The Circuito Mural: Encuentro Internacional de Arte Urbano just wrapped up its first run from October 1 to 5, 2024, in Villa Obrera, Tafí Viejo, Tucumán, Argentina. This aesthetically strong and community-powered event turned the neighborhood into a new open-air gallery, with new murals from 13 artists hailing from across Argentina and as far as Siberia, Russia. The lineup had both fresh talent and seasoned pros, creating a satisfying blend of styles and influences that gives the area a whole new vibe.
Local artist Vero Corrales and her collective, RUIDO, organized the festival with a clear vision: to make Tafí Viejo a street art hub. Their goal is to reflect Tucumán’s unique local history, culture, and natural beauty through the murals. Over five days, the artists didn’t just paint walls—they connected with residents, worked alongside them, and created art that resonated deeply with the people in the neighborhood. Organizers say the event was about cultural exchange, building community pride, and sparking a sense of identity through shared creative work.
Matt Fox-Tucker from Buenos Aires Street Art captured the festival’s grit and color with photos that bring the murals to BSA readers to enjoy. He also shares his insights and knowledge about the genesis of some of these works and the artists who created them. Props to Vero Corrales and her team for pulling off an event that’s more than just paint on walls; a celebration of place, people, and stories, set right in the heart of Tafí Viejo.
From Matt Fox-Tucker: “Vero Corrales, from the artistic group RUIDO one of the organizers of the five-day event, said: ‘“’The reason for the festival was to invite some talented street artists to improve the public space while collaborating with the neighbors to put Villa Obrera on the map as one of the best places to see murals in the region or perhaps the country’.”
From Matt Fox-Tucker:
“The work of art remembers the time of splendor when Tafí Viejo had one of the largest railway workshops in South America and exported lemons to all parts of the world.
Although the industry fell a few years ago, this legacy is still very present in the place almost as if it ran in people’s neighbors, Lina said. ‘I wanted to represent this bond through the arms of a hard-working person whose veins form the train tracks. The gesture of the figure is one of offering, holding a bouquet of the pink lapacho, which is a native tree very loved by the inhabitants of the town. The message I wanted to convey is that although past times cannot return, the persevering and fighting people will always manage to bloom something new and beautiful’.”
From Matt Fox-Tucker:
“The artist Soledad Moisas paints murals with images of scenes from everyday life and includes typical elements of the cities she visits such as the famous Tucumán empanadas, Gauchito Gil, the Virgin of Lujan, native flowers, and traditional drink bottles.
The event was organized by Vero Corrales, Fernando Gallucci, Leandro Fernández, Mariano Orell, in addition to the help of Florencia Vidal and Lucía Palenzuela.”
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! Set your clocks back one hour today.
A chilly but warm NYC welcome to the 50,000+ marathon runners from around the globe as they journey through the dirty, potholed streets of all five boroughs in this rudely friendly, alluring, and romantically gritty city. We’ve already forgotten that we lost the World Series this week and are concentrating instead on welcoming our haplessly plodding runners on the street—with raucous cheers in Queens, impromptu bands in Brooklyn, and dancing in the Bronx, the city becomes a big block party today.
Make sure to check out our graffiti and street art on the way!
Also, early voting is in effect in NYC. The new president of the US will be selected, possibly by you.
Here’s our weekly conversation with the street, this week featuring: City Kitty, Homesick, CRKSHNK, Degrupo, Modomatic, Sticker Maul, Leon Keer, Dot Dot Dot, Raddington Falls, D7606, SacSix, Muebon, Werds, RX Skulls, C3, EXR, OSK, She Posse, Outersource, Semz, Silkmoth, Glenn Ligon, Isa De Prez, and All Over Grey.
“Although different views and opinions are important for a healthy society, we can experience a greater increase in polarization in recent decades, which severely limits bridging or interactions.
In this work I would like to express that we are all connected despite differences in opinion. I see communication with positive sentiment and respect as a good carrier for social connection.” -Leon Keer
“The idea for the original Statue of Liberty was conceived in 1865, when the French historian and abolitionist Édouard de Laboulaye proposed a monument to commemorate the upcoming centennial of U.S. independence (1876), the perseverance of American democracy and the liberation of the nation’s slaves
Liberty holds a torch above her head with her right hand, and in her left-hand carries a tabula ansata inscribed JULY IV MDCCLXXVI (July 4, 1776, in Roman numerals), the date of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. With her left foot, she steps on a broken chain and shackle commemorating the national abolition of slavery following the American Civil War. After its dedication, the statue became an icon of freedom being subsequently seen as a symbol of welcome to immigrants arriving by sea.
In Dotdotdot’s version, just a few days before the upcoming election, much of whose campaign has been marred by racist and anti-immigrant rhetoric, the torch is replaced by a distress flare. A warning to us all.” ~ Nuart Festival, Stavanger, Norway
On any typical Wednesday, New York is a freak show on the subway, streets, in the corner deli. In a good way! This spooky time of year brings a larger allotment of costumes to the streets. Because it is Halloween, these alter egos also brings hidden fears and anxieties to the surface, revealing characters that lie deep within some people.
Only a few days before a US national election that feels pivotal and frightful to many, voters express fear and uncertainty toward both major candidates. In the wooly street art scene, symbols of the underworld reappear and linger year-round, waiting to be uncovered. Here, we present a collection of recent productions, large and small, peppered with quotes to celebrate Halloween.
“Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.” – The Raven, Edgar Allen Poe
“Villainy wears many masks, none so dangerous as the mask of virtue.” – The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.” – The Tempest by William Shakespeare
“Even the air here seems to carry death, sweet and crisp and still.” – The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
“Ghosts are real, this much I know. There are things that tie them to a place, very much like we do.” – Crimson Peak by Guillermo del Toro and Matthew Robbins
The newest mural by Innerfields marks a powerful addition to Berlin’s urban cityscape, installed as part of the ONE WALL initiative by Urban Nation. This Berlin-based street art duo, Holger Weißflog and Jakob Tory Bardou, has created a moving tribute to Dorothee and Harald Poelchau, who bravely sheltered those persecuted during the Nazi era. The mural, located on the façade of a Gewobag building in Charlottenburg-Nord, draws on Innerfields’ signature photorealistic style with a blend of surrealist and symbolic elements, visually narrating a story of courage, protection, and human resilience.
Central to the mural are the intertwined hands of Dorothee and Harald, symbolizing the physical and emotional sanctuary they offered to those in need. Dorothee holds a light, a gesture conveying warmth and hope amid adversity, while a menorah placed nearby serves as a poignant reminder of the Holocaust. Lines weave through these elements, subtly representing the network of resistance that the Poelchaus supported, embodying a collective strength defying oppression.
Originally a trio with artist Veit Tempich, Innerfields has painted murals worldwide, from Berlin, Hamburg, and Cologne to Aalborg, Prague, and Hong Kong. Known for tackling themes of human interaction, technology, and environmental consciousness, Innerfields employs a unique fusion of realism, surrealism, and abstraction; theirs is a unique reflection on society’s dynamics. Their work has appeared at prestigious events like Out in the Open in Aalborg and the Wall Street Festival in Prague, as well as in galleries like ATM Gallery in Berlin and 30works Gallery in Cologne.
Here, we see how Innerfields brings historical remembrance into the present, creating a public artwork and a newly living memorial. The project involved students from the Anna Freud School, who engaged with the mural’s themes, enhancing their understanding of resistance and actively participating in Berlin’s evolving culture of remembrance. The mural, initially surprising to some in the community with its bright pink primer, it now appears to resonate deeply with locals, fostering a sense of shared history and identity. It is just the latest showing Innerfields’ commitment to creating meaningful public art that honors the past and inspires the future.
Most ghouls, goblins, Spidermen, mermaids, Joe Biden Zombies, and P Diddy Daycare Workers made their rounds at parties and trick-or-treat last night. But let’s be honest—the spooky, silly, absurd and ffft-up freaky fun isn’t likely to leave us soon! Costumed characters will be haunting the city all week, building up to the main event Thursday, All Hallows Eve. That’s when the East Village Halloween Parade—a true New York tradition—will bring 100,000 costumed participants and two million spectators into the streets for a wild night of celebration.
In a city that already has a bold and often experimental sense of fashion, Halloween is a chance for New Yorkers to push their creativity to the limit and bring something extraordinary to the street, subway, and club.
Because of the current tenor built and supported dark-money-funded campaigns, most people will tell you they are more afraid of Election Day this year than Halloween.
Stay safe ya’ll!
Here’s our weekly conversation with the street, this week featuring: Blanco, Degrupo, BK Foxx, Clint Mario, Manuel Alegandro, TBanbox, Raphael Federici, Joao Varela, and DZIT.
The Festival d’Arts al Carrer de Calldetenes (FACC 2024), held in late April, has become a celebrated cultural event in the town of Calldetenes, located about 60 kilometers north of Barcelona. Organized by Associació La Pera with support from the Ajuntament de Calldetenes, this annual event blends various artistic disciplines, but murals are undeniably its centerpiece.
With a focus on creating an inviting atmosphere, the high quality murals presented at this festival are designed to resonate with the community. Their pleasant and reassuring imagery reflects the festival’s mission to foster an environment of cultural unity and artistic expression. Murals by Lidia Cao, Lily Brick, M. Calde, and Pablo Astrain—some of the more recognized names in the urban art scene—contribute to this welcoming aesthetic. Each year, around a dozen or more artists, both emerging and established, participate, bringing a sense of creative vitality to the streets of Calldetenes.
This festival is unique not just because of the murals but also for its broader cultural appeal, which includes music performances, circus acts, artisan markets, and more. It’s a family-friendly event that draws locals and visitors alike, offering them a chance to engage with the town’s artistic and cultural spirit.
Special thanks to Lluis Olive Bulbena for once again contributing his photography to capture these murals and for making the trip to this charming town to document the vibrant street art scene. His dedication continues to provide us with stunning visuals that bring the essence of this festival to life.
Lapiz, known for his poignant social commentary through street art, has once again made his mark with Rainbow Nation, a striking new mural at the Secret City Festival in Paderborn, Germany. This time, he tackles the urgent issues of division, intolerance, and the rising tide of far-right ideology sweeping across Europe. In response, Lapiz turns to the colors of the LGBT rainbow flag to create a mural that speaks of unity, diversity, and democracy.
The piece is built around the portraits of four German citizens, each chosen for their significant contributions to society. Using his signature halftone stencil technique, Lapiz has masterfully woven their faces into fingerprints—a clever metaphor for individuality and the unique, positive impact these figures have on the world. The mural celebrates the idea that no matter where we come from, what we believe, or who we love, our human rights are the same.
From top to bottom, the mural features:
Leeroy Matata, a former wheelchair basketball player turned influencer, whose powerful presence in social media challenges perceptions of ability and inclusion.
Margot Friedländer, a Holocaust survivor and public advocate, a living testament to resilience and a voice for remembrance in these troubling times.
Tessa Ganserer, one of the first trans women in the German parliament, a symbol of progress and the ongoing fight for gender equality.
Mai Thy Nguyen-Kim, a chemist and science journalist, who has become a trusted voice in Germany, promoting scientific literacy and combating misinformation.
The mural’s message of equality and solidarity comes at a critical moment as Lapiz calls attention to the political shifts threatening democracy in Germany and beyond. Painted in the heart of Paderborn, this vibrant artwork stands as a reminder that resistance can be bright and cheerful – and that art has the power to inspire and galvanize change.
Lapiz’s journey, from the streets of Dunedin to the walls of Hamburg and Buenos Aires, is meant as a testament to his belief that art should reflect our times and challenge the status quo. Rainbow Nation is a bold statement, not just for the Secret City Festival but for anyone who believes in the power of unity and the strength of diversity.
New York is slamming, as ever, when it comes to new street art and graffiti popping up in expected and unexpected places. Here’s our weekly conversation with the street, this week featuring: The Yok, Sheryo, Lexi Bella, Calicho Art, Humble, IMK, Manuel Alejandro, EXR, Zoot, Great Boxers, Thobekk, Aaron Wrinkle, OTOM, Poor Rupert, Paige Bowman, Elena Ohlander, MUSKA, Motomichi Nakamura, and TABBY.
As part of Oulu, Finland’s preparations to become the European Capital of Culture in 2026, Italian street artist Fabio Petani has created a stunning new mural titled Ferrous Sulfate, Achillea Millefolium & Lathyrus Palustris in this city that blends cutting-edge technology, a vibrant cultural scene, and scenic natural surroundings. This work, commissioned by Upeart and curated by a selection committee from over 500 artists, highlights Petani’s signature style—one that blends natural elements with chemical compositions to symbolize the environment’s delicate balance.
“Each detail in the mural was inspired by photographs I took during my time in Oulu, which were then adapted into a composition that captures the essence of the area’s natural beauty,” says Petani.
Located near the Oulujoki River, a key inspiration for the piece, the mural features local flora like Achillea Millefolium and Lathyrus tuberosus, each chosen for their symbolic representation of the city’s resilience and cultural roots. This mural’s vibrant colors drawn from nature and its harmonious design are stylistically consistent with Petani’s other works, which often merge scientific and botanical themes to reflect a deeper connection between nature and urban spaces. As Oulu prepares for its cultural milestone, this mural serves as tribute to the city’s natural beauty and the community’s enduring spirit.
Fabio Petani tells us, “This piece is more than just decoration; it is a lasting tribute to the city, preserving the spirit of Oulu’s nature for future generations.”
Special guest Ted Riederer shares the story of a New York artist who, as a gay street youth, made his mark with bold, conceptual graffiti. Blending street culture with high-concept art, his early works challenged boundaries, reshaped graffiti history, and paved the way for a pioneering career in immersive installations and social activism.
by Ted Riederer
Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt, whose work is collected by prestigious institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, MoMA, and the Brooklyn Museum, and who was honored by President Barack Obama, began his career as a conceptual graffiti/street artist in the late 1960s. Known for his numinous sculptures and installations crafted from everyday materials like staples, cellophane, paper bags, and Scotch tape, Tommy’s journey started with a bold move. At just 20 years old, in 1968, he launched a spray paint stencil campaign on 4th Street in the East Village—a calculated street art action that reshaped and rewrites the many narratives of graffiti history.
I first met Tommy in 2004 at the School of Visual Arts, where he instantly became one of my favorite professors. In 2018, when I was the Artistic Director of Howl! Happening: An Arturo Vega Project, I co-curated an exhibition of Tommy’s work, which The New York Times described as a “revelation.” In preparation for the exhibit, Pavel Zoubok Gallery, along with the team at Howl, scanned hundreds of photographs and documents from the artist’s personal archive. We discovered a long-forgotten framed collage made from Village Voice clippings and photographs taped to a black plastic bag. This collage illuminates one of the first recorded acts of conceptual graffiti in New York City. An even more remarkable find was a handwritten manifesto from 1970, in which Tommy describes his philosophy behind this early work. This thoughtful and articulate document shows a level of sophistication beyond the artist’s years.
When I recently interviewed Tommy at the Mary Manning Wash Rehabilitation Hospital, he reflected on this formative period in his life. In 1967, after two semesters at Pratt, he ran away from his home in Linden, New Jersey. His father had derailed his artistic aspirations by enlisting Tommy as a ditch digger—ditch digging was the entry-level job for a career in construction. The night before his first day of construction work, Tommy fled home and hitchhiked to Times Square with 57 cents in his pocket.
Tommy found the Times Square scene to be “too rough,” so he made his way to the Village, where he found both safety and camaraderie among a vibrant community of gay street kids. One of these kids got him a job at an employment agency as a messenger. With regular, albeit meager, income, Tommy migrated east looking for cheap rent. He eventually found an apartment on 4th Street between Avenue B and C. He recounted, “I think the landlord rented to me because he didn’t think I would last very long. That neighborhood was really dangerous.”
Tommy, who often describes his life as full of unexpected, fortunate events, met the painter Christopher Scott on a corner outside the Museum of Modern Art after he couldn’t afford the entry fee. Scott was the partner of Henry Geldzahler, the curator of Contemporary Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They adopted Tommy into their circle of friends and introduced him to the fecund theater scene that was thriving in the East Village. This scene included Charles Ludlam, Jack Smith, and John Vaccaro, along with institutions like La Mama Experimental Theater Club and Vaccaro’s Play-House of the Ridiculous. Tommy was deeply inspired by this new artistic community, especially Ludlam’s straightforward way of communicating, which avoided the pretentiousness often found in the Uptown art world.
Tommy described this period to me: “I was reading the Village Voice, reading John Perreault, and I said to myself, ‘I have to do something that connects with what they’re doing.’ So that’s how the street art happened. It was totally calculated, but it had to be true to who I am at the same time. Why graffiti? Graffiti was already considered art by the street kids, which was all the gay kids who I hung out with, but no one listened to them. I wanted to make something that wouldn’t look like graffiti but would be graffiti. It would have a conceptual element going through it, but it would have mostly a romantic element going through it. The reverie of being there was what I wanted it to be mostly about. This was art that couldn’t be bought. It had to be walked away from.”
Tommy instigated his project by sending a cryptic ransom note to Village Voice art critic John Perreault, signing it “Mr. T.” “I wanted them to think I was some crazy forty-year-old,” Tommy remembered. In a Village Voice article published on June 6, 1968, John Perreault wrote, “Recently I received a cryptic note in the mail. It was scrawled in ballpoint pen on green graph paper torn from a notebook, and it urged me to come and see ‘New York’s first real environmental art.’”
Tommy had covered 4th Street with a white spray-painted stencil that read “OBJECT ART.” In his 1970 manifesto, Tommy wrote, “Street graffiti was making the transition from the big sloppy paint brush to the more exacting use of the spray can. Conceptual art was isolating words as contemplative moments. The political atmosphere was sympathetic to the plight of the exploited and the underprivileged. I wanted to combine all these directions. I chose the name Mr. T to avoid identification. I chose the words ‘OBJECT ART’ from two definitions: Object as ‘a thing (an object)’; Object as the verb, to object (to object to something). And I wanted the words ‘OBJECT ART’ to hint at the expression ‘object d’art.’”
I spoke with Al Diaz, one of the graffiti artists behind the 2023 exhibition and book New York City of Kings: A History of New York Graffiti. I wanted to find out the state of graffiti in 1968 to fully understand the context of Tommy’s stencils.
Diaz explained, “Graffiti in the late 60s and 70s was more of a sport, quantity over quality. Julio 204 surfaces in 1967/68. It’s the first appearance of a name and number tag, even before Taki 183. What Tommy was doing was more ambitious. Instead of trying to communicate with the esoteric community of other taggers, Tommy was attempting to communicate with the public at large. Graffiti at the time was written by a local kid who addressed everyone in the neighborhood saying, ‘I’m here.’ It’s different than what Tommy was doing. He was appropriating that public space.”
Tommy wrote, “Partially following Leonardo’s advice to seek compositional inspiration in blots and stains on old walls, I isolated the most interesting walls, thought-provoking objects, and modified views through the placement of ‘conceptual graffiti,’ stenciled, as a viewfinder on or nearby the involving moments of vision. The experience of the ‘Art’ was constantly unformed and forming through confrontation with life, yet aesthetically informed through the view or moment of vision. It was done to confuse the participants into a state of creative tension between the ethical and the aesthetical.”
Scanned from the contact sheet cutouts in Tommy’s collage, photographer Robert Rosen’s beautiful photographs not only capture Tommy’s stencils, but they also document the transition from graffiti made with a brush to graffiti made with the spray can. One photo even captures the murmuration of carrier pigeons on the horizon. When I showed Tommy Rosen’s group portrait of kids from the neighborhood posing with an “object art” stencil, he exclaimed, “Those kids have to be in their 70s now.”
Tommy wrote, “Coming from a working-class background, I understood that the Bauhaus concept of people as bees in a hive was totally dehumanizing to the people it professed to help.”
This street art campaign was only the beginning. Tommy continued his practice with “environmental art,” transforming entire buildings into immersive installations and converting his own apartment into a gallery space. These endeavors were all featured in The Village Voice, with the gallery specifically highlighted in an article by Charles Ludlam.
The rediscovery of Perreault’s article from The Village Voice, Rosen’s photographs, and, most importantly, Tommy’s writings, is extraordinary. These documents provide insight into the early history of New York graffiti, a now ubiquitous global art form. This history also helps us understand the egalitarian underpinnings of an artist who is deeply concerned with social justice issues. Tommy was honored by President Obama in 2009 for his participation in the Stonewall rebellion and appears in front of the Stonewall with other youth in a well-known photograph by Fred W. McDarrah entitled Celebration After Riots Outside Stonewall Inn.
Al Diaz, who co-wrote SAMO with Jean-Michel Basquiat, reflects, “We didn’t understand completely what we were doing with our public writing project back then. Tommy’s art and writing help me define and understand more deeply what we were trying to do. Tommy’s stencils helped jumpstart his career just as SAMO helped jumpstart ours.”
Even though he has retired from teaching, Tommy continues to educate us through his work and the story of his life. He is actively making work from the bed of his rehab hospital. “Some of my best work,” he claims.
Scenes from Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt installation views from the exhibition Tenemental: With Sighs Too Deep For Words (Nov/December 2018).
About the Author: Ted Riederer
Described as a “one-time refugee from punk and sometime band member,” Ted Riederer has traveled the world equipped with painting supplies, electric guitars, amplifiers, old LPs, record players, drum kits, hard disk recorders, photography gear, a vinyl record lathe, and long-stemmed roses. His artistic journey has taken him from the Americas to the Antipodes, with his work exhibited both nationally and internationally at venues such as PS1, Prospect 1.5, Goff and Rosenthal Berlin, Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery, Jack Hanley Gallery (San Francisco), Marianne Boesky Gallery, Context Gallery (Derry, Ireland), David Winton Bell Gallery (Brown University), the University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum, the Liverpool Biennial, and the Dhaka Arts Center in Bangladesh.
Riederer’s acclaimed project, Never Records, has traveled from New York to Liverpool, Derry, New Orleans, Texas, Kansas City, Brooklyn, Amman, and London, where it was sponsored by the Tate Modern. In addition to his artistic endeavors, Riederer served as the Founding Artistic Director of Howl! Happening: An Arturo Vega Project, a non-profit gallery and performance space in the East Village. The New York Times has recognized Howl! Happening as “instrumental to the history of the area.”
The beat on the street is washed in autumn sunlight, cooler nights, and traffic jams. If you hear cars honking, you know its New York in the fall. Street artists and graffiti writers are still hard at work, or play, and we like to capture their work here, before it is gone.
And here we go boldly into the streets of New York to find new stuff from: Shepard Fairey, C215, Obey, Homesick, Queen Andrea, Steve the Bum, Boom, Pumpkin, Exiled, Stytte, Delude, Fader, and Aise.
Manchester’s Northern Quarter is known for its vibrant street art scene (including the Cities of Hope festival), independent music venues, and creative businesses that occupy its historic, repurposed buildings. This eclectic neighborhood has become a cultural hub, drawing visitors with its large-scale murals and a mix of alternative shops, cafes, and record stores. Despite the pressures of gentrification, the Northern Quarter of this UK city remains a key destination for artistic expression and community engagement, where spaces like the Manchester Craft and Design Centre have become cultural landmarks, housed in buildings with a rich history and offering spaces for local artists to showcase their work.
The street art duo SNIK, also from the United Kingdom, has just completed their latest highly detailed, multi-layered stencil here, “Still Life.” A meditative portrait spanning many stories, it makes one wonder who she is and if she has a special connection to this neighborhood.
“We’re thrilled to return to Manchester, a city that has always welcomed our work with open arms,” say the duo. “With Still Life, we wanted to create something that not only enhances the urban landscape but also encourages people to take a step back and appreciate the little things, the moments of calm we often overlook.”
This new one joins their 2018 wall called “Serenity,” which some say has become a cherished part of Manchester’s artistic heritage. Due to the ethereal nature of street art, one can never know for sure how long a piece will last, so we recommend you catch this one while it still has life.