Big Top and Signature Tattoo Presents Clean As A Whistle: 

A Collection of New Works From Seven of Detroit's Finest Tattoo Artists

We cordially invite you to join 323East in a celebration of the artwork of Detroit’s finest underground tattoo artists as the wholly handsome and tumultuously talented men of Big Top and Signature Tattoo present an alternative to your clean cut, run of the mill...hygienic annual art show with Clean As A Whistle. Featuring new works from Big Top and Signature Tattoo Artists, Clean As A Whistle is to grime what a hot slot machine is to a tarnished dime. Curated by Mark Heggie the show features new work from Josh Fallon, Mark Heggie, Tyler Hemmingsen, Garth Hixon, Davey James, Nick Kelly, Dan Rick and Sam Wolf.

323East Presents: Transliteration New Works by Dan Armand and Dennis Jacobs
Opening Reception, January 14th, 2012 - On display through February 15th  6-11pm

Click Here to view available work from the exhibition


Trans·liter·ation (--rshn) noun
Definition:
1.To represent or spell in the characters of another alphabet.

2. The ability to interact across a range of platforms, tools and media. The modern meaning of the term combines literacy with the prefix trans-, which means "across; through".
3. A collection of new works from Dan Armand and Dennis Jacobs at 323 East beginning January 14th, 2012.

Pulling a slew of literary and cultural influences from the disparate worlds of street art, advertising, graphic design and pop art Dan Armand and Dennis Jacobs will showcase their latest works as 323East and 1xRUN are proud to unveil our first exhibition of 2012, Transliteration. The old saying goes that occasionally meanings are lost in translations, but as these two mixed-media artists draw from these many influences, that is exactly where they will pull meaning. Armand and Jacobs look to blur the lines accross dozens of emotions and mediums straddling cultural, social and economic psyches to create a new artistic alphabet of communication.

"The work in the show itself spans various mediums that we’re both working in, ranging from painting, to stencil, collage, and sculpture and we thought that Transliteration worked well as a title, meaning going from one form to another, both literally and figuritively " Jacobs says.



Dan Armand was recently named one of Crain Detroit's "20 in Their 20s" as he was highlighted among the best "brainpower and entrepreneurial talent of the region's young professionals and creatives." Armand currently works in advertising in Detroit and graduated from CCS in 2005 where he was trained in illustration. Armand's work was recently shown at Lyons Wier Gallery - NYC , The Dirty Show, Dirty Show LA, and the Urban Roots Exhibition at 323East.

"My work is kind of all over the place because of the different training and backgrounds that I have. The work for this show is a blend of all these things through a variety of media, from sculptural works to prints to digital works." Armand says. "I'm also a big fan of trench art too. You know, WWI & WWII stuff where there were so many shells and bullets left over from the war, that people made all kinds of cool stuff out of them. Taking those artifacts of war and repurposing them into something new. It’s that same kind of approach, but putting a bit more of a modern spin on it. It’s almost like the corporatization of trench art."



Dennis Jacobs is a self taught artist living and working in Detroit. Along with his wife Christina, he runs the screen print studio & art blog Perfect Laughter. Jacobs previous works have shown throughout the Detroit area and have included spraypaint stencil and collage on wood panels.



"My work for this exhibition is spray paint stencil on found wood and collage. The collage elements that make up the backgrounds in my paintings are made up of found papers, antique book pages, letters, and vintage advertisements. Recently I’ve gotten really into gig posters and silkscreen artists. My favorite part about gig posters is that they almost always tell a story. I'm trying take a more literary approach to my new work."

Transliteration:
A New Collection of Works from Dan Armand and Dennis Jacobs
Opening Exhibition Jan. 15th
Showing From Jan. 15th - Feb. 15th

Click Here for available works form this exhibition.

Glenn Barr is one of the few artists around whose "juvenilia" excites as much interest (and cash) as his most current works. If you were a regular customer at some of the better independent record, book, and magazine stores that thrived around here back in the day ... well, you know what we're talking about.

But those days are definitely back in the past. Barr is acknowledged now as one of the most accomplished painters to arise phoenix-like from Detroit's underground milieu. He's been profiled and praised in Juxtapoz and Hi Fructose; found a welcome niche in the demanding field of graphic novels; and contributed a skillful hand to animated features and videos. Bjork and Woody Woodpecker on the same resume? Not bad!

And now he'll be the focus of his first Detroit solo show in seven years. Right here where it all started.

On October 28 2009, at 6pm, 323East will give up its walls to Glenn Barr and showcase a near decade's worth of original works and prints. You'll be able to see and judge for yourself how a Detroit original has taken a unique vision of the world and made it even more colorful and dynamic.

Barr’s show is much cause for celebration with the artist unveiling nearly a decade’s worth of original works, prints and published works. “With the release of my books and toys I have to travel a lot, and with national and international exhibitions always in the works, there is only so much time to dedicate locally,” explains Barr. Indeed the last decade has been a fertile one: Barr’s paintings have appeared in galleries from Seattle and San Francisco to New York City and Europe. Barr’s animated lo brow vision was also tapped for “The Ren and Stimpy Show,” Bjork’s “I Miss You” video and “The New Woody Woodpecker Show,” in addition to numerous comics and graphic novels.

International art magazines from Juxtapoz, and Hi Fructose, to Film Threat have waxed ecstatic over Barr’s voyeuristic, industrial-meets-retro universe that adorn his paintings, often times populated with morally bankrupt vixens, disembodied cherubs and erotic robots. Reveals Barr, “for years now I've been trying to create my own visual language and my own ideological, modern day mythology. My own interpretation of how the world and the surreal/noir world interweave. A very dream-like, post-apocalyptic world.”

In celebration of the show, Barr is making available 35 limited edition, signed and numbered giclee' prints sold exclusively through 323East, available opening night.

Bethany Shorb's Cyberoptix Tielab 2010 Preview and Photography Exhibition:: Friday Jan, 15th 2010 6pm @ 323East in Royal Oak, MI.


These are not your father's ties - let's make that clear first. Cyberoptix? Right - and with a fresh bottle of Old Spice wrapped up with it. Knot quite.

These are the works of an imaginative artist and photographer named Bethany Shorb who took the mundane reality of neckwear and proceeded to give it a twist or two in new directions - with bold color, bolder materials, and the novel idea that a traditional symbol of subservience could be transformed into "a subversive object of desire."

Reaching that goal was aided immeasurably by Shorb's other talents; besides photography, she is trained in sculpture, costume design, and prop construction. And THOSE accomplishments, we hasten to add, are complemented nicely by her brutally direct understanding of what see sees or what she wants us to see. Shorb has tackled a variety of subjects and (as evidenced by a recent exhibit inspired by J.G. Ballard's novel CRASH) her "eye" is not a blinking one by any stretch. Something is heated to an almost unbearable degree in her works. And if you can't stand the heat ... well, best you seek out an environment where the climate is more controlled.

But you don't want to do that. What you want to do is to see the latest creations by this intriguing talent - the ones that 323 East will unveil on January 15. The cravats are cool. The pix are pulsating. Nice way to make a knot in our opinion.

--
Schooled in both sculpture and photography, Bethany Shorb creates elaborate prop, costume and set constructions that blur the line between both editorial fashion photography and performance art documentation. Her recent Crash series refers to J.G. Ballard's novel of the same name with scenes titled by the lyrics of The Normal's song of similar influence, "Warm Leatherette." Technology, celebrity, sex, and death are perversely glamorized and fetishised in unison in a single explosion of red Swarovski crystals and inflated black latex rubber. Models, wardrobe and set decoration all retain the same visual and emotional weight, a hyper-saturated amalgamation exploring the interstitial space between the alluring and repulsive; hedonism and restraint; the seductive speed of expressways and the still finality of Last Rights.

Shorb also founded The Cyberoptix Tie Lab in 2006. As a designer of witty hand printed neckwear, she has applied her experience as a sculptor, couture, costume and graphic designer to transform a much maligned business necessity into a subversive object of desire. Cyberoptix ties and scarves are represented by more than 150 stores in a dozen countries: from Fred Segal in Los Angeles to Libertine in Western Australia. A paradox for the times, Cyberoptix Tie Lab operates one of the largest eco-friendly, solvent-free print shops in the country in Downtown Detroit, while providing a seditious, punky fashion statement for executives bound to the neck noose, and a sharply styled alternative for those who don't need to wear a tie, but choose to do so.

The shadows of childhood linger long for every adult person, but the most ominous and haunting shadows are invariably those that darken (or ironically illuminate) a female artist's works. We will not quote from the post-Freudian library here or vouchsafe certain feminist theories that have towered and tumbled one after another in recent years; the issue has been addressed more clearly and honestly in legend, myth, and fairy tale anyway. One has only to appreciate the fitting name of Grimm in connection with a number of feminine archetypes to glimpse an eternal truth - that a woman will always resort to the weapons at hand to wrestle herself away from the grasp of demons. This is an even more poignant lesson when the weapons at hand are her own discerning eye and a brush daubed with color.

Glass, Cinder and Thorns, the group show that will commence at 323East on March 20, is both an exhibit and a visual symposium on these matters. The participating female artists (drawn from Detroit, California, New York, France, Australia, and elsewhere) have striven to find a code - a personal and general one - that deciphers the puzzle of identity. The images they offer up are menacing and ambiguous, soft and dreamlike, familiar and uncanny. And if the enigma we referenced earlier is still wrapped in silence, then we can at least rejoice that future attempts at decipherment will prompt even more works in the future by Audrey Pongracz, Jessica Dalva, Jessamyn Patterson, Kelly Vivanco, and others

Curated by April Segedi, 323East Gallery

As children our parents would read to us bedtimes stories of little mermaids, sleeping beauties, and little red riding hoods. These innocent stories often had evil lurking beneath the pages. What Disney failed to tell you is that, the mermaid dies, multiple suitors defiled sleeping beauty and the wolf ate grandma. 

There are a lot of horrible things in our reality today and we all sometimes wish for a place or time where things are simpler and better. We find ourselves wanting the warmth of our childhood beds, the calming voice of our parents sending us of to sleep with our favorite story. Yet even in fairylands of beauty and glitter, evil things creep about in false glamour’s, such as the evil witch living in the gingerbread house or a beautiful sea nymph singing you into your watery grave.

Glass, Cinder & Thorns, on March 20th 2010 6-11pm

Featuring An All Star Female Artist Line up:

Kelly Vivanco
Audrey Pongracz
Jessica Dalva
Edith Lebeau
Megan Frauenhoffer
Maria Finna
Tina Tourikis
Nicole Cummings
Lisa Petrucci
Jessamyn Patterson
Jaclyn Schanes
Lost Fish
Crystal Mielcarek
Jeannie Paske
Jenna Colby
And More....

The Silent Giants "Our Infinite Universe" Art Exhibition Hit 323East on August 18th.

On Wednesday August 18 you'll have the opportunity to see how the rock poster - that "throwaway" that insulated many a dorm room and brightened many an adolescent cave - became the means whereby The Silent Giants took the nuances of graphic art and stomped them into the visual diamonds we appreciate today.

The Silent Giants is the alias shared by Christopher Everhart and Ed Knight - an alias that is now accepted as a byword for creative excellence in Metro Detroit and elsewhere. An impressive portfolio has the two listed with The Black Keys, Lupe Fiasco, Kevin Smith, Spoon, and Jack White's Dead Weather; in addition they have also lent their considerable skills to the HBO series Flight of the Conchords. And all of this while gaining international recognition through a network of fan-blogs and websites. 

And now 323East is giving it up (okay, giving up its walls) for the duo's most recent efforts. These efforts, which have embellished Detroit's reputation abroad for excellence in graphic design, also reflect the evolution of a style that established masters like Gary Grimshaw, Carl Lundgren, Robert Nixon, and Mark Arminski made exclusively their own.

On this occasion, however, the displayed material will not deal exclusively with either rock or the roll of familiar or far away venues. All are new art prints based on the theme of the Powers of Ten - the progressive buildup of matter and spirit that is witnessed in nature and in space by both the discerning eye and the sensitive heart. The works stand by themselves as arresting motifs of color and static oceans filled with ideas. Something here is speaking as clearly (and as loudly) as the bliss of revelation.

Ed Knight shared his thoughts about the upcoming show during a brief q&a session:

Q. How do you feel when compared to poster giants of the past?

We are honored to be compared with such an elite class of notorious poster artists, especially since we reach to the past for much of our inspiration. The comparisons only solidify the fact that we are trying to make people relive an era that inspires us so much.

Q. What are your thoughts on your first gallery show and having it at 323?

A: It's a privilege to be working with 323 on our very first gallery appearance. The first time we worked with 323 on the mural for the Ford Fiesta, we felt right at home and just got to talking about getting us inside. This is a really great time for us to be getting our work in an artspace to reach a different crowd of people. We have been told numerous times we do an excellent job representing Detroit, so this is just going to be our show of appreciation for all of the continued support we get here. It's going to be a learning experience for us, and I'm sure this is just the first of many shows at 323.

Q: And now you enjoy a fair amount of international recognition?

A: We have been recognized in Europe to an astonishing degree and a very gratifying one. We've been published in a book called Naive (published by Gestalen which is based in Germany), as well as in several computer arts magazines. We constantly get love from customers overseas, some of them ordering nearly every poster we release or have released. Many blogs have posted about us as well. It's a great feeling when we see people all over the globe recognizing our work.

Q: If you'll pardon the way we phrase this question - how did the giants meet and grow?

Chris and I met at Macomb Community College in '04. Both of us were studying in the MACA (media and communication arts) program there. We instantly hit it off, sharing common musical and design interests. The funny thing that also connected us was that both of us were and still are deeply interested in architecture. So much so that both of us nearly went to Lawrence Tech to study architecture. Instead, we both decided we would try graphic arts for the time being. During our few years at Macomb we grew closer together and wanted to do bigger and better things than what we were doing at school. Some days we would just go to the library for a few hours, gather a bunch of old books, bring them back to the computer labs, and scan things for hours while looking for interesting textures or patterns. Seeing as how we were both fueled by music, it just made sense to dive head first in designing things for bands. We both knew a slew of local bands that were looking for designs. The more projects we did, the more people we met or were introduced to - which then led to more opportunities for us to climb up the ladder. 

Both of us were extremely interested in the screen printing process, so our next step was to start printing our own designs. After spending hours and hours of time on gigposters.com forums, we finally got a home set-up and after we gathered the materials we ran into a whole new world of unexpected issues. A few weeks later we were introduced to Brian Larson, who worked at a t-shirt printing shop for a few years. His company had a flatstock press laying around that we snagged instantly. This helped us out quite a bit after our first trials with the home set up. Over the next year the three of us hardly got any sleep. We would spend our weekdays doing the 9-5 plus designing/screen printing all of our posters. We learned so much in this time period - and its the chief reason we are where we are today. Learning to go through the actual printing process of a finished design makes you look at the way you design in a completely different way. All of the sleep we lost was well worth the knowledge we gained. We started printing in Pontiac, then moved to the Russell Industrial Center, then moved to Ferndale. Majority of our new prints are printed by vg kids who are based in Ypsi. We try to keep everything as local as possible.

This year has been the best year we've ever had, and its not even through yet. We have a lot of new things coming up that we can't wait to share with everyone. Detroit is treating us so well, and we couldn't be happier to represent it. The people here just seem to respect what we're doing and the fact that we're actually staying here. We can't wait to celebrate this gallery with all of the people who continue to give us their support.

Detroit’s ever present creative force, artist Ron Zakrin, will present his solo exhibition entitled Cluster " F*<k" at the 323East Gallery in Royal Oak on Friday, September 10. Free and open to the general public, the artist exhibition starts at 6 p.m. and runs through 11 p.m. that evening. Free refreshments will be available. 

For a painter who prefers to be neither abstract nor abstruse in his works, Ron Zakrin has an unsettling talent for making the viewer think. His colorful images - imbued as they are with sensual beauty, violent emotion, dark humor, and the occasional dash of pathos - are indirect links to a reality that one writer described as "the skull beneath the skin." The figures on his canvases are superficially part of the everyday world or drawn from his imagination, but nuances of line and the careful placement of symbols here and there all indicate that this artist is saying something with a subtlety that is (quite often) menacing in its subdued delivery.

To commemorate the exhibition opening, 323East will give away free Giclèe prints of “The Last Stand” that have been signed and numbered by Zakrin to the first 30 people that attend the show and request one. A Giclée is a fancy art word for archival limited edition print

Zakrin said the name of the exhibition alludes to the focal point of the show. “It’s a cluster of work that spreads away from a central focal point in concentric waves,” he said. “Each piece of work is both a stand alone, self contained unit with its own story, while simultaneously belonging to a much larger orchestration of paintings, drawings, and assemblages.”

Prominent themes include:
The demise of wholesome goodness, in general,
Ethics in genetic art,
Heartache and other pass times, and Mythology in the 21st century.

323East last hosted a Zakrin exhibition in September of 2009, and according to gallery founder Jesse Cory, the show got rave reviews.

“We are extremely excited to have Ron back at 323East for his second solo exhibition,” said Cory. “His shows have a strong group of followers, and have become very popular with those that visit the gallery regularly. Detroit art enthusiasts and collectors are always interested to see Ron’s latest work. It’s going to be a great exhibition.”

To learn more about him and his work visit www.ronzakrin.com.

Tom Thewes is neither the first nor the last painter to prompt that familiar remark "born at the wrong time", but in his case the observation rings true with a compelling relevance. Thewes' canvases (frequently signed with the nom de brush "derLarm") echo the same passion as those works that dazzled, frightened, intrigued, and outraged Europeans between la Belle Epoque and post-war Germany's Weimar period. They are masterful firestorms of line and color, and the educated viewer will undoubtedly detect a respectful debt being paid to the early cubists and the Austrian Secession - but that debt is being paid with interest by a painter whose own vision and stamp of originality comes through in each and every piece. And in light of the fact that Thewes does not eschew modern methods (he is an acknowledged master of the airbrush), his oeuvre is very much in sync with the present day.