All posts tagged: Contorno Urbano

BSA Images Of The Week: 12.03.17

December 3, 2017 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

While You Were Sleeping is a Korean TV series about a woman who can see the future in her dreams, and a prosecutor who fights to stop these future events from happening. The title also makes us think about the scam of a Tax bill passed while you were sleeping in the middle of the night between Friday and Saturday.

The servants of the rich, these wolves, are facilitating the largest transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class up to their masters for well into the future, and it appears that few are awake to see it. It also pulls health insurance out from underneath 13 million sleeping people. The majority of the country was against this but the servants pushed it through anyway when you weren’t stirring. Good night!

When the US had its largest growing middle class and economic expansion in the 1950s the top tax rate was more than 90%. Did you know that? Reagan lowered it to 39%. This bill lowers the top rate to 20%. Since as a group, hundreds of corporations paid an effective federal income tax rate of just 21.2 percent over a recent eight-year period because they’re working the system, that means many won’t pay any taxes soon, joining GE, Priceline.com, PG&E – who already pay absolutely nothing. Just you will pay the taxes. Congratulations!

Street Art better be dope ya’ll, because that’s where many of us will be living soon – the street.

But we are wide awake for sex scandals, by golly. Powerful men are being accused by past alleged victims from every sector in society right now. We are keeping our fingers crossed that Santa Claus can stay above the fray!

Meanwhile, the tree got lit this week in Rockefeller Center, a lot of people are going to get lit this month at their office holiday party, many NYC art denizens are heading to the Miami Basel Circus this week, and apparently there is supposed to be some Street Art thing happening there too.

Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring BD White, Daek, Elbi Elem, Elisa Capdevila, Faile, Jason Woodside, Jerkface, Kai, Killjoy, Magda Love, Mazatl, Mr. Toll, Ola Kalnins, Praxis, Timothy Goodman, and Sonni.

Our top image : Timothy Goodman (photo © Jaime Rojo)

B.D. White for The L.I.S.A. Project. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mr. Toll. Vanity Project. This piece is visible from the street level in front of Crest Hardware in Williamsburg. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Elisa Capdevila for Contorno Urbano in Sant Feliu de Llobregat. Barcelona. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Elbi Elem for Contorno Urbano in Sant Feliu de Llobregat. Barcelona. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jerkface (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Magda Love and Sonni (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Praxis (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Praxis. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kai (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist in the NYC Subway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ola Kalnins (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jason Woodside (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Faile (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Killjoy collabo with Mazatl in Cholula Puebla for La Linea Street Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Daek (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Lower East Side of Manhattan, NYC. December 02, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Film Friday: 12.01.17

December 1, 2017 Artists

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

Now screening :
1. Rough Cut of Haring on Train in Mexico City (DF)
2. Niels Shoe Meulman in Magic City
3. Carlo McCormick talks about ROA at Magic City
4. Miquel Wert / 12 + 1 Contorno Urbano
5. “Awareness, Optimism, Commitment” by GEC Art

BSA Special Feature: Rough Cut of Haring on Train in Mexico City (DF)

It all took us by surprise last week in Mexico City when suddenly a whole train covered on both sides with Keith Haring’s work approached while we were waiting at the platform to catch the Linea 2 of the Metro. He made his name in part by illegally doing drawings like these in NYC subways and here now they are crushing a whole train. The name of the project is “Ser Humano. Ser Urbano” or “Being Human. Being Urban” and it aims to promote human values and human rights. The pattern you see is from “Sin Titulo (Tokyo Fabric Design)” – now stretched across these whole cars, if you will.

The train itself is inexplicably having brake troubles, so we get some jerky spur-of-the-moment footage but all week on Instagram and Facebook we’ve received tons of comments from people reacting to this little bit of Keith video by Jaime Rojo on BSA.

Niels Shoe Meulman in Magic City – The Art Of The Street :

Niels Shoe Meulman spent some nights in a Munich jail thirty years ago for mucking about on the walls. This year he was paid to do it in Munich for Magic City, the travelling morphing exhibition (now in Stockholm) where Street Art is celebrated along with all its tributaries – including a film program and a number of photographs by your friends here at BSA.

Born, raised and based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Shoe shares here his new improvisational piece and some of his reflections on his process and his evolution from being in advertising as an art/creative director and reclaiming his soul as a graffiti/Street Art/fine artist. As ever, Martha is in the frame, putting him in the frame.

Carlo McCormick talks about ROA at Magic City – The Art Of The Street / Dresden-Munich-Stockholm

The urban naturalist ROA gets the Carlo McCormick treatment here as the chief curator of Magic City does the talking for the anonymous Ghent-based artist who has globe-trotted for almost a decade with his marginalized animal parade in monochrome. Here you get to see the inside/outside of his practice, a genuine master as work – with the delicious insight of Carlo to guide your appreciation.

Miquel Wert / 12 + 1 Contorno Urbano

In studio with Miguel Wert we get to see him sifting through a pile of black and white photos, assessing the scene, the sitters, the psychological-emotional dynamics of families, lovers, haters.

“In most family photos the interpersonal dynamics are more subtle,” we wrote when the wall was first unveiled in Barcelona, “but a close reading of posture, body language, and facial expressions all give unconsciously a lot of information about the true nature of the relationships officially on display.”

See more in “Miquel Wert Brings Awkward Family Dynamics From the Shadows in Barcelona”

“Awareness, Optimism, Commitment” by GEC Art

Young gymnast takes the opportunity to practice and perform for a moment atop this traffic barrier in Torino.

And why not?

BSA Images Of The Week: 11.19.17 : Barcelona Special

November 19, 2017 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Barcelona this week was a tale of many opinions, passionately expressed, even hammered home. Geographically at the epicenter of a fight for/against the secession of Catalonia this fall, the conversations about everything from futbol to Guaudi to tourists can take on great enthusiasm. Although, no one argues about tapas. Tapas are just always good.

The organic Street Art scene in the city that was famous during the early 2000s has been calmed as a result of a crackdown on illegal works, but some still exists in pockets of stencils and stickers and one-off paintings. The legal stuff, or ‘permissioned’ murals, are more likely what you will find in the central city, with a little more illegal stuff as you move away from the center to Sant Feliu de Llobregat or L’Hospitalet de Llobregat,

In general the Barcelona scene feels alive, vibrant, varied; and the quality of execution can be quite high. There is also an elusive feeling of magic and history infused within the integrated street scene and a healthy amount of socio-political critique – a swirling mix of illegal murals, commissioned murals, and controlled chaos in the artist compounds. Our sincere thanks to our hosts on the streets this week, especially Fernando and Esteban.

Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring 1Up, Axe Colours, Escif, Hosh, Kenor1, Kwets1, Mina Hamada, Pantonio, Rice, and Zosen.

Miss Van at La Escocesa from 2012. Barcelona. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Escif at La Escocesa. Barcelona. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Axe Colours. Barcelona. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pantonio at The Hangar. Barcelona. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Rice. Barcelona. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Zosen and Mina Hamada. Hospitalet de Llobregat. Barcelona. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hosh. Contorno Urbano.12 + 1. Hospitalet de Llobregat. Barcelona. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kenor1. Hospitalet de Llobregat. Barcelona. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

1UP Crew. Hospitalet de Llobregat. Barcelona. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bombers. Sant Feliu de Llobregat. Barcelona. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kwets1 . Kaligrafics. Sant Feliu de Llobregat. Barcelona. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kwets1. Hospitalet de Llobregat. Barcelona. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Street Artist and muralist Kwets1 spent three months working on two monumental murals on two tunnel walls right across from each other in the immigrants friendly, working class town of Hospitalet de Llobregat in Barcelona. The obvious theme of the mural is nature, conservation and climate change. The underpass is located right next to a river that attracts a plethora of exotic birds that use as a sanctuary and a rest stop as they migrate south during the winter season. We were actually witness to several large parrots flying from tree to tree while we were there.

The artist says that he took his inspiration directly from the nature story, and the human one of immigration here as well.

The other source was the human immigrant stories in this town. In the late 60’s and 70’s the immigration to the town was from several regions of rural Spain, with agrarian families who left farmlands and came to Barcelona seeking job opportunities in the large manufacturing companies that had established themselves in Barcelona. Many of those original immigrants eventually left the town to retire within Spain or to other European countries – leaving room for a new wave of immigration coming from several parts of Africa and Central and South America.

Presently Hospitalet is a vibrant community of old and new residents, and these murals capture the feeling of colorful, tumultuous, exiting and difficult change.

Kwets1. Hospitalet de Llobregat. Barcelona. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Mine is bigger than yours. Barcelona, Spain. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

And The Winner Is… ESCIF ! (Barcelona Dispatch 2)

November 16, 2017 Artists

This week BSA is in Barcelona to participate in the Contorno Urbano competition to select an artist for a new community mural and residency in the municipality of Sant Feliu de Llobregat – and of course to see the famed Barcelona Street Art scene as it continues to evolve.

Street Artist ESCIF is Chosen as Contorno Urbano Winner.

From 300 to 12 to 1, we have a winner.

The final phase of the judging process was the meeting of the citizens who have a stake in the outcome that far outstrips the considered analysis of experts in the Street Art/ Public Art world. Four veteran members of the Sant Feliu De Llobregat Neighborhood Association generously shared their personal oral history recounting the struggles of this neighborhood that coincided with the passing of Franco in the 1970s.

Theirs is a story of people’s struggle; a coalescing neighborhood’s movement to fight for self determination, democracy, education, health, women’s rights, union rights, human rights, and yes, the right to public space in battles against the dictatorship and powerful private interests. Hearing these people talk was illuminating, educational, and inspiring – as was our visit to the Plaza De La Salut (La Salut Square), itself a result of the neighbors fight for public space against moneyed interests who wanted to build a huge gas station there in 1977.

After reading through close to 300 submissions and asking 12 to submit specific proposals, a thoughtful deliberation and strict voting process took place among an assembled panel of Mónica Campana, Verónica Werckmesiter, Fernando Figueroa, Esteban MarÍn and Jaime Rojo.

The chosen proposal was submitted by Escif, a Spanish artist who lives in Catalonia.

“Any public intervention is political as it modifies the daily life of people in the cities. This modification can be directed in two possible directions: bringing people closer to their reality or away from it,” he says on his website today.

“Even if my work is inevitably within the parameters of spectacle, I try to find a way to bring painting closer to reality. I try to erase (or at least blur) boundaries between life and spectacle, between presentation and representation, between contemplation and experience, between landscape and territory, between the power of institutions and the power of the people.”

More details will follow about his winning submission later, but here’s a loose collection of some examples of Escif’s previous work.

Learn more about Escif at Street Against.

Escif. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Escif. (photo © lluis Olive Bulbena)

Escif. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Escif. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

BREATH – TEMPO DI RICARICIA

BSA en Barcelona: Miss Van, La Escocesa, and Reskate! Dispatch 1

November 15, 2017 Artists

Fresh off the plane from New York at 7 am, BSA hit the streets with the talented Street Art photographer Fer Alcalá and the director of Fundacion Contorno Urbana, Esteban Marin – both amazing and generous hosts.

Miss Van (photo © Jaime Rojo)

We covered a lot of terrain in this pretty, clean and relatively quiet European city (Catalonian referendum marches last month not withstanding) and there is a wide variety of sanctioned and unsanctioned art on the streets even today, years after the city began cracking down on an organic Street Art scene that flourished here in the mid 2000s.

You’ll find a lot of local Street Artists here as well as a few international names who are passing through, or who have settled here and have studios in addition to a street practice.

Yo también ! A very early Escif at La Escocesa. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

For lunch you may want to check out the regional special dishes like Escudella d’Olla , a hearty Catalan stew with poached meats and vegetables, or fideuà, a noodle dish that locals may prefer to paella – made with seafood like cuttlefish, monkfish, prawns all cloaked in alioli, a thick garlic and olive oil sauce.

Afterwards you can check out La Escocesa, a self-managed artistic production center that focuses on the visual arts with the public in mind. The artist spaces, performance spaces, gallery spaces – a real hothouse of invention and an art factory on the site of a former textile factory that reminds you of what artist communities can be like when the right elements are present and in balance.

Escif at the wonderfully raw The Hangar.(photo © Jaime Rojo)

A number of artists have residencies here at the moment, including muralists Mina Hamada and Zosen, who we just saw in Brooklyn at the Vinz Feel Free “Innocence” show while they were in town to paint a huge wall in Jersey City – it is a small world.

Unfortunately in two years La Escocesa will be demolished to make room for affordable housing – it’s owned by the city council which purchased it from the banks.

Reskate (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Also if you come here you’ll want to check out a new mural by Reskate, an artistic collective formed by Maria López and Javier de Riba, who have a workshop and studio in the Sants district of Barcelona.

With an illustrative style full of life, you can see influences from popular culture, graphic design, pop and traditional sign-painting. Our hosts tell us they often paint referencing social themes – and they certainly are loved here. Here’s a shot of our little touring group at one point. See you all tomorrow!

Miquel Wert. A “secret” spot curated by Jiser. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A Brooklyn King in Barcelona. Biggie Smalls by Axe Colours (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Axe Colours goes GOT. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“Costa Rican artist is still a revolutionary act!” Akore (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Rice (photo © Jaime Rojo)

1UP (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sixe Paredes (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Fàbriques de Creació. La Escocesa from Barcelona Cultura on Vimeo.

For more about Jiser: www.jiser.org

For more about The Hangar: www.hangar.org/es

BSA Film Friday: 11.10.17

November 10, 2017 Artists

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

Now screening :
1. OLEK: Keep Going
2. Aïda Gómez: Ladies First
3. A Look at the Worlds First Museum of Urban Contemporary Art
4. MurOne // 12 + 1 Project
5. Obey Giant – The Documentary

BSA Special Feature: OLEK: Keep Going

During the opening weekend of the Urban Nation Museum for Urban Contemporary Art (UN), BSA and the other curators invited 150 artists to exhibit indoors and about 35 to do site specific installations and performances in the 5 block radius of the museum. Polish/Brooklyn Street Artist OLEK created and performed along with a team of assistants a three hour meditative crocheting event under the elevated train line between Bülowstraße and Nollendorfplatz stations.

Entitled “Keep Going,” one can imagine a number of interpretations of what is intended by the artist. Is it to reflect the unstopping, unstoppable traffic of people on the street who saunter blithely by despite your unique and meaningful actions, née, existence? Is it a poetic and literal illustration of the cyclic nature of construction/destruction exhaustion/renewal that are earmarks of the life and death process we are all engaged in? Perhaps it is a commentary on the workers who toil day after night after day in this world, never able to get ahead, never meriting more than a curious look or consideration. Or is it an exhortation to fully live ones’ life regardless of obstacles, fears, or the senseless chaotic behavior of the world around us?

Director/cinematographer Ulle Hadding gently observes the scene, examining the performers’ body language and capturing facial expressions as they quietly perform their work amidst the currents of a human river flowing in around and through them.

Also Martha C. is there among the re-assembling assembled, bless her and bless us.

Aïda Gómez: Ladies First

While doing an artists residency in Iceland recently with ART Attack Neskaupstaður, Aïda Gómez noticed the signs around her. “The plaque shows a man followed by a woman and I asked myself, why is this signal like this? Why the feminine figure is following the masculine figure?” Indeed.

A look in the WORLD’S FIRST MUSEUM OF URBAN CONTEMPORARY ART

Doug at Fifth Wall TV puts himself in the middle of the UN inaugural events and uses his astute powers of observation about its move into contemporary art, with a stop along the way to wonder about gentrification.

MurOne // 12 + 1 Project. Contorno Urbano

The latest from the 12 + 1 Project, the artist MurOne bringing some mechanically inspired eye candy to enjoy.

Obey Giant – The Documentary

Finally it all comes together and we get a balanced insight into the art and dissent of Shepard Fairey.

BSA Film Friday: 10.27.17

October 27, 2017 Artists

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

Now screening :
1. Joe Caslin: “We will let no life be worth less”
2. VERMIBUS – IN ABSENTIA
3. Fernando Leon / 12 + 1 Contorno Urbano
4. Graffolution. By Carl Friedrich

BSA Special Feature: Joe Caslin: “We will let no life be worth less”

Street artist Joe Caslin, known for his large-scale black and white drawings, has released a compelling and emotive short film entitled ‘The Volunteers – We will let no life be worth less’. The film follows his installation of a four story drawing on House Two in Trinity College’s Front Square. The film focuses on drug addiction, mental health, and our collective response to both and showcases the efforts of 20 people in Ireland working toward re-framing the conversation around de-criminalization and rehabilitation.

VERMIBUS – IN ABSENTIA

BSA has brought you Vermibus since he started messing with glamour, testing the limits of passersby ability to ignore his melted models. A protest against the classist beauty brands that insult us in our public space, Vermibus’ posters re-frame the conversation, jolting you into a grotesque brutalism, sometimes ornate, sometimes darkly disturbing. Here his latest solvent-based poster campaign appears on the metro in Paris, neatly framed and waiting to catch you eye. He calls it “In Absentia”.

Fernando Leon / 12 + 1 Contorno Urbano

The latest video from Contorno Urbano with Fernando Leon.

Graffolution. By Carl Friedrich

A post-modern meditation on mark-making. A soul-stirring piano score accompanies this layered montage of graffiti writing and abstract painting. Here there is destruction. And deconstruction. And recollecting of playful errant thoughts and passionate impulses and suite soliloquies, machine gunned and splashed like hot massage oil across the surface like so many erudite dialogues you pined for. Masterful? Maybe. Poignant. Positively. Transcendent! You decide.

Also, it’s an ad for a book duo called Graffolution and Dead and Afterlife of Graffiti, both which we hope to read one day. Until then, this video puts us in a great state of mind.

MurOne “Video Games” for Contorno Urbano 12+1 Project in Barcelona

October 10, 2017 Artists

“I don’t have a job and a stable life, but painting and giving life to places that don’t have any is very gratifying,” says the graffiti/Street Artist about his wall completed for in September for the 12 + 1 project in Barcelona. He is not joking when he says he travels a lot to pursue his public painting work – he’s been to Taipai, Tokyo, Istanbul and Tenerife since this wall called “Video Games.”

MurOne. Video Games. Contorno Urbano “12 x 1” 2017. Barcelona. (photo © Clara Antón)

“Travelling and discovering different cultures is a gift, I feel lucky to make my living with what I love,” he says. The illustrator and graphic designer takes his brightly abstract compositions that call to mind 1990’s video games to festivals around the world and has done commercial illustration work for corporate names like Procter & Gamble and Vodafone.

MurOne says his peers in the current mural scene are continuously inspiring him and says his “acid mix of pop and design elements” are also influenced by more established and known painters like Dalí, Mati Klarwein, Lichtenstein, Mc Escher, and Moebious.

MurOne. Video Games. Contorno Urbano “12 x 1” 2017. Barcelona. (photo © Clara Antón)

BSA Film Friday: 09.01.17

September 1, 2017 Artists

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

Now screening :
1. From Pakistan: The Writing on the Wall
2. “Wrong Weight” Sculpture by Górnicki and Chazme in Łódź
3. CUMA PROJECT: Walking with the Lenca. Stinkfish, Mazatl and Kill Joy
4. ONCE in Barcelona for 12 + 1 Project

BSA Special Feature: From Pakistan: The Writing on the Wall

Deconstructing the psyche of Karachi, through the graffiti on its walls…

The capital of the Pakistani province of Sindh, Karachi is the site of an active ongoing political and social Street Art/graffiti scene. Not typically popping up in conversations of Street Art in so-called western countries of Europe and the US, this scene has a character that you would not necessarily recognize, until you completely recognize it.

Here the battle is for your attention, usually reserved exclusively for political parties and, of course, advertising messages that give a particularly bent view of the world. This documentary looks at the ways artists are using public space and interviews them about their practice, and we find that the same approach to engaging the passerby exists here as well:

“I feel like if you are going to critique power or power structures it is kind of pointless to do it in the gallery… there is something about situating your art in a place that gives it greater meaning, a wider audience, more interactivity while making it .”

“I also wanted to see how a woman’s body would react in a space that is generally more dominated by the male.”

“The works present the state of a nation that is aware of it’s problem but not the solution.”

“Looking at advertisements, one finds interesting stories emerging from the layers of these overlapping messages.”

“Wrong Weight” Sculpture by Górnicki and Chazme in Łódź

You may have seen our posting on this a short time ago : Times of Tumult Personified in Sculpture by Tomasz Górnicki and Chazme

“Wrong weight”, by sculptors Tomasz Górnicki and Chazme is the sixth in a series of public works around Łódź organized by UNIQA Art Łódź project with Łódź Events Centre. A surprisingly 3-dimensional outgrowth of a successful multi-wall mural program that has brought much attention to the city, you may say that somehow these sculptures contain within them the seeds of Street Art and its discontents.

Title: “wrong weight”
Artists: Tomasz Górnicki | Chazme
Address: Station Boat Station (from al. Family Poznań)
Project: Uniqa art boat
Curator: Michał Bieżyński
Organizer: Łódzkie Centrum Wydarzeń

CUMA PROJECT: Walking with the Lenca. Stinkfish, Mazatl and Kill Joy

CUMA Project is an independent Street Art project whose aim is to support popular and indigenous organizations/cultures of Latin America. “In April and May 2016, the street artists Stinkfish, Mazatl and Kill Joy visited the Lenca indigenous communities in the departments of Intibucà and San Francisco Lempira in Honduras”

Once for 12 + 1 / Contorno Urbano in Barcelona

“ONCE” Deconstructs and Reconstructs His Tag for 12 + 1 Project In Barcelona was how we described this project in June.

“Influenced by Bauhaus and Russian propaganda posters during the revolution, Catalonia born ONCE says he doesn’t really think that he is using abstract methods of manipulating his text into something unrecognizable. “Although for the general public,” he says, “these are only geometric shapes and they are more likely to think that I am painting with abstraction.” His control of aspects of fine art lettercraft reflects some of that heralded industrial society that was lauded a hundred years ago and it is somehow quite modern as well.”

BSA Film Friday: 08.25.17

August 25, 2017 Artists

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

Now screening :
1. Fin DAC and ‘Shukumei’ on a Rooftop in San Francisco
2. Nevercrew in Satka
3. Dabs & Myla in L.A.
4. Miedo in Barcelona for 12 + 1 Project

BSA Special Feature: Fin DAC on a Rooftop in San Francisco

On an expansive rooftop in rainy/sunny/rainy San Francisco, Street Artist Fin Dac brings to life ‘Shukumei’, an ebullient and mysterious muse. The film is largely a stop motion record of the work set to music, but did you notice how much dexterity and effort goes into this precision play when you are working at this angle, basically painting the floor? The remarkable integration of the glowing skylight orb, dramatically revealed, imparts the figure a mystical dimension as well.

Video editing by Tonic Media, Soundtrack by Mombassa/Lovechild, and shout out to Ian and Danielle at Rocha Art and Missy Marisa, model.

Nevercrew Papers Over a Bear in Satka

As we wrote in June “Never Crew is in the Ural Mountains in Satka, Russia with a message about man’s disconnection with nature. Their murals often contain one large animal, and this time a bear takes center stage – rather papered over by industrial “progress,” perhaps?”

Dabs & Myla in L.A.

Spreading their brand of cosmic love in Los Angeles the Australian born duo Dabs and Myla a interspersed here painting amongst some retro footage of this city famous for its plasticity. Video by Zane Meyer from Chop ’em Down Films.

Miedo 12 Paints “Nothingness More Than Infinite” in Barcelona

The well known Valencia-based graffiti writer Miedo 12 paints with the 12 + 1 Project here with a touch of aerosol existentialism – something that may happen to you as years tumble by. For this wildstyle master the action and fire is captured adeptly by videographer David B Rock.

Fernando Leon Creates “Greediness” for “12 + 1 Project” in Barcelona

August 12, 2017 Artists

Fresh out of the St. Joost Academy since last summer, the Bogota-born, Netherlands-based illustrator Fernando Leon just spent the first week of August creating this new mural called “Greediness”.

He’s been getting more of these mural-based opportunities lately, even though he began as a teen doing graffiti and confesses that he hates rules. A fan of day long drawing sessions and traveling, Leon found this project with the 12 + 1 Project outside of Barcelona to be rewarding because he is continuing to expand his vocabulary of characters and styles outside of the letter-forms he did as a teenager – and he wants to do a lot more.

Based on the successes of his commercial projects like beer bottle labels and skateboard designs, the non-stop illustrator and muralist definitely has more walls in his future.

For more on Contorno Urbano and the 12 x 1 Project please click HERE.

For more on Fernando Leon please visit

Instagram: @_fernandoleon
Facebook: www.facebook.com/fernandoleonillustration
Website: www.fernandoleon.nl

BSA Film Friday: 07.14.17

July 14, 2017 Artists

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

Now screening :
1. Various & Gould: City Skins – Marx und Engels.
2. The Brutalism Appreciation Society/Gesellschaft zur Wertschätzung des Brutalismus
3. ESPO at Bien Urbain 2017
4. Faith47 in Johannesburg
5. Creative collaborators AXE in Barcelona for 12 + 1

BSA Special Feature: Various & Gould: City Skins – Marx und Engels.

Conceptual Street Artists often perform interventions without explanation, satisfied with their own observations of the outcome. For Berlians Various & Gould the process has more often included the participation of the public – a way for more to take ownership and inspire dialogue. Sometimes many dialogues.

You may have seen our piece on their most recent public project called “City Skins”: Marx and Engels Statues Re-Skinned & Re-Located : Various & Gould. Here is a mini-documentary that shows you the artists, the process, and the thinking behind the process.

The Brutalism Appreciation Society/Gesellschaft zur Wertschätzung des Brutalismus

“21 artists whose works all deal with the post-war architectural style of Brutalism,” says Dr. Inke Arns, curator and director for “The Brutalism Appreciation Society” in the HMKV (Hartware MedienKunstVerein) in Dortmund U. Metal, stone, brick, exposed concrete – all a heavy shell against the rigorous torment of the world. Now steel and glass is slowly pushing out the blunt force of this mountainous movement, so it is a relief to see that architecture historians and, hopefully, city planners, are rallying to preserve these monuments.

2 Notes: Graffiti has had a meaningful dialogue with this evolution. Also, make sure you hang out till the end of this video for full effect.

Bien Urbain 2017 – ESPO

Stephen Powers aka ESPO participated in the 7th Bien Urbain festival in Besançon this spring and brought his wordplay and affinity for the language of advertising signage to a wall there.

Faith47 in Johannesburg

The inimitable Faith47 powerhouse has been creating some massive murals of late and while they capture the natural world epically, these pieces also manage to feel personal, intimate.

Creative collaborators AXE in Barcelona for 12 + 1

Friends since childhood and painting graffiti and murals together since 1999 in Barcelona, Adrià (Smaug) and Oriol (Gúma) together call themselves AXE Colours. Read more from our earlier posting ; AXE Colours – Two Graffiti Friends, Now Creative Partners

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Books In The MCL: Tokyo Tattoo 1970. Martha Cooper
November 28, 2024
Book review by Steven P. Harrington & Jaime Rojo/Brooklyn Street Art. Martha Cooper Library Martha Cooper. Tokyo Tattoo 1970. 2012. …Read More »
Books In The MCL: The Self-Titled “NeSpoon”
November 26, 2024
Book Review by Steven P. Harrington & Jaime Rojo / Brooklyn Street Art for the Martha Cooper Library at Urban …Read More »
BSA Images Of The Week: 11.24.24
November 24, 2024
Aunt Marge is on the phone to see if your mom can locate the recipe for the cranberry relish dish …Read More »
“Above Ground” : How Martin Wong Preserved the Underground Soul of Graffiti
November 21, 2024
Museum of the City of New York PresentsAbove Ground: Art from the Martin Wong Graffiti Collection In the heart of …Read More »
ELFO: Don’t Use This Wall!
November 19, 2024
Elfo is a graffiti writer and social commentator whose work intentionally sidesteps traditional notions of style or technical lettering. This …Read More »