Where: aMBUSH Gallery, 4a James Street, Waterloo (Sydney)
When: Friday 17 May
Time: 6pm-9pm
Cost: Free Public Event
In Greek mythology, the god Aether represented the highest plane of heaven and the purest, lightest form of air that only Zeus could breathe. Throughout the development of early philosophical and scientific discourse, the concept of Aether was used metaphorically as an alternative and preferable explanation for the apparent ‘nothingness’ that filled vacant spaces. Aether represented a fifth element alongside those four that were tangible – Fire, Water, Earth and Air – and served as the foundation for scientific exploration of the propagation of electromagnetic radiation through space.
Comprising the work of Aaron Noakes, Dakota Gordon, David Crystalface, Jack Hammond, Mez, Nick Matthews, Oliver, Ox, Sebastian Grant, Slug and Tom Groves
As museums continue to look for ways to bring in the kids, they are finding that one way to do it is to go outside and play with them.
Last year The Brooklyn Museum had a really successful GO at engaging people with community-curated programming that put people in touch with the young artist scene that has transformed the BK in the last decade or so. Similarly the New Museum Ideas Cityis making extensive outreach to connect the disconnected phone-poking Millenials and X’ers to the brilliant and quirky creative community that makes Manhattan the live breathing beautiful beast that it is. This is the kind of meaningful museum programming that can make the city feel inclusive, asking you to participate with your own snapping synapses and probing inquiries about the nature of things.
When it comes to encouraging personal participation in the public sphere, nothing is more democratizing for an event than to bring it directly into the street. This is an exhibition that is not roped off, doesn’t charge an admission fee, has no dress code, has no gate keepers. It actually invites you to engage, to converse, to consider, question, and decide merit on your own. – Not to mention the transformative affect it all has on public space and our perception of our place in it.
For us the second installment of the Ideas City really hit its peak this weekend as the culmination of more than a hundred independent projects and public events spilled into the street and onto walls. For the sunny Saturday Streetfest set along the sidewalks and in nearby park space in the refreshingly dirty, loud, and un-tony Bowery section of Manhattans Lower East Side, people celebrated the public aspect of citizenry and interacted with projects and tested the ideas of artists, architects, poets, technologists, historians, community activists entrepreneurs, and ecologists. And there were some street artists around too.
Here are some of the scenes that caught the eye of our favorite BSA photographer, Jaime Rojo, who was feeling pretty inspired by the events.
Tunisian-French Street Artist eL Seed is in New York right now to showcase his unique hand at calligraffiti, a genre of graffiti that has steadily grown in the last few years as traditional graffiti writers have tried their hand at differently stylized executions of lettering. Together with Jaye, a more traditional graffiti writer from Tunisia, the country that began the Arab Spring two years ago, eL Seed is spraying a number of messages in his own adaptation of Arabic on walls in New York for just over a week.
Born in Tunisia in the early 1980s and raised in Paris, the quick witted and thoughtful eL Seed calls well known calligraffiti artist Niels Shoe Meulman “a legend” and looks forward like a true fan to meeting Retna, even as his own painting exploits in the last couple of years include an enormous script on Tunisia’s tallest minaret, a high profile design gig with luxury brand Louis Vuitton, and a just completed 52 mural project on Salwa Road that features his own graffiti inspired calligraphy honoring Qatari culture and life.
“I spent nearly four months there, and painted almost one kilometer of wall,” he says of the project that traced his progress with a blog and enabled him to teach eager art college students how to use an aerosol can.
As a culturally bi-national artist who travels increasingly often, it is fair to say eL Seed is one of the new Street Art nomads who now regularly travel from city to city across the globe hitting walls. Maybe that’s why New York feels normal to him.
“I feel like everybody is a nomad in New York. You come, stay, and you leave, you know?” he says while we stand across the street from the still-wet wall he is completing on the Lower East Side with Jaye. What does this hot pink curvilinear script edged in red with the dropped shadow say? “Yeah in Arabic it says ‘We should all be nomads. We should cross ideas the same way we cross streets and cities.’ ” He sites the Cuban painter and poet Francis Picabia fro inspiring the text. The installation, and another one at 5 Pointz with Meres in Queens next weekend, are both part of “The World Nomads Tunisia” festival organized for the fifth time by the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF).
“I like a lot of pink and black,” he says as he surveys the new wall, which combines his stylized calligraphic lettering with the bubbled aesthetic of Jaye’s early graffiti style that many associate with NYC trains in the 70s. The new collaboration is just the sort of fusion that a multicultural city like New York is accustomed to, and one that it thrives on. “It is a good mix because we both represent a tradition of sorts. What I do is more related to very old traditions, what Jaye does is more relevant to our time, more modern. But the mix is a good combination, you know?”
Brooklyn Street Art:Have you experienced any negative reactions or attitudes while you have been painting? eL Seed: I was a bit scared to come here and paint some Arabic after what happened in Boston, and actually people have been coming and treating me very well. They are totally open-minded and they accept it in a positive way. That is how we can break stereotypes. Some guys even said, “Yeah, we need more of that”. You know when a white American man comes to you and says, “I would like to see more of that”, you know, I say “Oh that’s cool”.
Brooklyn Street Art:Yeah it’s a good sign, right? eL Seed: Yeah, it’s pretty good.
This weekend you can check out a new wall eL Seed and Jaye will be doing in Long Island City at 5Pointz in collaboration with Meres One, one of New York’s well known graffiti writers and founder of the revered graffiti holy place. On Sunday May 12th you will have the opportunity to view their new work during a celebratory reception from 6-8pm at 5Pointz as well.
In the meantime they hope to hit a wall with the Bushwick Collective and maybe a couple of other walls this week before eL Seed heads back to Paris for two more walls waiting for him, including a project that’s already featured Shepard Fairey and most recently, C215. Also a nine story building by the river.
“I’m glad that in Paris they are finally accepting my work,” he says as he recalls his first attempts to get permission to paint walls in the city that prizes it’s unique culture and heritage. “Last year they said ‘We cannot have Arabic script in Paris,’ ” he recalls as he remembers having a hard time getting people to agree to his calligraffiti.
Why the seemingly sudden change in political winds, he cannot say for sure. One might guess that it has something to do with word getting around about his collaboration with Luis Vuitton, the French luxury brand that has collaborated recently with Street Art names like Aiko, Retna and Os Gemeos and has more on the roster for future projects.
Whatever the reason, he wants to take his game up a notch. “Now I have two big walls, so that is good.” How would he challenge himself? “Maybe I can develop a new alphabet,” he smiles.
The project is sponsored by The French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) and offers opportunities for an exchange of ideas about urban revolutions. To learn more about World Nomads Tunisia 2013, please click here.
A video from eL Seeds’ recently completed project in Doha in Qatar.
Feliz Cinco De Mayo to all the Mexicanos/Mexicanas in the NYC today! Actually it’s more of a beer company sponsored holiday for los gringos but What the Infierno, it’s a big Spanglish Sunday in our multicultural city. Yo, speaking of spanish, check out José Parlá above rocking the installation he did with JR on a wall in Chelsea. And speaking of JR, the Times Square excitement continues till Friday so head on over to tourist central and be a part of it and a volunteer will help you get your mug turned into a piece of street art. Also keep your eyes open for news of his trip this week to Rikers Island. Bro, we weren’t there, we’re too scared to even think of it. But we did get to hang out with visiting Tunisian/Parisian calligraphic Street Artist El Seed this week while he was hitting up a wall and we’ll show you that action soon.
Anyway, here’s our weekly interview of the street, this week featuring Billi Kid, Bishop 203, Classic, Duke A. Barnstable, Earth Chronicles, Fink NY, Foxx Face, Fumero, Gilf!, Havan, Jon Hall, José Parlá, JR, Mr. Toll, ND’A, Rene Gagnon, Sno, Stikman, and Wishbe .
Installation Shows That It Is All In “Le Grand Jeu” (The Big Game)
Ask your average party-hearty college student how to open the doors of perception and they’ll give you a knowing look and point you to the nearest bong. We may think that the mind-expanding explorations of art students began with the hippies in the 1960s but this new work by Street Artist MTO and IEMZA points to an art movement four decades before that in France that specifically employed “mystical” drug use to broaden one’s creative experiences.
Pictured here are exclusive new images of the multi-panel installation the two artists just finished in an abandoned building in the Reims district of Muizon in France. Appropriate in its context, this is also the birthplace of an artistic movement in the late 1920s called Le Grand Jeu, which serves as an influence for the collaborative tribute.
Formed by four students in the early 1920s and published as a formal academic review as the Roaring 20s came to an abrupt end, the young writers who formed Le Grand Jeu sought a freedom of spontaneous thought through an exploration returning to childhood and the free-associating intuitive discoveries and reveries therein. While their cogitations were perhaps more theoretical than your average university frat house may be in in the early Twenty-teens, they clearly favored “extra sensory research practices”.
MTO and IEMZA used a number of surfaces (doors, panels, a wall) that they found in this storehouse to symbolize the sort of freedom sought and the initiation practices of Le Grand Jeu, which encouraged members to attempt to explore the dream world through the use of mystical texts and drug use. While these guys formed their artistic movement at the same time as the surrealists and had many similar practices that were meant to access the subconscious mind and it’s creative impulses, they considered themselves autonomous and did not relish having a political position.
The new photo-realistic depiction here engages the whole space, bringing in more than two dimensions, and features a reclined figure blissfully gazing into the haze. The model for the painting, Brice Martin-Graser, is also a graphic designer and he sponsored this urban exposition with the two artists.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening: Gorey & PAL Crew at Klughaus, Crack & Shine – PAL Crew Profiled, Jilly Ballistic: Wild in The Streets, and JR: INSIDE OUT
BSA Special Double Feature: About Spraying Buildings Feature 1. Gorey & PAL Crew at Klughaus
We highlight these two videos as possible polar opposites on a spectrum that includes genuine practice, personal and public perceptions of the graffiti artist / fine artist – a dichotomy that may produce cognitive dissonance and swirling emotion, an uncomfortable grey area for one to see the wielder of the can as artist, installationist, situationist, expressionist, intellectual, political theorist, social alien and open law breaker with a mission, or not. Okay, maybe it isn’t all that grand, but we got out the dictionary this morning.
First, here is a departure from the more common depiction of the lone aerosol artist as nihilistic defacer of property to now lone painter creating on a studio wall; a splattery line illustration of buildings that hug one another, forming a closely knit imaginary community, overlaid by an intimate serenade for an appreciative audience. When you look at this promo for the new pop-up show by Klughaus called PALINGENESISby a series of graff artists, it seems sort of romantic, mon amor.
Feature 2. Crack & Shine – PAL Crew Profiled on Streets and Roofs of Paris
Here, the buildings are the canvas, and the community is alarmed and in opposition to the painter. In strict contrast with the video above, this one features some of the Peace and Love Crew (PAL) appearing to actively deface property in Paris. And by their self descriptions, there is still this romantic view of what they do. Here they are members of a crew – in a gallery they might be called a collective. Switch the signifier or situation and you are celebrated or vilified (as Jaime adroitly observed yesterday). And there you have it – the flood of emotions/thoughts that are evoked by two entirely different expressions that involve the spray can.
Spoiler alert, there is no tidy answer to tie it all together.
Jilly Ballistic: Wild in The Streets
And on another note, Dega Films, a young and earnest start-up in Williamburg, Brooklyn is taking on a new project to document 10 Street Artists on the scene in a series from the streets of New York City while it’s happening. This is worthwhile endeavor for two reasons; 1. Documenting Street Art and artists is important for the greater culture to understand what is happening and to place it in the evolutionary timeline as this global scene continues to expand, contract, and mutate, and 2. This project is not sponsored by a brand, it is sponsored by you, so you are ensuring a bit more of intellectual freedom in the storytelling.
And on that tip, this episode looks at Street Artist/Culture Jammer Jilly Ballistic, who focuses her work predominantly in the subway with messages calling into question any variety of core assumptions pedaled daily by commercial messages that commuters must encounter as they travel, and consumer culture in general. Among other things.
To learn more about the Kickstarter for Wild in The Streets click here.
JR: INSIDE OUT: The People’s Art Project. A Documentary
Inside Out is the new documentary traces the phenomenon of Street Artist and photographer JR as he engages everyday people around the globe and helps them tell at least one small part of his story. Aided by the muscle of an army of committed volunteers and assistants, he is able to provide a forum for the individual to express themselves in ways that are celebrational, idiosyncratic, sometimes heart breaking, always human. Results may vary, and the reception locally is not always laudatory. Clearly JR is the name on the marquee but he makes sure that in many ways the stars are the people who get him there.
Top images are screenshots, copyright of Klughaus and OffTheWall.TV.
DEGA FILMS
The DEGA FILMS folks like your company. Please oblige them and be nice, after all they are throwing a party for you. Not only do they make sick videos to introduce you to the work on the streets of the new crop of Street Artists they also know how to throw a party! All you have to do is show up, have fun and enjoy the art and the music.
IDEAS CITY explores the future of cities around the globe with the belief that arts and culture are essential to the vitality of urban centers, making them better places to live, work, and play. Founded by the New Museum in 2011, IDEAS CITY is a major collaborative initiative between hundreds of arts, education, and civic organizations. This year’s theme is Untapped Capital, with participants focused on resources that are under recognized or underutilized in our cities.
IDEAS CITY is a four-day Festival of conferences, workshops, an innovative StreetFest around the Bowery, and more than one hundred independent projects and public events that are forums for exchanging ideas, proposing solutions, and accelerating creativity.
Visit ideas-city.org to plan your visit, and connect on Twitter @IDEASCITY.
The Schoolhouse is pleased to present the first solo exhibition of Bushwick-based public artist Mata Ruda,
“Incurable Otherness.” In conjunction with Bushwick Open Studios, this exhibit will be open to the public from 5pm-10pm May 31 as well as 12pm-8pm June 1 and June 2.
Located in the turn of the century site of Public School 52, “Incurable Otherness” ties New York’s immigrant past with contemporary outsider concerns. At the height of Irish immigration in the nineteenth century, Superintendent James W. Naughton’s family left home for a promising future in the United States. Through this transition, the superintendent became an influential member of the Board of Education, which led to the construction of this building, along with several others, as a means to accommodate the burgeoning borough of Brooklyn. As time has shifted, so have the immigrant populations within the city. Today, through his imagery, Mata Ruda represents the wave of travelers moving from Central and South America north. Originally from Venezuela, the emotions that the artist raises can be earnestly seen, as they are a part of his experience.
We look forward to welcome you very soon at Palais Kinsky in Vienna!
Grand Opening: Thursday, May 16, 19:30.
Again we selected exciting artists from all over the world
Anthony Lister, Brad Downey, Dan Witz, Ellannah Sadkin (presented by Moniker Art Fair), Faith47 (presented by Moniker Art Fair), Max Wiedemann, Mode 2, Olivier Hölzl LIVIL, Ozmo, Stephen Tompkins, Vermibus (presented by Moniker Art Fair).
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
