A hybrid of your childhood coloring books that you poured your creative energy into and the superhero comic books that helped you escape from home, street artist/fine artist Anthony Lister’s new one-off drawings that keep you forever 13.
Anthony Lister. Thor. (photo courtesy of the artist)
Marketing himself directly to fans through his website, the brashly bright brutalist with a certain foppish elegance offers blistering tributes to all of your childhood protectors like Thor, Aquaman, The Avengers, and Captain America. It’s a dizzying punk collection made with oil stick on 225gsm Museum quality paper – screamed out with the style of an early colorist and the rage of a misunderstood truant teen.
It’s a blast from the past.
Anthony Lister. Captain America. (photo courtesy of the artist)Anthony Lister. The Flash. (photo courtesy of the artist)Anthony Lister. Green Lantern. (photo courtesy of the artist)Anthony Lister. Aquaman. (photo courtesy of the artist)Anthony Lister. X-Force. (photo courtesy of the artist)Anthony Lister. The Avengers. (photo courtesy of the artist)Anthony Lister. Silver Surfer. (photo courtesy of the artist)
It’s definitely quieter here in Wynwood when there are no art fairs. But there is still so much activity. The daytime neighborhood is pounding with construction and new buildings and restaurants/bars have a steady flow of guests every night, Monday through Sunday. Thump, thump, thump. The daily foot traffic is diminished, perhaps because the sun and heat have chased everyone inside during the day, but this week we saw hundreds of people whizzing by on scooters, and some large interest with a fleet of workers was preparing for a large music event in an empty lot – with tents, food trucks, stages, lights. Now that Art Basel 2021 is officially kicking off at the end of November, no doubt there will be big things happening in Wynwood again.
So of course we went to the beach to see the never-ending blue waves. The storm on the horizon was dark and funnel-like for an hour before it disappeared and the sun coaxed a half rainbow to glimmer and shimmer brightly. The seagulls gathering near your chaise lounge are clearly there with an air of expectation, however – miserly looking over your ziplock bags with sandwiches and potato chips as you carefully peel back the paper towel to steal a bite. They are cute, true, but ever focused on your moves.
Otherwise, the Wynwood district is just chock-a-block with art – permissioned and otherwise. The faces that watch as you walk are entreating, entertaining, flaunting, peering, taunting, speaking their own impenetrable speeches and poems. The neighborhood is still in movement, still liquid, still poised for revelation. The local names are liberally sprinkled with ones you recognized, many international. If the impulse to walk one more block in search of a jewel captures you, follow it because you are invariably rewarded.
Our interview with the street today includes Anthony Lister, Bird Seed Anthony, Dan Kitchener, Disem305, Greg Mike, Gregg Rivero, Hiero Veiga, Melski, MSG Crew, Narco, NM Salgar, RACE, Sipros, and Tabue.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. Freight Train Graffiti Melbourne. Can’t Do Tomorrow Festival 2. Anthony Lister – Head Hunter 2020
BSA Special Feature: Freight Train Graffiti Melbourne from the “Can’t Do Tomorrow” Festival 2020
Graffiti Writers and a major collaboration with Southern Shorthaul Railroad (SSR)
There is not unanimity of opinion about painting trains these days – in fact perspectives cannot be further apart when you consider the hot invective spilled on graff writers in some cities – and the invitation and embrace of them in others.
The video above from New York in January presents a conundrum of many sorts – a full train covered by graffiti is enraging to some, an indication of lawless disrespect for society. Only a month later Melbourne government blessed the Can’t Do Tomorrow Festival which invited graffiti writers to do something very similar to an entire train. Cognitive dissonance much?
Face it, for artists and fans the two videos below are a bit of freight porn – products of the urban art festival where a group of old school and prolific graff writers transformed a 22-carriage Southern Shorthaul Railroad (SSR) freight train into the largest outdoor gallery in Australia.
From the producers of the festival “Can’t Do Tomorrow was a massive
celebration of urban art and contemporary culture in one of the most iconic
underground spaces in Australia: The Facility. Across 10 days, over 16,000
PEOPLE immersed themselves in a new way of consuming, or being consumed by,
art.” Eloquent and on-point.
We also appreciate the description of the aspirational outlook of the organization,
“We don’t pretend to be custodians of the contemporary urban art scene. We’re a
micro-movement inside a macro-movement. We are serious about creating a
community that will garner the contemporary urban movement the recognition it
deserves.”
Freight Train Graffiti Melbourne. Can’t Do Tomorrow Festival
Anthony Lister is Head Hunting in 2020
Automated speech synthesis transcription is a current fashion and Anthony Lister cleverly frightens you while hiding behind this audio accompaniment to the video – a disjointed emotionally vacant spirit that parses at a metronomic tempo before melting into the hounds of Satan. How better to introduce the fascinating masks he has been creating for years.
“But in so
far as we are social beings who live in a community of similar individuals with
whom we are in continuous and direct competition, often unconsciously,
primitive beings also feel the urgent need to be different, to impress, to
bewilder and to instill fear, so that they may make themselves revered and
respected.” Happy head hunting!
But oh the travails of a wandering art prankster. Prior to his trip to Japan, Mr. Lister was wondering if he would learn some rude words in Japanese while in Tokyo…we are certain that his stint in jail gave him opportunity to expand his Japanese vocabulary into something a bit more colorful.
The swashbuckling Lister shares with BSA readers some of his artistic interventions on the streets of Tokyo…quite possibly the cause of his 12 day hoosegow “residency”.
The pronounced disparities and hypocrisies of society are now on display and on parade in our politics, on our multiple screens, in our bank accounts, our hospitals, our music, our schools, our neighborhoods, and in our Street Art — which again proves an apt and reliable reflection of society, despite the fog.
While our politicians and political machines and corporate media and cultural institutions are now being questioned more openly and often for their alliances, their entrenched classism, and exploitation of the rank-and-file, you can see those dynamics reflected in the messages and alliances that are occurring in Street Art as well – and questioned more often as well.
Will a torrent of populism be unleashed? Will our institutions fall or further erode? Who knows. As ever, one must be vigilant to spot the colorful wolf in populist clothes, often right in front of you in black and white.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street featuring Adam Fu, Albertus Joseph, Anthony Lister, Captain Eyeliner, COSBE, CRKSHNK, JR, Poet Was Taken, Praxis, Sara Lynne Leo, Vivid Trash, Will Power, Wing, and WK Interact.
You ever feel as if you are levitating above the sidewalk
when walking through the city? It happens. Maybe you just got Tui-Na in
Chinatown and your spinal column is especially stretched and tall. Maybe your
girlfriend just told you that you are definitely The One and your head is in
the clouds. Maybe you are high on opioids.
Hard to say exactly how we felt when walking in Wynwood, Miami last month when we saw this figure from Anthony Lister on the sidewalk across the street from the new Museum of Graffiti.
We’d seen the big Lister tag that accompanied this on the wall above it, smashed alongside the work of so many other artists up and down the block that have occurred since Director Alan Ket and his amazing team opened the museum during Art Basel Week a month ago.
Maybe because it differentiates itself from the myriad murals around the neighborhood, maybe because his newly abstracted superheroic figure appears to float slightly above the surface, it caught our eye and made an impression – creating a sensation of levitation without heavy optics or heavy hand.
It’s good to know that art on the street can still do that. No surprise it was Lister who pulled it off.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this time featuring Abe Lincoln Jr., Adam Fujita, Alexcia Panay, Anthony Lister, Below Key, BK Foxx, Bobby Hundreds, Downer Jones, Dragon Art, Hops Art, Maia Lorian, Mastro NYC, Muebon, Pricey Alex, Shiro, Sinclair the Vandal, VKrone, and Want.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this time featuring Ali Six, Anthony Lister, Chris Stain, Cogitaro, Gixy Gal, Hans Haacke, I Heart Graffiti, Jimmy C, JR, Laszlo, Lizzo, Pay to Pray, Rano, and X Vandals.
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week, where we are dedicated to showing the news kids on the block in addition to the more established names. It’s a simple inclusive philosophy that in some way is ensuring a more level playing field for the voices on the street, and so far you tell us that is exactly what you like. Street Art isn’t about legal murals, its about people taking their voice and their talent to the streets, sometimes by any means possible.
If you were to look at the works on the street in New York you could get a good representation of the sentiment of its people; worried, confused, proud, playful, defiant, angry, comedic. Shout out to this years’ Art in Odd Places, a reliably eclectic program of artists and performers who take to the streets to engage with the public – and if you think that is easy, I’ve got a Bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this time featuring Angela Muriel, Anthony Lister, Appleton Pictures, Billy X Curmano, Carmen Rodriquez, Coco Cobre, Connie Perry, El Sol 25, Knozko, Lik, Lister, Lunge Box, Matthew Burcow, Paul Richard, Sheryo and The Yok, Stikman, Texas & Gane.
Now that corporate and global debt has surged to an all-time high, posing unprecedented risk to the value of all money, it’s a sweet and sour nostalgia that drives you into your purse or wallet to pluck out a thin colorful slice of that rumpled paper fiat currency to buy yourself a beer at your local pub.
Bitcoin may be coming, and plastic is fantastic but in some parts of the world, cash is still king. And it rules everything around you.
Icy & Sot. Last Supper Five Dollar Bill (photo courtesy of the curators)
Right now you can see a collection of these banknotes from around the world developed as a series of canvasses at London’s Saatchi Gallery – mutated and defaced and adorned by graffiti and Street Artists, along with a series by Iranian born Aida Wilde, who uses banknotes from Eritrea, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, and Syria.
Penny. Picasso Ten Pound Note (photo courtesy of the curators)
Cash is King II, a sequel to last years Cash is King – the brainchild book and exhibition of artists Robert Osborne and Carrie Reichardt, the show opened this week to an appreciative crowd who appeared to really enjoy seeing bills reimagined.
Jef Aerosol. Arts Can’t Buy Me Love (photo courtesy of the curators)
Curators Susan Hansen and Olly Walker share these images here with us and tell us they’re also happy that Ms. Wilde’s sales are going to benefit the Help Refugees organization so they are able to continue their work around the world. Not surprisingly perhaps, “Many of these banknotes represent some of the countries that have seen the highest numbers of people become refugees in recent years,” says Hansen.
Olly Walker. Process shot. (photo courtesy of the curators)Aida Wilde. And We Walk Eritrean. Process shot. (photo courtesy of the curators)Al Diaz. Samo Dollar (photo courtesy of the curators)1 UP Crew. Tag Dollar (photo courtesy of the curators)Anthony Lister. Zero To One Hundred Real Quick Dollar (photo courtesy of the curators)Bortusk Leer. Art Is Not Serious (photo courtesy of the curators)Caroline Caldwell. Oil Money Dollar (photo courtesy of the curators)John Fekner. Greed Dollar (photo courtesy of the curators)Cash Is King 2: Money Talks. Opening night. (photo courtesy of the curators)
Aida Wilde’s work will available for sale on the Saatchi website from 2pm on Tuesday the 20th of August. All proceeds will go to support Help Refugees’ work around the world.
Cash is King II: Money Talks features works of art executed on banknotes, an exhibition curated by Olly Walker of Ollystudio.
Cash Is King 2: Money Talks is currently on view at the Saatchi Gallery in London installed in the Prints and Originals space until September 8th. Otherwise, click HERE to view and purchase available works of art.
This week BSA is in Madrid to capture some highlights on the street, in studio, and at Urvanity 2019, where we are hosting a 3 day “BSA TALKS” conference called “How Deep Is the Street?” Come with us every day to see what the Spanish capital has happening in urban and contemporary.
“Urvanity seeks to explore and thus imagine possible future scenarios for this New Contemporary Art,” they say boldly in the manifesto for this art fair/cultural platform in Madrid. A thrilling nexus is created here in this college campus of architecture where art from the streets is evolving in such ways that it is invited to come in from the street.
Whatever your perspective is on this evolution, we encourage the conversation – which usually contains elements of tribalism (various), resistance, acceptance, even euphoria. During breaks from hosting the BSA Talks this weekend we are also skipping and swerving through the crowds to look at the art that galleries have on offer.
Here we offer a very quick sample of some items that have caught our eye, looked fresh, or were indicative of larger movements in the so-called “scene”. And we use the word “scene” very loosely, because there is really not such thing as a homogeneous scene, only a constellation of them which are intersecting, coalescing, and redefining themselves. Some pieces are remarkable.
Here is the past, existing side by side with the future.
Here it is! Photographer Jaime Rojo of BSA selects a handful of his favorite images from his travels through 9 countries and around New York this year to present our 2018 BSA Images of the Year.
Seeing the vast expressions of aesthetics and anti-aesthetic behavior has been a unique experience for us. We’re thankful to all of the artists and co-conspirators for their boundless ideas and energy, perspectives and personas.
Once you accept that much of the world is in a semi-permanent chaos you can embrace it, find order in the disorder, love inside the anger, a rhythm to every street.
And yes, beauty. Hope you enjoy BSA Images of the Year 2018.
Here’s a list of the artists featured in the video. Help us out if we missed someone, or if we misspelled someones nom de plume.
1Up Crew, Abe Lincoln Jr., Adam Fujita, Adele Renault, Adrian Wilson, Alex Sena, Arkane, Banksy, Ben Eine, BKFoxx, Bond Truluv, Bordalo II, Bravin Lee, C215, Cane Morto, Charles Williams, Cranio, Crash, Dee Dee, D*Face, Disordered, Egle Zvirblyte, Ernest Zacharevic, Erre, Faith LXVII, Faust, Geronimo, Gloss Black, Guillermo S. Quintana, Ichibantei, InDecline, Indie 184, Invader, Isaac Cordal, Jayson Naylor JR, Kaos, KNS, Lena McCarthy, Caleb Neelon, LET, Anthony Lister, Naomi Rag, Okuda, Os Gemeos, Owen Dippie, Pejac, Pixel Pancho, Pork, Raf Urban, Resistance is Female, Sainer, Senor Schnu, Skewville, Slinkachu, Solus, Squid Licker, Stinkfish, Strayones, Subway Doodle, The Rus Crew, Tristan Eaton, Vegan Flava, Vhils, Viktor Freso, Vinie, Waone, Winston Tseng, Zola
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BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
