For the first time in Skewville’s pioneering street art history, Droo steps out on his own

Skewville is thrilled to inaugurate the gallery’s summertime program with a debut solo show by Droo, the imaginative, engineering, lesser-known half who helped create Skewville. Droo joined forces with his twin brother Ad DeVille in 1996 as fresh-faced college kids who’d graduated from a household of eleven situated on an anomalous rural lot in Queens. Ad developed Skewville’s bright, clean aesthetic, and Droo offered the critical construction know-how to make their visions real. “Dis-Conjoined” presents two decades’ of Droo’s independent, never-before-seen artwork.

“About time you jettisoned that lazy ass brother of yours,” famed countercultural art reporter Carlo McCormick remarked of Droo’s show. “Misery loves company but failure is a solo record.”

As a duo, Skewville has presented art shows in New York, California, England, Germany, and Norway. Today, street art heads know Skewville best as a place, but the project began mostly as a lifestyle. In the 1990s, Droo and Ad printed shirts and learned to make bongs from repurposed glass bottles. In 1999 they launched the Sneaker Project, a novel, viral gag they’ve now tagged all over the world. Skewville has since made thousands of these flat, screen-printed sneakers, which they connect with tough rubber cords and gleefully throw over telephone wires.

In “Dis-Conjoined,” Droo shares new takes on the now-iconic Skewville sneaker silhouette by encasing the wooden forms in concrete. Elsewhere, metal arrows emerge from the kicks. Both iterations omit screen-printed designs since that cosmetic portion of the creative process has always been left to Ad. For the first time, Droo’s distinct creative voice takes on a gallery alone.

Droo went on to work union jobs as he continued into adulthood. He raised a family while experimenting with his invention-driven art in a home studio carved out from his basement. Though widely known for assemblages, mostly of found materials, Droo’s paintings debut here, in a series of geometric portraits as well as abstractions where gushing paint drips upwards, mocking both the laws of physics and the trite 2000s trend of so many wannabe Pollocks.

This exhibition’s nearly 40 artworks span 20 years of art simmering unseen in Droo’s studio, receiving touch-ups and tweaks up until the show doors open. Droo’s famed found material sculptures mesmerize viewers with intricate amalgamations of doohickeys and doodads. Their recognizable toy components invite viewers to play, then frustrate expectations, because Droo has reverse-engineered these artworks to “function” on his terms, rather than the public’s. A huge tin lunch box made from twelve smaller, vintage specimens ranks amongst the presentation’s most vivid spectacles. Droo’s been collecting these lunch boxes since the 1990s, but started making art out of them when the advent of eBay revealed that they’re worthless. For what it’s worth, anything on view here could be made functional for the right fee. He’s that good.

“Dis-Conjoined” will open with a proper Skewville bash 6-10P on Saturday April 6, replete with a live DJ and sponsored by Milagro Tequila. The closing party is on Saturday, April 20 from 2-6P.