Fans of London dealer Steve Lazarides’ ephemeral L.A. art antics — Banksy’s “Barely Legal” show in 2006, Antony Micallef in 2007 and 2010’s pop-up gallery in Beverly Hills — will be glad to hear that with his new concept, Post No Bills, the British firebrand is finally putting down local roots. But it’s not a gallery — it’s a working print shop.
PHOTO BY SHANNON COTTRELL
Master printmaker Ramon De Larosa
PHOTO BY SHANNON COTTRELL
The facade of the new Post No Bills space in Venice
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Created with co-founder Jordan Bratman and managed by savvy creative director Daniel Salin, Post No Bills will bring featured artists into town up to a month before the official opening to produce all the work in-house. There are already eight shows planned for the space, the stunning, newly renovated 2,200-square-foot former home of hipster hangout Equator Books on Abbot Kinney Boulevard. PNB launches into orbit on June 24 with a dynamic show from Brooklyn’s street art provocateurs Faile.
Lazarides is no doubt attracted to L.A.’s growing reputation as an art capital, and the city’s connection to street art has been solidified by MOCA’s attention-getting “Art in the Streets” show.
While Venice has its share of galleries, the neighborhood is not synonymous with shopping for blue–chip street art, unless touristy rope bracelets and names on rice hold secret value. Lazarides and partner Bratman aim to change all that with their unconventional new establishment. “We wanted to create a destination for prominent artists to come to the beach to make art that they love,” Bratman says. “Obviously the shop is a business, and we hope it’s a successful one, but we are focusing on an encounter that is pure and all in good fun.”
Lazarides, originally a photographer, currently runs three uber-successful nonconformist galleries in London (with one more planned for China), and is credited with activating Banksy’s career. Five years ago, Lazarides met Bratman, a music industry veteran and formidable street-art collector, who became his client. Lazarides was impressed by Bratman’s keen eye, and the two became fast friends. Their combined contact lists must contain unparalleled superstar connections, which are necessary for a lucrative start-up — and good parties.
The blueprint for Post No Bills is somewhat similar to Lazarides’ Outsiders gallery, an experimental birthplace for young talent in the Soho show circuit. But PNB takes a different approach by providing older, already established artists with a residency, affording them time to show off their print skills by making small-edition yet well-priced works with master local printmaker Ramon De Larosa.
The result is a modern version of the old-school print workshop, complete with hand-built silk screens, drying racks, squeegees and vats of high-quality inks. The computer on-site will be responsible only for credit card sales. Of course, the idea of artists, especially street artists, making prints is nothing new. But rare yet accessible, hand-finished designs from artists who sell originals for tens of thousands of dollars is noteworthy.
“This project is a new concept for these artists — getting them into the mindset of producing/using print-based media,” Lazarides explains via phone from Beijing. “Usually there’s a show of all originals and then a couple of prints thrown in at the end. This will be [exclusive] world-class art made affordable for the public.”
The two Patricks (McNeil and Miller) who make up the art collective known as Faile didn’t hesitate when offered PNB’s inaugural show, despite the condensed time frame. After receiving a call six weeks ago from Lazarides and Bratman, they put their already packed schedules into overdrive to accommodate the opening. This meant producing much of the work being shown at PNB in their New York studio instead of on the L.A. premises.
It’s been four years since Faile’s last big show in Los Angeles, and they’ve been redefining public art around the world ever since. They’re known for ambitious installations of elaborate prayer wheels, which are typically cylindrical spindles made from leather, cotton, metal or stone, with a Tibetan Buddhist mantra written on them. Faile’s hand-carved wooden versions — 12 to 14 inches in diameter, 29 inches high and weighing about 100 pounds — debuted with Lazarides at a show at an abandoned London schoolhouse and later was installed on their home streets in Williamsburg, N.Y. The wheels include Faile’s signature Peep Show fonts and surreal want ad–style visuals.
In a 2010 collaboration with Bast, they created a fake but operational arcade on the Lower East Side, Deluxx Fluxx, where all the glow-in-the-dark games were retrofitted with Faile and Bast imagery. Later, Faile made a breathtaking “temple” — a realistic, life-size ancient ruin of stone and iron, which sat in a public square in Lisbon for an all-too-brief time. “We’re working now to push the definition of what street art is,” McNeil says. “It’s evolved from spray paint and buckets at this point for us. We like to do things to throw tourists off their map.”
