This week we have only one image of art on the street, from Grady McNally in Brooklyn.
Grady McNally (photo © Jaime Rojo)
To mark the 10th Anniversary of the events that took place in NYC on September 11, 2001 we asked Street Artist Dan Witz to share with us his images of a series of shrines that he installed in New York during the summer of 2002. It seems appropriate that Street Art paid tribute and facilitated the public mourning and remembrance of those we lost; All manner of artists took to the streets at that time – and it never really stopped. We are thankful for the time and the effort of the many talents, mostly anonymous, who claimed the streets as their own and who buoyed us during those days. And we are thankful to Dan for sharing with us his work here.
Dan Witz talks about his “WTC Shrines” –
“Starting at Ground Zero, following sight lines of the World Trade Center drawn in a star pattern on my map, I installed about 40 of these on the bases of light poles. At the time I was thinking a lot about art objects’ possible usefulness in the real world. For me paintings have often functioned as secular shrines—as visual instigators to reverie.
The week before September 11th I was up in the Bronx at a housing project photographing the shrine neighbors left at the doorstep of a murdered 9 year old girl (balloons, flowers, stuffed animals, family photos). I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do exactly, it was just my way of sketching. Then the planes hit and the city parks filled with thousands of candles and flowers and other offerings. Again, I went to take photographs, not knowing what I actually wanted, just on an instinct. At the time I used a large format camera, the old style with the hood and long bellows. Every time I put the hood on and focused the ground glass, I got an unmistakably eerie feeling from all those candles—it was bizarre and chilling, and definitely paranormal. I’ll never forget it”
from a publicly posted poem entitled
Don’t Look for Me Anymore
(Alicia Vasquez)
don’t look for me anymore
it’s late and you are tired
your feet ache standing atop the ruins of our twins
day after day searching for a trace of me
your eyes are burning red
your hands cut bleeding sifting through rock
and your back crooked from endless hours of labor…
it’s my turn, I’m worried about you
watching as you sift through the ruins of what was
day after day in the soot and the rain
I ache in knowing you suffer my death
rest in knowing that my blood lies in the cracks and crevices
of these great lands I loved so much…
don’t look for me anymore
hold my children as I would
hold my brothers and sisters for me
since I can’t bring them up with the same
love you gave me
and I’ll rest assured
you’re watching my children
don’t look for me anymore
go home and rest…
There are 8 million stories in the naked city – that’s what we’ve heard. Street Artist Specter has recently brought back to memory one that many would like to forget, frankly, because it speaks to the undercurrent of racism that persists in our country, the burning embers of ignorance whose flames can be easily stoked given the right circumstances.
Specter “Yusuf Hawkins” (photo © Jaime Rojo)22 years after the racially motivated mob murder of a teenager in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, a decaying memorial to Yusuf Hawkins still remains in another Brooklyn neighborhood called Bedford-Stuyvesant. The crime that caused the city to reel in pain was compounded by the fact that the cancer was appearing in such young fresh faced people; Yusef was 16, his assailants only slightly older. As the circumstances of his death revealed the level of polarization in the city, it sparked more unrest, violence, and marches in the streets.
A generation later, the memorial has withstood time, the natural elements, neglect and vandalism. Meanwhile our progress toward an equitable society is still very much in question.
To honor Yusuf, Specter installed a 14 by 14 foot hand-painted portrait adorned with flowers. The placement maintains former additions by other artists and much of the original wall painted by Brooklyn master-muralist, Floyd Sapp. As happens with many memorial walls, Yusuf’s mural was blanketed with scrawled messages to him and other fallen community members. In this latest piece by Specter, the Street Artist continues that tradition by adding to the historic wall now revitalized by the memory of a young man whose life was cut short.
1. Freedia Video Exhortation
2. Guy Denning at Brooklynite Gallery Pop Up
3. LUDO in a Solo Show tonight “Metamorphosis” at High Roller Society (London)
4. YOUNITY is YOU! See the Goddesses Saturday in Yonkers (NYC)
5. Pandemic Says Goodbye to Summer with “Heat Beaten” Group Show
6. Australian Street Artists in San Francisco’s 941 Geary
7. “His Wife & Her Lover” at Primary Projects (Miami)
Okay everybody GET UP! Before we get cookin’ on too many projects today let’s everybody get up and do a dance to Friday and to life and the creative spirit that’s running through every person right now! This ain’t no rehearsal peepul. Miss Freedia gonna show us how to work it.
Opening last night in a smoke filled ripped up storefront below Canal and above City Hall was this shrine filled show of meditations on 9/11, and the places we go amidst the memories and the rubble. Rae from Brooklynite spoke about the balance you try to strike when presenting a show like this, and they have probably hit it. Mixing headlines, languages, and the metaphor of purgatory with the anguish, longing, celebration and poetry that somehow coexist, Denning does a tender justice to us all.
For more information regarding this show click on the link below:
http://www.brooklynstreetart.com/theblog/?p=23974
LUDO’s been working in the laboratory, and tonight you are allowed to enter it.
http://www.brooklynstreetart.com/theblog/?p=23927
The YOUNITY Art Collective group show “Goddess Hood” opens on Saturday at the Yonkers Public Libray and boasts a really impressive line up of contemporary female artists working today in NYC. Some say that the female energy is what is going to lead us through the times ahead, and if so, these artists with rock solid connection to the street have lanterns in hand: Lichiban, Swoon, Sofia Maldonado, Krista Franklin, Marthalicia, Diana McClure, Faith 47, lmnop, Lady Alezia, and Alice Mizrachi
http://www.brooklynstreetart.com/theblog/?p=24291
Williamsburgs Southside hub of authentic street culture and a charming Joie de Smartass brings you another fun event and show – “Heat Beaten”.
In San Francisco the Australians have staged an ART invasion both on the streets and with a show at the 941 Geary Gallery. If you were wondering why the Australians are at the forefront of Street Art please turn your electronic gadgets off and get up and go see some hot art with: Anthony Lister, Kid Zoom, Dabs & Myla, DMote, New2, Ben Frost, Meggs, Ha Ha, Reka, Rone, Sofles and Vexta.
Anthony Lister (Photo © Jaime Rojo)In Miami things get heated at Primary Projects group show : “His Wife & Her Lover”. To find what happens to either the wife, the lover or the husband put your high heeled boots on, comb your hair, spray some cologne on and wish for the best.
This piece is still wet because Overunder finished it as the sun set tonight as part of Living Walls : Albany. Samson Contompasis caught this quick phone pic with the subject of the portrait posing with his painted self. More Overunder coming soon!
Younity
Female Urban Art Collective YOUNITY Presents Exhibition Exploring the Themes
Mother Earth, The Hood, and Sustainable Agriculture in conjunction with
The Yonkers Riverfront Public Library and Sarah Lawrence College
All female urban art collective, YOUNITY, presents GODDESShood: Our land is our jewel, an art exhibition that will feature 10 artists in conversation with the themes mother earth, the hood and sustainable farming. Opening on Saturday, September 10, from 2pm – 5pm at the Yonkers Riverfront Public Library, during the annual Yonkers Riverfest event, the project utilizes urban art as a platform for visual discourse on sustainable agriculture, food systems, food justice, and mother earth, and closes on Sunday, December 4th, 2011. Additional programming in the City of Yonkers and at Sarah Lawrence College will take place throughout fall 2011, including youth workshops and a panel discussion.
All of the artists in the exhibition, Lichiban, Swoon, Sofia Maldonado, Krista Franklin, Marthalicia, Diana McClure, Faith 47, lmnop, Lady Alezia, and Alice Mizrachi, engage with the theme mother earth or nature, and related concepts, both directly and indirectly in their individual artistic practices. In the context of this exhibition the artists were asked to utilize the idea of the hood as a metaphor for not only local neighborhoods and urban culture, but also land, nature and the natural environment at large. And, finally, the genesis and inspiration for the exhibition stems from the curators’ discovery of La Via Campesina (The International Peasant Movement) and an intense global movement for land and agricultural rights taking place below the radar.
In the YOUNITY tradition, GODDESShood: Our land is our jewel will include painting, murals, photography, and stencils, as well as video and sculptural objects. The exhibition picks up where YOUNITY’s last exhibition FRESHER!, which addressed consumerism, environmentalism, health, and renewable energy, left off in the fall of 2009. Co-curator Diana McClure says, “With the GODDESShood: Our land is our jewel exhibition we wanted to use the YOUNITY platform as a tool for social change and disseminator of information by bringing visibility to a battle being fought by peasants, small and medium-size farmers, landless people, women farmers, indigenous people, migrants and agricultural workers from around the world. A battle that seems to get lost in mainstream media’s disregard for the economic politics of green living.” With the success of YOUNITY’s premiere exhibit in 2007, The C R O S S O V E R, the second annual Heart and Soul show and book publication in 2008, and FRESHER! in 2009, YOUNITY has become one of the most sought after all-female collectives to date. Co-curator and YOUNITY co-founder Alice Mizrachi says, “After 3 years of annual exhibitions, wall productions, youth workshops, etc. The core YOUNITY production team decided to take a year off in 2010 to explore new ideas and individual creative pursuits. During that time we’ve all developed and hope to use our growing cultural capital to continue to support female urban artists and address social issues as individuals and a collective.”
For more information on public programming in conjunction with the GODDESShood: Our land is our jewel exhibition, including youth workshops led by Co-Curator/Arts Educator Alice Mizrachi for Yonkers youth, and a panel discussion moderated by Co-Curator Diana McClure at Sarah Lawrence College, visit www.theyounity.com.
About YOUNITY: artists Alice Mizrachi and TOOFLY founded YOUNITY in New York City in 2007. After spending many years involved in the art world, it became evident that urban contemporary women artists did not have a properly organized forum through which to disseminate ideas and showcase work to their contemporaries and the public at large. The confines of galleries were too rigid and staid and the ‘white cube’ did not lend much room for personal expression and individual style. So, Alice and TOOFLY decided to: 1) create a place where females could tell their stories in more universal, down-to-earth voices; 2) build a stable community in which they could teach the next generation of women the process of curating exhibitions and successfully spreading artistic ideas; and, 3) allow members to explore their own flavor while retaining their identity within the context of a collective body. YOUNITY is also committed to the documentation and archiving of itself as a community of unique, autonomous participants through exhibitions, new media and publishing.
Lab Art Gallery
Street art meets fashionable bicycles as LAB ART Los Angeles, the nation’s largest gallery dedicated to street art teams up with Solé Bicycles, the one-stop-online-shop for contemporary fixed-gear bikes. On September 15th, 2011 the Fixed Bicycles & Canvas show will premiere custom designed Solé Bicycles by 12 of the biggest, most influential street artists including: AJL, Chad Muska, Common Cents, Cyrcle, Desire Obtain Cherish, GoodBoy, Gregory Siff, KH No. 7, LOUIS XXX, Mar, Septerhed, and Thank You X.
Chris Stain (photo © Andrew Franciosa)Working in the monumental landmark of St. Joseph’s church, the focal point marking Albany’s Ten Broeck Historical District, everything echoed. The shake of the spray paint can, Chris Stain’s soft but direct voice, friends casually eating out of take-out containers and the sliding of a huge ladder against the wooden floor echoed against the high, detailed ceilings of the church, breaking the silence in what felt like both a privileged and private setting to be working in.
This portion of the “Living Walls: Albany” project directly faced the challenge all artists face: make something out of nothing. For the organizer, Samson Contompasis, that challenge was making a 40 by 16 foot wall out of 20 wooden pieces for Chris Stain to create his contribution to the project. Challenge met. Next.
As Chris Stain humored me in talking about Albany, the culture of zines and independent art books, doing his art homework on the train up here and how the quietness of the church was peaceful, he worked very swiftly. With one can of spray paint on deck in his back pocket and one in his hand, he got to work on his installation piece, depicting a scene of firefighters, an American flag and slanted city buildings, working with the ‘perfect’ red and an assortment of spray paint cans aligned like soldiers ready to go.
The finished piece alongside the ornate details of the church allowed for a natural moment of silence, soaking in what Stain sprayed before us, ready to be taken apart and installed in the setting of the New York State Museum the next day as a part of the new exhibit, “Reflecting on September 11, 2001.”
“Reflecting on September 11, 2001” opens at the New York State Museum Friday 10.9.11. Please click here for more information.
They say you don’t know what you have till it’s gone, and Street Artist EMA is lately having a hankering for the People’s Republic of Brooklyn, even though she’s in Scotland now after a decade in BK. It was a period of great personal change, challenge, and inspiration for her development as a person and as an artist. That’s why her current show is called “Breuckelen”.
EMA (photo © EMA)From spraying graffiti in the street in the early 1990s to gallery shows and back and forth, EMA is one of the many artists who sees her expression as a part of a continuum. Now she’s showing ink drawings that blend influences from Art Deco, science, fiction, and graffiti for this solo show called “Breuckelen”, a reference to the Dutch name it had in the 1600s.
In preparation for her show opening Friday, EMA gives us a look at the action in her studio. Explains EMA, “This year marks the 10th anniversary of my move to New York. To celebrate that, I am doing a year round of artistic projects on that theme.”
For more information about “Breuckelen” click on the link below:
The Victorian era has been gently affecting the instrumentation and arrangement of art bands and the fashions of shabby chic sections of Bohemia since the steam punks started wearing dog-eared top hats and ruffles in the late 1990s and the ripples of this romance continues to gather into vaporous clouds in these early 10’s.
Street Artist Brent Houzenga fell under a deep sepia spell when he stumbled across a box of vintage 1890s photographs in the trash and for the last couple of years he’s been scheming on how to bring these anonymous individuals back to life on the street. Billing himself as “The Hybrid Pioneer” a.k.a “The Original Prairie Pirate”, the spritely Houzenga hails from Des Moines, Iowa, and is transfixed by these faces and fashions, re-imagining these earlier travelers in a context they never saw, and in the process he creates a bridge between centuries.
Photographer and BSA contributor Brock Brake trailed Brent recently and shares these images with BSA readers.
“Remixed Remains”, a current solo show at Pawn Works Gallery in Chicago by Brent Houzenga, features new works from this box of old photographs.
“We are really hyped on this guys work though he has not been very exposed within the street art world – as he is in Des Moines and sort of an outsider artist,” says Nick Marzullo of Pawn Works Gallery. Houzenga, however, could not be too much of an outsider, as he has some work in the collection of The Museum of Fine Art in Des Moines and Indianapolis, notes Marzullo, but his “installation is finally finished and the space is like nothing we’ve seen before.”
For details on “Remized Remains” click on the link below:
Haven’t seen the Roman soldier lurking around with his paintbrush helmet lately so it it was a real special treat to see on the old Twitter machine that Nomade was putting up some new stuff Saturday, in downtown LA. Complete with decaying Roman columns….. it’s just funny, that’s why – don’t be a grouch. The Nomade fellas put this fresh piece to reclaim their old spot next to Lady Aiko and Kofie Augustine while under the watchful gaze of Daniel Lahoda. It’s part of LA Freewalls of course and there may be an animation in the near future we hear.
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BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
