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Fuse Gallery’s “Draw” art exhibit recently made a huge mark with its New York debut. As a result, galleries around the world have come calling to host the show too. “Draw,” curated by Erik Foss and Curse Mackey, opened at New York City’s Fuse Gallery last fall with over 1000 media, celebs, artists, musicians and NYC hipsters in attendance. Fuse Gallery is one of downtown New York’s leading spaces for modern, pop and underground urban art. “Draw” features original drawings from more than 150 vanguard artists in the urban, tattoo, design, illustration, fashion, film, skateboard and music worlds. |
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DRAW – Erik Foss and Curse Mackey
Fuse Gallery’s “Draw” art exhibit recently made a huge mark with its New York debut. As a result, galleries around the world have come calling to host the show too.
“Draw,” curated by Erik Foss and Curse Mackey, opened at New York City’s Fuse Gallery last fall with over 1000 media, celebs, artists, musicians and NYC hipsters in attendance. Fuse Gallery is one of downtown New York’s leading spaces for modern, pop and underground urban art.
“Draw” features original drawings from more than 150 vanguard artists in the urban, tattoo, design, illustration, fashion, film, skateboard and music worlds. The artist list for “Draw” reads like a who’s who of the “underground gone mainstream” art world. Within “Draw,” however, there is a fundamental creative thread connecting all of these artists, regardless of what they are best known for. The show includes Mark Gonzales, a world famous skateboarder turned world famous art superstar; Kaws, an NYC graffiti artist who rose to legendary status in the past few years—even with the art elite—and who now owns a design boutique in Tokyo; Barry McGee, an influential urban artist from San Francisco known for his large-scale, site-specific works; Ron English, acclaimed modern pop surrealist and subject of the recent movie Popaganda; HR Giger, Academy Award-winning Swiss surrealist who is best known for his art design for the film Alien; and Clive Barker who is considered the world’s premiere horror writer, with several books turned into films to his credit. Also incorporated into the project are Yuri Masnyj, a Whitney Biennial participant; Chris “Daze,” an NYC urban artist whose paintings now reside in the collections of Madonna and Eric Clapton; WK Interact, a French urban artist based in NYC who has a new book featuring his street, studio and commissioned work from the last 10 years for Adidas, Burton Snowboards, Volkswagen and Nike; Gibby Haynes, vocalist for the Butthole Surfers; Joe Coleman, one of the all-time great legends of the visionary art world whose drawings have rarely been displayed to the public and Moby, a platinum selling, Grammy Award winning pop star who has just released his Greatest Hits CD and DVD.
Artwork from Doze Green, Glenn Barr, Eric White, Tim Biskup, Derek Hess, Phil Frost, Rich Jacobs, NeckFace, David Stoupakis, Rick Griffin, Vaughn Bode, Sas Christian and 125 more artists of world class talent and reputation is also represented here. Some of these pieces date as far back as the 1963 piece from underground comic legend Stanley Mouse or are derived from childhood experiences such as the works of several young artists aged seven to ten.
Once the achievements of these artists is collectively listed and recognized for how influential they are (not only in the art world but also in pop culture at large), the curatorial process began. This was a daunting task full of elusive artists and one that called into question exactly how it would all ultimately come to be.
Erik Foss, co-curator of “Draw” and director of the Fuse Gallery, explains, “It took us six months of phone calls and networking once Curse Mackey (co-curator) and I decided on the concept of ‘Draw.’ However, six months of calls is hardly enough to pull in all of these artists. This show is ten years in the making. I moved to New York ten years ago and all of the artists in the show are, in one form or another, people that Curse and I have worked with, are friends with or have admired. Now, we finally have a forum with which to present their work and, because of the referrals to back it up, we have artists feeling comfortable with lending us their valuable work. ‘Draw’ is a celebration of my ten years here. It highlights artists that are at the forefront of what’s really going on with NYC’s globally influential urban art movement, as well as some artists who we would like to see reach greater success and exposure. These artists’ style reflects our tastes and interest and I am extremely grateful to be in the position to present so many legendary and potentially legendary artists in my gallery.”
Co-curator Curse Mackey, creative director of the Action Arts Agency, elaborates, “the foundation idea of something as simple as a show of drawings is that we wanted to remove the layers from painting, sculpture and multi-media presentations and to reflect on the roots of where creativity begins in all of us, regardless of our focus in life—be it as a musician, film director, photographer, fashion designer, skater or aerospace engineer, etc. Our collective, fundamental creative output as a human being begins with the process of putting pen, pencil, marker, chalk or crayon to paper and, before that, we did it on a cave wall. Drawing is the architecture of art.
The car you drive, your computer, house, shoes, tattoos and phone, most elements of our daily existence began as a drawing, just as many of the great works that exist in museums across the world began as a simple drawing. Drawing is a creative common denominator and so it’s a good focus for an exhibit that brings together not only world-class fine artists, but also upcoming urban artists, tattooists, skaters, writers, musicians, fashion designers and some young people who showed here for the very first time ever. Fuse is one of the few galleries with the history and track record to legitimately debut this show in New York. It’s an important space. Erik Foss and David Schwartz have worked hard to get to this point, and I am honored to have been invited to be involved.”
Foss continues, “Curse and I both grew up involved in and influenced by the underground culture of alternative art and music, skateboarding, snowboarding, the tattoo world, DJing, graffiti art and crazy underground comics, and it’s a great thing to see this show coming out of the Fuse Gallery. I feel that Fuse really has helped introduce a lot of what is happening in the contemporary urban and modern pop movements in New York to the rest of America, and it’s exciting to see the global interest developing around this show.”
The “Draw” exhibit is currently being booked for a world gallery tour in 2007 with offers from galleries in London, Toronto, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Osaka, Berlin and Austin (for this city’s South by Southwest Film and Music Conference). New artists will be added with each showing. Most sold pieces will be sent to the buyer at the end of each exhibit and replaced with a new work from that same artist, creating a unique, ongoing storyline and curatorial process that will stand apart from the traditional traveling installation.
