Icy & Sot “Let Her Be Free” Book Launch|Art Exhibition (Manhattan, NYC)

July 21, 2016 Artists

“We first met Icy and Sot the summer they arrived in New York. Their name was already preceding them on the Internet because even while still in Iran, they had developed a network of friends and collectors who had helped them to show their art in Europe. Images of their work had already caught our eye. We were lucky to be the first to interview them here.

That is how the friendship began–as immigrants to New York ourselves, we had a good feeling about them because they exhibited the right signs for success here. We’ve seen what sort of steely core you need to have internally to survive in this city and what alchemy of dreams, determination, and luck one will need to succeed as artists. We’ve watched many hopefuls come and go, feeling chewed up or put off by the love/ hate relationship most people have with this city. From the beginning, Icy and Sot appeared to have what it would take to persevere. Later we learned that they didn’t really have any other option.” – Steven P. Harrington and Jaime Rojo in “Let Her Be Free”

BSA is proud to tell you of this new book, the first monograph of Iranian Street Art brothers ICY & SOT, which we dedicated many hours of design, editing, interviewing, and writing to, in addition to contributing photographs by Jaime Rojo. Along with the brothers and book designer Cassandra Brinen, we spent many hours in New York meetings in apartments and cafes sorting through images and stories to find the narrative and the flow of the pages and chapters (even laying all the pages across a living room floor), all the time wondering if we could finish it in time and to the quality level and taste level everyone was looking for.

We’re pretty happy with how it turned out and we hope to meet a lot of New Yorkers this Saturday for the books official debut! Luckily, there will be plenty of brand new stencil pieces for you to see in a pop-up exhibition as well.

Published by Lebowski Publishing under the guidance and vision of owner Oscar Van Gelderen and with a forward by Jess X. Chen, “Let Her Be Free” tells the story of the first 10 years of ICY & SOT working on the street, first in their hometown Tabriz, then Tehran, then moving to Brooklyn, New York to start and continue their odyssey. You don’t find artists who are as driven and focused and willing to work like this very often, nor those who have personal and political convictions and who are using their work to express them.

We were lucky to have enough photos that charted their early years and could tell their story, and of course it helps that they are good documentors as well – a lesson for all artists! As they continue to grow professionally and personally, we look forward to them challenging us and developing their craft even further.

We’re all looking forward to meeting you this weekend – the guys will be there signing books – and if you cannot make it we hope you’ll have time to look at the book the next time you are in a bookstore or library.

Our special thanks to editor Roel van Diepen for his kind and patient expertise.

Icy & Sot “Let Her Be Free” Lebowski Publishers. Amsterdam 2016

We visited Icy & Sot at their Brooklyn studio while they were busy at work getting ready for the exhibition that accompanies the book launch and asked them a few questions and took photos of some the pieces that will be on view and and available to purchase. The show will be a retrospective in miniature – as most of the pieces on view were created as a compilation of their greatest hits throughout their very short career.