All posts tagged: Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art

BSA Film Friday: 11.10.17

November 10, 2017 Artists

Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.

Now screening :
1. OLEK: Keep Going
2. Aïda Gómez: Ladies First
3. A Look at the Worlds First Museum of Urban Contemporary Art
4. MurOne // 12 + 1 Project
5. Obey Giant – The Documentary

BSA Special Feature: OLEK: Keep Going

During the opening weekend of the Urban Nation Museum for Urban Contemporary Art (UN), BSA and the other curators invited 150 artists to exhibit indoors and about 35 to do site specific installations and performances in the 5 block radius of the museum. Polish/Brooklyn Street Artist OLEK created and performed along with a team of assistants a three hour meditative crocheting event under the elevated train line between Bülowstraße and Nollendorfplatz stations.

Entitled “Keep Going,” one can imagine a number of interpretations of what is intended by the artist. Is it to reflect the unstopping, unstoppable traffic of people on the street who saunter blithely by despite your unique and meaningful actions, née, existence? Is it a poetic and literal illustration of the cyclic nature of construction/destruction exhaustion/renewal that are earmarks of the life and death process we are all engaged in? Perhaps it is a commentary on the workers who toil day after night after day in this world, never able to get ahead, never meriting more than a curious look or consideration. Or is it an exhortation to fully live ones’ life regardless of obstacles, fears, or the senseless chaotic behavior of the world around us?

Director/cinematographer Ulle Hadding gently observes the scene, examining the performers’ body language and capturing facial expressions as they quietly perform their work amidst the currents of a human river flowing in around and through them.

Also Martha C. is there among the re-assembling assembled, bless her and bless us.

Aïda Gómez: Ladies First

While doing an artists residency in Iceland recently with ART Attack Neskaupstaður, Aïda Gómez noticed the signs around her. “The plaque shows a man followed by a woman and I asked myself, why is this signal like this? Why the feminine figure is following the masculine figure?” Indeed.

A look in the WORLD’S FIRST MUSEUM OF URBAN CONTEMPORARY ART

Doug at Fifth Wall TV puts himself in the middle of the UN inaugural events and uses his astute powers of observation about its move into contemporary art, with a stop along the way to wonder about gentrification.

MurOne // 12 + 1 Project. Contorno Urbano

The latest from the 12 + 1 Project, the artist MurOne bringing some mechanically inspired eye candy to enjoy.

Obey Giant – The Documentary

Finally it all comes together and we get a balanced insight into the art and dissent of Shepard Fairey.

1UP, Martha Cooper, Jaime Rojo: The Print Pops

September 25, 2017 Artists

1UP . Graffiti Prints. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

It was May, there were birds singing in the trees, the smell of aerosol spray in the air, and steady traffic on the Bülowstrasse as we walked past the Urban Nation production offices up to the soon-to-be museum. We had heard that one of Berlin’s best known graffiti crews had come in the night and hit the construction walls outside the museum and hoped to get a shot of the new 1UP piece.

Infamous for their exploits and appreciated for their aesthetics, this was a chance to see fresh paint. As we crossed the street to get closer to the large new moniker we saw the masked men first, then the small crowd, then Martha.

1UP . Graffiti Prints. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

They had hit the spot the night before but now were back to tighten up the presentation. And man they nailed it. A month later Giancarlo Petrucci of Graffiti Prints asked our editor of photography Jaime Rojo if GP could use his photo of the 1UP piece to make a limited run print with the crew. Jaime said yes and this gorgeous thing resulted; a 12 color screen print on jet black plike paper with spot varnish on the 1UP. Even in these shots you can see how it pops right off the paper.

Ephemeral in nature as that moment was in time, this special print will help us remember that day at the UN with 1UP and Martha Cooper and Jaime, and we’re thankful.

1UP . Graffiti Prints. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

1UP Crew Hits Front of Urban Nation in Berlin

BSA Images Of The Week: 09.24.17

September 24, 2017 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Happy Autumn New York! To our readers south of the Equator, the spring birds must be singing by now, right? Meanwhile in dirty old New York there is a lot of new stuff – including two new walls going up by OsGemeos and UK artist Lakwena’s turn at the Houston/Bowery Wall.

Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Anagard, Anthony Lister, Banksy, Brad Downey, D7606, Kai, Licuado, Martin Whatson, Mr. DiMaggio, Nafir, Nespoon, OsGemeos, Peter Phobia, Ron English, Silvio Alino, Voxx, and Zezao.

Top image: OSGEMEOS. Process shot. This WIP shot of the Twins shows one of two murals painted over the course of more than a week in Manhattan. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nafir . Martin Whatson. Collaboration. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

ANAGARd. Urban Spree. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Peter Phobia. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kai (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Artist Unknown. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

NeSpoon. No Limit Festival. Boras, Sweden. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Fake Banksy. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mr. Dimaggio. Urban Spree. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Licuado. “La Diversidad Es Nuestro Tesoro”. One Wall. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Anthony Lister. One Wall. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

D7606 collab with Silvio Alino. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Zezao. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Voxx. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ron English. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bathroom graffiti. Urban Spree. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brad Downey took over an art space in Berlin the week UN opened and reconfigured the facade to appear like a bricked will with a hole punched in the center. Brad is always seriously on another wavelength and we appreciate that. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Church Tower. Boras, Sweden. September 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Film Friday: 09.22.17

September 22, 2017 Artists

Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. This week we feature videos of installations and a tour of the “UNSTOPPABLE” exhibition by Jaime Rojo at the Urban Nation (UN) museum opening.

Now screening :
1. A BSA Tour Through the Show: “Unstoppable”
2. Pixel Pancho’s Installation for Urban Nation Museum
3. Hot Tea: “Bad Dreams pt.2” Installation for Urban Nation Museum
4. Borondo’ Installation with glass plates and moving images for Urban Nation Museum
5. Various & Gould. Mobile installation for Urban Nation Museum

A BSA Tour Through the Show: “Unstoppable” at Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary in Berlin

Pixel Pancho’s Installation for Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Via BSA

Pixel’s original installation was nixed by the city at the last moment but that didn’t prevent the Italian Street Artist from rallying to find another solution!

This new installation in the back courtyard was conceived of, designed, and constructed over a period of 4 days last week and became the secret surprise behind the museum for those who wandered there. Using landscaping techniques and botany knowledge that come naturally from his farm in Italy, the artist create a mise en scène of epic impact with his robotic folk-futurist sculptures. Night time lighting took it to another world, but you can see the details better here in this short video Jaime Rojo shot on site.

Hot Tea: “Bad Dreams pt.2” Installation for Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Via BSA

Hot Tea had been feeling like his new work “Bad Dreams Pt. 2” for the UN Art Mile was missing something and as the plan and installation came together over a few months he realized it was missing him. A direct partner piece to the one that hangs in the museum across the street for the “UNSTOPPABLE” show, this uses the connective thread of materials and wounds to tie them together. While one piece commemorates a physical wound, the other commemorates an emotional one. Here we see Hot Tea baring everything inside his art and inside this space for the outside world to get a glimpse, and to be free.

Borondo. Installation with glass plates and moving images for Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Via BSA

An astounding installation by Street Artist Borondo, this sculpture on the Urban Nation Art Mile under the train tracks this weekend blew the minds of many viewers for it’s scale, character, and ingenuity. Anathema to the ease of digital image-making, these three frames are composed of layers of glass, each scratched with a portion of the image and illuminated singularly in sequence to produce an animated sequence. Mesmerizing and imbued with an ethereal mysticism that often surrounds his work, Borondo is communicating something larger than simply what we see.

Various & Gould. Mobile installation for Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Via BSA

Berlin based duo Various & Gould often see people as the sum of there parts, perhaps as a way to better examine our individual characteristics and question our assigned meanings to them. By playing with the physical aspects that add to identity, they reveal the happenstance of genetic assignment and demote the relative value we assign to them. The overall effect can be a gained appreciation of our universal similarities and the realization that this outside stuff is basically interchangeable.

Naked Decision: Hot Tea & Bad Dreams at UN Opening in Berlin

September 20, 2017 Artists

A common thread ties together two buildings and two art pieces by Street Artist HOT TEA for the grand opening of the Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art in Berlin (UN); Bad Dreams. And he has decided to face them.

Hot Tea. “Bad Dreams pt.2” Store Front Installation. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. September 16th 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

One of the few artists in the inaugural program who was asked to create an indoor piece for the main museum as well as to do an installation outside it, the Minneapolis based artist used the opportunity to face old wounds with the hope of transforming them to healing.

Perhaps the only illegal yarn-tagger on the street, HOTTEA has made a space for himself where none existed: using non-destructive materials to write his name in a rotated 3-D geometric hand on city fences. Now an accomplished yarn artist who has done his signature installations for corporate brands, museums, and even recently the Mall of America, the artist wanted to address bigger personal issues in these two settings, presenting himself naked to the world in both.

Hot Tea. Process Shot. Store Front Installation. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. September 16th 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

HOT TEA’s collage in the museum features a flat 2-D character painting, a reclined self portrait viewed from above with a series of small needles crossing it, threaded to spell the title of the piece “Bad Dreams”.

Hot Tea. “Bad Dreams” Detail. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. September 16th 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Across the Bülowstraße from the museum is a street level space viewable for passersby from multiple windows; a rainbow color-washed corner foyer hung with hundreds of white yarns in a grid hanging from ceiling to floor. One small space near the back of the ephemerous white cube is cut open, just large enough for the artist to stand sans vêtements, facing toward the glass double door, his illuminated image slowly moving as you walk the sidewalk past the installation on night-time streets.

Hot Tea. Process Shot. Store Front Installation. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. September 16th 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The optimistically colored installation is a surreal vision from the street for a few reasons. One is the stillness of the fleshy figure that is now activated like a Kraftwerk robot, slowly turning as you walk from window to window surveying it.

Another aspect is the seemingly shimmering box, this floating white cube that contains him, allowing you to view from many angles. The third bit of surrealism is the two boisterous and nearly hysterical sex workers who have just sauntered by the window and stop to gawk at a naked man inside a piece of art. Neither you nor they speak each other’s language, so the only connection you have is this puzzling view from the street.

Hot Tea. Process Shot. Store Front Installation. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. September 16th 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

In both art pieces the artist as subject is void of expression, staring blankly forward and unmoving as if paralyzed, unable to act or react. The vulnerability implied is physical of course, but it is also emotional. HOT TEA considers this a very public practice that can excise private pain. This weekend in Berlin we witnessed observers closely studying each piece, perhaps attempting to decode the meanings, perhaps relating to an underlying sense of humanity within the abstraction.

“Both experiences were very traumatic and I feel these two pieces have helped me find peace,” HOT TEA tells us of the new works. BSA talked to him about the works and his approach to them.

Hot Tea. Process Shot. Store Front Installation. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. September 16th 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA: The new pieces you created for both inside and outside the museum are related to one another and related to your personal experiences as an artist and a man. Can you talk about the pop-up installation?
HOT TEA: The two pieces are about two different events that happened in my life – which have made an impact on me for so many years. My canvas painting within the museum talks about a physical scar, where the installation talks about a mental scar.

Hot Tea. “Bad Dreams pt.2” Store Front Installation. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. September 16th 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA: You have been refining your use of materials through many installations in ever-larger commercial, corporate and museum venues. How have you challenged yourself with yarn and color?
HOT TEA: I think an even bigger challenge than yarn and color is the actual space itself. Yarn and color come very natural to me – but sometimes when I am invited to a space it’s not one I would naturally choose.

These spaces are often hard to work in – because many times I find myself uninspired. What inspires me and gives the work life is often the process of creating the installation. The experience of the people I work with or certain events that have taken place during the time of the installation. Often times my installs are depictions of different moments in my life.

BSA: Standing naked and illuminated and partially obscured before a street audience who can peer at you from different angles on the street must have been an interesting experience. What was going through your mind? What visual associations with other artworks were you imagining?
HOT TEA: I was thinking about the experience that inspired the performance and how much I have grown emotionally since then. I also thought about my family, friends and those close to me who are no longer here.

Hot Tea. “Bad Dreams pt.2” Store Front Installation. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. September 16th 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA: How do you see this installation as an extension of your street practice?
HOT TEA: I don’t see this installation as an extension of my street practice. I see it’s me grieving about traumatic experiences. All my work comes from the same mind and therefore I don’t distinguish my art from commissioned work and un-commissioned work.

BSA: As a former graffiti writer with aerosol you are well aware of your transition to Street Art and now public installations. How would you describe this evolution to another writer?
HOT TEA: It’s the process of growing as a human being and adapting.

Hot Tea. “Bad Dreams pt.2” Store Front Installation. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. September 16th 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA: Your axonometric tagging goes across the painting that is in the museum with thread and needles rather than yarn. Is this the first time you have tagged in a museum?
HOT TEA: My name actually doesn’t go across the painting – It reads “Bad Dreams” hence the title of the piece. As for having my work in a museum – I have never been one for labels because I have been called them my entire life. I don’t agree with places or people thinking they are higher or better than someone else because of their accomplishments or monetary value. My work has just as much meaning to me, no matter what the setting may be.

Hot Tea. “Bad Dreams” Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. September 16th 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Considering Hot Tea. “Bad Dreams” Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. September 16th 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hot Tea. “Bad Dreams pt.2” Store Front Installation. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. September 16th 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

HOT TEA was curated by the co-founders of BSA, Steven P. Harrington and Jaime Rojo along with UN Artistic Director Yasha Young and the “UNSTOPPABLE” curatorial team for Urban Nation.

Hot Tea. “Bad Dreams pt.2 “Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. September 16th 2017. Video via BrooklynStreetArt.com

This article is also published on The Huffington Post

“A Real Turning Point” : Sculptures on the Art Mile at Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art

September 19, 2017 Artists

“I think it’s a real turning point as far as seeing three dimensional things,” says Street Artist and fine artist Ben Frost while hand painting text on the side of the large facsimiles of pharmaceutical boxes that he’s creating for the UN Art Mile. “I think sculptures and installations have been paving a way forward for Street Art.”

Seth Globepainter. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

In fact sculpture and all manner of three dimensional installations as Street Art have been a part of the current century for sure, from the variety of lego and yarn artists to the soldiered steel tags of REVS and eco-bird houses of XAM and small little men made of wood by Stikman – among many others.

The traveling exhibition “Magic City” curated by Carlo McCormick and Ethel Seno that displays the wide range of works by todays’ interventionists now features a section devoted to sculpture including a selection of Street sculpture photography by Jaime Rojo.

Ben Frost. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Certainly when fine artists began joining the graffiti game they brought many additional techniques to the street, most of them applied to the surface of existing walls – stencils, wheat paste, rollers, for example.

Others have procured objects and attached them to the city; either creating new sculpture or replacing or adapting existing sculptures. For the public the experience may feel more intimate and evocative of the museum and gallery experience, encouraging one to regard the work from many perspectives. Naturally one would like to take selfies with them as well.

“Isn’t there a phrase, ‘Alls fair in love and war’? I feel like ‘Alls fear in love and war’,” says artist Ben Frost. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

For the opening of UN this weekend, the Urban Nation Museum of Urban Contemporary Art in Berlin this week, a curated selection of artists working in such dimensions were invited to create substantial pieces – including video installation, mobile, interactive, the purely static. Enjoy the variety of works by Street Artists who are working today.

Dot Dot Dot. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bordalo II. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Franco JAZ Fasoli. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Anthony Lister. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Aaron Woes. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Herakut. Detail. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ludo. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sheryo . The Yok. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Isaac Cordal. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Haroshi. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Icy & Sot. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cranio. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Born To Die In Berlin. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Don John. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Grotesk . Juxtapoz Newsstand. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Borodo. Moving Image on glass panels. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Video by BrooklynStreetArt.com

Various & Gould. Mobile. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Video by BrooklynStreetArt.com

“Inundated!” Scenes from the Opening: UN – Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art in Berlin

September 18, 2017 Artists

“This week is Art Week in Berlin, and you just stole Art Week,” said a handsome and intensely opinionated German to us as we leaned on the arm rail of the M.C. Escher-inspired walkway before a Carlos Mare139 sculpture and above the capacity crowd on Saturday night at the Urban Nation Museum of Urban Contemporary Art (UN).

Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Not sure if that was the exact goal, but we get his larger point; the UN has just made a massive entry into a number of societally and culturally influential minds when it comes to the relevancy of Street Art and graffiti to visual culture and art history. This movement into so-called Contemporary began as early as the 1970s and has overcome and weathered cultural and market ebbs and flows – persisted, if you will – yet somehow institutions have been wary of this work and these artists and unable to fully embrace their importance, you decide why.

Artistic Director Yasha Young delivering her opening speech. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

While stakeholders in street culture, the art world, the gallery system, auction houses, and a burgeoning body of academia will continue to litigate the right of a Street Art/graffiti/Contemporary Art museum to exist or the correct form it should take, it is no longer a distant theoretical event. For those who have averred in the negative over the past few years about the potentiality of Urban Nation, the museum is now fact.

As were the crowds.

Long lines to get in on Saturday. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The crowds were there, the Mayor was there, a few hundred graffiti /street /contemporary artists inside and outside the house were there, the directors and curators were there (except Andrew Hosner, who was taken ill), the Flying Steps and three rappellers scaling down the façade to unveil a new Invader plate were there, the architects were there, Martha Cooper and her new library were there, 1UP was there, the overwhelming enthusiasm to be a part of this milestone where fifty years of Street culture adds a museum in its name by its own insistence – they were there too.

Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Steven P. Harrington)

With alchemists at the fore who are bold and determined to invite non-Art World people into the discussion about how a museum should be formed, the route here has been a challenge – as it frequently is for those who make the road by walking. We’re waxing a little poetically in the haze of a cloud of jet lag and too little sleep so allow us to say what John Ahearn told us in an email and a number of folks said to our faces all during this previous week, “This is a first.” What follows is up to all of us.

With such a diverse number of tributaries flowing into this river of creativity and global street culture one must accede the point that this is not an encyclopedic collection representing all of graffiti, Street Art, Urban Art history. Short of staging the exhibition in the former Tempelhof Airport any all inclusive narrative would simply not fit. Instead we opted for a group show of some of the strongest players and influential talents and minds across the last few decades. This inaugural show is meant to bust the doors open and show off the new space, hopefully inspiring more minds to come in and help steer the ship forward.

Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Steven P. Harrington)

Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Group photo of the Flying Steps right after their performance. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Images of the Week 09.17.17 Urban Nation (UN) Special

September 17, 2017 Artists

Welcome to Sunday! This week we have a special edition of BSA Images of the Week; Dedicated to stuff on the street for last nights opening of Urban Nation Museum of Urban Contemporary Art (UN).

Readers of BSA will know that we are on the curatorial board of the new museum and have worked with 8 other curators along with Director Yasha Young to bring the inaugural show that happened last night to fruition. A block buster with thousands of people coursing through the perspective-bending walkways to see the GRAFT designed interiors, it was gratifying to see the 150 pieces admired by such interest, such avid curiosity.

As part of our mission, we want to foster an ongoing dialogue between the art in the streets and the art inside the museum. As UN’s first programmatic approach to this goal, the Art Mile invites the public to see installations that are made by many of the artists/collaborators which UN has had for projects in the city and around the world during the last few years of building the museum and reaching out to the community.

So with gratitude to you and to all the creatives and their supporters who rock our world, here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring 1UP Crew, 2501, Anthony Lister, Berlin Kidz, Blek Le Rat, David De La Mano, Faith XLVII, Franco “Jaz” Fasoli, Hot Tea, Icy & Sot, Inka Kendzia, Isaac Cordal, James Bullough, Louis Masai, Mademoiselle Maurice, Manthe Ribane, Seth Globepainter, Tankpetrol, Zezao, and Zio Ziegler.

Top image: 8 a.m. the morning after. Space Invader’s new plate unveiled last night to commemorate the opening of Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art in Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Berlin Kidz . 1UP Crew. James Bullough . 2501 . Zio Ziegler. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Anthony Lister. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Franco JAZ Fasoli. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mademoiselle Maurice . Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Zezao. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Blek Le Rat. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

David De La Mano. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tankpetrol. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“AURUAM” Manthe Ribane, Inka Kendzia, and Faith XLVII. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Icy & Sot. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Icy & Sot. Detail. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Louis Masai. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Seth Globepainter. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Isaac Cordal. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hot Tea. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Urban Nation Museum. Art Mile: Installations In Progress. Dispatch 5

September 16, 2017 Artists

Today some progress shots – these projects were not completed while we were shooting so you’ll want to go to the Museum Mile today along Bülowstraße (Berlin U-Bahn). The Urban Nation Art Mile (Artmeile) is in full effect this weekend day and night and it will be difficult to pass up on this funhouse performance-packed interactive exhibition that includes single installations in pop-up spaces along the street and in one large car-free area beneath the trains, which roar appropriately over your head.

Icy & Sot at work at their installation for the Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Also overhead for those who are observant, Isaac Cordal’s small concrete businessmen watch over the proceedings below with guilt, ennui and existential worries . You have to check out Faith XLVII’s multi-disciplinary piece in a pop-up space with powerful video imagery of the sexy uniformity of marching soldiers and the panicked distraught migratory movements of people created in its wake – with fierce and expressive dance performer Manthe Ribane and sound/set direction by Inka Kendzia with Faith. Migration, or immigration, is also directly addressed by an unbending and heavy steel sculpture of a family who are just like yours, and different from yours, facing a wall topped by razorwire.

Sheryo at work at her installation for the Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Evan Pricco and Juxtapoz bring the famous newsstand that has been displayed in 6 locations, including Times Square, now moving into the UN collection. Make sure to look at the independent zines and tags from its many travels. HOTTEA has a splendidly sharp and effervescent takeover of a corner first floor space that illuminates the white box, here comprised of hundreds of hanging yarns in a multiverse of color.

Sheryo. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

This series of outdoor components feels more like a fair than a museum show, a cross section of works that you may associate with post-graffiti/graffiti/Street Art or any number of related influences without a timeline – cobbling together a hodgepodge illustration of the wide range of influences at play on the street today – attempting to channel the asymmetric energy that it generates.

It is possible that this collection represents a catalyzing of interest in sculpture, as a number of interpreters including Cranio, Ben Frost, and Anthony Lister, are blurring lines with these 3 dimensional expressions of work they’ve done in 2D. How will a general community audience interactive with these – the possibilities seem limitless. Considering the sheer number of authors and performers and documentors and artists and academics and critics on the street right now, you are garunteed to find some intellectual and/or visual stimulation.

Isaac Cordal at work at his installation for the Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Isaac Cordal. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Olek. Getting ready for her Art Mile performance on Sunday. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Herakut moment of levity and humor while at work on their installation for the Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bordalo II work in progress for his installation at the Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Evan Pricco fastidiously arranges the magazines at the Juxtapoz Newsstand for the Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The Juxtapoz Newsstand for the Art Mile is almost completed. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Seth Globetrotter work in progress for the Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Women Power: A group of strong individuals who capture, enable dialogue and work, some daily, on the street art/graffiti scenes. From left to right. Nika Kramer, Karolina Pajak, Olek, Martha Cooper and Selina Miles. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lister Off His Plane, Fairey on a Train: Berlin Readies for Urban Nation (UN) Opening this Weekend : BSA Dispatch 2

September 12, 2017 Artists

Lister’s plane is on the tarmac and Olek is dragging a shopping cart full of art materials past the Vietnamese restaurant on Zietanstrasse and a block away two ladies in very high heeled boots and short shorts are meandering back and forth under the elevated train line. It’s a sunny fall day in this still skanky sometimes lustrous neighborhood of Berlin – a bit of gravel and leather mixed in with your Marilyn Minter sweet cocktail.

The Berlin-Schöneberg neighborhood is fresh off the International leather and fetish weekend & street fair at Fuggerstraße and you may still see the occasional mustachioed man wearing a dog collar and leash, or perhaps a leather mask that simply looks like a dog head – walking up the street on his way to brunch, perhaps.

Ah well, this is what gives birth to Urban Nation: the marginalized, the rebels, the counter cultural innovators, the forward thinkers and outright kinkers. Just made that word up.

Brazils’ Zezao courtesy Instagrafite’s Marcello and Marina at work on a new collage of mostly found objects and materials. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Today we got a look at Bordalo’s giant garbage sculptures of Berlin bears being prepared in a rented studio space south of the Ringbahn and in a warehouse standing in the middle of on a parking lot full of Mercedes Benz’s. For people like us, that parking lot was like stumbling into a field of diamond’s, all class.

For Germans a Mercedes is as common as a slab of fried schnitzel or a bubble tag by 1Up so Bjorn was bombing through the lot in his little car expertly until we reached the roll-up gate on the garage. Also inside is Yok & Sheryo’s special interactive walk-in installation that will go on the “Museum Miele/Museum Mile” with about 25 other brand new sculptures and installations this weekend.

Overhead on the elevated bright yellow rumbling trains you can see whole cars with new skins by Shepard Fairey, How Nosm, and Faust announcing “Unstoppable”, the name of the opening exhibition at Urban Nation that we’ve curated with a team.

Riding the U1 train over to Prinzenstraße we caught the new murals by Ron English, Cryptic and an ONUR/Wes 21 collabo. Heading over to Urban Spree to talk to printer/publisher/curator/gallerist Pascal Feucher in the tattered reverie and aerosol compound we also spoke with Street Artist Tavar Zawacki. The California born Berlin-based artist tells us he has undergone a “Metamorphosis” creatively and has large canvasses in the gallery to prove it.

Deconstructing his arrow shape, he is now free to experiment with overlapping any number of geometric shapes; deconstructing and manipulating his own self-imposed roolz. On our way out of the compound we ran into Louis Masai up a ladder creating one of his signature quilted endangered species. We were sort of running by so all we can say is it looked like a fish of some sort.

Lunch with Christian Omodeo at an Italian restaurant means the food will be good, because he is an actual Italian and won’t brook any suggestions of inauthenticity. That is one charming quality of the academic/curator/writer, in addition to his astute and acute knowledge of rare graffiti/Street Art books that qualifies him to be assisting the museum to organize and conceptualize future plans for the Martha Cooper Library.

Just a portion of the collection of ephemera will be on display for the Saturday’s opening night in the not-yet-completed library space, but you’ll be impressed by the promise of what is to come.

Zines, posters, even framed T-shirts from the collection of the famed photographer will cover the walls in addition to a portion of the thousands of books that constitute the beginning of an important collection which, when finished, will be unrivaled and provide invaluable opportunities to research by scholars of all levels.

BSA Images Of The Week: 05.21.17 – Berlin Edition

May 21, 2017 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

This week in Berlin we had the chance to meet so many great folks as a result of the final Urban Nation events before September’s opening of the museum. All the curators were in attendance, including your BSA friends here, for the “We Broke Night” show along with the artistic director, managing director, architect, and about 40 artists in the 225 person party that featured breakers on pedestals dancing with flourescent tape, Shepard Fairey as DJ, and plenty of new artworks created just for this event.

Along with the main museum space show, across the street was another exhibition, the Project M/12 show called “What in the World” with mainly European former graff writers/now-fine-artists curated by Evan Pricco from Juxtapoz. Overflowing from the main space, the sidewalks were a parade of aesthetes, fans, business people, graff writers, archivists, politicians, and sex workers… It’s a wild mix and it gets very rowdy and everyone is reacting to the dynamics at play and wondering aloud how a museum like this will pull this off.

We’re not wondering, however. The sheer volume and variety of interested artists and related art lovers and community supporters tells us that this museum is a success before it has even opened. Here are a few images from the last few days for you to take a look at from outside and inside.

Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring: Besonders, BustArt, Cranio, Daniel Van Nes, Fin DAC, Herakut, Lora Zombie, Millo, Nasca, Nuno Vegas, Sebastian Wandl, Shepard Fairey, Stikki Peaches, Snik, Tank Patrol.

Top image: FinDac. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art in Conjunction with Project M/12. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

FinDac. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art in Conjunction with Project M/12. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Stikki Peaches. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art in Conjunction with Project M/12. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Shepard Fairey in Berlin translates his No Future piece for the words apathy, sexism, xenophobia, and racism. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art in Conjunction with Project M/12. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cranio. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art in Conjunction with Project M/12. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BustArt. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art in Conjunction with Project M/12. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lora Zombie. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art in Conjunction with Project M/12. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“Pfui Teufel!” Ms. Merkel hears some disturbing news in this sticker placed on a post box.Unidentified Artist. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sebastian Wandl. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. We Broke Night. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Daniel Van Nes. Detail. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. We Broke Night. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Daniel Van Nes. Detial. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. We Broke Night. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Herakut in purple light for the “We Broke the Night” exhibit inside the space that will be the Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Stencil majicians Snik. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. We Broke Night. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

UN Convenes Scenes, Creates Its Own in Berlin. Artists in Action for Project/12 and More

May 18, 2017 Artists

Shepard, Findac, Stikki Peaches… and that’s before we even get into the UN exhibition space or the main museum space – both locations a combustible beehive of painting right now with perhaps twenty artists working at once.

Somehow this is the frenetic energy that we have grown to expect of a typical Urban Nation event. It is simply not enough energy unless the event you came for is compounded by three or thirteen other Urban Nation events happening simultaneously, due in large part to the omnivorous aesthetic and cultural appetite of director Yasha Young and her big-thinking and resourceful team.

In the three years of Project M exhibitions leading up to the official opening of the UN museum this September, Ms. Young has spread the curatorial wealth, mixed multiple metaphors, ignored stylistic boundaries, stirred myriad emotions and fired up a lot of talk on the street with weeks like these.

Evan Pricco’s description to us of his own curated show here helps to define this moment as well, “It’s sort of a nod to not really having to have boundaries, or a proper definition, but a feeling that something is happening. Its not street art, its not graffiti, but its this new wave that is looking out, looking in, and finding new avenues to share and make work.”

In New Orleans, they would call this savory multi-layered sensory-rich dish something like Jambalaya. In the Gambia it would be an Oyster Stew, in Spain it would be one of Valencian restaurateur Juan Galbis gargantuan paellas. Hungry yet?

At this moment there are artists and production folks preparing a new curated show by Pricco, Editor in Chief of Juxtapoz magazine in the UN auxiliary gallery called. He’s calling it “What in the World?”. Simultaneously there are preparations down the block for a huge dinner and night of live performances and temporary art installations inside the actual evolving museum space called “We Broke Night!”

And there are several outdoor installations roving throughout the neighborhood at the same time, with passersby interacting with and engaging the artists in discussions. All levels and disciplines of artists from the Street Art/Graffiti continuum are converging in this neighborhood painting, pasting, stenciling, hanging, installing, — enormous wall pieces (Shepard), smaller collaged wheatpastes (Stikki Peaches), hand-painted murals on a ladder outside walls (Findac), hand painted signage and calligraphy (Serge Lowrider), multi-layered stencil portraits (Snik), optically dizzying tape installations (Tape Over Crew), post-graffiti bucket painted organic geometries (Erosie and Daan Botlek), and yes, much more.

Erosie on the left with Grotesk’s news stand on the right for Urban Nation Project M/12 curated by Evan Prico/Juxtapoz. Berlin, May 18 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Variety and quality like this is unthinkable at best and un-pragmatic at worst in formal exhibition spaces and institutions. But witness the panoply unfolding before your eyes and this hybrid may strike you as a truer contemporaneous representation of this complicated generation than most organizers have the gall to attempt.

Somehow, this all works. Being in the midst of this UN kitchen feels as alive as the scenes it convenes.

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