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.
This week many New Yorkers are thinking about where they were on 9/11/2001 when the planes hit the World Trade Center Towers and what the city felt like in the days, weeks, and months that followed. There are many questions that never were answered, and there are many consequences that are still to unveil. An incredibly diverse city in so many ways, our unity was automatic and sincere. We already knew each other and we knew we all had been hurt and we were all changed by those events. While others looked at it as an American attack, New Yorkers felt a wound to the place we had made together, our beloved dirty beautiful hard and scrappy city. Today it is painful to go back and contemplate those days and wonder what happened, why, and at what cost.
Martha Cooper: Remembering 9/11. De La Vega. (photo © Martha Cooper)World renowned graffiti and Street Art photographer Martha Cooper had been documenting New York as a journalist and ethnographer for a quarter century when the streets of the city were flooded by raw sentiments and visual communications expressed with marker, pencil, paint, – whatever was at hand – in the days that followed 9/11. Those incredibly personal desperate acts of expression were gazed upon and reflected on by neighbors and strangers as we attempted in vain to explain the world to one another. To remember a little of what it was like, she shares with us her photographs from those days.
“9/11 happened to all of us. It was a collective experience that defined the outset of the uneasy, globally interdependent twenty-first century. Nowhere, however, were the raw terror and tragic consequences of 9/11 felt more personally than the metropolitan region of New York City, for which the Twin Towers had functioned as a conspicuous compass setting, hub of work and recreation, and symbol of America’s economic might,” Martha Cooper writes in “Remembering 9/11”
“There are no prescribed rituals for mourning thousands of people. We invented them as we went along,” Martha Cooper
This wall in Queens, NY was painted by Lady Pink, Smith, Ernie and friends. (photo © Martha Cooper)Martha Cooper is a featured panelist at today’s panel discussion in Brooklyn called “Return Remember: Ephemeral Memorials in the Legacy of September 11” At Power House Arena. 37 Main Street Dumbo. 6-8 PM.
Martha Cooper will be signing copies of a new slim volume of images “Remembering 9/11” following the panel discussion. For more information about this event please click on the link below:
Over the next few weeks, New York State’s capital city, Albany, will be the site of a large scale Street Art show with many artists whom you are familiar with and a number of new ones on walls in desolate areas, historic districts, and even a church.
When local artist and visionary Samson Contompasis asked BSA to be partners with Living Walls last winter, we already knew about his reputation as a stalwart proponent of the creative spirit who opens doors for artists of many stripes. If Samson is in love with something, it’s going to happen.
Now “Living Walls: Albany” has grown to encompass not only multiple walls for Street Artists from around the world but the involvement of civic leaders, building owners, arts institutions, historical ombudspeople, electronic and print media, artists, musicians, galleries, a museum, and arts programming for kids and families. That was one sentence.
A new livelihood is radiating around the colossal work of Gaia and Nanook, which debuted the Living Walls: Albany last week. Their vibrant piece adorns the side of a vacant, unroofed building currently aging on N. Pearl and Livingston.
Ten minutes into my third visit, a handful of neighborhood children flocked in front of the massive brick before me to point out what they liked about the Street Art as two passer-bys curiously paused. The figure of a man pushing a contemporary piece of art (currently housed in the Rockefeller Empire Plaza Concourse) towards the face of Nelson Rockefeller is inexplicably alluring. The collective work is as perplexing as it is simple.
The merging of Albany landmarks in a notion of “pushing forward” is an attentively constructed kick off to the project this fall. One of the energetic neighborhood children, unaware of his metaphorical wisdom, looked at me and said, “I guess it’s a new day.”
Participating artists include: Army of One , Broken Crow ,Cake ,Chris Stain ,Clown Soldier ,Deacon Czar , Depoe , Dwell & One Unit , Evereman , Gaia , Gregory Maxwell Dunn II , Hellbent , Jacqueline Brickman , Joe Iurato , Jon Burgerman , Marcus Anderson , Michael DeFeo , Nanook , Over/Under , Papertwins , Radical! , ROA , Scott Michael Ackerman , Skewville , Uneek , Veng , VRNO , White Cocoa , YARK
EMA
Ema began spray-painting the walls of her hometown, Montpellier (Fr) in the early 90’s. Instantly hooked by graffiti, it wasn’t long before her works adorned buildings and trains throughout the South of France, Paris and Barcelona before moving across Europe and North America.
As a resident of New York for the past 10 years, Ema’s work can be seen throughout the city, both inside and outside the gallery; from exhibitions in Chelsea, to wheat-pastes in Brooklyn and large-scale murals across Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx.
For this exhibition, titled Breuckelen (the original name for Brooklyn), Ema presents a series of original works celebrating a decade of soul-searching, creative explorations and one-hell-of-a-time in the city so good, they named it twice.
Brooklyn, we go hard.
Opposite are some examples of previous work.
The exhibition opens on 9th September 7-10pm. The show will then run till the 9th of October open 12-6pm Tuesday to Sunday. Go read and see more of Ema here- florenceblanchard.wordpress.com/
young and free
“I like renegades – there’s something so attractive about their natural instinct to defy convention.” Anon.
Some call Australia the ‘lucky country’, but we’ve always made our own fate. From a rebellious pas we’ve forged an identity steeped in cunning ingenuity, creative discontent and unorthodox flair. We’ve staged rebellions over rum, gained notoriety and won Nobels. We invented cask wine and Wi-Fi and we’ve won countless world titles. There may not be a lot of us, but we’ve always packed a punch.
So it is no surprise that with nothing more than a can of paint and a glint in their eye Australians are taking the street art scene by storm. It’s time for the rest of the world to sit up and take notice.
Young & Free will be the most significant exhibition by Australian street artists ever seen in the United States. The show will feature fresh work by thirteen of Australia’s finest urban art guerrillas – from the already internationally acclaimed to the burgeoning up-and-comers.
This tribe of artists comes from a variety of backgrounds: brilliant new work by notorious 80’strain painters through to the sublime subtlety of a modern day Rembrandt armed with a spray can. Young & Free is a reflection of Australia’s thriving street culture with a strong grounding in the past and a firm focus on the future. These artists are modern day bushrangers, patrolling the lanes from Melbourne to Manhattan.
This show features a mix of direct sprays, stencils and paste-ups, representing the rich and varied groundings from which these artists have grown. No matter their age, medium or style, the Young & Free artists all share one thing in common: they want to give the urban landscape a fresh coat of paint.
There are many similarities between Australia and San Francisco. Both have famous bridges, internationally established street art cultures and, of course, trams. What is different is our beginnings. Australia’s criminal foundations have seeped into our national persona – Aussies are born with a spirit of rebellion. As the opening lines from our national anthem proclaim, ‘Australians all let us rejoice, for we are Young & Free.’
The cans have been capped, the wheat paste stirred, and the stencils packed: this is the most important Australian street art exhibition ever, mate.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Dal East, Dust Love, El Sol 25, Faith 47, Knitta Please!, Le Concept, UFO, and Wing.
El Sol 25 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Faith 47, Dal…East (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Swoon
Swoon at work installing “Anthropocene Extinction” (photo © Geoff Hargadon)There’s a good chance you’ve encountered Swoon’s work before: her intricately cut, life-sized portraits have covered abandoned buildings and warehouses in cities around the world. Often found in beautiful states of decay, her wheat-pasted installations are populated by realistically rendered people going about everyday activities in a cityscape of her own invention.
In both her art and her own life, Swoon is deeply engaged with social and humanitarian projects. During the 2009 Venice Biennale, she and a crew of 30 other artists and friends sailed SWOON boats made of reclaimed materials through the canals of Venice—creating new purpose out of what was cast aside. Her latest endeavor, the Konbit Shelter Project, is a sustainable building project assisting Haitians who lost their homes in the devastating 2010 earthquake. Working alone or in collaboration, Swoon’s work is often about forming a community in order to practice what she refers to as a “real world” engagement.
For the ICA’s fifth installation of the Sandra and Gerald Fineberg Art Wall, Swoon’s installation will extend from the elevator atrium to the lobby, soaring 40 feet up to the ceiling—the largest installation to occupy the Fineberg Art Wall. The work, titled Anthropocene Extinction, is composed of streams of intricately cut paper which connect key sculptural elements within the installation, including a 400-pound, suspended bamboo sculpture. The exhibition is accompanied by an ICA-produced video featuring installation footage and an interview with the artist.
To find out more about this exhibit, location, time, dates and directions visit ICA site at:
http://www.icaboston.org/exhibitions/upcoming-exhibitions/swoon/
Brent Houzenga
Brent Houzenga. “Face Yourself” (photo © courtesy of Pawn Works)Five years ago, artist Brent Houzenga’s life was altered dramatically when he stumbled across a pair of antique photo albums from the 1890’s in the discarded trash of others. Since that discovery Houzenga has amassed an extensive body of work, attempting to bring these lost souls back to life through abstract painting and stencil work using vibrant colors and his own unique action painting techniques. Often displaying his subjects on re-purposed window frames suggests the antiquity of the subjects in his paintings as well as the rural and rustic background of this self-described ‘Prairie Pirate’. Working on the reverse side of the glass, painting backwards and tirelessly scraping away existing layers of paint to create new marks, Houzenga pays homage to those he renders. Many subjects remain unscathed peaking out of chaotic abstraction while others are altered entirely.
With his new show “Remixed Remains” Houzenga experiments with scrawling over the rendered photos leaving insignia and other messages for the viewer to ponder, all part of an installation transforming the space into a post punk Victorian funhouse. Remixed Remains will serve as a celebration of the painting and exhibiting over the last five years. For the artist, what once was classic is now revamped like a stolen bass line or punk cover with a little more class; splattered all over.
Brent Houzenga ‘Remixed Remains’
Opening Reception will be on Saturday September 3, 2011 from 7-10pm
Show runs until October 2.
Pawn Works | 1050 N. Damen Ave. Chicago, IL 60622
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