For twelve days we’re presenting twelve wishes for 2012 as told by an alternating roster of artists and BSA readers, in no particular order. Together, they are a tiny snapshot of the people who are part of the street art scene around the world today. Individually, each adds their personal expression of hope for tomorrow.
Today’s wish comes from a BSA reader named Zia, our 4th Place Winner in the 2011 BSA Holiday Giveaway. Along with an original piece of art, Zia sends this wish;
“I wish my 80-yr old grandma would continue to party in good health, and my 60-yr old parents would drive safely after dark. I wish there would be no more cancers in the family. I wish my friends would find jobs, preferably dream jobs. I wish the HIV vaccine would finally work in humans, not just chimps. I wish I would have a year filled with inspirations and travels to lands I’ve always wanted to visit.”
For twelve days we’re presenting twelve wishes for 2012 as told by an alternating roster of artists and BSA readers, in no particular order. Together, they are a tiny snapshot of the people who are part of the street art scene around the world today. Individually, each adds their personal expression of hope for tomorrow.
Today’s wish comes from Various & Gould, the kooky and clever Berlin-based Street Artist duo who we had the pleasure of working with a little bit this year. Experimenters of the highest order, V&G blast forward in pursuit of new combinations of elements without fear of failure, but rather with a love of the process and a delight in the surprising outcome. It helps that they are ridiculously serious about not taking everything so seriously, making Various and Gould perfect role models for those of us carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders.
Along with this photo, V&G send this exhortation to anybody who is holding back in 2012:
For twelve days we’re presenting twelve wishes for 2012 as told by an alternating roster of artists and BSA readers, in no particular order. Together, they are a tiny snapshot of the people who are part of the street art scene around the world today. Individually, each adds their personal expression of hope for tomorrow.
Today’s wish comes from a BSA reader named Stein from Norway, our 5th Place Winner in the 2011 BSA Holiday Giveaway.
“My mantra is: 10% talent 90% hard work. My wish to you is: Don’t be a quitter!”
For twelve days we’re presenting twelve wishes for 2012 as told by an alternating roster of artists and BSA readers, in no particular order. Together, they are a tiny snapshot of the people who are part of the street art scene around the world today. Individually, each adds their personal expression of hope for tomorrow.
Today’s wish comes from Saber, a Los Angeles based graffiti artist well known for his signature style with cans and his outspoken opinions on topics affecting everyday people. Diagnosed with a difficult to treat illness as an adult, he has made a very public campaign of his own fight to get medical help. By doing so he is raising awareness about the fact that every day, while politicians bloviate and insurance companies bloat with dollars, millions of average Americans are effectively shut out from getting medical care.
Along with a photo of his daughter, Saber sends just this one wish;
This fall Printed Matter, a non-profit organization in Chelsea dedicated to publications made by artists, produced a window display of art relating to and directly from the protests of Occupy Wall Street. Now in it’s fourth month, OWS continues in the streets of many cities with handmade signs, placards, diagrams, illustrations, costumes, even sculpture. Sometimes it is a tirade, some times it is a comedic play on words, but it is usually made by hand. Perhaps it’s the Gen Y affinity for D.I.Y., or perhaps it’s a way to deter the mass produced signs of would be usurpers, but this modern movement prefers one-off handmade work – in much the same way as many of today’s Street Artists.
Seen from the street, the windows at Printed Matter are part education center, part community theater, part political advocacy. At a time when tourists are flocking to New York Town to see the Christmas windows at Macy’s and Lord & Taylor and Sachs Fifth Avenue, Printed Matter tells a heartwarming tale of people of many faiths and backgrounds gathering in the public sphere to express a kind of unity that this country hasn’t seen in a while.
LIVE SCREENPRINTING DAILY Until Dec 24th Single Artists: Mon-Fri 5-7pm, Sun 4-6pm Groups of 5-6 Artists: Sat 2-6pm
Curated/organized by J. Morrison
Printed Matter is pleased to present 24 DAYS OF MATTER PRINTED, a live screenprinting project by J. Morrison. From December 1st until the 24th, daily screenprinting sessions will feature a rotating cast of 20 artists creating collaborative works in the Printed Matter storefront. During these sessions, the artistic collaboration will be accumulative, with a new artist each day adding his or her own print to the previously produced prints. Prints will be available for purchase at any stage during this process.
Todd “Reas” James and Stephen “ESPO” Powers joined forces again this weekend and brought to Brooklyn a large selection of works from “The Street Market”, their installation shown this April at the “Arts in the Streets” exhibition at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art.
Do you geek out on stickers? Come on, you know you do. To you, the world is a place where slapping and hitting are good things to do on your daily travels, especially if the surface is dust free. We are regularly smacked in the email with exhortations to come out to huge sticker fests and New York has probably a few hundred doorways that are so slapped up and multi-layered with gluey handmade postal labels and mass produced vinyl tags that if a bomb blasted inside the whole door would blow off in one piece. Most sticker fiends point back to the late 70s, early 80s as the time of genesis for this phenomenal addiction and passion, possibly encouraged by Miss Marsette, your second grade teacher who had a pretty figure and pleasing perfume and who used to put a Papa Smurf or unicorn sticker on your History report to award your good work.
For many Street Artists and graffers and collectors and fans of stickers, it is a life-long love: Just ask Dave and Holly Combs, who have run Peel Magazine in print and online since 2003 , or MAD One, who has been running Sticker Phiends in Phoenix since ’08, and King Rid and Jice of Brass Knuckle Crew, who hosted a proper show this summer in New York with contributors from around the world. Add to that list Seth Mooney and Nick Marzullo, founders of Pawn Works in Chicago, who this week formally proclaimed a long love affair with the humble sticker by mounting a personal tribute with a lot of history totally taking over the gallery windows – a moving and triumphant event in their sticker geekery. They’ve been minting their own line of home-made stickers for a little over a year, but this installation takes in a couple of decades.
Brooklyn Street Art is lucky that photographer Brock Brake was on the scene to capture the momentous proceedings and even more fortunate to get this very personal insight into some of their history and personal favorites from the guys:
“As sticker heads and collectors ourselves producing and distributing stickers for artists from all over the world via the Pawn Works Sticker Club we have obsessed since day one. All the way back to the days of repping Cruella DeVille and The 101 Dalmation’s, He-Man, Scrooge McDuck, G.I. Joe and other childhood favorites on our sippy cup’s. Both Seth and I can remember holding certain stickers over 18 years ago back to before we were teens. Some of those stickers and many more hoarded over the years as well as new jewels created through the club over the last year, reached their final destination.
We committed our ‘priceless’ stickers to an intense vinyl sticker collage representing the essence of what Pawn Works is about, the love and support of those responsible for the culture in which we are ensconced in. We often reminisce of our time as harmless teen deviants taking Stussy Clothing labels off of shirts from the mall back when the price tags/labels doubled as unique, hard to get, vinyl stickers. Anyways, we spent most of February last year making this collage to have on permanent display at Pawn Works. This year we are going to display it publicly along with the help of our friend Lucas Blair from Hedrich Blessing Photographers and Vinyl Wrap Technician from Roll Out Industries in Brooklyn, Michael Yrigoyen.
A few of our personal stand-outs include the instant classic logo of street wear boutique Bodego spelling out their name using the logos of Major League Baseball teams, which was quite common in the 90’s into the early 2000’s. The use of the Montreal Expo’s logo as the ‘e’ plays on so many levels for us, we love this sticker so much that we don’t feel bad it was taken off a hostess pad at a pub so many years ago. We can’t forget an all time favorite in the 513 OG Circle Sticker. Representing Cincinnati and the grime of their streets, this sticker was everywhere long before we were anywhere. This particular sticker thrived on a privately-owned Tetris Arcade game for so many years and thankfully was salvaged along with the Tetris machine from a damaging personal relationship. Got away with the sticker! Collectively, we love this sticker.
The Beastie Boys Ill Communication window sticker 4 pack and J-Dilla’s The Shining album cover sticker top our music charts. With a strong representation of stickers from the music, street and skate cultures, representing brands, boutiques, and important figures in the scene and our lives from Harold Hunter, Keith Haring, Mark Gonzales, Harmony Korine, Jeff Staple, The Dude and more we pay homage to the artists, designers and players on all levels. More notable stand outs include the original Cost and Revs stickers from the Early 90’s, Skewville’s Keep On Grass 1st edition on clear vinyl (small), many hand drawn labels from Evoker,Amuse,Poor One,Full Quip, KWT Crew, ATAK, DMS crew, Full Bleed and more, the scratch ‘n’ sniff pot leaf stickers are always a favorite for us as well. As are the original Ox-Fam Banksy stickers,the endless amount of hand-cut vinyl’s from SKAM Sticker Artist out of Portland, the over-sized classic ‘not for the handicap’ sticker from Gabriel Specter and anything by The Grocer.”
1. Play a New Holiday Video Game from Chris Uphues – “Holiday Jingle Rocket”
2. “Rezolution”, a group show at Hive Gallery Tonight (Phoenix, AZ)
3. “Paranormal Hallucinations” at Pandemic (Brooklyn, Yo!) (Saturday)
4. David Choe and DVS1 for Nuart 11 (VIDEO)
5. “Images of the Year 2011” From Brooklyn Street Art (Video)
6. VINZ FEEL FREE. Don’t be afraid. Feel Free (VIDEO)
Play a New Holiday Video Game from Chris Uphues – “Holiday Jingle Rocket”
Street Artist Chris Uphues uses his signature characters to create this very entertaining game for you to play with while chugging eggnog and rum today as you drink and drive at your keyboard. Try to keep your sled flying over the houses without being hit by giant blobs of snow! It’s a winter blast!
Make sure to click on the link below to play the game:
“Rezolution”, a group show at Hive Gallery Tonight (Phoenix, AZ)
Chip Thomas AKA Jetsonorama and a number of other artists open today in a group show that is getting a lot of pre-buzz here and on Twitter and FB. It should be a great scene tonight at The Hive.
A very fun group show to end out the season before everybody goes into the holiday haze, featuring some unsung gems in the Street Art and graffiti scene, as well as others, including CHARLIE MARKS R.I.P, LLEW payote, Deuce Seven, Egyptian jason, Matt CRABE, Josh and Amy Shandick, Mikey Big Breakfast, Conrad Carlson, G II, Ryan C. Doyle, Mikey I.T., Tamara Santibanez, Othello Gervacio, Mike. P, and Swampy (above).
For further information regarding this show click here
“Images of the Year 2011” From Brooklyn Street Art (Video)
It’s been an excellent year for Street Art all over the world and we’ve had the pleasure of seeing a lot of great stuff from big names to the anonymous. Eye popping, brain-teasing, challenging, entertaining, aspirational and inspirational – it’s all happening at once. We’ve been walking the streets, meeting the artists, going to shows, curating shows, speaking to audiences, providing walls, and asking questions. It ebbs and flows but never stays the same. With the rise of the Occupy movement this autumn, we’re already seeing an uptick in the number of people taking their messages to the street with a renewed intensity.
VINZ FEEL FREE. Don’t be afraid. Feel Free (VIDEO)
The Huffington Post ARTS interviews El Angelino Shepard Fairey on “The Protester”, his cover image for TIME Magazine’s issue Person of the Year.
“Time Magazine released its annual ‘Person of the Year’ issue, with ‘The Protestor’ earning the coveted title as well as the magazine cover.
The glory of the win is shared amongst protestors worldwide, including those involved in the Arab Spring, Russian election rallies and, of course, Occupy Wall Street. Activist street artist Shepard Fairey, of Obama’s HOPE poster fame, designed the cover image. HuffPost Arts asked Fairey some questions about the challenge of creating the emblem…” Click on the link below to read the full interview on Huffington Post ARTS:
Street Artist Purth relies on her intuition when scouting walls to spread out on, favoring wide open spaces and sweeping vistas, in basically unknown or forgotten locations. Deeply connected to her pieces, her imaginative backstories for them, and the process of creating, Purth confidently claims space on a wall without necessarily covering every inch. In this way, the work is as much about location and history as it is about the new work.
While in Minnesota last week Purth completed a 12 foot by 60 foot wall on the border of North Minneapolis with a piece she calls “What Kind of Woman Are You?”. The large distorted figure lies on her side with a small constellation of thoughts and dreams and energy bursts dragging along behind her. Purth already had a story in mind for the figure, but only after she had started the piece did she learn that this location was the site of a huge number of homicides, and her figure faced an old gas station with and ignominious past.
Purth gives BSA more background to these somewhat haunting photographs here:
“Minneapolis has always been an important location for me. Its creative voice has influenced me greatly over the years. Many little details fell into place last month and I was able to complete this work on the fly with the help of a close friend and the support of a few locals.
The piece was an idea I had a while back that developed into much more once I had found the location. That’s usually how it goes … the work takes on its own form based on where it makes its home.
This wall was amazing too. I learned a day or two after I had begun painting that it sits directly across from “The Old Colony” gas station, this strange spot bordering North Minneapolis. It has an enormous glowing bee hive in front of it and the reputation of being the site for the most homicides in the area.
She faces it directly and I think knowing that made the work, or my presence there, feel more severe. Feels as though she growing into her own now, like she’ll bear witness to more than I can even imagine … or hopefully earn her wings (filthy, soot covered wings, but wings none the less). I guess there is something haunting and mysterious about this one, even to me.”
It’s been an excellent year for Street Art all over the world and we’ve had the pleasure of seeing a lot of great stuff from big names to the anonymous. Eye popping, brain-teasing, challenging, entertaining, aspirational and inspirational – it’s all happening at once. We’ve been walking the streets, meeting the artists, going to shows, curating shows, speaking to audiences, providing walls, and asking questions. It ebbs and flows but never stays the same. With the rise of the Occupy movement this autumn, we’re already seeing an uptick in the number of people taking their messages to the street with a renewed intensity.
Let’s take a look at some of our favorite shots, whether from a rooftop in Bushwick, Brooklyn, a block-long wall in Miami, or the “Art in the Streets” show at LA MoCA. As you sample this eye-candy platter, dig the staccato soundtrack made of sounds culled from Brooklyn’s streets by electro duo Javelin, who spent a day in the Red Hook neighborhood collecting sounds and then mixed them in the back of their car. This is the kind of D.I.Y. ingenuity that is fueling the fire in artists neighborhoods all over the world, with people taking their stories and skills directly to the streets. With Javelin as the perfect auditory partner here’s 90 shots by photographer Jaime Rojo from 2011.
The scenes and scenester included here: 5 Pointz, 907Crew, Sadue, Gen2, Oze108, Droid, Goya, UFO, Aakash Nihalini, No Touching Ground, Aiko, Martha Cooper, Anthony Lister, Boom, INSA, Miami, Primary Flight, LA Freewalls, Los Angeles, Kim West, Kopye, L.E.T., Purth, Lisa Enxing, Baltimore, Banksy, LA MoCA, Barry McGee, Blek le Rat, Broken Crow, Albany Living Walls, Chris Stain, Billy Mode, AD HOC Arts, Chris Uphues, Monster Island, Wynwood Walls, Creepy, Brooklyn Street Art, Jaime Rojo, Steven P. Harrington, Dabs & Myla, How & Nosm, Vhils, Dain, D*Face, ECB, El Sol 25, Elbow Toe, EMA, The London Police, Kid Acne, Will Barras, Enzo & Nio, Faile, Bast, Faith 47, Gaia Clown Soldier, General Howe, Hellbent, Herakut, Invader, JA JA, Jaz, Cern, Joe Iurato, Welling Court, John Baldessari, JR, Kenny Scharf, Knitta Please!, LMA Cru, LUDO, Mosstika, ND’A, IRGH, Labrona, Overunder, Nick Walker, NohjColey, Nomade, Occupy Wall Street, Os Gemeos, Veng, Chris, RWK, QRST, Radical!, Rambo, Retna, Gifted, Demon Slayers, Read, Booker, Read More Books, ROA, Shepard Fairey, Shin Shin, Wing, Skewville, Specter, Swampy, Sweet Toof, Swoon, Toofly, Various & Gould, VHILS, XAM, YOK, Pantheon Projects
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BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
