POW! WOW! AV is coming back to the city of Lancaster.
POW! WOW! originated in Hawaii, in 2011, as a week-long event. The festival has since inspired similar street art festivals in cities and countries around the world, such as Taiwan, Long Beach, Israel, Singapore, Jamaica, Washington D.C., Guam, New Zealand, Netherlands and Germany.
Lancaster did its first POW! WOW! in 2016, curated by POW! WOW! Hawaii.
“We were excited because we were allowed to incorporate a couple of Antelope Valley artists, which turned out to be a great project,” Andi Campognone, operations manager for the Museum of Art and History said.
POW! WOW! AV will celebrate its second year in Lancaster, from 2 to 6 p.m., Oct. 21.
Antelope Valley artists contributed to this year’s POW! WOW! as well: Tina Dille from Tehachapi and Nuri Amanatullah.
“We had more walls than artists in 2016 and so this year, everyone came out of the woodwork and said ‘We want a wall,’” Campognone said.
The original 12 murals will be joined by an additional 18.
The 2018 POW! WOW! AV artist line-up includes: Hueman (California), Super A (Netherlands), Lauren YS (California), Ekundayo (California), Jeff Soto (California), Christopher Konecki (California), Emily Ding (Texas), Amir Fallah (California), Mikey Kelly (California), Scott Listfield (Massachusetts), Carly Ealey (California), Andrew Hem (California), Aaron de la Cruz (California), Amy Sol (Nevada), Tran Nguyen (Vietnam), Julius Eastman (California), Dan Witz (New York), Jaune (Belgium), Slinkachu (Great Britain), Spenser Little (California), Darcy Yates (California), Craig “Skibs” Barker (California) and MOUF (Texas).
Only one of the murals from 2016 will be painted over — a graffiti-style “Lancaster” mural near the Arco gas station at 10th Street West and Lancaster Boulevard, that was the only mural from 2016 to be tagged.
By 2020 POW! WOW! AV will expand outside of the city’s downtown area, into residential neighborhoods.
POW! WOW! AV comes together with a block party on Oct. 21, that is free to the community.
“All the artists will be in attendance to sign autographs and we’ll have special merchandise. It’s a really fun day,” Campognone said.
There will be a car show along Lancaster BLVD, workshops including the POW! WOW! AV Print Lab hosted by this year’s artist-in-residence Amy Kaps, at MOAH: CEDAR, a workshop at Lancaster Performing Arts Center and special tours at the Western Hotel Museum.
Six bands are scheduled to perform on the MOAH stage: Vultures of Vinyl, from 2 to 2:30 p.m.; Lazy Beam, from 2:45 to 3:15 p.m.; Thanks, Weird Puppy, from 3:30 to 4 p.m.; Jimini Picasso, from 4:15 to 4:45 p.m.; New Character, from 5 to 5:30 p,m.; and Witchin Alleys, from 5:45 to 6 p.m.
In addition to the murals, the 2018 POW! WOW! will include temporary public art by artists who will hand-wire sculptures from telephone poles. Slinkachu, a London-based street installation and photographic artist “abandoned” little people on Lancaster Boulevard.
“He’ll be setting up these little vignettes everywhere on the boulevard.” Campognone said.
The whole project is curated like an exhibition between MOAH, Thinkspace Projects in Los Angeles and POW! WOW! Hawaii.
“The artists all know that we need to be positive in sending messages and family friendly, celebrating life in a positive way,” Campognone said.
Oakland-based artist Hueman (Allison Torneros) painted, on the Burns Pharmacy building on Genoa Avenue, off Lancaster Boulevard, a figurative and abstract mural inspired by renaissance drapery studies. She has contributed murals to POW! WOW! Hawaii previously and Long Beach.
“The street art community is really small, so when I do get together for these mural festivals, I end up seeing a lot of my friends,” Hueman said. “And it’s really cool because all these murals are going up at the same time and you get to go down the street and see just so much creativity happening at once it’s really cool.”
L.A-based artist Andrew Hem painted a mural of the giant robot Gundam on an Elm Avenue building, south of Lancaster Boulevard.
“I always wanted to paint a Gundam, so this is a perfect opportunity,” he said during a break from painting.
Hem grew up watching Gundam as a young boy.
“He’s like a hero in Japan, so if you go to Japan there’s like a three-story figurine of a robot, it’s pretty incredible,” Hem said. “While I’m doing this, there’s kids that will ride their bike by, or walk by and it’s pretty awesome that they know about it, too.”
He also has work featured in “The New Vanguard II” exhibition at MOAH, curated by Andrew Hosner of Thinkspace Projects in Los Angeles.
The highly anticipated follow up to 2016’s successful first iteration of The New Vanguard, on view in tandem with this year’s POW WOW! Antelope Valley, will feature special solo projects by artists Chevrier, Barker and Brooks Salzwedel. A sequel to what was, in 2016, the most extensive presentation of work from the New Contemporary movement in a Southern Californian museum venue to date, The New Vanguard II, in keeping with the first, will present a diverse and expansive group of curated new works.
Additionally, the exhibition will feature site specific installations by HOTTEA, Lawrence Vallieres and Hem, along with a group exhibit in the main gallery of more than 40 international, new contemporary artists.
For details, visit www.lancastermoah.org or call 661-723-6250.