All posts tagged: Faith 47

“Monument Art” Murals Sing of El Barrio in 2015

October 21, 2015 Artists

Some of these new murals are definitely monumental. As are some of the social ills addressed by themes such as immigration and the world refugee crisis. With a dozen international artists painting over the last two weeks, the debut show of the Monument Art Project in the New York neighborhoods of El Barrio, East Harlem and the South Bronx, some logistics have been equally immense, but finally the job is complete and people are talking about the new works they watched being painted.

Ever. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Not quite street art and not quite your local community mural, these finished opus works are more poetic than activist, more visionary than purely aesthetic; occupying a modern mid-way between those archetypes of public art we call the “New Muralism”.

Following on the success of the Los Muros Hablan festival staged a couple of years ago in San Juan, Puerto Rico and New York, organizers Jose Morales and Celso González expand their international reach and bring it back home with the stalwart and vehement support of New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito.

Ever. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Argentina, Belgium, Los Angeles, Mexico, Puerto Rico, South Africa – an admirable list of participants for a festival this size. What this dispersed program has that many recent commercial “Street Art” festivals have been lacking is a cognition of community, a connection– however refracted – to the people who are going to live with it. MonumentArt is aiming to engage the community with images and themes that resonate with many of the members – perhaps sparking conversations among chance encounters.

Here El Mac channels his influences of Caravaggio and Chicano culture to collaborate with Cero on a portrait evocative of haloed church icons. This serious and thoughtful figure rising high above everyone’s head is the well known Nuyorican writer Nicholasa Mohr, who has told many stories of Puerto Rican women, their travails and ascendency in the Bronx and El Barrio.

Ever. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Notably Viajero’s boy in a handmade boat of newspaper pages addresses the dangerous figurative and literal waters that refugees are facing today, including children. With his back turned to us and his distrustful glance over the shoulder he may be questioning our commitment to saving those poor and needy in country that congratulates itself for its religious roots.

While quite different stylistically the mural reminds us of a 3-D installation done by Lituanian street artist Ernest Zacharevic in Norway’s Nuart Festival just last month.

Ever. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The topic of immigration is hammered home by Mexican muralist Sego as well as he strips away the skin of the Statue of Liberty, as if in an attempt to see what lies beneath that oxidized copper exterior in New York harbor symbolizing “welcome”. Look again and see the points of her famous crown are transmuted into a feathered headdress, similar to those of the continents’ original citizens. In a nation of immigrants, New York’s multitude of populations typify the immigrant life and their plight is intrinsically tied to our history.

The quality of work is here, as is the articulation of ideas and themes. Curated thoughtfully and selected carefully, the MonumentArt collection gives back to the community it is nested within.

Argentinian artist Ever appropriated local kids as inspiration along with photos taken by Martha Cooper of immigrants in the 1990s and themes related to Puerto Rican independence and the US occupation of the island of Vieques. His signature kaleidoscope visions and voices pile and wind around the head like folkloric waves of energy.

Ever. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

But even working directly with the community, Ever tells us that things don’t go as smoothly as you might expect. He also discusses how intrinsic the topic of immigration is to his piece and to the story of New York.

Brooklyn Street Art: The top figure on your mural is of boy. Can you tell us who he is?
EVER: This is funny. I was here doing some research and these kids were playing basketball on the courts and I saw one of them and he caught my attention and I decided to approach him. It was kind of hard for me since I’m not from here and I didn’t think I’d have the right words to talk to him so I was a bit nervous.

I told him my pitch and his first reaction was “No I don’t want you to take my picture”. So it was hard for me because he was the one I wanted to paint on the wall. And he told me he didn’t want to be a part of it. So I said cool. But when his friends, one by one came forward and told me that they would like to do it and got excited he then at that moment he changed his mind and told me he wanted to do it.

Ever. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

I was very happy but when I told him he had to pose of a photo first he said, “OK but take only three pictures”. I said to myself, ‘Come on you are like Madonna.” Finally he posed and I got my photo.

Then for the other kids I went to Martha Cooper’s studio to do some more research on East Harlem and to find more photos related to the neighborhood. The other two figures are from photos Martha Cooper took in the 80’s and 90’s in El Barrio. One was taken during a Latin-American parade more than 20 years ago.

Faith 47. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

When I was on the plane coming here I had an idea of what I wanted to do. I wanted to talk about the issue of immigration in my piece. For me is insane that in the 21st Century we are still having problems with immigration. I’m a product of immigration. My parents came to Argentina from Spain. Most cities in most nations are created by immigrants. So it is crazy that there are still some people who see immigrants like the enemy. They are talking about people who live next to them, people who are their neighbors. So we must accept immigration as a reality of all nations and New York is a huge example of different cultures living together without big problems. In New York one can breath freedom. And that’s the subject I wanted to approach.

We all move to different places all the time. As humans it is in our nature to be nomads. When we look up at the sky we see the birds flying around without papers, without limits. And we humans we have to be limited to a piece of paper that determines if we are allowed in or not.

Faith 47. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

These three figures on this mural represent the future of this country: The next generation. It is absurd to hear politicians when they talk about immigration and they make the immigrants their enemies. This is a beautiful country and for the most part people who come here are trying to find a better future. Furthermore I think that most people dream of someday being able to go back to their countries of origin.

I was recently in Tijuana and I noticed two individuals having a conversation but they were separated by this fence, this wall. You could see the two families on two different sides of the fence and it was something that made a big impression on me.

Luis R. Vidal. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

SEGO. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Viajero. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

ROA. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

El Mac and Cero. Detail. Collaboration on this Mosaic and paint portrait of poet Nicholasa Mohr. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

El Mac. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

CERO. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

El Mac and Cero. Collaboration on this portrait of poet Nicholasa Mohr. The mosaic portion was done by Cero and the portrait by El Mac. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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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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This article is also published in The Huffington Post.

Happy New Year 2015 – BSA Readers Choice Top 10

January 1, 2015 Artists

Happy New Year to All! Thank you for inspiring us to do our best and to those of you who continue to support our personal art project / cultural examination, we extend our gratitude more than ever.

Begun as an enthusiastic discovery of what was happening in a few neighborhoods in New York, we continued to expand our view into more cities around the world last year and into the history and future of the scene. We also aimed to provide you with a critical platform for examination of the street art/ graffiti / public art/ contemporary art continuum with interviews with artists, curators, collectors, organizers, observers and thinkers in the street, studio, gallery, and museum – trouble makers and taste makers alike.

In the end, it’s your observations and the conversations on the street that are most important. As we begin the year with over 300K fans, friends, and followers on social media platforms and 225 articles on the Huffington Post (thanks HuffPost team!), we feel like we get a valuable good survey of current opinions heading our way daily.

With in-depth interviews, investigative articles, opinion infused examinations, plain celebratory reverie, occasionally silly non-sequitors, and public appearances where we get to meet you, we get a good analytical look at an ever-evolving movement, glittery polish and warts and all.

As the new year begins we take a look back at the top stories chosen by BSA Readers in the last 12 months. Among them are two takeover pop-up shows in soon-to-be demolished buildings, a story about commercial abuse of artist copyrights and the effort to fight back, a street art community’s response to the sudden death of an activist street artist, a Street Art tourist trip, and a few inspirational women, men, and Mexican muralists. Even though we published at least once a day for the last 365 days, these are the most popular pieces, as chosen by you, Dear BSA Reader.

10. Exploring Lisbon as a Street Art Tourist

Os Gemeos / Blu (photo © Stephen Kelley)

9. Kara Walker and Her Sugar Sphinx at the Old Domino Factory

Kara Walker. The artist portrait in profile with her sugary sphinx in the background. (photo via iPhone © Jaime Rojo)

8. Women Rock Wynwood Walls at Miami Art Basel 2013

Fafi (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

7. A Sudden Secret Street Art House Party in Manhattan

Icy & Sot (photo © Jaime Rojo)

6. Niels Shoe Meulman Balancing “Unearthly” Paintings

Niels “Shoe” Meulman. Process shot. (photo © Adele Renault)

5. It’s All the Rage, Street Artists Filing Lawsuits Left and Right

4. Shok-1 Street Art X-Rays Reveal a Unique Hand at the Can

Shok-1 (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

3. 12 Mexican Street Artists Stray Far from Muralism Tradition In NYC

Sego (photo © Jaime Rojo)

2. Army Of One, Inspiration To Many : Jef Campion

Army Of One AKA JC2 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

1. Graffiti and Street Art Lock Up “21st Precinct” in New York

Pixote in action. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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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 Picks 19 Things to See at DUMBO ARTS FEST 2014

September 27, 2014 Artists

New York Clobbers Fall again and one of the finest examples of art in the public sphere has again returned to swing the aesthetic bat straight at your head with the DUMBO ARTS FESTIVAL.

With it comes the electrifying Brooklyn energy that transforms the street into a place you actually want to be in, linger in, discover in. Smack between two iconic Bridges (Brooklyn and Manhattan) DUMBO boasts a world class art festival that has grown both organically and with great purpose, often commanding your attention.

You can make a plan to hit a few installations, performances, galleries… — or you can just show up and grab a map.

Above image is of artist CHIKA’s large scale interactive LED sculpture in the archway under the Manhattan Bridge. More on her SEI: Stella Octangula HERE.

Following are some BSA picks that we think are worth highlighting:

1. FOLIOLEAF GALLERY. “Bad Vibes” Rubin415 and David Head.

A solid mix of new contemporary work that leans toward popular tastes, Folioleaf is making a strong showing with a growing stable that includes a number of current Street Artist like DAIN, Gilf! (image above), Hellbent, and others that are tangentially related. Street Art culture is a wide world and gallery owner Todd Masters is stretching his arms to embrace it.

111 Front Street, Suite 226.

http://folioleaf.com/

2. SIDE HUSTLE NYC: “By Day, By Night” Karoleen Decastro, Alyssa Gruen, Patrick Ramos, Jon Chen.

What is your sidehustle? In the ever more expensive NYC game, almost every creative we know has one – Check out this installation and on Sunday they will have another photo shoot.

Plymouth Street Park Perimeter Fence.

http://sidehustlenyc.com/

3. Dumbo Underfoot”. Karen Mainenti

Mainenti draws your attention to the actual street in this installation highlighting those rail tracks cutting through the neighborhood that were used by Brooklyn industries and trades like coffee, soap bubbles, sugar, shoes and Brillo steel wool pads.

See MORE here.

Plymouth Street (between Main and Washington Streets)

http://www.karenmainenti.com

DUMBO WALLS – All over the place

Two Trees and Lisa Kim have humanized the experience year long for people working/living/passing through DUMBO by curating some large mural installations by some great Street Artists over the past couple of years. Below are a few to keep your eyes open for on the streets.

4. DUMBO WALLS: Faith 47

Pearl Street Underpass, BQE,

http://www.faith47.com

Brooklyn-Street-Art-Daleast-740-by-day-by-night-collage

5. DUMBO WALLS: dalEAST

Pearl Street Underpass, BQE

http://www.daleast.com/

Brooklyn-Street-Art-EL-TONO-740-by-day-by-night-collage

6. DUMBO WALLS: El Tono

Corner of Prospect and Jay Streets

http://www.eltono.com

Brooklyn-Street-Art-CAM-740-by-day-by-night-collage

7. DUMBO WALLS: CAM

York Street (between Adams and Pearl Streets)

http://www.craiganthonymiller.com

Brooklyn-Street-Art-MOMO-740-by-day-by-night-collage

8. DUMBO WALLS: MOMO

York Street (between Washington and Adams Streets)

http://www.momoshowpalace.com

9. DUMBO WALLS: Shepard Fairey

Corner of York and Jay Streets

http://www.obeygiant.com

10. DUMBO WALLS: Stefan Sagmeister & Yuko Shimizu

Jay Street Underpass, BQE

http://www.sagmeisterwalsh.com

http://www.yukoart.com

Brooklyn-Street-Art-A-la-cart-smackmellon-740-by-day-by-night-collage

11. SMACK MELLON:

Á la Cart with Kristyna and Marek Milde

“If we are what we eat, who are we if we don’t know the origin and the context of the production of our food?”

Originally created for Smack Mellon’s exhibition FOODShed: Art and Agriculture in Action –

6 shopping carts filled with soil parked at Old Fulton Plaza.

Smack Mellon Gallery
92 Plymouth Street, Brooklyn
http://www.smackmellon.org
http://www.estebandelvalle.com

12. Global Virtual Drawing Party: DADA featuring EN MASSE

At the Festival, creators from around the world will be encouraged to draw on DADA, while artists on site will respond using their iPads. The results will be projected live.

1 Main Street, Festival Lounge

http://enmasse.info

http://www.dada.am

13. MIGHTY TANAKA: “Here and There”. Chris Otley, Herb Smith

Which one are you?

Together, they explore the impact between native and invasive species within both of their local communities.

111 Front Street, Suite 224, Brooklyn

http://www.mightytanaka.com

14. “I ____ a Dollar” . Jody Servon

Main Street (between Plymouth and Water Streets)

http://www.jodyservon.com

15. BE MIGHTY! SPACE: LA2/LA ROC

“LA2, aka LA ROC, collaborated with Keith Haring to create iconic NYC street art in the ’80s. LA2 is part of the original street art movement, and a godfather of the scene. His work is highly sought after for its iconic nature and history. This exhibit will showcase some of the classic styles that LA2 is known for, along with his new work that pushes the style into a more contemporary realm. On display will be works on canvas, wood, and an assortment of objects.”

80 John Street

http://www.la2graffitiartist.com

https://www.dynomighty.com

16. MASTERS PROJECTS: “Lost Corcosa” . Various Artists

The largerer and higher ender version of FolioLeaf , this the MASTERS PROJECTS. oof!

Peter Buechler, DAIN, Dee Dee, ELLE, Amze Emmons, Dima Gavrysh, gilf!, Nicolas Holiber, Steven Katzman, Karl Klingbiel, Amanda Marie, Timothy Paul Myers, QRST, RAE, Jon Rappley, Joram Roukes, Shin-Shin, Cris Uphues, Nathan Vincent, Charles Wilkin, X-O.

111 Front Street, Suite 212

http://www.maste.rs

17. REFLECTION / KOLONIHAVEHUS . Tom Fruin and CoreAct

“The colorful glass house is inhabited by two performers, who portray everyday dilemmas and lifestyle paradoxes in a subtle manner. They have lost the ability to meaningfully discriminate, and are trapped in a long chain of procrastination, mirroring our current social patterns. As an audience you can wonder in and out of the performance as you like. “

Empire Fulton Ferry Deck

http://www.tomfruin.com

http://www.coreact.dk

18. “TRUST YOUR VISION” . Gilf!

Front Street (between Adams and Pearl Streets)

http://www.gilfnyc.com

This installation on BSA

19 . MPH-BENCH . Lee Mandell, XAM

MPH-BENCH is an indoor and/or outdoor furniture piece created using the idea of adaptive reuse. We like the fact that this hydroponic bentch can be whe bench can be wheeled around to fit into various aesthetic environments – Mobile agriculture!

1 Main Street, Festival Lounge
http://www.xambuilt.com
http://www.boswyckfarms.org

BONUS!*** TRUFFULA LORAXIA . Lee Mandell, XAM

Truffula Loraxia is a hydroponic sculpture project created by Lee Mandell and XAM. It combines growing technologies with design. Truffula Loraxia’s basic structure is a tree, which extends from a dodecahedron shaped base.

Main Street Park

http://www.xambuilt.com

http://www.boswyckfarms.org

For a complete schedule of events, maps and other details click HERE

The 2013 BSA Year in Images (VIDEO)

December 18, 2013 Artists

Here it is! Our 2013 wrap up featuring favorite images of the year by Brooklyn Street Art’s Jaime Rojo.

Before our video roundup below here is the Street Art photographer’s favorite of the year, snapped one second before he was singled out of a New York crowd, handcuffed, and stuffed into a police car – sort of like the Banksy balloons he was capturing.

“Among all the thousands of photos I took this year there’s one that encapsulates the importance of Street Art in the art world and some of the hysteria that can build up around it,” he says of his final shot on the final day of the one month Better Out Than In artist ‘residency’ in NYC this October. It was a cool day to be a Street Art photographer – but sadly Rojo was camera-less in a case of mistaken identity, if only for a short time.

Released two hours later after the actual car-jumping trespasser was charged, Rojo was happy to hear the Chief Lieutenant tell his officer “you’ve got the wrong man”, to get his shoelaces back, and to discover this photo was still on his camera. He also gets to tell people at parties that he spent some time in the holding cell with the two guys whom New York watched tugging down the B-A-N-K-S-Y.

What’s everybody looking at? Jaime Rojo’s favorite image of the year at the very end of the Banksy brouhaha. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Now, for the Video

When it came to choosing the 112 images for the video that capture the spirit of the Street Art scene in ’13, we were as usual sort of overwhelmed to comb through about ten thousand images and to debate just how many ‘legal’ versus ‘illegal’ pieces made it into the mix. Should we include only images that went up under the cover of the night, unsanctioned, uncensored, uncompromised, unsolicited and uncommissioned? Isn’t that what Street Art is?

Right now there are a growing number of legal pieces going up in cities thanks to a growing fascination with Street Art and artists and it is causing us to reevaluate what the nature of the Street Art scene is, and what it may augur for the future. You can even say that from a content and speech perspective, a sizeable amount of the new stuff is playing it safe – which detracts from the badass rebel quality once associated with the practice.

These works are typically called by their more traditional description – murals. With all the Street Art / graffiti festivals now happening worldwide and the growing willingness of landlords to actually invite ‘vandals’ to paint their buildings to add cache to a neighborhood and not surprisingly benefit from the concomitant increase in real estate values, many fans and watchers have been feeling conflicted in 2013 about the mainstreaming that appears to be taking place before our eyes. But for the purposes of this roundup we decided to skip the debate and let everybody mix and mingle freely.

This is just a year-end rollicking Street Art round-up; A document of the moment that we hope you like.

Ultimately for BSA it has always been about what is fresh and what is celebrating the creative spirit – and what is coming next. “We felt that the pieces in this collection expressed the current vitality of the movement – at least on the streets of New York City,” says photographer and BSA co-founder Rojo. It’s a fusillade of the moment, complete with examples of large murals, small wheat pastes, intricate stencils, simple words made with recycled materials or sprayed on to walls, clay installations, three dimensional sculptures, hand painted canvases, crocheted installations, yarn installations etc… they somehow captured our imaginations, inspired us, made us smile, made us think, gave us impetus to continue doing what we are doing and above all made us love this city even more and the art and the artists who produce it.

Brooklyn Street Art 2013 Images of the Year by Jaime Rojo includes the following artists;

A Dying Breed, Aakash Nihalini, Agostino Iacursi, Amanda Marie, Apolo Torres, Axel Void, Bagman, Bamn, Pixote, Banksy, B.D. White, Betsy, Bishop203, NDA, Blek le Rat, br1, Case Maclaim, Cash For Your Warhol, Cholo, Chris RWK, Chris Stain, Billy Mode, Christian Nagel, Cost, ENX, Invader, Crush, Dal East, Damien Mitchell, Dase, Dasic, Keely, Deeker, Don’t Fret, The Droid, ECB, el Seed, El Sol 25, Elbow Toe, Faile, Faith 47, Five Pointz, Free Humanity, Greg LaMarche, Hot Tea, How & Nosm, Icy & Sot, Inti, Jilly Ballistic, John Hall, JR, Jose Parla, Judith Supine, Kremen, Kuma, LMNOPI, London Kaye, Love Me, Martha Cooper, Matt Siren, Elle, Mika, Miss Me, Missy, MOMO, Mr. Toll, Nychos, Okuda, Alice Mizrachi, OLEK, Owen Dippie, Paolo Cirio, Paul Insect, Phetus, Phlegm, Revok, Pose, QRST, Rambo, Ramiro Davaro, Reka, Rene Gagnon, ROA, RONES, Rubin, bunny M, Square, Stikki Peaches, Stikman, Swoon, Tristan Eaton, The Lisa Project 2013, UFO 907, Willow, Swill, Zed1, and Zimer.

Read more about Banksy’s last day in New York here and our overview of his residency in the essay “Banksy’s Final Trick” on The Huffington Post.

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Women Rock Wynwood Walls at Miami Art Basel 2013

December 7, 2013 Artists, Interview

An international team of heavy hitting women in Street Art are the centerpiece of the Wynwood District this weekend as Jeffrey Deitch returns to Miami to co-curate Women on the Walls. Reprising a more central role for Wynwood Walls that he played when Tony Goldman first established this outdoor mural playground, Deitch says he is reserving center stage exclusively for the women this year as a way of highlighting their history and growing importance in the graffiti/street art scenes around the world.

“It’s to correct the historical imbalance,” says Deitch as he talks about the new wall murals painted this week and the accompanying gallery exhibition showcase that celebrates the contributions of outstanding women artists in a scene that, with a few notable exceptions, has been primarily run by the guys.

Miss Van at work on her wall. (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

“After this historical imbalance there was something that needed to be addressed about the misperception that graffiti is just a boys club,” says the enthusiastic bespectacled curator who shares the role for this show with the team of Janet Goldman, Jessica Goldman Srebnick, Meghan Coleman, and Ethel Seno.

As with the Living Walls Atlanta festival on the streets in 2012, this show gives full voice to women in a holistic and powerful way that rather redefines the context of a graffiti/street art/tattoo/skater scene which sometimes veers too close to being overtly sexist, if not outright misogynist in it’s depiction of women and their roles.

Miss Van at work on her wall. (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

Maybe it’s the scene itself – much of the graff / Street Art scene has always had partially skewed perceptions about the gals because they were traditionally populated almost exclusively by males. Since work on the streets is a mirror that reflects society back to itself, it makes sense that we’re looking at a funhouse on the walls sometimes. But you don’t have to accept the narrative entirely and shows like this argue for greater authorship of the visual dialogue. Right now in civic life you’ll see strong positive images as more women are assuming more history-making leadership roles than ever, but there are also a lot messages in media and pop culture that portray women as little more than one dimensional giggly jiggly sex toys.

For Parisian artist Fafi, a show with this theme could not be more timely.

“The atmosphere about women these days is really fucked up, especially towards younger ones,” says the street artist as she relates the sentiment of conversations at a late dinner she recently had with co-participants Miss Van and Maya Hayuk.

Miss Van (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

“There’s something in the air that’s telling us we absolutely need to talk about empowering women in our female artist life,” she explains as she describes the condescending and denigrating attitudes she still encounters from some men even after she has been painting on the streets and in studio for more than two decades.

Fafi says that there are still some who tell her and her female peers that what they do is cool “for a woman”, and more worryingly, “it’s something that comes up more and more often nowadays.”

Maya Hayuk at work on her wall. (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

“It seems like in 2013 it is almost a passé sort of gesture that a bunch of women would have to get together to make a statement when we’ve all been doing this for so long,” says Maya Hayuk, whose bright geometric patterns were on the forefront of a current Street Art fascination with the abstract. “Hopefully in the future we don’t have to do ‘all women’ or ‘all men’ or ‘all anything’ shows,” she says sort of wistfully, “We can do shows on ‘all awesome’.”

Maya Hayuk (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

So perhaps Deitch and Co. are rebalancing much more than they realize by creating this environment that values the contributions of artists who also happen to be women. Whether it was their original intention or not, the experience this week for many participants has been about empowerment – and networking. The complexity of the list itself speaks to the varied and unique stylistic influences that are now brought to the street by women and a certain validation of these voices is reflected in the fact that many here have had commercial success on their own terms.

“I think it’s a great privilege to be here with these women artists, to be in a show with them, and to create this work in a public space,” says the Polish born Brooklynite Olek, who has made a singular name for herself on the street in the last handful of years by covering bicycles, shopping carts, public sculptures, even people with her hand-crocheted pink and purple camouflage. We have called her the Christo/Jeanne Claude of the streets, which gives an apt sense of the skin-like quality of her wrapping as well as the interventionist instinct she follows, but it doesn’t quite tap the personal level of involvement Olek has with her pieces.

Olek at work on her installation. (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

For Wynwood she has been hand-crocheting covers for the large heavy boulders that dot the inner grounds of the complex in a blunt and rugged manner. “Of course I love these rocks because I like to highlight things in the existing environment and to give them a new life, a new beginning,” she says while sitting on the grass joining the pieces of her new coverings by hand.

Olek at work on her installation. (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

Does she think the energy and atmosphere here is positive? “All the girls are really wonderful and I love working with them – we are all just working here, eating, talking, and I think we have made some friendships that will last a very long time.”

Olek at work on her installation. (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

So why does Deitch think it is important to create a show that specifically draws attention to women artists at this time?

“It’s a very simple thing,” he says, “The first reason is that some of the major talents in Street Art are women.” He then speaks about the individual contributions and talents of some of the participants this week before he comes to Lady Pink, the NYC graffiti artist who painted trains in the 70s and who went on to serve as an active role model to girls and young women around the world, giving them confidence to assert and explore their creative talents. “We wanted to celebrate Lady Pink, whose work is better than ever.”

Lady Pink at work on her wall. (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

Lady Pink. Her sketch for her wall. (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

Speaking of the 70s, the other woman in the show whose work extends back to those times is photographer Martha Cooper, who shares her work here for this article and whose images of the new walls will be projected in the gallery show tonight. Deitch can not be more pleased with the results of the work from this new collection of artists, and traffic on the streets from fans has been thick and exuberant, whether it is for South Africa’s Faith 47 or London’s Lakwena.

“These walls by Maya Hayuk, Miss Van and Sheryo are outstanding and as fresh as ones that many male street artists are doing now,” he says as he talks about the new collection of work this year.

Singapore’s Sheryo, who also spends much of her time in Brooklyn, says that her walls actually reflect the extended two year aerosol “spraycation” around the world that she’s been on with her male cohort The Yok (her assistant this week). “We have been chasing summer weather, we love warm weather!” she says as she looks up at her wall. “My characters are seen painting, surfing, drinking rum coconuts and chilling out around palm trees and lush forest environments, which is what we usually do on our vacations.”

Sheryo at work on her wall. (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

As with many of the women in Women on Walls Sheryo has been in a number of these Street Art festival type of events as well as numerous ad hoc painting sessions on roofs, climbing fences, hitting walls, all primarily with men. How does the environment change when all this female energy hits the streets? Not to trash the guys, but Sheryo’s response is very similar to women we spoke with here and at Atlanta’s Living Walls last year.

Sheryo at work on her wall. (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

“It is a whole lot of fun! Girls are way more caring and there are a lot more hugs going down, which I love.” To be fair, boys probably give good hugs too.

Sheryo at work on her wall. (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

For Fafi, the motivation is also simple for her and many of the solid talents involved in this show, “We felt it’s the time now more than ever for more “Girl Power”. The goal of all this is to inspire younger girls to do the best they can, to search for new ideas, and to come up with something new and different as soon as it gets too easy and comfortable. I want them to be inspired.”

Fafi at work on her installation. (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

Fafi at work on her wall. (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

Fafi (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

Aiko at work on her wall. (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

Aiko (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

Kashink at work on her wall. (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

Kashink (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

Lakwena at work on her wall. (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

Faith 47 at work on her wall. (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

Some male alumni of previous Wynwood Walls shows gather with many of the Women on the Walls crew for a group shot here by Martha Cooper. Front row from left to right: Kashink, Janet Goldman, Lady Pink, Miss Van, Aiko and Maya Hayuk,. Second row from left to right: Shepard Fairey, Olek, Jessica Goldman, Sheryo, Lakwena, Jeffrey Deitch, Faith 47 and Dal East. Back row from left to right: Ron English, Fafi, Myla and Kenny Scharff. Wynwood Walls. Miami, Florida. December 2013. (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

Women on the Walls is on display in the Wynwood District of Miami. For more on Wynwood Walls click here.

Artists included are Aiko, Claw Money, Fafi, Faith 47, Jess & Katie, Kashink, Lady Pink, Lakwena, Martha Cooper, Maya Hayuk, Miss Van, Myla, Olek, Shamsia Hassan, Sheryo, Swoon, and Too Fly.

With Special Thanks to Ethel Seno.

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Street Art in Honolulu as Pow! Wow! Hawaii Enters Fifth Year

December 4, 2013 Artists

Before the year wraps we wanted to take a look at images from Pow! Wow! Hawaii as it enters its fifth year with a collection of images recently captured in Honolulu where it happens.

Begun by founder Jasper Wong in Hong Kong, Pow! Wow! Hawaii is a non-profit gathering in his hometown that he co-produces with another artist named Kamea Hadar. In a promo video for the festival Wong says that the festival is about “beautifying a neighborhood, changing a neighborhood through art”.

Rone and Wonder spell it out in their largest collaboration to date. (photo © Yoav Litvin)

A criticism of street art festivals often leveled has been that the stars of the international circuit overpower the local tastes or are somehow insensitive to them, and the hip doesn’t always respect the homegrown.

Pow! Wow! Hawaii steadily avoids that criticism by including local community throughout open participatory events and it makes sure to include artists who work with traditional motifs and values in their pieces, bringing indigenous cultures into the mix in a meaningful way.

Woes, Meggs, Peap, Tarr, Mr. Jago and Will Barras (photo © Yoav Litvin)

Since the rich pop colors of the modern age are also the visual lengua materna for these Street Artists and graffiti artists, it is common to see figures and patterns from the past updated with punch. The waterside commercial neighborhood along the southern shores of the island of Oʻahu is called Kaka’ako and the name itself has inspired some of the artists to include it in their pieces.

Recently photographer Yoav Litvin took a trip to the neighborhood where Pow! Wow! takes place and we bring you some of the images from Honolulu to get a taste the work that has been left there by an estimated 100 artists since 2010.

Faith 47 (photo © Yoav Litvin)

Askew pays tribute to the Tuhoe Iwi and references the time of the Treaty of Waitangi (photo © Yoav Litvin)

Nychos and Jeff Soto (photo © Yoav Litvin)

Scribe (photo © Yoav Litvin)

Roids and Madsteez punch up the color when paying tribute to King Kalakua. (photo © Yoav Litvin)

Dal East (photo © Yoav Litvin)

Ekundayo (photo © Yoav Litvin)

Kamea Hadar and Rone (photo © Yoav Litvin)

Eddie Colla (photo © Yoav Litvin)

From the website:

“Centered around a week-long event in Hawaii, POW! WOW! has grown into a global network of artists and organizes gallery shows, lecture series, schools for art and music, mural projects, a large creative space named Lana Lane Studios, concerts, and live art installations across the globe. The central event takes place during Valentine’s Day week in February in the Kaka’ako district of Honolulu, and brings over a hundred international and local artist together to create murals and other forms of art.”

For more about Pow! Wow! Hawaii click HERE

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Eye on London Street Art : Spencer Elzey in Europe

November 23, 2013 Artists

For the first week-long “residency” on BSA, Spencer Elzey has been sharing his experiences and Street Art photos from his recent trip to Europe. Today we finish with London, a polished and presentable collection of some of the current scene from the streets.

The city has long played host to a rolling panoply of urban art and artists and is a prime example of the professionalization of the practice featuring a greater absorption into the culture and economy at large with galleries, museums, shops, and paid tour guides all joining in. The upshot is you will see some of the best examples of talent and it may at times seem all quite combed over and generally safe for a general audience. Not that there isn’t dynamism and risk taking, and you will still find unsanctioned work to be seen inside and outside of the tourist hotspots.

Sweet Toof and Roa (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Hosting the Olympics last year brought a self cleansing of much of the organically grown graffiti and Street Art, and the chilling effect of living in an electronically surveilled society with cameras nearly everywhere will undoubtedly be sited to when historians look at the nature of art on the streets from this era.

“London had a lot of Street Art but it felt more corporate and organized for the masses,” says Elzey of his time walking through Shoreditch, Brick Lane, Hackney, Bethnal Green, and Camden. “In the week that I was there I walked by around five Street Art tours.”

Sweet Toof (photo © Spencer Elzey)

“Most of London’s street art is confined to these places – The other areas that I explored around London all seemed pretty clean. This may have been due to the fact that there are security cameras everywhere,” he says. An international first world city, London usually is a destination for the international “circuit” of Street Artists whose names tend to reappear on lists of the various street/graffiti/urban art festivals that now pop up in global cities from Lima to Łódź and Living Walls to Nuart to Upfest and the recently ended FAME.

As with any art form that begins as transgressive and underground and evolves to be adopted by the dominant culture, at times the whole scene begins to resemble the commercial and institutional interests it once mocked or attempted to subvert. “London is great but felt more catered to the bigger players and had the most street art in commissioned form (by the various Street Art organizations), which is good to see some amazing work but cheapens the art a little,” he says.

In the images he shares with BSA readers today you can see the really strong work that is throughout those neighborhoods as many of the artists consider strongly what they will do – and it results in some quite striking pieces. As always, you want to keep an eye on London. Surely it will keep an eye on you.

Miss Van and B. Schu (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Otto Schade (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Shok 1 (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Gnasher (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Alexis Diaz (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Ben Eine (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Cranio (photo © Spencer Elzey)

For The Love Of Dog (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Banksy (photo © Spencer Elzey)

A sculptural installation by D*Face (photo © Spencer Elzey)

ROA (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Swoon (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Guy Denning (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Urban Solid (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Sokaruno (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Vinie and Reaone (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Anthony Lister (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Finabarr DAC (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Phlegm (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Faith 47 (photo © Spencer Elzey)

El Mac (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Conor Harrington (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Klone (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Dal East (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Dscreete (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Insa (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Martin Ron (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Jana & JS (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Christian Nagel (photo © Spencer Elzey)

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The “Aqueduct Murals” Are Off and Running!

November 22, 2013 Artists, Interview

“He’s pissed off. He’s like… he has an attitude. He’s ornery. In my work I’m always looking to relate my own feelings to the images that I see and try to express them through painting.”

Chris Stain and Katherine Huala at work on their first collaborative piece. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Chris Stain is looking at a black and white photo of a victorious and defiant jockey covered in mud – a guy named Webber who raced “Broiler” at Aqueduct – and talks about why he is immortalizing the fella in paint for this thoroughbred race track that turns 120 years old next year.

“So when I saw him I was like, ‘Yeah I feel like that sometimes, most of the time, ninety-five percent of the time.’ ”

Any seasoned wagerer knows it is a bit of a gamble to work with graffiti and Street Artists – untamed and unbridled as they can be – but Street Artist Joe Iurato has corralled a small herd and coaxed them inside off the streets for this one race. The Aqueduct Murals are out of the gate and if last nights marathon of painting was any indication, the odds are good they will all hit the finish line by Saturday.

Chris Stain found this vintage photograph as an inspiration for his collaborative piece with Katherine Huala. Jockey Weber finished second place on his horse “Broiler”, and it looks like it was a rainy and muddy day at the track here in 1941 in Jamaica, Queens. Original photographer unnamed. (This photo © Jaime Rojo)

“Equestrian racing, jockey related – the only criteria they gave us was they wanted to see something that was more in the spirit of the place,” says Joe as he looks around the mainly beige walls of the facility in Queens that is filling with aerosol fumes as the clock nears midnight. He still has to get up on a cherry picker and get working on his collaborative mural with Logan Hicks, but as the organizer, Joe discovers he needs to make sure all the other artists are getting taken care of first – its all part of the care and feeding of Street Artists.

Tomorrow night the opening bell on the reception rings at 6 pm at Aqueduct with a DJ and a print release with all the artists in attendance and Ellis G doing some live chalk drawings, but for right now Joe is looking at some peeling paint and figuring out how to seal it.

“They gave us a photo bucket that was full of about 300 pictures from the past 60 years,” he says of the racetrack reference material that roughly half of the artists are using in their murals. “We were able to use any of those and a lot of them were just brilliant.”

The international and locally-based artists all are taking different approaches – and the distances they have traveled vary from South Africa, Australia, Sweden, Italy, Texas, California, New Jersey….and even hometown Queens and Brooklyn guys like Stain, Skewville, and Hicks. In the middle of the progress last night BSA got some shots as some of the pieces were galloping along – some are on the backstretch while a few just started out of the gate.

Participating artists for The Aqueduct Murals include : Logan Hicks, David Flores, Chris Stain collaborating with Katherine Huala, Rubin, Faith 47, Skewville, JMR, LNY, Ian Kuali’i, Shai Dahan, Zed1, Joe Iurato, ThenOne, and Reka.

Chris Stain and Katherine Huala. Chris working on their piece. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Reka. Detail of his piece in progress. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“I’m trying to experiment a little at the moment and in terms of colors I’m just doing strictly gray scale,” says Melbourne Street Artist REKA, who is normally known for his use of vibrant oranges and reds in his tightly fluid character-based street work. “Also this is something a bit more messy, a bit more dynamic anyway – I’m allowing more room for error and be more playful.”

“I want to show the movement in the racing – sections of the horse and the jockey – to show more of the human element and the connection between the rider and the horse. I don’t paint realistically – so that is my representation of the horse.”

Reka at work on his piece. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Zed1 at work on his piece. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Italian Street Artist Zed1 stays monochromatic in his palette also but his metaphor is entirely different. “I prefer you see when you finish because it is a surprise !” he says while revealing to us in a conspiratorial tone what the humorous scene will eventually depict. Don’t worry folks, it’s all clean and respectful.

Zed1. Process shot. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Rubin at work on his piece. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: This doesn’t look like a horse.
Rubin: No. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a horse just because it is a race track.

The least representational of the murals draws a clearer connection to its location and proximity to the city with more abstract depictions of the roaring crowd and the city skyline. Roaring twenties of last century meld well with the spattered street inflections of early teens 21st century here.

“I kind of flipped those Art Deco inspired lines from being horizontal to vertical and so it is my way of paying tribute to New York,” says the Greenpoint, Brooklyn based Swedish artist who says he never tires of going on the roof to look at Manhattan across the East River.

Rubin at work on his piece. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

David Flores and assistant at work on his piece. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

LA’s David Flores used to go to the races at Santa Anita when he was a kid. “but nothing major, we didn’t bet or anything like that,” he says as he steps back to compare his rendering to the piece on the wall. The composition combines the jockey image from a photo from the track with a new mask and a horse and hand from two other sources. “I kind of married them together,” he says of the scene. “I had to make it the way I wanted with a lot of diamonds and stars and stripes – you know how they wear their gear so it’s all colorful.”

Normally more abstract, this wall by Flores is literal in its depiction, but with an illustrators eye. Has he worked with animals in his work much? “I have worked with animals a couple of times but nothing of this scale – or horse racing and I’m super excited because I’m a fan of the sport. I’m stoked on it now.”

David Flores. Sketch for his piece. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

LNY. Detail of his piece in progress. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

New Jersey Street Artist LNY took something with history and shot with the older film based technology and manipulated it with a current digital and returned to the hand rendered painting form to create it on a wall.

“Yeah, especially this,” he says as he rolls a thin screen of crimson over his composition, ” – doing washes is a super traditional technique”

The subject matter for LNY speaks to the regimented hierchy of class that permeates the traditions of racing. “Its always been about social status and that became really apparent when I came here,” he says as he describes his choice of outfielders he researched as subjects.

“The outfielders are the guys that go out there and if a horse goes crazy – they are kind of the cops of the field – so basically they are staff,” he says of the well-dressed horsemen in the original image he started with. “I just got some really nifty iPad apps that cost nothing but they let you transform images so I’ve been having a lot of fun with those and I’m basing my mural on that.”

LNY at work on his piece. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

LNY created this digital collage mock up which served as template for his piece. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Shai Dahan at work on his piece. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: I guess it is not that far a stretch for you to paint a couple of horses!
Shai Dahan: “No! I’ve been painting nothing but horses for the last three years”

The LA-New York- now Sweden based artist has been painting his interpretation of Swedish Dalecarlian horses which are traditionally red, so he is making sure to include on in his Aqueduct piece.

Brooklyn Street Art: Had you seen races before?
Shai Dahan: No, this was my very first time
Brooklyn Street Art: What was your impression?
Shai Dahan: It’s very cool. To actually see them race – just to see the quickness and the power and the movement of it is really fascinating and inspiring. I wanted to create some kind of forceful movement to get people out to the racetrack. The graffiti background is to represent the feel of New York, and all the bright colors.

Sahi Dahan at work on his piece. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

ThenOne working on the background color for his piece. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

New Jersey’s ThenOne says has been a graffiti artist for 16 years and he likes his lines to be crisp and tight. Using his favorite red and black palette he brings perhaps the most historical equine references to the new collection at the race track and skillfully alludes to the practices from the modern graffiti scene he came up from.

ThenOne’s black Arabian horses are silhouetted in a decorative arrangement that recalls his Persian ancestry as depicted in pottery and ceramics and textiles while also recalling the early cave paintings that many art historians trace as ancestors to the Street Art/graffiti practices of today.

As long as the stylized stallions are as close to his original sketch as possible, he’ll be happy. “My style graffiti-wise is I like to be as clean as possible,” ThenOne says, “So the graphic and the clean work perfectly for me.”

ThenOne. Sketch for his piece. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Joe Iurato at work on his piece. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Organizer and artist Joe Iurato is up on his lift, masking out his collaborative piece with Logan Hicks. In between his other responsibilities, he’s planning to paint too.

Skewville at work on his piece. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Street Art wordsmith Squewville grew up in Queens so his trip here was one of the shorter ones. The text based entreaty he is taping out here will say “Update Your Status” – in one short phrase bringing the track into the “social” sphere. The well known slogan for people using sites like Facebook also doubles as a reference to the incoming status of races as the bets and odds are displayed across screens and horses cross the finish line.

The Brooklyn based Logan Hicks is prepping for his seven layer stencil that will depict a crush of horses in the thick of the race (not seen here). First he is applying a patterned background to his collaborative piece with organizer and Street Artist Joe Iurato.

Logan Hicks at work on his piece. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Originally from Hawaii, artist Ian Kuali’i is laying in the abstractly energetic background for his sliced paper piece that will float over it.

“I’m going to paste up a cutout. It’s about three quarters of the way done, “ he says as he describes a finished piece that will incorporate collage of actual vintage Aqueduct posters from the past and themes relating to horse husbandry and the thrill of the race.

Tomorrow, Saturday the 23rd a reception will be held for the artists at the Aqueduct Racetrack to celebrate “Aqueduct Murals”. The event is free and open to the public. Click HERE for all the details.

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BSA Film Friday: 10.04.13

October 4, 2013 Artists

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

Now screening: Hot Tea “Rituals”, Gabriel Specter: “Structures” in Rome, Faith47, Omen, Ricardo Cavolo and Jasper Wong in Montreal, TOUR 13 in Paris, and Then One “Yard Work”.

BSA Special Feature: Hot Tea “Rituals”

In his second attempt at installing on the walkway leading up the Williamsburg Bridge, Street Artist Hot Tea and a few dedicated friends installed a high impact piece that redrew the public space. If you happened upon it, you were surprised by its simplicity and effectiveness. If you examined it, you realized the time and effort it took. This new video helps to appreciate the latter.

Specter Goes Geometric in Rome

Gabriel Specter just finished this monochromatic geometric piece under an overpass in Rome – working with the Blind Eye Factory. Where is that chalk snap line doohickey? I just had it here. I hope I didn’t throw it away with my lunch bag and half eaten sandwich….

Faith47, Omen, Ricardo Cavolo and Jasper Wong in Montreal

In a promotional program for a luxury real estate complex of penthouses and townhouses, Street Artists Faith 47, Omen, Ricardo Cavolo and Jasper Wong each did murals in downtown Montreal recently.

TOUR 13 in Paris

You will be hearing a lot more about this project that has just opened in Paris. Graffiti and Street Artists and just plain artists have been taking over abandoned or soon to be destroyed real estate for decades, and this is the newest example of a semi-curated show within one. It is great to see the range of talent and new directions that a project like this can take, and to see a centralized location for fans to visit – before it is all destroyed.

Tour Paris 13 by tourparis13

Then One “Yard Work”

A nicely paced piece by Then One is captured here and edited By SERRINGE. Watching this intimate relationship of the artist to the wall and thinking about fall – not too hot, air a little crisp; You might expect to see Then One collapse into a pile of leaves.

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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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BSA Film Friday 02.01.13

February 1, 2013 Artists

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

Now screening: JOSEF KRISTOFOLETTI: The Atlas Detector, FAITH 47 – Fragments of a Burnt History, and THE KLUB7: ABC 2013

BSA Special Feature:

JOSEF KRISTOFOLETTI: The Atlas Detector

This video documents the making of an art project commissioned by the ATLAS Experiment at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

FAITH 47 – Fragments of a Burnt History

THE KLUB7: ABC 2013

Best Miami Street Art: BSA Picks Awesomest for Basel ’12

December 5, 2012 Art Fair, Artists, Florida, Miami

BSA Recommends: Where to Hit for the Best Street Art

Art Basel is set to whip Miami into a sea-foamy art-star laden froth this weekend, but art on the street is the unofficial engine that will be keeping it real. No one can doubt that the wave of Street Art, this first global grassroots peoples art movement, is sort of everywhere now, haters be damned.

The ugly streets of the Wynwood District easily get as much traffic as the big commercial art fairs even though there is no guest list or ticket price. It feels remarkably different to see the marbled horde exploring art in the public realm, posing for photos with each other in front of pieces, talking with the artists as they paint, sharing their favorite discoveries on Instagram. This is the art of this moment, and there is just something more democratic about it all.

Our list, in no particular order, doesn’t even include the main fair actually. Hit the streets!

1. Wynwood Walls
2. Fountain Art Fair
3. The Factory Art Show
4. Scope Fair
5. Pulse
6. Miami Project Art Fair
7. Context
8. Primary Projects
9. BLADE at Adjust Gallery
10. A Box Truck Caravan from Klughaus
11. Snyder “Urban Pop Up Gallery”

We have sifted through the offerings in Miami for 2012, and made some selections to help you see Street Art inside and outside, by brand new artists and some with 40 years in the game. Take your camera, take your sneakers, and take your love of the creative spirit.

Wynwood Walls

Arguably one of the main reasons that Street Artists began pouring into Miami in the late 2000s, Wynwood Walls opened the streets to the gallery world and increasingly galleries are opening doors to these artists from street. Wynwood Walls founder Tony Goldman would have wanted it that way and is credited by many artists as the first guy to give their art a chance to be seen.

WW doesn’t stop this year even as the recently departed real estate developer will be on many minds, not the least because of the huge wall installation by Shepard Fairey honoring him as a benefactor of the arts.

A well mixed list of internationally known and emerging names are featured on a slightly shorter list this year including: How & Nosm, MOMO, DAZE, Shepard Fairey, Jesse Geller (Nemel, IRAK), Faith47, Daleast, Santiago Rubino, POSE and Kenny Scharf. The out door walls are complemented with an indoor exhibition featuring new works on canvas by AIKO, Logan Hicks, How & Nosm and Futura.

For more information about wall locations and all the artists click here.

Fountain Art Fair

A loosely spun ball of misfits and future art stars, Fountain Art Fair always flies just under the radar of it’s more tony neighbors with its somewhat haphazard staging and the kind of unpretentious collaborative punk flophouse environment that gives rise to many Street Artists on the scene today. If you don’t need your art spoon-fed, you’ll find a link to the future here in the motley D.I.Y. parade. Also, a few really strong talents. As usual Fountain is making certain to spill outside the white box, onto the streets and onto the walls. This year line up of Street Artists painting the Fountain Wall include:

For more information and schedule of events for Fountain Art Fair click here.

The Factory Art Show

A little more on the commercial tip, Juxtapoz Magazine and its minion are leaders in blasting open minds to help you enjoy delicious tattoo art, graffiti art, Street Art, pop surrealist and dark pop, erotic art, and of course hypnotically animated gifs. Here Jux teams up with Mixed Media Collective to bring you an indoor and outdoor exhibition featuring a left coast imbued view of the street with national and international artists including: 131, Abstrkt, Alex Yanes, Myla (of Dabs & Myla), DALeast, Evoca1, Faith47, Jose Mertz, Lebo, Tatiana Suarez, Toofly, and La Pandilla among others.

For more information about THE FACTORY art exhibition click here.

Scope Fair

Scope Art Fair is a few steps removed from the street, even as it deeply mines that vein and packages it for sale. Big sale. Usually high quality and undoubtedly commercial, the fair aims for deeper pockets and the art trade while still trying to maintain the accessible, challenging works that accomplished GenX collectors are looking for. Not surprisingly, artists once known exclusively as Street Artists are all up in there too.

Scope’s roster of galleries includes many that represent Street Artists from around the world including: Cory Helford Gallery from Culver City, CA will be presenting D*Face and Buff Monster. Galerie Swanström from NYC will be presenting Gilf! White Walls Gallery from San Fransico, CA. will be presenting C215, Herakut, Augustine Kofie, Logan Hicks and Niels Shoe Meulman. Andenken Gallery / The Garage from Amsterdam, Spoke Art Gallery from San Francisco and Thinkspace from Culver City, CA will also have booths at Scope. Scope Art Fair includes a large variety of programs along with their main exhibition including Red Bull Curates with artists Cosbe and Claw Money among others and Anthony Spinello curates TYPOE.

For a full listing of exhibitors, programs and other details click here.

Pulse

Pulse Art Fair insists on paring works on canvas with art installations as a way to engage the public and make the art viewing experience (and hopefully the art buying experience) far less clinical and more accessible. Detailed, immaculate, and approachable, Pulse is always a must to visit if you are doing the fair circuit. This year as in previous years Pulse has included some of the most important art galleries representing and promoting the work of internationally established Street Artists. Some examples: LeBasse Projects from Culver City, CA will be presenting Herakut, The Joshua Liner Gallery from NYC will be presenting Stephen “ESPO” Powers, and The Jonathan LeVine Gallery from NYC will be presenting a solo exhibition by French Street Artist and tilest INVADER.

For a full listing of exhibitors, programs and other details click here.

Miami Project Art Fair

One to watch, The Miami Project Art Fair originates from peeps in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and has about 70 galleries in its inaugural showing with contemporary and modern art offerings. We expect this fair to provide the already charged air with an extra bolt of energy. One worth hitting is the Cooper Cole Gallery from Toronto, Canada will be presenting Brooklyn’s own Maya Hayuk.

For a full listing of exhibitors, programs and other details click here.

Context

Context is one of the newest fairs, and will feature French Street Artists RERO and Speedy Graphito, represented by the Fabien Castanier Gallery from Studio City, CA.

Speedy Graphito “Urban Dreamer” (photo courtesy of the gallery)

For a full listing of exhibitors, programs and other details click here.

Primary Projects

Honorable mention here for the originators of the Wynwood outdoor graffiti (and Street Art) exhibitions that pre-date the official Wynwood Walls and were run on a shoelace budget and lots of hustle, Primary Flight. This year as a gallery project they have refocused their scope and present a full installation by multidisciplinary artist Kenton Parker. He is planning to bring his “Taco Shop” to the 8th floor of the Soho Beach House in Miami Beach.

From the Primary Flight press release: “How do you encapsulate the underground, past-midnight culture of Los Angeles into a single structure? For multimedia artist Kenton Parker, his establishment stationed outside the fashionable Las Palmas nightclub brings the beautiful people back to their basic needs; everyone pays the same dollar for the same after-party, hangover fare. Sharply crafted from tile mosaic, Parker’s standalone shop offers patrons everything from sodas to recovered fake Louis Vuitton wallets, from spray paint to Nerds candy boxes”

For a full listing of Primary Projects exhibitions and other details click here.

ALSO HAPPENING IN MIAMI THIS WEEKEND:

In addition to the perhaps 100 or so Street Artists participating this year in the established art fairs and galleries, there will be dozens of installations outside the sanctioned venues. So far Miami is still in love with it all – both legal and illegal installations provide the essential ethos of an art world invasion. Without these artists and independent stagings away of the glitzy openings and glare of cameras, these art fairs and just feel like “commerce”. Some other gigs to check out :

BLADE at Adjust Gallery

Adjust Gallery in Miami will be hosting an exhibition of legendary Graffiti New York artist BLADE. Vernissage: December 6 from 4:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at Adjust Gallery Miami, 150 NW 24^th Ave (305) 458-2801.

A Box Truck Caravan from Klughaus

Klauhhaus Gallery has been mounting some of the best graffiti/Street Art/tattoo/low brow shows in NYC since the gallery opened in Chinatown in 2011. We give it up for these ruggedly smart idea people who will be making their inaugural trip to Miami. With a caravan of box trucks parked strategically in the Wynwood Arts District their artists will be live painting on the trucks and the trucks will parade around showcasing a mobile gallery as the trucks will in fact be moving canvases. The trucks will feature art by: RIME, TOPER, DCEVE, WANE, SP, CES, OBLVN, STAE2, GOREY among others.

For more information about live painting schedule and locations click here.

Snyder “Urban Pop Up Gallery”

And finally there is Snyder, who is just one of the intrepid D.I.Y. artists who inspire you with their will to succeed – even without being plugged in to the scene. From the artist’s press release: “Snyder, a Southern California based street artist, will be installing his ‘Urban Pop Up Gallery’ in the streets of Miami. With no contacts, no pre-arranged walls, no assistants and in a city never previously visited, Snyder attempts to install 30+ pieces of art in the streets of Miami over a 7 day period, ultimately curating his 2nd large scale ‘Urban Pop Up Gallery”.

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Ever. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ever. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ever. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ever. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ever. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ever. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Faith 47. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Faith 47. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Luis R. Vidal. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

SEGO. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

SEGO. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

SEGO. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

SEGO. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Viajero. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Viajero. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

ROA. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

ROA. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

ROA. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

ROA. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

El Mac and Cero. Detail. Collaboration on this Mosaic and paint portrait of poet Nicholasa Mohr. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

El Mac. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

El Mac. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

CERO. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

CERO. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

El Mac and Cero. Collaboration on this portrait of poet Nicholasa Mohr. The mosaic portion was done by Cero and the portrait by El Mac. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Os Gemeos / Blu (photo © Stephen Kelley)

Kara Walker. The artist portrait in profile with her sugary sphinx in the background. (photo via iPhone © Jaime Rojo)

Fafi (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

Icy & Sot (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Niels “Shoe” Meulman. Process shot. (photo © Adele Renault)

Shok-1 (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sego (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Army Of One AKA JC2 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pixote in action. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

1. FOLIOLEAF GALLERY. “Bad Vibes” Rubin415 and David Head.

111 Front Street, Suite 226. http://folioleaf.com/

2. SIDE HUSTLE NYC: “By Day, By Night” Karoleen Decastro, Alyssa Gruen, Patrick Ramos, Jon Chen.

What is your sidehustle? In the ever more expensive NYC game, almost every creative we know has one – Check out this installation and on Sunday they will have another photo shoot. Plymouth Street Park Perimeter Fence. http://sidehustlenyc.com/

3. Dumbo Underfoot”. Karen Mainenti

Plymouth Street (between Main and Washington Streets) http://www.karenmainenti.com

DUMBO WALLS – All over the place

Two Trees and Lisa Kim have humanized the experience year long for people working/living/passing through DUMBO by curating some large mural installations by some great Street Artists over the past couple of years. Below are a few to keep your eyes open for on the streets.

4. DUMBO WALLS: Faith 47

5. DUMBO WALLS: dalEAST

6. DUMBO WALLS: El Tono

7. DUMBO WALLS: CAM

8. DUMBO WALLS: MOMO

9. DUMBO WALLS: Shepard Fairey

10. DUMBO WALLS: Stefan Sagmeister & Yuko Shimizu

11. SMACK MELLON:

12. Global Virtual Drawing Party: DADA featuring EN MASSE

At the Festival, creators from around the world will be encouraged to draw on DADA, while artists on site will respond using their iPads. The results will be projected live.

13. MIGHTY TANAKA: “Here and There”. Chris Otley, Herb Smith

14. “I ____ a Dollar” . Jody Servon

15. BE MIGHTY! SPACE: LA2/LA ROC

16. MASTERS PROJECTS: “Lost Corcosa” . Various Artists

Peter Buechler, DAIN, Dee Dee, ELLE, Amze Emmons, Dima Gavrysh, gilf!, Nicolas Holiber, Steven Katzman, Karl Klingbiel, Amanda Marie, Timothy Paul Myers, QRST, RAE, Jon Rappley, Joram Roukes, Shin-Shin, Cris Uphues, Nathan Vincent, Charles Wilkin, X-O.

17. REFLECTION / KOLONIHAVEHUS . Tom Fruin and CoreAct

18. “TRUST YOUR VISION” . Gilf!

19 . MPH-BENCH . Lee Mandell, XAM

BONUS!*** TRUFFULA LORAXIA . Lee Mandell, XAM

Truffula Loraxia is a hydroponic sculpture project created by Lee Mandell and XAM. It combines growing technologies with design. Truffula Loraxia’s basic structure is a tree, which extends from a dodecahedron shaped base.

Main Street Park http://www.xambuilt.com http://www.boswyckfarms.org

Miss Van at work on her wall. (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

Miss Van at work on her wall. (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

Miss Van (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

Maya Hayuk at work on her wall. (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

Maya Hayuk (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

Olek at work on her installation. (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

Olek at work on her installation. (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

Olek at work on her installation. (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

Lady Pink at work on her wall. (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

Lady Pink. Her sketch for her wall. (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

Sheryo at work on her wall. (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

Sheryo at work on her wall. (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

Sheryo at work on her wall. (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

Fafi at work on her installation. (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

Fafi at work on her wall. (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

Fafi (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

Aiko at work on her wall. (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

111 Front Street, Suite 226.

http://folioleaf.com/

What is your sidehustle? In the ever more expensive NYC game, almost every creative we know has one – Check out this installation and on Sunday they will have another photo shoot.

Plymouth Street Park Perimeter Fence.

http://sidehustlenyc.com/

Plymouth Street (between Main and Washington Streets)

http://www.karenmainenti.com

Main Street Park

http://www.xambuilt.com

http://www.boswyckfarms.org