September 2017

“A Real Turning Point” : Sculptures on the Art Mile at Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art

September 19, 2017 Artists

“I think it’s a real turning point as far as seeing three dimensional things,” says Street Artist and fine artist Ben Frost while hand painting text on the side of the large facsimiles of pharmaceutical boxes that he’s creating for the UN Art Mile. “I think sculptures and installations have been paving a way forward for Street Art.”

Seth Globepainter. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

In fact sculpture and all manner of three dimensional installations as Street Art have been a part of the current century for sure, from the variety of lego and yarn artists to the soldiered steel tags of REVS and eco-bird houses of XAM and small little men made of wood by Stikman – among many others.

The traveling exhibition “Magic City” curated by Carlo McCormick and Ethel Seno that displays the wide range of works by todays’ interventionists now features a section devoted to sculpture including a selection of Street sculpture photography by Jaime Rojo.

Ben Frost. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Certainly when fine artists began joining the graffiti game they brought many additional techniques to the street, most of them applied to the surface of existing walls – stencils, wheat paste, rollers, for example.

Others have procured objects and attached them to the city; either creating new sculpture or replacing or adapting existing sculptures. For the public the experience may feel more intimate and evocative of the museum and gallery experience, encouraging one to regard the work from many perspectives. Naturally one would like to take selfies with them as well.

“Isn’t there a phrase, ‘Alls fair in love and war’? I feel like ‘Alls fear in love and war’,” says artist Ben Frost. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

For the opening of UN this weekend, the Urban Nation Museum of Urban Contemporary Art in Berlin this week, a curated selection of artists working in such dimensions were invited to create substantial pieces – including video installation, mobile, interactive, the purely static. Enjoy the variety of works by Street Artists who are working today.

Dot Dot Dot. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bordalo II. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Franco JAZ Fasoli. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Anthony Lister. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Aaron Woes. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Herakut. Detail. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ludo. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sheryo . The Yok. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Isaac Cordal. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Haroshi. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Icy & Sot. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cranio. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Born To Die In Berlin. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Don John. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Grotesk . Juxtapoz Newsstand. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Borodo. Moving Image on glass panels. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Video by BrooklynStreetArt.com

Various & Gould. Mobile. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Video by BrooklynStreetArt.com

“Inundated!” Scenes from the Opening: UN – Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art in Berlin

September 18, 2017 Artists

“This week is Art Week in Berlin, and you just stole Art Week,” said a handsome and intensely opinionated German to us as we leaned on the arm rail of the M.C. Escher-inspired walkway before a Carlos Mare139 sculpture and above the capacity crowd on Saturday night at the Urban Nation Museum of Urban Contemporary Art (UN).

Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Not sure if that was the exact goal, but we get his larger point; the UN has just made a massive entry into a number of societally and culturally influential minds when it comes to the relevancy of Street Art and graffiti to visual culture and art history. This movement into so-called Contemporary began as early as the 1970s and has overcome and weathered cultural and market ebbs and flows – persisted, if you will – yet somehow institutions have been wary of this work and these artists and unable to fully embrace their importance, you decide why.

Artistic Director Yasha Young delivering her opening speech. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

While stakeholders in street culture, the art world, the gallery system, auction houses, and a burgeoning body of academia will continue to litigate the right of a Street Art/graffiti/Contemporary Art museum to exist or the correct form it should take, it is no longer a distant theoretical event. For those who have averred in the negative over the past few years about the potentiality of Urban Nation, the museum is now fact.

As were the crowds.

Long lines to get in on Saturday. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The crowds were there, the Mayor was there, a few hundred graffiti /street /contemporary artists inside and outside the house were there, the directors and curators were there (except Andrew Hosner, who was taken ill), the Flying Steps and three rappellers scaling down the façade to unveil a new Invader plate were there, the architects were there, Martha Cooper and her new library were there, 1UP was there, the overwhelming enthusiasm to be a part of this milestone where fifty years of Street culture adds a museum in its name by its own insistence – they were there too.

Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Steven P. Harrington)

With alchemists at the fore who are bold and determined to invite non-Art World people into the discussion about how a museum should be formed, the route here has been a challenge – as it frequently is for those who make the road by walking. We’re waxing a little poetically in the haze of a cloud of jet lag and too little sleep so allow us to say what John Ahearn told us in an email and a number of folks said to our faces all during this previous week, “This is a first.” What follows is up to all of us.

With such a diverse number of tributaries flowing into this river of creativity and global street culture one must accede the point that this is not an encyclopedic collection representing all of graffiti, Street Art, Urban Art history. Short of staging the exhibition in the former Tempelhof Airport any all inclusive narrative would simply not fit. Instead we opted for a group show of some of the strongest players and influential talents and minds across the last few decades. This inaugural show is meant to bust the doors open and show off the new space, hopefully inspiring more minds to come in and help steer the ship forward.

Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Steven P. Harrington)

Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Group photo of the Flying Steps right after their performance. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Images of the Week 09.17.17 Urban Nation (UN) Special

September 17, 2017 Artists

Welcome to Sunday! This week we have a special edition of BSA Images of the Week; Dedicated to stuff on the street for last nights opening of Urban Nation Museum of Urban Contemporary Art (UN).

Readers of BSA will know that we are on the curatorial board of the new museum and have worked with 8 other curators along with Director Yasha Young to bring the inaugural show that happened last night to fruition. A block buster with thousands of people coursing through the perspective-bending walkways to see the GRAFT designed interiors, it was gratifying to see the 150 pieces admired by such interest, such avid curiosity.

As part of our mission, we want to foster an ongoing dialogue between the art in the streets and the art inside the museum. As UN’s first programmatic approach to this goal, the Art Mile invites the public to see installations that are made by many of the artists/collaborators which UN has had for projects in the city and around the world during the last few years of building the museum and reaching out to the community.

So with gratitude to you and to all the creatives and their supporters who rock our world, here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring 1UP Crew, 2501, Anthony Lister, Berlin Kidz, Blek Le Rat, David De La Mano, Faith XLVII, Franco “Jaz” Fasoli, Hot Tea, Icy & Sot, Inka Kendzia, Isaac Cordal, James Bullough, Louis Masai, Mademoiselle Maurice, Manthe Ribane, Seth Globepainter, Tankpetrol, Zezao, and Zio Ziegler.

Top image: 8 a.m. the morning after. Space Invader’s new plate unveiled last night to commemorate the opening of Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art in Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Berlin Kidz . 1UP Crew. James Bullough . 2501 . Zio Ziegler. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Anthony Lister. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Franco JAZ Fasoli. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mademoiselle Maurice . Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Zezao. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Blek Le Rat. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

David De La Mano. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tankpetrol. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“AURUAM” Manthe Ribane, Inka Kendzia, and Faith XLVII. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Icy & Sot. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Icy & Sot. Detail. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Louis Masai. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Seth Globepainter. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Isaac Cordal. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hot Tea. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Urban Nation Museum. Art Mile: Installations In Progress. Dispatch 5

September 16, 2017 Artists

Today some progress shots – these projects were not completed while we were shooting so you’ll want to go to the Museum Mile today along Bülowstraße (Berlin U-Bahn). The Urban Nation Art Mile (Artmeile) is in full effect this weekend day and night and it will be difficult to pass up on this funhouse performance-packed interactive exhibition that includes single installations in pop-up spaces along the street and in one large car-free area beneath the trains, which roar appropriately over your head.

Icy & Sot at work at their installation for the Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Also overhead for those who are observant, Isaac Cordal’s small concrete businessmen watch over the proceedings below with guilt, ennui and existential worries . You have to check out Faith XLVII’s multi-disciplinary piece in a pop-up space with powerful video imagery of the sexy uniformity of marching soldiers and the panicked distraught migratory movements of people created in its wake – with fierce and expressive dance performer Manthe Ribane and sound/set direction by Inka Kendzia with Faith. Migration, or immigration, is also directly addressed by an unbending and heavy steel sculpture of a family who are just like yours, and different from yours, facing a wall topped by razorwire.

Sheryo at work at her installation for the Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Evan Pricco and Juxtapoz bring the famous newsstand that has been displayed in 6 locations, including Times Square, now moving into the UN collection. Make sure to look at the independent zines and tags from its many travels. HOTTEA has a splendidly sharp and effervescent takeover of a corner first floor space that illuminates the white box, here comprised of hundreds of hanging yarns in a multiverse of color.

Sheryo. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

This series of outdoor components feels more like a fair than a museum show, a cross section of works that you may associate with post-graffiti/graffiti/Street Art or any number of related influences without a timeline – cobbling together a hodgepodge illustration of the wide range of influences at play on the street today – attempting to channel the asymmetric energy that it generates.

It is possible that this collection represents a catalyzing of interest in sculpture, as a number of interpreters including Cranio, Ben Frost, and Anthony Lister, are blurring lines with these 3 dimensional expressions of work they’ve done in 2D. How will a general community audience interactive with these – the possibilities seem limitless. Considering the sheer number of authors and performers and documentors and artists and academics and critics on the street right now, you are garunteed to find some intellectual and/or visual stimulation.

Isaac Cordal at work at his installation for the Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Isaac Cordal. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Olek. Getting ready for her Art Mile performance on Sunday. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Herakut moment of levity and humor while at work on their installation for the Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bordalo II work in progress for his installation at the Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Evan Pricco fastidiously arranges the magazines at the Juxtapoz Newsstand for the Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The Juxtapoz Newsstand for the Art Mile is almost completed. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Seth Globetrotter work in progress for the Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Zezao work in progress for the Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Women Power: A group of strong individuals who capture, enable dialogue and work, some daily, on the street art/graffiti scenes. From left to right. Nika Kramer, Karolina Pajak, Olek, Martha Cooper and Selina Miles. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Film Friday 09.15.17 – UN “UNSTOPPABLE” Edition

September 15, 2017 Artists

Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. This week we feature a few small videos Jaime Rojo made of action around the Urban Nation (UN) museum opening this week. Each gives a distinct sense of the atmosphere in the neighborhood of Schöneberg. Now multiply the intensity and activity by 10 and you’ll get a fairer assessment. As curators for this opening exhibition and all of the related outside and public installations, BSA is proud of the amazing quality of the works and the professionalism and dedication of this coalescing series of teams, including city agencies who are pulling this off with efficiency and a bit of style as well.

Now screening :
1. Vhils Sculpture Arrives at UN
2. HOWNOSM hits Entire Berlin Train Station
3. The “UNSTOPPABLE” Press Conference

Vhils Sculpture Arrives at UN

A magnificent addition to our show at Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art (UN), the arrival of a free standing sculpture by Lisbon Street Artist VHILS, placed in the back garden and visible into the museum, where another piece by VHILS takes an entire wall.

HOWNOSM hit Entire Berlin Train Station

German-now-Brooklyn brothers HowNosm became the largest installation for the Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art (UN) inaugural show “UNSTOPPABLE” by taking over the entire Nollendorf Metro Station in Berlin Metro as part of the Art Mile. No doubt, it feels like you are walking inside a painting. Occasionally you also see a metro car completely wrapped in HowNosm monikers, symbols, icons, and signature elements that stay in the same range of reds, pinks, purple, black, and white.

The “UNSTOPPABLE” Press Conference

A few brief highlights from UN Press Conference announcing the opening of Urban Nation.
UN Director Yasha Young announces the opening in two days of the new Urban Nation Museum of Urban Contemporary Art.

Vhils on a Flatbed, Blek on a Wall, Lister behind Bars, UN Countdown to Sat: Dispatch 4

September 14, 2017 Artists

A quick Berlin update as the graffiti/Street Art tribe is arriving from around the world for the opening of the Urban Nation Museum of Urban Contemporary Art (UN) and many reunions are taking place in the street, the museum, the restaurant, and at the press conference this morning. Here are three shots of some of the action including Blek Le Rat hitting up a new wall, Anthony Lister behind bars, and a new Vhils sculpture just arriving on the back of a flatbed truck.

Lister at work. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Blek le Rat at work. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Vhils has arrived. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Le Rat Has Arrived, Police Remove Cars from “Art Mile”, 2 Days to “Unstoppable” in Berlin : BSA Dispatch 3

September 13, 2017 Artists

Blek Le Rat arrived at the Urban Nation office today with his wife Sybille after a long car ride from Paris, ready for a coffee and possibly to take a look at the wall he’ll be painting here to celebrate “UNSTOPPABLE”, the inaugural exhibition of the UN museum this weekend. The wind taunted BustArt as he attempted to lay his irreverent stencil of Mother Mary coddling Pluto Jr. and the sliced cutout cardboard bent and bowed beyond an average person’s patience while his buddy Stephan helped hold it down for spraying.

Isaac Cordal. Detail of a larger outdoor installation for the Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Under the elevated train a legion of police and traffic cops removed 80 or so cars so the team could begin building stages, cages, platforms, lighting, electricity – for a slew of fresh outdoor pieces which will be installed Thursday and Friday for the weekend outside component.

Who is going to be on display as part of the Art Mile? Try Pixel Pancho, Franco JAZ Fasoli, Bordalo II, Mimi S., HowNosm, Zezao, Isaac Cordal, Olek, Seth Globepainter, Blek Le Rat, Hottea, Dot Dot Dot, Borondo, Herakut, Deih XLF, Faith 47, David De La Mano, Nespoon, Tank Patrol, Lister, Cranio, Sandra Chevrier, Aaron Woes M, Yok & Sheryo, Haroshi, Don John, Ben Frost, Various & Gould, Icy & Sot, Mademoiselle Maurice, the Juxtapoz newsstand, Mark Bode, Shepard Fairey, 1 Up, James Bullough, and 2501. It’s a real cross section of styles, influences, and voice that will be engaging guests this weekend.

Hot Tea at work on his site specific installation for the Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The Berlin police actually use a truss and truck that picks up the offending car, puts it on a flatbed. Then, believe or not, they look for an empty parking spot in the neighborhood an place the car into the new place – also signs are posted to let you know where your car was re-located to.

In New York City if you are unfortunate enough to park your car in the wrong place it is simply towed away to a massive car yard somewhere, banging into things occasionally on the way and flying through potholes – and then held for a King’s ransom. Then you have to simply guess if it was towed or stolen. No word on what the London Police do in regards to cars parked illegally.

Hot Tea at work on his site specific installation for the Art Mile. Florian couldn’t wait to take a peek. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Hot Tea)

Up on a lift for painting today also were Mademoiselle Maurice, David De La Mano, and James Bullough, and the company plastering the corner façade of the museum with pink letters. When the winds got to strong everybody was forced to bring the lifts down for an hour. Intrepid and lucky photographers like Jaime Rojo and Nika Kramer still managed to go up in the buckets to get some good shots in.

Hot Tea is spraying a big installation space with a rainbow of colors – on the walls and floors completely. People who are peeking through the plastic sheeting that protects the windows are wondering what this world of color is going to be.

Hot Tea at work on his site specific installation for the Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Meanwhile the onslaught of arrivals continues, including hopefully we’ll see Martha Cooper and Carlo McCormick. Martha of course will be here to celebrate the beginning of the Martha Cooper Library within the museum and Carlo will be here to see the didactics and texts he wrote for the exhibition and catalogue –as well as speaking at the Unlock Book Fair. This publishing fair for graffiti, street art and related practices is a must see for those who relish the independent thinking minds who publish on paper in this scene. Other great speakers featured will be Pedro Soares, Jens Besser, Susan Phillips, Thomas Chambers, and Javier Abarca.

Okay that’s your update for today. See you on the streets tomorrow.

Ron English. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Graffiti Writer CARE at work for the Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Graffiti Writer CARE. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bustart fights with the wind. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bustart. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tankpetrol at work. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mademoiselle Maurice detail and process shot of her installation for Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

David De La Mano at work. Art Mile. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lister Off His Plane, Fairey on a Train: Berlin Readies for Urban Nation (UN) Opening this Weekend : BSA Dispatch 2

September 12, 2017 Artists

Lister’s plane is on the tarmac and Olek is dragging a shopping cart full of art materials past the Vietnamese restaurant on Zietanstrasse and a block away two ladies in very high heeled boots and short shorts are meandering back and forth under the elevated train line. It’s a sunny fall day in this still skanky sometimes lustrous neighborhood of Berlin – a bit of gravel and leather mixed in with your Marilyn Minter sweet cocktail.

Shepard Fairey Subway Train in Berlin for Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The Berlin-Schöneberg neighborhood is fresh off the International leather and fetish weekend & street fair at Fuggerstraße and you may still see the occasional mustachioed man wearing a dog collar and leash, or perhaps a leather mask that simply looks like a dog head – walking up the street on his way to brunch, perhaps.

Ah well, this is what gives birth to Urban Nation: the marginalized, the rebels, the counter cultural innovators, the forward thinkers and outright kinkers. Just made that word up.

Brazils’ Zezao courtesy Instagrafite’s Marcello and Marina at work on a new collage of mostly found objects and materials. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Today we got a look at Bordalo’s giant garbage sculptures of Berlin bears being prepared in a rented studio space south of the Ringbahn and in a warehouse standing in the middle of on a parking lot full of Mercedes Benz’s. For people like us, that parking lot was like stumbling into a field of diamond’s, all class.

For Germans a Mercedes is as common as a slab of fried schnitzel or a bubble tag by 1Up so Bjorn was bombing through the lot in his little car expertly until we reached the roll-up gate on the garage. Also inside is Yok & Sheryo’s special interactive walk-in installation that will go on the “Museum Miele/Museum Mile” with about 25 other brand new sculptures and installations this weekend.

Cryptk. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Overhead on the elevated bright yellow rumbling trains you can see whole cars with new skins by Shepard Fairey, How Nosm, and Faust announcing “Unstoppable”, the name of the opening exhibition at Urban Nation that we’ve curated with a team.

Riding the U1 train over to Prinzenstraße we caught the new murals by Ron English, Cryptic and an ONUR/Wes 21 collabo. Heading over to Urban Spree to talk to printer/publisher/curator/gallerist Pascal Feucher in the tattered reverie and aerosol compound we also spoke with Street Artist Tavar Zawacki. The California born Berlin-based artist tells us he has undergone a “Metamorphosis” creatively and has large canvasses in the gallery to prove it.

Ron English. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Deconstructing his arrow shape, he is now free to experiment with overlapping any number of geometric shapes; deconstructing and manipulating his own self-imposed roolz. On our way out of the compound we ran into Louis Masai up a ladder creating one of his signature quilted endangered species. We were sort of running by so all we can say is it looked like a fish of some sort.

Lunch with Christian Omodeo at an Italian restaurant means the food will be good, because he is an actual Italian and won’t brook any suggestions of inauthenticity. That is one charming quality of the academic/curator/writer, in addition to his astute and acute knowledge of rare graffiti/Street Art books that qualifies him to be assisting the museum to organize and conceptualize future plans for the Martha Cooper Library.

Wes21 . Onur. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Just a portion of the collection of ephemera will be on display for the Saturday’s opening night in the not-yet-completed library space, but you’ll be impressed by the promise of what is to come.

Zines, posters, even framed T-shirts from the collection of the famed photographer will cover the walls in addition to a portion of the thousands of books that constitute the beginning of an important collection which, when finished, will be unrivaled and provide invaluable opportunities to research by scholars of all levels.

Yok . Sheryo. Process shot. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bordalo II. Process shot. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

David De La Mano. Process shot. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Process shot. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

New Work in Berlin for Urban Nation (UN) Opening this Weekend : BSA Dispatch 1

September 11, 2017 Artists

This week BSA is proud to bring you news that we personally have invested a lot of time, effort, and dreams into – The opening of the Urban Nation Museum of Urban Contemporary Art in Berlin. As curators we have the privilege of introducing the work of artists to new audiences, and Urban Nation has given us a platform like none other to do just that over the past 3+ years. Join BSA as we celebrate the gathering of the graffiti/Street Art tribes for this grand inauguration. Welcome to your Urban Nation!

It’s a family reunion starting to happen here in Berlin, with artists, curators, ministers of art, wiseacres and former/current vandals from around the world in town for the opening next weekend of Urban Nation, a museum that will debut with about 140 new works from graffiti writers, Street Art, contemporary artists across five decades.

Isaac Cordal. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. September 2017. (photo © Jaime Roj0)

No one knows exactly what to expect and many questions are being posed about the inaugural show, the criterion for inclusion, what it all means for the so-called “scene” with this level of institutional acceptance, and where the museum itself plans to go in the future with programming and exhibitions.

While the museum is readying for this first show, the streets are being hit by new murals and installations by artists, off-site studios are buzzing with new sculptures to be placed, performers are rehearsing with screens, and pop-up satellite exhibition spaces are being painted, strung, flooded with lights.

2501 & Zio Ziegler. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. September 2017. (photo © Jaime Roj0)

Whatever becomes of it, this moment has been discussed and fought for and labored over and prepared for by many – hopefully and it gives voice to the hundreds, thousands of voices that aren’t here, but are in spirit, a meaningful signpost in the evolution of the global grassroots movement that has burst into a constellation of satellites around the world.

Just in the last couple of days we’ve seemingly bumped into Ron English, Isaac Cordal, Faith XLVII, Ben Frost, Bordalo II, Seth Globepainter, Hueman, Brad Downey, Hot Tea, James Bullough, Onur … and its only Monday, yo! A lot more to come this week!

Here are some fresh pieces that have just shown up here in Berlin.

1UP and Berlin Kidz side by side. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. September 2017. (photo © Jaime Roj0)

James Bullough. Process shot. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. September 2017. (photo © Jaime Roj0)

Berlin Kidz . 1UP. James Bullough. Process shot. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. September 2017. (photo © Jaime Roj0)

Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. September 2017. (photo © Jaime Roj0)

BSA Images Of The Week: 09.10.17 “No Limit” Borås Special

September 10, 2017 Artists

Welcome to Sunday! This week we have a special edition of BSA Images of the Week; Dedicated to “No Limit” in Boras 2017.

Begun on the initiative of Street Artist Shai Dahan, the No Limit festival in Borås Sweden is a nice respite in a quiet, somewhat conservative town of pleasant people where all the shops close by six and the streets are empty by ten. With the initiative and vision of Dahan, three editions of “No Limit” have brought a varied roster of more than 30 Street Artists and muralists and installation artists into the downtown area and thrilled the tour groups and looky-loos who follow the trail discovering new artworks.

Playing toward the center and knowingly delighting the audience, the full collection also boasts a few great eclectic names and actual forward-looking leaders on the Street Art/ Contemporary Art continuum. Thanks to Dahan’s sharp eye and knowledge of who to bring, it is a well-rounded collection that compliments the city and yet represents the independent-thinking iconoclastic nature of today’s art on the streets.

Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Anonymouse, Bordalo II, Christina Angelina, Fintan Magee, Gemma O’Brien, Hot Tea, JM Rizzi, Lakwena, Lonac, Nespoon, and Telmo & Miel.

Top image: Bordalo II. No Limit Boras 2017. Boras, Sweden. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Flying Into the Weekend : HotTea, Bordalo II, TelmoMiel, Nespoon for No Limit / Borås: Dispatch 6

September 9, 2017 Artists

HotTea is being offered in the Caroli Church yard right now, floating above parishioners heads.

Unveiled as the sun was seting in the Swedish sky, the separate bundles of rayon strips freed one-by-one beneath their gridded wire superstructure, this hovering mass of radiance is enlivened by the slightest breezes rippling through the glowing neon soft cloud, not quite a rectangle, not at all expected.

It is a tenet of illegal Street Art and legal public art is that it has the power to reactivate public space, sometimes challenging it, sometimes transgressing it. In the case of HotTea his installations reveal space that you were perhaps not seeing, the way Aakash Nihalani reveals geometric patterns and relationships with masking tape and Brad Downey subversively cuts chunks out of it, rearranges it, reallocates it.

Here on the property of a religious and historical institution, one is tempted to say he captures the spirit of its higher aspirations and holds it aloft as a reminder. He also just completed this summer an enormous record-breaking installation in the Mall of America, a holy temple of commerce and consumerism, so we may have mistakenly imbued this project with something mystical because we were transported from the slippery bricked streets of Boras upon its discovery.

Either way, Boras tour groups applaud. We keep seeing it wherever we go – the appreciation of the new works literally makes people burst into applause, as they did when Hot Tea was on his lift yesterday, as they did for TelmoMiel as they were in their separate baskets 3 stories above in the drizzle, and from 200 meters away on the other side of the street looking up a hill watching Bordalo II as he installed his white wolf, half dripping white, half Technicolor consumer items. As they did when Jim Rizzi turned around almost on cue to face a dozen seniors who were staring at him across the river while he was painting. For those street artists and graffiti artists who have been hunted down by the Vandal Squad or its equivalent over the years, this outpouring of appreciation for your work feels and sounds surreal, perhaps leading you to be philosophical, or bitterererer-er.

“Those are the original drawings for the cartoon that we used to watch,” says Dutchman Miel as he takes a break down on the pavement to look up at the animated scene looming above and his art partner Telmo in a cherry picker gazing into the mouth of a fox. The guys are creating a sophisticated tableau incorporating the 2-D cartoon stills of a famous children’s animation and overlaying incredibly realistic 3-D versions of the same.

A still from the animated series of Nils Holgersson

“We used to watch it when we were little – it’s a very old Swedish book and it has been animated by the Dutch and I think the Japanese and it is one of my favorite shows,” he says as we learn about Nils Holgersson and the likelihood that most Swedes will be instantly familiar with this small boy riding on the back of a goose who flies him around the world.

“We like combining the realism with the flat stuff right now,” Miel says of this digital shattering, a hi-jacked visual collage.

BSA: And you have these atmospheric washes…the realism, almost surrealism.
Miel: Those are cut-outs because it’s like a two layer thing. We erase one layer and we always end up having strokes and bits – which makes it kind of more abstract, and we like that aspect so we just leave it. By abstractifying realism, we create surrealism.

A similar split between real and surreal exists in the sculptural installation of Bordalo II on the side of the Boras tourist center. Collaged together refuse from the never-ending garbage/recycling stream we are creating, the Lisbon artist has an uncanny ability to evoke the likeness of an animal that is often familiar to a locality. Here the street audience is also witnessing the transition of an artist’s style, displayed mid-evolution.

Whereas Bordalo II’s well-known and celebrated sculptures until this summer had always been finished with paint to complete their transformation, the artist has grown tired of the technique and is moving toward a body of work that uses only the colors present in the recycled items – a much more demanding and challenging technique for the artist, and a visual shift from his typically realized works.

We talk about the new direction as we’re looking at the piece nearly finished on the wall and he contrasts his relationship with the “old” right side of the animal with the “new” left side technique.

“It’s different at least,” he says. “I was getting bored of the old way on the right side – it’s always the same.”

And the multi-color eye-popping left? “This is the side that excites me. It’s fun because you can recognize a lot of the items and there is a lot of detail with all of the colors. You’re not playing with tones. You’re playing with colors and you have to give the idea of the shape of the outlines all with just the choice of different colors. I’m not using much black or white – for example the only place where there is black is in the eye. It’s important to use black only in the few places where you really need it then you can just play with the colors and make perspective.”

Just across a footbridge into the city’s old commercial district you round a bricked corner and find Nespoon riding up and down a two story wall beside a tavern. The organically decorative lace pattern pops out from the surface, slightly undulating like the long leafed aquatic plants in the Viskan river only 15 meters from her paintbrush.

“I draw the lace by hand, scan it, print it on large paper and hand cut all the pieces before I stencil them.” It’s a laborious process admittedly, but one that allows a feeling of full authorship and an organic relationship with the materials and final product. The Polish artist is making great progress and now is filling the background with a rusted red root timbre, just picking up the autumnal highlights in leaves on trees nearby.

As this Swedish town nearly marches ever closer to fall, the electricity of “No Limits” is bringing one last surge of summer and a real appreciation of the work of Street Artists as well.

Anonymouse. Installation # 2. No Limit/Borås 2017. The Malmö based secretive installation artist put this hand crafted miniature gas station overnight. Borås, Sweden 09-2017 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Surprise Anonymouse Guest, Sunlight at No Limit / Borås: Dispatch 5

September 8, 2017 Artists

This week BSA is in Borås, a municipality in south-western Sweden for the 3rd edition of No Limit, a mural arts festival that brings Street Artists from around the world to create new works on walls of the city, in the process enlivening public space and creating new ways for this historic textile merchant town to engage passersby with their city.

A small surprise guest appeared in Boras Thursday overnight and was sort of discovered by people on their way to work in the neighborhood. And when we say small, consider that a thimble is playing the role of a lampshade in one of these set scenes.

Anonymouse. No Limit/Borås 2017. The Malmö based secretive installation artist put this hand crafted miniature storefront overnight.Borås, Sweden 09-2017 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The miniature movement has been important in the last 10 years particularly in Street Art, with ever small pieces popping up – a bit of escapist fun for kids and those adults who also would like to disappear themselves for a moment into a tiny fantasy world. The Swedish installation artists Anonymouse have appeared on the streets of Malmö with a logo that smacks of Disney, Ronald McDonald and that Occupy mask of Guy Fawkes. But this is just a little mouse world for you to live in, provided you can get on your belly and stare closely.

Aside from that new bit, we found the artists happier with the weather, spirits lifted, and walls going up! Here are some of the images we caught on tour through the city which really has embraced the influx of international artists in a way that few do.

“It’s great how many business owners have been supportive to us over the years,” says artist and “No Limit” organizer Shai Dahan. We’re standing with structural engineer and commercial real estate property manager Erik Williamson in front of the new wall by TelmoMiel that features a goose and a fox from a well known Swedish fable by Nils Holgerssons.

Williamson has donated buildings and gallery space over the last three editions of the festival, virtually goosing the interest of the rest of the city. Now Shai receives calls from local businesses asking for artists to paint their walls almost daily.

NeSpoon for the Thinkspace/No Limit Borås 2017 “There Are No Limits” art show. Borås, Sweden 09-2017 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“We love it!” says Mr. Williamson, “I’m a bird watcher, so this one is fun for me. It’s good for the city and the town. I think this year there will be many more people.” Does he think that these new works around town are like graffiti and does he have negative connotations about them? “I do not think of graffiti, I think it more of art. I think it does us good to walk around the city and to see street art and sculptures and it is good for the people in the city, I think.”

Abstract artist JM Rizzi is feeling good about his progress as the sun is coming out and his long wall is finally filling with color thanks to late days and helps from local volunteers. It’s appropriate that his work is here by the river, as he speaks of fluidity when describing the gestural abstract style that he has become known for.

Influenced as a student in college nearly two decades ago by artists like Robert Motherwell and Franz Kline, Rizzi says he’s heartened by the idea that his early graffiti influences are now matured and embedded with his love of writing, and the simplicity of the line.

“The person who really turned the light on for me was Franz Klein – his drawing, his black ink, his gestures, his letterforms,” says Rizzi. In fact, he says the essence of a JM Rizzi piece is always “about the linework.” He also speaks of music. Tracing the wall with his finger in the air he talks about the rhythm of the piece and says he can hear a soundtrack of percussion and horns; the yellow is a horn, the grey is a bass.

Ultimately, he says, “It’s about the dialogue of art, and what I am adding to that dialogue.”

As we speak we see well-known local tour guide Bjorn Linder is bringing a group of mature adults up the banks of the river across from Rizzi’s new wall. When it comes to putting your art out to be seen by the public, that’s where the dialogue continues.

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