Just in time for this weekend’s Mermaid Parade, London’s D*Face is finishing up “Live Fast Die Young,” his beauty-and-the-zombie comic couple sipping an ice cream float at the soda counter. Austrian surrealist slicer Nychos has completed his dissection of a Ronald McDonald-ish character without a sketch; running, jumping, nearly flying through the air with aerosol in hand, flinging the spent cans over his shoulder blindly to skitter across the pavement. Baltimore-based freeform anthropologist Gaia is cavorting with passersby who want to take cellphone selfies in front of his painted wall that depicts exactly that; selfies taken in Coney Island.
This is a modern version of the multi-mirror funhouse in mural form, and Coney Art Walls is bringing it again.
Nychos. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
22 new murals on standing slabs of concrete join a dozen or so that were retained from last summer to present an eclectic and savory selection from the old-school and the new. When it comes to art in the streets, a salty luncheonette of city-style treats is on a large public platter these days, with names like graffiti, street art, urban art, installation art, public art, fine art, even contemporary art. For some of those hapless gatekeepers of any of these respective categories, this show in this location presents degrees of discomfort and anger as many subcultural roots are now brought into the light in tandem with one another in a public display – funded by a real estate firm. For the artists and majority of fans, however, the trend is more toward delight and gratitude.
Nychos. The London Police photo bomb. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
While you are unpacking that, consider that lead curator Jeffrey Deitch has often proved very adept at plumbing the aesthetic margins of our culture while rearranging and intermingling the parties, helping the viewer to appreciate their differences. This outdoor exhibit co-curated with Joseph Sitt provides a venue for a wide audience to contemplate the range of expression that New York streets have had over the last few decades, including a few artists who are trying this manner of expression for the first time.
As the Thunderbolt, Steeplechase, Cyclone and Wonder Wheel spin and swerve nearby and overhead, sending screams and personal projectiles into the ocean breeze, you have this paved lot full of paintings to peruse, lemonade in one hand and the cotton-candy-sticky hand of a sunscreen-slathered child in the other. Here you’ll see a large two-walled corner smashed with Coney Island themes by Bronx graffiti masters Tats Cru (Bio, BG183, and Nicer), a selection of hand-drawn wheat pasted portraits of Coney Island youth by Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, and 4 full-form sculptures by John Ahearn creating a modernist view of divers on the beach .
Nychos. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Tooling elsewhere through the loose labyrinth you come upon a monochromatic cryptically patterned tribute to Brooklyn-born Beastie Boys vocalist Adam “MCA” Yauch by Brooklyn tagger/train writer/artist Haze and a seemingly lighthearted abstractly collaged wall of mermaids by fine artist Nina Chanel Abney, whose work is currently on the cover of Juxtapoz. There is also a spectacular underwater-themed symmetrical fantasy topped by pylons bearing the likenesses of characters from “The Warriors” film by artist duo The London Police, and a stenciled “Last Supper” featuring heads of world currency playing the disciples and George Washington as Jesus sprayed across the face of a huge dollar bill by Iranian brothers Icy & Sot.
Pose. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
We often travel streets and neglected spaces in cities looking for signs of freewill artistic expression and often the creative spirit surprises us as it can be expressed in so many ways with emotion, agenda, and idiosyncratic point of view. It may be the plurality of voices one experiences surfing the Internet or the multi-cultural nature of living in New York with a continuous river of fresh arrivals mixing in with established and old-timers every day, but one comes to expect this variety of viewpoints and rather naturally creates accommodation for inclusion that celebrates without negating – and in many ways Coney Art Walls does that as well.
Oppositional viewpoints are present if you look: There are coded messages and obvious ones, critiques of corporate hegemony, issues of race, commentary on police relations, sexuality, religion, capitalism, community, the languages of advertising, movies, music, entertainment, local history, and examination of roles and power structures.
John Ahearn. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
When tooling around this collection, you may wonder what, then, are the commonalities of this survey. Certainly there are the recurring references to Coney Island lore and aspects of performance and flimflam, oddity, fantasy, even the erotic. Naturally, there are elements of natural wonder as well, perhaps expected with the proximity to the beach and the ocean and the history of this place as a vacation getaway.
Aside from this, the connective tissue is what we frequently identify as what is distinctly New York – the plurality of voices. Arguing, making fun, praising, preening, bragging, lambasting, mocking, singing. Despite the continuous attempts by others to divide us, we’re strangely (very strangely), beautifully united.
Jeffery Deitch with John Ahearn. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
John Ahearn. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Icy & Sot. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Gaia. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Gaia. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
“11 Instagram Posts”, by Gaia. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Gaia. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Haze. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Haze. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
D*Face. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
D*Face. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
D*Face. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
D*Face. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Marie Roberts has multi-generational roots here and her work makes you stop and study it. She has painted many visions and views around the neighborhood, and is considered the artist-in-residence. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Marie Roberts. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Marie Roberts. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
The London Police. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
The London Police. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
The London Police. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
The London Police. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
AIKO. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
AIKO. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
AIKO. Side A. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Originally from Japan, Brooklyn’s AIKO has a double sided stencil sonnet to the romance of the sea. With “Tale of the Dragon King and Mermaids in Water Castle” Aiko tells a new version of Urashima Tarō, an old Japanese legend about a fisherman who rescues a turtle and is rewarded for this with a visit to Ryūgū-jō, the palace of Ryūjin. Says Aiko, “This piece speaks to my and all women’s fantasies; chilling hard super sexy in the beautiful ocean with friendly dragon who is super powerful and a smart guy – they are about going to water castle having good time.”
AIKO. Side B. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Daze. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Daze. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Nina Chanel Abney. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Nina Chanel Abney. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Nina Chanel Abney. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Mister Cartoon. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Mister Cartoon. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Mister Cartoon. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Steve ESPO Powers. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Steve ESPO Powers. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Steve ESPO Powers. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Jessica Diamond. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Tristan Eaton. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Tristan Eaton. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Tristan Eaton. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Tatiana Fazlalizadeh. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Tatiana Fazlalizadeh photographing her subjects. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Tatiana Fazlalizadeh. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Crash. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
BIO – Tats Crew. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
NICER – Tats Crew. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
BG183 – Tats Crew. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Tats Crew. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Sam Vernon. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Sam Vernon. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Timothy Curtis. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Timothy Curtis. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Martha Cooper. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Coney Art Walls
2016 New Artists: Nina Chanel Abney, John Ahearn, Timothy Curtis, D*Face, Jessica Diamond, Tristan Eaton, Gaia, Eric Haze, Icy & Sot, London Police, Nychos, Pose, Stephen Powers, Tats Cru, and Sam Vernon. Returning artists who created new works: Lady Aiko, Mister Cartoon, Crash, Daze, Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, and Marie Roberts. 2015 Murals on display: by Buff Monster, Eine, Ron English, How & Nosm, IRAK, Kashink, Lady Pink, Miss Van, RETNA, eL Seed and Sheryo & Yok. There are also three community walls.
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This article is also published on The Huffington Post
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