All posts tagged: Urban Nation

NohJColey and Katharina Oguntoye – “Persons of Interest”

March 12, 2015 Artists

BSA is in Berlin this month to present a new show of 12 important Brooklyn Street Artists at the Urban Nation haus as part of Project M/7. PERSONS OF INTEREST brings to our sister city a diverse collection of artists who use many mediums and styles in the street art scene of Brooklyn. By way of tribute to the special relationship that artist communities in both cities have shared for decades, each artist has chosen to create a portrait of a Germany-based cultural influencer from the past or present, highlighting someone who has played a role in inspiring the artist in a meaningful way.

Today we talk to NohJColey and ask him why he chose his person of interest, Katharina Oguntoye.

For his portrait at Urban Nation the Brooklyn native NohJColey chose Katharina Oguntoye, the Afro-German feminist writer, historian, activist, and poet raised in Nigeria and Heidelberg, Germany. Her study of German culture and her status within it led to her co-editing of the 1986 book Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out (Farbe Bekennen) and to the founding of Joliba, a nonprofit intercultural association in 1997. The organization provides support to a varied intercultural community and hosts educational and cultural events like dinners, seminars, kids events, reading groups, and public art events.

“I have chosen to create a piece that focuses on Katharina Oguntoye because of her contribution to the woman’s equality movement in Germany, “ says NohJ. “She has overcome countless obstacles in her lifetime and has changed so many lives for the better because of her relentless efforts.”

Street Artist NohJColey tells stories with his figures in the public sphere, examining their interrelationships and their place within an urban environment that is often hostile, fraught with anxiety and hypocrisy, yet tempered with humanity. Using various art making disciplines he constructs the stage; hand-carved linotypes, paper cuts, mobile sculpture, painting. A shrewd observer and communicator, his sometimes surreal narratives can be complex, often involving critique of classism, consumerism, racism, addiction, and a broken justice system – each from the perspective of characters who are affected by or perpetuating them.

NohJColey in Brooklyn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

NohJColey in Albany, New York (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Check out the Facebook page for PERSONS OF INTEREST

See Full Press Release HERE

Specter and Sally Montana – “Persons of Interest”

March 11, 2015 Artists

Today we talk to Specter and ask him why he chose his person of interest, Sally Montana.

Specter is multi-disciplinary on the street, including sculptural installations, photography, and hand-painted large-scale one-off wheat pastes. It was the latter practice that first drew us into his personal stories and portraits on the streets in the 2000s, enlarged versions of people you might meet in the neighborhood. There was the guy with a grocery cart full of recyclable bottles, the food delivery dude on a bicycle, the burly homeless gent wrapped in a red blanket.

These are everyday people on the streets of Brooklyn, and Specter elevates them for passersby to stop and consider.

For his PERSON OF INTEREST Specter is painting another Brooklyn artist as a way of honoring the thousands who have made a thriving and buoyant scene in the 1990s-2010s in neighborhoods like Bushwick, Gowanus, BedStuy, Williamsburg, and Greenpoint – similar in many ways to Berlin’s neighborhoods of Kreuzberg, Friedrichshain, Prenzlauer Berg, Schöneberg and Mitte.

To find his portrait subject, Specter just looked next door to his studio. “Sally Montana is my neighbor. She is from Germany but lives in Brooklyn and is a professional photographer and one of the nicest people anyone could ever meet. The reason I choose her is because I feel she embodies this project. The connection between NY and Berlin art communities being the two of the largest in the world and the back-and-forth sharing of people and influences from each others cultures.”

Specter in Brooklyn (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Check out the Facebook page for PERSONS OF INTEREST

See Full Press Release HERE

Esteban Del Valle and George Grosz – “Persons of Interest”

March 10, 2015 Artists

Today we talk to Esteban Del Valle and ask him why he chose his person of interest, George Grosz.

An interdisciplinary artist living in Brooklyn, Del Valle has been rendering figures and scenarios on walls here and in his native Chicago, San Antonio, Kansas City, Spartanburg – even at 5 Pointz, the graffiti holy place in Queens that was recently buffed and destroyed. A performance artist in the public sphere as well as painter, his complex stories run deep with his contemplations on an imbalanced world. His is an activist approach to tearing apart and rebuilding to reveal influences, emotions, and motivations. In these ways and others he is not unlike his selected subject, George Grosz, a pivotal figure in Berlin’s Dada movement.

A German artist known especially for his drawings of people as caricature during the roaring days and nights of Berlin’s 1920s, Grosz was acerbic, crude and corrosive in his depiction of corruption and abuse of power. Eventually moving to New York and settling down in Bayside, Queens, the artist continued his work as a painter and cultural critic. For his portrait of Grosz, Del Valle inserts the artist into Grosz’ own 1926 painting, Eclipse of the Sun, along with ex Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley and some headless businessmen. Too much to describe here, Grosz can speak for himself:

My drawings expressed my despair, hate and disillusionment, I drew drunkards; puking men; men with clenched fists cursing at the moon. … I drew a man, face filled with fright, washing blood from his hands … I drew lonely little men fleeing madly through empty streets. I drew a cross-section of tenement house: through one window could be seen a man attacking his wife; through another, two people making love; from a third hung a suicide with body covered by swarming flies. I drew soldiers without noses; war cripples with crustacean-like steel arms; two medical soldiers putting a violent infantryman into a strait-jacket made of a horse blanket … I drew a skeleton dressed as a recruit being examined for military duty. I also wrote poetry. —Grosz Friedrich, Otto (1986). [note] Before the Deluge. USA: Fromm International Publishing Corporation. pp. 37. [/note]

“I believe art is inherently powerful,” says Del Valle, “and that power can be used to reflect and reshape reality. Much like I aspire to do, George Grosz used satirical imagery to call attention to social inequalities while blurring the line between illustration and painting. His poignant content and aesthetic seems just as relevant today as it did in post 1920’s Berlin.”

Esteban Del Valle in Brooklyn (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Esteban Del Valle in New York (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Check out the Facebook page for PERSONS OF INTEREST

See Full Press Release HERE

GAIA and Fereshta Ludin – “Persons of Interest”

March 9, 2015 Artists

Today we talk to GAIA and ask him why he chose his person of interest, Fereshta Ludin.

It has been nearly 12 years since Afghanistan-born German Muslim school teacher Fereshta Ludin won the right to wear her headscarf in the public school system and the topic remains very hot around the country. For one thing, eight German states forbid the practice and as the website DW reported “the verdict’s results continue to spur controversy and leave some asking what is more oppressive: wearing a headscarf or excluding those who do?” . If this teacher and Afghanistan advisor/minister had tried to get a job as a sales clerk at Abercrombie and Fitch in the United States, Ms. Ludin might have been part of a headscarf case before the US Supreme Court this spring.

Street Artist Gaia typically studies the society and culture in which he paints murals and depicts figures who reflect the history and forces of change and stasis that characterize that neighborhood, town, or city. A leader in what we’ve been calling the New Muralism, Gaia has produced these amalgams of symbols, history, and persons – these glocalized paintings – around the world in cities from Seoul to Perth to Honolulu to Baltimore to Miami and Johannesburg, among others in the the last five years.

Since his earliest days as a Street Artist in Williamsburg and Bushwick, Brooklyn, Gaia has engaged the personal, social and political with his artistic ability; first as linotype prints, later as full-blown aerosol murals. So it is no surprise that he chooses as his subject for this show a figure who has held a pivotal role in the evolution of a necessary conversation in classrooms, boardrooms, courts – and the court of public opinion. It is here in the public sphere that Gaia has always drawn inspiration and energy and returned it back with an impetus to spark examination, discussion and debate.

“The proposal for ‘Persons of Interest’ features a portrait of Fereshta Ludin superimposed over a sky and images of peace,” Gaia says. “I chose to focus on Fereshta Ludin because of her advocation for multicultural understanding and cooperation in the face of intense national debate regarding the sphere of religious expression in German politics.”

A Gaia lino print piece based on a photograph by Martha Cooper in Baltimore, 2011 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Gaia in New Jersey 2015 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

El Sol 25 and Hannah Höch – “Persons of Interest”

March 7, 2015 Artists

Today we talk to El Sol 25 and ask him why he chose his person of interest, Hannah Höch.

A collage artist who often creates paintings of his original cut compositions and wheat-pastes them onto walls, El Sol 25 has been entertaining and perplexing passersby on the street with his theater of the absurd for the last half decade in New York. Considered part of the new breed of Street Artists who are breaking conventions, for this show El Sol 25 looks back to a Berlin rebel and one of the most important collage artists of the 20^th Century, Hannah Höch, for inspiration and as tribute.

Indeed there are many similarities in the works of both; a true fragmentation of elements that reflects a chaotic aspect of current society, an embracing of diversity and abstraction, the questioning of gender constructions, even the inclusion of elements that may have shown in Höch’s fictional “ethnographic museum”. Where Höch was a singular woman in a Dada movement dominated by men, the former graff writer El Sol 25 has steadily constructed his unusual oeuvre in a sometimes sea of Street Art sameness.

El Sol 25 is creating a portrait of Höch for PERSONS OF INTEREST because she proved to be a leader and because he admires her different standards of composition and beauty. “She’s one of my all time favorites and also a native German so I really wanted to pay my respect by painting her portrait,” he says. “She was a key innovator in the original Dada movement and her collages are the strongest I’ve ever seen.”

Then he adds, “She is my hero for many reasons.”

A piece by El Sol 25 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

El Sol 25 in Brooklyn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Check out the Facebook page for PERSONS OF INTEREST

See Full Press Release HERE

Don Rimx and John A. Roebling – “Persons of Interest”

March 6, 2015 Artists

Today we talk to Don Rimx and ask him why he chose his person of interest, John A. Roebling.

What better symbol of connectedness than the symbol of the bridge? For PERSONS OF INTEREST we wanted to draw attention to the bonds we share with our creative communities and Brooklyn mural artist Don Rimx chose the German civil engineer who designed the Brooklyn Bridge, a feat that joined Brooklyn and Manhattan in the late 1800s and became an iconic symbol of New York.

Rimx was born in Puerto Rico and moved to Brooklyn as a young man to paint many of his architecturally inspired aerosol murals during the last decade. Inspired by the portraits of Rembrandt and paintings of Joaquin Sorolla as well as the work of Puerto Rican graphic artist Lorenzo Homar, Don Rimx is developing his own vocabulary of portraiture that often includes rough-hewn architectural elements like wooden supports, trussing, cables and limestone brick to form the contours and details of faces and features.

Born in Mühlhausen, Germany (Prussia at the time), Roebling was an immigrant to Brooklyn along with a huge number of his countrymen in the mid 1800s. It is reported that Brooklyn had a population of 200,000 in 1855 and about 30,000 of those were a new wave of immigrants from Germany. In many ways the very diverse culture of Brooklyn and its millions of immigrant stories are told as well in this portrait of a bridge maker.

“For me, Roebling fits perfectly into the line of work I’ve been developing lately. Roebling’s design aesthetic provides me with the inspiration for how to play with structure to connect and make links. I love the concept of the bridge, which reminds me how in art we carry culture and send ideas from one side of the world to the other,” says Rimx.

Don Rimx in Brooklyn (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Don Rimx in Manhattan for a mural program called Los Murales Hablan. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Check out the Facebook page for PERSONS OF INTEREST

See Full Press Release HERE

DAIN and Marlene Dietrich – “Persons of Interest”

March 5, 2015 Artists

Today we talk to DAIN and ask him why he chose his person of interest, Marlene Dietrich.

Over the last decade Street Artist DAIN has made many famous actresses from the silver screen his muse in his collages for the streets of Brooklyn: Betty Davis, Liz Taylor, Audrey Hepburn…all popular icons from an era he didn’t grow up in but has a fascination for. For him, the women of that era exemplified a time of demure glamour, one that didn’t need to disrobe to draw avid attention, leaving something to your imagination. His modern remixes that jump from walls and pop out of doorways on the street invariably grab the eye and garner a second look, creating a new sense of mystery that can seem futuristic and nostalgic at once.

The Brooklyn native and former graffiti writer told us that he thinks he gained his appreciation for mid-century Hollywood aesthetics from listening to his parents talk about their favorite stars and points to them as an influence on his work. “I guess it was maybe my folks. They’re from Brooklyn – Coney Island. And they’re kind of caught up in that. One of my favorite movies is On the Waterfront. I remember being a little kid and my father telling me ‘You gotta see this movie’,” he says. “I love that stuff. I love black and white. You use your imagination in black and white.”

Born in Leberstrasse 65 on the Rote Insel in Schöneberg (now a district of Berlin) in 1901, Dietrich became a star of screen, stage, and music with a career that some would easily call legendary. While she became an American in 1939 and continued her career giving concerts and appearing in movies around the world into the 1980s, she also famously included in her singing repertoire a song called, “Ich hab noch einen Koffer in Berlin” (“I still keep a suitcase in Berlin”).

“I chose Ms. Dietrich because she was one of the most famous German American actresses. She had a style and look that were both glamorous and exotic. I love the fact that she continually reinvented herself – not only within acting but as a show performer later in her career,” says DAIN

DAIN in Brooklyn, 2011 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

DAIN in New York. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Check out the Facebook page for PERSONS OF INTEREST

See Full Press Release HERE

Chris Stain and Charles Bukowski – “Persons of Interest”

March 4, 2015 Artists

Today we talk to Chris Stain and ask him why he chose his person of interest, Charles Bukowski.

Street Artist Chris Stain picks German-born American poet, novelist, and short story writer Charles Bukowki as his Person of Interest and it’s not hard to tell why. In his stencils and projection paintings Stain has recalled the struggles of the working class in the US, a background similar to his own youth in Baltimore, Maryland. “I want to convey an authentic contemporary document that illustrates the triumph of the human spirit as experienced by those in underrepresented urban and rural environments,” he has said when describing his work.

Bukowski championed a grizzled hardscrabble unromantic depiction of everyday life that was informed by his own family dynamics upon moving to Los Angeles as a child with a funny accent and an abusive father. His stories gave an up-close view of ordinary lives of many of America’s poor, richly bleak with beauty in the ugliness, dread and drudgery – along with observations about coping mechanisms that could be self-destructive. In 1986 Time called Bukowski a “laureate of American lowlife”,[note]Wikipedia, Charles Bukowski[/note] a typically dismissive and classist review of his work by mainstream press, but his multiple novels, short stories, and other writings were highly valued for giving voice to many fans who saw their own lives reflected in his art. He also showed that he had of a sense of tough humor.

“I guess the only time most people think about injustice is when it happens to them.” – from Ham on Rye

“If I bet on humanity, I’d never cash a ticket.”

“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts while the stupid one are full of confidence”.

“I do think that poetry is important though, if you don’t strive at it, if you don’t fill it full of stars and falseness.”

“I started reading the works of Charles Bukowski about 20 years ago,” says Chris Stain. “I can’t say I agree with all of his opinions but what keeps me returning to his books is his sheer honesty as he relates to the common people. Throughout his literary embellishments he maintains a certain amount of hope that I believe everyone can relate to as they traverse life’s pain and wonder. I feel honored to be able to create a portrait of this German born American poet in his homeland. “

Chris Stain in Brooklyn (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Check out the Facebook page for PERSONS OF INTEREST

See Full Press Release HERE

Live Stenciling in Berlin with Street Artists for “Cut It Out”

February 10, 2015 Artists

The stencil has been a steady presence on the street since the beginning of graffiti and Street Art. Possibly picked up from commercial or military methods of labeling shipments, machinery, signage, and weaponry – it has remained a foundational technique of creative expression since the early days of the modern graff scene even as it’s use continues to expand stylistically.

The simple one color stencil captures the imagination of many first time artists working in the public sphere because it enables you to quickly spray your message on a wall and run. And replicate it. With time your cuts may become more sophisticated or not but its up to you; it’s not entirely necessary to labor for hours over a stencil for it to have a worthwhile impact, but it can help.

M-City. Urban Nation van. (photo © Nika Kramer)

In the 2000s the Street Art scenes in many cities have been teeming with stencil art, and a number of practitioners have developed the art form into one that expresses high degrees of artistry, complexity, and warmth, as well as conveying the bluntest of sentiments and slogans, with and without irony.

“Cut It Out” is a new exhibition in the Urban Nation Gallery in Berlin that pulls together an interesting collection of folks who have used stencils on the street across mainly Europe and the US and in the case of artists like Jef Aerosol, Epsylon Point, and Stencil King (Hugo Kaagman), across more than three decades, almost four.

M-City. Urban Nation van. (photo © Nika Kramer)

Curated by Olly Walker and Henrik Haven, the international group was on display in Berlin, and many of the participating artists were in attendance – and as is their wont they hit the walls inside and outside the gallery around Berlin, including the Urban Nation van. BSA is happy to share these exclusive shots of the honored stencillists in action = procured to us by Henrik Heaven and shot by Nika Kramer.

”Cut It Out!” features new works by: Above, Adam 5100, Aiko, Alessio-B, Artist Ouvrier, B-Toy, C215, Canvas, Don John, Eins92, Eelus, EismannArts, Epsylon Point, Icy & Sot, Jana & Js, Jef Aerosol, Joe Lurato, Logan Hicks, M-City, Mobstr, Nick Walker, Orticanoodles, Paul Insect, Pisa 73, RekoRennie, Rene Gagnon, Snik, Stan & Lex, Stencil King, Stew, STF, Stinkfish, Tankpetrol and XooooX.

M-City. Urban Nation van. (photo © Nika Kramer)

Jeff Aerosol. Urban Nation van. (photo © Nika Kramer)

Ken. Urban Nation van. (photo © Nika Kramer)

Ken Urban Nation van. (photo © Nika Kramer)

Amsterdam’s Hugo Kaagman, or Stencil King, did his first stencil on the street in 1978. Urban Nation van. (photo © Nika Kramer)

Kurar. (photo © Nika Kramer)

Kurar (photo © Nika Kramer)

M-City (photo © Nika Kramer)

Eismann (photo © Nika Kramer)

Alessio B (photo © Nika Kramer)

Hugo Kaagman (photo © Nika Kramer)

Canvaz (photo © Nika Kramer)

Eins92 (photo © Nika Kramer)

Jeff Aerosol (photo © Henrik Haven)

Above (photo © Henrik Haven)

Above (photo © Nika Kramer)

“Cut It Out” is currently on view and free for the general public in Berlin. Click HERE for further details. To inquire about works click HERE

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“Urban Xchange: Crossing Over” A New Festival in Penang, Malaysia

December 11, 2014 Artists

Urban Exchange: Crossing Over 2014 is a brand new street art festival in George Town, Penang in Malaysia. In November they hosted 16 artists to paint walls throughout this city of two and a half million on the Strait of Malacca.

It is not a city that has hosted Street Art traditionally and one that frowns strongly on graffiti, but ever since Lithuanian Street Artist Ernest Zacharevic did some very successful installations here in 2012 which drew crowds and cameras, the citizenry and elected officials have become very hospitable to the idea — and have even enacted a formalized process for approving public art.

Skolo brings tradition, sport, and modern communications together in this brand new mural for Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Today we travel to Penang to see the brand new pieces for this first-year show, co-curated by Gabija Grusaite and Eeyan Chuah, who run Hin Bus Depot Art Centre, a creative space in the ruins of a bus depot that hosted a corollary gallery show. Alongside Berlin based Urban Nation’s director and curator, Yasha Young, the two invited a mixture of local and international artists to complete murals and to host some community workshops.

“There’s never a dull moment at Urban Nation’s exchange program,” says Young, “after a year in the planning we were excited to finally make the journey.”

Tank Petrol at work on is wall. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Among the various murals you’ll see a selection of figurative, realistic, and illustration styles that carefully walk a community moderated fine line, hoping to bring locals to be more actively engaged in the program. As a novelty outlier, you’ll also see Brooklyn’s Mr. Toll installing his colorful hand formed clay sculptures in unusual spots if you keep your head up.

In an interview with Malay Mail Online, Ms. Grusaite says, “We want to create an artistic international cultural exchange so that local artists can learn from international artists who will be here for the project while the international artists will get exposure to the local culture and art scene.”

Tank Petrol. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

As is the case more often, with Urban Exchange we are again seeing a new model of public art developing where at the forefront are artists who have laid their groundwork in graffiti rather than university exclusively. We’ve been using a term we’re calling the “New Muralism” to indicate the grassroots nature and populist generation of these works and we still think its definition is evolving. Not quite community murals in the strictest sense, and not seeking the approval of gate-keeping institutions either, these artists are looking for and finding new ways to challenge themselves creatively in the public sphere while being responsive to needs of the public. Huh!

Included in the Urban Exchange project are Antanas Dubra (Lithuania), Bibichun (Malaysia), Don John (Denmark), Donald Abraham (Malaysia), Elle (United States), Ernest Zacharevic (Lithuania), Fauzan Faud (Malaysia), Karl Addison (Germany), Kenji Chai (Malaysia), Rone (Australia), Sk10 (Singapore), TankPetrol (United Kingdom), Black Fritilldea (Malaysia), 4Some (a crew from Kuala Lumpur consisting of Donald, Black, Fauzan and Jojo), Mr Toll (New York) and Vexta (New York)

Our heartfelt thank you to Henrik Haven, who took a trip from Copenhagen which took 31 hours (and four different flights) for sharing his excellent photographs here with BSA readers.

RONE at work on is wall. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

RONE on the left with Karl Addison on the right. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

RONE. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Ernest Zacharevic at work on is wall. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Ernest Zacharevic. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

4Some Crew at work on their wall. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

4Some Crew (Donald, Black, Fauzan and Jojo) Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Vexta at work on her wall. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Vexta. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Bibichun. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Nikko Tan)

Don John at work on his wall. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Don John. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Elle at work on her wall. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Elle. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Karl Addison at work on his wall. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Karl Addison. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Antanas Dubra at work on their wall. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Antanas Dubra. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Collaboration between Ernest Zacharavic and Etoja. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!

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Project M/6 Curated By Jonathan LeVine

November 10, 2014 Artists

The sixth installment of Project M at the Urban Nation (UN) comes from a clever collection of painters, illustrators, and urban interventionists. Curated by gallerist Jonathan Levine, whose gallery consistently stages quality shows in Manhattan’s Chelsea art district, the street level windows, façade, and pop-up show feature deep, dark, and richly storied works that resonate.

Entitled “Greetings From New York City,” the show features artists who have intersected with the street primarily from outside of Gotham such as China/South Africa’s Dal East, Austria’s Nychos, Mexico’s Saner, and the Californian Jeff Soto. Two exceptions like Brooklyn’s Dan Witz and Olek are both currently active on the New York street art scene and in the case of Witz, dating back to his student days in the East Village in the late 1970s.

Consistent with his street pieces hidden in plain sight for street watchers, Mr. Witz drilled his hooded and gated prisoners to the installation board display and Olek crocheted a provocative slogan in her blaringly neon tableau, brightening and possibly flummoxing the grey Schöneberg streets.

Saner’s magically real folk references are meaty and disturbing – evoking the monstrous events currently happening back home, while Nychos’ cartoonish dissection of animals and people in 3-D trace directly to his family’s traditions of hunting and Jeff Soto straddles the street and the dark pop fantasy world that frequents the pages of magazines like Juxtapoz and Hi-Fructose. For his exterior façade mural Dal East gathers the life force energy of an eagle to rise above and preside above the street in stark relief.

On the whole Mr. Levine’s stable communicates through layers both humorous and heavy, myriad meanings touched by a sardonic gloss of advertising finesse; sometimes slyly laughing, sometimes deadpan, always musing. Project M/6 smartly invites this view into the frame of modern contemporary as art in the streets continues to conflate.

DAL East to the right. The center piece by mixed media collage artist Handiedan is not part of ProjectM/6 (photo © Henrik Haven)

To learn more about Urban Nation and ProjectM click HERE

We wish to thank photographer Henrik Haven for sharing his work with BSA readers, and to UN Director Yasha Young.

URBAN NATION PRESENTS PROJECT M/6

Project M/5 Curated by Roland Henry & VNA in Berlin

August 18, 2014 Artists

The Berlin adventure entitled Urban Nation is readying for substantial renovation over the next year and meanwhile has embarked on rotating external exhibition of artists from many disciplines called ProjectM. Today we bring you images of the most recent in the series called M/5, curated by Roland Henry in conjunction with VNA Magazine and give an idea of the range of contemporary works and artists influencing the street art scene today through his eyes.

The works are completed inside the future museum and displayed on the street along with a huge façade painting by Ben Eine. Here are images from the new headquarters as the artists prepared their works for Project M/5 and the list of artists includes Mark Lyken, Pam Glew, Will Barras, Eine, Steff Plaetz, Nick Walker, O.Two, Sickboy, Zenx and Ben Frost.

To learn more about Urban Nation and ProjectM click HERE

We wish to thank photographer Henrik Haven for sharing his work with BSA readers.

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NohJColey in Brooklyn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

NohJColey in Albany, New York (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Specter in Brooklyn (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Specter in Brooklyn (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Esteban Del Valle in Brooklyn (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Esteban Del Valle in New York (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A Gaia lino print piece based on a photograph by Martha Cooper in Baltimore, 2011 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Gaia in New Jersey 2015 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A piece by El Sol 25 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

El Sol 25 in Brooklyn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Don Rimx in Brooklyn (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Don Rimx in Manhattan for a mural program called Los Murales Hablan. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

DAIN in Brooklyn, 2011 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

DAIN in New York. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“I guess the only time most people think about injustice is when it happens to them.” – from Ham on Rye

“If I bet on humanity, I’d never cash a ticket.”

“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts while the stupid one are full of confidence”.

Chris Stain in Brooklyn (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Chris Stain in Brooklyn (photo © Jaime Rojo)

M-City. Urban Nation van. (photo © Nika Kramer)

M-City. Urban Nation van. (photo © Nika Kramer)

M-City. Urban Nation van. (photo © Nika Kramer)

Jeff Aerosol. Urban Nation van. (photo © Nika Kramer)

Ken. Urban Nation van. (photo © Nika Kramer)

Ken Urban Nation van. (photo © Nika Kramer)

Amsterdam’s Hugo Kaagman, or Stencil King, did his first stencil on the street in 1978. Urban Nation van. (photo © Nika Kramer)

Kurar. (photo © Nika Kramer)

Kurar. (photo © Nika Kramer)

Kurar (photo © Nika Kramer)

M-City (photo © Nika Kramer)

Eismann (photo © Nika Kramer)

Eismann (photo © Nika Kramer)

Alessio B (photo © Nika Kramer)

Hugo Kaagman (photo © Nika Kramer)

Hugo Kaagman (photo © Nika Kramer)

Canvaz (photo © Nika Kramer)

Canvaz (photo © Nika Kramer)

Eins92 (photo © Nika Kramer)

Eins92 (photo © Nika Kramer)

Jeff Aerosol (photo © Henrik Haven)

Jeff Aerosol (photo © Henrik Haven)

Above (photo © Henrik Haven)

Above (photo © Nika Kramer)

Skolo brings tradition, sport, and modern communications together in this brand new mural for Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Tank Petrol at work on is wall. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Tank Petrol. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

RONE at work on is wall. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

RONE on the left with Karl Addison on the right. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

RONE. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Ernest Zacharevic at work on is wall. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Ernest Zacharevic. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Ernest Zacharevic. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

4Some Crew at work on their wall. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

4Some Crew (Donald, Black, Fauzan and Jojo) Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Vexta at work on her wall. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Vexta. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Vexta. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Bibichun. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Nikko Tan)

Don John at work on his wall. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Don John. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Elle at work on her wall. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Elle. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Elle. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Karl Addison at work on his wall. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Karl Addison. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Karl Addison. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Antanas Dubra at work on their wall. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Antanas Dubra. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Sliz assists Skolo. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Mr. Toll installing his clay sculptures. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Mr. Toll. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Collaboration between Ernest Zacharavic and Etoja. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

DAL East at work on the facade. (photo © Henrik Haven)

DAL East at work on the facade. (photo © Henrik Haven)

DAL East with a detail of the facade on the background. (photo © Henrik Haven)

DAL East to the right. The center piece by mixed media collage artist Handiedan is not part of ProjectM/6 (photo © Henrik Haven)

SANER at work on his panels. (photo © Henrik Haven)

SANER at work on his panels. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Jeff Soto at work on his panels. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Jeff Soto at work on his panels. (photo © Henrik Haven)