All posts tagged: NeverCrew

Nevercrew’s ‘Switch’ Elephant: A Visual Metaphor for Time and Awareness

October 3, 2024 Artists

We are skillful in avoiding discussing the elephant in the room: our relationship with the Earth and its natural elements, which are negatively impacted by our actions. This is perhaps the biggest issue that polluting industries and war-makers try to ignore, even as they steal the future from all of our children.

Swiss duo Nevercrew masterfully depicts this metaphor in their mural “Switch,” created in Wuppertal, Germany, for the Urbaner Kunstraum and curated by WupperOne929 and Valentina Maoilov. While their description of the work may seem deliberately vague, a closer examination reveals a call to reflect on pressing issues.

NEVERCREW / Christian Rebecchi & Pablo Togni. *“Switch”*. Urbaner Kunstraum Wuppertal. Germany. (photo © courtesy of the artists)

The mural appears to explore themes of perspective, change, and awareness. The glass-domed shape suggests the passage of time, symbolizing urgency and the continuous flow between different states, such as the past, present, and future. The floating elephant with its trunk above water might represent a struggle for survival or the need to adapt to changing circumstances. Elephants are often symbols of wisdom and memory. In this context, the mural may illustrate a clash between the natural world and human-made environments, represented by the quaint town of modern consumers below.

Ultimately, the artwork seems to confront us with realities we often keep at a distance—urgent issues that demand our attention. It invites viewers to “switch” their perspectives and become more aware of the interconnections between nature, human actions, and the passage of time.

No one is discussing the elephant in the room: our relationship with the Earth and its natural elements, which are negatively impacted by our actions. This is perhaps the biggest issue that polluting industries try to ignore, even as they steal the future from our children.

Urvanity 2020 – Madrid Murals from Zest, D*Face, Never Crew, and Eversiempre

March 18, 2020 Artists

New walls from Madrid from only a few weeks ago at the Urvanity Festival, before the city became known as a hub for Coronavirus, went on full lockdown – today closing all of its hotels…

Zest (photo courtesy of Urvanity Art / Madrid 2020)

We start off the collection with graffiti writer from Montpellier, France named Franck Noto aka Zest. His gestural abstracts are just the kind of bright swipes of energy that capture a commercial market these days, and here he brings those energies to the street as well.

Enjoy the new massive pieces from London’s D*Face, Switzerland’s Never Crew, GVIIIIE and Argentinian Eversiempre as they each knock out new murals that Madrid is thankful for – or will be when people are allowed outside again.

Franck Noto combines the different energies found in Graffiti and brings them out through the basic shapes and the primary colors he uses. The bright colors symbolize the aspect of urban art that immediately catches the eye of passers-by, even before they give a positive or negative opinion on what they see. As for the transparency of the forms, it reflects an accumulation of energies and movements.

Zest. Urvanity Art/Madrid 2020. (photo © Leticia Díaz de la Morena)

GVIIIIE (photo courtesy of Urvanity Art / Madrid 2020)

GVIIIIE. Urvanity Art/Madrid 2020. (photo © Leticia Díaz de la Morena)

NEVERCREW (photo courtesy of Urvanity Art / Madrid 2020)

NEVERCREW. Urvanity Art/Madrid 2020. (photo © Leticia Díaz de la Morena)

D*FACE (photo courtesy of Urvanity Art / Madrid 2020)

D*FACE. Urvanity Art/Madrid 2020. (photo © Leticia Díaz de la Morena)

Nicolas Romero (photo courtesy of Urvanity Art / Madrid 2020)

Nicolas Romero. Urvanity Art/Madrid 2020. (photo © Nicolas Romero AKA Eversiempre)

BSA Film Friday: 03.06.20

March 6, 2020 Artists, BSA Film Friday

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

Now screening :
1. “Offset” by Nevercrew at Urvanity in Madrid
2. Icy & Sot: “Our house is on fire” By COlabs / Marco Figueroa
3. Said Dokins on Cultura Colectiva

BSA Special Feature: “Offset” by Nevercrew at Urvanity in Madrid

Welcome to BSA Film Friday with a new mural from the Urvanity commercial art fair in Madrid that culls together 30 or so galleries and mounts a public art campaign during the same week. “Offset” by the Swiss muralists called Nevercrew presents a massive pile of bears, one stacked upon the other.

The manner of arrangement of the bears presents creatures of the wild as no more than commodities, in the same way that corporations and countries think they can “purchase” offsets through a surreal trading market where one purchases the right to pollute and kill our atmosphere. In a positive light, the title “Offset” may refer to the practice of biodiversity offsetting, where previous wrongs are righted following a mitigation hierarchy to produce “no net loss” of biodiversity.

Also, bears are really cute.

“Offset” NEVERCREW in Madrid for Urvanity Art Fair 2020

Icy & Sot: “Our house is on fire” By COlabs / Marco Figueroa

The pacing is quick, the reversal of the timeline adds a sense of mystery and mastery to the brothers’ fox-witted ability to communicate horror in a rather elegant way.

See more in yesterdays’ posting Icy & Sot say “Our House Is On Fire!”

Said Dokins on Cultura Colectiva

Mexican muralist Said Dokins talks about his practice and his underlying social practice through coded calligraphy

NEVERCREW Paints #urbancontemporaryart on a Warehouse in Switzerland

October 26, 2019 Artists

You used to hire your cousin Vinny and his creative buddy who went to art & design school to do some sign-painting for the side of your warehouse so people who were driving by on the highway would know where they could potentially get air conditioners, filters, casings, and floor fans. And you would pay them mostly in beer and weed.

Things have changed. Now in Switzerland you hire guys who hashtag #urbancontemporaryart on their Instagram posting of the mural they painted all summer on the side of your factory. Also art exhibition curators who run an art blog will pontificate about the new paintings’ finer points, its cultural/historical references, and they will coo about how the composition works seamlessly in a “contextual” way with the Swiss mountains that the warehouse is nestled within.

Nevercrew. *“Shifting machine*”. Cadenazzo, Switzerland. 2019. (photo © Nevercrew)

Welcome to NeverCrew’s new mural on the side of this facility that will be a burgeoning hub for package traffic in the southern region of the country – where the artists Christian Rebecchi and Pablo Togni are from. They say that this mixture of industrial and natural landscape is where they took the inspiration from for this combination of a monochromatic industrial diagram and an earth-science illustration of minerals surrounded by a colorful hazy aura.

They feel like the environment informed their concept as well. “During the evening we could listen to the car traffic or the machines working on the right side of the wall,” they tell us, “and frogs, birds, and insects on the left side of the wall.”

As if visiting an art gallery, you ask the artists to explain the mural, and now you realize there’s so much more than a pretty picture here. “We were thinking about a symbolical net, a twine of transfers and projected thoughts, and as well we were imagining a production line that is both mechanical and human.” You smile because you realize that your cousin Vinny never said stuff like that.

Nevercrew Watch Their Paper Plane “Fade” in Torino

September 19, 2019 Artists

Fresh from Torino, Italy, the Swiss artists Nevercrew did this commissioned piece for a coffee company with the theme of “responsible consumption” – which immediately reminds us that we were planning to switch from using K-cups to drip coffee. The image is abstract and realistic at the same time, a map of some sort folded into an airplane, a portion of it possible torched by a lighter. It looks fragile, yet full of possibility.

Nevercrew. *“Fade”*. Toward 2030 Project. Torino, Italy. (photo © Nevercrew)

“We decided to work around the concept of carefreeness to evoke both the human responsibility on the production and consumption side,” says Christian Rebecchi, “and the planetary emergency we’re already living.”

The image of a simple childs’ toy is meant to imply a story of two logics, says the other member of the duo, Pablo Togni. “The positive logic of the game and the negative one of the lack of conscience and the unnatural use of resources,” he says.

“There is a care-freeness that’s about acting unaware of the large-scale repercussions of the exploitation of resources, of what precedes and follows every small action and, at the same time, a reference to the lightness of the game, to all that is now put at risk for the generations that will hold the future of the planet.”

BSA Film Friday: 06.14.19

June 14, 2019 Artists, BSA Film Friday

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

Now screening :
1. NeverCrew – “Celsius”
2. Boulevard Paris 13
3. Isaac Cordal “Follow The Leaders” at Urvanity 2019 Madrid.

BSA Special Feature: NeverCrew – “Celsius”

The streets are awash with artists visions these days, but few play so well with technology as these new whales from Nevercrew. The Swiss duo often use their work on the street to call attention to the plight of our water bodies, and the bodies that live within them. In these new multi-layered street pieces water is also the great reveal.

“Thermochromic paint allows us to create an immediate transformation,” Christian Rebecci tells us, “and at the same time it provides a silent litmus paper of the actual situation.”

Splashing the water upon the majestic animals certainly gives a look inside their living situation. The guys are calling it “Celcius”, an oblique reference to temperature and the effect rising temperatures due to climate change in fact changes the equation.

Boulevard Paris 13

With Mehdi Ben Cheikh at Galerie Itinerrance and Jérôme Coumet, the Mayor of Paris’ 13^th arrondissement, this neighborhood of Paris has become a top-shelf open air museum over the last decade or so. With the common critique of the illegal Street Art movement evolving into a legal mural system of business development, one may overlook the few programs that have actually gotten the quality and the balance right. De facto public art for the 2010s, this execution has proven to pack a powerful visual punch and a possibly timeless quality. This newly produced video helps put the entire project’s best foot forward.

Isaac Cordal “Follow The Leaders” at Urvanity 2019 Madrid.

Radiating the drama dread of Isaac Cordal’s springtime installation at Urvanity Madrid is no easy task, but this commercial shoe brand took the time and dedicated their observation skills to help viewers reflect on the absurdities of our human condition.

Never Crew, Wishes And Hopes For 2019

December 17, 2018 Artists

As we draw closer to the new year we’ve asked a very special guest every day to take a moment to reflect on 2018 and to tell us about one photograph that best captures the year for them. It’s a box of treats to surprise you with every day – and conjure our hopes and wishes for 2019. This is our way of sharing the sweetness of the season and of saying ‘Thank You’ to you for inspiring us throughout the year.

Today’s special guest:

Never Crew, (Christian Rebecchi and Pablo Togni), Swiss Street Art duo, environmentalists, neo-realist naturalists, mural interventionists

We love this picture because in a simple way it recalls many aspects of our actual lives. This has been taken in our country, Switzerland, one week before traveling to Phoenix to realize a series of mural interventions on the historical Heard Building (curated by Anne-Laure Lemaitre of FatCap), while we were preparing them.

There is of course the connection between different contexts and far places, the immersion in the location and in the project that we live for – for each urban intervention. But above all there’s an idea before its realization, an aim before its fulfillment.

This was the first mural intervention planned in 2018 and it was a hard project to prepare and solve. We see it here in it’s imaginary shape, with all the difficulties yet to be faced and as an undefined experience. Now, eleven months later, after many other interventions prepared for and concluded and many places lived, this is quietly part of a tangible reality and it’s shared with everyone.

So this is the kind of feeling and awareness we would like to keep bringing with us for the next year.

Location: Lugano, Switzerland (with Phoenix, USA)

Date: 25th of January 2018

Nevercrew: “Cluster” In Novara, Italy.

November 12, 2018 Artists

A certain defined maritime surrealism again provides us the lens through which NEVERCREW interprets the dominance and selfish behaviors of man over nature and how they continue to backfire. A “Cluster” of sea animals and binder clips and folders float on over and below one another in this new mural in Novara, Italy.

Nevercrew. “Cluster” Novara, Italy. November, 2018. (photo © Nevercrew)

“We worked on vision and on layers, playing between real and painted elements, creating a fake dimension in front of the building and using this to analyze, once more, the perception that mankind has of the environmental situation, of the actual connection with the overall balance, to recall the need to recognize and overcome the detachment,” say the painting pair, Christian Rebecchi & Pablo Togni.

Nevercrew. “Cluster” Novara, Italy. November, 2018. (photo © Nevercrew)

Nevercrew Destroys Natural Wonder in New Zealand

October 20, 2018 Artists

“Disposing machine n°2”

Because there is still an ongoing environmental crisis in our oceans and because sea mammals do not have Instagram accounts (flippers are too clumsy for those little texting buttons), we are here again with you to discuss a new mural by Nevercrew painting in Gisborne, New Zealand.

Nevercrew. “Disposing machine n°2”. Seawalls Tairāwhiti project by PangeaSeed Foundation. Gisborne, New Zeland. (photo courtesy of Nevercrew)

“Human habits and politics are modifying the natural balance, sometimes in direct and visible ways, sometimes in more underhanded and indirect ways,” say the art duo Christian Rebecchi about Pablo Togni,“and sea mammals are powerlessly suffering this imposition that’s embodied in the increasing of temperatures, water pollution, interferences in their habitat, swings in the ecosystems, hunting, and more.”

Created with the Pangeaseed Foundation, the Hawaii-based not-for-profit, public art program that has created nearly 300 murals with 200 international artists in 14 countries to bring to the streets a message about ocean conservation, this whale is part of the Nevercrew vocabulary.

Nevercrew. “Disposing machine n°2”. Seawalls Tairāwhiti project by PangeaSeed Foundation. Gisborne, New Zeland. (photo courtesy of Nevercrew)

Impressive in scale, volume, and texture, the artists find new and inventive ways to permute the natural iconographic image of this massive sea creature and virtually modernize it in our minds, honoring it and elevating it to even greater relevance for a contemporary audience that is fluent in aesthetics.

By turning this god-like animal into mere elements of mechanics or body parts exposes our dim-witted appreciation for something that should instead inspire awe.How does that saying go? “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”

Nevercrew. “Disposing machine n°2”. Seawalls Tairāwhiti project by PangeaSeed Foundation. Gisborne, New Zeland. (photo courtesy of Nevercrew)

“A vision of this phenomenon, a perception of the overall issue and actual and future damage, seems hard to experience in a tangible way,” they say. “This has to pass again from human interpretation and understanding.”

“There’s a urge then to acknowledge that humankind is part of a balance together with the rest of the elements that compose Planet Earth”

Nevercrew. “Disposing machine n°2”. Seawalls Tairāwhiti project by PangeaSeed Foundation. Gisborne, New Zeland. (photo courtesy of Nevercrew)

Nevercrew: “Home Ground” in Chur, Switzerland

July 2, 2018 Artists

The Alps, the lakes, the 360 degree views; yes this bear is in Switzerland. It is newly painted by Nevercrew for the young Street Art Festival here in Chur, a quiet town of 35,000 and the oldest town in the country.

The old part of the city is car-free and rather pristine and quiet most of the time, which is a mind-blowing concept for people in congested cities like New York where the morning radio traffic report is more important than the weather report.

The Swiss duo was back in their home country for a change for this one, which may have contributed to the name “Home Ground”. They tell us a very general background of it’s influences – which can be summarized as addressing natural resources, political borders v geographical boarders, cohabitation, and a broader discussion about who owns the earth and our natural resources.

Nevercrew Reifies on “One Wall” in Berlin

May 31, 2018 Artists

Nevercrew is unifying in Berlin with their new “One Wall” project with Urban Nation. The immense marine mammals depicted are not typical in their upright position in this reflective scene. Are they flying? Art they floating?

The artists tell us that they decided on the configuration based on the building walls themselves and are surprised by the opposite yet complementary pose the new mural creates.

Ironically by turning the subjects 90 degrees the scene is more disturbing: you may become more aware of the powerful forces of man and nature that are upending these magnificient beasts and appreciate their fragility.

“It is about common responsibilities and aims despite distances and differences: towards a lost balance between humankind and nature and with human nature itself,” Christian and Pablo say in a statement for this powerful painted piece of unity called “Reification” that suddenly makes it all real.

Resurrecting the Ghost of The Mexican Grizzly Bear: NeverCrew In Phoenix

February 26, 2018 Artists

BSA is pleased that we were able to help bring NeverCrew to the US along with FatCap to realize this huge Mexican Grizzly on a celebrated wall in Arizona.

“El Oso Plateado and the Machine” is the latest project of Christian Rebecchi and Pablo Togni here in Phoenix on the side of the historic Heard Building, a 7-story high-rise building that housed the offices of The Arizona Republic and the Phoenix Gazette from 1920 to 1948 and was the first high-rise building to be erected in Phoenix when it was completed in 1920.

NeverCrew “El oso plateado and the machine” Phoenix, AZ (photo courtesy of NeverCrew)

As usual the Swiss artist duo have used one of their murals to give center stage to nature and it is inextricably bound to man’s folly, as this incredible bear from this region is now extinct.

Sort of silvery because of the color of its fur, the Mexican Grizzly was one of the heaviest and largest mammals in Mexico, reaching a length up to 1.82 m (6 ft 0 in) and an average weight of 318 kilograms (701 lb).

NeverCrew “El oso plateado and the machine” Phoenix, AZ (photo courtesy of NeverCrew)

Appropriately, the Mexican Grizzly was once here in Arizona, because this land actually was Mexico’s before the Americans declared war to steal the land that would become California, Nevada, and Utah, most of New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado, parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming in the 1840s-50s in what General (and later US President) Ulysses S. Grant called “the most unjust war ever undertaken by a stronger nation against a weaker one.” So perhaps it would be called now the Arizonian Grizzly, if it still existed.

NeverCrew “El oso plateado and the machine” Phoenix, AZ (photo courtesy of NeverCrew)

NeverCrew “El oso plateado and the machine” Phoenix, AZ (photo courtesy of NeverCrew)

An indoor mural by NeverCrew in connection with “El oso plateado and the machine” Phoenix, AZ (photo courtesy of NeverCrew)

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BSA Special Feature: “Offset” by Nevercrew at Urvanity in Madrid

BSA Special Feature: NeverCrew – “Celsius”

Nevercrew. “Cluster” Novara, Italy. November, 2018. (photo © Nevercrew)

Nevercrew. “Cluster” Novara, Italy. November, 2018. (photo © Nevercrew)

Nevercrew. “Cluster” Novara, Italy. November, 2018. (photo © Nevercrew)

Nevercrew. “Cluster” Novara, Italy. November, 2018. (photo © Nevercrew)

Nevercrew. “Cluster” Novara, Italy. November, 2018. (photo © Nevercrew)

Nevercrew. “Cluster” Novara, Italy. November, 2018. (photo © Nevercrew)

Nevercrew. “Cluster” Novara, Italy. November, 2018. (photo © Nevercrew)

“Disposing machine n°2”

Nevercrew. “Disposing machine n°2”. Seawalls Tairāwhiti project by PangeaSeed Foundation. Gisborne, New Zeland. (photo courtesy of Nevercrew)

Nevercrew. “Disposing machine n°2”. Seawalls Tairāwhiti project by PangeaSeed Foundation. Gisborne, New Zeland. (photo courtesy of Nevercrew)

Nevercrew. “Disposing machine n°2”. Seawalls Tairāwhiti project by PangeaSeed Foundation. Gisborne, New Zeland. (photo courtesy of Nevercrew)

Nevercrew. “Disposing machine n°2”. Seawalls Tairāwhiti project by PangeaSeed Foundation. Gisborne, New Zeland. (photo courtesy of Nevercrew)

Nevercrew. “Disposing machine n°2”. Seawalls Tairāwhiti project by PangeaSeed Foundation. Gisborne, New Zeland. (photo courtesy of Nevercrew)

Nevercrew. “Disposing machine n°2”. Seawalls Tairāwhiti project by PangeaSeed Foundation. Gisborne, New Zeland. (photo courtesy of Nevercrew)

Nevercrew. “Home ground” for Street Art Festival Chur. Chur, Switzerland. June 2018. (photo © Nevercrew)

Nevercrew. “Home ground” for Street Art Festival Chur. Chur, Switzerland. June 2018. (photo © Nevercrew)

Nevercrew. “Home ground” for Street Art Festival Chur. Chur, Switzerland. June 2018. (photo © Nevercrew)

Nevercrew. “Home ground” for Street Art Festival Chur. Chur, Switzerland. June 2018. (photo © Nevercrew)

Nevercrew. “Reification”. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, May 2018. (photo © Nevercrew)

Nevercrew. “Reification”. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, May 2018. (photo © Nevercrew)

Nevercrew. “Reification”. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, May 2018. (photo © Nevercrew)

Nevercrew. “Reification”. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, May 2018. (photo © Nevercrew)

Nevercrew. “Reification”. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, May 2018. (photo © Nevercrew)

NeverCrew “El oso plateado and the machine” Phoenix, AZ (photo courtesy of NeverCrew)

NeverCrew “El oso plateado and the machine” Phoenix, AZ (photo courtesy of NeverCrew)

NeverCrew “El oso plateado and the machine” Phoenix, AZ (photo courtesy of NeverCrew)

NeverCrew “El oso plateado and the machine” Phoenix, AZ (photo courtesy of NeverCrew)

NeverCrew “El oso plateado and the machine” Phoenix, AZ (photo courtesy of NeverCrew)

NeverCrew “El oso plateado and the machine” Phoenix, AZ (photo courtesy of NeverCrew)

NeverCrew “El oso plateado and the machine” Phoenix, AZ (photo courtesy of NeverCrew)

NeverCrew “El oso plateado and the machine” Phoenix, AZ (photo courtesy of NeverCrew)

NeverCrew “El oso plateado and the machine” Phoenix, AZ (photo courtesy of NeverCrew)

An indoor mural by NeverCrew in connection with “El oso plateado and the machine” Phoenix, AZ (photo courtesy of NeverCrew)

An indoor mural by NeverCrew in connection with “El oso plateado and the machine” Phoenix, AZ (photo courtesy of NeverCrew)

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