All posts tagged: graffiti

UFO Crashes at Brooklyn Academy of Music

June 20, 2012

UFO 907 & W. Thomas Porter Unveil Giant Wood / Metal Sculpture With 34 Eyes

“I think this is the kind of art work that people can step up to and they won’t say “Why the f*ck am I looking at this? I could do this – my kid could do this! I wanna blow people’s minds. I want people to be awestruck by it,” W. Thomas Porter exclaims in a burst of unhinged bravado that a master metal worker and inventor can claim after 3 consecutive weeks of custom cutting, bending, molding, and welding a crash-landing space ship, a 3-D realization of the UFO 907 graffiti moniker on it’s head.

 

UFO 907 and William Thomas Porter (photo © Jaime Rojo)

With the graffiti guy known on the street as UFO 907 as his master woodworking partner, Porter has crawled like a monkey inside, around, and on top of every inch of this metal-skinned vessel with 34 rotating smooth wooden eyes.  Standing inside a Brooklyn studio staring up at this audacious labor intensive sculptural blast-off of inspiration and technical handy-work, you can’t believe that this is the same UFO who jumped roofs and trains for years spraying a rapid flat version of this ubiquitous alien vessel.

907 Crew fans may also experience a mind-melt when hearing first hand the soaring descriptive narrative UFO lets loose about this brand new street piece, “It’s a symphony between wood and metal. Seeing the wood next to the metals – it’s almost like jewelry work, it’s like it’s growing up out of the earth like a flower. It’s totally looking like this flower that is blooming, this metal is blooming out of all of this wood. It’s fun, man.” A tough NYC street graffiti writer who sometimes get’s dragged into the uncomfortable position of being called a Street Artist?  Nah, UFO is just an artist now, and the usually shy guy is so ripped about this project he frankly doesn’t care about the label. It’s about the work.

 

UFO 907 and William Thomas Porter (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Introduced last night at a reception hosted by The Brooklyn Academy of Music, this UFO will house a stash of copies of Showpaper, a free print publication that lists and promotes events and DIY culture all around New York. Commissioned with funding from BAMart: Public, the “Brooklyn Shelf Life Project” is Showpaper’s hand picked selection of Street Art affliated artists collaborating as pairs to create innovative new versions of the traditional street kiosk. Curated by Andrew H Shirley, the eclectic collection of street explorers also includes Adam Void & Gaia, Cassius Fouler & Faust, Leon Reid IV & Noah Sparkes, and Ryan C. Doyle & Swoon.

 

A sketch to the side of this preliminary mockup shows the full scale of the piece by UFO 907 and William Thomas Porter (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A carpenter by trade, UFO 907 has been at it for 16 years but he didn’t try his hand at exploring his own graffiti tag in 3D till a few years ago. “It only made sense – I mean after over a decade drawing that stupid guy on the wall I began to wonder what he looked like in 3 dimensions…now I’m starting to wonder what the dude looks like in 5D!”

Porter says he started his path to metal work as a boy, tearing up old houses and rebuilding them with his father. “I’ve been making sculptures since I was 14, had no idea there was an art world then,” he says. Now that he is newly situated in his own Brooklyn studio, he’ll definitely be making more of his custom bike configurations (see his “F*ck Bike”) among other metal bending discoveries, “I’ve always been into material mashups,” he explains, “I started welding at 16, and metal became a gateway drug to all sorts of new possibilities.”

 

UFO 907 and William Thomas Porter (photo © Jaime Rojo)

UFO 907 and William Thomas Porter (photo © Jaime Rojo)

While touring through their respective studios, BSA had the opportunity to see the entire process of making the new sculpture for BAM, entitled “The End If the Beginning”. It was also good to talk with UFO 907 and W. Thomas Porter about how they teamed up, who the UFO character symbolizes, and what they’ll think if the sculpture gets vandalized on the street.

Brooklyn Street Art: When people think of UFO 907 on the streets, it’s a quick tag with not much detail. Don’t you think they would be pretty shocked to know how much time you put into a sculptural piece like this?
UFO 907: I guess so. If there’s one thing I’ve learned all these years in the graffiti game is you never know what your going to get when you uncover the man behind the moniker.

I’ve always felt a kind of separation between my vandalism tendencies and my artistic urges. Sure my tags and retarded throwups can look artistic but it’s just a quick elementary thoughtless expression. I’m doing the macho getting up sh*t, pissing like a dog. But with my studio work I slow down to a f*cking snails pace, considering every detail, knowing each line of the brush/pen, each turn of the jigsaw, each stroke with the sander is injecting so much f*cking feeling and energy and power into the piece. So, if ya didn’t know, now ya know.

 

UFO 907 and William Thomas Porter (photo © Jaime Rojo)

UFO 907 and William Thomas Porter (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: What part of this new piece are you most proud of?
UFO 907: I’m pretty excited to have the opportunity to work to such a large scale. I also always had a desire to fabricate a larger-than-life UFO piece and just love the idea of using metal. And of course I’m totally stoked to have the opportunity to be collaborating on such an intense piece with an artist and craftsmen I hold in high regard, W.Thomas Porter.

Brooklyn Street Art: The first time we saw a sculptural UFO it was with Ad Hoc Projects for a group show in Miami. The piece was called “Williamsburg Guy”. Was that the first time you did something like that?
UFO 907: No, I have built a few smaller wooden UFO pieces before the “Williamsburg Guy” piece, and over the years I have messed around with some other materials to find the form I’m looking for.

Funny story about the first time we showed “Williamsburg Guy”;

The night we finished the piece I slapped together a crate and Doyle and myself threw the piece underneath the Chinatown bus, and took it down to Richmond Virginia for a group show we were involved in. If you know the size and weight of the piece that’s a pretty impressive feat. But it was free shipping! Go Chinatown Bus!

 

UFO 907 and William Thomas Porter (photo © UFO)

UFO and William Thomas Porter (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: Since this is a vessel of sorts, and you have said your UFO tag is almost a self portrait, do you imagine yourself inside this sculpture looking out windows and swinging your 34 eyes in all directions looking at people?
UFO 907: Not necessarily but I love that idea! At this point it seems less like being inside the sculpture – but more so I continue to see the UFO as an embodiment of my being. I have always seen the UFO as my self portrait, yes, but not in the sense of a photograph or painting of myself. It’s more like a window to my spirit energy and soul. The form, energy and idea behind UFO has continuously been evolving, morphing, and growing over the years. If it wasn’t it would be dead, right?

So, yes, I’m guessing at some point you might just find me sitting inside the mothership staring at ya’ll, plotting my next move. Ha ha HA!

Brooklyn Street Art: When you are making such labor-intensive carefully considered work and putting it out into the street, do you ever worry about it being vandalized?
UFO 907: Naw… that’s what happens to sh*t on the streets! I kind of secretly have a fantasy about a car running up the sidewalk and crashing into the piece. That would be pretty cool, as long as I get a nice photo of the piece pinned between the car and a brick wall!

Brooklyn Street Art: What has working with Thomas brought to your process?
UFO 907: I have been a fan of his work and his great craftsmen ship since I met him. I think I first met him the night me and Doyle were cramming to get “Williamsburg Guy” completed. Dude came through and he quietly handled shit, helping us get the piece done. Aces!

When I first heard that Andrew Shirley was curating this project, I told him I had to be on board and wanted Tom Porter as my partner. Tom has brought amazing metal work, which is not my craft but a material I love all the same, and he is a champ with the kinetics/mechanics helping us both bring our visions to life and adding many levels to the piece. As well Tom Porter is a perfect match with me with his boundless energy, obsessive attention to detail, grand positive visions, eternal positivity directed towards the project at hand. What a dude!!

 

UFO 907 and William Thomas Porter (photo © Jaime Rojo)

UFO 907 and William Thomas Porter. Inside view of the structure. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: Yeah, your skills seem really well suited for collaboration.
UFO 907: Yup we both have brought what we do best to the table and all thing immediately fell into place, leading to a seemingly effortless symphony of materials and ideas.

Brooklyn Street Art: Thomas, when you think of the sense of balance this piece has to have, do you rely on lessons learned from building other projects?
W. Thomas Porter : We set out on this project without any concept of limitations. We just decided what we wanted to get out of it and said, “F*ck it, it’s on”. I think that confidence comes from having been a builder and a bizarre mind forever. Everything I’ve done leads me to this moment. We have to come correct.

Brooklyn Street Art: Is it difficult to carry a demanding project like this across the finish line? Do you get tired of the detail work?
W. Thomas Porter: I don’t think it’s easy to get anything actually “finished”. Starting things is easy but getting there can be war. We are up against a tough deadline, a limited budget, working for money, UFO and I both just started new studios…it’s been hectic. As for the details, I’m with the devil. Every detail is an example or the bigger picture; it’s the fabric, and the pattern, the feel and what you see.

Brooklyn Street Art: This is a collaborative piece using the skills of a metal worker and a wood worker. How did you achieve an organic feeling with such rigid and sturdy materials?
W. Thomas Porter: It’s amazing to work with someone like UFO; Half man, half beast and all gusto. We both came to a similar place by working with our hands while our brains are off in the universe. It’s only a matter of time before that all explodes into space! I always loved wood and metal together, flesh and bone. In this case, I had to make steel feel like skin, and without a single straight line anywhere – it’s a challenge. I was blessed to have a dedicated assistant like Dagga to help plow through the process. Out of extremely limited means we came up with something greater than the sum of its parts.

 

UFO 907 and William Thomas Porter (photo © Jaime Rojo)

UFO 907 and William Thomas Porter (photo © Jaime Rojo)

UFO 907 and William Thomas Porter (photo © UFO)

 

UFO 907 in the wild. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

UFO 907 in the wild. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

UFO 907 and William Thomas Porter. The sculpture arrived to BAM in parts. Here is one half. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

UFO 907 and William Thomas Porter. Inside view of the armature. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

UFO 907 and William Thomas Porter (photo © Jaime Rojo)

UFO 907 and William Thomas Porter (photo © Jaime Rojo)

UFO 907 and William Thomas Porter (photo © Jaime Rojo)

UFO 907 and William Thomas Porter (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“The Beginning if the End”, 2012, by UFO 907 and W. Thomas Porter

Materials: Yellow Pine, Walnut, Plywood, Epoxy, Cold Rolled Steel, Hot Rolled Steel, Bearings, Ball Joints, Hardware, Wax
 

Assistants: Dagga Gaines, Kelsey Womack, Jumbo, Diego Guzman, Sadue 907, and Hest One

“Brooklyn Shelf Life” is Presented by SHOWPAPER and curated by Andrew H. Shirley. Newsboxes commissioned by BAM for BAMart: Public.

Go to http://brooklynshelflife.org/ to learn more about this project. Joe Ahearn, Managing Director

Go to BAMart: Public to learn more about this program.

Stay tuned to BSA as tomorrow we’ll feature the rest of the sculptures of “Brooklyn Shelf Life” by Leon Reid IV + Noah Sparkles, Cassius Fouler + Faust, Swoon + Ryan Doyle and Gaia + Adam Void.  Also you can visit the Showpaper Tumblr http://showpaper.tumblr.com/ for more images.

 This article is also published on The Huffington Post

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Kosbe: Under the Radar and in the Studio

Kosbe: Under the Radar and in the Studio

April 25, 2012 , , ,

Why One Brooklyn Stick Up Kid is Worth Watching

Sometimes on the street you get an inkling of the future. It could be an overheard excerpt from a cell-phone conversation about a club show the night before, or the color and texture of woman’s blouse as it flutters around her while she reads on a park bench, or the sight of the 3rd food truck this week selling spicy meatballs. Something tells you that you just got a glimpse of the future. And while it doesn’t completely reveal itself in it’s fullness, you can see a nascent potential, a storyline developing that may go far beyond it’s current self. Sometimes when you see a Kosbe sticker on a paper box, it feels that way too. In fact, each time you see one of his pieces on the street, it grabs you from above the fray. Yet it seems like he’s been under the radar. He may not stay there much longer.

Kosbe (photo © Jaime Rojo)

In the ebb and the flow of the Street Art conversation in New York, you keep seeing Kosbe’s wacky characters popping up in doorways and paper boxes. They aren’t tossed off little marker drawings done while watching TV – they’re intense petite character studies. Packed into one slapped on sticker is a lot of cacophonic kineticism; near crazed city characters with primitive wild eyes staring or blinkered, with tight jaws and teeth squarely gritted. The folk faces and forms are framed by an ardent prose, non-sequitors of angst and inside jokes. “What’s the guy saying?” you could ask. And why is he yelling? “Is he okay, is he mocking me? It’s the bundled rage and cryptic cleverness of the court jester.  Layers of reapplied color and repeated lines trap multiple actions on one non-static figure. This is not simple tagging, it’s a stationary tornado.

Kosbe (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Street Artist Kosbe has put in two good decades of practice, and has learned some lessons the hard way. He’s been hitting up New York for a half decade but he comes from a long graffiti history as a kid in his native Chicago. Now a practicing artist readying a solo gallery show for fall, he grew up in a very young single-parent home where his mom created a small studio for the boy in the back of their apartment. “My mom was really supportive of me as an artist. When I was a kid she gave me this little back room that she allowed me to use like a painting studio. So I was always grabbing stuff off the street and bringing it in there, painting it. I was very secretive with my stuff. A lot of people would come over and see my stuff and they were like, ‘Dude, I didn’t know that you painted’. I was very protective of it.”

That hasn’t changed. He still likes to use found materials as canvasses, as he shows us around his small studio hidden in a warehouse in New York. “I’m always using things that I find in the streets. Like this is an old grading book from 1919,” he says as he pulls out a tattered tome with pages ripped out.  “It has all these people’s signatures. I found this outside a high school in Brooklyn. It’s really cool. So that’s what I’ve been using for my drawings.”

Kosbe (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kosbe (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tough times at home got him in trouble at school and with the police as a youth. Describing himself as hard headed, he talks about running away as a young teen to San Francisco for a while in the early 90s, where he spent a lot of time on the street admiring a new kind of character-based and tattoo influenced graffiti on the street by people like Twist (Barry McGee), Mike Giant, and Reminisce. “I went out and there were these Reminisce horses everywhere and they were great because you were going down the street and you would see this horse like galloping down the street. This stuff really blew me away. So I think the same time this stuff was going on there, over here in NY you had like Cost and Revs posting bills and doing rollers. And back then there wasn’t the internet.”

Kosbe (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Years later here in this fluorescent lit studio filled with his drawings, paintings, books, ‘zines, assorted ephemera, a desk, and a loveseat, his excited retelling of stories reveals how much those childhood escapades running Chicago streets and exploring San Francisco formed his view of Street Art and prepared him for moving to New York eventually in the 2000s. A self-schooled student of graffiti, fine art, and street art, Kosbe can recount names of writers and crews, timelines, styles; drawing etymologies and stylistic connections and talking about migrations. With much fanfare he’ll also tell you the  stories about the famed Chicago “buff” – a citywide anti graffiti campaign in the mid-late 1990s that he says whitewashed the city’s history.

Kosbe (photo © Jaime Rojo)

But now he’s an artist on his own, and his practice is daily. “Now I’ve learned more that the only way, as an artist, that you can kind of grow and come up with new ideas is you gotta keep giving them away. So that’s why street art is kind of funny. I have friends who are painters that have become painters because of me. They are like ‘Dude, I was totally influenced by your drawings’ and stuff like that.” But the practice of Street Artists putting fully formed works out on the street still confuses some of his peers, “They say ‘Dude you give all your art away’ – you know, they don’t understand the concept.”

His new work on the street and in this studio now bends toward abstract expressionism and his years of comic book reading enlivens that rawness with a furtively bombastic character-driven personality. Almost every piece he does has some sort of commentary- a sort of helpful therapeutic narrative to explain what the character is thinking or feeling at the moment. “I like being bad for the sake of being bad”, “Tupac!”, “deathy”, “not good”, “astro zombie”,”power to the people”,“Kosbe don’t cry”.

Kosbe (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kosbe also credits the street as his formative and evolutionary art instructor. “When I took an oil painting class, my teacher was like, ‘Dude you already know how to paint. How did you learn this?’ and I was like, ‘graffiti.’ ” Even though graffiti still attracts him and captures his imagination, Street Art and fine art have occupied his efforts lately and the combined synthesis of a lifetime studying art on the street and plenty of experimentation is coming together very strongly aesthetically. Combine that individual vision with the maturity that hits a person in their 30s and you may think that you are seeing a sudden glimpse of the future.

Brooklyn Street Art: I want to talk about you and your art and your influences. What are these characters? Where did they come from?
Kosbe: I don’t know. I’ve been drawing since I was real young.  It’s always something that comes naturally. I don’t do any sketches, I don’t plan anything out. I just – for me it’s more a guttural, more natural thing. It’s good and bad.

Brooklyn Street Art: What’s the bad part?
Kosbe: The bad part is that I don’t focus on it, you know? I just have been doing it so long and I really enjoy it.

Kosbe (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: Is your experience kind of like a faucet that you turn on and it all comes flowing out and then you decide, “Okay I better turn it off”?
Kosbe: Exactly, right. So the thing with me is, I try to also look for other outlets. So I’m really into other things. Like I like music, photography, writing, all that stuff. But that stuff doesn’t come as naturally to me like this does. But it’s a great outlet for me and I feel really kind of lucky to have something like that – to be able to express myself in that form and manner. It’s helped me out tremendously to kind of learn how to communicate with people. Every year I realize new things – like this is how I communicate with people. Is it bad? Is it bad that I think that this is the only way I think that I can talk to people? Maybe I’ve gotta learn how to become better with talking with people verbally or something.

Brooklyn Street Art: You don’t seem to have great difficulty communicating verbally. But I’m interested in understanding a little more about how you think of this work and this practice as communication.
Kosbe: There is definitely a lot of emotional stuff in my work, you know,

Brooklyn Street Art: There is! Despair, anger …– you use a lot of descriptive words, verbal narratives throughout – whether it’s a sticker or a wheat paste.
Kosbe: Yeah it’s whatever is always popping into my head and so there are a lot of things that are on my mind and hopefully this is a good way to have an outlet for it. I’m trying to not be so negative anymore. And some people are like “Man, it’s so dark”. You know I use a lot of bright colors now, which has been phenomenal. That has really changed my work. Here you can see some of my earlier stuff and it’s really brown, dark. Actually this is beginning where I started experimenting with more color. And then as I got to New York, more and more color started getting into my stuff.

When you do graffiti you learn the fundamentals of color theory, you know. You learn what works.

Kosbe (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: You know WK Interact talks about New York being a violent city
Kosbe: I love that guy! You know when I first moved to New York he had that little shop on the Lower East Side and you’d walk in and it was like a locker, a desk, and some Japanese kids standing around. And it would be like, “What is this? Is this a store? Is this a studio?”

Brooklyn Street Art: What made me think of him was I was interested in how you describe the city because WK has said that when he makes work on the street, if it is violent in nature and people walk by it, they sometimes give him the thumbs up! And it runs longer. But if he were to paint a pink bunny it would get crossed out because New Yorkers don’t really respond to positive cheerful stuff.
Kosbe: Oh yeah, and New York has definitely had a profound impression on me in that sense because my work before I got here still had that weird dark edge but it was a little cutesy-er. But like as time has progressed I just think I have kind of matured a bit more, becoming more of an adult and my stuff is getting more serious. But with me everything’s gotta be fun. I think it’s supposed to be fun.

Kosbe (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kosbe (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kosbe (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kosbe (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kosbe (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kosbe (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Anti-Putin Street Art in Moscow

April 14, 2012

Norman Hermant, reporter for Australian news program Lateline did a story airing a couple of days ago profiling a new interest in Street Art in Moscow. According to the story the uptick in interest is spurred by the dissatisfaction many have with Russia’s political leadership and a general increased interest worldwide in Street Art. “Fans of the medium say the reason for its popularity is simple – street art can speak directly to the people,” reports Hermant.

Also fun to note: Despite decades of global graffiti culture, skater culture, hip hop culture, punk and anarchist subculture, political postering, and people’s movements to change predominant political paradigms through art, the newsreader here introducing the story attributes the Russian youth’s interest in Street Art to Banksy.

Still from video of news report on “Lateline” copyright Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

A detail from a piece by Russian Street Artist Pavel 183 in this still from video of news report on “Lateline” copyright Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Very possibly his name is inspired by Taki 183.

Still from video of news report on “Lateline” copyright Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

See the full report “Russian Protesters Turn to Street Art” HERE

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Texting at the Bus Stop, On the Bus Stop

January 9, 2012

(Image © Ludo)

An interesting departure for Street Artist LUDO, the Parisian who’s usually messing with nature:  a new series of images show what appears to be bus shelters scrawled with clever phrases and plays on words. Can’t help but be reminded of Brooklyn’s Elbow Toe, another studio artist who places text-based snatches of poetry and reverie on dumpsters and doorways around New York. Without stylistic flourish or flair, this form of street texting has antecedents of course; Basquiats’ SAMO scripting, for example, and REVS underground diaries, among others. It raises questions about how one might define it? Street Art? Graffiti? It is just interesting to follow this thread that continues into this new year.

Elbowtoe (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

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BSA in Print : Pantheon, The Book

January 4, 2012

“Public, Urban, Street, Unauthorized, Permissioned, Private, Graffiti, Vandalism, Fine Art, Installation, Throwie, Portraiture, Poetry, Sticker, Sculpture, Aerosol, Line Drawing, Wheat paste, Yes. All of it applies and all of it is part of a large conversation that has been happening in New York for about 50 years, probably before that. The intersection of art and the street is by nature open to the interaction of every person. At its core is an expression that is human, and the reactions to it are likewise. ” – Steven P. Harrington and Jaime Rojo in PANTHEON: A history of art from the streets of NYC

An installation for “Pantheon”. Sadue, Gen2, Oze108, Droid, Goya, UFO, 907 Crew (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

When the erudite artist and alchemist Daniel Feral first talked enthusiastically in the summer of ’10 about his plans to mount a tribute to NYC graffiti and Street Art across the street from the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in ’11, we surveyed the large display windows of the former Donnell Library with their grand sweep on 53rd Street in Manhattan, and thought, “Why the Hell not?” As months rolled by and we continued to communicate with Feral and co-curator Joyce Manalo, the once medium sized exhibition grew larger in depth and scope – each time.

Truly a grassroots effort that was free of institutional or corporate restrictions, the PANTHEON show was funded by a modest Kickstarter campaign and administered under a non-profit. Each role and skillset was donated, as was all the labor – freely given by people involved in the scene. When the windows were unveiled in April of 2011 to the thousands of daily passersby, their Pantheon dream had grown into a full fledged installation of historic and current NYC graffiti and Street Artists, a 426 page tome of academic quality and behind the scenes insights, and the new iconic “Feral Diagram” that was quickly snapped up for display and sale at the historic “Art in the Streets” show in Los Angeles.

PANTHEON, the book, was one of three published works that BSA was honored to write for and provide images for in 2011. In the process of building PANTHEON, the exhibit, many new ideas and relationships were born, and like it’s muse – graffiti and all it’s cousins, it continues to organically grow in influence in New York and around the world. As 2012 begins, Daniel and Joyce are beginning a publishing and curatorial company, Pantheon Projects. Together in 2011 the artists, writers, historians, academics, curators, and photographers in PANTHEON told a story about an organic movement over time, helping us to understand this moment.

Cassius Fowler. Egypt (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

For our part, BSA furnished a chapter in the book about the first explosive decade of Street Art in the 2000s in neighborhoods where it was most impressive and untamed, especially Brooklyn. “PANTHEON: A history of art from the streets of NYC” allowed us to put in context the importance of the public sphere and how people create in it, whether commissioned, approved, or otherwise.

“Brooklyn Street Art (BSA) has been watching, recording, curating, interviewing, and interacting with this scene and its many players and passing on what we’ve learned to readers on our blog, which now number into the thousands daily. As experts in a field of many experts and opinion makers and fans, we like to assess and synthesize the messages and movements among the madness that is the “Street Art Scene”.  As artists and creative professionals in New York for 25 years, the primary draw for us is the creative spirit that is alive and well on the streets and its fascinating ability to continuously recreate itself without the dictate of any one overriding legislative body. This organic growth of art on the street is like seeing Spring eternally. It didn’t ask anyone for permission, and it defines itself. Un-bought and un-bossed, this is a truly free movement born of the people. Not that we are overly romantic about it, mind you.”

Overunder. No Touching Ground (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sadue, Gen2, Oze108, Droid, Goya, UFO, 907 Crew (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

PANTHEON was the group exhibition on Graffiti and Street Art that took place on April 2 – May 1, 2011 at the former Donnell Library across The Museum of Modern Art. Daniel Feral and Joyce Manalo Co-Curated this show with 33 participating which included Abe Lincoln Jr., John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres, Adam VOID, Cake, Cassius Fouler, Darkclouds, Droid, El Celso, Faro, John Fekner and Don Leicht, Freedom, Ellis Gallagher, Gen2, Goya, Groser, Richard Hambleton, infinity, KET, LSD-Om, Matt Siren, NohJColey, OverUnder, Oze 108, QuelBeast, Royce Bannon, Sadue, Jordan Seiler, Stikman, Toofly, UFO and Vudu. 

The 426-page catalog is a hybrid of scholarly journal, popular magazine, and graff zine. 33 artists from the 1970s through today tell their own histories, in their own words and pictures, while local writers and photographers give an overview of the cultural milieu. The catalog includes a dedication to Rammellzee by Charlie Ahearn, essay on the Feral Diagram by Daniel Feral, Street Art in the 2000s by Steven P. Harrington with photographs by Jaime Rojo, in addition to 20 essays, 20 interviews and over 400 images from the efforts of over 30 individuals.

 

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El Mac and Augustine Kofie : Two Cats in an Alley

May 18, 2011 , ,

It happens on a roof in LA, in a back alley. El Mac and Augustine Kofie, two gifted graff writers, street artists, fine artists, balanced assuredly on ledges and ladders, cans in hand and collaborating on a new piece.  It’s a dreamlike sequence of scaling and balancing, backing away and re-approaching, scanning the sky as day folds into night and looking back at the bricked canvas to see a gentle babe gazing upward from an abstract future past.

brooklyn-street-art-EL- MAC-KOFIE-33THIRD-LOS ANGELES-Todd-Mazer-10-webEl Mac. Augustine Kofie. (photo © Todd Mazer)

Photographer and videographer Todd Mazer, a regular contributor to BSA, circled and treaded nimbly and quietly in panther-like pursuit of the right screen capture while the artists worked. Over time, perched camera in hand, he documents the dexterous and purposeful movement and focus of two big cats on the top of their game. And roof.

“For me I feel like that’s as good as it gets,” says Mazer.

brooklyn-street-art-EL- MAC-KOFIE-33THIRD-LOS ANGELES-Todd-Mazer-1-web

El Mac. Augustine Kofie. (photo © Todd Mazer)

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El Mac. Augustine Kofie. (photo © Todd Mazer)

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El Mac. Augustine Kofie. (photo © Todd Mazer)

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El Mac. Augustine Kofie. (photo © Todd Mazer)

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El Mac. Augustine Kofie. (photo © Todd Mazer)

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El Mac. Augustine Kofie. (photo © Todd Mazer)

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El Mac. (photo © Todd Mazer)

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Augustine Kofie. (photo © Todd Mazer)

Brick: You’ll make out fine. Your kind always does.

Maggie: Oh, I’m more determined than you think. I’ll win all right.

Brick: Win what? What is, uh, the victory of a cat on a hot tin roof?

Maggie: Just stayin’ on it, I guess. As long as she can. *

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El Mac. Augustine Kofie. (photo © Todd Mazer)

Read our interview with Augustine Kofie with photos by Todd Mazer here:

http://www.brooklynstreetart.com/theblog/?p=18806

The piece was created behind 33third in Los Angeles http://www.33third.com/ A Graff and Street Art supply store in conjunction with:

The Street Cred Art show in Pasadena  http://www.pmcaonline.org/exhibits/61/index.html

* from “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”, a play by Tennessee Williams
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Martha Cooper, Photographer of Art on the Streets for Six Decades

April 2, 2011

Martha Cooper landed in LA yesterday and will spend the next week installing her photos and their remixed new versions beside them, even flanking hers like stereo speakers. Since the press release has gone out we thought we’d share with you the bio written by Steven P. Harrington and the promo photo by Jaime Rojo which will appear in a special issue of The Art Street Journal dedicated entirely to her to come out this week.

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Martha and Pablo at home, with a portrait of her sitting on a train car with camera in hand painted by Os Gemeos overlooking the scene. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Martha Cooper, Photographer of Art on the Streets for Six Decades

Written by Steven P. Harrington, this article is featured in The Art Street Journal vol ii – issue v.

The daughter of a Baltimore camera store owner, Martha Cooper’s romance with photography began in the 1940s when bobby-soxers and penny loafers were the sign of edgy youth culture. Her dad, an amateur photographer himself, gave his small girl a camera and together they hit the streets in search of adventure. “Yeah, my father used to take me out and we would take pictures. That’s what I thought photography was…we were just looking for pictures,” she recalls. Six decades later, Cooper is still looking for pictures; meanwhile, many works from her archive are cited as pivotal recordings of the birth of hip-hop culture and its plastic art form, graffiti.

During the cultural upheavals of the 1960s, Cooper earned a Bachelors of Art degree in Iowa, taught English for the Peace Corps in Thailand and rode a motorcycle from Bangkok to obtain a graduate degree at Oxford. As a freelancer and staff photographer in Japan, Maryland and Rhode Island in the early 1970s she moved to the media and art center of New York City to catch bigger fish. Landing a job on the staff of The New York Post in 1977, she discovered that the resistant and competitive boys club of photographers there were reluctant to countenance this scrappy young woman shooting hard news stories and Studio 54 celebrities.

Hungry for discovery, Cooper would spend her time to and from assignments in bombed-out neighborhoods, where she took pictures of kids entertaining themselves with games they devised on the street, often with the humblest of materials. It was during one of those trips that she stumbled on graffiti and the members of its community. She met a young boy who suggested she photograph the work she was seeing, then showed her a stylized drawing of his name, or piece, in his notebook.

Then he asked her if she wanted to meet “The King”.

Following this lead to Brooklyn, Cooper met Dondi, the citywide-famous graffiti writer who kept a published photo of hers in his black book because its background contained one of his graffiti throw-ups. Cooper quickly realized that she had stumbled into a lively street culture and became an avid student of the teen writers she befriended. By the time she took her last news picture for the New York Post in 1980, her primary desire was to capture as many pieces, tags, and trains as she possibly could find. Today, she remarks on her near-obsessive devotion to documenting New York’s graffiti: waking before dawn to hit the street, waiting five hours for a freshly painted #2 train to pass with the sun at her back and countless secret adventures with vandals in train yards, evading transit police in order to pursue a shot.

Joining efforts with fellow graffiti photographer, Henry Chalfant, Cooper proposed putting together a book of their documentation. The pair endured multiple rejections from publishers while lugging around a big “dummy” book with their pictures glued to the pages. Eventually, however, they landed a deal and Subway Art was published in 1984. Although not an immediate success, it came to sell half a million copies and established itself as a holy book for fans, aspiring artists and art historians worldwide.

By the time the 25th anniversary edition was published in 2009, generations of graffiti and street artists had been influenced by it and the hip-hop culture Cooper and Chalfant had captured had gone global.

In the intervening years, Martha Cooper never stopped shooting. Her love of serendipity on the street and the exploration of cultures led her to publish thousands of photos in books such as R.I.P.: Memorial Wall Art, Hip Hop Files 1979-1984, We B*Girlz, Street Play, New York State of Mind, Tag Town, Going Postal, and Name Tagging. Her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide and published in numerous magazines including National Geographic, Natural History, and Vibe. While she is still shooting graffiti, street art and the occasional break dance competition today, Cooper’s current project involves documenting people and events in Sowebo, a drug-riddled neighborhood in her birthplace of Baltimore.

********************

Steven P. Harrington is editor-in-chief of BrooklynStreetArt.com and co-author (with Jaime Rojo) of Brooklyn Street Art and Street Art New York, both by Prestel Publishing. He and Jaime Rojo are also contributing writers on street art for The Huffington Post.

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Photographs by Martha Cooper

Martha Cooper ; Remix

with

Original remixes of these photographs in a range of media by Aeon, John Ahearn, Aiko, Bio, Nicer & B-Gee, Blade, Blanco, Mark Bode, Burning Candy, Victor Castillo, Cey, Cekis, Claw, Cosbe, Crash, Dabs & Myla, Anton van Dalen, Daze, Dearraindrop, Jane Dickson, Dr. Revolt, Shepard Fairey, Faust, Flying Fortress, Freedom, Fumakaka, Futura, Gaia, Grotesk, Logan Hicks, How & Nosm, LA II, Lady Pink, Anthony Lister, The London Police, Mare 139, Barry McGee, Nazza Stencil, Nunca, José Parlá, Quik, Lee Quinones, Kenny Scharf, Sharp, Skewville, Chris Stain, Subway Art History, Swoon, T-Kid, Terror161 and more.

Carmichael Gallery is pleased to announce Martha Cooper: Remix, an expansive group show featuring highlights from Martha Cooper’s photographic archive and works by over 50 artists who have created their own unique interpretations of her iconic, historically significant imagery. There will be an opening reception for the exhibition on Saturday, April 9 from 6 to 8pm with Martha Cooper and several of the participating artists in attendance. The exhibition will run through May 7, 2011.

Click on the link below to read BSA interview with Martha Cooper:

http://www.brooklynstreetart.com/theblog/?p=19366

Carmichael Gallery

5795 Washington Blvd

Culver City, CA 90232

April 9 – May 7, 2011

Opening Reception: Saturday, April 9, 6-8pm

 

 

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Sure: Rest In Peace

December 6, 2010 , , ,

FAUST just sent out a sad communique about the untimely passing of his good friend, partner in art and Brooklyn native graffiti artist “SURE”. Below are text and photos courtesy of FAUST:

“It is with my deepest regrets to inform you that this morning I received news of the passing of my close friend Sure. Last night he was killed in Afghanistan where he was stationed as an Intelligence Officer in the United States Marine Corps. Sure was born and bred in Brooklyn and recognized for his exceptional handstyle which brought together elements of classic New York graffiti with ornamental calligraphy. His script signatures could be found throughout the city and were a major influence on myself and countless others.”

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SURE portrait courtesy of FAUST

“Sure also received great recognition as one of the most prominent sticker bombers of all time. Of the thousands of stickers he put up, nearly every one of them was individually hand done in an incredible array of styles. This was recently exemplified in Stickers: From Punk Rock to Contemporary Art (Rizzoli) by DB Burkeman and in Martha Cooper’s latest book Name Tagging (Mark Batty Publishing) which features an interview with Sure”

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SURE photo courtesy of FAUST

“Sure was like a brother to me. He was my partner-in-crime and my best friend. I am grateful for the time we had and that everywhere I go in New York City I see his name and know that his presence will be felt by many long after his passing”.

-Faust

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Phun Phactory 10 Years Later, a Reunion on The Street

June 23, 2010 , , , , ,

Last weekend the Phun Phactory returned to New York’s streets for an aerosol infused celebration of Old Tymers – and a promise for the future.

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The original graff spot of the same name was founded in 1993 by Pat DiLillo and the pioneering aerosol artist Michael “Iz The Wiz” Martin, who recently passed away. Created as a safe place to promote legal aerosol art in New York City, the Phun Phactory allowed many a newcomer to practice and perfect their skills in a supportive environment, frequently working side by side with veterans. The Queens factory building in Long Island City across from MoMA/PS1 became a free public outdoor art exhibit and is considered a landmark. The original site, now known as 5 Pointz, passed from their hands by the end of the decade.

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Saturday a large corrugated metal wall, 3 sides of a block in an industrial site in North Brooklyn, feted newbies and old skoolers to “Old Tymer’s Day”, a gathering of aerosol artists who began riding trains and spraying tags during a time in the city’s recent history when the hand-lettered graffiti style defined the urban environment and spawned an international youth culture infatuated with all things New York City.Brooklyn-Street-Art-WEB-Phun_Factory-June-2010-copyright-Steven-P_Harrington-L1090275

Because of we’re kind of ignorant about graffiti at BSA, rather than concentrate on too many individual pieces and artists, we wandered the scene meeting people and listening to the DJ beats, soaking in the sun, and feeling a little bit of the magic.  It was a hot and humid day and most people moved slowly to endure the heat, enjoying  hanging out, trading stories, talking about technique, walking over to the barbecue, and taking a seat behind the wheel of a classic convertible.  The vibe was nice and the feeling of community and creativity was in the air.

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Jeremy Vega, the Director of the Phun Phactory, says that very soon a new Phun Phactory will headquarter itself in Williamsburg and will make available more than 500,000 square feet of public space for artists of all mediums to showcase their artwork legally.  Judging from the number of young people we saw hanging out Saturday, the new generation will be in attendance.

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This crew of stylish people spontaneously jumped together for a photo as soon as they saw the tripod. In front of this piece by CANO were Boltism, KCONE, Atom, CANO, Vic, and Chino.

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Sitting on a loading dock, these two stayed cool and did tags in a black book.  They said their names are Mary Kate and Ashley.

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The barbecue was open and working, and one guy was making mixed fruity drinks in a blender! Sharp knife too.

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Had a really nice conversation with this guy, who was waiting for his 18 year old son to bring by his paint so he could start his piece.  His name is Zord AKA ZD, G+F, TDT, Tns, R+W, MPC.  He  said he was the king of the BMT, J and M lines circa 1985-1990. We discussed his Kiss action figure collection that got thrown away, Satanism, addiction, opinions on the differences between graffiti and street art, film school, and peace and love.

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This was an impromptu (and shaded) area for blackbooks, which people brought to be signed and traded back and forth discussing.

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Nothing like a robot dance and some heavy metal air guitar for fun on a Saturday.

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(all images © Steven P. Harrington)

The Phun Phactory

Phun Phactory on Facebook

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Phun Factory Returns – This Time in Billyburg

June 12, 2010 , , ,

Saturday is Ol Tymers Day – but not at Yankee Stadium.

The Phun Phactory to Convert Williamsburg Industrial Zone into the World’s Largest Outdoor Mural Art Gallery.

The graffiti art pioneers, those who painted in the train yards in the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s will come together to kick-off the new Phun Phactory and commemorate the life of legendary artist Iz The Wiz.This event is being curated by artists 2ILL and Blade and will feature more than 50 celebrated old school writers all painting on location.

The Phun Phactory Aerosol Art Corp. will re-launch this summer, converting the Williamsburg, Brooklyn Industrial Business Zone into a neighborhood of mural art. The Phun Phactory was founded in 1993 by founders Pat DiLillo and the late and pioneering aerosol artist Michael “Iz The Wiz” Martin. The original project occupied an industrial zone in Long Island City, directly across from the MoMA/PS1 museum and provided more than 200,000 sq. ft. of public space to showcase works of aerosol artists from around the globe. The new Phun Phactory will headquarter in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and will make available more than 500,000 sq. ft. of public space for artists of ALL mural mediums to showcase their artwork.

On June 19th 2010, The Phun Phactory will kick-off commemorating the anniversary of co- founder “IZ THE WIZ” with Ole Tymers Day. This event will take place on Wythe Ave. & N. 15th St. and will begin at 10AM. Ole Tymers Day will bring together the most celebrated aerosol

artists of the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s, those that were painting in the train yards before their art

made it to the galleries. BLADE and 2IL, names recognized around the globe as pioneers in graffiti art will curate this event. On this day, The Phun Phactory will also feature dozens of mural artists from all parts of the world. This project has received unprecedented support from artists, city officials and business partners who will be present for the event.

The Phun Phactory Kick- Off Event

Date: Saturday, June 19th 2010

Loc: N. 15th St, & Wythe Ave Brooklyn

Time: 10 am- 8pm

Saturday, June 19th
rain date: Sat., June 26
10 am
Wythe ave & N. 15th st

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Saber on Dylan Ratigan Regarding, Um, Art

January 26, 2010

Now I know conservatives had art class in school too. That is, unless the funding was cut off because taxes had to be diverted elsewhere.

And certainly we have been through this whole “Flag” discussion a thousand times. You’re probably too young to remember the big deal during Daddy Bush’s run for president about flag burning.

And maybe you’ve heard about the artist Andres Serrano, who photographed a crucifix in a jar of his own urine for a piece called “Piss Christ”.  Dude, symbols are appropriated into art on a daily basis.  Outrageous? Yes. Protected speech? Yes. Another example of people who are shredding the constitution beating their chests about a symbol of patriotism. What do you think?

It’s just nice that the artist in this case, Saber, knows how to speak for himself regarding graffiti, the First Amendment, and the highly dysfunctional healthcare system in the U.S.

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