In honor of the radio station WNYC’s 100th birthday, Alison Stewart’s “All Of It” program is celebrating 100 pieces of art in New York City. Each month, Alison speaks with an expert in the art world about their 10 favorites. This month, Alison talked to Jaime Rojo and Steven P. Harrington, co-founders of Brooklyn Street Art, about 10 pieces of art in the streets that they think all New Yorkers would like to know about.
Since it was a radio show, it was impossible to show, only to tell. BSA fans have written to ask us for pictures of the pieces discussed, so here they are!
The list is unscientific and offers a wide selection of art styles and disciplines in New York’s public sphere. Please don’t take it as an indicator of importance or value; rather, take it as a casual survey of things you may see around town.
This week, we found ourselves amidst the vibrant energy of Los Angeles, uncovering hidden gems and reconnecting with old friends. One highlight was a visit to Roger Gastman’s dynamic ‘Beyond the Streets’ gallery, which celebrated its first year with a captivating show featuring Tim Conlon, HuskMitNavn, and Pose. A thrilling moment was when we had the privilege of moderating a panel that featured the artistic brilliance of Layer Cake’s duo – Patrick Hartl and Christian Hundertmark (C100), the iconic Chaz Bojórquez, recognized as the godfather of graffiti and the epitome of California Chicano artistry, and our host, the ever-passionate artist and activist, Shepard Fairey. The venue buzzed with artists and connoisseurs, each directly or deeply ingrained in the world of art in the streets. And as LA’s streets echoed with the spirit of Mexican Independence Day, the youthful beats of Mexican music star Peso Pluma serenaded us from passing cars. Truly, a week to remember.
Here is our weekly interview with the street: this week featuring Shepard Fairey, Vhils, Invader, Keith Haring, Nychos, El Mac, Add Fuel, Praxis, Hueman, Estevan Oriol, Hijack, Tempt, David Howler, Loks Angeles, Kook, Madre, and Downtown Daniel.
The rain hasn’t been coming around much this summer, so we begin the postings with a dreamy sequence from Dan Kitchener and his muse walking with an umbrella. Good to see so much quality art in the streets this summer. Things may be difficult in many ways when it comes to life in this city, but the vibe on the streets is still rockin’ it.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring: SacSix, Degrupo, Sara Lynne-Leo, Dan Kitchener, Doves, IMK, @2easae, GanoWon, Your Camera is a Weapon, and Habibi.
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week, where New York keeps pushing forward through this stormy winter – although the amount of new street art and graffiti dissipates this time of year as artists stay in their creative caves, waiting for spring. Hang in there peeps.
Great news for New York artists this week: artists can now apply for a monthly stipend of $1,000. This is big news because unlike a lot of Europe, the US and its institutions do not support artists or cultural workers.
Speaking of exemplary New Yorkers, Jeffery Epstein’s friend Jean-Luc Brunel has been found dead in his prison cell, mysteriously. One of Epstein’s other friends, Prince Andrew, reportedly settled out of court this week. “Prince Andrew reportedly agreed to never again deny raping Virginia Giuffre”, says the New York Post, The Independent, and The Sun. The Times says: “A new nursery rhyme is doing the rounds at the Palace:
‘The grand old Duke of York, he had 12 million quid. He gave it to someone he’d never met, for something he never did’”.
Jesus, let’s go out for a walk and see if we discover some new street art.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring: Skewville, Specter, City Kitty, Adam Fujita, Pork, Jason Naylor, Below Key, Lexi Bella, Jowl, Nimek, Klonism, Harvey Ball, Eloy Bida, Kat Blouch, Timmy Ache, and Eyedao.
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week. Did you set you clocks ahead one hour? Spring forward!
We open today’s edition of BSA Images Of The Week with Peruvian artist The Monks. He’s been splashing the streets of New York with his vibrant work… and with a much-needed infusion of color during our winter grays – as a prelude to the imminent Spring in NYC.
We’re feeling good. Is that bad? Maybe it’s the lack of daily tweets that used to hector and batter the populace for 4 years that we are slowly emerging from beneath. It’s like the Twitter Gods are showing mercy on us all.
Maybe it’s the centrist rescue bill finally passed this week that will place newly-minted cash into the hands of the newly-minted poor and desperate working-class, slowing the steady decades-long growth of the gaping chasm between haves and have-nots. (Still “no” to $15 minimum wage, “no” to Medicare for All, “yes” to a bombing in Syria). You can’t blame the Democrats, though – they only have the House, Senate, and White House.
Maybe we’re also feeling partially positive because we had two consecutive days of sunshine and even experienced 60-degree temperatures. Daffodils are positively poised for popping through the dog poop in public parks presently. No doubt we’re also feeling hopeful because a deluge of new art will begin rushing through city streets in the next few weeks as artists, like everyone else, will be racing outside like giddy teenagers.
Not that they haven’t been getting up already. They have.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Clown Soldier, CRKSNK, Donut, Fours Crew, Goog, HAZE, Kiwi, Meter, Nemz, Polka, Rambo, Roachi, Samva, Sara Lynne-Leo, Texas & Gane, The Monks, Toath, Zexor, and ZigZag.
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week, where that silence you hear is the controlled collapse of the entire economy. Blink. Notwithstanding the drama that monopolizes the airwaves courtesy our daily-car-crash-in-chief, the breeze lilts and whirls gently downward like a loosened yellowed leaf set free from a tree.
But right now – New York street art is all about the raw nerves that are on display across the culture.
Here is our weekly interview with the streets, this week including Butterfly Mush, De Grupo, Eye Sticker, Hani, Hearts NY, Heck Sign, Kest, Detor, Daie, Ribs, Lexi Bella, My Life in Yello, Reisha Perimutter, Skewville, Sticker Maul, The Art of Willpower, Timmy Ache, and Tito Ferrara.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. From the Archives: Keith Haring 2. Friday Night, August 14th – From Funkadelic 3. One Thousand Stories / The Making of a Mural / A Project by JR
BSA Special Feature: From the Archives: Keith Haring
Why are we thinking about street artist Keith Haring so often right now? Possibly because we are remembering how he used his art practice to talk about crisis on his doorstep, and took risks to get his work out, and we are seeing more artists stepping up to that challenge on the street today.
When we think about this pandemic and the ways in which the artistic community has swiftly and forcefully responded to illustrate with their art the general mood, the ethos, the official response from our political leaders, the health providers unequivocal rush to action to save lives, the scientific community pushing to guide us during this still ongoing crisis, the dissemination of information and misinformation on social media, and the decisive actions from the mainstream media to educate the public on the pandemic one New York City artist comes to mind.
Keith Haring. He used his art to talk about Apartheid in South Africa, the crack epidemic, and the scourge of AIDS, a disease that took his life in 1990. We wonder what he will be doing on the streets if he were still alive. He’d be 62 now, still an age where he’d have the creative energy imbued with wisdom and experience. Below we share with you a vintage reel of him getting up on the NYC Subway.
As you watch this video for a mass TV audience under the guise of kooky kuriosity, it also crosses your mind that the police handle him with kid gloves – they don’t tackle him and slam him on the ground. Would his fate have been the same if he were black? And the reporter follows him around like a curious puppy, in awe of his escapades, intoning that vandalism is cute when its done by white guys from Pennsylvania who sell canvasses in Soho. There is so much we can learn from archived footage like this.
So you know what tonight is, right?
One Thousand Stories / The Making of a Mural / A Project by JR
Gastman’s Massive Graffiti and Street Art Show Arrives at Epicenter.
“I’m really excited to bring this show to New York,” says curator, graffiti historian and urban anthropologist Roger Gastman, “because the city plays such a pivotal role in the origin and evolution of the culture. The iconic images of covered subway cars made graffiti famous worldwide.”
He’s talking of course about “Beyond The Streets” the hybrid exhibition that he mounted in LA last year featuring the work of 150 who have proved to be pivotal to the evolution of a fifty year global people’s art movement that includes graffiti, street art, and urban contemporary art. Filling over 100,000 square feet of new space in Brooklyn, this two-floor cross-section survey will feature artworks by many of the same vandals, graffiti writers, Street Artists, and art activists who hit NYC streets, created dialogue with passersby, and were sometimes chased by the authorities. To see them showcased here is to recognize that there is not just one route to take – in fact there are many.
“We have an incredible roster of artists for New York,” Gastman tells us, “and a brand new space in Williamsburg that has a stunning view of the Manhattan skyline as our backdrop.” Notably the lineup includes artists whose work BSA has documented on the streets in this very same neighborhood over the past two decades, including Shepard Fairey, Faile, Swoon, Bast, Invader, Aiko, and others. Ironically the appearance of free-range Street Art in the neighborhood has been seriously diminished since that time.
The exhibition is one more verification that a significant portion of the scene is being widely recognized for its cultural contribution and value in the contemporary art canon – a significantly fluid scene fueled by discontent and a desire to short-circuit the established routes to audience appreciation. Like large survey shows elsewhere, the takeaway is the significant impact street culture and its tangential subcultures continues to have on the culture at large.
Gastman says the New York version of “Beyond The Streets” will take an
additional interest at the role of music and art activism on the street, along
with immersive installations, a tattoo parlor, a special Beastie Boys
installation with artifacts and ephemera, a new 30th Anniversary
Shepard Fairey project “Facing The Giant: 3 Decades of Dissent,” and large
scale works by Gorilla Girls, Futura, Cleon Peterson, and Takashi
Murakami.
More news coming on programming and events, but the important opening date to know right now is June 21st.
“All in all, it will make for a really special show this Summer,” says Gastman.
BEYOND THE STREETS TEAM
Curator: Roger Gastman
Co-Curators: Sacha Jenkins SHR, Evan Pricco, David CHINO Villorente
A-ONE, AIKO, Al Diaz, Alexis Ross, Alicia McCarthy, André Saraiva, Barry McGee, BAST, Beastie Boys, Bert Krak, Bill Barminski, Bill Daniel, BLADE, Broken Fingaz, Buddy Esquire, buZ blurr, Carlos Mare, Carl Weston, Cey Adams, C.R. Stecyk III, Charlie Ahearn, Chaz Bojórquez, Claudia Gold, Cleon Peterson, COCO 144, Conor Harrington, Corita Kent, Craig Costello, CRASH, DABSMYLA, Dan Witz, Dash Snow, DAZE, DEFER, Dennis Hopper, Dondi White, Doze Green, EARSNOT, Estevan Oriol, Fab 5 Freddy, FAILE, Faith XLVII, Felipe Pantone, FREEDOM, FUTURA 2000, Gajin Fujita, Glen E. Friedman, Gordon Matta-Clark, Guerrilla Girls, HAZE, Henry Chalfant, Herb Migdoll, Husk Mit Navn, INVADER, Jane Dickson, Jason REVOK, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jenny Holzer, Jim Prigoff, John Ahearn, John Fekner, John Tsombikos, Joe Conzo, José Parlá, KATS, KC Ortiz, Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf, Kilroy Was Here, LADY PINK, LAZAR, LEE Quiñones, Lisa Kahane, MADSAKI, Maripol, Mark Gonzales, Mark Mothersbaugh, Martha Cooper, Matt Weber, Maya Hayuk, Michael Lawrence, MIKE 171, MISS 17, Mister CARTOON, Nina Chanel Abney, NOC 167, Pat Riot, Patrick Martinez, Paul Insect, POSE, PRAY, Rammellzee, Randall Harrington, RETNA, Richard Colman, Richard Hambleton, RIME, RISK, Ron English, Ruby Neri, SABER, Sam Friedman, SANESMITH, Sayre Gomez, Shepard Fairey, SJK 171, SLICK, SNAKE 1, SNIPE1, STAY HIGH 149, Stephen Powers, SWOON, Takashi Murakami, TAKI 183, TATS CRU, TENGAone, Tim Conlon, Timothy Curtis, Todd James, Trash Records, UGA, VHILS, and ZESER
The show is developed in partnership with Adidas and Perrier. Additional support provided by Modernica, Montana Colors, NPR, NTWRK, Twenty Five Kent and WNYC.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. Subvertisers in London 2019 2. Cristina Lina / Contorno Urbano Foundation / 12+1 Project / Barcelona 3. Keith Haring: 4 Minute Mini Documentary.
BSA Special Feature: “Subvertisers in London 2019”
Sorry,
nothing to sell here. Not what it’s about.
Few
have demonstrated or practiced subvertising/culture jamming with such endurance
as the folks profiled in this new mini-doc. The ever more popular street art
activist practice of reclaiming public space from commercial interests is built
on the premise that a consumer mindset is blind to the necessary fundamentals
of civic life, or life. When you hear
these nuanced discussions of legal and moral aspects of hi-jacking commercial
signage you admit that it sadly reductivist to turn everything, including art,
into merely a product for buying and selling.
“I
always felt it as an aggression, as a violence. The fact that it is a visual
violence does not make it less of a violence, because it imposes a certain idea
of reality which I don’t feel is my own. When I realized that we could make
something of our own, it gave me an idea of liberation” says a commentator as
the video presents a blinking series of billboards, signs, and bus stops all
around the city in constant succession.
Advertising itself is not the issue – everyone agrees that it has its place. The issue is when it wants to be in every place, public and private. At all times. More threatening, and more contemporary, is the consolidation of media/news companies, the re-writing of regulations, and the blunt force of capital that now uses these commandeered public spaces to “educate” the populace about policy – a thoroughly different form of “selling”. Do we all see where we are going with this?
Subvertisers in London 2019
Cristina Lina / Contorno Urbano Foundation / 12+1 Project / Barcelona
“This Spanish cat named Tommy looks like he could have belonged to Matisse, due to the overlapping abstract collage method, but British artist Christina Lina says he was her grandmother’s cat – so we guessed wrong,” we said the day we featured this new public mural she did with Contorno Urbano in Barcelona.
Giving a concise history that nonetheless mispronounces the name of the town the subject was born in, the narration has an affected sage tone that shoots for earnest profundity but settles for deadpan vocal fry. Delivery aside, it’s a quick primer of the career climb and cultural significance of the Street Artist Keith Haring that firmly addresses the significance of his role as an openly gay man and AIDS activist – especially at time when even most graffiti/Street Art peers and would-be fans were still homophobic and AIDS hysteria was at its peak .
Xi’an is a large city of about 7 million, the capital of Shaanxi Province in central China, often called the birthplace of Chinese civilization. It’s also been sprouting Street Art in recent years.
According to some tourist sites it is a city with a nascent Street Art and graffiti scene where there are more graffiti writers than in Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou (Absolute China Tours). So it is notable when Keith Haring is honored on a wall here where it is unlikely many know his name or his significance as an early practitioner of the freewheeling public art interventions that came to characterize a movement of artists on the streets.
Street Artist 0907 tells us his new piece on this Xi’an street is called “Hero”.
Stomping through the streets of New York Friday looking for new Street Art and graffiti, the cold and the wind reminded us of a saying we learned from the Norwegians during recent trips there: “There’s no such a thing as bad weather, only bad clothing”.
Cold comfort perhaps, but an apt metaphor for weathering the storms. Prepare!
These photos draw from that frozen urban exploration we embarked upon to the hinterlands of places not typically known for a Street Art scene like Sunnyside, Queens and places now slaughtered with murals and some smaller illegal pieces like the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
Hope you are as impressed by what we found as we are as Gen Z is making some of those Millenials look like old grannies out here! Real Talk.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring A Cool 55, Alex Andre, Damien Mitchell, drsc0, Alexander Evans, Ardif, Angry Red, Arrex Skulls, Below Key, Dede, Dirt Cobain, Gongkan, Keith Haring, Praxis VGZ, SacSix, Sean Slaney, Special Robot Dog, Teg Artworks, Thrashbird, and Voxx Romana .
“Art From the Streets”, an exhibition at the Art Science Museum in Singapore opened this weekend to coordinate with Singapore Art Week that runs from tomorrow until the end of the month with fairs, festivals and art exhibitions. Commercial art dealer and writer Magda Danysz curated the show with names she represents and whom you will be familiar with – Banksy, Shepard Fairey, Faile, and Futura, for example.
Two versions of the catalogue, one by Felipe Pantone, the other by Futura, are available on the Magda Danysz website .
But she also brings an eclectic mix of others on her roster and possibly lent from some private collections. Collectively they span many of the high profile, the saleable and known over the past 5 decades from various disciplines and philosophical practices; In the case of Jacques Villeglé, whose practice of lacerating posters in the 1960s predates Failes’ by 4 decades, a lineage can be drawn. Other connections are not as easy.
Ultimately the collection gives a sense of the vast number of personalities and techniques that have characterized the street practice in Europe and North America primarily without focusing on any one specialty too greatly. Here are the revered names along with mid-career folks and current darlings who are sure to leave a mark. There is also a small inclusion of more regional favorites like Eko Nugroho from Indonesia, and Singapore’s Speak Cryptic, who each were on hand this weekend with many of the artists for the opening.
Giving tours with microphone in hand during the opening days, the energetic Ms. Danysz educates new fans and potential buyers about an organic artists scene that grew from the streets and is now more frequently being offered for sale in places such as her three gallery locations in London, Paris, and Shanghai. Today it is slowly appearing more often in museums as well.
“Conscious that promotion of the emerging scene is necessary, Magda Danysz took part in many fairs,” says a press release, “such as for example Art Brussels, Arte Fiera in Bologna, Artissima in Torino, Fiac in Paris or Pulse in New York, and is one of the four galleries at the origin of the Show Off Paris art fair.”
This weekend’s activities included short presentations panel discussions and a screen of Wild Style.
Before “street art” became a globally recognized genre, Barry McGee and Margaret Kilgallen were charting their course—one rooted in graffiti, …Read More »
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
