU opens at 7pm • Saturday, October 10 at ARTROCK GALLERY • 893 Folsom Street in San Francisco.
Monday, 5 October 2009
DARK NOUVEAU Malleus, Alan Forbes and Firehouse
Thursday, 1 October 2009
Died Young, Stayed Pretty - A Film about Rock Posters
Died Young, Stayed Pretty is a candid look at the underground poster culture in North America. This unique documentary examines the creative spirit that drives these indie graphic artists. They pick through the dregs of America’s schizophrenic culture and piece them back together. What you end up with is a caricature of the black and bloated heart that pulses greed through the US economy. The artists push further into the pulp to grab the attention of passersby, plastering art that’s both vulgar and intensely visceral onto the gnarled surfaces of the urban landscape. The film gives us intimate look at some of the giants of this modern subculture. Outside of their own circle, they’re virtually unknown. But within their ranks they make up an army of bareknuckle brawlers, publicly arguing the aesthetic merits of octopus imagery and hairy 70s porn stars. They’ve created their own visual language for describing the spotty underbelly of western civilization and they're not shy about throwing it in the face of polite society. Along the way, they manage to create posters that are strikingly obscene, unflinchingly blasphemous and often quite beautiful. Yaghoobian shows these artists for what they are: the vivisectionists of America’s morbidly obese consumer culture.
