First day of August, and although the city is gorgeous and green and full of summer excitement, the news is pulsing with the Delta variant, our lost war in Afghanistan, half a million New Yorkers unable to pay the rent, soaring home prices… and Jerome Powell announcing gently that inflation could be ‘higher and more persistent’ than expectations. Whose expectations, Mr. Money Printer?
If you look at the surreal quality of the art on the streets these days, you may be forgiven for feeling like you are living in a funhouse. Perhaps it’s because we’re in a sea of disinformation, the populace is adrift, oddly ready to be galvanized amidst our myths and our realities. It’s everywhere you look, including in our Street Art.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring City Kitty, Dasic Fernandez, Emilio Florentine, Eric Karbeling, Erinko Studios, Krave Art, Lueza, Lunge Box, Medow, Miyok, and Modomatic.
“…. At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could reach the nation’s ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.” – Frederick Douglass in Rochester, New York 1852
While the West of the US was having an exceptional drought and extreme heat, when you looked north to Canada, you witnessed 710,000 lightning strikes; Western Canada was a literal firestorm. According to The Guardian, “The previous week, northern Europe and Russia also sweltered in an unprecedented heat bubble. June records were broken in Moscow (34.8C), Helsinki (31.7C), Belarus (35.7C), and Estonia (34.6C).” On the east coast of the US, we suffered 4 days of a heatwave, and many graffiti writers found themselves banished to underground tunnels to keep cool – which was okay with almost everybody.
Remember when you used to say that things were DOPE until you saw your cousin get hooked and spiral downward unglamorously? DOPE took on a new connotation after that. Maybe we have to stop saying, “Yo, that girl is FIRE!” because, you know, fire. That thing that is scorching the Earth, but not because of Climate Change, you freak.
But the graffiti and street art we have been finding here: some of these are FIRE!
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Arcadio, Benjamin Keller, BMC, Cdre, Ditty, Luke Dragon, LWart, Mena, MeresOne, MHI, MoiOne, Rat Rockster, RH Doaz, and Scartoccio.
Japan-born Queens-based muralist Dragon 76 admires New York, where he has lived for the last five years, because of its diversity and inclusiveness, among other things. As a result, his artworks often gravitate toward a similar theme as he has worked his way from being a graffiti artist from Shiga to being a musician and a commercial graphic artist and muralist. For the Jersey City Mural Festival, Dragon 76 focused on persons of various identities and genders playing music, a piece he calls “Coexist.”
You know the shy kid at the party who won’t hit the dance floor even if Jesus himself begged him – and then he hears his jam and suddenly starts doing flips, tricks, and power moves?
That’s what it felt like last week when all the funk-tech-floral-social-abstract-steez planets spun together into a powerful 2021 solar system at the Jersey City Mural Festival. How many times did you hear the word community, as if we’ve all been starved of it?
And the aesthetics were solid – you would not have guessed how sweet some of these combinations could be – with just enough curation to let the sparks crackle in the gritty oil-coated zones that are surrounding the MANA Contemporary compound. This most diverse generation is now freely tossing any rules and hierarchies out the window; these inheritors of the winds now gathering speed.
The first annual Jersey City Mural Festival brought together dozens of street artists, mural artists, graffiti writers, photographers, and art lovers to this new New Jersey. This festival in another year would have been a festive event just like any other festival – formulas have been discovered for how to mount public cultural events like these around the world – and we’ve been to many.
But this time, the energy was extra charged by the undeniable fact that we’re all emerging to a familiar yet changed world formed by fear, death, insecurity, and longing. Artists were elated to see their peers once again doing what they love doing most: painting outdoors. There is a recognition from the artists, and everybody around that life is precious and the scars left on us by the Pandemic made this event a jubilant one.
The collection of artworks presented here are only a fraction of all the works painted during the festival. Half a dozen of murals were still not completed when we departed. We hope to bring you the rest soon.
The festival unfolded over several days of painting and rain and an oppressive heatwave on two locations in Jersey City. Both locations are the remnants of Jersey City as an industrial powerhouse. The complex in Newark Ave, Mana Contemporary, is now an art center with several galleries, exhibition spaces, and artists’ studios. The complex on Coles Street still conserves its industrial grit. Still, a storage company has replaced the factories, and empty buildings in the decay process appear ready to be demolished.
The Jersey City Mural Festival was presented by Mana Public Arts and the Jersey City Mural Arts Program with the imprimatur of Jersey City Mayor Steven M. Fulop, the city’s Municipal Council, and the Office of Municipal Affairs.
We would like to thank the organizers and production team for all their assistance during the duration of the festival and to Mario at Tost Films for helping man the lift for our final photo session.
Aside from a few breaks for afternoon June monsoons and scattered flash flooding on the greasy streets of this historically industrial region, the frantic and focused paintings by artists were setting Jersey City afire with color and character yesterday. By climbing on rooftops and flying on cherry pickers with a slew of aerosol pilots, our photographer Jaime Rojo got some of the best action in this inaugural mural festival.
The MANA Contemporary complex is comprised of an array of buildings – and many are visible from many passing highways and byways. As the melange of cultures here continues to come out to the streets due to lower Covid numbers and higher vaccine rates, the air is thick with expectation. Having a slew of new artworks from across a spectrum of styles and aesthetic sensibility – you will find much the new additions are directly adjacent to the illegal graffiti that started it all – which is as it should be.
Check out some of the new works here by Beau Stanton, Dasic Fernandez, Elle, Eric Karbeling, Erinkco Studios, Jahru, Max Sansing, MSG, Queen Andrea, Raul Santos, and Ron English.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening: 1. Homily to Country by Artist JR 2. Jersey City Artists at Work Painting for the first Mural Festival Here
BSA Special Feature: Homily to Country by Artist JR
“We must throw off the chains of corporatization to save us all,” is the last statement in this narrative about historical, cultural and natural resources being stolen. His statement could have started with that.
Maybe JR will make a project about fairly taxing the rich next.
Jersey City Artists at Work Painting for the first Mural Festival Here
Two homemade videos below of a handful of the participating artists at work in their murals this week for the inaugural edition of the Jersey City Mural Festival.
See the action with Dragon76, José Mertz, L’Amour Supreme, Boy Kong, and Kirza Lopez in action at Mana Contemporary Complex.
Elle, Queen Andrea and Beau Stanton at the Ice Factory Complex
After a lot of planning and with great fanfare Jersey City is launching its inaugural mural festival and BSA is proud to bring it to you as media partner – and we are excited to see familiar and new local talent take over walls in grand style.
After hosting an open call for local artists of all disciplines and aesthetic approach, organizers MANA Public Arts and Jonathan Levine worked with the Jersey City Mural Arts Program to put together a deep field of talents that will impress in its quality and diversity – that’s our prediction anyway.
Since this weekend is the official unveiling to the public, we found a number of artists laboring on walls this week in preparation – and here are process shots as some of the pieces are already taking form.
From old skool graff writers turned fine artists like John Crash Matos, to early street art takeover artist and pop wiseguy Ron English, to the cherished and polished vernacular of Queen Andrea, to the pop-surrealist Dasic Fernandez who’s been crushing it for the last decade all over New York, this marquee is immediately full of heavy hitters you’ll recognize.
We’re also happy to see serious current talents on the roster; you’ll see they’ve invited many of the newest names and hybrid specialists you have been getting familiar with on the street. Considering the work from just the first two days we can say that straight out of the gate, this show rocks already.
The Jersey City Mural Festival is presented by Mana Public Arts and the Jersey City Mural Arts Program (JCMAP) in partnership with Mayor Steven M. Fulop, the Jersey City Municipal Council, and the Office of Cultural Affairs.
In response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and in strict adherence with the reopening guidelines set by the State of New Jersey, all aspects of the 2021 Jersey City Mural Festival will be executed with strict COVID-19 protocols and social distancing. In addition the many of the events and works will be made available online to allow for virtual participation.
Dates and Hours of Operation
Saturday, June 5 from 12-8 PM Sunday, June 6 from 12-7 PM
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