BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! Coming up Thursday is Thanksgiving. What are you thankful for? We’re thankful for you and the indomitable spirit of New York.
It looks like many New Yorkers who abandoned us last year are thankful to be moving back into our fabulous and gritty city. You see, we knew you would all come crawling back. Real New Yorkers, on the other hand, stayed right here and persevered alongside one another, showing solidarity in hard times, because we may be a little too loud or cantankerous, but we can handle shit. Also, for those of us who are poor or low income, we didn’t have the option of going anywhere else, frankly – we were just trying to get by day by day as we lost jobs, lost family members, lost our homes, listened to ambulances speeding past our windows every hour. We largely stayed indoors for months – except when we were marching for equal rights and justice for all. So, welcome back to the fair-weather New Yorkers. Sadly, a certain number of people in our real estate industry are taking advantage, jacking up rents – in some cases by 70%.
This week we saw Norwegian artist Dot Dot Dot putting up new work in a number of spots around the city – and we have some shots of his new work. One, in particular, seemed prescient in view of further polarization caused by the verdict in the Kyle Rittenhouse case on Thursday. He uses the power of words – lifted from the Pledge of Allegiance that school kids across the country say. It’s always great to see how artists evolve personally and develop their practice, skills, and vocabulary.
It was also great to go to celebrate the monograph book release of photographer Janette Beckman (Rebel: From Punk to Dior (Drago)) this week at Fotografiska New York. Celebrated for her excellent timing on the subcultural scenes of punk in the early 1980s and the burgeoning Hip Hop scene of the 1980s and 1990s, her photographs are the first images that spring to mind for many when you say names like LL Cool J, Salt N Pepa, Public Enemy, Andre 3000. Run DMC, Boy George, the Clash, the Sex Pistols. Celebrity-driven photography that also captured rebels before they mainstreamed, her images are sincerely stylish without preening, enormous stars before they exploded – a few shades closer to documentary work than strictly for the style pages. It was great to see her being celebrated by a room full of New York/London homies from music (Def Jam, Tommy Boy), publishing (Paper, The Face) – as well as graffiti specifically, Hip-Hop culture more generally. Fun times!
Our interview with the street today includes Adam Fujita, Billy Barnacles, DotDotDot, and Mok.
