All posts tagged: Smells

BSA Images Of The Week: 07.23.23

July 23, 2023 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! A great week, minus the loss of Queens-born singer Tony Bennett Friday at 96, the sweeping of new immigrants out from under the BQE without regard for their few belongings and papers, and our general awareness of increased poverty on the streets, the introduction of the CBDC FedNow program with no fanfare in the press, and the gruesome news of the alleged serial killer suspect Rex Heuermann. On the other hand, we had some bright sunny days with lower humidity that pushed New Yorkers out in the streets and our parks to play games and read books and sashay in short shorts and strike up conversations with one another.

In street art and graffiti news, we appear to have entered an era of low-brow nouveau naive hand styling that has taken over characters and letters. Perhaps it is an attraction to the guileless or a need for clarity amidst the clutter – or that Gen Z doesn’t buy the bulls**t. Whatever it is, our art in the streets has a childlike quality that charms without being charming. So, drop the pretense, Pasqual. We all somehow know we are living in the eye of the hurricane so reach out and re-connect. And our street art is dazzling, entertaining, and has a sense of humor forged through sheer determination.

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring: Faile, Chris RWK, Smells, Captain Eyeliner, JJ Veronis, Homesick, Neckface, Panic, Timothy Goodman, OH!, Aidz, Toe Flop, Wizard Skull, Emilio Florentine, Jakee, Tiny Hands Big Heart, RH Doaz, TobBob, Lucky Bubby, She Posse, Eww Gross Ok Fine, Carlton, Skiti, Five Gold Stars, Ekem 132, Rah Artz, 3Modes, Mdot Season, Luce Bokes, Words on the Street, Okina Cosmo, Alex Itin, and TomBob NYC.

RH Doaz. Emilio Florentine. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

NYC PasteUp Polooza (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Skitl. NYC PasteUp Polooza (photo © Jaime Rojo)

She Posse. Tiny Hands, Big Heart. Captain Eyeliner. Eww Gross Ok Fine. Carlton. NYC PasteUp Polooza (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Gloria Steinam and Angela Davis provide inspiration for She Posse, who remind us of the power Of revolutionary movements throughout history and encourage us to value solidarity. NYC PasteUp Polooza (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lucky Bubby. NYC PasteUp Polooza (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Chris RWK. OH! NYC PasteUp Polooza (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Wizard Skull. NYC PasteUp Polooza (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Words On The Street. Alex Itin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

An advertisement for an exhibition by artist Timothy Goodman (photo © Jaime Rojo)

HOMESICK. AIDZ. PANIC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Williamsburg Bridge. East River, NYC. Summer 2023. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Images Of The Week: 01.22.23

January 22, 2023 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! Happy Lunar New Year 2023! Year of the Rabbit.

新年快乐！

Collabos, crew tributes, nationalist heroes, laborious illustrators, truck pieces, raised reliefs, refined extinguisher tags, absurdist collages, and a range of evolving letter styles, New York is a juggernaut of graffiti and street art every week. It’s an embarrassment of riches from a wide variety of creative talents on our streets, and we’re thankful to catch just a part of it and share it here with you.

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring: City Kitty, Chris RWK, Smells, Rambo, BK Foxx, Gane, Trace, Ollin, Rold, BK Ackler, HOPS, GULA SOR, Clepto, Hof Crew, 2 Mycg Gane, Zas, BAG HAS, Faile, JG Toonation, Drones, Nails, and Sanije.

FAILE fluxxing their stuff. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

City Kitty. Chris RWK (photo © Jaime Rojo)

HOPS. Louie Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald filling the air -Jazz wall in progress. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Images Of The Week: 04.10.22

April 10, 2022 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

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Welcome to BSA Images of the Week!

April showers, babe. That’s what we have been experiencing. Yes, that means we get May flowers. It’s a whole system, see?

Congratulations for our new Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

“It has taken 232 years and 115 prior appointments for a Black woman to be selected to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States,” Jackson said in a speech outside the White House.

“But, we’ve made it. We’ve made it, all of us,” Jackson said.

We’ll be looking for her face to pop up on the street soon!

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring: City Kitty, Chris RWK, Adam Fujita, Icy and Sot, Clint Mario, Gane, Irak, RX Skulls, Smells, Bublegum, Acroe, Bertstit, and Eric John Eigner, Lawrence Weiner.

Icy & Sot. This stencil has been on this spot for a very long time. The words were added at a later time by an unidentified artist. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

City Kitty and Chris (RWK)(photo © Jaime Rojo)

City Kitty with RX Skulls (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bublegum for The Bushwick Collective (photo © Jaime Rojo)

This spot is usually reserved to display artworks in conjunction with the Whitney Museum and the High Line. This is a protest scene say no to the Dakota Access pipeline and end its threats to sacred land and water. #NoDAPL(photo © Jaime Rojo)

Detail from the above photo. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lawrence Weiner / Public Art Fund. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Spring 2022. NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Images Of The Week: 01.30.22

January 30, 2022 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Welcome to BSA Images of the Week. Happy Snow Weekend!

We’re digging out from a ‘Nor’easter’ today in New York, a swirling blizzard of snow and strong winds that created such astonishing contrasts of bare ground and high-pointed drifts that kids and adults were playing together on these ledges, falling to the ground laughing.

It brings to mind the masses of Americans whose prospects and futures have been completely blown away, leaving nothing but bare soil – while bankers and corporate criminals have drifted all the wealth upwards to new stylish heights during the economic storm of the last 40 years. Feel like you are walking through two feet of snow and can never get ahead? Some would like you to think that it’s because of uncontrollable forces like the weather.

Meanwhile, it’s the calm after the storm now and we’re heading out to play in the snow this morning before it all gets dirty. It’s nice to see New York like a clean slate, full of possibility and promise. Let’s go for a walk!

And here’s our weekly interview with the streets in NYC, Miami, and Berlin; featuring ATOMS. Billy Barnacles, Boxer, Case Maclaim, Cupid, Dark Clouds, Jamie Hef, Joe Iurato, Kaynor, Klass, Modus. Smells, Ten! Tom Bob, Tony, and Wane.

Case Maclaim in Miami for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Joe Iurato. “The More Things Change”. The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. East River New York. January 2022. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Images Of The Week: 09.19.21

September 19, 2021 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Welcome to BSA Images of the Week.

For all the flooding of our street art consciousness by the mural movement during the last handful of years, we’re still impressed by the completely organic personality of New York’s scene. New York has the ability to absorb countless graffiti and street artists from around the world and still retain its own particular attitude regardless. Prickly, preening, pensive, or ready to throw a punch, you are never quite sure what you will end up with the art on the streets here. However, you are guaranteed to see something unique — and you’ll never have time to be bored.

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Al Diaz, Alex Ferror, ATOMS, Billy Barnacles, Brooklsey Dark, Carlitos Skills, Don Rimx, Drecks, Duel1, Gane, Hiss, Jowl, Little Ricky, London Kaye, Lucky Rabbit, Praxis VGZ, Skewville, Smells, and UFO907 .

“Abolish ICE” by Praxis (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Images Of The Week: 05.30.21

May 30, 2021 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

New York is crushing it right now.

The volume of Street Art has picked up full steam with more graffiti on walls than many OG graff fans can remember were on the trains in the 80s. Competition for spots large and small is more fierce than a Saturday afternoon rush at the nail salon. The quantity of pieces and tags and stencils ebbs and flows, as does the quality and freshness. But looking at it as you walk makes you feel like New York street and cultural life is in full bloom. Large-scale and small, the works appear like mushrooms popping up in the urban forest after a late-spring rain storm.

In other news, we’re really digging the miniatures of New York life made by artist Danny Cortes, the 1980s NYC train writer Futura is evolving himself into light fixture design with new works in a Noguchi Museum show (plus new collaborations with Comme des Garçons and Uniqlo), and Tesla’s Elon Musk is looking for “awesome graffiti” to adorn his company’s new mega-factory in Berlin. Let’s see how many graffiti and street artists get trampled in the stampede to “sell out”! Go Bro! Go Sis! Just don’t lecture us on heavy topics like gentrification, or the sullying of “our culture” by arrivistes. Yawn.

Let’s take to the streets, no?

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Conse, D. Scribblings, Damien Mitchel, False, Fhake, Kest Gak, Lorenzo Masnah, Matt Siren, Menace Resa, Michael Zelehoski, Mint & Serf, Mort Art, Royce Bannon, Shiro, Smells, Swif, The Yit Foreward, Toxic, UFO 907, and Zexor.

“Miguelito” by Michael Zelehoski (photo © Jaime Rojo)

This wooden sculpture installed in McCarren Park in Williamsburg is made from recycled wood from boarded-up windows. It will remain in place until October 2021.

Act Like You Know by an unidentifed artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Royce Bannon. Matt Siren (photo © Jaime Rojo)

I Love You Always Too! (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Images Of The Week: 11.22.20

November 22, 2020 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Mint. Surf. Mirf. Smurf.

Good to see Mint and Surf on the streets again here in NYC. We wondered where they had gone.

Wishing all of you a Happy Thanksgiving this week, whether you are alone or with family, cooking a turkey or baking a pie, spraying a tag or slapping a sticker, collecting art or collecting bills. We hope that we can all count some blessings this week. Please stay safe from the Covid-19.

Here is our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Butterfly Mush, Dragon 99, Eye Sticker, Fours Crew, Graff Art Kings, HOACS, Invader, Michael Conroy, Mint & Serf, Mr. Can Do, No Sleep, Only Jesus NYC, Rawraffe, Roachi, Shniz, Shorty, Smells, and Surface of Beauty.

Roachi / Fours Crew (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hoacs, Roachi, Mr. Can Do. Fours Crew (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Street art proselytizing with this sticker campaign. Only Jesus NYC (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Eye Sticker, Graff Art Kings. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Fuck Fuck Fuck Shit…exactly. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Thats the schnizzle. Shniz (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A tribute to Shorty RIP. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dragon99 for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Butterfly Mush pondering her options… (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Images Of The Week: 06.21.20

June 21, 2020 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Welcome to BSA Images of the Week and welcome to summer in NYC here on its 2nd day. Also Happy Father’s Day in the US.

Juneteenth. White Fragility. Defund the Police. How to Be an Antiracist. All of these new terms and phrases erupting on the main stage of the public lexicon today speak to a fundamental disgust with the system that’s been in effect. As uncomfortable as it may be, our better selves know that the conversations and changes that have started are vitally necessary to have if we ever want to move forward as a society.

Right now in New York people are marching, protesting, drinking on the street, setting off fireworks, and holding doors open for one another with a new sensitivity thanks to internal bruising. We also see people disregarding safety precautions in the spread of Covid-19, and honking their car horns more often.

All of this is against a backdrop of Americans being unceremoniously slid into poverty and unheard of unemployment, with nary a mention in the national media and near silence from both national parties. It’s good to know that the LGBTQ can’t get fired for being LGBTQ, and children of undocumented immigrants born here will be protected under DACA. Unfortunately there are no jobs!

But on the streets, the messages and the energy and the defiance and determination and the comedy are all there, running on the hot pavement.

Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Almost Over Keep Smiling, Cash4, Chris Tuorto, C0rn Queen, Crisp, KAWS, Menacersa, Nico, Skewville, Smells, and Tag Street Art.

Chris Tuorto #blacklivesmatter (photo © Jaime Rojo)

#TAG in Tel-Aviv. #blacklivesmatter (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mena-Ceresa. #blacklivesmatter (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Almost Over Keep Smiling (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Williamsburg, Brooklyn. June 2020. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Images Of The Week: 03.22.20

March 22, 2020 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

We’re off the street now, the BSA team, as New York City goes into lock-down mode in the face of the global Covid19 virus pandemic.

We know that our medical infrastructure will be overwhelmed, because it was broken apart systematically into a thousand tiny pieces years ago. Unlike centralized medical care that many other countries have, it has been only available to some of us and usually at a great cost that outstrips our abilities to provide for our families.

Now, as New York faces the prospect of becoming completely overwhelmed for months, we see that even basic testing, medical supplies, beds, and personnel cannot be pulled together fast enough through a decentralized profit-based system. This isn’t political – this is life. Unfortunately this is also death.

So if we do get sick, we’re not even thinking of going to a hospital. If some of our older friends and relatives get sick, we’re hoping that there will be enough money and resources to serve their needs. But the signs are not good here in the country with the highest GDP in the world. Makes you wish there was Medicare for All right?

So, as long as we’re able, we’re going to publish work from the street. But for the first time since we began publishing 12 years ago, the new shots on the street will also need to come from you – since we are quarantined. Please send us what you see, what you capture – maybe out the window. But don’t put yourself at risk, or others.

We have to flatten this curve and it will take us all to do it.

So here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring 1UP Crew, 907, Fours, Kuma, Pork, Pøbel, Poi Everywhere, Raf Mata Art, Smells, Stres, The Act of Love, The Postman Art, and Zexor.

We begin with this educational and artful animation by Juan Delcan & Valentina Izaguirre

Smells / Punk / 907 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Zexor for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pøbel addition to an old existing piece in his hood in Bryne, Norway. (photo © Tor Staale Moen)

Untitled. Williamsburg, Brooklyn. March 2020. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Images Of The Week: 01.19.20

January 19, 2020 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

We’re up to our necks in deep frosty wind-whipping winter, and yet the Street Art right now is verbose, detailed, bright eyed, distinct, political, critical, stylish, dense, richly colorful.

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week from Miami, and this time featuring Armyan, Captain Eyeline, Cash4, China, City Kitty, COMBO, CP Won, Food Baby Soul, Glare, Jaroe, Jaye Moon, Jazi, Marameo Universe, Plasma Slug, Rodak, Sara Lynne Leo, Smells, UK WC, and Winston Tseng.

Winston Tseng skewers the self-congratulating big-hearted folks and corporations who are selective about which kids they help or care about. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

City Kitty is offering moving services now…. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

China! Please see more China at the end of this post. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Food Baby Soul. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Rolling it uphill. Armyan (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Is this Bailey, Liz Warren’s dog, running the streets of Brooklyn? Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Manhattan. January 2020. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Images Of The Week: 05.12.19

May 12, 2019 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

You are not alone.

In an era where people may feel more under attack, more alienated, more disconnected from one another (despite “always on” connectivity), comes this new campaign from Dirty Bandits, “You Are Not Alone”. New York walls have been popping up recently (see above) with this message and somehow it completely resonates, hopefully just in time to remind someone struggling.

Brooklyn based lettering artist Annica Lydenberg of the design company Dirty Bandits tells us that this was an idea she came up with her best friend who had recently published a memoir about living with anxiety disorder. The he murals are intended to have broad appeal and offer support to anyone who feels misunderstood, victimized, or abandoned.

She tells us that people need to know “they are not the only ones struggling with mental health. My wish is to be seen as an ally, for not only mental health, but to the many communities who do not feel supported.” She says the campaign is not strictly commercial, although it is certainly not anonymous and some funding came from a media concern. But we agree that it is a very worthwhile message, can actually help people and if you want to learn more go HERE.

As long as we are on the topic, please call these numbers right now if you need help:

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
1-800-273-TALK (8255)

Worldwide Suicide and Crisis Hotline numbers:
http://suicidehotlines.com/international.htm

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning (LGBTQ) Suicide Hotline
1-866-488-7386

Teen suicide hotline
1-800-USA-KIDS (872-5437)

National Domestic Violence Hotline
1-800-799-SAFE (7233), or 1-800-787-3224 (TTY).

So here’s our weekly interview with the street, this time featuring Abe Lincoln Jr., Adam Fu, Cash4, Dirty Bandits, Elms, Icy & Sot, Jason Naylor, Mad Villain, Maia Lorian, Rude Reps, SAMO, Sinned, Smells, Soar, UFO907, Victor Ash, and Winston Tseng.

Victor Ash for Street Art For Mankind. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jason Naylor for #youarenotalone campaign. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Adam Fu for #youarenotalone campaign. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dirty Bandits for #youarenotalone campaign. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

One smile, four eyes. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Abe Lincoln Jr. in collaboration with Maia Lorian. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Seen on the streets of Manhattan…you’ve been warned! (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Abstraction. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Images Of The Week: 04.21.19

April 21, 2019 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

This week has been on fire.

Notre-Dame has been sorrowfully tested this week by fire. The Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn burned fires of bread in the streets Friday in a religious ritual for Passover known as chometz. Even the Orthodox Christians have Holy Fire celebrations on the day before Easter, which was yesterday.

Thanks to the visions of artists, the street continues to set imaginations on fire as well. Just don’t get burned.

So here’s our weekly interview with the street, this time featuring Antennae, Captain Eyeliner, Caze, Franco “Jaz” Fasoli, Hiss, Hot Tea, Pyramid Oracle, Rek La Blatte, Samuffa, Sensbale, Smells, Steve ESPO Powers, and Texas.

Pyramid Oracle in Philadelphia (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist in Philadelphia (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Rek La Blatte in Philadelphia. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ephemeron in Philadelphia (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Steve ESPO Powers in Philadelphia (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Scamuffa in Philadelphia (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Smells . Texas . Sensbale . Surts . Caze (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Johannes Mundinger: “La Bella Confusione”
April 25, 2024
You are inundated with information, disinformation, propaganda, images, videos, entreaties, siren calls, threats, promises, summaries, conjecture, stunning beauty, deliberate obfuscations, …Read More »
BSA Hits The North! – See You Soon in Belfast, Northern Ireland
April 23, 2024
We are excited to announce that BSA will be part of the exhilarating ‘Hit the North’ 2024 festival in Belfast! …Read More »
BSA Images Of The Week: 04.21.24
April 21, 2024
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! “It’s the only time of the year when New York City smells good,” …Read More »
Barcelona Tributes for The Amazing SKE
April 18, 2024
Today, we pay tribute to an iconic figure from the Puerto Rican graffiti scene, Eliezer “SKE” Pagán Torres. Born on …Read More »
Elfo Declares “I’m a Figurative Painter”… and I’m the Queen of England!
April 16, 2024
Elfo, the ever-witty Italian street artist, strikes again with his latest work scrawled across an abandoned building in Italy. Known …Read More »
BSA Images Of The Week: 04.14.24 / “Return2Burn” in Hunts Point, Bronx
April 14, 2024
Welcome to BSA’s Images of the Week. We decided to dedicate this weekly survey to the artists of “Return 2 …Read More »
Martha Cooper and Seth in Kibera. Kenya: Part 2 / “We Are One”
April 11, 2024
Nestled within the bustling city of Nairobi, Kenya, Kibera is a testament to its inhabitants’ challenges and its collective indomitable …Read More »