All posts tagged: Ernest Zacharevic

NUART 2015 Roundup : A Laboratory on the Street

September 12, 2015 Artists

A roundup today for the Nuart street art/ mural festival in Norway with images of the final walls by this years artists. Now celebrating its 15th year, the mid-sized fjord-facing city of Stavanger has played host to a selection of international and local artists directly or indirectly related to the evolving scene we know as Street Art.

Ella & Pitr. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Again this year the selection of invited participants is varied, potent, and occasionally a smack upside the head – with punk rock graphic designer Jamie Reid leading the way in spirit and on walls. Reid’s inspiration dates to the radical hippie politics and Situationist practices of the 1950s and 60s but he is best known for formation of the Sex Pistols anti-monarchial slash and burn visual identity and for penning their pivotal recording “Anarchy in the UK” – a history discussed in Carlo McCormick’s presentation during the Nuart Plus program.

In tandem with his paste-ups around town and installation at the formal gallery show was the lesser-known street photography of very-well-known graffiti photographer and ethnographer Martha Cooper, who displayed a selection of five decades of children playing on the streets with improvised toys and games – via an automated slide show – as well as an additional one she narrated during our panel on this year’s theme “Play” at Nuart Plus.

Ella & Pitr. Detail. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

While neither Reid nor Cooper are thought of as Street Artists per se, their choice as participants gave grounding to the proceedings and is emblematic of director Martyn Reed’s holistic approach to an eclectic programming that mixes up the tributaries and the river in such a way that observers may better have tools to measure the creative flow that we are all witnessing on city walls across the globe today.

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.

Ella & Pitr. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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.

Others may say that the headliners of this year’s Nuart were the French couple Ella & Pitr, whose record-setting 21,000 square meter mural of a young woman in running shorts lying in a semi-fetal position could only be viewed by helicopter across the roofs of a large construction company complex.

Ella & Pitr. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

You could say that Stavanger streets were commanded with greater effect by the simple addition of Spain’s Isaac Cordal and his handmade concrete (or resin) bald businessmen, fifty or so of which he glued into crevices and upon ledges and structural fissures on buildings throughout town. Their sad existential conundrums are ours, even though we are guilting them with all the corrupt actions we are at least a little complicit in.

Arguably the greatest metamorphosis took place with the collection and assembly of local detritus – broken car pieces, old bicycles, tires, even ship buoys. Before you roll your eyes and think of homey craft-inspired planters on front lawns, the likenesses of animals that Bordalo II can evoke with his sculptures is uncanny and a little spooky.

His “stag” deer is meant as a commentary on the loss of natural habitat of the animals at the hands of what we call “development”. The companion piece of a whale overwhelmed by environmental poisoning in the Tou Scene gallery installation proves equally compelling and tragic.

Ella & Pitr. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Harmen de Hoop invited a top economist to perform his installation purely with chalk and a 30-minute lecture on the streets of Stavanger on the subject of option pricing, Dolk bravely experimented with a new abstractionist, reductivist approach that ran counter to the style he is known for, and brothers Icy & Sot were the most currently topical with their portrait of a girl whose distorted visage is that of a refugee boat crammed with people. If Nuart at times feels like a laboratory it may be the perfect analogy for the street experience in cities everywhere.

Have a look at many of the finished walls at Nuart this year. See our essay marking their 15th anniversary HERE.

Ella & Pitr. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Isaac Cordal. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dotdotdot. Portrait of Sex Pistol’s Johnnie Rotten/John Lydon. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Martin Whatson. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Martin Whatson. Detail. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Martin Whatson. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Martin Whatson. Detail. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pejac did a reinterpretation of “The Scream” by the Norwegian expressionist Edvard Munch, using a toy truck tire on a paint roller. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Futura. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. See his indoor installation video here. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Futura. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sandra Chevrier. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nafir. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The Outings Project. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ernest Zacharevic. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dolk. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Icy & Sot. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Icy & Sot. Detail. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Icy & Sot. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bortusk Leer. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bordalo II. The artist preps the wall in the background. Trash collected from near by empty lots sits in the foreground to serve as the raw material for his work. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The completed wall by Bordalo II. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Harmen de Hoop. CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Harmen De Hoop “Permanent Education” from NUART

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This article is also published on The Huffington Post

BSA Images Of The Week: 09.06.15 NUART 2015 SPECIAL

September 6, 2015 Artists

After Stavanger Mayor Christine Sagen Helgø made the official declaration of the opening of the Nuart gallery show at Tou Scene last night the sliding barn door on the ex beer factory moved back to allow the crowd to flow in like a river to see this years collection of art installations in the “tunnels” of the space. This component of the Nuart experience allows a certain degree of curation and idea development that brings you a fuller appreciation of the artists who create murals on the street as well.

Top image above >>> Bordalo II (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pixel Pancho with Bordalo II in the background. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Additionally, and we are telling you nothing secret here, the adhoc crew of technicians and scene creators here are rough and ready; obviously over qualified and with a fair degree of refinement when it comes to helping the artist realize some of their grander aspirations. Artists are encouraged to think big and a number of them have this year, including some who are so capacious they nearly collide or eclipse one another, but visitors this year may feel like the quality and depth of this editions 5-week show just advanced by a length.

Ella & Pitr with Isaac Cordal. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

This week’s interview with the street is not actually on the street – but rather a reflection of the direction that the street can take a curated collection of current artists and corollary influencers from years past.

Clearly you can go as deeply or shallowly as you want with this years theme of “Play”. Harmen de Hoop’s video of Thursday’s performance piece on Stavanger’s streets by a renowned mathematics and statistics professor Jan Ubøe, who mystifies the assembled audience while explaining the factors that form our world economy is rather utterly balanced on a jerking seesaw with Bortusk Leer’s incessantly cheery monster diorama.

Ella & Pitr with Isaac Cordal. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

50 years of selected photographs by ethnographer Martha Cooper of children in cities around the world at play with improvised tools and methods are almost matched in impact by Ernest Zacharevic’s slowly tumultous sea waters tossing a child’s paper boat with a handful of kids inside, evoking the current news with immigrants escaping to Europe in dangerous waters. Isaac Cordal’s installation of achingly desperate white-collar men in a desperate diorama is uplifted by Ella & Pitr’s fairy tale giant reaching from the heavens to pick one from a chair.

Sandra Chevrier brings a signature masking of a woman’s visual and olefactory senses, quite alone in the bright spotlight. The iconic ripped shreds and piled irony of Jamie Reid brings the radicalized hippie and punk politics into front and center while Pixel Pancho and Bordalo II each take swipes at the oil economy that dominates our lives while killing others.

Isaac Cordal. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bordalo alone could command the entire space with his found/reclaimed Stavanger refuse that is fashioned into a immensely tragic scene of a spent whale submerged in muck and spouting that black gooey pulp from it’s blow-hole. Icy & Sot next door use their understated humor and biting criticism with a summer tree in a verdant hue captured as soliloquey, first appearing leafy and fluttering from a fan-stirred breeze, then revealed as suffocated by 300 petroleum-based green plastic shopping bags that are caught in its branches.

Finally the painterly abstractions of Futura across half a tunnel are set free, poignantly balancing the symbolic liberty of Martin Whatson’s graffitied butterfly, now cravenly pierced and readied for your private collection.

Isaac Cordal. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

While you can practically smell the brands hovering over quality events like these to hopefully insinuate themselves into – Nuart continues to keep its independence of curation, broadening its branches with the Tou Scene installations and deepening its roots with academic forums and related programming in such a way that its true nature remains. Hopefully it will be to continue this way despite a tightening Norwegian economy.

Yes there was some talk at panels this week about the fact that a 15 year old Street Art mural festival is in itself an institution and anathema to what the graffiti/street/urban art practice may have originated from, but one of the myriad outcomes of pounding away with purpose at thoughtful parallel programming like this Tou Scene show year after year is that you may also develop something uniquely relevant in its own right.

Here’s our weekly interview with the street – this week via the exhibition space of Nuart 2015 and featuring Bordalo II, Bortusk Leer, Dolk, Dot Dot Dot, Ella & Pitr, Ernest Zacharevic, Furtura, Harmen de Hoop, Icy & Sot, Isaac Cordal, Jamie Reed, Martha Cooper, Outings Project, Pixel Pancho, and Sandra Chevrier.

Icy & Sot (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Martin Whatson (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sandra Chevrier with Martin Whatson. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Martha Cooper (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Futura (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ernest Zacharevic (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The Outings Project (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jamie Reid (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Harmen De Hoop (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bortusk Leer with DotDotDot in the background. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dolk (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nuart Day 5: Flying High in the Norwegian Sky

September 5, 2015 Artists

Live from Nuart as it’s happening folks, and the festival is proving to be a rather impressive small beast at this point – one with multiple heads and legs and hands waving paint brushes, aerosol cans, saws, drills, stencils, spot lights, fans, ship buoys, shovels, ladders, helicopter blades….. What?

Friday began with an helicopter ride to take the full scope of the giant Ella & Pitr roof top mural. Here we see Martyn saying good bye to all of us earthlings. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Yes, Martyn Reed gave a healthy scare to a number of guests by inviting them to view the massive Ella & Pitr piece from a helicopter hovering about on Friday in conjunction with a formal dedication ceremony. It’s the only way to truly see it, darling, and that is not simply a clever manner of expression – it is a literal one.

Ella & Pitr. Detail of their roof top mural. More to come. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ground-based mortals may also see these painted red nails on giant hand inside the public art exhibition planned for Saturday night as the French couple have coupled their installation with the radically smaller scaled sculptures of Isaac Cordel, whose balding concrete curmudgeons lurk and mope and sink into the soil around the perimeter.

All three artists were in the audience at BSA Film Friday LIVE at the cinema downtown, which made us feel relieved because their videos were also featured in our show about PLAY. Thanks to everyone who came, including those sitting in the aisles and on the steps: think we need a bigger theater next time!

Detail of Isaac Cordal and Ella & Pitr collaboration in the Tou Scene tunnels. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Elsewhere the Outings Project liberated a number of museum pieces on walls here and there around the neighborhood, their unsung regal figures set loose yet rigidly posed on concrete blocks in empty lots. Some malformed and miscreant monsters have also popped up, seemingly over night, on pieces of printed news. They look rather similar to the installation of Bortusk Leer in the beer halls of Tou Scene, but not much like the realistic children on cut-out wood in Ernest Zacharevic’s installation nor Pixel Pancho’s three dimensional robot – a symbol used in many of his large scale murals appearing in cities around the world.

Stay tuned for more images, as we are a bit buried under a wealth of them right now but feel compelled to run outside and gather more while the sun is shining and the paint is still wet.

Tor channels Banksy with Ella & Pitr collaboration.(photo © Jaime Rojo)

The Outings Project brings the masters outside onto the walls and Bortusk Leer’s monsters take an art history lesson. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sandra Chevrier at work inside the Tou Scene tunnels at work on her collaboration with Martin Whatson. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bordalo II at work inside the Tou Scene tunnels. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Futura at work on a new outside wall project. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bortusk Leer. Detail of his installation inside the Tou Scene tunnels. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ernest Zacharevic work in progress inside the Tou Scene tunnels. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pixel Pancho work in progress inside the Tou Scene tunnels. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The tractor moving in on the chopper with Martyn on board . (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nuart Day 3 : Picking Up Pace and Sandra Chevrier’s Dramatic Eyes

September 3, 2015 Artists

A fever pitch is possibly overstating the tempo but not by much as Day 3 at Nuart continued to be wet and gray and at times a little windy (not typically good for stencil work by the way). A couple of people have gotten a cold – possibly due to painting in the rain for hours on end, possible due to drinking back at the hotel late into the evening, one cannot be quick to surmise. Regardless, the artists are full of industry and the results are appearing right here before your dramatic and alluring eyes.

Sandra Chevrier. Work in progress. Detail. Aftenblad Wall. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Icy and Sot moved to smaller figurative works in site-specific locations while arriving artists like Pixel Pancho and Martha Cooper began their prospective projects, his ivy covered mural awaiting a robot of some sort and hers a projection of her child’s play photography from the streets that will be on display at the Tou Scene opening. We’re eager to see what museum quality works will be appearing suddenly on Stavanger walls from Julien de Casabianca of the Outings Project, who’s just arrived with a number of figures who are itching to get outside.

Sandra Chevrier. Work in progress. Detail. Aftenbladet Wall. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sandra Chevier and her assistant labored with brushes for about 10 hours to complete her new Aftenblad wall despite winds from off the bay – just in time for Thursday’s dedication by the local newspaper, Stavanger’s largest. Bortusk Leer gradually filled his tunnel installation with sculptural and flat childlike/cheerful renderings of people and monsters and Ernest is projecting kids on the walls to begin his similarly juvenile-themed play scene.

Sandra Chevrier. Work in progress. Detail. Aftenblad Wall. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Futura completed his very large installation and allowed us to shoot some live video of it in process – which we’ll gladly post tomorrow on Film Friday – speaking of which we’re pretty excited about our program tomorrow BSA Film Friday LIVE at the cinema downtown as part of the Nuart PLUS programming where we’ll show video pieces related to this years theme of “Play” under categories of Exploring, Experimenting, and Inventing.

Martin Whatson has been creating a new winged creature and Bodalo II is bringing a horned one to life as the garbage has begun climbing the back walls of the former beer factory and assembling itself into a deer head.

Peering through the garbage bag tree “leaves” is Icy as he attaches the last pieces of green foliage and Isaac Cordal tells us he attached seven new little men on balconies throughout the neighborhood, including a couple on a nearby gas station/carpark overhang – evoking the oil businessmen who are briskly walking through streets here even as the shrinking economy adjusts to lower world oil prices.

Sandra Chevrier… Meanwhile at Tou Scene… Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Thursday starts to really pick up the pace with Nuart Plus programming kicked off by Carlo McCormick, Evan Pricco (Juxtapoz), Harmen de Koop, and Bortusk Leer squaring off for a lively debate (“Should Art Have a Deeper Meaning?”) starting at beer-o’clock sharp (21:30) at a local pub – just after Harmen’s performance/mural “Permanent Education” on the street with Jan Uboe, a Mathematics and Statistics Professor from the Norwegian School of Economics.

After we tally up the numbers we’ll give you a full account.

Nafir. Work in progress. Detail. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Martin Watson. Work in progress. Tou Scene. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pixel Pancho. Work in progress. Tou Scene. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bordalo II. Work in progress. Tou Scene. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bortusk Leer. Work in progress. Tou Scene. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ernest Zacharevic. Work in progress. Tou Scene. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ernest Zacharevic. Work in progress. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ernest Zacharevic has created a work on the wall that mimics a nearby statue “Johanne og Broremann” (Johanne and her little brother) made by Svein Magnus Håvarstein in 1993. Work in progress. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Icy & Sot. Work in progress. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The light appears as the sun peering through the tree at Icy while he works on the installation he is doing with Sot. Tou Scene. Nuart 2015. Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A local Stavanger resident watches the action from a secured vantage point. Untitled. Stavanger, Norway. August 2015. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Images Of The Week: 08.30.15

August 30, 2015 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Dude, Dudette, this is the moment to make the most of Summer before it in subsumed into crazy New York fall. There is so much art on the streets you may not even want to go inside. Actually, if you haven’t seen the China: Through the Looking Glass at the Metropolitan Museum, you have to go – it could blow your mind with all the video and costume and power and history and modern western interpretations of it, sho nuff.

If you wonder what we’ve been up to and what on the near horizon- check out yesterdays posting “Round Up! BSA at NUART, Borås, Coney, BKM, and ON Brooklyn Streets”

Right now Street Artists are beginning to take into account a large pimple on the butt of the US, Mr. Donald Trump. Of course the streets always render opinions in such clever and pointed ways – helping us to cope with a corporate media infotainment machine that can’t help but chase a fire and pour gasoline on it for ratings. Actually NemO’s new mural of a man caught inside a TV-as-guillotine is also apropo.

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Adam Cost, Aiko, Clint Mario, DRE, Ernest Zacharevic, Foxx Faces, Hanksy, Hunt, Indie184, Ivanorama, LUDO, Mr. Toll, NemO’s, Overunder, Phlegm, Raphail, She Wolf, Sure We Can, Thiago Goms, and Zed1.

Top image above >>> Ernest Zacharevic sidebusts COST. Overunder looms close by. Please help ID the tags. You may recognize the scene depicted from a very familiar promotional image for Nuart 2015. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

NEMO’S “Stocks – Pillory” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hanksy. Clint Mario doesn’t seem to mind the stench from the sack of shit on the street. Not the same with the pedestrian going by. He is covering his nose. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hunt (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ivanorama (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Thiago Goms in Barcelona, Spain. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

LUDO for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

DRE – The Secret Society of Super Villain Artists (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Raphail (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Stikki Peaches and a pinch of Dain for taste. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mr. Toll (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Indie184 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sure We Can (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Foxx Faces (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Aiko for The Bushwick Collective (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Phlegm (photo © Jaime Rojo)

She Wolf (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Zed1 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Times Square. Manhattan, NY. August 2015. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“Urban Xchange: Crossing Over” A New Festival in Penang, Malaysia

December 11, 2014 Artists

Urban Exchange: Crossing Over 2014 is a brand new street art festival in George Town, Penang in Malaysia. In November they hosted 16 artists to paint walls throughout this city of two and a half million on the Strait of Malacca.

It is not a city that has hosted Street Art traditionally and one that frowns strongly on graffiti, but ever since Lithuanian Street Artist Ernest Zacharevic did some very successful installations here in 2012 which drew crowds and cameras, the citizenry and elected officials have become very hospitable to the idea — and have even enacted a formalized process for approving public art.

Skolo brings tradition, sport, and modern communications together in this brand new mural for Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Today we travel to Penang to see the brand new pieces for this first-year show, co-curated by Gabija Grusaite and Eeyan Chuah, who run Hin Bus Depot Art Centre, a creative space in the ruins of a bus depot that hosted a corollary gallery show. Alongside Berlin based Urban Nation’s director and curator, Yasha Young, the two invited a mixture of local and international artists to complete murals and to host some community workshops.

“There’s never a dull moment at Urban Nation’s exchange program,” says Young, “after a year in the planning we were excited to finally make the journey.”

Tank Petrol at work on is wall. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Among the various murals you’ll see a selection of figurative, realistic, and illustration styles that carefully walk a community moderated fine line, hoping to bring locals to be more actively engaged in the program. As a novelty outlier, you’ll also see Brooklyn’s Mr. Toll installing his colorful hand formed clay sculptures in unusual spots if you keep your head up.

In an interview with Malay Mail Online, Ms. Grusaite says, “We want to create an artistic international cultural exchange so that local artists can learn from international artists who will be here for the project while the international artists will get exposure to the local culture and art scene.”

Tank Petrol. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

As is the case more often, with Urban Exchange we are again seeing a new model of public art developing where at the forefront are artists who have laid their groundwork in graffiti rather than university exclusively. We’ve been using a term we’re calling the “New Muralism” to indicate the grassroots nature and populist generation of these works and we still think its definition is evolving. Not quite community murals in the strictest sense, and not seeking the approval of gate-keeping institutions either, these artists are looking for and finding new ways to challenge themselves creatively in the public sphere while being responsive to needs of the public. Huh!

Included in the Urban Exchange project are Antanas Dubra (Lithuania), Bibichun (Malaysia), Don John (Denmark), Donald Abraham (Malaysia), Elle (United States), Ernest Zacharevic (Lithuania), Fauzan Faud (Malaysia), Karl Addison (Germany), Kenji Chai (Malaysia), Rone (Australia), Sk10 (Singapore), TankPetrol (United Kingdom), Black Fritilldea (Malaysia), 4Some (a crew from Kuala Lumpur consisting of Donald, Black, Fauzan and Jojo), Mr Toll (New York) and Vexta (New York)

Our heartfelt thank you to Henrik Haven, who took a trip from Copenhagen which took 31 hours (and four different flights) for sharing his excellent photographs here with BSA readers.

RONE at work on is wall. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

RONE on the left with Karl Addison on the right. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

RONE. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Ernest Zacharevic at work on is wall. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Ernest Zacharevic. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

4Some Crew at work on their wall. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

4Some Crew (Donald, Black, Fauzan and Jojo) Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Vexta at work on her wall. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Vexta. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Bibichun. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Nikko Tan)

Don John at work on his wall. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Don John. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Elle at work on her wall. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Elle. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Karl Addison at work on his wall. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Karl Addison. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Antanas Dubra at work on their wall. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Antanas Dubra. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Sliz assists Skolo. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Mr. Toll installing his clay sculptures. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Mr. Toll. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Collaboration between Ernest Zacharavic and Etoja. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!

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BSA Film Friday 06.13.14

June 13, 2014 Artists

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

Now screening :

1. RED VAPORZ – Russian Graffiti and Street Art
2.Last Breath III – Cambodia
3. ETNIK at Memorie Urbane Festival
4. Ernest Zacharevic at Memorie Urbane

BSA Special Feature: RED VAPORZ – Russian Graffiti and Street Art

Russia has a growing Street Art and graffiti movement – in select cities, under certain circumstances. But it is ALIVE and these mostly young animated and excited artists are eager to take the scene in a new direction.

This brand new documentary travels and interviews a variety of artists working in the public realm today, brandishing cans and balancing instincts to do illegal work versus legal work – which makes it sound rather similar to other scenes around the world.

Yes, there appears to be political repression, and content needs to steer clear of political opinions, and in the end we are really just talking about a growing muralist movement. It is also interesting to see the various western influences as interpreted and filtered through local tastes, traditions, styles. While hip-hop culture is likely to have been the lever in the 90s, the international Street Art aesthetic is here as well as the global branding of youth culture. Pre-Internet, they wouldn’t have known about us, and we wouldn’t have known about them. When it comes to grassroots movements fed by the open exchange of culture, does it increasingly appear that there is no “us and them’?

Last Breath III – Cambodia

The Last Breath initiative that installs art inside condemned architecture is taking a detour through Cambodia. Is this evidence of the strengthening of “spraycations” or interactive extreme art tourism? Let’s keep an eye on this.

ETNIK at Memorie Urbane Festival in Italy by The Blind Eye Factory

Ernest Zacharevic at Memorie Urbane Feastival

It’s Friday Ya’ll – Let’s Get up and Dance!

Ernest Zacharevic “Toy Mafia” in Gaeta, Italy

May 6, 2014 Artists

You’ll have to laugh when you first see the new double wall installation just completed by Ernest Zacharevic for the Memorie Urbane Festival. Known for his light hearted hand rendered site-specific illustrations of kids at play, Zacharevic positions two boys around the corner from one another ready to blast each other to pieces with water guns. Hopefully Gaeta appreciates the humor.

The title? Toy Mafia.

Ernest Zacharevic. Detail. (photo © Lorenzo Gallitto/The Blind Eye Factory)

Ernest Zacharevic. Detail. (photo © Giorgio Base/ The Blind Eye Factory)

Ernest Zacharevic (photo © Lorenzo Gallitto/ The Blind Eye Factory)

Click HERE for more Memorie Urbane Information

Project M/3 Opens for UN in Berlin and Martyn Reed on Table Etiquette

March 20, 2014 Artists, Interview

“good table manners, social awareness, whether or not they are house trained…”

Project M sounds like a James Bond plot feature, and if you’ve seen the smartly swarthy man of mystery at the helm of this installation you may expect him to scale the facade of the Urban Nation, instead of simply curate it.

But that is what Nuart’s founder Martyn Reed is doing in Berlin right now – cultivating a diverse program of urban artists on the ground level of a promising new project now under construction. Last week Martyn met with a number of the participants who flew, drove, walked to this neighborhood in transition to install their works for M/3 – including New York’s Martha Cooper, Melbourne’s Buff Diss, and Berlin’s Various & Gould, among others.

Martha Cooper. Shot from inside the window. (photo © Luna Park)

Project M, now in it’s 3rd edition, is a rotating street level exhibition to draw attention to the birth of an auspicious new cultural and art project that will anchor Berlin even further in the minds of fans and academics alike who follow the scene that continues to evolve around art in the streets.

An international presence in an internationally revered street art/ graffiti/ urban art/ mural city, so far Project M has featured artists such as Faile, Ron English, Know Hope, Sandra Chevrier and Strøk, and by the end of this series will have featured many more who are lending shape and form to this global scene with many names.

Martha Cooper poses in front of her window, 33 years after taking the original photo. (photo © Luna Park)

On hand for the installation action a few days ago was New York based photographer Luna Park, who shares with BSA readers some of the installation action, and we spoke with Mr. Reed about his curatorial vision for this iteration of Project M.

Brooklyn Street Art: Can you tell us about Project M and what you will be drawing attention to here?
Martyn Reed: It’s an interesting project and quite unusual in that it uses the inside of windows to house the work, and due to the nature of the project has quite a few restrictions that we’re not used to on the street or gallery. But like working on a canvas, these restrictions can often focus the mind.

For this iteration of Project M (the third), we set ourselves three tasks; to integrate Berlin artists into the group, to focus primarily on Stencil Art, and to mix well know names with emerging talent. We also asked a few of the artists, Martin Whatson and Ernest Zacharevic for example, to work site specifically.

Brooklyn Street Art: When you were thinking about which artists to choose for this project that is still in its early days at UN, what qualities were you looking for?
Martyn Reed: As ever with Nuart, it’s not always just about the art. This was to be a pretty intense 12 hour working period in a relatively small space with a crew who hadn’t yet met the artists. In cases like this it is important, like at all great dinner parties, to get the mix of guests just right.

Failing that, it is important to ensure that there’s plenty of alcohol available. Other qualities we looked for were good table manners, social awareness, whether or not they are house trained, and whether they can they be trusted with sharp implements etcetera. – For the most, I think we got the balance just right.

Brooklyn Street Art: Berlin obviously is a major city for street/urban/graffiti/mural art. How would you describe the influence of the local scene as factoring in to your curatorial vision on this project?
Martyn Reed: I think it’s important to get to know as much as possible about the artists and area you’re working in. Fortunately we have a lot of friends based in Berlin and a pretty intimate knowledge of the scene.

I knew which artists and style of work I wanted for this project and also those I thought who would be valuable allies for the UN project in the future. Berlin’s an interesting place to work with its heady mix of activism, anarchy and youthful abandon. I guess finding a way to harness and present this without becoming it, is key.

Brooklyn Street Art: You have had some view of this already during the installation – but which artist do you think will provoke the most response from passersby?
Martyn Reed: For me it is Martha Cooper’s “Cops” from 1981, a vintage photo install chosen specifically for this location that is overlooked by the U-Bahn, Berlin’s Subway. It’s 20% larger than life and is really imposing in situ and when viewed from the train. It has already garnered the most interest and I’m sure is on its way to being a “future classic”.

I’m really happy bringing this particular work to the street and presenting it as a work of art in its own right, and of course, it’s always a pleasure to honour such a legend as Martha.

We wish to extend our heartfelt gratitude to Luna Park for sharing her photos with us. If you wish to see more of Luna’s work click HERE

PROJECT M/3, curated by Martyn Reed of Nuart features: MARTHA COOPER (US), DOTDOTDOT (NO), ERNEST ZACHAREVIC (LT), VARIOUS AND GOULD (DE), M-CITY (PL), LEVALET (FR), PLOTBOT (DE), MARTIN WHATSON (NO), EVOL (DE), BUFF DISS (AUS)

For more information on Urban Nation, click HERE.

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Ernest Zacharevic Plays on Walls in Singapore

October 16, 2013 Artists

A quickly rising Street Art installation artist from Lithuania is keeping his work refreshingly down-to-earth and sincerely engaging with the public. While some artists working on the street can lose sight of how to have fun, Ernest Zacharevic keeps his eye on creating installations that punch through the third dimension and pull passersby into his work, and some times on it.

It’s not surprising to find his sculpture-paintings including wheels, as in this new one he’s just finished in Singapore. “It’s a part of ‘play’, but also a wider narrative about the continuous desire by human beings to travel, push forward, explore unknown horizons,” he explains to BSA. “Cars and bicycles and tricycles were invented because just walking is too slow to most of our imaginations.”

The new work on the street is rare considering Singapore’s very severe punishment for graffiti and street art, which actually includes severe beatings that can rip skin off the backside, called caning. “We feel that it is a ground breaking project that will hopefully open Singapore up for other artists,” says his friend and photographer Gabija Grusaite, who shares these images of his new piece that uses a sawed in half shopping cart. Possibly the organizers saw the success of his piece last year in Penang, Malaysia, which became a popular tourist destination and still draws people to see it and pose with it daily.

“Most of my work is photography based and site-specific, so I photograph my subjects and later choose angles for painting. Working with children allows more anonymity, I don’t consider my artworks to be portraits of a specific person, rather a universal experience,” says the energetic and curious Zacharevic, who is still in his mid-20s and has done installations in Japan, Italy, Norway, Lithuania, and Singapore so far this year. “It is also easier to work with children – they are not self-concious and are not afraid to look stupid or ugly. So we play together and I take pictures that later translate into my artwork.”

Take a look at Ernest’s installation last year in Georgetown, Malaysia, that had hundreds of people interacting with it moments after it was finished and is a celebrated tourist destination.

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This article is also published on The Huffington Post

Splashes of Color in the Norwegian Rain: NUART 2013

September 11, 2013 Artists

The pale wan institutional hues of the Stavanger International Airport now are punctuated by the brilliant blues and stencil patterning wrapping around the control tower.

Small multi-layered stencil portraits pop from post-boxes, primary color-clad children hang off of stoop stairs and balance on stacked chairs and a graffiti slathered Michaelango stands on the corner next to the eye doctors office. Turn up another street and an aerosoled sultry geisha rises, wrapped in boisterous brocade on a typically white wall in this rather monochromatic sea town.

With these new wall works by M-City, C215, Ernest Zacharevic, Martin Whatson, and Hush (respectively) and a number of others, Nuart 2013 brought a lot of color to the streets this year as it celebrated what founder Martyn Reed called “one of, if not thee, finest Nuart events yet”.

“Best Wishes from cold and rainy Stavanger!” says Ernest’s friend Gabija in her note to us as she talks about the cool grey storms that held up many of the visiting artists waiting to paint. It didn’t delay the pieces going up on tunnel walls of the venue where the opening party crowds teamed Saturday night. The special installations by C215, David Choe, and Aiko among others also included a 1,300 slide show at the end of one tunnel that showed 50 years of graffiti, Street Art, and street life photography by Martha Cooper, who was invited as an artist.

Even the minister of culture stopped by for a tour on Thursday, which shows how far graffiti and Street Art have grown, or strayed, in the years since public service commercials equated aerosol art with illicit drug use, truancy, terror, and illegal firearms. Today we give tours in the streets to appreciative people who snap photos and pose with friends in front of the spray painted walls.

Of course this is an international mural festival, and much of the work is done by more accomplished artists who may have once (or still do) sprayed their stuff illegally. The themes may need to pass some review process, but the opportunities that come from taking your time are appreciable also. One of the newest talents showing this year was the Lithuanian twenty-something Ernest Zacharevic, who photographs and paints kids interacting and playing on a variety of wheeled machines, usually the self propelled kind.

Ably steering clear of cute, Zacharevic uses props with his wall paintings to “tap into the original instincts of adult viewers who may have lost their ability to access their playful nature,” or so we said in our interview with him. He also merges 2D with 3D quite seemlessly. For his tunnel installation on opening night, Zacharevic sawed a car in half so his kids could dance on the roof, cram inside, and push it from the back like it was out of gas. More than likely it was the missing wheels that kept the car stationary. But no harm in playing.

But of the 16 artists invited this year, each can say they brought life and their A-game to this jewel of an outdoor art show in Norway. Nuart 2013 included MARTHA COOPER (US), DAL EAST (CN), ROA (BE), M-CITY (PL), FAITH47 (ZA), HUSH (UK), VHILS (PT), ERNEST ZACHAREVIC (LT), C215 (FR), DOT DOT DOT (NO), DOTMASTER (UK), STRØK (NO), MARTIN WHATSON (NO), DAVID CHOE (US) AIKO (JP).

With very special thanks to photographer Martha Cooper for sharing these images with BSA readers.

AIKO and Martha Cooper’s collaborative tunnel, with Aiko’s stencils on both sides and a slide show at the end. This slide is of New York graffiti writer and fine artist Futura as a young buck at the tunnels’ end. (photo © Martha Cooper)

HUSH in a stunning shot by Ms. Cooper, who caught a woman in a hijab walking past at just the right moment. (photo © Martha Cooper)

Founder of NUART Festival Martyn Reed, standing in front of David Choe’s piece while giving a tour of the art to Norway’s Minister of Culture Hadia Tajik. (photo © Martha Cooper)

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NUART UPDATE: Talk with Ernest Zacharevic and Images of C215, Hush, STROK

September 9, 2013 Artists, Interview

Nuart 2013 continues to engage and converse with people in Stavanger Norway as the big formal opening Saturday night was packed with guests and tours have begun around town with Gt Aamdal and Kristel Talv, who yesterday had a group of a hundred people following them around as they helped explain the new works that have been appearing and the artists who have been creating them.

Today we bring you some recent photos of works in progress shot by Gabija Grusaite and a brief interview with one of the artists this year at Nuart, Ernest Zacharevic from Lithuania, who has a pretty large following of ardent fans who dig his technique of interplay with mural and sculpture for an integrated third dimensional experience. By focusing on the spontaneity of children’s play, Zacharevic can tap into the original instincts of adult viewers who may have lost their ability to access their playful nature. His street work is unpretentious and sometimes ingenious, while steadily staying away from being cloying or overly sentimental.

Ernest took a few moments during a break from this weekends preparations to talk to BSA about his work.

Brooklyn Street Art: Many of your pieces include play and more specifically, children at play. How important is that theme for you and what attracts you to it?
Ernest Zacharevic: Most of my work is photography based and site-specific, so I photograph my subjects and later choose angles for painting. Working with children allows more anonymity, I don’t consider my artworks to be portraits of a specific person, rather a universal experience. It is also easier to work with children – they are not self-concious and are not afraid to look stupid or ugly. So we play together and I take pictures that later translate into my artwork. I really like this unrestricted energy.

Brooklyn Street Art: You have been traveling a lot in the last year – where have you gone and can you talk about one of your favorite experiences on the street with your work?
Ernest Zacharevic: I do travel a lot. Japan, Italy, Norway, Lithuania, Malaysia – to name few places I’ve been this year. At the moment I am based in Penang, Malaysia, but originally I come from Vilnius, Lithuania and I graduated from Middlesex University, London where I lived for 5 years. My artwork is heavily influenced by all these layers of geographical backgrounds.

Probably the most memorable project I’ve done so far is Mirrors George Town murals that I created for George Town Festival in 2012. The murals became so popular that they started having a life of it’s own – there are people lining up to take pictures with it and Malaysian Government recognized them as valuable tourist objects. Crazy! It was even copied by one Chinese town near Shanghai. It is really nice for an artist to realize that his piece of work means so much to other people.

Brooklyn Street Art: Many of your characters have mischief in their eyes and their actions. Are you getting into trouble in Stavanger?
Ernest Zacharevic: I wish, but the weather is taking it’s toll. Stavanger is great! Everywhere you go there are traces of street art and amazing murals round the corner, places you would never expect to see it. It really inspires me to do a few smaller pieces if the Norwegian summer will be kind to me tomorrow.

Brooklyn Street Art: Can you talk about using wheeled forms of transportation in your vignettes – bicycles, shopping carts, rickshaws… do you use them to create a sense of movement?
Ernest Zacharevic; Yes! It’s a part of play, but also a wider narrative about the continuous desire by human beings to travel, push forward, explore unknown horizons. Cars and bicycles and tricycles were invented because just walking is too slow to most of our imagination. That is way my main installation for Nuart 2013 will feature a car – half sliced – continuing the theme of my previous work.

Brooklyn Street Art: Sometimes you integrate something that is already on the street or the wall into your piece. Do you find yourself doing this mentally as you walk through the streets?
Ernest Zacharevic: I find everyday objects to be fascinating. Signs that look like animals, doors that smile, little holes in the wall that look like part of a Tom & Jerry cartoon. It’s fun and I love to reveal this to other people just to make them smile.

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