FAILE BAST DELUXX FLUXX ARCADE.

Last week I managed to squeeze in a visit to the current Faile Bast Deluxx Fluxx Arcade show at Lazarides. Brooklyn based street art duo Faile recently teamed up with fellow Brooklynite and long time collaborator Bast to produce a visually striking, innovative and highly interactive experience – encompassing both floors of Lazarides Greek Street gallery.

Ambitious, experimental and an absolute thrill, this exhibition completely morphs the traditional gallery experience, offering a distinctive, engaging show of wonder and enthralment. From the second you enter the top floor you are immersed in a Faile and Bast wonderland, greeted with a cascade of arcade machines customised and reprogrammed to exude the artists’ dynamic visual signatures - hoards of Faile and Bast prints accumulate the wall spaces leaving nothing uncovered in this explosive installation of 80s-inspired pop culture. Visitors are encouraged to partake in the various games on hand presenting some pretty funky and unique ways of interacting with the artwork. You can purchase Faile tokens for as little as £2 and dispense them into the machines or hold on to them as a nice little souvenir.

Trek downstairs and you enter into a slightly uncomfortable, secluded world of neon visual delights. Reminiscent of an Amsterdam head-shop the black lights illuminate the areas of white space and bounce off the day-glo pinks, oranges, yellows and greens apparent in the artworks. Plastered all over the walls, ceiling and floorboards, this amalgamation of screen prints, stencils, paintings and collages accentuate the two sculptures in the middle of the room, which also double as two interactive pieces in the form of foosball tables.

After an extensive bout of ‘winner stays on’ neon foosball I headed across Soho Square to indulge in a 10-year retrospective of Faile’s work at Lazarides’ Rathbone gallery. Heavily influenced by the iconic pop art movement and such greats as Rauschenberg, Lichtenstein and Basquiat, this incredible collection of the collaborative duo’s finest work exhibits screen-prints, paintings, murals and sculptures across a decade firmly imprinting their stamp on the art world as pioneers in contemporary street art.