You may think of that unelected global body called the World Economic Forum when you see the word, “Reset” today.
Leon Keer. Reset. Assisted by Massina. We.Create Art Mural Festival. Sand City. Monterey, CA. (photo courtesy of Leon Keer)
The buzzworthy term is bandied about so often today that you could be forgiven for thinking about the death of cash, programmable CBDC currency, streaming surveillance, and social credit systems. The would-be a major reset, wouldn’t it?
For anamorphic street artist Leon Keer participating at the We.mural festival in Sand City, California, his mind travels to someplace perhaps less sinister. He just knows that we appear as a global society to be going in the wrong direction in so many ways.
Leon Keer. Reset. Assisted by Massina. We.Create Art Mural Festival. Sand City. Monterey, CA. (photo courtesy of Leon Keer)
“This reset button may not be big enough,” he says. “For me, it is not about everyone’s personal situation, but a reset to a different way of dealing with each other and with how we deal with the world.”
Keer, along with artist Massina, completed this astounding perspective-bending feat right on the street. But you have to be in just the right spot to appreciate it.
Leon Keer. Reset. Assisted by Massina. We.Create Art Mural Festival. Sand City. Monterey, CA. (photo courtesy of Leon Keer)
Title: Reset Where: Sand City – Monterey Bay California Size: 59 ft x 13 ft Material: Acrylics on asphalt
Artwork made with help of Massina. Festival: We.Create Art mural festival with the support of Sand City Art Commitee and the Sand City Council
Leon Keer. Reset. Assisted by Massina. We.Mural Festival. San City. Monterey, CA. (photo courtesy of Leon Keer)Leon Keer. Reset. Assisted by Massina. We.Mural Festival. San City. Monterey, CA. (photo courtesy of Leon Keer)Leon Keer. Reset. Assisted by Massina. We.Mural Festival. San City. Monterey, CA. (photo courtesy of Leon Keer)Leon Keer. Reset. Assisted by Massina. We.Mural Festival. San City. Monterey, CA. (photo courtesy of Leon Keer)Leon Keer. Reset. Assisted by Massina. We.Mural Festival. San City. Monterey, CA. (photo courtesy of Leon Keer)
“In some 50 years of documenting public art, I have never seen such an outpouring of political images as I have personally witnessed in the streets of San Francisco, Oakland and Sacramento, ” photographer and historian Jim Prigoff tells us. He’s been hitting the streets in the last week and feeling the rage and defiance of the protestors as well as the artists who are pouring themselves out onto colorful walls.
He tells us that he has watched as tens of thousands of people continue to demonstrate every day. “Much of it is related to the murder of George Floyd,” he says, “and all that it portends relating to race relations and specifically the phrase that sums it all up is ‘BLACK LIVES MATTER’.”
Limited in his personal mobility to shooting from his car window, Mr. Prigoff has an eagle’s eye when it comes to catching the good stuff and we are honored that he shares what he has found here with BSA readers. He says that he would like to disseminate his shots “in any way that helps to call attention to the continuing injustice and the absolute necessity for dramatic change.”
Depth, volume, shadows, movement; Perhaps some new stuff for the graphic and geometrically-inclined Street Artist Tavar Zawacki in Sacramento, California.
Actually, this new wall may be an indicator of the freedom the artist is experiencing now that he has dropped his street nom de guerre of 20+ years, ABOVE and replacing it with his given name: Tavar Zawacki.
The artist says this mural painted for Wide Open Walls is the first under his new old new name and he’s proud of his decision to unveil his face and claim his name – something he did with a heartfelt confessional on Instagram, where he published an account relating his thoughts and the genesis of his journey to his friends and followers.
After a period of soul searching and introspection we are glad to see that things are looking up for Tavar. Many will be looking forward to see how this great re-invention manifests in his new street work and everywhere else!
Tavar Zawacki. If you wish to read in full the rest of his testimonial click HERE
Curators Kóan Jeff Baysa and Bernard Leibov selected about 15 artists and collaborators to create installations for the 2nd edition of the Joshua Treenial, which opened the first weekend of April and today we have one of the artists who showed his work, Street Artist Chip Thomas aka Jetsonorama. An initiative to educate about ecological issues in the desert – as well as an attempt to stir up cultural tourism, the organizers chose the title “Event Horizon” this year. The title is a tellingly foreboding spacetime term that here is referring to environmental disasters now nearing the point of no return. Nearby the Salton Sea already has passed that point. (see video at end)
Using his wheat-pasted photographic works on walls to summon the sky and clouds, he hangs a translucent panel from the skylight and watches it dance in the breezes, invoking the life that once was in this abandoned home, revitalizing a moribund space.
Here Chip talks about his installation in the 3 walled structure built half a century ago and how this public/private installation came to be.
I went to Joshua Tree in January 2017 to select a site for my work and to collect source photos. After prepping the work over a couple weeks I returned in March and worked for a solid week to install the project – through some of the most intense winds.
The site chosen has an interesting history. In the 1940s there was a land grant/homesteading movement where people were given a tract of land on which they had to build a home of a minimum size within 5 years of getting the land. Many of the people who took advantage of this program were citizens of Los Angeles who liked to get away to the Mojave Desert. Now there are scores of abandoned, small homes slowly returning to the earth.
One of the things I feel good about with this project is having had an opportunity to reactivate an abandoned space. Blake Simpson, who owns the property where the abandoned house is, said that he’s not been in the house for over 10 years.
After the original tenants moved out the house became a squat. When I began working there was one old sofa that had been infested by mice with mouse nests in 2 of the corners of the house. Now Blake plans to use the space as a place for community gatherings and art making and performance.
“Lame Uncle” Joke, sorry. God, you kids are so critical! Go back to your phone! Wait, you are on your phone.
Anyway, the Coho Salmon is losing seriously. They’ve gone from 300,000 to 10,000 in the last 65 years, and the population trend is decreasing. You used to find them spawning in Southern Oregon and Northern California, but we’re going to kill them off soon if you just stand by and do nothing. One thing we can be sure of ; someone else is taking care of it.
“We drove through snowy mountains from Reno to Lake Tahoe, and then descended a continuous downwards road for 6000 feet – which took about an hour to get into Sacramento,” he says. “What an incredibly diverse landscape! It’s just mind-blowing.”
Hosted by a collector of his artwork, Louis says their relatives own a restaurant where he painted this image of the Coho Salmon. Do they have salmon on the menu?
“These guys were aware of the issues surrounding the salmon and a few years ago they made the decision not to serve salmon,” he says. “I salute a business that can take even the smallest changes to accommodate for the environment.”
Side question: Why is the “L” in salmon silent? Anyone?
Want to help? Sign a CREDO petition. Also learn more about species extinction, the historical era of killing off thousands of species that we are currently living in, at www.psf.ca . Your kids and nieces and nephews will thank you. Or not. Depending.
It’s not a surprise that Various & Gould are mixing and matching bodies and faces in their new show – they’ve been doing it for years on the street.
With heads and limbs and torsos prepared in advance, the German couple are just as surprised as you sometimes to see what bionic fluorescent steampunk-inflected portraits and figures are going to emerge on a street wall overhead or around a corner. The aptly named “Permanently Improvised” show at Anno Domini in San Jose is actually compiled in part from friends and family this time out and since October they have been creating and assembling the pieces.
More humorous than hermetic, less dreamlike than Dada, but just as atmospheric as Asimov, these futuristic looking androids are as historical as they are futurist. Gould tells us that it was an unusual 1440 masterpiece by Fra Angelico, the Italian early Renaissance artist, that was quite an inspiration for he and Various while working on the show.
“While most parts of the picture do match with your expectations of the early Renaissance, the center part feels like a picture in the picture with very surreal details,” he says of the image he first bought as a postcard during a trip to Florence at the turn of this century. “There are loose hands and a disembodied head next to Jesus! It conveys the impression of a modern piece of art or a comic panel, being absolutely reduced to the most important elements of the story. Actually this also feels very much like a collage to us! Cut-out body parts, simultaneity of various actions and so on …”
Fra Angelico “Cristo Deriso” C. 1440 – 1441. (photo Wikimedia Commons)
Surreally answering that Angelico call, their piece called “Brutalist Vision” (below) is just one response the duo has crafted during these winter months in their Berlin studio that merges methods of painting, serigraphy and collage. Perhaps because the faces are familiar to the authors, the distance between fantasy and reality is shortened this time in Various & Gould’s panoply of possibilities. But with V& G the poetry is always present, and closeness and farness are simply a matter of stretching and retracting their ever-pliant elastic imaginations.
As a viewer, you’ve been here before. And never before in your entire life.
MEETING OF STYLES had a huge event celebrating the 28th anniversary of the seminal book Spraycan Art by Henry Chalfant and James Prigoff in September in San Francisco. Organized by the community organization Mission Art 415, a weekend long celebration took place in the Mission District that drew thousands of visitors and many artists and graffiti writers, and the two authors of the book. Included in the events was a lot of live painting, panels, black book sharing, autographing, sticker swapping and general re-connecting as old friends got together to talk about and discuss graffiti culture.
Today we are proud to present one of the book’s authors, Jim Prigoff as he gives BSA readers some insight into the events from his perspective as well as his analysis of the scene then and now.
The MEETING OF STYLES is an international concept whose main organization is based in Germany and their events are supported in cities and countries throughout the world including the Spraycan Art event that was held in San Francisco on the weekend of September 18-20 this year.
Hundreds of writers came, many from international countries like Mexico, France, the UAE (Dubai), Columbia, Costa Rica, Germany, and Guam. They painted long alleys in the Mission District including on Lilac, Osage, Cypress, Lucky, Orange, Horace and in the El Capitan parking lot. The event tied into the 28th Anniversary of Spraycan Art because it was the first book to show the emerging art form as it left the NYC subway tunnels and walls and traveled around the world. With over 200,000 copies sold over the years many writers have told Henry and I how the book changed their lives, and in some cases people have said that it even saved their lives.
Friday night there were awards and honors plus a panel discussion at the Mission Cultural Center as writers began to prep their walls and fill the air with the smell of spray paint. At the book signing, the graffiti writer Picasso came with a book he had signed in 1987 during the San Francisco introduction of the book. Carefully wrapped in a silk cloth, two new autographs were added.
The original spray cans used were developed for painting small areas with a broad spray and writers would rack caps from oven cleaners and other spraycan household products and adapt them to develop a different paint flow; even developing their own techniques to alter the paint flow. The paint was highly pressurized. At the time paint manufacturers recognized and were delighted with the expansion of their market, but for many years they pretended that this new demand did not exist.
Today many new brand names have entered the field with lower pressurized paint flow and specially developed paint content and are marketing directly to the writers. Caps of all varieties are marketed and sold and business is big.
After 40 years in the streets of the world, how could I not reflect on what is taking place today as contrasted with the days when literally thousands of scrawling tags confronted me as I traveled through the streets of NYC hunting painted murals and community art. What a journey! Who could have conceived that a relatively small band of basically untrained, creative youth could be the start of a worldwide art form that became the most important art developed in the last 40 years? Greatly aided by the Internet, where posts of new creations can now be seen instantly, literally millions of practitioners have gravitated to the medium in every corner of the world.
There was no going back. The traditional name letters and characters have morphed over the years into a much broader concept labeled Street Art and also today is known as Urban Art as multi-story buildings are commissioned to be painted using expensive lift apparatus, writers travel the world and their canvases sell for major dollars at art auctions in Paris and beyond. A look at BSA is clear evidence how the imagery created by the spraycan has basically changed to a whole new image focus.
Like the small trickle of water that begins giant rivers like the Amazon, the Nile and the Ganges, this art form called Graffiti Art, Spraycan Art, Aerosol Art, Street Art or Urban Art, has emerged from its very humble beginnings to become a giant tide that I believe will continue to develop and change in the coming years.
Will there still be some traditional letters and characters created? Yes, but the vision and creativity of youth will be the driver of the future.
New images today from the barren detritus by Salton Sea in the Colorado Desert near the San Andreas fault line. Here near the water is a landscape littered with sheet metal, stories, tumbleweeds, and skeletons of simple squat structures once useful, now merely casting a shadow.
Until someone decides to clean up the man made remnants of industry and architecture you can be sure that some artist is going to consider that leaning structure or door-less domain to be exactly the perfect canvas for experimentation. Saltier than the Pacific ocean, this sea is also man made; “accidentally created by the engineers of the California Development company in 1905,” says the Wiki entry, and the arid climate will likely keep some of these facades till they are fossils.
Far from any cities or urban landscapes, four Bay Area artists took a road trip recently to do some site specific works and to photograph each others’ creations here under the enormous expanse of sky. Thanks to Eddie Colla, 2wenty, Caratoes, and Nite Owl for sharing what they found here, and to Nastia Voynovskaya for bringing this to our attention.
Alec Huxley, Amanda Marie, Anthony Ausgang, Bayo, Craig “SKIBS” Barker, Craww, DevNGosha, Eatcho, Grady Gordon, Hans Haveron, Haunted Euth, Hellbent, J Shea, James Bentley, Jason Hernandez, John Park, JoKa, Joshua Charles Hart, Kid Acne, Kyle Hughes Odgers, L Croskey, Macsorro, Max Neutra, Mear One, Megz Majewski, Muneera Gerald, Nathan Cartwright, Nom Kinnear King, Pure Evil, Randy Norborikawa, Restitution Press, Shark Toof, Sit, Skount, Tatiana Suarez, Tom French, Tom Haubrick, Vinz Feel Free, Walt Hall, Young Chun, Zach Johnsen
Happy hot sticky Friday live from New York! Lots of cool stuff on the street and in the exhibition spaces this weekend – just bring a water bottle. Here are some of our picks for you on BSA.
1. Détournement, Carlo McCormick at Jonathan Levine (NYC)
2. Chris Stain and Joe Iurato at Mighty Tanaka (BKLN)
3. Peeta Solo at ArTicks (Amsterdam)
4. “You & Me” – Low Brow’s Second Group Show (BKLN)
5. Miss Van at Copro Gallery “Wild at Heart” (Santa Monica)
6. Part2Ism “New Horizons & Future Love Songs” at Red Gallery (London)
7. “Who’z Got Game!” ? at Sacred Gallery (NYC)
8. Numskull ,”Dance Like a Video, Sting Like a Gif” at Mishka (BKLN)
9. “Primeveal” group show Carmichael Gallery (LA)
10. Futura Live Painting (Richmond, VA)
11. KFC Loves The Gays with John Goodman (Video)
Détournement, Carlo McCormick at Jonathan Levine (NYC)
Carlo McCormick, Paper Magazine Senior Editor and NYC cultural intuitor, is guest curator at the Jonathan Levine Gallery with a show titled “Détournement: Signs of the Times” Carlo has assembled an interesting list of artists to tell his story with the works of AIKO, Dan Witz, David Wojnarowicz, Dylan Egon, Eine, Ilona Granet, Jack Pierson, John Law (Jack Napier), Leo Fitzpatrick, Mark Flood, Martin Wong, Max Rippon (RIPO), Mike Osterhout, Posterboy, Ron English, Shepard Fairey + Jamie Reid, Steve Powers (ESPO), TrustoCorp, Will Boone and Zevs.
Mining a vein that has been here in front of us all the time, the composition of the selected works reveals a powerful undertone about how we engage and communicate with our artwork, and hi-jack the messaging of others. Says McCormick, “We do not need to follow these signs, we need to make our own so as to find a way out of the mess we are in.”
It’s also one of the few shows that seamlessly blends Street Art and non-street art practices without needing to draw a distinction for its own sake. This show is now open to the public.
For further information regarding this show click here.
Chris Stain and Joe Iurato at Mighty Tanaka (BKLN)
Tonight at Mighty Tanaka Gallery in DUMBO the inevitable pairing of Street Artists Chris Stain and Joe Iurato finally takes place. With a show titled “Deep in the Cut” these two stencil artists will bring the knives out for the love of art and the perfection of their craft. Style and mannerism distinguish the differences between these two, and Stain has been at it much longer with a lot of work on the street, but metaphor and empathy to the human condition is the overlap in these guys work. Grab the F train to DUMBO and come see what new common ground emerges from this combination.
For further information regarding this show click here.
Peeta Solo at ArTicks (Amsterdam)
Italian Graffiti and Fine Artist Peeta has been writing his tag on walls, trains and many other surfaces since 1993. Like a few of his generation who have been stretching graff style past it’s outer limits and morphing it with abstraction, his work has slowing gelled into it’s own distinctive style. He focuses his lettering and his tag by feeding it through Chinese and Islamic calligraphy as a departure from the traditional Latin and Greek lettering. A collaborator of New Yorks RWK collective, he resides in Venice and tonight opens his solo show in Amsterdam at the ArTicks Gallery.
For further information regarding this show click here.
“You & Me” – Low Brow’s Second Group Show (BKLN)
The Low Brow Artique Gallery in Brooklyn has decided to enter the matchmaking business and Saturday their second show titled “You & Me” artfully combines the work of two at a time. While many of these artists have worked collaboratively on the street in the past, crossing freely between sanctioned and unsanctioned Street Art and graffiti, the results of merging their styles and techniques always creates new creatures with the combined DNA. Sometimes it’s a mutt, and sometimes it is purebred brilliance. Artistic couplings here include: Cash4 & Smells, Chris & Veng (RWK), EKG & Dark Clouds, Matt Siren & Fenix, OCMC & This Is Awkward, Royce Bannon & Russell King, and Veng & Sofia Maldonado.
For further information regarding this show click here.
Miss Van at Copro Gallery “Wild at Heart” (Santa Monica)
Miss Van, the French Street Artist and fine artist has a new solo show “Wild at Heart” in Santa Monica, California this Saturday at the Copro Gallery and the ladies are again strutting their stuff across her rich canvasses. Painting since the age of 18 Miss Van has chosen her appearances carefully while being very active within the smaller pool of female Street Artists, maintaining a continous presence with her unique doll-characters, a rich color palette and plenty of erotica.
For further information regarding this show click here.
Also happening this weekend:
Part2Ism has a new solo show “New Horizons & Future Love Songs” at the Red Gallery in London, UK and it is now open to the general public. Click here for more details on this show.
Wanna know “Who’z Got Game!” ? Head over to the Sacred Gallery for this group exhibition opening today in Manhattan. Click here for more details on this show.
Numskull will “Dance Like a Video, Sting Like a Gif” at Mishka tonight in Brooklyn. Click here for more details on this show.
“Primeveal” a group exhibition including Emol, Stinkfish and Zio Ziegler opens tomorrow night at the Carmichael Gallery in Culver City, CA. Click here for more details on this show.
Futura will paint live in Richmond, Virginia this Saturday.
Screen Shot from Futura’s Hennessy NYC Video.
Master Graffiti Artist and fine artist Leonard “FUTURA” is touring the country to promote this project with a spirit maker and this Friday he will stop in Richmond, Virgina where he will paint live on a canvas inside the ABC Store located at 101 North Thompson Street. The live painting will commence at 2:00 pm. It is a rare opportunity to catch Futura in action.
A recent ad featuring Futura for this campaign (not a sponsor)
1. XCIA “Street Artist Unite” (NYC)
2. “Letters From America” at Black Rat (London)
3. Broken Fingaz in Vienna
4. “The Crest Hardware Art Show” 2012 Edition (Brooklyn)
5. Tumbleweeds in Brooklyn – A group Show from El Paso
6. Kid Acne Solo at C.A.V.E. (Los Angeles)
7. Pamela Castro AKA Anarkia Boladona @ Bob Bar
8. “Summer In The Street” @ Maximillian (West Hollywood)
9. “Sea No Evil” @ Riverside Municipal Auditorium (CA)
10. Lush’s Lethal Beef-Defense System (VIDEO)
11. BSA Supports This 3-Mural in Baltimore (VIDEO)
12. Poland Summer Solstice with Thousands of Lanterns Flying (VIDEO)
XCIA “Street Artist Unite” (NYC)
Photographer Hank O’Neal AKA XCIA opened a solo show “Street Artists Unite” this week in the East Village at The Dorian Gray Gallery. Of particular interest are the collaborations: Hank’s photos of Street Artists stretched across a frame and painted on by some of the current crop. Be sure to check out the one of a Richard Hambleton piece on the street that has been re-faced by Jean-Michel Basquiat and now accompanied by Chris from Robots Will Kill. Gives you a sweet brain freeze to contemplate it. The show is meant to highlight the photographic work of XCIA on the street and accompanies this springs roll-out of his book XCIA’s STREET ART PROJECT: The First Four Decades.
For further information regarding this show click here.
“Letters From America” at Black Rat (London)
Yesterday’s US Supreme Court ruling on the health care legislation that BIG MONEY has fought tooth and nail against in the US highlights the relevance of this show opening on July 4th at Black Rat Gallery. Street Artists/Graffiti Artists RISK, Ron English, SABER, and TrustoCorp participate in this show with SABER leading the way with 3 canvasses, including “The Flag Of The National Health Service”, shown here. The graffiti artist knows of what he speaks – the current US corrupted for-profit healthcare system has deemed the artist “uninsurable”, epilepsy be damned.
SABER, The Flag Of The National Health Service, 2012
For more information, please contact Black Rat Gallery here.
Broken Fingaz in Vienna
In Vienna, Austria the Inoperable Gallery has invited the Israeli Crew Broken Fingaz to come and raise hell. This show is now open for the general public. You’re probably going anyway, so here’s your preview.
For further information regarding this show click here.
“The Crest Hardware Art Show” 2012 Edition (Brooklyn)
And this is the time of the year where the intersection of hardware and art comes in to play the right way (not that hardware, Nick). Joe Franquinha and Co. know how to put on a party for all ages and creeds. Come out this Saturday from 1:00 pm to 7:00 pm to Williamsburg and enjoy an art show in his family’s hardware store: “The Crest Hardware Art Show”. This art show should be taken as a model for all small family owned business that want to give back to the community and make art part of the everyday experience. In addition to the art show, Joe brings in bands and food in the courtyard and all proceeds go to help a local little museum, The City Reliquary Museum.
And for further details regarding this event click here.
Tumbleweeds in Brooklyn – A group Show from El Paso
“Tumbleweeds” opens this Saturday at the Sunset Surf Club with all artists hailing from yonder El Paso, TX including localito Street Artist El Sol 25. Enjoy some Tex-Mex hospitality and have an unheard of opportunity to see first hand a border town show before it flies south.
For further information regarding this show click here.
Kid Acne Solo at C.A.V.E. (Los Angeles)
After his introduction to LA during BSA’s “Street Art Saved My Life” show last year, British Street Artist Kid Acne is now having his first solo show “Stand & Deliver” at C.A.V.E Gallery in Venice Beach, California.
Pamela Castro AKA Anarkia Boladona is showing at the Bob Bar in Manhattan. Click here for more details on this show.
The Maximillian Gallery in West Hollywood, California invites you to a “Summer In The Street” Exhibition this Saturday. Click here for more details on this show.
“Sea No Evil” is an art show at The Riverside Municipal Auditorium in Riverside, California. This show is a benefit for the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society to preserve our oceans. Jeff Soto and Shepard Fairey are just but a couple of artists whose work would auctioned on Saturday. Click here for more details on this show.
Lush’s Lethal Beef-Defense System (VIDEO)
BSA Supports This 3-Mural in Baltimore (VIDEO)
Poland Summer Solstice with Thousands of Lanterns Flying (VIDEO)
Artist and photographer Jeff Frost from Anaheim, CA, loves to shoot everything but he specializes in timelapsed photography that, when painstakingly layered together into a video, can be breathtaking. In this video he roamed deserts in California and Utah looking to squat in abandoned buildings, and to make art.
Frosts’ sense of adventure and wonder gives him an unlimited access to the night sky and the movement of the planet as plays among the stars, and the occasional wildfire in the middle of the night. It also gives him license to experiment with geometric shapes, perspective, and popping color in the wide open decay of buildings in the sands. Thanks to nearly 40,000 photos and his imagination, we get to see his work as a video as well as a glimpse of a world without limits.
“I have a serious case of wanderlust. My favorite thing to do is roam the deserts in search of abandoned buildings. When I find a room I particularly like, I set up camp there (sometimes literally), and proceed to paint a large mural on the inside of it. I photograph this process with a combination of time-lapse and stop motion photography. At night, if I’m not squatting in random abandoned structures, I shoot time-lapse of the stars zooming overhead.
When I return to the city I have two things: 1) a body that feels like a mean, mean man has worked it over with a baseball bat, and 2) thousands and thousands of high resolution photographs, which I use to make videos.”
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
