June 8—August 29, 2020 NOW UP
Non Piangere (Enough Tears) solo exhibition
Fernando Pradilla Gallery Madrid, Spain (X)
Juan Francisco Casas' ballpoint on paper Artemesia, Judith, Raquel (pictured cropped) and more, finally on display in an exhibition postponed from April due to Covid-19. This is Casas' 7th solo exhibition, consisting of oil paintings and ballpoint drawings on paper, even one drawn on marble. All of the artwork is tied to the works of the Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi. More info.
Sept 29—Oct 28, 2020 NOW UP
SWAB, Focus Korea group exhibition
Art Delight Gallery Seoul, South Korea
The South Korean gallery took things into their own hands to make their SWAB artists' work accessible to the people, if only locally. JooLee Kang was alotted a wall to do her thing (pictured, ballpoint-related ceramic work with her ballpoint wallpaper as backdrop).
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July-August, 2020 CANCELED
The Ballpoint Summit 2020 group exhibition
ISETAN Fine Art Gallery Shinjuku, Tokyo (Japan)
News from Summit curator and ballpoint elder Lennie Mace is that he has pulled the plug on what promised to be the ballpoint art exhibition to set the standard.
(*Mace is still in the process of notifying participating artists, so forgive us if you are hearing it from us here first.)
Stand by for a more in-depth report about the unfortunate turn of events. More info.
Oct 3—Nov 7, 2020 NOW ONLINE
Four Artists group exhibition
Corey Helford Gallery* Los Angeles, California
British art duo Kai & Sunny in an exhibition with Handiedan, Hikari Shimoda and Ian Francis. Of the five featured works by K&S, two new works in ballpoint (pictured : Rise and Fall) *This exhibition is ONLINE, but collectors might want to check with the gallery for possible viewings by appointment. More info.
March 11—15, 2020 THIS WEEKEND ONLY
Affordable Art Fair Battersea art fair
Surfaceica Gallery stand B8 Battersea Park London, UK
Six new additions to James Mylne's On Lux Bag ballpoint 'media graffiti' series available for sale & view (Another Luxury Hit, 2020, pictured cropped). More info.
July—December, 2020 NOW ONLINE
The Mediterranean group exhibition
The Curators London, UK (X)
Two ballpoint pen mini masterpieces (pictured) by the Italian artist Alberto Repetti are available for view and purchase in this Mediterranean Sea-themed exhibition. Although not a 3-dimensional 'virtual' gallery format, The Curators display design allows for mouse-control magnifications of the artwork both completed and in-progress. Repetti's are the only ballpoint works of the 10 artists selected from 400, and are recommended buying for those in the market for their very own Mediterranean 'view'. GO NOW.
March 12—22, 2020 FINAL WEEK
OURTYPES group exhibition
Jealous Gallery London, UK
British ballpoint duo Kai & Sunny created Motion 'UP' (pictured slightly cropped) especially for this group exhibition. More info.
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INKBLOTTER last revised June 13, 2020
Ballpoint pen artwork & more, now on display or coming soon.
Support the Starving ARTS, Ballpoint and Otherwise.
Galleries are among the businesses which have begun reopening, allowing the opportunity to once again stand face to face with fine ballpoint artwork. COVID-19 also brought validity to the option of staging 'virtual' exhibitions for art lovers who might not yet be ready to brave the outside world.
July, 2020 NOW UP
The Ballpoint Summit group exhibition
ISETAN department store gallery Tokyo, Japan
Ballpoint art elder Lennie Mace curates & contributes to the first comprehensive ballpoint pen exposition of its kind in Asia. No one is better educated in the minutiae of the medium as Mace, promising what may constitute the finest collection of art & talent the ballpoint genre has to offer. James Mylne (UK), C.J. Pyle (USA), Shirish Deshpande (India) and many more are among the artists confirmed to participate. More info.
March 6—28, 2020 NOW UP
Cultivated solo exhibition
Gallery NAGA Boston, USA
New ballpoint on paper artwork by Joo Lee Kang
(Bonsai #6, 2018, pictured). More info.
Indefinite display NOW UP
Untitled 978 W permanent collection
Minneapolis Institute of Art Minneapolis, MN (USA)
Brought out from the museum's back room for public consumption, described as one of Il Lee's ''most ambitious'' ballpoint works from his late-1990s '978' series. More info.
May 29—June 26, 2020 NOW UP
Magnitude Seven group exhibition
Manifest Gallery Cincinnati, OH (USA)
Genovese artist Alberto Repetti's ballpoint Biroscape Clearing (pictured) among the 26 artworks measuring less than 7 inches created by 15 select artists from the USA, Canada and Italy. More info.
Jan 9—Feb 15, 2020 NOW UP
Indra's Net group exhibition
Kathryn Markel Fine Arts New York, NY
Five ballpoint pen drawings by Chris Arabadjis in a group exhibition curated by Suzanne Laura Kammin (Threesome, 2019, detail pictured). More info.
Oct 1—15, 2020 NOW ONLINE
SWAB Barecelona Art Fair
What was expected to occur as-usual as a brick&mortar event became a 'Virtual Edition' due to ongoing Covid concerns. This year's fair features a Focus Korea program for which ballpointerJooLee Kang was invited to participate (see below). More info.
June 12—July 3, 2020 NOW UP
Salut! 5 Coaster Show group exhibition
Nucleus Portland, OR (USA)
Monkey business in ballpoint by Guno Park (two of three entries pictured) in this annual group event of artwork created using drink coasters. More info.
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ANNOUNCEMENT... The Ballpointer will soon undergo a comprehensive format change which may require the website to go offline for a short period of time, but we intend for it to be only a brief departure and plan to return as soon as possible. (Exact dates have not yet been decided, but by the end of the year.)
The format change is to accommodate the addition of advertising to the website. The Ballpointer has until now essentially been operating in a non-profit capacity — that is, aside from the riches of ballpoint art we've had a front-row seat to witness and share, and the value of our relationships with the artists! — but the addition of advertising was inevitable so... it's about that time.
Our return will also be gradual as archived material, in particular, will take some time to fully reinstall, therefore many of the archive pages will be inaccessible or incomplete until we slowly but surely reconfigure each and every page.
The Ballpointer will thereafter look different, but content (and quality of reporting!) will not change. We will lose our magazine-like layout — something which we've been proud of but which has attracted as many complaints as compliments — and will look more like a 'website', but we will retain current design elements wherever possible.
So, one day soon you may visit The Ballpointer and not find us here... but fear not; we'll be right back, so please keep trying until you find us again! We will make every effort to notify our friends directly — you know who you are, but please forgive us if we overlook you for some reason! — and general progress reports can also be found at our The Ballpointer facebook page・
Submissions to The Ballpointer are welcome and encouraged but, by doing so, you are authorizing the use and publication of any texts and/or data provided. Having said that, let us know you're out there.
June 8—August 29, 2020 NOW UP
Non Piangere (Enough Tears) solo exhibition
Fernando Pradilla Gallery Madrid, Spain (X)
Juan Francisco Casas' ballpoint on paper Artemesia, Judith, Raquel (pictured cropped) and more, finally on display in an exhibition postponed from April due to Covid-19. This is Casas' 7th solo exhibition, consisting of oil paintings and ballpoint drawings on paper, even one drawn on marble. All of the artwork is tied to the works of the Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi. More info.
・・・
Related news... The Ballpointer had been publishing 'feature' articles only with the direct participation of the artists, but in 2019 we will initiate an editorial shift and publish with or without featured artists' participation or blessing. As an online journal reporting about the usage of ballpoint pens to create fine art, we are quite simply within our rights to publish as we see fit about the activities of artists doing so. It was only as a courtesy that we solicited artist involvement in the first place, expecting that artists would, if not initially, at some point be happy to speak to media with very specific knowledge of their chosen medium. Over time it became suspicious that an artist using ballpoints (i.e. Il Lee, or his 'reps') wouldn't talk with us, effectively making The Ballpointer seem ignorant—or worse, exclusionary—by not writing about artists whom everyone knows exist but whom have not yet been featured ・
Sept 17—Nov 1, 2020 NOW UP
Changwon Sculpture Biennale group exhibition
Seongsan Art Hall, Long-ji Park Changwon, South Korea
A multi-media installation by JooLee Kang in collaboration with Chinese artist Shenshen Luo as their part of this 5th annual event, based around and including Kang's ballpoint pen art. More info.
Indefinite display NOW UP
Untitled 978 W permanent collection
Minneapolis Institute of Art Minneapolis, MN (USA)
Brought out from the museum's back room for public consumption, described as one of Il Lee's ''most ambitious'' works from his late-1990s '978' series. More info.
February 28—March 25, 2020 RESCHEDULING
Light Events (Manifestazione di Luce) solo exhibition
Floris Gallery Milan, Italy
New & recent ballpoint on paper from Paolo Amico's neon & palindrome series. (12-51, 2018, pictured). More info.
Listings published courtesy of The Ballpointer, space permitting.
Something you'd like to see? Something you'd like us to see?...
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Since 2014
August 1—20, 2020 NOW UP
The Maximum Expression of White solo exhibition
Proloco Sestriere Sestriere, Italy (X)
Twenty-seven works in 'full-color' ballpoint pen by Paolo Amico, dedicated to his adopted hometown Setriere, an Italy/France border town near Turin. More info (in Italian)
February 6—29, 2020 NOW UP
Fine Line group exhibition
Stolen Space Gallery London, UK
New ballpoint linework by Kai & Sunny (Skyward Force, 2020, detail pictured) in a group exhibition of 20 'leading urban contemporary artists'. More info.
INKBLOTTER last revised January 19, 2020
Ballpoint pen artwork & more, now on display or coming soon.
Support the Starving ARTS, Ballpoint and Otherwise.
BALLPOINTBRIEF by E. Lee posted January 8, 2019
Random Points 2018・SUB・
Short of anecdotes for the next time you're in need of small talk at a holiday function, as happens to me every December? Internet slideshows can always be counted upon to provide informative but otherwise useless, even laughable (perhaps the point) information that'll impress or at least entertain. Msn.com's 116 amazing facts for people who like amazing facts provides plenty. Did you know there's a word for the act of stretching and yawning (#30)? Bet you didn't know there's a bird who can learn to talk better than parrots (#5).
Plenty of art tidbits made the list. Entry #76 teaches us the name of the color seen when you open your eyes in a pitch-black room. Entry #14 tells us the percentage of Bob Ross paintings containing at least one 'happy little cloud'. And did you know Dr. Suess's book Green Eggs and Ham was the product of a dare? See entry #29. Our favorite occupies the opening slot: ''Between 1912 and 1948, art competitions were a part of the Olympics. Medals were awarded for architecture, music, painting, and sculpture.'' Hey IOC, bring that back!
January 16—30, 2020 NOW UP
ME group exhibition
High Line Nine New York, NY
''An Exhibition of Contemporary Self-Portraiture'' is the theme of this group show which includes art by ballpointers such as Nicolas V Sanchez, Guno Park and Dina Brodsky, although whether or not their ballpoint art is on display remains unconfirmed. More info.
Nov 12, 2019—January 25, 2020 NOW UP
Small Drawings and Prints solo exhibition
Art Projects International New York, NY
As the exhibition title announces: small drawings and prints of ballpoint artwork by one of the medium's elder statesmen, Il Lee. More info.
July-August, 2020 NOW UP
The Ballpoint Summit 2020 group exhibition
ISETAN Fine Art Gallery Shinjuku, Tokyo (Japan)
Mark your calendar, book your flight and secure lodgings to be in Tokyo for the 2020 Summer Olympics (pictured: designer Asao Tokolo's Tokyo 2020 Olympics logo as reinterpreted in ballpoint pen by Lennie Mace). The Olympic competition is, of course, the main attraction, but visitors to the city during those two weeks will have the added opportunity of viewing what promises to be one of the greatest assemblages of contemporary ballpoint pen art.
Summit curator and ballpoint elder Lennie Mace intends it to be the ballpoint exhibition to set the standard. Few, if any, are as qualified to oversee such an undertaking.
Confirmed participants include Shane McAdams, James Mylne, C.J. Pyle, Joo Lee Kang, Shirish Deshpande, Andrey Poletaev and many more. Mace himself is among the participating artists, but he stresses that his involvement with the exhibition will lean more toward administrative duties. Mace is still in the process of inviting artists.
Although the exhibition coincides with the Olympics, Olympic-themed art is not a prerequisite for participating artists. Mace will, however, tap art from his Play Pen series depicting athletic activities such as cycling and running.
The Ballpoint Summit will be no competition, and no medals will be awarded, but all participating artists are worthy of gold medals for their mastery of the medium.
The Ballpointer will regularly report on preparations leading up to show time, stay tuned for more info. More info.
INKBLOTTER last revised January 19, 2020
Ballpoint pen artwork & more, now on display or coming soon.
Support the Starving ARTS, Ballpoint and Otherwise.
Jan 9—Feb 15, 2020 NOW UP
Indra's Net group exhibition
Kathryn Markel Fine Arts New York, NY
Five ballpoint pen drawings by Chris Arabadjis in a group exhibition curated by Suzanne Laura Kammin (Threesome, 2019, detail pictured). More info.