Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening: 1. Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria: EPISODE 1: TERRITORY 2. Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria: EPISODE 2: MEMORY 3. Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria: EPISODE 3: RESISTANCE
BSA Special Feature: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria
Whitney Museum of American Art. “no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria” is organized to coincide with the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Maria—a high-end Category 4 storm that hit Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017.
The exhibition explores how artists have responded to the transformative years since that event by bringing together more than fifty artworks made over the last five years by an intergenerational group of more than fifteen artists from Puerto Rico and the diaspora.
The following films, organized into three episodes, explore the art and the artists in the exhibition “no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria”.
EPISODE 1: TERRITORY
EPISODE 2: MEMORY.
EPISODE 3: RESISTANCE
“no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria” On view now – April 23, 2023. Whitney Museum of American Art. Click HERE for more details, schedules, tickets, etc.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening: 1. Edward Hopper’s New York. Via Whitney Museum of American Art 2. The enveloping work of Barbara Kruger: MoMA 3. Man Who Turned Trash Into Family Treasures / The Garbage Man
BSA Special Feature: New York Through Edward Hopper’s Eyes
“The city of New York was Edward Hopper’s home for nearly six decades (1908–67). For Hopper, New York was a city that existed in the mind as well as on the map, a place that took shape through lived experience, memory, and the collective imagination. It was, he reflected late in life, ‘the American city that I know best and like most.’ “
Edward Hopper’s New York. Via Whitney Museum of American Art
The enveloping work of Barbara Kruger: MoMA
“Margarita Lizcano Hernandez, curatorial assistant in the Department of Drawings and Prints, takes a close look at Barbara Kruger’s ‘Thinking of -You-. I Mean -Me-. I Mean You.’ and describes the sometimes overwhelming feeling of being surrounded by the colossal installation.”
A Man Who Turned Trash Into Family Treasures / The Garbage Man / A film by Laura Gonçalves.
At a long table laden with traditional dishes, a family shares fond memories of an uncle, who fled Portugal’s dictatorship and became a garbage collector in Paris, in this film by Laura Gonçalves.
David Breslin and Adrienne Edwards curate “Quiet as It’s Kept”
Write poetry.
That is our best-recommended strategy to experience the Whitney Biennial. The stanza, the spaces, the rhythms, the waves. They all coalesce in the black space and the white space. And one need not keep this quiet.
The country has been in an ongoing grinding recession since 2008, heading toward depression. Institutions steadily attacked; the wealth steadily stolen. You can see the US here, in these installations, videos, paintings, sculptures, and photography.
Even when you don’t look, you see stressed-out workers balancing on a highwire, the frayed net below. The emptiness of consumerism, the backwash from decades of wars, the contemplation of chaos. Here is history and here is the future, quiet as it’s kept.
The Whitney Biennial is now 90 – an institution, possibly. Discussed, reviled, admired; this one often is stunning. Collaborative curators David Breslin and Adrienne Edwards have chosen quality in these 63 artists, have endeavored to know their collection of artists and can shake the viewer. Brooding, raw, slick, contemporary displacement is displayed. Frayed. Portrayed.
A year ago NYC went into complete lockdown. Spring went on without us. Holed up in our homes we missed the burst of new life such as the myriad of flowering trees of New York, pear trees, peach trees, cherry trees, magnolia trees, the empress tree, dogwoods…
We missed the daffodils and the tulips on the sidewalks and the wisteria vines climbing on the front of brownstones. The burst of color and fragrances that permeate the city during the Spring is unmistakable. Nature comes alive and with it our desires to go out and celebrate the new beginnings.
Spring is also a cultural season. New exhibitions open and with that, the cultural life of the city begins in earnest. Indoor and outdoor cultural offerings abound with you presented with many choices to select from.
Now there’s an optimistic feeling of a renaissance after a year of sacrifices and suffering, loss and despair.
Most of the city’s museums, gardens, and parks are open to the general public in a limited capacity. Please always check with the institutions’ guidelines and policies before you go. Most if not all of them have requirements that must be observed prior to visiting. So please plan your visit and have fun.
“Oh, my God! We slept on our own important art movement for all these years.” – Lee Quinones
He was talking broadly about graffiti, but he might as well be talking about Street Art too. New York-based Lee Quinones is one of the most important graffiti artists – with some of his work in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.
GRL Arriving at Nuart Festival to Demo the Eyewriter Project
Yesterday the Graffiti Research Labs (GRL) arrived in Stavanger, Norway, in advance of their presentation at the Brooklyn street art celebration called the Nuart Festival.
Rockin the Kan-Eye-tronic GRL Style (image courtesy GRL)
James Powderly and Evan Roth are artists and hackers (the good kind) of technology, always looking for ways to project art without damaging property, but in new and innovative ways. This week at Nuart Festival GRL are showcasing their own works as well as the “EyeWriter” project, which is seeking to enable people who are otherwise disabled to use only the movement of their eyes to create art and communicate.
On hand Nuart special guest will be old school LA graffiti writer Tony Quan, aka Temptone, with whom the “EyeWriter” project has done experiments with the developing technology.
The EyeWriter project at work (image courtesy GRL)
Pedestrians & Sidewalks Urban Art Program – Check out this Open Call for Urban Artists to do a project by the WTC Site
“69 Meters,” by artist Magda Sayeg, on Montague Street in Downtown Brooklyn organized in partnership with the Montague BID (image courtesy Alternaventions)
Call for Proposals
The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, in cooperation with NYCDOT invite artists and/or designers to propose conceptual designs for a temporary mural to be installed on the part of the construction fence surrounding the World Trade Center Site, located on Church Street between Liberty and Vesey streets in Lower Manhattan. The deadline is October 1, 2009.
The Urban Art Program is an initiative to invigorate the City’s streetscapes with engaging temporary art installations. As part of the World Class Streets initiative, art will help foster more vibrant and attractive streets and offer the public new ways to experience New York City’s streetscapes.
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Street Art Shrine on Williamsburg Bridge honors DJ Josh Link
This bicyclist lights a candle for Josh Link. He said he didn’t know who the guy was, but wanted to pay tribute anyway. (photo Steven P. Harrington)
A not uncommon sight in New York is the street-side shrine, a public and very personal outpouring of grief for a loved one who lost their life due to an accident on the streets. Currently on the pedestrian walkway of the Williamsburg Bridge between Manhattan and Brooklyn an impromptu tribute is sprayed on a city plaque, a photo taped to it, flowers laid nearby, and candles are kept alight. While not art for it’s own sake, these displays have a powerful way to symbolize love, grief, and tribute… while the traffic continues to rumble by.
DJ Josh Link (image courtesy Nicky Digital)
On August 24 well known DJ Josh Link was hit by a black car on the Williamsburg Bridge while riding his Vespa, and the accident was fatal. According to news reports, he was knocked from his ride and died as a result.
Sadly and ironically, graffiti had just begun to appear around town paying tribute to another New York DJ saying, “R.I.P. DJ AM”, who died 4 days later, reportedly of a drug overdose.
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
