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

Now screening :

1. ROME in the Street and the Gallery by Dioniso Punk
2. Hendrik Beikirch (ECB): East Harbor in the Netherlands
3. Michael Beerens – “Master”
4. “Art As A Weapon” Trailer

BSA Special Feature: ROME in the Street and the Gallery by Dioniso Punk

The punk rock connection to graffiti is as strong as any subculture’s – or of any people who feel marginalized in effect or practice by the dominant culture preventing their voice. The narrative that graffiti belongs exclusively to Hip Hop has been posited and disproved over time; as Jesus said, “Graffitti belongs to everyone.” *

Modern French academics and intellectuals have celebrated graffiti and Street Art by way of political protest at least since the late 1960s and early 70s, first with the Situationists and later with the aesthetics and artistry of people like Ernest Pignon-Ernest and Gérard Zlotykamien.

In “Street & Gallery” we see that the need for expression, illegal and otherwise, is as urgent as ever in the Street Art scene in Rome today and for many it is a means to express opinions and philosophies that they hope will in turn push greater society forward in some way. For others it is simply to fight the stagnation.

Billed as an “unofficial video” by Dioniso Punk, the short documentary takes you into the kitchen and studio and gallery and street as a variety of artists, academics, vegetable vendors and philosophers narrate the pragmatic and the existential. Call it activism, call it a yearning for freedom, call it being generally pissed off at institutional inertia – the spirit of graffiti and it’s multiple urban art corollaries will not die. Either will arena rock and roll, despite early punk’s best wishes.

Interesting to note that the globalization of capital has not globalized all banks accounts and has thrust the xenophobia of the Italian middle class into a harsh light here, as it has elsewhere in so-called developed countries. Here we see a modern Italy struggling with ideological self-beliefs about justice and equality and wondering how they apply to a new immigrant class who has no interest in their cogitations. Moving from the educated class studio environment, the trained artist suddenly finds a social/political role, and for the first time perhaps contemplates it. Meanwhile, many in the street have never seen the inside of a studio and have a slightly different take on the state of things. Let the conversation continue.

Hendrik Beikirch: East Harbor in the Netherlands

Hendrik Beikirch traveled to Heerlen in the Netherlands to paint a new mural over three and a half days. Organized by Heerlen Murals, the wizened, troubled subject adds to the series of images ECB has been creating across many walls in the last handful of years.

Michael Beerens – “Master”

 Last summer the Frenchman Beerens took a trip out into the mountains and created a piece on a a small abandoned building. Ah, summer, come thou near…

“Art As A Weapon” Trailer

From Breadtruck Films, the new documentary focuses on a school in Myanmar (Burma) that teaches street art as a form of non-violent struggle. Street Artists Shepard Fairey and JR figure into the story, as does the military, art as a weapon, and art as a tool for revolution.

* Quote from Jesus Cordero, aerosol sales associate at Near Miss Hardware store in Bushwick, Brooklyn.