August 2014

BSA Film Friday: 08.08.14

August 8, 2014 Artists

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

Now screening :

Vhils: Diorama
Vhils: Dissection
Saber and ZES/MSK in Downtown LA
Lush and Dscreet in Amsterdam
Cranio in Shoreditch, London

BSA Special Feature: VHILS: Diorama

A tuning fork mystery infused background soundtrack suspends the slowly rotating portrait by Vhils as you hover above and within it like an alien discovering the topography of a vast cityscape. The laser cut Styrofoam enables such an exquisite experience for discovery that feels otherworldly, and then you think, “but how do I clean this when the dust builds up?”

A. Don’t be so plebeian, B. canned air, C. when was the last time you dusted anything, I’m the one who keeps this apartment clean. You just track in dirt from the streets. I just mopped this floor!

Vhils: Dissection

In this other video for the EDP foundation from Vhils, we see a further exploration of materials and construction in reverse. With the echoes of its history washing around, the subway car is dismantled; a furtherance of the concepts that the Street Artist employs in the process of creation.

Saber and ZES/MSK in Downtown LA

Its the simple things in life that make summer in the city such a blast. Like spraying paint with a fire extinguisher and collaborating with your bud on a wall while the sun shines. What’s not to like?

Lush and Dscreet in Amsterdam

And on a different note, the menacing brilliance of this outlaw reeks of mockery and societal unraveling. Yet, sexy and funny and built on a pop culture series of references that you have forgotten or never heard of. You had us at Tricky Dick.

Cranio in Shoreditch, London

In what has evidently been turned into a commercial wall that advertizes with Street Art, this four panel Shoreditch spot is next to continuous traffic and gets plenty of eyeballs. Cranio is featured here popping up and down ladders with a soundtrack of peppy celebration music to promote a gambling site with images of sports.

Roa Gifts A Tyrannosaurus to Bromölla, Sweden

August 7, 2014 Artists

Bromölla in Sweden is ROA’s latest stop just behind Tunisia and evidently he brought a dinosaur sketchbook in his luggage. The inaugural artist-in-residence for the in-development Ifo Center, ROA created this massive mural across a large-scale factory building. The municipality of 7500 at the southern tip of the Nordic country is this home of a limestone quarry and many ceramics related industries. Artist couple Teresa Holmberg and Jonathan Haner began the cultural center in 2011 at this former factory and eventually hope to open up 4,200 square meters of unoccupied floors for artist studios, workshops, and exhibition spaces.

Roa. Ifo Center. July Bromölla, Sweden. July, 2014. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Choosing the urban naturalist as their first international Street Artist was a bold move, and we are looking forward to see who they have in mind next. Why the dinosaur? Firstly, Bromölla boasts remains from the Stone Age and many fossils that indicate that this was a roaming ground for them. Not to mention they have the world’s largest ceramic fountain downtown called ‘Scanisaurus’ by Gunnar Nylund. Now they have what must be the world’s largest freehand aerosol painting of a dinosaur as well. Go ROA!

Our thanks to photographer Henrik Haven for sharing these exclusive shots which he shot hanging out with ROA on the roof, in the scissor lift, and on the ground.

Roa. Ifo Center. July Bromölla, Sweden. July, 2014. (photo © Henrik Haven)

We wish to thank guest contributor Henrik Haven for sharing his documentation of ROA’s work with BSA readers.

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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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A New Muralism Growing : Spotlight on Jersey City and “Savage Habbit”

August 6, 2014 Artists

An important part of the Street Art ecosystem is the mural and right now we are in the midst of a mural revolution in neighborhoods, towns and cities everywhere. These are not your mom’s mural programs; overwrought art-by-committee debates that result in something no one is really in love with. And while they are often born from the community in some way, they do not try to address the same needs that a traditional community mural has filled by touching on the historical, sociological, local topics or lore. Although they could.

These are mural programs fueled often by one or two people who approach landlords and businesses directly and get permission for artists to hit up a wall. The results can be varied and more often than not the good ones survive.

Case Ma’Claim for Savage Habbit. Jersey City, NJ (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Three forces are at work today contributing to this rise in freelance muralism and mural programs as far as we can discern. First, the rise of Street Art as a recognized grassroots global phenomenon has opened the eyes of moribund neighborhoods (and real estate developers) to the revitalizing effect that art in the streets can have on an area’s desirability and, along with it, has suddenly relaxed the nerves of many a politician and police officer.

Secondly, the rapid proliferation of a global Street Art festival scene that is creating a circuit of relatively young traveling painters “getting fame” with genuine D.I.Y. personal art and parlaying it to their following across digital platforms has certainly sparked the interest of more than a just a few peers.

Case Ma’Claim. Detail. For Savage Habbit. Jersey City, NJ (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Finally, now that we are a good ten to fifteen years into the modern Street Art explosion, many of the artists who stuck to their craft have actually developed it, broadened it, deepened it. Consequently we are blessed with a new generation of ever more gifted painters, wheat-pasters, sculptors, knitters, and installation artists who can knock out big pieces in the public space with speed and panache.

Today we take a look at a nascent local mural scene in Jersey City, New Jersey, but we could just as easily have examined nearby Newark – or a growing constellation of towns. Begun just a handful of years ago by a local blog named Savage Habbit, this small mural program showcases local and internationally known Street Artists and co-founder Inez Gradzki has organized many walls in an around an arts community that has been growing in fits and starts.

DULK for Savage Habbit. Jersey City, NJ (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Using their enthusiasm for the scene and connections to artists, the blog has worked hard in a bricks-and-mortar way to show their love for their community. With an eye on the potential of this town that lies just a few minutes from Manhattan to be a magnet for culture and artists, programs like these are already attracting New York artists. Not surprisingly, a growing number are also deciding to live in these towns, having found friends and given up on trying to live in the expensive city that once drew and retained the creative class by the thousands annually.

So here we are with some recent walls and murals in Jersey City – a template for many more to come.

Sean9Lugo. Detail. For Savage Habbit. Jersey City, NJ (photo © Jaime Rojo)

LNY. Jersey City, NJ (photo © Jaime Rojo)

LNY for Savage Habbit. Jersey City, NJ (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pixel Pancho for Savage Habbit. Jersey City, NJ (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mike Makatron for Savage Habbit. Jersey City, NJ (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Li-Hill for Savage Habbit. Jersey City, NJ. This piece was completed but cars parked in front of it prevented us from taking a full photo of it. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Li-Hill for Savage Habbit. Jersey City, NJ (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Alice Pasquini for Savage Habbit. Jersey City, NJ (photo © Jaime Rojo)

NoseGo for Savage Habbit. Jersey City, NJ. We could only get a detail and a strange angle of this piece due to cars parked in front of the piece. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mata Ruda and Nanook for Savage Habbit. Jersey City, NJ (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mata Ruda and Nanook for Savage Habbit. Jersey City, NJ. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sean9Lugo for Savage Habbit. Jersey City, NJ (photo © Jaime Rojo)

LNY and Mata Ruda for Calle 13 Multi-Viral Project. Jersey City, NJ (photo © Jaime Rojo)

LNY and Mata Ruda for Calle 13 Multi-Viral Project. Jersey City, NJ. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

To learn more about Savage Habbit click HERE

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Swoon Across a Red Corrugated Wall in Red Hook

August 5, 2014 Artists

If you have been in New York this spring or summer we hope you have had the opportunity to see Swoon’s site specific installation “Submerged Motherlands” currently on view at the Brooklyn Museum until August 24. She has taken part in a number of programs with the museum during this time including speaking with us in April and inviting all BSA fans to a special viewing of the exhibit afterwards. If you haven’t seen it please do yourselves a favor and go visit the museum before it closes.

Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

But of course museums are not the only places where you can enjoy Swoon’s art. She loves the streets of NYC and she has been gifting all New Yorkers with her work free of charge on the streets of the city, including this installation with a long metal wall in Red Hook that she adorned late in the Spring with her unique, hand tinted lino prints. Many of these images will be familiar to her fans and rarely do you have the opportunity to see so many of them together at once on the street.

Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Liliwenn on Island in Tunisia For Djerbahood with C215, El Seed, ROA

August 4, 2014 Artists

The Djerbahood project is midway through its stated goal of having one hundred artists from 30 countries come to paint in this North African island in Tunisia called Djerba. Organized by the same folks who brought you Tour Paris 13, this sun-bleached town features a culture distinct from the mainland and many white-washed domed homes.

El Seed working on his piece for The Djerbahood Project. Tunisia. July 2014. (photo screenshot from video below)

Here we have new exclusive photos of Liliwenn doing her installation and some screen shots of El Seed, Roa, and C215 from the teaser video attached below. The multi-cultural exchange will beautify a large number of walls in the small village and bring many artists to this island town of many traditions, fresh grilled fish, couscous and fricassee.

Liliwenn at work while kids play nearby. The Djerbahood Project. Tunisia. July 2014. (photo © courtesy of Liliwenn)

Liliwenn. Detail. The Djerbahood Project. Tunisia. July 2014. (photo © courtesy of Liliwenn)

Liliwenn. Djerbahood Project. Tunisia. July 2014. (photo © courtesy of Liliwenn)

Liliwenn. The Djerbahood Project. Tunisia. July 2014. (photo © courtesy of Liliwenn)

C215’s finished piece for The Djerbahood Project. Tunisia. July 2014. (photo screenshot from video below)

One of ROA’s many pieces for The Djerbahood Project. Tunisia. July 2014. (photo screenshot from video below)

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BSA Images Of The Week: 08.03.14

August 3, 2014 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

It’s the Dog Days of Summer and there are a lot of cool cats on the street right now.

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Adam Fujita, Be Everything, Che Man, Clint Mario, Dan Witz, E.L.K. Icy & Sot, Ishmael, JR, Kenny Scharf, LMNOPI, Mika, Mike Makatron, Rusebk, Sabio, Solus, Sweet Toof, and You Go Girl!

Top Image >> As the world is watching, Icy & Sot again address the Iraeli/Palestinian crisis on a wall in this uncharacteristically openly political piece for the Bushwick Collective, who typically require artists to stay within content guidelines. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Icy & Sot. The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

JR’s 2006 “Holy Tryptich” appeared here in Manhattan, originally installed on the separation wall in 2007. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

LMNOPI (photo © Jaime Rojo)

E.L.K. The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sweet Toof (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Clint Mario really got in shape for beach weather this year. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sabio (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Vivache has created “Che Man” and has mounted this message in San Francisco, Oakland, Cambridge, and now Bushwick Brooklyn with this Pak Man inspired solution to world ills. This Bushwick spot was up only two days before it was buffed over in green again, presumably because the message rubbed someone the wrong way. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Clearly the wolves are running unimpeded in the valley of the skyscrapers. Ishmael. The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dog Days – Florence and the Machine

Cool For Cats – Squeeze

Enzo & Nio and Their Eclectic Collaboration Bid Adieu

August 2, 2014 Artists

New York Street Art watchers over the last three or four years have been familiar with the polished irony and gentle sarcasm that Enzo & Nio purvey on often appropriately chosen walls, lamp posts, electric boxes. A collection of inside jokes rendered in a handful of styles, the duo has used photorealism, collage, cartoon, and sloganeering to speak to social ills things like consumerism, surveillance, and our passive acceptance/glorification of violence in the culture, and their own fixation with the archetypal cat and mouse game between graffiti makers and the law. With wheat-pastes and custom stickers that are cryptic, poetic, smirking, inverting, almost invariably un-permissioned, each new E&N occasions a second look and a piqued moment of curiosity.

BSA has published perhaps a hundred or so images of the pairs’ work over these past few years and with recent rather public news on Gallo’s Facebook page announcing their split, we scrambled through our collection to discover that we had, well, quite a collection. The nature of the Street Art conversation is one of continuous re-invention so we can’t all be shocked by change but as this mostly ephemeral scene evolves, we take a moment to recognize the space on the timeline that has marked Enzo & Nio’s eclectic and original voice delivered with a sense of marketing. Witty, salty, poignant and yes funny, here are some examples of their work on the street.

BSA Film Friday: 08.01.14

August 1, 2014 Artists

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.

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Touring is not unusual for Paul McCartney, who has traversed the globe nearly non-stop for six decades. Yet, this time, …Read More »
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As founding members of the Martha Cooper Library at the Urban Nation Museum in Berlin, Brooklyn Street Art (BSA) proudly …Read More »
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Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! Spring is astoundingly colorful on the street in New York this year, with …Read More »

BSA Special Feature: VHILS: Diorama

Vhils: Dissection

Saber and ZES/MSK in Downtown LA

Lush and Dscreet in Amsterdam

Cranio in Shoreditch, London

Roa. Ifo Center. July Bromölla, Sweden. July, 2014. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Roa. Ifo Center. July Bromölla, Sweden. July, 2014. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Roa. Ifo Center. July Bromölla, Sweden. July, 2014. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Roa. Ifo Center. July Bromölla, Sweden. July, 2014. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Roa. Ifo Center. July Bromölla, Sweden. July, 2014. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Roa. Ifo Center. July Bromölla, Sweden. July, 2014. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Roa. Ifo Center. July Bromölla, Sweden. July, 2014. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Roa. Ifo Center. July Bromölla, Sweden. July, 2014. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Roa. Ifo Center. July Bromölla, Sweden. July, 2014. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Roa. Ifo Center. July Bromölla, Sweden. July, 2014. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Roa. Ifo Center. July Bromölla, Sweden. July, 2014. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Roa. Ifo Center. July Bromölla, Sweden. July, 2014. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Roa. Ifo Center. July Bromölla, Sweden. July, 2014. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Case Ma’Claim for Savage Habbit. Jersey City, NJ (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Case Ma’Claim. Detail. For Savage Habbit. Jersey City, NJ (photo © Jaime Rojo)

DULK for Savage Habbit. Jersey City, NJ (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sean9Lugo. Detail. For Savage Habbit. Jersey City, NJ (photo © Jaime Rojo)

LNY. Jersey City, NJ (photo © Jaime Rojo)

LNY for Savage Habbit. Jersey City, NJ (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pixel Pancho for Savage Habbit. Jersey City, NJ (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mike Makatron for Savage Habbit. Jersey City, NJ (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Li-Hill for Savage Habbit. Jersey City, NJ. This piece was completed but cars parked in front of it prevented us from taking a full photo of it. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Li-Hill for Savage Habbit. Jersey City, NJ (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Alice Pasquini for Savage Habbit. Jersey City, NJ (photo © Jaime Rojo)

NoseGo for Savage Habbit. Jersey City, NJ. We could only get a detail and a strange angle of this piece due to cars parked in front of the piece. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mata Ruda and Nanook for Savage Habbit. Jersey City, NJ (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mata Ruda and Nanook for Savage Habbit. Jersey City, NJ. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mata Ruda and Nanook for Savage Habbit. Jersey City, NJ. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sean9Lugo for Savage Habbit. Jersey City, NJ (photo © Jaime Rojo)

LNY and Mata Ruda for Calle 13 Multi-Viral Project. Jersey City, NJ (photo © Jaime Rojo)

LNY and Mata Ruda for Calle 13 Multi-Viral Project. Jersey City, NJ. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

El Seed working on his piece for The Djerbahood Project. Tunisia. July 2014. (photo screenshot from video below)

Liliwenn at work while kids play nearby. The Djerbahood Project. Tunisia. July 2014. (photo © courtesy of Liliwenn)

Liliwenn. Detail. The Djerbahood Project. Tunisia. July 2014. (photo © courtesy of Liliwenn)

Liliwenn. Djerbahood Project. Tunisia. July 2014. (photo © courtesy of Liliwenn)

Liliwenn. The Djerbahood Project. Tunisia. July 2014. (photo © courtesy of Liliwenn)

C215’s finished piece for The Djerbahood Project. Tunisia. July 2014. (photo screenshot from video below)

One of ROA’s many pieces for The Djerbahood Project. Tunisia. July 2014. (photo screenshot from video below)

Top Image >> As the world is watching, Icy & Sot again address the Iraeli/Palestinian crisis on a wall in this uncharacteristically openly political piece for the Bushwick Collective, who typically require artists to stay within content guidelines. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Icy & Sot. The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

JR’s 2006 “Holy Tryptich” appeared here in Manhattan, originally installed on the separation wall in 2007. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

LMNOPI (photo © Jaime Rojo)

E.L.K. The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sweet Toof (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Clint Mario really got in shape for beach weather this year. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sabio (photo © Jaime Rojo)

You Go Girl (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pop that thing open and let’s go run in the spray! Mike Makatron. The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Clearly the wolves are running unimpeded in the valley of the skyscrapers. Ishmael. The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dan Witz (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Rusebk. The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kenny Scharf (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Be Everything. But don’t be a dumbell. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Solus. The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mika (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Adam Fujita (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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

Dog Days – Florence and the Machine

Cool For Cats – Squeeze

Enzo & Nio most recent installation. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Enzo & Nio most recent installation. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Enzo & Nio most recent installation. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Enzo & Nio most recent installation. (photo © Jaime Rojo)