Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening :
1. ETHEREA: Edoardo Tresoldi
2. Berlin Mural Fest 2018 Begins Now!
3. XAV -Library Rats in Barcelona
4. Blek Le Rat Solo in San Francisco.
5. TAYONE Leaves “Wet Paint” in Barcelona
BSA Special Feature: ETHEREA: Edoardo Tresoldi
Neoclassical. Baroque. Chicken wire.
Italian public artist Edoardo Tresoldi brought 3 sizes of his full-scale wire mesh sculptures to Indio, California for the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival this year, and thousands of people got their first opportunity to see his work rise above them, catching the light, evoking old cities and classical architecture. Counter-culture? Nah.
Berlin Mural Fest 2018 Begins Now!
Die Dixons actually know what they are talking about! This is the 1st Berlin Mural Fest and BSA is happy to support. Shout out to Don Stone for keeping us in the loop.
Long after the days when gallerists were rude to him and wouldn’t even take a look at his work in New York, Street Art originator Blek Le Rat is having a solo show at Weinstein Gallery in San Francisco. Something must have changed.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening :
1. RERO, Hendrik Beikirch, Kouka and David Mesguich at Montresso Foundation in Morocco
2. TWOONE: Wall Street Art Festival of Grand Paris Sud / Galerie Mathgoth
3. Low Bros #sweet15s Episode 11 / Miami
BSA Special Feature: RERO, Hendrik Beikirch, Kouka and David Mesguich.
Jardin Rouge just outside of Marrakech continues to expand its offerings with an exhibition space run by the Montresso Foundation that rivals many museums. You may recall our visit to the compound a little while ago “Jardin Rouge: A Unique Garden For Street Artists To Grow In”.
Here we have an inside look at Street Artists work in, on, and around the laboratory, workshops, and museum space by RERO, Hendrik Beikirch, Kouka and David Mesguich.
TWOONE: Wall Street Art Festival of Grand Paris Sud / Galerie Mathgoth
This wall is full of egret.
The Japanese artist TWOONE was in the French town of Lieusaint (Seine et Marne) with Gautier Jourdain and the festival he began last year in Southern Paris called Wall Street Art Festival. The Yokohama born Street Artist has lived in Berlin for a handful of years and takes his realistic dreams of animals and people to frescoes across cities like Hong Kong, Miami, and Bangkok.
…sort of reminds us of a wall ROA did with us in 2010, which also featured an egret.
Low Bros #sweet15s Episode 11 / Miami
Another installment from the Low Bros travelogue – this one from the neighborhood that wishes it was decadent, Wynwood in Miami. The guys are entertaining in their re-enactment of celebrity tropes as they flash you past the excitement of Basel week inland.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening :
1. FAR//FERN – An interpretation of “The Hero’s Journey” by NDZW.
2. Doug Gillen On The Road in Hong Kong
BSA Special Feature: FAR//FERN – An interpretation of “The Hero’s Journey” by NDZW.
Full of wise philosophical bon mots delivered in a modulated voice with a monastic cadence, artist NDZW stars as the hero who breaks from well established patterns to go outside his comfort zone with the possibility of being transformed by it.
Directed by Christian Fischer, the stark monochrome palette keeps the journey in Vienna and Upper Austria within visual boundaries, but the variations and textures are rich. Elements of magic are neatly punctuated by the hypnotic, at times heavenly, vocals and arrangement of musical group Down With The Gypsies. The truths are parcelled out like grandpa’s life wisdom delivered while you take a ride in an old 1993 station wagon that smells like gasoline, bumping over potholes in the asphalt on a country road. There is a pause while he looks out the window, then he thinks of something else he wanted to tell you. Pay attention.
Inspired by an interpretation of Joseph Campbells book “The Hero’s Journey” you can here the romance literature woven with Sanskrit and the Buddha here in this narration of truths. Overlaid onto the artists life, here more specifically the graffiti or Street Artists’ practice of painting in abandoned spaces, it is a curiously appropriated adaptation that is ultimately inspiring.
Doug Gillen On The Road in Hong Kong
Doug is actually in Brooklyn this weekend but here’s his latest release from his recent trip to Hong Kong. It is full of interviews, shots of the work (not all of which is part of HKWalls), and some personal existential observations.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening :
1. Nychos “Wilhelmine von Bayreuth”
2. RETNA X Vhils in Echo Park
3. TRAV MSK
4. OKUDA; FALLAS VALENCIA 2018
BSA Special Feature: Spotlight on Chop’em Down Films
We continue to watch and admire the filmmaker Zane Meyer as he follows the artists in the Street Art and related scenes, bringing his own definitive perspective to the story, often transforming it into something more.
With a background in SoCal skater culture and a nomadic rolling approach to capturing the internal adventure, Meyer is bringing his full potential to this game. He’s down distinctive audio as well, adding timbre, humor, jolting alarm and soul. His company Chop’em Down Films is celebrating its first decade and he’s moving into his 4th and its exciting to think what the next ten hold for this director full of vision.
Nychos “Wilhelmine von Bayreuth”
Because Nychos is all about the soaring chopping power chords of metal in audio and the slicing apart of animals, people, and brand icons visually, this deliciously controlled mahem is almost going to make you feel guilty for the joy to take watching it. But why?
RETNA X Vhils in Echo Park
Getting it right again, this sampling of the voice of white authority praises and insults simultaneously. Laid against the swagger of Retna and Vhils triumphantly astride their wall, the happy horror of it all comes to life in one minute flat. A sports analogy via colonialism, “The Autumn Wind” is meant to talk about the lore of football as narrated by John Facenda, but in this context the battle is artists against the elements and the wall.
TRAV MSK
Mystery and stories of the city cloak this narrative of letterist Trav MSK as he interpolates the nighttime blinking of messages against the sky, and the quick movement of shadows just outside your periphery. Suddenly its a defiant act of staged vandalism across walls of photography and illustration in a gallery like setting, and a boxtruck tag of the paint sponsor’s name.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening :
1. The Man Who Stole Banksy: Debuting Tonight at Tribeca Film Festival
2. Los Borbones Son Unos Ladrones (The Bourbons Are Thieves) (Spain) 3. Kazzius and Elara Elvira at the 12 + 1 Project, Barcelona
4. Morgan Winter – The Brooklyn Burrow
BSA Special Feature: The Man Who Stole Banksy: Debuting Tonight at Tribeca Film Festival
Narrated by the gravel voiced Iggy Pop, this retelling of the story you haven’t heard manages to peel back layers of insight and intrigue while remaining judiciously opaque. Inside a walled and nearly completely closed-off city of Palestine a high profile European Street Artist (and his team) blasts pointed political messages that target audiences thousands of miles away.
Like so many of his street pieces, one of them is stolen. Because of the circumstances involved this Banksy heist takes on ramifications we haven’t thought of until now, and this film mines as many perspectives as it can. Written by Marco Proserpio and Christian Omodeo, this is a sleeper hit that reveals many many stories in the course of chasing one.
Los Borbones Son Unos Ladrones (The Bourbons Are Thieves)
“A new sharply political campaign championing the freedom of expression has caught fire in Spain in the last few weeks under the hashtag #NoCallaremos, and Street Artists are now adding their talents to the protest. Rather shockingly for a modern European nation, a rapper’s prison sentence for offensive lyrics was upheld in Spanish Supreme Court in February (Billboard) and that decision along with other recent events has sparked a number of creative protests across the art world in cities across the country,” we wrote last week when debuting images of artists creating murals inside a former prison.
Obviously tapping into a popular sentiment defending the right to free expression, the music video has garnered 2.1 million views in 12 days. Today we have new images showing some behind-the-scenes shots while the forceful protest video was being filmed, courtesy photographer Fer Alcalá.
Performers include: Elphomega | Machete en Boca | Frank T | Homes i Dones Llúdriga | La Raíz | Ira | Los Chikos del Maíz | Tribade | Def Con Dos | Noult | ZOO | Rapsusklei | Sara Hebe
Breakers and BBoying BGirling: Misty-k | Guille Vidal-Ribas | Movie One | Raza | Sofi Bpanther | Farky The Sunshine | Javi | Naza | Buba | Akness
DJ: DJ Enzo
“In this video (below), Delabrave documented the artistic interventions by Franco Fasoli, Twee Muizen, Joan Tarragó, Txemi, Enric Sant, Reskat, MilVietnams, Javier de Riba and Werens and Fullet in the patio of one of Barcelona’s most historic prisons.”
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening :
1. Street Atelier – Rocco and his Brothers
2. Sam3 and His Troupe of Dancing Statues Pump Up the Jam
3. Valiente Creations – 12 + 1
4. Sue 975 – 12 +1
BSA Special Feature: Street Atelier – Rocco and his Brothers
It’s an Italian movie directed by Luchino Visconti in 1960, yes. It is also the name of a crew of Berlin graffiti/installation artists whose satirical interventions play on issues propriety and property – and on social experiments that dupe the media, the public, and banks.
Did they really set up an apartment inside the subway? Is that really the tracks and wall of a metro inside a gallery? Is that Wagner playing in the mobile war arcade set up in the Christmas market? Are those hand grenades being lobbed by children? Is the bank facade blinking red every 20 seconds?
Rocco und seine Brüder (Rocco and His Brothers) have you engaged. Now you have to answer the questions.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening :
1. Chip Thomas AKA Jetsonorama new KQED mini-doc
2. Sinclair Says: Multiple Sources for Your News? No.
3. Studio Visit with Mark Dean Veca
BSA Special Feature: Chip Thomas AKA Jetsonorama
He has a hat, sunglasses, and he has been creating huge black and white photo installations of people wheat-pasted to the sides of buildings for how long? Surprising to us that Jetsonorama is not more of a household name in Street Art circles – his work is solidly tied to biography and human rights, uses his own photography, and routinely elevates humanity – and has been doing it for some time now.
Why isn’t he in huge museum exhibitions?
Today we have a new video giving you a good look at the work and the artist along with the genuine connection and presence that he has with community, taking the time to share their stories.
Multiple Sources for Your News? No.
They don’t call it programming for nothing. The reasons Biff and Buffy newsreader don’t seem to have any souls is because that’s not really them talking. Thanks to the 1996 Telecommunications Act signed by Bill Clinton, the majority of TV, radio, magazines, newspapers, news websites, and billboards are now consolidated into the hands of about 6 companies, instead of 36, or 300.
This system seems ripe to put out any message and hit you with it three, five, seven times a day every day from multiple sources – until you think that the message must be the voice of the people. Imagine what they can convince you of.
When they say “deregulate” often what they really mean is “we regulate”. Moments of truth like this video only pop their heads up out of the foxhole once in a while – then disappear in a fog.
Juxtapox Magazine x Chop’em Down Films: Studio Visit with Mark Dean Veca
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening :
1. Indigo Blood Project by Koralie / Work in progress
2. Melbourne 2018
3. Olek: The Artist Weaving The World Together
4. Ben Eine’s New Ted Talk
BSA Special Feature: Indigo Blood Project by Koralie / Work in progress
And the award for sound editing goes to Koralie and team on this brand new video promoting her show and book at Jonathan Levine Projects that debuts shortly and draws inspiration from her travels around the world. You will not miss one audio aspect of the creative process here, nor will you miss how the French Street Artist has incorporated folk, ritual, and traditional craft in her work.
She is creating a “dreamlike multicultural harmony” that reigns in the wildness associated with aerosol and markers – giving everything it’s appropriate, attractive place in the formalized geometry of her new works.
Melbourne 2018
A splendid survey of Melbourne in this moment from Christophe Delvalie, the director allows you to discover the character of the street life with a soundtrack drawn directly from it. Then rather abruptly you are plunged into night time and nature. Oh I get it, this is like an audio visual postcard from his trip to Melbourne! Okay, cool.
Olek: The Artist Weaving The World Together
“With my work I want to create pieces that engage community together and allow us to really create something positive.” From this perspective, it is working.
Ben Eine Does His Ted Talk with Bottle of Gin Handy At All Times
Famed Street Artist Ben Eine speaks candidly about his career as graffiti writer and contemporary artist during the TEDx event at the University of East Anglia.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening :
1.The Subconcious Art of Graffiti Removal
2. Bushwick Collective Block Party 2017
3. Street Art Berlin 2018 – Yasha’s Friends
4. Adnate: Indigenous Recognition in Sheep Hills – Silo Art Documentary
5. Alva Moca 12 + 1 Contorno Urbano
BSA Special Feature: The Subconcious Art of Graffiti Removal
“The artists creating it are unconscious of their artistic achievements”
Today an excerpt from an intellectually stimulating cogitation on the buff as art by Matt McCormick at the turn of the century. Looking glass perspective, scholarly rigorous investigation, humorous satire, art-speak laden skewering of pomposity – they all seem possible
“With roots in minimalism, abstract expressionism, and Russian constructivism graffiti removal is both a continuation of these movements and an important step in the future of modern art.”
“Hats off to Matt McCormick’s “Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal,” an award-winning 16-minute film that wryly documents the antigraffiti campaigns in several northwest cities. Painting over graffiti yields public abstract painting that looks peculiarly modernist and brings to mind Rothko, Motherwell and even Malevich.”
Roberta Smith, The New York Times
Bushwick Collective Block Party 2017
Because we have just endured 4 snowstorms in March, let’s think about the Bushwick Collective Block Party and Film Festival last summer. Yaaaaaaaaaas.
Street Art Berlin 2018 – Yasha’s Friends
Adnate: Indigenous Recognition in Sheep Hills – Silo Art Documentary
“It’s not about feeling guilty, it’s about recognition.”
“In the remote country town of Sheep Hills, Australia, world renowned street artist Adnate brings the indigenous history of the region, and the country as a whole, back into the forefront of peoples minds. This short form documentary follows Adnate as he paints a huge disused grain silo, celebrating the lands first inhabitants and discussing the importance of recognition.”
Alva Moca 12 + 1 Contorno Urbano
“Organic patterning that verges on Op Art tumbled with flatly folk outsider aesthetics, commercial diagrammatics and Picasso cut-outs, Spanish artist Alva Moca has a lot going on in his head,” sayest we a few weeks ago when writing about this new mural. Today we see a video about it.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening :
1.”On the Road” With Street Artist Add Fuel
2. Wandelism in Berlin
3. Flamingo Cave with Rymd
4. SNIK / Amsterdam Street Art Museum
BSA Special Feature: “On the Road” With Street Artist Add Fuel
“I’ve started a new series called ‘On the Road’ which looks at life behind the scenes in street art culture,” Doug Gillen tells us about this debut episode. Look forward to Doug’s unique perspective on Street Art festivals, art fairs, and studio visits as he expands to the world of urban contemporary.
Not typically who you think of as a Street Artist, here we see Add Fuel and Doug talk about his first book and you see examples of work from this tile maker who infuses traditional Portuguese techniques and pattern making with pop-modern cultural references and cartoon archetypes.
Wandelism in Berlin
On the street change is constant and in this scene when you stand still you get blown by. The ingeniously constructive and cooperative Street Art and graffiti community again gather to blow your mind with a new show in a newly abandoned building, opening tomorrow for hundreds of guests. We’ve seen many of the installations already, and no one is doing it like the Berlinians!
Flamingo Cave with Rymd
The briefest video contest is still afoot, with this one clocking in at little over a minute. Soon videos will be one second long, or, a picture. This missive from Stockholm graffiti writer Rymd has a nice tight bass clicking beat under it from Robin Carlheim that emphasizes without overwhelming the can action here in Flamingo Cave.
SNIK / Amsterdam Street Art Museum
The SNIK duo go to Amsterdam to create a canvas for the nascent Street Art museum that is coming! A really well executed stencil that has the flowetry you hope for when spraying out the layers.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening :
1. Miss Van Talks about Her Show in San Francisco
2. Have You Seen The Listers?
3. Peter Phobia: I’ll Bring You Flowers
4. Layer Cake: A Dynamic Artistic Dialogue
BSA Special Feature: Miss Van Talks about Her Show in San Francisco. Video From Birdman.
“You can have any colors melting together and this kind of velvet feel and I was more into myself and introspection and humbly trying oil,” says Miss Van as she describes her journey last year toward painting with a relatively new medium for her.
Once primarily known for her work as a Street Artist it is revealing to see how this artist evolves and matures into other areas of practice. Here Miss Van shares her experiences as she prepares her Gitana series of blooming muses for her new exhibition in San Francisco. “This is very important for me to make timeless paintings. I don’t want my paintings to be just from now or just from before.”
Have You Seen The Listers?
A biopic on the way from Street Artist Anthony Lister telling the story of his search for fame and how it affects his familial relationships.
Peter Phobia: I’ll Bring You Flowers
“Over time I translated these influences into my own visual language,” says Peter Phobia as he appears to be reading his artist statement out loud.
Layer Cake: A Dynamic Artistic Dialogue
There are many layers here. The collaboration of two artists going back and forth to create something new together is infrequent but has a definite history. What supercharges the process for these two is they both feel like they are violating a long held street rule that interprets going over someone else’s work as an attempt at stealing their immortality. Stay with us as we explore more with Layer Cake in coming months.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening :
1. “The Clown” Harmen De Hoop
2. Artist’s Artist: The Process of Gary Lichtenstein
3. FinDAC: “The Wild Rose”
4. Ultra Wide by Good Guy Boris
BSA Special Feature: “The Clown” Harmen De Hoop
Harmen De Hoop is always playing with you. Ignoring the established almost calcified “rules” that have become encoded in the Street Art and graffiti game, his public interventions abide by a certain set of guidelines known mainly to him. By questioning nearly every assumption in the planning of public space he typically selects an unassuming, unflashy route of interaction to tweak your perceptions.
In this new direct street action he freshens the visage of a clown with some new hand paint. If he had an aerosol can or fat drippy marker in his hands this would produce a different reaction from an observer. Street Art, anyone?
Artist’s Artist: The Process of Gary Lichtenstein
“I’m an artists’ artist because I can think as an artist with the techniques I can use in printmaking,” says master printmaker Gary Lichtenstein as he narrates a brief visit to his Jersey City studio where he collaborates with photographer Janette Beckman and visual artist/graphic designer Cey Adams.
By showing us a process of evaluation and hearing the deliberations that go into final selection of materials and techniques, we are allowed to grasp the basics here and appreciate that there is artistry in bringing the image forward in a new way.
FinDAC: “The Wild Rose”
The English street muralist and portraitist FinDAC somewhat secretively painted a roof in Miami at the most recent Basel in December with the organizers of Wynwood Walls. Just now he has released “The Wild Rose” to fly free upon the wings of the Internet.
Ultra Wide by Good Guy Boris
Would this be good guy Boris or bad guy Boris? You decide.
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
