FOLLOW-UP: METALWOULFE @ ART BASEL MIAMI

For one week every December Miami Beach gussies itself up for an influx of, well, everyone. There are the Christian Marclays, the Paris Hiltons, the Larry Gagosians, but perhaps most significantly, a gaggle of paint splattered independents looking to make names for themselves at contemporary art’s most noteworthy celebration: Art Basel.

Still coming off a high of energy, inspiration and a week of straight painting, we caught up with Dana Woulfe, the Boston-based half of graffiti team MetalWoulfe for an update on what they produced at the annual art fest.

For Woulfe, his partner Stephen Holding (Metalwing) and other up-and-comers, Wynwood is where you want to be– a sort of derelict district of crumbling buildings and abandoned warehouses that morph into canvases for the Primary Flight mural installation.

“There’s so much more energy and vibrant things happening there where people are actually coming to create things,” Woulfe says.

When you get to Wynwood, it seems, almost anything becomes fair game. And when Primary Flight spaces become limited, the question is pretty straight-forward: who do you know with a wall?

MetalWoulfe came with plans to paint two stairways at nightclub, The Electric Pickle.

MetalWoulfe v6 from Dana Woulfe on Vimeo.

Their next stop was an RC Cola factory, originally a space for Primary Flight murals.  When it was condemned the day before their scheduled painting for structural hazards, the Primary Flight mural space got cut in half. With a bit of sleuthing, MetalWoulfe made it inside the building and managed to complete this mural before being ousted with some rather menacing shouts of: “Do you want to die in here?”

MetalWoulfe v7 from Dana Woulfe on Vimeo.

They finished the week off with a third piece at The Lunchbox Gallery.

MetalWoulfe v8 from Dana Woulfe on Vimeo.

Style-wise they kept things pretty uniform, starting with reworked letterforms and building on in layers.

His first time at Art Basel, Woulfe says the week was “motivating, inspiring and humbling all at once.”

“You realize your place and how many kids there are trying to do this and how talented the best ones are,” he says. “Getting down there is not the end of anything. It’s the beginning.”