Art Hack Day featured a GIF photo booth, the ability to swim the internet, 3D printing, laser cutting and digital pizza. (All photos by the author for Hyperallergic)

“Yaay!” happy as a little girl who just found a great toy, Ashley Zelinskie grabbed my shoulder as soon as I walked into 319 Sholes this past Saturday night. “You have to try my GIF booth!” she said clapping her hands. She handed me a toy moustache on a stick. Ashley proudly pointed to a cardboard booth she had concocted for Art Hack Day. Loud music blasting, crowds of people as excited as Ashley, I walked into the booth where a laptop captures a series of images of me with my toy moustache generating a GIF that was immediately projected simultaneously in the gallery and onto a video billboard in midtown Manhattan.

And this was just the beginning of the most entertaining art event I had been to in months — Art Hack Day at 319 Scholes.

Ashley Zelinskie with a toy mustache in front of her GIF booth.

319 Scholes is an experimental art space dedicated to the frenzy of activity around digital and internet art. Run by Igal Nassima and Lindsay Howard, the space has played host to a number of excellent curated events that have no equal in the area.

Last weekend, 319 Scholes invited 60 artists who work with new media and technology into their space to crack open the process of art making “with a special reverence towards open source technologies.” Last Friday, we gave you a tour of the process and space. Now take a closer look at some of my favorite final products presented on Saturday night.

With the SwimBrowser you can "swim" the web, and it's a good back workout too.

Are you bored of surfing the web? How about trying to swim it?! David Stolarsky created SwimBrowser, a web browser that allows you to swim through websites. Thanks to the movement detector you can either pull yourself forward using the breaststroke or go back with the backstroke. Drowning is not an option.

The creator of the SwimBrowser, David Stolarsky.

The website was projected on the wall.

The creators of the the Aliens That Look Like Skrillex game project have an “interesting” hypothesis. They think that aliens are trying to communicate with us through dubstep, but we measly humans interpret their actions as hostile and go on the offensive. In the line with this theory, their DJ, who was set up on the stage, was controlling the spaceship in their game using turntables. The player had to detroy the DJ’s spaceship using lasers.

Kill the DJ.

Kill the DJ using this cool old skool controller.

DJ behind new media artist James George.

The Pizza Machine allowed the visitors to feed digital people a slice of the good stuff, and this game, needless to say, made everyone very very hungry. As you can guess, the unofficial Art Hack Day afterparties took refuge in all the pizza parlors near 319 Scholes.

Press the button to feed digital people some pizza.

Hungry digital lady waiting for her slice.

One of the creators of The Pizza Machine, Pamela Reed.

Creators of Jello City Earthquake  applied some electronic oscillators to the ground of a mini-city made of Jello. The result was a jiggly earthquake.

Jello City Earthquake.

319 Scholes director Lindsay Howard with Aaron Meyers.

Bartender in the glow of new media.

Guys from 3D printer company Makerbot Industries assembled their largest MarkerBot yet, the Replicator, for the first time at Art Hack Day.

A view of the Makerbot's Replicator.

Marko Manriquez printed the 319 neon sign using a laser cutter.

Entertained crowds at Art Hack Day.

 The Art Hack Day exhibition was open to the public on Saturday, January 28 (7pm-9pm) at 319 Scholes (319 Scholes Street, East Williamsburg, Brooklyn)

Today, Hyperallergic got a guided tour by Nahana Schelling and Olaf Mathé of the behind the scene action that the invited team of hackers are producing as they realize their digital projects.

319 Scholes is a hotspot for the tech/art nexus that has a natural home in New York. Art Hack Day aims to bring ”together hackers whose medium is art and artists whose medium is technology.” The space is rich with technological resources and Marko Manriquez of Fabricator’s Guild showed us their Trotec Speed 300 laser printer, which is hooked up to cut into almost any surface you can image. His work on the outside of the 319 space, using moss and an adhesive, was pretty lovely. I liked the idea that a sign can grow and change, transforming a brick wall into a home for a living organism, though they’ll have to replace that soon enough, no?

Here is a small and incomplete visual tour of some of the evolving projects that should whet you appetite and encourage you to visit their big party tomorrow night, Saturday, January 28 (7-9pm), which will be followed by a DJ event.

For those outside Brooklyn, there will also be a virtual tour of the show tomorrow (Saturday) that you can watch online. Follow @319scholes or @arthackday for information on when that will occur.

The mossy "graffiti" is part of a project called "Ecology Without Nature" (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic)

These two programmers were working on "One Hole Punch" which will punch holes in your environment (aka collects circle forms using your iPhone camera).

The teams in the front room hard at work at the halfway point in their 48-hour marathon.

F.A.T. Labs is creating a notation language for turntabling. Just think, their invention will ensure that turntablers will be able to share information about new scratches and tricks or transform their art into a new level of abstraction.

A view of the busy programmers in the backroom area.

For their contribution to Art Hack Day, Reed and Rader are cooking up "Pizza Machine" which will allow visitors to digitally feed pizza to trippy looking models by pressing a pizza-like button.

Keith from Makerbot showed us a half skull he printed using the newest MakerBot, known as Replicator.

Some of the hackers in the basement were gold foiling sculptures and making video games using mirrors and LED lights.

Marko Manriquez showed us a few detailed pieces that the Trotec Speedy 300 laser printer can produce.

The Art Hack Day exhibition is open to the public Sat Jan 28 7pm-9pm at 319 Scholes (319 Scholes Street, East Williamsburg, Brooklyn)

JR/France (all photos by Luna Park)

Thanks to the efforts of organizations such as Primary Flight and Wynwood Walls, the Wynwood district in Miami is undergoing a radical transformation through art. The neighborhood boasts an incredible density of walls painted by some of the world’s most renowned graffiti and street artists, many of whom have made the annual pilgrimage to Miami for Art Basel in recent years. I, too, joined the throngs on the streets of Wynwood this past December, eager to experience and document the work of artists from far and wide.

Below is a selection of mostly new walls, with a smattering of older pieces for good measure.

Vhils/Portugal

Vhils & Soduh/USA

Sego/Mexico

Gaia/USA

Gaia & Drama RIP/USA

Stelios Faitakis/Greece

Aiko/Japan and USA

Retna/USA

Retna/USA

Roa/Belgium

Roa/Belgium

Rone/Australia

Rone/Australia

Sofles/Australia

Jade & Pesimo/Peru

Jade & Pesimo/Peru

Shark Toof/USA & Lister/Australia

Rime/USA (detail of wall of with 50 character faces)

Liqen/Mexico (detail)

Cash For Your Warhol/USA

How & Nosm/Germany

How & Nosm/Germany

Trek6/USA

Jaz/Argentina

Chu/Argentina

Interesni Kazki/Ukraine

Above/USA

Eine/UK

Eine/UK

Kofie/USA

Dabs & Myla/Australia

Sculpture (artist unknown)

Editor’s Note: The following is our latest column, Off the Wall, in The WG newspaper, which was published in early December.

North Brooklyn is indisputably an epicenter of street art. Whether it is the amazing homegrown talent painting murals, the local artists who dabble in art out in the open, visiting artists from Europe or Australia who leave their mark while exploring the city, or local businesses commissioning artists to create posters that are posted illegally, it’s a visual jungle out there and some of us really appreciate the role street art plays.

One of the pleasures for street art watchers is that every season a new batch of artists and work appear. New styles crop up, older styles wilt away, and there’s something for everyone.

We decided to compile a list of some of the most notable street art from the area in 2011. This is not a comprehensive survey but a taste of some of the exciting work that has been appearing on the streets of our dear borough.

El Sol 25 is no stranger to local street art lovers, but this year this talented artist outdid himself. Known for his hand-painted images that look like a zany remix of pop culture, his images — like the one in the center — all are original, multi-layered, and eye catching. On the left, you can also see a fantastically neon-colored series by Celso that was handprinted in Peru in the popular Chicha poster style. The series made and definitely stood out from the crowd. A memorial of sorts on the 10th Anniversary of the terrorist attacks, the scale of this work was eye-popping, but sadly, it was gone within a week or two. (all photos by the author)

This year, NohJColey has been using his street art to explore a very intense series about people and their vices. The work pictured here was about the "hoodwinked lifestyle," according to the artist. When you visited this curious street sculpture you could pull its "strings" and move the figure's hands to transform from a praying gesture to one that looked like pleading.

One of the most ambitious works in all of North Brooklyn this year, Skewville painted an entire building on Flushing Avenue in Bushwick to resemble an old style boom box. Created during Bushwick Open Studios, the image brought a whiff of old skool New York to a neighborhood that is experiencing fast-paced change.

Did you know that the proprietors of the Factory Fresh gallery have been working towards their goal of transforming the block-long Vandervoort Place into a street art park? Well, just to get our imaginations going they set up a temporary version on Saturday, June 4, and made us want more. Here we see a work by Leon Reid IV, who is known for injecting his cheeky humor into the everyday.

Rather new to the scene, Enzo & Nio have been very active all year. From their clever Emergency series to their Catholic school girls with guns wheatpastes, they create jarring work that makes you take notice.

We wish it were easy to identify all the street artists who work in the area but alas occasionally there are artists that forever remain anonymous. One unidentified series this year stood out. A mixture of the famous Brussels icon Mannekin Pis (Little Boy Pissing) and a Krylon spray paint can spouting yellow paint, this clever series was posted around the area and makes us laugh each time.

If the walls are the most common place to find street art, it’s definitely not the only “canvas.” MRToll is a street poet and sculptor who creates small works out of plasticine or clay. Sometimes they are miniature sliced cheese pizzas or Smurf-like mushrooms (like the ones pictured here), but they are always like Easter eggs in unremarkable corners or ledges, for street art lovers to find.

German artist L.E.T. (aka Les Enfants Terribles) created some well-regarded works in our fair corner of Brooklyn that spoke to the city’s changing face—and those left behind. His best series played with Milton Glaser’s famous I Heart NY graphic and portrays youth who “need it more,” as the work itself explains.

Quel Beast has been very active for the last couple of years in the area, but this year his work showed more sophistication than ever. Hand drawn and shaped, his faces appeared to emerge from the walls in which they were trapped. Quel awesome.

Veteran street artist WK Interact pulled off what we think is the most ambitious work of the year. During the week of 9/11, the French native pasted up a block-long paper mural in his smudged and streaky style that portrayed some of New York’s bravest. Anniversary of the terrorist attacks, the scale of this work was eye-popping, but sadly, it was gone within a week or two.

The adorable hearts of Chris Uphues are a staple of the neighborhood. Last month, he created a large happy heart mural for the recently shuttered Monster Island building on Metropolitan Avenue and Kent Avenue. Above the work drips of paint from the closing party that involved pouring paint down the walls as a symbolic (and artistic) goodbye to the building. For those who will miss Monster Island, don’t worry. One of its most active occupants, Secret Project Robot, has already set up shop further east in Bushwick.

For the original article of “The Best North Brooklyn Street Art of 2011″ click here.

Entrace to “INDIA!” at the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil (CCBB), Rio de Janeiro (all photos by the author)

There is nothing quite like the feeling of being a tourist in a new country, and stumbling into a city or neighborhood there that makes you feel like a tourist in a completely different way. It’s a bit like a person who visits New York City for the first time and wanders into Chinatown — that small slice of Chinese culture in the great American metropolis can act like a tiny transport to another culture.

This is how I felt visiting the latest art exhibition titled India! at the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil (CCBB) in Rio de Janeiro. A tourist in Brazil and a stranger to Portuguese, I became for a few hours a tourist lost within the art and history of India. It’s a disconcerting feeling to say the least, but CCBB’s India!, the largest display of Indian art and culture in Brazil to date, is a fascinating tour through unfamiliar art and artists.

A massively overwhelming exhibition in the best sense of the word, like the exhibitions the Met pulls together on a regular basis, India! is almost an anthropological survey of Indian culture seen through art. Divided into four themes — People, Gods, The Formation of Modern India, and Contemporary Art — it is the contemporary section of the exhibition that predictably felt the most relevant. Though we tend to study the art and artifacts of ancient cultures, what current artists are saying about contemporary life in those same cultures is always much less familiar.

The art critic Gregory Volk likes to say that American artists are not as aware as they should be of international artists, and while our museums regularly show many European artists, I was certainly not familiar with the contemporary Indian artists in this exhibit. All prominent artists in their country, they also happened to stay in the same guesthouse I did in Rio de Janeiro, (albeit a month or so after the opening of India!) run by an artist and musician couple. The hostess of the b&b enjoyed telling me amusing stories over breakfast of the parties and conversations she’d had with the artists during the opening week, many of which involved her suggesting new projects or changes to their current pieces.

The Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil does not have the look or feel of an art museum. Instead, it acts more like a multi-purpose cultural center, hosting lectures, concerts and movies in addition to art exhibitions. Full of balconies, elevators and elevator operators that only speak Portuguese, CCBB is a confusing maze of hallways.

Though India! at first glance looked like a small, two-room show, it turned out to be a vast, unending experience, as one room lead somehow into another and another. I spent as much time wondering what I’d missed as I did discovering new vaults and corridors. Built in 1906 and beautifully restored, the CCBB is a tourist destination in the center of Rio, but the events and exhibitions it hosts feel anything but touristy. Because of the significant tax deductions the city of Rio gives for-profit institutions (like the banks) for investing in art and culture, it’s in CCBB’s own best interest to be a reputable and recognized cultural center.

India! is a proactive and captivating exhibition, the kind that should travel elsewhere and will hopefully make contemporary Indian art and artists more familiar to other international artists.

Looking up at the skylight of the beautifully restored CCBB interior, through an Indian textile draped across the circular center of the building

Lord Ganesh, the Lord of Beginnings, sits within a colorful throne, elephant head as recognizable as any Hindu deity, welcoming visitors into the exhibit

A colorful rickshaw from the streets of India, painted and decorated, is treated like a vintage photo booth in a city bar — everyone climbs inside to have their picture taken

From the inside of the rickshaw, however, as you stare out at a yellow Ganesh, the lobby of CCBB allows you to be a temporary tourist in contemporary Indian life and culture

A humorous piece by the Indian artist Ravinder Reddy, titled "Migrant" (2011)

Three large-scale, carcass-like paintings by Mumbai artist Jitish Kallat titled "Haemoglyphics (Archipelago of Arches)" (2009). Kallat explores themes of “sustenance, survival and mortality” in contemporary Mumbai

A distinctly feminine mixed media installation by Reena Saini Kallat, titled "Colostrum" (2008-11)

"Vishnu Villas" (2008), by Indian artist Manjunath Kamath, is an installation showing the fallen Vishnu god, an ornate but broken table, and a television monitor playing the image of a Claymation man making the sound of a siren

A very moving installation by artist Bharti Kher, consisting of empty chairs and draped, shapeless Saris, titled "In Your Absence" (2010)

A three-paneled, triangle installation of LCD monitors by the media collective RAQS, titled "Collective Proverbs" (2011)

Rolled digital portraits printed on polymicro textiles, cleverly titled "Roll Models" (2011), by the Indian artist Riyas Komu.

A series of colorful photographs by photographer and multi-media artist Vivek Vilasini, titled "Housing Dreams" (2011).

The New Delhi based artistic team Thukral & Tagra — Jiten Thukral and Sumir Tagra — created this installation titled "Put it On-Shoot it Right," which promotes safe sex by turning it into an elaborate game centered around wearing a condom

An installation of garments made of alternative materials by the artist Vivan Sundaram, this one is titled "Rawhide" (2011)

India! will up through January 29 at the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil).

Editor’s note: Last week, the author published a post on street art in Buenos Aires. This is her second post about street art in South America.

Graffiti in Rio de Janerio is some of the most festive, whimsical and lighthearted graffiti I’ve seen anywhere. Though the street art feels like it’s being taken seriously, the pervasive style is bold, playful, colorful, and full of bizarre scenes, stylized characters and undecipherable situations.

The City of Rio has lax graffiti laws that most likely serve their own self-interest, and the city legally allows street artists to paint on rundown and decrepit walls. Though the economic heart and cultural center of Brazil is still considered to be São Paulo, Rio is on the verge of a new era, with money pouring into the city for the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic games.

Home to several graffiti collectives such as Nação Graffiti, Rio has a vibrant scene of local artists. As the artist Vik Muniz has said, “Rio is not a city for art, it’s a city for artists.” This sentiment echoes so many recent critiques aimed at major urban art hubs like New York City, where being a working artist has become more and more difficult as the cost of living continues to rise. Rio is still surrounded by pockets of extreme poverty, and much of the street art movement has moved into the favelas as part of recent efforts by artists to revitalize them. I was surprised to discover while vacationing there that jeep tours of the favelas are as popular and exploitive as tours of the Amish country in the United States.

Below are images I shot of various murals in Rio, though unfortunately it has been almost impossible to uncover the artists behind most of these works. Many of the images come from winding little mountain roads of the neighborhood of Santa Teresa.

This mural, at the foot of the Santa Teresa hill, is by the Spanish-born twins HOW & NOSM, who live and work in New York City. On a recent visit to Rio they painted a number of their characteristic black, white and red murals. (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic)

Also by HOW & NOSM, under an underpass in Centro.

My favorite piece among many others along Avenue Pasteur by the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro.

A portrait along Avenida Republica do Chile in Centro.

A great mural found in Santa Teresa.

Found this guy smoking near the Lapa Viaduct, the neighborhood with a thronging nightlife full of samba clubs and caipirinhas.

A similar styled piece along the bonde tracks, Santa Teresa’s old-fashioned tramway.

A slogan painted along the wall of bonde tracks in Santa Teresa, with a lovely view of Centro down below.

Another slogan in Santa Teresa.

A colorful mural high up in Santa Teresa.

This stencil and another of Charlie Chaplin were all over town.

Mural on Rua Almirante Alexandrino in Santa Teresa.

Found this bizarre mural, along with many others on Rua Constante Jardim.

Another piece on Rua Constante Jardim.

These posters of the crying bonde wallpapered Santa Teresa. The neighborhood tram was recently shut down, after an accident, to be renovated, and the money for the tram was invested elsewhere, leaving all of Santa Teresa somewhat stranded for public transportation. A local artist turned this poster into t-shirts, pins, and other paraphernalia to protest the loss of the bonde.

Faces along Ladeira Santa Tereza.

Should I ask to use someone’s internet or phone? Instead I wandered the streets hoping I would somehow magically run across my travel partner, and as it turned out later, we were wandering the same five or ten blocks looking for each other. Finally, after asking for a map from a nearby clothing store, I tried to get my bearings.

I had already been in Buenos Aires for several days, and as I headed in the direction I thought my hotel was in, I found myself recognizing the street art that I had been seeing since my arrival. After each turn I could tell immediately whether I had made the right decision; a familiar colorful mural with the bright eyes of a devious child welcomed me as I turned onto a correct street. It was murals, familiar and eye-catching, that gave me the kind of assurance we normally get from knowing an exact address. Based only on the local street art, I was able to find my way easily back to the hotel.

Street art in Buenos Aires has a very different history than graffiti in the States. Graffiti began in Buenos Aires back in the 1950s, when the dictatorial government coming into power paid people to write slogans and spread what was essentially political graffiti. In the 1970s all forms of self-expression came to a halt, and nothing appeared on the streets again until the 1990s, when hip-hop reached South America and spawned it’s own brand of tag-like graffiti. The street art movement first took shape in 2001, however, during the economic crash. With so many Argentineans out of work and living on the streets, the rise of street art was seen as a people’s movement, and continues on today with the same popularity and enthusiasm.

While it is illegal to paint murals on public buildings in Buenos Aires, it is legal if you have consent from the building’s owner. While the owners are not always asked or grant permission, the implicit police co-operation with the art form makes it a very different environment for artists to work in.

Most street artists work under the constant fear of arrest, but in Buenos Aires muralists take their time and paint in broad daylight. When you’re used to other laws, graffiti artists painting quickly and at night, Argentinean artists’ total comfort is strange to see, like people drinking on the street. As the Argentinean muralist Jaz Grafitero says, “painting with total freedom turns us into muralists not vandals.” Interestingly, most Argentinean muralists regularly show in local galleries, apparently unaware of the common distinction between illegal and commercial art.

These images are some of the murals I came across during my week stay.

Mural by Andrés Zerneri, in Palermo Viejo. (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic)

A blue stencil of Salvador Dali that popped up all over town.

A portrait by the Portuguese artist known as Vhils, famous for his relief portraits made with dynamite.

Near the underpass of a commuter train on the outskirts of Palermo, I came across this piece.

Colorful and unmistakable in style, this is a detail shot of a mural by the Argentinean artist JAZ.

A colorful and theatrical mural by an unknown artist.

This mural, titled Apocalypse Love by Stencil Land, is part of an urban mural project in the poorer neighborhood of La Boca, which hopes to revitalize the passageway Paseo Garibaldi that links El Caminito and La Bonbonera.

Also along Paseo Garibaldi, this mural by Stencil Land shows Michaelangelo's David holding a maté and a teapot.

San Telmo, the old town of Buenos Aires, full of street fairs, antique shops, colonial buildings, and tourists, is also full of street art.

An odd San Telmo sculpture.

San Telmo mural.

I found this growling cat mural on the streets of Once, painted by the French artist Grolou, in collaboration with Blu Shei Wei, titled Yellow Peril. This mural is one of many in another project designed to revitalize the barrio of Once.

A detail from a mural in San Telmo, painted by the Colombian brothers Malegria and Rodez.

The painterly portrait of the Argentinean artist Nicolás Romero, known as Ever.

(For a little more perspective on the street art scene in Buenos Aires, check out this short video posted by Vandalog, the street art blog.)

Chaim Soutine, "Le faison au chou" (1926/27), oil on canvas at Galerie Thomas. (photo by Hrag Vartanian/Hyperallergic)

MIAMI — Chaim Soutine (1893-1943) was somewhat of a super star to the Abstract Expressionists. His retrospective in 1950 at the Museum of Modern Art all but gave the artists of the New York School a license to practice. Jack Tworkov, whose Art News article reviewing the show, spoke of “[Soutine’s] completely impulsive use of pigment as a material, generally thick, slow-flowing and viscous, with a sensual attitude toward it, as if it were the primordial material, with deep and vibratory color.” Richard Armstrong called Tworkov’s review “one of the earliest attempts to characterize the emerging expressionism of the New York painter in light of other twentieth-century painting.”

Soutine’s expressionistic quality and gestural swirl of paint on canvas seem to celebrate the sheer physicality of the world and beyond. A viewer of Soutine’s work exclaimed that painter virtually threw dozens of paint brushes loaded with vivid color at the canvas, “flinging them like poisonous butterflies.”

With Soutine in mind, and the world’s best galleries around me, I culled a few great works by mostly American artists from the 1950s that have Soutine in mind. There is still a healthy market of top notch works on the market.

Richard Gray Gallery had a number of notable mid-century examples:

Franz Kline (1910-1962), "Untitled" (1948), oil on canvas, 36 x 64 inches, this work is transitional work and dating number of years before his best known black and white abstractions. Yet the painting certainly indicates his affinity for broad gestures.

Landau Fine Art has this fine example of Hans Hofmann, the German-born American and teacher:

Hans Hofmann, "Purple Patch" (1954), oil on canvas, 24 x 36 inches. The all-over composition is borders between playful and exact. Known for his rigorous concern with pictorial structure and spatial illusion, Hofmann's signature is the use of primary colors, their placement and relationship to each other.

Barbara Mathes had these two terrific works:

Adolph Gottlieb, "Seascape" (1952), oil on canvas, 24 x 30 inches

Ad Reinhardt, "Abstract Painting" (nd), oil on canvas, 16 x 20 inches. Reinhardt has been described as the first important American painter who was an abstractionist from beginning to end. He was known for his humorous, actually hilarious, swipes at the art world such as his dismissal of Thomas Hart Benton as an ‘inconsequential ear of corn’ and Jackson Pollock as an ‘obscure leaf on the tree of art’, etc. Not surprisingly, Reinhardt was a controversial figure.

At Joan Washburn you’ll find these:

Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) Untitled (Composition with Sgraffito II), c.1944, oil on canvas, 18 ¼ x 13 7/8 inches. Pollock, unlike any other mid-century artist approached the picture frame as an event. This work, most likely is indicative of Pollock's dreams.

… and this painting by sculptor David Smith:

David Smith (1906-1965), "Untitled (two bony figures)" (1946), oil on paperboard, 23 ¼ x 30 inches. The painting is terrific example of Smith biomorphic compositions. Even in this painting one can feel the weight and monumentality so present in his sculptures.

… and this rare painting by Ray Parker, the some what overlooked abstractionist (not the musician the performing artist and producer that wrote the theme song for Ghostbusters):

Ray Parker (1922-1990), "Untitled" (1953-54), oil on canvas, 66 ½ x 36 inches. An exhibition of Parker's work is currently on view at Washburn through January 28.

Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, who I once worked for, is one of the great champions of mid-century American art. You can’t miss the booth as it’s the only one with purple carpet (the gallery’s signature color). In their booth don’t miss out on these sculptures:

Theodore Roszak (1907-1981), "Untitled" (c.1950), welded steel, 27 ½ x 20 x 19 ½ inches.

… and let’s not forget this work by Ibram Lassaw:

Ibram Lassaw (1913-2003), "Act Three" (1963), copper sheet covered in nickel silver, bronze, silicon bronze and phosphor bronze, 21 ¾ x 20 x 14 ½ inches. Legend has it that The Club was formed as a result of a group of artists meeting informally at Lassaw’s studio in the late fall of 1949.

Rosenfeld is also exhibiting one of my favorite artists, Nancy Grossman, whose leather masks were recently featured at MoMA’s PS1, here is a gritty work that expands upon Soutine’s expressionist surfaces incorporating leather, fabric, metal, wood and fur:

Nancy Grossman (b.1940), "Black Landscape" (1964), 48 x 36 1/8 x 3 ½ inches.

One can always count on McKee Gallery to have a rare Philip Guston (1913-1980) or two (they have represented the artist for decades) and they certainly didn’t disappoint with these two works, one of which is fresh to the market from the Guston Estate:

Philip Guston, "Looking" 1964, oil on canvas, 67 3/8 x 80 inches (which is reproduced in Irving Sandler’s book The Triumph of American Painting) (photo by Hrag Vartanian/Hyperallergic).

Philip Guston, "Untitled" (1978), oil on canvas, 36 x 32 inches. Although Guston made a huge shift from abstraction to more representational imagery, he retained the gesture and the emphasis of his Abstract Expressionist roots.

The Helly Nahmad Gallery may be embroiled in a lawsuit regarding a Modigliani stolen by the Nazis, but one can find the following things worth a look in their booth:

An enormous Sam Francis, "Untitled (SF 58-247)" (1958), gouache and paper laid down on canvas, 59 ½ x 79 ¾ inches

Mark Rothko (1903-1970), "Untitled (Red and Orange on Salmon)" (1969), acrylic on paper mounted on canvas, 25 ¾ x 17 ¾ inches.

At Aquavella:

Jean-Paul Riopelle (1923-2002), "Ombre d’Espace" (1954), oil on canvas, 51 ¼ x 77 ¼ inches. Riopelle was Canada's great hope for a voice in mid-century art. Riopelle began a relationship with the American painter Joan Mitchell in 1959. Living together throughout the 1960s, they kept separate homes and studios near Giverny, where Monet had lived.

Bradley Walker Tomlin (1899-1955), "Moonlight" (1949), oil on canvas, 48 x 44 inches. Bradley was one of the earliest of the Abstract Expressionists. According to Whitney curator John Baur: "Tomlin’s life and his work were marked by a persistent, restless striving toward perfection, in a truly classical sense of the word, towards that “inner logic” of form which would produce a total harmony, an unalterable rightness, a sense of miraculous completion … It was only during the last five years of his life that the goal was fully reached, and his art flowered with a sure strength and authority." This quote could easily be applied to Soutine."

At Ed Nahem:

Joan Mitchell (1925-1992), “Rufus’s Rock” (1966), oil on cnavas, 76 5/8 x 51 1/8 inches with Willem de Kooning (1904-1997), “Untitled (Head #4)” (1973), bronze, cast in 1981, 10 ½ x 9 x 11 ½ inches

Valerie Carberry Gallery is exhibiting two wonderful paintings by Judith Rothschild. Rothschild studied with Hans Hofmann and Karl Knaths, and she was a member and president of the American Abstract Artists, a member of the Jane Street Gallery and an editor of Leonardo Magazine. Deeply interested in the careers of fellow artists, Rothschild started her own foundation. She also has some lovely work.

Judith Rothschild, "Mechanical Personnages" (1945), oil on canvas

In light of the current retrospective at MoMA, I thought I might get to see a number of works by Willem de Kooning. Coincidentally, de Kooning chose Chaim Soutine as his “favorite artist,” one whose paintings “had a glow that came from within.”

At Gagosian one will find one of the best examples of de Kooning, and certainly the largest, I could find on the floor:

Willem de Kooning, "Untitled" (1977), oil on paper on canvas hangs next to a Warhol "Flower" at Gagosian. Warhol's Flowers were based on a color photograph of hisbiscus blossoms taken by Patricia Caulfield which appeared in the June 1964 issue of Modern Photography magazine. The reprinted still life perhaps has more in common with Soutine than we'd like to accept. (photo by Hrag Vartanian/Hyperallergic)

Art Basel Miami Beach continues until December 4 at the Miami Beach Convention Center (Miami Beach, Florida).

A Torres Garcia corner at the Uruguayan Galeria Sur (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic)

MIAMI — Every year art watchers see trends. Many of these are more about the commentator’s interests and fixations than anything real. This year, I kept seeing works by great Uruguayan modernist Joaquín Torres García. Founder of a bizarrely named movement, Constructive Universalism, he’s known for his primary colored cubistic works that incorporate stacked architectural elements with cityscapes, lettering and faces.

This year, IMHO, was a windfall for the lover of Torres Garcia. Here is what I saw.

Works by Torres Garcia at Madrid's Guillermo de Osma

Torres Garcia's "Grafismo Metafisico" (1943) at Guillermo de Osma

An incised wood piece by Torres Garcia.

"Figures en rouge et noir" (1928)

Rio negro (Arte constructivo)" (1943) at Mary-Anne Martin Fine Art (photo by Jason Andrew/Hyperallergic)

A wall of works on paper by Torres Garcia at Guillermo de Osma.

Among the paper works was this, "Figura constructiva" (1935)

"Estructura con objetos esquematicos" (1943) at Madrid's Galeria Leandro Navarro

"Formes ocres et rouges" (1939)

"Estructura animista" (1933) at Mary-Anne Martin Fine Art (photo by Jason Andrew/Hyperallergic)

Art Basel Miami Beach continues until December 4 at the Miami Beach Convention Center (Miami Beach, Florida).

Located in the heart of southwest China, a former city in Sichuan Province but now independent, Chongqing also hosts the country’s longest graffiti street, and perhaps the world’s.

In this land of superlatives, Chongqing’s graffiti street stands out, the work of hundreds of students from the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, one of the country’s more prestigious art universities. The work covers some 40,000 square meters of wall along 1.25 kilometers of Huangjueping Street (黄桷坪), affectionately known as Graffiti Street (涂鸦路) by locals.

Here’s a photo tour of Graffiti Street, which I snapped a few weeks ago during a brief visit to cities along the Yangtze River (special thanks to Sara Marie Watson for introducing me to the area). If you have information about the artists who made this work please get in touch.

You can find more photos online. Daniel Man posted some good area shots, and Neocha has some great stencil details.