BSA Film Friday: 06.16.17

June 16, 2017 Artists

Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.

Now screening :
1. PASSAGE / From Wall to Wall
2. Occupied in Bethlehem – from Fifth Wall TV
3. BYG //12 + 1 // Contorno Urbano // Barcelona
4. 2KM3 Saint-Gervais Mont-Blanc Contemporary Art Platform

BSA Special Feature: PASSAGE / From Wall to Wall By Theodore Berg Boy and Aymeric Colletta

Louis Bourgeois, Keith Haring, Roy Lichtenstein, Ernest Pignon Ernest; Iconic artists of late 20^th century shot in black and white portraits and clothes-pinned to a wire in an austere white box salon. Aside from their colorful personalities and histories, these images are not rewarding enough for the pursed-lipped gallery owner, she of great taste and refined posture.

So we are relieved to see the action of the cans on the street through the display windows of the gallery and the countenance of the gallerist. Later we are enchanted when the entire gallery becomes a colorful projection through which the scene sneaks in the pinhole in the grating – a camera obscura of “street” into the gallery.

“Passage” is quite literal, yet poetic, in the telling of this movement of Street Art and graffiti into the gallery setting, with the formal space painted as beneficiary of the life-giving, oxygenated aerosol blood from a sub-culture that isn’t.

To be fair, this is a muralist we witness, not a Street Artist per se, and there is nothing particularly transgressive in the work on the street but we understand the broader message. The video is a production for something called Urban Art Fair and the paint company manages to plant its logo many times into the story, so you know this is a budgeted production. Premiered this year at the occasion of the Paris edition of the fair, this one will be presented in New York at the first edition of the fair here over July 4^th weekend.

It is interesting to see the parallels that are drawn in “Passages” – and with admirable dexterity and seamless segue by co-directors Théodore Berg Boy and Aymeric Colletta.

“ ‘Passage’ is a fiction film,” says Berg Boy, “which relates the meeting of two persons: a young artist and a gallery owner. Those two people bonding could be a metaphor of what occurs when a street artist – with his codes and his culture – finds himself thrown in a more institutional way of life: the life of the art market and museums.”

Occupied in Bethlehem – from Fifth Wall TV

“It’s almost become a playground for people to come to,” says your host Doug Gille as he looks at the section of the Separation Wall that the Banksy “Walled Off” Hotel is installed upon. “I think it is so crucial for people not to just come to see the wall or to paint on the wall,” he says.

“50 years under military control makes it the longest occupation in history,” is a quote that Gillen brandishes across the screen from the United Nations. The fact that Banksy is using his art star power to keep this on the front burner says a lot about the man.

“I think a lot of these people feel like we are forgetting about them and we have to remind them that we’re not,” says Gillen as he soul searches next to the Dead Sea.

BYG //12 + 1 // Contorno Urbano // Barcelona

You may have seen our piece on this wall a few weeks back called “GO GO GO” BYG in Spain for 12+1 Project. Here are a few scenes illustrating how they made it.

Elian at 2KM3 Saint-Gervais Mont-Blanc Contemporary Art Platform

At the beginning of June this parking garage in Saint-Gervais Mont-Blanc inaugurated this “alternative museum” in the heart of the city that is free and open. All eleven floors (200 square meters each) and the façade were painted in May by international artists as part of the Lasco Project of the Palais de Tokyo. Here is Argentinian muralist Elian Chali’s floor as he imagined it. Also included were Etienne de Fleurieu of France, Felipe Pantone of Argentina, Jaw of France, Roids of Great Britain, SatOne Sobekcis of Serbia, Sten of Italy, Swiz of France, Zoer & Velvet of France and Spain.