All posts tagged: Case Ma’Claim

Selina Miles Captures Bordallo II, FinDac, Millo and Case Maclaim at ONO’U 2019

November 23, 2019 Artists

There are times when an artist needs to be completely obvious to get their message out into the world, and Bordalo II is setting the tone for this year’s unofficial ONO’U festival in the gorgeous natural wonder called Tahiti. Using refuse he gathered around the islands of French Polynesia the Lisboan trash artist created a colorful replica of the oceans greatest predator, a shark, using the ocean’s greatest predator, trash.

Vandals at ONO’U 2019 (photo © Selina Miles)

Thanks to filmmaker Selina Miles’ eagle eye we have a brilliant array of scenes today with your from Selina’s trip last month to this uncommon Street Art rendevous in paradise that is organized every year by ONO’U creator Sarah Roopinia.

You may recognize a few of these artists as alumni of previous editions and note the familiar tone that these images relate – like this one with Bordalo II and his co-conspirator modeling fluorescent plastic netting over their heads. It’s funny when you do it to entertain your friends, but not when it gets stuck on your head in the ocean for days or weeks or months and prevents you from eating, like when you are duck, for example.

Bordalo II. ONO’U 2019 (photo © Selina Miles)

Case Maclaim. ONO’U 2019 (photo © Selina Miles)

Bordallo II. ONO’U 2019 (photo © Selina Miles)

Millo. ONO’U 2019 (photo © Selina Miles)

FinDac. ONO’U 2019 (photo © Selina Miles)

BSA Images Of The Week: 02.10.19

February 10, 2019 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

BK Foxx celebrates the Chinese New Year and The Year Of The Pig in NYC Chinatown in collaboration with East Village Walls. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Congratulations to everyone celebrating the Lunar New Year this week – It’s Year of the Pig! Ready to stuff yourself with dumplings? Check out BK Foxx’s new mural in Chinatown heralding its arrival. Although truthfully when you look at everyone lining up to the public trough it seems like we’ve had a few consecutive years of the Pig at least. To add insult to insult, you’re probably getting a higher tax bill this year thanks to Trump n Co, because that’s how grifting works kids.

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this time featuring Buff Monster, Case Ma’Claim, Crash, HAKS 180, Invader, Loomit, Madsteez, Space Invader, and Speedy Graphito.

BK Foxx. how do you know what’s real anymore? East Village Walls. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Woody comes to play with Crash and The L.I.S.A. Project NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Madsteez makes waves in the LES with ST.ART Now. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Case Maclaim in Miami. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Loomit for East Village Walls. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Speedy Graphito in Miami. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Chinatown, NYC. February 2019. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

UPEA Finland 2018, A Cross Country Installation of Quality Murals

October 23, 2018 Artists

UPEART 2018 in Finland took place during the month of September including 20 international and local artists in 12 different cities across the country.

Case Maclaim. Detail. UPEArt Finland 2018. Espoo, Finland. September 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Today we give you a recap of some favorite scenes from the festival across many cities of Finland thanks to the vision and organizing of Jorgos Fanaris and his team who collectively direct the festival from their headquarters in a post-industrial neighborhood of Helsinki. While there is a proud graff scene and history here, and the city has areas like the Pasila Street Art District, the capital is usually known as a sparkling international city of islands and a peninsula by the Gulf of Finland facing Tallinn, Estonia across the bay.

Proudly humble, elegant and rationally romantic, the city is flanked on all sides by arts and culture, low and high, with historical art institutions like the National Museum as well as the more contemporary Kiasma and cross disciplinary Kunsthalle Helsinki. A deeper rooted cultural history is also apparent in the traditional wooden architecture, the influence of its neighbors Sweden and Russia, and its ability even today to evolve with the most modern of global design practice.

Case Maclaim. Detail. UPEArt Finland 2018. Espoo, Finland. September 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

For urban explorers like ourselves who wander the margins and explore the forgotten, neglected parts of the metropolis, it was a bit of a shock to see 8 charming Finnish cities and towns in only a few days – interspersed with millions of birch tree forests and sweeping vistas of farmland, with Russia visible at one point just across a canal.

We drove from uncongested towns surrounded by woodlands like Joensuu and Hyvinkää to midsized cities like Tampere and Espoo, using a stick shift Volkswagen and minding the speed cameras on a smooth and well maintained system of roads and highways. Usually we’re looking out for rats and broken glass and homeless drug users, not slow-moving farming tractors and wily-eyed moose who may cross your path.

Case Maclaim. UPEArt Finland 2018. Espoo, Finland. September 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

But the murals! Choosing from among some of the most accomplished painters and planners of design in the current international scene, Fanaris relies on his own history with graffiti, hip hop, and perhaps the Finnish National Opera when selecting participants to invite.

The quality is high in many instances throughout the mural program and municipalities are gifted with some works may prove timeless – until they fade. Perhaps more decorative than transgressive as a whole, these are public works made in collaboration with local tastes. Some meanings are buried beneath layers, others more obvious and on the surface. An unrealized irony of many “legit” mural programs like this one is many of these artists used to do the illegal stuff too.

As UPEART travels and evolves it will be interesting to see how it changes. Fanaris tells us that the future will include installations, sculpture, even performance as the festival becomes more integrated with communities. With a solid foundation of curation on a massive country-wide scale in these first three years, we look forward to see where UPEART moves next.

Mantra. UPEArt Finland 2018. Hyvinkää, Finland. September 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“When I was a child I was not curious about painting,” Mantra says, “I was more curious about what I could find in the garden so that’s why I spent a lot of time studying these insects and these animals.” Later he shows us images of butterflies and other winged creatures rendered in high fidelity inside decaying factory rooms, including a large dead bird lying on its side. “I painted this because I had seen a dead bird in the garden only a week before.”

Mantra. Detail. UPEArt Finland 2018. Hyvinkää, Finland. September 2018. (photo © Mantra)

Mantra. UPEArt Finland 2018. Hyvinkää, Finland. September 2018. (photo © Mantra)

Sainer. UPEArt Finland 2018. Helsinki, Finland. September 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“I think my work is changing recently,” he says. “I have liked to do plainer paintings – like small landscapes . I’m not really into the characters that much in the same way that I was. When I do paint characters they are in the shadow. I like the idea of making portraits where the portrait is not the most important part of the painting.”

BSA: That’s so anti-intuitive – because normally that would be the center focal point, right?

Sainer: Yes – even here the portrait is central but I am trying to play all around it just to hide it. It’s just one of the ideas that I am trying to work with these days.

Read more from our interview with Sainer here.

Sainer. UPEArt Finland 2018. Helsinki, Finland. September 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Waone. Detail. UPEArt Finland 2018. Kotka, Finland. September 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ukrainian artist Waone, of Interesni Kazki titled his mural “Spirit of Antique Book”.

“Reading the real book in the age of technology and internet may look rare and a kind of old fashioned, but not for me,” he says. “This mural ‘Spirit of Antique Book’ I dedicated to all book lovers. It represents the wonderful way to escape from ordinary life to extraordinary worlds, and depicts that magic moment when you read the book and lose yourself between the pages.”

BSA: Does it concern you that school children today are becoming unfamiliar with reading traditional books on paper?

Waone: Hmm I didn’t think about books in schools, in Ukraine we still use “normal” books… But I’m sure normal books will become more and more rare. I don’t judge it and I’m not saying that’s good or bad. I just love the book esthetic, a strong symbol of knowledge.”

Waone. UPEArt Finland 2018. Kotka, Finland. September 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Natalia Rak. Detail. UPEArt Finland 2018. Joensuu, Finland. September 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Natalia Rak. UPEArt Finland 2018. Joensuu, Finland. September 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sepe. UPEArt Finland 2018. Jyväskylä, Finland. September 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

David De La Mano. Detail. UPEArt Finland 2018. Jyväskylä, Finland. September 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

David De La Mano. UPEArt Finland 2018. Jyväskylä, Finland. September 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

David De La Mano. Detail. UPEArt Finland 2018. Jyväskylä, Finland. September 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Helen Bur. UPEArt Finland 2018. Kotka, Finland. September 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Eero Lampinen. Work in progress. UPEArt Finland 2018. Helsinki, Finland. September 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Of his own work, he says, “It’s like a mix of fantasy with contemporary and realistic elements – kind of magic realism. I like to play around with fashion different types of characters.”

The characters are here in the evolving mural – three figures who are working the runways of the street in distinctly different styles.

“There is a night demon, a rubber-outfit person, and then an older character,” he says, “They are all walking separate ways in the streets – and it plays around with this street.”

Read more with Eero Lampinen here.

Eero Lampinen. UPEArt Finland 2018. Helsinki, Finland. September 2018. (photo © Eero Lampinen)

Pertti Jarla. UPEArt Finland 2018. Tampere, Finland. September 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Fabio Petani. Detail. UPEArt Finland 2018. Salo, Finland. September 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Fabio Petani. UPEArt Finland 2018. Salo, Finland. September 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

How & Nosm. Detail. UPEArt Finland 2018. Lisalmi, Finland. September 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

How & Nosm. UPEArt Finland 2018. Lisalmi, Finland. September 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Leon Keer. UPEArt Finland 2018. Salo, Finland. September 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Robert Proch. Detail. UPEArt Finland 2018. Joensuu, Finland. September 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Robert Proch. UPEArt Finland 2018. Joensuu, Finland. September 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Isaac Cordal. UPEArt Finland 2018. Espoo, Finland. September 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Isaac Cordal made a number of interesting installations in Karakallio in Espoo, including a haunting series of small buildings attached on trees throughout the forest.

Isaac Cordal. UPEArt Finland 2018. Espoo, Finland. September 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

NOTE: No trees were damaged by installing the birdhouse sculptures on them.

All the participating artists on UPEArt 2018 are: Andrew Hem, Case Maclaim, David De La Mano, Eero Lampinen, Fabio Petani, Gummy Gue, Helen Bur, How & Nosm, Isaac Cordal, Jussi Twoseven, Kenor, Leon Keer, Mantra, Natalia Rak, Pertti Jarla, Robert Proch, Sainer, Sepe, Silja Selonen and Waone.

BSA + UPEA in Finland

September 20, 2018 Artists

BSA is excited to bringing you new works from Finland next week as we explore Helsinki and nearby cities that are part of the UPEA 2018 Festival. A unique model of mural festival that invites international and local artists to paint across the entire country, UPEART has quietly entered the global Street Art and graffiti stage without entering the fray: providing top caliber artists with uncommon opportunities to create works in cities for a handful of years now.

Waone Interesni Kazki at UPEART (image © the artist)

The full line up for this year’s stellar UPEART edition is:

Andrew Hem, Case Maclaim, David de la Mano, Eero Lampinen, Fabio Petani, Gummy Gue, Helen Bur, How & Nosm, Isaac Cordal, Jussi TwoSeven, Kenor, Leon Keer, Mantra, Natalia Rak, Pertti Jarla, Robert Proch, Sainer, Sepeusz, Silja Selonen and Waone Interesni Kazki, who poses here yesterday with the mural he’s been working on for 10 days

To keep on top of the action on the ground and up on the lifts click on UPEA’s FB link below:

https://www.facebook.com/upeart/

Case Maclaim: Wishes And Hopes for 2018

December 28, 2017 Artists

As we draw closer to the new year we’ve asked a very special guest every day to take a moment to reflect on 2017 and to tell us about one photograph that best captures the year for them. It’s an assortment of treats to surprise you with every day – to enjoy and contemplate as we all reflect on the year that has passed and conjure our hopes and wishes for 2018. This is our way of sharing the sweetness of the season and of saying ‘Thank You’ to each of you for inspiring us throughout the year.

*******

Founding member of the East German Ma’Claim Crew in the late 90s, Street Artist Case Maclaim is now subtly shimmering and rotating and blinking through your photorealistic memory, catching the sunlight and reflecting back patterns and surfaces and volume as he moves. His abstracted human gestures on walls internationally capture the attention of passersby who wonder if they are seeing something static or moving, painted or photographed. Here Case tells about a figurative tightrope he found people walking upon in Manitoba this year.

CASE MACLAIM

The Rope |

In June 2017 I was invited by the PangeaSeed Foundation to go to Churchill, Manitoba in Canada. Churchill is well known for being the capital of polar bears.

In fact the population of this species is alarmingly shrinking.

There is also archeological evidence of human presence dating back 4000 years, yet I have never seen a community suffering more from the man-made global warming than here. The melting permafrost is unsuitable for building infrastructure on, such as the railways they depend upon. In addition to this, massive storms and flooding are washing away the railroads making them unable to use for transportation of goods and people.

While taking the pictures of the railroad workers and chatting with them I realized how deeply these people are embedded with their homes. My hope for these hard working women and men is that their voices will be heard and that their government and the railroad company will finally support them and their future generations.

Case Maclaim. Churchill, Manitoba, Canada. 2017 (photo © Case Maclaim)

Case Maclaim

Case Maclaim Flips a Coin on the Fate of Brexit in the South of Paris

October 17, 2017 Artists

“The painting is resolutely European. A kind of flash about Brexit in England,” says Gautier Jourdain of the new globally framed hand in this working class district of La Grande Borne in Paris.

Case Maclaim. Detail. For Wall Street Art in Grigny, France. September 2017. (photo © Mathgoth Gallery – Paris)

The German Street Artist and fine artist Case Maclaim is generally recognized by fans for his expressive painted hands, often mid movement, many times with a transparency to them, as if captured between gestures.

In this case the gesture is flipping a coin to see if it will land “Pile ou Face” (Heads or Tails), the murals name that refers to the outcome of Englands decision to withdraw from the European Union.

Case Maclaim. For Wall Street Art in Grigny, France. September 2017. (photo © Mathgoth Gallery – Paris)

Perhaps it feels like the fate of everyday individuals who live here is out of their hands, decided by the flippancy of a casual coin toss, but surely folks on the edge are some of the first to feel the effects such huge shifts in ways that are both social and economic.

The new piece in Grigny in the South of Paris is part of the Wall Street Art festival of Grand Paris Sud and Mr. Jourdain has been organizing walls for new murals this year, mostly featuring international Street Artists whose work he exhibits at his Galerie Mathgoth. In fact Maclaim will be returning there November 9^th for a new exhibition.

For this public art piece Maclaim and his wife Samira, who often travels with him, enjoyed the curious and generous spirit of the local neighbors who often were present during the painting, asking questions, sharing observations, and flipping coins.

Case Maclaim. For Wall Street Art in Grigny, France. September 2017. (photo © Mathgoth Gallery – Paris)

Exploring From Coney To Harlem: Fresh Art on The Streets This Summer in NYC

June 21, 2017 Artists

Summer brings people out onto the streets. New Yorkers especially love to congregate on corners, stoops, public parks and plazas, sidewalks and on the streets to soak in the sun and the excitement of summer after its long winter season. With that in mind we want to point you to what’s new on the streets of the city when it comes to Street Art and Graffiti, scenes that are constantly reinventing themselves and moving.

Here are five destinations with fresh new murals and Street Art painted this year that you can track down and enjoy on your own in an afternoon. Take a break by sitting on a stoop or a bench and enjoy the sounds and energy of each neighborhood and have a hot dog or a slice of watermelon, a slice of pizza – maybe an Italian ice!

Case Maclaim and Pixel Pancho updated their collaboration for this year’s edition of The Bushwick Collective Block Party. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The Bushwick Collective in Brooklyn.

This 6 year old project spearheaded by Bushwick native Joe Ficalora continues to host international artists on walls spread on five blocks in this gentrifying neighborhood of Brooklyn. With more than a dozen freshly painted murals that were completed for this months annual block party, the cheek-to-jowl collection of murals feels like a treasure hunt of global styles all here to show off their best. While we still have the L train you can take it Jefferson et voilà!

Logan Hicks and Joe Iurato updated their collaboration for this year’s edition of The Bushwick Collective Block Party. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Coney Art Walls in Coney Island, Brooklyn.

In its third year, Coney Art Walls is an initiative of Thor Equities and in a curatorial collaboration with art maven Jeffrey Deitch….This year’s edition of Coney Art Walls brings ten freshly painted murals by American and international artists to add to the collection of 30 or so murals painted during the past two editions. Here you will see an eclectic mix of 1970s era train writers to some of today’s multi-conceptualists take on the broader theme of Coney Island, its characters, its rides, its foot long hot dogs. A plethora of trains will take you there and be prepared to enjoy native graffiti in the “wild”on walls throughout the roughly 45 minutes train ride as your view rises on the elevated tracks. Take the N, Q, F, and D trains to Coney Island.

Lee Quinones. “Graffiti 20/20”. “If The Battle Chooses You. Choose What You Battle With” reads the caption on top of the mural. Lee recreates an updated version of his original “Graffiti 1979” mural painted on a handball court on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, which he updated as “1990” and climbed down it in the opening of “Wild Style”, directed by Charlie Ahearn. Bringing the graffiti explosion back for a third time, you see he’s already planned ahead three years. This is one of the new walls for Coney Art Walls 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Chris Stain’s mural for Coney Art Walls 2017 integrates a photo taken by Martha Cooper on a New York street in the 1980s with an ocean swell of graffiti washing up around the young lovers. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Welling Court Mural Project in Queens, NY.

The most community oriented among all of the festivals taking place in NYC, Welling Court just completed its 8th edition this month a part of Queens that feels ignored, yet now strangely is getting some high-end real estate? With a less-structured program and a philosophy of inclusiveness the project attracts a diverse group of local, national and international artists seeking to participate and interact with these neighbors, some of them New Yorks’ newest members, in a weekend-long genuine summer block party. Located in Welling Court in Long Island City in the borough of Queens the walls spread over five blocks or so and can be accessed via the N train to 30th Ave. Take a bus to Welling Court or walk for about 15 minutes on 30th Ave towards the East River.

LMNOPI. Welling Court Mural Project. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dennis McNett. Detail. Welling Court Mural Project. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The L.I.S.A. Project NYC in Little Italy and The Lower East Side.

This Mural Program is the brainchild of Wayne Rada and Ray Rosa, who host artists from all over the world to come and beautify the old neighborhoods of Little Italy and parts of the Lower East Side both in Manhattan. Because its Manhattan and space and turf are contested, you’ll find the works scattered and surprisingly integrated into spots – evoking the element of “discovery” that organic Street Art and graffiti produces.

Not necessarily located on a specific set of blocks the murals are more spread out on several streets in and around Little Italy and can be reached taking a number of subways lines. We’ll advise you take the B or the D trains to Grand Street Station and make your way to Mulberry Street where you’ll enjoy large murals by Ron English and Tristan Eaton and a number of smaller pieces. As you wander, walk, stroll, or crawl through Little Italy you’re bound to discover big and small pieces that run a spectrum of Shepard Fairey, JPO, BKFoxx, KanoKid, The Drif, and Buff Monster.

Kano. L.I.S.A. Project NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

D*Face. L.I.S.A. Project NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Monument Art in El Barrio, Harlem.

Monument Art really concentrates on large high quality murals for El Barrio in NYC. Beginning in 2015 a dozen international artists were invited to paint for two weeks including massive murals by ROA, El Mac, Celso, Ever Siempre, Faith 47 and others others. This year German artist Case Maclaim was invited to paint one highly realistic mural on a school wall located at 310 East 113th Street. Take the 6 train to 110 Street and walk north on Lexington ave towards 113th street.

As you make your way north you’ll see some of the murals painted in 2015.

Case Maclaim. Work in progress. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Case Maclaim. Monument Art. El Barrio, Harlem. NYC. June 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Images Of The Week: 06.04.17

June 4, 2017 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Happy Sunday everybody!

Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring: Case Maclaim, Domdirtee, drsc0, Flood, Gregos, Mr. Toll, Pixel Pancho, Resistance is Female, Rodk, Suits Won, and XORS.

Suits Won (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A new collaboration with Pixel Pancho and Case Maclaim during the Bushwick Collective Block Party this weekend. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

drscø (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mr. Toll (photo © Jaime Rojo)

An Unidentified artist. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Rodk in Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

#resistanceisfemale (photo © Jaime Rojo)

An Unidentified artist. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Flood and XORS do a collaboration (photo © Jaime Rojo)

XORS (photo © Jaime Rojo)

An Unidentified artist. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Domdirtee (photo © Jaime Rojo)

An Unidentified artist. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Gregos (photo © Jaime Rojo)

An Unidentified artist in Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Lower East Side. NYC. May 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!

Case Maclaim x Swoon x BSA – The New “Sunshower” Print for Heliotrope

April 3, 2017 Artists

Here is the first public look at the new print by Case Maclaim which he made especially to aid the programs in Haiti and Braddock, Pennsylvania for Heliotrope Prints. The limited run print will be released this week, April 6^th at a pop up show opening in Manhattan and we hope you can come.

Case Maclaim Sunshower 2017 (image courtesy of the artist)

Street Artist Swoon asked BSA to curate this special Spring 2017 edition of prints and we chose Case as one of six world renowned Street Artists whose work we admire greatly and whom we think you will appreciate as well.

Case says he has had a special relationship with the people of Haiti for quite some time and he is very glad to be able to support Swoon and her team. “Both me and my wife fell in love with the Haiti and its amazing people while I was painting in Port-au-Prince,” he says.

And the new print is from a new painting based on a photograph he took. The new print piece is called “Sunshower 2017”.

“The little fellow Case painted on the canvas was one of the boys that used to stay with him while he was painting his mural in the Dominican Republic,” his wife Samira tells us as she describes one recent trip to Haiti.

We are very honored that Case agreed to participate in this show with us and excited that he is part of this great effort.

You probably are familiar with this pioneering German photorealist and founding member of the Ma’Claim Crew and have seen images of his murals throughout the world but in case you are not, learn more about Case Maclaim here .

WHAT: Swoon x Heliotrope x BSA Pop-Up Opening Reception
WHEN: Thursday, April 6 at 6 PM – 9 PM
WHERE: 88 1/2 7th Avenue, between 15th & 16th St., New York, NY

Heliotrope Prints Fundraiser
Curated by Steven P. Harrington and Jaime Rojo, Brooklyn StreetArt

Join us for the opening of our pop-up exhibit, featuring newly released sketches by Swoon Studio and limited edition prints by six world-renowned street artists:

Case Maclaim
Faith XLVII
Icy And Sot
Li-Hill
Miss Van
Tavar Zawacki (Above)

Prints starting at $50 apiece.

Proceeds support the cultural and education programs of the Heliotrope Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization founded by Swoon aka Caledonia Curry.

Live DJ for your enjoyment. Refreshments provided by Stolen Rum and by Smart Beer

https://www.facebook.com/events/1174138686030369/

6 New Prints Pop-Up : Swoon x BSA x The Heliotrope Foundation

April 1, 2017 Artists

Hello and happy Saturday to you! Hope you are finding time to relax and to do some laundry and maybe bake some cookies or go out and paint or see some art today. We’re starting the day with an egg and cheese on a roll and a large coffee from the local deli – and thinking about how lucky we are to be curating a small print show for Street Artist Swoon next week. We hope you will be able to come by and support her and her team, our team, your team – next week in NYC.

And what a strong show it is! We’re honored to present six world-renowned Street Artists who each have established clarion voices of their own in the last decade or so – on the street and in more formal settings, with inspiring, sometimes breathtaking work. Additionally we know that each one of these artists hasn’t forgotten why they started doing work on the street and each have a deep connection to helping others – which is the real way of keeping it real.

Starting Monday, one by one, we’ll reveal each of the the new prints from works by Case Maclaim, Li-Hill, Faith XLVII, Miss Van, Icy & Sot and Tavar Zawacki (aka Above) for this brand new edition of Heliotrope Prints. You will have the first look! In addition to the prints Caledonia Curry AKA Swoon will present a new series of her hand drawings from Haiti – a selection you will totally dig.

Have a good Saturday! Sending love from Brooklyn.

WHAT: Swoon x Heliotrope x BSA Pop-Up Opening Reception
WHEN: Thursday, April 6 at 6 PM – 9 PM
WHERE: 88 1/2 7th Avenue, between 15th & 16th St., New York, NY

Heliotrope Prints Fundraiser
Curated by Steven P. Harrington and Jaime Rojo, Brooklyn StreetArt

Join us for the opening for our pop-up exhibit, featuring newly released sketches by Swoon Studio and limited edition prints by six world-renowned street artists:

Case Maclaim case_maclaim
Faith XLVII Faith47
Icy & Sot Icy And Sot
Li-Hill Li-Hill
Miss Van Vanessa Alice
Tavar Zawacki (Above) Above fanpage

Prints starting at $50 apiece.

Proceeds support the cultural and education programs of the Heliotrope Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization founded by Swoon aka Caledonia Curry.

Live DJ for your enjoyment. Refreshments provided by Stolen Rum and by Smart Beer

https://www.facebook.com/events/1174138686030369/

Swoon On the Streets, In the Fairs, and Beyond in Hong Kong

March 28, 2017 Artists

Brooklyn Street Artist Swoon has traveled to hot, hopping Hong Kong recently to create the façade for the tramline with HKwalls, a program of customization for the historic public transportation cars in the city center that has included also Portuguese Street Artist Vhils with HOCA, and during Art Basel this year a site specific tram from Hong Kong artist Kingsley Ng.

Not surprisingly, as is the custom of Street Artists everywhere, the wheat-pasting romantic portraitist introduced a number of her friends to the streets of the Incense Harbor city among its myriad winding cobblestones, wending staircases, and wiley alleyways.

The experience of a local is perhaps to discover this new entity on a wall suddenly, a figure so full of presence and personality as if it may speak to you. As an international traveler the experience may be to be greeted in a foreign land by a friendly familiar face.

In our case, that same face greeted us again in the entirely scrubbed austerity of the white cube of a Parisian art dealer, nested as it was among a honeycomb of other white boxed and illuminated beneath a vast white canvas on a pier by the Ferris Wheel.

We meditated lightly on this topic of the gallery on the street – commercial gallery – museum gallery continuum during our Images of the Week wrap up this week. It is an unusual position that Street Artists’ occupy and one that introduces topics around speech, advertising, commercialism, and traditional graffiti practices of getting up and marking one’s name.

And now we muddy those waters once again, by telling you of a BSA-curated show of new prints that will benefit the Heliotrope Foundation when it debuts next week in New York. Swoon’s Heliotrope non-profit is literally building community, homes, shelter, and helping people become teachers in Haiti. (more at end of posting)

Swoon. This piece titled “Sonia” was destroyed in the process of bringing down a structure from the wall. Hong Kong. March 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon. Adeline the owner of Parisian Galerie L J at Art Central Art Fair is shown talking to a potential buyer not in the photo. Hong Kong. March 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

By donating our efforts along with the donated talents of 6 world-renowned Street Artists; Miss Van, Tavar Zawacki (Above), Li-Hill, Case Maclaim, Faith XLVII, and Icy & Sot, we encourage others to contribute to Heliotrope and to buy a custom new print from these artists. We’re proud to curate for this project, to be associated with these great artists, and to provide a platform for everyone to make these connections.

Additionally, Swoon herself will release new drawings from Haiti.

SWOON X Heliotrope X BSA : A Benefit for Heliotrope Foundation
curated by Steven P. Harrington and Jaime Rojo, co-founders of BSA

Opening Event: Thursday, April 6 from 6-9pm.
Beats and refreshments provided.

Location: 88 ½ Seventh Avenue (between 15th & 16th St.)
in Chelsea, New York
Pop-Up Exhibit runs April 7-9 from 11am – 6pm daily

Rocking “THE HAUS” : A 5-Floor Berlin Bank is Transformed by Artists

March 16, 2017 Artists, Interview

“Normally we paint advertising – hand-painted advertising, mostly with cans. So we work all over Germany, with a lot of crews, “ says Kimo, a bearded, bald energetic and sharp witted guy who is lighting up a cigarette in this tattered, beige ex-conference room. That explanation doesn’t prepare you for what you will see in the rooms upstairs.

The floors are piled with unopened paint buckets and brushes and cans and the walls in this organizing office are covered with scotch-taped project timelines, to-do lists, and floor plans of the old bank. Each former office space is plainly labled with names of German Street Artists or graffiti crews, some you recognize, others you don’t. More recent Street Art names are next to classic Graff heads, installation artists mix freely with Optic Artists, photographers, sculptors, even a live moss installation.

Case Maclaim is right next door to Turbokultur with Stohead out in the hall on floor 1. El Bocho and Emess are in small rooms to either side of 1UP on the 3rd. Herakut in a corner room numbered 506 is right next to Nick Platt and Paul Punk in 505.

What are all these artists, more than 175 of them and almost entirely German, all doing throughout a five-floor bank building in central Berlin on the Kudamm?

You’ll find out in April when the doors open to thousands of graffiti/Street Art/contemporary art fans to tour through THE HAUS, an enthusiastic life-affirming joyful and pissed-off D.I.Y.-flavored fun-haus of fully realized installations, painting, projections, exhibits, and interventions.

You’ve been to (or at least read about) these last-hurrah urban art installations before – celebrations of artists’ visions that inhabit a building destined to be demolished soon. Possibly because of their ephemeral nature or a lack of serious interest in art-making, often the artworks and their execution are a bit slap-dash and loosely committed.

Not at THE HAUS. You’ll likely be surprised by the conceptual sophistication at times and wowed by technical dexterity, stagecraft, attention to details, and genuinely mind-challenging immersive environments.

But this is Berlin after all, an urban art capital where graffiti crews are known for getting way up on impossible walls with foolhardy and militarily precise plans – sometimes implemented with rehearsal and execution under cover of night.

The logistical planning of Street Art and graffiti interventions here often centers around devising a slick and ingeniously resourceful roll-out of the aesthetic attack- some times given as much attention as executing the artwork.

“We do not curate any of the room concepts,” explains Kimo as he leads you from room to room, sometime removing protective tape over doorways and turning on lights to allow a guest to see inside. “There is no over all concept. It has to be really really nice, but that’s it.”

Okay, there are some challenging themes around violence, graphic sexuality, and the horror of human trafficking. More often they are driven by character, text, and slaughtering with paint and pattern. As with most creative ventures of this size, it is impossible for organizers to know when or if to draw the line on content.

There is also a darkened and completely life-sized realistic portion of a train-yard with a capped train over head, rails below, and cables and ground stones. A companion “white box” installation is said to be somewhere right now inside an underground Berlin train station. It is evident that weeks of preparation went into many of these dioramas and scenes.

“We just called around 50 artists to invite them here to take a look at the building and we told them, ‘If you know guys who have skills like you, just tell them.’ We’re looking for more artists,” Kimo says.

With more than three times that number coming and installing in the HAUS building over the last four months, there are still more artists who are clamoring to get in. “Now we have 100 artists on the waiting list”.

The existence of this list would sound like bragadoccio coming from another organizer of an event like this, but when you see the calendars, lists of names, video scheduling, website design schedule, team responsibilities, art materials, contracts, even marketing plans printed and thumb-tacked on the walls of the Orga, you know that these three partners have created a supportive art-making environment with a sense of purpose.

“Bolle and Jörni have been painting for 25 years,” says Kimo of his two partners. The three are members of their own crew called DIE DIXONS. Kimo says he cannot paint. “I tried but I can’t, I don’t have the patience to paint”. Instead he says he has great organizational abilities and love for the art subculture and the graffiti/Street Art game.

Together the DIE DIXONS also own the professional sign-painting company Xi-Design who originated THE HAUS project, and it is their multiple contacts with real estate, construction, lifestyle brands, paint suppliers, and highly-skilled commercial painters that makes this endeavor a POWER HAUS like few you’ll find.

This show is planned to be destroyed in a few months along with the building for a new project with condos and retail, but the quality here in many cases actually rivals art fairs we have seen in the last few years. Based on the buzz it has it safe to say that by the time the doors open in April, it will already have been declared a success.

Please note: Under the agreement with the organizers we agreed to publish only details of the pieces, so the surprise is not ruined. Some of these are installations in progress along with completed installations.

We wish to express our sincere thanks to Kimo, Bolle, Jörni and their team for all the time and assistance provided to us for the production of this article. Thank you to Katrin for helping with the artists IDs, and to Lisa Schmidt for her help with information as well.

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