Happy Autumn New York! To our readers south of the Equator, the spring birds must be singing by now, right? Meanwhile in dirty old New York there is a lot of new stuff – including two new walls going up by OsGemeos and UK artist Lakwena’s turn at the Houston/Bowery Wall.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Anagard, Anthony Lister, Banksy, Brad Downey, D7606, Kai, Licuado, Martin Whatson, Mr. DiMaggio, Nafir, Nespoon, OsGemeos, Peter Phobia, Ron English, Silvio Alino, Voxx, and Zezao.
Blek Le Rat arrived at the Urban Nation office today with his wife Sybille after a long car ride from Paris, ready for a coffee and possibly to take a look at the wall he’ll be painting here to celebrate “UNSTOPPABLE”, the inaugural exhibition of the UN museum this weekend. The wind taunted BustArt as he attempted to lay his irreverent stencil of Mother Mary coddling Pluto Jr. and the sliced cutout cardboard bent and bowed beyond an average person’s patience while his buddy Stephan helped hold it down for spraying.
Under the elevated train a legion of police and traffic cops removed 80 or so cars so the team could begin building stages, cages, platforms, lighting, electricity – for a slew of fresh outdoor pieces which will be installed Thursday and Friday for the weekend outside component.
Who is going to be on display as part of the Art Mile? Try Pixel Pancho, Franco JAZ Fasoli, Bordalo II, Mimi S., HowNosm, Zezao, Isaac Cordal, Olek, Seth Globepainter, Blek Le Rat, Hottea, Dot Dot Dot, Borondo, Herakut, Deih XLF, Faith 47, David De La Mano, Nespoon, Tank Patrol, Lister, Cranio, Sandra Chevrier, Aaron Woes M, Yok & Sheryo, Haroshi, Don John, Ben Frost, Various & Gould, Icy & Sot, Mademoiselle Maurice, the Juxtapoz newsstand, Mark Bode, Shepard Fairey, 1 Up, James Bullough, and 2501. It’s a real cross section of styles, influences, and voice that will be engaging guests this weekend.
The Berlin police actually use a truss and truck that picks up the offending car, puts it on a flatbed. Then, believe or not, they look for an empty parking spot in the neighborhood an place the car into the new place – also signs are posted to let you know where your car was re-located to.
In New York City if you are unfortunate enough to park your car in the wrong place it is simply towed away to a massive car yard somewhere, banging into things occasionally on the way and flying through potholes – and then held for a King’s ransom. Then you have to simply guess if it was towed or stolen. No word on what the London Police do in regards to cars parked illegally.
Up on a lift for painting today also were Mademoiselle Maurice, David De La Mano, and James Bullough, and the company plastering the corner façade of the museum with pink letters. When the winds got to strong everybody was forced to bring the lifts down for an hour. Intrepid and lucky photographers like Jaime Rojo and Nika Kramer still managed to go up in the buckets to get some good shots in.
Hot Tea is spraying a big installation space with a rainbow of colors – on the walls and floors completely. People who are peeking through the plastic sheeting that protects the windows are wondering what this world of color is going to be.
Meanwhile the onslaught of arrivals continues, including hopefully we’ll see Martha Cooper and Carlo McCormick. Martha of course will be here to celebrate the beginning of the Martha Cooper Library within the museum and Carlo will be here to see the didactics and texts he wrote for the exhibition and catalogue –as well as speaking at the Unlock Book Fair. This publishing fair for graffiti, street art and related practices is a must see for those who relish the independent thinking minds who publish on paper in this scene. Other great speakers featured will be Pedro Soares, Jens Besser, Susan Phillips, Thomas Chambers, and Javier Abarca.
Okay that’s your update for today. See you on the streets tomorrow.
Welcome to Sunday! This week we have a special edition of BSA Images of the Week; Dedicated to “No Limit” in Boras 2017.
Begun on the initiative of Street Artist Shai Dahan, the No Limit festival in Borås Sweden is a nice respite in a quiet, somewhat conservative town of pleasant people where all the shops close by six and the streets are empty by ten. With the initiative and vision of Dahan, three editions of “No Limit” have brought a varied roster of more than 30 Street Artists and muralists and installation artists into the downtown area and thrilled the tour groups and looky-loos who follow the trail discovering new artworks.
Playing toward the center and knowingly delighting the audience, the full collection also boasts a few great eclectic names and actual forward-looking leaders on the Street Art/ Contemporary Art continuum. Thanks to Dahan’s sharp eye and knowledge of who to bring, it is a well-rounded collection that compliments the city and yet represents the independent-thinking iconoclastic nature of today’s art on the streets.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Anonymouse, Bordalo II, Christina Angelina, Fintan Magee, Gemma O’Brien, Hot Tea, JM Rizzi, Lakwena, Lonac, Nespoon, and Telmo & Miel.
Unveiled as the sun was seting in the Swedish sky, the separate bundles of rayon strips freed one-by-one beneath their gridded wire superstructure, this hovering mass of radiance is enlivened by the slightest breezes rippling through the glowing neon soft cloud, not quite a rectangle, not at all expected.
Here on the property of a religious and historical institution, one is tempted to say he captures the spirit of its higher aspirations and holds it aloft as a reminder. He also just completed this summer an enormous record-breaking installation in the Mall of America, a holy temple of commerce and consumerism, so we may have mistakenly imbued this project with something mystical because we were transported from the slippery bricked streets of Boras upon its discovery.
Either way, Boras tour groups applaud. We keep seeing it wherever we go – the appreciation of the new works literally makes people burst into applause, as they did when Hot Tea was on his lift yesterday, as they did for TelmoMiel as they were in their separate baskets 3 stories above in the drizzle, and from 200 meters away on the other side of the street looking up a hill watching Bordalo II as he installed his white wolf, half dripping white, half Technicolor consumer items. As they did when Jim Rizzi turned around almost on cue to face a dozen seniors who were staring at him across the river while he was painting. For those street artists and graffiti artists who have been hunted down by the Vandal Squad or its equivalent over the years, this outpouring of appreciation for your work feels and sounds surreal, perhaps leading you to be philosophical, or bitterererer-er.
“Those are the original drawings for the cartoon that we used to watch,” says Dutchman Miel as he takes a break down on the pavement to look up at the animated scene looming above and his art partner Telmo in a cherry picker gazing into the mouth of a fox. The guys are creating a sophisticated tableau incorporating the 2-D cartoon stills of a famous children’s animation and overlaying incredibly realistic 3-D versions of the same.
“We used to watch it when we were little – it’s a very old Swedish book and it has been animated by the Dutch and I think the Japanese and it is one of my favorite shows,” he says as we learn about Nils Holgersson and the likelihood that most Swedes will be instantly familiar with this small boy riding on the back of a goose who flies him around the world.
“We like combining the realism with the flat stuff right now,” Miel says of this digital shattering, a hi-jacked visual collage.
BSA:And you have these atmospheric washes…the realism, almost surrealism. Miel: Those are cut-outs because it’s like a two layer thing. We erase one layer and we always end up having strokes and bits – which makes it kind of more abstract, and we like that aspect so we just leave it. By abstractifying realism, we create surrealism.
A similar split between real and surreal exists in the sculptural installation of Bordalo II on the side of the Boras tourist center. Collaged together refuse from the never-ending garbage/recycling stream we are creating, the Lisbon artist has an uncanny ability to evoke the likeness of an animal that is often familiar to a locality. Here the street audience is also witnessing the transition of an artist’s style, displayed mid-evolution.
Whereas Bordalo II’s well-known and celebrated sculptures until this summer had always been finished with paint to complete their transformation, the artist has grown tired of the technique and is moving toward a body of work that uses only the colors present in the recycled items – a much more demanding and challenging technique for the artist, and a visual shift from his typically realized works.
We talk about the new direction as we’re looking at the piece nearly finished on the wall and he contrasts his relationship with the “old” right side of the animal with the “new” left side technique.
“It’s different at least,” he says. “I was getting bored of the old way on the right side – it’s always the same.”
And the multi-color eye-popping left? “This is the side that excites me. It’s fun because you can recognize a lot of the items and there is a lot of detail with all of the colors. You’re not playing with tones. You’re playing with colors and you have to give the idea of the shape of the outlines all with just the choice of different colors. I’m not using much black or white – for example the only place where there is black is in the eye. It’s important to use black only in the few places where you really need it then you can just play with the colors and make perspective.”
Just across a footbridge into the city’s old commercial district you round a bricked corner and find Nespoon riding up and down a two story wall beside a tavern. The organically decorative lace pattern pops out from the surface, slightly undulating like the long leafed aquatic plants in the Viskan river only 15 meters from her paintbrush.
“I draw the lace by hand, scan it, print it on large paper and hand cut all the pieces before I stencil them.” It’s a laborious process admittedly, but one that allows a feeling of full authorship and an organic relationship with the materials and final product. The Polish artist is making great progress and now is filling the background with a rusted red root timbre, just picking up the autumnal highlights in leaves on trees nearby.
As this Swedish town nearly marches ever closer to fall, the electricity of “No Limits” is bringing one last surge of summer and a real appreciation of the work of Street Artists as well.
This week BSA is in Borås, a municipality in south-western Sweden for the 3rd edition of No Limit, a mural arts festival that brings Street Artists from around the world to create new works on walls of the city, in the process enlivening public space and creating new ways for this historic textile merchant town to engage passersby with their city.
A small surprise guest appeared in Boras Thursday overnight and was sort of discovered by people on their way to work in the neighborhood. And when we say small, consider that a thimble is playing the role of a lampshade in one of these set scenes.
The miniature movement has been important in the last 10 years particularly in Street Art, with ever small pieces popping up – a bit of escapist fun for kids and those adults who also would like to disappear themselves for a moment into a tiny fantasy world. The Swedish installation artists Anonymouse have appeared on the streets of Malmö with a logo that smacks of Disney, Ronald McDonald and that Occupy mask of Guy Fawkes. But this is just a little mouse world for you to live in, provided you can get on your belly and stare closely.
Aside from that new bit, we found the artists happier with the weather, spirits lifted, and walls going up! Here are some of the images we caught on tour through the city which really has embraced the influx of international artists in a way that few do.
“It’s great how many business owners have been supportive to us over the years,” says artist and “No Limit” organizer Shai Dahan. We’re standing with structural engineer and commercial real estate property manager Erik Williamson in front of the new wall by TelmoMiel that features a goose and a fox from a well known Swedish fable by Nils Holgerssons.
Williamson has donated buildings and gallery space over the last three editions of the festival, virtually goosing the interest of the rest of the city. Now Shai receives calls from local businesses asking for artists to paint their walls almost daily.
“We love it!” says Mr. Williamson, “I’m a bird watcher, so this one is fun for me. It’s good for the city and the town. I think this year there will be many more people.” Does he think that these new works around town are like graffiti and does he have negative connotations about them? “I do not think of graffiti, I think it more of art. I think it does us good to walk around the city and to see street art and sculptures and it is good for the people in the city, I think.”
Abstract artist JM Rizzi is feeling good about his progress as the sun is coming out and his long wall is finally filling with color thanks to late days and helps from local volunteers. It’s appropriate that his work is here by the river, as he speaks of fluidity when describing the gestural abstract style that he has become known for.
Influenced as a student in college nearly two decades ago by artists like Robert Motherwell and Franz Kline, Rizzi says he’s heartened by the idea that his early graffiti influences are now matured and embedded with his love of writing, and the simplicity of the line.
“The person who really turned the light on for me was Franz Klein – his drawing, his black ink, his gestures, his letterforms,” says Rizzi. In fact, he says the essence of a JM Rizzi piece is always “about the linework.” He also speaks of music. Tracing the wall with his finger in the air he talks about the rhythm of the piece and says he can hear a soundtrack of percussion and horns; the yellow is a horn, the grey is a bass.
Ultimately, he says, “It’s about the dialogue of art, and what I am adding to that dialogue.”
As we speak we see well-known local tour guide Bjorn Linder is bringing a group of mature adults up the banks of the river across from Rizzi’s new wall. When it comes to putting your art out to be seen by the public, that’s where the dialogue continues.
This is the third year for Northern Norway’s UPN Festival and this year it’s on an Island called Røst and includes a collection of artists eager to do site-specific and environmental works – one evolutionary development in the mural festivals that blossom throughout the world right now. This week BSA is proud to bring you images and interviews along with Urban Nation this year at UpNorth, where the seagulls never stop calling and the sun never goes down this time of year.
This year we tried to focus more on installations/sculptures than earlier years,” says Gøran Moya of UpNorth Festival, pointing to a discipline within the organic Street Art milieu that is sometimes overlooked but is elemental to the spirit of free expression that one often discovers in abandoned places. “Spidertag did his light installations in a time where there is 24 hours of daylight, but everything turned out amazing!”
He’s speaking of the glowing geometric shapes inside of an old barn structure by the sea which Spanish Street Artist Spidertag has focused on as an enclosed dilapidated stage for this installation.
He began his string art about a decade ago and BSA may have been one of the first to publish it actually, transforming and framing spaces in abandoned or neglected venues, bringing a workman’s toolbox and an alchemists zeal for new astral formations in places where most had given up.
Now he has been toying with this glowing string perhaps in the hopes that in six months when this place is purely nocturnal there will be a radiant reminder of the summer in Røst.
BSA:Can you tell us about the piece that you did for UpNorth? Spidertag: I did 5 pieces in total; 4 interior and 1 outdoor. The challenge for me is that in summer in the north of Norway, there is no darkness, no night time. So, for my light installations it was a difficult…but I made it! And the wall will be turning on in a few month…
BSA:How would you describe the environment working in Røst? Spidertag: Amazing location. The old and abandoned houses made of wood were perfect for my nails and also to contrast styles. Was a nice experience!
BSA:How are you challenging yourself as an artist right now Spidertag: I continue to keep on developing; growing up and experimenting with my wires.
Poland’s NesPoon is bringing the decorative element of lace to this Norwegian island, an historical patterning that one may associate with hearth, home, and the finer practices of handicraft.
It is an unusual element in Street Art, though not limited to NesPoon (New York’s Hellbent comes to mind), bringing a sweetness to the urban landscape that befits a feminine character, rather than the hardcore testosterone infused hooliganism that the scene may like to portray about itself.
We met NesPoon in Moscow at the Artmossphere Biennale last year when she was doing an installation focusing on the so-called “Precariot”, the current worldwide worker class that is made to be insecure about their jobs, healthcare, shelter, food, future. So don’t think this stencil work is purely about decoration – more likely it is about asserting the feminine into public space and claiming the right to steer the dialogue and set the agenda.
The Moscow Manege Hosts International and Local Street Artists for a Biennale
Moscow presents a Street Artist’s exhibition, but the streets have almost none.
When Street Art and it’s associated cousins move inside the possible outcomes are many. With exhibitions like this you are seeing urban becoming very contemporary.
The Artmossphere Biennale jump-starts the debate for many about how to best present the work of Street Artists and organizers here in Moscow chose a broad selection of curators from across a spectrum of private, commercial, academic and civically-inspired perspectives to present a solid range of artists from the graffiti and Street Art world inside a formal hall.
To be clear, unless it is illegal and on the street, it is not graffiti nor Street Art. That is the prevailing opinion about these terms among experts and scholars of various stripes and it is one we’re comfortable with. But then there are the commercial and cultural influences of the art world and the design industries, with their power to reshape and loosen terms from their moorings. Probably because these associated art movements are happening and taking shape before our eyes and not ensconced in centuries of scholarship we can expect that we will continue to witness the morphing our language and terminologies, sometimes changing things in translation.
Definitions aside, when you think of more organic Street Art scenes which are always re-generating themselves in the run-down abandoned sectors of cities like Sao Paulo, New York, Melbourne, Paris, Mexico City, London, and Berlin, it is interesting to consider that this event takes place nearly on the grounds of the Kremlin under museum like security.
An international capital that ensures cleanly buffed walls within hours of the appearance of any unapproved Street Art or graffiti, Moscow also boasts a growing contingent of art collectors who are young enough to appreciate the cultural currency of this continuously mutating hybrid of graffiti, hip hop, DIY, muralism, and art-school headiness. The night clubs and fashionable kids here are fans of events like hip-hop and graffiti jams, sometimes presented as theater and other times as “learning workshops” and the like.
Plugging into this idea of street and youth culture is not a singular fascination – there is perhaps an association with the rebellious anti-authoritarian nature of unregulated art in the streets that fuels the interest of many. With graffiti and hip-hop culture adoption as a template, newer expressions of Street Art culture are attractive as well with high profile artists with rebel reputations are as familiar in name here as in many cities. New festivals and events sometimes leverage this renegade free-spirit currency for selling tourism and brands and real estate, but here there also appears to be an acute appreciation for its fine art expression – urban contemporary art.
MOSCOW’S MANEGE AND “DEGENERATE ART”
So ardent is the support for Artmossphere here that a combination of public and private endorsements and financial backing have brought it to be showcased in a place associated with high-culture and counter-culture known as the Moscow Manege (Мане́ж). The location somehow fits the rebellious spirit that launched these artists even if its appearance wouldn’t lead you to think that.
The 19th century neo-classical exhibition hall stands grandly adjacent to Red Square and was built as an indoor riding school large enough to house a battalion of 2,000 soldiers during the 1800s. It later became host to many art exhibitions in the 20th century including a famous avant-garde show in 1962 that Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev famously derided as displaying ‘degenerate’ art.
One of the artists whose work was criticized, painter and sculptor Ernst Neizvestny, challenged the label defiantly and won accolades afterward during his five decade career that followed, including receiving many awards and his work being collected worldwide by museums. Russian President Vladimir Putin is quoted as calling him “a recognised master and one of the best contemporary sculptors”. In January of this year at the age of 90, Neizvestny’s return to Menage featured an extensive exhibition. He passed away August 9th (The Moscow Times), only weeks before Artmossphere opened.
In some kindred spirit many of these artists at Artmossphere have done actual illegal work on the streets around the world during their respective creative evolutions, and graffiti and Street Art as a practice have both at various times been demonized, derided, dismissed and labeled by critics in terms synonymous with “degenerate”.
A CLEAN CITY
“Moscow is mostly very clean,” says Artmossphere co-founder and Creative Director Sabine Chagina, who walks with guests during a sunny afternoon in a busy downtown area just after the opening. “But we do have some good graffiti crews,” she says as we round the corner from the famous Bolshoi Theater and soon pass Givenchy and Chanel and high-end luxury fashion stores. Shortly we see a mural nearby by French artist Nelio, who painted a lateral abstracted geometric, possibly cubist, piece on the side of a building here in 2013 as part of the LGZ Festival.
If there was graffiti here in Moscow, it was not on full display very readily in this part of town. In driving tours, rides on the extensive metro train system, and in street hikes across the city a visitor may find that much of the illegal street art and graffiti common to other global capitals is illusive due to a general distaste for it and a dedicated adherence to buffing it out quickly.
For a pedestrian tourist Moscow appears in many ways as fully contemporary and architecturally rich as any international world-class metropolis. One of the cleanest places you’ll visit, the metro is almost museum-like in some instances; the historic districts spotless, public fountains, famed statues of important historical figures. All is efficiently ordered and – a welcome surprise – most public space is free of advertisements interrupting your view and your thoughts.
Come to think of it, the sense of commercial-celebrity media saturation that is present in other cities doesn’t appear to permeate the artists psyche here at the Biennale – so there’s not much of the ironic Disney-Marilyn-supermodel-Kardashian-skewering of consumerism and shallowness in this exhibition that you may find in other Urban Art events.
Also, unlike a Street Art-splattered show in London for example that may rudely mock Queen Elizabeth or art in New York streets that present Donald Trump styled as a pile of poo and Hillary Clinton as Heath Ledger’s Joker, we didn’t see over-the-top Putin satires either. So personality politics don’t seem directly addressed in this milieu. According to some residents there was an outcropping of huge festival murals by Street Artists here just a few years ago but more recently they have been painted over with patriotic or other inspiring murals, while others have been claimed for commercial interests.
Starved for some gritty street scenes, it is all the more interesting to see the one live mural painting that we were able to catch – a 6-story red-lined op-art tag by the French graffiti writer L’Atlas. Far from Manege, placed opposite a cineplex in what appears to be a shopping mall situated far from the city’s historical and modern centers, our guide tells us half-jokingly that he is not sure that we are still in Moscow.
Here L’Atlas says that he has painted his bar-code-like and cryptic nom-de-plume with an assistant on a cherry picker for a few days and he says that no one has stopped to ask him about it, neither to comment or criticize. Actually one man early one morning returning home from a disco did engage him briefly, but it was difficult to tell what he was talking about as he may have had a few drinks.
This lack of public commentary is mainly notable because in other cities the comments from passersby can be so ubiquitous that artists deliberately wear stereo headphones to prevent interruption and to be more productive. Sometimes the headphones are not actually playing music.
This Street Art Biennale nonetheless is gaining a higher profile among Urban Art collectors and its associated art dealers and the opening and later auction reaches directly to this audience. Included this year with the primary “Invisible Walls” exhibition are satellite events in association with local RuArts Gallery, Tsekh Belogo at Winzavod, and the Optika Pavilion (No. 64) at VDNKh.
The opening night event itself is wide and welcoming, a mostly youthful and populist affair with celebratory speeches and loosely organized group photos and an open bar. Added together with a press conference, a live DJ, virtual reality headsets, interactive artworks, major private business sponsors, government grants, ministers of culture, gallerists, and quirkily fashionable art fans, this is a polished presentation of a global culture that is filtered through the wide lense of the street.
Perhaps because the exhibition hall is a cavernous rectangle with exposed beams on the ceiling and many of the constructed white walls that mimic vendor booths, it has the air of an art fair. There are thankfully no salespeople pacing back and forth watching your level of interest. People tend to cluster before installations and talk, laugh, share a story, pose for a selfie.
The theme seems very appropriately topical as geopolitical, trade-related, social, digital, and actual walls appear to be falling down rapidly today while the foundations of new ones are taking shape. Catalyzed perhaps by the concept and practices of so-called “globalization” – with its easy flow of capital and restricted flow of humans, we are all examining the walls that are shaping our lives.
With 60+ international artists working simultaneously throughout this massive hall, newly built walls are the imperative for displaying art, supporting it, dividing it. These are the visible ones. With so many players and countries represented here, one can only imagine that there are a number of invisible walls present as well.
The theme has opened countless interpretations in flat and sculptural ways, often expressed in the vernacular of fine art with arguable nods to mid-20th century modernists, folk art, fantasy, representational art, abstract, conceptual, computer/digital art, and good old traditional graffiti tagging. Effectively it appears that when Street Art and graffiti artists pass the precipice into a multi-disciplinary exhibition such as this, one can reframe Urban/Street as important tributaries to contemporary art – but will they re-direct the flow or be subsumed within it?
The work often can be so far removed from street practice that you don’t recognize it as related.
Aside from putting work up in contested public space without permission and under cover, an average visitor may not see a common thread. These works run aesthetic to the conceptual, painterly to the sculptural, pure joy and pure politics. But then, that is we began to see in the streets as well when the century turned to the 21st and art students in large numbers in cities like New York and London and Berlin skipped the gatekeepers, taking their art directly to the public.
Perhaps beneath the surface or just above it, there is a certain anarchistic defiance, a critique of social, economic, political issues, a healthy skepticism toward everyone and everything that reeks of hypocritical patriarchal power structures. Perhaps we’re just projecting.
Looking over the 60+ list of names, it may be striking to some that very few are people of color, especially in view of the origins of the graffiti scene. Similarly, the percentage of women represented is quite small. We are familiar with this observation about Urban Art in general today, and this show mirrors the European and American scene primarily, with notable exceptions such as Instagrafite’s home-based Brazilian crew of 4 artists. As only one such sampling of a wide and dispersed scene, it is not perhaps fair to judge it by artists race, gender, or background, but while we speak of invisible walls it is worth keeping our eyes on as this “scene” is adopted into galleries, museums, and private collections.
Following are some of the artists on view at Artmossphere:
ASKE
Certainly Moscow native ASKE is gently mocking our mutated modern practices of communicating with his outsized blocked abstraction of a close couple riveted to their respective electronic devices, even unaware of one another.
Warsaw based NeSpoon creates a sculpture of another couple. Heroically presenting her vision of what she calls the iconic “Graffiti Writer” and “Street Art Girl”, they face the future with art instruments in hand ready to make their respective marks. She says her work is emblematic of a permanent financial insecurity for a generation she calls the “PRECARIAT”.
“ ‘Precariat’ is the name of the new emerging social class,” says curator, organizer, and NeSpoon’s partner Marcin Rutkiewicz when talking about the piece during the press conference. “These are young people living without a predictable future, without good jobs, without social security. It’s a class in the making and probably these people don’t have any consciousness or global unity of interest. But they are the engines of protest for people all over the world – like Occupy Wall Street, Gezi Park in Turkey, or the Arab Spring.”
The artist developed the sculpture specifically for this exhibition and planned it over the course of a year or so. Born of a social movement in Poland by the same name, the sculpture and its sticker campaign on the street represent “a kind of protest against building walls between people who are under the same economical and social situation all over the world,” says Rutkiewicz.
LI-HILL
Artist Li-Hill says his piece “Guns, Germs, and Steel” directly relates to the divisions between civilizations due to a completely uneven playing field perpetuated through generations. Inspired by the 1997 trans-disciplinary non-fiction book by Jared Diamond, Li-Hill says the Russian sculptural group called “The Horse Tamers” represents mankind’s “ability to harness power of the natural world and to be able to manipulate it for its advantage.”
“The horse is one of the largest signifiers and is a catalyst for advancement in society because it has been for military use, for agriculture, for transportation,” he says. “It was the most versatile of the animals and the most powerful.” Here he painted a mirror image, balanced over a potential microbial disaster symbol, and he and the team are building a mirrored floor to “give it this kind of infinite emblem status.”
Afloat in the middle of some of these walled areas M-City from Poland is choosing to be more direct thematically in his three dimensional installation of plywood, plaster, aerosol and bucket paint, and machine blown insulation.
“It is an anti-war piece,” he says, and he speaks about the walls between nations and a losing battle of dominance that ensures everyone will be victim.”
“It’s kind of a monster who destroys arms,” he says of this temporary sculpture with a lording figure crushing tanks below.
“He is destroying the tanks but at the same time he is also a destroyer – so it’s a big circle. Nothing is positive that can come out of this. There is always someone bigger.” He says the piece is inspired by the political situations in Europe today and the world at large.
HOTTEA
Minneapolis based HOTTEA usually does very colorful yarn installations transforming a huge public space, but for Artmossphere he is taking the conceptual route. The walk-in room based on the Whack-A-Mole game presents holes which a visitor can walk under and rise above.
Visitors/participants will experience the physical separation of space, and perhaps contemplate facing one another and interacting or ignoring one another. It is something he says he hopes will draw attention to how many walls we have allowed ourselves to distract from human interactions.
Englands’ Sick Boy calls his project The Rewards System, where guests are invited to climb a ladder over a brick wall and descend down a slide into a darkened house, setting off a series of sensors that activate a variety of multisensory lights and tantalizing patterns. After landing and being rewarded the visitor is forced to exit on hands and knees through a too-small square door.
“The concept of the show is about invisible walls so I was thinking about there being barriers in your life and I thought about the reward of endorphins one experiences for achieving a task – a small amount of endorphins. So I thought I would build a house that signifies the reward system,” he explains.
Atlanta/Seattle based Derek Bruno reached back to the Leonid Brezhnev years and into Moscow’s Gorky Park for his series of site specific installations based on Soviet Cement Fence type PO-2. The iconic fence was re-created in a nearby studio and Bruno shot photographs of his 10-15 minute “interventions” in the park itself, revisiting a field of design called “technical aesthetics.”
In a statement Bruno explains “Since the end of the Soviet Union, the iconic fence has become a persistent and ever present reminder of former delineations of space; while new forms of boundaries shape the digital and sociopolitical landscapes. “
REMI ROUGH
Remi Rough is known for his smartly soaring abstract geometry in painted murals and smaller scale works, and for Moscow he wanted to strip it back to the basics, approaching a white box with one undulating graphic composition.
“My idea was that Moscow’s a bit ‘over the top’,” he says, and he decided to strip back the audacity and go for simplicity, which actually takes courage.
“I said ‘you know what?’ – I want to do something with the cheapest materials you can possibly get. These two pieces literally cost 3000 rubles ($50). It’s made of felt, it’s like a lambs wool. I think they use it for flooring for construction.” Depending on the angle, the pink blotted material may translate as a swath of otherworldly terrain or a metaphorical bold vision with all the hot air let out.
“I wanted to do something peaceful and calming and use natural materials – something that’s different from what I usually do – but I use the folds in the fabric and the pink color – two things that I usually use a lot.”
ALEXEY LUKA
Moscow’s Alexey Luka is also challenging himself to stretch creatively by taking his wall collage installations of found wood and converting them into free-standing sculptures.
“For this biennale I tried to make something different so now I am going from the assemblages to 3-D.” The constructed media is warm and ordered, reserved but not without whimsy.
“My work is made from found wood – I use it with what I found on the street and my shapes and my graphics – so it’s kind of an experiment with three dimensions,” and he confirms that most of this wood is sourced here in Moscow.
We ask him about the number of eyes that peer out from his installation. Perhaps these eyes are those of Muscovites? “They are just like observers,” he says.
Torino’s Mimmo recreated the Moscow Olympic Village from the 1980 games in miniature presented as on a plainly brutalist platform. The sculpture is austere in detail on the hulking towers save for the tiny graffiti tags, throwies, rollers, extinguisher tags, and the like at the bases and on the roofs.
Curator Christian Omodeo tells us that Mimmo recreated the massive village based on his direct study of the site as it stands today; a housing project that has hundreds of families — and a hip-hop / graffiti scene as well.
It is striking that the scale reduces the impact of the graffiti – yet when experienced at eye-level it retains a potency. Even so, by recasting the relationship between viewer and mark-making, this graffiti actually seems “cute” because of its relative size to the viewer.
BRAD DOWNEY
Brad Downey and Alexander Petrelli hi-jacked the opening of the Biennale by circulating within the exhibit as a gallery with artworks for sale. With Downey performing as a street-huckster pushing his own art products, Mr. Patrelli showcased new Downey photo collages and drawings inside his mobile “Overcoat Gallery”
A charming Moscow art star / gallerist / performance artist, Mr. Patrelli is also a perennial character at openings and events in the city, by one account having appeared at 460 or so events since 1992 with his flashing overcoat. The artworks also feature Patrelli, completing a self-referential meta cycle that continued to circle the guests at the exhibition.
International artists participating in the Artmossphere Biennale 2016 include: Akacorleone, Alex Senna, Brad Downey, Chu (Doma), Orilo (Doma), Claudio Ethos, Demsky, Christopher Derek Bruno, Filippo Minelli, Finok, Galo, Gola Hundun, Hot Tea, Jaz, Jessie and Katey, Johannes Mundinger, L’Atlas, LiHill, LX One, M-city, TC, Mario Mankey, Martha Cooper, Miss Van, Nespoon, Millo, Pablo Benzo, Pastel, Paulo Ito, Proembrion, Remed, Remi Rough, Rub Kandy, Run, Sepe, Sickboy, Smash 137, Sozyone Gonsales, SpY, The London Police, Trek Matthews, Wes 21.
This article is a result of a Brooklyn Street Art partnership with Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art in Berlin and was originally published at Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art
Also, baby goats in your promo video melts even the meanest graff writers heart, so another 25 points for that. (see adorable video below)
In fact, if you look through all the walls and materials and listen to the voices of the organizers, you find a serious consideration of humor as a force for creativity, so we’re pretty close to a perfect score of 100 with this original and inviting concept for a city Street Art festival.
All things considered, this ZERO edition (not 1st) of the Croatian festival that features a solid selection of international (mostly European) Street Artists along with local and regional musicians was very successful. The city is called Vodnjan/Dignano situated in the peninsula and county of Istria. It prides itself on its multicultural patrimony and the festival was meant to convey the artistic and cultural point of view that it has. Says Marco Contardi, one of the volunteer organizers, “The festival stands as a link between Istria and Europe, encouraging a reciprocal fruitful connection.”
So we’ll be bringing you some exclusive images of the pieces that Street Artists completed during Boombarstick. The first here is by Rome’s Hitnes, who completed this flight of imagination among the strong and well worn roots of the old city. He uses aerosol, brush, pencils, and whatever else brings out the detail in his alternate reality, which often meditates on the animal kingdom and a sense of magic.
Look forward in coming days to new exclusive photos of the completed pieces on BSA from some of the participants in this unique festival who include Franco Manzin, Phlegm, OKO, Sam3, Giorgio Bartocci, Hitnes, Eme, Ufocinque, Interesni Kazki, NeSpoon, Miron Milic, and Liqen.
Cash, Cans & Candy The Street Art Show & Festival “Cash, Cans & Candy” opens May 31,2013 at 7 pm.
Venue: HilgerBROTKunsthalle & HILGER NEXT on the premises of the former ANKERBROTFABRIK (a former bread factory)
Enthralling & affordable art on 800m2 by pioneers of the scene such as Robbie Conal (L.A.), artists from all 5 continents. List if artists: Michael Anderson (USA), Beran/Henz (A),Broken Fingaz (IL), Bumblebee (USA), Robbie Conal (USA), DALEast (ZA), Etam Cru (PL), Alessandra Exposito (MX), Faile (USA), Faith47 (ZA), Gola (IT), Shepard Fairey (USA), Amir H. Fallah (USA), Christine Finley (USA), Ben Frost (AU), Vasilena Gankovska (BG), H101 (ES), Lia Halloran (USA), David Istvan (H), Jaz (AR), Kenor (ES), Ai Kijima (USA/JP), Kryot (A), Lies Maculan (A), Brian McKee (USA), Meapi (A), Moneyless (IT), Mark Mulroney (USA), NeSpoon, (PL), Markus Oberndorfer (A), Brandon Opalka (USA), La Pandilla (PR), El Pez (ES), PERFEKT WORLD (A), Pure Evil (GB), Retna (USA), ROA (BE), Michelle Rogers (USA), Sonke (GR), The Stencil Network (PR/USA), Stinkfish (CO), Lisa Marie Thalhammer (USA), Stephen Tompkins (USA), Laura Ortiz Vega (MX), Vinz Feel Free (ES), Dan Witz (USA), YOTTO (A) und Zosen y Mina (ES)
1. ROA at StolenSpace “Hypnagogia” (London)
2. Katowice Street Art Festival 4/20-29 (Poland)
3. LALA Gallery Inauguration Saturday (Los Angeles)
4. Herakut “Loving the Exiled” at 941 Geary (San Francisco)
5. Marsea Gives You the “High Five!” at New Image Art Saturday (LA)
6. Erica Il Cane “Una Vita Violenta” at Fifty24MX Gallery (Mexico City)
7. Brett Amory “Waiting 101” at Outsiders Gallery (Newcastle, UK)
8. OLEK in Barcelona with Botero (VIDEO)
9. C215 “About Copyrights” (VIDEO)
10. The Bushwick Trailer (VIDEO)
ROA at StolenSpace “Hypnagogia” (London)
With his current show, now on view at the StolenSpace Gallery in London, ROA will demonstrate how you can be asleep and awake at the same time. His solo show “Hypnagogia” opens today to the general public and offers a dissected view of ROA’s fantastic world of animals and beasts. ROA’s hand crafted book “An Introduction To Animal Representation” by Mammal Press is on sale at The Old Truman Brewery on 91 Brick Lane. Hurry there are only only 125 tomes being offered.
For further information regarding this show click here.
Katowice Street Art Festival 4/20-29 (Poland)
Katowice, a Silesian city in Southern Poland celebrates Street Art with their own Street Art Festival, now on its second year, from April 20 through April 29. The gray, concrete architecture that dominates this town will be imbued with color, shapes and fantasy with the help of this city most prominent daughter, OLEK aided by an illustrious list of first rate of fine and Street Artists including Mark Kenkins, Escif, Boogie, Moneyless, Ganzeer, Ludo, Mona Tusz, Swanski, 0700 Team, Tellas, Dan Witz, Hyuro, M City, ROA, Goro, Kilo, Nespoon, Aryz, 108, Wers, Ciah-Ciah, Etam Crew, Otecki, Razpajzan, Sepe, Chazme, CFNTX Crew, Onte, Jezmirski, Terry Grand, Dast, Impact, Malik, Turbos and Mentalgassi.
For further information regarding this festival click here.
LALA Gallery Inauguration Saturday (Los Angeles)
The West Coast continues to assert itself as a power house in the art world and as a Street Art mecca with the inaugural show of LALA Gallery. A brand new gallery conceived by Daniel Lahoda, the mind and soul and legs of LA Freewalls Project.
LALA’s line up of artists for this first show augurs an auspicious beginning and a successful life which we hope last for a long, long time. “LA Freewalls Inside” is the title of this show and artists included are: Anthony Lister, Askew One, Becca, Cern, Chris Brand, Cryptik, Cyrcle, Dale VN Marshall, Dan Witz, Daze, Dee Dee Cheriel, Evan Skrederstu, How & Nosm, Insa, Jaybo, Kim West, Kofie, Lady Aiko, Ludo, Mear, The Perv Brothers, Poesia, Push, Pyro, Ripo, Risk, Ron English, Saber, Shepard Fairey, Swoon and Zes.
For further details regarding this show click here.
Herakut “Loving the Exiled” at 941 Geary (San Francisco)
Herakut, the indefatigable German collective are a busy duo with an impressive craft and a mastery of the can and paint brushes. Never compromising their artistic output regardless of their environment or medium they set their collaborative standards high with an output rich in earthy colors. Their palette of ores, reds, grays, oranges, blues, browns and yellows give birth to a universe of characters that are fantastic and mysterious and in pursuit of you, the spectator. In San Francisco at 941 Geary Gallery Saturday the reception will be open for the artists and you at “Loving the Exiled”.
For further information regarding this show click here.
Group Show “High Five!” at New Image Art Saturday (LA)
HIGH FIVE! the new group show at New Image Art Gallery in Los Angeles opens tomorrow and the artists include Alia Penner, Ashely Macomber, Curtis Kulig, Deanna Templeton, Maya Hayuk and Vanessa Prager.
For further information regarding this show click here.
Also happening this weekend:
Tomorrow, Saturday April 22 will be the last day to see Erica Il Cane show “Una Vita Violenta” at the Fifty24MX Gallery in Mexico City. The gallery will also participate with Erica Il Cane at the Zona Maco Mexico Arte Contemporaneo Art Fair in Mexico City. April 18 – April 22. For further details about “Una Vita Violenta” click here. For more details about Zona Maco, Mexico Arte Contemporaneo Art Fair click here.
Brett Amory solo show “Waiting 101” At the Outsiders Gallery in Newcastle, UK opens today to the general public. Click here for more details about this show.
OLEK in Barcelona with Botero (VIDEO)
Still working on that scarf you’ve been knitting for OLEK’s birthday? You missed it.
występują: Bruno Bischofberger, Kai Eric, Micheal Holman i in.
24.04.2012
godz. 20.15
Kinoteatr Rialto, ul. św. Jana 24
Basquiat – Taniec ze śmiercią
USA 1996, 108 min.
reżyseria: Julian Schnabel
występują: Jeffrey Wright, Benicio del Toro, David Bowie, Gary Oldman, Denis Hopper i in.
25.04.2012
godz. 18.00
Kinoteatr Rialto, ul. św. Jana 24
Basquiat, promienne dziecko
USA 2010, 88 min.
reżyseria: Tamra Davis
występują: Julian Schnabel, Larry Gagosian, Fat 5 Freddy, Thurston Moore i in.
25.04.2012
godz. 20.00
Kinoteatr Rialto, ul. św. Jana 24
The New York Beat Movie a.k.a. Downtown 81
USA 1981, 72 min.
reżyseria: Edo Bertoglio
występują: Fat 5 Freddy, Vincent Gallo, Deborah Harry, John Lurie i in.
DEBATA:
25.04.2012
godz. 18.00
Rondo Sztuki, Rondo im. Gen. J. Ziętka 1
Podczas tegorocznej edycji Festiwalu odbędzie się debata poświęcona wyzwaniom, jakie obecnie stają przed street artem – komercjalizacją, festiwalizacją, wejściem sztuki ulicy do czterech ścian galerii. Do zabrania głosu zostali zaproszeni: Kristel Talv (Nuart Festival ze Stavanger w Norwegii), Angelo Milano (FAME Festival z Grottaglie we Włoszech) oraz Polacy: Ixi Color z Fundacji Vlepvnet w Warszawie i Michał Bieżyński z Fundacji Urban Forms w Łodzi. Debatę poprowadzi Łukasz Greszta (portal sosm.pl).
EGIPT / STREET ART / POLITYKA
Prezentując najnowsze zjawiska współczesnego street artu nie można pominąć zeszłorocznych ruchów rewolucyjnych, które przetoczyły się przez kraje Bliskiego Wschodu i które odbiły się szerokim echem na całym świecie. Znaczącą rolę w tych wydarzeniach odegrała egipska scena artystyczna, która – wychodząc na ulicę i tworząc tam politycznie zaangażowane prace – zachęcała ludzi do sprzeciwu wobec tyranii i zniewoleniu przez ówczesne władze. Wracając do tego, co leżało u podstaw street artu, egipscy artyści pokazali światu, jaką rolę może odgrywać sztuka w przestrzeni publicznej, nie ulegając przy tym komercjalizacji, uprzedmiotowieniu i dekoracyjności.
plac pod Spodkiem
Przed wyjazdem, w godzinach 18.00 – 20.00 na placu pod Spodkiem odbędą się warsztaty frisbee, które poprowadzi Śląskie Stowarzyszenie Graczy Ultimate Freezebeatz.
Miejsce: Skatepark PTG, Katowice
W czasie trwania zawodów, w godz. 10.00 – 18.00 odbędą się warsztaty frisbee, które poprowadzi Śląskie Stowarzyszenie Graczy Ultimate Freezebeatz.
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
