Autumn in New York yo! Crisp cool, sunny days. Girls in tight sweaters. Boys in combat boots. Every cool air festival you can think of is all happening simultaneously – skateboarders closing down Kent Ave on BKs north side, Indian Larry’s block party with motorcycles of every stripe, and this years San Gennaro festival in Little Italy looks like it wants to reclaim this part of town before it is subsumed by the crushing wealth machine now chewing through Chinatown. Literally the festival looks like it spans the entire length of Mulberry from Canal to Houston – that’s longer than the line to get the new iPhone in Soho!
But neither one of those will compare to todays’ expected line of concerned citizens snaking through the streets in Manhattan to address the effect of climate change. Coordinated with marches in cities around the world it’s estimated to draw 100,000 people. We’ve had a sneak peek at what Street Artist Swoon has in store for an installation at the end of the march, including some of the very same materials she just used for her “Submerged Motherlands” at the Brooklyn Museum, but arranged entirely cleverly differently.
A few weeks ago at Nuart we were invite to speak about activism on the street around the world using Street Art as a form of expression, and we are surprised to see a rising wave of it that not many seem aware of – including some of our artworld peers. This week alone a few Street Artists have created new work to promote today’s march. It is not hard to get us into the street on a regular day so this is just one shiny bauble of grassroots creativity that you won’t want to miss. Also, technically, it’s still summer until Tuesday.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Bifido, Crash, Daze, Gilf!, Hek Tad, Jetsonorama, Karl Addison, LMNOPI, Misshab, Sean9Lugo, and Skount.
Top Image >> A portrait of Ta’kaiya Blaney, a 13 year old girl from the Sliammon First Nation (Vancouver) and an environmental activist. The large mural was painted by Street Artist LMNOPI this week to commemorate the People’s Climate March here today in NYC. Click HERE for more details on the march. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
LMNOPI (photo © Jaime Rojo)
A collaborative image created by Jetsonorama and Monica Canilao (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Gilf! created this new piece to bring people to the march.(photo © Jaime Rojo)
Misshab (photo © Jaime Rojo)
A cosmic folkloric futurist meeting of souls from Skount at the StreetMeet Festival in Würzburg, Germany. (photo © Skount)
Skount. Detail. StreetMeet Festival. Würzburg, Germany. (photo © Skount)
Karl Addison for The Bushwick Collective. That spot to the left may look like a prison, but that’s what we call a beer garden in Brooklyn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Karl Addison for The Bushwick Collective. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Hek Tad. A public declaration of love. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
An outdoor installation of craft paper by an unknown artist. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Oh, hi! Sorry I kicked the ball into your head. Bifido “Do It” Caserta, Italy. (photo © Bifido)
A porcine pal to stand atop, but you are still not tall enough. Bifido “I Want My Meat” Budapest, Hungary. (photo © Bifido)
Could be cheese. Could be a brick of a hallucinogenic substance that gives people animal heads. Sean9Lugo (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Crash and Daze for The L.I.S.A. Project. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Untitled. SOHO, NYC. August 2014. (photo © Jaime Rojo)