Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! Happy 4th of July Weekend.
The smoke from forest fires revisited our fair dirty city again this week, causing the air to smell like a summer campfire wherever you rode your bike or walked, or scootered. In some neighborhoods, it was a new smell that almost overcame the smell of urine and garbage, so that was a silver lining. Also it served as a trigger for people who have gone camping to buy marshmallows, graham crackers, and chocolate to make s’mores in the kitchen. Or maybe we are just talking about ourselves.
Also, the results of having a right wing leaning Supreme Court came in this week; Rulings striking regarding affirmative action, GLBTQ+ rights, limitations on student loan forgiveness, and domestic abusers and guns – all took serious hits. Welcome to the increasingly conservative US courts, even as annual polls conclude that a majority of US citizens hold more liberal and progressive views every year.
This week we have an assortment of murals, street art, and graffiti for you. Enjoy!
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring: Skewville, Matt Siren, Praxis, Lexi Bella, Eternal Possessions, Didi, BK Ackler, Enivo, Smile Boulder, Mena Ceresa, Jeff Rose King, Eye Know, Girlly, MS Chainker, Green Villian, XIK Art, and BustArt.
You are invited to The Top of The Standard (442 West 13th Street), this Saturday, March 5th, where JoséParlá will be signing his new monograph from 6 PM to 9 PM. This event is open to the public.
Junkerade, a London collective on Flickr, has posted images of a new campaign accusing Red Bulls’ new site that uses Google’s “Street View” technology of hijacking street art culture. With some simple handwritten posters they have begun a visual street backlash to encourage other discontents to mess with the messaging, including the posted piece above.
According to Junkerade, “Red Bull want to use it to flog their products without asking … to make them seem down and edgy. Let ’em know what you think, let them know they have no right to take our culture and try and sell it back to us in the form of a sugary drink”. It’s hard to predict how this will go down, but other Iphone and Android apps introduced over the last couple of years have struggled to populate their databases with relevant, accurate, good quality images and contributors. In a sweeping commercial gesture like this toward what many see as a grassroots movement, it is easy to question the company’s motives. Social media has a way of determining the rendering a decision, and so does the street.
And Now Some Levity with Devo and a Singing Unicorn!
And an ad for gum at the end that has nothing to do with us.
Comrade Luna Park charges through the streets camera in hand with panther-like determination and captures the wild (and wildstyle) on the urban safari. Monday you can get a chance to see her images and listen to her talk about her adventures in photography – or as she tells us,
“I’ll be telling the unlikely story of how a thirtysomething librarian fell into street art and became hopelessly addicted to graffiti along the way.”
“Street art is the fastest visual conductor out there. It compels people to think and question, react and connect, not just to the artist’s work but with the real issues that we battle each and every day. I believe for art to succeed it’s all about the experience and not about the possession. Art in the streets is an immediate communicator. It beats out advertising, text-based social media and even video. In this type of window presentation we are reducing the value of an art object to that of a shared visual experience for the general public and passerby without an admission fee.
The Donnell library was always known as the art library in the city. For the artists to respond to ‘a sense of place’ is like a location shot in a movie; you attempt to transcend that specific space to become something bigger than it originally was.
Street projects such as the upcoming Pantheon installation allow artists to modify, update and change their work to reflect what is happening in the real world. Try putting up a different painting in a gallery or museum exhibition. It’s not going to happen”.
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
