Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. Migrants, Mayra 2. Women are Heroes (Kibera) 3. Chronicles, Portrait of a Generation 4. Giants (Kikito) 5. The Guns Chronicles, A History
BSA Special Feature: JR Explains “Chronicles” at Brooklyn Museum
JR: Chronicles. This Friday’s edition of BSA Film Friday is dedicated to French Artist JR as we feature a series of brief videos he filmed on the occasion of his retrospective now on view at the Brooklyn Museum.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. Minda Hamada y Zosen Bandido in Veracruz 2. Marina Zumi “Lucid Dreams II” 3. Udatxo – Parees Fest 2019. Video by Titi Muñoz 4. Greta Thunberg “How Dare You” Extended Remix
BSA Special Feature: Minda Hamada y Zosen Bandido in Veracruz
Mina Hamada y Zosen Bandido are graphic and poppy in their organic naïve-style collage compositions. Their engaging style lends itself to public arts projects that also promote business and foot traffic. Here they (mostly he) talk about their love of color, their cultural art influences, and their new project this summer in the Art District Boca Del Rio in Veracruz, Mexico.
Marina Zumi “Lucid Dreams II”
Street Artist, muralist, and interactive artist Marina Zumi doesn’t stop exploring the moon and the night sky and those tremulous flickering messages that blip across our consciousness. Perhaps by way of exploring the modern, her newest electronic tracing of shapes and rhythms in the darkness borrow from Tron and early Kraftwerk, comforting and witty in the low-fi and physical familiarity of it all. Part of her show “Techno Poetry,” Zumi continues to break new ground with here lucid dreams.
Udatxo – Parees Fest 2019. Video by Titi Muñoz
Here’s
artist Udatxo painting a new mural at the Parees Fest.
Greta Thunberg “How Dare You” Extended Remix
Get up and dance to a new hit for 2019! Taking recrimination to the dance floor, is the new hit from Greta Thunberg in a heavy German techno style.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. Gross Domestic Product – Banksy 2. New Stop Animation Project from Caledonia Curry AKA Swoon. 3. Henry Chalfant “Art vs Transit 1977-1987” Bronx Museum of the Arts 4. Street Art Summer Round-Up – 2019 from Fifth Wall TV / Doug Gillen
BSA Special Feature: Gross Domestic Product – Banksy
The doublespeak of Banksy very effectively demanded a whirlwind of media attention in the art/Street Art world once again this week. The anti-capitalist launched a full street-side exhibition while his personal/anonymous brand benefitted by the new record auction price of 9.9 million pounds with fees for one of his works depicting a “Devolved Parliament” full of apes – precisely during the height of inpending Brexit hysteria.
Gross Domestic Product / Banksy Installation. Video Courtesy Ash Versus
New Stop Animation Project from Caledonia Curry AKA Swoon.
Street Artist Swoon (Caledonia Curry) has been pushing her creative limits in a medium she is not known for, and the results are exhilarating.
Facing a backlog of fears and eager to go out of her comfort zones of that include linotype printing and wheat-pasting on the street – and the many projects building community – her last two years of study in stop animation are ready to be seen. Present her narrative practice and character in a surprising new way, Swoon takes chances bravely, and is ready to share her new work.
Her new exhibition with Jeffery Deitch is coming up in New York – but today we offer a sneak peek of what the deep diving Swoon has discovered.
Henry Chalfant “Art vs Transit 1977-1987” Bronx Museum of the Arts
Its here and the reviews have been glowing. One of the originals in documenting and providing platforms to artists and participants of art on the streets and trains, Henry Chalfant is please to present an impressive retrospective through next spring at Bronx Museum of the Arts.
Street Art Summer Round-Up – 2019 from Fifth Wall TV / Doug Gillen
Hop into the Doug soup of insight, mangled pronunciation and zealous fannery for projects and Street/public art concepts he wants you to remember from this summer.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. “Nos Jardins” By Anais Florin for Bien Urbain #9 2. Vhils and his Work. A look into the Lisbon based artist 3. YZ Yseult: Making of the Mural La Marianne
BSA Special Feature: “Nos Jardins” By Anais Florin for Bien Urbain #9
Horticultural Street Art Activists to the Rescue
These
gardens have been maintained by gardeners. For generations.
Now the city council wants to take them over to build a new “eco-district” here in the Les Vaîtes neighborhood of Besançon. And the soil tenders say “These are Our Gardens,” resisting the change, insisting on the historical respect they believe these gardens deserve.
After
spending many days with them, taking pictures and speaking with everyone, artist
Anaïs Florin
decided she could help by creating posters to highlight their struggle.
“Les Vaîtes before the eco-discrict” ! She put up some legally, and some illegally in the city center by taking over the bus stop shelter. Viva Les Vaîtes!
Vhils and his Work. A look into the Lisbon based artist
Yes, your grandmother is going to know about Vhils now.
YZ Yseult: Making of the Mural La Marianne
Marianne is a symbol of Republican France. A Marianne is a bust of a proud and determined woman wearing a Phrygian cap. She symbolises the attachment of the common citizens of the revolution to the Republic – Marianne is liberty, egality and fraternity.
The
first thing you should know is that Marianne
is a symbol in France – capturing the spirit of liberty, equality, and
brotherhood/sisterhood (Liberté, Equalité, Fraternité). Commonly depicted as a
proud and determined woman wearing a Phrygian cap, Marianne symbolises the
attachment of the common citizens of the revolution to the Republic.
Street Artist YZ and engraver Elsa Catelin have just finished
their view of the heralded symbol on the streets of Périgueux
(Dordogne) – and it actually became the new face of Marianne stamps. Selected
by the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, YZ had the opportunity to
meet him and see her work unveiled across a 16 meter by 11 meter wall.
French President Emmanuel Macron poses at the end of the inauguration of the newly printed stamps with French national symbol “Marianne” designed by French-British street artist Yseult Digan aka YZ, in Boulazac, southwestern France, on July 19, 2018. Photo by Nicolas Tucat/AFP/Getty Images.French President Emmanuel Macron (C), poses at the end of the inauguration of the newly-printed stamps with French national symbol “Marianne” designed by French-British street artist Yseult Digan aka YZ, in Boulazac, southwestern France, on July 19, 2018. (Photo by Nicolas TUCAT / AFP) (Photo credit should read NICOLAS TUCAT/AFP/Getty Images)
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. “REWILD” from Escif 2. Guido van Helten in Faulkton, South Dakota by Brian Siskind 3. How Artist JR Is Helping Connect Our Humanity Through Street Art
BSA Special Feature: “REWILD” from Escif
As part of our core commitment as a non-commercial platform that has helped hundreds of artists over the last decade+, BSA significantly helped Escif to raise money for his Indiegogo fundraiser in Spring 2017 when we promoted his “Breath-Time” horticultural project heavily as he planted trees to reforest Mount Olivella in Southern Italy.
Today BSA debuts REWILD, a new
tree-related project by the Spanish Street Artists – just as the Global Climate
March is spreading to cities around the world, including New York.
The concept of the short film is
simple: can’t we just push the “Rewind” button?
“The narrative runs in reverse, rewinding the clock on deforestation to undo the damage caused by the unsustainable production of one of the worlds most versatile commodities. Beyond the industrialisation of the land, we end at the beginning, a thriving eco system alive with wildlife. The concept mirrors the real world action of the Sumatran Orangutan Society and their partners in reclaiming land on the borders of the Leuser rainforests to rewild them with indigenous trees, expanding the boundaries of one of the most biodiverse places on earth.”
Finally, a stunning custom soundtrack by Indonesian composer Nursalim Yadi Anugerah captures and carries this into another world, which is possible.
Guido van Helten in Faulkton, South Dakota by Brian Siskind
A massive piece by the observant eye of Guido van Helten, who knows how to capture a spirit, a gesture, a knowing expression. Here on a grain elevator in Faulkton, South Dakota, his piece becomes a clarion, captured here by Brian Siskind.
How Artist JR Is Helping Connect Our Humanity Through Street Art |
The Brooklyn Museum will be unveiling an exhibition with the works of French Street Artist JR this October. Here’s a small video of him explaining how his work is a connector between humans.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. Swoon and The Heliotrope Foundation: A Catalyst For Local Change 2. One Minute Dance: Petites Deambulations Sur “Paradis Perdus” 3. Festival Concreto #5 – Narcelio Grud in Fortaleza, Brazil 4. Murfy Paints Mural for La Fiesta de los Corremayo
BSA Special Feature: Swoon and The Heliotrope Foundation: A Catalyst For Local Change
Long
term economic development? From a Street Artist? Sustainable homes? Jobs?
Schools?
Yes,
if the question is about Cormiers, Haiti and the answer is Street Artist Swoon
with her Heliotrope Foundation. You can draw a direct through-line from her
earliest wheatpastes of people on the street to the earthquake surviving Haitians
whom these buildings and programs are for and from. By listening, sharing, and
working alongside, the volunteers and foundation have been building community. And
you thought it was all about vandalism, didn’t you?
One Minute Dance: Petites Deambulations Sur “Paradis Perdus”
Nadia Vadori-Gauthier, the performance artist behind the project One Minute of Dance Per Day, has teamed up with other dancers for a new project titled Petites deambulationssur “Paradis Perdus”
Festival Concreto #5 – Narcelio Grud in Fortaleza, Brazil
For 6 years artist, professor, and organizer Narcelio Grud has gradually
grown the Concreto Festival in Forteleza. As he and the team prepare for
November’s new edition, he tells BSA readers about this video recap of Concreto
5.
“In the timespan of 9 days, downtown Fortaleza received more than 40 artists from Brazil and all over the world to participate in the 5th edition of Festival Concreto – International Festival of Urban Art. Great names from the urban art scene, such as Mônica Nador, Guto Lacaz, Inti Castro, Sabek, SatOne and others, met between November 16 and 24 to color and democratize art in the city.
In the year of 2018, the Festival brought interventions and other activities
to Downtown neighbourhood in Fortaleza, Brazil, called ‘Centro’. The idea was
to occupy and reestablish the connection with an area of the city that was once
a great place of cultural movement, especially in the city’s ‘Belle Époque’. All
this brought color and movement to the local landscapes, realigning the
neighbourhood to a greater valorization of urban culture.
In the video, you can watch most of the activities and artworks that took place in the Festival, as well as participant artists, staff members and the general public talking about their experience within Concreto.”
Murfy Paints Mural for La Fiesta de los Corremayo
Muralist Murfy was in the south of Spain to paint this four-story portrait of a child on the street. “This is a girl dressed in a harlequin costume,” he says of the outfit, “a typical feature at a party in southern Alhama de Murcia, which is where this is.” The La Fiesta de los Corremayo is at the end of April and beginning of May and features bands, music, food, and lots of dancing in the streets by people wearing variations of the harlequin.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. Don Rimx x Owley “Olor A Azucenas El Perfume Del Barrio” 2. Street Art Singapore (VICE) 3. LATINO Legends STREET ART in my BACKYARD! | Los Mendozas 4. Kitt Bennett “Sleeping Giant”
BSA Special Feature: Don Rimx x Owley “Olor A Azucenas El Perfume Del Barrio”
New Yorker/ Puerto Rican Street Artist Don Rimx illustrates his world and ours with his historical people, characters, and archetypes. For this recent piece in Brooklyn he focused on the guy who sells flowers, and the perfumeric effect he has on summer streets.
The mural symbolizes “a cultural bridge”: a flower vendor famous to San Juan, Puerto Rico. As Owley continues to develop his film-maker craft, his own personality is also beginning to emerge; a certain warmth and appreciation for his subjects readily apparent.
Street Art Singapore (VICE)
A quick study of the scene in
Singapore at the moment, featuring a graffiti group of style writers and
illustrators called RSCLS and a more traditional muralist named Yip Yew Chong.
The vandalism laws are strict and violent, yo! So how do you get around them.
Carefully. Also heavier topics like institutionalized racism, the surveillance
state, and censorship are all hit on.
Respect to Vice for capturing these folks and their stories.
LATINO Legends STREET ART in my BACKYARD! | Los Mendozas
Santana, Selena, Vicente Fernandez, and Frida?
They are all heroes of Hispanic heritage in the house of Instagram comedian Jay Mendoza in Los Angeles. With the help of muralist Gustavo Zermeño Jr these neighbors get together to paint in Jay’s backyard.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. Calligrafreaks Project – A New Era of Writing 2. Who Is My Brother? 3. Graffiti Hunting In NYC – Beyond The Streets 2019 Via Migz Tatz 4. Gray Mountain, Green Room 5. CARDI B Interviews Bernie Sanders
BSA Special Feature: Calligrafreaks Project – A New Era of Writing
In a collaborative gallery space or at a barbecue on Devil’s Mountain, Berlin’s calligraffiti writers and artists are showing off the attitude and exactitude of the city as well as the evolution of this artform.
Hosted by Theosone at the “Scriptorium Berlin” and
curated by Makearte, a small selection
of scientists artists are convened at the Letters Temple where artists create
an exhibition with lucid and ornate letter skillz. Later on Devil’s Mountain
(Tefelsberg) they paint together for the first time.
Graffiti Hunting In NYC – Beyond The Streets 2019 Via Migz Tatz
Migz Tatz takes people on graffiti hunting escapades on the regular. Here is his hand-made trip to the Beyond the Streets exhibit in Williamsburg, Brooklyn currently on display – and now extended into late September. Not everyone can get to New York so this is one guys personal experience walking through the exhibit.
Gray Mountain, Green Room
Another homemade video tour without complete attribution to the artists, Jared Amiljo-Wardie wanders along U.S. HWY89 in Arizona. He happens upon a collection of illegal artworks from Gray Mountain that BSA published years ago. It is good to see that an arid climate preserves many of these works – even if he doesn’t know who they are by – because he thinks of them as part of his film making expression. He also describes his adventure with a poetic cadence.
“The earth has begun to reclaim most of the parking lots in Gray Mountain and with time the buildings too but for now it remains in the early stages of decay. As I sweat through perfecting a gimble shot a group of people stop to inspect the apocalyptic scene; an abandoned hotel and gas station. While I do my fourth take I hear windows begin to break. “
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. Facing The Giant: Three Decades of Dissent Part Two – Shepard Fairey 2. Stephanie Boyce: If You Know Me Is To Love Me. 3. Dotmasters: Why Is That Shovel There?
BSA Special Feature: Facing The Giant: Three Decades of Dissent Part Two – Shepard Fairey
The sky is on fire! And it’s not just because of the gorgeous sunset.
Shepard Fairey has been respectfully smacking us in the head for 30 years with his earnestly alarmist art in the streets. Challenging a narrative pushed by the corporate state via smiling blond newsreaders fronting a well funded armature of skullduggery, this perpetual dissenter has found ways to deliver the poison pill with ever-more sophisticated graphic design and plain spoken diatribe.
“I
was trying to encourage people to just be more analytical and to come to their
own conclusions,” he says as he describes his work during the steady hail of
disinformation called “The War on Terror”. Bless his heart.
He
says he was looking for a more honest manifestation of his work and how he
represented the observations and opinions he had based on his own research.
“I felt like I had the courage to become myself what I had emulated in a lot of my heroes.” Faced with a hostile political environment from the corporatized media machine and the dazed inertia response from a significant portion of his intended audience, it is surely maddening at times. Regardless, as an artist, catalyzer and a citizen, Fairey continues to challenge himself, and us.
Stephanie Boyce: If You Know Me Is To Love Me.
Brooklyn
Artist Stephanie Boyce has been drawing all her life and takes you on a tour of
her neighborhood and the Muddguts Gallery that represents her.
“It’s
difficult to tell my story in a ten minute movie,” she says, but you get a good
idea of the ups and downs that she has faced through her art, their symbolisms,
and of course her own words.
Special
props go out to Director Nicolas Heller for this insightful and well-balanced
storytelling.
Dotmasters: Why Is That Shovel There? Nuart Aberdeen. By MZM Projects
Dotmasters
also takes you on a tour in his new video, and even instructs you how his
technique is done. Mostly, it’s a relaxed conversation about his history and
his approach.
“Oh
that’s just a silkscreen process with a spraycan,” he said of his initial
realization of how certain pieces on the street were done when seeing
stencillists like Blek Le Rat in the 80s. “And I thought, ‘Wow, that’s a good
way of invading public space’.”
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. WK Interact in NYC by Fifth Wall 2. Rub Kandy & Biancoshock: “All the Lights” 3. Not Rented To Humans: Grip Face 4. Elrow’art: Kaos Garden with Okuda San Miguel and Paco Osuna
BSA Special Feature: WK Interact in NYC by Fifth Wall
“It was some sort of freedom,” says WK in this retrospective of NYC locations that he tries to recall with original photo in hand overlaying the original city spot. For some of us, the memories of all of these spots are sufficient, as the city was different then – perhaps more wild and dirty. For WK, the stories and the memories continue to evolve.
Well shot and edited, its a mature way to let the artist speak and evocative of his current manner.
Rub Kandy & Biancoshock: “All the Lights”
In the face of sexy new machine-learning and Artificial Intelligence
– and the auxiliary tales related to art-making, perhaps this video is a way of
preserving the authentic feeling of human discovery in its unglamorous
basicness. Not to overplay this, but this conceptual piece is a meditation on
the underwhelming mechanized aspects of industry, a blatant taunt of banality
in the midst of high gloss unrealness.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conceptual mundanity of the
Italian urban artists Rub Kandy and Biancoshock,
who here demonstrate how to create electricity with a generator in an abandoned
industrial space. It’s a marvelously underwhelming demonstration of the means
of production. To “jazz” things up they throw in intermittent blasts of pop-star
banality as well, sprinkled with blinky graphics.
…Turn up the lights in here baby Extra bright, I want y’all to see this Turn up the lights in here, baby You know what I need Want you to see everything
Not Rented To Humans: Grip Face
First, they look like run down sheds, these new wooden
structures in high weeds – possibly stopped mid-construction, perhaps during
the last economic downturn. Here the missed opportunity of housing, suddenly
coupled with the found opportunity of art exhibition!
“There’s
something both bizarre and magical in abandoned places,” writes Grip Face in
the description of this video. “The course of time invades them, colonizes
them, makes it into its own. The invisible imprints impregnate the walls and
the experiential trace of past inhabitants slips through the cracks like winter
would through a badly insulated window.”
Elrow’art: Kaos Garden with Okuda San Miguel and Paco Osuna
A warmup video for
multi-disciplinary artist Okuda San Miguel and dj/producer Paco Osuna and their
creative intermingling of avant-garde aesthetics with electronic music to
create their vision of ‘The Garden of Delights’. The premiere of the artistic
partnership of Ink and Movement and elrow will be on September 28 at Amnesia
Ibiza. Here’s a taste of things to come!
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. “Melania”, Directed by Brad Downey 2. Said Dokins. “Runaway Writings” Solo Show 3. “Who’s the Daddy?” A film by Wong Ping
BSA Special Feature: “Melania”, Directed by Brad Downey
Street Artist/Interventionist Brad Downey widens his oeuvre with a
documentary, and his exquisite critiques of hypocrisy – and his appreciation of
life’s beautiful ironies are still fully intact.
Here in a grassy area between a dirt service road and the Sava
River Mr. Maxi Z
creates his ode to Melania, a girl born in the same hospital and year as he.
Using his chainsaw to coax the immigrant/model/First Lady Melania from this
tree whose roots go deep into her Slovenian homeland, the sculptor creates a
painted tribute and a direct connection between art and life for all to see
publicly. Hearing him describe his work is important, as is appreciating the
struggle and sacrifice he speaks of. Hearing a traditional song and reading its
lyrics, well crafted with nostalgia and heartache, buttresses the storytelling
with context.
For us Mr. Downey’s brilliance is his examination of the assumed, his
breakdown of folly, his ability to see. Here he shares his view with us, with
warmth and satire. Among his targets, implied at least, may be the art world,
the Street Art world, social anachronisms, international power structures, craven
corruption. Among his tributes are the creative spirit, individual ingenuity,
and the will to overcome. Long live Melania.
“Melania” 2019, Sevenica, Slovenia A film by Brad Downey Featuring Maxi Z. Production Miha Erjavec Camera Aljaž Celarc Editing Eva Pavlič Seifert Song pevskizbor Bunkarji Sound Editing Simon Kavsek Translation Ana Bohte Assitance Jaka Erjavec Thanks to Son of Maxi Z, wife Jožica, Graveks d.o.o
Said Dokins. “Runaway Writings” Solo Show
Graffiti
artist, contemporary artist, calligrapher and curator Said Dokins organizes
images, objects and personal questions in his new exhibition at Centro Nacional
de las Artes in San Luis Potosi, Mexico.
With works on paper, on canvas, video, light, and photograph,
the show speaks of conflict, community, the empire to the north, and his
expansive practice with calligraphy. With each letter, each word, Said Dokins’
strokes free the steps of those who lived between these walls.
“Who’s the Daddy?” A film by Wong Ping
Hong Kong film director/animator/artist Wong Ping creates with the excesses and superficiality of non-stop consumer culture – humorously mixed and mingled with a young man’s insecurities, search for identity, and desire to get laid. His social, racial, cultural, political observations resonate beneath the eye candy. His sense of humor makes the formerly difficult easier to contemplate, the questions now tempered with the colorful absurdity of the world. Consider here, his ruminations on the length and curvature of the penis, among other things one might write in an online public diary.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. NeverCrew – “Celsius” 2. Boulevard Paris 13 3. Isaac Cordal “Follow The Leaders” at Urvanity 2019 Madrid.
BSA Special Feature: NeverCrew – “Celsius”
The streets are awash with artists visions these days, but few play so well with technology as these new whales from Nevercrew. The Swiss duo often use their work on the street to call attention to the plight of our water bodies, and the bodies that live within them. In these new multi-layered street pieces water is also the great reveal.
“Thermochromic paint allows us to create an immediate transformation,” Christian Rebecci tells us, “and at the same time it provides a silent litmus paper of the actual situation.”
Splashing the water upon the majestic animals certainly gives a look inside their living situation. The guys are calling it “Celcius”, an oblique reference to temperature and the effect rising temperatures due to climate change in fact changes the equation.
Boulevard Paris 13
With Mehdi Ben Cheikh at Galerie Itinerrance and Jérôme Coumet, the Mayor of Paris’ 13th arrondissement, this neighborhood of Paris has become a top-shelf open air museum over the last decade or so. With the common critique of the illegal Street Art movement evolving into a legal mural system of business development, one may overlook the few programs that have actually gotten the quality and the balance right. De facto public art for the 2010s, this execution has proven to pack a powerful visual punch and a possibly timeless quality. This newly produced video helps put the entire project’s best foot forward.
Isaac Cordal “Follow The Leaders” at Urvanity 2019 Madrid.
Radiating the drama dread of Isaac Cordal’s springtime installation at Urvanity Madrid is no easy task, but this commercial shoe brand took the time and dedicated their observation skills to help viewers reflect on the absurdities of our human condition.
In her latest mural, Faring Purth delivers a powerful reflection on connection, continuity, and the complexity of evolving relationships—a true …Read More »
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
