Basel Castle 2011: TOTT Global Preview
San Francisco based designer game & fine art company, Tools of the Trade aka TOTT Global, is heading from the Bay to MIA for Art Basel 2011. TOTT will be setting up a curated art show for Basel featuring the fine art of some of today’s top contemporary artists. The curated art show at The Overthrow’s Basel Castle features art by Mike Giant, Ron English, Sam Flores, Claw Money, Sean Desmond, Beau Stanton, Oliver Black, and Mark Bode. The event will also feature carnival style games from select Tools of the Trade artists as well as live music. For all you art collector’s and TOTT mega-fans, here is a preview of their exhibit. And yes, an ATM machine will be onsite 
Available Artwork from Tools of The Trade Art Basel Artists:
CLAW MONEY: Claw Poker Chips
Claw Money is a groundbreaking graffiti writer whose work can be most commonly recognized because of the signature fat paw with three claws logo. Born in New York in 1968, Claw Money, or Claudia, has had a huge impact on the graffiti world as a woman in a field that is dominated by men.
She attended the Fashion Institute of Technology but dropped out in 1986. After establishing herself as a graffiti writer, Claw Money has gone on to pursue careers in both the fashion design world as well as the literary world. She is currently the fashion editor and director of Swindle Magazine and also designs and produces her own clothing line, named Claw Money. Claw Money clothing has a huge celebrity following including M.I.A., Kanye West, and Santogold. Her past collaborations have been with major companies such as Calvin Klein, Mark Ecko, and Nike. In 2007, the book entitled “The Life and Crimes of Claw Money” was released featuring her life story as well as artwork.
“Item# post2“
Medium: 3 Color screen print
Size: 25.5″ x 30″
Signed and numbered
$120
MIKE GIANT: “Rolling High” Dice Game – Released
Mike Giant’s career is the result of genuine curiosity and decades of drawing for five hours a day. He’s been – and remains – a world-class graffiti writer, tattooist and illustrator with his REBEL8 line. He’s made zines, skateboard designs, animations, prints, collages and stacks of interesting artist and company collaborations. He travels all over the world, rides his bikes, practices mindfulness, smokes a gang of weed, and is a fully tattooed goofball that one can bring to dinner parties.
Whether a page drawn in a friend’s black book amid collected signatures of other graffiti writers, or the large-scale works he hangs in galleries, Mike Giant’s drawings will fool you, even up close. The cleanliness, razor edges and solid blacks of the images all come from a Sharpie and Mike’s surgeon-steady hand, but look like they were printed. “In some ways, I took a lot of pride in that,” Mike explains. “As the graphic world has become more fixated on vector graphics, I think I wanted to show that I could replicate the same results by hand, thereby usurping the notion that computers are somehow ‘better,’ which I think is bullshit.”
“Raven Sword”
Medium: Sharpie and Pencil
Size: 18×24″
$2000
“Cabbalista (Star of David)”
Medium: Sharpie and Pencil
Size: 18×24″
$4000
“Eightfold (Meditating Girl)”
Medium: Sharpie and Pencil
Size: 18×24″
$3000
RON ENGLISH: 2 Jigsaw Puzzles – Released
Ron English can be considered the “celebrated prankster father of agit-pop”, who wrangles carefully created corporate iconographies so that they are turned upside down, and are used against the very corporation they are meant to represent. Ron English is considered one of the fathers of modern street art and has initiated and participated in illegal public art campaigns since the early eighties. Some of his extralegal murals include one on the Berlin Wall’s Checkpoint Charlie in 1989 and one on the Palestinian separation wall in the West Bank in 2007, with fellow street artists Banksy and Swoon.
Ron English has also painted several album covers including The Dandy Warhols album cover “Welcome to the Monkey House”. Some of his paintings are also used in Morgan Spurlock’s documentary Super Size Me. During the 2008 Presidential Election, he combined the features of Barack Obama and Abraham Lincoln for a popularly-distributed image entitled “Abraham Obama.”
English takes inspiration from Andy Warhol and references him in his work. He also references the band KISS, and various cartoons. Also inspiration comes from the large billboards and posters he sees outside his city apartment, usually fast food companies.
English also references Picasso’s Guernica. He has created dozens of versions, transforming the original Spanish civilian characters into Disney characters, Peanuts characters, soccer players, schoolchildren, and many others. He also painted the world’s largest version of Guernica at the Station Museum in Houston. It is one foot longer and one foot wider than Picasso’s original and features schoolchildren playacting the violent scene of the original.
“Clown Kid in Car” 2006
Medium: Giclee print Signed and Framed Edition of 100
Size: 19.5″ x 14″
$600
SAM FLORES
Sam Flores established himself in the local San Francisco street culture first as graffiti writer. Like many of his contemporaries he found that the process he was developing, a strong graphic sense and illustrative style, helped him create his signature style of painting. He began to merge modern and traditional graphic styles from a variety of sources. Characters, colors, and landscapes became the key components in his arsenal. Combining elements of the Far East with colors, and landscapes from the Southwest, Flores is able to create ethereal spaces where his characters can lay to rest the burdens that life has put upon them. Birds, flowers, trees and leaves create contemplative spaces for nesting, while his figures, who are often solitary women, with large hands carry the weight of the world. This imagery has garnered much attention in recent years with a unique style that infuses modern graffiti culture with elegant illustrative characteristics from the Art Nouveau movement.
The merging of these two styles has allowed Flores to come up with something entirely new, fresh and exciting. Flores’ ideas come from everywhere; things he sees in the city, life, and nature. He is also heavily influenced by people and other artists including photographers, animators, comic books and illustrations. Sam’s work has been published everywhere; Arkitip, Juxtapoz, and Giant Robot magazines and has been seen in San Francisco, LA, Singapore, Tokyo and many destinations throughout Europe. In addition to his painting’s Flores has published two books, several prints, a clothing line and a series of very successful vinyl toys
“SELF DESTRUCTION” 2009
Medium: Acrylic and spray paint on canvas
Size: 11″ x 14″
$2,500
“Masked” 2009
Medium: Acrylic and spray paint on canvas
Size: 8″ x 10″
$1,500
“The Voyage….”
Medium: Framed Print on cardstock 25 Made
Size: 24″ x 24″
$350
“Stressed” 2009
Medium: Acrylic and spray paint on canvas
Size: 20″ x 24″
$4,500
MARK BODE: Jigsaw Puzzle – Released
Mark Bode was born in Utica, New York. He is the son of the legendary cartoonist Vaughn Bode.
Mark is best known for his work on COBALT 60 and as the creator of the hit comic Miami Mice.
Bode attended The Art School in Oakland, California. His first professional job was for Heavy Metal Magazine when he was asked to color his father’s black and white strip Zoos, the First Lizard in Orbit when he was fifteen. He was a fine arts major at The School of Visual Arts in New York City and studied animation and etching at San Francisco State University. His publications include Gyro Comics, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Cobalt 60 (the graphic novel), GWAR comics and Lizard of Oz.
In his spare time, of which there isn’t much, Mark occasionally performs the Bode cartoon concert, teaches art, plays New Orleans style piano and zydeco accordion.
In the near 30 years of Mark’s professional career as an artist, Marks work has appeared in HEAVY METAL, EPIC MAGAZINE, PENTHOUSE, HUSTLER, GAUNTLET MAGAZINE, WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING, GRAPHOTISM, among many, many other magazines and comics. He has had articles featuring his work in the NEW YORK TIMES, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, JUXTAPOZ and TABU TATTOO. Marks work has been exhibited in the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, the Psychedelic Solution Gallery in New York, Upper Playground Gallery in San Francisco, and has had art shows abroad in Berlin, London, Milan and Barcelona.
“Miami Mice in Cuba Si chezzie no!” page 0
A series of 10 pencil drawings + Cover page $200
$1650 for the series
Medium: Pencil on paper
Size: 7″ x 5″
“Miami Mice in Cuba Si chezzie no!” page 1
Medium: Pencil on paper
Size: 8.5″ x 11″
“Miami Mice in Cuba Si chezzie no!” page 2
Medium: Pencil on paper
Size: 8.5″ x 11″
“Miami Mice in Cuba Si chezzie no!” page 3
Medium: Pencil on paper
Size: 7″ x 5″
“Miami Mice in Cuba Si chezzie no!” page 4
Medium: Pencil on paper
Size: 8.5″ x 11″
“Miami Mice in Cuba Si chezzie no!” page 6
Medium: Pencil on paper
Size: 8.5″ x 11″
“Miami Mice in Cuba Si chezzie no!” page 7
Medium: Pencil on paper
Size: 7″ x 5″
“Miami Mice in Cuba Si chezzie no!” page 8
Medium: Pencil on paper
Size: 8.5″ x 11″
“Miami Mice in Cuba Si chezzie no!” page 9
Medium: Pencil on paper
Size: 8.5″ x 11″
“Miami Mice in Cuba Si chezzie no!” page 10
Medium: Pencil on paper
Size: 7″ x 5″
“Miami Mice in Cuba Si chezzie no!” page 11
Medium: Pencil on paper
Size: 8.5″ x 11″
BEAU STANTON:
Beau Stanton explores the dynamic between graphic iconography and classicism, juxtaposing apocalyptic imagery with the aesthetic excess of Victorianism in order to synthesize organic and ornamental into a coherent post millennial point of view. Stanton fuses elements of 19th century letterpress printing designs with masterful figurative oil painting, embellishing and manipulating focus, light and perspective.
A member of the third generation of Pop Surrealism, Stanton hails from California and was influenced heavily by such luminaries as Robert Williams and Mark Ryden, as well as Realist painters Andrew Wyeth and Alphonse Mucha. He relocated to New York after graduation in 2008, and has since been mentored by New York Pop Surrealist Ron English.
Beau Stanton has curated pop-up exhibitions in both New York and Los Angeles and has shown work with Ad Hoc Art, Opera New York, and Last Rites Galleries. Solo exhibitions include Gallery Hijinks in San Francisco and Bold Hype Gallery in New York.
“Derelict Diadem” 2011
Size: 12″ x 12″
$1000
SEAN DESMOND
Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Sean Desmond works within the mediums of both photography and film. Using his camera as a passport he explores worlds that are often overlooked by society and others that are at the forefront of culture. As the creator and founder of The Tenderloin Project, Desmond utilized his camera to create a unique portrait of one of San Francisco’s most marginalized neighborhoods, the Tenderloin. Through the project he has since collaborated with over 50 artists (Mike Giant, Benny Gold, Mark Bode, Apex) throughout the U.S. and Japan to bring recognition to an often-ignored facet of society, homelessness. Having exhibited his work in San Francisco, Miami, Atlanta, New York and Tokyo, he continually seeks to blend art with both social cause and commerce. His work has been published in Juxtapoz, Thrasher, Anthem, and he was recently selected by Print magazine to be featured in their New Visual Artists issue, featuring the top 20 artists under the age of 30 for 2011.
“Sole Matters”
Medium: Archival Inkjet Print
Size: 13″ x 19″
“Mike Giant x Sean Desmond”
Medium: Edition of 150
Size:
$40
OLIVER BLACK: “Prana” DVD – Released
Oliver Black is a Bay Area based-artist who paints canvases in all shapes and sizes. With his signature style he brings to life a unique breed of characters, creating a world where it is not uncommon to see diaper-adorned birds playing the banjo or cults of crowned fish dancing. Often describing himself as ‘a reclusive, self-taught scribbler,’ there’s no denying the inner humor and oddity within Oliver that can’t help but to transcend itself onto his colorful canvases. With a relentless eye for detail and a preternatural sense of symmetry, Oliver invites viewers to get lost in his complex yet accessible oeuvre.
“Flower A”
Medium: Colored pencil on paper
Size: 14″ x 14″
$250
“Flower B”
Medium: Colored pencil on paper
Size: 16″ x 16″
$250
GREG MIKE:
GREG MIKE is a studio artist whose creativity has branched out to include aspects of street art, fashion design, graphic design, and commercial branding. Influenced by the graffiti and skate scene of New York City in the 80’s, GREG MIKE’s work is a combination of both studio and street art.
GREG MIKE broke into the fashion scene by founding CARPE DENIM (CARPE CLOTHIERS) focusing on the design, branding, and marketing of the company. With the lack of a respectable trade show for high-end contemporary clothing, GM created and organized the TRAFIK TRADESHOW in South Beach, Miami, FL that ran very successfully for many years.
GM’s current endeavor, ABV Agency and Gallery, is a one-stop creative shop experience. Past collaborations with ABV have included Adult Swim, Dallas Austin’s Rowdy Collection as well as others. With solo shows on both coasts, GREG MIKE has turned his creativity and drive to focus on his personal artwork, which has been described as both brazen and precise. GM works in multiple mediums and exhibits his work in galleries across the country.
“MICKEY MOUF”
Medium: Acrylic and spray paint on wood panel
SIZE: 24″ x 24″
$1500
“YOU CAN RUN BUT YOU CAN’T HIDE”
Medium: Acrylic on wood panel
SIZE: 23″ x 26″
$1500
“SEVEN SEAS”
Medium: Print on archival heavyweight paper
$100
Follow ToTT Global: Facebook, Twitter, and Vimeo
For All Sales Inquiries, Please Contact Sales@ToTTGlobal.com
