.gif)
Faile (artist)
Encyclopedia
FAILE is a Brooklyn-based artistic collaboration between Patrick McNeil (b. 1975, Edmonton, CA) and Patrick Miller (b. 1976, Minneapolis, MN). Since its inception in 1999, FAILE is known for their pioneering use of wheatpasting and stenciling in the increasingly established arena of street art, and for their explorations of duality through a fragmented style of appropriation
and collage. During this time, FAILE adapted its signature mass culture-driven iconography
to a wide array of media, from wooden boxes and window pallets to more traditional canvas, prints, sculptures, stencils, multimedia installation, and prayer wheels. While FAILE's work is constructed from found visual imagery, and blurs the line between “high” and “low” culture, recent exhibitions demonstrate an emphasis on audience participation, a critique of consumerism, and the incorporation of religious media and architecture into their work.
. Separated in 1996 when Miller remained in art school in Minneapolis and McNeil continued to New York, by the end of the decade, the duo reconnected and, with the addition of then filmmaker Aiko Nakagawa (b. 1975, Tokyo, JP), “A Life” was conceived. By early 2000, the trio contributed to the emergence of a nascent,street art culture by circulating their screenprinted and painted work on city streets, usually using the subversive processes of wheatpasting (flyposting) and stenciling. During the ensuing years McNeil, Miller, and Nakagawa solidified both their omnivorous style of pop-cultural collage, and changed their name to FAILE (an anagram of A Life). Nakagawa left FAILE in 2006, gaining success in her own right as Lady Aiko, while McNeil and Miller continued on to increased commercial and institutional visibility.
and Jacques Villeglé
, and the pulp-cultural appropriations and comic books sensibilities of sixties “pop” artists such as Richard Hamilton
, Andy Warhol
, and Roy Lichtenstein
. These influences were intensified in FAILE's work by the rapid fire splicing and re-assemblage of sampling
, and the direct-to-audience urban raids specific to the golden age of graffiti
.
Although FAILE’s style can be located in these art historical legacies, their style and idiosyncratic vernacular make FAILE’s work distinct and recognizable. During the early years of their career, influenced by contemporaries Shepard Fairey
, BAST, and WK Interact, FAILE generated both a process of assemblage and urban circulation, and consistent visual cues and themes. One such example is the Challenger
spaceshuttle, which crashed shortly after its launch in 1986. Not only does the shuttle appear in various forms in much of FAILE’s work, the year “1986” is appended to their pieces as a signature that both invokes their specific use of the shuttle image, and also a reminder to their audience of the event itself, of its role in their personal history. “1986” is both indicative of a populist
or dialogic
impulse in much of FAILE’s work, and also an example of the characteristic ambivalence or dualism in their practice. Recurring themes of binaries such as love/hate, peace/war, triumph/calamity, satiation/desire are all prevalent in work that seems to assimilate the global urban landscape but tenders only oblique opinions about that landscape.
During this period, FAILE produced several books in limited edition, including, by 2004, Orange, Death, Boredom, and Lavender. The overlap between FAILE’s art practice and design background was briefly pronounced in during this early period, and found them collaborating on clothing and shoe lines (including Paper Denim, Comme des Garcons, and Pro-Keds), and music projects, as well as work on the street. In 2004 McNeil reflected, “A lot of what inspires us and excites us is the opportunity to work with talented people and to work on projects that are a challenge. Having the chance to work on things of all different disciplines whether it is fashion, painting, shoe design, or making a toy. The ideas of getting locked in and known for one thing and having to repeat. It sounds like a dreadful situation to be in. Recently we got the opportunity to work on the new Duran Duran
album with John Warwicker for Tomato
.”
This first phase of FAILE's career was markedly experimental and varied—constant travel, a lack of studio space, and a rapidly evolving process meant that work was made for (and usually at) specific sites, from Manhattan to London and Tokyo. Commercial projects helped to finance this period of dissemination and revision. By 2005, however, FAILE acquired a permanent studio space, and were able to commit fully to a more studio-driven practice that both adapted the entropic street aesthetic of FAILE's and others' work, and permitted FAILE to apply their practice to a wider array of media and socio-political themes.
Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead
, UK. The exhibition brought together twenty two internationally-recognized street artists and investigated street art’s growing artistic quality and popular appeal (particularly in the United Kingdom) and its rootedness in the realms of graphic design and global youth culture. The exhibition included celebrated “fine artists” such as Barry McGee
, Takashi Murakami
, and Ryan McGinness
alongside noted graffiti, street, and design artists such as Os Gemeos
, Shepard Fairey, Banksy, and FAILE. Spank the Monkey was the first exhibition of its kind, and followed closely behind the commercial success of Fairey’s Obey
line, and Banksy’s “Barely Legal” sale of his own work in Los Angeles.
The exhibition, which positioned works both inside the gallery and throughout Newcastle
, received favorable reviews. Speaking of the show, critic Guy Bird noted that “when the gallery takes the art seriously, avoiding condescension, or over-glamorisation, and the artists avoid ‘sell-out’ accusations by keeping control of their message...the results can be spectacular.” Spank the Monkey marked both the gradual institutional acceptance of street art, and FAILE’s regular display in high-profile fine-art institutions. Indeed, FAILE used the venue to display some of their most somber work to date, in a series of twelve paintings titled "War Profitees," that incorporated harrowing photographs, newspaper text, and a dark color palette to bring to life the tragic 2006 Lebanon War, which killed 1,500 people, most of whom were civilians. The invocation of political violence, and references to Israel and Hezbollah indicated an intensification of FAILE's work, and demonstrated how their technique could be brought to bear on the precarious global order of the twenty-first century. The integration of form and content in the work, and sustained, critical attention to a political theme evident in FAILE's Spank the Monkey contribution was a harbinger of things to come.
, located in London’s Southwark
, organized a show simply titled Street Art, that took place from 23 May to 25 August 2008, one week after Banksy’s Cans show in a London railway tunnel. The exhibition, organized by curator Cedar Lewisohn, displayed work by six artists or collaborative projects in massive relief on the riverfront-facing wall of the museum’s turbine room. Street Art included Nunca and Os Gemeos from Brazil, Blu from Italy, Sixeart from Spain, and JR from France. FAILE was the only group to participate in both the Cans and the Tate shows, contributing to the latter a massive 240 square feet (22.3 m²) image of a Native American
in full regalia amidst a shredded collage of pulp images and found signage typical of FAILE’s work in 2008, and constructed in pieces in the studio before being affixed to the Tate’s exterior. Of the exhibition and the institutionalization of their work, FAILE argued “At least it’s no longer undermined as something on the street, something without value. Money fuels interest—it’s an injection in the butt that fires people up and makes them realise they should pay attention.”
While street art was, by 2008, an increasingly accepted and popular form overseas, in New York, graffiti’s traditional home, street art was embraced by only and handful of galleries, such as Deitch Projects, an early champion of sometimes FAILE collaborator Swoon. As FAILE noted at the time, “New York has such a history of this art, but institutions are waiting to see what happens before they open the doors to it. The art is starting to surface in New York Sotheby’s and Christie’s, but it wouldn’t be if not for the excitement [in the UK].” Inclusion in the Tate show, which received widespread media attention and reached a large public, brought FAILE more fully into the international spotlight and further established them as one of the most recognizable names in an increasingly globalized and multi-platform art world.
Housed in the Lilian-Baylis Old School in conjunction with Lazarides
Gallery in London, Lost in Glimmering Shadows occupied an ambiently-lit circular gallery space in which large-scale prints and paintings surrounded sculptural elements in the interior ring. While the temple-like lighting and installation, life-size cast of a boy with rabbit, and large-scale painted work were familiar formal carryovers from earlier exhibitions (such as 2007’s commercially-successful From Brooklyn With Love at Lazarides, and Nothing Lasts Forever in New York’s Chinatown) Lost in Glimmering Shadows notably introduced freestanding, functional prayer wheel
s, circular disc paintings, and stacks of multifaceted apple boxes, all emblazoned with brightly-hued text and found imagery. Moreover, the show introduced a leitmotif
of heroic native american figures in conflict with a consumption-mad America, their world “lost in glimmering shadows.”
The work within the exhibition derived much of its force from ironic juxtapositions, such as a reworking of the American flag in the style of a Navajo ceramic in the acrylic on canvas Star Spangled Shadows, and the textual interplay on the prayer wheels of phrases like “In search of sacred” and roadside advertisements for “cold beer” and “snacks.” This irony is redoubled by the construction here of functional religious devices (the prayer wheel) overlaid by FAILE’s own international brand. At other times, the work is more explicit, depicting a suit-wearing kachina
figure amidst the backdrop of a pulp serial promising “A Betrayal Story,” in the painting of the same name, or implying an alternate America in It Could be Beautiful. Consistent FAILE themes such as the Challenger shuttle and urban signage were featured alongside new figures and decorative elements derived from traditional figurines and baskets, as well as appropriated 20th c. imagery and pictures from the American southwest.
, FAILE collaborated with the artist BAST to produced an installation dubbed Deluxx Fluxx, comprising custom-made, operational arcade games and a foosball table. The entire salon at 158 Allen St. and the arcade cabinets therein were wheatpasted by FAILE and BAST, and blurred the line between the traditional “white cube” method of art display and the commercial operation of a gaming parlor. While audiences were invited to play the games for free, the works themselves were part canvas, part sculptural object, and part cabinet for interactive video art. The content of the cabinents, video work modeled on classic "games," were executed in collaboration with Adapted Studio and Seth Jabour of the band Les Savy Fav
.
This New York installation updated an earlier version of the show with the Lazarides Gallery in London from earlier that spring, and featured recurring FAILE and BAST images, such as kissing women, Popeye
, old time boxers, a barking dog, and commercial logos and signage for, among others, Chapstick
and former airline TWA
. Most of the images, such as the were derived from threads within FAILE’s visual archive no longer for sale as prints in their own right, while others, such as the “Fashion Chimp,” may appear in future projects. While the London show provided the blueprint for the New York iteration, the latter featured new games and images, and employed neon and blacklighting to generate a fully immersive experience. The aim of Deluxx Fluxx was to bridge the DIY-sensibility and popular accessibility of street practice with the more permanent, gallery-style emphasis of FAILE’s more recent work. According to the artists, “After doing the show in London, we learned a lot and had so much of the groundwork built to do the show again. There was a real sense of joy in seeing people interact with the work in this way and that was the whole point of the show from the beginning. We wanted to bring it to NYC and it was something we wanted to do on our own. Just to make it happen, much like our street art. We knew we wanted to create new machines here, to make it a new experience but the same style show.”
In so doing, Deluxx Fluxx obscured the lines between artist and consumer, and viewer and participant in an attempt to recapture the recent history of the Lower East Side as a haven for anti-elitist art practices such as graffiti and punk rock. While not reviewed heavily in art publications, Deluxx Fluxx received favorable reviews, with Stephen Heyman of the New York Times arguing that “art can be diverting, but people sometimes need winners and losers to get in the game.”
country. The piece itself is a building in ruins fabricated with components, such as iron gating, ceramic relief work, and painted ceramic tiles from local and foreign manufacturers. Familiar FAILE images appear in relief (an update on 15th c. Florentine sculptor Luca Della Robia), the previously 2-D "Scuba Horse" was realized as a sculptural fountain, and the white, blue, and gold color palette was a nod towards the Portuguese landscape. Temple marked FAILE’s first contribution to the international festival circuit, and brought their practice full circle, taking high concept studio art back to an accessible, urban setting.
Temple received strong critical and viewer attention, and was successful at blending seamlessly into its temporary environment even as it expanded and augmented FAILE's idiosyncratic leitmotifs. According to Interview, "Faile's site-specific work seems to be the hit of the biennial. It's a shining ruin, an open-air dialogue between the sacred past and the secular present. And it's an easy match for the historical architecture encircling the busy Praça dos Restauradores, which is probably why your average cab driver likes it–and why foreign tourists passing by have been trying to look it up in their guidebooks." In its ability to blur the boundaries between art and architecture, object and display environment, Temple further amplified underlying currents in FAILE's work, such as an emphasis on openness and participation, the porousness of cultural and institutional boundaries, and the fluid integration of visual culture and the built environment.
Each of these tendencies were amplified by FAILE's consistent travel and limited permanent studio space. By necessity, work was adapted to its location of display, by virtue of its inherent "site specificity," as well as the group's absorption of forms, imagery, and usable materials wherever they happened to be. Once those materials were exhausted, stencils could be used to provide a constant template in lieu of prints. This early phase was one of dynamism and experimentation, and much of FAILE's early work was left to deteriorate and interact with its environment. By 2005, when FAILE established a larger studio space, this ad hoc approach was supplemented with a more traditional approach to painting and print editions that drew on these earlier priorities (inter-cultural permutation, use of found images and signifiers, and an expressive, playful approach to execution), while taking the entropy and dynamism of the street as an object of investigation.
Although street art is a consistent aspect of FAILE's practice (in concrete terms and as a source of inspiration), the post-2005 period has permitted them to work more slowly, generating thematically-driven suites (War Profitees; Lost in Glimmering Shadows), small print runs, and increasingly three-dimensional media, from arcade cabinets and sculptural casts to Temple, a modular architectural process that gestated for two years. Each of these projects is unified, however, by a consistent openness to chance, external cultural influences, audience interactivity, and the organic rhythms of the street.
FAILE certainly works in this tradition. Although they are not graffiti writers as such, their work originated in the streets, and their studio work bears the stylistic hallmarks of both wheatpasting/stenciling and the vernacular of the global urban environment. FAILE argues that, “our process has always resembled this loose and fast critique on society, whether it be literal or figurative. Our image-making has at times been very methodical and researched, other times it's been experimental and dirty. Street art at its roots is ‘punk.’ It set out to critique and comment on a world it felt outside of.” Such a critique is sometimes ambivalent, as FAILE’s work is marked by the consistent juxtaposition of dualities. Other times, it is more direct, as in the seemingly explicit pictures in the Lost in Glimmering Shadows exhibition, or in the public wheatpasting in 2010 of images of kissing women amid the text “No Change Will My Heart Fear.” The latter echoes the ambivalent prompting of Banksy’s noted “Kissing Coppers” wall painting, and is indicative of FAILE's consistent prioritization of ambivalence and open-endedness over more explicitly prescriptiveness.
There are both socially and institution-critical strands in FAILE's work and its public or alternative-space staging and execution. FAILE's work is overarchingly characterized by an open approach that allows the interpretation and meaning of their work to ramify once it enters the public sphere. Of their outdoor work, FAILE argues that "it gives a person the sense that it is there just for them. That they've stumbled across this great little gem amidst the chaos of daily life that can really speak to them. We try to build in a certain ambiguity that leaves the door open for the viewer to find themselves within the story." The openness of meaning and emphasis on the experience of the viewer marks a shared affinity with both the anti-elitist impulses of recent street art, and the more institutional ideas of site specificity and relational aesthetics. Most recently, FAILE has expanded their painting and printing into the realm of reconstructed sculptural and architectural elements, religious artifacts (such as prayer wheels) and the 2010 Temple project in Lisbon. These projects reflect FAILE’s concern that “everything that requires skill is disappearing from the world,” and that the Temple is “an expression of the crumbling beauty of this disappearing world.”
In the autumn of 2010 FAILE released a comprehensive book, Prints + Originals (Gestalten, 2010) that surveys their career and explores FAILE's process, influences, and iconography.
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2010
Appropriation
Appropriation is the act of taking possession of or assigning purpose to properties or ideas. The word appropriation was first used by a Russian theorist named Bakhtin to describe a holistic language theory. The Russian word for appropriation is prisvoenie, which directly translated means ‘to make...
and collage. During this time, FAILE adapted its signature mass culture-driven iconography
Iconography
Iconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", and comes from the Greek "image" and "to write". A secondary meaning is the painting of icons in the...
to a wide array of media, from wooden boxes and window pallets to more traditional canvas, prints, sculptures, stencils, multimedia installation, and prayer wheels. While FAILE's work is constructed from found visual imagery, and blurs the line between “high” and “low” culture, recent exhibitions demonstrate an emphasis on audience participation, a critique of consumerism, and the incorporation of religious media and architecture into their work.
Biographical
McNeil and Miller met during their youth in ArizonaArizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
. Separated in 1996 when Miller remained in art school in Minneapolis and McNeil continued to New York, by the end of the decade, the duo reconnected and, with the addition of then filmmaker Aiko Nakagawa (b. 1975, Tokyo, JP), “A Life” was conceived. By early 2000, the trio contributed to the emergence of a nascent,street art culture by circulating their screenprinted and painted work on city streets, usually using the subversive processes of wheatpasting (flyposting) and stenciling. During the ensuing years McNeil, Miller, and Nakagawa solidified both their omnivorous style of pop-cultural collage, and changed their name to FAILE (an anagram of A Life). Nakagawa left FAILE in 2006, gaining success in her own right as Lady Aiko, while McNeil and Miller continued on to increased commercial and institutional visibility.
Career
Early years: 2000-2005
If FAILE’s career can be viewed on a spectrum of “street art” and DIY-products to gallery-ready “fine art,” then the first half of the aughts tilts more fully towards street practice. Although FAILE has always shown in galleries in one form or another, and still puts work on the street, these early years were spent deploying work in cities around the world and honing a distinctive style of wheatpasted and stenciled work that recalls both the shredded commodity collage of midcentury décollagistes Mimmo RotellaMimmo Rotella
Domenico "Mimmo" Rotella, , was an Italian artist and poet best known for his works of décollage and psychogeographics, made from torn advertising posters.Rotella was born in Catanzaro, Calabria....
and Jacques Villeglé
Jacques Villeglé
Jacques Villeglé, born Jacques Mahé de la Villeglé is a French mixed-media artist and affichiste famous for his alphabet with symbolic letters and decollage with ripped or lacerated posters...
, and the pulp-cultural appropriations and comic books sensibilities of sixties “pop” artists such as Richard Hamilton
Richard Hamilton (artist)
Richard William Hamilton, CH was a British painter and collage artist. His 1956 collage, Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?, produced for the This Is Tomorrow exhibition of the Independent Group in London, is considered by critics and historians to be one of the...
, Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
, and Roy Lichtenstein
Roy Lichtenstein
Roy Lichtenstein was a prominent American pop artist. During the 1960s his paintings were exhibited at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York City and along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist and others he became a leading figure in the new art movement...
. These influences were intensified in FAILE's work by the rapid fire splicing and re-assemblage of sampling
Sampling
Sampling may refer to:*Sampling , converting a continuous signal into a discrete signal*Sampling , converting continuous colors into discrete color components*Sampling , re-using portions of sound recordings in a piece...
, and the direct-to-audience urban raids specific to the golden age of graffiti
Graffiti
Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
.
Although FAILE’s style can be located in these art historical legacies, their style and idiosyncratic vernacular make FAILE’s work distinct and recognizable. During the early years of their career, influenced by contemporaries Shepard Fairey
Shepard Fairey
Frank Shepard Fairey is an American contemporary graphic designer, and illustrator who emerged from the skateboarding scene. He first became known for his "André the Giant Has a Posse" sticker campaign, in which he appropriated images from the comedic supermarket tabloid Weekly World News. His...
, BAST, and WK Interact, FAILE generated both a process of assemblage and urban circulation, and consistent visual cues and themes. One such example is the Challenger
Challenger
-Land vehicles:* Challenger trucks, a Canadian maker of heavy trucks* One of several British Army tanks:** Cruiser Mk VIII Challenger, in service during World War II** Challenger 1 tank, in service from the late 1980s to early 21st century...
spaceshuttle, which crashed shortly after its launch in 1986. Not only does the shuttle appear in various forms in much of FAILE’s work, the year “1986” is appended to their pieces as a signature that both invokes their specific use of the shuttle image, and also a reminder to their audience of the event itself, of its role in their personal history. “1986” is both indicative of a populist
Populism
Populism can be defined as an ideology, political philosophy, or type of discourse. Generally, a common theme compares "the people" against "the elite", and urges social and political system changes. It can also be defined as a rhetorical style employed by members of various political or social...
or dialogic
Dialogic
The English terms dialogic and dialogism often refer to the concept used by the Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin in his work of literary theory, The Dialogic Imagination. Bakhtin contrasts the dialogic and the "monologic" work of literature. The dialogic work carries on a continual dialogue...
impulse in much of FAILE’s work, and also an example of the characteristic ambivalence or dualism in their practice. Recurring themes of binaries such as love/hate, peace/war, triumph/calamity, satiation/desire are all prevalent in work that seems to assimilate the global urban landscape but tenders only oblique opinions about that landscape.
During this period, FAILE produced several books in limited edition, including, by 2004, Orange, Death, Boredom, and Lavender. The overlap between FAILE’s art practice and design background was briefly pronounced in during this early period, and found them collaborating on clothing and shoe lines (including Paper Denim, Comme des Garcons, and Pro-Keds), and music projects, as well as work on the street. In 2004 McNeil reflected, “A lot of what inspires us and excites us is the opportunity to work with talented people and to work on projects that are a challenge. Having the chance to work on things of all different disciplines whether it is fashion, painting, shoe design, or making a toy. The ideas of getting locked in and known for one thing and having to repeat. It sounds like a dreadful situation to be in. Recently we got the opportunity to work on the new Duran Duran
Duran Duran
Duran Duran are an English band, formed in Birmingham in 1978. They were one of the most successful bands of the 1980s and a leading band in the MTV-driven "Second British Invasion" of the United States...
album with John Warwicker for Tomato
Tomato
The word "tomato" may refer to the plant or the edible, typically red, fruit which it bears. Originating in South America, the tomato was spread around the world following the Spanish colonization of the Americas, and its many varieties are now widely grown, often in greenhouses in cooler...
.”
This first phase of FAILE's career was markedly experimental and varied—constant travel, a lack of studio space, and a rapidly evolving process meant that work was made for (and usually at) specific sites, from Manhattan to London and Tokyo. Commercial projects helped to finance this period of dissemination and revision. By 2005, however, FAILE acquired a permanent studio space, and were able to commit fully to a more studio-driven practice that both adapted the entropic street aesthetic of FAILE's and others' work, and permitted FAILE to apply their practice to a wider array of media and socio-political themes.
Spank the Monkey (2006)
From 27 September 2006 to 7 January 2007, independent curator Pedro Alonszo's Spank the Monkey ran at the BALTICBaltic
-Northern Europe:* The Baltic Sea* Baltic states : Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia* The Baltic region, an ambiguous term referring to the general area surrounding the Baltic Sea...
Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead
Gateshead
Gateshead is a town in Tyne and Wear, England and is the main settlement in the Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead. Historically a part of County Durham, it lies on the southern bank of the River Tyne opposite Newcastle upon Tyne and together they form the urban core of Tyneside...
, UK. The exhibition brought together twenty two internationally-recognized street artists and investigated street art’s growing artistic quality and popular appeal (particularly in the United Kingdom) and its rootedness in the realms of graphic design and global youth culture. The exhibition included celebrated “fine artists” such as Barry McGee
Barry McGee
Barry McGee is a painter and graffiti artist. He is also known by monikers such as Ray Fong, Lydia Fong, Bernon Vernon, P.Kin, Ray Virgil, Twist and further variations of Twist, such as Twister, Twisty, Twisto and others.-Life and career:McGee graduated from El Camino High School in South...
, Takashi Murakami
Takashi Murakami
is an internationally prolific contemporary Japanese artist. He works in fine arts media—such as painting and sculpture—as well as what is conventionally considered commercial media —fashion, merchandise, and animation— and is known for blurring the line between high and low art...
, and Ryan McGinness
Ryan McGinness
Ryan McGinness is an American artist, living and working in Manhattan, New York. He grew up in the surf and skate culture of Virginia Beach, Virginia, and then studied at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as an...
alongside noted graffiti, street, and design artists such as Os Gemeos
Os Gêmeos
Os Gêmeos are graffiti artist identical twin brothers from São Paulo, Brazil, whose real names are Otavio and Gustavo Pandolfo. They started painting graffiti in 1987 and gradually became a main influence in the local scene, helping to define Brazil's own style...
, Shepard Fairey, Banksy, and FAILE. Spank the Monkey was the first exhibition of its kind, and followed closely behind the commercial success of Fairey’s Obey
Obey
Obey may refer to:*Obedience , the act of following instructions or recognizing someone's authority*André Obey, the 20th century French playwright*David Obey, US Congressman from Wisconsin...
line, and Banksy’s “Barely Legal” sale of his own work in Los Angeles.
The exhibition, which positioned works both inside the gallery and throughout Newcastle
Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne is a city and metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England. Historically a part of Northumberland, it is situated on the north bank of the River Tyne...
, received favorable reviews. Speaking of the show, critic Guy Bird noted that “when the gallery takes the art seriously, avoiding condescension, or over-glamorisation, and the artists avoid ‘sell-out’ accusations by keeping control of their message...the results can be spectacular.” Spank the Monkey marked both the gradual institutional acceptance of street art, and FAILE’s regular display in high-profile fine-art institutions. Indeed, FAILE used the venue to display some of their most somber work to date, in a series of twelve paintings titled "War Profitees," that incorporated harrowing photographs, newspaper text, and a dark color palette to bring to life the tragic 2006 Lebanon War, which killed 1,500 people, most of whom were civilians. The invocation of political violence, and references to Israel and Hezbollah indicated an intensification of FAILE's work, and demonstrated how their technique could be brought to bear on the precarious global order of the twenty-first century. The integration of form and content in the work, and sustained, critical attention to a political theme evident in FAILE's Spank the Monkey contribution was a harbinger of things to come.
Tate Modern (2008)
In response to the growing popularity—and commercial viability—of street art, the Tate ModernTate Modern
Tate Modern is a modern art gallery located in London, England. It is Britain's national gallery of international modern art and forms part of the Tate group . It is the most-visited modern art gallery in the world, with around 4.7 million visitors per year...
, located in London’s Southwark
Southwark
Southwark is a district of south London, England, and the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Southwark. Situated east of Charing Cross, it forms one of the oldest parts of London and fronts the River Thames to the north...
, organized a show simply titled Street Art, that took place from 23 May to 25 August 2008, one week after Banksy’s Cans show in a London railway tunnel. The exhibition, organized by curator Cedar Lewisohn, displayed work by six artists or collaborative projects in massive relief on the riverfront-facing wall of the museum’s turbine room. Street Art included Nunca and Os Gemeos from Brazil, Blu from Italy, Sixeart from Spain, and JR from France. FAILE was the only group to participate in both the Cans and the Tate shows, contributing to the latter a massive 240 square feet (22.3 m²) image of a Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
in full regalia amidst a shredded collage of pulp images and found signage typical of FAILE’s work in 2008, and constructed in pieces in the studio before being affixed to the Tate’s exterior. Of the exhibition and the institutionalization of their work, FAILE argued “At least it’s no longer undermined as something on the street, something without value. Money fuels interest—it’s an injection in the butt that fires people up and makes them realise they should pay attention.”
While street art was, by 2008, an increasingly accepted and popular form overseas, in New York, graffiti’s traditional home, street art was embraced by only and handful of galleries, such as Deitch Projects, an early champion of sometimes FAILE collaborator Swoon. As FAILE noted at the time, “New York has such a history of this art, but institutions are waiting to see what happens before they open the doors to it. The art is starting to surface in New York Sotheby’s and Christie’s, but it wouldn’t be if not for the excitement [in the UK].” Inclusion in the Tate show, which received widespread media attention and reached a large public, brought FAILE more fully into the international spotlight and further established them as one of the most recognizable names in an increasingly globalized and multi-platform art world.
Lost in Glimmering Shadows (2008)
On the heels of work in England for the Baltic Gallery and the Tate Modern, FAILE displayed a series of new work in November 2008 titled Lost in Glimmering Shadows, and thematically-unified exploration of tension between consumer culture and spiritual fulfillment and the contradiction between America’s sometimes bloody history and its democratic ideals.Housed in the Lilian-Baylis Old School in conjunction with Lazarides
Lazarides
Lazarides may refer to:* Apo Lazarides , cyclist* Lucien Lazarides , cyclist...
Gallery in London, Lost in Glimmering Shadows occupied an ambiently-lit circular gallery space in which large-scale prints and paintings surrounded sculptural elements in the interior ring. While the temple-like lighting and installation, life-size cast of a boy with rabbit, and large-scale painted work were familiar formal carryovers from earlier exhibitions (such as 2007’s commercially-successful From Brooklyn With Love at Lazarides, and Nothing Lasts Forever in New York’s Chinatown) Lost in Glimmering Shadows notably introduced freestanding, functional prayer wheel
Prayer wheel
A prayer wheel is a cylindrical "wheel" on a spindle made from metal, wood, stone, leather or coarse cotton. Traditionally, the mantra Om Mani Padme Hum is written in Sanskrit on the outside of the wheel. Also sometimes depicted are Dakinis, Protectors and very often the 8 auspicious symbols...
s, circular disc paintings, and stacks of multifaceted apple boxes, all emblazoned with brightly-hued text and found imagery. Moreover, the show introduced a leitmotif
Leitmotif
A leitmotif , sometimes written leit-motif, is a musical term , referring to a recurring theme, associated with a particular person, place, or idea. It is closely related to the musical idea of idée fixe...
of heroic native american figures in conflict with a consumption-mad America, their world “lost in glimmering shadows.”
The work within the exhibition derived much of its force from ironic juxtapositions, such as a reworking of the American flag in the style of a Navajo ceramic in the acrylic on canvas Star Spangled Shadows, and the textual interplay on the prayer wheels of phrases like “In search of sacred” and roadside advertisements for “cold beer” and “snacks.” This irony is redoubled by the construction here of functional religious devices (the prayer wheel) overlaid by FAILE’s own international brand. At other times, the work is more explicit, depicting a suit-wearing kachina
Kachina
A kachina is a spirit being in western Pueblo cosmology and religious practices. The western Pueblo, Native American cultures located in the southwestern United States, include Hopi, Zuni, Tewa Village , Acoma Pueblo, and Laguna Pueblo. The kachina cult has spread to more eastern Pueblos, e.g....
figure amidst the backdrop of a pulp serial promising “A Betrayal Story,” in the painting of the same name, or implying an alternate America in It Could be Beautiful. Consistent FAILE themes such as the Challenger shuttle and urban signage were featured alongside new figures and decorative elements derived from traditional figurines and baskets, as well as appropriated 20th c. imagery and pictures from the American southwest.
Deluxx Fluxx (2010)'
From 12 February to 27 March on Greek Street in London, and again from 30 April to 27 May 2010, on Manhattan’s Lower East SideLower East Side
The Lower East Side, LES, is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is roughly bounded by Allen Street, East Houston Street, Essex Street, Canal Street, Eldridge Street, East Broadway, and Grand Street....
, FAILE collaborated with the artist BAST to produced an installation dubbed Deluxx Fluxx, comprising custom-made, operational arcade games and a foosball table. The entire salon at 158 Allen St. and the arcade cabinets therein were wheatpasted by FAILE and BAST, and blurred the line between the traditional “white cube” method of art display and the commercial operation of a gaming parlor. While audiences were invited to play the games for free, the works themselves were part canvas, part sculptural object, and part cabinet for interactive video art. The content of the cabinents, video work modeled on classic "games," were executed in collaboration with Adapted Studio and Seth Jabour of the band Les Savy Fav
Les Savy Fav
Les Savy Fav is a New York City indie rock band. Their style is influenced by art rock and post-hardcore. The group is known for the stage presence of lead singer Tim Harrington...
.
This New York installation updated an earlier version of the show with the Lazarides Gallery in London from earlier that spring, and featured recurring FAILE and BAST images, such as kissing women, Popeye
Popeye
Popeye the Sailor is a cartoon fictional character created by Elzie Crisler Segar, who has appeared in comic strips and animated cartoons in the cinema as well as on television. He first appeared in the daily King Features comic strip Thimble Theatre on January 17, 1929...
, old time boxers, a barking dog, and commercial logos and signage for, among others, Chapstick
ChapStick
ChapStick is a brand name for lip balm manufactured by Pfizer Consumer Healthcare and used in Australia, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand, Colombia, Italy, Chile, Pakistan, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Argentina, the United Kingdom and the United States. It is intended to help treat and prevent chapped...
and former airline TWA
Twa
The Twa are any of several hunting peoples of Africa who live interdependently with agricultural Bantu populations, and generally hold a socially subordinate position: They provide the farming population with game in exchange for agricultural products....
. Most of the images, such as the were derived from threads within FAILE’s visual archive no longer for sale as prints in their own right, while others, such as the “Fashion Chimp,” may appear in future projects. While the London show provided the blueprint for the New York iteration, the latter featured new games and images, and employed neon and blacklighting to generate a fully immersive experience. The aim of Deluxx Fluxx was to bridge the DIY-sensibility and popular accessibility of street practice with the more permanent, gallery-style emphasis of FAILE’s more recent work. According to the artists, “After doing the show in London, we learned a lot and had so much of the groundwork built to do the show again. There was a real sense of joy in seeing people interact with the work in this way and that was the whole point of the show from the beginning. We wanted to bring it to NYC and it was something we wanted to do on our own. Just to make it happen, much like our street art. We knew we wanted to create new machines here, to make it a new experience but the same style show.”
In so doing, Deluxx Fluxx obscured the lines between artist and consumer, and viewer and participant in an attempt to recapture the recent history of the Lower East Side as a haven for anti-elitist art practices such as graffiti and punk rock. While not reviewed heavily in art publications, Deluxx Fluxx received favorable reviews, with Stephen Heyman of the New York Times arguing that “art can be diverting, but people sometimes need winners and losers to get in the game.”
Temple (2010)
From 16 July to 5 August 2010, FAILE displayed Temple a full-scale church in ruins in Praça dos Restauradores Square in Lisbon, Portugal. The installation was made in conjunction with the Portugal Arte 10 Festival and is slated for touring abroad. Temple brought together a variety of earlier motifs—street art vernacular, prayer wheels, and a dualistic interest in the globalization of commerce and new forms of spiritual immanence—with the site specific concerns of working in an historically CatholicCatholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
country. The piece itself is a building in ruins fabricated with components, such as iron gating, ceramic relief work, and painted ceramic tiles from local and foreign manufacturers. Familiar FAILE images appear in relief (an update on 15th c. Florentine sculptor Luca Della Robia), the previously 2-D "Scuba Horse" was realized as a sculptural fountain, and the white, blue, and gold color palette was a nod towards the Portuguese landscape. Temple marked FAILE’s first contribution to the international festival circuit, and brought their practice full circle, taking high concept studio art back to an accessible, urban setting.
Temple received strong critical and viewer attention, and was successful at blending seamlessly into its temporary environment even as it expanded and augmented FAILE's idiosyncratic leitmotifs. According to Interview, "Faile's site-specific work seems to be the hit of the biennial. It's a shining ruin, an open-air dialogue between the sacred past and the secular present. And it's an easy match for the historical architecture encircling the busy Praça dos Restauradores, which is probably why your average cab driver likes it–and why foreign tourists passing by have been trying to look it up in their guidebooks." In its ability to blur the boundaries between art and architecture, object and display environment, Temple further amplified underlying currents in FAILE's work, such as an emphasis on openness and participation, the porousness of cultural and institutional boundaries, and the fluid integration of visual culture and the built environment.
Bedtime Stories (2010)
From November 4 to December 23, 2010 at the Perry Rubenstein gallery in New York. Seen as a return to fundamentals the new exhibition concentrates on form and process. Each of the twelve works’ compositions were created from many painted wooden blocks to come together as unified paintings. The press release states "They reveal FAILE’s relentless assimilation and refinement of the vast visual vocabularies of both the urban environment and their own decade-long practice. The grids of these paintings are at once modular and fixed, tactile and graphic. On their surfaces, iconoclastic characters fluidly intermingle with adroit deconstructions of commodity culture. The re-combinations of carefully constructed texts and images provide a glimpse into FAILE’s rigorous and organic process, and draw attention to painting’s inherent materiality"Process
Although FAILE's completed works are iconographically and stylistically distinctive, their process of creation owes much to chance, improvisation, and openness to outside source material. This is true of both FAILE's relationship to form and content—the visual elements of their work is continuously adapted to heterogeneous materials, from grocery store sign paper to wooden boxes and painted ceramics. During the early years of their career, FAILE's primary laboratories were urban streets. On the one hand, their practice, at its most basic, consisted of painting with stencils on the built environment. On the other, from the outset FAILE developed work in the studio that drew from a wide array of international cultural influences, both sacred and profane, that were then wheatpasted in the outside world. These latter works demanded reproducibility and rapid availability for circulation, and were thus well suited to the printmaking process. After experimenting with more graphically-centered black and white images, and the intensive process of layer-by-layer color transfer, FAILE introduced an element of immediacy to these prints by painting the paper prior to printing, yielding prints that were loose and chromatically expressive.Each of these tendencies were amplified by FAILE's consistent travel and limited permanent studio space. By necessity, work was adapted to its location of display, by virtue of its inherent "site specificity," as well as the group's absorption of forms, imagery, and usable materials wherever they happened to be. Once those materials were exhausted, stencils could be used to provide a constant template in lieu of prints. This early phase was one of dynamism and experimentation, and much of FAILE's early work was left to deteriorate and interact with its environment. By 2005, when FAILE established a larger studio space, this ad hoc approach was supplemented with a more traditional approach to painting and print editions that drew on these earlier priorities (inter-cultural permutation, use of found images and signifiers, and an expressive, playful approach to execution), while taking the entropy and dynamism of the street as an object of investigation.
Although street art is a consistent aspect of FAILE's practice (in concrete terms and as a source of inspiration), the post-2005 period has permitted them to work more slowly, generating thematically-driven suites (War Profitees; Lost in Glimmering Shadows), small print runs, and increasingly three-dimensional media, from arcade cabinets and sculptural casts to Temple, a modular architectural process that gestated for two years. Each of these projects is unified, however, by a consistent openness to chance, external cultural influences, audience interactivity, and the organic rhythms of the street.
Cultural impact
FAILE, like many of their contemporaries in the street art community, emphasize art making over indirect political statements or sloganeering, but their work often contains both passive and overt messages, usually cloaked in ambivalence. On the one hand, FAILE emerged from a graphic design sensibility and historically functions as a recognizable graphic presence as well as an artistic identity. Similarly, graffiti and street art have typically operated as a counterpublic artistic practice and means of garnering fame or status for “writers” and artmakers. While there is not an explicitly partisan or anti-capitalist edge to this type of work, it is structurally a political act in its flouting of laws, embrace of punk-rock and hip-hop aesthetics, and function as a means of populist or direct to the masses expression. There also exists in graffiti and street art a deeper anti-establishment trend in its attempt to beautify and reclaim the urban environment, and blur the line between the elite art gallery systems and the “outside” world of the streets.FAILE certainly works in this tradition. Although they are not graffiti writers as such, their work originated in the streets, and their studio work bears the stylistic hallmarks of both wheatpasting/stenciling and the vernacular of the global urban environment. FAILE argues that, “our process has always resembled this loose and fast critique on society, whether it be literal or figurative. Our image-making has at times been very methodical and researched, other times it's been experimental and dirty. Street art at its roots is ‘punk.’ It set out to critique and comment on a world it felt outside of.” Such a critique is sometimes ambivalent, as FAILE’s work is marked by the consistent juxtaposition of dualities. Other times, it is more direct, as in the seemingly explicit pictures in the Lost in Glimmering Shadows exhibition, or in the public wheatpasting in 2010 of images of kissing women amid the text “No Change Will My Heart Fear.” The latter echoes the ambivalent prompting of Banksy’s noted “Kissing Coppers” wall painting, and is indicative of FAILE's consistent prioritization of ambivalence and open-endedness over more explicitly prescriptiveness.
There are both socially and institution-critical strands in FAILE's work and its public or alternative-space staging and execution. FAILE's work is overarchingly characterized by an open approach that allows the interpretation and meaning of their work to ramify once it enters the public sphere. Of their outdoor work, FAILE argues that "it gives a person the sense that it is there just for them. That they've stumbled across this great little gem amidst the chaos of daily life that can really speak to them. We try to build in a certain ambiguity that leaves the door open for the viewer to find themselves within the story." The openness of meaning and emphasis on the experience of the viewer marks a shared affinity with both the anti-elitist impulses of recent street art, and the more institutional ideas of site specificity and relational aesthetics. Most recently, FAILE has expanded their painting and printing into the realm of reconstructed sculptural and architectural elements, religious artifacts (such as prayer wheels) and the 2010 Temple project in Lisbon. These projects reflect FAILE’s concern that “everything that requires skill is disappearing from the world,” and that the Temple is “an expression of the crumbling beauty of this disappearing world.”
In the autumn of 2010 FAILE released a comprehensive book, Prints + Originals (Gestalten, 2010) that surveys their career and explores FAILE's process, influences, and iconography.
Solo exhibitions
- The Room NYC, New York, NY (2005)
- Faile Prints, Fifty24, Portland, OR (2006)
- Nothing Lasts Forever, 201 Chrystie Street, New York, NY (2007)
- From Brooklyn with Love, Lazarides Gallery, London, UK (2007)
- Lost in Glimmering Shadows, Lilian Baylis School-Lazarides Gallery, London, UK (2008)
- Bedtime Stories, Perry Rubenstein Gallery, New York, NY (2010)
Selected group exhibition history
2002- The Big Group Show, M3Projects, New York, NY
- Faile Presents Boredom Project, V1 Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark
- Surface 2 Air, Paris, France
- Dragon Bar, London, UK
- Max Fish Gallery, New York, NY
- Gas Experiment, Tokyo, Japan
- Supersonic & Alien, Galleria S.A.L.E.S., Rome, Italy
2003
- Battle Graphics, McCaig-Welles, New York, NY
- Secret Party, Bob's, New York, NY
- Hasta Pronto, Centre Cultural Es Jonquet, Majorca, Spain
- Back Jumps Live Issue, Bethanien Kreuzberg, Berlin, Germany
- Jungle LP Show, Rocket Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
- Broken Sunshine (curated by FAILE), Firehouse 87 Lafayette Street, New York, NY
- Fancy Faile and Bast, Neurotitam Haus Schwarzenberg, Berlin, Germany
- Transplant Gallery, New York, NY
- M3projects, New York, NY
2004
- Weiden + Kennedy, Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Espai Pupu, Barcelona, Spain
- Lab 101, Los Angeles, CA
- Break Beat Science Showroom, Tokyo, Japan
- X-Girl, New York, NY
- Les Complices, Zurich, Switzerland
- One Eye Space, Los Angeles, CA
- Lavender, Transplant Gallery, New York, NY
- Mural, Diesel Store, Austin, TX
- Pictures on Walls, Diesel Denim Gallery, New York, NY
2005
- Untitled, Fifty24SF, San Francisco, CA
- Ridiculousnessofitallshow, New Image Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
- Design Edge, IdN, Singapore, Singapore
- Denver Show, Andenken Gallery, Denver, CO
- The Pony Show, New York, NY
- ROJO Golden, Stay Gold Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
- ROJO Golden, Urbis Artium Gallery, San Francisco, CA
- The First LA Weekly Biennial, Track 16 Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
- Supreme Trading N8 Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
2006
- Spank the Monkey, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Arts,, Newcastle-Gateshead, UK
- Tiger Translate, Shanghai Sculpture Space, Shanghai, China
- Animalia, Irvine Contemporary, Washington DC
- Mural Commission, Weiden+Kennedy, Portland, OR
- Wall Snatchers, Washington Project for the Arts, Washington DC
- Swish, Lazarides Gallery, London, UK
2007
- The Burning House (Faile, Dave Ellis, and Swoon), Museum Hetdomein, Sittard, Netherlands
- The Burning House (Faile, Dave Ellis, and Swoon), New Image Art, Netherlands, New Image Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2008
- Poster Resistance 2, New Image Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
- Street Art, Tate Modern, London, UK
- Outsiders, The New Art Gallery Walsall, Walsall, UK
- Outsiders, Houston and Bowery, Lazarides, New York, NY
2010
- FAILE & BÄST, Deluxx Fluxx Arcade, Allen Street, New York, New York; Greek Street, London, United Kingdom
- Temple, Portugal Arte 10
Further reading
- Official Site: FAILE
- Gallery Site: Perry Rubenstein
- Examples of Faile Art: Cinque Collective