After the success of our past two art shows – Mishka art director Mike Jones’ No Time For Love and the Royce Bannon curated group show While You Were Sleeping – we’re very excited to be working with Brooklyn artist and clothing designer Alexander Heir to display his new work, starting this Friday, April 6th, in 350 Broadway.

Besides being the founder and one-man production machine behind label Death/Traitors (who we’ve been selling in our stores since 2011), and one half of Burn Books (an independent publishing company focused on promoting local artists), Heir is also an accomplished print maker. His work is defined by dark imagery that draws as much influence from religious and occult imagery as it does punk rock.

A constant original, Heir works in mediums as varied as clothing, concert posters, skate decks, jewelry, prints, and more. His new print work is primed to make the walls of 350 Broadway even more mystical than they already are. As mentioned, the show will be opening Friday night and will be accompanied by a party from 7-10PM. Hope to see you all there!

Friday April 6th, 7-10pm
Мишка
350 Broadway
Brooklyn, NY
718-388-1725

J/M/Z to Marcy Ave
G to Broadway
L to Lorimer

Amazing documentary style photographer Eric Valli has a new series of fascinating photos. They give us a glimpse at people living off the grid in America. That means being totally self sufficient, and not using credit cards, cell phones, and other devil instruments of technology. I really respect these people, their honest faces, and lack of materialism.

Hunting for food, and working with your hands, in the company of family in the wilderness is something of nostalgia in Modern American society. When your living off grid, in the woods, beards grow wildly, and it doesn’t matter what you wear. As long as it keeps you warm. I appreciate the the honest, humble values of these folks.

Not this past week, but the one before that VICE and Intel’s Creator Project rolled into SF. For two days they posted up at the city’s Northerly outpost Fort Mason. The first day featured a bunch of live performances, panels, and copious amounts of interactive art. I was motivated to go because I wanted to see Shabazz Palaces, but given that I’ve got an open mind I got to take in a lot of other stuff.

It was definitely an interesting event, wit plenty of stuff to get engaged by. Whereas these types of events often wind up reifying the social stratifications of creatives, this seemed to do a fairly good job of providing a level playing field for all in attendance.

That’s not to say that everyone in attendance was on equal ground—some folks were being paid to be there, or had work on exhibit, while others were simply attending—but it definitely felt like it. Folks who gave panel talks hung around after and chopped it up with attendees, there was only one real VIP area and that was for Intel employees, and the whole gist of the event was moreso that you should be involved than be observing.

If you happen to be in a town where they’re putting on one of these events I highly recommend going. It’s a captivating space that will definitely get your wheels spinnin, and you’re likely to meet some like-minded folks. And in the midst of an age where we all seem to be separate but together, it’s always refreshing to go someplace and be surrounded by the people you relate to on the internet. Head over to my Flickr to check out the photos I thought were worth posting.

Brooklyn based artist James Moore, wants to introduce you to some crystals he knows. He also wants to take mushrooms with you, and plunge deep into a universe where time doesn’t exist, and you can roll around on the ground for a good few hours, and have it be a pretty productive time. James works with new media, mixed media, pen and ink on paper, and found object sculptures and castings. He experiments in performance art, and also makes zines, stickers and limited edition prints. Exhausting!

Originally from the Gothic South, James has been influenced by wilderness, especially woodland areas and the paranormal. The calm reflective quality of some of Jame’s work, is the under painting for spiritual and mythical subject matter. James talks about the Southern psyche being the past (Nature), and NYC (Technology) being a breeding ground for the future, which creates a third present state of being. I totally get what your saying James, but what about having knowledge of the past, and future in order to access your inner powers?

James says it’s all about uniting the man made world, with the plant world. His sculptures use industrial, man made materials to resemble organic matter, such a foam as tree sap, electrical circuits representing the human nervous system, or bodily forms expanding through architectural spaces. Well played sir. James also relies on horror, and science fiction themes to further push his work toward the direction of the spiritual, and repressed experiences the viewer may have.

James is focusses on blurring lines of distinction. Lines between urban and modern spaces, and the innate/ primal human conditions we come face to face with everyday. His drawings, and illustrations areutilized to give power through magic, and provide welcomed expansion of your consciousness. Find his work here.

Moths are pretty awesome, aren’t they? What about spiders, do you like spiders? Well, if you do, you are in luck because in this short animated film, bugs rule. LOOM, directed by Polynoid, which consists of Jan Bitzer, Ilija Brunck and Csaba Letay. A spider and a moth get to know each other. Venom is exchanged, and lives are changed forever.

I really like the way the moth bounces around in the web uncontrollably. Things get surreal when the spider shows up though.. I shouldn’t have told you about that damn spider. What’s that on the back of your neck? Spider bites? Yeah, they look real, but it’s animated. Turn all the lights off, and have a quick look at this short film. Why don’t ya?

Cue the tumblr theme song. Is there a Tumblr theme song? The dream state quad-dimensional sine wave of it might look like Whatever Zine. The technicolor wonders of net art stretched to its holographic ends. I like how in this issue, they are using iPhones as a medium to display art, yet also be the subject it self. This issue features work from Teen Witch, Mollysoda, Jesse “Stoopid Jesse” Saint John and more.

There are a ton of tumblr based artists being represented inside the flash based zine. Shit is actually kinda out of hand. They have a dope illustration of Bart Simpson wearing the Jeremy Scott pieces that bear his image. Don’t have an ironic cow man. Plus, there is an amazing Tumblr Tarot card section. Spiritual. This zine is very #based and #rare, and it definitely warrants your undivided attention both URL and IRL.

See all these glorious flyers? Shit, I love DIY punk/ post punk flyers from the late seventies and early eighties! The themes, the bands, the styles. Everything about it seems to been compied and emulated in popular culture’s graphic design landscape in one way or an other in the past 5-10 years. No matter though, I found an amazing Flickr gallery of authentic, vintage flyers/ posters for you to check out by user Superbawestside1980. Thanks dude!

With artists like the B-52s, Lydia Lunch and Throbbing Gristle you can only dream you were at some of these shows back in the day. I always think about authenticity, and originality in a world obsessed with nostolgia. It must have been so real to be involved in a scene where artists truly blazed new ground. This paved the way for their own unique graphic design styles in order to promote the shows.

Find yourself daydreaming about your saucy adventures at SXSW? Here, have a pictorial acid flashback with there rap filled images from last week’s festival. The first set of pics are from a performance by Toronto based hip-hop group the Airplane Boys, who did SXSW right by playing a bunch of shows. If you don’t lose track of which is which, then you’re not playing enough shows!

Next are a bunch of awesome pics of Dark Sister, performing with more lens flare than a JJ Abrams flick. I know we already showed you the Dark Sister mini-lookbook, but we couldn’t help but get some shots of the Swag Hags in action. Finally, there’s some pictures from the ill-fated ASAP Mob performance at the Vice party, which as you probably know ended up devolving into a serious brawl. Punk rock! More pics after the jump!

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Not sure what Terry Richardson was shooting Paz de la Huerta for, but who cares? New pics of the always lovely Paz, especially since she got kicked off Boardwalk Empire. Go see the rest over at Terry’s Diary and commence the drooling. They’re probably NSFW… at least wherever most of your work. It’s all cool around these parts.

As you’ve seen, we’ve been putting up some photographic dispatches from the land of Texas, but so far we’ve only shown you candids, pictures from shows and parties and the like. But we also wanted to do something slightly more formal, so we put together this little mini-lookbook of our Spring 2012 collection featuring none other than Tennessee witchy rap mavens Dark Sister, Tiffany and Jessi, who we recently interviewed. They met up with our photographer Tara to throw on some of our new gear and go get snaps in places like airstream trailers (right?) convenience stores, and what looks like an abandoned ravine (is there any other kind?).

These two Swag Hags (their words, not mine!) look great in new items like the Death Adder or Keep Watch Painters Caps (look at the size of that eyeball!), the two tees from our Mishka Archives release this season (The Death Adder Snake Tee, and Society of the Snake tee), the wonderful interior of the Lamour Bomber, the totally imposing King Of New York Hoodie, and the fresh Ferris Cardigan. Thanks ladies, and look out for more work between Mishka and Dark Sister later in 2012. More pictures after the jump!

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