All posts tagged: BSA Film Friday

BSA Film Friday: 02.19.21

BSA Film Friday: 02.19.21

February 19, 2021 ,

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

Now screening participants at Festival Asalto 2020:
1. Nychos “1111”
2. Meet Vhils / Leaders in Action Society
3. Jauria / Pack David De La Mano with Nicolás Almada Luraghi and Enzo Rosso

BSA Special Feature: Nychos Begins Again at “1111”

Life has its mysterious and unexpected ways of grabbing our attention. Austrian street artist, fine artist, and epic muralist Nychos may have been too busy to see the cycles he was in until, finally, a devastating physical and emotional series of events brought him to a baseline truth.

In some ways, his search was perhaps being played out before our eyes for those who experienced his art over the last decade: A relentless dissecting and peering into the contents and physical inner workings of the animal world and humans extended to metaphor as well – slicing apart and examining icons, monsters, dinosaurs, and pop culture detritus too. His works could often be accompanied by a certain clinical gore, a brightly illustrated and fascinating horror, a stylish rage, a riveting trauma, a gorgeously gut-wrenching drama.

Today, he tells us part of his journey that involves destruction and pain, of rage, release, clarity, and finally a healing. Brave, as ever, he shares it with us. Like all of us, these painful lessons will shape the path he forges into the future. We are thankful. And we wish him the best.

Nychos “1111”

Meet Vhils / Leaders in Action Society

A broader autobiography is given here by Portuguese street artist Vhils of growing up in a suburban part of Lisbon surrounded by the leftist politics of his supportive family and community in the 1990s at a time of great discord and difficult changes in society. “Graffiti is a game within a group of people who understand the language,” he says in one of the most succinct descriptions ever.

Jauria / Pack David De La Mano with Nicolás Almada Luraghi and Enzo Rosso

Neglected buildings often access and summon elements of your imagination. You may conjure scenarios of how people lived in, worked in, interacted in the rooms and hallways, and windows. Sometimes hearing music like this in an abandoned place gives the impression that it is literally pulling spirits of the past forward, filling the air with the music of the life, the life of the music. Harpist Nicolás Almada Luraghi and violinist Enzo Rosso here finely weave the silk and the lace that surely graced this space. Street artist David de la Mano not only adorns but brings walls to life with his flat figured illustration style and storytelling.

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BSA Film Friday: 02.12.21

BSA Film Friday: 02.12.21

February 12, 2021 ,

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

Now screening participants at Festival Asalto 2020:
1. MrFijodor, “Logo Al Rogo, MEMORY/OBLIVION”
2. Bunker Walls. Street art inside the cave.
3. Fabio Petani: Phosphorus Oxide & Narcissus
4. TANC at Pavillon Carre de Baudouin
5. Mary Wells 1944-2021
6. Chick Corea 1941-2021

BSA Special Feature: MrFijodor, “Logo Al Rogo”

For a project called with twelve artists called “Street Art Inside a Cave” in September 2020 in Bozen, Italy, graffiti writer / street artist / muralist MrFIJODOR worked on three walls creating a storied set of shadowy forms and symbols that he says tie the past with the present – in an unnerving way. He says the goal is to keep the memory of the atrocities of history alive, precisely to ensure that they never happen again.

From the project description “The wall is inspired by the theme ‘Memory and oblivion’: the one is a constant motion of the human mind, the other erases memories and consciences to start a ‘new cycle’ of reminiscences. But there are events that cannot be forgotten, such as the atrocities of the Second World War. The artwork blends art with history: the chromatic fidelity to the Nazi flag contrasts with the provocation of the piece: the swastika is made up of glasses, shoes, teeth, prosthesis of hands and feet, all those ‘personal objects’ of which the deportees were deprived to become what Primo Levi in ‘I sommersi e i salvati’ calls as “human material”. The work is also a sign of contemporaneity. Some speeches and attitudes of current sovereigns create and feed useless violence born from the manipulation of everyday life: symbols, concepts, promises and intentionally repeated gestures of which these ‘powerful’ make it their leitmotif to conquer and subjugate more or less indirectly peoples.”

MrFijodor, “Logo Al Rogo, MEMORY/OBLIVION”

The exhibition “Mythos. Ten impressions” is organized by Cooperativa Talia and MurArte Bolzano.

Bunker Walls. Street art inside the cave.

Fabio Petani: Phosphorus Oxide & Narcissus

Remember summer? Last August Fabio Patino painted this large scale mural for a private gig in in Chivasso, Italy. He calls it Phosphorus Oxide & Narcissus Pseudonarcissus.

TANC at Pavillon Carre de Baudouin

Paris artist TANC began in graffiti moved into abstraction, color washes and geometric illustration – and now enjoys a commercial/fine art career as well. Here with a project for L’association Art Azoï, he painted the exhibition wall at Pavillon Carre de Baudouin a colorscape to offset the grey of winter.

Mary Wells 1944-2021

Chick Corea 1941-2021

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BSA Film Friday: 02.04.21

BSA Film Friday: 02.04.21

February 5, 2021 ,

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

Now screening participants at Festival Asalto 2020:
1. “BY VIRTUE OF” a collaboration project between Faith XLVII and Zane Mayer
2. Five Minutes with: 1UP Crew in Berlin – Via I LOVE GRAFFITI.DE
3. MadC1 Via Tost Films
4. Tiacuilos: A film by Federico Peixoto.

BSA Special Feature: “BY VIRTUE OF” a collaboration project between Faith XLVII and Zane Mayer

Hands have appeared across walls often across these last two decades – a favorite focus for so many street artists and muralists – from GAIA to Case MaClaim and Pixel Pancho to “The Praying Hands” by Albrecht Dürer turned upside down in Athens, Nathan Murdoch’s two hands in the shape of a heart in Peterborough, UK, Saype‘s global hands project, Chip Thomas’s hands in the Arizona desert, and current façade of the Stadmuseum in Oldenburg, Germany.

These hands first appeared projected on a 10 story building in Jacksonville, Florida. A compilation of hands filmed during interviews with America’s homeless, the collaborative video piece by Zane Meyer and Faith XLVII is instructive, expansive, colorful, genuine. Say the artists about the focus of this work, “Like books, the hands tell stories of what they have been through. Slow movements, delicate gestures, and subconscious motions make up the scenes of the film – a match is lit, stones are organized, tattoos are shown, sand is filtered. Clenched hands narrate stories of power, or anger, while open hands suggest an offering or a search for an embrace.”

“BY VIRTUE OF” a collaboration project between Faith XLVII and Zane Mayer

Five Minutes with: 1UP Crew in Berlin – Via I LOVE GRAFFITI.DE

Looks like 1UP Crew are up to no good, as usual. On a large scale, as usual. Impressive, as usual.

MadC1 Via Tost Films

A small taste of the stunning MadC painting her highest mural to date – 56 meters (184 feet) high – in Abu Dhabi for @forabudhabi – with a team from 7 different countries.

Tiacuilos: A film by Federico Peixoto.

As we have always done; here is an excellent opportunity to broaden the conversation about this world-wide people’s art movement that goes by many names. Tlacuilos: “The definitive film chronicle of Graffiti and Hip Hop in Central America”. A film by Federico Peixoto.

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BSA Film Friday: 01.29.21

BSA Film Friday: 01.29.21

January 29, 2021 ,

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

Now screening participants at Festival Asalto 2020:
1. SOFLES MIXTAPE Vol 1.
2. SOFLES / FAST FORWARD
3. Reisha Perlmutter / RBG
4. BKFOXX / Don’t Tell Me How To Be A Girl

BSA Special Feature: Sofles Mixtape!

Two in a row from SOFLES! First, the Mixtape – graffiti, canvas, and commissions from ’15 to ’20.

SOFLES MIXTAPE Vol 1.

SOFLES / FAST FORWARD

Reisha Perlmutter / RBG

“It reminds me of so many things I believe in,” says this fine artist who made one the best ones on the streets of Brooklyn in 2020 – a half portrait of Ruth Bader Ginsburg in a recessed doorway.

“The paintings born in studio giving birth to raw paintings on the streets,” she wrote on her Instagram. “Humbled to honor this woman, and the pursuit to speak in all forms, whether through paint, or through words.”

BKFOXX / Don’t Tell Me How To Be A Girl

This mural is from a couple of summers ago, but we still dig it’s message. BKFoxx says, “This is a Public Service Announcement from BKFOXX”

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BSA Film Friday: 01.22.21

BSA Film Friday: 01.22.21

January 22, 2021 ,

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

Now screening participants at Festival Asalto 2020:
1. Isaac Cordal
2. Elbi Elem
3. Akacorleone
4. Lida Cao
5. Diego Vicente
6. Karto
7. Marta Lapena
8. Sawu
9. Slim Safont

BSA Special Feature: Festival Asalto 2020

In Barrio San Jose (Zaragoza) the Festival Asalto mounted its 2020 edition in spite of, and perhaps because of, the very strange time that we are living in. Once considered an expression of the counterculture, illegal street art has evolved in some ways to spawn legal mural festivals that actually reinforce a sense of normalcy. The organizers and participants of Festival Asalto had to overcome logistical obstacles as well as the fears of many to mount the outdoor exhibition this year, and we salute them for their fortitude and successes.

Isaac Cordal at Festival Asalto 2020

Elbi Elem at Festival Asalto 2020

Akacorleone at Festival Asalto 2020

Lida Cao at Festival Asalto 2020

Diego Vicente at Festival Asalto 2020

Karto at Festival Asalto 2020

Marta Lapena at Festival Asalto 2020

Sawu at Festival Asalto 2020

Slim Safont at Festival Asalto 2020

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BSA Film Friday: 01.15.21

BSA Film Friday: 01.15.21

January 15, 2021 ,

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

Now screening :
1. Escif: Greenpeace, For a Sustainable City.
2. Street Art in 2020
3. Mathieu Libman: The Moon’s Is Not That Great

BSA Special Feature: Escif: Greenpeace, For a Sustainable City.

Street Art in 2020

Doug Gillen of FifthWall TV reflects on the world of street art in the year of 2020.

Mathieu Libman: The Moon’s Is Not That Great

After an astronaut returns from her lunar mission to find that the public lost all interest in the moon, the stories of the astronaut, a film director, and a bear intersect.

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BSA Film Friday 01.07.21

BSA Film Friday 01.07.21

January 8, 2021 ,

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

Now screening :
1. Medicos Del Mundo #Esperanza #AlwaysHope
2. SOFLES / The Minibus (feat. Treas)
3. SpY / Luna


BSA Special Feature: Medicos Del Mundo #Esperanza #AlwaysHope

Today we present an inspiring video that reaches all the corners of the world – which is where Doctors of the World goes. The organization looks past the geographic and political barriers to care for all of us. Here film directors, directors, and artists – across five continents – participate in telling lived stories of people on the front line.

Learn more about MedicosDelMundo here.

SOFLES / The Minibus (feat. Treas)

New graffiti porn from Brisbane this week as Sofles and Treas take camping to a new dimension in aerosol madness. The team of Grug & Bustaflux keep the audio details and effects tight with camerawork that trips and makes the heart skip by After Midnight Film.

SpY / Luna

Can you trust your eyes? Is that the moon?

SpY draws an indirect connection to the moon and the television depictions of 1969 showing a team of astronauts landing on it. The Madrid installation artist uses the simplest of gestures to make clarion statements. Installed on one of the construction cranes of the fifth tower of the Caleido complex in the north of Madrid, SpY hangs the moon in the sky with an inflatable nylon structure illuminated with high intensity LED system.

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BSA Film Friday 12.11.2020

BSA Film Friday 12.11.2020

December 11, 2020 ,

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

Now screening :
1. “About William Lanson” – David de la Mano in Connecticut
2. Orestis Pangalos: Greek Graffiti Animation Lyric Video.
3. Pep Williams x RISK
4. Danny Hathaway’s version of “This Christmas” now Animated!

BSA Special Feature: “About William Lanson” – David de la Mano in Connecticut

The Uruguayan muralist David de la Mano was in Connecticut last month to paint a new mural in his signature silhouetted style that evokes local wildlife and the historical coastline and industrial past of this northeastern city of 130,000.   

Although his figure is not featured in the mural and the connection may not be obvious to a passerby, the project design intends to honor the 19th century entrepreneur, engineer and industrial leader in New Haven, a black man named William Lanson, who built the Long Wharf and was an advocate for racial equity.

Orestis Pangalos: Greek Graffiti Animation Lyric Video.

Add another to the Graffiti Hall of Fame record books – An all-Greek graffiti animation lyric came out just before the Covid collapse, almost as a prophetic pre-cursor to the world we would soon inherit.

The creator and director is Orestis Pangalos, an old graffiti writer, co-editor of ‘The History of Graffiti in Greece’ book series, a Ph.D., and professor at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

The lyrics of the song are brandished across every surface in a post-industrial wasteland, the words from ‘Darkness is not Black’ by old-school rapper λ.ο.σ.

“Locations, atmospheres, and symbolisms were chosen to make each particular sentence correspond with its spatial context,” he says. “However, in a sense it sometimes (sadly) seemed like its verbal and visual references were coinciding with the current year’s events.”

The video is one part of and the result of an extensive multi-year project undertaken by Pangalos that may draw you deeper into the motivations and philosophies that inspire his work. You can find many of the lyrics translated at @darkness_diaries IG account where the making of the video is chronicled.

Pep Williams x RISK:

Photographer Pep Williams sent us this new video; “A collaboration with me and infamous graffiti artist RISK.”

Danny Hathaway’s version of “This Christmas” now Animated!

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BSA Film Friday: 12.04.20

BSA Film Friday: 12.04.20

December 4, 2020 ,

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

Now screening :
1. Fintan Magee / Nothing Make Sense Anymore / A Selina Miles Film
2. Aufstieg (Rise) by Eginhartz
3. Nadia Vadori-Gauthier “Une Minute de Danse” For The Art And Culture.

BSA Special Feature: Fintan Magee / Nothing Make Sense Anymore

What a fantastic title! The narration of selective outtakes from the news, from the artist, from the atmospheric music – quickly take you here.

“I didn’t have to develop any grand themes or concepts around the work. I just knew I was going to paint a plant every day,” say street artist/muralist/painter Fintan Magee as he describes the structure he put in place of the unstructured life that Covid foisted upon him. “It kind of became almost a daily meditation.”

“Too much chaos this year to string any common narrative,” he says. “Or maybe chaos is the narrative.”

Fintan Magee / Nothing Make Sense Anymore / A Selina Miles Film.

Aufstieg (Rise) by Eginhartz

From Austria, Eginhartz gives us Aufstieg, a video performance meant as an ironic comment on the psychological interplay between the rapacious development of drones and the stubborn attitude of brutalist architecture.

Here’s the artists attempt “to contrast the massive aesthetic of a brutalist residential block with a poetic gesture. The coexistence of nature and ruins is broken here by the action of a protagonist.”

“The coexistence of nature and ruins is broken here by the action of a protagonist.”

Nadia Vadori-Gauthier “Une Minute de Danse” For The Art And Culture.

An ongoing performance of poetry from your favorite French street choreographer, Nadia Vadori-Guthier. This time she brings friends!

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BSA Film Friday: 11.20.20

BSA Film Friday: 11.20.20

November 20, 2020 ,

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

Now screening :
1. “Strength” from Pejac
2. Chant – Faith XVII
3. Spells, The Salton Sea – Faith XLVII
4. EDOARDO TRESOLDI, An Interview

BSA Special Feature: “Strength” from Pejac

Santander, Spain has suffered from COVID, of course, as has most of the country. Local street artist PEJAC says he wanted to contribute to his local hospital, the University Hospital Marqués de Valdecilla, by painting in public areas for people to enjoy. He says the common theme that unites the three distinctly different styles he used, is Strength.

“It’s a gesture of gratitude to the heath workers of Valdecilla, for their work in general and during this Covid crisis in particular,” says PEJAC

PEJAC / STRENGTH

FAITH XLVII / CHANT

Reliably enigmatic, street artist Faith XVII is using the medium of video to add impressions and associations to her works here on a text series called “Chant”. The irony of using the letter C that may call to mind Chase bank is drawn tighter as you see neighborhoods and walls probably redlined by corporate banks, or targeted for annihilation through neglect. In the context of our older societies, one may see in her work the power of chanting to focus a larger group to act in union with purpose, and power.

SPELLS / SALTON SEA / FAITH XLVII

60 miles south of Palm Springs, California, the Saltan Sea is disappearing, it’s shore moving miles in only a couple of decades, along with its population. Faith XVII is a Californian these days and she is here pondering the “beach” that remains, full of mercury, arsenic, selenium. California’s largest inland body of water now turns into dust, and Faith pours herself into the soil and the air that carries it; and the drought, well…  How this translates to her art on the street or in the studio, it is in alignment with her ongoing concerns about climate change – and you can be sure this project will appear again in her work.

EDOARDO TRESOLDI, An Interview

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BSA Film Friday: 11.13.20

BSA Film Friday: 11.13.20

November 13, 2020 ,

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

Now screening :
1. A Series of TEMPERAMENTS / GONZALO BORONDO

BSA Special Feature: A Series of Temperaments from Gonzalo Borondo

As foul and as fickle and as steady and as sublime as the weather, so are the many temperaments of humankind. Seizing upon religious and scientific relics and our own yet rudimentary understanding of ourselves, Borondo brilliantly blends his ongoing experimentation with light, electricity, and layers of carved glass. Singular in the manner of its gentle pulsating, these new pieces are peculiar and familiar: at once alive, a laboratory specimen. Each temperament is deeply rooted in medicine and literature, all still encased in mystery.

TEMPERAMENTS / GONZALO BORONDO

TEMPERAMENTS / CHOLERIC / GONZALO BORONDO

TEMPERAMENTS / MELANCHOLIC / GONZALO BORONDO

TEMPERAMENTS / PHLEGMATIC / GONZALO BORONDO

TEMPERAMENTS / SANGUINE / GONZALO BORONDO

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BSA Film Friday: 11.06.20

BSA Film Friday: 11.06.20

November 6, 2020 ,

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

Now screening :
1. SOFLES: Raw Brick
2. Conor Harrington: The Patriot. Video by Chop ’em Down Films
3. Sao Paulo Pinacoteca: Os Gemos Reopening

BSA Special Feature: SOFLES: Raw Brick

While much of the western world is waiting around to see who wins the presidential election and wonders where this much vaunted civil war is taking place (Rachel?), let’s have a mental vacation with SOFLES as he shows us a graffiti piece being painted on a raw brick wall. The rich green, the deep purplllleeee…… Ahhhhhh.

SOFLES: Raw Brick

Conor Harrington: The Patriot. Video by Chop ’em Down Films

The Irish immigrants were once treated as badly as the Mexicans are now in America. Now one of them is lecturing on blind patriotism in the US in this new video by Chop ’em Down Films.

Sao Paulo Pinacoteca: Os Gemeos Reopening

In a genuine shifting of fortunes, Brazilian twin graffiti writers OS GEMEOS were once on the run from authorities for their artworks in Sao Paulo. Here to welcome their massive exhibition, is a video sponsored by Sao Paulo’s State Government.

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Featured Video | Martin Wong’s “Houston Street”

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