End of January, beginning of looking forward to spring. With warmer, wetter weather than we’ve had in years, we also have some plants popping up from the soil that we wouldn’t expect till March or April. This week has been a good show for street art and graffiti, though.
Unfortunately, demonstrations against police brutality have begun here again due to the public release of body cam and surveillance footage in Memphis, Tennesee, on Friday that document police restraining, pepper spraying, tazing, kicking, and punching a young black guy, a citizen, at a suburban intersection. The scene is stomach-turning, devastating to his family, and psychologically damaging to the body politic. Demonstrations in Times Square Friday night were followed by demonstrations in Washington Square Park last night.
Meanwhile, we want to show you some new graffiti and murals and street art from this moment in NYC.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring: You Go Girl, Rero, Huetek, DEK, Leaf, Vojtech Trocha, ZROC, DOLE, Manuel Alejandro/The Creator, Jaye Moon, CNO, Atelier Wand Art, BORU, and BOOG.
It comes as no surprise that the explosion of new graffiti in New York is evident across the river in Jersey City, where we have been hanging out the last few day for the Jersey City Mural Festival. And for those who know their history, it will also come as no surprise that we always dig the illegal unapproved organic graffiti and street art as much as that which has received official approval from our city fathers and mothers.
So here’s new pieces and tags from under the bridges, passageways, and inside the abandoned buildings in JC. The looseness of line and exuberance of color combinations tell us that graff kids are feeling at liberty to get up wherever necessary to get out their name. In the oceanic metaphor of ebbs and flows – this wave is flowing, bro.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Acro, Amore, Carbo, Chaos, Chees, Dzel, Gear, Hugo Girl, Jinx, Loser, Manik, MES, Nate Paints, Pesco, Reato, Rozr, Sean 9 Lugo, Serbo, Short, Sophie Xeon, Sugar, and Visit.
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week. Shana Tova to our Jewish brothers and sisters, even as we mourn the Friday passing of one of Brooklyn’s own, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She was born here on East 9th Street in Midwood to Russian immigrant parents in 1933 and the governor says we’ll have a statue honoring her here too.
Meanwhile in our strained semi-democracy, daily anti-ICE protests continue in Times Square amidst accusations of heavy handed practices of the police, exotic animal complaints this year are up 77 percent possibly because people want to quarantine with roosters and monkeys to stay sane, and in-person school classes are again being delayed due to lack of preparedness and generalized fears of Covid-19 outbreaks among students and teachers.
Compared to all these news, the scene with Street Art appears tame. But from Red Hook to Soho to LES to Bushwick to Ridgewood, it is definitely not lame.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring BK Foxx, Chris Tuorto, City Kitty, CRKSHNK, De Grupo, Downtown DaVinci, Freakotrophic, Half, Joe Iurato, Kesta, Logan Hicks, Mish, Ouch, Praxis VGZ, Sac Six, Sean Lugo 9, Stikman, and You Go Girl!
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Almost Over Keep Smiling, Billy Barnacles, Gianni Lee, City Kitty, CRKSHNK, Early Riser NYC, Seven Line Arts Studio, M*Code, Ori Carino, Sticker Maul, Turtle Caps, Urban Russian Doll NYC, and You Go Girl!
Such a New York sentiment and at the heart of it we believe in our fellow New Yorkers and people in general to pull through this series of cavalcading catastrophes that are befalling us as many of our would-be leaders stand by and watch.
“Times are tough..” – It’s also a new piece this week on BSA Images of the Week from Captain Eyeliner. Let’s look for common ground, fundamental fairness and a common dream – without being tricked into fighting each other.
Meanwhile here’s some of the genius and humorous works this week on New York streets (and one from Tel Aviv), as we nurse our wounds and mourn our dead, and praise our nurses – and so many others. Hang tough people!
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Adam Fujita, Almost Over Keep Smiling, Billy Barnacles, Captain Eyeliner, CRKSNK, Lunge Box, Maya Hayuk, Merk, No Sleep, Praxis, Quasar, Sac Six, Tag, and You Go Girl!
Dog days of summer
be damned, the Street Art in all of its fabulous illegal varieties, the true Vox
Populi (and self-advertisment) persists and insists through the streets this
July.
On the topic of illegal, we’ll state it again for the many persons who have an incorrect impression – Street Art, by definition, is illegal. If it is not illegal, please do not call it Street Art. That work you are looking at is probably a mural. Unfortunately we’ve seen some recent flagrant misuses of the term by some folks who probably should know better.
Good to see “Hysterical Men” here in New York, after
admiring the campaign from Philly. The artwork reminds us of Robbie Conal as
well, who is reliably skewering public officials with his wilting depictions of
them on posters on the street. This week we also were reminded of Chicago’s Dont
Fret when we saw the work of Matt Starr, with his textual witticisms. Don’t get
us wrong, its not a criticism to have similar work – it’s just an observation.
Finally, considering the treatment of immigrants, the mounting
fascism, racism, misogyny, and rageful ignorance being modelled and engendered
from the highest offices in the land, we’re shocked that, with a few notable
exceptions, Street Artists are not taking those messages to the streets. So
much for its reputation for being activist. Not so much.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this time featuring Benjamin’s Brother, Bones, Cammix Vx, Captain Eyeliner, Diva Dolga, Domingo Zapata, Dr. Nothing, Hysterical Men, Invisible Essence, Little Ricky, Matt Siren, Matt Starr, Mattew Wythe, Mr. Djoul, Obey, Praxis, Raddington Falls, Rammellzee, Sara Lynne Leo, Sinclair, Sunflower Soulz, The Postman Art, and You Go Girl!
As if Donald ever thinks about those people who marched. Ever.
People marched and bellowed with torches Friday night and with swastika flags on Saturday in Charlottesville; mostly white men and boys encouraged by the Trump/Pence team and all the people who are steering-advising. After a car was driven into the crowd of anti-racists the governor declared a state of emergency.
Racism and other -isms are not new. Neither is how they are being fueled and fanned today.
During these caustically hot summer days in the US almost every opinion expressed is characterized as political rhetoric, thanks to years of televised cable shouting matches. Reasoned discourse with gray areas is strictly verboten. But if you really want to know what is happening, just follow the money. Historians tell us that is the struggle, simplified and bare for the eye to see. Paid-for disinformation and millionaire newsreaders may cloud the view, but that’s what’s happening.
The majority of us are good, even fantastic, people who know somehow we are being ripped off and gradually shoved toward the door. The people have the actual power when they seize it. It just may take an economic collapse.
See any on the horizon?
Thankfully we still have Street Art, right? There is no doubt that it has already become more political here in the last year and the odds are that it will probably grow louder – as our graffiti and Street Art is always a direct mirror of us.
So here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuringArt Baby Girl, ASVP, Mad Villian, Brolga, Camo Lords, El Sol 25, Gutti Barrios, Raddington Falls, Monsieur Chat, Myth, Pay to Pray, Raemann, Self Master, Stray Ones, and You Go Girl!.
Blonde Women’s Lives Matter. Make America Salem Again. I am the Law.
The Donald didn’t let us down again this week – and for those of you who think we’re being partisan, we’re not. This dork has been doing this stuff in New York since the 80s – and we are all used to his grandiose claims and mid-speech reversals. But this week the RNC looked like it was going to devolve into Lord of the Fliescrossed with the Salem Witch trials. No wonder the Street Art we keep seeing is approximately 10 to 1 against him – and still he’s like a gushing geyser of humor, comedy gold! Except for the violent parts.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Alexandre Keto, Astro, Coloquix, Cyrcle, Dee Dee, Elle, Funquest, Lapiz, Leipzig, OverUnder, Patch Whisky, Uncut Tart, and You Go Girl!.
It’s Bushwick Collective Weekend Yo! The assembled faces and artists is local, national, international – a melange of what Brooklyn has become in recent years and the streets are alive with involved citizenry in search of entertainment, art and community. The Street Art scene is alive and well, just mutating weirdly as it always does; charges of commercialism and the whitening power of gentrification notwithstanding. A little further out in BedStuy was the #PrincePartyBK yesterday with Spike Lee celebrating the Purple One’s birthday, along with a lot of Biggie love, and Muhammad Ali love, and you, Love.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring 1Penemy, BG183, Bio, City Kitty, Coro, Crash, GIZ, JMR, KLOPS, Loco Art, Marie Roberts, Nepo, Nicer, Samantha Vernon, Sheryo, Tats Crew, The Yok, Thomas Allen, Tristan Eaton, UNO, XSM, and You Go Girl!
Hillary Clinton announced in Brooklyn this week that she supports raising the minimum wage to $250,000 a speech while Bernie Sanders scoped around the showroom of a Danish furniture designer in the Brooklyn Navy Yard to order a new blond wood desk and chair for the Oval Office. The two sparred live on national TV from Brooklyn Thursday but you couldn’t tell they were in the BK because the CNN logos engulfed the screen and candidates and the actual citizens were reduced to a babbling rabble who hooted and hollered like sports fans somewhere in the dark. Wonder how long CNN intends to have their brand new warehouse-sized logo beaming across the river at Manhattan.
Meanwhile, on the streets here it is pretty evident who many New Yorkers favor and the majority of new Street Art pieces and graffiti pieces are feeling the Bern. It’s true, we tend to hang out with artists, creatives, punks, hippies, and assorted wild-eyed weirdos – so its not exactly a true cross-section, but Clinton fans are not making much art on the streets. Possibly that is because level-headed reasonable people don’t feel the need to express their support for her so loudly and visibly. It will be interesting to see if Big Media predictions of a 17% Clinton lead are true by Wednesday morning. The Wall Street Journal seems to be banking on it.
Trump is #1 in NYC for the Republicans, presumably because of “New York values”.
So here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Caratoes, Elle, Ever Siempre, Faust, Flood, Icy & Sot, Lola Jiblazee, Lora Zombie, Nafir, Shantell Martin, Stuart Ringholt, Thiago Goms, Thievin’ Stephen, Thomas Allen, TriHumph, Vandal Expressionism, Vanesa Longchamp, Vexta, You Go Girl!, and Zabou.
The city of Oostende began its great reforms in 1883. King Leopold II earned the nickname the “constructor” for his contribution to public works. These reforms were possible thanks to the large profits that were made from the king’s colony, an area sixty times larger than Belguim: the Congo. In the Congo, rubber was a resource that became precious because of its use in the automotive and bicycle industries. The king imposed high quotas on rubber production in the Congo and forced the indigenous population to comply using coercive methods and extreme violence. It is estimated that during Leopold’s years of domination about ten million natives were killed in the Congo.
“Homage to the Past and Future” is a work that talks about the heavy legacy of the past, about how societies live with the consequences of those that came before and how they build their current reality to be better. The mural is located at the urban entrance to the city, a work that perhaps Leopoldo II had not imagined at the gates of the resort town. Today, the reality is different; diversity flourishes in the city and the image is of a resident of Oostende. Humans learn from their mistakes and the future will always be better if our present remembers and pays homage to the real heroes.”
This is the harvest season when all the fruits of Street Artists labor are on display for everyone to admire – and just before the frost transforms all the leaves and turns the grass brown and your cheeks red, it is time for you to go outside with your camera. There is a new talented crop of artists on the street that has been maturing these last few seasons and of course there are the perennials on display as well. New York in the autumn is always dramatic; the perfect stage to unveil new productions, new art shows, new movies, new musical compositions, and new standards being set. If the pickings for this weeks BSA Images of the Week are an indication, Autumn is at full peak right now, pure splendor.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Billi Kid, City Kitty, City Rabbit, Danielle Mastrion, Dee Dee, Elbow-Toe, Ernest Zacharevic, Hiss, Kai, Myth, Olek, Phoebe New York, Pixote, Sean9Lugo, Spider Tag, Tom Fruin, Tony De Pew, WK Interact, and You Go Girl!
Great weather for hiking, tossing a football, checking out stoop sales, spray painting, and if you are an orthodox Jew in New York, building a sukkah. On the Street Art tip Shepard Fairey’s new show opened and you can read his interview with RJ at Vandalog here, Lithuanian Ernest Zacharevic began his series of projects to come with Martha Cooper , two frenchmen named Boijeot Renauld have arrived to build furniture and sleep on it across sidewalks of NYC, BSA is hosting FAILE at the Brooklyn Museum this Thursday for a talk (you’re invited), and Pope Francis is scheduled to hit Central Park on Friday. Otherwise, just another ho-hum week in dirty old New York.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring A Pill NYC, Andres Flores, Art is Trash, Dale Grimshaw, Emilio Florentine, Ernest Zacharevic, Martha Cooper, Frump, IAC, Kid Fly, Norman Kirby, Love is Telepathic, Muckrock, Ramen, Solus, WhisBe, and You Go Girl!
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BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
