April 2018

Vermibus x Moniker x BSA

Vermibus x Moniker x BSA

In advance of Moniker in Brooklyn this May, we are interviewing some of the artists who are influenced both by street practice and fine art as the contemporary urban art category continues to evolve. Today, BSA is talking to Vermibus.

Readers of BSA will know that we have written about Vermibus many times for a number of years, so it is great to see him here in New York for Moniker. The Berlin-based Spanish artist takes a full frontal attack on advertising in the beauty and fashion fields primarily, using a paint solvent to dissolve features of high fashion models to disrupt idealized standards of beauty.

A veteran of countless takeovers of public bus shelters and kiosks here and across Europe, the results are shocking and confusing to passersby, who perhaps wonder if they are seeing something official and fashion forward or if its a viral ad using surrealist melting forms.

Vermibus (photo © Jaime Rojo)

To quote one of our own many texts, Vermibus is using solvent “to paint his critique of the corrosiveness of a commercial beauty culture that tears down and divides, glorifies consumerism for its own sake, belittles and relentlessly attacks self esteem and plays on negative emotions to enforce normative values about appearance. He takes the posters back to a studio and selectively eliminates words, logos, facial features, even entire faces — and then carries them to another city to repost on new streets. Sometimes he also takes them to an art framer.”

BSA: How would you describe your work to someone who is seeing it for the first time?
Vermibus: With my work I talk about 3 main topics.

It’s a critique of advertising, a reflection about beauty standards and an investigation on the complexities of the human being, not necessarily in this order.

Vermibus (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA: What is your intersection with Brooklyn and it’s history of Street Art and graffiti?
Vermibus: I haven’t spend enough time in Brooklyn to be able to answer this question properly.

All I can say is that for those who come from the graffiti scene we are obviously very influenced by NYC and Brooklyn in particular.

BSA: What’s most important to you?
Vermibus: Keep on standing up every time I fall.

Vermibus (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA: Are graffiti and Street Art allowed to change, or should there be a strict definitions they adhere to?
Vermibus: I don’t think graffiti can change and still be graffiti, same like I don’t think street art can change and still be street art, will be another thing.

I believe in evolution and I think is not only good but necessary, but labels are made to define things. If things change then we’ll need more labels.

BSA: Moniker says your work has been influential and/or fundamental to urban & contemporary art’s growth. Can you see their point?
Vermibus: I guess for some people I could have been very influential and I think my work has the ingredients to open new perspectives in the scene.

But only people with a great overview of the scene can say and only time can confirm.

So far, Moniker has been very good at observing and guiding the scene over the years, so I’m happy they see my work as such.

BSA: Name one artist whose work you admire today.
Vermibus: Axel Void.


For more information please go to Moniker Art Fair HERE.

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Tina Ziegler Brings Moniker to Brooklyn (Interview)

Tina Ziegler Brings Moniker to Brooklyn (Interview)


BSA is welcoming a number of friends and honored peers to Brooklyn this May as a full circle event takes place in Greenpoint on the East River; the Moniker Art Fair. Our original romance with the streets in Brooklyn included neighborhoods like this one, which served as a laboratory for the Street Art scene that erupted in the mid-late 90s and early 00s.

To see this wild unfettered growth of largely anonymous art-on-the-streets, a truck-full of new art practices spilling into abandoned neighborhoods and neglected buildings, was a time of magic for us, especially after 9/11 forced us to walk the streets just to clear our minds, witnessing the art explosion that had begun in earnest.

Roughly two decades later, the commercial art world accepts Street Art on its own terms – sometimes with genuine appreciation and understanding, other times as part of a bandwagon of current trends.

Academia and institutions still study the movement at arms length in some ways, perhaps allowing elements of class and orthodoxy to cloud their vision, even while grappling with the earthquake of people-powered art that is reaching directly to art fans through social media.

Now more comfortable with a rebranding of graffiti/Street Art/urban art as something more akin to Contemporary, collectors see that this work is frequently able to address the modern world better than other movements – but we are getting ahead of ourselves.

Screenshot of some of the exhibitors at Moniker 2018 in Brooklyn (© Moniker Art Fair)

Art Fairs have allowed Street Art inroads in recent years; first a sort of sideshow, perhaps, more recently as a bonifide category. Moniker, founded by Tina Ziegler, began with this as its foundation. Deeply influenced by her own involvement and exposure as a youth to a uniquely 1990s Californian alchemy of skater, graffiti, surf and hippie subcultures, she wasn’t going to frame this new multi-pronged sub cultural practice of Street Art purely in terms of commerce. She respected it too much. Even as a gallerist for a brief period, she quickly realized it was the process of art making, its intersection with street culture globally, that was critical to its full appreciation.

Starting in London and now in its ninth year, with a small gap to regroup near the beginning, Moniker heads to one of Street Arts’ original home laboratories with her first international edition in an enormous industrial BK warehouse.

Right in the neighborhood, Greenpoint a decade ago. Artists Skewville, Chris Stain, Veng RWK, Logan Hicks. India Street Mural Project (photo ©Jaime Rojo)

The by-invitation-only event, with strict provisions concerning only original pieces, no overlapping of representation, sincere concentration on individual artists, and the inclusion of artist residencies/installations , Ziegler is firmly redefining your expectations of art fairs. It is very likely she is quietly influencing the model for others as well. Past Moniker events have included academic and educational conferences as well and BSA is ready to help direct that effort when Brooklyn’s second edition pops off in 2019.


BSA spoke with Tina about her choice of location, artists, and exhibitors and what she envisions for the Moniker BK 2018 edition.

BSA: You have chosen the neighborhood of Greenpoint, Brooklyn to site the fair this year. What significance does this location have for you?

Tina Ziegler: It’s been a very deliberate decision to make our international debut at Greenpoint specifically. It’s an area that’s still developing while being a part of of greater Brooklyn, and it’s changing fast enough that you have elements of rugged history and new developments stood side by side.

For obvious reasons that holds huge parallels with the art scenes we work within, and in that respect Greenpoint Terminal Warehouse and the streets around it feel like such a comfortable fit for Moniker.

Additionally it’s an unexpected choice, and I think that’ll help to keep people on their toes, taking in their wider surroundings and understanding the art in context. I fell in love with the venue for that reason – it’s so far away from the standard ‘white tent’ format you’d usually expect to see, and it forces more engagement from our guests.

BSA: Is there a general theme to the show and are there artists whose work exemplify the scene for you at the moment?

Tina Ziegler: Its hard to pinpoint just one or even a few that I feel are representing the breadth of movement all its glory and beauty. But if there’s one thing that binds them all together, it’s a sense of growth and progression within the scene.

By that I mean that I try to make sure I’m presenting work from artists not necessarily because they’re popular, but because they are or have been influential and/or fundamental to urban & contemporary art’s growth.

Screenshot of some of the exhibitors at Moniker 2018 in Brooklyn (© Moniker Art Fair)

You’ll see names on our lineup, therefore, who not many might know, but who have been around for longer than people might suspect, contributing to and building the scene in their own way.

Skewville are a part of Brooklyn – they’re a good example of the fun, energy and community engagement that street art allows

Specter will be having only a small role within the fair this year, but he’s always challenged our idea of the public space, and done it in a way that’s so unique, so inspiring and unafraid, that he’s one of my favourite artists creating site-specific public artworks.

The curated aspect of Moniker also means that you’ll see artists who have inspired me personally; those who hold relevance still, and continue to work on their craft while allowing space for younger artists, building a collaborative platform to speak from.

So you’ll see Egle Zvirblyte & Jose Miguel Mendez as an example of that: two artists who I love for their energy, dedication and passion in staying true to their message.

BSA: We’ve been calling this category Urban Contemporary for lack of a better term. Is there any way to categorize such a varied number of street practices which are professionalized here for commercial purposes? Is it even possible or necessary?

Tina Ziegler: When I started working in this space we didn’t even have an idea of where this movement was going – it was all thrown under the umbrella terms of ‘graffiti’ or ‘street art’.

Now, we’ve opened that out into numerous different words and phrases to try and incorporate rate the broad spread of mediums, disciplines and styles: ‘new contemporary’, ‘urban contemporary’ and so on.

Maybe one day we will just call it ‘contemporary art’, but I’m not sure giving it a name is even possible anymore, it’s too big. Is it even necessary, in fact? Our little underground subculture isn’t so underground anymore and has made waves without needing to be properly defined.

But you can say that the defining characteristic of the art at Moniker is urban influence: I actually think the title for Roger Gastman’s new show, Beyond the Streets is really fitting. We came from the streets – from the urban environment – but we’ve gone very, very far beyond that, and have challenged ourselves to redefine what it is we’re doing at a level that’s practically left something as traditional as definitions behind altogether.


For more information please go to Moniker Art Fair HERE.

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The Many Faces of Lisbon on the Street

The Many Faces of Lisbon on the Street

A Scholarly Eye On Artistic Interventions in Public Space


The excitement that pours from city walls in Lisbon is palpable, an animated mix of graffiti, Street Art, murals, sculpture, and the traditional artisan tiles. Like the famous Bacalhau dish of Portuguese cuisine, it all can be mixed together almost a thousand different ways and each surprising recombination can be loved for its unique character.

To appreciate the varied elements playing into the Street Art scene here, you won’t find greater insight than by touring with Pedro Soares-Neves, and he’ll make sure you won’t leave without understanding the forty years that have contributed to the scene up to this point.

Park. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Most visitors are overtaken by the sweeping views, the heart of the old city in the valley, the winding Bairro Alto streets full of colorful illegal artworks, the ancient bricks, traditional azulejos tiled buildings, tiny streets, sloping topography, endless staircases and retro-style cable cars that are climbing impossible inclines – each slaughtered with colorful graffiti tags.

Unidentified artist. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Now an international destination for many Street Artists, the growing number of murals here is remarkable, if not outstanding. Soares-Neves can look at the huge variety of expressions on the street and explain why the art is here now and how it fits into a greater context of a historical city that has gradually embraced nearly all expressions of modern art-in-the-streets.

A self-described fan of urban history Pedro is one of the few scholars in the global urban art scene who calls graffiti writers “authors”, quite possibly because he was one himself in his early teens here during the city’s first stage of graffiti proliferation in the early 1990s.

“I am kind of an architectural urban history fanatic,” he says proudly but in a confessional tone. Completing his doctorate in Design and Urbanism this year he is also co-organizer of the Lisbon Street Art & Urban Creativity Conference and the Street Art & Urban Creativity Scientific Journal.


Lister. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A lifelong Lisboan born at the same time the revolution from the dictatorship was born here in the mid 1970s, Soares-Neves tells the story of urban art as a progression of social movement, individual engagement, immigration, urban planning, importation of culture, commercial incursion and coalescing of local artists as a quasi-professional network.

As you ride in his 4-door family SUV-hybrid with kids toys and storybooks scattered across the back seat, you gaze along the historic spice trade waterfront and the Jerónimos monastery and museum row, swerving through the central “filet mignon” of the ornamented city to the outskirts, which he calls “the back-office”.

He gestures at the trains and wooded walls and areas where he once painted graffiti , to some of the current crop of throwups along the highway and to wall murals that have been commissioned by municipal, professional, and commercial interests. As the trip unfolds the story is not quite linear of course, and city history intertwines with personal history.

Telmo & Miel. Bairro Padre Cruz. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

As is its personality, art-in-the-streets shape-shifts and redefines itself, creating new alliances, reconfiguring the balance. For example, currently Lisbon city leaders are working with former vandals and art school professionals to create programs of large colorful murals on soaring public housing towers.

The adjacent neighborhood of older single family houses laid out like suburbs features Soare-Neves’ own curated walls done by more conceptual artists who play with ideas about public space as well as aesthetics. The Portuguese +MaisMenos– directly intervenes with stenciled words here, creating quizzical conundrums for passersby and the French experimenter Matthew Tremblin who brings an online poll results via bar charts posing an existential question about Street Art.

Matthew Tremblin. Bairro Padre Cruz. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A truly unique insight into the rather omnibus experience of this urban academic, we actually get to look at two eras of Pedro’s own personal history as an artist are here as well, only blocks away from one another.

This IS a tour!

Pedro Soares-Neves. Bairro Padre Cruz. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

One Soares painting is on a low wall encircling a park. Part of a graffiti wall of fame (which he helped organize), it shows his 1990s affinity for character illustration and experimentation with letter styles. His more recent installation is a mixed media paint/land art derivation that converts disused construction materials and a habit-formed footpath leading up a grassy knoll to a numerical wall.

Again, the spirit of experimentation here is what is core to his art practice. Perhaps this is why his personal philosophies toward public space lean toward the organically Situationist act of creation, a practice that can be extended to all of the public and to the moment of inspiration.

Following are many images captured in Lisbon during our tour interspersed with this history of the last few decades courtesy Soares-Neves and our own research.

Corleone. Underdogs Gallery/Public Arts Program . Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

1980s-90s and Lisbon’s Dawn of Graffiti


Speaking with Pedro about the early graffiti of the 90s you capture a perspective on two important cultural factors that steered its direction.

The first is that through the lense of the liberators of the Carnation Revolution in the 1970s the style of aerosol bubble tags and characters recalled the earlier people-powered community murals and represented “freedom” in their minds, whereas cities elsewhere in Europe would have thought this painting indicated vandalism or a breakdown of the social fabric.

Suker. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Secondly, the fascination with graffiti was spurred by the children of African immigrants from former Portuguese territories of Angola, Mozambique and Capo Verde who moved to Lisbon after wars with them ended during the revolution. Now second generation teen immigrants from two cultures, they were looking for self-identity, according to Soares-Neves.

“They found resonance in this Afro-American and Latin American thing that was going on during the 80s so they connected with it and used it for language.”

Aire. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Quite possibly they were reacting to class and race prejudice and they identified with brothers and sisters in the music videos of American commercial hip hop culture. Seeing the exciting growth and the implied power of graffiti writers, musicians, and bboy movies like “Wild Style” in the 1980s, the expression of graffiti was alluring – a welcome visual art and anti-establishment practice that created identity, community, and newfound respect among a select peer group of cool kids.

“Actually it started with bboying culture in the mid 80s and then in the early 90s it started with a visual language of it,” he says, explaining the progression.

Unidentified Artist…speaking the truth. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A Personal Introduction to Graff


His own teenage aestheticism extended to characters, and a fascination for punk or “rough” magazines and the illustration stylings of artists in the classic Chiclete com Banana magazines. “I had this relationship with drawing and cartoons and this kind of stuff – this popular culture sort of thing,” he says.

His talents as an artist were well prized among his peers until he was nearly outshone by a graffiti writer from Capo Verde, a classmate who threatened Pedro’s status as the school artist; a funny story he explains this way:

“At that time in my high school I was ‘The’ guy who was doing the best cartoons and all this kind of stuff,” he says, reflecting on his celebrity. “Suddenly he did a big piece on the wall! So I was the king of the ‘drawing thing’ and this motherf***er came here and did a big and colorful piece!”

Edis1. Bairro Padre Cruz. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA: ..and everyone knew about it of course.
Pedro: Yeah of course it was much more visible than what I did. So I started to interact with the guy.

Pedro’s personal history with graffiti began there and never stopped. After starting on walls and greatly enlarging his own illustrations and experimenting with letter styles, he and his peers grew to about 10 or 12 writers and the graffiti scene appeared to blow up from there.

A community of writers from many backgrounds spread across the city practicing one-upsmanship in technical skill and logistical daring, operating singularly, in small groups, or the occasional Wall of Fame project. Because there wasn’t a strict evolutionary lineage of style, many young artists developed their own in the laboratory of the street, not necessarily related to the hip hop culture but adapting from their own culture.

Cola. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

2000s and the Turn Toward Street Art


By the late 90s and early 00s he feels that the scene suffered a sort of malaise when purely commercial murals began to take parts of the wall inventory and change the character of some areas. It was a development he deeply disliked for its perversion of a freer art practice yet he appreciated it for the employment it provided to professional artists. The city also borrowed the vernacular of graffiti for public service announcements painted as murals.

The mid 2000s began to reflect the influences of artists like Banksy and a new sort of community comprised of artists from old school graffiti writers and new generation Street Artist began to coalesce in Lisbon he says. Additionally the later 2000s began an increasing flow of international Street Artists and graffiti writers who began avoiding Barcelona after that city started cracking down on their famed urban art scene.

RAM. Bairro Padre Cruz. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“They (artists) started to add a few other languages to try to surpass this previous period and also began dialoguing with the new things that were happening in Street Art,” he says of the witty skewering of pop culture iconography, introduction of fine art illustration styles and the use of newer art-making methods.

“It was starting to really have lots of people doing stencils and paste ups and this kind of stuff all around. It started to influence the younger generation and that put some pressure on the older generations, who started to do that themselves.”

 

Visual Street Performance and the Crono Project


A collective guild comprised of artists from both graffiti and Street Art like HBSR81, Hium, Klit, Mar, Ram, Time and Vhils joined together in the mid 2000s and called themselves Visual Street Performance (VSP). A professional/DIY effort, they began to organize large events and an annual exhibition through 2010 that expanded the vernacular to hybrids of fine art and elements of pop, character illustration, photo realism, surrealist fantasy, found object art, abstract expressionist, more traditional graffiti and graphic design.

Pang. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pedro had been studying abroad in the Czech Republic and Rome for a few years, “And when I came back I noticed a different panorama. There were lots of younger kids with totally different skills and with that approach of making money out of it,” he says with a mixture of admiration and possibly concern at the professionalism entering the equation.

“They managed to invent themselves,” he says, “and also within the exhibitions the kids like Vhils were born from these,” he says as he talks about the commercial aspects of the cultural scene with connections to an aerosol art brand, print makers, and related clothing projects.

Kam Laurene. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A notable commercial and marketing milestone that married Street Art and urban culture with the image of Lisbon itself took place in 2010-11 when the year long Crono project, curated by Soares-Neves, Angelo Milano (of Fame Festival), and local Street Artist Vhils (Alexandre Farto), brought rising stars of the moment to a high profile block-long series of ornate Art Nouveau and shuttered buildings along a heavily traveled strip in the city, Avenida Fontes Pereira de Melo.

Os Gemeos . Blu . Sam3 . Erica Il Cane. Crono Project. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The Internet’s volleying of fresh images of pieces by the Italian anti-corporate BLU, the hallucinatory dream illustration style of Brazilian graffiti twins Os Gemeos, and the lyrical storytelling of Spanish 2-D SAM3 alerted the Street Art worlds’ knowledge of Lisbon, and the project quickly became a destination for travellers.

Os Gemeos . Blu. Crono Project. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Soares-Neves sometimes speaks about the commercial appropriation of the street art vernacular in his academic work and in some ways it appears that the unexpected success of the Crono Project unsettled him as well. The curators had worked with the city to finance the project with an intention of giving opportunities to artists and fostering new aspects of the public art conversation, but according to Soares-Neves the high profile of the project undermined their own anti-establishment sentiments when city leaders recognized that a comparatively modest investment had ballooned into a successful city “branding” campaign.

Os Gemeos. Crono Project. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Possibly this is a cautionary tale that underscores the incremental dangers present when subculture crosses the rubicon into simply “culture”. There is always the fear that the original philosophies encoded in a subculture will be irreparably transformed, candy-coated, cheapened, or worse, excised.

Recently closed London-based Street Art print pioneers “Pictures On Walls” lamented in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek way on their website in January when describing the evolution of their 15 year old business this way, “…inevitably disaster struck – and many of our artists became successful. Street Art was welcomed into mainstream culture with a benign shrug and the art we produced became another tradeable commodity.”

Borondo. Bairro Padre Cruz. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The City We See Today


The city seems like it is absorbing all of these changes well, and the variety of faces and styles of public artistic intervention that you see scattered throughout it feel vibrant and necessary. The city continues its 25 year heritage of organic graffiti and entertains international writers and has the occasional Walls of Fame. Elements of unsanctioned Street Art exists as well and neighborhoods are accented by the new generation of muralists with mad skillz.

Then there are those who are a little harder to categorize, like the subtle reworkings of traditional Portugues tiles with modern icons and patterns by Add Fuel and the prized sculptural pieces across the city by the trash-recycling animal naturalist Bordalo II, who just had a massive solo exhibition in November.

Bordalo II. In conjunction with his solo exhibition  ATTERO Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The contemporary urban artist and international Street Art star Vhils is a company at this point: operating a studio in a few cities, here running a gallery, a studio laboratory program for young artists, a street art tour business, and partnering with city art programming initiatives as well as brands. Somehow he still finds time to create artworks in the streets, including a recent portrait collaboration with Shepard Fairey in Lisbon and LA.

Shepard Fairey . VHILS. Underdogs Gallery/Public Arts Program . Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

At the end of our tour marathon Pedro Soares-Neves takes us to the Centro de Informação Urbana de Lisboa (Lisbon Urban Information Center) where we climb the stairs through the airy modernist foyer full of scholarly readers to discover a small scale maquette of the entire city that we have just been traversing.

Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Fanned out for you before the shiny blue Tagus River, perhaps 15 meters at its full expanse, the topographic features of the city are much less daunting when viewed from this perspective. As Pedro walks around the perimeter of the mini-city and points to neighborhoods, regions, the forest, the airport, the old city and the newly gentrifying areas of Lisboa he recounted stories of expansion, retrenchment, privatization, skullduggery and deliverance.

Thanks to him we appreciate graffiti/ Street Art/ urban art truly in its context of this city, its history, its people and the built environment like never before.

Lisbon. Pedro makes a point. December 2017. (photo © Steven P. Harrington)

Bordalo II. In conjunction with his solo exhibition  ATTERO Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Borondo. Bairro Padre Cruz. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Vhils. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Vhils. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Shepard Fairey. Underdogs Gallery/Public Arts Program . Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Shepard Fairey . VHILS. Detail. Underdogs Gallery/Public Arts Program . Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lister. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Crayon. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Andre Nada. Bairro Padre Cruz. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

Unidentified Artist. Amoreiras Wall Of Fame. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Slap. Amoreiras Wall Of Fame. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

RariOne. Amoreiras Wall Of Fame. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

±MAISMENOS± Bairro Padre Cruz. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Corleone. Bairro Padre Cruz. Underdogs Gallery/Public Arts Program . Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Utopia. Galeria De Arte Urbana. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tags. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Blu. Lisbon. Crono Project. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Blu . Sam3 . Erica Il Cane. Crono Project. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Erica Il Cane . Lucy McLauchlan . M-Chat. Crono Project. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)


With gratitude to Pedro Soares Neves and to Raul Carvalho, General Manager of Underdogs Gallery for taking the time to talk to us, for sharing their knowledge and insights with us and for showing us around Lisbon.

BSA in Lisbon comes to you courtesy BSA in Partnership with Urban Nation (UN).

This is the first of two articles with BSA in Lisbon in collaboration with UN Berlin, it was originally published on the Urban Nation website, and the project is funded in part with the support of Urban Nation Museum for Urban Contemporary Art (UN) in Berlin.

 

 

 

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BSA Images Of The Week: 04.15.18

BSA Images Of The Week: 04.15.18

BSA-Images-Week-Jan2015

Welcome to BSA Images of the Week. First we have a series of politically themed and powerfully timely images of ICY & SOT installations from their involvement with the third edition of the Crystal Ship Art Festival in Ostend, Belgium. With forced immigration caused by the war industry providing armaments to everyone including your cousin Judy, the even more disgusting flipside of all this is the xenophobic nationalism that is now spreading in various countries, treating refugees and immigrants like crap.

So Icy & Sot give us here the security fences that create prisons for people to keep them inside and out and, perhaps taking a page from Ai WeiWei, a floating vest installation in the local park – complete with the artists in a boat and daffodils on the grassy knolls. Right after that we have another life-vest themed piece, a mural by Gaia entitled “Requiem for Migrants, Requiem for the Liberal Order”.

Thanks to photographer Butterfly for her contributions here.

Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Adam Fujita, Barlo, Gaia, Icy & Sot, Not Art, Sidka Nubian, and the Reading Ninja

Top Image: The Reading Ninja (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Icy & Sot. The Crystal Ship Art Festival 2018. Ostend, Belgium.  (photo ©Butterfly)

Icy & Sot. The Crystal Ship Art Festival 2018. Ostend, Belgium. (photo ©Butterfly)

Icy & Sot. The Crystal Ship Art Festival 2018. Ostend, Belgium. (photo ©Butterfly)

Icy & Sot. The Crystal Ship Art Festival 2018. Leopold Park. Ostend, Belgium. (photo ©Butterfly)

Icy & Sot. The Crystal Ship Art Festival 2018. Leopold Park. Ostend, Belgium. (photo ©Butterfly)

Icy & Sot. The Crystal Ship Art Festival 2018. Leopold Park. Ostend, Belgium. (photo ©Butterfly)

Icy & Sot. The Crystal Ship Art Festival 2018. Leopold Park. Ostend, Belgium. (photo ©Butterfly)

Icy & Sot. The Crystal Ship Art Festival 2018. Leopold Park. Ostend, Belgium. (photo ©Butterfly)

Gaia. “Requiem for Migrants, Requiem for the Liberal Order”. The Crystal Ship Art Festival 2018. Ostend, Belgium. (photo ©Butterfly)

Gaia. “Requiem for Migrants, Requiem for the Liberal Order”. The Crystal Ship Art Festival 2018. Ostend, Belgium. (photo ©Butterfly)

Unidentified Artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Adam Fujita for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sidka Nubian (photo © Jaime Rojo)

NOT ART (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Barlo. “The Pet of the Archeologist” HK Walls 2018. Hong Kong.  (photo © Barlo)

Barlo. “The Pet of the Archeologist” HK Walls 2018. Hong Kong.  (photo © Barlo)

Untitled. Spring 2018. NYC (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Gola: Fresh Canvasses from “7.6 BILLION AND STILL GROWING”

Gola: Fresh Canvasses from “7.6 BILLION AND STILL GROWING”

 

Back in February we gave you a sneak peak at Gola Hundun’s preparations for his new show inspired by Earth’s population and our individual and industrial impact on the balance of the environment.

Gola Hundun. “Anthropocene” 19 Karen Gallery. Queensland, Australia. (photo © Tommaso Campana)

Today we have the completed canvasses, which you can see in person should you find yourself lost in Queensland, Australia. Entitled “7.6 Billion and Still Growing”, the show features organic fern and form, an ample layering of motifs and washes in an almost decorative vein, each an emotional distillation of larger systemic challenges. His own balance appears to be achieved by the gathering of these systems within geometric groupings, the riddles and solutions wrapped colorfully within.

Gola Hundun. “Beginning of Sedentary” 19 Karen Gallery. Queensland, Australia. (photo © Tommaso Campana)

Why people want to plunder the Earth for financial gain is not precisely baffling, everyone agrees. But why we can’t have and enforce laws to protect it for everyone is.

Gola’s organic forms and splendiferous color choices are shouting about the beauty and magic of the natural world and he says he took the opportunity to preach to assembled guests at his opening last week.

Gola Hundun. “Col-ono-izing” 19 Karen Gallery. Queensland, Australia. (photo © Tommaso Campana)

“It was a blast!!!  I also made a speech to the audience telling them about the story behind the canvases,” he says, “and making some active propaganda about how much every one of us can do for the world, like becoming vegan, minimizing use of plastic and refusing to buy from several brands and corporations.”

Gola Hundun. “Fading Away” 19 Karen Gallery. Queensland, Australia. (photo © Tommaso Campana)

Gola Hundun. “Fall of Macrofauna” 19 Karen Gallery. Queensland, Australia. (photo © Tommaso Campana)

Gola Hundun. “From Irrigation to Ocean” 19 Karen Gallery. Queensland, Australia. (photo © Tommaso Campana)

Gola Hundun. “Indonesia” 19 Karen Gallery. Queensland, Australia. (photo © Tommaso Campana)

Gola Hundun. “Moving After the Herds” 19 Karen Gallery. Queensland, Australia. (photo © Tommaso Campana)

Gola Hundun. “Obsolete Conception” 19 Karen Gallery. Queensland, Australia. (photo © Tommaso Campana)


Looking summer reading? Gola recommends Climate Change. A Defining Issue of Our Generation written by Antxon Olabe Egaña.

Click HERE for more information on the exhibition.

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BSA Film Friday 04.13.18

BSA Film Friday 04.13.18

bsa-film-friday-JAN-2015

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

Now screening :
1. Street Atelier – Rocco and his Brothers
2. Sam3 and His Troupe of Dancing Statues Pump Up the Jam
3. Valiente Creations – 12 + 1
4. Sue 975 – 12 +1

bsa-film-friday-special-feature

BSA Special Feature: Street Atelier – Rocco and his Brothers

It’s an Italian movie directed by Luchino Visconti in 1960, yes. It is also the name of a crew of Berlin graffiti/installation artists whose satirical interventions play on issues propriety and property – and on social experiments that dupe the media, the public, and banks.

Did they really set up an apartment inside the subway? Is that really the tracks and wall of a metro inside a gallery? Is that Wagner playing in the mobile war arcade set up in the Christmas market? Are those hand grenades being lobbed by children? Is the bank facade blinking red every 20 seconds?

Rocco und seine Brüder (Rocco and His Brothers) have you engaged. Now you have to answer the questions.

Shout out to Red Tower Films for the great storytelling.

Sam3 and His Troupe of Dancing Statues Pump Up the Jam

It’s Friday after all. Get up and dance! Aren’t they marbleous?

Two in a Row from the 12 + 1 Project in Barcelona

1. Valiente Creations – 12 + 1 Sant Feliu. Barcelona. Contorno Urbano Foundation

 

2 . Sue975. Contorno Urbano Foundation. 12 + 1 Project. Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona

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Add Fuel Reimagines Azulejo in His First Monograph

Add Fuel Reimagines Azulejo in His First Monograph

Street Artist Add Fuel is exporting azulejo to the rest of the world. Slightly differently than they did in previous centuries.

Add / Fuel – 1 – Monograph. Published by Diogo Machado. Portugal 2018.

Via his own pop-culture interpretation of the interlocking curvilinear, geometric and graphic motifs, the Portuguese artist is firing new pieces daily in the kiln of his studio in Cascais. For a decade or so his interpretations of the tin-glazed ceramic tilework have been appearing on inordinate secondary city skins in the paths of pedestrians: visual illusions meant to appear as layers of urban bark peeling back from surfaces you take for granted to reveal heritage, history, artisanship.

While the interiors and exteriors of churches, palaces, schools and subway stations are covered with azulejos in Lisbon, thanks to Add Fuel (Diogo Machado) they have travelled to other cities and cultures as well. Each time he is attracted to the tilemaking traditions locally, and he often incorporates his study of these new histories as well.

Add / Fuel – 1 – Monograph. Published by Diogo Machado. Portugal 2018.

What makes his work contemporary is the reworking of elements to include zombies, snakes, Gameboys, and selfie sticks in his patterns. A graphic designer and illustrator, he imagines his complex tile ornamentation as a patterned fill for masking or knocking out type. Entire walls become quilted blocks and remnants stitched together. Taking inspiration from Jacques Villeglé and his torn poster collages (or even Faile’s more recent reworking of the method for ripped away pop revelation) Add Fuel uses the device of showing the past, the foundation for the culture, helping us to imagine a life before ours.

Add Fuels first monograph is tile-shaped and precisely rendered, a survey of the patterned and pixilated, pleasant and pernicious imagined motifs he has placed upon tiles, screenprints, embroidery and façades. Using historical, artists and artisanal work as inspiration, with his archive of ideas and executions he has created himself as one for others.

Add / Fuel – 1 – Monograph. Published by Diogo Machado. Portugal 2018.

Add / Fuel – 1 – Monograph. Published by Diogo Machado. Portugal 2018.

Add / Fuel – 1 – Monograph. Published by Diogo Machado. Portugal 2018.

Add / Fuel – 1 – Monograph. Published by Diogo Machado. Portugal 2018.

Add / Fuel – 1 – Monograph. Published by Diogo Machado. Portugal 2018.

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No Callarem: Street Artists Paint As Protest in La Modelo Prison, Barcelona

No Callarem: Street Artists Paint As Protest in La Modelo Prison, Barcelona

A new sharply political campaign championing the freedom of expression has caught fire in Spain in the last few weeks under the hashtag #NoCallaremos, and Street Artists are now adding their talents to the protest. Rather shockingly for a modern European nation, a rapper’s prison sentence for offensive lyrics was upheld in Spanish Supreme Court in February (Billboard) and that decision along with other recent events has sparked a number of creative protests across the art world in cities across the country. Today BSA contributing Street Art photographer Fer Alcalá shares his opinions and new images of the murals in progress with BSA readers.


THE NO CALLAREM PLATFORM

~ by Fer Alcalá

…or how some of Spanish top artists react against censorship and repression of the freedom of speech from the central government…

Enric Sant at work. La Modelo, Barcelona. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

It’s now known worldwide: the Spanish government is imprisoning hip hop artists like Valtonyc and Pablo Hasel because of their sharp and truthful lyrics as well as sentencing people like you and me because of their critical posts on social media.

As a reaction to these acts against the freedom of speech that are more in tune with a well established dictatorship than with 40 years of democracy, some projects like the No Callarem (we won’t shut up) platform have raised their voices.

Reskate . Enric Sant . Txemy. La Modelo, Barcelona. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

One of the direct actions organized by the platform for fighting against Partido Popular’s civil rights oppression was to film a video clip featuring some of the most renowned lyricists on the scene as Frank T, Elphomega, Los Chikos del Maíz, La Ira, Rapsusklei, and César Strawberry, among others, at the old La Modelo prison. The location is an accurate metaphorical scenario when you are seeing that your liberty is being cut off thanks to laws like ‘Ley Mordaza’.

The song ‘Los Borbones son unos ladrones’, which alludes directly to the Spanish monarchy, includes some excerpts from some of the songs created by rappers serving a prison sentence. The video clip for the song, which you can watch at the end of this article, has become viral and almost all media outlets in the country are speaking about this big shout-out in the name of freedom.

The patio with Enric Sant in the background at work. La Modelo, Barcelona. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

I was invited to witness the filming  and painting session by local artist Javier de Riba, from Reskate Studio, who invited some fellow artists to paint at La Modelo walls as a part of the whole process. Franco Fasoli JAZ, Twee Muizen, Txemy, Joan Tarragò, Enric Sant, Milvietnams, Werens and Fullet gave a new voice to the walls surrounding that backyard, providing 2D images that perfectly matched the spirit behind the beats and the rhymes.

Javier De Riba at work. La Modelo, Barcelona. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

This is what Javi has to say about his collaboration with the project:

“Our involvement with No Callarem happened thanks to the Catalan rap artist Pau Llonch. He lit the spark for recording a clip against the Valtonyc and Hasel sentences. They wanted to do it at La Modelo no matter what and the No Callarem platform supported the action. We helped to spread the word for putting together a team with different languages together to visually enhance the video clip.

At the beginning, was what meant to be an ‘atrezzo action’ turned into a bunch of pieces that can be visited in the backyard of Gallery 4. In fact that backyard is not open to the public, but you can see it from the watch guard pit. We think that, from a conceptual point of view, it’s very powerful to keep those pieces locked – especially when thinking about how things are going in Spain regarding freedom of speech.”

Javier De Riba at work. La Modelo, Barcelona. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

Additionally it’s worth mentioning Reskate’s initiative about shouting against the suffocating atmosphere that we are experiencing here for some time: ‘Our idea is that every artist post one piece / illustration / painting / picture (old or new) supporting our initiative promoting freedom of speech in order to criticize the lack of democracy within the Spanish government.

Some of the hashtags that we will use are #NoCallarem #EzGaraIsilduko #NonCalaremos #NunVamosCallar #NonCararam,#NoCallaremos being the main one.

Visual artists from Madrid, Zaragoza, Almería, Oviedo, Valencia, Vila-real, Barcelona, Bilbao, Valladolid, Tenerife…are supporting this initiative. Some of them are: Malakkai, Escif, Paula Bonet, Aryz, Ricardo Cavolo, Enric Sant, Twee Muizen, Franco Fasoli, Hyuro, Javier Jaén, Boa Mistura, Conrad Roset, Jordi Borràs, Danjer, Cinta Vidal, David de las Heras, Juan Díaz-Faes, Chamo San, and Marina Capdevila, among others.

Fullet at work. La Modelo, Barcelona. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

La Semana por la Libertad de Expresión (Freedom of Speech Week) is happening now, with different activities taking place all over the country. The funds raised from these activities will go to a resistance fund for the platform in order to defend all those people chased and brought to justice because of censorship and repression. You can check the whole program of the week HERE.

So, yes: we have a fight going on. Comedians, actors and actresses, musicians, journalists, visual artists, the guy / girl next door who is active in social media… It’s kind of a Russian Roulette game where, if you are critical with the established system and you are using 3rd grade humor as a weapon, you can end in jail. And all of it is happening in a country whose government is accused of being the most corrupt on the whole continent.

Werens at work. La Modelo, Barcelona. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

I have a very well informed friend who has been kind of disappointed with the absence of critical vision and combative behaviors from most of the big names in the local street art / graffiti scene. Thanks to initiatives such as No Callarem and the impulse of people like Javi de Riba, she is reconciling herself with this small, but powerful little world whose images have the strength for making important things happen.

Finally, I’d like to recommend that you check the publications under the hashtag #nocallaremos that are out, as there will be some fine and unique art being produced for the occasion in the upcoming days.

As it’s being said in Los Borbones son unos Ladrones:

– rap music is not a crime
– we need scratches, we need paintings
– I don’t dream about Versace, I dream about barricades
– …because of the poetry that still sleeps in the ditches…

Big props to Javi de Riba, Xavier Urbano and all the artists behind the No Callarem movement.

#nocallarem

Fullet, Werens and Javier De Riba at work. La Modelo, Barcelona. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

Milvietnams at work. La Modelo, Barcelona. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

Franco Fasoli AKA JAZ at work. La Modelo, Barcelona. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

Franco Fasoli AKA JAZ at work. La Modelo, Barcelona. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

Twee Muizen at work. La Modelo, Barcelona. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

Enric Sant. La Modelo, Barcelona. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

Reskate . Enric Sant . Txemy. La Modelo, Barcelona. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

Reskate. La Modelo, Barcelona. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

Txemy . Joan Tarragó . Twee Muizen . Franco Fasoli AKA Jaz. La Modelo, Barcelona. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

Joan Tarragó. La Modelo, Barcelona. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

Twee Muizen. La Modelo, Barcelona. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

Franco Fasoli AKA JAZ. La Modelo, Barcelona. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

Fullet . Werens . Javier De Riba . Milvietnams . Reskate. La Modelo, Barcelona. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

Fullet . Werens. La Modelo, Barcelona. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

Javier De Riba. La Modelo, Barcelona. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

Overview. La Modelo, Barcelona. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

La Modelo, Barcelona. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

La Modelo, Barcelona. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

Los Borbones Son Unos Ladrones. feat, FrankT, Sara Hebe, Elphomega, Rapsusklei…


The guys behind Delabrave @delabrave have filmed a parallel clip about the creative process of these pieces.

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Koralie’s Trippy Folk Precision is Harmonized for “Indigo Blood Project”

Koralie’s Trippy Folk Precision is Harmonized for “Indigo Blood Project”

Former French Street Artist Koralie is currently having an extensive solo gallery show of paintings, sculpture and installation with Johnathan LeVine Projects in Jersey City, and her geisha is not hard to find – at least her sunny spirit is here.

Koralie. Detail. Indigo Blood Project. Jonathan LeVine Projects. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The signature Japanese musical and dance entertainer she brought to the streets in the 2000s could be seen as an early influencer for these precise folkly patterned pieces – along with Russian nesting dolls, eastern European braided maidens, the occasional samuri.

Most striking as you walk through this colliding of patterns, colors, and laser cut texture, is the sense that symmetry can make order of the effusion; a series of rhythmically visual punctuations that almost become audio, almost dance.

Koralie. Detail. Indigo Blood Project. Jonathan LeVine Projects. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The influences emanate from the childhood fantasies of ornamented cultural traditions including Japanese, Russian, and Hopi, but here they are trippily lifted and re-combined with one another through the ordered graphic vision of Koralie, detached from their heavier origins and free to make new friends.

Koralie.  Indigo Blood Project. Jonathan LeVine Projects. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Koralie. Indigo Blood Project. Jonathan LeVine Projects. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Koralie. Indigo Blood Project. Jonathan LeVine Projects. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Koralie. Detail. Indigo Blood Project. Jonathan LeVine Projects. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Koralie. Detail. Indigo Blood Project. Jonathan LeVine Projects. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Koralie. Detail. Indigo Blood Project. Jonathan LeVine Projects. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Koralie. Detail. Indigo Blood Project. Jonathan LeVine Projects. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Koralie. Detail. Indigo Blood Project. Jonathan LeVine Projects. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Koralie. Detail. Indigo Blood Project. Jonathan LeVine Projects. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Koralie. Indigo Blood Project. Jonathan LeVine Projects. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Koralie. Indigo Blood Project. Jonathan LeVine Projects. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

Koralie “Indigo Blood Project” Solo Exhibition is currently on view at the Jonathan LeVine Projects. Jersey City, NJ.

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Fabio Petani Combines Art, Nature, Chemistry in Naples

Fabio Petani Combines Art, Nature, Chemistry in Naples

O sciore cchiù felice (the happiest flower) 

“The happiest flower is the one that is able to have a secure foundation, to receive joy and nourishment.” We paraphrase the Italian muralist Fabio Petani about the name of his new piece in Parco dei Murales in Naples.

Fabio Petani. “O sciore cchiù felice”. Parco dei Murales. Napoli, Italy. April 2018. (photo © Fabio Petani)

He is speaking about flowers as a metaphor for children and families, and says that he took direct inspiration for this new mural from the observations of a group of youth who had been on a tour of this neighborhood and he observed the art and photography they created in a class after they went on the tour.

Petani says he took inspiration for the colors he chose, yellow and purple in particular, as these were the most photographed hues from the students. He says he also saw the geometry of the circle recurring so he used that shape as a formal pattern, repeated.

Fabio Petani. “O sciore cchiù felice”. Parco dei Murales. Napoli, Italy. April 2018. (photo © Fabio Petani)

Currently from Piedmont, Petani was born in 1987 in Pinerolo, Turin, Italy, and he says that his interventions are inspired by flora and he integrates the shapes occurring in nature with the geometric elements of the built environment.

He says he thinks his works are “telling a tale between art and nature through chemistry.”

Fabio Petani. “O sciore cchiù felice”. Parco dei Murales. Napoli, Italy. April 2018. (photo © Fabio Petani)

Fabio Petani. “O sciore cchiù felice”. Parco dei Murales. Napoli, Italy. April 2018. (photo © Fabio Petani)

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BSA Images Of The Week: 04.08.18

BSA Images Of The Week: 04.08.18

BSA-Images-Week-Jan2015

Happy Sunday ya’ll! April is the cruelest month, true. Magnolias today, snowstorm tomorrow.

Great to see the Spanish Pejac here in New York after years of writing about his work elsewhere. It has an extra special quality that plays with perception and that people respond to – especially when he paints blossoming trees at the exact time they are blossoming in our parks, back yards and front stoops. At the other end of the spectrum, the deliberately monstrous and unhinged west coast Neck Face was back for a couple cameos to add some jarring electricity to an increasingly homogenized and candy-covered NYC.

Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Cogitaro, Kusek, Libre, Lister, Manyoly, Neck Face, Pejac, Praxis VGZ, Skewville, and Stickman.

Top Image: Pejac. Detail. The L.I.S.A. Project NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pejac. Detail. The L.I.S.A. Project NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pejac. Detail. The L.I.S.A. Project NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pejac. The L.I.S.A. Project NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Skewville (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Neck Face is BETTER THAN THE BEST… (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Praxis VGZ (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Libre (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cogitaro (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Manyoly (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist…but YES can always say a prayer for pizza… (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lister (photo © Jaime Rojo)

We can’t figure out the signature on this wall…we posted a different wall by the same artist, also in China Town a couple of Images Of The Week ago. Still no idea what the artist’s name. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Stickman (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Water Is Life (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kusek (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A faux store front by Smart Crew. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

NYC Subway busker. Manhattan. April 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Skewville Comes Crawling Back to Brooklyn

Skewville Comes Crawling Back to Brooklyn

“I had to come back…there’s no other place on this planet that speaks my language,” says Ad Deville, the prodigal son of Bushwick from atop a windy late-winter rooftop, a paint brush in hand. Seems like only a year and a half ago he and twin brother Droo were announcing that Skewville were running from this industrial/residential working-class-turned-avocado-toast-class neighborhood of Brooklyn like two rats scampering off a burning ship.

For good.

Skewville at SMKjr Rooftop. (photo © Stephen Kelley)

But they aaaallllllllllll come crawling back, Blanche. You know why? Because they know they’ll never have it as good out there as Brooklyn can serve it up here, day after f*cking day.

Like the defiant backslider he is, cheeks still red and eyes still puffy from crying so hard, Ad’s only partially sorry for abandoning the Street Art scene that the Skewville brothers helped launch here since the late 90s. Now he’s even making noise about the new tattered headquarters he has in a prime location of this BK armpit.

Also he says he has plans, which is rarely a good sign.

But for some reason the neighborhood feels whole again. So kill the fatted calf, and crack open a 40 oz. ! Welcome back Skewville!

Skewville at SMKjr Rooftop. (photo © Stephen Kelley)

Skewville at SMKjr Rooftop. (photo © Jaime Rojo)


You can catch the local status Skewville this Spring at Moniker International Art Fair in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Click HERE for more info on Moniker.

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