Months ago, we predicted that by this year Jesse Hlebo would be named Sweetest Bro of the Year.
From running a small press/record label Swill Children and editing an arts and literature publication _Quarterly (underscore Quarterly) to an upcoming show at Peanut Gallery and curating the MtyMx art portion with close to no budget, I'd say he's there. Oh yeah, he's graduating from New School in May.
With help from Bryan Krueger and Christine Rucker, as well as Coasting's Madison Farmer, Hlebo is in charge of the visual art curation in Monterrey.
Expect large sized murals surrounding the field, video projections on the main screen, as well as an area for small press/record labels organized by Milano Chow. (This girl is doing good things.)
From the unassuming white-framed ginger himself:
“I'm really excited to see how the festival materializes in person! I'm so proud to be involved with a project whose aims are as a vessel for breaking these unnecessary cultural and physical borders that have been implemented. Bringing exterior cultures into a place so close in proximity, yet so seemingly distant in terms of a cross-cultural dialogue, is a cause I'm proud to be a part of.”
Here's a short list of some favorites slated to exhibit their work. See you in Mexico!
Jaime Martinez, www.brightlightbrightlight.com
You know this dude from those 3-D gifs of Health and Fiasco that look suspended in the air. “Favorite things I did in 2009 include getting drunk with my online friends and talking nonsense with them until 5am, spending lots of days sleeping more than 10 hours and wanting to stay dreaming, taking care of his cats, taking some cool photos, and make gifs and sharing them.”
Stephanie Davidson, www.stephd.biz
Her work is all over the fucking place place, probably best viewed under some sort of influence.
Favorite goes out to Neigborhood Sacrifice and this page of magic cats. I'm guessing she'll do some video work which I'm told will all be projected on a pile of rocks in the middle of the field.
Jesse Spears, www.imsosuredude.com
If you don't get her, I don't know what to feel. “While in Hawaii: I smoked weed twice and had one drink the whole time I was there. I saw a guy jacking off on the beach facing the water in front of a huge sea turtle while reading a magazine on my 20th birthday. I cussed four people out and quit two jobs.”
Alec Dartley, tiny.cc
Unfortunately for me, Alec Dartley does not run a blog, instead he runs Aagoo Records with AU, Okie Dokie, and Blevin Blechdom under the roster. His artwork would settle nicely on an issue of Showpaper, or on Fecal Face, or Juxtapoze if it hasn't already.
Sumi Ink Club, sumiinkclub.com
I'm a sucker for detailed ink drawings so this shouldn't be a surprise, especially since I mentioned
them here, and certainly not when they claim to be “non-hierarchical: all ages, all humans, all styles.” Did I mention I also love Lucky Dragons? well he's in this club.
Rudy Shepherd, www.rudyshepherd.com
Responsible for “Would You Like to Have Sax with Me?”, “Racist Drawing of Amy”, “No One Knows How Much of a Loser I Am”, among many other greats, all found on his blog One Day Over, made tag-team style with Frank Oliver. Look into his Skowhegan Project, in which 4742 feet of rope (equivalent to the number of people lynched between 1882-1968) was used to wrap around trees in the woods of Skowhegan, Maine.
Dena Yago, www.denayago.com
It's too bad her website is painfully slow to watch upload, but who cares when you've shown at Gavin Brown, or curated lecture series, or your sister site Hxagram consists of weirdo bikini predator videos, or you're not finished getting a BA from Columbia.
