All posts tagged: Montana Colors

BSA Film Friday: 09.16.22

September 16, 2022 Artists, BSA Film Friday

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Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.

Now screening:
1. Sofles / Elevate. By Sofles and Aftermidnight Film Co.
2. Queen Elizabeth II Almost Died / The Simpsons
3. SAABE, “I’M NOT DONE YET” Via Montana Colors

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BSA Special Feature: Sofles / Elevate. By Sofles and Aftermidnight Film Co.

Oh yes, the oppressive, stultifying, soul-sucking corporate office job. It deviously diminishes you, taking credit for your ideas, and uses a thousand cuts to demoralize you slowly but surely (human “resource”, anyone?). Australian graff/street artist Sofles plays the role here as a character lifted from a graphic novel; the unwilling cog in the machine whose urge to create bucks the system.

“Awesome editing and story!” says one of the hundreds of comments amassed on this 5-day-old video that suggests no one gives up on their dreams, especially you.

Sofles / Elevate. By Sofles and Aftermidnight Film Co.

Queen Elizabeth II Almost Died / The Simpsons
During this period of mourning where many are reflecting on QE II’s influence on society, culture, art, even Homer Simpson…

SAABE, “I’M NOT DONE YET”

Sabe knows. After three-plus decades getting up he has inspired a lot of fans and peers with his wild style writing in Europe, making him what some call a true legend from Copenhagen. He’s known for a wide range of styles, bombs, burners, and panels, seemingly talented at them all. Stay to the end, as they say, to hear some of the insights that he shares about himself, his work, and his life.

This is not your average graff head video because he keeps it real, even if painful to say or hear.

“I feel like I had a family.”

“Maybe I feel like a loser.. but Iam happy because I can paint.”

“I’m not done yet.”

BSA Film Friday: 03.11.22

March 11, 2022 Artists, BSA Film Friday

Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.

Now screening:
1. Yoko Ono / Imagine Peace
2. Ogryz in Poland: Graffiti TV
3. Bikismo From Tost Films

BSA Special Feature: Yoko Ono / Imagine Peace Digital Billboard Campaign

You wouldn’t know it by the continuous bombing that the US has been doing over the last 20 years or that Russia has been doing in Ukraine for the last 20 days or so, but it doesn’t have to be this way. We refer to a January article about it in Salon that says the US drops an average of 46 bombs a day, and they are not the only ones who are talking about this. They refer to the “December 2021 New York Times exposé of the consequences of U.S. airstrikes, the result of a five-year investigation, was stunning not only for the high civilian casualties and military lies it exposed, but also because it revealed just how little investigative reporting the U.S. media have done on these two decades of war.” Why don’t most of us know about this?

Let’s disincentivise war and make it completely unappealing for those who profit from it. And as Yoko has been saying for decades, Imagine Peace. Her new campaign of digital billboard messages are in London, New York, Melbourne, Seoul, West Hollywood, Berlin, Milan… As you listen to the atmospheric sounds on this video of her billboard in Piccadilly Circus in London, it’s surprise the number of American accents you hear, and the traffic sounds don’t sync at all with the action on the street. Obviously it is not meant to be a documentary, rather an aspirational idea.

Yoko Ono / Imagine Peace

Graffiti TV 097 Presents: Ogryz

Despite the chilly winter weather graffiti writer Ogryz from Białystok, Poland dedicates his time and skills to a fresh new wall, here captured by Graffiti TV.

Bikismo From Tost Films

Tost Films perseveres in the genre of graffiti/street art/mural video documentary making – taking their cues from the talent. In this video featuring the wildly talented Bikismo, a more comedic fun-loving aspect of the creative process is on display.

“The jewel of the Caribbean, representing wherever you are.”

BSA Film Friday: 12-03-21

December 3, 2021 Artists, BSA Film Friday

Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.

Now screening:
1. DETOKS & GENOM, “NOT BIGGER, NOT BETTER …BUT MORE”
2. RERO @ Espace D’art Montresso in Marrkesh
3. Virgil Was Here. His Last Collection for Louis Vuitton in Miami Beach. November 30th, 2021

BSA Special Feature: DETOKS & GENOM, “NOT BIGGER, NOT BETTER …BUT MORE”

“Detoks and Genom form a deadly duo that has been claiming prominent highway spots around Barcelona for some time now.” And with guys like this, there is always so much more to the story.

DETOKS & GENOM, “NOT BIGGER, NOT BETTER …BUT MORE”

RERO @ Espace D’art Montresso in Marrakesh

“It’s about getting rid of the superfluous and focusing on the essential,” says RERO as he describes his new exhibition at Montresso Foundation.

Virgil Was Here. His Last Collection for Louis Vuitton in Miami Beach. November 30th, 2021

BSA Film Friday: 05.28.21

May 28, 2021 Artists, BSA Film Friday

Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.

Now screening:
1. Good Guy Boris – Remote Sensing
2. ZEKY via Art Azoï. Video by Justine Bigot
3. DETOKS & GENOM, “Not Bigger, Not Better, But…More!” Via Montana Colors TV
4. HONET via Art Azoï. Video by Justine Bigot

BSA Special Feature: Good Guy Boris – Remote Sensing

The misadventures continue on the 1 Line in Athens.

“Athens now has that feeling of being wild and unpredictable – a little exciting or dangerous in some parts.”

And the voice…. it sounds so familiar.

ZEKY via Art Azoï. Video by Justine Bigot

DETOKS & GENOM, “Not Bigger, Not Better, But…More!” Via Montana Colors TV

Silvers! Rollers! Color Pieces! Oh my! Barcelona’s Detoks and Genom are on the loose around big highway spots and metro stops. They say they are not bragging, but they get around.

HONET via Art Azoï. Video by Justine Bigot

BSA Film Friday: 04.23.21

April 23, 2021 Artists, BSA Film Friday

Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.

Now screening:
1. BATTLEGROUND. A short film by Mark Bone and Kwesi Thomas
2. RIPDMX Via @NYCGRAFF.HEAD
3. Gigantic Graffiti by Ellr and Khol, via Montana Colors

BSA Special Feature: BATTLEGROUND. A short film by Mark Bone and Kwesi Thomas

“It’s just weird to feel like you’re this ‘issue’ in society and that the world is divided with how much they should care about you or how much they should listen to you or should be concerned with issues around your life. It’s weird to be like a battleground,” says co-director and subject Kwesi Thomas says in the opening of the film.

A film purely of this moment, Battleground treads on soil that has been contaminated for centuries, the current inhabitants the inheritors of a heritage of racism. This week’s conviction of a white officer for killing a black civilian was only fraught with tension because the system doesn’t guarantee it and because it’s an exception rather than a rule.

“I wanted to make the film because I wanted to change that for other people.”

Born from conversations that followed the death of George Floyd, Kwesi Thomas & Mark Bone break silences, make themselves vulnerable, continue this painful conversation that is necessary for change.

BATTLEGROUND. A short film by Mark Bone and Kwesi Thomas

#RIPDMX Via @NYCGRAFF.HEAD

A tribute of wholecars to rapper DMX needs only the soundtrack of the steel wheels screeching on the rails.

Gigantic Graffiti by Ellr and Khol

“A small piece may look good in a picture but to look good in reality it needs to have size.”

50 meters should be sufficient for this new piece by Swedish writers Koll and Ellr. Montana Colors, who sponsored the wall, says the two are “drawing influence from some of the more sophisticated trends of Scandinavia and New York.”

BSA Film Friday: 04.09.21

April 9, 2021 Artists, BSA Film Friday

Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.

Now screening:
1. Sofles / Kawaii. The artist paints a piece for his daughter Violet.
2. ACBR and ZONE take Rick and Morty Underground
3. Honet x Art Azoi in Paris

BSA Special Feature: Sofles / Kawaii. The artist paints a piece for his daughter Violet.

Remember when Nirvana did that concert without electric guitars? You can call this one “Sofles Unplugged.” He has no soundtrack revving up your adrenaline or accentuating his skills. He’s just pure skillz.

Sofles / Kawaii. The artist paints a piece for his daughter Violet.

ACBR and ZONE take Rick and Morty Underground.

Ahhh, here we go! Vandals, surreptitious underground graffiti pieces, knives, mad scientists, syncopated dance numbers, and a ripping soundtrack. Back to what we all expected from our graff videos.

Honet x Art Azoi in Paris

A creation by HONET on the wall of the Pavillon Carré de Baudouin (Paris 20th district).

Montana Elevates With New Platform: Tramontana Magazine / Issue 03

September 21, 2019 Artists

This March we were in Madrid hosting three days of BSA Talks at Urvanity Art Fair and while we were there, Esteban Marin, the director of Contorno Urbano Foundation, introduced us to the Editorial Director of a new magazine; Tramontana. Antonio Garcia Mora, un tio mu majo, as they say in Spain, impressed us with his knowledge and enthusiasm, showing off the first two issues of the perfect-bound volume. Unfortunately, due to our duties within the art fair, we didn’t have much time to visit with him and then the fair was over and we all went to our different countries and about our business.

We’re happy to see that the quality perseveres at Tramontana as the magazine publishes its third edition of the year, and its editorial standards continue to be very high. Rarely do we see a magazine these days that is so well edited, designed and with extraordinary, well-written content.

Leveraging its history as a Spanish aerosol paint manufacturer and art supplies brand that many within the graffiti/Street Art community use and laud, Montana Colors here ventures into a contemporary direction with the trappings of and subtle refinements more often associated with galleries and museums. It’s a safe bet at this point, but they’re not resting on their laurels – this is cut above what we’re used to seeing in terms of content, documentation, preservation, storytelling, and even academic detailing.

Don’t worry; you’ll also enjoy it. The Spanish/English format is open and accessible, the reasonably short essays and interviews are good for today’s attention spans, the balance of text to images and graphics suitable to one another. You may long for a glossy richness of image occasionally, and undoubtedly that is coming, but the design supports without overwhelming or calling attention away from what amounts to a textbook of the moment for the thinking fans, students, and collectors.

Issue 3 boasts interviews with people like photographer Martha Cooper, filmmaker Selina Miles, impresario Roger Gastman, graffiti writers Shiat, Ellas, muralists Shan and Spok. There is a condensed history of Punks and City Kids in 1970s-80s Amsterdam by Remko Koopman, an interview with teacher/author/photographer of NYC trains Craig Castleman as he tours Europe speaking, and an essay on the elusive quality of originality by conceptual Street Artist SpY.

You also get a one-shot impression of Amsterdam graffiti and an extensive train bombing background story on Chilean-Canadian couple LOS KEOS with Mr. Garcia Mora. From that interview, the world-travelers share their influences, techniques, and negotiating their way through variable legal/penal systems of different countries, but we also learn about the social interactions with writers and crews.

“We have met many people over the years, not all of them well-known. The best relationships are the ones where we share more than just painting: our lifestyle, our political thinking, the desire to go out to explore a city and learn a little about the local culture.”

The intersecting cultures of graffiti, Street Art, urban art, and Contemporary continue to blend, reorganize, and propagate. Tramontana appears poised to capture and communicate with respect the history, techniques, soft and hard sciences that all convene to study the movement, where it moves.

Tramontana Magazine is published by Montana Colors under the guidance of its CEO Jordi Rubio Rocabert and the Editorial Director Antonio Garcia Mora. This magazine is free.

“Last Exit to Skewville” Emerges on a Brooklyn Wall

June 15, 2011 Artists, Brooklyn, NYC, On the Street

Brooklyn Street Artist Skewville, one of this city’s original sons, has been coaxing from his imagination a cityscape of intrigue and sly humor. With a bluntly cockeyed optimism tempered by the reality of kooks and freaks and madmen who run the streets and boardrooms in this city, over the past four days Ad Deville has been climbing and spraying and blocking out the giant chess game that is always at play.

After weeks of talking about where to take this piece called “Last Exit to Skewville”, the dude shows up with a piece of paper folded in half and a loose line sketch of the span of a bridge, chewing on the end of a pen. An amalgam of the bridges spanning the glittering and stormy East River, the pylons are two opposing chess players using the buildings of New York as chess pieces. As perspective is clarified above the river, a clunky cityscape emerges; a color punched rumbling blinking playground that calls you to jump across it’s rooftops and avoid falling.

Skewville; Saturday. At the begining there was a big red empty wall, a pen, and a folded piece of paper with the span of a bridge drawn on it. This photo literally captures the instant Ad Deville stepped off the curb to begin marking out the piece. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

With his hands and arms and buckets and and rollers and cans he paces the length, climbing up and down ladders, blocking out the sound of traffic cacophony behind him and stepping aside for rain bouts; hour by hour the shape of the cubist and blocky abstractions that make a vibrant and shadowed city start to pop from this bricked Brooklyn wall.

At this rate, Skewvilles’ finer graphic elements will arrive right on time as the week ends. Coming soon – marauding crowds of cleverly dressed, smart and sinuous music and art fans will swarm like honey bees in the streets of Brooklyn’s Northside. With maps and photo snapping cellphones in hand, they’ll see the installations in the streets, the artists in their studios, and Beirut in McCarren Park.

Northside Open Studios, The Crest Fest 2011, and the Northside Music Festival – This is the new Brooklyn, much like the old Brooklyn, where neighbors coalesce and celebrate and intermingle and where Saturday Adam Deville of Skewville will commander a scissor lift lofted high above heads to put the finishing touches on this ode to Brooklyn and New York and (dare we say it) his masterpiece.

Skewville. Like any artist who knows that stretching is necessary for growth, Tuesday is the day Skewville extends his vocabulary with new untried color – an unusual addition carefully approached. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Skewville scales bricks in this neighborhood now jolted with scaffolding and high-rising blocks of glass (photo © Jaime Rojo)

With the generous support from local family owned Crest Hardware Store (home of Crest Fest 2011) and Montana Colors, this project is possible.

Please come to the launch party too – BSA AND CREST FEST host the Northside Open Studios Launch Party Saturday Night

at The END in Greenpoint! Bands, Installations, and a Bikini Reading Series on the Roof.

Date: 18 Jun 2011
Time: 6:00 PM – 11:00 PM
Where: The End, Brooklyn
Event Details:
Co-celebrated with Crest Fest and Brooklyn Street Art, NOS Launch Party brings together an art exhibition of participating artists including a confessional box by Eva Navon, Rooftop Bikini Reading Series by Boomslang, video screening curated by Sasha Summer, and an interactive rocking chair video & sound installation by Sara Sun. Music performances include Snowmine, Balun, Merrikans, Dinowalrus and Walrus Ghost.

MORE INFO AND MAP TO LAUNCH PARTY HERE
All proceeds benefit Northside Open Studios.

More info on “Last Exit to Skewville” HERE

MBP Urban Arts Fest at Castle Braid

August 20, 2009 Artists, Brooklyn, Events

BrooklynStreetArt.com Blog is proud to be the Official Blog of the first MBP Urban Arts Fest!

The 2 PART, 1 DAY Urban Arts Festival goes from 1PM-2AM. Come celebrate and participate in the thriving urban art community MBP has advocated since it’s inception. With LIVE PAINTING, skateboard demos and contests, music and DJs, photography and art installations and plenty of art and books for sale, there will be something for everyone!

We will be taking over and transforming the entire lower-half of Castle Braid (114 Troutman Street, Myrtle Ave/Bwy JMZ Train) in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

PART 1

The day’s first part runs from 1PM-9PM and is open to all ages.

PART 2

9PM-2AM is 21 and over, featuring free beer and a dance party.

Art for Progress is the Non-Profit you gotta know;
an organization dedicated to supporting rising multi-discipline arts in New York City.

What to expect:

• Gallery-style art installations
• Live graffiti exhibitions & public graffiti wall sponsored by Montana Colors
• Live entertainment, DJs, dance & musical performances
• Skate park & sponsored game of S.K.A.T.E hosted by Substance Skateboards
• First 500 guests receive a FREE in-person signed copy of Talk Balk: The Bubble Project by Ji Lee
• Special Guest Signings
• All Ages Arts & Crafts: postal sticker tagging how-to; design your own “Umberto” character from Dutch artisit/illustrator Tijn Snoodijk; make-your-own recycled material tote bags with Bags for the People, design your own canvas laptop case from AIAIAI and more!
• Local & International Artist Showcases & Tables
• Unveiling of exclusive OBEY x PEEL poster by Shephard Fairey for Peel Magazine (authors of MBP’s PEEL: The Art of the Sticker)
• Shopping (MBP bookstore & Local Artists’ offerings)
• Food & Drinks (Brooklyn Brewery, Hoegaarden, Food Trucks)
• Gift Bags & Prizes – with bags from Bags for the People, goodies from Mimobots, Cafe Bustelo, Zoo York, AIAIAI and more!

ARTISTS/SPECIAL GUESTS
• Martha Cooper, Going Postal
• Remo Camerota, Graffiti Japan
• Ji Lee, Talk Back: The Bubble Project
• Luz A. Martín, Textura: Valencia Street Art
• Artists from ORBIT Gallery (featured in upcoming EdgyCute book: Joe Scarano, Angie Mason, Michael Caines, Chris Uminga, Motomich Nakamura, BECCA, Emma Overman, Robbie Busch; and Frank Sheehan)
• Special Guest Curator Mighty Tanaka (with art from: avone, JMR, Hellbent, Alexandra Pacula, Peter Halasz, Mike Schreiber, AVOID PI, FARO, Royce Bannon, BLOKE, Mari Keeler, John Breiner, Skewville)
• Tijn Snoodijk of Shop Around – Netherlands
• RobotsWillKill (featured in Going Postal & PEEL: The Art of the Sticker)
• Project Super Friends
• Royce Bannon (featured in Going Postal)
• Chris Stain (featured in Going Postal)
• Destroy & Rebuild
• Cosbe (featured in Going Postal)
• CR
• Abe Lincoln Jr.
• Indigo & Mania
• El Celso
• Chalk drawings by Ellis Gallagher

PERFORMANCES
Hosted by: iLLspokinN
Termanology
Cormega
DJ Statik Selektah
DJ GSUS187
Krts (Powerstrip Circus)
Hot 97’s DJ Juanyto
Guest DJ Jason Mizell (son of Jam Master Jay)
Outabodies
Michael Brian
True2Life
Ad Lawless
Goodomens
Greenberet Team
Quan
Spokinn Movement
William B. Johnson’s Drumadics

SHOWCASES/VENDORS (list in progress)
Sabrina Beram
Abztract
Fresthetic
Owen Jones & Billy Hahn
Peter Moschel Johnson
Jemmanimals & John Bent
Natasha Quam/L’Ange Atelier
Dawn of Man Productions
Katie Jean Hopkins
Stephanie Paz
Alessandro Echevarria
Spost Love
iinex grafik
Andrea Grannum-Mosley
Gully Klassics

ADMISSION: $15 cash at the door, $10 in advance – come & go the whole day. Buy your tickets here!

A GIGANTIC thank you goes out to Kevy Paige Catering, who will be feeding our artists and performers gourmet-style as they work throughout the day!

OFFICIAL BLOG: BrooklynStreetArt.com

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