The sneaker, created with athletes in mind, but used as a vital tool by break dancer’s during hip hop’s inception…Graffiti, a visual art form usually misconstrued as strictly gang related, but has expanded artistically, where artists drew their character’s to emulate the contortions and poses done by the breakers …
Fart, or the combining of fashion and art, has helped to expose more people to up-and-coming/established artist of all styles and genres, by attracting them with new mediums to view their work.
The sneaker, created with athletes in mind, but used as a vital tool by break dancer’s during hip hop’s inception…Graffiti, a visual art form usually misconstrued as strictly gang related, but has expanded artistically, where artists drew their character’s to emulate the contortions and poses done by the breakers …Those three things aforementioned, that seems synonymous with urban culture: Graffiti art, break dancing, and sneaker fetishes come together as one, to form the Inked Souls Sneaker Show, put on by Tagur Shoes and Art Whino…
Fart, or the combining of fashion and art, has helped to expose more people to up-and-coming/established artist of all styles and genres, by attracting them with new mediums to view their work. From hoodies, t-shirts, toys, skateboard decks, sticker’s, concert poster’s and handbags, to celebrity artists like Bansky & Jeremy Fish, all have played their part in ushering in a new wave of surrealist artists, and pop-art appreciation…One of the main medium’s as of late that has helped bridge the gap between art and us, has been the fusion of sneaker culture and its growing embrace of graffiti, graphic design, and other styles of urban art…
My first trip to Art Whino’s new gallery in The National Harbor, almost proved to be a negative experience…After getting lost on the way there multiple times, bad direction’s, and going through a police checkpoint (twice), I was somehow allowed safe passage to the show at 173 Waterfront Street…Upon first entering the space, you are immediately aware of how different the gallery is from the rest of the newly gentrified, concrete, walk/shop/live labyrinth, that is the new Harbor area…Floor to ceiling windows, open-air floor, some metal exposed, moveable partitions, concrete floors, and a look that is industrially-refined…It transforms this artist’s showroom, into the non-pretentious, pedestrian friendly art space I was hoping it to be…Distinguished, next to the new Westin Hotel, the 3000 Sq. Ft. space is more than enough room to house many pieces of art, a big bar, dj area, couches, and room for a b-boy battle…
My first experience with Tagur Shoes, was when I saw that they collaborated with NYC indi-record label Definitive Jux/Def Jux, that got their own line of shoes…Tagur Shoes unique approach to doing shoes, helps produce a fresh spin on the already established theme of a custom-sneaks-as-art-show…”The company allows the consumer to be the producer,” says founder and chairman, Wesley Williams. “Anybody can have their own sneaker line”. Williams, a D.C. native, best describes their flagship shoe, the AKA Blank as a completely white shoe, with no colors added or design elements done to it, outside of the actual shoe construct…Leaving it a blank slate…Thus, enabling the buyer to design their own unique sneaker, being able to use any paint, marker, dye, or pen, which will adhere to the sneaker’s unique canvas…If your sneakers turn Tagur’s head, it may wind up as one of their sneaker lines…Give these shoes to a group of 35 Pop-Surrealist, Lowbrow, Urban Contemporary artists, and an ever-expanding art collective(195 artists worldwide), and one could begin to understand what Inked Souls is all about: Unique Self-Expression…
I wasn’t the only one that night having trouble…Prior to my getting there, a freak power outage rendered the gallery useless…But, thanks to modern-day technology, a back-up generator, and a Cadillac Escalade powering the music and sound for the gallery, it was very-well attended, despite their being no air conditioning due to the power failure…Many of the artists were on-hand to talk about their art, answer questions, or break dance, correlating the roots of graffiti, sneaker culture, and hip hop…Artist Bat Boulandi and gallery curator Peter, joined in the break session that had taken place around 10:00 PM with DMV B-Boy crew, 4F(Flying Fists From The Floor)…I snuck off to admire the two pieces that the artists were offering to be viewed and purchased: A pair of custom designed Tagur sneakers, and a mural, whose theme paired with the that of the shoes…They were mounted on the walls and partitions, one on top of the other, so one could see the similarities and differences of each shoe and canvas…
Standing out immediately upon arrival is Australian artist Kareem Rizk’s portrait and unique sneak…The dominant black-and-white image of the woman, successfully clashes with the white/orange/tennis ball-green color palette, creating a more successful departure to that of the more widely used graffiti platform…Bat Boumandi’s portrait of San Francisco Bay Area hip hop legends, People Under The Stairs(P.U.T.S.), was refreshing to see and further linked together the inspiration for most of the art that evening, hip hop...Legendary NYC graf artists Cope 2 and Indie 184, did not disappoint either…Cope’s canvas was a mish-mash of different tags, throw-ups, and pieces, set against a Ninja Turtle green background…Indie’s basic, but traditional nom de plume was ever present and not to be overshadowed, next to Cope’s piece…Wide use of pinks, sea foam green, blues and purples made the artists piece pop off of the wall…Local artists Tim Conlon and Jazirock use a more wild-style approach to their shoes…Jazirock modeled his take on Tagur, making it more like a bowling shoe, tricked out with fat, black and silver laces, while Conlon continued with a theme he has been painting more recently…”My personal piece I did for the show, had two king character’s in it and I’ve been carrying that theme in my work recently.” The size 9.5 Tagur shoes adorned the playing card façade of the King of Diamonds (black, though) and a bold “9 ½” emblazoned on each side of the shoe, along with the black diamond insignia…Artist Brandon Hill (aka The Baby Chicken), painted an ode to Baltimore boxing legend, Mack Lewis. “He’s got that old man strength, you don’t want to mess with him,” says Hill, who added a vintage green/purple/white color scheme to his shoes and canvas to reflect of a different time and past. He even threw on a piece of fabric where, “people think it’s carpet, it’s actually a really, really old, shittily designed Ecko wool sweater”…There was also an artist named, Imani that was there painting a pair of kicks for the gallery Art Whino… Using the AW logo, the sneaker is textured and layered in orange, reds, and yellow color’s, mixed with faligraphy hearts and paint splatter, Art Whino should be proud to add this genuinely original sneaker to their collection…
A well-stocked bar provided libation for the evening, and on music detail, Dj Lil’e abandoned the turntables when the power went out, and modified her set to play off of her iPhone, iPod, and laptop…With a good crowd of people including: Hipster’s, artists, a television crew (Mixcast TV), families, couples, friends, musicians, young and old grooving to classic breaks (Newcleus, “Jam On It”), Eazy-E, and the Gorillaz from 6:00PM-Midnight…Art Whino’s Shane Pomajambo puts it bluntly, ”Yo, how tight is that? People are having fun, this is a positive vibe, people are here for the art, people are here to win…That’s what I love about Art Whino.” That reminds me of that old adage KRS-ONE said about hip hop: Peace, Unity, Love, and Having Fun…It looks like they souled out…