French street artist and stencil master, Christian Guemy AKA C215 shows us all the spots he painted in Ukraine this spring. As has been his passion for many years on the street, he brought art to the most unusual of surfaces and locations.
There to help people and lift the spirits of people in the middle of a war, the artist chose the street as a platform to reach out to others with his visual poetry. Going back and forth to Ukraine in March, April, and May, the artist looked for unconventional surfaces to spray his multi-layer portraits and wildlife onto the ruins of the bombed buildings, abandoned and destroyed vehicles and tanks. Here with some explanations, the artist shares his works with BSA readers.
The wall at Le M.U.R. in Paris got the Mode2 treatment just ahead of the legislative elections, offering a fine opportunity for the artist to wax politically. He created his message of empowerment on this fresco during the weekend of the Urban Art Fair in Paris after laying down the design in his sketchbook, he says on his Insta account.
It was “a LONG day”, he says, as he reached for a bit of a 90s atmosphere and greeted old friends and families who came to support him, document his work, share stories, and maybe have a quick meal with him.
In our rough translation, the OG writer, painter, historian, and keeper of the flame says, “I had come on a mission, more or less, no matter the circumstances, because the times we live in require of all of our extra efforts, to try to reverse the status quo that has been rotting our existence for more than four decades.”
Our many thanks to BSA contributor Tor Staale Moen for sharing his photos of Mode2 in action at Le M.U.R. in Paris.
Was Leonora Carrington revealing to us a world of creatures that once existed in our world which we evolved from, or was she following the natural indicators that she sensed to predict the world and people that we would eventually become?
I don’t know if I’m inventing the world I paint,” said the Mexican surrealist Leanora Carrington, “I think rather it is that world that I invent myself.”
Was she being a coy artist, or was she empowering each of us with the ability to bend the arc of time, to alter the future with our imaginations?
A recent visit to the Centro de las Artes San Luis Potosi in Mexico gave us the opportunity to see a collection of her astounding otherworldly sculptures and drawings and to appreciate her mind’s suggestions in a fully dimensional way.
“Art is a magic that makes the hours fade and even the days dissolve in seconds,” she said.
The 1940s in Mexico sprouted surrealism in art and literature that met, rivaled, and sometimes superseded the movements of Dali, Breton, and Ernst. The British-born Carrington was a surrealist painter and novelist, living most of her adult life in Mexico City, a five-hour drive south of here. Considered one of the last surviving participants of the surrealist movement of the 1930s, this country hosted a legion of artists embracing the surrealism and spreading the magic realism equally through literature and painting with names like the poet Octavio Paz, painters Alfonso Michel, Carlos Orozco Romero, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, sculptor Luis Ortiz Monasterio, illustrator Roberto Montenegro, David Alfaro Siqueiros…
Industrial, post-industrial, and mechanized worlds were de-humanizing humans, pushing children into factories, de-naturing the natural world, compressing minds into chattel, steering humans into ovens, and giving them wings to fly high above the Earth – offering a continuous economic boom, followed by a bust, followed by a boom. Nothing has made much sense since then.
So it was little surprise to see the families at this exhibition in a former prison, the teens posing for selfies with figures that have animal heads, webbed appendages. Carrington’s references to sorcery, metamorphosis, alchemy, the occult and Celtic mythology blend magically into this country’s fixations- a native people’s psyche destroyed by the European invader, and Catholic church’s full-sized portrayals of the tortured, bloody body of Christ displayed in town after town – sometimes alongside the mystical hallowed figures that are so frightening as to evoke supervillans, or Phil Collins.
There is a strange logic to all of Carrington’s creatures – today grown adults wear similar costumes to conventions, and young men bomb villages in the Middle-East while sitting in a basement thousands of miles away. Are these wild frightful creatures what we were, what we are, or what we will become? Carrington is merely helping you imagine.
“Let’s dial down the rhetoric. Let’s work sincerely to negotiate a cease-fire. We need serious diplomacy” said no one who profits from war.
Ka-ching!
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring: REVS, Adam Fu, JerkFace, Sac Six, Voxx Romana, Roachi, MTA, 4Some Crew, Huetek, Angurria, Swrve, WTG Studios, Enjoy, Six Million Dollar Steve, Carlitos, Dovente, and Danny Ebru.
We return today to the streets of Paris for Dispatch 2 with Norwegian photographer Tor Staale Moen, who tells us that the streets are alive with stencils and aerosol paintings as much as ever. Our first Paris report a couple of days ago focused on the presentation of the female form and energy by street artist in this city. Today, it’s time for the guys.
Here we begin with one of the country’s most well-known stencil masters, C215. His portraits of unknown street dwellers, as well as important historical figures, have graced walls, mailboxes… even national postal stamps. Here C215 honors the memory of a French son of a Polish immigrant to France during the second world war, Samuel Émile Adoner (known as Milo Adoner). Deported with 7 members of his family by convoy in 1942 from the Drancy camp to Auschwitz, he was the only one to survive the Holocaust- along with an older sister who was not deported. With the help of activists and historians and artists like C215, the street can be a platform for the open exchange of ideas – and histories.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening: 1. Wasteminister – Greenpeace 2. Слава Україні! (Glory to Ukraine) 3. Bordalo II via Rafael Estefania
BSA Special Feature: Wasteminister – Greenpeace
Using Boris Johnson’s exact quotes, Greenpeace illustrates his folly, and ours.
What if all the plastic that the UK exports in a day were dumped on his head instead?
Directed by Jorik Dozy & Sil van der Woerd Concept & Production by Studio Birthplace Co-Produced by Park Village CG Production by Method & Madness Produced by Sean Lin
Greenpeace – Wasteminister
Слава Україні! (Glory to Ukraine) Via Spray Daily
The graffiti term “Throwup” takes on a different tinge as we watch our young people pushed into war, yet again. Not the rich ones of course. Here’s a wartime video from Ukraine, Nokier & Reys – who say in their Youtube description that they are doing some street bombing and delivering aid and bulletproof vest plates to Ukrainian graffiti writers defending their country.
Bordalo II via Rafael Estefania
“It doesn’t make sense for me to be related to some big brands that don’t really care about the environment. If they are not doing a good job, no way.” Wonder which brands that sponsor Street Art/graffiti culture events and publications meet this criterion?
Gone is the “Disgusting” sweatshirt. Here is the “Life is Beautiful” t-shirt. Why do we think he’s just kidding? Artur Bordalo, also known as Bordalo II, the artist/street artist from Lisbon has been telling us all to awaken to the wasting/polluting of the earth that we are doing. This overview introduces his work to a larger audience – although you could argue that his estimated 190 animal street sculptures made of recycled trash in 23 countries had made his argument more powerfully – and directly.
Ah, the women of Paris! Street artists have many interpretations of the female form, visage, and image. We have been thinking of female street artists in particular for the last few days because one of its originators in the modern street art movement, Miss Tic, passed away. Her female figures were frequently versions of herself, or her higher self – a sharp mind with a philosopher’s view, a poet’s heart, and a feminist tongue.
A pioneer in a field mainly populated by men, Miss Tic brought her clean-lined stencils of bold brunettes to greet passersby like a friend. Beginning in the mid-1980s, she leads with poetry and existential texts; insightful, entertaining, humorous, and sometimes strident. Looking at these new images from Norwegian photographer Tor Staale on the streets of Paris, we like to think that Miss Tic opened the door to invite all of these women and girls to share in public space and to have a voice.
Graffti and street artists are often targeted by owners of real estate for their illegal artworks – it’s a tradition. These days those same artists are approached by real estate companies to give their property some urban “edge”, increasing their appeal to younger populations.
In the case of one large corporation in Spain that rents student housing, the appeal has been paying off by giving their properties a ‘hip’ sort of brand, thanks to huge murals by street artists and others. The art is not deliberately political or controversial and usually is aesthetically pleasing to a wide audience.
Recently the Madrid-based collective Boa Mistura artists have left their unique artistic imprint on a 107 square meter surface of interior and exterior walls – using layered colorful typography to allude to the compendium of memories and experiences that can build during your life in one place.
“The murals represent the essence of everything that happens inside a residence: a meeting point, a place of dialogue and refuge,” say the artists say. They say that, with time, your home becomes “a place that is deeply rooted, building stories and memories for life”. In this case, the student living site is at Carlos III University Campus in Getafe.
If you are ever looking for an artist to paint your basketball court, Giulio Vesprini has that on lockdown. This is his seventh court project in recent years. Also, it would be helpful if your court is in Italy.
Calling this court of many colors “G O A L – Struttura G070” in Sant’Elpidio a Mare in Castellano, Italy, Vesprini says he has grown fond of these projects because he feels like he upgrades each small community when he creates and paints a unique scheme for each one. The artist says he believes that the courts create a sense of character for some neighborhoods and that the park itself becomes a meeting point between culture, sport, and nature.
This park already has a noted feature; “The park is famous for its astronomical observatory and my work pays homage to this fantastic place with its surrounding landscape by observing the moon, the sea, the beautiful countryside and the Via Lactea (Milky Way).”
San Luis Potosi is culturally rich, has a UNESCO protected historic downtown, and just hosted the Miss Mexico pageant last night – yet most people think of other Mexican cities before this one. It’s been an educational week discovering the city, its rooftop beer gardens, its cathedrals, it’s markets, museums, its seedy side of town with sex workers openly chatting, its gorgeous green parks that pop up every three blocks, its friendly helpful people, its mezcal, and its expansive safe walkways. This city may be one of Mexico’s most underrated.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring: Janin Garcin, Diego Rafel Lopez, Isela Vargas, Oscar Medina, Patricia Macias Mendizabal, Carlos Mejia, Says David, Panda, PaPa, and Celoz.
“I’ve faltered, but I haven’t given up,” says Calendonia Curry AKA Swoon. “I believe in it and I hope you do too.”
She is speaking about the much ballyhooed Braddock, Pennsylvania church which she purchased a decade ago and parlayed into an art project, or two. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Now we enter “The Sanctuary”.
Now along with her Heliotrope Foundation the street artist is proposing to convert the church into a sanctuary for persons transitioning from incarceration and programs to assist. She’ll be donating it to Ronna Davis Moore, an originator and shepherd for similar such safe havens, – but first Swoon is making sure there are new windows in the building, and is raising money via Kickstarter.
“The Heliotrope Foundation has rallied our community to fix the roof in a traditional way (no tiles this time), so now the building is secure and dry,” Swoon says, “and our next step is the windows.”
READ MORE about how you can participate in the final delivery of this planned safe haven.
“It’s a specific project in a specific place,” says Swoon, “but I believe that it is a beacon in many ways, and that its success will have a ripple effect, addressing questions like: How do we help people heal so that they no longer make harmful choices? Can participating in an effort to re-enfranchise the black community with land and assets be part of a journey of healing for people who have benefitted from our country’s brutal legacy? Can artists work alongside social workers, activists, and community organizers to create spaces that challenge cycles of intergenerational trauma and create the potential for lasting change?”
Now you can help in this new chapter for Swoon’s Braddock church, which will be called called Donelle’s Safe Haven. The church will join Z’akiyah House, a house Swoon bought and fixed up a few years ago for a similar mission.
Swoon recalls the exchange that took place to finally get to “Yes”.
Swoon says she placed the call to Ms. Davis Moore and asked, “Ronna, if we can get this church building to you with the roof and windows fixed, do you think you could take it from there, and make it into something that continues to serve your mission?” She stresses that Davis Moore took all things into consideration before answering.
“Ronna is no naive visionary like I was, so she didn’t answer right away,” says Swoon. “She looked at the space, she contacted her community, she slept on it – and then her answer came back. ‘I have a vision for what it can be, and if you can get it that far, we can take over the rest.’ ”
These are the origins of the Universe, the concept of duality, the personification of diety, the reverence for the dead, the mourning of loss, and the paralyzing fear of the devil. These weighty themes and others have regularly been addressed through masks, costumes, and dance in rituals dating back to 3000 B.C. in Mexico. During the Pre-Hispanic period, people became gods and devils, eagles and jaguars – by donning masks.
Wearing a mask in ritual or celebration, one could assume powers over the harvest, influence relationships, attempt to sway health outcomes and even predict the future. Later, pagan practices were folded into western religious practices to gain new adherents (and donations) to the church, fortifying their importance in the histories re-told to future generations.
The masks we saw this week at the National Museum of the Masks (Museo Nacional de la Máscara) in San Luis Potosi were formidable, frightening, and fascinating – and you are guaranteed that there is never a dull moment as you walk from room to room. The mechanics of artifice and imagination summon some of the strongest emotions and associations perhaps because of their human scale. Whether made for “Las Mascaradas” or in later centuries at “El Carnaval” one realizes that sophistication and skill can be revealed in the most intricate pieces with valuable materials and those of the roughest cut or bluntest application of color.
Housed in a colonial palace in the beautiful historical center of the city that was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2010, surprisingly this museum presentation appears to have missing texts, holes where items once were, and darkened lights – detracting from the grand history of masks in general, and Mexico’s role in particular. A final section dedicated to masks worn by wrestling performers known as luchadores is a missed opportunity to connect the ancient with the contemporary and pay homage to the powerful impact and significance these masks have had in multiple media and on modern imaginations.
Overall the masks and costumes are incredibly impressive, drawn from regions and tongues across the country and centuries. Seeing these masks in this grand former home gives visitors a greater appreciation for the role artists have played in communicating the sacred and profane, the rituals of celebration and mourning, the creation of drama and myth, and the creation of traditions.
Elfo is a graffiti writer and social commentator whose work intentionally sidesteps traditional notions of style or technical lettering. This …Read More »
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
