New York Street Art watchers over the last three or four years have been familiar with the polished irony and gentle sarcasm that Enzo & Nio purvey on often appropriately chosen walls, lamp posts, electric boxes. A collection of inside jokes rendered in a handful of styles, the duo has used photorealism, collage, cartoon, and sloganeering to speak to social ills things like consumerism, surveillance, and our passive acceptance/glorification of violence in the culture, and their own fixation with the archetypal cat and mouse game between graffiti makers and the law. With wheat-pastes and custom stickers that are cryptic, poetic, smirking, inverting, almost invariably un-permissioned, each new E&N occasions a second look and a piqued moment of curiosity.
Enzo & Nio most recent installation. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
BSA has published perhaps a hundred or so images of the pairs’ work over these past few years and with recent rather public news on Gallo’s Facebook page announcing their split, we scrambled through our collection to discover that we had, well, quite a collection. The nature of the Street Art conversation is one of continuous re-invention so we can’t all be shocked by change but as this mostly ephemeral scene evolves, we take a moment to recognize the space on the timeline that has marked Enzo & Nio’s eclectic and original voice delivered with a sense of marketing. Witty, salty, poignant and yes funny, here are some examples of their work on the street.
Enzo & Nio most recent installation. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Enzo & Nio most recent installation. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Enzo & Nio most recent installation. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Enzo & Nio most recent installation. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Enzo & Nio from 2011. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Enzo & Nio from 2011. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Enzo & Nio from 2011. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Enzo & Nio from 2012. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Enzo & Nio from 2012. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Enzo & Nio from 2012. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Enzo & Nio from 2013. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Enzo & Nio from 2014. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Enzo & Nio from 2014. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Other Articles You May Like from BSA:
Hooray Hooray, first of May!" chanted your cousin Felix, "outdoor fucking starts today!" You both broke out in peals of laughter while your mom was walking out from the kitchen with a basket ...
Much art in the streets is often for aesthetics - whether figurative, representational, or abstract. With roots in graffiti and often influenced by advertising, political protest, and pop culture, you...
New York street artist Jilly Ballistic has been borrowing black and white photos from an earlier era of economic depression to paste on the streets for half a dozen years or so. The effect is nostalgi...
For twelve days we're presenting twelve wishes for 2012 as told by an alternating roster of artists and BSA readers, in no particular order. Together, they are a tiny snapshot of the people wh...
"Hooray! Hooray! The first of May. Outdoor f***ing begins today!" - Or at least that's what we learned in school. Brooklyn's hawthorn trees and lilacs are in bloom, as are the cherry trees in the...