I’ve been holding out on you.

My memory card’s been bursting with the photographs I took of the last show I went to but I’ve been afraid to post them. You see, the more I get in tune with the Twitter-sphere and the big guys of the photography and art photography and art writing world, the more I get scared. The more I realize that if you’re going to dedicate your time to street art and documenting anything relating to art, you have to be on your A game. You have to check-in/Tweet/Facebook while you’re there, you have to post the photographs right away.

Because someone somewhere else is sitting behind their laptop posting it and trying to beat you to it and maybe even do it better than you.

So, basically, to cut the rant short, I got discouraged. And I figured it wouldn’t really matter whether or not I updated my blog. Someone out there was already reporting it and with a nicer camera and a nicer blog.

Maybe I can’t compete but there’s no point in leaving the photographs just sitting there.

My latest venture was the ZES and Retna show “Excavated Revelations” at Known Gallery. The show is over now but it’s worth writing about because of the nature of the two artists. They’re both street artists that have gotten big but their roots started in the street art crew MSK. There are photographs of ZES, or who the photographer thinks is ZES, just hanging out on top of street posts, either before or after his latest work. That’s legit street art.

But the show is very different from all of this. Known Gallery was hard to find but it’s pristine white walls were like that of any other established gallery.

The works speak for themselves. Both artists have a very trademark look and went outside of their usual mode of working – i.e. ZES brought his works inside for the very first time, Retna did some awesome works on wood.

ZES works had obvious similarities but each was also independent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Retna’s work was in another smaller room but that didn’t take away from its impact.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overall, a great show and the authenticity of these awesome street artists wasn’t lost in the white walls of the gallery. If anything, the pieces transformed those walls into something exciting.

 

 

Thought this was a cute little note, too… The most important part of any street artist’s career is having a huge following and ZES and Retna are pros at that already. This one was left for ZES, wherever he may be…