All posts tagged: Escif

ESCIF Reflects Us Back With a Dry Humor in Valencia

March 21, 2016 Artists

Valencia based Escif has many Street Art pieces throughout his city and today we have a survey of some of them for you to look at.

Called a humorist sometimes, or more accurately perhaps a contemporary sociologist, you decode his murals quickly, and then again. He isn’t deliberately obvious but he is our reflector and rather than being explicit, he trusts that you’ll figure it out. With deceptively simple presentations on the street, Escif is content to imagine that the wheels inside your mind are turning and perhaps you will see analogies that are familiar to you, connecting observations with your daily existence.

Escif. Valencia, Spain. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Take the first one, for example: a currently typical scene of humans slightly bent forward in a marching plod, their attention captivated, even trained, to little devices in their hand. The title translated is “Programmed Obsolescence”, which may refer to the software and hardware designers who know that their income is only replenished when they create things that expire – the precise opposite of a “sustainability” model.

A second interpretation may refer to the humans – not the electronic devices – who are gradually and quickly regarded as superfluous in an automated robotic artificial intelligence-managed modern world. Regarded as no more than “resources” by corporate parlance since the 80s, these humans and their features are less and less impressive or needed for the production of goods and services, slowly programmed to the margins.

“I’m sorry, we don’t support that model anymore, is there anything else we can help you with today?”

Love me, Tinder. Escif. Valencia, Spain. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

The dry flat linear illustration style may call to mind instruction manuals or clip art and that is the sly normative familiarity that will lead you in one direction with Escif. Free of flourishes, one may question what possible depth can be alluded to when the piece doesn’t clamor or preen for that one second of attention you are willing to part with. With Escif you can be assured that these are considered choices; recomposing symbols, forms, text and their relation to one another, to history, to the present, and to you.

Now breathe. Escif. Valencia, Spain. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Like a bug on its back. Escif. Valencia, Spain. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Decapitated history. Escif. Valencia, Spain. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Escif. Valencia, Spain. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Something about this one doesn’t bode well for our painter friend… Escif. Valencia, Spain. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Our very special thanks to photographer Lluis Olive Bulbena for sharing these recent images with BSA readers.

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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 Images Of The Week: 02.28.16

February 28, 2016 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

This simple lollipop paste-up reminds us this week that it may appear to be sweet, but sometimes it is poison. Guess that truism should be obvious to you kids, but it doesn’t hurt to remind each other.

Here’s our our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring ECB, Escif, JPS, Kai, London Kaye, Lunge Box, Mogul, Nick Walker, Omen, Tref.no, The J0n, and Shai Dahan.

Our top image: A questionable lollipop on the street. Lunge Box. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lunge Box. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

TREF in Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The J0n in Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

JPS in Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The J0n in Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

ECB in Borås, Sweden for No Limit Art Festival. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Omen in Rochester, NY for Wall Therapy Art Festival. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kai (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Shai Dahan in Borås, Sweden for No Limit Art Festival. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nick Walker in Stavanger, Norway for Nuart Art Festival. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Escif in Stavanger, Norway for Nuart Art Festival. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mogul in Borås, Sweden for No Limit Art Festival. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A belatedly found piece by Londo Kaye. There’s is never too late for love though… (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Fanzara Diary : Mural Update from a Tiny Spanish Town

February 3, 2016 Artists

You can tell by the quality of the street pieces that continue to go up in Fanzara that this young but ongoing “festival” is driven by something more than simply commercial interests. Thoughtful, quiet, hardly showy, Fanzara is the small town that we brought you to twice last summer (see links at end of this article) and the grassroots nature of the visits by Street Artists are a testament to a certain authenticity.

In December BSA contributor Lluis Olive Bulbena took a slight detour from his trip to Valencia and visited Fanzara to see what was completed or new since the last time he was there and he shares his photos with BSA readers. So consider this your update on your tiny Spanish sister:

XELON. Fanzara, Spain. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Pichi & Avo. Fanzara, Spain. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Escif. Fanzara, Spain. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Borondo. Fanzara, Spain. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Chylo. Fanzara, Spain. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Joaquin Jara. Fanzara, Spain. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

LOLO. Fanzara, Spain. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

B.Toy. Fanzara, Spain. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Pincho. Fanzara, Spain. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

DEIH. Fanzara, Spain. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

See our two other visits for more background on art in the streets of Fanzara:

Fanzara, A Tiny Spanish Town Reinvents Itself With Help From Artists

Fanzara, Spain: “MIAU” Marries Street Art & Cats, Breaks Internet

The Wonderfully Dismal Kingdom of Banksy

August 26, 2015 Artists

Banksy has ventured into the entertaining resort business. One that would possibly be your last resort.

A scathing social and political critique of any number of targets that routinely come under the purview of this artist/curator/commentator/showman, this big tent brings everyone inside for a beating. Rampant capitalism, civic hypocrisy, the war industry, advertising deceit, an encroaching police state, environmental destruction, the widening gap in social equality, xenophobia with its inherent racism, and our insatiable penchant for sunny denial are a partial list of woes addressed. If you don’t feel sickened or guilty after visiting Dismaland perhaps you could affect a certain smugness that says, “Finally, someone is talking about all of these important issues that I’ve been going on about.”

Banksy. Dismaland. Weston-super-Mare, UK. (photo © Butterfly)

Cheerfully cynical and sarcastic, this magic kingdom is most successful when you are challenged to reconsider a behavior or position – and with 50 or so invited co-exhibitionists, some whose bodies of work are substantial on their own, Banksy clearly intends to challenge you and indict you with a relentless barrage of over-the-top funhouse symbolism and metaphor. If, for example, you are enthralled by those American right-wing Christian Halloween “Hell House” installations that feature pregnant teen girls in stirrups and sallow-faced gay HIV-positive patients in hospital beds you’ll cherish the harrowing Banksy path to salvation. Alas, there may be no salvation, sorry.

Here you can see bright yellow bathtub ducks swimming in an oil spill, there you can play paparazzi with the other flashing bulbs recording Cinderalla’s overturned carriage crash. Next, get a load of the toy boats dangerously overloaded with refugees and the knife-wielding butcher eye-balling the horses he’s riding with on the merry-go-round. If Disneyland clobbers you with candy-covered bromides and implausibly rosy fantasy, Dismaland brings you to the edge of the abyss of man’s folly and gently nudges you to fall into it. Or jump.

Banksy. Dismaland. Weston-super-Mare, UK. (photo © Butterfly)

Particularly effective to the experience are the grim and listless personnel who mind the grounds and offer no clear or meaningful help. Not quite menacing, they could just be impersonating sullen teens. Perhaps they are buckling under the weight of low wages and dim opportunities on the horizon or are simply humiliated by the balloons some are made to carry that say, “I’m an Imbecil”.

On a particularly gray and dreary day periodically warmed with the sun, the photographer named Butterfly made her pilgrimage to this nightmare fairy tale by the seaside for the big opening and below she shares with BSA readers her images and observations on the pop-up exhibition to help us all feel a bit of the dreadful experience first-hand.

Banksy. Escif. Dismaland. Weston-super-Mare, UK. (photo © Butterfly)

~ By Butterfly

Weston-Super-Mare is a British seaside town, 30 minutes from Bristol, where families spend the day out donkey riding, visiting the Seaquarium or trying arcades at the Pier while kids build sandcastles on a muddy beach in miserable weather.

Rumors had been circulating for weeks about big installations being built in the former Tropicana, a derelict lido closed since 2000 which once hosted the biggest outdoor swimming pool in Europe. The rumblings and the build up to the announcement to the show was phenomenal, along with the conjecture: Is it a film set? Is it a show? Is it a fair? Is it art?

Banksy. Cinderella sufferd a crash. Dismaland. Weston-super-Mare, UK. (photo © Butterfly)

Finally we know: This is Banksy’s biggest show to date: Dismaland. It is, according to promotional materials “is a festival of art, amusements and entry-level anarchism.”

Moving towards Contemporary Art, the show is billed as a ‘Bemusement Park’. The global scale, diversity of installations, artworks and participating artists is unprecedented with 50 contemporary artists from 17 countries aiming to exhibit contemporary art and raise discussion about consumerism, political and environmental issues and to spur people to take action.

Banksy. Dismaland. Weston-super-Mare, UK. (photo © Butterfly)

1000 lucky local people were invited to experience Dismaland before its’ opening to the general public. Concurrently the online ticket sales failed miserably, with the website crashing all day and earning it the award of ‘the most disappointing new website’.

We first enter the premises through a cardboard security control room built by Bill Barminksi where the security staff asks the most random questions. After the clearing security, doors open to a sinister derelict place with trash, paper on the floor and mud. It almost looks like a dump. The surrounding staff members are dressed in pink hi-vis (vests) and are looking bored, miserable and haggard. Some are holding David Shrigley’s ‘I’m an Imbecile’ balloons. When asking questions, they respond by whispering messages that are beyond understanding. Customer service is below standard and not responsive at best.

Banksy. Dismaland. Weston-super-Mare, UK. (photo © Butterfly)

Surrounded by murky water with a dumped riot van that has been transformed into an impromptu water fountain, a decrepit fairy-tale castle ‘shows how it feels to be a real princess’. A sinister scene of a Cinderella pumpkin crash sculpture is lit up by the swarm of paparazzi, with flashing cameras taking photo after photo of the tragic crash scene, echoing Princess Diana’s death. You may also pose with it and have your souvenir photo of the experience.

The amusements are purposely confusing – as they don’t let you win. An ESPO sign reads

‘WINNING IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED’. Arcade fans attempt miserably to score some of the bling necklaces by shooting spray cans, only to realize that they are screwed to the wall.

Banksy. Dismaland. Weston-super-Mare, UK. (photo © Butterfly)

Some local families were confused with Banksy’s Mediterranean Boat Ride, where the public can drive robotic boats of migrants amongst floating bodies. Kids tried to play on Paul Insect‘s overcrowded sandpit while others were desperately looking for disappearing golf balls on the impossible Mini Gulf course. Families enjoyed rides on the merry-go-round without noticing a butcher sitting next to a hanging horse draining blood with cardboard boxes marked Lasagnes (a nod to a horse food scandal in 2013).

Banksy. Dismaland. Weston-super-Mare, UK. (photo © Butterfly)

Alongside the rides, contemporary artworks are displayed throughout the site. There is also a large indoor space hosting 3 galleries with a selection of some of the best contemporary art. A circus tent features a freak show of strange animals from Polly Morgan and Dorcas Casey to a unicorn by Damien Hirst and a Banksy animatronic rabbit that makes the magician disappear.

The seaside and funfair themes have been given a certain twist as well: A statue of a woman being attacked by seagulls (Banksy), a giant ice cream cone (Ben Long), a wooden carved horse sculpture (Maskull Lasserre), a beach ball floating above razor sharp knives (Damien Hirst), a seaside painting showing a mother and child playing on the sand unaware of the tsunami of detritus coming toward them (Banksy).

Banksy. Dismaland. Weston-super-Mare, UK. (photo © Butterfly)

Environmental issues and relationships between human and nature are also highlighted with artworks from Paco Pomet and Josh Keyes. A Banksy killer whale sculpture is jumping out of a toilet peace. Other topics addressed are on war, geopolitics, and the Arab Spring. Artists from Palestine and Israel are displayed side by side. Within the Guerilla Island, the dome presents of series of activist banners from all over the world, including drawings from Iranian cartoonist Mana Neyestani.

A bus turned into a touring Museum of Cruel Objects curated by Dr. Gavin Grindon educates the public on surveying the role of design for social control, including CCTV. And you can sign up to one of the union stalls for action. Finally there is the mind-blowing model village installation by James Cauty called The Aftermath Dislocation Principle.

The evening turned into a big party with live music while a massive show of fireworks sealed the official opening. I found the experience to be overwhelming with so much artwork to discover and actions to be taken.

Banksy. Dismaland. Weston-super-Mare, UK. (photo © Butterfly)

Banksy. Espo. Dismaland. Weston-super-Mare, UK. (photo © Butterfly)

Banksy. Paul Insect . Bast. Dismaland. Weston-super-Mare, UK. (photo © Butterfly)

Banksy. Dismaland Art Gallery. Weston-super-Mare, UK. (photo © Butterfly)

Banksy. Paco Pomet. Dismaland Art Gallery. Weston-super-Mare, UK. (photo © Butterfly)

Banksy. Maskull Lassarre. Dismaland Art Gallery. Weston-super-Mare, UK. (photo © Butterfly)

Banksy. Kate MacDowell. Dismaland Art Gallery. Weston-super-Mare, UK. (photo © Butterfly)

Banksy. Jessica Harrison. Dismaland Art Gallery. Weston-super-Mare, UK. (photo © Butterfly)

Banksy. Dietrich Wegner. Dismaland Art Gallery. Weston-super-Mare, UK. (photo © Butterfly)

Banksy. Damien Hirst. Dismaland Art Gallery. Weston-super-Mare, UK. (photo © Butterfly)

Banksy. Andreas Hykade. Dismaland Art Gallery. Weston-super-Mare, UK. (photo © Butterfly)

Banksy. Amir Schiby. Dismaland Art Gallery. Weston-super-Mare, UK. (photo © Butterfly)

Banksy. Dorkas Casey. Dismaland Circus. Weston-super-Mare, UK. (photo © Butterfly)

Banksy. Dismaland. Thank you for visiting folks. Weston-super-Mare, UK. (photo © Butterfly)

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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 07.17.15

July 17, 2015 Artists

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

Now screening :

1. Roma Street Art Tribes as Captured by Dioniso Punk

BSA Special Feature: Roma Street Art Tribes as Captured by Dioniso Punk

Gwen Stacy Parts I and II

Disorderly, discordant, and richly chaotic, these two videos are centered around the Italian street art paintings and artists whom you will recognize from our earlier postings on community/gallery organized urban art programming – but within the context of historical art publicly displayed, peoples movements, patronage, fascism, the classics.

Dioniso Punk allows everyone to talk – neighbors, artists, organizers, curators, public philosophers, elected officials, psychologists, sociologists, entrepreneurs, posers, professors, historians, students, an opera singer, the petite bourgeoisie, international visitors and hapless puzzled opinionated locals.

Discussions at panels cut into impassioned discussions by senior women in the courtyard or didactic examinations in the street – some for illustration, others for whimsy, none to be ignored. More of a fact finding mission than cogent analysis, you may find it difficult to follow the narrative and so it is better to let go and allow yourself be battered by the insights and observations delivered with the jumpy cuts and uncompleted thoughts and discussions, preferring instead to sink into the tribe of the humans, here selectively displayed for your pleasure and hopefully, edification.

(turn on the CC (closed captioning) if you do not speak Italian)

Featuring interviews with Solo, Gaia, Diamond 0707, Maupal, Best Ever, Bol23, Jerico, Guerrilla Spam Sen One, Sabrina, Dan, Stefano Antonelli (999 Contemporary,) Marta Ugolini (Galleria Ca’ D’Oro), Agathe Jaubourg (Pasolini Pigneto), Alìn Costache (YUT!), Edoardo Martino (Villaggio Globale), and Eleonora Zaccagnino (Acid Drop).

Special Guests: Mp5, Alice Pasquini, Mr. Thoms, Jessica Stewart, Sandro Fiorentini (La Bottega del Marmoraro).

Murals by Blu, Roa, Borondo, Etam Cru, Space Invaders, C215, Hogre, Herbert Baglione, Sten & Lex, JB Rock, Ernest, Pignon-Ernest, Etnik, Axel, Avoid, Sbagliato, Jim Avignon, Fin DAC, Jef Aerosol, Seth, Zed1, Ericailcane, Clemens Behr, Caratoes, Momo, Derek, Bruno, Kid Acne, Mto, Alexey Luka, Tellas, Moby Dick, Philippe Baudelocque, Mr. Klevra, Lucamaleonte, Diavù Kocore, Agostino Iacurci, Danilo Bucchi, Jaz, Desx, Reka, Lek & Sowat, Hopnn, Matteo, Basilé Alberonero, Ex Voto, Andreco, Moneyless, Nicola, Verlato, Ludo, L’Atlas, Escif, and Pepsy Zerocalcare.

Fanzara, A Tiny Spanish Town Reinvents Itself With Help From Artists

June 22, 2015 Artists

Coming up during the third weekend of July will be the second installment of MIAU (The Unfinished Museum of Urban Art) in the tiny town of about 325 people named Fanzara, Spain. Begun by local artists and with a tiny budget from the local council, more than 20 Spanish and a handful of Italian street artists took part in the grassroots festival the first time around last summer, transforming homes and buildings in this aging municipality. In advance of the new paintings we bring you images of the current murals as shot by Lluis Olive Bulbena, who offers his personal account of visiting the town and getting a tour from MIAU co-founder Javier López and artist Ana Pez.

By Lluis Olive Bulbena

When I first learned of Fanzara’s Street Art I had no idea where the town was so I had to search on the Internet to locate it. The town is located about 186 miles from my own town of Barcelona in the Province of Castellón, Fanzara is about 55 miles from Valencia on the Iberian Peninsula.

Their local web page told me they had about 30 murals so my wife and I contacted the town’s office of tourism and made arrangements to meet someone there when we arrived.

Pol Barban (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Sure enough, Javi and Ana were there waiting for us and they gave us an extensive tour of the town. It was a very hot day, bathed with sun light and I had enormous problems shooting pictures because of the light. But our hosts couldn’t have been more gracious.

After our tour a drink was in order and we got a table at a bar called “Abajo” (meaning “below”). 50 meters up the street there used to be a bar called “Arriba” (above) but the owners changed the name.

Hombre Lopez .Rafa Gascó. Detail. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Fanzara’s love for Street Art began when a group of youths began thinking of new ways to revitalize the town and Street Art was mentioned as a possibility.

They posed themselves a couple of questions to the town: Would local people want Street Art on their home’s walls? The answers came back; the majority said yes. Some said no. Many of the naysayers have now changed their minds to the yes column.

The second question: Who would they invite and under what criteria? This problem was swiftly solved as Javi was friends with a graphic designer located in Madrid named Pincho Lopez. Because of his familiarity with the mural art scene Pincho was put in charge of curating the artists who would be invited to paint.

The first group of artists included: Escif, Julieta Xlf, Deih, Laguna, Cere, Ruina, Chylo, Sabek, Xabier Xtrm, Pincho, Susie Hammer, Lolo, La Foix, Hombrelopez, Joan Tarragó, Yes, Pol Marban, Ana Pez, Rafa Gascó, Natzo, y Acció Poètica La Plana Castelló.

Once in town the artists worked tirelessly to complete the murals, big and small in just three days in September of 2014. Since the small budget did not allow for much more than paint and ladders, the town folks banded together to provide accommodations and food to the artists. In mid-January of 2015 three Italian Street Artists, Collettivo FX, Nemo’s, and Bibito, were invited to paint three additional murals.

Hombre Lopez .Rafa Gascó (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena) “For me the piece that impressed me the most was the installation by Hombre Lopez and Rafa Gascó. Their piece consisted of photographs/portraits of the locals transferred on to stones and installed on a wall. The photographs are of people who lived there and are long gone as well as of current inhabitants of the town. This installation creates a relation between space and time among the town’s inhabitants and their relatives through several decades” -Lluis Olive Bulbena.

Collettivo FX (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Nemo’S (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Xabier XTRM (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Ana Pez (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Sabek (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Julieta XLF (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Julieta XLF and Pincho (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Escif (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Chylo (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Costi (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Lolo (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Deih (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Chylo (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Cere (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

As Street Art Turns to Public Art in Barcelona

November 19, 2014 Artists

Spain’s Second Largest City Hosts “Open Walls”

A popular city for Street Art in the early-2000s that attracted artists from across Europe and elsewhere to its intimate doorways and darkened small streets, Barcelona has become less inviting to illegal painting in recent years due to an organized campaign to contain the freewheeling art and convert it into a respectable city to shop in. Like many cities now engaging the talent if not the transgression of this generation of renegade artists, there are other ways now appearing to help artists get up on walls.

Madsteez. Open Walls Conference 2014. Barcelona, Spain. (photo © Fernando Alcalá)

In October Difusor, a non-profit cultural association that works with the city, businesses, and the artists mounted Open Walls, a conference and mural program for four days that included installations/interventions, workshops and lectures from an international roster.

Included among the speakers were Todd W. Bressi from City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, artist Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada, mural conservator Will Shank and Leon Cullinane from Nuart. Artist represented were people like Escif, Alexis Diaz, Pastel, Joao Lelo, 310 / Stepan Krasnov, M-City and Madsteez.

Madsteez. Open Walls Conference 2014. Barcelona, Spain. (photo © Fernando Alcalá)

The resulting mix is wide reaching and good quality, and just when the palette is becoming too subdued and the geometry possibly municipal the wild acid royal canine court by Madsteez parries forth in a line kicking formation. Not everything is rainbows and butterflies; of note are the swarming drones by the Polish M-City, their insect-like bodies clustered madly together in a cloud of all-seeing killers in the sky.

For an “approved” roster of works the variety of styles represents what is happening as modern and contemporary art movements gain currency in the public art eye. Also, you can still check out plenty of illegal spots nearby and Barcelona still is popping with possibility if you know where to look for one of Miss Van’s ladies, or maybe even an old C215 or Faile one-color stencil.

Madsteez. Open Walls Conference 2014. Barcelona, Spain. (photo © Fernando Alcalá)

Escif. Open Walls Conference 2014. Barcelona, Spain. (photo © Fernando Alcalá)

SPOGO. Open Walls Conference 2014. Barcelona, Spain. (photo © Fernando Alcalá)

M-City. Open Walls Conference 2014. Barcelona, Spain. (photo © Fernando Alcalá)

Alexis Diaz . Pastel. Open Walls Conference 2014. Barcelona, Spain. (photo © Fernando Alcalá)

Joao Lelo. Open Walls Conference 2014. Barcelona, Spain. (photo © Fernando Alcalá)

Joao Lelo.,Open Walls Conference 2014. Barcelona, Spain. (photo © Fernando Alcalá)

310/Stepan Krasnov. Open Walls Conference 2014. Barcelona, Spain. (photo © Fernando Alcalá)

For more information on Open Walls in Barcelona, please click HERE.

Our special thanks to Nerea Rubio from Difusor for her expert help.

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OWB2 : Open Walls Baltimore 2 Winding Up (VIDEO)

May 31, 2014 Artists

Two years after Baltimore opened its walls to Street Art, the street artist Gaia has again summoned artists this spring and summer to regale walls with murals throughout the up and coming neighborhood it was meant to help develop and revitalize, the Station North Arts & Entertainment District. From March through June this year fifteen artists from hometown Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Europe and South America were slated to come through and hit big walls.

Escif. Open Walls Baltimore 2014 (photo © M Holden Warren)

With the majority of the original works still remaining from the first phase, the new walls OWB2 were scheduled for Lesser Gonzalez Alvarez, Betsy Casanas, El Decerter, ECB, Escif, Gaia, LNY, Logan Hicks, Santtu Mustonen, Nanook, Ozmo, D’Metrius (DJ) Rice, Ernest Shaw Jr., Katey Truhn & Jessie Unterhalter, Zbiok, and the Urban Playground Team.

Thematically derived in many cases from local history and figures and culture, the publicly/privately funded mural program is complemented by a series of free performances and workshops throughout the duration of this year’s installations.

Here are some recent images of walls being completed thanks to Martha Cooper and M Holden Warren. Back in April we also published a selection of images from OWB from photographer Geoff Hargadon.

Escif. Open Walls Baltimore 2014 (photo © M Holden Warren)

Santtu. Open Walls Baltimore 2014 (photo © Martha Cooper)

Gaia. Open Walls Baltimore 2014 (photo © M Holden Warren)

Ozmo. Open Walls Baltimore 2014 (photo © M Holden Warren)

Nanook. Open Walls Baltimore 2014 (photo © M Holden Warren)

Nanook. Open Walls Baltimore 2014 (photo courtesy © OWB)

Logan Hicks. Open Walls Baltimore 2014 (photo © M Holden Warren)

New Shots from Open Walls Baltimore 2

April 8, 2014 Artists

Open Walls Baltimore 2 has begun and only a few pieces have been completed but we thought you’d like to take a look, courtesy photographer and BSA Contributor Geoff Hargadon, who was tooling around one afternoon.

This spring Baltimore will be hosting a list that includes Zbiok, Anttu Mustonen, Ozmo, Nanook, Logan Hicks, Lesser Gonzalez, LNY, El Decertor, ECB, D’metrius Rice, Ernest Shaw, Escif, Gaia, Jessie and Katey, and Betsy Casanas.

Gaia (photo © Geoff Hargadon)

Clearly! Baltimore (photo © Geoff Hargadon)

Nether at work on his wall. (photo © Geoff Hargadon)

Nether. Detail. (photo © Geoff Hargadon)

Santtu Mustonen (photo © Geoff Hargadon)

What’s the 911? A police mini-bunker features Open Walls Baltimore 2 posters. (photo © Geoff Hargadon)

Click HERE to learn more about Open Walls Baltimore 2

The Power of Color via Street Art, Graffiti, and Murals

February 5, 2014 Artists

No doubt it is the grey days of late winter that is making us think about this as we brace for the next snowstorm, but today we’re considering the impact that Street Art color has on architecture that never asked for it.

We’re not the first to think of hues, shades, tones, and palettes when it comes to the man made environment of course, but it does strike us that most of the buildings that are hit up by street art and murals today were designed by architects who never imagined art on their facade.

Os Gemeos in Boston. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Modern architecture for some reason is still primarily grey, washed out greens, beige, eggshell, snore.

“Color is something that architects are usually afraid of,” said internationally known and awarded architect Benedetta Tagliabue in an interview last May about the topic of color. A generalization probably, and you can always find exceptions of colorfully painted neighborhoods globally like the Haight in San Francisco, La Boca in Buenos Aires, Portafino in Italy, Guanajuato in Mexico, Bo-Kaap in Capetown, the favelas of Rio de Janeiro and the Blue City of India, but many of those examples speak to color blocking and pattern.

Interesni Kazki in Baltimore. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

We’ve been looking at the power of Street Art to reface, re-contextualize, re-energize, and re-imagine a building and its place in the neighborhood. Some times it is successful, other times it may produce a light vertigo. The impact of work on buildings by today’s Street Artists and muralists depends not only on content and composition but largely on the palette they have chosen. It sounds trite, and self-evident perhaps, but much of Street Art is about color, and primarily on the warm scale first described by Faber Birren with his OSHA colors and color circle in the 1930s .

Birren developed his color system with the observation that artists favor the warm colors more than the cold, from the violet side of red and extending beyond yellow because “, their effect is more dynamic and intense and because the eye can, in fact, distinguish more warm colors than cold.”

It’s common now to think of 21st century Street Art as the graffiti-influenced practice that primarily activates the detritus of the abandoned industrial sector blighting western cities in the wake of trade agreements that sent all the jobs to lands without protections and regulations. While that is definitely the sort of neglected factory architecture preferred for “activation” by many graffiti artists and Street Artists alike, we also see more curious couplings of color with the delicately ornate, the regal, or even modernist structures today thanks to artists being invited, rather than chased.

The results? Abstractionist, cubist, geometric, letter-based, illustrative, figurative, text-based, outsider, folk, dadaist, pop. One common denominator: color.

“The environment and its colors are perceived, and the brain processes and judges what it perceives on an objective and subjective basis. Psychological influence, communication, information, and effects on the psyche are aspects of our perceptual judgment processes,” writes Frank H. Mahnke in his recent piece for Archinect. The author of Color, Environment, & Human Response has made it his mission to explore psychological, biological effects of color and light and to help creators of the man-made environment make good choices.

Whether all of these choices are good, we leave up to you. But it is worth considering that Street Artists have been part of the conversation on the street for decades now, making powerful suggestions to architects and city planners , so maybe it’s worth taking another look at what they’ve been up to lately.

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This article was also published on The Huffington Post

MURAL Festival in Montreal Stakes a Claim for Street Art North

June 19, 2013 Artists

The MURAL Festival in Montreal took over Saint-Laurent Boulevard over the weekend with the work of more than 25 local, national and international Street Artists working separately and in concert across large walls for this first ever event, and many have taken notice. Nevermind the gossip on the street about mayoral corruption and an ongoing rancorous debate here about a perceived graffiti problem in the city, MURAL and its supporters clearly are staking a claim on a growing world Street Art stage with a strong show that can legitimately brag about a solid mix of talent and styles.

Judging from the attendance, the hashtag enthusiasm, and the cameras hoisted into the air, there should be no debate about how much the kids actually love this stuff – and how many non-kids are also fueling the current explosion of art in the public sphere. “From 5 to 80 years old, the crowd discovered amazing talents and learned to appreciate a public art form that had been cast aside and misidentified as vandalism for the past 20 years,” says Fred Caron, one of the organizers and a cultural worker in the public art milieu. “The cultural values and power of murals is finally back in the North thanks to a crazy bunch of young Canucks.”

For an expansive event like this to succeed right out of the gate, it doesn’t hurt that Montreal is a relatively homogenous city with a very strong tax base, an engaged business sector, and a vibrant arts culture chock full of ideas, performances, and participatory aspirations. With an appreciative audience thronging into the four day festival for fun and culture, the numerous large mural walls in multiple locations were accompanied by body painting, a paint battle, painting with your feet, block parties, live music, djs, a photo booth, tours on foot and bike, skateboard lessons, kite making, urban “street” inspired dance troupes, night time projections, and naturally, beer.

“What captivated me most about this trip was the level of community, cross pollination and camaraderie shared between the different artists groups, institutions and organizations in the city,” enthuses LNY, a New Jersey based Street Artist who has been part of a few of these city-centric festivals over the last couple of years. Rather than cheaply plugging a downtown area with a momentary hype, a sort of “Ghetto Olympics” that fades quickly, leaving no real value to a community, LNY notes that the main organizers of MURAL continued to be engaged with the needs of the artists and were involved with the various satellite organizations to make sure they were thriving.

“This to me is the perfect gauge for healthy communities and for worthwhile festivals that can transcend their original novelty and spectacle to really give something back,” he remarks.

For Street Art photographer Daniel Estaban Rojas, whose work here displays most of the finished pieces at press time, MURAL was an inspiring opportunity to meet many new artists and to be proud of the city. “The face of Montreal has changed with this festival and I think that Street Art will be a lot more accepted in this city. Most people that I spoke to while shooting on the streets had one thing in common to say, and that was ‘thank you’,” he reports with some relief and pride. “Knowing that people were so grateful and being surrounded by such positive vibes made it all the better.”

Included in the MURAL Festival lineup (though not all represented here) were A Squid Called Sebastion, A’Shop, Chris Dyer, Christina Angelina, En Masse, Escif, Fin and Christina, Gaia, Jason Botkin, Labrona, Le Bonnard, LNY, Omen, Other, Other (aka Troy Lovegates), Paria Crew, Phlegm, Pixel Pancho, Reka One, Ricardo Cavolo, ROA, Shantz Brothers, Stare, Stikki Peaches, Troy Lovegates, and Wzrds GNG, among others.

For his first visit to Montreal, the Belgian Street Artist named ROA says that he had a great time creating this “still life” with a bison and a bear. When talking about his inspiration, ROA says that he was impressed with the history of the so-called American bison, which was incredibly abundant in the early 19th century, numbering more than 40 million. After being hunted almost into extinction with a population of 200 a century later, the bison slowly have reestablished their numbers in Canada to 700,000. He decided to add a bear laying on top because it tells a similar story of a native mammal in the region.

“I decided to speak about the Americas and the aspects that unite us though history and conflict,” explains Street Artist LNY about his portrait of his cousin Leslie. He chose her because he considers her, “a person who represents the unification of north and south in an individual; a sort of cultural hybridism.” She is handling maiz, or corn, “as a metaphor for PanAmerican unity; as a crop that has sustained the continents since ancient times and that is now a shell of it’s former self after being thoroughly genetically modified for gain and profit.”

For his participation in the MURAL Festival, it was primarily about coming home for the Canadian artist named Other (AKA Troy Lovegates). “All my spare moments were playing frisbee and catching up with old friends,” he says as he describes the events.

But what about the fellows he painted for the wall? Actually, they are two representations of one man, a troubled sort of guy he met recently.

“The painting I did is of a man I met in Ottawa a few days before the festival who was lost and homeless and wanted to return home to Montreal. But he was scattered, laying in a parking lot talking nonsense. He seemed very gentle and I hope I brought back a part of him to Montreal.”

Mural Festival in Montreal. Day 3

June 15, 2013 Artists

DAY 3 at #MuralFestival

Images are coming into focus as Street Artists are completing large portions of their walls at the first MURAL Festival in Montreal – even as the walls go back out of focus at night when you are having a couple of the local beers that make the city the second largest beer city in the world. Friday night there were projections and today there is a block party with DJs Ryan Emsworth, Kaytranada, Grandtheft, Prison Guard, KenLo Craqnuques and Jeanbart & RRKelly.

Meanwhile, here are some in-progress shots of work by Chris Dyer, En Masse, Escif, Fin and Angelina, Jason Botkin, Le Bonnard, LNY, Matthieu Connery, Omen, Other (aka Troy Lovegates) and Pixel Pancho.

Special thanks to photographer Daniel Esteban Rojas for sharing his perspective with BSA readers.

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