February 2015

The Altar of EKG : Transmitting Signals in an Underground Laboratory

The Altar of EKG : Transmitting Signals in an Underground Laboratory

Not since Judith Supines’ solo show at English Kills when the Bushwick art scene was still a baby have we seen an artist take over a space and turn it into an alternative slice of reality. EKG covers every surface and shape with black, marks it up with orange grease sticks and transforms it with glowing bands of filament in old-tymey light fixtures angled to give the black altar of retro-future a calming glow.

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EKG solo show, An All Hallows’ Valentine’s Eve Celebration of Misfit Love, Mutant Science and Aesthetic Rebellion. (phone photo ©Steven P. Harrington)

EKG is 20 things at once, and he’s the first one to tell you that – the words streaming from his consciousness in a clipped metering of phrases and symbols and philosophies about communication and its various delivery methods, signifiers and outliers. The show name alone tells you — something; An All Hallows’ Valentine’s Eve Celebration of Misfit Love, Mutant Science and Aesthetic Rebellion. He’s a graffiti writer, street artist, fine artist, historian, academic, zine publisher, fulminator and free agent. In person this show is a wise move toward simplification of the storm inside him with the use of just two colors – so that you can appreciate better his love of energy and communication and resonance.

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EKG solo show, An All Hallows’ Valentine’s Eve Celebration of Misfit Love, Mutant Science and Aesthetic Rebellion. (phone photo ©EKG)

So it’s black – the lamp, the canned vegetables, the tuba, the satellite dish, the soot-slathered canvas and its frame, the stylized wooden pitchfork/electricity interceptor reaching 10 feet into the air at the center of the symmetric alter. The orange grease pencil nervously conducts and jots out the code as it passes through an energy field and out of EKG’s hand, tapping and swerving and pecking shapes and formulas from a vocabulary he has developed over time, known mainly to him but sometimes recognizable to you.  Sound waves. Infinity. Radiation. Integers.

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EKG solo show, An All Hallows’ Valentine’s Eve Celebration of Misfit Love, Mutant Science and Aesthetic Rebellion. (phone photo ©Steven P. Harrington)

Friday nights’ opening was intentionally on the 13th, and significantly the night before Valentine’s, but we don’t know exactly why. EKG makes everything abundantly unclear, but maybe it’s our short attention spans and lower IQs. Still we are greatfully warming ourselves inside this space after slipping and sliding on hard ice through a blackened frigid windy winter night in industrial Queens. We don’t need to understand, we are beginning to feel our ears and fingers again, and this basement space is oddly cheering in all it’s glowing blackness.

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EKG solo show, An All Hallows’ Valentine’s Eve Celebration of Misfit Love, Mutant Science and Aesthetic Rebellion. (phone photo ©EKG)

Even without the sound mixologist turning knobs and flipping switches on his master control, you sense an orchestral dirge evoking crazy professors and monster/human hybrids with electrodes attached to them with twirling cables. The sound mixologist, whom EKG met on Instagram and who is an integral counterpart for this presentation, releases an actual cloud of cold smoke into the crowd of 30 or so and its weight drops around our ankles, rippling.

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@jeffersonwells creating live at the EKG solo show, An All Hallows’ Valentine’s Eve Celebration of Misfit Love, Mutant Science and Aesthetic Rebellion. (phone photo ©Steven P. Harrington)

Sound reverberates off walls and bodies, reflecting and couching the aural fumes of billowing disembodied white men’s voices that cackle about numbers and formulas across the speakers, now interrupted by scattered arrays of interference, rippling murmurs and blips, with sequences of Black Sabbath jabbing in and out like bomb blasts.

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EKG solo show, An All Hallows’ Valentine’s Eve Celebration of Misfit Love, Mutant Science and Aesthetic Rebellion. (phone photo ©Steven P. Harrington)

Now you are sad you missed it, right? You have another chance.

EKG will be growing this never-ending mission over the next two weeks and will welcome you to the closing party, which you are rather destined to attend on February 28th.

EKG jams his hands into the top-stitched pockets of his white lab coat, pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose, and explains the situation “Technically, because we didn’t have time to finish and hang so many pieces of the art and installation, the opening should’ve been called a preview, and the closing should be considered the opening. There were still satellites, space ships, planets, mobiles, etcetera that didn’t get hung from the ceiling; orange transmission lines that didn’t get strung between all the installation pieces; wall drawings that weren’t done; etcetera etcetera. So come see the full deal on February 28. More refreshments, more smoke machine, more #doomdronecore electronic performance by @jeffersonwells. Gonna be another meltdown.”

Coming?

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EKG solo show, An All Hallows’ Valentine’s Eve Celebration of Misfit Love, Mutant Science and Aesthetic Rebellion. (phone photo ©Steven P. Harrington)

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EKG solo show, An All Hallows’ Valentine’s Eve Celebration of Misfit Love, Mutant Science and Aesthetic Rebellion. (phone photo ©EKG)

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EKG solo show, An All Hallows’ Valentine’s Eve Celebration of Misfit Love, Mutant Science and Aesthetic Rebellion. (phone photo ©EKG)

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EKG solo show, An All Hallows’ Valentine’s Eve Celebration of Misfit Love, Mutant Science and Aesthetic Rebellion. (phone photo ©Steven P. Harrington)

Read more at:

EKG ♥ NYC A Celebration of Misfit Love. (LIC – Queens, NYC)

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BSA Images Of The Week: 02.15.15

BSA Images Of The Week: 02.15.15

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Winter has been beating New York with a stick this week, but there’s still new Street Art going up – you just might miss it because you are rushing home to get warm. Also we have a smattering of shots from other cities this week to give you an idea of what’s up.

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Bifido, Bradley Theodore, BustArt, Claudio Ethos, Clet, Gore-B, GumShoe, Jilly Ballistic, Li-Hill, Mark Samsonovich, Mr. One Teas, Paul Insect and SeeTf.

Top Image >> Mark Samsonovich with an acute observation on this Valentine’s weekend. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Mark Samsonovich (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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This GoreB may be 10 years old, but we just saw it for the first time. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Li-Hill has a new mural in Los Angeles, CA. Detail. (photo © Li-Hill)

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Li-Hill. Los Angeles. CA. (photo © Li-Hill)

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Paul Insect (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Artist Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Bust Art at work on his new installation in Paris. (photo © BustArt)

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BustArt completed installation in Paris. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“This time Winnie the Pooh is taking his crew to the streets and claim a new graffiti area” says the artist.

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BustArt. Detail. Paris. (photo © BustArt)

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Mr. One Teas and Mickey are painting McDonalds with a wide brush (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Oops, my hat! Dang this wind! Claudio Ethos new piece in Rio De Janeiro, Brasil. (photo © ETHOS)

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CLET (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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CLET (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Jilly Ballistic got the guillotine treatment. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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What do you want to be when you grow up. There are number of options. Bifido’s new installation in Rome, Italy. (photo © Bifido)

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Bradley Theodore (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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This hot busty blond aerosol piece by SeeTf is melting the snow. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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GumShoe (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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“My Calvins” Manhattan, NYC. February 2015. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

 

 

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BSA Loves You More Every Day

BSA Loves You More Every Day

Happy Valentines Day to you from your friends at BSA.

Single?
together?
under the weather? –
we don’t mind, cause you’re just fine
and we
love
you.

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Steve ESPO Powers. From Love Letter To Philadelphia. (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

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American Puppet (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Damon (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

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 London Kaye. (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Danielle Mastrion (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Hek Tad (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

“I can’t give you anything but love, baby
That’s the only thing I’ve plenty of, baby”

 

Jimmy McHugh (music) and Dorothy Fields (lyrics)

 

<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA 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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BSA Film Friday: 02.13.15

BSA Film Friday: 02.13.15

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

Now screening :

1. The Lurkers: “Bricks of Parmigiano”
2. India’s Largest Mural: Tribute to Dadasaheb Phalke
3. Rone goes to Hollywood
4. CERN: Updating Philosophies
5. General Howe Hijacks GI Joe: “Hector Delgado Has PTSD”
5. No Limit Street Art Borås: 2015 Teaser

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The Lurkers: “Bricks of Parmigiano”

“Bunga, Bunga, bitches, Berlusconi,” raps the yet-to-be rap sensation Lurky Luciano as his new single drops. A send-up of Hip-Hop cliches with slow flow, satire, train writing, pasta, free Gaza, plenty of stereotypes about Italian culture, this new video by The Lurkers brings it.  Also your homie Jesus appears in the sky at the end, as he will.

India’s Largest Mural: Tribute to Dadasaheb Phalke in Bombay

1st year Ghandi, this year Bollywood. The second year of St+ Art India brings another record-breaking mural of the cultural icon that launched a million careers in the Indian film industry, and many more dreams in theater seats, Dadasaheb Phalke.  The largest mural so far, this one is by Ranjit Dahiya, with help from Yantr, Munir Bukhari and Nilesh Kharade .

 

Rone goes to Hollywood

The talented photorealist Rone shows how it is possible to evoke emotion with just one color in downtown Hollywood, Florida, as part of a commercial mural program.

 

CERN: Updating Philosophies

“You have these blips of color, these hints of otherworldliness that show up,” says Cern as he takes you into a new New York day.”Stubbornness, practice, persistence, perseverance. Those things pay off”  Ya herd? The philosophies of Cern.

General Howe Hijacks GI Joe: “Hector Delgado Has PTSD”

Street Artist General Howe has been delving into a new area of storytelling with his re-editing of cartoons to tell the horrors of war. It is a critique of a culture that simultaneously heroicizes and ignores the people who volunteer to fight. “The whole story is pieced together with existing GI Joe cartoon footage along with my animated gifs. I actually used no voice actors and a handful of free sound effects/recordings from the internet – and lots of tedious editing! From a street art perspective I see it as being similar to hijacking an advertisement and subverting the context,” says the General

No Limit Street Art Borås.

It’s coming back this September for its second edition, and here is a teaser for it.

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NYC Subway Cars: From Rolling Canvasses to Rolling Billboards

NYC Subway Cars: From Rolling Canvasses to Rolling Billboards

“If I had my way, I wouldn’t put in dogs, but wolves,” New York mayor Ed Koch suggested famously as a facetious proposal for loosing ferocious animals on graffiti writers in the train yards in the early 1980s.  For Koch and his two predecessors the graffiti on trains was a searingly hot focal point, a visual affront to citizens, an aesthetic plague upon the populous. It created a discomforting atmosphere described by the New York Times editorial board as evidence of “criminality and contempt for the public”.[note]Ed Koch and the Rebuilding of New York City, Jonathan M. Soffer.[/note] The fight against this particular blight began in earnest and by decade’s end all 5,000 or so subway cars had become clean and the famed era of graffiti on trains was terminated.

Twenty-five years later, whole-car graffiti trains are back in New York. Visually bombed with color and stylized typography top to bottom, inside and outside, and the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) is pocketing some handsome fees for it. It is not aerosol anymore, rather the eye popping subway skin is made from enormous adhesive printed sheets that are laser cut to perfectly fit every single surface of a train car. Naturally, you won’t have to pay the newly hiked subway fare to see these whole-car creations – you can see them on elevated tracks all over the city.

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 Photo © Jaime Rojo

The irony doesn’t stop there; Right now the MTA is running a full-car advertisement for a “Street Art” series that appears on cable, featuring images of fleet-footed youth with art supplies in hand running down a Brooklyn sidewalk as if escaping from the police. “Run. Paint.”

“Of course I chuckle every time I see those ad-covered cars,” says Martha Cooper, the ethnographer and photographer perhaps best known for shooting images of artists like Lee Quinones and Dondi as they painted huge pieces in the train yards in the 1970s and 80s.  Together with Henry Chalfant, Cooper published what became a photographic holy book for generations of graff writers and Street Artists worldwide, a compendium of full-car aerosol painted pieces from New York’s graffiti train era entitled Subway Art.  When it comes to using trains for advertising, Cooper doesn’t appear offended, but rather gives credit for the idea to the youth who pioneered the technique of using trains as a self-promotional method, and she’s only puzzled about why this didn’t happen earlier.

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Art vs. Transit (the “vs.” already scrubbed off the window), by Duro, Shy and Kos 207. 1982. © Martha Cooper

“Graffiti writers instinctively understood how advertising could reach the most people in NYC,” she says, “It’s taken 45 years for the MTA and ad agencies to realize what a good idea top-to-bottom rolling ads are, on trucks as well as on the subway. They are finally catching on and catching up but they would probably be the last to admit it. The rest of us can just stand back and shake our heads in amusement.”

But some others are less ready to accept the irony of a Street Art program being promoted on train cars, including guys who were those same vilified/celebrated teens painting trains at a time when penalties were harsh and the dogs were real.

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 Photo © Jaime Rojo

“What a complete bite and contradiction on the MTA’s part,” says artist Lee Quiñones, perhaps best known for having painted as many as 125 entire cars by hand in the 1970s, as well as a more formal art career that followed. His fully painted cars as canvases included characters, scenes, and narratives addressing topical subjects like the crime rate, the cold war, poverty, and environmentalism – as well as more existential teen poetry about love and family. For Quiñones, who once called the #5 subway line the “Rolling MoMA” and who today is a fine artist with a successful studio practice, the paradox is obvious. “It exposes how certain things under the guidance of capital can be blatantly suggested and ingested within the same context.”

Jayson Edlin, author of Graffiti 365, is considered by many as a go-to source of New York graffiti and its history, and was himself a train writer under the names J.Son and Terror 161. “The advertising versus art argument regarding graffiti and street art speaks to money, power and control. Societal hypocrisy is nothing new. As a former subway painter, I am not surprised by seeing an ad for a Street Art TV show plastered across a NYC subway car,” he says. Then he pitches us a vision that would undoubtedly make many people’s brain hurt. “I’m certain that the MTA would sanction an ad for Subway Art with the Marty Cooper photo of Dondi painting a train for the right sum.” Imagine what that might look like.

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Not so fast, the MTA would not wish you to think they are endorsing illegal graffiti or street art, according to an MTA spokesperson recently interviewed by Bucky Turco for the website Animal. The MTA walked a thin line when determining whether they should accept advertising for a show celebrating Street Art, however contrived, and decided that it was okay to take the money this time. “On the one hand,” says the spokesman, “our ad standards prohibit anything that could be construed as actual graffiti, and we also prohibit promoting illegal activity. On the other hand, the typeface of the ad itself was not graffiti-style, and our research concluded that everything the show depicts is done legally with permission.” So we’ll take the MTA at it’s word, the show doesn’t explicitly violate standards for advertising, so the campaign was approved.

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 Photo © Jaime Rojo

It’s true, not all Street Art is illegal per se, but by definition most people would say that real graffiti must be. However it may take a lawyer to explain how this rationalization of advertising a show like this works, or at least to help sort the legalities from the ethics and perceptions. So, to recap, decades ago it was a crime to write graffiti on the subways. Today if you have enough money and the right hand-style with your lettering you can use your creativity to mark up as many cars as you like.  If not, your art-making efforts will be swiftly eradicated. This past year photographer Jaime Rojo just happened to catch some non-commercial art on trains that pulled into stations and he said it was just as surprising to see the real stuff as it is the commercial facsimile of it. Of course the D.I.Y. never made it out of the train yards again.

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Actual graffiti on a New York train from DVONE, circa 2014. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Alison Young, Professor of Criminology at the University of Melbourne in Australia and author of Law, Crime and the Urban Imagination has studied the interaction of art, advertising, and the law specifically as it pertains to Street Art around the world. She points to a radical difference in how these two forms of visual communication are regarded and approached. “The full-car advertisement for the television program is certainly the most obvious demonstration of how companies (such as the MTA) respond differently to advertising than to street art/graffiti.

“In some ways,” Young continues, “the MTA may not even have noticed the irony of covering a train car with an advert for an activity related to graffiti, given the time and money spent on eradicating images from train cars. Or, if I was being really cynical, it’s also possible to speculate that the MTA sees that irony all too clearly and is using this as an opportunity to tell graffiti writers that unsanctioned art is never acceptable, but sanctioned art (in the form of an advert or in the form of the art featured on the show) is all that we are permitted to see. Is that too unlikely? I don’t know.”

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DVONE. Graffiti circa 2014. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A number of folks whom we talked to mentioned that this is not the first time a graffiti artist has completely covered subway cars with advertisements, as the artist KAWS was treated to a full campaign when he partnered with Macy’s a couple of years ago. While he has had a successful commercial career with fine art, toys and a variety of products, his roots are as a graffiti writer, has done some freight painting of his own, and his style still reflects it. Not every impressionable disaffected youth would necessarily make that association nor interpret it as an encouragement to hit up a train with your own aerosol bubble tag. Still, those KAWS cars looked a lot like graffiti trains, with logos as tags, as in seen in this video from Fresh Paint NYC.

We leave the last observations to the witty and insightful Dr. Rafael Schacter, anthropologist, curator, and author of The World Atlas of Street Art and Graffiti, who says the obvious story is, well, obvious, but don’t miss the elephant in the subway car.

“The irony and incongruity of it though? Of course. It is ridiculous. It is absurd. A graffiti-banning MTA promoting a graffiti TV show and allowing a second-rate aping of the original whole-trains of the ‘70s,” he says derisively. But then he turns frank and even wistful in his final summary.

“But, in actual fact, I LOVE these moments. I love them as they so perfectly illustrate the public secret of our public sphere: That consumption wins. That the highest bidder is the true King. It’s nothing new. It’s nothing surprising but it is the revelation of the public secret that can actually come to raise awareness of that secret itself – That the public sphere has come to be a space not for conversation but for commerce. That the public sphere has become a place not for interpersonal communication but for capital and consumption,” says Schacter.

“These moments can, I hope, make us sit up and realize this revelation because it is thrown so directly in our faces. Then, hopefully, this can make us make a change. Perhaps a tiny bit of a rose-tinted position to take, but I really do hope so.”

Rose-tinted views will probably overruled by the green-tinted ones in this case, but we understand the sentiment. But many New York subway riders will not likely soon get over the irony.

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Marvel graffiti circa 2014. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA 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

This article is also published on The Huffington Post

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Stikman and EKG: “Interference Eliminator”, a Scrolling Zine

Stikman and EKG: “Interference Eliminator”, a Scrolling Zine

Stikman and EKG share a couple of traits besides both of them being very active on the streets. Neither are fans of big showy displays -both use small gestures, often cryptic, appearing in unusual places that poke out as you walk by.

You’ll see the orange line-based “energy wave” signal of EKG tracking the pulse of the city across a surface inches above the sidewalk as you walk and instinctively know it is the heartbeat of the street that is being recorded and displayed. Similarly the crush of people that push and pull against you while you walk on a busy street can fall to a faint murmur when you see a little Stikman, inches tall, glued to a lamp post or smashed into the asphalt. Neither artists are talking, but you just know they are saying something.

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Stikman . EKG (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The secrecy and mystery of both artists only compounded when we discovered a serendipitous collaboration of the two late last year : an actual scroll containing collage, stamps, doodles, symbols, and snatched phrases from the times, or Times. EKG toils in the fields of scientific and sociologic symbols – sound waves and transmissions and such that remind of radio towers, transistors, hi/lo tek Kraftwerk visuals. Combined with Stikman’s silent little imperfect and rigid man tumbling through the air and imagery from the artists’ curiosity for flea market finds and mid-century spaceman, this custom scroll feels like something you will need a decoder for.

Tell us if you figure out what they are saying as you scan across this old player-piano music roll (Verdi’s Angelus), which we hear took several months to create. It’s an odd twist on the zine theme, but you would expect nothing less from a collaboration of these two.

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Stikman . EKG (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Stikman . EKG (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Stikman . EKG (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Stikman . EKG (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Stikman . EKG . Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Stikman . EKG . Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Stikman . EKG . Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Stikman . EKG . Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Stikman . EKG . Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

This Friday you can also check out the new solo show by EKG at Skewville Laboratories in Long Island City:

An All Hallows’ Valentine’s Eve Celebration of Misfit Love, Mutant Science and Aesthetic Rebellion.

Friday The 13th, February, 2015

 

 

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Live Stenciling in Berlin with Street Artists for “Cut It Out”

Live Stenciling in Berlin with Street Artists for “Cut It Out”

The stencil has been a steady presence on the street since the beginning of graffiti and Street Art. Possibly picked up from commercial or military methods of labeling shipments, machinery, signage, and weaponry – it has remained a foundational technique of creative expression since the early days of the modern graff scene even as it’s use continues to expand stylistically.

The simple one color stencil captures the imagination of many first time artists working in the public sphere because it enables you to quickly spray your message on a wall and run. And replicate it. With time your cuts may become more sophisticated or not but its up to you; it’s not entirely necessary to labor for hours over a stencil for it to have a worthwhile impact, but it can help.

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M-City. Urban Nation van. (photo © Nika Kramer)

In the 2000s the Street Art scenes in many cities have been teeming with stencil art, and a number of practitioners have developed the art form into one that expresses high degrees of artistry, complexity, and warmth, as well as conveying the bluntest of sentiments and slogans, with and without irony.

“Cut It Out” is a new exhibition in the Urban Nation Gallery in Berlin that pulls together an interesting collection of folks who have used stencils on the street across mainly Europe and the US and in the case of artists like Jef Aerosol, Epsylon Point, and Stencil King (Hugo Kaagman), across more than three decades, almost four.

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M-City. Urban Nation van. (photo © Nika Kramer)

Curated by Olly Walker and Henrik Haven, the international group was on display in Berlin, and many of the participating artists were in attendance – and as is their wont they hit the walls inside and outside the gallery around Berlin, including the Urban Nation van. BSA is happy to share these exclusive shots of the honored stencillists in action = procured to us by Henrik Heaven and shot by Nika Kramer.

”Cut It Out!” features new works by: Above, Adam 5100, Aiko, Alessio-B, Artist Ouvrier, B-Toy, C215, Canvas, Don John, Eins92, Eelus, EismannArts, Epsylon Point, Icy & Sot, Jana & Js, Jef Aerosol, Joe Lurato, Logan Hicks, M-City, Mobstr, Nick Walker, Orticanoodles, Paul Insect, Pisa 73, RekoRennie, Rene Gagnon, Snik, Stan & Lex, Stencil King, Stew, STF, Stinkfish, Tankpetrol and XooooX.

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M-City. Urban Nation van. (photo © Nika Kramer)

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Jeff Aerosol. Urban Nation van. (photo © Nika Kramer)

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Ken. Urban Nation van. (photo © Nika Kramer)

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Ken Urban Nation van. (photo © Nika Kramer)

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Amsterdam’s Hugo Kaagman, or Stencil King, did his first stencil on the street in 1978. Urban Nation van. (photo © Nika Kramer)

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Kurar. (photo © Nika Kramer)

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Kurar. (photo © Nika Kramer)

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Kurar (photo © Nika Kramer)

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M-City (photo © Nika Kramer)

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Eismann (photo © Nika Kramer)

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Eismann (photo © Nika Kramer)

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Alessio B (photo © Nika Kramer)

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Hugo Kaagman (photo © Nika Kramer)

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Hugo Kaagman (photo © Nika Kramer)

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Canvaz (photo © Nika Kramer)

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Canvaz (photo © Nika Kramer)

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Eins92 (photo © Nika Kramer)

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Eins92 (photo © Nika Kramer)

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Jeff Aerosol (photo © Henrik Haven)

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Jeff Aerosol (photo © Henrik Haven)

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Above (photo © Henrik Haven)

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Above (photo © Nika Kramer)

 

“Cut It Out” is currently on view and free for the general public in Berlin. Click HERE for further details. To inquire about works click HERE

 

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Graffiti South Africa, The Book

Graffiti South Africa, The Book

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Graffiti South Africa by Cale Waddacor. (photo of book cover © Jaime Rojo)

A big hardcover from South Africa arrived in the mail recently and we wanted to share it with you because we think you’ll like it.

“I’ve tried to keep my text concise and simple, without burdening readers with copious historical details or ponderous views on artistic expression, sociopolitical issues, or cultural trends,” says author Cale Waddacor of this survey, and you can tell that he intends to keep his word, but he just knows too much valuable stuff to keep hidden.

What he holds back in prose he delivers in a spectrum of representational images that give you an idea of the quality of work going up in this scene with quite a range. From basic outlines and fills to wild style to today’s illustrators, muralists and contemporary artists, South African streets boasts a lot more than you may have imagined.

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Graffiti South Africa by Cale Waddacor. (photo of book spread © Jaime Rojo)

Arranged by three main areas of Cape Town, Durban, and Johannesburg, you even get a helpful map to help you appreciate the relative distance between them and the higher concentrations of writers in each – Graffiti South Africa gives a rather thorough overview of the scene, its players, and its history. The first book by the founder of the website by the same name, he has collected many images and interviews with artists from the early days as well as some of the newer ones, striking a balance in a widely varied scene that leans heavily toward graff vernacular while trying to incorporate the burgeoning street art scene as well.

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Graffiti South Africa by Cale Waddacor. (photo of book spread © Jaime Rojo)

The book also features a number of quotes that quickly give you an idea about the environment and the community, ” Writers need to respect each other for being different, and not for being the same. My crew is made up of totally different individuals, with varying views and styles,” says Drone.  The artist React observes a scene that continues to grow and improve, “Graffiti is getting more and more polished and impressive. Mural art has always existed but the mediums have changed.”

Overall, you’ll be impressed by the variety and the quality of work, even if it is true that South Africa joined the international graffiti and street art scene a little later than others. Doesn’t matter, they can boast a rich soil now. Take it from the writer named Lazer, ” We may not have the quantity of writers, but the quality of the bombing, panels, and productions being painted here is world class.”

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Graffiti South Africa by Cale Waddacor. (photo of book spread © Jaime Rojo)

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Graffiti South Africa by Cale Waddacor. (photo of book spread © Jaime Rojo)

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Graffiti South Africa by Cale Waddacor. (photo of book spread © Jaime Rojo)

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Graffiti South Africa by Cale Waddacor. (photo of book spread © Jaime Rojo)

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Graffiti South Africa by Cale Waddacor. (photo of book spread © Jaime Rojo)

 

Graffiti South Africa by Cale Waddacor available from Schiffer Publishing, Ltd.

 

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BSA Images Of The Week: 02.08.15

BSA Images Of The Week: 02.08.15

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This week MOMO is in town and we got to see him setting up for his mini show in a bodega, Concrete to Data opened in Steinberg Museum, a cable show about Street Art arrived and was dissed horribly, POW! Wow! began in Hawaii, Combo says he was attacked in Paris for putting up a “Coexist” piece, and we all learned that Street Art is in Vogue.

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Agni, Buff Monster, Cake, EC13, Flood, James Bullough, Jilly Ballistic, LMNOPI, MOMO, UNO, and Varenka66

Top Image >> LMNOPI tribute to Jessie Hernandez. A 17 year old girl shot and killed by the Denver police last week. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Varenka66 and James Bullough collaboration in Brooklyn.  (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Varenka66 and James Bullough collaboration in Brooklyn. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Varenka66 and James Bullough collaboration in Brooklyn. Detail.  (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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EC13 new installation in El Padul, Spain. (photo © EC13)

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MOMO at work for his solo exhibition at M. Carter Shop in Brooklyn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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MOMO at work for his solo exhibition at M. Carter Shop in Brooklyn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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MOMO. Installation in progress for his exhibition at M. Carter Shop in Brooklyn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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MOMO. Detail of the vitrine exhibiting the artist’s personal sketches, tools, diaries etc… At M. Carter Shop in Brooklyn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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MOMO. Detail of the vitrine exhibiting the artist’s personal sketches, tools, diaries etc… At M. Carter Shop in Brooklyn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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MOMO. Detail of the vitrine exhibiting the artist’s personal sketches, tools, diaries etc… At M. Carter Shop in Brooklyn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

MOMO is currently on view at M. Carter Shop in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. 141 Engert Ave.

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Buff Monster (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Jilly Ballistic (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Jilly Ballistic installation for Concrete To Data at the Steinberg Museum of Art. LIU. Long Island, New York. (photo © via iPhone Jaime Rojo)

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Cake installation for Concrete To Data at the Steinberg Museum of Art. LIU. Long Island, New York. (photo via iPhone © Jaime Rojo)

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UNO. Rome, Italy. (photo © UNO)

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Mary Had A Little Lamb. Artist Unknown. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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FLOOD recalls the Sex Pistols anthem (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Agni (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Untitled. NYC Subway. January 2015. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

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Sten & Lex in Rome for “Matrici Distrutte”

Sten & Lex in Rome for “Matrici Distrutte”

Delving into the esoteric, nearly conceptual milieu of Street Art, Sten Lex (previous Sten & Lex) are best known for their systemically/randomly destroyed enormous black and white photographic portraits. Using a stencil technique we are pretty sure they pioneered, they have used the physicality of the discarded pieces of stencil for years, partially pealed and left to hang and blow in the breeze, still attached to the “finished” piece.

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Sten Lex. Rome, Italy. (photo © Giorgio Coen Cagli)

In one further experimentation with technique along the journey to a final work, the Italian duo open a new show at Wunderkammern tonight in Rome entitled Matrici Distrutte (Destroyed Matrices).  To prepare they have done a few installations in the city that may or may not be recognizable on the street as deliberate pieces of art, further burrowing their process into pattern, texture. In this case, the matrix of their stencil is destroyed, as is your expectation of simple representational imagery. To further understand the direction these new works are going, we are looking forward to reading the critical essay for the show, written by Samantha Longhi of Graffiti Art magazine.

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Sten Lex. Rome, Italy. (photo © Giorgio Coen Cagli)

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Sten Lex. Rome, Italy. (photo © Giorgio Coen Cagli)

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Sten Lex. Rome, Italy. (photo © Giorgio Coen Cagli)

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Sten Lex. Rome, Italy. (photo © Giorgio Coen Cagli)

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Sten Lex. Rome, Italy. (photo © Giorgio Coen Cagli)

 

Sten Lex exhibition “Matrici Distrutte” opens today at Wunderkammern Gallery in Rome. Click HERE for details.

 

 

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BSA Film Friday: 02.06.15

BSA Film Friday: 02.06.15

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

Now screening :

1. Tilt at Nuart and his Schizophrenic Bathroom
2. SURFACE by Søren Solkær
2. Tristan Eaton in DTLA
3. Graffiti Session: USE THEM (W)ALL

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BSA Special Feature: Tilt at Nuart

French graffiti artist Tilt walked the sidewalks of Stavanger as a man at ease creating a huge wall grenade comprised of his tags and the American flag. But it was his schizophrenic bathroom installation for the large gallery show that won most acclaim, and here he talks about his own ambivalence about straddling of the street and the fine art worlds, wondering why a dripping tag is repulsive on a garbage dumpster, but frameable in a gallery . “My idea was that I was going to show this dirty graffiti to art people in suits and ties”.

Big ups to from Shinsuke Tatsukawa and Kenichi Yamamura for capturing the thoughtful creative process and narration, delivered while Tilt is on the toilet.

 

Tristan Eaton in DTLA

Tristan Eaton is taking his work to a new level and direction these days – here’s a fresh mural he just did in downtown LA.  Excellent work on the video from a new blog named Street Candy.

SURFACE by Søren Solkær

We met this Danish photographer and his wife last year in Norway and instinctively knew that his book project was going to be a stunner because of his unique approach to portraits of Street Artists. Søren Solkær travelled throughout much of the world for three years in his search of many significant figures in street art and graffiti. The book “SURFACE” is coming soon, and the launches will feature high caliber shows in Sydney, Melbourne, LA, New York, and Copenhagen.

This portraits include over 140 artists who have been photographed with their artwork in urban locations spanning Copenhagen, Stavanger, London, Miami, Paris, Las Vegas, Athens, Sydney, Melbourne, New York, Los Angeles and Berlin.

Graffiti Session: USE THEM (W)ALL

Yes, bottom line is this is an ad for a French art supply company. Aside from that, it is a wall well done and the clever camera work keeps the progression of this wall slammin’.

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DOT DOT DOT in LA Goes for a Gentle Laugh

DOT DOT DOT in LA Goes for a Gentle Laugh

Norwegian street artist DOT DOT DOT is one of the artists from the mid 2000s who was quite influenced by the stencil work and sarcastic tone of Banksy and who faithfully stays true to the aesthetics and situational placement of his pieces, even though his roots are from the graffiti scene of Oslo. Not married to any one style, he looks for opportunity to be ironic, and perhaps cause the viewer to be puzzled, or to illicit an inside-joke smile.

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DOT DOT DOT. “Chanel Dogs” Malibu, Nov. 2014. (photo © DOT DOT DOT)

Crisp, painstaking, and understated, the style of work from DOT DOT DOT sometimes comes across as benign even if the ultimate message is shocking. Take the dogs fighting over the Chanel purse in a chic neighborhood in Malibu, for example. You make first think the playful tug-of-war is cute before you ever realize it is an insult to status-hungry consumerism.

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DOT DOT DOT. “Radioactive Sea” Venice Beach, Nov. 2014. (photo © DOT DOT DOT)

His signs posted on California beaches warning against radioactive material in the water in Japanese may be mistaken as genuine although his intent is to shake you out of your awe at the magestic ocean view.  “Fukushima continues to contaminate over 400 tons of water daily, most of which is let out to sea,” says the artist.  To this date the plant has produced over 500,000 tons, and they have already found radioactive contamination all along the California coast as well as Hawaii.” To drive the point home he leaves a stencil of men in hazmat suits spraying down a boy whose been playing at the beach.

Here we give you some images from DOT DOT DOT’s recent trip to the west coast of the US, and a few of his interventions.

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DOT DOT DOT. “Radioactive Wash” Venice Beach, Nov. 2014. (photo © DOT DOT DOT)

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DOT DOT DOT. A collaboration with a Stikki Peaches piece. LA, Nov. 2014. (photo © DOT DOT DOT)

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DOT DOT DOT. “404 Not Found” is an ironic physical reference to the digital error message. Downtown, LA. Nov. 2014. (photo © DOT DOT DOT)

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DOT DOT DOT. Work in progress. Nedada. Nov. 2014. (photo © DOT DOT DOT)

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DOT DOT DOT. “Rothko” Nevada, Nov. 2014. (photo © DOT DOT DOT)

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