All posts tagged: Debens

BSA Film Friday: 05.31.13

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

Now screening: Las Calles Hablan : Street Art in Barcelona, RONZO Goes pre-historic with Skatersaurus, SAMO© by Aaron Rose and Thomas McMahan.

BSA Special Feature:
Las Calles Hablan : Street Art in Barcelona

“Las Calles Hablan is a story about discovering a hidden world, an extraordinary subculture and the struggle between an artistic community painting for freedom of expression and an increasingly restrictive dogmatic government,” says Justin Donlon as he speaks about this hour long documentary he made with Silvia Vidal Muratori and Katrine Knauer.

An educational and unpretentious study of the spectrum of Street Artists and techniques currently at play in Barcelona, the team traces  the scene through personal observations and their network of local and international artists, local gallerists, and their connections globally via the Internet.


The film traces the trajectory from the Street Art/graffiti’s emergence at the end of the 70s following the Franco dictatorship and the rise of international hip-hop culture through the 90s into a sort of freewheeling golden era in the early 2000s. It also explains the current unease with the city, the professionalizing of the artists through a growing gallery practice, and the collaborative initiatives of some community leaders with artists.

Taking a straightforward documentary approach, the motivations and inspirations of current artists on the scene are presented without much of the exaggerated myth-making that more commercial hype vehicles often contain. Included in the examination are how community and local citizens and authorities have taken a constructive role in facilitating space and opportunities for some artists here and elsewhere, while the definition and appetite for illegal work ebbs and flows.

Featured artists:Zosen, Mina Hamada, Kenor, Kram, El Xupet Negre, Debens, Fert, Dase, SM172, Ogoch, Kafre, Aleix Gordo, Meibol, Eledu, C215, H101, Miss Van, Btoy, El Arte Es Basura, Konair, Gola, Vinz.

(Image above a screenshot of Vinz © Las Calles Hablan)

RONZO Goes pre-historic with Skatersaurus

A quickie with RONZO, who quickly demos how his latest charactor, the Skatersaurus, is created and installed.

SAMO© – Jean-Michel Basquiat
By Aaron Rose and Thomas McMahan

An electric train switch clicking and collaged short of distressed city clips paying homage to the free floating and cryptic phraseology of Basquiat as his street writing alter ego SAMO© . This new video directed by Aaron Rose and Thomas McMahan is a thrill cut to a New York graffiti era ever more cast in amber, a choppy popping scratching archival image soaked indictment/celebration of conformist chaotic consumerist culture and the struggle to pay the bills, backed by a mechanical nihlist beat you can pop and lock to while name-dropping like Fab Five Freddy.  Don’t push me cause I’m close to the Vogue.

Music by N.A.S.A. featuring Kool Kojak, Money Mark and Fab Five Freddy
Animations by Maya Erdelyi and Alexis Ross

 

 

 

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Fun Friday 10.26.12

1. Perfect Storm “Big Freedia” Coming
2. Kid Acne, “Damn Straight” (Vienna)
3. Blue Dog at Michael Mutt (NYC)
4. “Las Calles Hablan” Group Show (Barcelona)
5. SANER Has “Catharsis” at New Image (LA)
6. Saner “Catharsis” Teaser # 2 (VIDEO)
7. Jeff Frost “Modern Ruin” Preview (VIDEO)
8. See No Evil 2012 (VIDEO)

Happy Friday NYC. Halloween is in full effect on the streets and there are people in costume at bars, at art parties, galleries, and in the corner deli throughout this weekend as we get ready for the Frankenstorm that is on it’s way from the South, West, and North. And from New Orleans another storm system called Big Freedia is set to hit on Halloween at Brooklyn Bowl. Watch the skies for this perfect storm – Ya’ll get back now!

 

Kid Acne, “Damn Straight” (Vienna)

This week Kid Acne has been led by his small army of sword-wielding women to Vienna, Austria for his solo show at Inoperable gallery with mono prints, graphite, screenprints, qatercolor, and more. The Kid says that the show will also feature a limited print “honoring the worlds first Graffiti Artist, Kyselak“, an Austrian who painted during the early 1800s. “Damn Straight” is now open.

Kid Acne on the streets of Brooklyn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

For further information regarding this show click here.

Blue Dog at Michael Mutt (NYC)

With canine pragmatism, the Street Artist Blue Dog 10003 describes the rules of the street: “You put up and if people like it they take pics or poach it. If it sucks they slap over it.” Not sure how it applies to the rules inside the gallery ; “Re Tail Blue’s” is now open to the general public at the Michael Mutt Gallery in Manhattan.

Blue Dog 10003 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

For further information regarding this show click here.

“Las Calles Hablan” Group Show (Barcelona)

In support of a forthcoming documentary of the same name, Las Calles Hablan is the first exhibit by Mapping Barcelona Public Art and it is tracing the evolution of street art in Barcelona since the death of Franco. While this collection is not exhaustive, it gives an overview. Presented by MBPA at the Mutuo Centro de Arte, the show includes: Debens, Tom14, Kenor, Pez, Kafre, Alice, SM172, Ogoch, BToy and Gola. Now open.

Pez in Miami. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

For further information regarding this show click here.

SANER Has “Catharsis” at New Image (LA)

“I visited Oaxaca a lot when I was growing up because my mother is from there, and certain traditions which they carried out there really caught my attention.,” says Mexican Street Artist Saner as he talks about his youth and the rich influences that can be traced in his work. Medvin Sobio curates Saner’s new show “Catharsis” at New Image Art Gallery in West Hollywood, CA. A cultural and stylistic fusionaire, Saner is clearly poised to influence many – Saturday night it is the place to be in LA.

Saner in Miami for Wynwood Walls. A collaboration with Sego. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

For further information regarding this show click here.

Saner “Catharsis” Teaser # 2 (VIDEO)

Jeff Frost “Modern Ruin” Preview (VIDEO)

See No Evil 2012. Street Art Way of Life (VIDEO)

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MBPA Presents: “Las Calles Hablan” A Group Exhibition and Film Screening. (Barcelona, Spain)

Las Calles Hablan

Mutuo Centro de Arte. Carrer de Julià Portet, 5. (Metro: Urquinaona)
Opening : Thursday, 25 October, 20hr 
Works from Debens, Tom14, Kenor, Pez, Kafre, Alice, SM172, Ogoch, BToy and Gola. 
Music : DJ Rocketman
Sneak preview of the Las Calles Hablan documentary.

Las Calles Hablan, the first exhibit by Mapping Barcelona Public Art, is about the evolution of street art in Barcelona. The opinions on graffiti go in many different directions – love, hate, indifference. This exhibit welcomes all opinions, inviting everyone to see and learn more about their community and how graffiti can be a compelling element for a visual discussion. Barcelona, like many cosmopolitan cities, has a rhythm, a natural beat that carries and communicates its personality: the very soul of the place. It carries the mood but also embraces the history in the streets. This vibrant energy has attracted many graffiti artists from around the world to live and work, documenting the life and soul of the city on its walls. here because of this energy.

After the death of Franco in the 1970s, Barcelona evolved into a bohemian, cultural city creating a place and environment where the people could reclaim their space, their culture and language. Over the next decades, the city flourished with street art freedom: graffiti along the city walls, music in every corner. During this urban cultural renaissance, artists created a public gallery where the people could enjoy a city which is flourishing with artistic expression. The street art of this time often provoked playful interchanges or posed political, economic or cultural questions. There was a public conversation between the artists and the people in the streets.

Other cities, like Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires, developed and embraced their rich street art scenes to the extent where this urban art has become a part of their cultural identities. However, recent changes to the local laws in Barcelona have tightened restrictions on street art, increasing fines and limiting the spaces where street art can be shared with the people. Las Calles Hablan aims to open up the dialogue in the community about the value of street art by providing information on the various barrios and their history since the fall of Franco, a history of the graffiti scene in Barcelona during that same time period, and sharing photographs of work from various local graffiti artists along a timeline. We encourage and invite an open discussion about the graffiti scene.

Documentary

For the opening, there will be a never before seen documentary film, with footage of incredible graffiti areas in Barcelona, as well as interviews with artists, a street art gallery owner and others in the know. Justin Donlon and Sylvia Vidal are producing this fresh inspirational and educational view of the streets of Barcelona.

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