Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening:
1. MadC – The Jersey City Mural in collaboration with Jersey City Mural Arts Program
2. Foim & Friends via System Boys
3. Muelle, The Madrid Graffiti Legend
BSA Special Feature: MadC – The Jersey City Mural
A week ago, we were in Berlin to celebrate the closing of our exhibition Martha Cooper: Taking Pictures at Urban Nation Museum. On our last day, we sat front row inside the show at the panel discussion with Martha Cooper and MadC moderated by Nika Kramer.
The three intelligent, hard-working, and accomplished women spoke about their work and the relationship between painting on the streets and the transition of art into the gallery; painting on canvases. Among other topics, MadC spoke about her fear of heights and how this mural in Jersey City proved challenging for her, but in the end, she conquered her fears and set her mind to work on the mural. To her surprise, one morning, she experienced a magnificent sunrise view over Manhattan that she said was worth being high up painting as she wouldn’t otherwise have witnessed such a peaceful and immensely gratifying sight.
MadC – The Jersey City Mural in collaboration with Jersey City Mural Arts Program
Foim & Friends via System Boys
It’s astounding to see the level of Mission Impossible shenanigans that Foim & Friends appear to execute to get into train yards to paint. The results are tight, bright, bubble tags that ride on the lower 2/3 of train cars throughout the city. They are so ubiquitous that you think the train looks like something is missing when it glides past without adornment. But for the writers, its still about competition to get up and its about presence, if not turf.
Muelle, The Madrid Graffiti Legend
“Little did I know. Not only did the Town Hall buy it. But they restored it.” This is when graffiti writers get the recognition by greater society that makes them “legendary”.