June 2014

Pixel Pancho in Bushwick

June 7, 2014 Artists

International Street Artists have made Bushwick a destination for legal murals for a few years because they know that if they keep it clean they are in for a whale of a wall while the neighborhood undergoes it’s metamorphosis.

Pixel Pancho doesn’t get to Brooklyn too often, but when he does he’s been making a splash and people don’t forget very soon. Not that you should let go and get big head now, Pix.

The Torino-based Pancho was on a few cherry lifts here last week and we thought you’d like to see this one on the side of a restaurant that he entitled “Dude, Where’s My Whale?” Not quite the robotic milieu he is typically seen doing, this one makes a facade a bit Rubiks cubist, and looks like someone has a geranium in the cranium.

Pixel Pancho (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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“The Pier” Online Premiere on BSA Film Friday 06.06.14

June 6, 2014 Artists

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

Now screening :

BSA Special Feature: World Premier
“The Pier” (Piren)

Today BSA brings you the online release of “The Pier”, by Erik Vestman and Nils Petter Löfstedt, who have presented it at packed documentary events and exhibitions around Europe but it has never been presented online until today, which we do proudly.

The half hour film tells the story of two artists discovering a hidden space under a pier near the ocean and their distinctly D.I.Y. approach to getting their hands dirty and creating something genuinely new. “We wanted to make the room perfect – like a classy room in an apartment – but in a dirty dark hole underground,” says Petter when describing the secret project that took the guys about six months of ferrying materials and tools back and forth to the spot on bicycle. Why, you might ask? “There was no obvious purpose. Otherwise all rooms have a purpose, usually – toilet, office, living room. But this was just a room, underground, for everybody to do what they wished with.”

Löfstedt and Vestman have been experimenting with the concept of public/private in some of their other conceptual works over the last few years; precisely replacing stone tiles in public areas with photographic works of friends and rats, for example, and “re-purposing” a downtown commercial kiosk into a rural field outside of the city for uses more fitting the agrarian way of life.

“Everything can be changed. Everything can be turned into poetry,” they like to say, and with this same philosophy you can best assess many artworks works on the street – sanctioned and guerilla style – and judge how successful at writing poetry an artist has been when engaging the public.

Is it possible to find poetry in all public spaces? Petter says possibly, “Guess there is poetry everywhere. The only thing is to have time to see it.”

Documenting their project of transformation with film and photography, they also left journals for visitors to write in, collecting observations, some negative, most positive.

But the under-pavement construction wasn’t originally going to become a film. “When we found the empty, dirty space under the pier we had no plans except making something great out of it,” Erik tells us. “After quite some time when we finally started building we also started documenting what we were doing. But we had no plan of making a film or a book until far into the process.”

Was it all glamour? “It was horrible and fantastic to build the room. I got a nosebleed, there were these tics… I think we both had dreams about moving stones and gravel and paint that didn’t dry in the moist air of the sea. However we were totally absorbed by what we were doing.”

The “secret” spot became known because of its ingenious appropriation of a nether space – not quite public but not entirely private. The transformative effect of their carpentry and industry deliberately plumbed psychological boundaries about the built environment, as well as its purpose. By physically crossing the precipice into and out of the space a visitor pierced a veil of typical expectations, interacting with an inspired project that literally causes one to see their world differently.

Welcome to “The Pier”.

Original title: Piren
English Title: The Pier
Genre: Documentary
Director: Nils Petter Löfstedt
Production: Stavro Filmproduktion AB in coproduction with SVT and Film i Skåne
Length: 28 minutes
Photo: Nils Petter Löfstedt
Editing: Johan Löfstedt
Music: Carl Johan Lundberg / Vit Päls
Producer: Patrik Axén
Sound design: Robert Sörling
First grade: Simon Möller
Final grade: Erik & Nils Petter
Graphics: Erika Nyström

www.thepier.se

Alice Pasquini e Una Donna, Memorie Urbane 2014

June 5, 2014 Artists

“I just finished my latest wall in Itri, Italy for the Memorie Urbane Festival,” says Alice Pasquini about her new piece here on BSA. The engagement with the community is one of the fascinating aspects of public art, and sometimes an artist can be surprised by the comments and conversations sparked by their work – and who they meet on the street.

brooklyn-street-art-alice-pasquini-jessica-stewart-memorie-urbane-festival-italy-04-14-web-1

Alice Pasquini. Itri, Italy. (Photo © Jessica Stewart)

Inspired by the neo-realist 1960 film ‘La Ciociara’ (Two Women) directed by Vittorio De Sica, the artist creates a portrait of its star, Sophia Loren, which she painted over two days. During that time she really understood the importance of context.

“I was visited by elderly residents of the town, many of whom remember when the filming took place and shared their stories. One woman, now in her late 80s, had a small role in the film and explained that with the fee she was paid, she was able to support her family of five children,” says Pasquini.

Alice Pasquini. Itri, Italy. (Photo © Jessica Stewart)

Ernest Zacharevic “Toy Mafia” Memorie Urbane Festival 2014

Etnik and Millo Memorie Urbane Festical 2014

Martin Whatson, David De La Mano, Pablo Herrero and E1000 Memorie Urbane Festival 2014

Opiemme Memorie Urbane Festival 2014

Click HERE for more Memorie Urbane Information

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India’s First Street Art Fest and the Largest Ghandi Portrait Ever

June 4, 2014 Artists

“St.ART Dehli 2014” Hosts 60 Artists

As Street Art continues to go global here in the twenty-teens, today we bring you images showing that Dehli has become one of the latest cities to showcase it. In what is billed as India’s very first Street Art festival the south Delhi neighborhood of Shahpur Jat hosted a collection of international and local artists this spring to paint murals while a public who is not quite acquainted with public art asked many questions.

Hendrik ECB Beikirch and ANPU take shots of their collaborative portrait of Mahatma Ghandi. / St.ART Delhi 2014 (photo © Akshat Nauriyal)

Working out of the newly rustic indoor venue “Social Space” in the trendy neighborhood of Hauz Khas Village (HKV), the St. ART Delhi effort was a combination of a gallery exhibition and a street art festival that invited 60 or so international and Indian artists earlier this year to create public works.

Overseen by co-founders Hanif Kureshi and Arjun Bahl and curated by Italian Giulia Ambrogi, the festival was possible with the help of a collection of artists, professionals, art school students, and friends who joined with the Goethe-Institut and the Italian and Polish cultural institutes in Delhi. With volunteers, supplies, and a lot of community outreach, the event organizers were able to bring the artists and help get walls for them- an effort which took about a year and a half of serious planning to bring to fruition.

Artez. St.ART Delhi 2014 (photo © Akshat Nauriyal)

In an underdeveloped area undergoing the same gentrification found in edgy parts of large cities around the globe, the artists found that the long term residents sometimes resisted the change but eventually embraced it, if tentatively at times.

“Pondering was what we had to do for much of the day as the locals were still getting accustomed to strange folks painting their walls and generally made life a bit difficult for the artists and the crew,” writes Siddhant Mehta on the blog of the festival’s site when describing the cautious reaction of folks when seeing painters and scaffolding.

Some residents even requested images of religious iconography before any artworks were created, while some artists entertained requests for cartoon characters or children’s games to be incorporated in their murals.

Sé Cordeiro. St.ART Delhi 2014 (photo © Akshat Nauriyal)

Co-founder and typography designer Kureshi freely admits it was an easy non-controversial choice when deciding on the portrait that went up on the police building. “After 2 months, we finished around 75 pieces around Delhi including the tallest one on the Delhi Police Headquarters,” says Mr. Bahl as he describes the tallest portrait of Mahatma Ghandi anywhere which covers a 150’ x 38’ – a collaboration between Indian painter Anpu Varkey and German street artist ECB.

Of the 60 artists who participated, many were from India, which may have contributed to a sense of cultural balance in the mural collection created in the neighborhood. Whether is was TOFU from Germany, M-City from Poland, or Alina from Denmark, many of the artists reported that small crowds gathered to watch and, with time, offered gifts such as peanuts or a cup of chai to their foreign guests.

As the global Street Art scene continues to open its arms wider it is promising to see that a new public art festival like this has begun in such a grand way in a brand new location. It is also heartening to see planners who take into account the preferences of the neighbors, and who act with a sense of goodwill when offering public art for arts sake.

Harsh Raman. St.ART Delhi 2014 (photo © Akshat Nauriyal)

Okuda. St.ART Delhi 2014 (photo © Akshat Nauriyal)

Andy Yeng and Tofu. St.ART Delhi 2014 (photo © Akshat Nauriyal)

Tofu. Detail. St.ART Delhi 2014 (photo © Jayant Parashar)

Tona. St.ART Delhi 2014 (photo © Akshat Nauriyal)

Foe. St.ART Delhi 2014 (photo © Enrico Fabian)

Foe. St.ART Delhi 2014 (photo © Akshat Nauriyal)

Mattia Lullini. St.ART Delhi 2014 (photo © Akshat Nauriyal)

Alina Vergnano. St.ART Delhi 2014 (photo © Akshat Nauriyal)

Alina Vergnano. St.ART Delhi 2014 (photo © Pranav Mahajan)

Bond. St.ART Delhi 2014 (photo © Akshat Nauriyal)

Alias. St.ART Delhi 2014 (photo © Akshat Nauriyal)

Tones. St.ART Delhi 2014 (photo © Akshat Nauriyal)

Ranjit Dhaiya. St.ART Delhi 2014 (photo © Akshat Nauriyal)

BSA extends our thanks to Thanish Thomas for his diligence in getting these images to us and to Hanif Kureshi, Arjun Bahl, Giulia Ambrogiall, Mridula Garg, Akshat Nauriyal, and the entire team at St.ART Delhi 2014. Click HERE to learn more about St.ART Delhi 2014.

St.ART Delhi Street Art Festival Part II

The Tallest Mural of India – Mahatma Ghandi at St.ART Delhi

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This article is also published on The Huffington Post

Opiemme X Moby Dick X Museum of Urban Art (Italy)

June 3, 2014 Artists

There has been some excited talk in the last couple of weeks here about the announcement of a new urban art museum in New Jersey associated with Mana Contemporary – some even saying that it is the first of its kind. No doubt it will be a first in many categories but when we heard the name MANA associated with an urban museum we also thought of MURo (Museo di Urban Art di Roma) and then of MAU.

The Museum of Urban Art in Turin Italy is called Museo d’Arte Urbana and it has a director and a board, has programmed and placed countless works in public spaces since the mid 1990s, and is reportedly securing a large permanent location in that city as well. In fact, many have had this lust for combining the street with museums, and everyone does it differently.

brooklyn-street-art-OPIEMME-ACHABs-WHALE-TORINO-italy-2014-web-1

Opiemme. Torino, Italy 2014. (photo © Opiemme)

“It’s a really particular reality,” says Opiemme this week of the MAU program that just brought him to Torino, as the city is natively referred to. “There’s a block called Campidoglio where MAU took over beginning in 1995,” the Street Artist says about what is essentially a mural arts program that has brought public artists and artworks to the street in a curated fashion. Successfully, you might add, from the citizens point of view.

“Actually I never painted in a place where people were so happy to have me there,” he says of the new 50 square meter text based whale based on Melville’s Moby Dick. Installed over a weekend in May where Corso Tassoni meets Via Cibrario, the text comes from the book, is entitled “Ahab’s Whale”, and according to Opieme, it questions who is the bigger monster – the whale or the captain’s obsession.

Opiemme. Torino, Italy 2014. (photo © Daniele Dantonio)

As the street scene shape-shifts once again and we have moved into a period at the moment where there is a booming mural scene washing over us – one that many would not have predicted – it is worthwhile to speculate what form and format an “urban art” museum would/could/should take and which masters are to be served?

But before pulling our whaling boats up alongside this enterprise and harpooning it with a list of programming demands — hold your fire! Perhaps we’ll need to acknowledge that we’re going to need a number of these museums worldwide, and each can find their particular focus without presuming to be everything to every one. That would be quite impossible.

Opiemme. Torino, Italy 2014. (photo © Daniele Dantonio)

As usual, we are still content with the museum of the streets, the gallery of the self-selecting, curated by will, happenstance, the elements, and the audience who determines how long it is on exhibit.

Opiemme. Torino, Italy 2014. (photo © Opiemme)

Opiemme. Torino, Italy 2014. (photo © Daniele Dantonio)

For more information on the Museo d’Arte Urbana please click HERE.

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Etnik in Pisa for Indoor/Outdoor, 25 Years After Haring (Italy)

June 2, 2014 Artists

Marking a quarter century since Keith Haring created his mural on the back wall of the Servi di Maria convent beside the Church of S. Antonio in 1989, the city of Pisa began Indoor Outdoor – Arte Urbana a Pisa last month with the first murals of the festival installed on the 24^th and 25^th of May. In June the second part of the project will be an indoor exhibition of the seven artists who participated in the outdoor murals, including Etnik, who is from Vinci, about an hours drive from Pisa.

Here we see Etnik on a wall not far from the entrance of the airport exploding his geometric forms across a colorful waving wash of space. The former graffiti writer has moved from the letter form to the geometric form and was at Memorie Urbane a little earlier in the year with a similar context and technique; first blocking in the colors and then tracing with aerosol the quadrilaterals and their couplings and groupings, building the isometric foundations from below, allowing them to float in space, free to interact with 3-D and 2-D forms passing by.

brooklyn-street-art-etnik-pisa-italy-05-14-web-5

Participating in Indoor Outdoor are Francesco Barbieri, Lineapiatta (Daniel Tozzi and Massimo), Scaramucci, Aris, Etnik, Soap The Wizard, Giorgio Bartocci, and Frangisuono Cisanello. For more information please visit http://www.indooroutdoor.it/

Images Of The Week: 06.01.14

June 1, 2014 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

BOS, Bushwick Collective, Juicy Fest, RedHook Studio Tours, Northside Festival, Welling Court… BK and QNS are bombed with artists in June – and today’s throwdown in Bushwick is just one tab on the 12-pack to pop and spray all over your friends on a hot summer day. When it comes to street art we’re in this new legal mural phase right now and when you head out to Bushwick Open Studios today you will see freshly painted and in-process walls. Don’t worry, we’re still seeing a lot of uncensored freewheeling self-selecting artistic installations of the unsanctioned variety – and that sector is alive and well. See you out in the street!

Here our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring

Adam Fujita, BustArt, Cb23, Chris Dyer, Dain, Dasic, Don Rimx, Ethos, FoxxFace, Jerk Face, Labrona, Meca, Meer Sau, Milo, Muro, Osch, Princess Hijab, QRST, Ricardo Cabret and Son, Sem, Skewville, Stinkfish, Stovington 23, Txemy, Vexta, Zaira

If you are lucky enough to be in NYC this Sunday, get out of the house and head over to East Williamsburg and Bushwick. You’d have the chance to see many of these murals in person and perhaps and artist or two while applying the final touches to his or her wall. Click HERE for more info on The Bushwick Collective block party taking place today. And HERE for the Juicy Art Fest which is not happening until June 5, 6 and 7 but artists are currently busy at work on their murals and it is only a short walk between the two.

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Pixel Pancho (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pixel Pancho (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pixel Pancho (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pixel Pancho (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Special Feature: World Premier “The Pier” (Piren)

Alice Pasquini. Itri, Italy. (Photo © Jessica Stewart)

Alice Pasquini. Itri, Italy. (Photo © Jessica Stewart)

Alice Pasquini. Itri, Italy. (Photo © Jessica Stewart)

Alice Pasquini. Itri, Italy. (Photo © Jessica Stewart)

Alice Pasquini. Itri, Italy. (Photo © Jessica Stewart)

“St.ART Dehli 2014” Hosts 60 Artists

Hendrik ECB Beikirch and ANPU take shots of their collaborative portrait of Mahatma Ghandi. / St.ART Delhi 2014 (photo © Akshat Nauriyal)

Artez. St.ART Delhi 2014 (photo © Akshat Nauriyal)

Sé Cordeiro. St.ART Delhi 2014 (photo © Akshat Nauriyal)

Harsh Raman. St.ART Delhi 2014 (photo © Akshat Nauriyal)

Okuda. St.ART Delhi 2014 (photo © Akshat Nauriyal)

Andy Yeng and Tofu. St.ART Delhi 2014 (photo © Akshat Nauriyal)

Tofu. Detail. St.ART Delhi 2014 (photo © Jayant Parashar)

Tona. St.ART Delhi 2014 (photo © Akshat Nauriyal)

Foe. St.ART Delhi 2014 (photo © Enrico Fabian)

Foe. St.ART Delhi 2014 (photo © Akshat Nauriyal)

Mattia Lullini. St.ART Delhi 2014 (photo © Akshat Nauriyal)

Alina Vergnano. St.ART Delhi 2014 (photo © Akshat Nauriyal)

Alina Vergnano. St.ART Delhi 2014 (photo © Pranav Mahajan)

Bond. St.ART Delhi 2014 (photo © Akshat Nauriyal)

Alias. St.ART Delhi 2014 (photo © Akshat Nauriyal)

Alias. St.ART Delhi 2014 (photo © Akshat Nauriyal)

Tones. St.ART Delhi 2014 (photo © Akshat Nauriyal)

Tones. St.ART Delhi 2014 (photo © Akshat Nauriyal)

Tones. St.ART Delhi 2014 (photo © Akshat Nauriyal)

Ranjit Dhaiya. St.ART Delhi 2014 (photo © Akshat Nauriyal)

St.ART Delhi Street Art Festival Part II

The Tallest Mural of India – Mahatma Ghandi at St.ART Delhi

Opiemme. Torino, Italy 2014. (photo © Opiemme)

Opiemme. Torino, Italy 2014. (photo © Daniele Dantonio)

Opiemme. Torino, Italy 2014. (photo © Daniele Dantonio)

Opiemme. Torino, Italy 2014. (photo © Opiemme)

Opiemme. Torino, Italy 2014. (photo © Daniele Dantonio)

Opiemme. Torino, Italy 2014. (photo © Daniele Dantonio)

Opiemme. Torino, Italy 2014. (photo © Daniele Dantonio)

Opiemme. Torino, Italy 2014. (photo © Daniele Dantonio)

Etnik. Indoor/Outdoor Festival. Pisa, Italy. (photo © courtesy ETNIK)

Etnik. Indoor/Outdoor Festival. Pisa, Italy. (photo © courtesy ETNIK)

Etnik. Indoor/Outdoor Festival. Pisa, Italy. (photo © courtesy ETNIK)

Etnik. Indoor/Outdoor Festival. Pisa, Italy. (photo © courtesy ETNIK)

Etnik. Indoor/Outdoor Festival. Pisa, Italy. (photo © courtesy ETNIK)

Top Image >> Dasic for the Juicy Art Festival. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Skewville (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Adam Fujita for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Princess Hijab has a new installation in the Paris Metro (photo © Adrien Chretien)

Princess Hijab. Detail of the above installation. Paris, France. (photo © Adrien Chretien)

Are you feeling this felt lava lamp? Milo calls what she does Graffeltti. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Osch new installation in London’s Brick Lane. (photo © Massimo Filippi)

Dain (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sem (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ethos new piece in Sao Paulo, Brazil. (photo © Claudio Ethos)

QRST (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Don Rimx, Ricardo Cabret and Son for the Juicy Art Festival. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Labrona new indoor mural in Montreal, Canada. (photo © Labrona)

Vexta for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Stovington23 new corporate takeover in Eastbourne, UK. (photo © Stovington23)

BustArt and Zaira new stencil work in Amsterdam. (photo © Bustart/Zaira)

BustArt and Zaira new stencil work in Amsterdam. (photo © Bustart/Zaira)

Muro . Txemy . Stinkfish . Meca . Done for the Juicy Art Festival. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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

Jerk Face completed his Tom and Jerry piece in Williamsburg. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

cb23 and Foxx Face collaboration. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Chris Dyer in Denver, Colorado. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Greenpoint, Brooklyn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Featured Video | Martin Wong’s “Houston Street”

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BSA Special Feature: World Premier
“The Pier” (Piren)