Q&A With Apart's Adrian Palengat

Q&A With Adrian Palengat of APART, Regarding Scion Presents: Love Will Bring Us Apart Again

1) What is the theme or meaning of the show?

it's simply to show how pop art is constantly being re-interpreted and reworked by artists working in different media around the world

2) How did you select and find the artists involved?

theyve been scooped up by apart over the last 9 years and i picked the ones for this show who were most likely to get there work in a container on time !

3) How did Scion find you and approach you to do a show?

i hosted freddi c and the scrawl collective's big american grafitti show 'streetwiseone' in my london gallery in 2001

4) What's been the biggest challenge you faced in putting together this show?

it's still to come - hanging it on the 15th !

5) Is there anything in particular you would like people to take away from this show - what would you like to inspire in those that view the artwork?

the same response that we always seem to get which is: inspiration, joy, laughter and fascination at how these artists think of the things they do and....how, a bit like the harlem globetrotters, they put on such a great spectacle as a team

6) What do you have lined up for the future? What's next after this show?

im curating a 3 week group show at steve shaw's beautiful new abbott kinney gallery on the 16th march for 3 weeks, then back to london to curate an enormous notting hill apart retrospective for all our artists to say hello to their old clients, then back to las vegas where im putting on another big group show in mid may downtown, then to zurich for a pakpoom silaphan solo show... and the rest of the year i'll work out as i go !!

www.scion.com/space
www.ap-art.co.uk

Love Will Bring Us Apart Again opens Feb 16th @ Scion Installation Gallery LA

Q&A W. Ric Blackshaw of Scrawl Collective

Scion presents Special Relationship, curated by Scrawl Collective. Here's an interview with Ric Blackshaw of Scrawl Collective about the show.

1) What is the theme or meaning of the show?
Well we’ve called the show Special Relationship which is a reference to the often touted political special relationship that is said to exist between the USA and the UK. We’ve decided to have a bit of fun with that idea because from our point of view the special political relationship is a tad one sided. i.e. our government likes to think it has some influence over yours but they are the only ones who believe it.

There is though another special relationship that has thrived since the post war years and that’s the cultural one. Music, TV, Film, Literature… We in the UK grew up on a diet of Sesame St, The Muppets, Rock n Roll… and there seems to have been a constant to-ing and fro-ing of ideas across the Atlantic. Since the 60’s there’s been a pattern of thing that come out of America being initially ignored at home but finding a foothold and acclaim in the UK before finally getting recognition at home. Jimi Hendrix had to come to the UK to make his mark, it took a nightclub and a few fanatics in Manchester to recognize the groundbreaking work of the house and techno pioneers that came out of Detroit and Chicago in the mid 80”s. Before that there were countless small soul labels in the USA that were kept going because kids in the North of England were buying there 45’s in droves and giving birth to Northern Soul. It’s something that should be a cause of celebration. So the show is loosely based on that idea, I say loosly because so many artists are going to have different ideas about the theme and I don’t like to be to prescriptive about the themes of our shows. I want the artists to be able to work on what they feel good about at the time.

Also because this is our first major show in LA I wanted to exhibit some stuff from our recent past and to that end I’m bringing some framed editions of our ongoing screen print series.

We like to provide a range of stuff for these big shows from $50 to much more expensive things. Something for everyone really.

2) How did you select and find the artists involved?
Scrawl Collective is pretty much a stable of artists so I always work with the same guys. We add new members occasionally so for instance this will be the first time we’ve exhibited the work of RYCA and Hutch as part of a Scrawl Show, but generally we’re a tight knit bunch who work together a lot.

3) How did Scion find you and approach you to do a show?
We know Evan Cerasoli from way back, I’ve curated shows in the UK and Berlin with his wife Freddi under the name Streetwise.


4) What’s been the biggest challenge you faced in putting together this show?
Making sure so many artists meet their deadlines….

5) Is there anything in particular you would like people to take away from this show – what would you like to inspire in those that view the artwork?
Hopefully we’ll make people smile, there’s a lot of humour in some of the work and also people will hopefully be amazed at our installation work. This is a rare chance for people in LA to see large scale murals by the likes of Will Barras, Mr Jago and Phlash. In my opinion there’s only a few artists in the world that can match their virtuosity.

The other thing I hope people will take from this show is some art that they’ve bought cos lets face it we’ve all gots bills to pay when we get home…

6) What do you have lined up for the future? What’s next after this show?
Once this show is out of the way I have to start work in earnest on a new book about Street Art that should be coming out late next year. That’s gonna take up most of my time for a few months…