All posts tagged: racism

“I Can’t Breathe!”: Answering the Call with Art on the Streets / Dispatch From Isolation # 71

“I Can’t Breathe!”: Answering the Call with Art on the Streets / Dispatch From Isolation # 71

June 1, 2020

The murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis on Monday, the murder of Ahmaud Arbery while jogging in Georgia in February, the racist threats and intimidation toward Christian Cooper over the Memorial Day Holiday while he was merely “birding” in Central Park in New York City, Breonna Taylor shot, unarmed in her apartment in March in Louisville; These are the recent examples, but there are more, thousands more…

Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Street artists and graffiti writers around the world are responding visually to current events with new works on the street. Sometimes it is a full-blown community mural or a hand-posted sign. Other times it is the scrawl of a vandal in text – a visual equivalent to a scream in the night. When it comes to issues of race and identity, many so-called western societies are now adding a deliberate massive social and economic dislocation to the cauldron; one where nearly the whole of the middle class is sliding into serfdom – and the police are acting like a military.  

Eme Freethinker did this mural of George Floyd in Berlin (Picture Alliance/Nurphoto/© O. Messinger)
Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A street artist from one of the centers of this national uprising who goes by the name HOT TEA tells us about a project he just took to the streets.

“I had to do something for George, being that I live in Minneapolis and am so fed up with police harassment and injustice,” he says. We projected his image on very iconic Minneapolis structures. The feedback while they were being projected was overwhelmingly positive and everyone wanted to help. We need to stick together and make sure that change starts to finally happen.”

Hot Tea. Minneapolis. (photo © Hot Tea)
Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Syrian artists Aziz Asmar and Anis Hamdoun created this mural depicting George Floyd, in the town of Binnish in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province on June 1, 2020. (Photo by OMAR HAJ KADOUR / AFP)
Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Hot Tea. Minneapolis. (photo © Hot Tea)
Hot Tea. Minneapolis. (photo © Hot Tea)
Hot Tea. Minneapolis. (photo © Hot Tea)
Artists Niko Alexander, Cadex Herrera, Greta McLain, Xena Goldman, Pablo Helm Hernandez in front of their mural where George Floyd was killed in front of Cup Foods. (courtesy Cadex Herrera)

Berlin-based graffiti crew 1UP did this whole-car message as a protest and a show of unity for social justice .

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“Decolonizing Street Art” Gives Voice to More than the Usual

“Decolonizing Street Art” Gives Voice to More than the Usual

October 11, 2014

Politically themed Street Art or murals have a long tradition – as long as people have had something to advocate for or against. The modern Street Art movement may trace its roots to political postering that came with the printing press or 20th century Mexican muralism or the 1968 student demonstrations around the world, especially in Paris – but artists have used and been used to communicate ideas and opinions in the public sphere much longer than this.

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Decolonize History.  Decolonizing Street Art festival. Montreal, Canada. August 2014. (photo © Zola)

Today, whether it is the Arab Spring or the Occupy movement or simply a personal campaign to combat harassment by cat-callers or the economic violence of local gentrification, politically charged speech of one sort or another takes place on the street when artists give it voice.

“Decolonizing Street Art”, a festival an project that took place in August in Canada, convened with the idea that carrying issues directly to the public can affect opinions and possibly produce positive change for people whom the organizers would like to give voice to.

Since the high profile and increasingly moneyed version of the current Street Art festival scene is populated worldwide primarily by men with characteristics of the dominant culture, the organizers and participants of “Decolonizing Street Art” may also be commenting on that backdrop as well. Whatever the motivation, these are voices that not many hear or see.

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Decolonize History.  Decolonizing Street Art festival. Montreal, Canada. August 2014. (photo © Võ ThiênViệt)

Hosted in and programmed “on unceded territory, in so-called Montreal”, this handful of artists speak of the indigenous people of the planet and the history of colonialism, the Arab/Israeli conflict, the poisoning of the environment and its effect on humans and animals, and the rights of many marginalized categories of people.

With a concentrated effort this first entry into a still-forming circuit of Street Art festivals and programs worldwide, Decolonizing Street Art makes a formal statement about making space for more radical views comparatively than one typically sees. Whether it is native communities or disenfranchised poor or disappeared women, this effort aims to bring more voices to the street to speak their truth.

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Zola.  Decolonizing Street Art festival. Montreal, Canada. August 2014. (photo © Zola)

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LMNOPI.  Decolonizing Street Art festival. Montreal, Canada. August 2014. (photo © Võ Thiên Việt)

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LMNOPI.  Decolonizing Street Art festival. Montreal, Canada. August 2014. (photo © Võ Thiên Việt)

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LMNOPI.  Decolonizing Street Art festival. Montreal, Canada. August 2014. (photo © Võ Thiên Việt)

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LMNOPI . Red Bandit . Swarm.  Decolonizing Street Art festival. Montreal, Canada. August 2014. (photo © Võ Thiên Việt)

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Red Bandit.  Decolonizing Street Art festival. Montreal, Canada. August 2014. (photo © Võ Thiên Việt)

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Swarm. Decolonizing Street Art festival. Montreal, Canada. August 2014. (photo © Võ Thiên Việt)

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Swarm. Decolonizing Street Art festival. Montreal, Canada. August 2014. (photo © Võ Thiên Việt)

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Pyramid Oracle. Decolonizing Street Art festival. Montreal, Canada. August 2014. (photo © Võ Thiên Việt)

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Jessica Sabogal.  Decolonizing Street Art festival. Montreal, Canada. August 2014. (photo © Võ Thiên Việt)

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David Rotten. Decolonizing Street Art festival. Montreal, Canada. August 2014. (photo © Võ Thiên Việt)

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Chris Bose. Decolonizing Street Art festival. Montreal, Canada. August 2014. (photo © Võ Thiên Việt)

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Chris Bose. Decolonizing Street Art festival. Montreal, Canada. August 2014. (photo © Zola)

To learn more about Decolonizing Street Art click HERE.

See videos from five of the participating artists on BSA Film Friday 10.10.14.

 

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Knock Out Film Debut from MTO “FL: Unpremeditated Movie”

March 16, 2013

French Painter and Street Artist MTO has made a great film and we want to share it with you today. It’s a knock-out.

MTO “Go, Go, Denise Go” (photo © courtesy of MTO)

Dude it’s Saturday, put down what you are doing and watch this for an hour. He painted it, filmed it, edited it, and now we want to help him release it because of three things:

  1. It’s not your typical navel gazing video for self aggrandizement or a brand-infused vehicle for moving a product, but rather it is a well told and diplomatically stinging critique of privilege, class, racism, and self delusion that permeates much of the culture. Today. Right now.

  2. The erudite use of black and white photography with freeze frames and languid meditations of open study of skies and suburban car traffic, combined with appropriate selection of music and silence, allows MTO to portray beauty and sadness at once. All tolled it is a shiny rusty sharp knife that cuts both ways, revealing the real violence of people that lies just underneath.

  3. While the story told can be grandly applied, this is a personal conceptual piece (and mystery adventure complete with clues and symbols) that he got caught up in and he decided to use his D.I.Y. skills to tell it his way with the minimum of tools and costs. No commercial conflicts.

Aside from that, as a Street Artist, the black and white photo-realistic rendering with cans, well, judge for yourself.

MTO “Doctor Robin” (photo © courtesy of MTO)

MTO “Mister Hood” (photo © courtesy of MTO)

MTO “FL” (photo © courtesy of MTO)


https://www.facebook.com/mto.page

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Specter Memorializes Yusuf Hawkins in Brooklyn

September 10, 2011

There are 8 million stories in the naked city – that’s what we’ve heard. Street Artist Specter has recently brought back to memory one that many would like to forget, frankly, because it speaks to the undercurrent of racism that persists in our country, the burning embers of ignorance whose flames can be easily stoked given the right circumstances.

brooklyn-street-art-specter-yusuf-hawkins-jaime-rojo-brooklyn-09-11-web-1Specter “Yusuf Hawkins” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

22 years after the racially motivated mob murder of a teenager in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, a decaying memorial to Yusuf Hawkins still remains in another Brooklyn neighborhood called Bedford-Stuyvesant. The crime that caused the city to reel in pain was compounded by the fact that the cancer was appearing in such young fresh faced people; Yusef was 16, his assailants only slightly older. As the circumstances of his death revealed the level of polarization in the city, it sparked more unrest, violence, and marches in the streets.

A generation later, the memorial has withstood time, the natural elements, neglect and vandalism. Meanwhile our progress toward an equitable society is still very much in question.

To honor Yusuf, Specter installed a 14 by 14 foot hand-painted portrait adorned with flowers. The placement maintains former additions by other artists and much of the original wall painted by Brooklyn master-muralist, Floyd Sapp. As happens with  many memorial walls, Yusuf’s mural was blanketed with scrawled messages to him and other fallen community members. In this latest piece by Specter, the Street Artist continues that tradition by adding to the historic wall now revitalized by the memory of a young man whose life was cut short.

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Specter “Yusuf Hawkins” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Specter “Yusuf Hawkins” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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