Contemporary Art with a Rock n'Roll edge!
MONIKER ART FAIR - UNCENSORED - LONDON - 2018
Earlier this year The Art Hound team were honoured and somewhat daunted to be invited to be one of only thirty top galleries from around the world to exhibit at the prestigious and exclusive Moniker Art Fair in London's Brick Lane.
Moniker is run by a small team of tough and exceptionally smart New Yorkers all hailing from the art world. It takes place twice annually: once in Brooklyn, NYC and once in London’s Brick Lane.
The show promises an antidote to the monotony of so many art fairs, in their own words:
'Moniker rallies against the familiar grind of the art fair season with a curated, experiential and immersive focus, creating unique settings for the display of artists and their work.'
The show ‘attracts some of the most talked about artists, galleries and collectors from the finer side of the street art movement and its related subcultures.’
This sounded almost too good to be true, being exactly what we had been bemoaning the lack of and wishing for in a show: an antagonist to so many boring exhibitions with pretentious amateurish art work and cheap white wine swilled to the soporific tones of Kenny G, during which the good works tend to get missed or ignored. The concept was exactly in tune with the immersive cutting edge style of curation we aim for when exhibiting our own shows.
Over several months of top secret discussion and planning we worked closely with the Moniker team to present a solo exhibition for one of the most talked about young artists of our time: Lauren Baker.
Working to the conceptual theme of “Uncensored” Lauren began work in earnest on an entirely new series of incredibly ambitious art works to be released by The Art Hound at Moniker, entitled “The Immensity of The Universe”.
The idea was to create 'Explosion Art', exploring the chemical processes which create the Universe. Inspired by discoveries into deep space Lauren worked in collaboration with pyrotechnics experts to create ‘exploding’ art works, a highly dangerous process involving PETN and TETRYL plastic explosives. The works were physically exploded with titanium, blackpowder fireballs and high octane pyrotechnics. These explosions created reactions on art works including canvases, books and limited edition prints.
Once Lauren had finished blowing things up we had a a period of four days where we worked long into the night with a large studio team to transform the space into a black crystal terrain, symbolic of a timeless infinite dimension. The idea was to give the viewer a full sensorial overload, surrounding them in walls of stardust, with diamond dust and Swarovski crystals glinting in the night sky, as if floating in an alternate universe, from which the explosion art works emerged, evocative of stars exploding in outer space.
Added to this we were to curate and hang a number of Lauren’s large scale neon works throughout the bar and VIP area. We accomplished it all, by the skin of our teeth and had all but a few moments before the press preview began.
Once the show opened Moniker was all that was promised and more in terms of both immersion and quality. There were fantastic large scale installation works: burned out cars, mazes, and clowns with machine guns running riot at the jam packed private view. To our delight there was even a never ending pack of ‘Moniker Dogs” running around, eating and sleeping throughout the show!
Amid this carefully orchestrated chaos we discovered some truly superb art works by the likes of Street Art giants Banksy and Ben Eine. We forged friendships with talented gallerists hailing from New York to the Philippines. We dealt with knowledgable experienced collectors and introducing young buyers to their their very first art investments.
In conclusion, Moniker truly was a breath of fresh air from the all too often stale and monotonous 'circuit' of art fairs, hated by so many galleries. Right now the art scene feels bright, edgy and very rock and roll.
We are now delighted to release Lauren Baker's brand new series to the world at large and are very proud to be a part of the future of this new art world.
Below is a link to Lauren Baker's new Explosion Series:
https://thearthoundgallery.com/collections/lauren-baker-1
Please enquire for other works by Lauren Baker including Exploded Books and Canvases and Neon works at:
enquiries@thearthoundgallery.com
Photographs courtesy of Moniker Art Fair:
https://www.monikerartfair.com
Written by Tom Arnold
Gallery Director
Following on from our collaboration with Riverside Studios Icons exhibition in 2020, The Art Hound Gallery, known for its cutting edge cool, presents an even bigger and badder exhibition for the New Year 2022.
This January the Gallery presents ‘Bad Reputation’ a four month epic art exhibition from Jan 11th – April 18th 2022, inspired by bad ass females and celebrating awesome women who dare to kick back.
Taking a cue from rock n ‘ roll queen Joan Jett for the title, ‘Bad Reputation’ will feature an entirely new collection of artworks by some of the most exciting contemporary artists in the country, created exclusively for sale at the show.
Charity auction in collaboration with Riverside Studios, London.
https://riversidestudios.co.uk/
All proceeds from this auction will be donated to homeless social enterprise Under One Sky.
https://underoneskytogether.com/
Win this very rare co-signed Diamond Dust Silkscreen portrait of Hollywood actress Elizabeth McGovern by renowned British artist David Studwell.
Co-signed live by Elizabeth McGovern and David Studwell, on stage at Riverside Studios, London, during the production of 'Ava', starring Elizabeth McGovern.
