All posts tagged: Nychos

BSA Images Of The Week: 10.30.16

October 30, 2016 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

We haven’t had such a frightening Halloween in years! – and we know we speak for many readers as well while we all look at the monstrous tabloid TV parade that is scaring the electorate. Boo!

Luckily we found some treats on the street! And a few tricks, but those are for our paid site, wink wink.

So here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Bifido, Buff Monster, City Kitty, Dee Dee, Disto, Droid, Flood, Myth, Nychos, R2, REVS, RODA, Rusk, See True Fame, Sipros, Smells, Smith, Sweet Toof, and Texas.

Our top image: City Kitty is ready for Halloween(photo © Jaime Rojo)

Buff Monster’s Mister Melty playing Narcissus with great aplomb. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Buff Monster for Mana Urban Arts Project in Jersey City, NJ. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

REVS and friends. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Roda . Droid . R2 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

RUSK . DROID (photo © Jaime Rojo)

SMELLS (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Myth (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dee Dee (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nychos for Mana Urban Arts Project in Jersey City, NJ. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

See True Fame in Long Island City, Queens. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The more times change, the more they stay exactly the same. Unidentified Artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bifido has a new work in Dugenta, Italy that alludes to the harsh living conditions for some that creates wealth for certain industries. The name of the work borrows from the Beatles song: “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” (photo © Bifido)

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Sipros gives a ride to Stan for Mana Urban Arts Projects in Jersey City, NJ. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Texas. Disto (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Disto. Gane (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified Artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sweet Toof (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Flood (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified Artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Hudson River, NYC. October 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nychos “Battlecat” and Lauren YZ “Night Flight” in Providence

August 20, 2016 Artists

Exclusive shots today for you from Nychos and Lauren Ys in with his “Battlecat” and her “Night Flight” in Providence, Rhode Island. With styles that are complimentarily in some of their fantasy based origins, you can discern differences in personal style. As you might guess, these two artists have also collaborated successfully on pieces, most recently in Brooklyn a couple of months ago.

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Nychos “Battlecat” for The Avenue Concept in conjunction with Inoperable Gallery. Providence, RI. July 2016. (Photo © Jharyd Harrera)

For these pieces that were curated by their hosts from Inoperable Gallery, the two artists were thinking about species of animals that are disappearing due to climate change and man-made threats to their existence. Nicholas Platzer, who curated for the project, tells us that the news on television and the Internet during the days they were painting these was full of talk about racism, violence, division – but that’s not what he was feeling.

Neither were local kids. “The community around us was welcoming, excited, positive, and enamored with the murals. What started as a project to raise awareness for endangered species became more about the unification of people through art and the sustainability of mankind,” says Nicholas.

Nychos “Battlecat” for The Avenue Concept in conjunction with Inoperable Gallery. Providence, RI. July 2016. (Photo © Jharyd Harrera)

Nychos “Battlecat” for The Avenue Concept in conjunction with Inoperable Gallery. Providence, RI. July 2016. (Photo © Ben Jacobsen)

Lauren YS “Night Flight” for The Avenue Concept in conjunction with Inoperable Gallery. Providence, RI. July 2016. (Photo © Jharyd Harrera)

Lauren YS “Night Flight” for The Avenue Concept in conjunction with Inoperable Gallery. Providence, RI. July 2016. (Photo © Ben Jacobsen)

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BSA Film Friday: 08.19.16

August 19, 2016 Artists

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

Now screening :

1. 5 Minutes with Plotbot Ken via ARTE Creative
2. Aerosoul – NYC by Kris Kim
3. Nychos at The Ice House in Jersey City.
4. “Europe” by BEZT (ETAM Cru) in Mannheim

BSA Special Feature: 5 Minutes with Plotbot Ken via ARTE Creative

“I don’t want people to think my images are cool or beautiful. I want to encourage them to think,” says Plotbot Ken in this introduction to the German stencil artist and his work.

The darker themes of war and environmental poisoning occur often in his hand-cut aerosoled works on the street, as well as singular images that also evoke the ghosts inside industrial ruins made with brushes and pens. He says that his work processes the disasters we have created and continue to create because “Doomsday is already here.”

Aerosoul – NYC by Kris Kim

Queens is home to Kris Kim, who spends a lot of time BMX riding and sees a lot of graffiti and Street Art in his neighborhood. He just edited together a video that he shot this past winter and he really captures a sense of poetry and discovery in his own urban environs. “Honestly I’m not a writer but it is something I have a lot of respect for – I get the whole outsider art aspect of it all and definitely enjoy it from a viewer’s perspective,” he tells us.

Nychos at The Ice House in Jersey City.

Nychos put a big heavy metal exclamation point on his New York invasion this summer by hopping the river into Jersey. For the Austrian muralist the experience is a fully immersive performance over a hot week while traffic backs up on its way into the tunnel leading to Manhattan, a gritty urban scene without redemption. His mixing of science and fantasy and dark drama is truer to life than the billboards that drivers run into along this route, and is delivered with total heart and mind engaged.

Shout out to the folks at Mana Contemporary and Jonathan Levine for making this possible.

“Europe” by BEZT (ETAM Cru)

A quick view of Polish illustrative muralist BEZT from the ETAM Cru on his own in Mannheim, Germany creating a piece he calls “Europe”.

Nychos Slays in New York : IKONS Revealed as Never Before

June 29, 2016 Artists, Interview

“Scientists, psychologists, surgeons…in the end we’re all driven by a similar curiosity.”

This month has been a whirlwind in New York for Austrian Street Artist /fine artist /illustrator named Nychos and he’s made quite the iconic impression. Anchored by a show that opened last weekend of canvasses and illustrations at Jonathan Levine Gallery in Chelsea named “IKON” and assisted by a co-branded sculptural event with the Vienna Tourist Board, the surreal dissectionist didn’t rest there.

In the weeks leading up to and after these events he also managed to hit a number of walls in Coney Island, Bushwick, and Jersey City…oh and he knocked out a box truck as well.

Nychos. Coney Art Walls 2016. Coney Island. Brooklyn, NY. June 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

In addition to pulling out an astounding sculpture of Sigmund Freud looming over a couch that drew a crowd to the foot of the (also iconic) Flatiron Building at 23rd and 6th, the afterparty and reception featured Dominic Freud, the great grandson of the founder of psychoanalysis, who surmised that if he were alive today he would definitely have wanted to put Nychos on his couch.

Indeed the you may wonder about the mind of this sharp-knifed artist who has decided to diverge from the realm of slicing open animals and fantastic creatures to taking apart cultural and pop-cultural icons for his fascinating painted science experiments.

Nychos. Coney Art Walls 2016. Coney Island. Brooklyn, NY. June 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

With a free hand on the can and rarely a sketch, and an athletic kineticism that verges on dance, this artist is fully in his zone, at times delivering what one important art world figure described to us as a “virtuoso” performance, even when he’s de-boning Ronald McDonald. Among his new subjects on walls and canvas are included such recognizable figures as Batman, Darth Vader, Mickey Mouse, Elvis, Marilyn, Motörhead’s Lemmy, and the Statue of Liberty.

Yes, it is grotesque, and yes, some of these subjects were actual people. Additionally, there is a comical dark side in it’s glossy finish and stylized splash, with perhaps a greater critique of consumerist entertainment culture and more than a touch of sadism. This is the pretty gore that is familiar to an un-shockable generation raised by vampires. You know who you are.

Nychos. Coney Art Walls 2016. Coney Island. Brooklyn, NY. June 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

We asked the celebritic internist to talk about his work and his prodigious program across NYC and he gave us an inside look at the heart and mind of Nychos.

Brooklyn Street Art: You like to open things up and look inside. Would you consider yourself more of a scientist or psychologist?
Nychos: I consider myself an artist. But yeah, the question is justified. Scientists, psychologists, surgeons…in the end we’re all driven by a similar curiosity.

Nychos in collaboration with the artist Lauren YS for The Bushwick Collective. Brooklyn, NY. June 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: Usually you depict primarily factual arrangements of organs and systems – but you also include a huge amount of movement and activity and emotion! How do you feel? How does a viewer feel?
Nychos: People who see me paint often tell me that it’s like watching an entire performance, so you could say the movement is not only in the piece or only me, it’s a synergy of both. I feel like the viewer can recognize these (e)motions in the finished piece as well.

Brooklyn Street Art: Is this work intellectual or emotional? Or both?
Nychos: Both. In my eyes, a creative process always includes intellectual and emotional content. Both aspects are fuelling each other. At least that’s what I see in my work.

Nychos in collaboration with the artist Lauren YS for The Bushwick Collective. Brooklyn, NY. June 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: We associate your work with the animal kingdom, but you are slicing Sigmund Freud open here in New York – What will we all be studying?
Nychos: I’d suggest you tell me afterwards. I can only say that “Dissection of Sigmund Freud” and my exhibition “IKON” at Jonathan Levine Gallery are a good way to announce that I’m going to set a focus on human anatomy in the future.

Brooklyn Street Art: Does Ronald McDonald actually eat his own food or is mostly whole grains and salads and fresh wheat-grass juice.
Nychos: Good question. I’m gonna ask him when I see him next time.

Brooklyn Street Art: OneTeas, Ron English and Banksy have all bashed McDonalds a number of times with their work – why is that brand so hateable?
Nychos: Well, I’d say McDonalds is just the embodiment of all these fast food chains, so the criticism does not only refer to this specific brand, but to all of them. McDonalds just made a damn good job with burning this weird clown into our brains and with it the bitter taste of today’s dining culture.

Nychos. A drone surveying the progress of the mural at The Bushwick Collective. Brooklyn, NY. June 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nychos. The Bushwick Collective. Brooklyn, NY. June 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nychos. “Dissection of Sigmund Freud”. Vienna Therapy. Manhattan, NY. June 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nychos. “Dissection of Sigmund Freud”. Pictured here with Jonathan LeVine. Vienna Therapy. Manhattan, NY. June 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nychos. “Dissection of Sigmund Freud”. Vienna Therapy. Manhattan, NY. June 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nychos. “IKON”. Jonathan LeVine Galler. Manhattan, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nychos for Green Villain. Jersey City, NJ. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nychos IKON is currently on view at the Jonathan LeVine Gallery in Manhattan. Click HERE for more details.

BSA Images Of The Week 06.19.16

June 19, 2016 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

No we’re not worried about Donald Trump falling from grace, as in the new piece by Ron English leading the show this week. That’s not the point, people. It’s that we have fallen so far that a guy like this can get so close to the White House.

By the way, Nychos is killing it in New York right now. Pieces in Coney Island, Bushwick, a truck side, a Freud sculpture at the Flat Iron, a new show at Jonathan Levine this week, a couple other walls planned including one at MANA. He’s very impressive in technique and work ethic. A shout out to the fellas who are capturing the action at Chop’em Down films. Top notch!

Meanwhile, we have a LOT of summer to enjoy. Get going!!!

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring 18ism, AskewOne, Balu, CDRE, Dabs & Myla, GIZ, KAS, City Kitty, Myth, Nekst, Nychos, OG23, Rime MSK, Ron English, and Vik.

Our top image: Ron English brings Donald Trump as Humpty Dumpty on a wall – in collaboration with The Bushwick Collective and Mana Urban Art Projects. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Giz and Bart kick it with the Smurf next door for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dabs & Myla for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Vik for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

AskewOne MSK for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

RIME MSK for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

OG23 for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

18ism for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Indelible Funk for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

AskewOne. Nekst tribute for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Myth (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nychos “Translucent Heart Attack” for The Bushwick Collective and Mana Urban Art Projects. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nychos (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nychos. Dissection Of Sigmund Freud Flatiron Plaza. NYC. Vienna Therapy. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kitty City with Balu (photo © Jaime Rojo)

CDRE (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kas. Brussels, Belgium. June 2016. (photo © KAS)

Untitled. Manhattan. June 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Artists Bring 22 New Murals to “Coney Art Walls 2016”

June 15, 2016 Artists

Just in time for this weekend’s Mermaid Parade, London’s D*Face is finishing up “Live Fast Die Young,” his beauty-and-the-zombie comic couple sipping an ice cream float at the soda counter. Austrian surrealist slicer Nychos has completed his dissection of a Ronald McDonald-ish character without a sketch; running, jumping, nearly flying through the air with aerosol in hand, flinging the spent cans over his shoulder blindly to skitter across the pavement. Baltimore-based freeform anthropologist Gaia is cavorting with passersby who want to take cellphone selfies in front of his painted wall that depicts exactly that; selfies taken in Coney Island.

This is a modern version of the multi-mirror funhouse in mural form, and Coney Art Walls is bringing it again.

Nychos. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

22 new murals on standing slabs of concrete join a dozen or so that were retained from last summer to present an eclectic and savory selection from the old-school and the new. When it comes to art in the streets, a salty luncheonette of city-style treats is on a large public platter these days, with names like graffiti, street art, urban art, installation art, public art, fine art, even contemporary art. For some of those hapless gatekeepers of any of these respective categories, this show in this location presents degrees of discomfort and anger as many subcultural roots are now brought into the light in tandem with one another in a public display – funded by a real estate firm. For the artists and majority of fans, however, the trend is more toward delight and gratitude.

Nychos. The London Police photo bomb. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

While you are unpacking that, consider that lead curator Jeffrey Deitch has often proved very adept at plumbing the aesthetic margins of our culture while rearranging and intermingling the parties, helping the viewer to appreciate their differences. This outdoor exhibit co-curated with Joseph Sitt provides a venue for a wide audience to contemplate the range of expression that New York streets have had over the last few decades, including a few artists who are trying this manner of expression for the first time.

As the Thunderbolt, Steeplechase, Cyclone and Wonder Wheel spin and swerve nearby and overhead, sending screams and personal projectiles into the ocean breeze, you have this paved lot full of paintings to peruse, lemonade in one hand and the cotton-candy-sticky hand of a sunscreen-slathered child in the other. Here you’ll see a large two-walled corner smashed with Coney Island themes by Bronx graffiti masters Tats Cru (Bio, BG183, and Nicer), a selection of hand-drawn wheat pasted portraits of Coney Island youth by Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, and 4 full-form sculptures by John Ahearn creating a modernist view of divers on the beach .

Nychos. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tooling elsewhere through the loose labyrinth you come upon a monochromatic cryptically patterned tribute to Brooklyn-born Beastie Boys vocalist Adam “MCA” Yauch by Brooklyn tagger/train writer/artist Haze and a seemingly lighthearted abstractly collaged wall of mermaids by fine artist Nina Chanel Abney, whose work is currently on the cover of Juxtapoz. There is also a spectacular underwater-themed symmetrical fantasy topped by pylons bearing the likenesses of characters from “The Warriors” film by artist duo The London Police, and a stenciled “Last Supper” featuring heads of world currency playing the disciples and George Washington as Jesus sprayed across the face of a huge dollar bill by Iranian brothers Icy & Sot.

Pose. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

We often travel streets and neglected spaces in cities looking for signs of freewill artistic expression and often the creative spirit surprises us as it can be expressed in so many ways with emotion, agenda, and idiosyncratic point of view. It may be the plurality of voices one experiences surfing the Internet or the multi-cultural nature of living in New York with a continuous river of fresh arrivals mixing in with established and old-timers every day, but one comes to expect this variety of viewpoints and rather naturally creates accommodation for inclusion that celebrates without negating – and in many ways Coney Art Walls does that as well.

Oppositional viewpoints are present if you look: There are coded messages and obvious ones, critiques of corporate hegemony, issues of race, commentary on police relations, sexuality, religion, capitalism, community, the languages of advertising, movies, music, entertainment, local history, and examination of roles and power structures.

John Ahearn. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

When tooling around this collection, you may wonder what, then, are the commonalities of this survey. Certainly there are the recurring references to Coney Island lore and aspects of performance and flimflam, oddity, fantasy, even the erotic. Naturally, there are elements of natural wonder as well, perhaps expected with the proximity to the beach and the ocean and the history of this place as a vacation getaway.

Aside from this, the connective tissue is what we frequently identify as what is distinctly New York – the plurality of voices. Arguing, making fun, praising, preening, bragging, lambasting, mocking, singing. Despite the continuous attempts by others to divide us, we’re strangely (very strangely), beautifully united.

Jeffery Deitch with John Ahearn. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

John Ahearn. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Icy & Sot. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Gaia. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“11 Instagram Posts”, by Gaia. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Gaia. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Haze. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

D*Face. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Marie Roberts has multi-generational roots here and her work makes you stop and study it. She has painted many visions and views around the neighborhood, and is considered the artist-in-residence. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Marie Roberts. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The London Police. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

AIKO. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

AIKO. Side A. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Originally from Japan, Brooklyn’s AIKO has a double sided stencil sonnet to the romance of the sea. With “Tale of the Dragon King and Mermaids in Water Castle” Aiko tells a new version of Urashima Tarō, an old Japanese legend about a fisherman who rescues a turtle and is rewarded for this with a visit to Ryūgū-jō, the palace of Ryūjin. Says Aiko, “This piece speaks to my and all women’s fantasies; chilling hard super sexy in the beautiful ocean with friendly dragon who is super powerful and a smart guy – they are about going to water castle having good time.”

AIKO. Side B. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Daze. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nina Chanel Abney. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mister Cartoon. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Steve ESPO Powers. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jessica Diamond. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tristan Eaton. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tatiana Fazlalizadeh. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tatiana Fazlalizadeh photographing her subjects. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tatiana Fazlalizadeh. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Crash. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BIO – Tats Crew. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

NICER – Tats Crew. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BG183 – Tats Crew. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tats Crew. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sam Vernon. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Timothy Curtis. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Martha Cooper. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Coney Art Walls
2016 New Artists: Nina Chanel Abney, John Ahearn, Timothy Curtis, D*Face, Jessica Diamond, Tristan Eaton, Gaia, Eric Haze, Icy & Sot, London Police, Nychos, Pose, Stephen Powers, Tats Cru, and Sam Vernon. Returning artists who created new works: Lady Aiko, Mister Cartoon, Crash, Daze, Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, and Marie Roberts. 2015 Murals on display: by Buff Monster, Eine, Ron English, How & Nosm, IRAK, Kashink, Lady Pink, Miss Van, RETNA, eL Seed and Sheryo & Yok. There are also three community walls.

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This article is also published on The Huffington Post

The Bushwick Collective Turns 5

June 11, 2016 Artists

BSA has been promoting and supporting The Bushwick Collective and the artists who paint there from the very beginning.

Before The New York Times. Before Time Out. Before The Daily News and many other news or culture outlets. Before there were any videos of Joe Ficalora telling his story. Before Social Media turned every private act into an object for mass consumption. Before the street art tours. Before Street Art was a cottage industry in our borough.

Case MaClaim (photo © Jaime Rojo)

As we celebrate five years of Bushwick Collective we have a question for you: Do you remember it’s original name before he changed it to Bushwick Collective? Joe contacted us out of the blue one day to ask us to curate some walls with him and to help him contact some artists and we immediately sensed a determination in Mr. Ficalora that was stellar. However, we never could have envisioned the huge daily festival it has become or how many people would celebrate or malign it.

Case MaClaim (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bushwick Open Studios was already in full effect by that time – another artists’ effort we were among the first to support – and Manhattan art fans were beginning to make the trek a little further out on the L train to Bushwick now that Williamsburg had been clobbered by consumers by the late 2000s.

The first Bushwick Collective party had a DJ and 10 muralists. Jim Avignon, KLUB 7, and Gabriel Spector among them. Unofficially included was the huge “return” of COST, who slammed an entire defunct garage shop with posters and paint – a site that he often returned to in the months that followed to revise and expand.

Case MaClaim (photo © Jaime Rojo)

It’s been a rollicking and sometimes rocky ride with the Collective, with mostly the voices of fans and few detractors, including silly art-school gentrifiers who bemoaned the gentrification that these murals brought to the neighborhood. Also local graff writers felt disrespected or overlooked by what they perceived as an invasion, and you can’t blame them for feeling that way.

Mostly, it has been a celebration of the creative spirit in these twenty-teens in Brooklyn and we all know that this too is a temporary era, as New York is continually reinventing itself. Enjoy these murals smacked cheek-by-jowl for block after block by an international train of talents running through Bushwick today, because they are here for you to enjoy in this moment. Like David Bowie wisely told us, “These are the golden years.”

Nychos. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nychos (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Joe Iurato and Logan Hicks collaboration. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Li-Hill (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Celso (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Don Rimx (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sipros. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sipros (photo © Jaime Rojo)

D*Face (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Damien Mitchell (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Atomik (photo © Jaime Rojo)

FKDL (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dasic (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BG183 . Tats Crew (photo © Jaime Rojo)

NICER . DAZE . BIO . Tats Crew (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Film Friday: 05.27.16

May 27, 2016 Artists

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

Now screening :

1. I Don’t Expect To Be A Mother, But I Don’t Expect To Die Alone: Olek and Michelle P. Dodson:
2. The Tale of Hillbelly
3. Nychos: Vienna Therapy
4. PangeaSeed’s Sea Walls: Murals For Oceans – New Zealand 2016

BSA Special Feature: Olek and Michelle P. Dodson: I Don’t Expect To Be A Mother, But I Don’t Expect To Die Alone

A walk-through of last years’ installation in the basement of the former Williamsburg Savings Bank by Olek and Michele P. Dodson incorporating crochet and projection mapping. Organized by Santiago Rumney Guggenheim the show was a collection of some of his favorites, including Swoon, Aiko, and light artist Olivia Steele, the immersive room that Olek and Dodson created caught your attention because of its state of flux.

Light projections featured the unraveling of crochet pieces projected on walls, in frames, across of mini Judy Chicago-ish triangle shaped dinner table, and mannequins suspended from the ceiling wrapped in Olek bodysuits. The installation seemed to capture and release the viewer quickly, giving a sense of impermanence. For that matter the whole inaugural show by what was presented as a new gallery appeared to disappear quickly as well. But for that moment, just when you are sure you were getting it and ready to move on, beauty would take over, patterns overwhelming.

So it’s good to look at this again, albeit without sound, and wonder when that thread will be picked up again.

The Tale of Hillbelly

We leave the city street to a go to the wide open country for this one.

The simplest of stories are our oldest, passed down through folklore and standing as archetypes. Here in a live/animated tale we see a vision of idealized nature and rites of spring with a real orchestra, this yoga performing hillbilly communes with nature and is overcome by it in a foxy manner. Of course it is a metaphor that may be interpreted by myriad philosophers, and we think it looks a lot like this moment.

Created by Darren Rabinovitch with a score by Jeremy Harris.

Nychos: Vienna Therapy.

A brief teaser of an upcoming show by Nychos in New York. He’ll be splitting Freud wide open in public at the Flatiron Plaza June 16th.

Also there’s the June 25th Jonathan Levine opening that will dissect more ICONS, and you may even see a new wall or two soon by this Austrian urban illustrator.

PangeaSeed’s Sea Walls: Murals For Oceans – New Zealand 2016

“Within the span of five days, 28 large-scale, thought-provoking public murals were realized throughout the Ahuriri and Napier area. Each piece sheds light on New Zealand’s pressing marine environmental issues such as shark finning, overfishing, coastal development, climate change, and endangered marine life conservation, furthering PangeaSeed Foundation’s ARTivism (Art + Activism) initiative.”

BSA Film Friday: 05.13.16

May 13, 2016 Artists

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

Now screening :

1. Jorge Rodriguez Gerarda: Changing The Face Of Barcelona
2. Nychos X Udon Lords Crew in Taiwan
3. ERICAILCANE / Mexico City
4. Pref ID

BSA Special Feature: Jorge Rodriguez Gerarda: Changing The Face Of Barcelona

“It’s not necessarily street art and its not necessarily the known directions of contemporary art,” says Jorge Rodriguez Gerarda as he describes his mural paintings of a woman he photographed. His critical eye toward the way images and messages are marketed to us by advertisers is not new, he says, having devised ways to culture-jam and deface ads in the public space in New York in the past. Now he has developed a voice that in praise of the everyday person and is giving it volume on this vast façade in Barcelona.

Nychos X Udon Lords Crew in Taiwan

Building and pumping adrenaline is the cohesive device that ties together these images of people in action and the audio outtakes from adventure films, evangelists, propaganda and advertising slogans. Nychos loves to rip the mortal coil open for you to examine its contents and his metaphor is the innards of animals. This vicious/comedic somewhat exploding dragon is in itself a symbol to generations of people and by juxtaposing it with text based graffiti lettering and these intercut messages you know he is examining the beast from as many angles as possible. Director Cory Ring captures this quote in Taiwan: “But what we know is art is not a crime. The crime is the state of mind” to end the brief but effective visual and aural onslaught.

ERICAILCANE / Mexico City

Rapid drums and bass and reggae keep the painters animated for the creation of “The Rabbit & the Fox”, a new mural by the Italian Street Artist Ericailcane in Mexico City.

Images and editing by Alice Bettolo.

Pref ID

Northwest London’s Pref takes us into his studio and onto walls in a test of how he interprets words thrown to him freestyle. His overlapping word and letter styling is compelling and his point of view is clear. But hang in there for the paper-cut collages!

BSA Film Friday: 04.15.16

April 15, 2016 Artists

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

Now screening :

1. Carlos Cruz-Diez & Spectra by Selina Miles
2. Djalouz – Petites Chroniques Urbaine
3. Between The Lines With RISK
4. Nychos x Traktor Wien

BSA Special Feature: Carlos Cruz-Diaz & Spectra by Selina Miles

Optical art, public experimentation, scientific research, kinetic engineering have all contributed to the half century of study by artist Carlos Cruz-Diez. He’s “been doing street art longer than most people have been alive,” says the narrator.

Now 92, based in Panama, he continues to work in-studio with geometric abstraction putting to the test color and its measuring its effects on us and our built environment. A current generation of street artists are invited in studio to work with their hands, to conceptualize visually and oversee production of their work in material and form. The initial contemplation evolves into a way of thinking and a way of imagining the work and the artists place in relation to public space that transcends image making and creates a different dialogue.

Hearing Mr. Diez compare this moment of convergence in technology, communications, and creativity to the 1960s is undoubtedly an inspiring spark to the generation that will continue forward. Now that the artists have grasped the material world, they delve into the virtual. Like many artists and creators who are working with the newest tools of virtual reality, this collection of street artists are still experimenting – all the time realizing how appreciation is rooted in the perceptual abilities rather than the materiality. One of the speakers talks about being at the starting line, but in many ways it is clear that race already has already begun.

Djalouz – Petites Chroniques Urbaine

Parisian graphic designer turned graffiti artist Djalouz has a unique volumetric approach to his wildstyle shards that envelope the city’s remaining phonebooths. He explains how he fell in love with a medium of expression that he is committed to while he’s sketching out a Winnie the Pooh character. Stay a little longer and see the wildness of his expressive 3D forms that crawl across every surface, including the ground.

Between The Lines With RISK

Risk talks about his evolution from a kid in New Orleans sketching in his notebook at school to getting up with a crew in LA, painting all over public space and property to gain a higher profile and retain the thrill of hit-and-run, and some highlights of his professional career. In route from illegal to legal he developed a reverence for color, form, and technical experimentation and aspirations for museum quality work and large scale public sculpture. Just don’t tag his stuff please.

Nychos x Traktor Wien

A quick trailer chock full of power chords for a mural in the office space of an ad agency by Nychos.

BSA Film Friday: 01.08.16

January 8, 2016 Artists

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

Now screening :

1. Faith47, No Standing Anytime
2. Graveyard For The Forgotten: Sonny
3. Andreco: Climate 01 in Paris
4. LODZ Murals in 2015

BSA Special Feature: Faith47, No Standing Anytime

A gorgeously ambient tribute to New York through the eyes of a visitor who takes some alternate routes through the city along with the more obvious ones to capture vignettes of mundanity and of wonder. Rowan Pybus shoots this city poetry as a series of visual stanzas stacked unevenly, accompanied by the occasional Faith47 mural (she has accumulated a few in NYC now) as well as the wistful sound recordings of lemurs by Alexia Webster that melt into the gentle audio cacophony of the street as designed by Jonathan Arnold. The combined passages allow you to slow down and contemplate the whirring city and a handful of its moments as sweet parenthesis in this run-on sentence called New York. Okay, that’s enough, move along now, no standing.

Graveyard For The Forgotten: Sonny

Sonny may be feeling likewise disjointed or haunted in the detritus of this hulking flying machine, but rather strikes a pose as hoodlum instead. As he blankets the fuselage in black you wonder how he will resolve the matter.

Andreco: Climate 01 in Paris

A brief look at the new mural by Andreco in Paris, which he says is meant to be a commentary on the consequences of Climate Change and the alteration of the Earth’s natural cycles.

Location: Richomme School, Goutte d’or, 18e, Paris

LODZ Murals in 2015

A combination of stop-action and drone fly-bys gives this latest collection of murals from LODZ a modern treatment.

BSA Film Friday: 10.30.15

October 30, 2015 Artists

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

Now screening :

1. NYCHOS: Translucent Fear
2. Jamel Shabazz, Street Photographer
3. VHILS: Incision
4. Pichi & Avo for “No Limit” Boras

BSA Special Feature: NYCHOS: Translucent Fear

Nychos sees through the animal world with a fantastical and splendid x-ray vision, his huge murals peeling back layers of skin and muscle and veins and organs using spray cans as his knife. Here in the studio he prepares canvasses using the same precision, this time with the brush and airbrush as scalpel, handle, blade. Employing a new concept, many of his animals are clear for you to see in their entirety beneath a clear shell. The show show now running at Zurich’s Kolly Gallery is called Translucent Fear, and the video appropriate for this Halloween season wouldn’t you agree?

Jamel Shabazz, Street Photographer

Yeah its a trailer. Yeah it’s Jamel Shabazz. That’s all we need to know. Where’s Brooklyn at?

VHILS: Incision

“The best poems ever written destroyed a white sheet of paper,” says the ever serious philosopher VHILS as he schools us on his technique of creation through destruction. The process yields beauty, but at what cost, he asks – particularly when gauging the successes of the industrialized world and the losses of indigenous customs and ways of life. A sorrowful look at an impressive show called, “Incision”

Pichi & Avo for “No Limit” Boras

Pichi & Avo share this new timelapse of the piece they did at Boras “No Limit” in Sweden last month. You can read more about it here:

Borås “No Limit” 2015: Graffiti Tags, Murals, Greco-Roman Antiquities

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