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

Now screening :
1. XENZ – Concrete Jungle
2. Harsa Pati: Parees Fest 2020. Video by Titi Muñoz
3. Manu García ‘El Nolas’: Parees Fest 2020. Video by Titi Muñoz
4. COVITA

BSA Special Feature: XENZ and Hummingbirds in the Concrete Jungle in Oslo

“That’s the ethos of graffiti, I think,” says the British artist Xenz as he talks about his new project in Oslo, “You’ve got to have your own identity and push your own style, really.”

The new video from James Finucane and Street Art Oslo lets the artist speak about his process and his philosophy. He got into graffiti not out of murderous feelings of rebellion, necessarily, but rather an appreciation of possibility, and maybe even an attitude of celebration.

“It was about decorating these derelict warehouses – making them beautiful.”

“I’m trying to do something that is ironically pretty. Not quite twee,” he says as he answers the unasked questions that hardened graffiti writers may have when a fellow writer diverges from the typical activities that may define the modern archetype of a rebellious vandal who could care less about society.

“A hummingbird flying? – they’re like the most amazing things if you’ve ever seen one. It’s like ‘Let’s do that, instead of writing my name everywhere’,” he says.

So the sentiment is in alignment with how he describes a new public project with concrete columns in a margin of activity that most don’t consider a destination, only a through-point. Xenz says he chose a theme of nature reasserting itself to overtake the industry of humans. We all know that in the end, its nature will win, long after we destroy ourselves.

And did he like the experience of bringing his inside work outside? “It was a pleasure really – to have the opportunity to do what you do, there.”

XENZ – Concrete Jungle

Harsa Pati: Parees Fest 2020. Video by Titi Muñoz

Manu García ‘El Nolas’: Parees Fest 2020. Video by Titi Muñoz

COVITA

With apologies to Evita; HUMOR OR IN THIS CASE SATIRE OFTEN IS THE BEST ANTIDOTE…