All posts tagged: J. Mikal Davis
The Paris Review: BSA Correspondent’s Report
“When good Americans die, they go to Paris”
by J. Mikal Davis
Well, it felt like I had died and gone to heaven as I found myself in the center of Paris the day before New Years Eve. The streets of Paris are filled with beautiful people, amazing places to eat, hella old buildings, and some great art.
Places like the Centre de Pompidou and Palais de Tokyo are pockets of saturated street art where the kids get up knowing full well that thousands of tourists a day come through on their way to see some great art inside these institutions. Imagine my surprise when I rolled up and there was a huge Katsu fire extinguisher piece in the courtyard of the Pompidou.
I think my favorite was a neighborhood called The 11th, which is kind of between rue de Republic and Bastille metro stop. The 11th is a hip neighborhood that houses the only rock-n-roll record store in Paris (“Born Bad”), amazing little shops and cool little galleries.
I found this great spot called “The Lazy Dog” on 25 rue de Charonne that had an incredible collection of Street Art books and magazines, cool clothes inspired by street culture, and a vast array of prints from some of todays’ sickest artists, like Dutch artist/graphic designer Parra and French print star Genevieve Gauckler to name a couple. They also had a gallery in a separate building next door where they were showing the prints of Evan Hecock – which was a great surprise as I had just become familiar with his work.
The streets in this general vicinity are crammed with some great stuff so keep your eyes peeled as you walk. There might be a Space Invader starring right at you.
I was also really blown away by crazy vertical pieces that were on the side of some buildings. At first I could not fathom how these kids were able to do it and why the verticality of it, but as I studied it more I realized that there are actual ladders (like fire escape ladders) on the side of the buildings that were just hard to see against the brick of the buildings. Kids will hang off the side of ladder and throw up a piece.
There were a few roller pieces on sides of buildings (Zoo Project being one of the best I saw) and the tunnels of the subway were filled with some nice traditional graff pieces, but the majority of the street art was wheat paste. As I was hunting around I met this guy Billy on the street who was doing the same thing as I was.
We got to talkin’ it turns out he has a blog of street art from Paris and all around Europe. Unfortunately, unless you know French you won’t be able to read sh*t but he has some great images of a lot more of the Paris scene.
Billy also recommended that I go check out Rue Denoyez, which was this little forgotten stretch of buildings that had seen better days (like starting in 1850), but some artists thought it would be a good place to work.
More artists followed and began painting huge colorful murals on the walls and…. well I guess you know what happens if you have been in NYC long enough to remember what Williamsburg, Long Island City, Gowanus, and Bushwick used to be like and what they are now.
So these are some of the pics I took while I was there of some of the stuff that struck me. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did! Au revoir!
If you would like to file a correspondent report from your city, drop us a line at info@brooklynstreetart.com
Fun Friday! 01.15.10: “Street Crush” on Video, Jerkville, Available Men, Greenscreen Grannies, Local Banking
“Street Crush” on Video
Brooklyn Filmmaker Collective “Cinema Set Free” produced this great video about the celebration of Street Art in New York called “Street Crush”. Thank you Antonio, Lawrence, Melissa, and Demitri of “Cinema Set Free” for your talents.
BrooklynStreetArt.com and AlphaBeta Art Space hosted a fun street art show with 43 street artists, 4 burlesque performers, and a kissing booth. Working around themes of “Love, Sex, and the Street”, well-known street artists alongside relative whipper-snappers dug deep for fresh takes on gritty street ardor.
Artists included Aakash Nihalani, Abe Lincoln Jr., Aiko, Anera, Bortusk Leer, Broken Crow, C. Damage, Cake, Celso, Charm, Chris Uphues, Creepy, DirQuo, Ellis Gallagher A.K.A. (C)ELLIS G., Eternal Love, FauxReel, FKDL, General Howe, GoreB, Imminent Disaster, Hellbent, Infinity, Nobody, Jef Aerosol, Jon Burgerman, Matt Siren, Mimi the Clown, NohJColey, Pagan, PMP, Poster Boy, Pufferella, Pushkin, Chris from Robots Will Kill, Col from Robots Will Kill, Veng from Robots Will Kill, Royce Bannon, Skewville, Stikman, The Dude Company, Titi from Paris, and U.L.M.
See the Street Crush Artists Here
THE PERFORMERS Nasty Canasta, Clams Casino, Harvest Moon, and your MC, Tigger!
THE KISSING BOOTH A funky loveshack built by artist and set-designer J. Mikal Davis and lorded over by Madame Voulez-Vous. Kissing Booth Volunteers: Ashley, Jeremy, Jess, Justin, Natasha, Ryan, and Val.
THE NON-PROFIT: Art Ready mentoring program for New York City high school students considering careers in the arts, please visit: http://www.smackmellon.org/education.html
MUSIC The DJ was Jesse Mann streaming live on DailySession.com
POST PARTY Brooklyn projection artists, SeeJ and SuperDraw performed at Coco66 .
SPECIAL THANK YOU TO “CINEMA SET FREE” and
Producer/Cameraman – Lawrence Whiteside
Producer/Cameraman – Antonio Bonilla
Editor – Melissa Figueroa
Voice Over Recordist – Dimitri Tisseryre
The original “Street Crush” Press Release
>>>>> < <<<<< > > < < < <> >>> >>>>>>>>>
It’s a New Dance KRAZE Born in Jerkville!
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And Speaking of Jerkville: Dashing Men Available for Dating
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Too Cold For Coney Island? Not Virtually!
Forget Avatar – Put Grandma in front of a Green Screen!
(The image you see behind them is the image they’re looking at)
>>>>> < <<<<< > > < < < <> >>> >>>>>>>>>
Bill Maher on Keeping Your Money Local
You don’t have to stay in a loveless, abusive relationship with your Big Bank.
Fun Friday 12.11.09 – Support Your Artist Neighbors this Holiday Season
It’s a Festival of Blight!
Artists ’round Brooklyn-World are taking Christwanzaakkuheid matters into their own hands….with art fairs and screen-printing parties and good old-fashioned holiday disco-burlesque-debauchery !!!!
Here are a handful of opportunities to spend your cash and not worry that it is getting sucked through a tube to a corporate headquarters somewhere while the frightened-minimum-wage-no-health-benefits cashier who bags your item thinks about hitching a ride to her second job.
When you buy art in your community from your community your money stays in your community. Hooray!
Pandemic Printing Party 12.12
Cream Studios Holiday Sale & Party 12.12
238 Melrose street
between Wilson and Central
Sat Dec 12 4:30 – 12
Andy Kessler Memorial Benefit Art Show 12.12
Honoring the Godfather of NYC skateboarding, who passed away in August
Come by the Volcom NYC store on Saturday, December 12th for the Andy Kessler Memorial Art Show. The show is from 8 pm – Midnight, there will be a silent auction featuring a ton of art, drinks and good times to raise money for a good cause!
Volcom NYC
446 Broadway (Between Grand and Howard)
Also open Sunday, December 13th – 11 am – 7 pm
Secret Project Robot Channukah Party 12.13
4pm to 10pm
For your Jewish and Gentile friends alike a Menorah lighting at sunset
(they’re throwing a christmas/holiday party with Jonathon Toubin on the 17th as well)
German Measels
Jaques Detergent
The Mad Scene
Non profit Secret Project Robot supports the local weirdo arts scene consistently through-out the year
– whether it’s art shows, fashion shows, music shows, street art, conceptual art, performance pieces, parties, fundraisers -you name it. They are totally ART + COMMUNITY and many people have come through their doors that we know, and the doors are still open to struggling new people who are trying to make a go of it.
Make a Donation directly to Secret Project Robot (a 501(c) registered non-profit) arts organization by writing to them – they’ll make it easy for you to give back to the arts >>>secrets@secretprojectrobot.org
Check out this hilarious “My Menorrah” video, a favorite of our own Manischewitz home-gurl Lera Loeb
3rd Ward & The Danger Party throw “Sugar Rum Cherry” 12.12
“Explore twelve thousand square feet of debauched festivities” – oh promises, promises!
Professional art-party ambiance makers The Danger somehow mix the best elements of all holiday traditions while respecting none.
- Dirty Santas
- Seductive elves
- loud sound,
- jump-up dancefloors,
- cheap drinks,
- mistletoe and
- an abundance of whip-cream and cherries.
Finally, next week it’s Brooklyn’s Own
BLIP FEST ’09 in Gowanus at the Bell House
QUICK LOOK – MID WAY THRU A RAINY MBP URBAN ARTS FEST
7 pm
In to each festival a little rain must fall. Drat!
That’s okay, a loose posse of people pulled off some work before the deluge. And now the rain is over and the air is clean and crisp and the darkness falls and the dancefloor is being created before our eyes and hung with lights so the dance party can start in earnest!
A lot of Bushwick artists only awakened 3 hours ago and are on their second cup of coffee anyway, so by 9 p.m. there should be a steady throng of beer-guzzling peeps streaming in for the fresh smell of aerosol and Quicksilver. Organizers estimated 800 people have come through the doors and bobbed in and out of the multiple galleries, store spaces and checked out the bands, DJs and painters, stencilers, wheatpasters. Not bad for the first time MBP!
A BRIEF insight from camera phone, phone camera thing that I can barely figure out …
These hastily snapped pics are just a quick look. Stay tooned in the next couple of days for an insightful photo essay that will just send chills down your spine.
“Street Crush” Street Art Show at AlphaBeta
STREET CRUSH:
Sexy New Work from the Street Artists
You Have a Crush On.
A Show for the Fans.
“Street Crush” a Brooklyn Street Art show and party, featuring brand new work by 42 street artists, 4 dazzling Street-Tart burlesque performers, and a Kissing Booth will be thrown at AlphaBeta in Greenpoint, Brooklyn on Friday, February 13th, 2009.
BROOKLYN, NY-BrooklynStreetArt.com and AlphaBeta are thrilled to be hosting a timely and sexy show of brand new art by veteran and rookie street artists who are on the scene today redefining our ideas of street art. Working around themes of “Love, Sex, and the Street”, well-known street artists like Aiko and Jef Aerosol dig deep for fresh takes on gritty street ardor alongside relative whipper-snappers like Cake and Poster Boy.
In addition to a salon-style show, the opening party will feature live art collaborations and installation.
Full Press Release HERE
THE STREET ARTISTS You Have a Crush On
An unprecedented killer lineup of many of 2009’s best in one Brooklyn location, “Street Crush” will run from February 13 until February 28 and will feature work from an artist list that includes:
Aakash Nihalani, Abe Lincoln Jr., Aiko, Anera, Bortusk Leer, Broken Crow, C. Damage, Cake, Celso, Charm, Chris Uphues, Creepy, DirQuo, Ellis Gallagher A.K.A. (C)ELLIS G., Eternal Love, FauxReel, FKDL, General Howe, GoreB, Imminent Disaster, Hellbent, Infinity, Nobody, Jef Aerosol, Jon Burgerman, Matt Siren, Mimi the Clown, NohJColey, Pagan, PMP, Poster Boy, Pufferella, Pushkin, Chris from Robots Will Kill, Col from Robots Will Kill, Veng from Robots Will Kill, Royce Bannon, Skewville, Stikman, The Dude Company, Titi from Paris, and U.L.M.
STREET CRUSH SHOW OPENING INFORMATION
Friday, February 13, 2009, 7-12 pm
Press Preview by appointment
Location: Alphabeta, 70 Greenpoint Avenue
Greenpoint Brooklyn, New York 11222
Suggested Donation: $8
For more information on Brooklyn Street Art and to see images of the “Street Crush” artworks in the days before the show please visit http://www.BrooklynStreetArt.com
CONTACT: Crush@BrooklynStreetArt.com
THE PERFORMERS
To entertain the Opening Party street art fans, exotic passions will be alerted with Street-Tart Burlesque performances by 4 of today’s award-winning NYC burlesque artists – thrilling, titillating, and Twitterpating the audience in the back-room gallery at AlphaBeta. The rollicking rollcall includes Nasty Canasta, Clams Casino, Harvest Moon, and your MC, Tigger!
THE KISSING BOOTH
A funky loveshack built by artist and set-designer J. Mikal Davis and lorded over by Madame Voulez-Vous, will awaken furtive crushes in the crowd AND raise funds for Art Ready, a mentoring program created by SmackMellon Gallery to serve NYC High School students who are interested in the arts.
For more Information about the Art Ready program for New York City high school students, please visit: http://www.smackmellon.org/education.html
MUSIC
Live DJ sets by DailySession.com will be pumping and streaming live from the “Street Crush” event over the internet all night.
The featured Street Crush DJ will be Jessee Mann, a Williamsburg hottie and self-professed music nerd who plays weekly at Bembe and has mooved booties all over the whirl.
Look out for a special performance by electronic drummer Kamoni, who flagellates the street-sin out of you with a solo live audio collateral collage of beats, sounds, and samples on stage. yeow!
AFTER PARTY AT COCO66 NEXT DOOR
Immediately following the “Street Crush” show opening, guests are invited next door to continue celebrating their new found love at Coco66 and the 68 bar/restaurant, where the booty-shaking music continues and site-specific installations by 2 Brooklyn projection artists, SeeJ and SuperDraw, will blow minds with their original forays into the next horizon on street art.
BIOS OF THE PERFORMERS
Jesse’s musical style encompasses all that is soulful and funky, incorporating familiar sounds with obscure forgotten classics and upfront remixes. In a single DJ set he can travel effortlessly between vintage funk and disco to Afro-Latin grooves, house, techno, hip-hop, and everything in between.
His DJing career has taken him far and wide in the last nine years; Paris, Berlin, Vienna and England, to San Francisco, Miami, and Puerto Rico. He has played at many of NYC’s biggest and most revered clubs, its most chic and exclusive lounges, and its most intense underground parties. Favorites include APT, Cielo, Limelight/Avalon, Love, Sullivan Room, Hotel QT, Socialista, Goldbar, Lunatarium, 3rd Ward, Cabaret Sauvage (Paris), Batofar (Paris), Watergate (Berlin), Roxy (Vienna). Currently Jesse is resident DJ at Bembe weekly with the BodyMusic party.
Download his mixes at:
http://www.jesse-mann.com/mixes.html
Live Electronic Drumming
Kamoni
Kamoni is a Brooklyn based sound designer, live performer and sonic experimentalist. His work encompasses everything from live electronic shows to commercial music production and sound library development. Kamoni has acquired numerous credits on TV, film and animation soundtracks while consulting with music software pioneers such as Ableton and Native Instruments. He launched Puremagnetik in 2006 and his work has been featured in Electronic Musician, Sound on Sound, XLR8R, Remix, Computer Music, Knowledge, Keys and numerous other publications.
See an example of Komoni’s work here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBPSRJAaubg
Street-Tart Burlesque Performers
Tigger! (the MC) is The Original Mr. Exotic World! – Best Boylesque 2006 at The Burlesque Hall of Fame in Las Vegas. Winner of Four Golden Pastie Awards including “Performer Most Likely to Get Shut Down by the Law” and “Most Unpredictable Performer.”, and “the King of Boylesque.” The New York Times called him a “hysterical and acrobatic man in drag,” Next Magazine called him “the taboo-defying dynamo,” and San Francisco tried to ban his striptease.
Tigger! has a MySpace page here:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=16832866
Nasty Canasta is the co-producer of Pinchbottom (“Best Burlesque in NYC” – NY Magazine, “Most Innovative” – Miss Exotic World Pageant) and the impresario behind Sweet & Nasty Burlesque. Her performances combine classic burlesque, pop culture, and a theatrical sensibility to create a dazzling mummery of perplexing proportions. The reigning Cheese Queen of Coney Island, Nasty is, quite possibly, too damn clever for her own good.
Nasty Canasta can be found here:
http://www.nastycanasta.com/
Harvest Moon otherwise known as the Sultry Siren of Burlesque has been sauntering on burlesque stages since 1995. She has performed in Sydney, Paris and many cities in the US. She is founder of award-winning troupe, The Cantankerous Lollies. In the summer of 2008, Harvest toured the Netherlands and Italy in a special showcase of American Burlesque “Cabaret New Burlesque”. From her homebase in New York City she continues to push the frontiers of modern Burlesque with each new act.
Miss Harvest Moon’s website is here:
http://missharvestmoon.com/
Clams Casino has been called a “Burlesque Queen” by the New York Times, and is the proud winner of the awards for Most Comedic and Most Innovative at the 2008 Miss Exotic World Pageant in Las Vegas. Clams is the co-producer of the Gameshow Speakeasy at the Slipper Room, AM Gold at Coney Island, Killer Queen Burlesque and Borderline Burlesque:Midnight Madonna Madness at the Zipper Factory, and many other pop-culture obsessed burlesque shows around New York City and the Eastern Seaboard.
Miss Clams Casino can be found here:
http://www.missclamscasino.com/home.html
PREVIOUS EVENTS from BrooklynStreetArt.com
An on-going celebration of the creative spirit, BrooklynStreetArt.com presents “Street Crush” as the 4th street art event thrown in the last 10 months.
Previous events include;
* April 2008: a benefit street art auction of work by 27 street artists at Ad Hoc Art in Bushwick that raised money for the youth and family creative arts and mentoring programs of Free Arts NYC (www.freeartsnyc.org) and launched the book “Brooklyn Street Art” published by Prestel worldwide and authored by Steven P. Harrington and Jaime Rojo.
See highlights on Youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP3by_SolwA
* May 2008: a street art showcase of 10 street artists at Fresh Kills in Williamsburg also benefiting Free Arts NYC,
* Sept 2008: “Projekt Projektor”, a first-ever curated show of projection artists as street artists in a live show by 6 projection artists on the side of the Manhattan Bridge and the Pearl Street Triangle during 2 nights of the Dumbo Arts festival on September 26 and 27.
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