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Top 15 Videos on BSA Film Friday From 2017

Top 15 Videos on BSA Film Friday From 2017

December 13, 2017

Every Friday we invite you to stop by and take a look at new videos that have been submitted or recommended or that we tripped over walking by the railroad tracks. This year we showed you about 250 of them.

We call it BSA Film Friday and it travels with us to cities around the world now when we do it LIVE with you and other audience members in theaters and lecture halls and museums. The beauty of the video/film form is you can get a full story quickly, and you are often surprised by how transformative it can be. You can also see how many people are affected by urban and street culture through these films – we see people’s eyes light up when they realize that they too can create in public space, that the world is not simply a product but is a piece of art that many of their peers are now jumping in to co-create.

As a collection, these 15 are illuminating, elevating, riveting, strange, soaring, and achingly beautifully normal. From looking at the Separation Wall and Banksy to a travelling crew of graffiti writers on farms in Polish pig country to the amazing dance troupe who interpreted the 5 floors of art installations in a downtown Berlin former bank, you have before you a massive buffet of a visual feast.

The final desert is hand-held phone video caught in the moment last month in Mexico City. We didn’t know Keith Haring was coming down the tracks to surprise us, and we didn’t know that this unpolished jewel would garner thousands of viewers and commenters – effectively placing this little piece of video at number 1 for its popularity. Maybe the fact that it is so raw is what people relate to – along with an ongoing adulation for Haring.

We hope you can take some time to enjoy some of the best Street Art videos from around the world and on BSA this year.

No. 15
Faith XLVII / Aqua Regalia Hong Kong

From BSA Film Friday 05.19.17

“Distant universes delicately tangled,” says the near-whispering narration as you are gazing upon scenes from Hong Kong – those interstitial moments that carry you between the more remarkable ones. Faith XLVII gives us a quiet look at these inside a the dencse cacophony called “Aqua Regalia”, looking at the parts of a culture that a visitor is sensitive to because they are not taken for granted. With this ability to see, one takes a quick course of a city, a society. Invariably you end up with more questions.

“We speak of death and birth in terms of celebration and mourning.” Faith XLVII is in search of more universal truths, the timeless ones, since we understand them so poorly. Herein are glimpses, romantic and unvarnished.

“This is one of the first videos I’ve co-directed, alongside filmmaker Dane Dodds,” Faith tells us. “Its a project that is close to my heart.”

No. 14
Gonzalo Borondo / Cenere

From BSA Film Friday 08.11.17

Borondo keeps it open for you. He provides the stage, the staging area, the proscenium, the altar, the emanating light, the associations and memories you have with your belief system, or lack of one. During his artist residency with Pubblica, curated by Carlo Vignapiano and Elena Nicolini in May, the Street Artist (among other things) creates a journey as much as a destination in this intimate chapel. The video by Gerdi Petanaj captures this and perhaps a little more.

 

No. 13
The Haus / Lunatix Dance

From BSA Film Friday 04.07.17

From the moment it opened on April 1st, the Haus was a hit! BSA was very lucky to be there in February for a full tour while still in development in Berlin, nearly dancing ourselves through all five floors of this former bank with full scale installations in places that once held offices, conference rooms, employee coffee lounges.

By inviting Creative Director/dancer Serdar Bogatin and the film crew “Shuto Crew” into the space with members of the Lunatix Dance Production troupe, these spaces and art environments come completely alive, invoking stories and dramas – clearly making the spaces into elaborate set-design pieces.

 

No. 12
Ella & Pitr / Frappés PinPins

From BSA Film Friday 05.05.17

The French duo Ella + Pitr here revel in the simplicity of the gestural act of a full-body full-bucket splash of black paint.

Carnal, visceral, overlaid with psychographical information, the motion of splashing inky pigment across a white quadrilateral is an act of defiance and a release of the inner chaos – instantly recognizable as chaos elsewhere in the world.

The uncontrollable quality, especially when purveyed within an atmosphere of prim control, provokes amplified emotions in some. Fear, liberation, rage, release. Which ones will you experience?

 

No. 11
Indecline/ Rail Beast

From BSA Film Friday 10.20.17

“This reminds why I hate vandals! All this does is create more unnecessary work for the guys at the paint shop,” says a commenter on the Vimeo page where INDECLINE has posted this locomotive takeover.

You see kids, this is why we can’t have nice things. I just mopped this floor and you come running in here with your muddy boots! For Pete’s sake.

Truthfully, this decidedly unpolitical piece is a surprise coming from INDECLINE. Guess they were taking the day off from railing against hypocrisy and injustice with this animated train that recalls Saturday morning cartoons like Bugs Bunny and the Road Runner.

 

No. 10
Olek / In the Blink of an Eye

From BSA Film Friday 01.13.17

“It is one thing to read about the events in those parts of the world, but it is something totally different to actually look in the eyes of the women who lost everything while running from the war,” says artist Olek about how her world view changed when crocheting the project featured this week.

While gathering and producing materials for her installation with Verket Museum in Avesta, Sweden, the Brooklyn based Street Artist was holding informal crochet workshops with volunteers who would be producing the decorative yarn skin that covered every single item inside and outside of the house with their handmade crochet stitches.

Some invited guests were refugees who had escaped war in Syria and Ukraine and the artist and local folks shared stories and crocheted, sewed, and prepared the art materials together over the course of a number of days. It was during these exchanges of personal stories that, “a conversation started that has changed me forever,” she says – and she immediately needed to reflect it in her project with the museum.

 

No. 09
Sebastian Purfürst – Soniconoclasm / Broken Motor

From BSA Film Friday 06.02.17

In Berlin recently we met a photographer/media artist/musician who showed us a music video he just made of regular people whom you might meet on the city streets at night. This spring he asked more than 25 of them to recite phrases and “cut-up of army radio slang phrases” and by splicing them together with his band mate’s recitation of the lyrics synched to their lips, the rawness and rage and disconnected connectedness of people whom you can meet on the street rang true. “

This unvarnished quality bypasses the styled self-awareness of a lot of commercial media, and the anger actually comes across as fear. Perhaps you’ll think its too dark in demeanor – but then suddenly the melding together of the faces into one common entity makes it magic, even transcendent – revealing a simple sameness of everyone.

“This suspenseful individuality of the people is almost completely dissolved in the chorus,” says Sebastian Purfürst of his video with bandmate Markus F.C.Buhl.

Together they are called SONICONOCLASM.

 

No. 08
Pixel Pancho/ UN – Berlin

From BSA Film Friday 09.22.17

Pixel’s original installation was nixed by the city at the last moment but that didn’t prevent the Italian Street Artist from rallying to find another solution!

This new installation in the back courtyard was conceived of, designed, and constructed over a period of 4 days last week and became the secret surprise behind the museum for those who wandered there. Using landscaping techniques and botanical knowledge that come naturally from his farm in Italy, the artist create a mise en scène of epic impact with his robotic folk-futurist sculptures. Night time lighting took it to another world, but you can see the details better here in this short video Jaime Rojo shot on site.

 

No. 07
FifthWall TV / Occupied in Bethlehem – A visit to BANKSY’s “Walled Off Hotel”

From BSA Film Friday 06.16.17

“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.

 

No. 06
Various & Gould / City Skins – Marx und Engels

From BSA Film Friday 07.14.17

Conceptual Street Artists often perform interventions without explanation, satisfied with their own observations of the outcome. For Berlians Various & Gould the process has more often included the participation of the public – a way for more to take ownership and inspire dialogue. Sometimes many dialogues.

You may have seen our piece on their most recent public project called “City Skins”: Marx and Engels Statues Re-Skinned & Re-Located : Various & Gould.  Here is a mini-documentary that shows you the artists, the process, and the thinking behind the process.

 

No. 05
Rurales

From BSA Film Friday 01.27.17

Now to the Polish pig farms! Another Street Art/Mural road trip movie, this time across Poland with JAYPOP, Seikon, Krik KONG and filmmaker Cuba Goździewicz. See the discoveries, the relationships, the reactions to the work from a warm and considered human perspective.

The beauty of randomness and the randomness of beauty. These guys are fully engaged with their surroundings, the opportunity, the myriad people they befriend or portend to make allies. It’s an uncharted trip where permissions are sought and often refused, but they never stop painting somehow.

 

No. 04
Swoon/ Fearless

From BSA Film Friday 10.13.17

Using existing and new footage of Street Artist Swoon and selected interviews with people in her orbit, director Fredric King presents and hour long documentary that looks over two decades of art making. The stories told and the insights that Calendonia Curry aka Swoon presents while en route to her next adventure illustrate the fluidity with which she pursues the creative spirit, whether on the street, on a vessel down a river, or installing in a museum. An integrated explorer, Swoon brings you into the fold to go on this journey that always feels like its just begun.

No. 03
Fin DAC/ Rooftop in San Francisco

From BSA Film Friday 08.25.17

On an expansive rooftop in rainy/sunny/rainy San Francisco, Street Artist Fin Dac brings to life ‘Shukumei’, an ebullient and mysterious muse. The film is largely a stop motion record of the work set to music, but did you notice how much dexterity and effort goes into this precision play when you are working at this angle, basically painting the floor? The remarkable integration of the glowing skylight orb, dramatically revealed, imparts the figure a mystical dimension as well.

Video editing by Tonic Media, Soundtrack by Mombassa/Lovechild, and shout out to Ian and Danielle at Rocha Art and Missy Marisa, model.

 

No. 02
Niels Shoe Meulman In Magic City / The Art Of The Street

From BSA Film Friday 12.01.17

Niels Shoe Meulman spent some nights in a Munich jail thirty years ago for mucking about on the walls. This year he was paid to do it in Munich for Magic City, the travelling morphing exhibition (now in Stockholm) where Street Art is celebrated along with all its tributaries – including a film program and a number of photographs by your friends here at BSA.

Born, raised and based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Shoe shares here his new improvisational piece and some of his reflections on his process and his evolution from being in advertising as an art/creative director and reclaiming his soul as a graffiti/Street Art/fine artist. As ever, Martha is in the frame, putting him in the frame.

No. 01
Keith Haring- Rough Cut / Mexico City Metro

This rough cut lil’ video reached more than 300K individuals and had 100K views with thousands of shares on FB and on Instagram with dozens of comments and high engagement was easily propelled to the #1 spot.

From BSA Film Friday 12.01.17

It all took us by surprise last week in Mexico City when suddenly a whole train covered on both sides with Keith Haring’s work approached while we were waiting at the platform to catch the Linea 2 of the Metro. He made his name in part by illegally doing drawings like these in NYC subways and here now they are crushing a whole train. The name of the project is “Ser Humano. Ser Urbano” or “Being Human. Being Urban” and it aims to promote human values and human rights. The pattern you see is from “Sin Titulo (Tokyo Fabric Design)” – now stretched across these whole cars, if you will.

The train itself is inexplicably having brake troubles, so we get some jerky spur-of-the-moment footage but all week on Instagram and Facebook we’ve received tons of comments from people reacting to this little bit of Keith video by Jaime Rojo on BSA.

 

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Vandalizing Mario Testino in Berlin, at Helmut Newton Foundation

Vandalizing Mario Testino in Berlin, at Helmut Newton Foundation

November 18, 2017

Now that we are closing the exhibition, how would you like to vandalize it?

Mimi Scholz . Mario Testino “Undressed” Helmut Newton Foundation. Berlin. One Day Only Street Art Intervention curated by @strychninberlin. (photo courtesy @strychninberlin)

That’s basically what Yasha Young said to three artists this week in Berlin.

Of course Hera from Herakut said yes, having caught a few tags in her career. So did Mimi Scholz and Sandra Chevrier, studio artists who have done some work on the street and jumped at the idea – Chevrier actually flew from Montreal just to fool around with these sexy portraits. Together, the three have made a beautifully tattooed and magic mess of all of your favorite iconic photographs by Mario Testino in this exhibition called “Undressed”.

Mimi Scholz . Mario Testino “Undressed” Helmut Newton Foundation. Berlin. One Day Only Street Art Intervention curated by @strychninberlin. (photo courtesy @strychninberlin)

“Because of the huge scale of my work in this show,” says Testino, “and the way it’s applied directly to the walls like wallpaper – I felt like we had no choice but to experiment with vandalizing before taking it down.” As anyone in the Street Art world can tell you, some of the best results come from unconventional experimentation.

The Helmut Newton Foundation probably wasn’t open to the idea of big fire-extinguisher tags sprayed across its walls and various sundry surfaces, but like the fluid aesthetics of the Street Art world, the 5 meter tall photos now have plenty interventions or “collaborations” that effectively transform the meanings of the original Testino images.

Mimi Scholz . Mario Testino “Undressed” Helmut Newton Foundation. Berlin. One Day Only Street Art Intervention curated by @strychninberlin. (photo courtesy @strychninberlin)

“We tested with pens, aerosol spray, paints, scratches, markers, paste-ups and chalk,” says curator Young, who scored the final day of this stunning photography exhibition to effectively flip the script. “The three artists managed to change the original intention and subject into entirely new stories and perspectives. With texts and poetry, some sharp wit, and incredible talent – this show is mind blowing.”

Somehow it makes perfect sense for this boundary-pushing photographer to let his work be pushed further by three artists who have been pushing the imposed/accepted limits of street culture for the last decade or more, each willing to provoke when necessary.

Hera . Mario Testino “Undressed” Helmut Newton Foundation. Berlin. One Day Only Street Art Intervention curated by @strychninberlin. (photo courtesy @strychninberlin)

Scholz routinely pokes fun at all the cliches of female psyche, while Chevrier points at the superficiality of image forced upon girls and women, and Hera’s critiques of all manner of hypocrisy softly lacerates with the phrasing of a poet. All three are ready to play with sexuality and emotion, a perfect combination with the world summoned by this starkly sensual show, which Helmut Newton Foundation curator Matthias Harder describes as “filling the rooms with bodies and emotions in a sensational way.”

In case you’re wondering, all art work will be destroyed after the close of the exhibition, say the organizers; a perfect parallel to the ephemeral nature of art on the street.

Our thanks to Ms. Young for these exclusive photos of Sunday’s show just for BSA readers.

Sandra Chevrier . Mario Testino “Undressed” Helmut Newton Foundation. Berlin. One Day Only Street Art Intervention curated by @strychninberlin. (photo courtesy @strychninberlin)

Sandra Chevrier . Mario Testino “Undressed” Helmut Newton Foundation. Berlin. One Day Only Street Art Intervention curated by @strychninberlin. (photo courtesy @strychninberlin)

HELMUT NEWTON FOUNDATION
Museum of Photography
Jebensstrasse 2 / 10623 Berlin
info@helmut-newton-foundation.org
www.helmut-newton.com
phone +49 30 3186 4856

For more information about the ONE DAY ONLY event click HERE

For more information about the Helmut Newton Foundation click HERE

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BSA Film Friday: 11.10.17

BSA Film Friday: 11.10.17

November 10, 2017

bsa-film-friday-JAN-2015

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

Now screening :
1. OLEK: Keep Going
2. Aïda Gómez: Ladies First
3. A Look at the Worlds First Museum of Urban Contemporary Art
4. MurOne // 12 + 1 Project
5. Obey Giant – The Documentary

bsa-film-friday-special-feature

BSA Special Feature: OLEK: Keep Going

During the opening weekend of the Urban Nation Museum for Urban Contemporary Art (UN), BSA and the other curators invited 150 artists to exhibit indoors and about 35 to do site specific installations and performances in the 5 block radius of the museum. Polish/Brooklyn Street Artist OLEK created and performed along with a team of assistants a three hour meditative crocheting event under the elevated train line between Bülowstraße and Nollendorfplatz stations.

Entitled “Keep Going,” one can imagine a number of interpretations of what is intended by the artist. Is it to reflect the unstopping, unstoppable traffic of people on the street who saunter blithely by despite your unique and meaningful actions, née, existence? Is it a poetic and literal illustration of the cyclic nature of construction/destruction exhaustion/renewal that are earmarks of the life and death process we are all engaged in? Perhaps it is a commentary on the workers who toil day after night after day in this world, never able to get ahead, never meriting more than a curious look or consideration. Or is it an exhortation to fully live ones’ life regardless of obstacles, fears, or the senseless chaotic behavior of the world around us?

Director/cinematographer Ulle Hadding gently observes the scene, examining the performers’ body language and capturing facial expressions as they quietly perform their work amidst the currents of a human river flowing in around and through them.

Also Martha C. is there among the re-assembling assembled, bless her and bless us.

 

Aïda Gómez: Ladies First

While doing an artists residency in Iceland recently with ART Attack Neskaupstaður, Aïda Gómez noticed the signs around her. “The plaque shows a man followed by a woman and I asked myself, why is this signal like this? Why the feminine figure is following the masculine figure?”  Indeed.

 

A look in the WORLD’S FIRST MUSEUM OF URBAN CONTEMPORARY ART

Doug at Fifth Wall TV puts himself in the middle of the UN inaugural events and uses his astute powers of observation about its move into contemporary art, with a stop along the way to wonder about gentrification.

 

MurOne // 12 + 1 Project. Contorno Urbano

The latest from the 12 + 1 Project, the artist MurOne bringing some mechanically inspired eye candy to enjoy.

Obey Giant – The Documentary

Finally it all comes together and we get a balanced insight into the art and dissent of Shepard Fairey.

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Tavar Zawacki: Being Fearless and “Metamorphosis” with Urban Spree

Tavar Zawacki: Being Fearless and “Metamorphosis” with Urban Spree

October 11, 2017 ,

Globally entire societies are undergoing metamorphoses at a quickening pace today – for a variety of reasons depending on who you talk to; The failures of capitalism and neoliberalism, the rapid development of technology, dwindling natural resources, a widening wealth gap, greater communications – all amidst a cross-cultural consciousness that is revealing truths at an unprecedented rate – even while disinformation does its best to cloud the view.

Tavar Zawacki. “Metamorphosis” Urban Spree Gallery. Berlin. September 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Whatever form these metamorphoses eventually will take is open to all manner of expert conjecture and prophetic analysis but one thing everyone agrees on is that metamorphosis can include a painful, revelatory, liberating process.

Amidst this continuous sea change Street Artist/ visual artist Tavar Zawacki has chosen to embrace his personal and professional metamorphosis. He’s even published his second monograph and had an exhibition with the name.

“Metamorphosis”

Tavar Zawacki. “Metamorphosis” Urban Spree Gallery. Berlin. September 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

For years you have seen the upward pointing arrow; on stickers, canvasses, screen prints, even mobiles hanging. That is why the name “ABOVE” was appropriate. But for the artist, it became a limitation stylistically and the anonymity of remaining hidden in the shadows behind a street tag increasingly felt uncomfortable, not true to the artist he was becoming. Initially, the tag, or street surname that many graffiti and Street Artists adopt, was perhaps a good way to evade the police, or to simply obscure his identity to others who might be overly critical of his work.

Two decades later, he’s ready to liberate himself and tell you his real name: Tavar Zawacki.

“It’s been 20 years that I’ve been really insecure about myself and my work and I was looking for outward approval and I was really insecure about leaning forward with what I really wanted to do,” he says of the personal journey. “I needed to change my mindset to have the confidence to know that if I am painting these the best I can – that’s all that really matters.”

Tavar Zawacki. “Metamorphosis” Urban Spree Gallery. Berlin. September 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

In the new show with museum-size canvasses at Urban Spree, who also published the new168 page hardcover, you can see examples of his earlier work and the new directions that he is experimenting in. “There’s four different bodies of work,” he says as he walks around the perimeter with you.

On one wall you find the classic ABOVE canvasses: many optimistic pastel hues and tints overlapping in the geometrics of the ever-present arrow. Another features pieces of zoomed-in portions of geometric shapes that highlights negative and positive space, some recalling the op-art of the 1960s and 1970s. “These pieces focus on the areas of geometry that I really like the most,” he says.

Tavar Zawacki. “Metamorphosis” Urban Spree Gallery. Berlin. September 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Newer works begin to bend and curve the patterned plane, adding dimension and shadow, recalling the crack-and-peel stickers he used for so many years to brand himself as ABOVE prolifically across possibly 100 cities. A centerpiece canvas combines all of these movements, peeling off selected graphic elements and forming new shapes in the air with a sophisticated palette and subtle shading – perhaps the most seamless move into contemporary.

“And with shadow it’s about bending it – it was about having a new shape and I can manipulate this to make it look totally different,” he says. “That is something I feel like personally I am going through as well – I am transitioning to another stage of my life.”

Tavar Zawacki. “Metamorphosis” Urban Spree Gallery. Berlin. September 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“The whole thing is a metaphor,” he says at one point when describing a particular piece, but you realize that the statement applies to the show as well. A metaphor for the evolutions that an artist must go through to keep alive; a recreation, a metamorphosis, however bold or subtle, that can push him or her into a new direction.

He sits on a window sill and pulls back the sleeve of his t-shirt to reveal a tattooed sleeve that moves from densely inked pattern to bare skin. The finespun graduated marking is repeated on the books’ cover, designed by Kelly Jewell.
“I’m really interested in gradients as well because it’s a slow transition – when you can see the tattoo and the cover of the book; it’s like with each circle, if you look at it compared to the neighboring one, you won’t see a big difference. But over time and with effort you can keep going forward, day by day.”

Tavar Zawacki. “Metamorphosis” Urban Spree Gallery. Berlin. September 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

We talk about the new color dimensions, the zoomed in geometry, the intensity of the new color palette and he says that the change is about “being fearless.”

And perhaps, you think, that is what it takes to face change and embrace a metamorphosis. Being fearless.

Tavar Zawacki. “Metamorphosis” Urban Spree Gallery. Berlin. September 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tavar Zawacki. “Metamorphosis” Urban Spree Gallery. Berlin. September 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tavar Zawacki. “Metamorphosis” Urban Spree Gallery. Berlin. September 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tavar Zawacki. “Metamorphosis” Urban Spree Gallery. Berlin. September 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tavar Zawacki. “Metamorphosis” Urban Spree Gallery. Berlin. September 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tavar Zawacki. “Metamorphosis” Urban Spree Gallery. Berlin. September 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tavar Zawacki. “Metamorphosis” Urban Spree Gallery. Berlin. September 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tavar Zawacki. “Metamorphosis” Urban Spree Gallery. Berlin. September 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“Metamorphosis” the book, published by Urban Spree Books is available for purchase at the Urban Spree Gallery book store.

Published by Urban Spree Books in September 2017, First Edition

Book Design by Kelly Jewell, Texts & Design by Tavar Zawacki

168 pages, Hardcover, 24 x 32 cm (9,5″ x 12,5″)

Silver Foil Cover

www.tavarzawacki.com

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1UP, Martha Cooper, Jaime Rojo: The Print Pops

1UP, Martha Cooper, Jaime Rojo: The Print Pops

September 25, 2017

1UP . Graffiti Prints. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

It was May, there were birds singing in the trees, the smell of aerosol spray in the air, and steady traffic on the Bülowstrasse as we walked past the Urban Nation production offices up to the soon-to-be museum. We had heard that one of Berlin’s best known graffiti crews had come in the night and hit the construction walls outside the museum and hoped to get a shot of the new 1UP piece.

Infamous for their exploits and appreciated for their aesthetics, this was a chance to see fresh paint. As we crossed the street to get closer to the large new moniker we saw the masked men first, then the small crowd, then Martha.

1UP . Graffiti Prints. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

They had hit the spot the night before but now were back to tighten up the presentation. And man they nailed it. A month later Giancarlo Petrucci of Graffiti Prints asked our editor of photography Jaime Rojo if GP could use his photo of the 1UP piece to make a limited run print with the crew. Jaime said yes and this gorgeous thing resulted; a 12 color screen print on jet black plike paper with spot varnish on the 1UP. Even in these shots you can see how it pops right off the paper.

Ephemeral in nature as that moment was in time, this special print will help us remember that day at the UN with 1UP and Martha Cooper and Jaime, and we’re thankful.

1UP . Graffiti Prints. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

1UP . Graffiti Prints. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

1UP . Graffiti Prints. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

1UP Crew Hits Front of Urban Nation in Berlin

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BSA Images Of The Week: 09.24.17

BSA Images Of The Week: 09.24.17

September 24, 2017 ,

BSA-Images-Week-Jan2015

Happy Autumn New York! To our readers south of the Equator, the spring birds must be singing by now, right? Meanwhile in dirty old New York there is a lot of new stuff – including two new walls going up by OsGemeos and UK artist Lakwena’s turn at the Houston/Bowery Wall.

Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Anagard, Anthony Lister, Banksy, Brad Downey, D7606, Kai, Licuado, Martin Whatson, Mr. DiMaggio, Nafir, Nespoon, OsGemeos, Peter Phobia, Ron English, Silvio Alino, Voxx, and Zezao.

Top image: OSGEMEOS. Process shot. This WIP shot of the Twins shows one of two murals painted over the course of more than a week in Manhattan. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nafir . Martin Whatson. Collaboration. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nafir . Martin Whatson. Collaboration. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

ANAGARd. Urban Spree. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Peter Phobia. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kai (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kai (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Artist Unknown. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

NeSpoon. No Limit Festival. Boras, Sweden. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

NeSpoon. No Limit Festival. Boras, Sweden. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Fake Banksy. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Fake Banksy. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mr. Dimaggio. Urban Spree. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Licuado. “La Diversidad Es Nuestro Tesoro”. One Wall. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Licuado. “La Diversidad Es Nuestro Tesoro”. One Wall. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Licuado. “La Diversidad Es Nuestro Tesoro”. One Wall. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Licuado. “La Diversidad Es Nuestro Tesoro”. One Wall. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Anthony Lister. One Wall. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Anthony Lister. One Wall. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

D7606 collab with Silvio Alino. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Zezao. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Zezao. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Zezao. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Voxx. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ron English. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bathroom graffiti. Urban Spree. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brad Downey took over an art space in Berlin the week UN opened and reconfigured the facade to appear like a bricked will with a hole punched in the center. Brad is always seriously on another wavelength and we appreciate that. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Church Tower. Boras, Sweden. September 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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BSA Film Friday: 09.22.17

BSA Film Friday: 09.22.17

September 22, 2017

bsa-film-friday-JAN-2015

Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. This week we feature videos of installations and a tour of the “UNSTOPPABLE” exhibition by Jaime Rojo at the Urban Nation (UN) museum opening.

Now screening :
1. A BSA Tour Through the Show: “Unstoppable”
2. Pixel Pancho’s Installation for Urban Nation Museum
3. Hot Tea: “Bad Dreams pt.2” Installation for Urban Nation Museum
4. Borondo’ Installation with glass plates and moving images for Urban Nation Museum
5. Various & Gould. Mobile installation for Urban Nation Museum

A BSA Tour Through the Show: “Unstoppable” at Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary in Berlin

Pixel Pancho’s Installation for Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Via BSA

Pixel’s original installation was nixed by the city at the last moment but that didn’t prevent the Italian Street Artist from rallying to find another solution!

This new installation in the back courtyard was conceived of, designed, and constructed over a period of 4 days last week and became the secret surprise behind the museum for those who wandered there. Using landscaping techniques and botany knowledge that come naturally from his farm in Italy, the artist create a mise en scène of epic impact with his robotic folk-futurist sculptures. Night time lighting took it to another world, but you can see the details better here in this short video Jaime Rojo shot on site.

Hot Tea: “Bad Dreams pt.2” Installation for Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Via BSA

Hot Tea had been feeling like his new work “Bad Dreams Pt. 2” for the UN Art Mile was missing something and as the plan and installation came together over a few months he realized it was missing him. A direct partner piece to the one that hangs in the museum across the street for the “UNSTOPPABLE” show, this uses the connective thread of materials and wounds to tie them together. While one piece commemorates a physical wound, the other commemorates an emotional one. Here we see Hot Tea baring everything inside his art and inside this space for the outside world to get a glimpse, and to be free.

 

Borondo. Installation with glass plates and moving images for Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Via BSA

An astounding installation by Street Artist Borondo, this sculpture on the Urban Nation Art Mile under the train tracks this weekend blew the minds of many viewers for it’s scale, character, and ingenuity. Anathema to the ease of digital image-making, these three frames are composed of layers of glass, each scratched with a portion of the image and illuminated singularly in sequence to produce an animated sequence. Mesmerizing and imbued with an ethereal mysticism that often surrounds his work, Borondo is communicating something larger than simply what we see.

Various & Gould. Mobile installation for Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Via BSA

Berlin based duo Various & Gould often see people as the sum of there parts, perhaps as a way to better examine our individual characteristics and question our assigned meanings to them. By playing with the physical aspects that add to identity, they reveal the happenstance of genetic assignment and demote the relative value we assign to them. The overall effect can be a gained appreciation of our universal similarities and the realization that this outside stuff is basically interchangeable.

 

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The “Unstoppable” Works Inside : Looking to the Future at Urban Nation

The “Unstoppable” Works Inside : Looking to the Future at Urban Nation

September 21, 2017

A view inside at the inaugural exhibition of “UNSTOPPABLE” at Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art, opened September 16, 2017 in Berlin.

We never doubted that this museum would open. We only hoped it would look this exceptional.

First level. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The elevated bridge walkway that wends up and down and through and above the spaces creates so many dynamic opportunities to see and re-see art. Painted all white for this inauguration, this is the first museum of its kind dedicated to Urban Contemporary Art, and with this show the house in Berlin Schöneberg has blasted the doors open with 150 of today’s Street Artists, graffiti artists, urban artists in a spirit of celebration and recognition for their contributions to an ever changing scene.

The labels we use today to describe the artists and the art rarely fit them very well and are frequently contested, derided, embraced. With thoughtful and informed planning, programming and curatorial decisions this place will showcase the work of progenitors, superstars, and unsung heroes over time.

First level. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A scene born in rebellion and transgression on the streets of cities around the world for a half century now morphs into studio practice and more traditionally formal visual art forms. Often courting collectors passions, gallery shows, auctions, commercializing influences, and academics’ study, we know that the roots of this movement are much more than an object to behold in a frame under good lighting. But the scene and its roots and many branches contain these things as well.

No one said this would be easy for our studied, enthusiastic, knee-deep-in-it, world traveling curatorial team and Director Yasha Young to find a perfect balance with this collection, so ultimately we just trusted each other. Our consensus of course reflects us, the next show will reflect its curators. We agreed to present relevant artists and directions catalyzed in this moment with a respect for what came before; a cross section that we know leaves many out but contains works that speak for themselves about the multitude of rivers that flow through urban streets in 2017 out here, in here.

First level. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

With 150 artists inside, 40 outside, and hundreds curated into shows and walls and festivals across continents over the last four years leading up to this, this is one look at Urban Nation. A worldwide scene that took flight and merged with every form of art-making in public space, a scene where the majority of the artists are still alive and which continues to re-shape, to re-define itself.

Pedantic, cryptic, confusing or revelatory. The most you can hope for are moments that distill it like these, helping to make sense of a movement in motion. We’re grateful that Carlo McCormick agreed to do the contextualizing work of didactics in the exhibition and that Christian Omodeo is agreeing to help organize the Martha Cooper library with an eye toward archiving and scholarship.

As but two of the founding curators, we’re excited to foster the fullness of programming that teaches about the roots and the philosophies as well as the techniques of this generous Street Art/graffiti history, that invites communities to take ownership of their museum and to look forward. Along with the artist residencies offered in studios above the museum’s formal exhibition space we hope there will be room for scholars to study the materials here and to write, hold panels, publish works. Here’s to the future of Urban Nation, a place we can all learn from.

First level. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

First level. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

First level. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Martha Cooper Library. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Martha Cooper Library. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Martha Cooper Library. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Second level. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Second level. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Second level. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Second level. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Second level. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Second level. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Second level. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Second level. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Here’s a home made video showcasing the show in its entirety, via BrooklynStreetArt.com

A note of thanks:
This project took roughly five years in the making from its initial concept to opening night. We wish to express our heartfelt gratitude to Yasha Young the museum’s Artistic Director for her passion, for her unique commitment to the arts of the streets and for inviting us to be a part of this journey with her. Thank you to our fellow curators Marina Bortoluzzi, Marcello Pimentel, Johnathan Levine, Roland Henry, Andrew Hosner, Roland Henry, Charlotte Dutoit, Rom Levy, and D*Face a.k.a. Dean Stockton, for their insights, guidance, hard work and camaraderie.

To the Urban Nation team, those who are still a part of the team and those who have left, for their extraordinary patience, grace and endless hours working hard to help us make this dream a reality. To the production team at YES AND…productions who with their optimism and positive outlook labored tirelessly to make certain we had what we needed always. To Schrenk & Schrenk who organized all the auxiliary events and made sure we enjoyed the festivities, to Spring Brand Ideas for their assistance in the whole process, to Thomas Willemeit and Denis Hegic of GRAFT architects for such vision to showcase works and invite the visitor, and to project initiators Markus Terboven (Gewobag) and Hendrik Jellema (Berliner Leben Foundation) who have been there with us from the beginning.

To Martha Cooper for always being there and for inspiring us. Finally to all of the artists in all the venues for their talent, guts, and commitment to dig deep, take chances and to produce the best work possible for this multi-headed monster called UN.

With gratitude from Jaime and Steve.

 

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Naked Decision: Hot Tea & Bad Dreams at UN Opening in Berlin

Naked Decision: Hot Tea & Bad Dreams at UN Opening in Berlin

September 20, 2017

A common thread ties together two buildings and two art pieces by Street Artist HOT TEA for the grand opening of the Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art in Berlin (UN); Bad Dreams. And he has decided to face them.

Hot Tea. “Bad Dreams pt.2” Store Front Installation. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. September 16th 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

One of the few artists in the inaugural program who was asked to create an indoor piece for the main museum as well as to do an installation outside it, the Minneapolis based artist used the opportunity to face old wounds with the hope of transforming them to healing.

Perhaps the only illegal yarn-tagger on the street, HOTTEA has made a space for himself where none existed: using non-destructive materials to write his name in a rotated 3-D geometric hand on city fences. Now an accomplished yarn artist who has done his signature installations for corporate brands, museums, and even recently the Mall of America, the artist wanted to address bigger personal issues in these two settings, presenting himself naked to the world in both.

 

Hot Tea. Process Shot. Store Front Installation. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. September 16th 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

HOT TEA’s collage in the museum features a flat 2-D character painting, a reclined self portrait viewed from above with a series of small needles crossing it, threaded to spell the title of the piece “Bad Dreams”.

Hot Tea. “Bad Dreams” Detail. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. September 16th 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Across the Bülowstraße from the museum is a street level space viewable for passersby from multiple windows; a rainbow color-washed corner foyer hung with hundreds of white yarns in a grid hanging from ceiling to floor. One small space near the back of the ephemerous white cube is cut open, just large enough for the artist to stand sans vêtements, facing toward the glass double door, his illuminated image slowly moving as you walk the sidewalk past the installation on night-time streets.

Hot Tea. Process Shot. Store Front Installation. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. September 16th 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The optimistically colored installation is a surreal vision from the street for a few reasons. One is the stillness of the fleshy figure that is now activated like a Kraftwerk robot, slowly turning as you walk from window to window surveying it.

Another aspect is the seemingly shimmering box, this floating white cube that contains him, allowing you to view from many angles. The third bit of surrealism is the two boisterous and nearly hysterical sex workers who have just sauntered by the window and stop to gawk at a naked man inside a piece of art. Neither you nor they speak each other’s language, so the only connection you have is this puzzling view from the street.

Hot Tea. Process Shot. Store Front Installation. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. September 16th 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

In both art pieces the artist as subject is void of expression, staring blankly forward and unmoving as if paralyzed, unable to act or react. The vulnerability implied is physical of course, but it is also emotional. HOT TEA considers this a very public practice that can excise private pain. This weekend in Berlin we witnessed observers closely studying each piece, perhaps attempting to decode the meanings, perhaps relating to an underlying sense of humanity within the abstraction.

“Both experiences were very traumatic and I feel these two pieces have helped me find peace,” HOT TEA tells us of the new works. BSA talked to him about the works and his approach to them.

Hot Tea. Process Shot. Store Front Installation. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. September 16th 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA: The new pieces you created for both inside and outside the museum are related to one another and related to your personal experiences as an artist and a man. Can you talk about the pop-up installation?
HOT TEA: The two pieces are about two different events that happened in my life – which have made an impact on me for so many years. My canvas painting within the museum talks about a physical scar, where the installation talks about a mental scar.

Hot Tea. “Bad Dreams pt.2” Store Front Installation. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. September 16th 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA: You have been refining your use of materials through many installations in ever-larger commercial, corporate and museum venues. How have you challenged yourself with yarn and color?
HOT TEA: I think an even bigger challenge than yarn and color is the actual space itself. Yarn and color come very natural to me – but sometimes when I am invited to a space it’s not one I would naturally choose.

These spaces are often hard to work in – because many times I find myself uninspired. What inspires me and gives the work life is often the process of creating the installation. The experience of the people I work with or certain events that have taken place during the time of the installation. Often times my installs are depictions of different moments in my life.

BSA: Standing naked and illuminated and partially obscured before a street audience who can peer at you from different angles on the street must have been an interesting experience. What was going through your mind? What visual associations with other artworks were you imagining?
HOT TEA: I was thinking about the experience that inspired the performance and how much I have grown emotionally since then. I also thought about my family, friends and those close to me who are no longer here.

Hot Tea. “Bad Dreams pt.2” Store Front Installation. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. September 16th 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA: How do you see this installation as an extension of your street practice?
HOT TEA: I don’t see this installation as an extension of my street practice. I see it’s me grieving about traumatic experiences. All my work comes from the same mind and therefore I don’t distinguish my art from commissioned work and un-commissioned work.

BSA: As a former graffiti writer with aerosol you are well aware of your transition to Street Art and now public installations. How would you describe this evolution to another writer?
HOT TEA: It’s the process of growing as a human being and adapting.

Hot Tea. “Bad Dreams pt.2” Store Front Installation. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. September 16th 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA: Your axonometric tagging goes across the painting that is in the museum with thread and needles rather than yarn. Is this the first time you have tagged in a museum?
HOT TEA: My name actually doesn’t go across the painting – It reads “Bad Dreams” hence the title of the piece. As for having my work in a museum – I have never been one for labels because I have been called them my entire life. I don’t agree with places or people thinking they are higher or better than someone else because of their accomplishments or monetary value. My work has just as much meaning to me, no matter what the setting may be.

Hot Tea. “Bad Dreams” Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. September 16th 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Considering Hot Tea. “Bad Dreams” Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. September 16th 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hot Tea. “Bad Dreams pt.2” Store Front Installation. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. September 16th 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hot Tea. “Bad Dreams pt.2” Store Front Installation. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. September 16th 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

HOT TEA was curated by the co-founders of BSA, Steven P. Harrington and Jaime Rojo along with UN Artistic Director Yasha Young and the “UNSTOPPABLE” curatorial team for Urban Nation.

Hot Tea. “Bad Dreams pt.2 “Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. September 16th 2017. Video via BrooklynStreetArt.com

 

This article is also published on The Huffington Post

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“A Real Turning Point” : Sculptures on the Art Mile at Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art

“A Real Turning Point” : Sculptures on the Art Mile at Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art

September 19, 2017

“I think it’s a real turning point as far as seeing three dimensional things,” says Street Artist and fine artist Ben Frost while hand painting text on the side of the large facsimiles of pharmaceutical boxes that he’s creating for the UN Art Mile. “I think sculptures and installations have been paving a way forward for Street Art.”

Seth Globepainter. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

In fact sculpture and all manner of three dimensional installations as Street Art have been a part of the current century for sure, from the variety of lego and yarn artists to the soldiered steel tags of REVS and eco-bird houses of XAM and small little men made of wood by Stikman – among many others.

The traveling exhibition “Magic City” curated by Carlo McCormick and Ethel Seno that displays the wide range of works by todays’ interventionists now features a section devoted to sculpture including a selection of Street sculpture photography by Jaime Rojo.

Ben Frost. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Certainly when fine artists began joining the graffiti game they brought many additional techniques to the street, most of them applied to the surface of existing walls – stencils, wheat paste, rollers, for example.

Others have procured objects and attached them to the city; either creating new sculpture or replacing or adapting existing sculptures. For the public the experience may feel more intimate and evocative of the museum and gallery experience, encouraging one to regard the work from many perspectives. Naturally one would like to take selfies with them as well.

“Isn’t there a phrase, ‘Alls fair in love and war’? I feel like ‘Alls fear in love and war’,” says artist Ben Frost. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

For the opening of UN this weekend, the Urban Nation Museum of Urban Contemporary Art in Berlin this week, a curated selection of artists working in such dimensions were invited to create substantial pieces – including video installation, mobile, interactive, the purely static. Enjoy the variety of works by Street Artists who are working today.

Dot Dot Dot. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bordalo II. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Franco JAZ Fasoli. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Anthony Lister. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Anthony Lister. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Aaron Woes. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Herakut. Detail. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ludo. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sheryo . The Yok. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Isaac Cordal. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Isaac Cordal. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Isaac Cordal. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Haroshi. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Icy & Sot. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Icy & Sot. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cranio. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cranio. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Born To Die In Berlin. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Don John. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Grotesk . Juxtapoz Newsstand. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

Borodo. Moving Image on  glass panels. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Video by BrooklynStreetArt.com

 

 

Various & Gould. Mobile. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Video by BrooklynStreetArt.com

 

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“Inundated!” Scenes from the Opening: UN – Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art in Berlin

“Inundated!” Scenes from the Opening: UN – Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art in Berlin

September 18, 2017

“This week is Art Week in Berlin, and you just stole Art Week,” said a handsome and intensely opinionated German to us as we leaned on the arm rail of the M.C. Escher-inspired walkway before a Carlos Mare139 sculpture and above the capacity crowd on Saturday night at the Urban Nation Museum of Urban Contemporary Art (UN).

Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Not sure if that was the exact goal, but we get his larger point; the UN has just made a massive entry into a number of societally and culturally influential minds when it comes to the relevancy of Street Art and graffiti to visual culture and art history. This movement into so-called Contemporary began as early as the 1970s and has overcome and weathered cultural and market ebbs and flows – persisted, if you will – yet somehow institutions have been wary of this work and these artists and unable to fully embrace their importance, you decide why.

Artistic Director Yasha Young delivering her opening speech. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

While stakeholders in street culture, the art world, the gallery system, auction houses, and a burgeoning body of academia will continue to litigate the right of a Street Art/graffiti/Contemporary Art museum to exist or the correct form it should take, it is no longer a distant theoretical event. For those who have averred in the negative over the past few years about the potentiality of Urban Nation, the museum is now fact.

As were the crowds.

Long lines to get in on Saturday. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The crowds were there, the Mayor was there, a few hundred graffiti /street /contemporary artists inside and outside the house were there, the directors and curators were there (except Andrew Hosner, who was taken ill), the Flying Steps and three rappellers scaling down the façade to unveil a new Invader plate were there, the architects were there, Martha Cooper and her new library were there, 1UP was there, the overwhelming enthusiasm to be a part of this milestone where fifty years of Street culture adds a museum in its name by its own insistence – they were there too.

Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Steven P. Harrington)

With alchemists at the fore who are bold and determined to invite non-Art World people into the discussion about how a museum should be formed, the route here has been a challenge – as it frequently is for those who make the road by walking. We’re waxing a little poetically in the haze of a cloud of jet lag and too little sleep so allow us to say what John Ahearn told us in an email and a number of folks said to our faces all during this previous week, “This is a first.”  What follows is up to all of us.

With such a diverse number of tributaries flowing into this river of creativity and global street culture one must accede the point that this is not an encyclopedic collection representing all of graffiti, Street Art, Urban Art history. Short of staging the exhibition in the former Tempelhof Airport any all inclusive narrative would simply not fit. Instead we opted for a group show of some of the strongest players and influential talents and minds across the last few decades. This inaugural show is meant to bust the doors open and show off the new space, hopefully inspiring more minds to come in and help steer the ship forward.

Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Steven P. Harrington)

Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Steven P. Harrington)

Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Steven P. Harrington)

Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Group photo of the Flying Steps right after their performance. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

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Rendering Swastikas Inert on Berlin Walls

Rendering Swastikas Inert on Berlin Walls

August 21, 2017

The past couple of weeks (months, years) have seen the seeds of racism and fascism grow in western societies, taking to the streets as free-speech demonstrations, then menacing marches, then sometimes devolving into marauding nests of hate and physical violence.

Graffiti has been a tool for  communicating these sentiments more often than in recent years as well, including this weekends’ anti-Muslim graffiti on Spanish mosques in Seville and Granada. And while swastikas appeared on flags in Charlottesville last weekend, Berlin teens had already given their own response to the Nazi symbol on walls by converting them to something more playful.

Imo Omari, who owns a paint store started a small program last year to combat the swastikas popping up on German walls, even co-creating with Victoria Tschirch a youth graffiti workshop called Die kulturellen Erben e.V. (“The Cultural Heritage”), where graffiti writers and Street Artists gather to come up with creative ways to convert them into animals, geometric shapes, even dancing Egyptians.

This D.I.Y. activist approach to personal interventions in the public space is perfectly in alignment with the traditional graffiti vandal roots, but it also looks like it is empowering young artists to retake the conversation on the street with something proactive, effectively rendering symbols of hatred inert. In Berlin, a city where Far-right groups have been seizing and fomenting anti-immigrant sentiment against an influx of a million Syrians, Iraqis, and Afghanis into German since 2015 and where Germany’s anti-immigrant AfD party are trying to capitalize on it in September elections, this small individual-powered art project has much larger implications than more common street beef.

For more about the grassroots project check out #paintback on Twitter and Instagram.

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