Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening: 1. Nadia Vadori-Gauthier and Friends Dance Through Parisian Empty Spaces 2. New Burner from Olivier Kosta-Thefaine – Symphonie / Hangar 107 3. Sofles / Mega Bunsens With Sirum 4. “Ingobernable” with C. Tangana, Gipsy Kings, Nicolás Reyes, Tonino Baliardo
BSA Special Feature: Nadia Vadori-Gauthier and Friends Dance Through Parisian Empty Spaces
Nadia Vadori-Gauthier: Dances in places of art and culture closed to the public during the Pandemic.
“In the almost-silence of these emblematic places, usually punctuated by the passage of crowds, vibrates an intense life: those of works, feelings experienced, memorial traces of art experiences, of the succession of eras.
Dancing in this context is, for me, both a resistance and a manifesto. It is an act of solidarity, a gesture of love and recognition. Because I would never be who I am without the familiar attendance of these extraordinary places where, over time, through the face-to-face with the works, a look is forged that embraces otherness, the new, the difference, a look that invites participation in life. ”
Nadia Vadori-Gauthier
New Burner from Olivier Kosta-Thefaine – Symphonie / Hangar 107
During his residency at Hangar 107, artist Olivier Kosta-Théfaine patterned the walls using a lighter, selectively burning 70 square meters to create a new carbon visual symphony.
Sofles / Mega Bunsens With Sirum
This video shows some mega bunsens being painted with SIRUM,” says Sofles in this brand new video filmed and edited by After Midnight.
“The sheer diversity of style Sofles has is unparalleled,” says only casual on Youtube. “I’ve seen the work of thousands and thousands of writers and nobody even comes close. It’s insane.”
“There is so much going on in every letter of that Sofles piece that each letter could be a video of its own! And also, I’m so stoked that they used some proper dope dnb for the tune!,” says Sciz. “Awesome work by Sirum too, whom I’ve followed for quite some time on Instagram; I always try to follow the artists whom I feel are breaking down barriers and this collaboration came out perfect because of the expertise of both artists.”
“Ingobernable” with C. Tangana, Gipsy Kings, Nicolás Reyes, Tonino Baliardo
Next time you make a video be sure to invite your sister, mother, and lots of aunts. It will leave the competition shaking in their shoes.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening: 1. Sofles / Kawaii. The artist paints a piece for his daughter Violet. 2. ACBR and ZONE take Rick and Morty Underground 3. Honet x Art Azoi in Paris
BSA Special Feature: Sofles / Kawaii. The artist paints a piece for his daughter Violet.
Remember when Nirvana did that concert without electric guitars? You can call this one “Sofles Unplugged.” He has no soundtrack revving up your adrenaline or accentuating his skills. He’s just pure skillz.
Sofles / Kawaii. The artist paints a piece for his daughter Violet.
ACBR and ZONE take Rick and Morty Underground.
Ahhh, here we go! Vandals, surreptitious underground graffiti pieces, knives, mad scientists, syncopated dance numbers, and a ripping soundtrack. Back to what we all expected from our graff videos.
Honet x Art Azoi in Paris
A creation by HONET on the wall of the Pavillon Carré de Baudouin (Paris 20th district).
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening participants at Festival Asalto 2020: 1. FAITH XLVIII 410 BC – 340 BC 2. Ozmo / “La visión de Tondalo” via Urban Art Field 3. SOFLES / Geometric
BSA Special Feature: FAITH XLVIII 410 BC – 340 BC
You knew FAITH XLVIII was OG, but did you imagine she dipped back to the 4th century? In this newly unveiled clandestine scene, the South African street artist paints among the decay in Lexington.
She says it is part of her “7.83Hz Series”
FAITH XLVIII 410 BC – 340 BC, Lexington, Kentucky
Ozmo / “La visión de Tondalo” via Urban Art Field
Ozmo in Turin finds inspiration here from a Renaissance panel from the Bosch school and interprets it for Urban Art Field. In it, we find the journey of a dreamer in hell beneath the power of the Mole Antonelliana, the major landmark building that serves as a symbol of Turin.
SOFLES / Geometric
Professor Sofles takes us to school again with this brand new 3D-style graffiti piece he painted in a gym. He says he took inspiration from the interior wall design and climbing equipment.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. Medicos Del Mundo #Esperanza #AlwaysHope 2. SOFLES / The Minibus (feat. Treas) 3. SpY / Luna
BSA Special Feature: Medicos Del Mundo #Esperanza #AlwaysHope
Today we present an inspiring video that reaches all the corners of the world – which is where Doctors of the World goes. The organization looks past the geographic and political barriers to care for all of us. Here film directors, directors, and artists – across five continents – participate in telling lived stories of people on the front line.
New graffiti porn from Brisbane this week as Sofles and Treas take camping to a new dimension in aerosol madness. The team of Grug & Bustaflux keep the audio details and effects tight with camerawork that trips and makes the heart skip by After Midnight Film.
SpY / Luna
Can you trust your eyes? Is that the moon?
SpY draws an indirect connection to the moon and the television depictions of 1969 showing a team of astronauts landing on it. The Madrid installation artist uses the simplest of gestures to make clarion statements. Installed on one of the construction cranes of the fifth tower of the Caleido complex in the north of Madrid, SpY hangs the moon in the sky with an inflatable nylon structure illuminated with high intensity LED system.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. SOFLES: Raw Brick 2. Conor Harrington: The Patriot. Video by Chop ’em Down Films 3. Sao Paulo Pinacoteca: Os Gemos Reopening
BSA Special Feature: SOFLES: Raw Brick
While much of the western world is waiting around to see who wins the presidential election and wonders where this much vaunted civil war is taking place (Rachel?), let’s have a mental vacation with SOFLES as he shows us a graffiti piece being painted on a raw brick wall. The rich green, the deep purplllleeee…… Ahhhhhh.
SOFLES: Raw Brick
Conor Harrington: The Patriot. Video by Chop ’em Down Films
The Irish immigrants were once treated as badly as the Mexicans are now in America. Now one of them is lecturing on blind patriotism in the US in this new video by Chop ’em Down Films.
Sao Paulo Pinacoteca: Os Gemeos Reopening
In a genuine shifting of fortunes, Brazilian twin graffiti writers OS GEMEOS were once on the run from authorities for their artworks in Sao Paulo. Here to welcome their massive exhibition, is a video sponsored by Sao Paulo’s State Government.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. Back to Skool with Professor Sofles
BSA Special Feature: Back to Skool with Professor Sofles Wielding the Cans
Well its back to school time of the year, kids, and COVID-19 is complicating everybody’s plans this year. But we can still learn something, right? Did you bring an apple to class to give to Mr. Sofles?
Today we are going to have a Sofles Master Class: 7 brief but potent videos with the Australian renaissance man and graffiti master Sofles, who shares insightful tips and on-point techniques for executing a specific piece or how to mix colors, how to do an outline, how to mix graffiti elements in a realistic portrait. We want to see everybody here in the front row, no stragglers in the back. And wear your mask please, because you’re smart.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. SOFLES: Layers
BSA Special Feature: SOFLES: Layers
Without the pomposity and subtle class-conscious signaling that those Youtube ads for MasterClass use to coat their appeal with, here is Australia’s master of myriad graffiti styles, SOFLES, giving you the inside look at tools and techniques for his craft with confidence and flair.
Yes, he’s spraying and showing you the right caps to use, but if this hadn’t been abundantly clear before, this discipline is as much about choreography and parry and thrust as it is anything involving paint and hue. Here are the details, the product of knowledge and history, his 10,000 hours.
Technology has enabled the ease of this conveyance of knowledge in a way that early graffiti writers couldn’t have dreamed, and the classroom here is amply captured and framed for you by director/editor/artist/instructor Colin Mckinnon (@profetsone), but it is also the mindset of a generation so far removed from graffiti’s roots that enables SOFLES to instruct us this way as well as his personal character.
Generous in his instinct to share with you, SOFLES gives all
to his gesture, his handstyling, his tracing of contour, his building of
volume, application of dimension and texture, his sweep, his footwork. Did he
just perform a pirouette?
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. INTI / “PRIMAVERA INSURRECTA”, Spring Insurrection 2. Sofles VS Rasko / Graffiti Kings 2019 3. Adry del Rocio at Berlin Mural Art Festival 2019 4. Between Street And Art: A Documentary About Meeting Of Styles / Germany 2019
BSA Special Feature: INTI / “PRIMAVERA INSURRECTA”, Spring Insurrection
From
vandalizing public sculptures to handmade signs to waving banners, banging oil
drums and pots and pans, lighting fires, chanting, and dancing in the streets –
these are the insistent voices and perspectives coursing through streets in
cities around the world, including these scenes from Chile last month. In one
of the tales of people’s victory, these marches and mobilizations of citizens
pushing for their rights and fighting state overreach actually worked this
month and Chile’s protesters have won a path to a
new constitution.
During the demonstrations Chilean Street Artist INTI was at work outside in Santiago as well, adding to the public discourse, with his new work entitled “Dignity!” It was a spring insurrection, now culminating in an autumn victory.
“Both
the title and the elements that dress the female figure changed according to
the pulse of chaos and civil disobedience that we experienced during the first
days of mobilization, which was followed by a carnival of social demands that
awaited the moment of becoming all one,” he says. You see the belted figure
wearing symbols of resistance, destruction, construction; bullets, frying pan,
boxing gloves, a hammer, a Chilean doll. The turtleneck holds the galaxy, an
acoustic guitar at the back.
“Dignity!”
is what people shouted. “A shout that, had it not been accompanied by
insurrection, would never have been heard,” INTI says. “A shout represented in
fighting tools, and our demands in a utopian vision of the new Chile.”
Jake Anderson offers this compilation of two current Kings – Sofles and Rasko. “Two of the best graffiti artists i’ve witnessed. Not meant to be a competition, more of a comparison of two artist doing their thing.”
Adry del Rocio at Berlin Mural Art Festival 2019
Mexican
muralist Adry del Rocio came to the Berlin Mural Festival this year. Known for
her 3-D perspective painting (along with some Magic Realism from her home
culture) del Rocio talks to the camera as she paints, relating stories about
her childhood and her mother.
“I
started very young. From four years old I won my first art contest. My mother always
loved art. I admire her because she always has had this vision to push us.”
Even
when del Rocio was discouraged by people who advised her to pursue another line
of career, her mother’s advice what quite different. “Don’t listen to those
people. You want to paint? You paint.”
Between Street And Art: A Documentary About Meeting Of Styles / Germany 2019
“Meeting of Styles is an international graffiti and street art festival that takes place in different parts of the globe. In its core it is a celebration of art, creativity and the spirit of community found in the street art scene. This year we went to the Meeting of Styles in Wiesbaden, Germany and had the opportunity to speak with some great creative minds and artists.” – from Eight Pixel Productions.
As upbeat as celebrations like today’s LGBTQ Pride events are here in NYC, they are rooted in defiance of the suffocating unjust norms that entrapped people in this city and across the country for generations – newly emancipating broad groups of people over the last 50 years or so. As New York City led the way with the Stonewall riots for sexual minorities, it sends this message today to people across the globe that you will be free too, even if it doesn’t feel that way right now in your country.
But LGBTQ folks needed straight allies to get their rights over five decades. Today we have to speak up loud and proud for immigrants. If you need to punch, figuratively, don’t punch downward. These people have done nothing to hurt you and are bringing a the identical aspirations your parents, grandparents, great grandparents did. Don’t believe the hype of the traumatizer who blames the traumatized.
Punch UP at the folks who shifted all the jobs away, just lowered their own taxes to their lowest rate in your entire lifetime, who are shredding the social safety net, who are creating jobs that pay so little you still have to get food stamps, who are trying to convince poor people that poor people are their enemy. It’s an old old trick and it appears to still work marvelously.
This week on BSA Images of the Week we see that just a few Street Artists are addressing these new disgusting revelations and systemic problems, even as 700 Migrant Kids Separated From Parents Are in NY.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Anthony Lister, Bordalo II, Charles Williams, City Kitty, Danny Minnick, Etnik, FKDL, Lapiz, LMNOPI, Individual Activist, Niko, Nick Walker, Olivia Laita, Revaf, Sofles, Soten, and Strayones.
“The soccer world cup has begun and I took the opportunity to paint a mural about Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. It was painted during the FARBFLUT festival which took place last weekend where 200 artist painted a 1000 m wall. The mural itself measures 6 x 3.50 m.
The motive shows the Russian president Vladimir Putin kissing Vladimir Putin. The colours are those of the rainbow flag and it has the words ‘One Love’ written above it. The picture addresses Putin’s narcissism and even more the homophobic tendencies supported by the Russian government.”
Hello from French Polynesia! All week we have been hopping around the islands from Papeete to Raiatea and now in Bora Bora. Celebrating its 5th anniversary/birthday last night at the huge community street party with founders Sarah Roopina and Jean Ozonder and with this years ONO’U festival artists slamming walls like crazy here – you can see that hard work pays off sometimes.
Grassroots, not overly commercial, inclusive, responsive to the neighbors, high quality artworks – its a solid, even golden mix. Also Sarah’s parents are always happy to pitch in, whether it is pushing a broom or making lunch for everyone at home in their kitchen and bringing it to the work site to make sure that everyone eats. It is touches of warmth like this which reminds you that in many ways this scene that started in the street is as much about community as it is self expression.
For BSA readers who are just catching up with ONO’U we thought we’d use Images of the Week as an ONO’U Greatest Hits collection today. Most of these have never before published on BSA from the four previous editions. We took winding streets, back alleys, roundabouts, promenades, rooftops, abandoned lots and just about any place we could enter alongside Martha Cooper and had a blast for three days finding these walls again. Enjoy and Māuruuru roa!
“The coconut tree is one of the most common trees in The Islands Of Tahiti. The Polynesians always tell a legend about its creation… The coconut tree legend…
A long time ago, a young girl called Hina was of real beauty due to her sun kissed skin and silky hair. She was meant to marry the prince of eels. Frightened by the physique of her suitor, who had a gigantic body and an enormous head, Hina ran away and took refuge in the house of the fishing God – Hiro.
The latter was dazzled by the beauty of Hina and touched by her history, so he took one of the young woman’s hairs and with it fished the approaching eel. Hiro cut up the prince of eels and wrapped his head in leaves. Before dying, the eel said to Hina: “of all the Men who hate me, including you Hina, you will one day kiss me to thank me. I will die, but my prediction is eternal.”.
Hiro entrusted the head of the eel to Hina and then advised her:
‘Hina, girl of beauty, you can return to your family and there, you will destroy this head. But throughout your journey do not put it on the ground because then the curse of the eel will come true.’
On her way back, the beautiful young woman and her followers who accompanied her, became tired and decided to take a bath in the river, forgetting the warning of the God Hiro. The eel’s head which had been put on the ground penetrated the earth, and from it a large tree was born, with a long trunk just like an immense eel, and with foliage similar to hair; the coconut tree had just been born.
Hina was then condemned by the Gods to remain close to this river because the tree had become taboo… Life went on until the day when a terrible dryness struck the lands and during which only the coconut resisted the sun. Thus, in spite of the God’s prohibition to touch this tree, men picked its fruit full of clear and nutritive water. Each fruit was marked with 3 dark spots laid out like two eyes and a mouth on which the men put their lips in order to drink the coconut water…. Hina did the same thing ….. And the prophecy of the prince of eels had just come true.”
Every Friday we invite you to stop by and take a look at new videos that have been submitted or recommended or we just tripped over in the alleyway.
We call it BSA Film Friday and it doesn’t exist only online these days – we take the show to lectures in classrooms and museums and festivals to show people what kind of dope, strange, illuminating, elevating, soaring, and pedestrian films are being made about artists working in the public sphere.
We even curated a film program this year for the Magic City exhibition in Dresden, Germany with 12 of the best – and it was our honor to present ‘Live’ there to audiences with those folks last month.
Today we’re giving you the BSA Top 15 Videos from 2016 – the ones that garnered the most traffic and conversation online. We are never quite sure what you will find interesting, so to see this collection of videos all together gives us a good idea that we have some of the smartest and savviest readers !
Included with each one is an excerpt of what we said for the original posting.
“Selina Miles has just directed an epic excursion through the pleasant looking Collingwood and Fitroy areas of Melbourne and the graffiti culture there. The prolific and talented writer Sofles rides and runs center screen on this guided tour of his aerosol stomping ground and this (nearly) one continuous shot drone film is a revelation. Again Miles pushes the documentation category forward, going beyond merely recording toward capturing, creating a sense of drama, certainly poetry.
Omar Musa grabs you with his words before you even know where you are and holds your heart tethered to a string and pulling you along these streets and alleys and back lots. Many times this piece is soaring in its singularity and its sense of collaboration.”
No. 14 Chump for Trump. Ron English x The Sutcliffes
“Seeing the new Ron English mural of Donald Trump in Bushwick, Brooklyn last week we were reminded of the video he released in April with a soundtrack by The Sutcliffes, a Beatles tribute band. It uses footage from Trump rallies and commercials interspersed with illustration and animation in an approachable folky way. Once you go down the rabbit hole of Trump satire and parody videos that have been made in the last year, you’ll find enough to begin a film festival.”
“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.”
“Some simple stencil activism well placed can be very effective. Vulgar, absurd, playful. Call it what you want, but Mathieu Roquigny is the first one we have seen do it. Do not view during your morning donut and coffee.”
“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.”
“It is funny to see this video stamped with the name “Street Art, Utsira ” because Utsira is an island with about 200 inhabitants off the coast of Norway, and there not many streets. Also, this piece is not on a street.
Regardless, french roof painting couple Ella & Pitr made a trip there recently and squeezed in one of there cuddly characters, who looks like he is on the lamb from the huge childrens story book that he escaped from. Stay tuned for some exclusive shots and reportage on the making of this piece and their upcoming show at the local pub!”
“HERA + AKUT=HERAKUT – a back-to-basics introduction to Herakut today, since new fans are joining the fold and need to become acquainted with a duo that has been on the street around the world for years and has been moving into galleries for a while also.
Here at the white box Corey Helford Gallery in Los Angeles for their “Masters of Wrong” show it is a different view entirely from the street surely, including paintings evenly spaced across white walls as well as an area for a more immersive environment.
Outside, “The wolf that wins is the one you feed” is the Cherokee wisdom they paint on the side of the local high school, and in the commercialization of the Street Art world, we see this enmeshed dichotomy more daily.
Let the softly kinetic paddling of the marimba escort you through their political and social commentary, now more overt and obvious and satirical than ever, as they show you their new show and their new works for exhibition and for sale.”
“Directed by Julia Cave and originally shown on the BBC documentary series OMNIBUS in December of 1976, this was actually the second half of a program that followed a tour through the art gallery scene of Soho.
A hidden gem that surveys the variety of opinions held by citizens, historians, police and front stoop sociologists about the graffiti scene on trains and the streets, the story is measured and inquisitive. It’s without glamour, although there may be guile.”
“Graffiti writers and assorted urban artists have a romantic fixation with the steel monsters that snake through our cities and across the backyards and fields of entire countries. For the urban art culture subways and freights have distinct but overlapping associations with freedom, wanderlust, a daredevil mentality, … and Brazilian brothers Os Gemeos have just created their latest ode to the subway train in Milan – almost as big as any writer’s dream.”
Artist David Choe writes “This trip to Cambodia was not a news trip, we were there strictly to spread the message of love, light, beauty, joy, free expression and creativity. I didn’t realize how many millions of musicians, artists, writers and creative people had been murdered in the Cambodian genocide, so I wanted to bring the best artists in the world to Cambodia, a country that has virtually no murals or street art. Our goal, working through the #IglooHong Foundation, was simple: to spread some light, joy and beauty to a country with such a dark past.”
No. 5
The Restoration of Blu for “Street Art Banksy & Co”
“Part II of a behind the scenes look by Good Guy Boris at the controversial show in Bologna that features art works by BLU and others that were originally not intended to appear in a museum, like most things in museums.
Here we learn about less sexy topics like copyright law and one lawyers interpretation of the realistic expectations of artists when painting illegally and legally as it applies to copyright in Italy and France. We also receive a quick education about traditional and modern techniques for the restoration of works for archival purposes, which is why people will be looking at these things long after you and we are gone.”
“On the occasion of his show last fall at New Image Art in Los Angeles, artist/street artist Anthony Lister had an emotional meltdown. Told with the help of top name graffiti writer RISK, gallery owner Marsea Goldberg, and the artist himself we learn about a tumultuous personal backstory that informs his experience while creating new works on the street and for the show. Especially rewarding in this new short directed by Mark Simpson is an unobtrusive examination of the artists gestural technique, a revelation in itself.
Additionally, the performance artist Ariel Brickman on stage at the show opening is the personification of Lister’s fantasic/heroic/treacherous figures; a spot-on example of his work come to life.”
No. 3
Pixel Pancho: “Teseo e il Minotauro” in Rome
“In a city steeped in art history where every camera shot looks like a classic movie scene you have to be cognizant of the critical analysis that will be directed at your new mural from every Giovanni, Adriana, and Luca who are walking by or hanging out of the window.
These are the countrymen and women of Pixel Pancho so he takes it all into consideration and presents a classic of his own, merged with a steam-punked futurism of robots who are rather romantic in their own way.”
“Narcelio Grud has a track record of transforming public space in an unassuming manner that actually engages people directly. Here is his latest urban intervention – a music box for pedestrians to listen to while waiting for the light to change.”
“Murals have an entirely different function in the urban environment than Street Art and graffiti, although some folks use the terms interchangeably. One of the time-honored functions of a public mural in many cities has been the “memorial mural,” the one that recalls a person or people or a significant event that has impacted a neighborhood, even a nation. Because it is artwork mounted publicly, it can be used as a meeting point for people in a community to gather and talk about it, trading stories and impressions and gaining understanding. At its’ worst, a memorial mural can be superficial or overwrought, moralizing, even stunningly unartful.
Sometimes however, it can provide to a community a sense of pride or history, and it can be empowering. Other times there is a mental, emotional catharsis that takes place with the artwork providing a forum, a safe space to discuss the undiscussible in a public forum or simply to share in a common sense of loss, or experience some sense of healing.
‘It’s not mere decoration, but deals with ethics,’ says Giulio Vesprini as he paints this mural remembering Camp No.70 Monte Urano, a WWII prison camp a mile or two from the sea and Porto San Georgio, in Italy. ‘So it has been very important to me that I could give my contribution.’ “
We dedicate this compilation to the filmmakers who bring so much joy, knowledge and awareness with their artistry and technical wizardry every day and especially every Friday from BSA Film Friday to all of us here at BSA and to our readers. Cheers for a wonderful 2017…
Curator Carlo McCormick quotes Novalis by way of describing this new exhibit of an eclectic blend of terrific troublemakers, pop-culture hijackers, and show-stopping crowd pleasers drawn from cities all around the Street Art/ graffiti /urban art scene today – and forty years ago. This is a welcoming walk of unexpected intersections that only McCormick and co-curator Ethel Seno could imagine – and pull together as a panoply of street wizardry that acknowledges activism, artistry, anarchy, and aesthetics with a sincere respect for all. It will be interesting to see how this show is viewed by people who follow the chaotic street scene today in the context of its evolution and how they read the street signs in this city.
McCormick, in his customary self-effacing humor, expects there to be some shit flying – as anyone who is involved in this scene expects from the hard-scrabble rebellious margins and subcultures that this art-making interventionist practice rises from. There also are a growing and coalescing mini-legion of scholars and academics who are currently grappling with the nature and characteristics of this self-directed art-making practice rooted often in discontent – now organized inside an exhibition that is ticketed and sold as a family friendly show.
In his descriptions of the public sphere, the writer, historian, author, and cultural critic McCormick often refers to graffiti and street artists messing with “contested space”. It’s an apt description whether we are talking about the public space in high-density gleaming metropolises or the bombed-out grid-less and polluted quagmires of human fallibility and urban un-planning that dot our globe; all public space its nature is contested.
Here is a place used by many artists to protest, agitate, advocate, or deliver critique – and many of the artists in this exhibition have done exactly this in their street practice, often pushing limits and defining new ones. Dig a little into many of the individual story lines at play here and you’ll see that the vibrant roots of social revolution are pushing up from the streets through the clouds of propaganda and advertising, often mocking them and revealing them in the process.
Ultimately, this Magic City experience is an elixir for contemplating the lifelong romance we have with our cities and with these artists who cavort with us within them. “Our Magic City is a place and a non-place,” McCormick says in a position statement on the exhibit. “It is not the physical city of brick and mortar but rather the urban space of internalized meanings. It is the city as subject and canvas, neither theme park nor stage set, but an exhibition showcasing some of the most original and celebrated artists working on and in the city today.”
BSA curated the film program for Magic City with a dynamic array of some of the best Street Art related films today presented together in a relaxed environment. In this video hosted by Andreas Schanzenbach you get a taste of the works that are showing that we draw from our weekly surveys on BSA Film Friday. Over the last few years we have had the honor of presenting live in-person to students and scholars and fans an ever-evolving collection of videos that speak to the spirit experimentation, discovery and culture-jamming outrageousness of urban interventions, graffiti and Street Art. The BSA Film Program at Magic City presents a survey of some of the very best that we have seen recently.
Magic City artists include: Akrylonumerik, Andy K, Asbestos, Ben Heine, Benuz, Biancoshock, Bordalo II, Brad, Downey, Dan Witz, Daze, Ernest Zacharevic, Ganzeer, Henry Chalfant, HERAKUT, Icy & Sot, Isaac Cordal, Jaime Rojo, Jens Besser, Juandres Vera, Lady Aiko, Leon Keer, Loomit, MAD C, Mark Bode, Martha Cooper, Oakoak, Odeith, Olek, Ori Carin / Benjamin Armas, Qi Xinghua, Replete, ROA, Ron English, Shepard Fairey, Skewville, SpY, Tristan Eaton, Truly, WENU Crew, Yok & Sheryo
The BSA Film Program for Magic City includes the following artists: Borondo, Brad Downey & Akay, Ella + Pitr, Faile, Farewell, Maxwell Rushton, Narcelio Grud, Plotbot Ken, Sofles, Vegan Flava, Vermibus
Some behind the scenes shots days before the Premiere
Elfo is a graffiti writer and social commentator whose work intentionally sidesteps traditional notions of style or technical lettering. This …Read More »
In her latest mural, Faring Purth delivers a powerful reflection on connection, continuity, and the complexity of evolving relationships—a true …Read More »
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
