April 2016

David Walker Paints Largest Mural at Belgian School for “Wild-Brabant”

David Walker Paints Largest Mural at Belgian School for “Wild-Brabant”

“Just finished my biggest mural to date,” says Street Artist and muralist David Walker about this upward gazing fresh face in Belgium. Today we have photos exclusive to BSA readers of the new 17 square meter mural at an elementary school that is visible from many of the classrooms throughout the day – presumably for those times during class when students prefer to daydream.

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David Walker. Frenetschool De Pit. Belgium for Wild-Brabant. (photo © @StreetArtwerpenaar)

“Wild-Brabant” is the festival in this province of central Belgium and Walkers’ freehand full color portrait took an entire week at the Freinetschool De Pit in Diest school.

The project gathered the daily interest of the teachers, students, and various parents who brought him fresh cookies daily and watched Walker as he demolished 160 aerosol paint cans to create one of his signature women for the campus. The project was organized by Provincie Vlaams Brabant and Killerbee Workshops.

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David Walker. Frenetschool De Pit. Belgium for Wild-Brabant. (photo © @StreetArtwerpenaar)

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David Walker. Frenetschool De Pit. Belgium for Wild-Brabant. (photo © @StreetArtwerpenaar)

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David Walker. Frenetschool De Pit. Belgium for Wild-Brabant. (photo © DW)

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David Walker. Frenetschool De Pit. Belgium for Wild-Brabant. (photo © DW)

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BSA Film Friday: 04.29.16

BSA Film Friday: 04.29.16

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

Now screening :

1. Os Gemeos Mural: Hangar Bicocca Building (Milan)
2. Tilt: Voyage – Aller Biennale Marrakech
3. Ugo Rondinone: Seven Magic Mountains
4. Ryan Campbell Profile

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BSA Special Feature: Os Gemeos Mural: Hangar Bicocca Building

Graffiti writers and assorted urban artists have a romantic fixation with the steel monsters that snake through our cities and across the backyards and fields of entire countries. For the urban art culture subways and freights have distinct but overlapping associations with freedom, wanderlust, a daredevil mentality, … and Brazilian brothers Os Gemeos have just created their latest ode to the subway train in Milan – almost as big as any writer’s dream.

Tilt: Voyage – Aller Biennale Marrakech

We had the honor of seeing this sawed in half car with luggage stacked on top in Jardin Rouge with French graffiti artist TILT in February and to hear the stories about how it was made. The first part of a 2 part story about migration, families, city fok, country folk, and the stories we tell – this amazing sculpture stands on its own.

 

Ugo Rondinone: Seven Magic Mountains

An astounding large scale “earth work” by Ugo Rondinone is taking place outside of Las Vegas in the desert. This informational video lays out the scope of the two year installation produced by Art Production Fund, New York and the Nevada Museum of art in Reno. Curiously, the artist himself does not appear in the video.

 

Ryan Campbell Profile

A quick short on Ryan Campbell and his mural Special Project: Line Segments number 40 (2016) . It is shot on location at Royale Projects : Contemporary Art in Los Angeles

 

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Salty New Character Appears On BK Streets

Salty New Character Appears On BK Streets

Birds, bees, flowers, fat caps. Warmer weather equals more new art on the streets – including new artists whose work you don’t recognize.

Also we know its spring because the email box is getting daily requests from soon-to-be-visiting or just arrived artists requesting that we help procure them a wall to paint. We stopped doing that a while ago, with the occasional rare exception.

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Violent Rabbit (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Naturally you understand that many out-of-town Street Artists make their long dreamed of journey to NYC for the first time hoping to “get up” in New York City. It is a rite of passage and a badge of pride to be recounted in multiple stories from this day on.

This week we noticed this cartoon character from an artist whose signature we don’t recognize, Violent Rabbit and we think it is either a new arrival or a passing-through tourist on spraycation.

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Violent Rabbit (photo © Jaime Rojo)

If you know the artist’s name or nom de plume please help – can’t read the tag.

UPDATE: Violent Rabbit is the artist’s name. Hailing from France.

Look closely and you’ll see that cartoon character with a bit of an attitude is hand made, hand painted and then wheat-pasted on the wall. You’ll also notice that the artist made it his or her mission to go directly over graffiti in the process for at least on these four pieces that we found, sort of using it for a backdrop. Graffiti writers and artists whose work is “gone over” like that usually don’t give it a warm welcome to this so we’ll see how long these new pieces remain.

Ah, Spring!

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Violent Rabbit (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Violent Rabbit (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

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Cane Morto “TOYS” Exhibition in Milan

Cane Morto “TOYS” Exhibition in Milan

Man against man. Man against God. Man against himself. Man against gratuitously opinionated and parochial graff heads, Street Art fanboys, and self-appointed explainers of the “rules” of the street.

These are a few of the recurring themes in “TOYS” by the Italian free-thinking brutalists and long-pole bucket painters named Canemorto in their exhibition with Superfluo at Section80.  Street Artists with a purer vision than many in this murky milieu, Canemorto buck conventions and honor the rules of graffiti, street art, and contemporary art at their own peril, often feeling triangulated and abused by the undertaking.

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Cane Morto TOYS at Section 80. Milano, Italy. (photo © Jacopo Farina)

Here in their simplistic and horrid toy diorama of Evil Vs Evil Vs Deluded Vs Good; the opinions and assorted powers are all unleashed on an even playing field, ready to bash each other over the head, skew one another with postmodern bayonets and sundry weaponry.

“In my opinion, nobody can remake these paintings. They’re not reasoned. It’s an instinctive style,” says the art restorer Camillo Tarozzi in their accompanying dramatized and musical video, when discussing what appears to be the taking of walls by Canemorto in public/private space.

The debates about the rightness of this art being taken, preserved, displayed in a different context has been brought to the fore recently by their countryman Blu in Bologna in response to his street walls now on exhibit in a museum.

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Cane Morto TOYS at Section 80. Milano, Italy. (photo © Jacopo Farina)

But the weight of historical practices of preservation wrestling with the forces of ephemerous ‘street cred’ is like matching a tyrannosaurus with a Transformer; which is why the “TOYS” diorama in the community show space of an advertising/production company encapsulates some of their internal dilemmas so perfectly. Seeing the artists themselves as packaged products hanging on the wall commodifies them in a way that is knowingly sarcastic, thrilling, and drowned in irony. Collect all three!

In their films and in their practice Canemorto are chanting like shamans casting spells to keep away the evil spirits of commercialism and general lameness. Sitting on the couch or climbing over fences the masked trio repeatedly invoke the autonomy and authenticity of “the street” while other versions of success beckon to them, cloaked in something shinier, elusive, enticing.

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Cane Morto TOYS at Section 80. Milano, Italy. (photo © Jacopo Farina)

As in their previously released long-form street art film they are seeking direction from an ever-watchful periodically-appearing somewhat sadistic spirit guide. As they navigate the route one wonders if this leader has their best interests in mind, and even how he qualified for his position.

Similarly, after nearly a decade of monstrous works on the street, many nights of ducking and painting, and the endless studying of the culture that they are acting within, the title “TOYS” is clearly offered with a sense of humor and does not apply to Canemorto.

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Cane Morto TOYS at Section 80. Milano, Italy. (photo © Jacopo Farina)

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Cane Morto TOYS at Section 80. Milano, Italy. (photo © Jacopo Farina)

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Cane Morto TOYS at Section 80. Milano, Italy. (photo © Jacopo Farina)

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Cane Morto TOYS at Section 80. Milano, Italy. (photo © Caterina Colombo)

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Cane Morto TOYS at Section 80. Milano, Italy. (photo © Jacopo Farina)

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Cane Morto TOYS at Section 80. Milano, Italy. (photo © Jacopo Farina)

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Cane Morto TOYS at Section 80. Milano, Italy. (photo © Jacopo Farina)

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Cane Morto TOYS at Section 80. Milano, Italy. (photo © Caterina Colombo)

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Cane Morto TOYS at Section 80. Milano, Italy. (photo © Caterina Colombo)

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Cane Morto TOYS at Section 80. Milano, Italy. (photo © Walls Of Milano)

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Pejac: Refugees, Immigrants, Mothers and Children in Jordan

Pejac: Refugees, Immigrants, Mothers and Children in Jordan

Spanish Street Artist Pejac paints small intimate works in public space that are neither splashy nor enigma. Straightforward in themes, he often balances the sharp flat silhouette with the muddied impressionistic daubing of an earlier romantic period of painting. His work can lie between illusion and reality, and both can seem plausible.

Two new pieces in Jordan – one in the booming metropolis of Amman, another in the Azraq Camp for Syrian refugees an hour and a half away – speak to the status of children in the world today and tomorrow.

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Pejac. “Mothers Artists” Al-Azraq Syrian refugee camp. Jordan. April 2016. (photo © Pejac)

20,338 people live in Azraq Camp right now. 56% are children. A third of them live only with their mother as the head of the family.

The long days here are monotonous, uncertain and unfamiliar as these families once had homes and jobs and lives back in Syria – Aleppo, Dar’a, Homs, rural Damascus. No one knows if they will ever resume a life like the one they had.

The military style metal shelters in the intensely hot northern desert area lack electricity, but there is enough water and food thanks to the Jordanian people and the UN Refugee Agency.

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Pejac took inspiration for his work from this painting from 1908 titled  Playa de Valencia a la luz de la Mañana by the Spanish painter Sorolla.

Pejac took his inspiration from the mothers here who care for their children and create entertainment and stories and fantastical games to occupy them, distracting them from their current situation. He says he recognizes the skills of artists at work “A mother’s creativity is something truly admirable – how they manage to create a special world to protect their child by transforming reality into a better place,” he says.

To symbolize the power of imagination the mother figure here is compared to one in a painting by Spanish post impressionist Sorolla in the early 1900’s Playa de Valencia a la luz de la Mañana (Valencia Beach in the morning light). Here you can see the echoed figures and the mother describing the splashing ocean to her child while bathing her/him in a basin.

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Pejac. “Mothers Artists” Al-Azraq Syrian refugee camp. Jordan. April 2016. (photo © Pejac)

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Pejac. “Mothers Artists” Al-Azraq Syrian refugee camp. Jordan. April 2016. (photo © Pejac)

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Pejac. “Mothers Artists” Al-Azraq Syrian refugee camp. Jordan. April 2016. (photo © Pejac)

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Pejac. “Mothers Artists” Al-Azraq Syrian refugee camp. Jordan. April 2016. (photo © Pejac)

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Pejac. “Mothers Artists” Al-Azraq Syrian refugee camp. Jordan. April 2016. (photo © Pejac)

Elsewhere in Amman there are other new neighbors who are not in camps, living and playing alongside Jordanians. The small piece Pejac has painted next to a children’s playground is called “Rotation” and has two meanings, both of them tributes.

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Pejac. “Rotation” Jabal Al Webdah, Amman. Jordan (photo © Pejac)

“On the one hand I’m talking about Jordan, a country that has a long history of hospitality towards refugees,” he explains. “Today, for example, there are over 1.6 million Syrian refugees and over 2 million Palestine refugees in Jordan.”

Secondly, the spinning globe, much like a basketball being played by kids on the court, has a fate determined by this population with a median age of 22 (compare to US 37, Germany 46). “Without knowing it,” says Pejac, “a big part of Jordan’s population and its future is being determined by, is in the hands of, the kids.”

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Pejac. “Rotation” Jabal Al Webdah, Amman. Jordan (photo © Pejac)

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Pejac. “Rotation” Jabal Al Webdah, Amman. Jordan (photo © Pejac)

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Pejac. “Rotation” Jabal Al Webdah, Amman. Jordan (photo © Pejac)

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Pejac. “Rotation” Jabal Al Webdah, Amman. Jordan (photo © Pejac)

For more information about the refugee center you can read a PDF of the Azraq Fact Sheet APRIL 2016.

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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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Spider Tag: “Secuencias Minimas” Opens in Madrid

Spider Tag: “Secuencias Minimas” Opens in Madrid

Doors, windows, shipping pallets, nails, yarn. These are the humble materials that Spidertag uses in his geometric abstractions, commingling handmade craft traditions, mid-century modernism, and the history of commercial graphic sign painting.

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Spider Tag. Secuencias Minimas Swinton Gallery. Madrid, Spain. (photo © courtesy of Spider Tag)

SECUENCIAS MÍNIMAS is his new Madrid solo show just opened with 23 works that include sculptural wallhangings, video, lights, logs, and a generous amount of fire engine red.

The Street Artist has been pounding nails into the walls of community gardens, winding small streets, and abandoned old houses and factories for nearly a decade, each time responding to the environment with his materials and geometry based compositions in new ways to create one of a kind installations. By retaining that ability to be resourceful on the spot, Spidertag knows how to transform many angles of the gallery effectively and without pretension.

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Spider Tag. Secuencias Minimas Swinton Gallery. Madrid, Spain. (photo © courtesy of Spider Tag)

The new show at Swinton Gallery presents Spidertag’s facination for experimentation and the simplicity of form, dimension, and materials – often with a touch of levity. Choices of color, shape, and placement in the gallery environment are wry and unassuming, reminding the viewer that the creative spirit can be simultaneously challenging and rewarding while remaining disarmingly simple.

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Spider Tag. Secuencias Minimas Swinton Gallery. Madrid, Spain. (photo © courtesy of Spider Tag)

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Spider Tag. Secuencias Minimas Swinton Gallery. Madrid, Spain. (photo © courtesy of Spider Tag)

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Spider Tag. Secuencias Minimas Swinton Gallery. Madrid, Spain. (photo © courtesy of Spider Tag)

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Spider Tag. Secuencias Minimas Swinton Gallery. Madrid, Spain. (photo © courtesy of Spider Tag)

 

Spider Tag Secuencias Minimas is currently on view at Swinton Gallery in Madrid, Spain. Click HERE for more information.

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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: 04.24.16

BSA Images Of The Week: 04.24.16

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If you are a New Yorker feeling the burn it could be the Hasidim who lit fires every two blocks in parts of Brooklyn Friday to mark Passover (see our final image). The smoke and ash were staining sidewalks and wafting through neighborhoods until being washed away with the Purple Rain Friday night, or maybe those were just the collective tears of so many who were mourning the sudden death of a loved one, Prince.

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today, to get through this thing called life,” he inveighed to us in the beginning of one of his songs, and we’re going to have to find a way to celebrate his life when this heaviness passes, but for now a black lacey veil seems more appropo. Yes, Street Artists have begun to put up their tributes, and we hope to have some fine examples to show you next week. The one featured here by Pussy Power was actually up before he passed away.

So here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Balu, Bast, Christina Angelina, Dain, Dee Dee, FTW, Icy & Sot, Irwin Bakx, Kid Super, Kuma, Purge, Pussy Power, ROA, Star Fightera, Thomas Allen and Wall Play.

Our top image: Icy & Sot “let Her Be Free” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Thomas Allen (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Pussy Power (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Dee Dee (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Dee Dee (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Kid Super . Wall Play (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Feel The Bern (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Did She? (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Kuma Purge (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Star Fightera for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Star Fightera for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Bast (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Balu (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Balu (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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ROA. Wynwood District. Miami. (photo © Irwin Bakx)

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Dain (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Dain (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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FTW (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Untitled. Passover ritual. Williamsburg, Brooklyn. April 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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STRØK Stencils Ernest Zacharevic Playing in a Brooklyn Doorway

STRØK Stencils Ernest Zacharevic Playing in a Brooklyn Doorway

Strøk is in Brooklyn briefly and he had time to spray out a brand new 8 layer stencil on a doorway here before traveling a bit to see more of the Eastern Seaboard with his girlfriend. We found him this perfect fire engine red metal door in Williamsburg this week with the always gracious and at-the-ready “Mayor of Williamsburg” Mr. Joe Franquinha of Crest Arts-Hardware fame.

The figure appears to be mid-action, fully engaged in an activity and unaware of you. It is a relationship with the subject that the Norwegian-now-Berlinian likes for you to have. When you see one of his figures, or many of them spread across an expansive wall, he likes you to imagine your own storyline about what a figure is doing, what they may be engaged in.

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STRØK (photo © Jaime Rojo)

In this case, he is experimenting with a more formal collaboration, shooting photos of fellow Street Artist, the Lithuania artist Ernest Zacharevic while he was playing a game dexterously with rudimentary tools of sticks and a rubber ball during a time when they were both in Hawaii for a mural festival.

Ernest’s in-motion action seems as if he is dancing – a combination of gusty winds that day and him trying to manipulate whatever he was holding from his hands. They set up the session and shot it from a little distance.  “I asked him if he wanted to do it on the roof that was opposite of my hotel balcony,” he says of the session of play and photo shoot.

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STRØK (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“It’s the second time that I asked someone specifically to do something. Otherwise it’s just snapshots of strangers in the street. I like it kind of better that way. I like hunting for the perfect shot or the perfect moment to take a picture. If you have model and you are telling them what to do it kind of turns into a different thing. “

When describing the formal versus the documentary style of capture, you can see that it’s a process choice that he is ambivalent about – whether to capture images purely by chance or to have a more direct relationship with the model and the creation of the image.

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STRØK (photo © Jaime Rojo)

By removing the background context – a flying ball for example – and placing his figures that cavort with perspective, attaching them to a walls’ surface with a distinct shadow, Strøk has developed a recognizable style that makes viewers contemplate if they are the ones on the wall and Strøk’s people are the ones on the ground.

“I like the way they are connected to the surface,” he tells us and he discusses the shadows, how they are formed by the light and the figure touching the ground, and the resulting perspective that can be created.

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STRØK (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“I like it when they are almost standing on their toes, or caught mid-air. I like it a lot when they are running after a ball or chasing something.” In the artistic tradition of experimentation, he says that he is beginning to turn the figures ninety degrees to see what the effect is. “I’m doing a wall in Paris where it looks like the figures are falling but if you tilt your head then it looks like they standing.”

He explains that the idea came from someone else’s mistake. He shipped paintings to be displayed and the installer hung them at the incorrect orientation, turning the canvas 90 or 180 degrees – without realizing that Strøks’ signature on the back was meant to guide the proper angle to hang. When Strøk arrived to see the canvasses he was surprised. “In one of the paintings it looked more interesting. I didn’t intend it to be like that – obviously the composition changes a lot. It was just fun to see.”

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STRØK (photo © Jaime Rojo)

When looking for a surface to paint, he doesn’t want it to be perfect and prefers to let its characteristics become part of the painting, filling in additional details that contribute to the emerging storyline. “I like the wall, and these textures. If there is a crack in the wall it becomes like it is a crack in the ground. I like all of these things. It kind of messes with you.”

In developing his style as a young stencilist in the early-mid 2000s, Strøk was inspired by the work of artists like Banksy and Blek le Rat. “I heard of Banksy before I heard of Blek actually,” he says, which is a common recollection of artists and Street Art followers. Without playing favorites, he says that he has also followed the work of another Norwegian named Dolk, the Germans EVOL and Pisa 73, and the American Chris Stain among many others he mentions with admiration.

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STRØK (photo © Jaime Rojo)

As realistic and full of kinetic life as his static stencils can be, it’s not photo realism. “No it’s like a level between painting and realism,” he says. “If you wanted realism you could just paste photographs and then it would be a photo exhibit.”

A true hands-on artist, Strøk personally cuts his stencils – and here you can see a frame-by-frame story of how a multi layer stencil gets on a door.

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STRØK (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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STRØK (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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STRØK (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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STRØK (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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STRØK (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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STRØK (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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STRØK (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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STRØK (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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STRØK (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

Our very special thanks to Joe from Crest Hardware for offering this excellent spot.

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BSA Film Friday: 04.22.16

BSA Film Friday: 04.22.16

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

Now screening :

1.La Pintura. Graffiti Documentary. Trailer
2. Saving Banksy: Trailer
3. Spencer Keeton Cunningham and Lauren YS go “Batty”
4.  Wall To Wall: Benalla, Australia

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BSA Special Feature: La Pintura. Graffiti Documentary. Trailer

“You cannot totally enslave human nature. We will always thrive.”

“The city probably hates us. I don’t give a fuck about them because they are all as corrupt as shit.”

La Pintura is a newly released graffiti documentary (series) about the motivation, purpose and commitment of Latin and South African graffiti writers, and the context is helpful for understanding the risks that are taken as well as the drive to “get up” repeatedly. This story has been attempted many times – La Pintura looks like an action film driven by storylines and examination of social factors that form the subculture.

Saving Banksy: Trailer

Another Banksy-driven documentary, of which there will probably be enough for a festival before it’s all over. This one focuses on the people who endeavor to take them off the street to sell.

 

Spencer Keeton Cunningham and Lauren YS go “Batty”

Because, you know, who doesn’t want a Zombie Bat to get wall time? With their colorful personalities and riveting stories? These two Melboune based artists recently did this one and made a video to capture it.

 

Wall To Wall: Benalla, Australia

A haven for slick murals by commercial painters and illustrators and Street Artists in Benalla, Victoria , Wall To Wall is a successful venture by a mural business to bring new art to the streets and hopefully more commercial work for the artists and organizers. Great choice of the WAR mix at the beginning.

Rest in Peace to our Prince (1958-2016)

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Skount, Kera, SokarUno Paint Outside New Refugee Camp in Former Berlin Airport

Skount, Kera, SokarUno Paint Outside New Refugee Camp in Former Berlin Airport

The combined creative efforts of friends Skount, Kera, and SokarUno on a recent Saturday in Berlin possibly reflect the state of many recently arrived who are living near it. The historic Tempelhof Airport here was closed in 2008 after about 80 years in service and reopened as a recreational park in 2015. Now it is slated to become one of the biggest refugee camps in Europe. Already the former aircraft hangers are occupied by a few thousand refugees, mostly from Syria. By the end of the year the former airport grounds are expected to house nearly 7,000.

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Skount. Kera. SokarUno Tempelhof, Berlin. (photo © Skount)

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Skount. Kera. SokarUno Tempelhof, Berlin. (photo © Skount)

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Skount. Kera. SokarUno Tempelhof, Berlin. (photo © Skount)

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Skount. Kera. SokarUno Tempelhof, Berlin. (photo © Skount)

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Skount. Kera. SokarUno Tempelhof, Berlin. (photo © Skount)

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MIMA Museum: City Lights with Swoon, MOMO, Hayuk, Faile

MIMA Museum: City Lights with Swoon, MOMO, Hayuk, Faile

What is it about Brooklyn Street Art that is so appealing that one would curate the opening exhibition of a museum with it?

Four pillars of the New York Street Art scene are welcoming the first guests of the new Millennium Iconoclast Museum of Art (MIMA), which opened days ago in Brussels. Attacking the cherished institutions that relegate grassroots people’s art movements into the margins, MIMA intends to elevate them all and let them play together. Graphic design, illustration, comic design, tattoo design, graffiti, street art, plastic arts, wheat pasting, sculpture, text, advertising, pop, story-telling, aerosol, brushwork, and naturally, dripping paint.

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MOMO. Work in progress. MIMA Museum. Brussels, Belgium. April 2016. (photo © Alice van den Abeele)

Obviously street culture has been mixing these influences together in a never-ending lust for experimentation; punk with hip-hop, skateboarding with tattoo, performance art with graffiti – for the past four decades at least. The folk tradition of cutting and pasting predates all our  modern shape-shifting by centuries, but institutional/organizational curating often often has a preference for sorting street culture disciplines into separate piles.

With the inaugural exhibition “City Lights” MOMO, Swoon, Faile, and Maya Hayuk each bring what made their street practice unique, but with an added dimension of maturity and development. Without exception each of these artists have benefitted from the Internet and its ability to find audiences who respond strongly to the work with physical location a secondary consideration. Now as world travelers these four have evolved and refined their practice and MIMA gives them room to expand comfortably.

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MOMO. Work in progress. MIMA Museum. Brussels, Belgium. April 2016. (photo © Alice van den Abeele)

Rather than recreating the slap-dash chaos of street clash, and aside from the aforementioned drips and splatters in geometric neon hues by Hayuk, the museum setting is contained and crisply defined. Perhaps because of the cross-disciplines hinted at and welcomed, the overall effect is more contemporary than urban.

Hayuk’s space, with its raised ceilings and stained glass window treatment is a hand-hewn modern chapel, borrowing a holy inflection and spreading it across to the urban art faithful who will make the pilgrimage to this new hallowed space.

On opening day (which was delayed by weeks because of the recent airport and transit bombing here) the crowd who queued on an overcast day down the block along the Canal in Molenbeek was undaunted by the wait and expectant. Housed in a former beer factory, the greater collection includes large installations by the marquee namesin the main spaces and smaller pieces ranging from Stephen Powers and Todd James to Piet Parra and Cleon Patterson in galleries evoking whitebox galleries.

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MOMO. Detail. MIMA Museum. Brussels, Belgium. April 2016. (photo © Alice van den Abeele)

In precisely the ex-industrial part of town that is usually slaughtered with graffiti you can still see a variety of throwies and bubble tags floating above murky waters along the canal walls from the terrace of the 1300 square meter, 4 story MIMA. It’s an oddly storied juxtaposition perhaps, yet somehow perfectly natural and modern.

If the popular imagination of “museum plus Street Art” conjures anything for you, it may present some kind of overture toward the continuation of the street into the formal space and vice-versa. Faile’s two-color stencils and slaughtering of walls inside clearly connect to ones they have done over the last 15 years and that are currently on New York streets. Their huge prayer wheel assembled here was actually shown in the center of Times Square last fall with tens of thousands of tourists climbing it, sitting upon it, posing for selfies with it and spinning it, so the continuum is very much intact in that respect.

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MOMO. MIMA Museum. Brussels, Belgium. April 2016. (photo © Alice van den Abeele)

Similarly Swoon’s wheat-pasted family of figures and her hand-cut paper patterns on mottled walls in the basement recall her work on street walls in Red Hook Brooklyn at this moment – as well as her periodic takeovers/installations inside choice areas of abandoned urban neglect through the years. To complete the dialogue at MIMA her hand-painted linotype  prints are also wheat-pasted outside on Brussels walls near the museum, not slapped but placed with her customary consideration of context and proportion.

Ever the developer of new methodologies for painting, MOMO piled long strips of fabric in an overlapping circular pattern upon layered patches of color and unveiled the new work by gathering the invited artists and museum founders to watch as Faile’s Patrick McNeil slowly pulled the “rope” outward, breaking sealed layers and revealing a heretofore non existent composition. To share and remember the birth process he leaves the tools of revelation in a pile before it. In this way MOMO recalls his street practice of conjuring and developing new tool-making and art-making techniques when bringing work into the public sphere.

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MOMO.  MIMA Museum. Brussels, Belgium. April 2016. (photo © MOMO – MIMA MUSEUM)

Aside from each evolving from the subcultures of the street in some capacity, the nature of the works transcend the partitioning that can define exhibitions, allowing the various practices to become the language of the culture. MIMA appears to have the physical space, as well as the psychological and philosophical space, to contemplate the multiplicity of voices that are flooding the streets and the Internet; forming subcultures and ultimately culture. The City Lights in this case are as much on the various dialogues of the street as the street itself.

MIMA is the creation of four co-founders; Florence and Michel Delaunoit, Alice van den Abeele, and Raphaël Cruyt. The inaugural show is curated by van den Abeele and Cruyt and many of the artists shown in the extended collection here have a history and special meaning to the two through their venture the ALICE Gallery, which has as its strength a focus on art collaborations and exhibition with sculpture and installations.

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SWOON. Work in progress. MIMA Museum. Brussels, Belgium. April 2016. (photo © Alice van den Abeele)

We spoke with Alice van den Abeele about the selection of these four artists for the opening, the intersection of Internet with museum curation, and the changing nature of our perceptions of culture. Here is an excerpt from our conversation

Brooklyn Street Art: In your initial descriptions of the museum a focus is made on the uprooting of culture as it pertains to geography by way of the Internet during the last decade and a half. How do these artists represent this free-travelling cultural reality?
Alice van den Abeele: This cultural reality is easy to feel when you are in the CITY LIGHTS exhibition. The installations by Swoon, Maya Hayuk, FAILE and MOMO immerse you in different artistic worlds but share an extroverted language that is direct and playful. It is a language acquired with the street and with travel – a mixture you may call a “world citizen”.

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SWOON. Work in progress. MIMA Museum. Brussels, Belgium. April 2016. (photo © Alice van den Abeele)

Brooklyn Street Art: The museum addresses a range of subcultures that are directly or tangentially related to the street art scene during the last decades. Why is it important for us to consider these contributors?

Alice van den Abeele: Because of our history. With the communication revolution and the relative low cost of Internet connectivity, the beginning of the millennium brought changes to our perception of the world. A feeling of being a citizen of the world is developing in the West – by which I mean to say there is a cosmopolitan attitude that makes us more empathetic, collaborative, and cross-cultural.

For artists this means there is a greater mobility between creative fields. The artist can easily be a skateboarder, a designer, a musician, a graffiti artist and they can also exhibit in a gallery or a museum. He or she adapts to different creative contexts and their identities are many – not limited to being a ‘street artist” or “a musician”.  The subcultures mix easily together. Lust look at the New York art scene at the time of the Alleged Gallery for example.

On the other hand, society moves it through the prism of the Internet today and selects artists that reflect a new thinking. The values ​​that define the artist’s behavior in the street are close to those that define our behavior on the Internet: Empathy, the right of access rather than ownership, a collaborative spirit, authenticity, and a cross/hybrid culture.

Somehow, the street work embodied physically very early this paradigm shift that was occuring in our society, this new way of perceiving the world. That’s the story the MIMA wants to tell through the exhibitions and the works in the permanent collection. We are living through a revolution that is slowly rewriting the history of art “bottom up” – which may have a thousand faces.

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SWOON. An assistant helps with a large wheat paste. MIMA Museum. Brussels, Belgium. April 2016. (photo ©Alice van den Abeele)

Brooklyn Street Art: Is it important to examine these subcultures separately or is it more relevant to see what their combined influences are producing for the world as aesthetic movements, social movements?
Alice van den Abeele: Cultures are not compartmentalized. They mix to reinvent themselves. Besides, don’t they all become mainstream? In a world of continuous flow of information we should beware of categories and labels – which are often more commercial than artistic. As I said earlier, subcultures today are of great interest to society because they can inspire in us a common ideal – better than our politicians.

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SWOON. Detail. MIMA Museum. Brussels, Belgium. April 2016. (photo © The Pickles – MIMA MUSEUM)

Brooklyn Street Art: As a group, these inaugural artists have an association in our minds with early-mid 2000s New York street art culture. Can you talk about the significance in broad terms of your choice of these artists for your initial exhibition?
Alice van den Abeele: Initially, when we visited the MIMA building in ruins, we immediately imagined an intervention by Maya Hayuk in the room called The Chapel. We know Maya really well because we have had the pleasure of working with her for such a long time. With that first intention, we thought that it would be great to have artists who know and appreciate each other, share a common history, and to create a synergy between them!

This combination of talent and affection has produced a unique exhibition, full of spirituality. More generally, the New York scene of this period is particularly rich for us and it was a good matrix to introduce the vision of the MIMA to the public!

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FAILE. Work in progress. MIMA Museum. Brussels, Belgium. April 2016. (photo © Alice van den Abeele)

Brooklyn Street Art: What sort of artists or influences do you envision for near future exhibitions?
Alice van den Abeele: It is certain that we will continue to work with artists in the same vein as those that are present in the permanent collection. At the same time we want to leave the door open to the future for the unknown and to surprise ourselves for the fun of it.

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FAILE. Work in progress. MIMA Museum. Brussels, Belgium. April 2016. (photo © Alice van den Abeele)

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FAILE. Work in progress. MIMA Museum. Brussels, Belgium. April 2016. (photo © Alice van den Abeele)

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FAILE. Work in progress. MIMA Museum. Brussels, Belgium. April 2016. (photo © Alice van den Abeele)

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FAILE. Detail. MIMA Museum. Brussels, Belgium. April 2016. (photo © Alice van den Abeele)

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FAILE. Detail. MIMA Museum. Brussels, Belgium. April 2016. (photo © Pascaline Brishcoux – MIMA Museum)

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Maya Hayuk. Work in progress. MIMA Museum. Brussels, Belgium. April 2016. (photo © Alice van den Abeele)

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Maya Hayuk. Work in progress. MIMA Museum. Brussels, Belgium. April 2016. (photo © Alice van den Abeele)

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Maya Hayuk. MIMA Museum. Brussels, Belgium. April 2016. (photo © The Pickles – MIMA Museum)

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The artists with curators. Work in progress. MIMA Museum. Brussels, Belgium. April 2016. (photo © Alice van den Abeele)

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Maya Hayuk talks with Patrick Miller in the foreground and Patrick McNeil chats with MOMO on the background in Maya’s installation. MIMA Museum. Brussels, Belgium. April 2016. (photo © Alice van den Abeele)

 

The MIMA Museum “City Lights” inaugural exhibition in Brussels, Belgium is currently open to the general public and will run until August 28, 2016. Click HERE to learn more about MIMA.

 

 

 

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35 Artists in Barcelona Trying To Save The Arctic with Greenpeace

35 Artists in Barcelona Trying To Save The Arctic with Greenpeace

Yesterday our posting was about artists in London creating works about endangered species and today we go to Barcelona where 35 artists joined with Greenpeace and a local group named RebobinArt on April 9th to create works centered on environmental issues, especially the quickly disappearing polar ice cap.

Only three days later scientists announced that the Greenland “Melt” has happened one month earlier than usual this year, smashing records and causing scientists to reexamine their measuring instruments to make sure they were working correctly.

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La Castillo. Save The Arctic. Barcelona, Spain. April 2016. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

The art-platform model of RebobinArt is interesting because they are a community organization that manages spaces and issues permits for painting for competitions, festivals, exhibitions, educational programs, and cause-based events like this one.

Under the guidance of Director Marc Garcia, RobobinArt promotes and facilitates a different sort of public painting that is not strictly commercial and yet it is clearly not the freewheeling graffiti/street art based stuff that made Barcelona such a magnet for artists in the early-mid 2000s.

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DASE. Save The Arctic. Barcelona, Spain. April 2016. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Done along a 600 meter long strip in the neighborhood of Poblenou many artists joined in to paint simultaneously and talk about issues like biodiversity and the melting of the arctic. Artists included :  AKORE, Dase, Rupper Artgigena, Labuenaylamala, Cheko, EDJINN, Laura Torroba, Mateu Targa, 400kunstler, Jaloóndeaquiles, Ulises Mendicutty, Joaquim Riaq, Santa sudaka, Penao, ENER, Tayone Grey Rainbow, Axe Colours, Bublegum, Mariajo, Rubicon1 , Camil Escruela, Elru Ghyart, El Xupet Negre , Mr. Sis , Kimo Osuna, H3L-X, Eva Zurita, and LaCastillo, among others.

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Axe Colours. Save The Arctic. Barcelona, Spain. April 2016. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

 

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Santa Sudaka. Save The Arctic. Barcelona, Spain. April 2016. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

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Pau Lopez Vila. Save The Arctic. Barcelona, Spain. April 2016. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

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Kimo Osuna. Save The Arctic. Barcelona, Spain. April 2016. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

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Mr. Sis. Save The Arctic. Barcelona, Spain. April 2016. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

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Color In Action. Save The Arctic. Barcelona, Spain. April 2016. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

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Ahanko Mimiko . Riaq Miuq. Save The Arctic. Barcelona, Spain. April 2016. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Our very special thanks to photographer Lluis Olive Bulbena for sharing these exclusive photos with BSA readers.

 

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