January 2014

BSA Film Friday: 01.31.14

BSA Film Friday: 01.31.14

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

Now screening :

1. Plotbot KEN on Acid Tanks
2. Story Of Abstract Ritual From Jeff Frost
3. Boohaha & Don Forty: Μαινάδες-Maenads in Athens, Greece.
4. Pixel Pancho in Santurce

BSA Special Feature: PLOTBOT Ken hits Acid Tanks

In this film by Isabelle Petit we can revel in the physical and material qualities of paint, dripping, smearing, speckled and strewn. With your air mask on you can  accompany these urban explorers as they venture into the carcass of industry that lays barren and toxic, corrosive and threatening to life. It’s a drums and bass soundtrack that accompanies the bubbling, spraying, steaming pastiche and the Berlin based Plotblot Ken gives an ominous darkness with his own industry in the detritus of that city, but really it could be anywhere in the abandoned industrial areas that litter our globe.

 

Story Of Abstract Ritual From Jeff Frost

“Hi I’m Jeff, an artist based out of Southern California. This is the story about how I became a nomad and embarked on an endless adventure,” begins photographer and director Jeff Frost as he describes his very visually stimulating and magical dance of inverted Joshua trees with light, motion, and sound — and many volunteers.

 

Boohaha & Don Forty: Μαινάδες-Maenads. Athens, Greece.

Oh no! It’s more foreboding music and broken glass as the camera hovers and slowly inches across the floor! Fallen leaves, dry leaves, desiccated branches with leaves, fluttering leaves. Then forms in darkness rapidly move in the shadows, maybe sawing something, maybe jumping on or stabling something. Don’t be afraid, it’s just a temporary sculpture installation in an abandoned space in Greece… with an excellent soundtrack.

 

Pixel Pancho in Santurce, Puerto Rico.

And to round out the collection with one more haunted and futuristic soundtrack, Pixel Pancho and Tost Films treat you to a stop action vision of how he creates one of his insectual future disaster scenes while the crazy cloud atmospherics of nature and post-production blurring are punctuated by the truculent punching of drumsticks and the sidewinding slathering of rusty razoring guitars.

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Chris Dyer and Positive Vibes in Peru

Chris Dyer and Positive Vibes in Peru

“Visionary” graffiti artist and entrepreneur, Montreal based artist Chris Dyer has crafted a style that synthesizes influences from astrology, spirituality, graffiti, Street Art, skater culture, and folk art into a modern representational style you may associate with glowing barefoot and shirtless celebrants at Burning Man or similar transformational / experiential festivals around the globe.  But his work was not always strictly on the positive tip.

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Chris Dyer. Lima, Peru. December 2013. (photo © Chris Dyer)

“I grew up in Lima, Peru till the age of 17, before I left for Montreal. It was there where I first used spray paint, as a tagger for my street gang ‘SepUlcro’,” says Chris to give a sense of his personal roots and evolution. Today he travels quite a bit and speaks about his philosophy and his art, encouraging others to express their inner world through creativity in a positive way. Along the way he has created a space in the commercial world with skateboard graphics for many brands and he markets prints, pins, hemp clothing, tapestries with his own company based in San Francisco.

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Chris Dyer collaboration with Entes y Pesimo. Lima, Peru. December 2013. (photo © Chris Dyer)

Here are some recent walls he did in Lima during a trip, his first there in eight years, where he hung out and created collaboratively with local graffiti / Street Artists Entes, Pesimo and Jade. With the wisdom of a guy in his thirties, Chris revisited the land where he grew up doing a more transgressive form of work in the streets, and found a way to make it personally transformative. “This trip really healed a bunch of wounds I developed as a half-gringo in a aggressive latino city, and left me loving the country of my roots,” he says.

While prepping for a solo show at a gallery in Miraflores in December, he also did some travelling and “dropped some pieces here and there,” he says. Now back in the wintry north he is already looking forward to return to the land that formed his youth soon. “I’m pumped to return next year for “Latir Latino” festival and to drop a bigger mural for Lima to enjoy.”

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Chris Dyer. Lima, Peru. December 2013. (photo © Chris Dyer)

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Chris Dyer collaboration with Jade in Peru, 2014. (photo © Chris Dyer)

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Chris Dyer. Peru, December 2013. (photo © Chris Dyer)

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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!<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA
 
 
 
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Thank You Pete Seeger, Stay Forever Young

Thank You Pete Seeger, Stay Forever Young

Peter “Pete” Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014)

In the midst of all the warm tributes coming from news outlets since Mr. Pete Seeger passed away two days ago, you may have missed the stridency and conviction that he infused his art with and the courageous, sometimes unpopular stances he took with his art to expand the rights of people of every stripe during his long life.

Maybe the cuddly coverage was missing the bite of his badass attitude toward injustice because some of those same institutions had been culpable at one time of the very things he took us all to task for – racism, classism, sexism, creeping fascism, intolerance, economic injustice, ravaging the earth, waging unjustified war. It doesn’t typically fit the narrative of a fuzzy posthumous tribute to a man of 94, but Folk Music speaks frankly on the side of the folk, and he asked famously, “Which side are you on?” Though he was lover, Seeger also was also definitely a fighter.

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One beautiful August afternoon with Mr. Seeger and friends under a canopy of Beacon trees. (photo © Steven P. Harrington)

Mr. Seeger was punk rock before guitars were even electrified, and he used his talents to make a difference, even when things looked dark, or were threatening.  He jumped freights as a young man and rode from town to town with his banjo and guys like Woody Guthrie because he loved his folk music, he loved the country, and because he believed strongly in social justice and wanted to tell the stories of everyday working neighbors so they could find their voice and use it.

 

He was not a pushover, didn’t rest easily on his laurels, although no one would have thought less of him if he had. He certainly wasn’t looking for doe-eyed reverence from a compliant establishment – In his 80s and 90s he was protesting the Iraq and Afganistan Wars, marching with Occupy Wall Street, fighting successfully to get the Hudson River dredged of toxic chemicals dumped there from industry.

 

It was the fight inside of him, a hope inside of him, his wife of 70 years beside him, and the family of people around him that kept him going. He relished hearing your voice as much as his own and even though his voice couldn’t actually hold a note and he mainly spoke his lyrics in the last few years, he found a way to rally people and to encourage us and engage us in a way that will keep him in our minds and hearts forever young.

“Participation! It’s what all my work has been about.” – Pete Seeger

 

10 Great Songs from Pete Seeger via Martin Chilton at The Telegraph

 

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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!<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA
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A ‘New Ukraine’ Sculpture in Independence Square by Roti

A ‘New Ukraine’ Sculpture in Independence Square by Roti

French Street Artist Trucks 4 Ton Marble Sculpture with Kiev Crowd Watching

The Prime Minister and his cabinet have quit and the freezing crowds are still demanding the resignation of President Viktor Yanukovych. Here in sub-zero Independence Square amidst the Molotov cocktails and burning tires appears a “New Ukraine,” thanks to the just carved sculpture of the same name. Street Artist Roti channeled his rebellious graffiti ethos into this project featuring the image of a Ukrainian woman emerging from the depths. He hopes to inspire the demonstrators who have been mobilized for two months plus.

Inflamed since their presidents’ sudden withdrawal from a trade agreement with the European Union (EU) in November, most say the real oxygen that is feeding this populist fire is disgust with a political class that became corrupt. With this unsanctioned gift of public art Roti examines and tests the ambiguous nature of illegality that also possesses beauty, claiming public space for a rippling people’s movement that now looks like a revolution.

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“New Ukraine” by Roti (photo © Chris Cunningham)

 
Writer, scholar, and occasional BSA contributor, Alexandra Parrish was perfectly placed in Kiev this winter to see the uprisings swell and to witness the carving out of this now historical public sculpture by Roti, as well as its placement. We are pleased that she shares with us today an essay that provides context and background for Roti’s gift to The Euromaiden (Євромайдан, #EuroMaiden #EuroMaidan) and to the related events.

Roti’s “New Ukraine”
by Alexandra Parrish

“Throughout history, art has served as a representation of religious, cultural, political and social movements,” remarks Roti, the 25-year-old artist cum laude. Today, while many artists seemingly work for the market alone, others continue to negotiate the relationship of art to society. French artist Roti is certainly moving towards his own interpretation of such, particularly after the installation of his 2-metre sculpture titled “New Ukraine” in the centre of Kyiv to express his solidarity with the current revolution underway.

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Roti at work in his studio. (photo © Chris Cunningham)

By trade, Roti is a stonecutter specialized in sculpture; in a separate pursuit, he’s negotiated illegality in public space via graffiti for the past decade. An artist in all regard, Roti’s surreal work depicts the spiritual realm, the intangible realities that exist in the mind. He’s found much success with his style, which has allowed him to travel with his work to New York, Atlanta, Paris and London.

However, it was his trip to Ukraine for the Gogol fest back in September of 2013 that sparked an intense appreciation and curiosity about the spirit of the art scene underway, predominately in the capital city of Kyiv. He spent a month deep within the community of artists who have “built beauty out of nothing;” in this experience, he learned how the individual could be a part of a collective. He promised to return, one day.

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Roti at work in his studio. (screen shot from a yet to be released film © Chris Cunningham)

In late November of 2013, rumblings of a new revolution in Ukraine began. Acts of peaceful civil resistance and demonstrations activated Independence Square, the centre of Kyiv. These demonstrations were a direct response to president Yanukovych’s decision to retrench from trade agreements with the European Union in favor of a renewed arrangement with Russia.

The movement, affectionately referred to as “Euromaidan,” has been generally characterized in Western media as an aspiration for EU-integration. However, Ukrainians continue to endure freezing temperatures and police intimidation for a more humanist cause – they are through with Yanukovych’s corrupt government and they demand a better quality of life (the average Ukrainian earns about $300 per month).

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Roti at work in his studio. (screen shot from a yet to be released film © Chris Cunningham)

Roti, after observing the resistance through media outlets and Facebook feeds, felt a strong urge to return. Initially, he felt compelled to just be there. After much consideration, he realized he needed to do something. For months, he’d worked on the concept of a sculpture he assumed would install one day in Paris. Yet the movement happening in Ukraine assigned a new meaning to his initial idea – a woman, emerging from water – an allegory for the current revolution.

Two days after his initial proposal to several friends involved with Euromaidan, he booked a ticket to Kyiv. Two days after that, he miraculously managed to find a rose-marble stone and a workshop. The entire process fell into place so smoothly that his efficiency followed – generally, he would work 14-16 hours a day carving and polishing the stone. By the 13th day, the stone was complete.

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Roti at work in his studio. (screen shot from a yet to be released film © Chris Cunningham)

In the end, he saw life in the sculpture. The ripples had energy and movement. The face of the woman, while modeled after a friend and talented performer of the Dakh Daughters, represented the strength and perseverance of the Ukrainian population. Roti himself felt as if he’d emerged from a descent into the murky waters of insecurity. The sculpture, which he titled “New Ukraine,” became alive in symbolism, hope and energy – everything he felt during his experience and understanding of Euromaidan.

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Roti (photo © Alexej Zaika)

The installation took place on the day of Orthodox Christmas, January 7, 2014. At around 6:00 p.m., the procession into Euromaidan began with the Dakh Daughters, who performed traditional Ukrainian folk songs about patriotism and freedom; a truck carrying the 4-tonnes sculpture trailed their spirited performance. “Around 200 people followed us into the centre,” Roti observed.

Everyone was curious, even confused, as no announcements had been officially made. This was, after all, an illegal installation. No authorization was given. However, it didn’t take long for those perplexed observers to understand why this was happening. “New Ukraine” was more than a gift; it was a proclamation of hope. After the sculpture was successfully hoisted from the truck to the ground, people sang and danced into the night in celebration.

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Roti (photo © Alexej Zaika)

Two months into Euromaidan, the celebration of Christmas and the “New Ukraine” sculpture were hardly indicators of an end to the protests, although demonstrations began to decrease in number. On January 16, Yanukovych forcefully passed legislation that would colossally curtail a number of free speech rights, notably the right to assemble and protest. This move sparked civil unrest that ultimately culminated into a violent stand off between protestors and police.

The first deaths of the revolution were reported in the week that followed. Protests spread to nine other cities across Ukraine, marking a fundamental shift in the Ukrainian revolution. While Yanokovych has agreed to make concessions towards peace, talks have yielded no success. The situation may seem dire to some, but there is some hope out of all of it. Increasingly more government buildings are now occupied and riot police and government troops are vastly outnumbered.

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Roti (photo © Alexej Zaika)

Since the rise in tension, greater media attention has been given to the movement and supporters across the world have asked their leaders to enact concessions on the Ukrainian government. During the World Economic Forum in Switzerland Friday, January 24th, 50 Ukrainian sympathizers stood outside with signs that read “thank you for your concern, now do something.”

In a way, this sentiment can be addressed to many of us. Social movements and revolutions require more than assembly, they also command a shift in ideology and action. Roti’s “New Ukraine” sculpture in Kyiv is almost an unconscious rallying call to continue the independent and free ethos of graffiti with new disciplines.

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Roti (photo © Alexej Zaika)

“If I use art illegally, in the graffiti spirit, by giving all this energy inside the stone,” Roti explains, “it can leave an eternal trace of this movement.” Likely, this stone will remain for hundreds of years as a continuous reminder of the Ukrainian revolution.

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Roti (photo © Chris Cunningham)

This article also appears on The Huffington Post 

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Our special thanks to Alex Parrish for sharing her essay with BSA readers.
 
 
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The Golden Age of Street Art in Barcelona – now on FB

The Golden Age of Street Art in Barcelona – now on FB

Every Street Art scene has what it calls its “Golden Age” – that time when artists are just popping up new pieces every week and you can sense a real evolution in style and substance is happening before your eyes. For Barcelona many will tell you that they had a golden age during the first four years of the century when it felt like walls all over some areas of the city became a vibrant unbridled gallery and the Spanish city became a tourist destination for artists and fans alike. While there is still a scene there now, much of the areas have been developed for commercial and shopping escapades for visitors rather than urban exploration.

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Btoy (photo © BCNWalls Project)

“BCN Walls Project” is the brainchild of Daniel Narváez, who recently contacted us to tell us about his project of posting images from 2000 to 2007 during his golden age of graffiti in Barcelona.  We took a look at the Facebook page and were pleased to see some images of artwork that recall our own beginnings recording the turn of the century Street Art explosion that began in Brooklyn and New York at large at that time. No telling how his page will develop, but its worth a look to see what else Narváez will be pulling out of his archives.

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Miss Van (photo © BCNWalls Project)

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Miss Van (photo © BCNWalls Project)

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Faile (photo © BCNWalls Project)

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Unknown (photo © BCNWalls Project)

For more images of Street Art In Barcelona from 2000 to 2007 click on the link below:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bcnwallsproject/511032425656978

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Image X 100 : New Echoing Portrait Sculptures in Paris by Gwelm

Image X 100 : New Echoing Portrait Sculptures in Paris by Gwelm

Street Artist Multiplies Obama, Depardieu, and Rhiannon

New urban interventions from Gwelm in Paris speak to the power of a portrait in the image drenched twenty-teens, and surprisingly, the conceptual sculptures know how to break through to the most catatonic among us.

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Gwelm. Rihanna. Paris, France. January 2014. (photo © Gwelm)

Entitled “Portraits 2.1” the collection of echoing images are placed in the public sphere for passersby to encounter and possibly be perplexed by. Gwelm says the new pieces begin with “the realization of the power of the image in the news and the collective unconscious, as propagated manifold by the Internet and social networks.”

Certainly the impact of some of these images is unchallenged, with the naked hungry child and dogs sniffing at the cadaver of a former Libyan president Muammar Kadhafi being perhaps the strongest. Others require more discernment or interpretation. Each choice is magnified by its repetition – a sort of electronic visual error that you associate with the screen and digital world, not this physical one.  The series multiplication and superimposing of tens or even hundreds of the same image brings them to alternate life, subverting their meanings and warping them in the minds eye.

 

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Gwelm appropriates Shepard Fairey into this portrait of Obama. Paris, France. January 2014. (photo © Gwelm)

Are they mocking indictments of human avarice, celebrity, hypocrisy? Commentaries on social conditions, advocacy of ideology, or just a clever reuse of imagery intended to prick your anterior lobe? Like a sophisticated artist and showman, Gwelm doesn’t always give you the easy answer, allowing you to decide.  Describing his method of selection, Gwelm says, “Faced with the multitude of ‘ready-to-think’ images, the synergy of images diverts the mind and gives rise to questions about what we are supposed to see.”

Our digital life is full of disjointed imagery, but it is unusual when it takes this form in public space. We’ll give Gwelm points for pushing us into an uncomfortable place that implicates our involvement with these intelligent visual provocations. It’s not easy to do that these days.

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Gwelm. Depardieu. Paris, France. January 2014. (photo © Gwelm)

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Gwelm. Famine. Paris, France. January 2014. (photo © Gwelm)

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Passersby must be startled to see dogs sniffing at the body of Muammar Kadhafi in this temporary sculpture by Street Artist Gwelm in Paris. Paris, France. January 2014. (photo © Gwelm)

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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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Images Of The Week: 01.26.14

Images Of The Week: 01.26.14

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BSA Images of the Week this week starts with a series of non Street Art photos because they are inside a hallowed hall of NYC high culture, namely the Phillip Johnson designed modernist building that houses the New York City Ballet at Lincoln Center. International Street Artist, photographer and populist JR made a splash this week here with his project that puts ballet at the center of our eye.

For the second year the ballet has featured a Street Artist to lead their new artist series (last year was the duo Faile) and we’re nominating some names for next year already. This week however, JR’s large scale photographs of the ballet company ruled on opening night as a wide variety of guests walked on them all and marvelled up close and personally with the dancers images that lay artfully throughout the room.

Some guests climbed stairs to look down upon the giant ocular piece from balconies above, and in a true spirit of interactivity some fans went the full-immersion route by laying upon the image itself,  striking a pose while friends took shots and tweeted and Instagrammed them. By the time the performers hit the stage we were all primed for the sprightly Gen Y talent to dance, and if this program by @balletnyc is successful, a new generation will also be filling the seats to see them this spring.

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Ainac, Bask, El Sol 25, Elbow-Toe, JR, Pyramid Oracle, and Swoon.

Top Image >> A new piece by Elbow Toe takes flight on the street in Brooklyn (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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The JR installation for his collaboration with The NYC Ballet Artists Series at Lincoln Center in Manhattan. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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The JR installation for his collaboration with The NYC Ballet Artists Series at Lincoln Center in Manhattan. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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The JR installation for his collaboration with The NYC Ballet Artists Series at Lincoln Center in Manhattan. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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The JR installation for his collaboration with The NYC Ballet Artists Series at Lincoln Center in Manhattan. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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The JR installation for his collaboration with The NYC Ballet Artists Series at Lincoln Center in Manhattan. (photo © Steven P. Harrington)

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The JR installation for his collaboration with The NYC Ballet Artists Series at Lincoln Center in Manhattan. (photo © Steven P. Harrington)

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The JR installation for his collaboration with The NYC Ballet Artists Series at Lincoln Center in Manhattan. (photo © Steven P. Harrington)

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The JR installation for his collaboration with The NYC Ballet Artists Series at Lincoln Center in Manhattan. (photo © Steven P. Harrington)

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The JR installation for his collaboration with The NYC Ballet Artists Series at Lincoln Center in Manhattan. (photo © Steven P. Harrington)

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Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Pyramid Oracle (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Pyramid Oracle (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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El Sol 25 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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BASK new wall in Saint Petersburg, Florida. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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AiNAC (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Girl Power. Artist Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Untitled. Manhattan, NYC. January 2014. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Crash and Remi Rough “Flow” at Dorian Grey

Crash and Remi Rough “Flow” at Dorian Grey

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Remi Rough and Crash (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A Bronx-born bomber of the past teams up with a graffuturist from South London in this small gallery show in Manhattan’s East Village entitled “Flow”.

John “Crash” Matos has been a student and pioneer in pop, graffiti and Street Art over his 30+ years as an artist and here he takes his inspiration from the next generation Remi Rough when coupling his distinctive style with the abstract and the third dimension.

Now considered part of the geometric school of graffiti and Street Artists in Europe and the US sometimes referred to as graffuturism, the graffiti roots of Remi enable him to bend his forms to intersect and ride with the more curvilinear and cartoon inspired Crash.

While it is a side by side hanging collaboration of individual styles for much of the show, the vibrational strength arises from the union when the two are able to do as the show title suggests, creating an intersection through seamless collisions and sheer layering that complement the visual vocabulary of both.

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Remi Rough (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Crash (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Crash and Remi Rough (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Crash and Remi Rough (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Remi Rough (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Crash (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Remi Rough and Crash (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Remi Rough and Crash (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“Flow” is currently on view at the Dorian Grey Gallery at 437 East 9th Street in New York City until February 23rd, 2014.

 

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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: 01.24.14

BSA Film Friday: 01.24.14

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

Now screening :

1. Tati by Miguel Endara
2. Art as a Weapon: Trailer
3. Art Basel 2013 from Serringe
4. INTI Time Lapse
5. Faith 47 Time Lapse

BSA Special Feature: TATI

One of the females on the scene who consistently turns in ever more expansive and high quality work. No need for bragadoccio, just skills, which she has for miles. Here is a new video of her painting a mural for a business improvement district project in downtown Hollywood, Florida, directed by Miguel Endara.

 

Art as a Weapon: Trailer

“Street Art, Creativity, & Revolution collide in this beautifully shot film about art’s ability to create change. The film opens on the politically charged Burma border at the first school teaching Sreet Art as a form of non-violent struggle. Under the threat of imprisonment and torture, the students use stencils, spray paint and wheatpaste to engage the public and question authority. 8200 miles away artist, Shepard Fairey is painting a 30’ mural of a Burmese monk for the same reasons and to support the struggle for Democracy in Burma.” from Breadtruck Films.

 

Art Basel 2013 from Serringe

Did you make down to Miami this year to see the new murals going up at Wynwood? No problem, here is a very good  overview from Element Tree / Art Primo.

 

INTI Time Lapse from Tost Films

 

Faith47 Timelapse from Tost Films

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JR Goes To The Ballet: Dancing Across the Walls

JR Goes To The Ballet: Dancing Across the Walls

Street Artist JR has joined the ballet, or at least has become a collaborator with it.

Joining a short list of artists associated with the New York City company, and an even shorter list of Street Artists, the French photographer has been spending time in rehearsals with the performers to create these huge pasted images to greet patrons.

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JR (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The scale is impressive, the placement across the interior gives the place a sense of immediacy, with an echo of the transgressive to welcome guests to George Balanchine’s JEWELS, an epic performance evening consisting of three ballets: EMERALDS, RUBIES, and DIAMONDS, with music by Gabriel Faure, Igor Stravinsky, and Pyotr Ilyich Tschaikovsky.

Here are scenes from the installation of JR’s new pieces of the New York City Ballet Art Series (Twitter @nycballet). The big opening performance? Tonight!

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JR. Installation in progress. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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JR (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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JR (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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JR (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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JR (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

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Box Trucks as Rolling Graffiti Marquees

Box Trucks as Rolling Graffiti Marquees

A ubiquitous sight throughout large cities like New York, the graffiti covered box truck has inherited the all-city art mantle from the subway train cars of thirty years ago with eye-popping collaborations and solo pieces rolling on rubber wheels and circulating through every neighborhood.

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UFO 907 Crew (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“Box trucks are like the freight trains of New York Streets,” says Bishop 203, a Street Artist and graffiti writer who has successfully managed to parse the visual languages of both into his work – which of course includes a box truck when he can get one. “It’s the best of all worlds. If I do a wall in Bushwick, that’s cool because people in Brooklyn can see it. But if I do a truck in Bushwick, it’s going to go through Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Manhattan – who knows?”

Rugged, dirty, grimey, half-rusted – these trucks are rather similar to freights now that you think about it. They do the grueling thankless work of moving everything through the streets, often barreling by at high speeds and careening around corners to meet deadlines. They are carrying everything – produce, baked goods, heavy appliances, iron, steel, glass, equipment for many industries, racks full of garments, crates full of flowers, even art… and if you are passing through most business districts in the middle of the day, you will see them backing into loading docks or double parked in the street with blinking lights, the back door rolled up, and guys and gals shuttling with dollies across the sidewalk to and from restaurants and bodegas.

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GenII, Oze 907 Crew (photo © Jaime Rojo)

While painting a box truck is not exactly the same as “going all city”, if your art is literally rolling throughout the entire metropolis in the same way that tracks once carried aerosol art for 1970s/80s writers who crushed train lines, you experience a feeling that is pretty golden. “It’s like a mobile billboard for hooligans,” says Bishop, only half joking.

Wherever photographer Jaime Rojo travels throughout the city looking for new shots, he is almost guaranteed to see a box truck. What began as a casual collecting of these rolling canvasses eventually is swelling into a full-fledged gallery. He’s not sure what he’ll do with all of them, but here’s a taste of some of the trucks to whet your appetite.

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DEK (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Cekis (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Cern (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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ND’A (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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SeeOne, ND’A (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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VLOK Crew (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Stem, Gano, VGL (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Cope, Cano, JAOne (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Staino (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Staino, Rambo, Sevs (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Staino, Fade AAMob (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Ski, Optimo, Mok (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Jelly Fish (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Ski, 2Ease, KA  (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Ski, 2Ease, Kepts, KA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Jedi, Sae, Aven, Baal (in front of a mural by Faile) (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Ski, 2Ease, Velo, Fuk, Dred (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Deter (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Sevor, Ideal (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Fame (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Reader, Abra, Mas, Boans (in front of a wall piece by Overunder) (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Ski, 2Ease (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Lefty (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sincere thanks to Bishop203 and Bato for their assistance with identifying some of these artists.

 

 

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Instantaneous Memorials on Street to “Army of One”

Instantaneous Memorials on Street to “Army of One”

As a followup to yesterday’s posting regarding the passing of Jef Campion, known as the street artist Army of One/ JC2, it is perhaps no surprise that nearly immediately there are a couple of tributes to him on the street – at least in LA.

Street Artist Free Humanity sent us these new photos of a new stencil piece by Teach_Art_One featuring Jef looking over his shoulder at you and placing his name on the wall.  According to Free Humanity these new works are on the spots that Jef had hit when visiting Melrose and Fairfax in Los Angeles.

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A brand new memorial tribute to Army of One in Los Angeles. Teach_Art_One (photo © Thrashbird)

“I was blessed to call him a brother,” says Free Humanity of Army of One. FH feels that the new stencils appeared as a way to keep him on the streets. Awash in the grief of the moment FH wanted to say “the only way to have someone live forever is to never stop loving them.”

Apart from the high emotions of this time, we wanted to remark that this act of the tribute wall is analogous to the myriad walls that have been going up for decades in cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York – usually in the community mural style – to mark the passing of someone. Sometimes it is a community leader not related to art but of great standing to the people who live in the locality. Other times a tribute will commemorate a person in the context of an historical event that they were pivotal to.

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A brand new memorial tribute to Army of One in Los Angeles. Teach_Art_One (photo © Thrashbird)

Graffiti crews have been paying tributes to their fallen for many years on memorial walls. Over the last year for example we have covered a large number of walls made by the crew and friends of graffiti writer Nekst. Needless to say the act of crossing out, going over, or dissing works like those would be considered to be as close to sacrilege as the streets can imagine.

These new stencils honoring Army of One carry on this tradition and it is additionally visually remarkable because the newly sprayed stencil is a street art piece depicting a street artist who is putting up street art – It is akin to looking at a mirror’s reflection in a mirror.

 

 

Photographer Thrashbird’s Instagram is @thrashBird13

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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!<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA

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