French Street Artist JR is in Los Angeles for a few weeks to wheat-paste twenty or more murals from “Wrinkles in the City”, a black and white portrait series featuring colossal visages of the mature angels in this city.
In a metropolis that famously avoids wrinkles, whether celluloid hero or not, plastering enormous creased and cratered kissers across architectural facades and rooftops is tantamount to vandalism. All of this seems perfect for the 28 year old former graffeur from Paris, who won the 2011 TED prize and who has previously installed portions of this project in Shanghai and Cartegena.
Intended to be visible from streets and freeways, the series continues the Street Artists’ previous work; photographs that pay gentle tribute to the daily lives of citizens, elevating the “everyday” to an outsized scale normally reserved for celebrity and sales.
LA-based BSA collaborator and enormously talented photographer Todd Mazer has captured some of JR’s recent installations here exclusively for you.
While Nick Walker is in town hitting up all kinds of fancy, he spent a little time with BSA to make this new stencil in The People’s Republic of Brooklyn, above. Coming from the printers to check on the progress of the new release tomorrow (see below), Nick and his merry cluster of “assistants” rolled through the BK to poke his head into a couple of windows. Full process pics and the installation come up Sunday on BSA’s Images of the Week.
Nick Walker will be releasing a print in collaboration with Opera Gallery, 115 Spring Street, New York, this Saturday, February 26th, 2011 at 3pm EST. A lottery has been set up making 50 prints available for collectors in the UK. In order to apply for a print please email info@theartofnickwalker.com with New York TMA lottery in the subject box.
Nick Walker’s “Morning After New York” print release at Opera Gallery Tomorrow at 3:00 p.m.
The print will be a signed limited edition of 150 with 18 hand-finished Artists proofs.
Royce Bannon Catches Unusual Suspects at 17 Frost Tomorrow
Check out Abe Lincoln Jr. Celso, Chris RWK, Darkclouds, Infinity, Keely, Matt Siren, Moody, Nose Go, and Sno Monster, all curated by monster man Royce Bannon at this eclectic show in Brooklyn Saturday night. Read more and see images from the show HERE:
Please Support the Pantheon Show Across from the MoMA in April
This spring at the former Donnell New York Public Library across the street from MoMA Joyce Manalo and Daniel Feral will bring you PANTHEON: A History of Art From the Streets of NYC. This artist’s initiative is a 40 year history of New York Street Art told by the people who actually did the work. Run with volunteers, this show promises an erudite assessing of this moment in the timeline, and a look at how we got this far – and daily demonstrations in the windows. With your pledge to their Kickstarter campaign they will be able to afford to print catalogues and mount the show. Please throw them a buck! Click Here to see their KickStarter.
The debut solo exhibition of NYC-based artist Joseph Meloy.
A hieroglyphic graffiti-inflected take on the spirit of abstract expressionism, Vandal Expressionism is a veritable child of New York City, drawing as much from the Abstract Expressionists of the 1940’s and 50’s as from the hordes of graffiti taggers whose scribbles and scrawls wallpaper our streets.
The media is mixed, and the message might not be entirely apparent, but it’s this inkblot test ambiguity that makes Vandal Expressionism a trip to explore…
OPENING PARTY – March 3rd, 2011 7PM to 10PM
Le Salon d’ Art
90 Stanton Street
New York, NY EXHIBIT
March 3rd, 2011 – March 31st, 2011
Graffiti and Street Artists have been employing the public space to communicate for a few generations, and every day we are seeing examples that the new generation is determined to take it in new directions. Here’s a dude who took his message to the street to win the heart of his girl.
Video still from “Proposal” by Aaron Vanden
While there are a number of interesting aspects about this approach you can observe, one is the idea taken from graffiti culture where the message is directed at a specific audience. While graff writers have used the street to speak in a coded way directly to their peers, (or like 70s train writer Lee Quinones, his mom) this Street Artist makes a succession of art pieces placed along a frigid winter path that speak to the object of his affection. Like graff writers, the pieces use symbolism specific to his personal story and of relevance to his intended audience.
This week UR New York is rocking the four-panel spot across the street from Woodward Gallery in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The born-and-raised New York duo, who have both done graffiti in the past, have been working hard year-round on the streets of Soho selling their art for about 3 years . With their folding tables displaying original screened and sprayed urban image collage, they’ve built a serious fan base. With themselves as their own best reps, they’ve also landed their work in shows and private collections and even corporate lobbies. Always hustling and always challenging themselves to take it to the next level, they’re pretty stoked to fill this spot that has hosted a number of New York’s hometown favorite Street Artists over the last few years.
To mark the new installation, 2easae and Ski wanted to do something new and creative so they painted everything by hand instead of using screens and stencils. The results are somehow more personal and inviting. Stretching beyond their comfort level, they also took on something more abstract. When an artist does something courageous like going outside what is safe for them, you gotta applaud. According to the guys, the end result was a feeling that they were more connected to this piece than others they’ve worked on. They also scored a greater appreciation for artists who work by hand.
Brooklyn Street Art: Can you talk a little about the actual shapes and symbols you used and what pushed you toward them?
UR New York: We decided to use different symbols, and arrows in particular, to represent the different directions we may take in life. When you look at our work traditionally it’s detailed and defined with elements of graffiti. We started this project taking a completely different route. We figured we’d use simple imagery to convey an abstract feeling.
Brooklyn Street Art:Can each panel stand as a piece by itself or is it meant to be as a single piece only?
UR New York: The initial thought was for the four panels to create a narrative. Artistically each panel was structured to stand alone but when they come together you grasp the full vision of the piece.
Brooklyn Street Art:Talk a little bit about how you feel about changing it up stylistically. UR New York: Changing our style of work is refreshing. As much as we love urban landscapes and graffiti, we decided to try something different and slightly out of our element. We get a thrill out of trying new techniques and styles. Our audience and supporters are always expecting something fresh and new. It’s exciting to deliver and get positive and creative feedback.
Brooklyn Street Art: Do you always bring graffiti to the game? UR New York: Our style is as unique as a fingerprint but an element of graffiti will always play a role in our artwork. It’s part of our background and we pay homage to the roots and culture of where this all started for us.
Video Debut of “Eye of the Beholder”, starring UR New York in studio.
“I love art a lot, its a hobby that takes a lot of my time, and helps me being positive and keeps my mind off the more serious things in life,” says prize winner Martin C. from Denmark. Congratulations to him and to Marco C. from Italy who was stoked to win the big prize, “You made my day.” Finally, there is Mika A. from Washington, DC, who is a young street artist there and who sent us a cool pic.
Answer 3 Simple Trivia Questions from last nights Brooklynite LIVE chat with Martyn Reed
Man, that was a blast! The Chat Pub over at Brooklynite was pretty crowded last night with an international crowd of beer swilling NuArt fans all yelling and climbing over each other to grab the ear of the guest of honor. Peeps who logged online to see the World Premiere of “Eloquent Vandals” were happily peppering affable bad boy Martyn Reed with questions ranging from his experiences with the NuArt artists (95% good) to how his little Norwegian town became known for amazing Street Art over the course of a decade (work and talent and luck). All that chatter made it hard to hear the movie and if you were like us, you missed most of the show because of all the excitement.
But, as promised, we’re giving away the movie today to you. Just answer these three questions and send them to us at Eloquent@BrooklynStreetArt.com. The first three people who answer the three questions correctly win 1st, 2nd, and 3rd prize.
No family or pets or employees or landlords of BSA are eligible. All complaints about the hardness of the questions should be addressed directly to Martyn Reed at thesequestionsaretoohardyousuck@nuart.no. Good Luck! We’ll tell you who won tomorrow.
Here are your Trivia Questions:
1) In the film, what does Dface’s work ask us to do?
2) GRL is an acronym for what ?
3) Nick Walker is from which British City ?
Shot and directed by Martin Hawkes, the film features work and interviews with Street Artists like Blek Le Rat, Graffiti Research Lab, Dface, Herakut, Nick Walker, Know Hope, Jimmy Cauty, Chris Stain, Wordtomother, Sten & Lex, Dotmasters, Zeus (UK) and Dolk & Pøbel.
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One of the benefits of being an artist and part of the active process of actually creating in a pool of peers is you will find that the same spirit that travels through you is evident in others. When we were part of artist collectives in Brooklyn in the early 2000’s we would see that artists frequently manifested ideas and techniques that paralleled – without consulting one another. It was uncanny. Chalk it up to the idea that everyone drinks from the same stream of creativity that flows past us all the time.
Buff Diss uses masking tape to make incredible Street Art installations that interact with the built environment. Separate and apart of him Brooklyn Street Artist Aakash Nihalani does something quite similar on the streets. While we have worked with Aakash – he was in our Street Crush show in ’09 – we never met Buff Diss. Wouldn’t it be cool if they were on a double bill together?
We’re really happy to see that this project is finished and congratulate Martyn Reed for finishing his film “Eloquent Vandals”, made during the NuArt Festival in Stavanger, Norway. You can congratulate Martyn LIVE when you log in to chat with him and see the WORLD DEBUT of the film next Monday the 31st.
Shot and directed by Martin Hawkes, the film features work and interviews with Street Artists like Blek Le Rat, Graffiti Research Lab, Dface, Herakut, Nick Walker, Know Hope, Jimmy Cauty, Chris Stain, Wordtomother, Sten & Lex, Dotmasters, Zeus (UK) and Dolk & Pøbel.
Win a FREE Copy! To celebrate the World Premier, BSA is hosting a trivia game and giveaway of copies of the film and other NuArt goodies the day after the show — Feb 1.
* first image of post is a still featuring work by Blek Le Rat in “Eloquent Vandals” courtesy of Nuart/Saft films.
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Eloquent Vandals
Running time : 27 mins
Shot on location during Norway’s Nuart Festival in 2008, Eloquent Vandals
features candid interviews and work from some of the worlds leading street
artists including Blek Le Rat, Graffiti Research Lab, Dface, Herakut, Nick
Walker, Know Hope, Jimmy Cauty, Chris Stain, Wordtomother, Sten & Lex,
Dotmasters, Dolk & Pøbel.
Shot and Directed by Martin Hawkes
Produced by Nuart/Saft films
During the recent Los Angeles Art Show 2011, four Street Artists regaled the residences at the Ritz Carlton with brand new pieces. Mear One, Chor Boogie, and Shark Toof each worked for 6 days in the highest residence on the West Coast in advance of the big opening party hosted by Shepard and Amanda Fairey. Curated by Bryson Strauss, the show features aerosol, traditional brush painting, and a pulpy wall of wheat-pasted pieces.
Street Artist NohJColey travelled to Texas for a few weeks to visit friends and put up these new portraits in the studios of a de facto music factory. The former meat packing plant is abuzz with activity day and night with up-and-coming entrepreneurs of all stripes pounding out the beats, doing fashion shoots, making videos, mixing music, and a little bit of partying to ease the stress of all that work. NohJ slept on couches for a few weeks and hung out with many unknowns on the hip-hop tip, and a few bigger names too. He also spent long stretches of time killing large walls in these artists studios with his very distinctive illustration style of portraiture. Not surprisingly, the theme of music runs through them.
“The first piece I did was done in the place I was sleeping in. It wasn’t about the owner but it was a reflection of him in a way because he literally ran around with his head cut off and he didn’t know what was going on half the time. He was mostly crying about his girlfriend or surfing the net looking at new videos. Supposedly he was a DJ. He had gigs, but no turntables. He was scratcher and mixer,” explains NohJ about this mural going up a staircase.
If you know anything about NohJ, it’s that he is always thinking and observing people. Each piece has a story that is rooted in his imagination as much as his observation of the human condition. His characters are illustrative of greater truths and of their personal idiosyncracies. You can imagine him becoming a literary or screen writer because he knows his subjects inside and out. Psychology, sociology, and popular culture all come to fore, placed with symbolism and gesture into the portrait and into a moment. If NohJ inhabits each fictional character he creates just for a moment, he stays with them for hours, gently observing their motivations and making judgments about their judgment, blending in some social critique.
No. 1
Brooklyn Street Art:What about this dude?
NohJ: These are piano keys, I don’t know if I ever said that.
Brooklyn Street Art:No, I didn’t see that
NohJ: Yeah, they’re supposed to be exiting his chest
Brooklyn Street Art:So does it seem like musical notes coming out of his chest?
NohJ: No, just keys
Brooklyn Street Art:So they’re musical tools with which to create the sound but they don’t necessarily have a sound?
NohJ: I’d say they represent the sound just because those are the keys, you know?
Brooklyn Street Art:Biomorphic, undulating
NohJ: Definitely, contorted, yeah
Brooklyn Street Art:What about these gray lines that go around?
NohJ: That’s the chords
Brooklyn Street Art:He looks kind of constricted by them, his lower torso
NohJ: He’s can’t go anywhere because the line is wrapped. He wants to DJ but he can’t get the turntable, it keeps rocking back and forth. He can’t really see it. The right eye is covered because, you know how there are constantly music videos going – he’s constantly seeing the music video in something. He sees clothes, a phone, somebody’s chain, sneakers. He sees it in a video and thinks he’s gotta buy it.
Brooklyn Street Art:So he’s imprisoned by his consumerist tendencies?
NohJ: Yeah
Brooklyn Street Art:or just his impulses
NohJ: Probably his tendencies though because he’s like being brainwashed.
Brooklyn Street Art:It becomes a tendency after a while
NohJ: He’s like “Oh, it’s a whole lifestyle”, you know
Brooklyn Street Art:“this stuff represents ‘me’”. He doesn’t look like he’s very old.
NohJ: I don’t know – mid twenties, early thirties
Brooklyn Street Art: So what was the reaction of the person who hangs out in this space?
NohJ: He liked it. He didn’t know what it was about. It was about him though.
No. 2
NohJ: This one is about noise levels.
Brooklyn Street Art:She’s plugging her ears too.
NohJ: Even though the sound is coming out of her nose. That’s why I used the pattern- It’s octagons and triangles. I usually use triangles to represent strife, the points!
Brooklyn Street Art:So if we see shapes that are in your work that are circles or are circular, what are those going to represent?
NohJ: I rarely use circles but it probably would mean that you are going through a transition. It might be rough but it’s going to get better. It all depends though cause it all has to do with the number.
Brooklyn Street Art:What’s her name?
NohJ: She doesn’t have a name but this is in a guys studio and when he has the speakers on, this piece makes so much sense to you. Because it’s like all this noise coming from the right side of the house and you are just looking at this woman and she is looking at you and she’s like, “Yeah it’s noisy right?”
Brooklyn Street Art:This pattern also makes me think of some folk art or maybe Native American art.
NohJ: I kind of figured you’d…. I mean, why?
Brooklyn Street Art:Because of the diamond motif repeated. I mean it’s a quadrilateral but it’s squashed. There’s no Native American influence here.
NohJ: Maybe, but if so it subconsciously got in there.
Brooklyn Street Art:I think her name is Consuelo. That’s what I’ve decided. But you don’t have a name for her.
NohJ: She’s trying to distance herself from the rest of her body because this over here is her back and the speakers are inbetween, you know?
Brooklyn Street Art:Man! She is really trying to get away!
NohJ: She’s pulling herself apart.
While a portrait may be a symbol of a greater truth, he isn’t going to stand on a soapbox. But if you really want to know and you are listening, he’ll tell you. If not, he won’t worry very much. Amalgams of people he’s met and the person he is, the pieces and their stories have their own logic – part reality and science fiction. Mixing fantasy with reality, sometimes it’s not clear where one ends and the other starts;Just when you think you got the scenario and you think it’s all symbolism and representation, you’ll learn that a character actually does have a piece of jewelry protruding from their head, or a cassette tape flowing out of his mouth and it is not a metaphor after all.
No. 3
Brooklyn Street Art: Tell me about this boy
NohJ: He’s just like a teenager that listens to all this new music that we’ve been talking about. – Like poor quality stuff.
Brooklyn Street Art:He doesn’t think it’s poor quality though.
NohJ: Exactly, that’s the problem. That’s why there are all these tapes flying at him and he’s just covering his ears. He doesn’t want to hear the titles of the good stuff you know? – Whether it’s like Led Zepplin or the Beatles or I don’t know.
Brooklyn Street Art:What does he want to listen to?
NohJ: I don’t know, like Justin Bieber, Souljah Boy, stuff like that.
Brooklyn Street Art:Is this other guy lecturing him?
NohJ: Yeah, definitely. He’s like an older musician, dressed in 70s fashion.
Brooklyn Street Art:He looks like he was on the set of “Sanford and Son”
NohJ: Yeah, definitely. The large oversized collar, open.
Brooklyn Street Art:That looks like a VCR tape
NohJ: It’s a cassette tape.
Brooklyn Street Art:So what do you think this guy has on these cassette tapes?
NohJ: Like Hendrix, the O’Jays
Brooklyn Street Art:Oh yeah, like “Love Train”.
NohJ: …Sonny Rollins… I mean he’s really just telling him about quality stuff, and really where most of the new stuff derives from.
Brooklyn Street Art: This kid looks a little bit mad
NohJ: Yeah he’s super angry, he doesn’t like this
Brooklyn Street Art:But he can’t talk back, that’s why his mouth is closed
NohJ: I think he’s really scared though because he’s like “how are cassette tapes coming out of someone’s mouth?”
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
JR (Photo © Todd Mazer)
