BSA Images Of The Week: 05.31.20 / Dispatch From Isolation # 70

Welcome to BSA Images of the Week.

The streets are alive with street art and pointed political protest. NYC citizens are joining the cities and communities across the country who are demonstrating furiously over the newest examples of systemic, latent, and explicit racism and police brutality that have characterized our society for so long. Of course it’s just one fire that has been waiting to spark as economic conditions run parallel with social inequity. In the face of sky-high unemployment, unpaid rents, increasing food insecurity, a “rescue” program that gave the store to the rich, and the ever-growing gap between hyper-rich and the chronically poor/ newly poor, the summer here looks like it could be torrid.

We won’t need or see a large number of street art festivals for a while. This show of politically/socially inspired artworks and text messages is probably just warming up on the streets and you can imagine that artists won’t find it appealing to be sitting on panels and pontificating about the genesis of mark-making, the original roots of punk anarchy, or how they are incorporating being woke or inter-sectionalism into their “street practice”. The creative class, however you define it, has suffered a huge blow and many are out of work, and patience. Based on what we have been witnessing here these past few weeks, you may predict that the more aesthetically inclined will seize the opportunity to make art for the city, on the city.

Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring 1UP Crew, Adam Fujita, Almost Over Keep Smiling, Billy Barnacles, Combo-CK, Denis Ouch, Indecline, Jason Naylor, Lunge Box, Matt Siren, Mr. Toll, and Woof Original.

Adam Fujita (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Almost Over Keep Smiling (photo © Jaime Rojo)
A literal manifestation of conversations on the street. This campaign addressing the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement is answered with spray painted x’s and attempts to rip down the posters. Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Matt Siren (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Matt Siren (photo © Jaime Rojo)
A very pink Superman has a roll of toilet paper on his chest. Denis Ouch (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Lunge Box (photo © Jaime Rojo)
HOPE (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Indecline (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Billy Barnacles (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Billy Barnacles (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Should patriarchy in the Catholic church be replaced by matriarchy? Is it a matter of empowerment for women to assume the highest positions of power in religious orders? Or have those establishments become discredited too much already? The French street artist Combo CK wheatpasted these holy women in Brooklyn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Woof Original (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Who you lookin’ at? Mr. Toll, surely you aren’t saying that Brooklyn is ugly, are you? (photo © Jaime Rojo)
1UP (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Untitled. Spring 2020. Queens, NY. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
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