Airdrop Records, Agency & Blog

With less than a month ’til DEMF and a lot of anticipation for Mutek’s 10 year anniversary, May is bound to be full of excitement. AIRDROP attended DEMF aka the Movement for the first time last year (check out part of our 2008 review), and we have been waiting for the next one! Read the rest of this entry »

ABOVE, one of our favorite street artists just completed his South America tour with interventions from Brazil to Chile. This particular work was completed in Chile. I would have expected something a bit different from an artist whose latest works have been more socio-economic in their criticism, but then again, this may just be a more subtle approach. In any case, he does show a sense of humor “rite”? YES, he does. Read through his website and try to buy one of his paintings to realize that ABOVE really is on to something. Check out some of his other works and projects here. Visit supertouchart for more!

Sometime ago, we had dedicated a post to the fantastic Italian artist Blu. We thought that you would all be happy to end this year 2008, with some news from him. So here is a video of his recent intervention that happened in November in Berlin. Funny thing being, in the process – you can actually see him covering some of Fase’s signature characters, that they had done on their Berlin trip last year!! I think many of us would like to thank Blu for bringing such a great new dimension to street art and activism over the past few years. So check out the video below to see the whole making of the PIECE. Also check out his website by clicking here for all his most recent news.

For all of those in NYC who love art, want to see something new or just need some hair work, stop by Fringe Salon (248 Broome st, btw Orchard and Ludlow) on Tuesday November 11th at 7:30 PM to see works by our very talented ceramicist, Anda Stelian. There will be wine and appetizers for those that come early!

Check out a small preview of the pieces and more info about the artist below:

Anda Stelian was born in Romania, migrated to Belgium, lived in France, Italy and New York. All of these moves, and the back-and-forth between Paris and New York shaped her perceptions of the World and ceramic works.

Initially a trained Belgian Architect, but after practicing architecture in Belgium, France and New York, Anda turned to ceramics in 1995 as a hobby. In 2003 Anda decided to concentrate on Ceramics and after professional classes at the Institut Francais de la Céramique de Sèvres (the prestigious French Ceramics Institut at Sevres), she set up her own studio, bought her kiln and started giving ceramic classes to kids and adolescents. Anda has participated in competitions and thematic exhibitions in France as a way to visit new subjects that she would not have done instinctively. The results of participating or working on imposed subjects explains her diverse portfolio of works.

Currently, Anda works out of the Greenwich Pottery House in New York City. Over the years, Anda has developed a unique and innovative style, fusing the 3-D and material elements of ceramics with illustration as she creates her signature square tablets evoking themes of life, nature, sexuality and even legends. The works that will be shown at Fringe are some of her more recent ones. For more information or requests to see some of her other pieces, please contact us.

[youtube -jxdSfKYE1s]

FASE MIUSIC SENDER – DISASTER (LIVE SET)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

This is a very special episode, paying honour to Fase Miusic Sender, the Buenos Aires audio-visual quatuor. For this AirPod N°7, we are very happy to present you with two parts, a visual Part 1 with the video clip for Fase’s Missing Keyframes, which appears on our Extraction compilation. This video was EXCLUSIVELY MADE FOR AIRPOD!!! And an audio Part 2 with Fase’s new live set: Disaster! So put all of this amazing content on your iPod and enjoy the whole world of Fase! This is without mentionning that we are dying to officially announce our next digital release! Guess who?? Fase M.S of course, accompanied by a Sr. Replicante remix! How amazing is that… you will tell us very soon!!

Behind Fase are: Gustavo Gagliardo, Leandro Waisbord, Pedro Perelman and Martin Tibabuzo. Fase is a collective founded in the year 2000, that is active in Buenos Aires and works on both end of the audio-visual spectrum. From musical production to visual animation and street-art to VJing, Fase finalizes all-inclusive projects and shows, which create a truly complete realm, allowing it to fully expressing their vision. On the musical side, even if experimentation surrounds a Techno essence, some sounds have been surviving since the very foundation of Fase: Aquatic sounds, clicks and glitches, video-gaming bleeps. Fase keeps the groove as main purpose, using kicks and basses to create melodies coming right from the under layers of the earth, factory sounds and darkness. Detroit Underground and Jean-Michel Basquiat’s work can stand as referents to the universe they perpetually share. Fase Miusic Sender plans its live sets to build climates and organically evolving structures. The video sequencing that comes to complete Fase’s world, is solely dependent of, and exclusively adapting to the evolution of the music. Exploring the graphic language, Fase keeps fantasy, synthesis, abstraction and powerful colors as main visual focus. Music expressing visuals, visuals expressing music… The circle is now complete.

www.mundofase.com
MySpace.com/FaseMiusicSender

DOWNLOAD VIDEO | DOWNLOAD LIVE SET | WHAT IS AIRPOD?

ACCESS THE AIRPOD FEED

AirDrop is proud to announce its participation and support in the “Naturaleza y Artificios” exhibition of the Centro Cultural San Martin of Buenos Aires. Opening today Tuesday April 15th, the exhibition regroups 16 emergent artists, including AirDrop’s preeminent figure in Argentina, Maria Bedoian.

“The exhibit explores the mestization between organic and abstract forms that expand themselves within various spaces, with the aim of creating an original nature, more bound to the artificial than to the natural. Art’s Nature, or Nature’s Art, both in perpetual threat for imperfection. The pieces presented invade the space and create a dialog with the architecture of pure and modernist conception, created by Mario Roberto Alvarez. The noble materials of steel, wood, glass and marble used in architecture, are in counterpoint with the recycled materials such as wax, fabric, chalk, cardboard and paper used by the artists. The contrast between the images of an idealized New York City and of a scarred Argentina, converses as well with this counterpoint. The whole results in a signalization on the diversities between the modern, and the creativity of the present, in a society that has been through the rationalist ideal of Modernity, the mistakes of the utopist Postmodernism, until perceiving a higher and open path, the one of imagination.”

We have decided to start posting more and more about cool new artists and projects. We have been meaning to do more of this and promise to introduce you to up and coming artists as well as more obscure finds and creative projects.

The internet is great because it is what makes the world “flat” to a great extent enabling all artists to have their moment. Not every artist produces great works, but there are a rare few that have shared their greatest works. I recently discovered the website artistsupandcoming.com which is exactly what it sounds like, a site for up and coming artists. I did some looking and there was definitely some lame and corny stuff, but among all of the works, I was able to find a painting that truly touched me. Maybe it’s because Roy Lichtenstein is one of my favorite artists of all time, but this painting by Justin Lui, that is listed as “not for sale,” truly is priceless to me.

Art is one of the most powerful forces in our society. Art can bring social change and often is a place for advanced and progressive thought. One of my favorite artists has mastered this concept and is creating positive social change in many ways. When the youth was rioting in France and expressing much of its discontent, JR sought to use art and photography to deliver a more truthful vision of the state of the youth in the projects of the Parisian suburbs. There was clearly discontent and anger, which was not hidden in the pictures, but he also showed the more positive elements such as hope and joy, often neglected and destroyed by fear from the rest of society.

His art is more than a picture and in fact became street art. He would post enlarged versions of the pictures on walls of the city where they would be seen by all, taking people out of their daily routines to think and understand what was going on with a portion of the population.

Since this project, he has continued to find ways to use art to bring positive change in our world. Check his site out for more great pictures and projects.

We will be curating both live and online art shows over the next year starting January. If you would like to participate in any of our online, New York City or Buenos Aires exhibits (More locations TBA) you must submit your work for it to be considered and approved. Your submission must include pictures or videos with descriptions of the work as well as an artist bio.We prefer that you submit your file via the internet using such services as Sendspace and then email the link to henry@airdropmedia.com . The first AirDrop art shows will be announced January 15th.

Globalization has a profound impact on our existence, so much so that is a recurring theme in much of modern and contemporary art. From Andy Warhol to Banksy, many artists have created art by hijacking brands and Ron English is one of my personal favorite hijackers. He has found fame in part as a billboard vandal, but continues to play around with cultural icons and create his own. Not only does he have creative and thoughtful art, but the detail and painting techniques he uses are unparalleled. One has only to see some of his art parodies, where he creates a work based on renowned masterpieces such as Guernica or works by Van Gogh such as his “Starry Night”

I have not put a picture of his most recent “Grade School Guernica,” because it is a work so impressive that it must be seen in full dimension as it dominates the surface of any wall (currently it is for show and sale at Opera Art Gallery in New York City)