And welcome to Belfast, Northern Ireland, where history and modernity converge in its mural narratives and lively streets, telling stories of resilience, an evolving culture, and a pensive optimism. As street art observers, our journey through Belfast’s neighborhoods has been eye-opening. The murals here are not just art; they reflect the city’s tumultuous past, vibrant present, and hopeful future. Belfast’s predominantly Victorian architecture is a testament to the city’s industrious heritage, particularly its shipbuilding legacy linked to the RMS Titanic. Still, some of the kids are rocking new attitudes, and a sizeable multi-disciplinary artist community is making new spaces for exploration.
The punk movement, which provided a rebellious soundtrack during the Troubles, has left a lasting mark on the city’s sonic legacy. Today, local musicians, DJs, and electronic artists draw inspiration from traditional instrumentation and this era of lucid experimentation, performing live in clubs and bars. There is an unmistakable convivial, welcoming atmosphere in Belfast’s pubs and a raucous laughter that shakes your ribs in many a cluster of revelers out for the night. We also noticed a gentle generosity – from its bakeries and cheesemongers to checkout clerks and museum provosts and park bench poets.
For an old shipbuilding city wracked by civil strife, this feels like a young city, eager to move forward while honoring the sacrifices made during the Troubles. Some of the murals here encapsulate perhaps a different spirit, blending poignant tributes, more muted political statements, and a willful optimism amidst the general confusion that is now plaguing most of the Western world.
So here’s this week’s interview with the street, featuring ROA, Conor Harrington, BustArt, MTO, Asbestos, Dan Kitchener, Kitsune Jolene, Aches, Evoke, KFIVEMFU, Studio Giftig, and Annatomix.
Bad weather and two broken lifts later – Bustart has created this tribute to the precision of Swiss watchmakers in the small town of Le Locle (population 10,200) in the Canton of Neuchâtel in Switzerland. Known as one center of Swiss watchmaking since the 1600s, the town is famous for numerous watchmakers and watch companies respected around the world.
“I have highlighted the precise and complicated gears of the watch,” he tells us of the crisp illustration-styled mural he created in his home country. “As in life itself, it’s the gears in the background that make the outside work.” He calls the mural “Time Out.”
Opening this week here in New York, Bustart has new works on display in his first solo show in the city at Krause Gallery, entitled “Graffiti Pop.” He planned to attend but sadly will not due to current visa regulations and the ongoing Covid situation affecting international travel. If only all things worked as precisely as a Swiss watch!
The international art fair Art
Basel announced today that this year’s flashy Miami event is cancelled, joining
its two other high-profile annual fairs in Hong Kong and Basel, Switzerland, which
had both already met this fate earlier – all due to the complication of
COVID-19.
One of the best parts about graffiti, street art, mural, and hip hop culture events like Urbane Kunst here in the city of Basel is you don’t have to worry about air kissing on both cheeks.
Graffiti jams are more interested in getting up on the wall, drinking beer, and having a barbecue – which 40 local and international artists did here from August 20-30, thanks to the event’s sponsor, Bell on Neudorfstrasse in Basel.
“The top criterion for artists was we have to know them: because we’re going to spend a lot of time together,” explains street artist BustArt, who has been working for about five years to make this wall happen. “You are together every day for about two weeks and so the main important thing is having a good time and for this, we just wanted to have cool people here with whom we’ve worked in the past and who we could trust that we were going to have a great outcome.”
Not that “Change of Colours”, as this event is called, didn’t have a lot of complications from the worldwide virus. The artist list kept changing as certain countries were eventually banned from traveling here – First the US, later Spain.
A final list of names was not available at press time but scheduled were artists like Boogie, Cole, Kesy, Kron, Tizer, Seyo, and Sonic. Photographer and journalist Nika Kramer caught a handful of the artists to ask a few questions, including Mr. Cenz (UK), Chromeo and Bane (CH), and event organizer BustArt (CH).
Street artist Julian Phethean aka Mr. Cenz is internationally known for his unique, expressive portraits of women. He tells us “I created one of my futuristic female portraits that I’ve been doing for a few years now and I paint a lot of black women as well because I think they are under-represented in the street art world. It’s very important to me, coming from a multicultural city like London.
Also for me, hip-hop is a black culture that’s why I paint mainly black power for women,” he says. “If you look at it, it’s quite spiritual as well. My style is kind of something transcendent. It’s for people to look at and to get lost in. That’s just what I do, and it’s amazing to do it on a big scale in such a prominent place and I hope people enjoy it.”
Two Swiss artists Fabian
Florin aka Bane and David Kümin aka Chromeo, have worked together on smaller
walls in the past, but the two masters of photorealism have never truly collaborated
on something new together, and they say that they’re very satisfied with the result.
For Chromeo, Basel holds a special meaning to him in the development of his career as a graffiti writer and an artist.
“Basel is history. Back in the days when I started graffiti it was like a duty: you have to go to Basel!” he says. “Because it was considered state of the art. No disrespect to other places in Switzerland but… The graffiti history is here and it is the most important, I would have to say – even though I’m not from Basel.”
In the opinion of Bane, Basel left a major impression as well, but it is much more personal. “I came here with completely fresh eyes. I was drug addicted during the time that Chromeo’s referring to,” he explains. “I’ve just been painting for about 10 years so Basel for me is a very fresh place, like new. What I enjoy here is the community. There’re so many people. It’s a community I’m stepping inside of – kind of a small family already. It was heartwarming and I felt very welcomed and for me, that is the best thing about Basel.”
For
organizer and hometown boy BustArt, who just completed his largest wall to date
for Urban Nation Museum in Berlin a couple of months ago, this wall has been
beckoning to him and the event is the result of persistence in pursuing it. “I’ve
been wanting to paint this wall for 20 years so we are happy that the company
actually paid for it,” he says. He calls his new piece, “Home Sweet Home”
because it symbolizes the place and the city he loves more than any other.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. BustArt Says Goodbye to Berlin-Tegel 2. Transform the Tram Wait by MurOne in Barcelona
BSA Special Feature: BustArt Says Goodbye to Berlin-Tegel
A museum curating in public space is not necessarily new. Many eyes are watching with great interest as this museum in Berlin begins an academic approach toward selecting artists and artworks in public space in Berlin as Urban Nation Museum grounds its projects in its community and local history. The new work by street artist and graffiti writer Bustart is a direct reference to the nearby Berlin-Tegel airport, which will be decommissioned later this year.
Part of the
inspiration is from Otto Lilienthal, the German pioneer of aviation who became
known as the “flying man”, now cast through a 1960s comic strip version of
the modern hero gazing upward to witness the post-war middle class flying the
friendly skies. In a twist of irony, most people in this neighborhood will
probably enjoy their daily lives more now that the airport won’t be filling the
air with the sound of roaring planes overhead, allowing them to listen instead
to birds in the trees.
Art al TRAM by MurOne
“Cities have
these rough and rigid spaces whose only purpose is to walk through,” says Marc
Garcia, founder and director of Rebobinart, a Barcelona organization that
brings artists to the urban environment – developing projects with social and
cultural context considerations in public space.
MurOne’s new
mural takes on the space where people wait for the tram – a nondescript
netherworld, a metropolitan purgatory where you are nowhere, only between. The
Cornellà Centre TRAM stop is transformed by the Spanish artist (Iker Muro) who
has been making murals for almost two decades, combining figurative and abstract,
fiction, oblique narrative and vivid color. It’s the city, and its yours while
you wait to go to your next destination
Iker Muro is
a Spanish artist and graphic designer who has been making murals in Spain and
abroad since 2002. His work combines figurative and abstract art, conveying
both tangible and fictional elements through vivid colours and figures
influenced by the visual imagery in the cities where the artist paints.
“I believe
that arriving in a place like this and finding a kind of art gallery is a
reason for attraction,” says MurOne, “I feel motivated by these kinds of
actions.”
It’s hard to even comment on this bellicose war-loving president and his military industry profiteers all ginning up a war against Iran – except to say, “Fool me once…”. Wait, how does that go again?
This week we take you back to the Wynwood neighborhood in Miami, where Primary Flight started a huge graffiti throwdown in the 2000s, later picked up by Tony Goldman to create Wynwood Walls. The current fare throughout the neighborhood is record-setting: from the sheer number of murals and art installations, to the parade of families and friends coming here to take tours and selfies. Catching a shot of a piece without people in the frame is like trying to run in between raindrops.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week from Miami, and this time featuring 1UP Crew, BK Foxx, BustArt, Cranio, Cush Kan, Dam Crew, Dia5, Komik, Quake, Ripes, Sipros, Starve, Thomas Danbo, and Urban Ruben.
Walkable Neighborhoods? D. That’s one grade above F (Fail) – it’s the grade the United States gets on its own report card on walking safely in our towns and cities. Actually, that’s one of the better grades in the report, where in most categories the United States is failing, especially in comparison to the rest of the developed world.
We
simply don’t make it easy, safe, or friendly for people to walk here.
“As
a European without a driver’s license it can be a task to get around in
America,” says Street Artist BustArt, who shares with us his new colorful
crosswalk in Greensboro, North Carolina. “Once you leave downtown the sidewalk
becomes smaller and narrower, to the point where it is nonexistent. Same for
the crosswalk, you get roughly19 seconds to make it over a massive stretch,
while cars still pass over it due to the green light.”
Invited
by commercial real estate developer and brewery owner Marty Kotis to add to the
85 murals he has organized in the city over the past few years as part of a
program called Kotis Street Art, BustArt says that he decided to paint
something on the ground as a departure.
“After
I arrived in Greensboro we looked at a few spots where a crossing would work,”
he says. “Sadly there was not enough time to get the city onboard so the
crossing had to be on private property.”
Even though it wasn’t painted across a city walkway, his crosswalk project of colorful pop/advertising inspired pavement was harder than he thought, he tells us. First, he painted at night when there was less traffic. Secondly, a heavy rainstorm damaged 40% of the work. “At 5am we were finished and extremely happy about the outcome . . . until two minutes later it started to rain heavily for a short yet frustrating 15 minutes.”
After another nine hours of painting, the project was finished – and BustArt says he wanted to make sure it actually could be used to safely protect walkers. “We added a non-slip varnish to roughen up the surface and make it safer for pedestrians.”
Bustart
says he would like to thank: Keif for his knowledge, Skatin for his hard work
and motivation, Kotis Street Art for making it possible, and photographer Peggy
Butcher who provided the great images and documentation.
Springtime in New York! Crocuses, tulips, fire extinguisher tags! Ahh the joy of life! Happy Purim to the Jewish neighbors. Saal-e-no mobaarak (سال نو مبارک) Happy New Year to the Iranian neighbors. Yes, this is New York, where we disprove the notion that we can’t all get along. Every dang day. We also sing together on the train when its stuck.
So here’s our weekly interview with the street, this time featuring Ardif, BustArt, Clipper, CNO PCU, Drinkala, JPS, Mattewythe, Nanos, Nubian, Pork, Rock, George Standpipe, and The Postman Art.
Brexit deadlock is like a thorn in the side of the UK people this week, Trump is shutting down the US government partially here for almost a month (to celebrate 2 years in the White House?), the ‘Yellow Vests’ are striking through France for the 10th weekend, its going to get very cold tonight in New York, and your cousin Marlene is back from the local Women’s March with fire in her eyes and hope in her heart. As usual, the streets are alive with Street Art and graffiti, and we’re bringing it to you.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this time featuring 2501, Add Fuel, BirdCap, BustArt, C3, City Kitty, Cranio, Duster, Edu Danesi, Fafi, Frances Forever, Jaeryaime, Kram, LMNOPI, Mark Jenkins, Neon Savage, Os Boys, Pez, Rx Skulls, Sickid, Tatiana Fazlalizadeh, UFO 907, and Zaira Noir .
Biggie Smalls and Alfred Hitchcock open Autumn Equinox for BSA this week and we can’t help but think of that movie “The Birds” by the English film director where nature turns against man. Kiwi Street Artist Owen Dippie painted the mural in Brooklyn at the end of the summer and the mashup of references between the Brooklyn rapper and the dark cinematic thrillmaster in black and white may frighten you if you imagine those birds balanced at the end of their cigars began to peck their eyes out.
Friday night marked a new milestone for Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art in Berlin there was a preview of the newly completed and opened artists’ residencies put on display. We were treated to the creative environments of 11 of the residencies with the first group of artists in attendance including NeSpoon, Herakut, Li-Hill, Snik, Ludo, Mia Florentine Weiss, Quintessenz, Sellfable, Dot Dot Dot, Louis Masai, Wes 21 and Onur. The museum will open its doors again for the museum’s second exhibition titled “The Power of Art as a Social Architect” this Thursday. Check it out if you are in Berlin.
So here is our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring 1UPCrew, Adele Renault, AKUT, Berlin Kidz, BustArt, Dina Saadi, Exit Art, L.E.T., M-City, Mehsos, Owen Dippie, Snik, and Vegan Flava.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. Lek & Sowat and the Towers of La Rochelle 2. ASTRO’s New Fresco in South of Paris
3. Jef Aérosol for Wall Street Festival in Evry
4. Art Meets Milk – Bonzai . Kenz / First & Second Edition
BSA Special Feature: Lek & Sowat and the Towers of La Rochelle
The range and creative output of Street Artists and graffiti writers astounds many who would narrowly define these artists capabilities to the basic stereotypes. Often we find that people who began their art practice on the streets have a far greater depth of knowledge and interests.
Here we see two guys previously known primarily for being vandals educating us about the history of graffiti as a practice. In this case the Tour Saint-Nicolas, one of the three towers of the waterfront of La Rochelle, contains evidence of serious mark-making that may date back to the time of its origin in the mid-late 1300s.
For this installation Lek & Sowat tell us about the history of the structure from an architectural point of view and describe how they planned their new sculpture “in situ” using the bridge as inspiration architecturally, merging those aesthetics with their own history of graffiti.
ASTRO’s New Fresco in South of Paris
Parisian Street Artist and graffiti artist Astro (Odv/Cbs)is equally comfortable doing a sharply wild burner as he is with an optically magic trip to another dimension. His abstractions grew out of a passionate dedication to calligraphy, curvilinear finess, and attraction to dynamic forms. For this project last month in the south of the city with Galerie Mathgoth the artist created a multistory illusion that characterizes his unique style and soars above the street.
“He wanted to highlight youth, its beauty and diversity,” says Gautier Jordain about French stencil master Jef Aérosol for this new public mural he just completed in Evry, in the south of Paris.
Art Meets Milk – Bonzai . Kenz / First Edition
Since publishing a video a few weeks ago about this project the artists have alerted us to two more graffiti videos that promote cows and milk – an unusual combination of family farming and graffiti style from the urban center.
Art Meet Milk – BustArt . Homre . Kenz / Second Edition
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Alo, BustArt, Dmirworld, Egle Zvirblyte, Faith XLVII, Herakut, Jose Mendez, Kai, Myth, and Skewville.
Mexico, Norway, Brooklyn – a typical week of BSA Images.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Abraham Chaco, BustArt, Cost, Curve, El Xupet Negre, Gee Whiskers, JMZ, JPS, Juce, Raf Urban, The Reading Ninja, and Turtle Caps.
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
