October 2013

BSA Halloween Street Art Special 2013

BSA Halloween Street Art Special 2013

The Halloween Parade through the Village in NYC is tonight, the 40th actually, and you will see a greater number of ghostly guys and ghouls on the bus and subway and hanging out on the street today. Of course New York has a fair share of freaks throughout the year, and some people love a dancing skeleton or screeching witch or marching Zombie almost anytime, really. When it comes to Street Art, you can always count on skulls and monsters and the occasional raven.

Last year Halloween in NYC was basically cancelled by the sincerely frightening Superstorm Sandy that left half of the city in darkness for days, and this year we hope it will be more about the fantasy aspect of All Hallows Eve.

We start off the BSA collection by photographer Jaime Rojo with this brand new one from Banksy’s Grim Reaper on Houston Street this weekend.  Also, check out the video by Kadshah Nagibe of the last Halloween parade that NYC hosted.  Have a great day and a haunted fun night everybody!

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Banksy (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Vor138 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Duke A. Barnstable (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Artist Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Vexta (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Post Mortem (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Obey (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Roberta’s Bushwick (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Artist Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Icy & Sot (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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The Yok and Sheryo (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Paolo Cirio. Google Ghosts, (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Artist Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Magda Love (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Mocks108 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Dan Witz (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Artist Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Kenny Scharf (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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El Niño De Las Pinturas (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Buff Monster (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Artist Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Dug (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Artist Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Deeker (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Artist Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Banksy’s Final Trick

Banksy’s Final Trick

A Genuine October Surprise for New York Street Art Friends and Foes Alike.

In a series of communiqués beamed from his website, the global Street Artist Banksy gave graffiti and Street Art followers a near daily jolt of mystery and mouse clicking that had people looking at every street scene as a possible Banksy by the time it ended. While few can confirm the exact level of involvement the actual artist had in the five boroughs, if any, none will deny that the Banksy brand underwent a major “refresh” this month that again put his name on the lips of those who had begun to forget him and many who had never heard of him.

Thanks to this masterful marketing campaign billed as a month-long “residency” on New York’s streets, many thousands were talking about him daily on the street, on television, radio, social media, in galleries, studios, office cubicles, art parties, and the mayors’ office. By effectively combining the sport of treasure hunting with humor and populism, each new cryptic appearance of something-anything gradually conditioned some grand art doyennes and the plainer mongrels amongst us to drool on command and lift a leg in salute to the curiously still anonymous artist and the team who helped him pull it off.

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The first Banksy of the ‘residency’, buffed shortly after it was painted, immediately began the rumors and conjecture. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Like fans of a good crime mystery, New Yorkers gamely tossed many theories into the air with chattering conjecture as to his motivations, his choice of locations, his messages, his meanings, and of course his identity. Clearly fifty percent or more of his identity in the popular mind is tied directly to his anonymity, possibly because of our desperate desire to still believe that someone can be an anonymous globe-trotting vandalizing provocateur in an increasingly surveilled world. Frankly, we don’t really want to know. The day we find out the true identity of Banksy, you might as well pull the beard off of Santa Claus too.

The bigger story of this nearly household name is not that he has re-called the enthusiam of the mid-2000s Street Art scene that spawned a million stencils, or that his themes are often clever, occasionally saccharine, rarely transgressive and reliably populist. After the fog of this months’ hype clears we find that he has reminded us why we fell in love with Street Art in the beginning and how to take back the public square for ourselves and to re-frame the very streets we walk on.

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Banksy (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The “Better Out Than In” show was a welcome reprieve from the government shutdown, our skyrocketing rents, and $25 museum admissions. There was no velvet rope and no snotty door person pawing through an iPad to not find your name. It was daily, participatory, and even this generation of unpaid interns could afford it because it was free. With a certain Pavlovian pride we became so primed for fresh Banksy news that was pushed out at semi-rhythmic intervals from his website that many of us began seeing Banksy’s where they weren’t as we visited parts of our city we didn’t even know.

After all, the newest Banksy could be just about anything. His month-long street show included sculpture, live performance, live ants, puppetry, canned music, live music, screaming stuffed animals, costumed actors, complex displays, one-layer stencils, a pissing dog, a patient priest and the Grim Reaper driving in a bumper car to the sounds of Blue Oyster Cult. All of it was tweeted, texted, posted, printed, videoed, and otherwise relayed to clans and groupies across devices, platforms, screens and ecosystems in real time. Some people even had the new works tattooed, which shouldn’t be that surprising since this is a vandal whose deeds actually raise the value of property.

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Banksy (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The first global art movement has again been rocked by one of our first global Street Artists and he seems to have a multitude of interests, doesn’t he? Even now we half expect a Banksy finale that includes a Broadway musical dancing and singing through Times Square with sailors and sex workers and shop keepers and cat burglars and masters of industry locked arm in arm, high-kicking and hoofing it up the Great White Way.

As always New Yorkers feel gloriously entitled to their opinion and to sharing it with you. Tweets have ranged from enthusiastic and congratulatory to acidic and dismissive, or bored. Some homegrown graffiti writers and Street Artists have shown a particular xenophobia toward the invading Brit that you’ll charitably characterize as “local pride”. Others have expressed a happy spirit of solidarity with the guy without feeling like he ate their lunch.

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Banksy (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The installations and performances created a circus on the street with groupies, fans, and opportunists standing 8 deep to gander, while some entrepreneurs charged some cash to view them, professors of all sorts held impromptu “classes” to explain the works, a few restorers removed damage from the works, and some seized them altogether.

Admirers posed in front of their newfound Banksy with family and babies and dogs for cell phone shots while tense professionals with heaving backpacks full of long lenses darted and shot the event from every conceivable angle. In one Alice in Wonderland scene in Brooklyn, admiring bystanders tackled to the ground a tagging vandalizer who stopped by to vandalize the vandalism with an aerosol can and stood guard in a circle around him, as he lay motionless while someone called the police.

No longer asking, “Who is Banksy”, many strolling New Yorkers this October were only half-kidding when they would point to nearly any scene or object on the street and ask each other, “Is that a Banksy?” And truly, what better global brand can claim to have triggered this thought in someone’s mind by not actually doing anything yourself?

That is an astounding last trick, and not one that many will ever lay claim to.

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Banksy (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Banksy (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Banksy. The white beard was added by someone. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Banksy (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Banksy (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Banksy (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Banksy’s truck diorama. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Banksy didn’t fear the Reaper. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Banksy (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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The Banksy scene (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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Spaik in Medellin, Colombia for “Pictopia”

Spaik in Medellin, Colombia for “Pictopia”

The third edition of the Street Art and graffiti festival called Pictopia is taking place in Colombia right now and through November 19th in four cities; Cali, Medellín, Manizales, and Copacabana. Begun in April of 2011 as principally a graffiti exhibiton with 50 graffiti artist, the project has opened itself to Street Art and mural artists, hosted a variety of participants as it continues to define itself.

Today we get an electrifying look at the piece by Mexican painter Spaik as he finished “Rebirth”, his contribution in Medellín on the backside of what appears to be (or have been) a church. Perhaps the title refers to the religious conversation one is said to experience in the Christian faith, and it may refer to the country of Colombia itself in some ways.

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Spaik. Medellin, Colombia. (photo © Anck/Spaik)

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Spaik. Detail. Medellin, Colombia. (photo © Anck/Spaik)

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Spaik. Detail. Medellin, Colombia. (photo © Anck/Spaik)

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Spaik. Medellin, Colombia. (photo © Anck/Spaik)

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Spaik. Medellin, Colombia. (photo © Anck/Spaik)

EDITORS’ NOTE: After publishing this piece we were notified that for copyright reasons the festival has changed the name from “PICTOPIA’ to “STREET SKILLS”

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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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3TTMAN Completes the 30th Mural for Urban Forms In Lodz

3TTMAN Completes the 30th Mural for Urban Forms In Lodz

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3TTman has just completed the 30th mural for the Urban Forms project in Lodz, Poland. An eye-popping storyteller who often uses his works to tell allegories of a sociological, political, environmental nature, 3TTman hasn’t told us the full story here, but we see images of power, currency, natural resources, and a head on a plate. It’s contemporary work that recalls mid-century graphic design and all his stories are colorfully told in his geometric and illustrative style.

Born in Lille and schooled alongside talented friend and Street Artist Remed, 3TTman travels globally doing large-scale walls singularly (sometimes collaboratively) in the company of artists such as Zbiok, Remed, Grems, Spok, Sixe, Nuria Mora, Suso33, Neko, Agostino Iacurci, and others. This new wall will certainly brighten the gray days of Lodz, and it may even make people inquire about the story behind it.

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3TTMAN. Detail. Urban Forms 2013. Lodz, Poland. (photo © Urban Forms/Michał Bieżyński)

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3TTMAN. Detail. Urban Forms 2013. Lodz, Poland. (photo © Urban Forms/Michał Bieżyński)

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3TTMAN. Urban Forms 2013. Lodz, Poland. (photo © Urban Forms/Michał Bieżyński)

More on BSA about Urban Forms:

TONE Animates a Wall for Urban Forms in LODZ

Urban Forms in Lodz, Poland Ready To Go

Urban Forms 2013: ROA Goes First in Poland

Inti Hits 11 Story Building in Lodz

Inti, The Good Goat Shepherd

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WWW.GALERIAURBANFORMS.ORG

www.urbanforms.org

www.facebook.com/urbanforms

www.vimeo.com/urbanforms

www.instagram.com/urbanforms

www.youtube.com/user/UrbanFormsFoundation

 

 

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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 Images Of The Week: 10.27.13

BSA Images Of The Week: 10.27.13

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This weekend Halloween began early, and with Banksy leading the way on Friday night, it looks like there will be more tricks in store before the end of October (Thursday). Another surprise came when Swoon took her turn at the Houston wall.  As of right now, everyone is keeping their eyes open for what will happen next. Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Banksy, Blanco, HDL, JR, London Kaye, and Swoon.

Top image>>> The Grim Reaper at the wheel in this performance attributed to Banksy. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Banksy. Live music was provided. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Banksy (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Blanco (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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JR collaboration with Martha Cooper. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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JR collaboration with Martha Cooper. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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JR collaboration with Martha Cooper. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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London Kaye (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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HDL. “Insectivorous” Detroit, 2013. (photo © Steve Coy)

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HDL. “Brand Take Off” Detroit, 2013. (GIF © Steve Coy)

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HDL. “Brand Take Off” Detroit, 2013. (photo © Steve Coy)

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Swoon and Groundswell collaboration in progress at the Houston Wall. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Swoon’s “Thalassa” at the Houston Wall. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Swoon’s “Thalassa” at the Houston Wall. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Swoon’s “Neenee” at the Houston Wall. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Swoon’s “Neenee” at the Houston Wall. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Swoon’s “Neenee” at the Houston Wall. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Swoon at the Houston Wall. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Untitled. Brooklyn Bridge. Brooklyn 2012. (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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Gola Hundun Goes All Natural in Kazakhstan

Gola Hundun Goes All Natural in Kazakhstan

Street Artist and mural painter Gola Hundun sends us images from this new wall on a rooftop terrace in Kazakhstan and of himself in the nude to celebrate it. “The work represents for me the three worlds,” he says to describe the piece he completed for the Almaty festival called Artbat.

With interweaving symbols that emblematize what could be a diagram for a belief system, Gola says that within it are depicted the Earth, the Cosmos, and the human soul.  According to his understanding of these matters there will be a return to nature in our future, and a new hope.

Happy Saturday.

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Göla. Artbat Festival in Almaty, Kazakhstan. October, 2013. (photo © Ivan Bessedin)

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Göla. Artbat Festival in Almaty, Kazakhstan. October, 2013. (photo © Ivan Bessedin)

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Göla. Artbat Festival in Almaty, Kazakhstan. October, 2013. (photo © Ivan Bessedin)

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Göla. Artbat Festival in Almaty, Kazakhstan. October, 2013. (photo © Ivan Bessedin)

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BSA Film Friday 10.25.13

BSA Film Friday 10.25.13

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

Now screening:
1. Debut: Nils Westergard x Nanook in the Navaho Nation
2. MTO in Berlin
3. Vhils Talks About His Work
4. Sajjad Abbas In Iraq
5. Duality by MATEO

BSA Special Feature: DEBUT
Nils Westergard x Nanook in the Navaho Nation

The debut of a video seen here for the first time, this timelapse of the experience that two Street Artists had while in “The Painted Desert” project sponsored and cultivated in and around the Navaho Nation by Jetsonorama for the last couple of years.

Here we see Nanook and Nils Westergard create works influenced by the people they got to know while there, a cultural exchange that helps expand the knowledge of all the participants.  In the video you see Nils create two portraits; one of King Fowler, “who was a Navajo Codetalker during WWII,” says Nils, and who died not too long ago.  The other is a kid named Calvin, who lives on the reservation and who you can see in the red flannel shirt actually watching Nils put his face on a wall.

In a community where people know everyone else’s family and friends, Nils says it felt like a real honor to paint these people and “it was especially interesting to talk to kids around my age, and see how Navajo culture adapts to the 21st century.” Lots of conversations and even participating in a sweat lodge, Nils felt his mind being reorganized.

He smiles when he mentions the speed that paint dries in the desert, and the ingenuity he used to keep the mural going. “I didn’t have enough buckets, so almost all of my paint was held in broken 40 oz. beer bottles while I worked,” he says. “They got a kick out of that.”

MTO in Berlin

Frenchman MTO appears in this new video that is more music video and sleek hipster ode to the moment than Street Art film. Using art, artifice, nightlife and poetic romantic interludes woven with signifiers of power and light debauchery, it’s a sexy romp.  We don’t know what we just said either.

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“Je me suis embarqué vers les tristes rivages de cette “île” du bonheur fictif.”

Vhils Talks About His Work

A quick primer on the work of Vhils from the man himself. “I started to see stencil as not something you paint over, but as a window you see through.”

Sajjad Abbas In Iraq

We don’t often see videos of Street Art in Iraq, but this one gives some insight into how they do it – and there are similarities to everywhere else, as it turns out.

Done under cover of night the subject matter points to the topic of militarization and the stencil itself reveals an international Street Art style that has emerged since the Internet connected us all.

 

Duality by MATEO

And ending on a happy note this week, here’s Mateo flipping and bouncing down a wall in a balanced performance. Also, corn on the cob.

 

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Canemorto in the Norwegian Countryside

Canemorto in the Norwegian Countryside

As satisfyingly “street” as it is to dodge 18-wheelers that barrel down Flushing Avenue like they want to kill you and to wipe a quarter inch of caked cement dust and grime from your face when painting in Bushwick or to inhale the oily toxic smelling air when wheat-pasting in Newton Creek or building a sculpture on the banks of the Gowanus canal that “smells overwhelmingly like an army of demonically-possessed feet,” even graff writers and street artists occasionally long for the wide open spaces of the countryside. Sometimes a homey just wants to get out to the pasture and talk to a cow and hit up a barn.

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Canemorto. Ranavik, Norway. (photo © Canemorto)

We’ve documented the increased interest in rural buildings being hit by street artists a number of times in the last few years, and while we may not have declared it to be a trend yet, be prepared to see painted more sheds and silos the next time you head out of the city to see the fall foliage.

The brutalist portraiture of Italian Street Artists Canemorto has been featured here a handful of times and today we take you to their ex-urban art explorations recently in Norway, where the trio were invited for a two week residency in Ranavik.  When they weren’t conducting workshops on collective mural painting at an art school and creating a small exhibit at a local gallery, they were improvising on cylindrical shaped architecture and the occasional barnside.

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Canemorto. Ranavik, Norway. (photo © Canemorto)

Gestural and in the moment, the final compositions call to mind Picasso, Francis Bacon, and the energy of newer painters like Alexandros Vasmoulakis, Anthony Lister and Simon Birch – but unpolished and proud of it. Canemorto also know how to steer clear of the painfully self-reverent style that can afflict some contemporaries as they throw in the freewheeling spirit of Dr. Seuss to keep us from taking it all too seriously.

“It was a great experience,” the guys say of their trip to this small island on the southwest coast, and of course they did some walls in Ranavik and Bergen to complete the city-country cycle. Interestingly, their style translates well to both barn and abandoned factory wall.

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Canemorto. Ranavik, Norway. (photo © Canemorto)

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Canemorto. Ranavik, Norway. (photo © Canemorto)

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Canemorto. Ranavik, Norway. (photo © Canemorto)

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Canemorto. Ranavik, Norway. (photo © Canemorto)

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Canemorto. Ranavik, Norway. (photo © Canemorto)

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Canemorto. Bergen, Norway. (photo © Canemorto)

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Canemorto. Bergen, Norway. (photo © Canemorto)

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Canemorto. Bergen, Norway. (photo © Canemorto)

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Canemorto. Bergen, Norway. (photo © Canemorto)

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Canemorto. Kaffe Gallerie. Ranavik, Norway. (photo © Canemorto)

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Canemorto. Kaffe Gallerie. Ranavik, Norway. (photo © Canemorto)

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Canemorto. Kaffe Gallerie. Ranavik, Norway. (photo © Canemorto)

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Opiemme Writes Poetry and Letterforms Across Italy

Opiemme Writes Poetry and Letterforms Across Italy

”What do you write?”

For decades graffiti writers have been checking out one anothers’ bonafides with this question. Even as tags turned to large complex pieces, evermore stylized through means of exaggeration or obfuscation, text has always stayed as a fundamental building block for graffiti writers.

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Opiemme. Edgar A. Poe. “The Raven” Torino, Italy. (photo © Opiemme)

Italian fine artist and Street Artist Opiemme took a variety of routes to employ the text-based art of writers and poets on the street this summer with his “journey through painting and poetry.” Breaking apart, recombining, stretching and spreading the written letterform, the public poetic paintings were conceived to be site-specific and included walls and pavement installations across Italy from north to south, including Torino, Bologna, Rieti, Pizzo Calabro, Faggiano (Taranto), Ariano Irpino, Menfi, Genova, Tirano (Sondrio), and finally Rome.

“I paint using stencil and letter to create images to be read and words to be looked at,” says Opiemme, who travelled more than 5,000 kilometers by train and bus to do his various installations that included 15 murals and a 7 kilometer long “River of words” painted on the pavement in Turin.

 

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Opiemme. Jupiter. Genova, Italy. (photo © Courtesy of Opiemme)

With the help of a webzine, a few galleries, and even the city of Turin, Opiemme found a receptive audience for his works, perhaps because he chose scribes known and admired in the locations he created works for. Among them are local writers and poets mixed with the American Jazz musician Louis Armstrong and Armenian-American rock band System of a Down.  Also included are Edgar Allan Poe, Giovanni Pascoli, S. Francesco D’Assisi, Franco Arminio, Giacomo Leopardi, and Riccardo Bacchelli.

Opiemme says he likes to explore the border between poetry and image, public and private, and to use the printed word as a graphic element on which to build more meanings, even as he sometimes disconnects the letters from their original context. With work that often touches on social or environmental themes  his work has evolved onto the street and into the gallery in the 10+ years he has been practicing. For the Turin born Opiemme it is about plumbing the fine lines between public art, Street Art, and the written word to bring poetry out into the open.

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Opiemme. Jupiter. Performance by O. Giovannini. Genova, Italy. (photo © Courtesy of Opiemme)

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Opiemme. Jupiter. Performance by O. Giovannini. Genova, Italy. (photo © Courtesy of Opiemme)

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Opiemme. Jupiter. Performance by O. Giovannini. Genova, Italy. (photo © Donato Aquaro)

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Opiemme. Jupiter. Performance by O. Giovannini. Genova, Italy. (photo © Sara Spallarossa)

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Opiemme. Jupiter. Performance by O. Giovannini. Genova, Italy. (photo © Donato Aquaro)

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Opiemme. Jupiter. Performance by O. Giovannini. Genova, Italy. (photo © Courtesy of Opiemme)

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Opiemme. Jupiter. Performance by O. Giovannini. Genova, Italy. (photo © Courtesy of Opiemme)

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Opiemme. Turin, Italy. (photo © Courtesy of Opiemme)

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Opiemme. Fagginao Jaz Festival, Italy. (photo © Courtesy of Opiemme)

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Opiemme. Bacchelli. Bologna, Italy. (photo © Courtesy of Opiemme)

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Opiemme. Ariano, Italy. (photo © Livio Ninni)

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Opiemme. Pizzo, Italy. (photo © Courtesy of Opiemme)

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Opiemme. Rieti, Italy. (photo © Courtesy of Opiemme)

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Opiemme. Detail. Menfi, Italy. (photo © Courtesy of Opiemme)

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Opiemme. Menfi, Italy. (photo © Courtesy of Opiemme)

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Opiemme. Menfi, Italy. (photo © Courtesy of Opiemme)

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Opiemme. Tirano, Italy. (photo © Courtesy of Opiemme)

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Opiemme. Italy. (photo © Courtesy of Opiemme)

 

 

Permission granted for photography used here by Opiemme, who wishes to thank photographers Cristina Principale (Bologna), Mario Covotta, Floriano Cappelluzzo (Ariano Irpino), Claudia Giraud, Thut Duong Nguyen (Torino), Livio Ninni, Ilaria Massaccesi (Tirano), Alessandro Orlandi (Rieti), Stencil Noire Cut (Faggiano), Giorgio De Finis (Roma), Donato Aquaro, Martina Serra, Sara Spallarossa, Francesco Mancini, Marco Pezzati (Genova), Anna Milano, Ivan Barreca (Menfi). Copyright is retained by photographer and the artist.

This project was covered/followed in stages by ZIGULINE webzine,

Opiemme’s journey was supported by: Elastico Studio and Antonio Storelli (Bologna), 3)5 Artecontemporanea (Rieti), Bi-BOx Art Space (Biella),  and Studio D’Ars (Milano).

 

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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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This posting is also published on The Huffington Post

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Steel Gives Firepower to NEKST and Lango Sees Red in San Francisco

Steel Gives Firepower to NEKST and Lango Sees Red in San Francisco

Here’s a quick shot from Hemlock Alley in San Francisco as Steel pays an explosive tribute to Nekst and the talented tattooist Lango lets the crimson power flow like a system of veins waving like flames across the wall.  The collaboration brings to life a street that looks like it otherwise may be losing some of it’s energy.

Thanks to Brock Brake for sharing these images with BSA readers. Extra points for the red water hose lying on the sidewalk that gives Lango a third dimension.

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Steel and Lango. Detail. San Francisco, CA. (photo © Brock Brake)

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Steel and Lango. Detail. San Francisco, CA. (photo © Brock Brake)

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Steel and Lango. Detail. San Francisco, CA. (photo © Brock Brake)

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Steel and Lango. Detail. San Francisco, CA. (photo © Brock Brake)

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Steel and Lango. Detail. San Francisco, CA. (photo © Brock Brake)

 

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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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Agostino Iacurci Climbing in Rome for “Public and Confidential”

Agostino Iacurci Climbing in Rome for “Public and Confidential”

Agostino Iacurci really impressed with scale and humor in Atlanta for Living Walls this past summer and now he has taken his outsized geometric illustrated forms to Rome to participate Wunderkammern’s Public and Confidential series. Light hearted, sure-footed, and hand-controlled, his climbing figures invite you to help tell the story, to be pleased and bemused while contemplating the balanced ying/yang of their positions.

Whatever your reading of this composition is, it is precisely this kind of intimate experience one can have with  public work that the series intends to highlight. With a smart palette and love for a flatly dimensional scene, Iacurci places just the right amount of exactitude in his choices to let you know that as fun as this work looks, he’s not playing.

Special thanks to photographer Giorgio Coen Cagli for sharing these exclusive shots of Agostino at work with BSA readers.

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Agostin0 Iacurci for Wunderkammern’s Public and Confidential project in Rome. (photo © Giorgio Coen Cagli)

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Agostin0 Iacurci for Wunderkammern’s Public and Confidential project in Rome. (photo © Giorgio Coen Cagli)

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Agostin0 Iacurci for Wunderkammern’s Public and Confidential project in Rome. (photo © Giorgio Coen Cagli)

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Agostin0 Iacurci for Wunderkammern’s Public and Confidential project in Rome. (photo © Giorgio Coen Cagli)

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Agostin0 Iacurci for Wunderkammern’s Public and Confidential project in Rome. (photo © Giorgio Coen Cagli)

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Agostin0 Iacurci for Wunderkammern’s Public and Confidential project in Rome. (photo © Giorgio Coen Cagli)

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Agostin0 Iacurci for Wunderkammern’s Public and Confidential project in Rome. (photo © Giorgio Coen Cagli)

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Agostin0 Iacurci for Wunderkammern’s Public and Confidential project in Rome. (photo © Giorgio Coen Cagli)

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Agostin0 Iacurci for Wunderkammern’s Public and Confidential project in Rome. (photo © Giorgio Coen Cagli)

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Agostin0 Iacurci for Wunderkammern’s Public and Confidential project in Rome. (photo © Giorgio Coen Cagli)

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Agostin0 Iacurci for Wunderkammern’s Public and Confidential project in Rome. (photo © Giorgio Coen Cagli)

 

 

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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 Images of The Week: 10.20.13

BSA Images of The Week: 10.20.13

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The leaves in Central Park are aflame and so are the passions of Street Art fans (and artists) this week in New York where the general public is now conditioned to be on alert for a near-daily announcement of a new Banksy installation nearly anywhere in the city. It can be a stencil, a sculpture, a performance, a rolling truck gallery, or a canvas suspended from the Highline – but don’t worry about finding it – it will be announced on the website first…

Lead image above >>Banksy (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Banksy (photo © Jaime Rojo)

We’ve tried to keep it all in perspective and not slavishly cancel life to run out and capture the latest installation, but the buzz is unavoidable and we get sucked in.  It is now taking on some air of a circus, complete with barkers and clowns and otters flapping their flippers (and lips).  As a branding “re-fresh”, it’s been a very successful campaign so far with news reportage, Instagramming and re-tweets, crowds assembling at a moments notice to snap images of and/or with the work, and we even found vigilante fans tackling vandals who are vandalizing the vandalism.  You can’t engineer that sort of irony. Now an elected leader or two are talking about trying to capture the president of Banksy Inc. LLC – which would send a clear message to all Street Artists that this really is the best way to market your work.

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Banksy. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Meanwhile there are many other Street Artists and fine artists in general who are still at work on the streets of New York, and you may even give their content, quality and placement more praise than some from this Banksy campaign. We’ve always celebrated the creative spirit however it is expressed and invariably find some of the greatest work is done by people we’ve never heard of, or barely know much about. At a time where large media is consolidating and the individual voice is being marginalized and commodified, we find this to still be an amazingly democratic practice of joining the conversation, if imperfect and confusing. And New York doesn’t stop just because one new guy is getting a lot of attention – Hell, we barely notice when Obama or the Pope or even the Queen of England visits – she’s just one queen after all and we have the entire neighborhood of Chelsea.

So here is our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Banksy, Bifido, Cali Killa, Dede, Don Rimx, El Kamino, El Sol 25, JC, London Kaye, Meres, Nepo, Pastey Whyte, Shin Shin, and Shiro.

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______________________, The Musical! Banksy. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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The view into the back of a box truck with an installation attributed to Banksy. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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London Kaye (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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A Dying Breed. 5ptz. Queens, NY. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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9 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Artist Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Shiro. 5ptz. Queens, NY. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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El Kamino. American Flag with Cardinal. Welling Court. Queens, NY. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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El Sol 25 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Don Rimx . NEPO. 5ptz. Queens, NY. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Don Rimx . NEPO. Detail. 5ptz. Queens, NY. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Pastey Whyte (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Meres. 5ptz. Queens, NY. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Shin Shin (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Artist Unknown. 5ptz. Queens, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Cali Killa (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Dede (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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JC in Barcelona, Spain. (photo © JC)

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Bifido. Rome, Italy 2013. (photo © Bifido)

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Untitled. Manhattan, NYC. (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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