The 4-story building, 14 meters high, 53 meters long, 11 meters wide, is home to 128 rooms – thus the name. A derelict structure reserved for fulsome installations all individually painted by an international roster of artists invited in residency to paint by the co-founders Gilles and Sylvie.
Paid tours are
available, artists are invited, and some programming happens on the grounds
just to keep the conditions of the property cared for. Unlike many “artist
takeover” buildings, none of these are slotted for destruction any time soon,
so the artists are going to continue to explore their ideas for the foreseeable
future and you are welcome to check-in anytime.
Here are some detail
shots from a selection of rooms from BSA contributor Lluis Olive Bulbena.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. JonOne “Illuminier le Future” in Rabat with Montresso Art Foundation
2. ASU / Contorno Urbano / 12 + 1 Projects
3. COLOUR: Rolland Berry. Film by Aether Films
4. GDS from São Paulo crew Os Cururus in Montreal
5. Leonard Cohen, “You Want It Darker”
BSA Special Feature: JonOne “Illuminier le Future” in Rabat with Montresso Art Foundation
“I wanted people to feel what I feel: The joy of life,” says JonOne in this self narrated video that keeps the focus on the creative spirit and his new show “Illuminating the Future” in Rabat, Morocco’s capital, which rests along the shores of the Bouregreg River and the Atlantic Ocean. The kinetic action of his strokes and splashes are gestural bolts of energy at the top of this tower to be seen on all sides, an abstract beacon from this New York graffiti writer who metamorphosed into a Parisian fine artist.
ASU / Contorno Urbano / 12 + 1 Projects
“Leave the rationality of your brain and listen to your heart, what you feel, what vibrates,” recommends ASU the muralist painting the Contorno Urbano wall in Barcelona – as we wrote in September. Now comes the newly release video to give more context to his techniques as a calligraffitist.
COLOUR: Rolland Berry. Film by Aether Films
“America is dying because they forgot the instruction of how to live on Earth,” says the wise voice weaving across this minimalist tableau in monochrome and quietly thundering beats. Succinct, brief, hard hitting, well paced and scored – ultimately a missive of power and stark symbology from Aether Films.
GDS from São Paulo crew Os Cururus in Montreal
A uniquely spare documentation of the meditated, deliberate, and dangerous application of straight down pixação, São Paulo style, on the side of this Montreal building. How it is received in this northern part of the the Northern Hemisphere is not told, but as the drone camera rises to catch the cityscape, a mural by Kevin Ledo of Leonard Cohen in his old neighborhood of Saint-Laurent takes the stage and you may wonder how that man of letters would see these new symbols, now two years after his passing.
“There’s a lover in the story
But the story’s still the same
There’s a lullaby for suffering
And a paradox to blame
But it’s written in the scriptures
And it’s not some idle claim
You want it darker
We kill the flame”
“Leave the rationality of your brain and listen to your heart, what you feel, what vibrates,” recommends ASU, the muralist painting the Contorno Urbano wall in Barcelona this month.
Since he was a kid the Franco-Spanish philosopher-artist says he has been inspired by sacred art and in particular the great pyramids of Egypt. As an artist he also looks at his work for a sense of balance, and you can see that here as he fills the forms with an evenly weighted layering of gold and silver calligraphy; yin and yang.
He says that he enjoys the public interaction when painting and he had plenty of it during the four grueling days he dedicated earlier in the month here.
“I like to paint on the street. People talk to you, try to understand, bring you some snacks, something to drink. It’s very nice to receive this kind of generosity, kindness,” he says in his posting on Facebook.
Now we are intermingling the spiritual and mystical with snacks. We propose that to get your mind in the right place while looking at this new calligraffitied sprinkled circle, you may wish to think of donuts.
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
