A little excitement for the Street Art world this summer – the news that the international man of mystery Banksy opens a new show in Glasgow documenting his first 25 years of stenciling.
“I’ve kept these stencils hidden away for years,” he says in a press statement, “mindful they could be used as evidence in a charge of criminal damage. But that moment seems to have passed, so now I’m exhibiting them as works of art in a gallery. I’m not sure which is the greater crime.”
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening: 1. BANKSY – A Quick Look Back – Exit Through the Gift Shop (August 2011)
2. Revenge of Nature – Orakle And Atmo
3. 5 Minutes With: IKARUS in Berlin. Via I Love Graffiti
4. De La Soul – A Roller Skating Jam Named Saturday
BSA Special Feature: BANKSY – A Quick Look Back – Exit Through the Gift Shop
Because retrospectively assessing hype can be illuminating, and you can see how it has aged, and because we are always attracted to this contorted phone booth sculpture that undeniably emanates the style of Banksy, here’s a snippet from “Exit Through the Gift Shop.” A Dozen years on, what are your impressions?
REVENGE OF NATURE – Orakle And Atmo. Via Spray Daily.
Damn, that is serious rappelling! This is anonymously rappelling a dam for serious impact.
Styled as a nihilist dark pair of dual painting eco-activists, these Berlin-based Pixacao performance artists Orakle and Atmo want you to think about the “Revenge of Nature” that is currently underway. Selling the earth to the highest bidding abuser drives us down, and O&A are casting the case in dramatic thriller-movie terms to blow up their message.
5 MINUTES WITH: IKARUS in BERLIN. Via I Love Graffiti
BYY Laura subtly shadows pixacao-writing, train-surfing Icarus as he hops over third rails and climbs out onto the street from an underground tunnel with master-of-fact aplomb. Great shots and integration. For the record, train surfing kills people. Don’t do it. Beware Icarus; you will very likely regret the fall.
“Never regret thy fall, O Icarus of the fearless flight, For the greatest tragedy of them all, Is never to feel the burning light.”
Attributed to Oscar Wilde, Irish poet and playwright, 1854-1900
De La Soul – A Roller Skating Jam Named Saturday
Celebrating Trugoy and De La Soul today and Every Day. Wanna go skating this weekend?
Banksy “Valentine’s Day Mascara.” (image courtesy of Banksy’s Instagram)
Such dark witticisms accompany the new installation in Margate attributed to Bristolian Banksy, on the Instagram feed from the mysterious street artist. The Valentine’s Day installation features a caricature of a 1950s western housewife with a bruised eye gazing cheerily at her audience while her husband’s feet protrude from an old refrigerator. A frying pan and a broken chair lie nearby. In this seaside town on the north coast of Kent in south-east England, the news traveled fast yesterday, and many came to look at the new installation before the freezer/fridge was removed by the local council (people think it will be returned).
For all the joking, there were more poignant comments on the artists’ feed that went to the heart of the matter.
Banksy “Valentine’s Day Mascara.” (image courtesy of Banksy’s Instagram)
“I lived that, so, thank you.”
“This is a voice for women who are abused.”
“My father used to beat my mother regularly. Countless black eyes, bruised ribs, concussions. Not to mention the mental pain. Coping with that as a child leaves traces in the past, the present, and the future. Nobody speaks publicly about violence in the family. Well done, Bansky, I bow.”
The artist is known for creating politically charged and socially relevant pieces, using the Banksy platform to draw attention to various causes.
“Thank you for always fighting for the stories that matter!” one commenter sums up a common sentiment.
Banksy “Valentine’s Day Mascara.” (image courtesy of Banksy’s Instagram)
Banksy’s take on domestic violence against women is universal. Millions of women worldwide are physically, verbally, and emotionally attacked in their own homes by their domestic partners. By highlighting this problem on a day to remember love among us, the artist calls on the hypocrisy of men with their conduct toward women.
The World Health Organization says that “globally, about 1 in 3 (30%) of women worldwide have been subjected to either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime.”
If you or someone you know is a victim, or in danger, please look at this:
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening: 1. The Artist Who Paints Folks on the Street, Faces of Santa Ana 2. Meet the Artists Changing the face of New Brighton 3. Banksy – Rage, Flower Thrower NFT…but for free (2022)
BSA Special Feature: Painting People Experiencing Homelessness
You can use your talents to build walls or build bridges. It’s up to you. Brian Peterson shows through his actions that art is a force for good, for healing, and even to pay someone’s bills in the process.
The Artists Who Paints Folks on the Street
Faces of Santa Ana
Meet the Artists Changing the face of New Brighton
Doug from Fifth Wall returns to New Brighton a few years after his first video here to find how the interaction between art and public space has begun to transform the town’s image of itself. Interesting to hear the primary proponent of the public art program here to say that success is contingent on a public/private partnership here in a seaside resort in Wallasey, Merseyside, England.
“Maybe this is exactly the model that we should be looking towards,” says Doug of the highly individualized approach the businesses and residence are taking toward building a community and an economy. Set your clocks; he’s looking like he might be moving in shortly. Maybe he’ll begin Nuart New Brighton and ask Juxtapoz to run some programming for a few days?
Banksy – Rage, Flower Thrower NFT…but for free (2022)
Banksy – Rage, Flower Thrower NFT… but for free (2022) – or so goes this murky offer of an NFT posted right now on Open Sea for the next three days. More confusingly, the press release for it is over a year old. – whereupon it infers that the original image is shot by Andrew Bayles but has copyright attempted by the International Street Art Man of Mystery himself.
Regardless of the veracity of any of this storytelling – and we have not way of verifying it – the animation is attractive and well done. Good luck to all the parties!
“This is not an official Banksy NFT… read below for more information. Press Release: October 14, 2021 “Attack Attack Attack” is a non-fungible token for sale on OpenSea, the world’s first and largest digital marketplace for crypto collectibles and NFTs. This digital creation is an artwork co-signed by Unikz, a digital artist from Bristol and Andrew Bayles, a photographer from Leeds (UK). The two artists created a digital artwork that reveals a little more about the identity of the street artist Banksy. This NFT is unique because it allows you to discover part of Banksy’s creative process. Indeed, the work, which is a digital video loop of 50 seconds, begins on the world-famous image of Banksy’s “Rage, the Flower Thrower” and then a picture representing a man throwing a molotov cocktail appears in overprinting. This photo, taken in Leeds (UK) in 1987, is obviously the base image that was used to make the famous Banksy stencil in 2005. Banksy has recently tried unsuccessfully to register this artwork as his personal trademark. The photo, shot by Andrew Bayles, was published in 1987 in an anarchist newspaper, called Attack Attack Attack, produced and distributed anonymously due to the radical information it contained. According to the artwork authors, only a member of the punk / anarchist movement in the late 1980s in England could have seen and used this image to create the famous stencil. This relaunches the discussions about the past of Banksy. According to the artist’s official biography, he was only 12 years old in 1987. It’s hard to imagine him as a punk, at that age, reading anarchist newspapers. Coïncidence? in 1988, few months after the publication of the photo in “Attack, Attack, Attack” newspaper, Robert del Naja (born in 1965) created the trip hop band, Massive Attack. The non-fungible token, certified by Verisart is available for sale on OpenSea, including an original photo print signed by the artists.”
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening: 1. BANKSY in Borodyanka, Ukraine 2. The Wanderers – Dabs & Myla. A Film by Selina Miles 3. The Wanderers – Elliott Routledge. A Film by Selina Miles
BSA Special Feature: BANKSY in Borodyanka, Ukraine
Banky installations by this point can feel quite staged, right down to the manner of their unveiling. Here in the Ukraine where his recent works have been presented, the unstaged and personal qualities of this short video brings a devastating rawness to the art/activism event. Without pontificating, the near-tears Ukranian, the self-grooming cat, the quietness of people snapping photos – all tell us so much about this moment.
BANKSY in Borodyanka, Ukraine
The Wanderers – DabsMyla. A film by Selina Miles
The Australian-originated Los Angeles-based duo, DabsMyla, returns down under to paint a mural in the heart of Surry Hills, Sydney. In this episode of Selina Miles’ The Wanderers, we see the duo paint a 20-meter-tall mural as an homage to one of their earliest artistic inspirations, Brett Whiteley.”
Elliott Routledge, The Wanderers
“Abstract Artist, Elliott Routledge, journeys to a remote Aboriginal community in the Tiwi Islands. We follow Elliott as he paints a series of artworks, and learns about the artistic history, cultural practices, and techniques of local indigenous artists.” The Wanderers
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening: 1. Banksy – A t-shirt sold to help the Colston 4 in Bristol. 2. Don Rimx en Dorado Puerto Rico via Tost Films 3. Murals For The Movement DUMBO 4. Open Arms x Montana Colors
BSA Special Feature: Banksy – A t-shirt sold to help the Colston 4 in Bristol.
“Who the hell was Edward Colston?”
“Edward Colston was a slave trader from Bristol who supervised the kidnap of over 80,000 people. Up to 20,000 of them died in transit and were thrown overboard. This isn’t about erasing history — it’s about confronting it.”
Banksy – A t-shirt sold to help the Colston 4 in Bristol.
Don Rimx en Dorado Puerto Rico via Tost Films
Beautiful brother and street artist/muralist Don Rimx shares his newest mural celebrating Homenaje a Jose “Chico” Lind, a Puerto Rican former Major League Baseball second baseman, and former manager of the Atlantic League’s Bridgeport Bluefish. The new piece is regaled with celebration and song in Dorado, Puerto Rico.
Murals For The Movement DUMBO via Tost Films
Curated by Liza Quiñonez of Street Theory Gallery, artists Cey Adams, Sophia Dawson, and Victor “Marka27” Quiñonez, celebrate African American and Latinx heritages in a city and a social climate that is always on the move. Nationally and internationally renowned Brooklyn artists with histories and talents for miles, the three painted new works in DUMBO that combine elements of fine art, hip hop, and pop culture – with a background of deeply needed conversations about racial and social justice in this city, and this country.
Open Arms x Montana Colors
“Open Arms protects the lives of the most vulnerable people in international waters,” says Laura Lannuza, communications director for the group, “where adminstrations are allowing people to die.” The paint company Montana has created a program raising awareness about the activities of this group and the greater problem of refugees chased from their homes due to economic, geographic reasons as well as those in the international war industry that profits from human suffering.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening: 1. Banksy: Great British Spraycation 2. NYC! Sound (Back) On 3. Sofles in Brisbane featuring Gamo & Kitsa
BSA Special Feature: Banksy : Great British Spraycation
The summer days begin to wane and you’ve played all the games with your siblings and cousins three times or more. Before heading back to school, time to rummage around Uncle Bob’s garage and find a can of spray paint he used to fix a kitchen chair for Aunt Keisha. You wonder to yourself, “What could we do with this?”
BANKSY: Great British-Spraycation
NYC! Sound (Back) On
Been waiting for Covid to give us a break so New York could get back to our version of normal. This summer it’s still been hard but New York is definitely back in all its many ways. Makes us wanna dance!
Sofles in Brisbane with Feat. Gamo&Kitsa
You been getting up lately? Just released here’s a Brisbane, Australia wall jam with Sofles in collaboration with honored guests Gamo and Kitsa from Marseille, France.
Hooray Hooray, first of May!” chanted your cousin Felix, “outdoor fucking starts today!”
You both broke out in peals of laughter while your mom was walking out from the kitchen with a basket of garlic bread for your Saturday night spaghetti dinner. “What did you just say??”
It’s hard to believe it’s May already, and the smell of lilacs and aerosol paint and pot smoke is in the air in New York again. Ahhhhhhh. Duck between the skateboards and the hellions delivering Chinese on electric bikes, and you’ll see the chess players are setting up again in the park.
For the 12th week in a row, the President of the United States hasn’t tweeted something glorifying violence or attacking faith in public institutions, and people are beginning to mention the “H” word in reference to the rate of Covid-19 vaccinations in New York.
Keep squeezing your silver and keep your eyes open and don’t get hit by any NFTs. They seem to be dropping everywhere
So here’s our weekly interview with the street, this time featuring: 2 Much, Andrea Carlson, Banksy, Bastard Bot, Bueno, Free Britney, Homsick, Marcos De La Fuente, Myles, Posterboy, Resop, Same PPP, Tom Bob, Vanessa Alvarez, WGE, and ZigZag.
Two things you can count on with graffiti/street art; 1. Beef 2. Banksy will quite likely wiggle his way into the situation
Despite the death of graffiti writer King Robbo in 2014, his devoted team continues to pine for the days when the writer and the clever stencilist were busy egging each other on with aerosol. When you hear the words “Team Robbo” you may hearken back to Ye Olde 2009 when a feud began with Banksy going over a piece by the King in 2009.
Now the prison that once housed the brilliant bard and flamboyant fop Oscar Wilde is not-so-mysteriously adorned by a certain lad traveling all the way here in Berkshire from Bristol. Banksy imagines getting away from a confined life with this new piece called “Create Escape.” In an entertaining video below we find Banksy overlaying his nighttime spray capers with the gentle tones and textures of painting icon Bob Ross. You may smile when he talks about painting setting you free.
Suddenly the street art/graffiti network is buzzing with the news that the typewriter has been passionately buffed! And just look who is taking credit…
What the hell just happened? Has it been a year? Or has it been 10 years? Or just one long nightmare/daymare? Or has it been 10 years? Did we already ask that?
In March 2020 we awoke to a world that was transforming before all of our eyes, yet we felt so cut-off from it and each other. The first days seem so long ago as we mark the first anniversary of the pandemic. Still, the initial shock of those days resonates in our chests so strongly that we confidently talk about a collective global trauma that has indelibly marked a generation.
From Stockholm to Mexico City to Barcelona to Bethlehem to New York to LA, BSA brought you street art that was responding with fear, derision, critique, hope, and humor to the never-static, always evolving barrage of Covid news. Stuck inside and afraid to expose ourselves to each other, we New Yorkers became accustomed to experiencing the outdoors only through our windows, connecting with neighbors we’ve never met who were also banging pots and pans or clapping and waving and yelling.
We listened to ambulances screaming past our windows every half hour or so during those first weeks, imagining the torn families, the terrified fellow New Yorkers now being rushed to the hospital and separated from their loved ones without a goodbye, gasping for air. We wondered if we would be next.
When we did go to the streets, they were empty – or nearly. In New York this was unheard of. In this bustling, noisy metropolis, we experienced a daily disconcerting quiet. That is, until the killing of George Floyd by cops finally pushed the anger/anxiety into the streets all summer.
The deadly hotspot of New York quelled, but the fires of Covid spread west, grabbing communities who thought they would avoid impact. At the same time, local, state, and national leaders fumbled and argued or famously callously ignored the desperation of citizens, occasionally admirably filling the shoes they were elected to occupy, often misstepping through no fault of their own.
We have no particular wisdom to offer you today beyond the obvious; this pandemic laid bare inequity, social and racial and class fault-lines, the shredded social net, the effect of institutional negligence, the ravages of 40 years of corporate privatization, and the power of community rising to the occasion to be in service to one another in ways that made us all more than proud.
Here are some of our favorite Covid-themed street art pieces from over the last year, a mere sampling of the artistic responses. Interspersed we paste screenshots of the daily events (via Wikipedia) in 2020 that shaped our lives, and our society.
We mourn the losses of family and friends and the broken hearts and minds in all of our communities. And we still believe in the power of art to heal and the power of love to balance our asymmetries.
As NYC went on complete lock-down and New Yorkers were ordered to remain in their homes in complete isolation the city’s residents organically joined together in a collective 7:00 pm ritual in support to the first responders. To the nurses, doctors, paramedics, trash collectors, public transportation, police, fire fighters, supermarkets workers etc…with their services and sacrifices we, the residents of this megalopolis were able to keep out hopes for brighter days to come.
Video of four former presidents urging people to “roll up your sleeve and do your part” and get the vaccine.
The Bristol based street artist Banksy is again walking the fine line between activism and self-promotion, uncomfortable bedfellows at best.
Sponsoring a ship “M.V. Louise Michel” to rescue refugees can probably be accomplished without branding the ship with your artwork, and he’s received criticism for what could appear to some as patting himself on the back for his generosity. Conversely one could argue that placing his name and art on the ship raises the profile and plight of those who otherwise get ignored, even creating a protective immunity of sorts around them.
Banksy. “M.V. Louise Michel” (photo courtesy of M.V. Louise Michel)
His new campaign, or stunt, went perilously bad this weekend when the vessel was overloaded and its ability to navigate freely was hindered, according to news reports. What’s more the team sounding increasingly more panicked in successive Tweets appealing for official recognition and rescue.
We tend to overlook human failings when they are backed by goodwill, and this team will get it right, no doubt. At least you can say that this is an artist who walks his talk, which is refreshing as an ocean breeze.
To learn more about the rescue boat and their mission from their website:
In her latest mural, Faring Purth delivers a powerful reflection on connection, continuity, and the complexity of evolving relationships—a true …Read More »
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
