Failures + Clichés

The term Avant-garde arose sometime in the 18th century and is a bi-product of modernism and post-modernism. In the late 18th century the artists of the Dada movement and the situationalists associated themselves with the Avant-garde movement. Essentially the Avant-garde resists the products of consumerism such as kitsch and the cliché and embraces artists marginalized by mainstream commercial values (This definition is elaborated in Clement Greenberg's 1939 essay "Avant-Garde and Kitsch"). During a particular cultural movement the Avant-garde leads society in a certain direction, opening up new discourses and ideas; while the cliche and kitsch respond to the movement with disregard to aesthetics and cultural relevance.

The challenge that artist's face today is how to escape the cliché and turn their work into something that is new, innovative, and changes the way we see or think, occasionally known as a trope (defined as a conventional idea or phrase). The following contemporary art pieces are good examples of tropes where the artists have managed to escape clichés.

Fuck it up and start again, 2001 Sofie Hultén
http://www.videoartworld.com/beta/video_34.html

The Weather Project, Olafur Eliasson
Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, London, UK, 2003
http://www.olafureliasson.net/works/the_weather_project.html

From the Ground Up

The purpose of "FROM THE GROUND UP" is to create a show that visually illustrates how street culture influences intersect with contemporary, and capital A, academic art. This show will attempt to call into question the boundaries of high and low art, in a forum that is institutional in nature to illustrate how deep the influences of these subaltern groups run in a wide variety of emerging artist works. From graffiti, street, pop, guerrilla, lowbrow, scenster, wheat paste, D.I.Y, anarcho punk, hiphop, etc. This exhibition is an honest attempt to bring the kind of ferver and intensity into the Concourse Gallery that artists bring to the streets and back alleys. This show will be a multidisciplinary show which will utilize the Concourse Gallery as a forum for all works that investigate street culture and its intersection with fine art.


ARTIST'S STATEMENT:
Lust and Wrath
from the series 5 Sins of Advertising

As in graffiti, birth and death and the aesthetic of decay are central themes that occur in the diptych. The two panels are taken from a larger body of work entitled The 5 Sins of Advertising, the two being Lust and Wrath. I utilized an alias that I have been working with for a few years now by the name Panther Explosive, which I use for both my fine art and music practices. For me Panther Explosive has become a brand; an obsession of mine that has brought me to the point where I have the overwhelming urge to display it in both a gallery setting and public space. As certain elements of graffiti are a reflected in forms of corporate advertising, the piece functions as a direct way of self-promotion and raises the question of the artist as a corporate identity and the place of graffiti in the fine art realm.

From the Ground Up is currently showing at the Concourse Gallery at Emily Carr on Granville Island. Come support your local artists and check out some killer graffiti-inspired art while your at it.

- P

Graffiti of the Week

The following photographs were taken in the beginning months of 2009. The first is an abandoned train located in Coquitlam. The second is an old wall located in north Burnaby on the beach of the Burrard Inlet.

Lot Collection: Dec. 9th 2009

statement:
Being an artist is about transforming a space. To an artist, there is no private or public space, just space and the objects that occupy it. To be an artist is to have the overwhelming impulse to change and alter space in his or her own vision. To be a good artist is to activate that space through sound and optics, discussion and discourse.

This is a series of photographs from the Lot Collection, taken on December 9th, 2009.

- P

The Panther Poster Collection

I think its about time to display a collection of posters I've done for events, starting with my first poster ever for Parking Lot Pimpin' and ending with my latest poster for this upcoming Halloween. Here it is:


PLP was a great success. The event featured a four band lineup, and beer and souvlaki provided by Pals4Life. Since we didn't pay anything for the space, we didn't charge any entrance fee. But since the recent acts of arson and graffiti by drunk dumbass punks, this will probably be the last poster I make for PLP. RIP PLP.


The Tipper Lounge provided a great space for this show, which featured my band, formally known as The Gaze and our friends the two-pieced Lovebomb. It was a great turnout, the M83 cover was a big hit with the kids. Any night ended by the consumption of Alberta Premium on a bus at 2 in the morning is a night to be proud of, just as long as its with friends. If your not with friends then you are definitely an alcoholic and I'll see you on intervention.


I consider this poster to be my shittiest, due to the lack of high-res images. On the contrary, the event was a success, other than the destruction of P4L's laptop resulting in the loss of one of our songs and the debauchery of Don't save us from the flames, blamed mostly on me and my drunken state.


I consider Halloween Massacre one if my best, solely because of the fact that I was provided high-res images. These work the best when using threshold, which provides the backbone to almost all of my work. Looking forward to drinking brass monkeys in a Gorrila costume and dropping mad beats for even madder raps.
Go to mexysexicans to find out more...

PANTHER STICKER SET 1