All posts tagged: BD White

BD White Flies Into Space With Astronauts for “Love, Loss and Longing”

August 17, 2017 Artists, Interview

Street Artist BD White has always been intrigued by the life of astronauts – so much so that he has them tattooed on his arms. Their desire for adventure, the solitude in space, and their storied longings for loved ones far away provide metaphorical inspiration for this new gallery show that he has been developing for weeks.

BD White. Detail. Spray paint stenciled on wood panel. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

It’s a trip that BD takes through a darkly mysterious, sometimes disorienting, often sparkling world alone – and with you. To prepare for the new space exploration he has resolved to push himself far above where he has gone before to create a new body of work that is the most technically complex he has ever made, using up to 80 layers of cut stencils to create new paintings.

Eager to distinguish his work from others and to challenge himself beyond his comfort level, BD tells us in his Brooklyn studio that he’s learned a lot in this process and he is enamored with a technique of foreshortening the image and mixing the spray paint on the artwork itself, creates depth in the layers, making the image ‘pop’ off of the surface.

In the Street Art game around New York for a relatively short time, his new studio collection includes 24 original works, 4 original collaboration works, a handful of limited edition screen prints and a statue of an astronaut.

BD White at work on a painting. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

This central new image is one that he’s focused on before: this suited astronaut afloat, tilted at angles in the weightless environment and happily or unhappily disconnected from the earth. With this image in mind, the viewer may gain a better appreciation for the artist, who tells us that his own experience with a broken heart in recent times inspired this theme of “Love, Loss and Longing” – and his prep for the show has proved cathartic, even therapeutic, enabling him to move on.

On a recent evening when we visit his studio BD’s mom and his sister are helping with some stencil production work, clearing the fresh cuttings on the machine cut stencils and silently working while a mid-sized and equally quiet but very friendly orange tabby saunters through the warmly hued space. The feline family member has to be banished from the spraying area and she’s too inquisitive to be easily closed away from the action.

BD White at work on a painting. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

With this many layers of stencils, the labor can be extensive, BD tells us, and he spends a lot of time just cleaning the new cut layers before he can utilize them. Text passages obscured by the new characters are drawn from lyrics of songs that remind BD of love, loss, and longing – but you can tell he’s not singing the blues as he readies for this new solo show at Castle Fitzjohns Gallery on Orchard Street in Manhattan.

Brooklyn Street Art: How would you describe your style and subject matter to a person who hasn’t seen it?
BD White: Recently I’ve had to describe my new work to a lot of people and I’ve been saying “I do paintings of astronauts and women, which sounds strange but I swear they are cool!” But if I were to try to be more eloquent I would say I make extremely detailed stencil paintings of haunting images of astronauts and women about love, loss, heartbreak and longing. Each painting is anywhere from 50 to 80 stencil layers on a bronze patina background.

Brooklyn Street Art: You have done work in studio and on the street, legal, commercial, and illegal. What is satisfying about working on the street? What are you most proud of in this new show?
BD White: What’s satisfying to me about doing work on the street is the immediate connection you get to have with the public. Not everyone goes to art shows, and you might only be doing a couple shows a year even. So there is a huge amount of people that won’t see your work. It’s nice to have it on the street to be able to engage those people as well.

BD White at work on a painting. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

It’s always exciting to me when someone new discovers your work during their daily commute and is able to stop and take a photo before moving on with their day. In this new show however, I’m mostly excited to unveil this new body of work. These paintings are far and above anything I have ever produced before. I really tried to push myself and create the best possible works that I could. I wanted to take stenciling to a level I hadn’t seen before.

I’m one of those artists who gets bored unless I’m growing and making things that are constantly challenging for me. I could never just make one image and repeating it over and over again. What is the point of that? Now I’m not trying to insult anyone when I say this – I’m not referring to any specific artist or anything like that. Everyone has their own style with creative expression and they create things that work for them and I have no qualms about that. This is just personally how I feel about my own work. I always want to be making newer and better things.

BD White at work on a painting. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

I constantly look back on older works of mine with disgust. I kind of hate everything I’ve made in the past, but that seems to happen every time I make something new. I remember loving the child soldier paintings I had done a couple years ago and thinking these are the best works I’ve made. Now I think they are awful. So I’m really excited to be showing these new paintings and I think I’ve been able to reach new grounds in stenciling, but I bet I’ll think all these painting are trash in a year when I’m making my next series.

BD White at work on a painting. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: How has your work changed since you first began stenciling on the street?
BD White: I think my work has grown quite a bit since I first began stenciling on the street. I’m always trying to make bigger and better things. When I first started I was making political images and pretty much just copying Shepard Fairey. I soon learned that not everyone wants political images on their walls or on canvas and although I felt strongly about the politics I was putting forward, it limited my audience.

BD White at work on a painting. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

My goal has always been to make work that can resonate with everyone. I want my work to evoke an emotional reaction from the viewer in one way or another. So I’ve tried to grow and form into my own unique style. I think I’ve finally left behind my copying of Shepard Fairey and have produced works that are completely original to me. A lot of artists paint astronauts, there is nothing original about that, I know. But I’ve never seen anyone who has done astronauts with women. And none in these haunting poses about love, loss, and longing.

The works and images I’ve made are 100% mine alone. I draw everything from scratch. I don’t Google source any of my astronauts. There is no reference photo on the Internet for them. I photograph all the women myself but only use that reference in a loose sense. I change a lot from photo to painting. I never want my work to be just a painting of a photograph. I don’t understand the point of that. True art to me is when you can create something that no one else can reproduce. I’m not sure if I’ve reached that stage yet or ever will, but that’s what I’m striving for.

BD White. Detail. Spray paint stenciled on wood panel. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: Do you feel connected to Ai Weiwei?
BD White: I made that Ai Weiwei painting about 3 or 4 years ago. I had seen that documentary Never Sorry, which was all about him. I felt strongly on his side since he was fighting for freedom of information and free speech in China. I made that piece to basically show my support and help spread his word. It was when I was doing the super political works. It doesn’t really have anything to do with what I’m making now though.

BD White. Detail. Spray paint stenciled on wood panel. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: Spacemen figure into your pieces periodically. How does the image of a astronaut relate to you?
BD White: I use the image of the astronaut for a couple reasons, first to represent men and myself, but more importantly to represent distance and loneliness. The idea that the astronaut is literally not on the planet and is as isolated as one could possibly be – that is what draws me to them. I’ve always been interested in space and science when it comes to astrophysics, I think everyone at one point in their life wanted to be an astronaut. I think it speaks to our instinctual need to explore and expand our horizons. I also just think they look cool- I’m covered in astronaut tattoos.

BD White. Detail. Spray paint stenciled on wood panel. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BD White at work on a painting in his Brooklyn studio. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BD White. Detail. Spray paint stenciled on wood panel. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BD White “Love, Loss and Longing” exhibition will open this September 7th at the Castle Fitzjohns Gallery in Manhattan. Click HERE for full details.

BSA Images Of The Week: 08.16.15

August 16, 2015 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Thanks to LoMan, the island of perdition is popping with new stuff almost daily. Could be coincidence or serendipity but this week NYC has new stuff from heavy hitters mixed happily with lots of newer talents. Summer ’15 is stupendous – mostly because you are here in your flip-flops and shorts and pretty smile, you flirt.

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Aiko, Andre, Ayakamay, BD White, Buttless, Clint Mario, Gold Loxe, Hot Tea, Ivanorama, JP Art, JR, Magda Love, Mint & Serf, Mr. Toll, and Os Gemeos.

Top image above >>> JR . Andre . Os Gemeos (photo © Jaime Rojo)

JR . Andre . Os Gemeos (photo © Jaime Rojo)

JR . Andre (photo © Jaime Rojo)

JR . Os Gemeos (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hot Tea (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Excuse Me, Your Privilege Is Showing. Artist Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mr. Toll is being coy. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ayakamay (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Aiko knocking out a big stencilled wall for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Clint Mario (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Buttless has fallen on the sidewalk. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

What? (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mint & Serf added a cool fascinator to this long running drawing while Magda Love plays her very best hits…from a tape no less. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

…meanwhile the sis from hell shows up with a bad attitude… Ivanorama. Young lady needs a Time Out. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hot ankle boots for fall. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Gold Loxe (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BD White and JP for LoManArt Fest 2015. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. The lazy dogs days of summer. NYC. July 2015. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!
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LoMan Art Festival Launches Its First Blast in NYC

August 12, 2015 Artists

In a Street Art story rich with irony, Lower Manhattan has just hosted its first official mural festival.

Space Invader (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

It’s not that the island has been bereft of murals of late – the Los Muros Hablan festival in Harlem has been through a couple of iterations way uptown, Brooklyn has the Bushwick Collective, and Queens has been hosting the Welling Court Project.

The irony lies in the fact that this Lower Manhattan Arts Festival (LoMan) is really the first codified effort to highlight the work of graffiti and Street Art creators in a section of NYC known from the 1970s-90s for the free-range street stylings of artists like Jean Michel Basquiat, Al Diaz, Keith Haring, Dan Witz, Jenny Holzer, Richard Hambleton, John Fekner, WK Interact, REVS/Cost, and artist collectives like AVANT, among many others.

A major coup of sorts, LoMan exhibited the sculpture of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden that mysteriously showed up in a New York park this spring by Andrew Tider and Jeff Greenspan (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

In other words, on this baked concrete slab of downtown New York that was once a creative cesspool and Petri dish for on-the-street experimentation calling upon all manner of art making, today’s newly arriving young artists have no dream of moving in. In fact, most have fled in search of affordable rent.

Now the entrepreneurial spirit of a couple of guys, Wayne Rada and Rey Rosa, is luring artists back into Lower Manhattan, if only to paint a mural and help the tourist trade in Little Italy. That is how the L.I.S.A. Project (Little Italy Street Art) began three years ago, bringing in about 40 artists – a list that includes big names and small with varying degrees of influence on the current scene.

Dain and Stikki Peaches (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Despite the historically inhospitable demeanor of hard-bitten and often bureaucratic old New York greeting him at many junctures, Rada has had some measured and great successes along the way, convincing local wall owners to give a mural a try and raising funding from local businesses and art fans to help artists go larger.

So LoMan Fest’s first edition has finished this year, and along with a few volunteers, a smattering of helpful partners, and nearly continuous negotiations with local building owners, art supply companies, cherry picker rentals, and a collection of local and international artists, Rada and Rosa have pulled off a new event. Impressively it included large murals, smaller street installations, a couple of panel discussions, some live music performances, outdoor film screenings, a sticker battle, a live painting battle, live podcasts, a graffiti zine table, and a sculpture garden in an emptied parking lot on Mulberry Street.

Damien Mitchell (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

“Struggle would be a good word. But like anything else when you are starting something for the first time you are spending a lot of time putting systems in place,” says Rada of the process. “There have been interesting challenges with the building owners and with the artists but when it is all said and done it has been all worth it.”

For a scene that was initiated by autonomous un-permissioned art-making on private property, the process of organizing graffiti and Street Artists to do approved pieces on legal walls may try the patience of the rebels who look on mural festivals as lacking ‘street cred’. But Rada sees it differently.

Tatyana Fazlalizadeh expands on her campaign with brand new portraits for “Stop Telling Women to Smile.” (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

“You know there are people in this world that don’t appreciate this and I just want people to enjoy the pieces as long as they can. Isn’t the fun part of street art that moment when you turn the corner and discover it? That’s really what we are trying to do here. For me it’s a collaborative process of trying to find them a spot – which is also normally something bigger where they can take their time and really think it out. In turn, when that work is complete their existing fans enjoy it, and also it helps them get new fans.”

Tatyana Fazlalizadeh (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

A final irony is that LoMan is joining a long list of Street Art-inspired mural festivals worldwide that you might have thought New York would have been near the front of.

Brooklyn Street Art: I imagine you’ve seen the rise of Street Art festivals and you’ve seen the character perhaps of specific festivals in different parts of the world. Do you think there is something specific about New York’s current Street Art scene that has a personality or specific voice?
Wayne Rada: First of all I studied every single festival out there from Pow! Wow! to Nuart, every single one. I’ve also had conversations with people who coordinate those festivals so that I could do a better job with this. I just feel like New York is, and this is grandiose to say, the nexus of the universe for the art world. It just seemed there was something missing and it made sense to have something here.”

Tatyana Fazlalizadeh (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Given the history and the populations of NYC, maybe the strength is the diversity of styles and international artists who are drawn to this particular city to drop a piece throughout the year on rooftops, under bridges, on abandoned lots and doorways. After a minute, Rada decides that this may be what makes a festival like this distinctly New York.

“So in the art world there are so many artists and there are so many Street Artists – and Lower Manhattan especially is represented by something like 126 different cultures and many different races and languages that make up downtown,” he says, “so it makes sense to try to be as diverse as possible and have as many of those voices represented as we could – men and women, all ages, and all walks of life.”

Here’s your first look at LoMan, but it won’t be your last. Rada and Rosa tell us they already have 2016 all planned.

Art Is Trash typically uses actual trash found on the street to create impromptu dioramas (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Art Is Trash (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ron English added a pink “Temper Tot” shortly before LoMan commenced. (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nicolas Holiber uses found wood to create a new “Venus” (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nicolas Holiber. “Mars” (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hanksy (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sonni (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

The DRiF pimping a statue of David. (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

As in “The Lower East Side” by Russell Murphy (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Faith47 (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Buff Monster (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

BD White and JP Art (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Gilf! (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ori Carino (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

A new sculpture by Leon Reid IV (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tats Cru in monochrome (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

J Morello (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

At press time the works of ASVP, Beau Stanton, Crash, Solus and Ludo were either not completed or had just begun. We’ll bring you these pieces on a later article.

To learn more about the LoManArt Fest click HERE

This article is also published on The Huffington Post

BSA Images Of The Week: 07.19.15

July 19, 2015 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Chomp chomp, slurp slurp, spraaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyy spray sp sp sp spraaayyyyyyyyyy. The sounds of a sidewalk barbecue and painting a new piece on a wall on a hot July day in Brooklyn. Also honking, screeching, sirens, and Action Bronson, Hot Chip, or Major Lazer pumping out the windows of a passing car. Want a cherry popsicle?

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring $howta, Barlo, BD White, Brad Robson, DAIN, Dee Dee, Denton Burrows, Faith47, Fin DAC, Jack Fox, Jorit Agoch, LOMNOPI, JPO, London Kaye, Marina Capdevila, Skirl, Sosta, and Zimer.

Top image above >>> Marina Capdevila (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Findac does a B-Girl in BK (photo © Jaime Rojo)

LMNOPI (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Faith47 for The L.I.S.A. Project (photo © Jaime Rojo)

$howta (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Zimer (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Skirl (photo © Jaime Rojo)

London Kaye (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BD White collab with JPO. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jack Fox for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Including traffic. Denton Burrows (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dee Dee. We think the stache came later… (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brad Robson at Woodward Project Space. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Peace (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“I never go outside unless I look like Joan Crawford the movie star. If you want to see the girl next door, go next door.” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Barlo and Sosta collaborate in Hong Kong. (photo © Barlo)

Dain is ripping things up. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jorit Agoch for The Bushwick Collective. Last Sunday we published a process shot. Here is the completed mural. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. New York City. July 2015. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Images Of The Week 05.31.15

May 31, 2015 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

So here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring A Visual Bliss, Amok Island, Banjo, BD White, Betty Page, Corografico, D7606, Daek, Deal9, El Sol 25, Likes, Maupal, Nepo, and QRST.

Top image above >>> QRST (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BD White trolls the selfie addicted sort. The subject on this image seems too old to be either Adonis or Narcissus but you get the point. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Banjo. Speaking of being addicted to selfies…and Narcissus for that matter we call her “Vanity”. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Deal9…a totally different world from the one above… you draw the conclusions. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

D7606…was Betty Page a feminist? (photo © Jaime Rojo)

El Sol 25. Cleo certainly was…but then she fell for a Roman… (photo © Jaime Rojo)

El Sol 25 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Daek. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Amok Island (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nepo and Corografico collab. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Likes (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A Visual Bliss (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Maupal painted the map of a fictional town on a Wall in Rome. (photo © Maupal)

Maupal created this fictional town on wall in Rome this month, and here he gives you a tour:

“As you can see from the picture, in #soulcity, life is depicted as it is a small city surrounded by “the river of death” (il fiume della morte ). To enter the burg, you have to pass though the only one entrance of the town, the Arco della nascita, “the Arc of birth” signed by an arrow. The Muro del parto (“the offstring-wall”) divides what is life from what is not.

From the moment when one comes to the world, there is only a single one way road that he/she can take, the Boulevard of Childhood (viale dell’Infanzia). From that point onwards, everybody can choose their own path to follow from several routes available. The choices that individuals make at this point will shape their personality throughout their adulthood. As a consequence of the experiences one makes in life, and at a certain time in their life, a person may lean towards one neighborhood that will suit them in that moment but not necessarily want to remain there for life.

For this reason, I didn’t simply name the streets, I included some infrastructures in the varying regions of #soulcity. In addition, I also delimited thematic boulevards. From adolescence on, some people choose to take the boulevard of the culture and reach the University (symbolized by a golden brain) and the airport of freedom. Some others follow the boulevard of perdition and get forced into the “liars jail” – il carcere dei bugiardi. Others choose the artistic path leading to the Creativity museum or the lunapark of surreal or turn to the boulevard of religious believe.

Whatever one’s choices in life, love is the core of life. For this reason, I put it as the only one square of the #soulcity, as well as the biggest crossing point of life and neighbourhoods. The fontain of infinite is the symbol with the sex statue is the key of life.

I believe that life is based on one’s choices and experiences, but family, society and memories have a weight, too. With this purpose, I also created three shortcuts such as the sentiero dei rimproveri (“the shortcut of reproaches”) in the parents’ park (which could lead one to the boulevard of arts) and the grandparents’ playground with the lake of memories. Finally, the shortcut fuga dei cervelli pushes the young generations’ inventive to fly away from one’s country to get a better future abroad.

This last element is a strict reference to my other street artpiece named #esodati, in which I depicted Romulus and Remo with trolleys, searching for a better future abroad. (see foto attached “#esodati foto ufficiale”).

Finally, I am conscious that life is also limited by the length of time one has on this earth and no matter what path you choose, death is at the end of every way. For this reason, the whole city is surrounded by the River of Death, il Fiume della Morte. Making the right choices in life may help you be remembered after death through your life’s work and actions, which is possible by crossing the different bridges in town.”

The wall is part of a slaughterhouse building complex and is shared between the MACRO Testacci o Museum of Contemporary Art and the Architecture Department of Roma3 University.

Maupal painted the map of a fictional town on a Wall in Rome. Detail. (photo © Maupal)

Untitled. Brooklyn, NY. May 2015 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!

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Happy New Year 2015 – BSA Readers Choice Top 10

January 1, 2015 Artists

Happy New Year to All! Thank you for inspiring us to do our best and to those of you who continue to support our personal art project / cultural examination, we extend our gratitude more than ever.

Begun as an enthusiastic discovery of what was happening in a few neighborhoods in New York, we continued to expand our view into more cities around the world last year and into the history and future of the scene. We also aimed to provide you with a critical platform for examination of the street art/ graffiti / public art/ contemporary art continuum with interviews with artists, curators, collectors, organizers, observers and thinkers in the street, studio, gallery, and museum – trouble makers and taste makers alike.

In the end, it’s your observations and the conversations on the street that are most important. As we begin the year with over 300K fans, friends, and followers on social media platforms and 225 articles on the Huffington Post (thanks HuffPost team!), we feel like we get a valuable good survey of current opinions heading our way daily.

With in-depth interviews, investigative articles, opinion infused examinations, plain celebratory reverie, occasionally silly non-sequitors, and public appearances where we get to meet you, we get a good analytical look at an ever-evolving movement, glittery polish and warts and all.

As the new year begins we take a look back at the top stories chosen by BSA Readers in the last 12 months. Among them are two takeover pop-up shows in soon-to-be demolished buildings, a story about commercial abuse of artist copyrights and the effort to fight back, a street art community’s response to the sudden death of an activist street artist, a Street Art tourist trip, and a few inspirational women, men, and Mexican muralists. Even though we published at least once a day for the last 365 days, these are the most popular pieces, as chosen by you, Dear BSA Reader.

10. Exploring Lisbon as a Street Art Tourist

Os Gemeos / Blu (photo © Stephen Kelley)

9. Kara Walker and Her Sugar Sphinx at the Old Domino Factory

Kara Walker. The artist portrait in profile with her sugary sphinx in the background. (photo via iPhone © Jaime Rojo)

8. Women Rock Wynwood Walls at Miami Art Basel 2013

Fafi (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

7. A Sudden Secret Street Art House Party in Manhattan

Icy & Sot (photo © Jaime Rojo)

6. Niels Shoe Meulman Balancing “Unearthly” Paintings

Niels “Shoe” Meulman. Process shot. (photo © Adele Renault)

5. It’s All the Rage, Street Artists Filing Lawsuits Left and Right

4. Shok-1 Street Art X-Rays Reveal a Unique Hand at the Can

Shok-1 (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

3. 12 Mexican Street Artists Stray Far from Muralism Tradition In NYC

Sego (photo © Jaime Rojo)

2. Army Of One, Inspiration To Many : Jef Campion

Army Of One AKA JC2 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

1. Graffiti and Street Art Lock Up “21st Precinct” in New York

Pixote in action. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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BSA Images Of The Week: 07.06.14

July 6, 2014 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Now we’re in the thick of it – summer murals and independent interventions all. Regardless of technique, experience or background, artists of all stripes are bringing new works on walls across the city, including our top image this week which is by someone new to the street, Turkish fine artist, painter, designer Anil Duran in Bushwick. Labels (Street Art, graffiti, urban art, murals) can be helpful to categorize, but let’s drop them this week and call it art, and see if it applies.

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Anil Duran, Anthony Lister, BD White, Chuck Berrett, Damon, Daniel Anguilu, EC13, El Niño de las Pinturas, GG Artwork, Hitnes, Joseph Meloy, Kremen, London Kaye, MKGO, Nepo, Nicole Salgar, Ramiro Davarro-Comas, TLC, Vandal Expressionism, and X-Men.

Top Image >> Anil Duran (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Anil Duran. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

London Kaye (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Daniel Anguilu (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kremen (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Damon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

NEPO completed his piece of comic characters from Latin America. We see Mafalda and Memin Pinguin in there. Who else? This was done for The Juicy Art Fest. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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The Power Of Slow and the Ascent of the Storytellers

March 3, 2014 Artists

A big deal has been made about the so-called virtual experience of Street Art – made possible by ever more sophisticated phones and digital platforms and technology – producing a pulsating river of visually pleasing delicacies to view across every device at a rapid speed, and then forget.

Sit on the city bus or in a laundromat next to someone reviewing their Instagram/RSS/Facebook feed and you’ll witness a hurried and jerky scrolling with the index finger of images flying by with momentary pauses for absorbing, or perhaps “liking”. The greatest number of “likes” are always for the best eye candy, the most poppy, and the most commercially viable. It’s a sort of visual image consumption gluttony that can be as satisfying as a daily bag of orange colored cheese puffs.

This is probably not what art on the street is meant for. At least, not all of it.

As we have been observing here and in front of audiences for a few years now, the 2000s and 2010s have brought a New Guard and a new style and approach to work in the street that we refer to as the work of storytellers. These artists are doing it slowly, with great purpose, and without the same goals that once characterized graffiti and street art.

While there has been the dual development of a certain digital life during the last decade, these street works are eschewing the shallowness that our electronic behaviors are embracing. Even though the digitization of society has pushed boundaries of speed and eliminated geography almost entirely, it is creating an artificial intelligence of a different kind. In other words there really is still no substitute for being there to see this work, to being present in the moment while cars drive by and chattering pedestrians march up the sidewalk.

Setting aside the recent abundance of large commissioned/permissioned murals and the duplication/repetition practice of spreading identical images on wheatpasted posters and stickers that demark the 1990s and early 2000s in the Street Art continuum, today we wanted to briefly spotlight some of the one of a kind, hand crafted, hand painted, illegally placed art on the streets.

The materials, styles and placements are as varied as the artists themselves: Yarn characters attached to fences, tiles glued to walls, acrylic and oil hand painted wheat pastes on a myriad of surfaces, ink, lead and marker illustrations, carved linotype ink prints, clay sculptures, lego sculptures, intricate hand-cut paper, and hand rendered drawings have slowly appeared on bus shelters, walls, doorways, even tree branches.

They all have a few things in common: The artists didn’t ask for permission to place these labor-intensive pieces on the streets, they are usually one of a kind, and frequently they are linked to personal stories.

We’ve been educating ourselves about these stories and will be sharing some of them with you at the Brooklyn Museum in April, so maybe that’s why we have been thinking about this so much. There is a quality to these works that reflect a sense of personal urgency and a revelation about their uniqueness at the same time.

If the placement of them is hurried the making of them it is not. The themes can be as varied as the materials but in many cases the artist informs the art by his or her autobiography or aspiration. And once again BSA is seeing a steady and genuine growth in storytelling and activism as two of the many themes that we see as we walk the streets of the city.

A Sudden Secret Street Art House Party in Manhattan

January 15, 2014 Artists

It’s a House Party Y’all!

With studio apartments in Manhattan now hitting nearly 3K a month the closest thing most Milennials will ever get to a house party in Gotham will be snagging a VCR tape of the Kid ‘n Play danceoff movie at their parents stoop sale. Last week during the “polar vortex” cold freeze some lucky invitees did get access to a secret house party in a dilapidated building on the Lower East Side for 2 hours however. There wasn’t much heat, no DJ, and your flask of Jack Daniels substituted as the bar, but if you made it in you scored a free condensed Street Artist show that is as rare as a New Jack Swing hit these days.

A little more than 40 (mostly) Street Artists brought the four floor former tenement building to life one last time before it will be destroyed – and they did it almost entirely in secret over the course of a week. Just how secret this event was is debatable considering the multitude of blog posts and photos of it that appeared in the days following but in the Internet age, news about stuff like this goes viral no matter what.

All tolled, the varied collection of participants was a cross-section; a blurry screenshot of Street Artists on the New York scene along with a few graff writers, taggers, sticker slappers, painters, illustrators, aerosol experts, installationists, art school students, and visitors to the big city who happened to be around at the right time. Also, a couple of pyros.

While this sort of artist takeover of an abandoned house or building is increasingly occurring in bankrupt cities and neighborhoods in America and Europe where no one wants to live except the creative types, you don’t find this unruly and freewheeling expression much in the increasingly scrubbed and mall-like playground for the rich in Manhattan.

Similarly, producers of large Street Art/Urban Art events in global cities can deliver murals that make you salivate and on a scale that dwarfs this “event” thanks to corporate underwriters and shills for sneakers/sodas/urban-themed tampons these days, but few can truthfully rival the unpolished impromptu spirit of a semi-secret House Party jam session. For one week during installations and on opening night it was like the ghost of New York’s downtown 1970s-80s Bohemia was coming back to the island in all it’s imperfectness to remind everyone of Manhattan’s former greatness as a petri dish for experimentation and discovery.

Considering the huge increase in sanctioned walls over the last two years in New York, this work looks surprisingly alive, and is just the sort of balm needed for the raw nerves of anarchists everywhere who have bemoaned the polished soul-deadening mural painting of late. Even if some of this looks sort of slap-dash and ragged in spots, and it does, it also gives off an air of being authentic and in-the-moment.

Notably, the ratio of penis, breast, and defacation-related themes was higher than your average art show but as you know, there is an audience for every artist, even the ones gravitating to bathroom humor as creative wellspring. Judging by the few hundred images floating around on Flickr and elsewhere, this pop-up was a hit for the people.

Given the growing number of artists communities that have blossomed outside of Manhattan, this could have been one of its last jams for Street Art. Yo! That’s my jam!

And now please step aside as we build another luxury condo.

This show, “Surplus Candy” was organized by Hanksy, and is now closed.

A near complete artist list includes:

Alice Mizrachi/AM, ASVP, BD White, Bishop203, CB23, Cernesto, Col Wallnuts, Cosbe, Dee Dee, Dick Mama, Drippings, Edapt, EKG, El Sol 25, Elizabeth Glaessner, Elle, Enzo and Nio, Foxxface, GILF!, Hanksy, Icy and Sot, Left Handed Wave, Lunar New Year, Magda Love, Martha Cooper, Mata Ruda, Moustache Man, Mr. Toll, Mr. Two Three, Mrs. Big Stuff, NDA, Never, Nicolas Holiber, Royce Bannon, Russell King, Sonni, Tako, Tone Tank, Tony Depew, Trap, UR New York, Vulpes Vulpes, Wizard Skull, and Wretched Beast.

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