As a youth of African-American, El Salvadorian and Cherokee descent growing up in Los Angeles, Retna (real name Marquis Lewis) was mesmerized by the gang graffiti that surrounded him. He began practicing the art form, and adopted the name Retna from a Wu-Tang Clan song. In the mid-nineties he began making murals on walls, trains and freeway overpasses throughout the city.

Retna has transformed from a street artist to a break-out star in the contemporary art world. He has garnered attention from Usher, an R&B artist, who commissioned the artist to create a portrait of Marvin Gaye, and MOCA director Jeffrey Deitch, who wrote in the September 2010 issue ofJuxtapoz “one of the most exciting exhibitions…this year, anywhere, was Retna’s exhibition at New Image Art.” This spring, MOCA will feature Retna’s work in the “Art in the Streets” exhibit.

On February 10th, Retna opened his first solo show in New York, “The Hallelujah World Tour”, presented by Andy Valmorbida and Vladimir Restoin-Roitfeld, in conjunction with New York City’s Fashion Week. The tour will continue with exhibitions in London and Venice. Retna spoke with More Intelligent Life about his script, growing up in L.A. and graffiti.

How did growing up in Los Angeles affect your work?

The people that I met, the neighborhood guys, the fascination with graffiti and things that weren’t always seen as a good thing. It was illegal for the most part, what it was that we were doing. It’s influenced in my work. Everything represents a very strong L.A. influence.

Were you ever in a gang?

I think I had asked to join the neighborhood guys, and they were like ‘Marquis there’s nothing here for you, you can come hang out with us, we’ll let you paint on our walls but you don’t have to be a part of us’. And I owe them a lot for that for letting me pursue my own dream.

Do you still write on the streets?

I haven’t been as active as I want to be. I’ve done murals, but I haven’t been active in that area. It’s been a while, maybe like two years, but I’ve been really busy.

How and when did you decide to take traditional gang graffiti and turn it into your own script?

I was influenced by Old English since I was eight or nine-years-old. It was very popular amongst street gangs and they were writing Old English, which was really taken more from the LA Times and the New York Times and I just really enjoyed the way the letters were formed. They just had such an elegance to them. Then I went into a phase where I was just writing in the traditional graffiti style and I believe somewhere in 1997 or 1998 I started combining the two, where the Old English style, the graffiti style and I was very highly influenced by Asian calligraphy. I was really fascinated with ancient cultures and writing, and then became interested in Hebrew and Arabic writing after September 11th because they became more prevalent in the news and started to find their way within my work. I’m not copying any of those letters, but I think the influences are from that.

How did your art go from the streets to the more highbrow establishments that they’re in now?

These artists Chaz and Mear were curating a show in L.A. and they invited me to be a part of it. That was the first show I had every done. That was in 1997 I want to say.

And after that I think I kind of got the bug and I thought that it would be fun to do this. It was a way of being a legitimate artist but I also felt like I could make my mom proud, I could do it the right way. You gotta love where you came from too because if I hadn’t come from the street or been a graffiti writer, I wouldn’t be where I am now. And there might be guys who don’t like people like us, [because we are]  inside the galleries, they go, “oh, it’s not real”. I don’t really care. I know who I am and what I’ve done and there’s people from that movement that just love seeing it inside places, and they’re happy because they do it too.

I wouldn’t be where I’m at if it wasn’t for all the graffiti artists and writers that came before me. And this is my way of saying thank you.

Where did you come across the various writings (Arabic, Hebrew, Hieroglyphics, etc.) that inspire your script?

Just books, looking at stuff, researching. Obviously I can’t read any of that stuff—I just liked it. I’d look at it or want to study about it or learn more about it. I gravitated towards that because that’s what I’ve been doing—I’ve been writing and I wanted to make this text that was influenced by the world and I wanted everyone to be able to relate to it. I was mixed [race], so I never really felt like I fit in, or I was either one or this or that, so I just started to say I was down with everybody and I wanted my work to reflect that. That was the idea I was after.

Is there a verbal element to it, or is it just visual?

There’s a verbal element. It could be a poem, it could be just stuff that I’m thinking about, for me it’s just a very meditative process; I’m just having a conversation with myself. Sometimes I allow the music to influence what I’m writing. A lot of them are names my mom would call me when I was growing up, and some are things I’m talking about, friends who have passed away—they’re interactions with what’s going on with people that I just meet, or a conversation I just had. I hear a word or a phrase or a dialogue, and then that becomes my response. They all say something.

Would you ever make a translation?

I’ve been asked. I want people to try and figure it out. I think I give them what it says, but I like the interaction part. That reminds me of when I’m looking at like Hebrew or calligraphy, or anything like that—I don’t know what it says. But if I try to do my homework, or look into it, I’ll find a meaning and try to find why it’s like that, or maybe I won’t, but at least you give it that attempt of trying to see it.

That’s really interesting to me. It makes more sense now, because as someone observing your art, how do I know it’s not just a bunch of nonsensical symbols?

Right, no definitely. I think once people are more familiar with my work, they can understand it. The more you familiarize yourself with, you start to see, ‘okay there’s the ‘S’, there’s an ‘E’, there’s a ‘V’. I’ve ran into a couple of people that are really able to read the stuff, and it always surprises me. 

What artists inspire you?

I love art nouveau, Alphonse Mucha, Gustav Klimt, Monet, Basquiat, Haring. There’s a whole list of graffiti artists—Lee Quinones, Chaz Bojorquez. I love Degas’s ballerinas. I have a pretty wide range of art that I like. There’s this artist here in New York I believe he just had a show—Folkert de Jong. Oh my God, his work is beautiful. And I love sculpture, I love architecture, I love ancient buildings, Masonic buildings, cathedrals, churches, synagogues, mosques—I just love the way they look they just have a really elegant kind of thing to them. I love Asian temples. I like a lot of cultures and things.

Do you think there’s a difference between street art and graffiti?

To me it’s interesting because a lot of street artist people, they call themselves graffiti writers. They’re two different things. A graffiti writer is someone that writes their name on the wall, but they’ve blurred the lines. But, I think it’s a great movement. I’m glad to be associated with it. There are a lot of great artists in that in that, and there are a lot of people that aren’t so good—that’s like anything. There are guys who are really talented at graffiti and there are guys whose stuff you just don’t like, but that’s the nature of it. I can’t say anything bad about them. Without the people who have become popular with street art, I probably wouldn’t be here now. I’d like to think I would have got to my goal anyway, but I’m sure I owe them some kind of gratitude and I’m alright with that.

Text: ANN BINLOT
Source: http://moreintelligentlife.com/blog/qa-retna

Available works: more works available, please e-mail info@lookforart.nl

RETNA MARQUIS LEWIS

Sacred Heart, 2009

48.000 x 69.000 in (121.92 x 175.26 cm)

Launch of Job Office furniture by Lensvelt & Studio Job at MOST (Museum of Science and Technology) during the Salone del Mobile in Milan (2013). The show called ‘My Nose My Stekkerdoos’ was featured by the image of a golden nose.

On the 17th of April there’s a great urban auction at Bonhams.
Where you can also buy the two latest pieces of Pipsqueak was here!!!

Surrogate Sweetness

An original 2013 painting and mixed media work by Pipsqueak was here!!!
It is a diptych on canvas in a heavy black frame.

The background consists of a painting of a number of satchels with the brand name “Sweet ‘n low”, done with multi-coloured stencils. A solvent transfer in halftone pattern is used to add the final imagery.

The first panel depicts three images of mimicking girls, the second panel is a child portrait of reality soap personality Kim Kardashian dressed up as Minnie Mouse.
The diptych measures 2 panels of 60 x 140 cm on linen.
The size of the frame combining both panels measures 138 x 158 cm.

Place bid here at Bonhams

Balderdash 2

Balderdash goes back to Shakespeare’s time and originally meant an incongruous mixture of liquors, such as wine mixed with beer. The word gradually came to mean pretentious, bombastic and essentially senseless prose.

Pipsqueak was here!!! feels strongly connected to this word. They mix images that apparently don’t seem to be of a coherent nature, which makes the work seem to be pretentious, useless and bombastic. Just like the world we live in and are enthralled to, where people eat sugar-free sugar cookies.

Balderdash measures 42 x 122 cm and is a second edition Argon neon on an original backdrop of wood and mixed media.

Place bid here at Bonhams

‘Youths swooping uponst Baris’ (deliberate spelling)
Hand Painted Indelible Ink on Canvas

Look for Art Gallery is very proud to have started working with the London Police.
We are open for commissions. Are you looking for an original painting, print or a massive mural? Please contact us.

The London Police started in 1998 when big English geezers headed to Amsterdam to rejuvenate the visually disappointing streets of the drug capital of the world.

The motive was to combine travelling and making art to create an amazing way of life not seen since the days of King Solomon. From 2002 onward TLP started sending missionaries into all corners of the globe. Known for their iconic LADS characters and precision marking TLP have recently celebrated 10 strong years in the art world and their work has graced streets and galleries in 35 countries during this time.

London policemen have come and gone but founding members are still known to walk the streets of every city in the world spreading love with pens and stickers.

The current duo have managed to form a partnership more cohesive than Han Solo and Chewbacca in Star Wars and are continuing to produce slick artwork that is tighter than a butlers cuff. Never be scared, don’t be a hero and let the good times roll.

Outside Wall in Amsterdam

Outside wall in Newcastle

Some Sold artworks

‘An unexpected Bates and the script of truthfulness”
Hand Painted Indelible Ink on Canvas 200cm x 150cm

‘A massive lad and dog with a wrist watch’
Hand Painted Indelible Ink on Canvas 200cm x 150cm

“Dynasty”
Hand Painted Indelible Ink on Canvas 60cm x 60cm

Banksy Laugh now Monkey door, original.

Should You Buy or Invest in Banksy original Art & Prints ?

As UKs best-know street artist, Banksys popularity has been steadily increasing over the last few years, as he steadily created more and more artworks in the urban environment. In the last few years his fame has been spreading outside the UK as well. Consequently, investing in Banksys artworks has become one of the most exciting new alternative investments. Banksy Art works Based on themes that concern everyday people, like religion, politics, and war, Banksys artworks have a strong appeal for men and women of all ages, whether they are interested in art or not. His genuine works are sold at exorbitant prices (Happy Chopper, 2008), but there are also many of his prints available for sale, which represent a far more accessible investment opportunity for the general investor.

Banksy: Kids on guns, original work

Should You Buy or Invest in Banksy Artworks ?
If you regard art investments as viable alternative investments, then you may well consider to buy or invest in Banksy artworks. Thereís no denial that his artworks, whether new or old, graffiti or print, represent some of the most exciting pieces of street art to have been created in the last decades. Critically acclaimed, many of his artworks have a long-lasting appeal which makes them ideal for contemporary art investments.

Banksys Art Prints as Alternative Investments
To invest successfully in Banksys  artworks, however, it is not enough to buy his works at random. Like with all street art investments, you need to choose the best pieces you can get. And since Banksys artworks are so popular, it is not easy to find the right pieces to invest in. What is clear is that Banksy is a hot street artist to invest in, especially now when he is at the height of his popularity.If you wish to invest in contemporary art then you can buy or invest in Banksy without fear. His works are unique and remarkable, so they are bound to increase in value in time.

Please ask us for original works for sale: info@lookforart.nl
And click for your Banksy print here:

Artist: Banksy Signed Edition: 500 Title: Stop and search Medium: Screenprint Date: 2007 Sheet Size: 70x67cm Condition: Good.

source: comparethefinancialmarkets.com

If you are interested in buying one of the last signed editions of the sold out book, Haute Couture by Cathleen Naundorf. Please reserve one via info@lookforart.nl
Last copies are €150,- each, signed by the artist.

One moment inside the spacious Paris apartment of the German photographer Cathleen Naundorf and it’s clear that, among the many things she shares with her mentor, the late Horst P. Horst, is a love of exotic props. Piles of them are arrayed, like a carnivalesque installation, along one long wall: the white skull of a horse, several large stuffed black and white birds with their wings aloft, giant leering paper-mache Chinese heads found in a thrift store in Belleville, an explosion of silk flowers from the venerable Paris shop Legeron, and a stunning rainbow-feathered headdress of the indigenous Yanomami people of Brazil’s rainforest.

Gamely, the teeny-tiny, hyperkinetic Naundorf, who wears jeans and silver metallic sandals, put the feathered crown on her head. “I’ve always been very interested in nomads,” she says, toggling between German-accented English and French. “They’re strong because they only carry what they need. I’ve been a nomad all my life. I didn’t even get a washing machine until I turned 40. But I’m still a nomad.”

That is, a nomad who’s perhaps about to become better known in the world of fashion and art photography for her book Haute Couture: The Polaroids of Cathleen Naundorf, out June 15 from Prestel. For the book, Naundorf, 44, who has shot for magazines like So Chic and Vs., was allowed access to the couture archives of Chanel, Dior, Lacroix, Gaultier, Valentino and Elie Saab. She then put the clothes on models in Paris settings as grand as, well, the Grand Palais or as beguiling as an old plaster shop (for an all-white series) or anatomy museum. The photos, which also feature plenty of amazing hats from Philip Treacy and surrealist hairpieces from Odile Gilbert, were made in Naundorf’s signature style: taken on a boxy vintage Deardorff camera with Polaroid film, printed Avedon-style on the negative, then hand-pressed on a table, giving them a mottled, haunting, painterly effect.

La fille en plâtre VIII, Dior
Les ateliers du style, Paris

That style, featured in a recent exhibition of Naundorf’s work at London’s Hamiltons Gallery and at a show next month at Munich’s Bernheimer gallery, helps bring the photographer back to “painting and my childhood,” she says. Born in Weissenfels, Germany (the same hometown as Horst), under communist rule, to an engineer father and a homemaker mother who painted, Naundorf showed an early interesting in brushes and canvas–and in the piano.

But it wasn’t until after the family managed to move to West Germany’s Munich in 1985 that Naundorf got the itch to take her Praktica camera around the world with her, shooting native cultures in places like Malaysia and Mongolia. “It’s always the best way to meet people, to ask to take their picture,” she says. After shooting in the latter country, she wrote to 150 book editors before she found one to publish her images. “They needed 20 shots and I gave them 1,000,” she says. “I have a lot of energy!”

That, along with the often cheeky opulence of her work, is likely how she managed to charm couture-house and venue managers in Paris, a notoriously inhospitable city, into giving her such extraordinary access to clothes and backdrops for Haute Couture. One shot from the book, taken in the kitchen of the Plaza Athénée Hotel, shows a model in a Dior dress (its hem pooling dramatically on the tiled kitchen floor) and a Stephen Jones lobster hat pulling a live version of the clawed creature from a steaming silver pot. “I pre-ordered lobsters from the hotel for the shoot but they weren’t there, so I sent my stylist out into the streets to find a lobster,” she laughs.

Homage to Horst p. Horst, Chanel

The book also has more than a few nods to Horst, such as an image of a dark-haired model lounging in the same chair in Coco Chanel’s rue Cambon atelier that Chanel sat in for Horst’s famous 1937 shot. Typical of her chutzpah, Naundorf looked up the elderly Horst’s number in the New York City phone book when she was still a twentysomething in Germany and called him. “I told him I was from his hometown,” she says, “and that was destiny. He told me to come to New York.” So she did, for a spell. Naundorf never worked with Horst, who died in 1999 at 93, but she ended up talking with him on the phone nearly every day for years. “He’d give me advice, always so well-dressed and full of old-fashioned manners,” she says. “He started as a painter, too.”

To look at their work alongside each other’s makes clear what Naundorf, despite her unique processing style, learned from him. She says it best herself. “It’s the lighting, the drama,” she says. “It’s called zwielichtin in German, the play of light. If you could see the way the light comes through the leaves in Weissenfels, you’d see where we both get it from.”

My little darling, Dior
Hôtel Plaza Athénée, Paris

By Tim Murphy
Photographs by Cathleen Naundorf

Artist: David Spiller
Title: My Heart
Year: 2012
Size: Image size 76 x 77 cm; Paper size 86 x 88 cm
Silkscreen edition printed onto Arches Satin a smooth 100% Cotton paper Signed and editioned by the artist
Edition of 75

Artist: David Spiller
Title: Love is the Light (Goofy)
Year: 2012
Size: Image size 76 x 77 cm; Paper size 86 x 88 cm
Medium: Silkscreen edition printed onto Arches Satin a smooth 100% Cotton paper Signed and editioned by the artist
Edition of 75

Artist: David Spiller
Title: If Not For You (Pinocchio)
Year: 2012
Size: Image size 76 x 77 cm; Paper size 86 x 88 cm
Medium: Silkscreen edition printed onto Arches Satin a smooth 100% Cotton paper Signed and editioned by the artist
Edition of 75

My paradisebird I , Chanel
Théâtre du Trianon, Paris

Cathleen Naundorf is a French German photographer. In the late 1980s, she graduated from photography studies in Munich.

She worked as a photo assistant (amongst others with Horst) in New York, Singapore and Paris in the following years, before she started traveling in 1993 to such destinations as Mongolia, Siberia, Gobi Desert and the Amazonas headwaters in Brazil. The results of these insightful pictures have been included in eight publications of renowned publishing houses.

Valentino en rose, Valentino
artist’s workshop – Cité Jandelle, Paris

As of 1997, she started photographing backstage Paris fashion shows for Condé Nast.

The Evolution of Fashion I , Dior
Musée d’Histoire Naturelle – Galerie d’anatomie comparée, Paris

Since 2005, Cathleen Naundorf has worked on her haute couture series “Un rêve de mode” focusing on seven couture houses : Chanel, Dior, Gaultier, Lacroix, Saab, Valentino and Philip Treacy. Thanks to her outstanding pictures, Cathleen Naundorf got the privilege to choose gowns from the couturiers’ archives for her elaborate and cinematic productions. This work got published in “The Polaroids of Cathleen Naundorf”, Prestel Edition, 2012.

My little darling , Dior
Hôtel Plaza Athénée, Paris

She works with large format cameras like Paulbel or Deardorff for her shootIngs and use mostly Polaroid or negative films.

Cathleen Naundorf is working passionately on Haute Couture and Luxury Prêt-à-Porter. Her work got published in magazines like Harper’s Bazaar, Elle or American Express. Cathleen Naundorf works and lives in Paris.

L’enfant terrible, Jean-Paul Gaultier
artist’s workshop – rue Caulaincourt, Paris