August 2017

Powerful Voices at NUART 2017 : NUART PLUS Kicks Off

Powerful Voices at NUART 2017 : NUART PLUS Kicks Off

“Steve & Jaime—We made it! Thank you so so much. You were huge. Every time you tweeted or posted, I would get a run of pledges. It means a lot. I promise to make a great film that the community will be proud of.” That was what film director Mark Nickolas told us when BSA fans answered the call to donate to his planned trip to Egypt to investigate the Street Art/graffiti scene in the wake of The Arab Spring. That’s the power of community.

BSA was glad to use our site and social platform to help bring attention to Mark’s project to raise money, and when he finished the first portion of his brand new film we were elated to debut a scene from Nefertiti’s Daughters at Nuart 2014 in Norway for our presentation to the Nuart Plus audience on activism on the streets.

The very first time shown to an audience, the documentary featured a horrifying scene in Cairo’s Tahrir Square with the army brutalizing a female demonstrator, backed up by an interview with Egyptian artist Bahia Shehab, who recounted in shattering detail about the shocking birth of the “Blue Bra” grassroots street art campaign that spoke directly to political empowerment and women’s liberation from patriarchy. Her quiet, steady, determined voice has echoed the voices of many, an example of how powerful the individual citizen is.

Full circle, fast forward to this very day, Bahia Shehab is one of the honored artists and powerful voices invited to Nuart 2017 in Stavanger. That gives you an idea how deep Nuart’s roots go, but not nearly the number of directions. Sociology, politics, art history, the study of public/space and a healthy penchant for questioning authority are always hallmarks here. A thinking person’s guide to art in the streets, the new offerings illustrate how the balance of Director Martyn Reed and Nuart Manager James Finucane is also hitting its stride as a tightly dynamic and probingly inquisitive enterprise.

Today officially kicks off the Nuart Plus 2017 program that will run through the weekend along with all of the installations throughout the city and culminate in the grand exhibition at the beer halls, or Tou Scene. “This year’s symposium is dedicated to exploring ‘power’ in the public sphere: who has it, how do they wield it, what are the conduits to it and the mechanisms that control it? Is it distributed fairly and what happens when you challenge it?

Leading the charge will be Pedro Soares Neves, Lisbon founder of UrbanCreativity.org followed by artists, academics, critics, organizers, producers, and misshapen social outcasts, among them Carlo McCormick, Know Hope, Vermibus, Evan Pricco, Ian Strange, Carrie Reichhardt, Laima Nomeikaite, Javier Abarca, Emma Arnold – the list is longer than this.

Along with lectures and panels and onstage interviews, Nuart will again present the “Fight Club” at a local bar where progressively drunker “experts” discuss weighty topics onstage and gradually devolve into a world of heated non-sequitors and triumphalist exaltations.

We introduced the “Saving Banksy” movie at Nuart Aberdeen this spring and Stavanger audiences will get to see the Scandanavian debut here Friday as well, and Nuart Gallery will host a group show featuring Add Fuel (PT), Ampparito (ES), Bahia Shehab (EG), Carrie Reichardt (UK), Ian Strange (AU), John Fekner (US), Know Hope (IL), ±maismenos± (PT), Igor Ponosov (RU), Nina Ghafari (IR/NO), Ricky Lee Gordon (ZA), Slava Ptrk (RU), Vermibus (DE), and Wan Ho (CH/NO).

These events and mind-expanding opportunities are all in addition to this years festival of murals and installations throughout the city, proving again that Nuart can be depended on for powerhouse programming and intellect-tickling engagement at multiple levels. We’ll be showing you the new fresh works from invited artists in upcoming days here and on our social channels, courtesy the intrepid eagle-eyed Tor Ståle Moen. Naturally we’ll be excited to see Bahia Shehab’s work as well, a sweet homecoming of sorts.

For more detail on the Nuart Plus program that begins today, please go here.


Too far, Too close is a project by Igor Ponosov which sees a typical Stavanger sailing boat transformed into an abstract mural for Nuart Festival 2017.

Nuart 2017 artists include:

Ampparito (ES), Bahia Shehab (EG), Carrie Reichardt (UK), flyingleaps presents Derek Mawudoku (UK), Ian Strange (AU), John Fekner (US), Know Hope (IL), ±maismenos± (PT), Igor Ponosov (RU), Ricky Lee Gordon (ZA), Slava Ptrk (RU), Vermibus (DE)

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Xav Paints New Mural In Kiev and Meets Racist Resistance

Xav Paints New Mural In Kiev and Meets Racist Resistance

Spanish tattoo artist and muralist Javier Robledo aka Xav brought an enormous joyful boy to Kiev in Ukraine this summer, his largest mural ever at 70 meters high by 15 meters wide. He was pleased by his feat and gratified with the opportunity and result, as was Iryna Kanishcheva, co-founder of Art United Us who organized the wall. The beaming and bright boy looks like he is having a true belly laugh, elated by something, caught mid-adventure during his play day. Often a scene like this is considered the least likely to offend, a safe bet for a public mural.

Javier Robledo AKA Xav for Art United Us 2017. Kiev, Ukraine. (photo © Iryna Kanishcheva)

What Xav didn’t expect was a bubbling racism directed toward his mural by some locals as he unveiled it across the wall; a virulent mini-chorus so suddenly loud that the project was halted for a few days when he was only about 40% finished. “Most of the neighbors liked it, but some people protested because the boy was black,” says the artist, “I was very surprised, because I had not foreseen a possible racist reaction to my work.”

Acrimonious conversations turned to near-threats from a vocal minority and more conversations and sheer determination were needed to push the project forward. Somehow the painting re-started and continued through the rain and winds and the other typical obstacles a public mural initiative normally encounters. Xav eventually completed the mural successfully, but that’s not to say that the negativity hasn’t taken a toll on some who were involved, even if they were pleased with the mural itself.

Javier Robledo AKA Xav for Art United Us 2017. Kiev, Ukraine. (photo © Iryna Kanishcheva)

According to Kanishcheva, some of those neighbors who delayed the project included a former deputy head of police who lived in the area and who used blatantly racist terms to describe dark skinned people in his complaints, saying that he simply didn’t want to see this kind of image in his city.

Often one expects some complaints for any creative public art project; it is something any organizer will tell you they deal with. There simply isn’t unanimity of opinions on such matters. Kanishcheva laments that there also isn’t really an  accepted formula for selecting artists and art that everyone will be pleased with when putting together mural programs, and she reflects on some of the factors that help in the decision-making process.

“You can make a decision yourself and take all the responsibility along with the artist,” she tells us, “or you could create a curatorial team, as many would suggest. But the team must be not be made simply of those with art-related diplomas, but also those who have done a few mural projects and have a name in the Street Art world. Finally, to judge and to suggest to an artist what to paint, you have to pay him accordingly,” she says, announcing the kicker, “None of the artists who paint in Ukraine are paid.” You have to agree here that with a lack of financial renumeration for an artist, one should at least give him or her some personal latitude to create work that is satisfying to them as well. To us, that is a given.

Javier Robledo AKA Xav for Art United Us 2017. Kiev, Ukraine. (photo © Iryna Kanishcheva)

Art United Us has conceived of, funded, and produced about 50 new public murals in this city over the past five or so years, and along with some other mural initiatives, the total of new murals may total three times that. In her thoughts about the sheer number of new walls in such a relatively short time, Iryna says the city may need to take a break. Additionally, public projects like hers are not funded by the government and there are limited resources to execute the programs like these, compounding the difficulty of making them happen. Not that she isn’t committed to the positive results of public art programs.

When talking about this new mural, both artist and organizers still stand by it and are glad they persevered to complete it, even if it took a month instead of two weeks as planned. In Kanischeva’s view, the success of the program hinges on pushing questions about racism and other social issues like these to the fore, where they can be openly discussed.

Javier Robledo AKA Xav for Art United Us 2017. Kiev, Ukraine. (photo © Dronarium)

“Ukrainian population is totally white, except the guests of the city and some students from overseas. That’s why they simply couldn’t understand and said things like ‘why do we need this black boy here’.  Similar questions arose when Nunca created his mural for a city art project a while ago.”

“I wouldn’t call it racism,” she says, “it is rather a lack of understanding. Many Ukrainians are open minded and culturally developed, but there are still enough of those who spit, throw cigarette butts on the ground and Christmas Trees out of the window into the yard. It is not their fault that they are not properly educated and have these attitudes; it is a more general problem caused by anger, economic instability, dissatisfaction with the Government, unemployment, and hunger. Some of these folks were ready to protest and even cut the high voltage wires of the swing stage – putting an artist and themselves into a danger. To me it just looks like despair.”

Javier Robledo AKA Xav for Art United Us 2017. Kiev, Ukraine. (photo © Dronarium)

And maybe that proves the success of the program.

“It’s like a cultural injection with an unpredictable reaction – but it is good to see people react and think, because it makes you human,” she says. “For any country, regardless of the economic conditions, arts and education programs must exist. People learn and express their feelings through art and learn to start a dialogue. Art United Us brought a lot of artistic diversity in Kiev, but I feel like people may need some time to digest this.”


This article is also published on The Huffington Post
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ROA Paints a Memorial Tribute in BK : “Pet Bird RIP”

ROA Paints a Memorial Tribute in BK : “Pet Bird RIP”

“I could paint a regular parakeet – something pretty – but that’s not me and anyway Peter would f*cking like this!” says Belgian Street Artist ROA as he talks about his newest gift from the natural world to Brooklyn. A tribute to his friend who lived not far from this spot and who hit the streets with his “Pet Bird” stickers, this new large wall near a subway entrance reminds us of the sudden discoveries we come in contact with when our eyes are open.

ROA for Bed Stuy Art Residency. Brooklyn, NY August 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

This is a city that is in constant movement, undergoing evolutions and revolutions we can’t control and others that we can. As is the nature of Street Art, the entire city can have this temporary, ethereal quality of a moment captured. Coming two years since his friends passing, this important work reverberates through the chests and heads of a community of friends, some as close as family, who appreciate it as a gift of kindness.

The lady who stops by? Not so much. “I don’t really want to see a dead bird on the building,” she says with a long face as she slouches away with shoulders rounded forward in a perpetual state of doom.

ROA for Bed Stuy Art Residency. Brooklyn, NY August 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

It just so happens that the world-traveling ROA is in New York again as part of a new artist residency in the Brooklyn neighborhood that gives it its name – Bed Stuy Artist Residency. While he’s slept on couches and spare rooms and on floors in previous visits over the last decade when here to paint walls or prepare for shows at Factory Fresh and Jonathan Levine Gallery, this quiet brownstone apartment provides a bedroom, kitchenette and a separate studio space with plenty of light, an old decorative fireplace mantel and a small rusty chandelier with tiny skeletons dangling from it.

It’s an unassuming and welcoming environment for an eclectic array of artists who so far have included folks like Judith Supine, Yarrow Slaps, SS Powell, and Lucien Shapiro. Upcoming artists confirmed include SWAMPY, Amanda Marie, Monica Canilao, and Revok.

ROA for Bed Stuy Art Residency. Brooklyn, NY August 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Established last year by two down-to-earth and ardent Street Art fans, Kathy Kupka and Erwin Bakx, word has spread quickly about this opportunity and they have already completed the planned calendar for all of next year. A warm and spare environment to contemplate some new ideas without the stresses that this city brings to artists, ROA has been planning here for his next big show in 6 weeks – and of course making new work in studio and on walls. The vibe is relaxed and open, yet artists are expected to create new work as well, which ROA compulsively does anyway.

 

We asked Ms. Kupka about the new residency and how it has been with one of Street Art’s best known and regarded urban naturalists.

BSA: How has the experience with ROA been? How long has he been with you?
Kathy Kupka: Its been big fun hanging out w ROA. A lot of beer drinking, rolling smokes, talking & doing art and finding the perfect croissant.

ROA for Bed Stuy Art Residency. Brooklyn, NY August 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA: Did you have the opportunity to see his creative process in studio? What aspect of his work or process did you find interesting?
Kathy Kupka: We were so lucky to have seen ROA work! He is a thinker and wise way beyond his years…  he definitely makes it all look effortless and easy but in watching him work it is clear how amazingly talented he is.

BSA: Is it a challenge to find walls for an artist to paint in New York? The availability of walls to paint seems to vary quite a lot from city to city.
Kathy Kupka: We were lucky that Judith Supine knows everyone and everything and through him we got ROA a fabulous wall on Metropolitan and Lorimer. Thanks to Dr. Phil, for his great love of art and excellent idea of curating his doctors office wall! Dr. Phil not only has excellent taste but is an excellent doctor. You should hit him up if you’re sick!

A Pet Bird sticker from the early 2010s (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA: We saw a number of people stopping by to comment on the work or ask questions while ROA was painting. Do you enjoy interacting with passersby?
Kathy Kupka: Oh yeah!  Especially if one of your favorite artists just happens by and you get to meet her – like Maya Hayuk!  It is really nice to see people interested in the wall and being inquisitive but so sad that many were unaware of all that was happening around them because they were so wrapped up in their cell phones.  I mean a 20 foot long bird didn’t even register!

ROA for Bed Stuy Art Residency. Brooklyn, NY August 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA: This new residency has been a learning experience for the first few months. Why do you think it is important to offer artists opportunities like this?
Kathy Kupka: Because who doesn’t want to come to Brooklyn?  There are so many amazing artists who don’t have a connection here in NYC and NYC is, let’s be honest, a place you have to see, a place you have to experience as an artist – and we can make that happen! For us it is an honor to be part of their growth, their NYC experience. We also are super happy to provide a homey space in a beautiful brownstone allowing them a place to stop, work their asses off or just be without worry or stress.

ROA for Bed Stuy Art Residency. Brooklyn, NY August 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

ROA for Bed Stuy Art Residency. Brooklyn, NY August 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

ROA for Bed Stuy Art Residency. Brooklyn, NY August 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

ROA for Bed Stuy Art Residency. Brooklyn, NY August 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

ROA for Bed Stuy Art Residency. Brooklyn, NY August 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

ROA for Bed Stuy Art Residency. Brooklyn, NY August 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

ROA for Bed Stuy Art Residency. Brooklyn, NY August 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

ROA with Kathy and Erwin founders of Bed Stuy Art Residency. Brooklyn, NY August 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)


Kathy Kupka and Erwin Bakx shown above with ROA in the middle are the co-founders of the Bed Stuy Art Residency. Please follow them on IG @bedstuyartresidency


Peter Carroll AKA Pet Bird ( 7/1/77 — 9/28/15 )

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“Nau Bostik” Invigorates La Sagrera District in Barcelona

“Nau Bostik” Invigorates La Sagrera District in Barcelona

Portraits, characters, surrealistic scenes and a range of illustration styles all reigned at the Nau Bostik festival in the La Sagrera neighborhood of Barcelona this summer. Organizing the painted component of the festival were folks from the Open Walls Conference and Difusor in a collaborative program to bring a new cultural infusion of life to this former industrial center.

Ralf Urban (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

These walls are what stand long after the film festival, craft beer festival, conference discussions, food trucks, children’s dance program, photography exhibition and musical performances leave. Contrary to the image of Street Art and graffiti in the margins of society, in the case of these twenty or so muralists from a variety of backgrounds, painting in the public sphere is an integral part of the programming of a communities future, rather than a sign of its degradation.

We’re pleased that photographer Lluis Olive Bulbena shares some of the images he captured at Bostik Murals this summer with BSA readers.

BToy (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

BToy (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

El Rughy (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Simon Vazquez (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Twee Muizen (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Ox Alien (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

SheOne (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

SheOne (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Manu Manu (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Fau Art (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Fau Art (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

David Petroni (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Sixe Paredes (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Syrup (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

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BSA Images Of The Week: 08.27.17

BSA Images Of The Week: 08.27.17

BSA-Images-Week-Jan2015

Welcome to Sunday and the last free weekend of summer in New York before Labor Day. We had a fun tour yesterday with the two winners of the Magic City – Munich competition who won the opportunity to see the streets through our half cracked and mostly sunny perspective. The foot tour with Munich-based students David and Nesli zig-zagged through the Lower East Side and Little Italy before we ended with a fresh summer aerosoled view of ROA painting a brand new mural live in Brooklyn. Here as a visiting artist at a new residency in Bed Stuy, we had seen him earlier in the week in studio preparing new works of natures creature – a few shots here for you to enjoy.

Earlier in the week Shepard Fairey was here to create a new mural celebrating musician Debbie Harry and her band Blondie directly across the street from the former site of CBGB, The Village Voice announced it would not be a print paper after 60 years of culture and politics pumping from its downtown offices, and Brooklyn proudly hosts the Afropunk Festival – full of music, ‘tude, and dope street fashion by some of our BK’s finest style denizens. Already in Paris and London, next stops for Afropunk are Atlanta and Joburg. Hot!

Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Daze, Dr. Scott, drsc0, Hank Williams Thomas, Invader, Shepard Fairey, Jason Naylor, Rx Skulls, ROA, Rober Janz, and Voxx.

Top image: Shepard Fairey for The L.I.S.A. Project NYC and a bit of nostalgia with Blondie. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Invader. Yo he’s got the key…let him in! (photo © Jaime Rojo)

ROA. Studio visit at the Bed Stuy Art Residence. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

ROA. Studio visit at the Bed Stuy Art Residence. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

ROA. Studio visit at the Bed Stuy Art Residence. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

ROA. Studio visit at the Bed Stuy Art Residence. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jason Naylor (photo © Jaime Rojo)

VOXX (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dr. Scott/drsc0 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Rx Skulls (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Robert Jenz (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Robert Jenz (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Daze (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified Artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hank Williams Thomas / For Freedoms. Phone booth ad takeover for Art In Ad Places Project. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. L Train. New York City Subway. August 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Street Game of Thrones: Tyrion Lannister by Axe Coulours in Barcelona

Street Game of Thrones: Tyrion Lannister by Axe Coulours in Barcelona

Will the Starks sort out their differences?

Will Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen get together?

And what about his true parentage?

Most germane perhaps:..will you survive the mother meeting of all meetings on tomorrow’s GOT season’s final f**kfest?

Axe Colours. Tyrion Lannister (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

On a Barcelona street wall “Game of Thrones” Tyrion Lannister image reminds us that television cultural fascinations can go global, with its icons eventually making it into our Street Art conversation. This new one is by artist Axe Colours and was captured by Lluis Olive Bulbena.

If you haven’t seen the hacked/leaked final episode somewhere online, you’ll probably be riveted to your screen Sunday night for the 7th season finale of this brutal and dark soap opera that somehow mimics our times, here reflected on the street.

“It’s hard to put a leash on a dog once you’ve put a crown on its head.” – Tyrion Lannister

 

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BSA Film Friday: 08.25.17

BSA Film Friday: 08.25.17

bsa-film-friday-JAN-2015

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

Now screening :
1. Fin DAC and ‘Shukumei’ on a Rooftop in San Francisco
2. Nevercrew in Satka
3. Dabs & Myla in L.A.
4. Miedo in Barcelona for 12 + 1 Project

bsa-film-friday-special-feature

BSA Special Feature: Fin DAC on a Rooftop in San Francisco

On an expansive rooftop in rainy/sunny/rainy San Francisco, Street Artist Fin Dac brings to life ‘Shukumei’, an ebullient and mysterious muse. The film is largely a stop motion record of the work set to music, but did you notice how much dexterity and effort goes into this precision play when you are working at this angle, basically painting the floor? The remarkable integration of the glowing skylight orb, dramatically revealed, imparts the figure a mystical dimension as well.

Video editing by Tonic Media, Soundtrack by Mombassa/Lovechild, and shout out to Ian and Danielle at Rocha Art and Missy Marisa, model.

 

Nevercrew Papers Over a Bear in Satka

As we wrote in June “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?”

 

Dabs & Myla in L.A.

Spreading their brand of cosmic love in Los Angeles the Australian born duo Dabs and Myla a interspersed here painting amongst some retro footage of this city famous for its plasticity. Video by Zane Meyer from Chop ’em Down Films.

 

 

Miedo 12 Paints Nothingness More Than Infinitein Barcelona

The well known Valencia-based graffiti writer Miedo 12 paints with the 12 + 1 Project here with a touch of aerosol existentialism – something that may happen to you as years tumble by. For this wildstyle master the action and fire is captured adeptly by videographer David B Rock.

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TRUMP Art on News Stands Shockingly Pointed

TRUMP Art on News Stands Shockingly Pointed

The Street Art has certainly been ahead of the pack this past year when it comes to drawing connections between Trump and fascism, racism, Nazis, and the KKK and we’ve been trying to document it as it appears weekly. We thought it was remarkable this week to see what common images are showing up on trusted magazine covers in the US and around the world.

The shocking images are unequivocally depicting the White House occupant as a Ku Klux Klansman in a suit, or draped in the stars and stripes doing the Nazi salute. Metaphors abound, and he’s fanning the flames, exhorting the troops, putting winds in the sails – of racist white supremacy.

Graphic, simple, stark, they have the same impact as a stencil on the street, acting as pointed visual accusations meant to alarm readers about where we are and warn about where we’re going.

MICA faculty member makes waves for New Yorker cover illustration of Trump  by Brittany Britto at The Baltimore Sun

 

Artist Jon Berkeley Explains His Stunning, KKK-Tinged Economist Cover by Katherine Brooks on Huffpost

 

Behind TIME’s ‘Hate in America’ Cover by artist Edel Rodriguez 

From The Stern posting on Facebook. Join the commenters HERE:

 

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Tavar Zawacki Unveils in Sacramento with First Mural

Tavar Zawacki Unveils in Sacramento with First Mural

Depth, volume, shadows, movement; Perhaps some new stuff for the graphic and geometrically-inclined Street Artist Tavar Zawacki in Sacramento, California.

Actually, this new wall may be an indicator of the freedom the artist is experiencing now that he has dropped his street nom de guerre of 20+ years, ABOVE and replacing it with his given name: Tavar Zawacki.

Tavar Zawacki. Wide Open Walls 2017. Sacramento, California. (photo © Tavar Zawacki)

The artist says this mural painted for Wide Open Walls is the first under his new old new name and he’s proud of his decision to unveil his face and claim his name – something he did with a heartfelt confessional on Instagram, where he published an account relating his thoughts and the genesis of his journey to his friends and followers.

 

After a period of soul searching and introspection we are glad to see that things are looking up for Tavar.  Many will be looking forward to see how this great re-invention manifests in his new street work and everywhere else!


Tavar Zawacki. If you wish to read in full the rest of his testimonial click HERE

Tavar Zawacki. Wide Open Walls 2017. Sacramento, California. (photo © Tavar Zawacki)

Tavar Zawacki. Wide Open Walls 2017. Sacramento, California. (photo © Tavar Zawacki)

 

Tavar Zawacki. Wide Open Walls 2017. Sacramento, California. (photo © Tavar Zawacki)

 

Tavar Zawacki solo show “Metamorphosis” opens on September 7th at Urban Spree Gallery in Berlin. Click HERE for more details.

 

For more information and to learn the rest of the artists who participated on this year’s edition of Wide Open Walls click HERE

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“Street Art In Sicilia” Tours You Through 31 Cities and 200 Artists

“Street Art In Sicilia” Tours You Through 31 Cities and 200 Artists

A good size to put in your backpack as you hike through neglected neighborhoods, industrial sites, and historical highpoints in cities like Catania, Messina, and Palermo, this new guide to legal murals and illegal Street Art in Sicily is one of a kind.

Street Art In Sicilia. Mauro Filippi, Marco Mondino, Luisa Tuttolomondo. Palermo. IT. April 2017

A serious undertaking that documents 31 urban centers that vary widely in distinctive personality, more than two hundred artists are captured and carefully, succinctly described for a wide audience of tourists, Street Art fans, students, even academics. With three authors who collectively have studied architecture, semiotics, sociology and photography, you get a mapping that reveals not only physical location but a describes a cultural one as well.

Sicily’s scene is said to have come to life in the 1990s, as did much of today’s Street Art scene did globally, and the irony of having a guide book is that by nature this art is here today, gone tomorrow, sometimes literally. Its this acclaimed ephemerality that means hard-bound guides like this may become less useable after a relatively short time but by including legally permissioned/commissioned murals along with actual Street Art the longevity of this one is extended.

Street Art In Sicilia. Mauro Filippi, Marco Mondino, Luisa Tuttolomondo. Palermo. IT. April 2017

Additionally neighborhoods with the organic graffiti/Street Art scene often continue to have new pieces for discovery even after individual pieces fade or are destroyed. Depending on the speed of gentrification in any given municipality – there may be no art left by the time you get there because development tends to blot out organically grown rebel art scenes. Regardless Street Art in Sicilia is a valuable record of the 2010s, with great care taken to make the work it captures alive and relevant to it surroundings, and you.

Street Art In Sicilia. Mauro Filippi, Marco Mondino, Luisa Tuttolomondo. Palermo. IT. April 2017

Street Art In Sicilia. Mauro Filippi, Marco Mondino, Luisa Tuttolomondo. Palermo. IT. April 2017

Street Art In Sicilia. Mauro Filippi, Marco Mondino, Luisa Tuttolomondo. Palermo. IT. April 2017

Street Art In Sicilia. Mauro Filippi, Marco Mondino, Luisa Tuttolomondo. Palermo. IT. April 2017

Street Art in Sicilia – Guida ai luoghi e alle opere
Mauro Filippi, Marco Mondino, Luisa Tuttolomondo
Dario Flaccovio Editore, 2017

Street art in Sicily – Guide to places and works
Authors: Mauro Filippi, Marco Mondino, Luisa Tuttolomondo
April 2017, 256 pages

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Rendering Swastikas Inert on Berlin Walls

Rendering Swastikas Inert on Berlin Walls

The past couple of weeks (months, years) have seen the seeds of racism and fascism grow in western societies, taking to the streets as free-speech demonstrations, then menacing marches, then sometimes devolving into marauding nests of hate and physical violence.

Graffiti has been a tool for  communicating these sentiments more often than in recent years as well, including this weekends’ anti-Muslim graffiti on Spanish mosques in Seville and Granada. And while swastikas appeared on flags in Charlottesville last weekend, Berlin teens had already given their own response to the Nazi symbol on walls by converting them to something more playful.

Imo Omari, who owns a paint store started a small program last year to combat the swastikas popping up on German walls, even co-creating with Victoria Tschirch a youth graffiti workshop called Die kulturellen Erben e.V. (“The Cultural Heritage”), where graffiti writers and Street Artists gather to come up with creative ways to convert them into animals, geometric shapes, even dancing Egyptians.

This D.I.Y. activist approach to personal interventions in the public space is perfectly in alignment with the traditional graffiti vandal roots, but it also looks like it is empowering young artists to retake the conversation on the street with something proactive, effectively rendering symbols of hatred inert. In Berlin, a city where Far-right groups have been seizing and fomenting anti-immigrant sentiment against an influx of a million Syrians, Iraqis, and Afghanis into German since 2015 and where Germany’s anti-immigrant AfD party are trying to capitalize on it in September elections, this small individual-powered art project has much larger implications than more common street beef.

For more about the grassroots project check out #paintback on Twitter and Instagram.

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BSA Images Of The Week: 08.20.17

BSA Images Of The Week: 08.20.17

BSA-Images-Week-Jan2015

Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Adnate, Ben Angotti, Cekis, Cesism, Damien Mitchell, Danielle Mastrion, Dirt Cobain, Evan Paul English, Gongkan, Li-Hill, MeresOne, UFO 907, Vince Ballentine, and You Go Girl!

Top image: Li-Hill. Detail. The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Adnate. Detail. The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Adnate and Li-Hill at work. The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Li-Hill at work. The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Li-Hill at work. The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Li-Hill at work. The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Li-Hill at work. The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Adnate at work. The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Adnate at work. The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Adnate and Li-Hill collaboration for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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

Danielle Mastrion with MeresOne for Stuyvesant Walls. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

MeresOne for Stuyvesant Walls. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dirt Cobain for Stuyvesant Walls. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Damien Mitchell for Stuyvesant Walls. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ben Angotti for Stuyvesant Walls. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Vince Ballentine for Stuyvesant Walls. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

UFO907 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

You Go Girl (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Evan Paul English for Centrefuge Public Art Project. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cekis and Cesism for Centrefuge Public Art Project. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Gongkan for Centrefuge Public Art Project. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Gongkan for Centrefuge Public Art Project. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. East Village, NYC. August 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

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