All posts tagged: Coney Island

Sean Corcoran and DAZE, CRASH, LADY PINK, FUTURA, and LEE : 15 For 2015

December 31, 2015 Artists

What are you celebrating this season? We’re celebrating BSA readers and fans with a holiday assorted chocolate box of 15 of the smartest and tastiest people we know. Each day until the new year we ask a guest to take a moment to reflect on 2015 and to tell us about one photograph that best captures the year for him or her. It’s our way of sharing the sweetness of the season and saying ‘thank you’ for inspiring us throughout the year.

Sean Corcoran is Curator of Prints and Photographs – a title that really undersells the cultural contribution and genius this guy brings to the Museum of the City of New York. In the last two years alone he has been responsible for important exhibitions that secure the legacy of early hip hop culture, graffiti, and their foundational relationship to the modern global Street Art scene. Witness: City As Canvas: Graffiti Art from the Martin Wong Collection, Hip-Hop Revolution: Photographs by Janette Beckman, Joe Conzo, and Martha Cooper, and the current Chris “Daze” Ellis: The City is My Muse.

Coney Island, Brooklyn, NYC

Coney Art Walls

May 2015
Photograph by Sean Corcoran

I took this photograph on May 22, 2015, just as the Coney Art Walls project was really just getting underway. Many of the artists were early in the process of painting their murals.

While I admire some of the Street Art today, my area of interest and research has always been for the train era graffiti writing, and to be there when this amazing contingent of artists got together – DAZE, CRASH, LADY PINK, FUTURA, and LEE – there seemed to be an electricity in the air. Complaints about the real estate developer who sponsored the project aside, the project combined several of my passions – Coney Island in the summer, great art and good food.

~ Sean Corcoran

BSA Top Stories As Picked by You from BSA and HuffPost in 2015

December 15, 2015 Artists

You picked them!

Last week you saw the Top Murals and the Top Videos. Today here are our Top Stories of 2015.

BSA readers told us by your direct comments and online sharing – that you love our coverage of Street Art festivals: 8 of the top 15 postings in ’15 were about them.

The rest of the most popular stories can be described as being about powerful personalities and consequential work on the street that is not simply visually impactful but is backed by a story that runs deeper.

Following are your top 15 postings from the year on BSA and our articles on The Huffington Post along with an excerpt from the original posting.

NO. 15

A Mexican Mural ‘Manifesto,’ Blackened Flags And Censorship (March 04 2015)

Erica il Cane (photo © Fifty24Mex)

“Striking and massive murals by international street artists have been populating the walls of Mexico City for the last five years thanks to the emergence of a global Street Art scene, a rise in mural festivals, and the country’s tradition of institutional support for murals that further a socio-political mission. There hasn’t been much of the latter lately, however, and it is doubtful that a new politically charged mural campaign underway in certain central neighborhoods is likely to receive tax dollars for the paint and ladders.

Without sighting a specific ill to address, the new mural initiative named “Manifesto” is challenging a select group of local and international street artists to express their opinions on weighty and topical matters through murals, “using art as a social tool to propose, reflect and inform.” Among possible topics that might be addressed, the manifesto for “Manifesto” says, are increasing poverty, glorified materialism, the exhausting of natural resources, a fraying social web, and a dysfunctional justice system.”

More…

NO. 14

Malik and ‘Note’ Bring 17 Street Artists To A Swiss Prison (November 04, 2015)

(photo © Malik)

“Initiated by Aarau-based graffiti/street/fine artist Malik in May of 2012, the project eventually corralled 17 street artists, all but one from Switzerland, to enter the confines of the new high security Lenzburg Prison to paint murals on exterior walls, courtyards, hallways, and common areas.

‘I was looking for a new challenge and a new and exciting project where I could show my art,’ says Malik and while the 18 month project originated with his vision of getting a nice wall for himself, quickly the project grew far beyond his expectations to become an educational, sociological meditation on the penal system, the appropriate role of art within it, and our collective humanity.”

More…

NO. 13

The Coney Art Walls: First Three Completed and Summer Begins (May 27, 2015)

Kave (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“Instead of being hunted down for catching a tag or bubble-lettered throw-up, a couple dozen graffiti/street art painters are invited to hit up Coney Island this summer — and since we’ve just marked the unofficial first weekend of summer in New York — we’re bringing you the first three freshly completed pieces.

Part of “Coney Art Walls”, the muralists began taking the train out to this seaside paved paradise that is re-inventing itself once again, this time courtesy of art curator Jeffrey Deitch.”

More…

NO. 12

50 Years From Selma, Jetsonorama and Equality in Brooklyn (June 27, 2015)

Jetsonorama (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“From Selma to Ferguson, Birmingham to Charleston, Jimmie Lee Jackson to Michael Brown, Street Artist Jetsonorama is crossing the country from Arizona to New York and a half-century of America’s struggle with our legacy of racism and injustice.

As marches have continued across the country in cities like Ferguson, Oakland, Baltimore, New York, Dallas and Cleveland in the past year addressing issues such as police brutality and racism, the south is taking down confederate flags on state houses and the US is mourning another mass shooting.

Now as Americans everywhere are pulling out and waving the stars and stripes to celebrate freedom, this new powerful installation on a Brooklyn wall reminds us of what New York poet Emma Lazarus said, ‘Until we are all free, we are none of us free.’ ”

More…

NO. 11

Gender, Caste, And Crochet: OLEK Transforms A Shelter In Delhi (March 25, 2015)

Olek (photo © Street Art India)

” ‘It felt like I gave a birth to an oversize baby without any pain killers. I had to pull the black magic to make it happen. Physically and emotionally drained. Was it worth it? Absolutely YES,’ she types onto her Facebook page to let friends and fans know that she has finished the seven-day marathon of crocheting and directing a full team of volunteers and St+Art Delhi organizers. Triumphant, she stands atop the woman’s shelter, a one story structure of corrugated metal and concrete 40-feet long and 8-feet high, with a fist in the air, a symbol of celebration as well as a show of solidarity with the sisterhood of those who helped her make it and those will seek refuge here when other options have been exhausted.”

More…

NO. 10

A Tidal Wave of Lodz Reborn: ‘Lodz Murals’ Distinguishes a Polish City (October 28, 2015)

Alexis Diaz (photo © Maciej Stempij)

“Now I don’t want to create any new festival, any new brand — just want to keep the name as simple as possible,” he says of Lodz Murals, an ongoing program that functions year round rather than focusing specifically on a short-term festival. With all responsibilities for organizing, promoting, and working with city and private business under one roof, Michał says that his vision is to create the same sort of iconic image of Lodz with murals as Paris with the Eiffel Tower.

“I would like that people on the global scale would think of Lodz as a city with exceptional public art,” he says grandly while acknowledging that public art shines in many other cities as well. “When you are thinking about public art, one of the first places that you will see in your mind’s eye is Lodz. Of course, comparing the mural project to the one of the most important “pearls” of modern architecture is pure overstatement, but I would like to create this type of mechanism, this type of association.”

More…

NO. 9

WALL\THERAPY 2015: Surrealism and the Fantastic (July 29, 2015)

Never Crew (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“We don’t know for sure if it was our current funhouse mirror atmosphere that drove the Wall\Therapy festival in Rochester, NY to choose this years’ themes. It may simply be a way of organizing artists whose work reflects these notions back to us and to illuminate one specific growing trend in street culture and murals.

Surely Magritte, Dali and Ernst would be very pleased by the uptick of modern surrealists and practitioners of the bizarre, fantastical, and dream-like in galleries, in the public sphere, and throughout popular culture in recent years.”

More…

NO. 8

NUART 2015 Roundup: A Laboratory on the Street (September 12, 2015)

Ella & Pitr (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“As we mark the halfway point of this decade and see the institutional discussions of Street Art taking form while academics try to place it in the canon of art-making and decide upon the nature of its impact, they do it with the knowledge that gallery shows, museum exhibitions, high-profile auctions, individual collecting, lifestyle marketers, and public festivals of many configurations and aspirations are already embracing its relevance. No one can possibly gauge this story in all of its complexity but some will capture its spirit. Being on the street helps.

One way to get a pulse on the present is to attend shows like Nuart and witness the diverse stratagems that artists are using to engage their audiences and judge if they are successful at realizing their intentions. With a deliberately mixed bag of thinkers, feelers, documentors, aesthetes, and pranksters culled together for your edification, this show stokes the discussions.”

More…

NO. 7

Coney Art Walls: 30 Reasons to Go to Coney Island This Summer (June 24, 2015)

Daze (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“The gates are open to the new public/private art project called “Coney Art Walls,” and today, you can have a look at all 30 or so of the new pieces by a respectable range of artists spanning four decades and a helluva lot of New York street culture history. We’ve been lucky to see a lot of the action as it happened over the last five weeks and the range is impressive. These are not casual, incidental choices of players lacking serious resumes or street/gallery cred, but the average observer or unknowing critic may not recognize it.”

More…

NO. 6

Barcelona: “Open Walls” Mural Festival and Conference 2015 (November 11, 2015)

RocBlackBlock (photo © Fernando Alcalá Losa)

“Barcelona was known as a city at the epicenter of a bustling lively organic street art scene in the mid 2000s. Today that has greatly been cracked down upon by authorities, but the Spanish city now boasts a mural festival called Open Walls, which celebrated its third edition last month with public works spanning a great number of influences and styles. Of course there is still plenty of autonomous, non-comissioned street art to be seen as well.”

More…

NO. 5

Basquiat’s Rarely Seen Notebooks Open At The Brooklyn Museum (April 01, 2015)

Basquiat (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“In ‘Basquiat: The Unknown Notebooks,’ now running at the Brooklyn Museum until August 23, the genius of his fragmenting logic is revealed as a direct relationship between his private journals and his prolific and personally published aerosol missives on the streets of Manhattan’s Soho and Lower East Side neighborhoods in the late 1970s and 1980s.

These notebooks were for capturing ideas and concepts, preparing them, transmuting them, revising them, pounding them into refrains. In the same way his text (and glyphic) pieces on the street were not necessarily finished products each time; imparted on the run and often in haste, these unpolished missives didn’t require such preciousness.”

More…

NO. 4

Borås ‘No Limit’ 2015: Graffiti Tags, Murals, Greco-Roman Antiquities (September 17, 2015)

Pichi & Avo (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“This is No Limit, the second installation of murals done primarily by street artists in Borås, a pristine and pleasant city about 45 minutes east of Gothenberg. With the leadership of artist Shai Dahan and organizers Stina Hallhagen and Anders Khil the local tourism office works year round to promote this festival and the quality of the pieces are top notch due to the careful choices of international big names and up-and-comers.

In addition to this diversity, the scale is varied with massive walls like those by the Chilean Inti and Poland’s Robert Proch, and more personal-sized installations in surprise locations around town by American illustration artist David Zinn and New Jersey’s sculptural stencilist Joe Iurato.”

More…

NO. 3

Street Art Sancocho: ArteSano Project Brings Dominican Flavor (January 08, 2015)

Mario Ramirez (photo © Tots Films)

“It could be the name influencing our perception, but in one way or another it looks like these artists are chosen for their down-to-earth hand hewn approach. Sometimes decorative, sometimes storytelling, there are familiar themes and motifs that play well to their local audience as well as the virtual gawker.

Even with two dozen artists, it isn’t bloated: no logos or product tie-ins or DJs or high flying scissor lifts scaling massive multi-story walls with abstract surrealism, hyper photo-realism or dark pop human/animal/robot hybrids here – yet. Well, we take that back on the surrealism score; Pixel Pancho is here with a brood of chickens bobbing their industrial mesh necks atop fired tile bodices, hunting and pecking their way toward the beach, and Miami artist duo 2alas & Hox created a portrait of a boy with a partial mask overlay that calls to mind cyborgs (and Sten & Lex). But here in the loungey bare-foot tropical DR coastal area, even Pixel Pancho mutes the hues toward sun-bleached pastels, more easily complimenting their surroundings.”

More…

NO. 2

Renaissance Masters, Keith Haring and Ninja Turtles in Brooklyn Streets (July 15, 2015)

Owen Dippie. (photos © Jaime Rojo)

“And so it made sense last week when Dippie skillfully merged imagery spanning five centuries, two continents, and two distinctly different art movements. Call it a measured miracle, a ratherish revelation that Dippie completed a deftly realized mashup of Raphael and Keith Haring, with the Madonna del Granduca holding Haring’s icon-symbol that is variously referred to as ‘Radiant Baby,’ ‘Radiant Child,’ and ‘Radiant Christ.’ ”

More…

NO. 1

YZ and Her ‘Amazone’ Warrior Women On Senegalese Walls (January 14, 2015)

YZ (photo © YZ Yseult)

“French Street Artist YZ Yseult has begun her own campaign to pay tribute to the fierce female fighters of the 19th Century West African country of Dahomey, who are more commonly referred to as Amazons. A startling narrative of female power not often heard today for some, but as YZ is researching her own history as a descendent from slaves, her portraits reflect a personal impetus to tell these stories with a new force. She has named this series of strong warriors on the street ‘Amazone’.”

More…

Coney Art Walls : 30 Reasons To Go To Coney Island This Summer

June 24, 2015 Artists

The gates are open to the new public/private art project called Coney Art Walls and today you can have a look at all 30 or so of the new pieces by a respectable range of artists spanning four decades and a helluva lot of New York street culture history. We’ve been lucky to see a lot of the action as it happened over the last five weeks and the range is impressive. These are not casual, incidental choices of players lacking serious resumes or street/gallery cred, but the average observer or unknowing critic may not recognize it.

How & Nosm (photo © Jaime Rojo)

By way of defining terms, none of this is street art. These are murals completed by artists who are street artists, graffiti writers, fine artists, and contemporary artists. In the middle of an amusement park, these are commissioned works that respond in some way to their environment by thirty or so local and international heavy hitters and a few new kids on the block comprising a 40+ year span of expertise.

Open to many strata of the public and fun-seekers who dig Brooklyn’s rich cultural landscape, this outdoor show will surely end up as backgrounds for selfies — while perhaps simultaneously elevating a discourse about the rightful place of graffiti/street art/urban art within the context of contemporary art. Okay, maybe not such loftiness will result, but let’s not rule it out entirely.

How & Nosm (photo © Jaime Rojo)

It should come as no surprise that it is the dealer, curator, perennially risk-taking showman Jeffrey Deitch who is the ringmaster of this circus, or that the genesis of this cultural adventure is perplexing to some who have greeted his newest vision with perplexity and derision. His Deitch Projects and related activities in the 2000s regularly presented and promoted the street-inspired D.I.Y. cultural landscape, having done his due diligence and recognizing that new life springs from the various youth movements always afoot. The Jeffrey-conceived “Art Parade” itself was a street-based all-inclusive annual panoply of eye candy and absurdity; inflicting humor, sex, gore, fire, glitter and possibility into the minds of Manhattan sidewalk observers.

As MOCA Los Angeles director Deitch also flipped the script with his “Art In The Streets,” organizing a vast survey of a half-century of the modern grassroots genres including graffiti/street art/urban art/tattoo/punk/hip-hop/skater culture that far surpassed anyone’s predictions for audience attendance and public engagement. Aside from tripping wires and a public misstep here and there, the show earned critical praise, pinched art-school noses, and pushed skeptical institutions and patrons to question their prejudices. It also gave voice to a lot of people.

Daze (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Notably, that MOCA exhibit drew a little over 200,000 attendees in four months. Coney Island beach and boardwalk gets about 14 million annually. Even if the Smorgasbord pop-up village food trucks feed a fraction of that number, there will be more folks viewing art and interacting with it here than, say, the Four Seasons dining rooms, which also display street artists and contemporary artists in the restaurants’ artistic programming. Side by side comparisons of Smorgasbord/Four Seasons diners ethnic diversity, income, age, education level, museum board membership or real estate investments were not available at press time. But neither can be fairly described as exploitative to artists or audience without sounding patronizing.

Daze (photo © Jaime Rojo)

These multicolored and monochromatic murals illustrate a wide and balanced smorgasborg of their own; examples of myriad styles are at play with some engaging in activism and local politics and Coney Island history. From original train writer Lady Pink to aerosol drone sprayer Katsu, from eL Seed’s lyrical Arabic calligraffiti to Retna’s secret text language to graffitist-now-collagist Greg Lamarche, from Shepard Fairey’s elegant Brooklyn salute to polluters and blasé consumerism to Tatyana Fazlalizadeh’s spotlight on current Coney Island neighbors, from urban naturalist ROA’s monochrome marginalized city animals to How & Nosm’s eye-punching and precise graphic metaphors, you are getting a dizzying example of the deep command Deitch has of this multi-headed contemporary category that is yet to settle on a moniker to call itself.

Crash (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Coney Art Walls assembles world travelers from NYC and LA and Miami and internationally; Belgium, Barcelona, Brazil, Paris, Tunisia, London. Some are 80s Downtown NYC alumni, others were train writers in the 70s or big crew graff heads and taggers from the decades after. Some are considered historical originators of a form and cross-genre risk takers pushing beyond their comfort zone. Take a close look and you’ll find names that are in major collections (private, institutional, corporate) and that go to auction.

Crash (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Some are regularly showing in galleries and are invited to street art festivals, exhibited in museums and discussed in academia and print. Others have studio practices spanning three decades, are lecturers, panelists, authors, teachers, community advocates, art stars, reality TV personalities, film actors, product endorsers and art product makers working with global brands. One or two may be considered global brands themselves. A handful have been painting on the streets for 40 years. Monolithic they are not.

One more notable aspect occurred to us as we watched this parade making its peregrination to these summer walls – either because of Deitch or the romance or history of Coney or both; When you are looking at the range of ages and ethnicities and family configurations and listening to the variety of accents and opinions expressed and seeing the friendly but tough-stuff attitudes on display — you might guess you were in Brooklyn. You are.

Futura (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Shepard Fairey (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jesse Edwards (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Irak (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lady Pink (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ben Eine (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Maya Hayuk (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lady Aiko (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Buff Monster (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Miss Van (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jason Woodside (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ron English (photo © Jaime Rojo)

AVAF (photo © Jaime Rojo)

eL Seed (photo © Jaime Rojo)

eL Seed with Martha Cooper (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kenny Scharf (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mister Cartoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jane Dickson (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Skewville (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Marie Roberts (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tatyana Fazlalizadeh (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Greg Lamarche (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Gregg Lamarche (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Katsu (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Retna (photo © Jaime Rojo)

ROA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kashink (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kaves (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lauren Halsey (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Our previous weekly updates track the installation period of Coney Art Walls:

Coney Art Walls: First 3 Completed and Summer Begins

DEITCH Masters, Coney Art Walls Part 2 : Coney With a Twist

Eine, Hayuk: A Riot of Color at Coney (Update III)

Coney Art Walls: Gypsies, Stallions, Mermaids, and Pop Optics! Update IV

Coney Art Walls Opens for the Mermaids! Update V

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This article is also published on The Huffington Post

Coney Art Walls Opens for the Mermaids! Update V

June 20, 2015 Artists

Dude/Dudette, it’s Mermaid Parade Day – part of Coney’s modern pop-carney cultural heritage. Rolling up Surf Avenue, turning right and coming back down the boardwalk, the three decade old event is both a well organized and entirely rag-tag D.I.Y. affair simultaneously. It’s the enthusiasm of the participants and their street performances and costumery that pull in the equally enthusiastic fans, but it is the bedazzled breasts and free-flowing beer that make them seek that illusive and effervescent feeling of abandon.

Skewville at work on their piece…while some folks go against gravity above…(photo © Jaime Rojo)

Meanwhile more walls were being painted at Coney Art Walls this week by another impressive cross section of talents from points local and international. The Skewville twins completed their free-standing monster boom box, El Seed brought his lyrical Arabic inspired calligraffiti, fine artist Jane Dickson applies her eye to the symbols of the carnival footprint and turns amusements into colorful cakes, Katsu spreads wider with his investigations into drone painting that are looking impressionistic, Mr. Cartoon enlivens a Vandal/Copper chase with a grim reaper and a selfie-snapping angel, former graffiti outlaw Gregg LaMarche slams his collaged font explosion with color, Coney-Island artist icon Marie Roberts invokes ghosts and her own family’s deep roots in this place’s history, Miami’s Rage Johnson of Inkheads Crew brings crisp psychadeliac forms with AVAF (Assume Vivid Astro Focus), Sheryo and The Yok use a new palette to depict a beach inspired hotdog caper, and Tatiana Fazlalizadeh creates warm black and white portraits of local current neighbors who live in these environs here year round.

The Twins Skewville at work on their piece…yes the other one showed up for photo op… (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Briefly, a snafu in the proceedings popped up when Cope2 suddenly did one of his eponymous bubble tags smack on the center of a freshly finished Retna wall Friday. Shortly thereafter Retna’s assistant was seen buffing the tag. Sources tell us that Cope’s participation in the project wasn’t originally scheduled and while some permissions had been secured, not all parties were in agreement before work commenced. The affair spurred speculation about who gave permission and who denied it in a flurry of social media postings, but the matter has been resolved. No doubt rumors on the street and online will be profligate – it is the nature of these aerosol Olympic games. Let’s see how the buffed section of Retna’s wall is addressed now that fin-fested visitors are schooling through the concrete complex chomping on cotton candy and sausages.

Skewville at work with the help of an assistant. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

But don’t let this petit drama overshadow the talent and effort and storied history of the two dozen other artists whose work is on display. A more diverse collection of artists from the past four decades from across this spectrum is rarely assembled in one location – a mini reprise of Mr. Deitch’s Art in the Streets, minus the ceiling. It’s not street art, urban art, or graffiti so none of those labels rightly apply to this amusement park exhibit. To the visiting crowds this is primarily background for selfies but fans of these artists will attach a much greater significance to some of these brand new works, as they should. Stay tuned for our final roundup of all the walls next Wednesday on a screen near you.

Skewville… for a dollar we’ll show you the rest… (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Skewville practicing an abundance of caution while at work … (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Skewville (photo © Jaime Rojo)

El Seed (photo © Jaime Rojo)

El Seed with Martha Cooper. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

El Seed (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jane Dickson’s work in progress. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jane Dickson at work. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jane Dickson work in progress. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jane Dickson (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Katsu tried his hand at Impressionism with a drone. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mr. Cartoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Gregg Lamarche at work. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Gregg Lamarche (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Marie Roberts at work. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Marie Roberts (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Rage Johnson of Inkheads Crew working on the piece designed by Brazilian AVAF (Assume Vivid Astro Focus). (photo © Jaime Rojo)

AVAF executed by Rage Johnson of Inkheads Crew. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sheryo and The Yok (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tatiana Fazlalizadeh at work. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tatiana Fazlalizadeh…”The Day Before Easter And The Day After Labor Day – People Still Live Here. People Die Here. People Love Here” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Coney Art Walls: Gypsies, Stallions, Mermaids, and Pop Optics! Update IV

June 13, 2015 Artists

Miss Van. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Coney Art Walls continues to take shape before your lying eyes, ladies and gentlemen, snake oil salesmen, and painted ladies in fishnet stockings. Watch now as our intrepid camera wielding high wire walker slithers upward into the sky for his shot!

Constantly risking absurdity
and death
whenever he performs
above the heads
of his audience
the poet like an acrobat
climbs on rime
to a high wire of his own making.

~ Lawrence Ferlinghetti

In this amazing expanding collection you can see that the history and legacy of the location is clearly inspiring many of the artists who painted this week. From Miss Van’s “Gypsy With Stallions” to Aiko’s multi-ethnic mermaids to Jason Woodside’s clown-car of pop-optic patterning to Kenny Scharf’s amorphous fun-house characters, Buff Monster’s melty ice cream, and Ron English’s mutated funny/frightening grinning cartoon characters…this weeks additions are giving the place a cheerfully happy and vaguely creepy magic vibe.

One more week of this painting madness and many surprises are just behind this velvet curtain, Ladies and Germs.

Miss Van (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jason Woodside (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kenny Scharf (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Aiko (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ron English (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Buff Monster (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Eine, Hayuk: A Riot of Color at Coney (Update III)

June 6, 2015 Artists

Street Artists continue to bang up walls in the industrial play land by the sea in Brooklyn this week – minus a few days for full-on rain and flash flooding. Suddenly the wind is kicking up and everyone is cold and working as hard at being positive as they are at painting. Anyway, it all about the riotous color right now and here we have two boldly flourescent contributors to Coney Art Walls; London based textual talent Ben Eine style-checking the 70s and Brooklyn hometown gal Maya Hayuk sloshing knee deep through eye popping bands of plaid.

Ben Eine (photo © Jaime Rojo)

As press and photographers are starting to make the trip since the buzz is building, its becoming a bit of a mini-scene – and that’s just to see Martha Cooper! Newly arrived also are Miss Van and Lady Aiko – and there are more on the roster for the next two weeks so keep watching this space – or better yet come have a hotdog and soda and then throw it up on the Cyclone! Look out beloooooooooooooow.

Ben Eine (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Maya Hayuk (photo © Jaime Rojo)

DEITCH Masters, Coney Art Walls Part 2 : Coney With a Twist

May 30, 2015 Artists

Just because you are a spectator in Coney Island Shepard Fairey doesn’t want you to be a spectator at civic responsibility. His newly wheat-pasted Coney Art Wall is fashioned as a graphically designed advertisement skewering the excesses of mindless industrial development running unchecked and baked into a pleasingly twisted version of the once upwardly bound “middle class”.

Shepard Fairey. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Of course Fairey’s smart-mouthed wall seems at home floating here at this seaside all-American semi-permanent festival of oddity and diversion. And the theme of poisoning the natural world is as current as today’s headlines.

Fairey may have been thinking of the sooty and stinking oil spill lapping at the shores of his home state of California right now, or the BP oil spill that severely damaged animal and human life on the southernmost US Gulf , or even the medical waste that kept plaguing this Brighton Beach in the 1990s or the nations’ largest underground oil spill that still resides beneath the newly trendy Brooklyn neighborhood of Greenpoint.

Shepard Fairey. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“A lot of my work deals with symbols of Americana, the symbols of success and the duality of a lot of those things – that what might be seen as a positive symbol in one realm actually has a dark side,” Fairey said in an interview last year called Obey This Film, a short piece directed by Brett Novak.

The collection of new walls going up this week for the month-long installation of murals is alive and kicking – sometimes in the head – for those who give it a thought, or those who know a little of the history of these artists.

Shepard Fairey. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Futura is taking his abstraction into a boldly minimal geometry, Lady Pink lays out the idealized romance of Coney’s yesteryear, and a dark horse entry – some members of the graff crew IRAK, fill a hulkingly rigid tag with hundreds of curvilinear hand-sprayed ones.

There has even appeared a painterly bit of satire that pokes fun at the storied history of the New York curator/showman who has jump-started this show in a piece entitled “Deitch Masters”. Here Jesse Edwards points to Jeffrey’s roles in fame-fueled NY art history amongst certain hi/low circles while appropriately tipping the hat to Breuckelen‘s Dutch roots and graffiti’s pivotal role in the development of street culture.

This weekend and next week promise more arriving artists and surprises for the whole family at Coney Art Walls.

Futura (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lady Pink sharing her sketch for her wall. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lady Pink (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Irak (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jesse Edwards (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Coney Art Walls: First 3 Completed and Summer Begins

May 23, 2015 Artists

Summer Just Got More Fun in NYC as Coney Reinvents Itself Again

You know the scene: Cotton candy, blasting music, bold fonted signs, city beach, sticky fingers, tattoos, carnival barkers, rollercoaster barfing, stolen kisses under the boardwalk, big bellied men with their shirts off, giggling girls in flipflops smelling like coconut sunscreen, garbage on the sand, mermaids, porta potties, stuffed animals, concrete, cigars, hot dogs, butts, boobs, lipstick, screaming, flashing old-timey light bulbs, kids passed out in strollers, boozy Romeos, sketchy snake oil salesmen, aerosol painted walls by New York’s old skool graff writers. That last part is now in effect, actually.

How & Nosm (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Instead of being hunted down for catching a tag or bubble lettered throw up, a couple dozen graffiti/street art painters are invited to hit up Coney Island this summer and since today is the inaugural Saturday of the first unofficial weekend of summer in New York, we’re bringing you the first three freshly completed pieces. Part of “Coney Art Walls”, the muralists began taking the train out to this seaside paved paradise that is re-inventing itself once again, this time courtesy of art curator Jeffrey Deitch.

How & Nosm (photo © Jaime Rojo)

This week while the sun was still struggling to get a handle on Summer, we captured the early crew hitting up the temporary two sided walls outside and inside the compound that will share space with food vendors, picnic tables and a stage for music performances. Some brought family while they worked and a few even took a ride on the Cyclone with Martha Cooper just to scream their heads off. The artist lineup is looking stellar, with golden names predominantly associated with New York’s 70s-80s graff heyday sprinkled with a few of the current street art contenders, but you never know what is popping up next, or who. It’s Coney Island after all.

Here are the first three completed murals with the Tats Cru twins How & Nosm leading the pace, followed by Crash and Daze.

How & Nosm (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The one and only Martha Cooper shooting How & Nosm at work. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

How & Nosm (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Daze (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Crash (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Crash. The inspiration. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Crash. The sketch. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Crash (photo © Jaime Rojo)

This article is also published on The Huffington Post

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Fun Friday 11.16.12

November 16, 2012 Artists

Here’s our greatest hits list for Fun Friday!

1. Lister “Unsung Heroes” (LNDN/New Castle)
2. Abe Lincoln Jr., Robbie Busch “Split Seven” (BK)
3. Portraiture Group Show in Bushwick tonight (BK)
4. Silent Soho Auction For Boardwalks in Coney and Rockaways Saturday
5 Miss Van Going Wild in Rome
6. Cash4 in”Ca$h For” at Tender Trap in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
7. Mexican Collective Sublevarte Colectivo “The Persistence of Dreams” in Gowanus BK
8. L3SUP3RD3MON and ZLY (VIDEO)
9. MadC and The Jurassic Park Wall (VIDEO)
10. OLEK: “Nobody Can Hurt Me Without My Permission” (VIDEO)

Lister “Unsung Heroes” (LNDN/New Castle)

Anthony Lister’s two shows at The Outsiders Gallery titled “Unslung Heroes” are taking place simultaneously at The Outsiders London and New Castle outlets at the same time. “I try to combine the highbrow and lowbrow,” says Lister, “creating analogies which allow the viewer to feel comfortable with subjects that maybe they’ve made snap judgements on before.”

Both shows are now open.

For further information regarding these shows click here.

Abe Lincoln Jr., Robbie Busch “Split Seven” (BK)

Split Seven is a fictitious rock n’ roll experience with both artists producing fabricated albums from invented Punk Rock and Heavy Metal bands. Abe Lincoln Jr. and Robbie Busch show “Split Seven” opens tonight at Mighty Tanaka Gallery in Brooklyn.

For further information regarding this show click here.

Portraiture Group Show in Bushwick tonight (BK)

At the Low Brow Artique Gallery in Bushwick, Brooklyn artists Rachel Hayes, Jilly Ballistic, Vahge, and Vexta explore the discipline of portraiture with their group exhibition “Rewriting Portraiture” opening today. “Typically the subject of paintings throughout art history, Rewriting Portraiture establishes how those who are the object of desire visually depict their realities.”

For further information regarding this show click here.

Silent Soho Auction For Boardwalks in Coney and Rockaways Saturday

“Bring Back The Boardwalks” is a silent auction with 100% of the proceeds going to the reconstruction of the severely damaged communities of Coney Island and The Rockaways. Several Fine and Street Artists have donated works for this benefit including: Curtis LOVE ME, David Ellis, Dennis McNett, Distort, FAILE, Futura, Jeremy Fish, Shie Moreno, Shepard Fairey and SWOON among others. This event takes place Saturday, Trais Gallery in Soho, located at 76 Wooster Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY.

For further information regarding this benefit click here.

Miss Van Going Wild in Rome

“Their faces concealed, these disturbing Venuses are both victims and predators, living their lives according to their instincts and feelings.” Miss Van’s new solo show “Wild at Heart” opens tomorrow at the Dorothy Circus Gallery in Rome, Italy.

For further information regarding this show click here.

Also happening this week:

Cash4 has a new show “Ca$h For” presented by The Superior Bugout at the Tender Trap in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Click here for more details.

The Interference Archive in The Gowanus, Brooklyn is hosting the Mexican Collective Sublevarte Colectivo with a show titled “The Persistence of Dreams”. This show opens today. Click here for more details.

L3SUP3RD3MON and ZLY (VIDEO)

The two artists paint a wall in the neighborhood of Coyoacán in Mexico City. From Alejandro Schlauer.

MadC and The Jurassic Park Wall (VIDEO)

OLEK: “Nobody Can Hurt Me Without My Permission” (VIDEO)

Coney Island’s New Attractions: Ephameron, Veng, Overunder, ND’A and Radical!

June 14, 2011 Artists, Brooklyn, NYC, On the Street

Arts impresario Keith Schweitzer gives famed and storied Coney Island in Brooklyn a boost of carney charm with his newly curated construction wall collection painted by colorful characters Over Under, N’DA, Radical!, Veng, and Ephemeron.

As Coney Island undergoes a slick redevelopment that some worry will zap it’s old world quixotic quirkiness, this motley crew of Street Artists regale the area with a sense of the fantastical unreality that has always permeated this salaciously savory and seedy amusement park.

With thoughts of curvaceous mermaids, scream-inducing rides, fun house mirrors, obnoxious winking barkers, and a hot sweaty kiss behind a tent curtain all swirling through your mind, one can easily appreciate this new free associating imagery that jumps and undulates along oceanic walls.

“Under the Boardwalk” – N’DA makes reference here to lyrics from the song made famous by The Drifters, released in June 1964. Here’s the original for you to listen to as you scroll through the rest of these images from the boardwalk.

Refreshing drinks and reveries of schools of fish swimming through your memories on Surf Avenue. Ephameron. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Fun Friday 05.06.11

May 6, 2011 Artists

SABER at Opera Gallery now and Print Release Saturday

Los Angeles based artist SABER is in New York City for his solo show at Opera Gallery “The American Graffiti Artist”. The gallery is open from 11 to 7pm.

On Saturday from 3 -6 pm Opera is having a print release, seen here below.

Click on the link below to learn more about this show:

http://www.operagallery.com/ny/NY16/saber.html

To see a video of the artist at work in his L.A. Studio click on the link below:

http://saberone.com/blog/2011/04/23/the-american-graffiti-artist-upcoming-solo-show-opera-gallery-nyc/

Leon Reid IV Closing Party at Pandemic Tonight

The folks at Pandemic Gallery really know how to throw a party that is at once welcoming, neighborly, and debauched. Tonight they invite you to the closing party for Leon Reid IV “Identity Theft” A Decade of Public Art.

ELIK at Brooklynite Saturday

After half decade, Elik returns with a big opening in BedStuy tomorrow at Brooklynite Gallery. Always a good show and a good time – special guest music maker the legendary DJ Kool Herc.

According to Rae and Hope at Brooklynite, “ELIK’s been hoarding scrap wood, furniture, metal signage and a hell of a lot of city trash with plans to turn this place into some sort of ‘shanty town’. He’s politely insisted we turn the space over to him and find something else to do until opening night.”

Musical Guest: DJ KOOL HERC
Brooklynite Gallery is located at 334 Malcolm X Blvd., Brooklyn, New York 11233.
Phone 347-405-5976 • BrooklyniteGallery.com

Martha Cooper “Remix” Ends this Weekend

In Culver City, California Carmichael Gallery invites you this Saturday to view the landmark show Martha Cooper “Remix” before it closes. This is the last weekend this show will be on view and if you have not seen it you must go!

Holdup Art Gallery Presents: “Hi-Graff”

“Hi-Graff” is an installation-based street art exhibition that explores the concept of Graffiti as a contemporary art movement. The exhibition, which opens on May 7th 7-11pm, showcases graffiti in its most original form –collaborative murals applied directly to walls.

To learn more about this show click here

Happy Mother’s Day in the Mission District, SF

Artists and humanitarians Jeffrey Waldman and Dave Harmatz came up with a nice little project for Mother’s Day in The Mission neighborhood of San Francisco.

Forever Stamp

“Mission Statement: To send some much deserved love to moms and to be a part of strengthening a relationship. More than that, it was to inspire and motivate people to go out and create works of their own. To showcase how simple and cheap a project can be while still delivering a tangible product amid a fantastic and universal message. Plus we had all these old envelopes to get rid of.”

Click here to continue reading about this project

Overunder,Veng of RWK and Ephemeron in Coney Island

Day 6: FINAL: General Howe’s “Battle of Brooklyn 2010”

August 27, 2010 Artists

This historic week for Brooklyn and the U.S. is being marked daily by New York Street Artist General Howe at the sites where the actual “Battle of Brooklyn” took place exactly 234 years earlier. Brooklyn Street Art is pleased to bring you daily updates on the plundering of boundaries between Street Art, performance art, and historical land-marking along with live social media updates by Kianga Ellis. All week we will travel around Brooklyn tracing the troop movements as General Howe stages small-scale battle scenes to connect us with history and possibly examine the childhood pastime of playing “war”.

“Largest battle of the entire Revolutionary War”

On this same ground, in these neighborhoods and streets that have names that are the same or similar to what they were 234 years ago today, the army of George Washington suffered it’s biggest loss.

Today the installations by Street Artist General Howe came to a booming crescendo as we raced after him across Brooklyn, erecting all manner of art pieces to commemorate the day when the American army was surrounded and nearly decimated. The largest battle fought in North America up to that point, the American Continental army suffered greatly – outnumbered, surrounded, and overpowered by the high-tech professional Brits and Hessians.

On this day, August 27^th, hundreds of soldiers were killed and hundreds more taken prisoner down to the Wallabout Bay (Navy Yard). During the night on the 29th the remaining Patriots escaped across the river by boat to Manhattan while the Brits hunkered down only a few hundred yards away.

© Jaime Rojo

General Howe: Greenwood Cemetery Area. The Battle Of Brooklyn begins here in a watermelon . Below the Cemetery and The Red Line Inn there was a watermellon patch. The Britsh soldiers were hungry and stop to eat. The Patriots saw them and fired on them and the rest of the war unfolded from here (© Jaime Rojo)

General Howe describes August 27th:

The Action:

With an outstanding flanking maneuver begun the previous day, the British outsmart the American defense. Simultaneously, full-blown combat begins near a tavern close to the Greenwood Cemetery. As fighting ensues, many Patriot soldiers flee across the Gowanus Creek to a fortified location in Brooklyn Heights.

The Maryland 400 stay behind to hold off the British while their American comrades escape. A crucial battle takes place at the Vechte house, a farmhouse now known as the Old Stone House located in modern-day Park Slope. Many Patriot soldiers make it to safety thanks to this dedicated unit from Maryland, but some Americans are killed and drowned by the British in the Gowanus Creek. By the end of this day, the largest battle of the entire Revolutionary War will be fought and conclude in a devastating defeat for the Americans. About 300 Patriot soldiers are killed and over 1,000 captured. On the night of August 29, 1776, General George Washington personally leads an astonishing evacuation of the entire American army across the East River to Manhattan.

The Landscape: Greenwood Cemetery, Crown Heights, Prospect Park, Park Slope, Gowanus and Brooklyn Heights

General Howe: Americans retreated across the Gowanus and had to swim since the bridge was set on fire causing many soldiers to perish by drowning (© Jaime Rojo)

At The Old Stone House the “Maryland 400” defended from this position and distracted the British while Patriots fled across the Gowanus for safety. General Howe (© Jaime Rojo)

General Howe:The Corner of Atlantic Ave and Court St. in Brooklyn is a former location of a fort where General George Washington was observing how the Battle of Brooklyn was unfolding (© Jaime Rojo)

This six-day event is shared live with the public complete with historical quotes, the General’s musings, and twitpics by Kianga Ellis on

Twitter (www.twitter.com/kiangaellis) (subject hashtag “#RevWar” if you like)

and Foursquare (www.foursquare.com/user/kiangaellis)

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See our interview with General Howe, “WAR ON APATHY” on The Huffington Post

Link to other days in the Battle of Brooklyn – just click the date.

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