June 2013

Images of The Week: 06.30.13

 

Big Week in New York this week – but then you probably knew that.

Here’s our weekly interview of the street, this week featuring Claw Money, Erik Denbreejen, Meer Sau, MSK, Pose, Rene Gagnon, Revenge, Revok, Rime, Street Hart, and Wing.

Top image > Revok and Pose with guest artist Rime of MSK. Houston/Bowery Wall process shot. Many of you have been following the process of the making of this wall in NYC via our Instagram. Here is an exclusive image for BSA Readers and stay tuned for our extensive coverage on BSA this Wednesday with an interview with the artists. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Artist Claw Money is shown here working on the window piece featured on today’s banner to celebrate Gay Pride in NYC. The Grand Marshal for the 5th Avenue parade will be the woman who the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of this week, New York’s own Edith Windsor. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Street Hart (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Wing (photo © Jaime Rojo)

REVOK Revenge (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ai Wei Wei (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Erik Denbreejen did this tribute to David Bowie using the lyrics to two of his songs, “Heroes”, and “Fashion” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Rene Gagnon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Meer Sau in Salzburg, Austria (photo © Meer Sau)

 

Meer Sau in Salzburg, Austria (photo © Meer Sau)

Meer Sau in Salzburg, Austria (photo © Meer Sau)

Untitled. Manhattan. June 2013 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!

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Canemorto Stares Madly at London and Bristol

Canemorto have just galloped around Bristol and London for a few weeks and have left a number of these somberly bewildered guys in their wake. You remember in our last visit with the trio whose name means “dead dog” the stretched out horizontal is a particular favorite, and it it occurs to you that they may have something of a predilection for Picasso-esque portraits as they return to these sort of deranged dudes again and again.

(photo © Canemorto)

These gesticulating and grimacing sitters seem to have a lot on their mind, and who can blame them given the downward chugging economy, tiny apartments, longer working hours, government austerity and what not. Even so, these perplexed posers are not troublesome, rather than troubled. Either way, the energy of the lines and the clattering of the strokes as they bang into one another keeps these new pieces by Canemorto stealing the scene.

(photo © Canemorto)

(photo © Canemorto)

(photo © Canemorto)

(photo © Canemorto)

(photo © Canemorto)

(photo © Canemorto)

(photo © Canemorto)

 

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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!

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BSA Film Friday 06.28.13

 

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

Now screening: “Faces of Bowie” Show at Opera London, Revolutionary Egyptian Street Art, Leandro Erlich’s House in London, and FAITH47 at Memorie Urbane.

BSA Special Feature:
Faces of Bowie

Whether it’s zombies, punk, The Rolling Stones, or Martin Scorcese, pop-culture theme shows have been gaining popularity of late. Right now the Opera Gallery location in London is featuring a show that pays homage to David Bowie with portraits by a number of Street Artists among others.  It also happens to tie in neatly to a larger retrospective at the Victoria and Albert Museum entitled “David Bowie Is”.

Curated by gallery director Jean-David Malat, the show includes works by Lita Cabellut, David Mach, Joe Black, C215, The London Police, Mac1, Jimmy C, Kid Zoom, Mr. Brainwash, Kan (Da Mental Vaporz), Juan Barletta, Hisham Echafaki, Jef Aérosol, D*Face, Marco Lodola, André Monet, Nick Gentry, Zoobs, Eduardo Guelfenbein, Paul Alexis, Jean-Paul Donadini, and Richard Young.

Images above of works by The London Police, Jef Aerosol, and D*Face at “The Faces of Bowie” © Opera Gallery

Egyptian Street Art – More Than Aesthetics

“It’s not possible to have a revolution without art”, says SIKO, an Egyptian Street Artist in this video that gives a sense of the power that art in the streets can have for transforming a dialogue.  While we do not know the origins of the makers of this video and are somewhat unfamiliar with the politics involved, it nonetheless conveys what we have always known about graffiti and Street Art – it is a reflection of society back to itself. With the advocacy of opinions and viewpoints sprayed and wheatpasted across the public sphere, it can be a catalyst for change and at the very least, a vehicle for speech.

Living on the Ceiling – A House by Leandro Erlich in London

An installation by the Argentine artist, this new house is on the street – flatly. Passersby are encouraged to scale the walls and contemplate perceptions about reality, and gravity.

FAITH47 at the Memorie Urbane Street Art Festival

Produced by Blind Eye Factory, this short video watches Faith 47 as she creates her piece for the Italian festival this spring.

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DROID 907 says “I Love Amanda Wong” and “Fags Love Me”

Looking at a Modern Graff Travelogue Zine from the Rail Rider

You can’t get more personal than a zine – a hardcopy collection of stories, photos, drawings, writings, observations, screeds, poetry, meanderings all in one. The conventions vary from saddle stitched or creatively folded to the extreme of origamic configuration. It could be all fluorescent paper or have screened oaktag covers or be handmade paper with chunks of stuff floating around inside.  Usually printed and photocopied, it may be off your home computer or it may studiously avoid modern convenience and the dulling effects of automative production methods, perhaps with highly individualized pieces of art or detailing.

Detail of the cover from Droid (photo © Jaime Rojo)

We like the vehicle of the zine for its Luddite qualities, it’s air of hard won endeavor, hand manufactured and imperfect, and the graffiti zine as a category feels analog and authentic, even when it comes from a liar. If you want high-gloss and fancy concepts, go to the magazine store and marvel at the exotic/erotic spreads that have been art-directed into a sort of histrionic fun-house version of the world, but imagined by people with no roots and who can’t talk about anything. Pick up a graff zine and if you are lucky you’ll be challenged by it’s raw discontent and ravaging deconstruction of convention, possibly a bit of posing, and invariably enough rage to burn off a layer of conventional illusion. This is a generalization drunkly romantic, but we must aim high.

The New York graff writer Droid 907 has just released his new hand-held graff portfolio, Sex or Suicide: (you’re fucked either way) , a mainly black and white zine alternately jammed together (or carefully cobbled together, if you like) with shots from nice cameras, distorted phone shots, and others that were stored at the bottom of the sock drawer next to a tub of vaseline. Part of the 907 crew, this publisher and author gives you a romp through 20 pages that is earnest, disjointed and hard running, and you have an opportunity to balance on the handlebars while he drives, but he may take you into an oncoming truck.

Droid (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Something about the verbal and visual distortions, the roughshod collages, the on-the-run docushots of graff works made in hidden places underground and on tracks and roofs, the rambling and audacious text stung and burned with emotion and a vain attempt at ordering the chaos – is endearing. Despite his copping a feral stance and outlaw bravado, the zine writer/ graff writer gives S.O.S. the feeling of a good-humored graff travelogue with occasional special guest stars, but in reality he stays home a lot because he feels like nesting right now. It has skipping verbal shots and paeans to pop culture and drugs and sexual curiousity all slapped together with graff walls – splicing the prose and laundry lists and spilling them into a typewriter, his thoughts truncated and distrustful, jolting and jokering, ultimately swallowed by a swoon.

(Photo courtesy and © Droid)

BSA had the opportunity to speak with the circumspect Droid, who says he is currently on the road and in homes, lurking the East Coast from Maine to the deep south this summer. He gave us some insight into this new zine venture, but only enough to keep you wondering. We a pretty good idea who he is in love with, and he asserts that homosexuals find him very attractive.

Brooklyn Street Art: Is this like a blog, except on paper? And does that question make you wretch?
Droid 907: I don’t consider the two to have much in common at all, no. At times they are both composed of words and images, but the analog vs. digital nature of the two make for a very different form of archiving/narrative experience, for both the author and reader.

Droid (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: Can you talk about the process for creating text and how it is treated as commodity or object? One can see a comparison sometimes to automatic writing and the cut-up methods of William Burroughs.
Droid 907: Most of the text came directly from unedited journal entries I produced on a typewriter I found in Detroit last summer. The “lists” came from documenting each “one liner” on every sticker I wrote. Literally, I have hundreds of pages documenting thousands of stickers from the last year or so. I Xeroxed the lists to cut up and make a bunch of collages, composing the cover of the book as well as some of the interior images.

I don’t create work with the idea of selling it. I make work with the intention of making art and archiving my work/ experience(s). In the past I have had friends pull off rack jobs at their schools or print shops and created all my previous zines for free. On this endeavor, I had to sell some copies to make back the initial cost of production. That didn’t change my approach, but it potentially raised the production value. That said, I’d just as easily go back to doing it on the cheap and/or free.

Droid (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: How would you describe the intersection between zines and graffiti documentation traditionally?
Droid 907: I’ve referred to this work specifically as a “brag-mag” of sorts. In past zines I have collaborated or tried to archive other writer’s graff with the intention of telling a broader story. With “Sex or Suicide” I wanted to focus on a more intimate relationship I have with writing. I think zines usually focus on an individual’s idea without compromising to an editor’s or publishing house’s agenda. By hook or by crook, graffiti doesn’t compromise too much of anything.

An oddly photoshopped representation that appears in Sex or Suicide (image courtesy and © of Droid)

Brooklyn Street Art: As an artwork, Suicide or Sex is a compelling cavalcade of freewheeling handmade graphics, low-res photographic documentation, randomly styled powerful and mundane text intermingled, and deliberately anti-design design work. As a diary, it may be a cry for help. Discuss.
Droid 907: There are both romantic interests as well as some dark aspects in my life that were deliberately revealed in the work. I’d say most graff zines concentrate on transgressive behaviors and illicit activities that are admittedly entertaining, but rarely do they try and reveal more humanistic qualities. I wanted to challenge the traditional approach to graffiti story telling by revealing some of my more vulnerable traits.

Droid (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: Are you in love with Amanda Wong?
Droid 907: The answer to that question is on the cover of the work.

Brooklyn Street Art: Do fags love you?
Droid 907: The answer to that question is also on the cover of the work.

You see, told ya. (photo courtesy and © Droid)

To find out more about the zine Sex or Suicide: (you’re fucked either way), please click HERE. It is also available in Williamsburg Brooklyn at Desert Island Books, at Reed Space on the Lower East Side in Manhattan and Atomic Books in Baltimore.

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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!

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Looking at 5Pointz Now, Extolling a Graffiti Holy Place

While famed LA/Chicago/Detroit graffiti artists Revok and Pose are in town getting up on the Houston Street wall this week and many members of the MSK crew were in Bushwick doing tributes to Nekst over the weekend, New Yorkers have had the opportunity to talk with a lot of visiting friends who are in town in advance of the Revok/Pose dual show at Jonathan Levine this Saturday. As graffiti culture continues to assert its place in modern art history even while expanding and redefining itself on the street and in homes, galleries, and museums along a storied continuum, we are reminded again about the foundational role that graffiti has played in our aesthetic, helping to define urban culture and at least partially fueling the evolution of what we call a Street Art scene today.

MERES. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

As with most subcultures in a capitalist society, there are a fair amount of commercial influences swimming around and through the graffiti world too, the products and motifs employed to sell them somehow simplifying graffitis complex nature and diluting its emotional resonance for many. This is the water we’re all swimming in, however, and you could drown trying to fight it. Despite commercial pressures and their mutations, it is evident that the graffiti style is alive and well and building upon itself in new ways. For some, graffiti is analogous to the early punk scene for some others it could be inextricably tied to hip hop. But as it continues to morph into multiple subgenres it still seems perfectly clear that it is born from a scream, a helluva celebratory and defiant yell ; very individual, often powerful, it is tied to an agonizing drive to be heard and to be seen, to capture by hand something that is channeling by its own volition through your mind and from your gut. Probably. That incisive wisdom from BSA and $2.50 will get you a ride on the subway.

Zimer (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA will never be versed enough to speak authoritatively about graffiti culture, nor do we pretend to – it is so vast and storied and sort of outside our wheelhouse. But seeing all this graff action this week brings our minds to a place like 5Pointz in Long Island City, Queens. Begun as Phun Factory and eventually changing its name, this 200,000 sf factory building cannot be overestimated in its impact visually over two decades as well as for the community service it has provided for many artists, young and older, to practice, experiment, and even hit a level of mastery of their craft.  We won’t call it a Mecca, as we’ve been schooled that some of our brothers and sisters think that’s disrespectful – So we’ll just call it a Holy Place for many here and around the world. An ever evolving canvas viewable from the street and passing trains, many a tourist has made the pilgrimage to check it out; a touchstone for the true New York, and perhaps one that is disappearing.

Sen2 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

As the fevered pitch of cries from fans and community for the preservation of 5 Pointz runs up against the dual realities of a crumbling infrastructure and an increasingly  desirable location for real estate development, we all reluctantly cede that the writing is probably on the wall (pardon the pun). Absent a deep-pocketed philanthropist who wants to preserve it (Jay-Z?) or a groundswell of citizenry demanding public seizing of private property (torches and pitchforks anyone?), you have to know that this can’t last forever despite what many see as its importance and relevance to this culture, history, and this time. But really, just take a look around this spot. If you are here now, or are planning to come soon, you know that 5Pointz has the power of a beacon for many; a living thriving vessel for the creative spirit to be expressed in myriad ways, many personal. All hail 5Pointz and those who have made it successful all these years.

Here is a small collection of more recent images of 5Pointz.

Shiro (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mr. Blob (photo © Jaime Rojo)

See TF (photo © Jaime Rojo)

ZMOGK . Shiro on top. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Never (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Toofly (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bishop203 . Bisco203 . Leais203 Detail (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The Yok . Sheryo (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Onur . Semor . Wes21 . KKade (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Onur . Semor . Wes21 . KKade Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pablo Mustafa (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Monsieur Plume . Raid Crew (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Spidertag (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kram (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Spud (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Help (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Grafik (photo © Jaime Rojo)

el Seed . Jaye (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Color at 5Pointz (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Much respect to Meres and to all the writers on this epic wall and whole compound. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!

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Welling Court 2013 Is a Blast, Was the Last

This was the last edition of Welling Court.

Or it will be if you don’t help.

Garrison and Alison Buxton have spent countless hours, elbow grease and their own money to make this huge non-commercial Welling Court Mural Project happen 4 years in a row – giving free walls to a few hundred artist during that time.

Cost to us: Zilch, Zero, Nada

Cultural workers extraordinaire with a Rolodex list as long as the banquet table at an Italian wedding, these two have given more Street Artists artists more free opportunities than a block full of GO-GO bars. Wait, that didn’t sound right. But you get our point.

If not, here’s the point: Go pledge 10 bucks or a hundred bucks to their fundraiser for all the fun and true community spirit they have brought people for the last four years.

And this means all the artists who have been helped too. Should we start naming names?

After you pledge some money to their Indiegogo come back here and enjoy brand new images of the 4th Annual Welling Court installation. It may be the last time. And then all we will have left are logo-smothered festivals sponsored by cool “urban” lifestyle brands, real estate agents, energy drinks, and/or the Chamber of Commerce and The Daughters of the Revolution.  Jeez that’ll be fun, won’t it?

Welling Court Mural Project

El Kamino (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Skewville (photo © Jaime Rojo)

John Fekner . Don Leicht. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Welling Court Mural Project

John Fekner. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

ND’A . Mataruda (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Please Donate to the Welling Court Mural Project

Foxx Face (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hellbent (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Toofly (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Please Donate to the Welling Court Mural Project

Vexta at work. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Vexta (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The Cupcake Guy (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Please Donate to the Welling Court Mural Project

Icy & Sot at work. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Icy & Sot. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Please TELL YOUR FRIENDS by:

Tweeting this:

Please Support #WellingCourtMuralProject on IndieGoGo http://bit.ly/1aNJXrH @AdHocArt

Pasting this on your FaceBook Wall:

Please Support #WellingCourtMuralProject on IndieGoGo http://bit.ly/1aNJXrH @AdHocArt

Sinned (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Please Donate to the Welling Court Mural Project

Ryan Seslow (photo © Jaime Rojo)

R. Robots (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Please Donate to the Welling Court Mural Project

Mike Fitzimmons at work. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mike Fitzimmons (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mr. Kiji (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Please Donate to the Welling Court Mural Project

Queen Andrea (photo © Jaime Rojo)

LMNOP (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Welling Court Mural Project

Chris . Veng . RWK (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Rusell King . Matt Siren (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Please Donate to the Welling Court Mural Project

Cern (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cosbe (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Please Donate to the Welling Court Mural Project

Magda Love (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Roycer says, “You giving 10 bucks?” Abe Lincoln Jr. says, “WERD!” Royce Bannon . Abe Lincoln Jr. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

JC (photo © Jaime Rojo)

For other images please see Images of the Week 6/06/13.

 

Please Donate to the Welling Court Mural Project

 

Previous 3 years on BSA:

Welling Court: A New York Mural Block Party Like No Other

Posted on June 27, 2012

Buxtons Bring “Welling Court 2″ to Queens, Artists and Scooters in Tow

Posted on June 28, 2011

Welling Up a Little? That’s the Street Art “Community” Feeling

Posted on May 24, 2010

 

Please TELL YOUR FRIENDS by:

Tweeting this:

Please Support #WellingCourtMuralProject on IndieGoGo http://bit.ly/1aNJXrH @AdHocArt

Pasting this on your FaceBook Wall:

Please Support #WellingCourtMuralProject on IndieGoGo http://bit.ly/1aNJXrH @AdHocArt

Thank you very much.

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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!

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Joe Iurato Minimizes the Figures, Maximizes the Adventures

New Smaller Works Open Opportunities for Installation

Street Artist Joe Iurato is a creator, thinker, feeler, explorer. He is inspired and challenged by the world he lives in and with his work he often aims to inspire others with his observations and insights. For the last few years his stencil work has touched on themes relating to personal economics, a search for spirituality, and looking at life through the eyes of his little sons and their sense of discovery, enthusiasm and wonder.  Existential questions are Joe’s normal bailiwick, and he uses his figures to review the evidence gathered, sharing his conundrums openly with a public he won’t meet.

If one’s art practice is autobiographical, Joe’s is a series of life lessons. Recently the skater / climber / photographer / sommelier / philosopher began to take the large figures he once painted on walls and vastly reduced their size to make them mobile. The resulting display-like sculptures have led to many experiments including taking them with him into the woods, the park, atop tree stumps, in creeks, jumping fire hydrants, perched on roof ledges and fences.  In the same way his boys imagine themselves inside the trucks and other toys they play with, Joe’s action figures allow him to go on adventures with scale, his imagination, and memories along his path to adulthood. For those lucky to stumble on one, the adventure can be shared.

Joe Iurato (photo © Jaime Rojo)

We asked Joe if he could talk to BSA readers about his new experiments on the street and how he sees the experience. We thank him for sharing so openly and thoroughly.

The pieces I’ve been making are small, spray painted wood cutouts. No bigger than 15” in size. The subjects vary, but they’re all very personal – they sort of tell the story of my life in stages. From break dancing to skateboarding to rock climbing to becoming a father, all of these things have helped define my character. For me, it’s just about revisiting those moments in a way that’s familiar. I’ve always appreciated seeing architecture and nature in a different light. As a skater, the tar banks behind a local supermarket, a flight of stairs, a parking block, a drainage ditch, a handrail, a wall – they all present possibilities for interaction and fun in ways they weren’t intended to be used. Skaters see things differently, I think.

With a little creativity, the world becomes a playground. Same thing when I got into climbing. A rock isn’t placed there with a set of holds and a sign that says “climb me”. But to someone who loves to climb, movement shows itself in the face of that rock. You see a line – a way to get from down here to up there – and you begin to sequence the movements in your head. Suddenly it seems as though the rock was placed there for you. It’s an amazing feeling to unlock a sequence and climb. The mindset has also trickled down to the streets for some climbers, where buildings and other structures take place of rocks. Urban climbing.

Joe Iurato (photo © Jaime Rojo)

I was the editor of a magazine that placed emphasis on this discipline. So I approach these tiny street pieces with the same pair of glasses as I did skating and as I do climbing. I try to see the possibilities for a larger picture within a smaller space: a puddle can become a lake, a small crack in a cement wall can become a magnificent climb, a curb or window ledge can fall away into a desperate void, a planter box can become a place for a child to play, and a shadow might be a tangible space for a few seconds a day. There’s no limit to the possibilities and I find myself more and more looking at the environment for ways to interact. The small pieces rely heavily on their surroundings to tell the story, and so I take a picture with my phone or camera from the vantage point I think works best.

I guess what I hear most is that the pieces won’t last. Unlike a painting on a wall, or even wheat-pastes and stickers, these just don’t have much longevity. Secured either by a dab of glue, maybe even a piece of tape, and if there’s writing involved, oftentimes it’s done with chalk – they might last a few hours, a few days, and in the rare exception I place them out of reach, maybe a few weeks. They’re taken by time or a passerby, without so much as leaving a mark. And then it’s gone. I’m not under any false impressions that these could be landmark pieces or anything.

Joe Iurato (photo © Jaime Rojo)

It doesn’t bother me that they’re fleeting. I got to do what I wanted to do, carried out my vision for the space, said what I wanted to say, and for the few that might have stumbled upon it during its life, maybe they had an experience they won’t forget. One of the elements that I love about doing these smaller pieces is the surprise factor. You might see it. You might not. If you do, though, it’s not something that grabbed you from across the street like a massive 40’ mural would. Chances are you caught it from the corner of your eye just a few feet away, and the connection made is intimate.

I’ve taken a little step back from doing large-scale pieces for time being. I have many reasons, but maybe mostly because this is where my heart’s at right now, and how I feel like expressing myself. I don’t feel like I should do massive sanctioned walls just to keep my name out there or because the opportunity’s presents itself. In a way, that’d be selfish. I always feel like I need to have a damn good reason, something to say, if I’m going to create a dialog with the street and the community. They deserve the honesty. And if I can’t give it to them on that scale, I’ll pass.

~ Joe Iurato

Joe Iurato (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Joe Iurato (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Joe Iurato (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

 

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Images of The Week: 06.23.13

Here’s our weekly interview of the street, this week featuring Creepy, Chris RWK, David Smith, Enzo & Nio, How & Nosm, JR, Pennygaff, Shai Dahan, This is Awkward, Veng RWK, and Werds.

Top image > Enzo & Nio are now property managers? This is confusing. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

JR (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pennygaff did this tribute as gravestone on the last remaining chunk of Monster Island, a very lively and engaging artists performance space/ gallery / hangout in Williamsburg, Brooklyn –  now demolished to make way for glass and steel highrises. Median rental cost of a 1 bedroom apartment in Williamsburg is $3,150, compared to about $1,500 10 years ago. That’s progress. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

David Smith hit up Williamsburg and Greenpoint with about 100 of these animals this week. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

David Smith (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Veng and Chris from RWK (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Werds (photo © Jaime Rojo)

How & Nosm did a gig with a clothing brand and it debuted in Times Square this week. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

This Is Awkward (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Shai Dahan in Blackpool, England. (photo © Rakin Rahman)

Shai Dahan in Blackpool, England. (photo © Shai Dahan)

Shai Dahan in London, Engalnd. (photo © Shai Dahan)

Artist Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Creepy at work. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Creepy (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Riverside Park, NYC. 2013 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!

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Specter in Vladivostok, Nahodka and Tokyo

Street Artist and fine artist Specter hails from Brooklyn but has been traveling a lot and has been creating some interesting work in Russia and Tokyo, two places not typically mentioned during Western discussions of the street art scene – but we’d be remiss to miss.

“I was invited to Russia from my friend Pasha Shugurov who runs the artist collective 33plus1,” he says as he discusses the new piece called “Chromatin Structure”.

Specter “Chromatin Structure”. Vladivostok, Russia. (photo © Specter)

For the artists in our audience who were doodling in the margins of their science textbook during class, the chromatins are the combination of DNA and proteins that make up the contents of the nucleus of a cell.  The work is installed in Sister City Park. Also in the town of Nahodka, a port city in Primorsky Krai, he painted a geodesic dome with art students from the university there.

While in Tokyo Specter returned to some of the faux realism that we have become familiar with in his work in the last few years, recreating a façade that blends seamlessly, yet attracts your attention. The “Bodega Window” here is in the Harajuku Fashion District known for the chic shops and slick shoppers.

Specter “Chromatin Structure” in progress. Vladivostok, Russia. (photo © Specter)

Specter “Chromatin Structure” in progress. Vladivostok, Russia. (photo © Specter)

Specter. Geodesic Dome done in collaboration with art students from the university in Nahodka, Russia. (photo © Specter)

Specter “Bodega Window” in the Harajuku Fashion District of Tokyo, Japan. (photo © Specter)

Specter “Bodega Window” in the Harajuku Fashion District of Tokyo, Japan. (photo © Specter)

Specter’s project in Vladivostok was made possible from a grant from the US Consulate in Vladivostok and curator Kendal Henry.

 

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BSA Film Friday 06.21.13

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

Now screening: Sofles is Infinite, How & Nosm do a Times Square Gig, and DMJC Crew en Pura Calle in Lima Peru.

BSA Special Feature:
SOFLES – Infinite

Shooter/Editor Selina Miles takes the time-lapse genre up a level in this bubonic bass and drums slammed trip through an abandoned warehouse. Experimenting with camera perspectives and simple but effective editing tricks, the urban exploring graff talent Sofles takes on a few ninja qualities thanks to this deft presentation. Of course the style of shooting/editing wouldn’t matter if he wasn’t killing it on almost every wall with various styles and degrees of difficulty until he splits in two and competes with himself! And all this leads us to, of course, the grand crescendo – a darkly sinister piece de resistance. If your boy can’t tell you he is blown away by this little show, he’s just tryin’ to mask  jealousy. Give it up.

How & Nosm in Times Square

Brooklyn’s H&N just did this gig for a clothing brand in Times Square and here’s the promo.

DMJC Crew en Pura Calle in Lima, Peru

Good to see Entes y Pesimo among this crew at the Pura Calle this month.

And for a little more context, here’s an omnibus collection promoting the Pura Calle festival which happened at the beginning of June in Lima and brought about 150,000 people to a 3-day festival of break-dancers, rappers, graffiti artists, BMXers, and skaters.

And couldn’t resist this home made recording of breakers on the street just doing it on their own in a somewhat surrealistic way. Straight up!

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