Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening :
1. From Pakistan: The Writing on the Wall
2. “Wrong Weight” Sculpture by Górnicki and Chazme in Łódź
3. CUMA PROJECT: Walking with the Lenca. Stinkfish, Mazatl and Kill Joy
4. ONCE in Barcelona for 12 + 1 Project
BSA Special Feature: From Pakistan: The Writing on the Wall
Deconstructing the psyche of Karachi, through the graffiti on its walls…
The capital of the Pakistani province of Sindh, Karachi is the site of an active ongoing political and social Street Art/graffiti scene. Not typically popping up in conversations of Street Art in so-called western countries of Europe and the US, this scene has a character that you would not necessarily recognize, until you completely recognize it.
Here the battle is for your attention, usually reserved exclusively for political parties and, of course, advertising messages that give a particularly bent view of the world. This documentary looks at the ways artists are using public space and interviews them about their practice, and we find that the same approach to engaging the passerby exists here as well:
“I feel like if you are going to critique power or power structures it is kind of pointless to do it in the gallery… there is something about situating your art in a place that gives it greater meaning, a wider audience, more interactivity while making it .”
“I also wanted to see how a woman’s body would react in a space that is generally more dominated by the male.”
“The works present the state of a nation that is aware of it’s problem but not the solution.”
“Looking at advertisements, one finds interesting stories emerging from the layers of these overlapping messages.”
“Wrong Weight” Sculpture by Górnicki and Chazme in Łódź
You may have seen our posting on this a short time ago : Times of Tumult Personified in Sculpture by Tomasz Górnicki and Chazme
“Wrong weight”, by sculptors Tomasz Górnicki and Chazme is the sixth in a series of public works around Łódź organized by UNIQA Art Łódź project with Łódź Events Centre. A surprisingly 3-dimensional outgrowth of a successful multi-wall mural program that has brought much attention to the city, you may say that somehow these sculptures contain within them the seeds of Street Art and its discontents.
Title: “wrong weight”
Artists: Tomasz Górnicki | Chazme
Address: Station Boat Station (from al. Family Poznań)
Project: Uniqa art boat
Curator: Michał Bieżyński
Organizer: Łódzkie Centrum Wydarzeń
CUMA PROJECT: Walking with the Lenca. Stinkfish, Mazatl and Kill Joy
CUMA Project is an independent Street Art project whose aim is to support popular and indigenous organizations/cultures of Latin America. “In April and May 2016, the street artists Stinkfish, Mazatl and Kill Joy visited the Lenca indigenous communities in the departments of Intibucà and San Francisco Lempira in Honduras”
Once for 12 + 1 / Contorno Urbano in Barcelona
“ONCE” Deconstructs and Reconstructs His Tag for 12 + 1 Project In Barcelona was how we described this project in June.
“Influenced by Bauhaus and Russian propaganda posters during the revolution, Catalonia born ONCE says he doesn’t really think that he is using abstract methods of manipulating his text into something unrecognizable. “Although for the general public,” he says, “these are only geometric shapes and they are more likely to think that I am painting with abstraction.” His control of aspects of fine art lettercraft reflects some of that heralded industrial society that was lauded a hundred years ago and it is somehow quite modern as well.”