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BSA Images Of The Week: 08.17.14

August 17, 2014 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

This weeks “21st Precinct” show of graffiti and street art style mural / installation work did blow some minds for sure, as did last nights official opening – mostly because of the great display of work on four floors. But additionally all sorts of paranoia was afoot when people began writing on social media and to us that they really thought this was a sting operation of some sort.

Aside from the fact that we clearly said in our postings on BSA and Huffpost that the building had long since been decommissioned as a precinct and we were simply focusing on the irony of the facts, minds and nerves were blown nonetheless. Truth is, this is a good show with some thoughtful pieces and installations and not surprisingly, many thematically addressed the contentious relationship some have with the police traditionally. But there is lots of other stuff too and it is worth your time. Just don’t get arrested. Kidding!

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring APC Crew, Art is Trash, Bishop203, Castellaneta, Chekos, Cruz, Foxx Face, Franksy, Gaia, Hek Tad, JJ Veronis, Lorenzo Maza, Mark Samsonovich AKA Love is Telepathic, Melty Cats, Mr. PRVT, Mr. Toll, Nekst, Opiemme, Pixote, Shantell Martin, Skrew, UR New York and Wolfe Metal Work, Tommy Wolfe.

Top Image >> Mark Samsonovich says open your mind, although it looks like someone blew this guys. See the video of the Delfonics at end of posting if that song is running through your brain now. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Shantell Martin (photo © Jaime Rojo)

JJ Veronis (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Wolfe Metal Work (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Skrew, Nekst taken from a fast moving train:-) (photo © Jaime Rojo)

HEK TAD (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Art Is Trash with some friends in the background. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mr. PRVRT for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Foxx Face (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Deconstructed Beauty (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Artist Unknown. We won’t open it until 2015. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Franksy (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Melty Cats (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Gaia (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Opiemme and Chekos for Street Like Rainbow Festival in Castellaneta, Italy. (photo © courtesy of the artists)

“Who is he? Who is that other one?”

“These are the questions that people asked most often while Chekos and I were painting in Castellaneta.
Ernest Hemingway, Sean Connery, Sigmund Freud, Steve Jobs, Padre Pio, Van Gogh, Giuseppe Verdi, George Clooney, Lenin, Cavour, Garibaldi…are some of the guesses.

The work came from Chekos’s idea, a reflection on the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. We tried to bring the spectator to have an experience close to a personality test, with an iconographic work that recalls the Rorschach test. The words “Stereotype” in the center of the composition refer to the process that brings people to recognize different famous people.” ~ Opiemme

Mr. Toll at “The 21st Precinct” for Outlaw Arts (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bishop203 x Lorenzo Maza x APC Crew at “The 21st Precinct” for Outlaw Arts (photo © Jaime Rojo)

URNewYork at “The 21st Precinct” for Outlaw Arts (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pixote at “The 21st Precinct” for Outlaw Arts (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Phil at “The 21st Precinct” for Outlaw Arts (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cruz x URNewYork at “The 21st Precinct” for Outlaw Arts (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Manhattan, NYC. August 2014 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Didn’t I Blow Your Mind? The Delfonics

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MSK Crew and the 2013 Summer Family Reunion in Brooklyn

September 25, 2013 Artists

Before we lose the warmth of the sun we wanted to reflect on one of the largest graffiti shows curated under one theme that was mounted this summer right on the streets of Brooklyn by members of the long-running graffiti crew known as Mad Society Kings, or MSK. It’s a Summer tradition for many families to convene at a selected location to enjoy a familial get-together and as the writers and painters of MSK consider themselves a very tight family spanning a few generations, they, like many American families, decided to have their own Family Reunion.

Naturally there were lawn chairs, aerosol cans, and razor wire.

FASR MSK . NEKST (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Gathering across three sprawling blocks in Bushwick just ahead of the July 4^th holiday and while the Houston Wall in Manhattan was poised for takeover by members Pose and Revok, all the MSK uncles and aunts and cousins gathered before corrugated metal and cinder block walls in the still-industrial neighborhood to create a pre-fireworks display of their own. Adding to the reunion feeling, many of the folks seemed to be from out of town and had traveled a distance so you really got the idea that pretty soon there would be a kickball game, a pig rotating on a spit, and grandma MSK wheeling by handing out colorful pinwheels on sticks to the kiddies.

What made this reunion so remarkable was not just the variety of styles on display but the unanimity of the theme; each piece was dedicated to their recently departed brother, the writer NEKST, who passed away in the winter months. Graffiti culture and community murals have been intertwined for as long as anyone held a spray can, with lists of the departed sometimes on display in a neighborhood for years as memorial, so the outpouring of love and creativity on these walls really was at its best.

El Kamino MSK . NEKST (photo © Jaime Rojo)

We decided to wait until the dog days and the picnics were officially over to turn the spotlight on these walls and say goodbye to all the great memories of Summer 2013 on the streets of Brooklyn, and to give witness to the power of memories that we all have of people we’ve lost. These tributes are rendered in an explosion of color and styles – but all with the same idea, with the same name, with the same person in mind. Themed shows like this also allow the viewer to compare and contrast and better appreciate the more subtle and obvious differences in style, technique, and approach.

The results are a stellar sampler of some of the best graffiti writers working today on the streets. Full of force, character, attitude, color, shape, dimension and craftsmanship, here is a selection by photographer Jaime Rojo for you to see. All of them are still up in Bushwick if you are out on a bright Saturday – they are just a short walk from the L train on the Morgan stop.

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