June 2017

BSA Images Of The Week: 06.18.17 / Selections From Welling Court 2017

June 18, 2017 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

“All’s Well That Ends in Impeachment #ShakespeareInTheTrump”

“The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.”

“Twelfth Bankruptcy #ShakespeareintheTrump”

New York’s jewel of free theater in Central Park is actually trending on Twitter, believe it or not. The production of Julius Ceasar features a Trumpian-looking lead character and it has inflamed people who haven’t heard of Shakespeare – which means a large swath of pretty/handsome bobble heads on US TV. The cautionary story actually has referenced modern leaders in productions historically in theaters in recent years and as a rule. There is even a story about Orsen Wells directing a version with actors in Nazi uniforms in the 20s or 30s.

More recent productions have included an Obama lookalike (“Caesar is cast as a tall, lanky black man” ) and a Hillaryesque woman in a white pantsuit, so why people are scandalized we don’t know. Two protesters actually stormed the stage Friday night during the performance, and lily-livered brands like Delta Airlines and Bank of Russia have pulled their financial support of the production. This is what happens when the Arts are cut out of a generation of schools, sisters and brothers.

And in other polarized news, the planned protest (and performance piece) in front of the Houston-Bowery wall is still scheduled for this afternoon. Artists and organizers have been reaching out to tell us about the protest along with possible other demonstrations which have been kick-started by the controversial choice of artist David Choe by Goldman Arts to paint the wall. Rape, Rape Culture, the normalization of sexual abuse, predatory behavior and attitudes toward women, and related issues will be in the discussion due to Choe’s own involvement in a possible rape scenario by his own account and his subsequent muddy explanations about it. Choe’s public apology yesterday via Instagram may have altered the calculus slightly but the bigger issues still prevail and many opinions on social media still question Goldman’s silence on the topic. Meanwhile, the wall has pretty much been dissed completely.

Finally, the drama of the Welling Court mural festival, which we actually do not know any drama about and which brought all sorts of community murals to this Queens working class neighborhood for the 8th year last weekend. We got out there to shoot a number of the walls without the crowds for you this week, and here’s a selection below.

So here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring A Visual Bliss, ASVP, Below Key, Cey Adams, Crash, Daze, Dek 2 DX, Dennis McNett, Dirt Cobain, Eelco Virus, Eyez, EZO, Ghost Beard, I am Eelco, John Fekner, Jonny Bluze, LMNOPI, NYC Hooker, Patch Whisky, Queen Andrea, Ramiro Davaro-Comas, Rob Sharp, Sean 9 Lugo, and Toofly.

Top image: Dennis McNett. Detail. Welling Court Art Project 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dennis McNett. Detail. Welling Court Art Project 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Rob Sharp. Welling Court Art Project 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

LMNOPI. Welling Court Art Project 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

John Fekner. Welling Court Art Project 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A Visual Bliss collab with Sean9Lugo. Detail. Welling Court Art Project 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A Visual Bliss . Sean9Lugo. Welling Court Art Project 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

I Am Eelco. Welling Court Art Project 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Queen Andrea. Welling Court Art Project 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cey Adams. Welling Court Art Project 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

John Fekner. Welling Court Art Project 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

#dek2dx. Welling Court Art Project 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

EZO. Welling Court Art Project 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

NYC Hooker. Welling Court Art Project 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Daze . Crash. Welling Court Art Project 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

TooFly. Welling Court Art Project 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dan Witz. Welling Court Art Project 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

ASVP. Welling Court Art Project 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ramiro Davaro-Comas. Welling Court Art Project 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Below Key. Welling Court Art Project 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Patch Whisky . Ghost Beard. Welling Court Art Project 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Johnny Bluze. Welling Court Art Project 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

EYEZ. Welling Court Art Project 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dirt Cobain. Welling Court Art Project 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Astoria, Queens. June 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Artist David Choe Apologizes for Statements About Rape and Says Story Was Fictional

June 17, 2017 Artists

“I have ZERO history of sexual assault. I am deeply sorry for any hurt I’ve brought to anyone through my past words. Non-consensual sex is rape and it is never funny or appropriate to joke about.”

Artist David Choe has responded to rape accusations that have fueled an ongoing conversation on the street and in the media and social threads in the last two weeks. Posting a 300 word statement and heartfelt apology on one of his Instagram accounts late Friday the artist addresses his talk show storytelling of a troubling sexual abuse/rape scenario in 2014 that he later denied was factual but appeared to make light of.

The awarding of a large high-profile mural facing the public in Manhattan this month brought the story to the fore, resulting in widespread criticism of the artist and the walls’ owner for inviting him. The overwhelming criticism was that, by choosing this artist to paint here, there was an implied normalization of rape and so-called “rape culture”. (For more on this see our article last week.)

David Choe painting the Houston-Bowery Wall, June 2017 (photo ©Jaime Rojo)

In the days following the completion of the mural, the Houston-Bowery wall was vandalized by other artists and graffiti writers and posted upon with a multi-page information campaign denouncing the painter of the mural as a rapist. For some context, this wall has often suffered street beefs with vandals painting over the mural in hit-and-run tagging and in the case of a mural by Shepard Fairey, the actual smashing of holes in the physical structure itself.

The new statement categorically denies that the original story was true, owing to a desire to be shocking or outrageous on a talk show, and in some way tracing the underlying need to tell the story to the authors’ own negative feelings toward himself. It also squarely faces the core matter of Choe’s opinion of rape and the impact that his words can have. Given the number of young impressionable fans and followers he has, these words are a categorical clarification and will have a positive impact without doubt.

Finally, the context in which he presents the statement is one where the author has been on an emotional and psychological investigation of his own over the last few years, a painful journey where he is coming to terms with serious challenges. This last matter is in alignment with numerous public statements he has made about facing demons and overcoming them through work and healing over recent years. Apart from the issue of rape, it is significant that the subject of mental illness is being addressed openly and frankly as well because of the stigma and burden it has often carried.

This is a very positive step. We take David Choe’s words at face value with the hope that moving forward this brings a healthy, constructive, and open dialogue on issues that face us all.

From David Choe’s Instagram:

“How does one apologize for a lifetime of doing wrong? Through my past three years of recovery and rehabilitation, I’ve attempted to answer that question through action and understanding. In my life I’ve struggled deeply with an unnatural amount of hatred I’ve had towards myself. Most of my life I’ve been a scared hurt shame filled person, trying to mask my insecurities with false confidence and an outwardly negative behavior to validate myself as worthy. In a 2014 episode of DVDASA, I relayed a story simply for shock value that made it seem as if I had sexually violated a woman. Though I said those words, I did not commit those actions. It did not happen. I have ZERO history of sexual assault. I am deeply sorry for any hurt I’ve brought to anyone through my past words. Non-consensual sex is rape and it is never funny or appropriate to joke about. I was a sick person at the height of my mental illness ,and have spent the last 3 years in mental health facilities healing myself and dedicating my life to helping and healing others through love and action. I do not believe in the things I have said although I take full ownership of saying them. Additionally, I do not condemn anyone or have any ill will towards those who spread hate and speak out negatively against me, no one will ever hate me more than I hated myself back then. Today I’ve learned to love and forgive others just as much as myself. It’s been a rough journey but i am grateful to be alive and to dedicate myself to shining the light I have found within myself and live in service and gratitude. I am truly sorry for the negative words and dark messages I had put out into the world.”

Addendum: We have offered to David Choe and Goldman Properties to speak with us about this story and neither has responded favorably. Mr. Choe also has blocked us from viewing his social media accounts for at least the past week.

BSA Film Friday: 06.16.17

June 16, 2017 Artists

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

Now screening :
1. PASSAGE / From Wall to Wall
2. Occupied in Bethlehem – from Fifth Wall TV
3. BYG //12 + 1 // Contorno Urbano // Barcelona
4. 2KM3 Saint-Gervais Mont-Blanc Contemporary Art Platform

BSA Special Feature: PASSAGE / From Wall to Wall By Theodore Berg Boy and Aymeric Colletta

Louis Bourgeois, Keith Haring, Roy Lichtenstein, Ernest Pignon Ernest; Iconic artists of late 20^th century shot in black and white portraits and clothes-pinned to a wire in an austere white box salon. Aside from their colorful personalities and histories, these images are not rewarding enough for the pursed-lipped gallery owner, she of great taste and refined posture.

So we are relieved to see the action of the cans on the street through the display windows of the gallery and the countenance of the gallerist. Later we are enchanted when the entire gallery becomes a colorful projection through which the scene sneaks in the pinhole in the grating – a camera obscura of “street” into the gallery.

“Passage” is quite literal, yet poetic, in the telling of this movement of Street Art and graffiti into the gallery setting, with the formal space painted as beneficiary of the life-giving, oxygenated aerosol blood from a sub-culture that isn’t.

To be fair, this is a muralist we witness, not a Street Artist per se, and there is nothing particularly transgressive in the work on the street but we understand the broader message. The video is a production for something called Urban Art Fair and the paint company manages to plant its logo many times into the story, so you know this is a budgeted production. Premiered this year at the occasion of the Paris edition of the fair, this one will be presented in New York at the first edition of the fair here over July 4^th weekend.

It is interesting to see the parallels that are drawn in “Passages” – and with admirable dexterity and seamless segue by co-directors Théodore Berg Boy and Aymeric Colletta.

“ ‘Passage’ is a fiction film,” says Berg Boy, “which relates the meeting of two persons: a young artist and a gallery owner. Those two people bonding could be a metaphor of what occurs when a street artist – with his codes and his culture – finds himself thrown in a more institutional way of life: the life of the art market and museums.”

Occupied in Bethlehem – from Fifth Wall TV

“It’s almost become a playground for people to come to,” says your host Doug Gille as he looks at the section of the Separation Wall that the Banksy “Walled Off” Hotel is installed upon. “I think it is so crucial for people not to just come to see the wall or to paint on the wall,” he says.

“50 years under military control makes it the longest occupation in history,” is a quote that Gillen brandishes across the screen from the United Nations. The fact that Banksy is using his art star power to keep this on the front burner says a lot about the man.

“I think a lot of these people feel like we are forgetting about them and we have to remind them that we’re not,” says Gillen as he soul searches next to the Dead Sea.

BYG //12 + 1 // Contorno Urbano // Barcelona

You may have seen our piece on this wall a few weeks back called “GO GO GO” BYG in Spain for 12+1 Project. Here are a few scenes illustrating how they made it.

Elian at 2KM3 Saint-Gervais Mont-Blanc Contemporary Art Platform

At the beginning of June this parking garage in Saint-Gervais Mont-Blanc inaugurated this “alternative museum” in the heart of the city that is free and open. All eleven floors (200 square meters each) and the façade were painted in May by international artists as part of the Lasco Project of the Palais de Tokyo. Here is Argentinian muralist Elian Chali’s floor as he imagined it. Also included were Etienne de Fleurieu of France, Felipe Pantone of Argentina, Jaw of France, Roids of Great Britain, SatOne Sobekcis of Serbia, Sten of Italy, Swiz of France, Zoer & Velvet of France and Spain.

2KM3 Saint-Gervais Mont-Blanc Contemporary Art Platform

“ONCE” Deconstructs and Reconstructs His Tag for 12 + 1 Project In Barcelona

June 15, 2017 Artists

Abstraction is something we spoke recently with French graffiti writer Jeroen Erosie about in Berlin, and here in Barcelona we find that ONCE is interested in deconstruction of the revered letter form as well. Even hardcore lovers of letters like to blow them up, explode them, inflate them, deflate them, stream line and distill them to an essence.

ONCE. Contorno Urbano “12 x 1” 2017. Barcelona. (photo © Alex Miró)

Influenced by Bauhaus and Russian propaganda posters during the revolution, Catalonia born ONCE says he doesn’t really think that he is using abstract methods of manipulating his text into something unrecognizable. “Although for the general public,” he says, “these are only geometric shapes and they are more likely to think that I am painting with abstraction.” His control of aspects of fine art lettercraft reflects some of that heralded industrial society that was lauded a hundred years ago and it is somehow quite modern as well.

For his wall with the 12 + 1 project in Sant Feliu de Llobregat, we can see his fearless dedication to form, to classical graffiti and his dexterity for incorporating them into the evolving contemporary mural.

ONCE. Contorno Urbano “12 x 1” 2017. Barcelona. (photo © Alex Miró)

Lucy Sparrow Opens an All-Felt Bodega in NYC : “8 ‘Till Late”

June 14, 2017 Artists, Interview

“Let’s see…Champagne Moet and Campari are selling well, Vagisil we’re very low on. Brooklyn Lager we’ve had to re-stock,” Store Manager Jo Brooks ticks off the hot sales of the day here in Manhattan’s newest deli.

Lucy Sparrow 8 ‘Till Late (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“And randomly, the cassette tapes have been flying out of here,” she says as she squeezes the rectangles with images of yesterday’s pop stars preening their way into your heart. “We sold Duran Duran, Pink Floyd, Wham, Madonna’s “Immaculate Collection”. We sold “The Sound of Music” on VHS, “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, that lady’s just bought “Vertigo”.

Lucy Sparrow 8 ‘Till Late (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“I wanted tapes that were going to be slightly like ‘B movie’ ,” says artist Lucy Sparrow, who made everything in this place, including the cassette tapes. “They’re supposed to be the ones that were going to be in the bargain bin. Stuff that is like second-hand that you’d find at a yard sale.” She’s cheerfully nostalgic when she says she has placed the timeframe of the bodega into the 1990s, where she spent most of her time in the single digits.

Nearby in the meat section next to the sausage links a small boom box plays “I’m So Excited” by the Pointers Sisters, “White Wedding” by Billy Idol, “Fire,” by Bruce Springsteen. You know, oldies.

Lucy Sparrow 8 ‘Till Late (photo © Jaime Rojo)

It’s 8 ‘Till Late, artist Lucy Sparrows first all-felt store in New York, and it’s literally just under the Standard Hotel in the Meat Packing district. She’s made 9,000 items over roughly 9 months out of this soft fabric-like craft material – and at first impression it sincerely looks like everything you would have found in a New York bodega in the 1990s aside from the hard liquor, which is actually illegal to sell outside a liquor store in NYC, but relax, its all heartfelt.

“We sell quite a lot of self-help books as well,” chimes in Clare Croome, a cashier.

“Yes! Self-help books! Have you seen them?” says Brooks “They’ve got nothing in them on the pages, they’re just blank.”

Lucy Sparrow 8 ‘Till Late (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The New York bodega installation idea began in 2014 when Sparrow’s “Cornership” in London turned into a blockbuster. “That was sort of my ‘Big Break’ in the art world. It sort of went viral and it was very very sudden and I had to sort of form a company and organize accounts and it was a very fast growing-up lesson.”

“But it was wonderful. I never did it thinking that the art world would take it seriously and then suddenly it happened.”

Lucy Sparrow 8 ‘Till Late (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Very methodical, she says that for nine months she just made piles of patterns and felt and paint and became somewhat of a factory. “I just put everything in a big pile, put on Netflix, and I literally just time myself. 1 hour: Pretzels. 1 hour: Bananas. Nothing is ever difficult, it’s just fiddly. And when it is fiddly I guess it is difficult,” she says.

But it must be a remarkable change for this young woman originally from Bath in the West Country to have such a solitary existence for weeks and weeks sitting on her couch with tubes of Crest toothpaste, Pringles potato chips, Ben & Jerry’s pints of ice cream, and bun-length wieners as her principal friends – to suddenly be meeting all sorts of talkative and neurotic New Yorkers who are pawing through the items that range from $15 for rolling papers to a few hundred for a collection of cleaning products.

Lucy Sparrow 8 ‘Till Late (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“It’s quite difficult going from literally nine months of being alone to being here with all these people,” she says conspiratorially, which explains why she has some cheerful help in the PR department.

“I’ve completely lost the ability to talk to people and I’ve got to learn to do it again really, really quickly,” she says under her breath as the front door swings open again and a professional woman in her thirties walks in wearing power heels and carrying a purse that might double as furniture or a weapon.

Lucy Sparrow 8 ‘Till Late (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Interestingly, she did have a bit of a ‘street practice’ as they say in art school, making birds and insects with red eyes and gluing them onto walls with a heavy cohesive to do what she calls “GRAFFELTI”.

Lucy Sparrow’s earlier foray into Street Art with a piece of “graffelti” in Manchester, 2012. (photo ©Lucy Sparrow)

You know what? I absolutely love doing it. I’ve done graffelti with flat pieces of felt and I use ‘No More Nails’, ” which sounds sort of like a product you could buy in a store like this. “I did it in Manchester when I lived there. A few years ago. I also did a seagull opposite the Hilton in Manchester as well.”

Lucy Sparrow’s Street Art seagull made as “graffelti” in Manchester, 2012. (photo ©Lucy Sparrow)

Lucy Sparrow 8 ‘Till Late (photo © Jaime Rojo)

You can buy the whole store for a half million, if you are wondering. It will also save her the trouble of sending this stuff back to England. Certainly the fresh produce wouldn’t make it through customs anyway.

We ask her the obvious: What separates this work from “craft”?

“I don’t think there should be any separation really,” she says quickly. I’m using craft materials but I’m not worried about the snobs- the same ones who look down their noses at watercolors. It’s the same way that many museums still look down at Street Artists as not necessarily real art. That’s always the question isn’t it, ‘Is it real art?’ It’s like ‘who the hell are you to decide?”

Now she’s on a roll.

“This is volume, context, meaning. I’ve never seen it as anything but art. I never realized that it would go the way that it did, due to my own insecurities or I don’t know what. But it did. And it is wonderful to be taken seriously.”

Lucy Sparrow 8 ‘Till Late (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Did she alter the selections from “Cornershop” to “8 to Late” for the New York audience?

“I mean I did some research,” she says, “Mustard, Ketchup – I did like 30 of each of them because I knew they were going to be popular.”

“The alcohol is literally flying off of the shelves. I don’t know what that says about you.”

“Indeed!” we say while pointing to the fresh produce and quickly flinging our basket with vodka bottles on top of a stack of frozen pizzas.

Lucy Sparrow 8 ‘Till Late (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The bodega cat keeping the mice away and sniffing the sausage links. Lucy Sparrow 8 ‘Till Late (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Artist Lucy Sparrow grinding some meat in the middle of her 8 ‘Till Late show. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lucy Sparrow gallery area of 8 ‘Till Late (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lucy Sparrow 8 ‘Till Late (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lucy Sparrow’s 8 ‘Till late is currently on view at the Meat Packing District in Manhattan and will close on June 30th. 69 Little West 12th Street.

This article is also published on The Huffington Post.

Selections from Farm Country: GarGar2 Festival in Penelles, Spain.

June 13, 2017 Artists

A well branded cultural initiative brings for the second edition a festival of art, music, craft beer, food trucks, workshops to the village of Penelles in Spain, including 900 square meters of murals in this town with farmer roots and low one story buildings.

It has become almost a formula for cities and municipalities to inject a youthful culture and energy into an area – as you may expect, it is about striking a balance and treating all of your artists well and creating a mixture of events and opportunities for the people to engage with the scene. Even when the population of your Catalonian town is a little less than 500 people.

Fonoll Mas. GarGar Festival. Penelles, Spain. May 2017. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

GarGar2 just happened in May with about 30 artists displaying public art in disciplines that touch on almost all of the currently used styles on the street; aerosol, wild style, figurative, illustration, neo-realism, photorealist, commercially slick, folk heroism, calligraphy, text based, pop art, abstract optics, political commentary, brush paint, stencil, craft, crochet, primitive sculpture… Organizers have studied the websites and social postings and surveyed closely what is happening in the mural/Street Art scene and are presenting a cross-section of at least one example of every category.

Sebastien Waknine. GarGar Festival. Penelles, Spain. May 2017. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

The somewhat arid agricultural community is spread out over many small roads and fields of wheat, rye, and corn. Old buildings are used for small art exhibitions and music venues – with many of the performing solo artists and ensembles playing a familiar mix of folk, jazz, afrocarribean, and electronic genres that merge local with international tastes.

It is a polished presentation meant to draw attention to the town, and we are thankful to photographer Lluis Olive Bulbena for capturing some of the images from this year’s festival. Following it is a video from last years’ GarGar.

Sebastien Waknine. Detail. GarGar Festival. Penelles, Spain. May 2017. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Sebastien Waknine. GarGar Festival. Penelles, Spain. May 2017. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

BYG. GarGar Festival. Penelles, Spain. May 2017. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Draw . Contra. Detail. GarGar Festival. Penelles, Spain. May 2017. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Asu Calligraphy. GarGar Festival. Penelles, Spain. May 2017. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Miquel Wert. Detail. GarGar Festival. Penelles, Spain. May 2017. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Miquel Wert. GarGar Festival. Penelles, Spain. May 2017. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Draw . Contra. GarGar Festival. Penelles, Spain. May 2017. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Ryan Smeeton. Detail. GarGar Festival. Penelles, Spain. May 2017. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Ryan Smeeton. GarGar Festival. Penelles, Spain. May 2017. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Paella. GarGar Festival. Penelles, Spain. May 2017. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Zeso WS. Detail. GarGar Festival. Penelles, Spain. May 2017. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Zeso WS. GarGar Festival. Penelles, Spain. May 2017. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Jofre Works. GarGar Festival. Penelles, Spain. May 2017. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

TV Boy. GarGar Festival. Penelles, Spain. May 2017. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

GarGar 2016

Festival GarGar 2016 from lacreativa.com on Vimeo.

Website for GarGar

Facebook Page

Bifido and a Secret Reading Place Under the Bridge

June 12, 2017 Artists

This new piece under a freeway bridge by Italian Street Artist Bifido may remind you of summer vacation and the chance to let your mind follow a fantastic story. Maybe “Mystery of the Golden Temple: Thailand,” or “Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter” or “Brown Girl Dreaming.“

Bifido. “In my Room”. Naples, Italy. June 2017. (photo © Bifido)

The freshly wheatpasted piece that Bifido staged and shot also reminds us how important literacy is and how 2/3 of people worldwide who are illiterate are girls and women. Recent studies published in Science Daily last month indicate that adults reading out loud to their children makes a lasting impression on them and increases their abilities as they grow older.

A strong independent girl makes a strong independent woman and reading is crucial to this journey – wherever the journey leads. We just checked out a website called Smart Girls, begun by comedian Amy Poehler and producer Meredith Walker. It’s “dedicated to helping young people cultivate their authentic selves. We emphasize intelligence and imagination over ‘fitting in.’ ”

Sounds like a great start!

Bifido. “In my Room”. Naples, Italy. June 2017. (photo © Bifido)

BSA Images Of The Week: 06.11.17

June 11, 2017 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

“Yes, I’m an infowarrior,” says the African American yelling about how CNN is promoting Sharia Law in downtown Manhattan for the #MarchAgainstSharia and a short distance away someone is wrapping the “Fearless Girl” statue with a black burka. The infowarrior is wearing a red “Make America Free” baseball hat and very much seems like he might be gay. And then your head explodes.

Welcome to the “Disinformation Age.”

But New York is waaaaaay too diverse to even countenance this weird new wave of anti-Islam sentiment and the counter-demonstrators with their signs dwarfed the haters– and being good liberals, they probably invited them to come over for dinner after all that yelling.

Otherwise the weather has been gorgeous and Street Artists have been getting up in New York, when they are not too busy fighting about the David Choe wall and calculating new ways to spray over it. We have brand new mural works from people like Dasic, Cekis, and Case Maclaim, and there is a lot more political content in the new free-range Street Art that we are seeing, with much of it focused on the corruption at the top of the national government, racism, environmental matters, the growing police state.

The Puerto Rican Day Parade is today down 5th Avenue, with people celebrating – and also fighting over the “freedom fighter”/ “Terrorist” Oscar López Rivera, who was going to be the Grand Marshall but whom will now simply be a marcher. And Lucy Sparrow tells us that “Vagisil” and champagne are the two big sellers at her temporary bodega under the Standard Hotel that is 9000 items made entirely of Felt. Our own story on that this week, so there’s something to look forward to, along with 90 degree weather and more brain-frying tweets from 45 in the White House while the Congress is emptying all the cupboards, privatizing everything that used to be the people’s and leaving the back door open for banks.

Other than that, everything is dope!

So here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Adam Fujita, Beast, Blanco, Brandon Garrison, Cekis, Dasic, Dirty Bandits, El Sol 25, FKDL, Jetsonorama, Jerk Face, Joe Iurato, Logan Hicks, Mataruda, Mr. Toll, Myth NYC, Opiemme, S0th1s, and She Wolf.

At the top: Dasic and Cekis collab for The Bushwick Collective Block Party 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dasic in action. The Bushwick Collective Block Party 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

S0th1s (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Joe Iurato and Logan Hicks restored collab for The Bushwick Collective Block just in time for the block party 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

FKDL for The Bushwick Collective Block Party 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Roof top view of The Bushwick Collective Block Party 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

El Sol 25 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

She Wolf (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brandon Garrison (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Trainwwg (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Adam Fujita and Dirty Bandits. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Blanco has a new piece about prison and police reform, including advocating for the closure of New York’s Rikers Island. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mataruda (left) and Jetsonorama (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Myth and She Wolf collab. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Myth (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jerk Face (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Disney Dollars (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Opiemme in and abandoned USA base in Ligure, Italy. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mr. Toll (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Beast (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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!

David Choe Paints Houston-Bowery Wall, Accusers Call Him “Rapist” in NYC

June 10, 2017 Artists

Artist David Choe painted the famed Houston-Bowery Wall last week in New York and the accompanying frenzy that often follows this Street Art/graffiti event ensued. The installation of his signature abstract/gestural/figurative layered mind-meld took roughly seven days, and some nights.

Photographer Martha Cooper stayed there longer than anyone, shooting and looking for stolen moments. Owners of the wall Jessica Goldman and her mom Janet joined in the paint-splash-fest, as did fans and passersby whom David and his crew entertained with opportunities to paint too – along with myriad requests for photos with the artist.

New York knows how to host a moment like this and rather ignore it at the same time. Our tribe-like Street Art/graffiti/mural circles vibrate and convulse, peers and fans stop by to shake hands and post on Instagram, overlapping with others tribes briefly.

The art world buzzes because of the “live performance” of an immersive art show for three minutes… and then the mural becomes a part of the schizophrenic visual conversation of the modern overbuilt city; wheels and sneakers and stilettos streaming by, briefly catching a glimpse of the wall or missing it entirely, perhaps rolling down the window at the stoplight, possibly using it as a background for a selfie.

The city is in the painting too: Images collide overtop of one another, pushing some to the side, partially obliterating that which came first, splattering liquids and smearing viscosity, pulling forms and buildings from the chaos and stirring in anxiety and humor, brush paint wrestling with aerosol and the unchecked fury of the fire extinguisher. An epic balance is achieved in some manner of speaking, energy is dispersed, almost calmed. A self-consciously outrageous and theatrical pop-philosopher who plays in bands, hosts podcasts, hops freights, hunts dinosaurs, shoots videos of himself in ridiculous situations, does stand-up, gives public talks and advice on art and life, one of Choe’s oft-repeated bits of wisdom is, “Comfort is the killer of creativity.”

A screenshot of a Tweet from Bucky Turco shows a photo of what appears to be a scrawled “rapist” across the new Choe mural. The word following it appears illegible. (copyright ©Bucky Turco)

There is no way that David Choe could be comfortable at the moment because he and the wall have also stirred a storm of accusations and acrimony. While he’s gotten criticized on numerous social threads, one of the most notable folks is direct peer and Bowery Wall alumni Swoon, who publicly challenged Choe to answer for published accounts that place him into a rape scenario, followed by his own muddied non-apology/apology/denial/jokes about it.

“This guy honestly thinks he’s being edgy while he celebrates within the safety of the same metaphorical locker room that has long protected Donald Trump, Bill Cosby, and countless entitled date raping predators,” says the Instagram statement from perhaps the best known female Street Artist, whose own wheat-pasted linotypes and paper cutouts have championed everyday people on this wall and countless others since the mid-late nineties, including museums like the MOMA and The Brooklyn Museum here, and many others around the world.

Another New York based Street Artist Ann Lewis (aka Gilf!) known for her activism on the street and in the gallery, addresses that topic as well, writes on Bowery Boogie that Choe was an insulting choice for this high-profile wall and that female and trans artists in general are underrepresented in the historical lineup. “I refuse to accept a rape apologist’s stammers about lockerroom talk when defending our current president, and I further refuse to stay silent when someone like David Choe is given such an opportunity,” says Lewis in her Op-Ed.

Other female Street Artists have been raising the issues of harassment and sexual violence in their work on the street over the past decade or so, including Brooklyn based Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, whose “Stop Telling Women to Smile” campaign on city walls has been addressing gender based street harassment and intimidation since 2012. Based upon interviews conducted with women about their experiences of public sexual harassment, the people in her portraits speak directly to would-be aggressors with quotes like “My outfit is not an invitation”, “I’m not your property, you are not in control of my body”, and “Harassing women does not improve your masculinity” – words that were translated into French and Spanish by the campaign when it went international.

A screenshot of an Instagram posting from Luna Park shows a tag by BTM across the wall. It’s unclear if it is related to this discussion or simply street beef. (copyright ©Luna Park)

With this environment of young confident women artists using the streets for their canvas (and sometimes screed), it is no surprise that the conversation is now reaching a tipping point and the behaviors and views of male peers are being questioned so publicly. There are many people talking about this but when two peers in the game call you out forcefully and publicly, it is unlikely the problem will simply go away.

We agree that rape is not something to be taken lightly and also recognize that Mr. Choe was making light of it in his public statements after this story broke – regardless of whether or not his original accounts were wholly factual. A categorical repudiation of rape would have helped his case, aside from denials of his own culpability. Standing silent on this topic only enables those who think that sexually abusing other people is a sport or a fantasy.

We should also recognize that our current atmosphere of “rape culture” didn’t just happen overnight and think deeper about how, in one way or another, we personally might have enabled it to continue. It is a gradual societal “raising of awareness” across cultures today. Thus, the growing number of “Slut Walks” from Tel Aviv to Miami to Las Vegas to Los Angeles to Ecuador. Ex Vice President Joe Biden thinks we have a genuine problem with rape culture on college campuses, and the US Military has such a big problem with sexual violence that they’re calling in the United Nations for help.

Regarding the critique of Goldman Properties for not putting enough female artists on this wall, the actual female-to-male ratio of graffiti/Street Artists in general should be considered when calculating. We could be wrong but it appears that there are many more males than females in the Street Art world, and an even higher percentage in graffiti. So if you are looking for the best artist according to your individual taste, that’s probably what ratio you’ll automatically select. You can argue about the percentages, and a few more females would bring up the average for this wall – if that is what you are shooting for.

Jessica Goldman Srebnick and her father Tony before her, has been/was deliberately inclusive in their programming of female Street Artists, especially in the last five years during the curating of murals in the Wynwood District. One recent year for the annual Art Basel events they went as far as presenting a roster of exclusively female artists for the entire season along with curator Jeffery Deitch.

The wall itself has become a high-profile spot in Manhattan mainly because of it’s location on the corner of Bowery and Houston, a Gotham nexus of neighborhoods that once had distinctly different bohemian characters but which now generally are becoming homogenized into one large Whole Foods market of ever-higher-end shops, boutiques, bars, restaurants, clubs, and sky-high rents that a small percentage can afford.

The Houston-Bowery Wall now feels a little like a precious segment of the Berlin Wall; a historical remnant of another period harkening back to the origins of the modern Street Art/graffiti scene that once characterized the area and the whole city in the 1970s, 80s and 90s; a throwback to a freer, openly corroded and somewhat lawless time where self-expression flourished and white people of some means fled to the suburbs and the city neglected those who remained, when artistic experimentation, discovery, drugs, and danger co-existed. Street gangs ran many blocks and Manhattan was “bombed out” in many places, and ironically it was largely affordable for artists and creative people who were pursuing their New York dream.

The Houston-Bowery Wall has a storied lineage of Street Artists and graffiti writers that stretches back to Keith Haring and Kenny Scharf and has included names like Shepard Fairey, Swoon, Revok, Os Gemeos, Faile – a couple dozen in total. Most recently it was the Spanish duo PichiAvo with their neoclassical graffiti-tag washes that wafted across the wall this January and into the spring.

There is a long list of possible names that will make it to this privately owned wall, but the list that won’t is much longer. Invariably, some of the featured artists will be contested, some rightly. On this center stage of Manhattan street theater, the actors include everyone in the NYC audience as well, and as the saying goes, in New York everyone’s a critic.

We reached out to David Choe and Jessica Goldman Srebnick for comment during the prep for this article and at the time of publication we had not heard back from either.

JRE x David Choe on DVDASA Controversy– a published conversation with the artist that we found online.

Links to the podcast where Choe told the original masseuse parlour story are now not working but you can find an articles about it HERE

BSA Film Friday: 06.09.17

June 9, 2017 Artists

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

Now screening :
1. NIMI – The Last Travel
2. Art Meets Milk: BustArt . Hombre . Carl Kenz
3. Said Dokins in Mexico for Letrástica Festival
4. Urban Nation. We Broke Night 19.05.2017

BSA Special Feature: NIMI – The Last Travel

“The character was originally a Nepalese woman – it was during the time they had the earthquake there. I was sort of wondering why we didn’t hear about it from the media, we didn’t hear about it three days into it,” says Nimi about the portrait he completed recently in Stavanger for Nuart Festival. Here image stands for the millions who are uprooted and currently have no home, are stateless and unrooted.

Art Meets Milk: BustArt . Hombre . Carl Kenz

German cow scenes now. A dairy industry boost here from three graffiti artists, BustArt, Hombre, and Carl Kenz. Also some heavy advertising from the paint sponsor in the middle. Mooooo!

Said Dokins in Mexico for Letrástica Festival

In Guadalajara, Mexico for Letrástica Festival, here’s Said Dokins with a tribute to Chalchihuites, an archaeological site in the northwest of Mexico. “This mural is a tribute to ancient wisdom, indigenous cosmogony and ancient thinking and refers directly to the prehispanic rain god Tlaloc, represented by those two great circles made using calligraphy and the geometric elements that accompany them,” he says. You’ll also see techniques common to other cultures, including calligraphic brushstrokes with a Japanese brush.

Urban Nation. We Broke Night 19.05.2017

Inside scenes of the new museum space at Urban Nation for its last public event before the opening in September. Here you can see new temporary works and hear observations from such artists as Fin Dac, Shepard Fairey, Snik, Millo, 1UP crew, Klebebande, Inkie, Fanakapan, Nuno Viegas, Sepe, Cranio, Sebastian Wandl, Dot Dot Dot, Onur & Wes 21, Erik Jones, Lora Zombie, Haroshi, Woes, OG Slick, TankPatrol, Mimi S., Jef Aerosol, Bustart, Vhils, Christian Rothenhagen, Herakut, Daniel Van Es… and more.

Laura Llaneli “OUR ACTIONS BECOMING THE POLICY”

June 8, 2017 Artists

A New Wall Translates a Rockers Lecturing Tirade to His Audience

Aural. Visual. Two modes of exchange and experiencing the world that interest artist Laura Llaneli, the Grenada born painter of this months’ 12+1 project wall in in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat in Barcelona.

Having produced works as varied as using dot matrix printers as orchestra, “live” texting the visuals behind a performing band, and recording a “telephone game” experiment of 37 people individually interpreting a melody – and passing it to the next one.

Since she doesn’t mind studying jazz, folklore or even current pop to dissect the relationship between sound-music experience, it is not a surprise that today’s wall is inspired by a rant from a hardcore band singer delivered to his audience. Text based, but more from a taggers aesthetic than a painters, the words are a translation of singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s speech mid-concert with his band “At The Drive-In”.

He is berating the audience for slam-dancing, a fully corporeal, often rageful and cathartic dance activity of forceful interaction where multiple people clear a circular area on the floor and audience members repeatedly careen and throw themselves at another person, bouncing off of them and being bounced off of. It’s chaotic, often physically dangerous, and produces feelings of elation or more rage, or both. From his perspective at that 2001 concert, it was unacceptable and he used a shaming, belittling device to lecture the audience, by saying they were only imitating actions they witnessed elsewhere, were unthinking, and followers instead of leaders.

“I think it’s a very very sad day, when the only way that you can express yourself is through slam-dancing. Are you all typically white people? Y’all look like it to me. Look at that. You learned that from the TV, you didn’t learn that from your best friend. You’re a robot, you’re a sheep! Baaaah. Baaaah. Baaaah. I have a microphone and you don’t, you’re a sheep. You watch TV way too much. Baaaah. Baaaah.”

It’s actually sort of confusing what the racial reference was, and what it meant. But in the context of his other accusatory and bullying language, it seems like he was chiding them as behaving in a way that was unlike their race, or his image of how white people are supposed to behave.

Laura likes the text because she thinks that they were trying to control violence, or horde the right to it. “This meant keeping a certain ‘monopoly of violence’ for themselves.”

In the final flip of this script, Laura says that eventually event promoters borrowed the bands technique of stopping the performance to make people stop slam dancing – now actually insisting that bands do it. Thus the name “Our Actions Become the Policy”

“So they were astonished to find out that the security of Australia’s ‘Big Day’ festival had taken on their idea,” and now it feels like Big Brother is controlling the crowd… which of course pisses people off.

Regardless how you feel about slam-dancing, this mocking, goading text-based screed is a notable departure from the more graphic and aesthetically pleasing murals that are marking this current era as well as the 12 + 1 project.

Never Crew Brings the Bear in Satka, Russia

June 7, 2017 Artists

Never Crew is in the Ural Mountains in Satka, Russia with a message about man’s disconnection with nature. Their murals often contain one large animal, and this time a bear takes center stage – rather papered over by industrial “progress,” perhaps?

The Swiss-based duo say we have developed systems of working against nature that “lead to an emotional and intellectual detachment where everything becomes acceptable also when it’s damaging, where there’s no more perception of consequences and so no more perception of reality.” The new large scale mural appears in a city that was founded on an iron mine and now is organized around an immense magnesite quarry that burrows deep into the earth’s crust.

Perhaps that is the inspiration for the name of the large piece called “Baring Machine,” playing on the spelling of ‘bear’ and the machinery of extraction. A smaller related mural work nearby features tool sets involved in the digging and extraction process.

We’re not sure if locals will directly appreciate what could be interpreted as an indirect critique – but what the hell, once the earth is exhausted and the money is gone, someone may relish this sentiment. “This is a place that well represents the relation between mankind and nature,” the duo says in a statement, “the proportion between them and especially a connection based on the use of resources, on which are built the local life and structures.”

BSA Hits The North! – See You Soon in Belfast, Northern Ireland
April 23, 2024
We are excited to announce that BSA will be part of the exhilarating ‘Hit the North’ 2024 festival in Belfast! …Read More »
BSA Images Of The Week: 04.21.24
April 21, 2024
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! “It’s the only time of the year when New York City smells good,” …Read More »
Barcelona Tributes for The Amazing SKE
April 18, 2024
Today, we pay tribute to an iconic figure from the Puerto Rican graffiti scene, Eliezer “SKE” Pagán Torres. Born on …Read More »
Elfo Declares “I’m a Figurative Painter”… and I’m the Queen of England!
April 16, 2024
Elfo, the ever-witty Italian street artist, strikes again with his latest work scrawled across an abandoned building in Italy. Known …Read More »
BSA Images Of The Week: 04.14.24 / “Return2Burn” in Hunts Point, Bronx
April 14, 2024
Welcome to BSA’s Images of the Week. We decided to dedicate this weekly survey to the artists of “Return 2 …Read More »
Martha Cooper and Seth in Kibera. Kenya: Part 2 / “We Are One”
April 11, 2024
Nestled within the bustling city of Nairobi, Kenya, Kibera is a testament to its inhabitants’ challenges and its collective indomitable …Read More »
“Tiempos Muertos”. Idle Time With Isaac Cordal in Madrid
April 9, 2024
“Idle Time has become that free moment we have between one task and another in the production process. Productive inertia …Read More »