All posts tagged: BSA Film Friday

BSA Film Friday: 06.24.22

June 24, 2022 Artists, BSA Film Friday

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

Now screening:
1. Chile Estyle, from Pablo Aravena
2. ARCHIFONT
3. Tartu Street Art Comes to Berlin – Hello Mister Police Officer | FWTV

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BSA Special Feature: Chile Estyle, from Pablo Aravena

The evolution of a graffiti/street art movement is not unilateral in its formative influences nor its cities of germination. Not only does Chile have a unique genesis story born of oppression and rebellion that is written into the history of the modern street art movement, it has produced a number of strong proponents of the current global scene.

“Young people took to the streets with political muralism all over Chile in the late 60’s at the same time as young people in New York were starting Modern graffiti and May 68 happened in Paris. Chile Estyle is a documentary film that explores the past and present of Chile’s unique street art tradition which comes from a remix of political muralism and graffiti and has been part of the Chilean cultural and political life since the 60s, resulting in a visually arresting, informative and entertaining film.”

Chile Estyle – Trailer – Pablo Aravena

ARCHIFONT

“I kept looking at it and saying, ‘I could do a whole alphabet based on it.'”

ARCHIFONT Letters dressed in architecture. For the fonts lovers and the architecture lovers this little video of the names of master architects, past and present will stir emotions, we are certain of that. But we also know a thing or two about the letter form art we call graffiti…certainly, our emotions were stirred…will yours?

Tartu Street Art Comes to Berlin – Hello Mister Police Officer | FWTV

It’s been a little while since we’ve seen the folks from Tartu and are happy to see them doing a show in Berlin. Doug from Fifth wall interviews 4 of the originators/artists from the “Stencibility” festival in Estonia – as they mount their exhibition in Berlin. Open till June 25th!

BSA Film Friday: 06.10.22

June 10, 2022 Artists, BSA Film Friday

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

Now screening:
1. MuralFest Kosovo 2022
2. PichiAvo in Linz, Austria
3. Graffiti TV 103: Ler2

BSA Special Feature: MuralFest Kosovo 2022

Doug Gillen’s register has dropped to something deeper in this new video at the Kosovo 2022 MuralFest that he does for his brand FifthWall TV. As ever, he seeks to connect you with the people who are working to engage their city with art in the streets. Adopting the theme “Offline” – the same as the 2018 Moscow Artmossphere International Urban Art Festival that we co-curated – the MuralFest artists are reconsidering life and community in a way that is free from the electronic platforms we have all been communicating on. It makes sense because art in the streets began here with the people and with the city.

MuralFest Kosovo 2022 via FithWall TV

PichiAvo in Linz, Austria

A quick soundless timelapse of the PichiAvo magicians doing their mural at Promenade Galerien in Linz in Austria.

Graffiti TV 103: Ler2

This episode of Graff TV features graffiti writer Ler2!

BSA Film Friday: 06.03.22

June 3, 2022 Artists, BSA Film Friday

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

Now screening:
1. Just in Time for Jubilee – “God Save the Queen” Reboot – The Sex Pistols
2. YUUE: Homesick
3. Minimum Monument – Néle Azevedo

BSA Special Feature: “God Save the Queen” Reboot – The Sex Pistols

To commemorate the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee this weekend, the Sex Pistols have released a “Revisited” video which combines footage of their concert playing “God Save The Queen” in 1977 with images of a party celebrating her Silver Jubillee on a boat cruising the River Thames in the same year. 45 years later, the Sex Pistols have long since disappeared and QEII is marking her 70th year as a monarch.

For those of you at home who forgot the words and would like to sing along;

“God save the Queen
A fascist regime
They made you a moron
Potential H-bomb

God save the Queen
She ain’t no human being
There is no future
In England’s dreaming”

God Save the Queen Revisited – Sex Pistols

You thought your Covid lockdown was hot and stuffy and alienating and fattening and now your dog is so mad at you that he is not talking to you anymore? Well, did you make any art about this?

YUUE design studio decided to address what they describe as “the extreme covid containment strategies in China that created an unnecessary humanitarian crisis” with a “design commentary”.

Here they choose a Ming-style chair and a traditional Chinese porcelain vase “as cultural symbols and wrapped them tightly in a protective suit tailored for each of them.”

“As a vivid metaphor a Chinese chair and vase in a pure white hazmat suit with blue ribbons silently comments on the absurd reality.”

YUUE: Homesick

It’s a good thing that climate change is over and that we no longer need to do anything to solve it.

Brazilian conceptual artist and sculptor Néle Azevedo drew attention to it in Berlin in 2009 with her installation called “Minimum Moment”.

And 13 years later, climate change has been solved, thank God.

Just kidding we’re still messing up the atmosphere with the burning of fossil fuels. Also Alzevedo has installed her small melting ice sculptures in other cities, including Sao Paulo in 2016, Rome in 2020, Middlebury, USA in 2018, Lima, Peru in 2014, and Amsterdam in 2012.

Minimum Monument – Néle Azevedo

BSA Film Friday: 05.27.22

May 27, 2022 Artists, BSA Film Friday

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

Now screening:
1. Wasteminister – Greenpeace
2. Слава Україні! (Glory to Ukraine)
3. Bordalo II via Rafael Estefania

BSA Special Feature: Wasteminister – Greenpeace

Using Boris Johnson’s exact quotes, Greenpeace illustrates his folly, and ours.

What if all the plastic that the UK exports in a day were dumped on his head instead?

Directed by Jorik Dozy & Sil van der Woerd
Concept & Production by Studio Birthplace
Co-Produced by Park Village
CG Production by Method & Madness
Produced by Sean Lin

Greenpeace – Wasteminister

Слава Україні! (Glory to Ukraine) Via Spray Daily

The graffiti term “Throwup” takes on a different tinge as we watch our young people pushed into war, yet again. Not the rich ones of course. Here’s a wartime video from Ukraine, Nokier & Reys – who say in their Youtube description that they are doing some street bombing and delivering aid and bulletproof vest plates to Ukrainian graffiti writers defending their country.

Bordalo II via Rafael Estefania

“It doesn’t make sense for me to be related to some big brands that don’t really care about the environment. If they are not doing a good job, no way.” Wonder which brands that sponsor Street Art/graffiti culture events and publications meet this criterion?

Gone is the “Disgusting” sweatshirt. Here is the “Life is Beautiful” t-shirt. Why do we think he’s just kidding? Artur Bordalo, also known as Bordalo II, the artist/street artist from Lisbon has been telling us all to awaken to the wasting/polluting of the earth that we are doing. This overview introduces his work to a larger audience – although you could argue that his estimated 190 animal street sculptures made of recycled trash in 23 countries had made his argument more powerfully – and directly.

BSA Film Friday: 05.13.22

May 13, 2022 Artists, BSA Film Friday

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

Now screening:
1. George Booth life at The New Yorker
2. DOES X JORIT team up for a large mural in Napels, Italy.
3. PichiAvo in Linz. Timelapse video.

BSA Special Feature: George Booth life at The New Yorker

Directed by Nathan Fitch, the iconic artist George Booth looks back on fifty years of work for The New Yorker.

Drawing Life: George Booth

DOES X JORIT team up for a large mural in Napels, Italy.

PichiAvo in Linz. Timelapse video.

BSA Film Friday: 05.06.22

May 6, 2022 Artists

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

Now screening:
1. MadC – The Jersey City Mural in collaboration with Jersey City Mural Arts Program
2. Foim & Friends via System Boys
3. Muelle, The Madrid Graffiti Legend

BSA Special Feature: MadC – The Jersey City Mural

A week ago, we were in Berlin to celebrate the closing of our exhibition Martha Cooper: Taking Pictures at Urban Nation Museum. On our last day, we sat front row inside the show at the panel discussion with Martha Cooper and MadC moderated by Nika Kramer.

The three intelligent, hard-working, and accomplished women spoke about their work and the relationship between painting on the streets and the transition of art into the gallery; painting on canvases. Among other topics, MadC spoke about her fear of heights and how this mural in Jersey City proved challenging for her, but in the end, she conquered her fears and set her mind to work on the mural. To her surprise, one morning, she experienced a magnificent sunrise view over Manhattan that she said was worth being high up painting as she wouldn’t otherwise have witnessed such a peaceful and immensely gratifying sight.

MadC – The Jersey City Mural in collaboration with Jersey City Mural Arts Program

Foim & Friends via System Boys

It’s astounding to see the level of Mission Impossible shenanigans that Foim & Friends appear to execute to get into train yards to paint. The results are tight, bright, bubble tags that ride on the lower 2/3 of train cars throughout the city. They are so ubiquitous that you think the train looks like something is missing when it glides past without adornment. But for the writers, its still about competition to get up and its about presence, if not turf.

Muelle, The Madrid Graffiti Legend

“Little did I know. Not only did the Town Hall buy it. But they restored it.” This is when graffiti writers get the recognition by greater society that makes them “legendary”.

BSA Film Friday: 04.29.22

April 29, 2022 Artists, BSA Film Friday

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

Now screening:
1. A Playgirl and Lowrider Life in Paintings
2. DRM Crew & Edward Nightengale in Berlin. I LOVE GRAFFITI
3. Elmgreen & Dragset: Useless Bodies

BSA Special Feature: LA Playgirl and Lowrider Life in Paintings

“One of my friends said, ‘You make fine art for cholos,” says Los Angeles-based painter Jacqueline Valenzuela who depicts women lowriders in urban landscapes, murals and street art.

“For me its more important that the communities that I’m depicting feel like I am doing them justice.”

DRM Crew & Edward Nightengale in Berlin from I LOVE GRAFFITI

These young graffiti fathers are somehow feeling middle-aged and trapped: looking for the chance to return to painting trains. An open diary narrated describes the yearning to return to an earlier way of life, specifically graffiti bombing Berlin trains. The camera, sounds, and storyline all reveal how far they are willing to go to recapture memories for Berlin for graffiti writers Acid79, Micro, Shus, Area, Mad and Edward Nightingale. The result is an honesty about vandalism that is almost touching; a study of technique, materials, and patience – and a passion that is never quite quenchable.

Elmgreen & Dragset: Useless Bodies

Elmgreen & Dragset explore the present condition of the body in the post-industrial age – of course street art fans will think of Mark Jenkins here, but their additional narrative tells you that they think of the displacement of people wandering through post-industrial modernity, while his often references a more hopeful outlook.

BSA Film Friday: 04.22.22

April 22, 2022 Artists, BSA Film Friday

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

Now screening:
1. Dyva & Haeck painting on the Molotow traTheo Jansen: Strandbeest
2. AMERICAN DREAM. America’s hidden geography of poverty.
3. Kunle EARSNOT Martins via Juxtapoz Magazine

BSA Special Feature: Theo Jansen: Strandbeest

The Dutch artist Theo Jansen creates new forms of life: impressive skeletal structures that move independently, powered by the wind. The Strandbeests are created with plastic electrical tubing and bring to mind the stages of evolution – especially when exhibited on oceanside. Jansen says his creations have actually moved through 12 periods of evolution.

“By developing this evolution, I hope to become wiser in the understanding of existing nature by encountering myself the problems of the real Creator.”

Currently on exhibition at Kunstmuseum Den Haag, “Theo Jansen, Strandbeesten, de nieuwe generatie” is open until July 3rd.

Theo Jansen: Strandbeest

Matt Black: UNAMERICAN DREAM. America’s hidden geography of poverty.

“I’ve spent nearly all my adult life in a photographic dialogue with the central valley of California, ” he says of the state so rich that it would rank high among countries of the world, if it were a country. But that’s not what Matt Black has been documenting.

Kunle EARSNOT Martins via Juxtapoz Magazine

Sell the product, people. That’s how the world runs. And Kunle is cute, so.

BSA Film Friday: 04.15.22

April 15, 2022 Artists, BSA Film Friday

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

Now screening:
1. Dyva & Haeck painting on the Molotow train.
2. THIS IS INDECLINE: A Showreel
3. Edoardo Tresoldi: Opera

BSA Special Feature: Dyva & Haeck painting on the Molotow train.

On this episode of Graff TV the featured graffiti writers are Dyva and Haeck who paint the Molotow train.

Graffiti TV 100: Dyva & Haeck painting on the Molotow train.

THIS IS INDECLINE: A Showreel

Now see kids, this is what they call a showreel. That’s when they put together their greatest hits and play a screaming apocalyptic metal soundtrack over top of it all.

Edoardo Tresoldi: Sound Installation for Opera

BSA Film Friday: 04.08.22

April 8, 2022 Artists, BSA Film Friday

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

Now screening:
1. Chris Pape: The Freedom Tunnel via VICE
2. SOFLES: The Humble Rollerdoor
3. Stargazing Mojave/Joshua Tree National Park
4. Angel and Z Podcast Interview NECKFACE
5. Tripl Stays True to the Name

BSA Special Feature: Chris Pape: The Freedom Tunnel

All time Top 10 stories in NYC graffiti lore will invariably name-check the “Freedom Tunnel,” so called in the 1980s because of its most famous writer, Chris “Freedom” Pape. You may not know where it is located, but you know that it is cavernous, that the sun is filtered into it from grates above like jolts of raw power, and that it is also home to many New Yorkers who are off the grid. That’s just one of the many ironies of calling this “Freedom Tunnel.”

One of the revelations of this intimate interview is that Freedom is rational in his rather laissez-faire approach to people and painting, preferring his own counsel and leaving others to theirs without judgment. These could be the gifts of later life on display – certainly rarely heard sentiments from your average vandal. He says he chose the tunnels as a strategy to avoid the withering criticism that he heard other writers had of train pieces while reviewing passing cars. An illustration painter, his time-intensive works based on more classical fine art works and techniques were unusual on the graffiti scene, perhaps presaging the coming Street Art movement.

SOFLES: The Humble Rollerdoor

With his customary ease and can-control panache, SOFLES is aided here by sophisticated variations in pacing, focus, gaze of the camera. Drop in a few visual glitches and slights of hand – all against a non-background audio that sounds like pouring rain, and he takes us somewhere else again, again.

Stargazing Mojave/Joshua Tree National Park

Is life magic? Are there holes in your dreams into which birds can drop into? Is the earth in movement at all times, always dancing? Yes, it is.

Angel and Z Podcast Interview NECKFACE

It doesn’t get better than this. Interview with a writing/fine art legend in a fleabag hotel. Who knows what kind of wisdom he’s about to lay on you.

Tripl Stays True to the Name

Okay okay okay you win!

Tripl broke trainwriting with this one 🤯

Watch to the end pic.twitter.com/YxreprAHkw
— Montana Colors (@MontanaColors) April 8, 2022

BSA Film Friday: 04.01.22

April 1, 2022 Artists, BSA Film Friday

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

Now screening:
1. ERWTJE83 turn to Spray Daily’s Black Lines
2. Ai Weiwei “Turandot”, His Version
3. Gold Digger: An Ephemeral Installation in an Historic Location

BSA Special Feature: ERWTJE83 turn to Spray Daily’s Black Lines

Graffiti writer ERWTJE83 shares with you the finer details of his practice here for Spray Daily’s Black Lines series. Since the early days of writers, the blackbook has been endemic to the culture. Similarly, the subway bench (or ‘writer’s bench’) was a place to share with peers and discuss. Today, the metaphor carries to Youtube, where you can get inspired by ERWTJE83’s command of think felts and black lines. Of course, you have to have product placement in the composition too because, you know, the man.

Ai Weiwei “Turandot”, His Version

He was an extra as assistant to the executioner. That was 35 years ago in the Lincoln Center staging of Franco Zeffirelli’s production of “Turandot”. He says he was just trying to pay New York rents.

They haven’t gotten any cheaper by the way. An average Manhattan studio is more than $2,300. When AiWeiWei was in “Turandot” here the same studio would have been $1000.

Nonetheless, here Ai Weiwei is in Rome, triumphant after last nights closing of one week of performances at Opera di Roma. He says he never would have predicted this. Seeing the cast in street clothes rehearsing is revelatory as well.

Name: Turandot
Direction, Scenes, Costumes, Video: Ai Weiwei
Location: Teatro Costanzi, Opera di Roma
Dates: March 22-31, 2022

Gold Digger: An Ephemeral Installation in an Historic Location

I ain’t sayin’ they a gold digger. Wait. Yes, I am.

Gold Digger, the ephemeral installation winner of the first prize at the Tortosa’s A Cel Obert festival, a festival of ephemeral interventions held every year since 2014. Designed by architects Nicola Baldassarre, Salvatore Dentamaro, Francesco Di Salvo and Ilyass Erraklaouy, the ephemeral art transforms a historical space – without harming it. 112 thermal blankets cover the 16th century Patio de Sant Jordi and Sant Domènec dels Reials Colégis.

BSA Film Friday: 03.25.22

March 25, 2022 Artists, BSA Film Friday

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

Now screening:
1. SpY Reflection
2. One Minute of Dance Per Day March 20, 2022: Danse 2623 – Nadia Vadori-Gauthier
3. The Moon Lady. Michelle Obama Mural in Chicago by Royyal Dog

BSA Special Feature: SpY ‘Reflection’

“In ‘REFLECTION’, SpY makes use of such common elements of street furniture as convex traffic mirrors that are used in surveillance and security, to present this hypnotic kinetic sculpture in movement.

Made up of 20 convex traffic mirrors, this kinetic sculpture generates a replicated universe that evolves with the different variations of movement and position of the spectators through reflection.
SpY explores the spectators’ relationship with their own reflection and environment, multiplying and expanding their privacy and intimacy among them all.

SpY “Reflection”

Nadia Vadori-Gauthier: Une minute de danse par jour. Bois de Vincennes. It’s the spring equinox. The first day of the astral year, a day of celebration of Mother Earth and her flowerings. Dancing with Lucas.

One Minute of Dance Per Day March 20, 2022: Danse 2623 – Nadia Vadori-Gauthier

The Moon Lady. Michelle Obama Mural in Chicago by Royyal Dog

This is a picture of former First Lady Michelle Obama wearing a hanbok” says artist Royyal Dog of his mural in Chicago.

Photos of 2024 on BSA – #13: Inkman’s Thin Line
December 18, 2024
We’re celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of the next by thanking BSA Readers, Friends, and Family …Read More »
Photos of 2024 on BSA – #14: Plastic Deli Bags and Feeling Homesick
December 17, 2024
We’re celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of the next by thanking BSA Readers, Friends, and Family …Read More »
Photos of 2024 on BSA – #15: BK FOXX and a Wonderland of Images
December 16, 2024
We’re celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of the next by thanking BSA Readers, Friends, and Family …Read More »
Photos of 2024 on BSA – #16 : Asbestos Seeking Psychological Sanctuary in a House
December 15, 2024
We’re celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of the next by thanking BSA Readers, Friends, and Family …Read More »
Photos of 2024 on BSA – #17: Hera and a Theater of Street Mythology
December 14, 2024
We’re celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of the next by thanking BSA Readers, Friends, and Family …Read More »
BSA HOT LIST 2024: Books For Your Gift Giving
December 13, 2024
As the year comes to a close, we are pleased to present our 14th curated list of books—a reflection of …Read More »
Love Letters to the City: Street Art as Protest, Dialogue, Tribute at UN Berlin.
December 12, 2024
Urban Nation’s Love Letters to the City, curated by Michelle Houston, is both an exhibition and a fulsome, sophisticated incantation. …Read More »