In the past two decades, Asbury Park, New Jersey, has undergone a dramatic transformation, evolving from a struggling, economically challenged city into a pleasantly eclectic one. This shift, driven by gentrification, has attracted a wealthier demographic, including professionals and artists from nearby New York City, drawn by affordable housing, a revitalized waterfront, and the promise of a burgeoning cultural scene. For many, it has become a trendy, artistic destination.
The Wooden Walls Project, launched in 2015, has been central to its evolution, thanks to Jenn Hampton and Porkchop of Parlor Gallery. A slew of artists—officially and unofficially curated— have regaled Asbury Park with many large-scale murals and street art installations. This week, you’ll see a few examples of work we caught down by the beach as summer slowly burns toward fall.
We’re also regaled by a few other pieces we’ve caught recently elsewhere.
Here is our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Logan Hicks, Joe Iurato, Greg Lamarche, Beau Stanton, Hyland Mather, Ellena Lourens, Porkchop, Bradley Hoffer, H Kubed, Amberella, ONEQ, Ray Geary, Cameli, and Leaf 8K.
Not the first place you think of for a mural festival: Salina, Kansas. But there are new mural festivals in downtowns across the globe right now, and their longevity, among other barometers for success, varies greatly. In addition to having a distinct point of view, we have observed that towns and cities that are beginning public art projects must have a serious budget and an excellent sense of organization. “Boom!” appears to have both.
The pacing has been good too – with the Australian Guido van Helten starting the momentum by painting a sweet scene in 2021 of local children here on the ‘canvas’ that has become a signature for him, a cluster of grain elevator silos. His realistic renderings, fully contextual, are romantic without becoming sentimental and outpace many with his painterly can-control and technical ability. Somehow the Brisbane native may have lit this fuse.
Following that Salina Kanvas project (there are a few initiatives on the boards) comes the first organized festival with a solid mix of talents from the international scene crossing murals, street art, and graffiti roots – not easy to accomplish with such a short roster. Like van Helten, the talent is self-assured, and some of it goes deep in self-knowledge and in the culture that fuels today’s scene. Thanks to private donations, corporate sponsors, and the Chamber of Commerce, initiatives like this community-building public art project are well-backed.
Add to this mix the world-renowned photographer Martha Cooper, who captured the scene that birthed this one about 45 years ago in neighborhoods where it started, and balance it with the high-flying image of Kansas’ most famous pilot Amelia Earhart, who pioneered aviation and capitalized well off her self-made brand. This year’s curation may well have put Salina on the mural-fest map in one fell swoop.
Martha shares some of her shots with us today – with a few from the organizers as well.
Ms. Cooper tells us that “I would have liked to have time to shoot more freights,” a historical method for transporting unsanctioned art and writing across the country on the sides of freight trains that is peculiar to American history as it braids with archetypes of rebels, hobos and cowboy mythology. “The train tracks run through Salina,” Cooper remarks with some relish, and she notes smaller details that a documentary photographer would catch. “The main street had lovely plantings of prairie grasses evoking what we outsiders think of as typically Kansas.”
Here is a sampling of the works and artists from this inaugural “Boom!”. We hear the second one will make some noise as well.
Boom! Salina is an annual mural festival in downtown Salina, KS. Boom! Salina is backed by the Salina Kanvas Project.
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week. Shana Tova to our Jewish brothers and sisters, even as we mourn the Friday passing of one of Brooklyn’s own, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She was born here on East 9th Street in Midwood to Russian immigrant parents in 1933 and the governor says we’ll have a statue honoring her here too.
Meanwhile in our strained semi-democracy, daily anti-ICE protests continue in Times Square amidst accusations of heavy handed practices of the police, exotic animal complaints this year are up 77 percent possibly because people want to quarantine with roosters and monkeys to stay sane, and in-person school classes are again being delayed due to lack of preparedness and generalized fears of Covid-19 outbreaks among students and teachers.
Compared to all these news, the scene with Street Art appears tame. But from Red Hook to Soho to LES to Bushwick to Ridgewood, it is definitely not lame.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring BK Foxx, Chris Tuorto, City Kitty, CRKSHNK, De Grupo, Downtown DaVinci, Freakotrophic, Half, Joe Iurato, Kesta, Logan Hicks, Mish, Ouch, Praxis VGZ, Sac Six, Sean Lugo 9, Stikman, and You Go Girl!
Icy cold coquitos, sidewalk barbecues, walking for hours in Central Park, music booming from party boats on the East River, a birthday party with 30 on the roof. Who can resist New York in the summer? Yes everyone is warning about an economic crash that is coming and you’re still in debt even though you have three roommates and Trump is just making us all feel like we live in a big chaotic racist world.
But for this sunny summer afternoon, let’s just prove him wrong and get some beers and sit on the stoop saying hi to all our neighbors who walk by – asian, black, latino, Middle Eastern, Jewish, white, sihk, Polish, Nigerian, Mexican, muslim, Italian, Swedish. It don’t matter, bro. We’re all New Yorkers and we like it like that.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this time featuring Broken Heartist, Budha Delight, City Kitty, Early Riser, Emma Gonzalez, Joe Iurato, Logan Hicks, Lunge Box, Mowcka, Ouch, Sara Lynne Leo, Skewville, and The Postman Art.
Happy Memorial Day Weekend! – we are smack in the middle of it today.
Colloquially thought of as the first weekend of summer in the US, it is also the first weekend when there are lifeguards at the beach. Since New Yorkers love to head to the Jersey Shore (no offense Coney Island) we thought we’d regale you with some fresh shots this week of cool murals on the boardwalk in Asbury Park, New Jersey.
Most of these are part of the “Wooden Walls” a program created by Jenn Hampton, co-director of Parlor Gallery, who tells us that it was inspired by the destruction of a hurricane here that pulled up so much of the wooden boardwalk that is iconic to the shore experience here.
“I started doing it after Hurricane Sandy because they were all these boards up from the devastation,” she explains. “It kind of reminded me of when you go into an artists’ studio and there are little excerpts of paintings that the artist is working on. Some may feel sad because they see unfinished paintings – but for people who are creative it creates excitement because it is about ‘what’s to come.’”
She’s always trying to bring art
to the public space, so this devastation prompted her to write proposals to
start the program and it worked. “It’s weird that it took a natural disaster
for me to get funding for an art project!” she laughs. Five years of steadily
growing the list of artists, the project now includes local, national, and
internationally recognized street artists.
Wooden Walls producer Angie
Sugrim says that this project is as personal as it is public. “Jenn
and I both feel a deep sense of stewardship in our community and this project
and all it entails are our way of giving back and helping to grow what we love
about our town. We both are eternal believers in the power of art and seeing it
help to transform Asbury Park.”
“I try to curate it from
the eyes of a six-year-old and a 20-year-old and a 80 year-old – because we get
such a diverse crowd on the boardwalk,” says Hampton. “I just want to make sure
that there is art in that spirit of creation next to the ocean. I think that
there is something really poetic about.”
Time and the elements have begun
to fade and weather the walls, but she thinks it just adds character.
“I think people get too
attached to public art,” she says. “The impermanence of it makes it really
special and you have to see it and engage with it – Mother Nature will take it
back when it wants!”
So here’s our weekly interview with the street (or boardwalk), this time featuring Ann Lewis, Art of Pau, Beau Stanton, Dee Dee, Fanakapan, Haculla, Hellbent, Indie 184, James Vance, Jessy Nite, Joe Iurato, Lauren Napolitano, Lauren YS, Logan Hicks, London Kaye, Porkchop, RC Hagans, Rubin 415, and Shepard Fairey.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Boy Kong, Cane Morto, Dmote, El Sol 25, Hower, Invader, Joe Iurato, Logan Hicks, Pixel Pancho, Resistance is Female, Rime, Sean9Lugo, Smells, UFO 907, Vhils, Vik, Voxx Romana, XSM, and Zimad.
4th of July weekend here in New York so we are headed to a barbecue and a frisbee game. Maybe to the Jersey shore for some sun. Happy 4th ya’ll! Looks like the country needs to take itself back from the corporate overlords – if we want to declare the US to be independent ever again. Right now we’re in trouble, gurl – and everyone knows it!
So here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Banksy, Clint Mario, Crash, El Sol 25, Felipe Pantone, FinDAC, Hopare, Hot Tea, Invader, John Ahearn, Logan Hicks, Mark Jenkins, Resistance is Female, SaxSix, and Sonny Sundancer.
Summer brings people out onto the streets. New Yorkers especially love to congregate on corners, stoops, public parks and plazas, sidewalks and on the streets to soak in the sun and the excitement of summer after its long winter season. With that in mind we want to point you to what’s new on the streets of the city when it comes to Street Art and Graffiti, scenes that are constantly reinventing themselves and moving.
Here are five destinations with fresh new murals and Street Art painted this year that you can track down and enjoy on your own in an afternoon. Take a break by sitting on a stoop or a bench and enjoy the sounds and energy of each neighborhood and have a hot dog or a slice of watermelon, a slice of pizza – maybe an Italian ice!
This 6 year old project spearheaded by Bushwick native Joe Ficalora continues to host international artists on walls spread on five blocks in this gentrifying neighborhood of Brooklyn. With more than a dozen freshly painted murals that were completed for this months annual block party, the cheek-to-jowl collection of murals feels like a treasure hunt of global styles all here to show off their best. While we still have the L train you can take it Jefferson et voilà!
In its third year, Coney Art Walls is an initiative of Thor Equities and in a curatorial collaboration with art maven Jeffrey Deitch….This year’s edition of Coney Art Walls brings ten freshly painted murals by American and international artists to add to the collection of 30 or so murals painted during the past two editions. Here you will see an eclectic mix of 1970s era train writers to some of today’s multi-conceptualists take on the broader theme of Coney Island, its characters, its rides, its foot long hot dogs. A plethora of trains will take you there and be prepared to enjoy native graffiti in the “wild”on walls throughout the roughly 45 minutes train ride as your view rises on the elevated tracks. Take the N, Q, F, and D trains to Coney Island.
The most community oriented among all of the festivals taking place in NYC, Welling Court just completed its 8th edition this month a part of Queens that feels ignored, yet now strangely is getting some high-end real estate? With a less-structured program and a philosophy of inclusiveness the project attracts a diverse group of local, national and international artists seeking to participate and interact with these neighbors, some of them New Yorks’ newest members, in a weekend-long genuine summer block party. Located in Welling Court in Long Island City in the borough of Queens the walls spread over five blocks or so and can be accessed via the N train to 30th Ave. Take a bus to Welling Court or walk for about 15 minutes on 30th Ave towards the East River.
The L.I.S.A. Project NYC in Little Italy and The Lower East Side.
This Mural Program is the brainchild of Wayne Rada and Ray Rosa, who host artists from all over the world to come and beautify the old neighborhoods of Little Italy and parts of the Lower East Side both in Manhattan. Because its Manhattan and space and turf are contested, you’ll find the works scattered and surprisingly integrated into spots – evoking the element of “discovery” that organic Street Art and graffiti produces.
Not necessarily located on a specific set of blocks the murals are more spread out on several streets in and around Little Italy and can be reached taking a number of subways lines. We’ll advise you take the B or the D trains to Grand Street Station and make your way to Mulberry Street where you’ll enjoy large murals by Ron English and Tristan Eaton and a number of smaller pieces. As you wander, walk, stroll, or crawl through Little Italy you’re bound to discover big and small pieces that run a spectrum of Shepard Fairey, JPO, BKFoxx, KanoKid, The Drif, and Buff Monster.
Monument Art really concentrates on large high quality murals for El Barrio in NYC. Beginning in 2015 a dozen international artists were invited to paint for two weeks including massive murals by ROA, El Mac, Celso, Ever Siempre, Faith 47 and others others. This year German artist Case Maclaim was invited to paint one highly realistic mural on a school wall located at 310 East 113th Street. Take the 6 train to 110 Street and walk north on Lexington ave towards 113th street.
As you make your way north you’ll see some of the murals painted in 2015.
“Yes, I’m an infowarrior,” says the African American yelling about how CNN is promoting Sharia Law in downtown Manhattan for the #MarchAgainstSharia and a short distance away someone is wrapping the “Fearless Girl” statue with a black burka. The infowarrior is wearing a red “Make America Free” baseball hat and very much seems like he might be gay. And then your head explodes.
But New York is waaaaaay too diverse to even countenance this weird new wave of anti-Islam sentiment and the counter-demonstrators with their signs dwarfed the haters– and being good liberals, they probably invited them to come over for dinner after all that yelling.
Otherwise the weather has been gorgeous and Street Artists have been getting up in New York, when they are not too busy fighting about the David Choe wall and calculating new ways to spray over it. We have brand new mural works from people like Dasic, Cekis, and Case Maclaim, and there is a lot more political content in the new free-range Street Art that we are seeing, with much of it focused on the corruption at the top of the national government, racism, environmental matters, the growing police state.
The Puerto Rican Day Parade is today down 5th Avenue, with people celebrating – and also fighting over the “freedom fighter”/ “Terrorist” Oscar López Rivera, who was going to be the Grand Marshall but whom will now simply be a marcher. And Lucy Sparrow tells us that “Vagisil” and champagne are the two big sellers at her temporary bodega under the Standard Hotel that is 9000 items made entirely of Felt. Our own story on that this week, so there’s something to look forward to, along with 90 degree weather and more brain-frying tweets from 45 in the White House while the Congress is emptying all the cupboards, privatizing everything that used to be the people’s and leaving the back door open for banks.
Other than that, everything is dope!
So here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Adam Fujita, Beast, Blanco, Brandon Garrison, Cekis, Dasic, Dirty Bandits, El Sol 25, FKDL, Jetsonorama, Jerk Face, Joe Iurato, Logan Hicks, Mataruda, Mr. Toll, Myth NYC, Opiemme, S0th1s, and She Wolf.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Able, Alexis Diaz, Bruno Smoky, Case Ma’Claim, Crash, Dan Flavin, Ernest Zacharevic, Inti, Jose Mertz, Kryptick, Logan Hicks, Maya Hayuk, Miro, Pichi & Avo, Santiago Rubino, Shalakattak, and Sipros.
Art Basel in Miami is part of an annual three city fair that includes Hong Kong and it’s name sake Basel in Switzerland. This years fair in Miami hosts 269 galleries and your brain will be fried after the first 150, in an excellent way.
An art fair is not really a rarefied environment but many patrons walk with that air, presumably because they find it to be a flattering look, but most people are just excited to discover new ideas and techniques for channeling the creative spirit in a multitude of ways.
Far from the action of the actual graffiti and Street Art scene in long rows of white wall cubicles that average the price of a new car to rent for four days, SCOPE nonetheless has a healthy number of Street Artists represented with studio pieces that rock as hard as any killer piece under a bridge.
Inside this environment we’re probably calling the category Urban Contemporary and it’s always interesting to see how the street practice translates to a frame on a wall – and who can do it successfully. Maybe it shouldn’t, but it’s always surprising to see how many other derivative, hackneyed, or underwhelming works are proudly on display – by artists whose main connection to actual street culture is tenuous at best.
But imitators and replicators have existed in every genre of the plastic arts for as long as anyone reading this has been alive, so it shouldn’t be a shock when you have seen 5 Banksy-esque canvasses even before you stop at the commissary for your $14 pressed vegetable panini.
For the actual fans and collectors of actual graffiti and Street Artists, it may be irksome to see the common tropes of colorful paint drips and ironic pop images mutated and slapped with cleverness – especially in view of the fact that there is a fleet of new kids outside in our cities and streets today whose work is regularly amazing.
Since many of the current generation of Street Artists have had a little or a lot of formal training as artists, the quality of work in the good spots is very high and we were happy to find many excellent pieces throughout the fair by folks whose name you may recognize. Here is a sampling of pieces we found during an audit of this year’s SCOPE just so you have an idea of the offerings.
“Back in the USSR” comes to mind as we touched down in Moscow yesterday to see and speak with the 60+ Street Artists who are creating this impressive 2nd Street Art biennale “Artmossphere” just a stone’s throw away from the Kremlin, Red Square and The International Military Music Festival that runs all week as well. We’ll be bringing you new stuff all week as part of our partnership with Urban Nation Museum for Urban Contemporary Art (UN), investigating the creative process with artists, curators, and the organizing force behind all of this event.
In the mean time, we bring you work from New York and elsewhere in this week’s fine edition of BSA Images of the Week.
So, here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Aduk, Buff Monster, Crisp, Hiss, Lena Shu, Logan Hicks, Olek, and Wolfe Work.
Our Pink House is a new crocheted covering for a house (the second) by Street Artist OLEK – this one associated with Kerava Art Museum’s upcoming exhibition Yarn Visions, which will place the spotlight on knitted, crocheted, tufted and embroidered works.
Drawing an analogy of protection and safety in these pink crocheting patterns that stretch from the top of the chimney to the foundation of stone, this building in Kereva in southern Finland, where many bombs fell during The Winter War of 1939-40. Olek says she is concerned about the 21 million people worldwide who lost their homes due to war and conflicts in 2015 and she wants to create community based projects like this one to draw attention to the topic, and to provide some healing as well.
This particular project enlisted the help of a large group of volunteers, immigrants and women from a reception centre for asylum seekers who she brought together to crochet this covering. “Our Pink House” is about the journey, not just about the artwork itself. It’s about us coming together as a community. It’s about helping each other. We can show everybody that women can build houses, women can make homes,”she says. – OLEK
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
Jose Mertz. Wynwood, Miami. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
