Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening :
1. This Is Berlin Not New York
BSA Special Feature: This is Berlin, Not New York
“We’re trying to express the poetry of what we are doing in a non-traditional way”
New York collectivist artist stories are still happening thank God, even if the midsummer bleached out sun of an August day on tenement bricks awakens you now in Ridgewood, Queens or Bedstuy, Brooklyn now instead of the Lower East Side or Williamsburg.
But why experience the creative chaos here only when you can find an equally tilted staircase in a Berlin neighborhood, and even more abandoned possibilities just by climbing on a plane at JFK? The Antagonists Movement, a self formed crew (or gang) of 10 artists were inspired to pick up their collected works and ideas and transport them to Berlin in ’07 to mount shows and make art and meet people and sell t-shirts.
We’re so drawn to this story because the collective we were part of called “Open Ground” on Grand Street in Williamsburg did an amazingly similar cultural exchange with Wedding in ’05 with an artists group there and they also came to BK to mount a show in our space. We called it a “Williamsburg Wedding” and even then both these sister neighborhoods were beginning to feel the twinkling fingers of gentrification. We all could begin to feel it getting the upper hand; an increased call for the professionalization of art, and dwindling space to experiment and fail and experiment and succeed.
So when we saw the unpolished cacaphony of Ethan Minkers film, comprised of low-fi video and stills and doodles and animation and sound quality that veers from ditch to highway to hallway, we swooned. We knew these poems of discovery were inscribed on his heart as they are on the hearts of many artists still. The film stands on its own as a collection of events and conversations and collaborative craziness, which when stitched together with blunt instruments and colorful yarn creates a comfortable quilt on which to crash on the floor next to your friend who is on the couch.
This is Berlin, but really this state of mind is stateless.
Thanks and congratulations to these folks: Arturo Vega, Ted Riederer, Ethan H. Minsker, Richard Allen, Brett Farkas, James Rubio, Un Lee, and Crispy T.
Screenplay By: Ethan H. Minsker Directed By:Ethan H. Minsker
Produced By: Antagonist Movement.
Other Articles You May Like from BSA:
Part of the ongoing drama that your life becomes as someone who knows street art is you never feel like you are alone on the street. The appearance of a tag or an artwork reminds of you people and it...
EARTH, AIR, FIRE, and WATER. And FUTURA 2000. These are the five elements. “Hey Guys!” he bellows from the doorway and invites us in. Futura (photo © Jaime Rojo) A non-stop full-voiced welcome fill...
A serious bomber and a bit of a barbed bard from Brooklyn has his first virtual contemporary art show with the Museum of Graffiti in Miami. You couldn’t write a sentence like that a decade ago. Ca...
“O god, there are noises I am going to be hungry for” - Carl Sandburg “The art world has always felt like a lottery to me,” Dont Fret says as he paints one of his distinctively odd and fabulously ...
You ever look at Graffiti Art magazine from Paris? It has really turned into such a great quarterly and this new issue number 20 has MOMO on the cover! Also finally an article about the fascinating oc...