October 2015

Boo! Halloween Street Art from Your Ghoulish Friends at BSA

October 31, 2015 Artists

Happy Halloween everybody! It’s a scary time on the streets and artists are always giving us disturbing and comical reasons to be frightened – it’s like we need some catharsis to help us process personal and world events. Whether it is Freddy Krueger or just a classic old bobbing skull, the specter of our fears and fantasies is alive and well just around the corner.

JPS in Stavanger (or should we say Stabbinger?), Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

JPS in Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

EDMX is catching death with this skinny skater dude (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Steiner sees you (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Steiner (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Artist Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Candy (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Artist Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dan Witz scares the bejesus out of passersby in Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dan Witz in Stavanger, Norway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Isaac Cordal and one of his scary corporate death men in Boras, Sweeden. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ollio in Sweeden. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A tribute on the street to Jack Nicholson from The Shining. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

TAK (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Artist Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Left Handed Wave (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Norm Kirby (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pyramid Oracle (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Times Square. Midnight Moment. 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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BSA Film Friday: 10.30.15

October 30, 2015 Artists

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

Now screening :

1. NYCHOS: Translucent Fear
2. Jamel Shabazz, Street Photographer
3. VHILS: Incision
4. Pichi & Avo for “No Limit” Boras

BSA Special Feature: NYCHOS: Translucent Fear

Nychos sees through the animal world with a fantastical and splendid x-ray vision, his huge murals peeling back layers of skin and muscle and veins and organs using spray cans as his knife. Here in the studio he prepares canvasses using the same precision, this time with the brush and airbrush as scalpel, handle, blade. Employing a new concept, many of his animals are clear for you to see in their entirety beneath a clear shell. The show show now running at Zurich’s Kolly Gallery is called Translucent Fear, and the video appropriate for this Halloween season wouldn’t you agree?

Jamel Shabazz, Street Photographer

Yeah its a trailer. Yeah it’s Jamel Shabazz. That’s all we need to know. Where’s Brooklyn at?

VHILS: Incision

“The best poems ever written destroyed a white sheet of paper,” says the ever serious philosopher VHILS as he schools us on his technique of creation through destruction. The process yields beauty, but at what cost, he asks – particularly when gauging the successes of the industrialized world and the losses of indigenous customs and ways of life. A sorrowful look at an impressive show called, “Incision”

Pichi & Avo for “No Limit” Boras

Pichi & Avo share this new timelapse of the piece they did at Boras “No Limit” in Sweden last month. You can read more about it here:

Borås “No Limit” 2015: Graffiti Tags, Murals, Greco-Roman Antiquities

Amsterdam Dances with Graffuturism and Stencil Masters

October 29, 2015 Artists

Amsterdam rocked the decks this month to celebrate urban contemporary art and street art in the Netherlands with visual and music based events giving artists many platforms to shine.

BustArt and Fake for Urban Art Festival Amsterdam. (photo © courtesy of UAFA)

Graffuturism, a term and movement coined a handful of years ago to describe an intersection of graffiti, street art, and abstract geometry continues to stake out new territory and here were gallery and street exhibitions proffering some of the current practitioners whose work could be described as such.

The 5^th Urban Art Festival Amsterdam featured their own collection of Graffuturists from Europe, the United States, and South America including Poesia, the unofficial founder of Graffuturism in a show of works on canvas, prints, drawings on paper, murals and site-specific abstract installations.

BustArt for Urban Art Festival Amsterdam. (photo © courtesy of UAFA)

Running concurrently was a Stencil Masters show featuring some of the top knife-wielding artists known on the street today along with a few senior early proponents. The diverse program of gallery, street installations and DJs courtesy of the ADE (Amsterdam Dance Event) helped further contextualize the art forms for a wider audience of fans.

Fake for Urban Art Festival Amsterdam. (photo © courtesy of UAFA)

Stencil Masters exhibition
ABOVE (usa) – BTOY (es) – BUSTART (ch) – C215 (fr) – CANVAZ (irl) – CZARNOBYL (de) – E.L.K. (au) – FAKE (nl) – HUGO KAAGMAN (nl) – IVES.ONE (nl) – JANA & JS (de) – JAUNE (be) – LIJNE (nl) – MANDO MARIE (usa) – NAFIR (iran) – ORTICANOODLES (it) – OTTO SCHADE (uk) – PIPSQUEAK WAS HERE (nl) – STF (fr) – TANKPETROL (uk) – TERA ONE (de)

Graffuturism exhibition
BLAQK BLAQK (gr) – CORN79 (it) – GRAPHIC SURGERY (nl) – KENOR (es) – LABUENA YLAMALA (es) – MICK LA ROCK (nl) – OKUDA (es) – OVNI (es) – POESIA (usa) – POETA (ar) – SKOUNT & GWION / TVBdesign (es) – VESOD (it) – WOW123 (de) – X-O / THE LOST OBJECT (nl / usa)

Fake for Urban Art Festival Amsterdam. (photo © courtesy of UAFA)

XO for Urban Art Festival Amsterdam. (photo © courtesy of UAFA)

Skount for Urban Art Festival Amsterdam. (photo © courtesy of UAFA)

Markus Gnusius for Urban Art Festival Amsterdam. (photo © courtesy of UAFA)

C215 for Urban Art Festival Amsterdam. (photo © courtesy of UAFA)

Jana & JS for Urban Art Festival Amsterdam. (photo © courtesy of UAFA)

LABUENA YLAMALA for Urban Art Festival Amsterdam. (photo © courtesy of UAFA)

Lijne and TerraOne for Urban Art Festival Amsterdam. (photo © courtesy of UAFA)

To learn more please go to www.urbanartfestival.com

Boijeot & Renauld: Manhattan Crossed, A Perfect End at the Battery

October 28, 2015 Artists

C’est fini!

In 30 days Boijeot and Renauld slept with more of Manhattan than a Wall Street regulator. And the press was there to report it: The Huffington Post, The New York Times, Le Monde, the Today Show, Agence France Press (AFP), and a handful of art and design blogs all covered them from the street, intersecting with them at various points as they wended their way through Manhattan on their beds and chairs and tables for one entire month.

Boijeot & Renauld. Battery Park, Manhattan, NYC. October 24, 2015. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A boisterous palm reader told Laurent that he couldn’t handle money and a sleek Tarot card reader told all three of them insights into their future. They were serenaded by an opera singer and a violinist, lectured by an art professor, visited regularly by an anchorman, argued with by an senior who wanted to leave his garbage on top of their table, doted on by smiling art school students and generous housewives, offered showers and house tours, proffered meals by chefs, accused of drinking alcohol and smoking pot (they did neither), and given a good show by junkies shooting up in Starbucks bathroom(s).

The two artists (Laurent Boijeot and Sebastian Renauld) and their trusty photographer (Clement Martin) each took turns fetching meals or water or fresh coffee or tobacco or to wash bed linens or get a hot shower at a gym or scoping out their next location a few blocks south. Taking exactly 30 days to live on Broadway from 125th street to Battery Park, Boijeot and Renauld say their days were usually busy, despite long stretches napping on beds and their central theme of sharing a cup of coffee with a stranger at the table.

Boijeot & Renauld. Battery Park, Manhattan, NYC. October 24, 2015. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“The table was the most important part of the performance,” says Renauld as he describes the psychological grounding force of the simple pine rectangle around which the artists convened, and re-convened, and re-convened. People talked of their jobs, their families, their relationships, their aspirations and disappointments. The artists say that more than once they learned details of people’s lives that surprised them, pleasantly and otherwise.

Boijeot & Renauld. Battery Park, Manhattan, NYC. October 24, 2015. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Police officers were friendly and even helpful once they understood the nature of the public art performance. In some neighborhoods some officers communicated back to their precincts details about the performance and they notified others who walked the beat that it was okay, with some even stopping by to say “hi” and take a photo. Most New Yorkers walked by nonplussed, uninterested, hurried. But invariably the questions would come; sometimes quizzically, timidly, other times demanding.

“What is this?”

“Are you protesting something?”

“Are you selling this furniture, how much is it?”

“Are you advertising for Sleep Ez?”

“Do you have a permit for this?”

“Can I sit here?”

That was their favorite question.

Boijeot & Renauld. Battery Park, Manhattan, NYC. October 24, 2015. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Both artists insist that the “performance” on the sidewalk was to examine the interaction of New Yorkers directly with them in their al fresco kitchen.

“This is about the street being a place for sharing,” Boijeot says, “If we don’t use it for sharing our humanity then we really miss an important original meaning of the street.” He is the sociologist of the two, and if New Yorkers though that they were the observant ones, his descriptions of conversations and behaviors and mannerisms and attitudes quickly reveal that the artists may have subtly turned the table a number of times on Manhattan sophisticates.

Boijeot & Renauld. Battery Park, Manhattan, NYC. October 24, 2015. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“So many people asked me if I had a permit – and I told them that it is legal to be in the street with your art and your furniture.” He laughs to remember the befuddlement. The artists learned that most didn’t fully comprehend their rights to free speech and association in public space. That was surprising.

In some conversations the issue of homelessness came up, with some New Yorkers asking them if their project was a commentary on homelessness, an idea they roundly reject. “It would be indecent to associate our project with homelessness,” says Renauld with some insistence, “because we are doing this easily and of our own freewill – but homelessness is not this.”

Boijeot & Renauld. Battery Park, Manhattan, NYC. October 24, 2015. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The topic was raised a few times about their race and their French accents playing a big factor in the way mostly white Manhattan and its police regarded their performance. Surely if they were African American or of another background they would have received a different response?

The artists diplomatically demurred on the topic, saying that they did not feel familiar with the city enough to offer an opinion, but Renauld says they do not doubt that their skin color made the project easier for certain people to appreciate. “These are important questions to consider – along with homelessness, etcetera, but we don’t think it is our role to address them,” says Laurent, “That is the role of citizens and institutions.

Boijeot & Renauld. Battery Park, Manhattan, NYC. October 24, 2015. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lifting furniture and carrying each table, chair, stool, and mattress was tiring after a while and the feeling of performance was 24/7. Keeping clean was a challenge as was getting cell phones charged and figuratively they each slept with one eye open as pedestrians, cars and bicycles passed by all night, every night. Fierce rains pummeled them under plastic tarps and when those failed because of winds they spent a few hours looking out at the storm from inside an ATM lobby. Temporary handwarmer packs emanated just enough heat when the temperatures neared freezing, and sleeping fully clothed under a blanket was usually sufficient, especially if joined by a new friend.

The most surprising thing was when strangers would say “Thank you for coming here,” or “Welcome.” These were not the stereotype of New Yorkers they had learned from movies and stories.

Boijeot & Renauld. Battery Park, Manhattan, NYC. October 24, 2015. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

What did they see that was not something to write home about? Without a doubt, private building security guards took the cake; caustic mini generals with an exaggerated sense of power and an underwhelming sense of humanity, or the law. Like the two guys who woke them at 5 a.m. on 38th street to tell them to get out of the sidewalk because they didn’t want homeless sleeping there when office people were arriving to work – and they threatened to call the police. “I said, ‘Call them, I hope you call them right now because they will come and tell you that it is legal for people to be here,” They didn’t call.

Another guard menacingly pointed up to a window and said the tenants did not want to see the sight of them there. Then there was the doorman of a well-heeled building in the Wall Street area who woke them to tell them they were blocking the entrance. “The lobby was under renovation and people were going in and out of the side doors,” says Sebastian. “I looked at the orange construction tape draped across the front door and said to him ‘I know you are making a joke!’”

Boijeot & Renauld. Battery Park, Manhattan, NYC. October 24, 2015. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

So finally after more blocks than they could count, Boijeot and Renault and their camera man Clement made it to Battery Park on Saturday night. Two days before their friend Geraldine had arrived from France for her first time in the States. She has been on many of their other performances in European cities like Berlin, Brussels, Zurich, Venice, Paris, Basel, Dresden, and their hometown of Nancy, and she wasn’t going to miss this opportunity to be part of their first US performance.

As the sun was setting on the glistening harbor a quintessential “New York Moment” arrived; a sailing ship pulled up to shore alongside the park and Clement inquired with the shipmates if they might have a ride in the harbor. He must have been persuasive because within moments Clement and Geraldine were headed across the bay toward the Statue of Liberty –sitting atop the artists bed on the main deck.

Boijeot & Renauld. Battery Park, Manhattan, NYC. October 24, 2015. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The view of Lower Manhattan was breathtaking for her, overwhelming for him. “I looked up at the skyline of Manhattan from a distance and it was like all of the pressure of the street was released, and I felt exhausted,” says Clement. So he laid down and napped for an hour of the two hour ship ride.

After a final dinner at an extended table with new and old friends they dined on Mexican beef, beans, and rice from a chain restaurant nearby, followed by store-bought red velvet cake and hot coffee. The midnight breeze blew quite chilly and a little sharply.

The artists pushed the three beds together, inviting everyone to join them under cover for the last overnight sleepout. Jokes, cigarette smoke, portions of songs and poetry were all foisted into the air while artists and guests looked at the open sky and that little green lady from France out in the bay. Only 6 hours to sleep before this performance was over.

And three weeks till Tokyo.

Boijeot & Renauld. Battery Park, Manhattan, NYC. October 24, 2015. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Boijeot & Renauld: Crossing Manhattan With Your Living Room on the Sidewalk

Boijeot + Renauld Update : Rain, Wind, & Inquisitive Upper West Side

Boijeot & Renauld: Update #3 (9th Street and Broadway)

Boijeot & Renauld: Manhattan Crossed, A Perfect End at the Battery

All furniture made by Boijeot and Renauld in Brooklyn with machinery and facilities provided by local businessman Joe Franquinha and his store Crest Hardware.

Sincere thanks goes to Joe Franquinha “The Mayor Of Williamsburg” and proprietor of his family owned business Crest Hardware for his enthusiastic support of this project. Joe has always been an ardent supporter of the arts and the artists who make it and he came through again this time. Thank you Joe.

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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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Pyramid Oracle Divining Messages on the Street

October 27, 2015 Artists, Interview

On the scene for a couple of years on New York streets is the mystical portraitist of some secret order known only to the Pyramid Oracle. Many street artists use their tag or street name as a cover. This one uses it as a theatrical character ambiguously imparting truths and insights, rather hoping you will fill in the missing patches with your imagination.

Here we have some recent additions to the street that are at once sage and sorcerous, cryptic and calming, plump with symbols and harbingers of good or evil, or not.

Pyramid Oracle. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

After all, an oracle is merely a vessel through which divine understanding may flow, a tool of the gods and goddesses to communicate about the future and the past, guiding you to something greater. And if you don’t buy that, at least you may admire a three-eyed lady who greets you on your way home from school or your job or the laundromat.

We had occasion to talk with this mystical medium of monochromatic hand-made wheatpastes and while his answers were sometimes murky and he likes to speak in the third person (or fourth, or fifth), we found that we could divine some greater truths and insights about the spirit of this street medium named Pyramid Oracle.

Pyramid Oracle (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: Sometimes your images appear to be quite labor-intensive hand paintings, while others look like linotype prints, or even commercially printed replicas. Can you talk about your thought process for deciding which method you use?
Pyramid Oracle: Most of the work is primarily hand painted, and depending on the paper used the techniques will vary. On white paper the lines tend to be made in a relief printing style and with butchers paper – which is now mostly used, its possible to utilize the mid tone to build washes and highlights. There are far more layer involved when using this craft paper. This way the paintings take 3 times as long to paint but the product is far superior. In general the intention demonstrates a laborious commitment to the work, which sets itself apart.

Pyramid Oracle (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA: For the hand painted pieces, for example – does it begin with a sketch in a notebook while you are traveling on a bus or something? What steps are involved that lead up to producing a piece that appears on the street.
PO: There are several categories or subjects in which the content is derived. You could look at Pyramid Oracle as the illustrations of an evolving independent study. Sometimes the images are the culminations of concepts and ideas already discovered that now serve as cornerstone achievements of understanding. Other times the ambiguous nature of esoteric wisdom has seeded itself deep within the subconscious. Like a subliminal intuition, it slowly influences the vessel, piece by piece until another puzzle is complete. Either the image is imagined in full to convey its message, or the concept is stitched together through the sketches painted over time, slowly adding up.

Pyramid Oracle (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA: What qualities are you looking for when selecting a model for your portraits? Should they be particularly wise, or perhaps spiritual?
PO: Most of the works are inherently existential and spiritual in nature, having allegorical qualities to serve as more than the powerful image that initially draws you in. With the characters chosen, each expression is in words…immeasurable. So much of what is sought to be captured cannot be easily contained in one explanation, that multiplicity is the essence of why visual communications are so powerful and valuable. The intention is to remain cryptic without limiting any audiences ability to have there own interpretation, and in this way I suppose they should be particularly wise.

Pyramid Oracle. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA: Mysticism is referenced in the geometric patterns you combine with your portraits, as well as the inclusion of a third eye or entire third visage. Are your parents bankers or hippies?
PO: The parents of Pyramid oracle are neither bankers nor hippies, but are the ancient mysteries and their architecture. Through the examination and re-purposing of archaic patterns, we are creating the new mythology for our current pilgrimage.

We are the parents of the future!!! lol

Pyramid Oracle (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA: When a person is describing your work to their Aunt Marlene, which three adjectives are going to help her appreciate it better?
PO: Recently was hash tagging a piece with the word #kingdom, and #kingdomhall popped up. After using this tag, a group of Jehovah’s Witnesses started to comment on the picture of 5 crowned kings skulls roped together into an ornamental trophy: “It is a shame that sick Satanic so called art is shown on a site with such name bringing SHAME! Satan go away from us. Praise Jehowa!”

Hopefully not everyone’s Aunt is so easily terrorized by the images created for Pyramid Oracle. Even if they are seemingly dark eccentric representations, they stem from the root of all other ancient knowledge…

Pyramid Oracle (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA: Is the street a place for finished work always, or is it also a laboratory?
PO: The street is both gallery and laboratory. Its obvious that a finished image will find its way to be displayed on the street. But its interesting how a painting grows into itself when it is made for this purpose. Since the canvas is not limited by size or shape, the possibilities are the ones to experiment with. Unfortunately this is often limited by how efficiently something can be installed in a timely fashion. And the amount of work one is willing to invest in something that is all too often destroyed faster than it was created. Most importantly the street provides a place to purge ideas and thus continue to create new things. This has always been a huge motivating factor and a valuable reason to put up work.

Pyramid Oracle (photo © Jaime Rojo)

New SWOON Storytelling on Battered Brooklyn Walls

October 26, 2015 Artists

Like leaves scattered into the street by a gust of wind, new large wheat-pasted linotype prints have appeared across some fatigued facades in post-industrial Brooklyn this autumn. Hand cut and painstakingly spot colored, you may recognize a familiar face or two among them as these characters and their stories have appeared on walls previously, eventually faded, decayed, and dissipating, leaving no trace but possibly in your memory.

Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon followers will recognize folks like Kathryn G, a neighbor of hers in Braddock, PA, as well as Edline, a girl she met in Haiti who participated in a community art program there. Brand new on the scene appears a portrait of George, whom Swoon says through social media is one of the guys she worked with in the Philadelphia Mural Arts Guild Program and with whom she bonded after sharing stories of their similar backgrounds. Whether you know these stories or not, the work stands on its own, until it disappears.

Swoon. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon. A different version on the above piece on a corrugated fence. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon. Detail. (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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BSA Images Of The Week: 10.25.15

October 25, 2015 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

This is the harvest season when all the fruits of Street Artists labor are on display for everyone to admire – and just before the frost transforms all the leaves and turns the grass brown and your cheeks red, it is time for you to go outside with your camera. There is a new talented crop of artists on the street that has been maturing these last few seasons and of course there are the perennials on display as well. New York in the autumn is always dramatic; the perfect stage to unveil new productions, new art shows, new movies, new musical compositions, and new standards being set. If the pickings for this weeks BSA Images of the Week are an indication, Autumn is at full peak right now, pure splendor.

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Billi Kid, City Kitty, City Rabbit, Danielle Mastrion, Dee Dee, Elbow-Toe, Ernest Zacharevic, Hiss, Kai, Myth, Olek, Phoebe New York, Pixote, Sean9Lugo, Spider Tag, Tom Fruin, Tony De Pew, WK Interact, and You Go Girl!

Top image above >>> Dee Dee (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dee Dee (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Danielle Mastrion (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hiss (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Myth (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sean9Lugo (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tony DePew (photo © Jaime Rojo)

WK Interact (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A Haring motif on vinyl sheets was applied to this doors apparently for a themed party inside the building. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ernest Zacharevic’s third collaboration with Martha Cooper. Mr. Zacharevic used one of Ms. Cooper’s photos as an inspiration for this piece, which includes a real paint brush. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

City Kitty (photo © Jaime Rojo)

City Rabbit (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Billi Kid (photo © Jaime Rojo)

You Go Girl (photo © Jaime Rojo)

OLEK says “Rule #1 Never be #2. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

I hear that! Artist Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

KAI (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Elbow Toe brings an old favorite back to the streets. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Homer (photo © Jaime Rojo)

PIXOTE (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Phoebe New York (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Spider Tag in Athens, Greece. October 2015. (photo © Spider Tag)

Spider Tag. Detail from the piece above. (photo © Spider Tag)

Tom Fruin (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Manhattan, NYC. October 2015 (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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Sisters Sojourn to Kingston to Update the Truth with Jetsonorama

October 24, 2015 Artists

Two new wheat-pasted and hand painted murals by Jetsonorama in New York State’s first capital call to memory the work of the abolitionist and former slave Sojourner Truth, who at one point called Kingston her home. Born as a slave she had a handful of white masters and endured untold sufferings for nearly three decades before escaping to freedom in 1826.

A powerful feminist and human rights activist who began her vocal advocacy in her 50s until her death at 86, Sojourner became an inspirational pillar of the peoples’ movement in the history of the United States and her words and life continue to be relevant and inspirational to many in our current generation of black women.

Jetsonorama . Jess X Chen for O+ Festival in Kingston, NY. October 2015. (photo © Jetsonorama)

Working collaboratively with artist Jess X Chen, Jetsonorama bring today’s voices to the fore, writing the words of poets as halos around their heads and pasting their photos here as part of the O+ Festival.

“Over the course of a week Jess and I photographed the poets, created the composition, got the work printed, prepped and pasted,” says the artist about the portraits they did of three poets who speak their truth a century and a half after Sojourner: Mohogany Browne, T’ai Freedom Ford, and Jennifer Falu.

Jetsonorama . Jess X Chen for O+ Festival in Kingston, NY. October 2015. (photo © Jetsonorama)

The artists ran out of time before mounting Falu’s mural, but will do so at a later time. Each of the poets were chosen because of the power of their expression to move minds and hearts today and because of their lineage to the legacy of Ms. Truths impact on the culture.

“In 1851 she delivered her best known speech at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio,” says Jetsonorama. “The speech was known as “Ain’t I a Woman?” in which she compares the value of her life as a hard working black woman to that of any man. Jess and I wanted to honor the legacy of Sojourner Truth in her hometown and we approached the 3 poets about contributing poems that speak to the challenges of black womanhood.”

Jetsonorama . Jess X Chen for O+ Festival in Kingston, NY. October 2015. (photo © Jetsonorama)

From Mahogany Browne the came the poem called “Black Girl Magic,” from which this is an excerpt.

“You are a threat knowing yourself.
You are a threat loving yourself.
You are a threat loving your kin.
You are a threat loving your children.

You Black Girl magic.
You Black Girl flyy.
You Black Girl brilliance.
You Black Girl wonder.
You Black Girl shine.
You Black Girl bloom.
You Black Girl, Black Girl
And you turning into a beautiful Black Woman right before our eyes.”

Jetsonorama . Jess X Chen for O+ Festival in Kingston, NY. October 2015. (photo © Jetsonorama)

T’ai Freedom Ford contributed a poem entitled “i sell the shadow to sustain the substance”, she says is dedicated to Glenn Ligon and Sojourner Truth.

“as black woman i am untitled – nameless
my heart a faint glow of neon wire
buzzing toward some shameless demise.
i stand against walls looking nonchalant.
flashbulbs mistake me for celebrity or bored whore,
same difference.

as black woman i am installation art as negress.
my heart a black plastic bag ghosting streets.
what parts of me ain’t for sale as woman?”

Jetsonorama . Jess X Chen for O+ Festival in Kingston, NY. October 2015. (photo © Jetsonorama)

For more on Sojourner Truth, you can begin HERE

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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!

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BSA Film Friday: 10.23.15

October 23, 2015 Artists

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

Now screening :

1. 3 Minutes in Brooklyn
2. NUART at 15 on 2015
3. Vegan Flava: Arms Factory in Lisbon
4. FAILE: “Wishing On You” Times Square 2015 NYC
5. Sandra Chevrier. The Aftenblad Wall
6. Winter is Coming, All My Single Ladies

BSA Special Feature: 3 Minutes in Brooklyn

Bruno Maltor at Votre Tour Du Monde recently came to Brooklyn and made a short video of his experiences here. It’s a huge borough (2.6 million inhabitants) and he got just a little taste but he did manage to hit DUMBO, Bushwick, Greenpoint, Williamsburg, downtown, the Botanical Gardens, the Brooklyn Museum, caught some performers on the subway, and Damien Mitchell painting a mural. Ah Brooklyn, you heart breaker, you love maker, you land of a million dreams and possibilities.

NUART at 15 on 2015

A splendid melange of words and images from this years Nuart festival in Norway, its 15th.

Vegan Flava: Arms Factory in Lisbon

“The roof and walls of every factory will molder away by rain and wind.” Vegan Flava discovers a former arms factory in Lisbon and does a tribute to pain and suffering of the people who were killed by its’ industry.

FAILE: “Wishing On You” Times Square 2015 NYC

We debuted this video by Priest Fontaine live for the Brooklyn Museum audience with Faile and actual chills went up people’s spines. No lie. Now you can see it too here online Capturing the current Times Square as county fair with mountains of screens flashing images around the Selfie Stick Forest, all corporate creepy and still sleezey – Fontaine evokes the magic that Faile is, as well as the pure industry that it takes to make their art work. Also good to remember that it was a hot and humid overnight installation that started at 8pm and ended around 10 the following morning.

What Happened with BSA + FAILE at the Brooklyn Museum?

Sandra Chevrier. The Aftenblad Wall

A special project the organizers of Nuart did with the local newspaper, this is the inaugural piece by Sandra Chevrier.

Winter is Coming, All My Single Ladies

ABOVE Goes Below for His Largest Mural Ever

October 22, 2015 Artists

To see ABOVE you will have to go way down below. Like near the bottom tip of Africa. South. Africa.

That’s where street artist ABOVE just completed this new upward pointing mural for the City of Gold Festival in Jeppestown. It is entitled “Incognito” much like the California man himself, featuring a layered geometry of the symbol he has called his own since on the streets around the world for this century.

ABOVE tells us it is his largest mural to date, at 33 meters by 17 meters. “I think I used over twenty different colors and it took me six full days to paint it.” You may see some guy hanging around the mural in dark sunglasses trying to looking cool – but don’t bother to look for Mr. Incognito himself. He’s already on to his next adventure somewhere in Israel.

Click the link below for more on City Of Gold:

http://www.cityofgoldfestival.co.za/

“Monument Art” Murals Sing of El Barrio in 2015

October 21, 2015 Artists

Some of these new murals are definitely monumental. As are some of the social ills addressed by themes such as immigration and the world refugee crisis. With a dozen international artists painting over the last two weeks, the debut show of the Monument Art Project in the New York neighborhoods of El Barrio, East Harlem and the South Bronx, some logistics have been equally immense, but finally the job is complete and people are talking about the new works they watched being painted.

Not quite street art and not quite your local community mural, these finished opus works are more poetic than activist, more visionary than purely aesthetic; occupying a modern mid-way between those archetypes of public art we call the “New Muralism”.

Following on the success of the Los Muros Hablan festival staged a couple of years ago in San Juan, Puerto Rico and New York, organizers Jose Morales and Celso González expand their international reach and bring it back home with the stalwart and vehement support of New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito.

Argentina, Belgium, Los Angeles, Mexico, Puerto Rico, South Africa – an admirable list of participants for a festival this size. What this dispersed program has that many recent commercial “Street Art” festivals have been lacking is a cognition of community, a connection– however refracted – to the people who are going to live with it. MonumentArt is aiming to engage the community with images and themes that resonate with many of the members – perhaps sparking conversations among chance encounters.

Here El Mac channels his influences of Caravaggio and Chicano culture to collaborate with Cero on a portrait evocative of haloed church icons. This serious and thoughtful figure rising high above everyone’s head is the well known Nuyorican writer Nicholasa Mohr, who has told many stories of Puerto Rican women, their travails and ascendency in the Bronx and El Barrio.

Notably Viajero’s boy in a handmade boat of newspaper pages addresses the dangerous figurative and literal waters that refugees are facing today, including children. With his back turned to us and his distrustful glance over the shoulder he may be questioning our commitment to saving those poor and needy in country that congratulates itself for its religious roots.

While quite different stylistically the mural reminds us of a 3-D installation done by Lituanian street artist Ernest Zacharevic in Norway’s Nuart Festival just last month.

The topic of immigration is hammered home by Mexican muralist Sego as well as he strips away the skin of the Statue of Liberty, as if in an attempt to see what lies beneath that oxidized copper exterior in New York harbor symbolizing “welcome”. Look again and see the points of her famous crown are transmuted into a feathered headdress, similar to those of the continents’ original citizens. In a nation of immigrants, New York’s multitude of populations typify the immigrant life and their plight is intrinsically tied to our history.

The quality of work is here, as is the articulation of ideas and themes. Curated thoughtfully and selected carefully, the MonumentArt collection gives back to the community it is nested within.

Argentinian artist Ever appropriated local kids as inspiration along with photos taken by Martha Cooper of immigrants in the 1990s and themes related to Puerto Rican independence and the US occupation of the island of Vieques. His signature kaleidoscope visions and voices pile and wind around the head like folkloric waves of energy.

But even working directly with the community, Ever tells us that things don’t go as smoothly as you might expect. He also discusses how intrinsic the topic of immigration is to his piece and to the story of New York.

Brooklyn Street Art: The top figure on your mural is of boy. Can you tell us who he is?
EVER: This is funny. I was here doing some research and these kids were playing basketball on the courts and I saw one of them and he caught my attention and I decided to approach him. It was kind of hard for me since I’m not from here and I didn’t think I’d have the right words to talk to him so I was a bit nervous.

I told him my pitch and his first reaction was “No I don’t want you to take my picture”. So it was hard for me because he was the one I wanted to paint on the wall. And he told me he didn’t want to be a part of it. So I said cool. But when his friends, one by one came forward and told me that they would like to do it and got excited he then at that moment he changed his mind and told me he wanted to do it.

I was very happy but when I told him he had to pose of a photo first he said, “OK but take only three pictures”. I said to myself, ‘Come on you are like Madonna.” Finally he posed and I got my photo.

Then for the other kids I went to Martha Cooper’s studio to do some more research on East Harlem and to find more photos related to the neighborhood. The other two figures are from photos Martha Cooper took in the 80’s and 90’s in El Barrio. One was taken during a Latin-American parade more than 20 years ago.

When I was on the plane coming here I had an idea of what I wanted to do. I wanted to talk about the issue of immigration in my piece. For me is insane that in the 21st Century we are still having problems with immigration. I’m a product of immigration. My parents came to Argentina from Spain. Most cities in most nations are created by immigrants. So it is crazy that there are still some people who see immigrants like the enemy. They are talking about people who live next to them, people who are their neighbors. So we must accept immigration as a reality of all nations and New York is a huge example of different cultures living together without big problems. In New York one can breath freedom. And that’s the subject I wanted to approach.

We all move to different places all the time. As humans it is in our nature to be nomads. When we look up at the sky we see the birds flying around without papers, without limits. And we humans we have to be limited to a piece of paper that determines if we are allowed in or not.

These three figures on this mural represent the future of this country: The next generation. It is absurd to hear politicians when they talk about immigration and they make the immigrants their enemies. This is a beautiful country and for the most part people who come here are trying to find a better future. Furthermore I think that most people dream of someday being able to go back to their countries of origin.

I was recently in Tijuana and I noticed two individuals having a conversation but they were separated by this fence, this wall. You could see the two families on two different sides of the fence and it was something that made a big impression on me.

El Mac and Cero. Detail. Collaboration on this Mosaic and paint portrait of poet Nicholasa Mohr. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

El Mac and Cero. Collaboration on this portrait of poet Nicholasa Mohr. The mosaic portion was done by Cero and the portrait by El Mac. Monument Art Project 2015. El Barrio, East Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

This article is also published in The Huffington Post.

A Tidal Wave of Lodz Reborn: “Lodz Murals” Distinguishes Polish City

October 20, 2015 Artists, Interview

New work from DalEast, Borondo, Alexis Diaz

“My aim is to create a permanent exhibition of great art in the public space of Lodz,” says Michał Bieżyński, founder of Lodz Murals in the Polish city of the same name. It is highly likely he will after six years curating Galeria Urban Forms, for which BSA has been a media partner. Since 2009 Bieżyński has been selecting and organizing artists from around the world to create almost 45 murals throughout the city for permanent exhibition by people like Os Gemeos, Aryz, Roa, Vhils, M-City, Etam Cru, Inti, Remed, Daleast, Sat One, Kenor, 3ttman, and Nunca to mention just a few.

“Now I don’t want to create any new festival, any new brand – just want to keep the name as simple as possible,” he says of Lodz Murals, an ongoing program that functions year round rather than focusing specifically on a short-term festival. With all responsibilities for organizing, promoting, and working with city and private business under one roof, Michał says that his vision is to create the same sort of iconic image of Lodz with murals as Paris with the Eiffel Tower.

“I would like that people on the global scale would think of Lodz as a city with exceptional public art,” he says grandly while acknowledging that public art shines in many other cities as well. “When you are thinking about public art, one of the first places that you will see in your mind’s eye is Lodz. Of course, comparing the mural project to the one of the most important “pearls” of modern architecture is pure overstatement, but I would like to create this type of mechanism, this type of association.”

And he is well on his way with nearly year-round tours of the city’s existing murals by various organizations and more artists currently painting and en route. Is he still committed to inviting top talent artists to Lodz regardless of their fame?

“Yes of course, for me the quality of art is the most important,” he says. “Last year I invited Morik, a great artist from Russia and he was not that famous. His art is just really high-quality, it is as simple as that.” He is thinking in terms of programs – experimental and classical among the themes.

“This year we are doing an amazing project with Cekas – the sculptor from Wroclaw, Poland. He will install almost 1500 metal pieces to the surface of the wall, creating a permanent installation that will work with the sun and it will change depending on the angle of the sunbeams. It’s still something on the wall, but it’s a step forward.”

In the mean time he is in the middle of more pieces and artists and walls that he hopes will become iconic in a Lodz sort of way. “I’ve got the plan, I’ve started to talk with some artists, I’m trying to do my best. Now, we’ve just finished the piece with Daleast (China), Alexis Diaz (Puerto Rico) and Borondo (Spain). I’m waiting for Cekas and Agostino Iacurci (Italy) and I’m focused to organize the pieces with them.”

For more on Lodz Murals:

www.facebook.com/lodzmurals

https://instagram.com/lodzmurals

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