Mid Nite Crisis
14 – 22nd December 2018
Rocket Barber Shop
118 Stoke Newington High St, London N16 7NY
Sweet Toof, East London’s legendary dental illustrator is back for a show in the unlikely surroundings of a North London barber shop cellar. The unorthodox location heaves with canvasses, prints and bizarre objects. Knick knacks with lurid buck toofed characters abound while disembodied gnashers chomp in mouthless isolation.
Cool, trendy upstairs
Shady basement downstairs, shady geezers, shady gals
Cellar. Sweet Toof.
Many acquainted with the breadth of Sweet Toof’s outdoor endeavours will recognise Mid Nite crisis as a corruption of Mid Life Crisis, which Sweet Toof and friends often put up on walls.
Mid Nite Crisis
Sweet Toof MLC collab with Rolf Carl Werner, Dalston 2017
Centre stage is hogged by a train set with the looping period piece rail service hit hard with whole car Sweet Toof graffiti. This straight up not-for-sale Sweet Toof toy provided what the vast majority of arty art shows lack, something to have fun with!
Battered Choo Choo
It is only 12 months since Sweet Toof last exhibited in Dalston, a joint show with Swedish artist Rolf Carl Werner (review here) and the good news to take away from that is that artists abandoning London aren’t actually lost to London.
Stag Night
Knick Knacks
Moments of darkness transformed the cellar into a graveyard of glowing ghoulish gnashers.
A print launched at the show featured Sweet Toof collaborating with Aida on a gentrification lament. The print celebrates 10 years that Aida and Sweet Toof have worked together on prints and other collaborative artistic misdemeanors.
GentriFUCKation – Aida Wild/Sweet Toof Collaboration
Completely anonymous artist in disguise.
There is an irony in the concept of two street artists coming together in a trendy barbershop in Dalston to protest against gentrification.
GentriFUCKation – Aida Wild/Sweet Toof Collaboration
That’s not to knock the location of the show in a hairdressers. It is crucially important that this scene is outside the gallery system and not dependent upon museums or art world support, Sweet Toof by convention is unconventional.
Aida and Sweet Toof also collaborated on a lush variant on Aida’s ever popular “EAST END SUCKS” print.
East End Sucks, Aida Wilde/Sweet Toof Collab,
Cleaned your teef?
Red Handed (Above), Roller Gang (Below)
Links:
Sweet Toof instagram
Aida Wilde instagram, website
All photos and video by Dave Stuart: instagram