Spring Forward

Poster Show Featuring British Poster Artists

from Jacknife Poster Collective of Bristol

with Firehouse of San Francisco

Ron Donovan and Chuck Sperry of the Firehouse Kustom Rockart Company met Chris Hopewell from Bristol, England at the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas in 2005. In 2007, while conducting a silkscreen print demonstration at Flatstock poster convention, Chuck and Ron spoke at length to Chris about getting started with his own print studio. Inspired by the demonstration, Chris Hopewell went home to the United Kingdom and opened a silkscreen print studio with partners and called it Jacknife.

By the time Firehouse toured the United Kingdom in 2008, Mr. Hopewell and the Jacknife print collective would have dozens and dozens of cool rock posters under their belt. Since 2007, Jacknife has been spreading art of rock to Great Britain – most notably by producing posters in the open air at the Glastonbury Music Festival.

Jacknife posters have a bold style informed by a punk aesthetic. Using surprising imagery, Jacknife pares their posters down to a clear, direct statement. They design and print their unambiguous, rebellious posters with a hands-on silkscreen process that informs their art.

Come and celebrate our San Francisco joint show as we get ready to go together to SXSW in Texas and later to the Glastonbury Music Festival in the UK.

Opening:

Thursday, March 11, 2010

7 pm

Artrock Gallery

893 Folsom Street in San Francisco

The show will last for two days – Thursday and Friday – March 11 & 12, 2010.

DARK NOUVEAU

Malleus, Alan Forbes and Firehouse

Artrock Gallery

893 Folsom Street in San Francisco

MALLEUS, the artist collective of Urlo, Poia and Lu, the remarkable poster design team from Italy, will be unveiling their new works and limited art prints on Saturday, October 10 at ARTROCK GALLERY in San Francisco.

Alan Forbes and Chuck Sperry / Ron Donovan of the Firehouse will exhibit with MALLEUS – each presenting art prints specifically designed for the event.

In addition there will be a live print demonstration, so you will have an opportunity to acquire an exclusive art print made for you right before your very eyes.

The event is a celebration of DARK NOUVEAU, a return to the roots of poster creation.

DARK NOUVEAU evokes equally the fin de siécle style of Toulouse-Lautrec and 1960′s San Francisco Psychedelia – and operates here as a manifesto of reinvention and revision – aimed at connecting to the poster movement of the Decadent Period to the Belle Epoque and folding it into the Psychedelic Period to the present modern global silkscreen movement.

DARK NOUVEAU opens at 7pm – Saturday, October 10 at ARTROCK GALLERY – 893 Folsom Street in San Francisco.

“Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder.”

MALLEUS, the artist collective of Urlo, Poia and Lu, the remarkable poster design team from Italy, will be unveiling their new works and limited art prints on Saturday, October 10 (the evening right after the Hall of Flowers Show) at ARTROCK GALLERY in San Francisco.

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Alan Forbes and Chuck Sperry / Ron Donovan of the Firehouse will exhibit with MALLEUS – each presenting art prints specifically designed for the event. In addition there will be a live print demonstration, so you will have an opportunity to acquire an exclusive art print made for you right before your very eyes.

-

The event is a celebration of “DARK NOUVEAU,” a return to the roots of poster creation. DARK NOUVEAU evokes equally the fin de siécle style of Toulouse-Lautrec and 1960′s San Francisco Psychedelia – and operates here as a manifesto of reinvention and revision – aimed at connecting to the poster movement of the Decadent Period to the Belle Epoque and folding it into the Psychedelic Period to the present modern global silkscreen movement.

-

DARK NOUVEAU opens at 7pm – Saturday, October 10 at ARTROCK GALLERY – 893 Folsom Street in San Francisco.