All posts tagged: Contorno Urbano Foundation

BSA Film Friday 05.03.19

May 3, 2019 Artists, BSA Film Friday

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

Now screening :
1. Subvertisers in London 2019
2. Cristina Lina / Contorno Urbano Foundation / 12+1 Project / Barcelona
3. Keith Haring: 4 Minute Mini Documentary.

BSA Special Feature: “Subvertisers in London 2019”

Sorry, nothing to sell here. Not what it’s about.

Few have demonstrated or practiced subvertising/culture jamming with such endurance as the folks profiled in this new mini-doc. The ever more popular street art activist practice of reclaiming public space from commercial interests is built on the premise that a consumer mindset is blind to the necessary fundamentals of civic life, or life. When you hear these nuanced discussions of legal and moral aspects of hi-jacking commercial signage you admit that it sadly reductivist to turn everything, including art, into merely a product for buying and selling.

“I always felt it as an aggression, as a violence. The fact that it is a visual violence does not make it less of a violence, because it imposes a certain idea of reality which I don’t feel is my own. When I realized that we could make something of our own, it gave me an idea of liberation” says a commentator as the video presents a blinking series of billboards, signs, and bus stops all around the city in constant succession.

Advertising itself is not the issue – everyone agrees that it has its place. The issue is when it wants to be in every place, public and private. At all times. More threatening, and more contemporary, is the consolidation of media/news companies, the re-writing of regulations, and the blunt force of capital that now uses these commandeered public spaces to “educate” the populace about policy – a thoroughly different form of “selling”. Do we all see where we are going with this?

Subvertisers in London 2019

Cristina Lina / Contorno Urbano Foundation / 12+1 Project / Barcelona

“This Spanish cat named Tommy looks like he could have belonged to Matisse, due to the overlapping abstract collage method, but British artist Christina Lina says he was her grandmother’s cat – so we guessed wrong,” we said the day we featured this new public mural she did with Contorno Urbano in Barcelona.

Keith Haring: 4 Minute Mini Documentary.

Giving a concise history that nonetheless mispronounces the name of the town the subject was born in, the narration has an affected sage tone that shoots for earnest profundity but settles for deadpan vocal fry. Delivery aside, it’s a quick primer of the career climb and cultural significance of the Street Artist Keith Haring that firmly addresses the significance of his role as an openly gay man and AIDS activist – especially at time when even most graffiti/Street Art peers and would-be fans were still homophobic and AIDS hysteria was at its peak .

Cristina Lina: “Tommy” Cat and the Kids at Ferran Sunyer School

April 13, 2019 Artists

Yes, it is Saturday. It’s also #Caturday if you are a fan of the felines and you want to contribute to or simply scroll through the roughly 7.5 million photos with that hashtag on Instagram.

Cristina Lina. “Tommy”. Contorno Urbano Foundation. 12+1 Project. Barcelona, April 2019. (photo © Clara Anton)

This Spanish cat named Tommy looks like he could have belonged to Matisse, due to the overlapping abstract collage method, but British artist Christina Lina says he was her grandmother’s cat – so we guessed wrong. The artist and educator often creates props, temporary sculpture, and installations for kids and places they frequent, and finds her work easily moves from public to private space and back again.

“My work as artist and my work as educator are not easily or tidily separated,” she says of her work. “Mostly I work within a sort of collapse between the two.”

This mural part of a public art program done in concert with local Ferran Sunyer school (so-named after the mathematician) in a neighborhood of Barcelona and students had the opportunity to create puppets during the final phase of the program.

With special thanks to the 12 + 1 walls program by Contorno Urbano.

BSA Film Friday: 04.12.19

April 12, 2019 Artists, BSA Film Friday

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

Now screening :
1. David Shillinglaw: Alive In The Human Hive
2. Flavita Banana in Barcelona for 12+1 Project
3. JR at the Louvre
4. A NYC Subway Train in Queretaro, Mexico

BSA Special Feature: David Shillinglaw: Alive In The Human Hive

“The artworks I make are an absurd visual taxonomy listed in no particular order the ingredients that we all consume and produce,” explains the British painter and Street Artist David Shillinglaw. Clearly, he’ll have enough to paint until his dying day, as we cannot stop producing.

Another gem here: “We are funky little space monkeys orbiting a ball of hot gas”

David Shillinglaw: Alive In The Human Hive

Flavita Banana in Barcelona for 12+1 Project

“With a nod to La Danse by Henri Matisse and many human tribes’ rites of Spring, artist Falvita Banana creates her new “Juntes sumem” (add together) here on the façade of Cotxeres Borrell in Barcelona,” we wrote a few weeks ago when she first finished her mural. Today we have video of the event. See the original article here: Flavita Banana & Women in a Springtime Dance

JR at the Louvre

This time-lapse movie shows the installation of street artist JR’s paper trompe l’oeil at the Louvre Pyramid in Paris, France.

“On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Louvre Pyramid, JR created a collaborative piece of art on the scale of the Napoleon Court. Three years after having made the Pyramid disappear, the artist brought a new light to the famed monument by realizing a gigantic collage, thanks to the help of 400 volunteers !

Each day hundreds of volunteers came to help cut and paste the 2000 strips of paper, making it the biggest pasting ever done by the artist.”

A NYC Subway Train in Queretaro, Mexico

When local graff writers in Queretaro, Mexico heard that New York’s famous photographer Martha Cooper was going to be in their town for a new exhibition they decided to welcome her in the best way they knew how: A graffiti jam on a train.

BSA Film Friday: 03.29.19

March 29, 2019 Artists, BSA Film Friday

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

Now screening :
1. Ibie vs Pelucas. Battle on the Streets Using VideoGame Metaphor
2. Jorge Rodriguez-Gerarda “Perpetual Flow” in Morocco
3. Nuria Toll. Contorno Urbano Foundation. 12+1 Project. Barcelona
4. MUSA vs Siro Wild West. Dueling Walls at the 12+1 Project, Barcelona

BSA Special Feature: Ibie vs Pelucas. Battle on the Streets Using VideoGame Metaphor

A new one from Contorno Urbano, this video is scored/styled as a digital battle with a Ludonarrative dissonance , these two 3-D gaming masters are the ludic elements of gameplay and pushing the narration of discovery and slaughter by paint.

With each player reaching deeper into his quiver for arrows, bolts, and darts, the resulting paintings are deep and lush – compiled with many actions per minute. This isn’t just player versus environment versus player – this is player versus imagination.

Jorge Rodriguez-Gerarda “Perpetual Flow” in Morocco

“My work uses natural materials and technology. I try to do this in a way so that it has very little impact (environmentally),” says artist Jorge Rodriguez-Gerarda here in Morrocco where he has created a huge land-art installation called “Perpetual Flow.”

See our full write-up on the project at “Jorge Rodríguez- Gerada ‘Perpetual Flow’ In the Moroccan Desert”

Nuria Toll. Contorno Urbano Foundation. 12+1 Project. Barcelona

Barcelonian graphic designer Nuria Toll on a sunny day on the street last month. Read more about this project on Nuria Toll Paints Her “Veïnes” in Barcelona .

MUSA vs Siro Wild West. Dueling Walls at the 12+1 Project, Barcelona

An awesome duel between can-slinging cowboy and cowgirl! Scored to a wild west musical theme, see these two artists on opposite sides of the tunnel painting fire and rattlesnakes and their individual wild styles.

See our original article “Two Writers Walk Into a Tunnel: MUSA71 x Siro in Barcelona”

Anna Repullo Gives Passersby “The Kiss” in Barcelona

March 26, 2019 Artists

Artist Anna Repullo is bringing the excitement of attraction to the street in her new mural, “El Beso” (The Kiss). It’s her sentimental contribution as part of a 3-woman program for walls here in Sant Vicenç dels Horts, curated by Contorno Urbano.

Anna Repullo. *El beso (The kiss)*. Contorno Urbano Foundation. 12+1 Project. Barcelona. March 2019. (photo © Clara Antón)

The figurative painter who loves to hike and explore nature lives in Granada Spain and is comfortable painting on canvas or walls. Her worko often depicts acts of intimacy and refuge between people in romantic or platonic embrace; sometimes even between people and pets.

This particular kiss is well timed for Spring, where many a passion is stirred by the caress of a warm breeze in the sunshine, the sounds of birds arriving with their song, the sight of trees bursting with their fresh blooms everywhere.

“You kissed me! My head drooped low on your breast
With a feeling of shelter and infinite rest,
While the holy emotions my tongue dared not speak,
Flashed up as in flame, from my heart to my cheek;
Your arms held me fast; oh! your arms were so bold —

Heart beat against heart in their passionate fold.
Your glances seemed drawing my soul through my eyes,
As the sun draws the mist form the sea to the skies.
Your lips clung to mine till I prayed in my bliss
They might never unclasp from the rapturous kiss.”

~ from You Kissed Me by Josephine Slocum Hunt

Captivating New Work at 12+1 Project from Elisa Capdevilla

March 25, 2019 Artists

One of three female artists keep these walls on lockdown right now in Sant Vicenç dels Horts, Capdevilla says she’s calling into question our classical comparisons of our own bodies to those ideals of Eurocentric sculptures and painters from centuries ago.

Elisa Capdevila. *Bodies*. Contorno Urbano Foundation. 12+1 Project. Barcelona. March 2019. (photo © Clara Antón)

She says “the plaster bodies are a good analogy for the rigid canons of beauty we’re used to,” and you can see exactly what she is talking about, from many angles.

Organizers of the parent project “Contorno Urbano,” itself a grassroots run collection of public and Street Artists and their admirers, say work like this hits one of their many people-fueled goals. “We keep working every day to normalize women’s participation in Street art projects, because art belongs to all of us.”

Of all body types! Ya heard?

Flavita Banana & Women in a Springtime Dance

March 16, 2019 Artists

With a nod to La Danse by Henri Matisse and many human tribes’ rites of Spring, artist Falvita Banana creates her new “Juntes sumem” (add together) here on the façade of Cotxeres Borrell in Barcelona.

Flavita Banana. “*Juntes sumem”* Contorno Urbano Foundation. 12 + 1 Project. Barcelona, Spain. (photo © Clara Anton)

Her illustrations have been in magazines, books and on public walls, often with the most basic and courageous technique at play; the simple stroke in monochrome. Humor, absurdity, melancholy all are intertwined. Here the expansive commanding of space and convivial craze infers the spirit as well as the movement of these celebrants.

But as with many of her humorous works, she says that this new wall completed Wednesday has a sadness – the clan-like closeness on display is for safety as well as intimate sisterhood.

This is a feminist ring-around-the-rosy says the artist. “At any time and situation, women have to be alert and united. We have to protect and help each other; unfortunately, even when we’re having fun,” she says of the jovial scene. “Above all, we have to remember that we are stronger together.”

Created in conjunction with the public art project Contorno Urbano in Barcelona.

Nuria Toll Paints Her “Veïnes” in Barcelona

February 16, 2019 Artists

Saturday fun today from local Barcelona graphic designer Núria Toll, who’s sort of new to the experience of doing murals and art on the street.

Translating her own history with illustration and typography, Ms. Toll finds that humor is a welcome antidote to the negativity that is produced by our invasions of animals’ natural habitats.

**Núria Toll.** *“Veïnes*”. Contorno Urbano Foundation. 12 + 1 Project. Barcelona. February 2019. (photo © Clara Antón)

Here with “Veïnes” (female neighbors in Catalan), her seagulls are meant to remind us that the natural world was here first, and we should make a home for all of us. The seagulls are rather good at integrating, and Toll here is giving them their due.

Núria Toll paints here for Contorno Urbano, the first foundation in Spain dedicated to street art and graffiti.

Two Writers Walk Into a Tunnel: MUSA71 x Siro in Barcelona

January 29, 2019 Artists

Part of the experience of making art in the street is the interaction with people passing by. Other times it’s about being out with your mates or peers, hitting up walls that are near each other – sharing opinions, jokes, paint. Of course when you are in your own creative zone you also may be able to block out everything; people and sounds and smells. You escape into the paint, the movement, the physicality, the shapes and colors.

MUSA. Contorno Urbano Foundation. 12 + 1 Project. Barcelona. January 2019. (photo © Clara Anton)

This month Musa71 and Siro hit a tunnel together in in Rafael Casanova in Barcelona, each painting their own piece. They say they liked it and today we have pictures from their dual project – which turned into a friendly competition.

Writing graffiti since ’89, Barcelona local Musa71 says she’s a self-taught artist who is passionate about the letterform and exploring a number of styles just to get an appreciation for ways to manipulate them while keeping them legible.

Galicia born Siro studied fine arts over the last four years here in Barcelona and he says that he spends a lot of time painting and tattooing.

“After 10 years of painting, I think I have already turned this habit of painting into my little shelter, into an escape route from all the rest,” he says in a press release. He wouldn’t be the first to admit to developing an addiction to graffiti and mural making – we’ve met many.

It’s good to see how these two artists work have some overlap – at least here in this tunnel in Barcelona.

SIRO. Contorno Urbano Foundation. 12 + 1 Project. Barcelona. January 2019. (photo © Clara Anton)

Sant Vicenç dels Horts is a two-artist intervention courtesy of the Contorno Urbano Project. To learn more please go here:

Anna Taratiel and The Maps Inside of You

January 19, 2019 Artists

Geometric and organic compliment one another here in “Perspectivas y Vacíos” (Perspectives and Gaps) in this new public art by Anna Tartiel in the Centre Cívic Cotxeres Borrell in the center of Barcelona.

Part of the program 12 + 1 by Contorno Urbano, this piece of work is part of a public initiative started four years ago that brings “urban art closer to people, breaking with the stereotypes and prejudices that surround this artistic expression.” In fact this kind of work and initiative occupies a rare space in cities; largely untouched by bureaucratic obstacles and corporate lust for invasion of the civic discourse with commercials – mediated by a thoughtful community-based committee of organizers.

Anna Taratiel. “*Perspectivas y vacío*s” Contorno Urbano Foundation. 12 + 1 Project. Barcelona, January 2019. (photo © Clara Anton)

An artist with a street practice as well as a studio practice, Tartiel brings her fascination with internal maps externally, her aesthetic perspective of her own city with its precise lines and imperfections, evoking a Barcelona “full of geometry and movement,” she says. She has also described her work in the past as a sort of internal cartography, a depiction of the maps that we each carry around inside.

Graffiti and Street Art researcher/educator Javier Abarca wrote of her work two years ago for a show she was exhibiting entitled “Antipodas” and his description of the matters at play in her work and practice is helpful to understand how she got here on this wall as well.

“Taratiel says that once she had gone in for geometric painting she started to miss the warmth of the organic and the random, a concern that is common among artists who move from the street to canvas and which stems from an essential difference between these two work spaces,” he writes. “If canvas is a blank, inert space that the artist has to fill from scratch, the street is a motley scenario full of meanings. In the street the artist is limited to proposing, and it is the city that gives shape to that proposal by the accumulated effect of many factors.”

In this case it is a defined canvas on the street, not a raw neglected wall in a marginal sector of the city. It is a challenge of blending these competing impulses and finding where they overlap, perhaps. This may depend on your perspective.

Ivan Floro “Sacred Waters” for Kumbh Mela in Barcelona

December 1, 2018 Artists

Sacred Waters | पवित्र पानी

The Ganga and Godavari rivers feature the largest gathering of humanity every three years when literally tens of millions of visitors bathe in them peacefully and reverentially, in accordance with Hindu tradition for Kumbh Mela. People join religious discussion, sing, and see some of the most revered holy men and holy women there.

Import it to Barcelona, Spain and this image feels out of context. The sadhu (or saddhu) is a religious monk – a sacred holy man in India. But how did he get here for the month of November?

Artist Ivan Floro says he was considering the Hindu lights festival Diwali and the holy practice of bathing when he was creating his wall for the Centre Cívic Cotxeres Borrell. He calls it “Sacred Waters | पवित्र पानी” and his academic interpretation of his work is an evolution from his graffiti work as kid spraying abandoned factories. Now he studies the old European master painters and those traditions, bringing to fore this powerful piece that may be confusing to some who don’t know about the bathing holy practice thousands of miles from Barcelona.

“I thought about the clash of cultures there is between East and West,” he says, “how they understand life and death. We celebrate some of their rituals, but we could be shocked buy some others”.

This wall was produced with the Contorno Urbano Foundation – 12 + 1 Project.

Bisual’s Trippy Interlude with Drug Culture in Barcelona

October 16, 2018 Artists

BISUAL’s post-human sallow skinned characters are laboratory inventions that contain elements of animal, chemical, organic, electronic, psychedelic – minus the superpowers or sleekness of your typical cyborg. They also like to smoke something now and then while gazing at phones in a cartoon dystopia, a handful of helpers to mellow the menacing low-level paranoia.

The illustrator and painter has a history with graffiti as well, which may explain his ease creating casually comic surrealities on large walls in public space, like this new one in Barcelona.

The mural features leaves of the Acanthus mollis, a common and invasive species of plant, creeping up onto the street, blended with “geometric architectonic elements” he says. The pinkish protagonist may be pausing on his way to an errand at the liquor store, or he may just be waiting for his man, €26 euros in his hand. Certainly those psycheldelio creatures from the organic wild who are slithering with wide eyes slowly up to him are attentive to his actions, perhaps listening to his words. Not that he should be concerned of course.

Bisual’s wall is sponsored by the Contorno Urban0 12 + 1 Project, a community powered initiative to bring artists to walls in Barcelona.

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BSA Special Feature: “Subvertisers in London 2019”

BSA Special Feature: David Shillinglaw: Alive In The Human Hive

BSA Special Feature: Ibie vs Pelucas. Battle on the Streets Using VideoGame Metaphor

Sacred Waters | पवित्र पानी

Ivan Floro. “Sacred Waters”. Contorno Urbano Foundation/12 + 1 Project. Barcelona, Spain. (photo © Clara Antón)

Ivan Floro. “Sacred Waters”. Contorno Urbano Foundation/12 + 1 Project. Barcelona, Spain. (photo © Clara Antón)

Ivan Floro. “Sacred Waters”. Contorno Urbano Foundation/12 + 1 Project. Barcelona, Spain. (photo © Clara Antón)

Bisual. Contorno Urbano Foundation / 12 + 1 Project. Barcelona. Ocotober 2018. (photo © Clara Antón)

Bisual. Contorno Urbano Foundation / 12 + 1 Project. Barcelona. Ocotober 2018. (photo © Clara Antón)

Bisual. Contorno Urbano Foundation / 12 + 1 Project. Barcelona. Ocotober 2018. (photo © Clara Antón)

Bisual. Detail. Contorno Urbano Foundation / 12 + 1 Project. Barcelona. Ocotober 2018. (photo © Clara Antón)

Bisual. Contorno Urbano Foundation / 12 + 1 Project. Barcelona. Ocotober 2018. (photo © Clara Antón)

Images from Bisual’s Instagram (© Jay Bisual)

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