All posts tagged: BSA Film Friday

BSA Film Friday: 03.10.17

BSA Film Friday: 03.10.17

bsa-film-friday-JAN-2015

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

Now screening :
1. Rone: The Alpha Project
2.  FKDL – Petites Chroniques Urbaines
3. Irene Lopez León: 12+1 Contorno Urbano
4. The Batcave, Henry Chalfant, on The New York Times
5. Isaac Cordal “Giza Komedia”

bsa-film-friday-special-feature

BSA Special Feature: Rone: The Alpha Project

In this new revelatory video Street Artist Rone appears to unveil romantic and healthy figures from beneath a veil in isolated patches. The austere minimalist soundtrack contributes to a disorientation, a feeling of suspension while a visual wonder appears before you. The ruins of industrial production are legion in parts of the West as manufacturing is now done in the East, so our artists again have discovered enchanting ways to make something remarkable with the tools at hand, even transcendent.

 

FKDL – Petites Chroniques Urbaines

Mon Film, La Femme Chez Elle.

Only two of hundreds of magazines collected from the fashionable Parisian ladies of the 1950s and 1960s that FKDL flips through. In his studio you find his materials carefully archived and labeled, a well of pleasant and smartly chick ladies to select from and to collage together. A painter before he was a street art, his muses have been many and now he takes his stuff to the street with part illustration, part collage, often upon a bright blue or phosphorescent pink thin synthetic backing. Here he shares openly with you how the process goes, how he first loved these ladies and how he came upon his style for the street, now for a decade or so.

FKDL recalls a moment of epiphany with clarity; “Right. I got it. I’m going to dress up my collage characters with more collages”.

Irene Lopez León: 12+1 Contorno Urbano

See the direct relationship between the studio practice and the mural painting here in this video with Spanish artists Irene Lopez León for the 12+1 wall.

 

The Batcave, a Graffiti Landmark in Brooklyn, Grows Up

The New York Times discovered the Batcave just as it is about to be developed, and invited Henry Chalfant, whom writer Matt A.V. Chaban regards simply as “a graffiti expert” to come along and speak about the rather hallowed site. The experience is multidimensional in this gorgeous video, with an opportunity for you to drag your mouse across the screen to glance around the room and ceilings while Henry talks.

“Though few individual pieces in the Batcave are particularly notable, Henry Chalfant, a graffiti expert, remarked on a recent tour how the totality of the art is what makes it special, a reminder of the “outlaw spaces” that once populated much more of the city.”

We found a few pieces that were notable in 2012 in our piece New York Interiors and Urban Exploring.

Isaac Cordal “Giza Komedia”

Follow Street Artist Isaac Cordal as he stages small scenes outside the Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain, where he has his current solo show at SC Gallery. The corrugated metal shelters mimic closely the undulating shapes of the Frank Gehry designed architecture of the formal museum across the street. We need to get this guy INTO the museum, instead of being kept outside. We will.

 

ISAAC CORDAL. “GIZA KOMEDIA”. SOLO SHOW. SC GALLERY BILBAO. from SC Gallery + Art Management on Vimeo.

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BSA Film Friday: 03.03.17

BSA Film Friday: 03.03.17

bsa-film-friday-JAN-2015

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

Now screening :
1. Icy & Sot “Plastic Shells”
2.  NWO 3 – ABIK “Gestural”
3.  Low Bros #sweet15s Episode 9 / Seattle
4.  NUART / Aberdeen 2017


bsa-film-friday-special-feature

BSA Special Feature: Icy & Sot “Plastic Shells”

Demonstrating once again that when you are an artist the world is your oyster for creativity, Street Artists Icy & Sot play on a popular folk myth that if you hold a seashell to your ear, usually a conch shell, you will hear the sound of the ocean. The rush and the resonance of swelling and crashing waves upon the sand is captured and forever transmitted by the open cavity of the seashell. In this small conceptual video piece the brothers take you to the beach with a new friend to gather seashells and hold them up to your ear.

New Yorker’s can see a new piece by Icy & Sot that one of them in their studio modeled on BSA a couple of weeks ago tonight in a group show by curators Victoria Latysheva and Melissa McCaig-Welles, as they  present “Trumpomania”. It’s all mixed media from artists in 35 countries, ruminating on you-know-who.

NWO 3 – ABIK “Gestural”

20+ years of graffiti under his belt, Abik is getting abstract.

It’s third in a series of programs he has led and this one will feature work by many of the next generation who are coming to the streets and canvasses with alternatives to the figurative as well as the wild style – sort of a “no wave” approach to walls.

“The name of the event – NWO as New WALL Order – plays with the illuminati & conspiracy theories’ tagging to ironically highlight new horizons of our post-graffiti scene via the signature-wallpaintings,” says Marco Contardi, an Italian free writer and curator.

Previous editions of NWO included artists like 108, 2501, Giorgio Bartocci, CT, Eleuro and Ufocinque, as well as then Abik, Alfano, Alberonero, Aris, Giorgio Bartocci, Centina, G.Loois x Domenico Romeo, Luca Font and Sbagliato Collective.

Call it post-graffiti, or graffuturism, but these guys hope you’ll appreciate the gesture.

Read more in Italian at Gorgo.

Low Bros #sweet15s Episode 9 / Seattle

The quickest shot of LowBros recent wall in Seattle. So brief, yet potent.

 

NUART / Aberdeen 2017

A promo reel with punchy soundtrack and juicy graphics. Isn’t that what you want? Nuart Aberdeen 2017 delivers.

 

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BSA Film Friday: 02.24.17

BSA Film Friday: 02.24.17

bsa-film-friday-JAN-2015

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

Now screening :
1. Kate Tempest – “Europe Is Lost”
2. DESCUBRIENDO NUESTRA HISTORIA – Discovering Our History (Chile)
3. Cane Morto: Grimy Drawings With High Precision Tools.
4. Bezt X Natalia Rak in collaboration with Thinkspace. Film by Birdman


bsa-film-friday-special-feature

BSA Special Feature: Kate Tempest – “Europe Is Lost”

Not your average happy Friday video, but a powerful one for this moment showcasing some new talents in music and video – and the collaged technique of Street Art that we often find on “organic” walls in city centers where the multiple voices of many are collectively yelling for your attention.

Rage filled Trump, KKK members, police violence, industrial pollution, drug use, mechanized systems of production, fabulous hedonism, starving people, prisons: The technique of rapid-file visual shocks in a battering succession timed to illustrate the lyrics was popularized by punk bands in the nineties – who probably borrowed it from the collage photo and text technique in punk and anarchist hand-made zines of the 70s and 80s. By de-saturating the color images to black and white the various clips are on equal footing and the pacing is plainly rolled out sans filter for impressive impact.

Singer/rapper/poet South Londoner Kate Tempest is a clarion voice at this moment and an animated force to consider over a sparely punctuating musical arrangement. According to press reports the video was created by a fan named Manual Braun and it became the official video for the song, making the message feel even more grassroots as a result.

Quoted in The Independent this month, Tempest says her song isn’t offering much hope so don’t get your hopes up. “It’s too late now. It’s gone beyond somebody being right and somebody being wrong,” she said. “It’s far too late. “We’re in the middle of a massive humanitarian crisis.”  However, the very fact that artists and thinkers are getting these messages out and in front of us is a cause for hope and we believe the people have the ability to heal these crisis.

 

Also check out Kate’s live performance on KEXP in Kex Hostel in Reykjavik during Iceland Airwaves last November.

DESCUBRIENDO NUESTRA HISTORIA – Discovering Our History

Desie, Teo, Nao and Majestick collaborate on a new community mural at a bus station called PAZ. There is a certain poetry in that statement, as well as the reviving of memories from the previous traders and workers “helping to remember what was every inhabitant of the historic commune” in Santiago, Chile.

CRONICA B: GALERIA:

 

Cane Morto: Grimy Drawings With High Precision Tools.

Italian trio Cane Morto are back with a new grimy zine they made just for you.

 

 

Bezt X Natalia Rak in collaboration with Thinkspace. Film by Birdman.

Celebrated a new wall by exhibiting artists at Thinkspace in Los Angeles, photographer Birdman shoots a video of the making of the wall and the process.

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“NUART Aberdeen” Announced for April, BSA is There With You

“NUART Aberdeen” Announced for April, BSA is There With You

|  FIRST ARTISTS ANNOUNCED  | NUART TALKS PROGRAM | BSA FILM FRIDAY LIVE |  LIVE ARTIST INTERVIEWS  |  KEYNOTE  SPEAKERS  |  FIGHT NIGHT RETURNS  |
| SPECIAL FILMS THROUGHOUT EASTER WEEKEND AT BELMONT THEATRE |

NUART in Stavanger Norway has been distinguishing itself as a top-notch series of events showcasing Street Art and graffiti culture with full respect to its antecedents while spotlighting some talents and movements from the current scene who have made the path by walking.

Robert Montgomery (courtesy Nuart )

This April Nuart becomes mobile and shines from Aberdeen, Scotland with a line-up of International artists that will be announced this week to bring new voices to this pivotal port city where the Dee and Don rivers meet the North Sea.

BSA has closely followed Nuart for 9 years and presented, participated, documented, and interpreted the programming, street and gallery installations we’ve experienced for readers of Brooklyn Street Art and The Huffington Post and we’re happy to announce we’ll be in Aberdeen with you in April.

Herakut (courtesy Nuart )

The artist roster is looking stellar including these first three veterans of Nuart during its previous incarnations, Robert Montgomery, Herakut and Julien de Casabianca. Included in the events are some of the erudite Nuart Talks with keynotes and artist interviews and a new edition of Fight Night, as well as BSA in person for BSA FILM FRIDAY LIVE at the Belmont Cinema where we’ll also introduce movies to Aberdeen Street Art fans throughout the Easter weekend.

Julian Casbianca (courtesy Nuart )

We’re excited to see the reliably inventive, visonary and resourceful Nuart team, the installations of new works by some of your favorite Street Artists, and hopefully we’ll get to meet many BSA readers in Scotland this April! More on this on BSA Facebook and Twitter as details emerge.

For more info go to:

Website: http://www.nuartaberdeen.co.uk/

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/nuartaberdeen

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/nuartaberdeen

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BSA Film Friday: 02.17.17

BSA Film Friday: 02.17.17

bsa-film-friday-JAN-2015

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

Now screening :
1. BEGR: Snow Painting
2. Gonzalo Borondo – ANIMAL
3. 2017 Women’s March from 50/50 Skatepark
4. What’s Your Story? PREZ


bsa-film-friday-special-feature

BSA Special Feature: BEGR: Snow Painting

Diggin the dreamy tip of this home-made video chronicling a frozen snowy winter day of spraying out with BEGR. Absent are the testosterone fueled showiness and fronting that sometimes characterize videos like this, instead the director BAZOOKAFILMS77 and the artist keep their mind on the art and invite you into the head. Great choice of tracks and attention to small details and interludes.

Gonzalo Borondo – ANIMAL

You may remember our piece in The Huffington Post about Borondo’s big mural in Berlin last summer and one community’s response to it.  Here he is in a new show curated by Rom Levy called ANIMAL.

2017 Women’s March from 50/50 Skatepark

Here’s a home made slideshow set to music of scenes from the the Women’s March that vastly dwarfed the inauguration of Trump.  That may have been our first clue…

What’s Your Story? PREZ From 50/50 Skatepark

We like this normal unassuming everyday interview with Staten Island graffiti writer and artist PREZ because it let’s him tell his own story while he’s just hanging out on a couch at a skatepark. And he has something to say, a few things actually.

2017 Women’s March from 50/50 Skatepark

 

 

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BSA Film Friday: 02.10.17

BSA Film Friday: 02.10.17

bsa-film-friday-JAN-2015

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

Now screening :
1. Kahbahbloom: The Art and Story Telling of Ed Emberley
2. Fintan Magee / The Exile
3. Amuse.126.Big Walls
4. EWOK – MSK


bsa-film-friday-special-feature

BSA Special Feature: Kahbahbloom: The Art and Storytelling of Ed Emberley by Todd Mazer

“How he sustained himself artistically was by being restless and trying all these new styles and new ways and not getting stuck in the same thing,” says Caleb Neelon about the children’s book illustrator Ed Emberley with 60 years of storytelling through art– and really it is a lesson well learned by most artists.

On the other hand, it often is helpful if you have one style that you are known for, particularly when you are trying to cut through the clutter and capture people’s attention. Perhaps the best lesson is to be restless and to embrace change.

Special props to Todd Mazer for intuitive use of editing, sharp observation, and unobtrusive storytelling of his own; making this video resonate with viewers.

 

Fintan Magee / The Exile

“Inspired by the youth inside the Azraq refugee camp artist Fintan Magee transported the image of one young Syran girl to East Amman,” says the descriptor at the bottom of the screen. This brief glimpse gives you an idea of the scale of displacement of people in this country.

 

Amuse.126.Big Walls

“Large scale mural work is very powerful and captivating to its audience. To allow me to come in and to paint a predominantly graffiti-based approach and to literally plaster my name onto a side of a building is amazing,” says Chicago based Amuse.

EWOK – MSK

Ewok shows his considerable illustration skills in this commercial for an art supply manufacturer.

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BSA Film Friday: 02.03.17

BSA Film Friday: 02.03.17

bsa-film-friday-JAN-2015

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

Now screening :
1. NEMCO, Three Stages: Primaticcio. Part I
2. NEMCO, Three Stages: Salento. Part II
3. NEMCO, Three Stages: Tetto. Part III
4. Run AKA Giacomo Bufarini: Time Traveller Artist Man
5. Saving Banksy
6. Berlin Kidz and Grifters Code 6: Über Freaks (Trailer)


bsa-film-friday-special-feature

BSA Special Feature: Three Walls by Nemco in Italy

Taking a break from the hype, here are three in a row straight up graffiti painting videos, each intriguing in their own way, from Italian writer Nemco. Unpretentious style, clean lettering, flexible concepts, and a bit of retro flavor that lets you know this is a way of life, not a pose to strike. Enjoy all three.

NEMCO, Three Stages: Primaticcio. Part I

 

NEMCO, Three Stages: Salento. Part II

 

NEMCO, Three Stages: Tetto. Part III

 

Run AKA Giacomo Bufarini: Time Traveller Artist Man

London based Italian Street Artist RUN has completed his first book of his work, a labor that he has been talking about since we met him a year ago in Morocco.

Tristan Manco describes it as “Part travelling diary, part monograph, Time Traveller Artist Man charts the triumphs and tribulations of an imaginative soul with a passion for travel, whose worldwide voyages have become a catalyst to create art that is elemental and playful, with the ultimate goal of engaging with people from all walks of life.”

We’ll show it to you once we get a copy! It is sure to be a fine work by a fine artist.

Opening in New York Tonight February 3rd

Saving Banksy

“We paint in the streets. That’s where it belongs”, says Street Artist Ben Eine in the new “Saving Banksy” film, and that’s where the debate originates. Of course that’s never where it ends.

For this weekend’s showtimes go to Cinepolis 

260 W 23rd St, New York, NY 10011
(212) 691-5519

Berlin Kidz and Grifters Code 6: Über Freaks (Trailer)

Good Guy Boris tells us that his new film Über Freaks is going to streamed live on Facebook February 8th! Of course you need to check your local times so you make sure you don’t show up to your computer with popcorn and its already over!

08 February 2017

20p.m. (GMT+1) [ Belgium / France / Germany / Italy / Netherlands / Spain timezones ]
US (EST – New York) – Wednesday 14p.m.
AUSTRALIA (AEDT – Sydney) – Thursday 06a.m.
Check your city timezone here.

Über Freaks takes place deep in the heart of Berlin, and chronicles what it’s like to be part of a close knit group, who get their kicks by roping down buildings with the barest of safety precautions, climbing buildings by way of their exteriors, and lock-picking their way through the whole of the city and its Metro stations. The film can be considered a joyride for the viewer, as they are finally granted a backstage pass to the exclusive and hectic lifestyle of the Berlin Kidz, being privy to a whole world of adrenaline and thrill seeking that occurs just outside their apartment windows.”

Also a new book release from The Grifters!

Find out more at grifterscode.thegrifters.org

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BSA Film Friday: 01.27.17

BSA Film Friday: 01.27.17

bsa-film-friday-JAN-2015

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

Now screening :
1. Dripped on The Road/ Episode One
2. Dripped on The Road/ Episode Two
3. RURALES
4. D*Face at “Unexpected” in Northwest Arkansas


bsa-film-friday-special-feature

BSA Special Feature: Dripped on The Road/ Episode One: Jamaica Moon.

Following closely on the heels of our story yesterday of graffiti in rural Morocco by city-based originators of aerosol sprayed tags and pieces in the US and Europe (some of whose first mark-making began in the 1970s), here we have a new video series about a traveling artist residency of formally educated twenty-something creators whose temporary home base is an RV taking their street practice across country. The routes, eras, and participants are different, but there are many overlapping themes.

While you are crafting definitions for urban art and Street Art, here are newer practitioners endeavoring to observe and define according to their background and experiences – all in a sort of self-observing therapeutic environment. While remarkably different from the originators of the graffiti/Street Art scene in many ways, each is looking to explore and embrace the possibility and freedoms afforded.

It’s good to see artists pushing beyond their personal comfort zones and studying their process for accessing the creative spirit to share. For some it’s a long way from “getting up” in traditional street parlance but it is still fundamentally about “getting up”.

 

Dripped on The Road/ Episode Two: The Stand Back. From Elixir Motion Picture

 

RURALES

Now to the Polish pig farms! Another Street Art/Mural road trip movie, this time across Poland with JAYPOP, Seikon, Krik KONG and filmmaker Cuba Goździewicz. See the discoveries, the relationships, the reactions to the work from a warm and considered human perspective.

The beauty of randomness and the randomness of beauty. These guys are fully engaged with their surroundings, the opportunity, the myriad people they befriend or portend to make allies. It’s an uncharted trip where permissions are sought and often refused, but they never stop painting somehow.

Seeing the work here on barns and sheds and even a small car, these are paintings they still call graffiti. With cats and cows and chickens and horses nearby, the new murals and illustrations still feel integral, like a continuation of a conversation.

 

D*Face at Unexpected in Northwest Arkansas

“I guess this year it’s like a two part mural/installation”, says London Street Artist D*Face of his second annual project with the JustKids organization.

“It feels like you can make a change here. Like you could really make an impact,” says D*Face of his enormous immersed arrows the size of telephone poles in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

A well known international artist, curator, gallery owner, D*Face nonetheless is drawn by something stronger than fame in the city “They are much more appreciative of people coming here and trying to do something positive.”

 

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BSA Film Friday: 01.13.17

BSA Film Friday: 01.13.17

bsa-film-friday-JAN-2015

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

Now screening :
1. OLEK: In The Blink Of An Eye
2. Москва – Artmossphere by Kevin Lüdicke
3. Morden Gore: Painting for the Italian Earthquake of October 2016.
4. Art Is Tra$h


bsa-film-friday-special-feature

BSA Special Feature: OLEK: In The Blink Of An Eye

“It is one thing to read about the events in those parts of the world, but it is something totally different to actually look in the eyes of the women who lost everything while running from the war,” says artist Olek about how her world view changed when crocheting the project featured this week.

While gathering and producing materials for her installation with Verket Museum in Avesta, Sweden, the Brooklyn based Street Artist was holding informal crochet workshops with volunteers who would be producing the decorative yarn skin that covered every single item inside and outside of the house with their handmade crochet stitches.

Some invited guests were refugees who had escaped war in Syria and Ukraine and the artist and local folks shared stories and crocheted, sewed, and prepared the art materials together over the course of a number of days. It was during these exchanges of personal stories that, “a conversation started that has changed me forever,” she says – and she immediately needed to reflect it in her project with the museum.

The documented result is here for you today. It was decided to destroy the domestic bliss of the home with a blast from outside, shattering and scattering the contents, a dramatization of the blasts from war and the machines manufactured to create them. The results are recorded in the video that leads BSA Film Friday this week.

In a split second our lives are turned upside down by explosions like these, and we block it from our minds until it happens to us or someone we love or someone we simply see the humanity within.

“I decided to blow up my crocheted house inside the museum to demonstrate the current, unfortunate situation worldwide, where hundreds of thousands of people are displaced,” Olek says. “In 2015, over 27.8 million people in 127 countries lost their homes due to conflict, violence and disasters.”

 

 

Москва – Artmossphere by Kevin Lüdicke

A thoughtful well-paced look behind the scenes of artists at work in studio – painting, sculpting, sawing, sanding, pouring concrete – preparing brand new works for the Artmossphere exhibition. Mounted in Moscow at the end of summer 2016 with 60 or so international and local artists drawn mostly from the Urban Art scene, this short film by director Kevin Lüdicke is narrated by artists and illustrated by common scenes in the city of Moscow. The artists are reflective, unhurried, and dig a little deeper to explain their work and process. Quiet spaces are allowed – which is where a number of revelations lie.

Learn more about the event from our BSA’s visit to Moscow for Artmossphere here:

60 Artists at a Moscow Street Art Biennale: “Artmossphere 2016”

 

Morden Gore: Painting for the Italian Earthquake of October 2016.

Aerial scenes of rubble caused by an earthquake put you at arms length, as does the hypnotizing synth glitchy pop track from Coconut Scale that enables you to focus and swerve away, zoom in and pull out before the pain gets too intense. Two earthquakes four days apart in the center of Italy shook these mountain areas and medieval villages – houses, schools, offices, histories, lives all crumbling. Artist Mordengore painted the mobile headquarters of the CGIL in the midst of the aftermath and documented his work and the context he created it within to capture what happened as a way to “not forget what happened to these lands only because we are hard-working and peaceful people.”

“Dedicated to Sylvester, pastor of Visso, symbol of these fragile lands, but tough, because we want to rebuild, despite everything.”

 

Art Is Tra$h

The Street Artist named Art Is Trash creates a full installation in an abandoned hotel to advertise sneakers for a well known brand.

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BSA Film Friday 01.06.17

BSA Film Friday 01.06.17

bsa-film-friday-JAN-2015

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

Now screening :
1. New York: Art of Beeing with Louis Masai by Where’s Kong
2. Detroit: Art of Beeing with Louis Masai by Where’s Kong
3. California : Art of Beeing with Louis Masai by Where’s Kong
4. Arizona . Texas . Tennessee : Art of Beeing with Louis Masai by Where’s Kong
5. Miami: Art of Beeing with Louis Masai by Where’s Kong


bsa-film-friday-special-feature

BSA Special Feature: 5 in a row by Where’s Kong : USA Art of Beeing

A visual diary of 9 weeks traveling across the US in search of kindred folk to learn from and exchange with and teach about the 6th Age of Extinction that we are entering where literally thousands of species are dying while we watch television, phones, Facebook.

Individually these tight and tantalizing videos give you a distinct taste for the regions and the cities that Masai and his team of 2 videographers travelled through. Experts and street people and community are narrators throughout, laying out the contours. Collectively the short films are a pulse-taking of a country that could be a world leader in these matters but is somehow in a trance, unable to move in a unified constructive hopeful way to reverse the destructive trends.

Masai is too polite to say it that way, but the truths of our collective folly comes through nonetheless.

See our wrap of the tour here: One Artists’ Mission to Save Endangered Species: Louis Masai Completes “The Art Of Beeing” Tour

The Art of Beeing – New York City #1

 

Louis Masai / The Art of Beeing Detroit

 

Louis Masai / The Art of Beeing California

 

Louis Masai / The Art of Beeing Arizona . Texas . Tennessee

 

Louis Masai / The Art of Beeing Miami

 

Click HERE to learn more about Louis Masai The Art Of Beeing

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Top 15 Videos on BSA Film Friday From 2016

Top 15 Videos on BSA Film Friday From 2016

brooklyn-street-art-15-videos-2016-740

Your 15 Top Videos of 2016!

Every Friday we invite you to stop by and take a look at new videos that have been submitted or recommended or we just tripped over in the alleyway.

We call it BSA Film Friday and it doesn’t exist only online these days – we take the show to lectures in classrooms and museums and festivals to show people what kind of dope, strange, illuminating, elevating, soaring, and pedestrian films are being made about artists working in  the public sphere.

Brooklyn-Street-Art-copyright-Frank-Embacher-Steven_Harrington_Ethel_Seno-Carlo-McCormick_Jaime_Rojo-Dresden-Magic-City-740We even curated a film program this year for the Magic City exhibition in Dresden, Germany with 12 of the best – and it was our honor to present ‘Live’ there to audiences with those folks last month.

Today we’re giving you the BSA Top 15 Videos from 2016 – the ones that garnered the most traffic and conversation online. We are never quite sure what you will find interesting, so to see this collection of videos all together gives us a good idea that we have some of the smartest and savviest readers !

Included with each one is an excerpt of what we said for the original posting.

Grab the popcorn and enjoy the show!

 


No. 15
Sofles / Wayfarer by Selina Miles

From BSA Film Friday 03.11.15

“Selina Miles has just directed an epic excursion through the pleasant looking Collingwood and Fitroy areas of Melbourne and the graffiti culture there. The prolific and talented writer Sofles rides and runs center screen on this guided tour of his aerosol stomping ground and this (nearly) one continuous shot drone film is a revelation. Again Miles pushes the documentation category forward, going beyond merely recording toward capturing, creating a sense of drama, certainly poetry.

Omar Musa grabs you with his words before you even know where you are and holds your heart tethered to a string and pulling you along these streets and alleys and back lots. Many times this piece is soaring in its singularity and its sense of collaboration.”

 


No. 14
Chump for Trump. Ron English x The Sutcliffes

From BSA Film Friday: 07.01.16

“Seeing the new Ron English mural of Donald Trump in Bushwick, Brooklyn last week we were reminded of the video he released in April with a soundtrack by The Sutcliffes, a Beatles tribute band. It uses footage from Trump rallies and commercials interspersed with illustration and animation in an approachable folky way. Once you go down the rabbit hole of Trump satire and parody videos that have been made in the last year, you’ll find enough to begin a film festival.”

 


No. 13
Between The Lines With RISK

From BSA Film Friday: 04.15.16

“Risk talks about his evolution from a kid in New Orleans sketching in his notebook at school to getting up with a crew in LA, painting all over public space and property to gain a higher profile and retain the thrill of hit-and-run, and some highlights of his professional career. In route from illegal to legal he developed a reverence for color, form, and technical experimentation and aspirations for museum quality work and large scale public sculpture. Just don’t tag his stuff please.”

 


No. 12
“Street Food” from Mathieu Roquigny

BSA Film Friday: 09.30.16

“Some simple stencil activism well placed can be very effective. Vulgar, absurd, playful. Call it what you want, but Mathieu Roquigny is the first one we have seen do it. Do not view during your morning donut and coffee.”

 

 


No. 11
Faith 47, No Standing Anytime

From BSA Film Friday: 01.08.16

“A gorgeously ambient tribute to New York through the eyes of a visitor who takes some alternate routes through the city along with the more obvious ones to capture vignettes of mundanity and of wonder. Rowan Pybus shoots this city poetry as a series of visual stanzas stacked unevenly, accompanied by the occasional Faith47 mural (she has accumulated a few in NYC now) as well as the wistful sound recordings of lemurs by Alexia Webster that melt into the gentle audio cacophony of the street as designed by Jonathan Arnold.

The combined passages allow you to slow down and contemplate the whirring city and a handful of its moments as sweet parenthesis in this run-on sentence called New York. Okay, that’s enough, move along now, no standing.”

 


No. 10
Ella & Pitr: Utsira Island

From BSA Film Friday: 08.26.16

“It is funny to see this video stamped with the name “Street Art, Utsira ” because Utsira is an island with about 200 inhabitants off the coast of Norway, and there not many streets.  Also, this piece is not on a street.

Regardless, french roof painting couple Ella & Pitr made a trip there recently and squeezed in one of there cuddly characters, who looks like he is on the lamb from the huge childrens story book that he escaped from. Stay tuned for some exclusive shots and reportage on the making of this piece and their upcoming show at the local pub!”

 


No. 9
Herakut: “Masters Of Wrong”

BSA Film Friday: 04.01.16

“HERA + AKUT=HERAKUT – a back-to-basics introduction to Herakut today, since new fans are joining the fold and need to become acquainted with a duo that has been on the street around the world for years and has been moving into galleries for a while also.

Here at the white box Corey Helford Gallery in Los Angeles for their “Masters of Wrong” show it is a different view entirely from the street surely, including paintings evenly spaced across white walls as well as an area for a more immersive environment.

Outside, “The wolf that wins is the one you feed” is the Cherokee wisdom they paint on the side of the local high school, and in the commercialization of the Street Art world, we see this enmeshed dichotomy more daily.

Let the softly kinetic paddling of the marimba escort you through their political and social commentary, now more overt and obvious and  satirical than ever, as they show you their new show and their new works for exhibition and for sale.”

 


No. 8
“Watching My Name Go By”

BSA Film Friday: 08.05.16

“Directed by Julia Cave and originally shown on the BBC documentary series OMNIBUS in December of 1976, this was actually the second half of a program that followed a tour through the art gallery scene of Soho.

A hidden gem that surveys the variety of opinions held by citizens, historians, police and front stoop sociologists about the graffiti scene on trains and the streets, the story is measured and inquisitive. It’s without glamour, although there may be guile.”

 


No. 7
Os Gemeos Mural: Hangar Bicocca Building

BSA Film Friday: 04.29.16

“Graffiti writers and assorted urban artists have a romantic fixation with the steel monsters that snake through our cities and across the backyards and fields of entire countries. For the urban art culture subways and freights have distinct but overlapping associations with freedom, wanderlust, a daredevil mentality, … and Brazilian brothers Os Gemeos have just created their latest ode to the subway train in Milan – almost as big as any writer’s dream.”

 


No. 6
David Choe: The Perfect Day in Cambodia

From BSA Film Friday: 01.15.16

“This looks like a trailer for a larger piece:

Artist David Choe writes “This trip to Cambodia was not a news trip, we were there strictly to spread the message of love, light, beauty, joy, free expression and creativity. I didn’t realize how many millions of musicians, artists, writers and creative people had been murdered in the Cambodian genocide, so I wanted to bring the best artists in the world to Cambodia, a country that has virtually no murals or street art. Our goal, working through the #IglooHong Foundation, was simple: to spread some light, joy and beauty to a country with such a dark past.”

 


No. 5
The Restoration of Blu for “Street Art Banksy & Co”

BSA Film Friday: 06.10.16

“Part II of a behind the scenes look by Good Guy Boris at the controversial show in Bologna that features art works by BLU and others that were originally not intended to appear in a museum, like most things in museums.

Here we learn about less sexy topics like copyright law and one lawyers interpretation of the realistic expectations of artists when painting illegally and legally as it applies to copyright in Italy and France. We also receive a quick education about traditional and modern techniques for the restoration of works for archival purposes, which is why people will be looking at these things long after you and we are gone.”

 


No. 4
Lister Prepares for “MAD PROPS STREET CRED“

BSA Film Friday: 02.05.16

“On the occasion of his show last fall at New Image Art in Los Angeles, artist/street artist Anthony Lister had an emotional meltdown. Told with the help of top name graffiti writer RISK, gallery owner Marsea Goldberg, and the artist himself we learn about a tumultuous personal backstory that informs his experience while creating new works on the street and for the show. Especially rewarding in this new short directed by Mark Simpson is an unobtrusive examination of the artists gestural technique, a revelation in itself.

Additionally, the performance artist Ariel Brickman on stage at the show opening is the personification of Lister’s  fantasic/heroic/treacherous figures; a spot-on example of his work come to life.”

 


No. 3
Pixel Pancho: “Teseo e il Minotauro” in Rome

From BSA Film Friday: 03.04.16

“In a city steeped in art history where every camera shot looks like a classic movie scene you have to be cognizant of the critical analysis that will be directed at your new mural from every Giovanni, Adriana, and Luca who are walking by or hanging out of the window.
These are the countrymen and women of Pixel Pancho so he takes it all into consideration and presents a classic of his own, merged with a steam-punked futurism of robots who are rather romantic in their own way.”

 


No. 2
Narcelio Grud: Public Music Box

BSA Film Friday :01.22.16

“Narcelio Grud has a track record of transforming public space in an unassuming manner that actually engages people directly. Here is his latest urban intervention – a music box for pedestrians to listen to while waiting for the light to change.”

 

No. 1

In Memory: Giulio Vesprini

From BSA Film Friday: 07.15.16

“Murals have an entirely different function in the urban environment than Street Art and graffiti, although some folks use the terms interchangeably. One of the time-honored functions of a public mural in many cities has been the “memorial mural,” the one that recalls a person or people or a  significant event that has impacted a neighborhood, even a nation. Because it is artwork mounted publicly, it can be used as a meeting point for people in a community to gather and talk about it, trading stories and impressions and gaining understanding.  At its’ worst, a memorial mural can be superficial or overwrought, moralizing, even stunningly unartful.

Sometimes however, it can provide to a community a sense of pride or history, and it can be empowering. Other times there is a mental, emotional catharsis that takes place with the artwork providing a forum, a safe space to discuss the undiscussible in a public forum or simply to share in a common sense of loss, or experience some sense of healing.

‘It’s not mere decoration, but deals with ethics,’ says Giulio Vesprini as he paints this mural remembering Camp No.70 Monte Urano, a WWII prison camp a mile or two from the sea and Porto San Georgio, in Italy. ‘So it has been very important to me that I could give my contribution.’ “



 

We dedicate this compilation to the filmmakers who bring so much joy, knowledge and awareness with their artistry and technical wizardry every day and especially every Friday from BSA Film Friday to all of us here at BSA and to our readers. Cheers for a wonderful 2017…

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BSA Film Friday 12.09.16

BSA Film Friday 12.09.16

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

Now screening :
1. Mni Wiconi: The Stand At Standing Rock
2. Just Kids x Life Is Beautiful
3. “Nemco, Three Stages”: Primaticcio
4. RFK Mural Festival 2016 from Chop Em Down Films


bsa-film-friday-special-feature

Mni Wiconi: The Stand At Standing Rock

“The Mother Earth is the grandmother of everything and the water is her blood. And it is through this blood we live.”

That seems simple enough. The Native Americans who have been fighting an oil pipeline running through their sacred lands, passed graves, near fresh water; they have gained a lot of attention, although not as much as one might expect. Here is a quick overview of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and allies trying to stop the 1,100-mile Dakota Access Pipeline – DAPL. With their quiet and firm determination and reasoned arguments they have gained respect from many – which may explain why so many US Veterans have joined with these people to fight.

Tangentially, as is the case of most protests that are grassroots, their signage is handmade, so we thought we’d feature this political art as analogous to political street art.


Just Kids x Life Is Beautiful

A montage by Raymesh Cintron of the murals for the “Life is Beautiful” festival presented by Just Kids in downtown Las Vegas. Their 4th edition under the guidance and vision of Charlotte Dutoit, there have been 40 new street pieces in that time. This year featured installations and murals – with some of them showing true originality in concepts that faithfully reflect and update the candyflash razzle dazzle of the Las Vegas aesthetic.

Artists include Fafi, Felipe Pantone, Shepard Fairey, Tristan Eaton, Crystal Wagner, Mark Drew, Bezt (Etam Cru), Dulk, Martin Whatson, Amanda Parer, Mike Ross and Justin Favela.

“Nemco, Three Stages”: Primaticcio

Italian writer Nemco has an acrobatic flexibility that stretches and bounces back in his crisp lettering and unique ornamentation. Check him out in three open spaces this autumn knocking out a few ideas in Milan.

 

RFK Mural Festival 2016 from Chop Em Down Films

There is a discrimination in this world and slavery and slaughter and starvation. Governments repress their people; and millions are trapped in poverty while the nation grows rich; and wealth is lavished on armaments everywhere.

These are differing evils, but they are common works of man. They reflect the imperfection of human justice, the inadequacy of human compassion, our lack of sensibility toward the sufferings of our fellows.

But we can perhaps remember – even if only for a time – that those who live with us are our brothers; that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek – as we do – nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.”

– Bobby Kennedy, 1966

Murals at the RFK Community Schools in May 2016 by:
Shepard Fairey, Kenny Scharf, Jeff Soto, Sam Flores, Hueman, David Flores, Greg Mike, Curiot, Mad Steez, Cyrcle, Andrew Hem, Mear One, Risk, Yoskay Yamamoto. James Bullough, Beau Stanton, Hebru Brantley, Hush, Charlie Edmiston, Colette Miller, Rob Hill, Dallas Clayton, Clinton Bopp, James Haunt, Jonas Never, Josh Everhorn, Baker’s Son, Jose Maradiaga-Andrade, Paige Smith

 

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