June 2018

Ori Carino, Lea Thenari & Friends in New York Pop Up: “NYC Out Of USA”

Ori Carino, Lea Thenari & Friends in New York Pop Up: “NYC Out Of USA”

Can you get more New York meta than having a group art show on Manhatttan’s Lower East Side in an empty storefront – with a sculpture by Ori Carino and Benjamin Armas on the sidewalk out front?

Benjamin Armas & Ori Carino. NYC Out of USA. Ori Carino, Leah Tinari and Friends. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The bricks in the sculpture of a mini façade that is common to the East Village are actually made from the bricks of a destroyed East Village building. All of the duo’s collaborative sculptures are – a tribute to the history and the people of this neighborhood as well as a commentary on the ravaging/restorative effects of gentrification.

Ori sees both sides of the gentrification equation and speaks colorfully about it while balancing on the curb next to an overflowing garbage can as an ambulance with it’s lights and siren’s ablaze cruises by you, interrupting his autobiographical data flow only at it’s ear piercing peak of 7 seconds as it rumbles down Avenue A. Born in a loft on Houston Street in the 80s, raised by 2 New York artists, and a graffiti writer starting at age 12, his insights are well considered.

Ori Carino. NYC Out of USA. Ori Carino, Leah Tinari and Friends. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Benjamin speaks to the natural choice of murals they use to adorn these façades when deciding what to paint on these mini- facades, owing their stylistic influences to time spent studying with Pema Rinzin, the Tibetan painter, and their own studies of Buddism.

“It’s a story it’s a narrative sometimes of our experiences and everyday moments with buildings and life that we try document,” he says. “This is one of the first paintings that we made where we were trying to capture our relationship to Buddhist religion,” he says.

Jordan Kleinman. NYC Out of USA. Ori Carino, Leah Tinari and Friends. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“NYC Out of USA” is the name of the pop up show in this former bicycle shop just closed possibly because of high rent prices, and Ori co-curated it with artist Leah Tinari whose canvasses of painted graffiti in bathrooms and delis using latex, spray, and oilstick are only surpassed in LES realness by her customized fashion accessories.

Painted sign language hands announce the show on the awning, a somewhat cryptic advertisement of a name that may refer to a number of activist chants against US imperialism around the world over the last decades (“US Out of El Salvador,” for example). In this case, it is almost like the artist community is considering applying for citizenship elsewhere before an impending fascist state.

Oh, but people have been saying that for years, haven’t they?

Ori Carino. NYC Out of USA. Ori Carino, Leah Tinari and Friends. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Artist Karmimadeebora McMillan shows us her first three of twenty five “Miss Merri Mack” figures that she has begun to exhibit. The dual sided mobiles feature the character she borrowed from common negatively stereotyped visual images of black folk in US history. “These figures you see a lot in the South,” she says. “People used to have them in their yards.” Influenced by an image on an old sign gifted to her back in Charlotte, she named the character after a children’s song she and her friends sang while playing jump rope.

Karmic McMillan. NYC Out of USA. Ori Carino, Leah Tinari and Friends. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Only as an adult she learned that the name Merrimac in the song referred to a slave ship, fairly cementing her abiding love for the character she had baptized with the name. The flip side of her mobiles contain fictional scenes that combine natural pastoral views with figures borrowed from a FBI propaganda comic book distributed about the Black Panther’s during the COINTELPRO campaign to turn public sentiment against the activists fighting for empowerment and equality.

“They sent these out to 100,000 white families to scare them,” she says. “So I take these characters and I put them with her,” Mima says, “It’s really violent and crazy and I just can’t stop,” she says with a rich joyful laugh that tells you there will be many more of these pieces coming.

Ken Haratsuka. NYC Out of USA. Ori Carino, Leah Tinari and Friends. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The show is full of gems like a large carved stone piece by Ken Haratsuka, an important figure in the New York Street Art movement since the 80s when he made his marks literally in the streets of New York. A temporary exhibit, you’ll continue to hear more about some of these artists regardless, but it closes tomorrow so stop by Avenue A and 3rd Street if you are in the neighborhood.

Leah Tinari. NYC Out of USA. Ori Carino, Leah Tinari and Friends. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Leah Tinari. NYC Out of USA. Ori Carino, Leah Tinari and Friends. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Leah Tinari. NYC Out of USA. Ori Carino, Leah Tinari and Friends. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Benjamin Armas & Ori Carino. NYC Out of USA. Ori Carino, Leah Tinari and Friends. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Benjamin Armas & Ori Carino. NYC Out of USA. Ori Carino, Leah Tinari and Friends. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Benjamin Armas & Ori Carino. NYC Out of USA. Ori Carino, Leah Tinari and Friends. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Benjamin Armas & Ori Carino. NYC Out of USA. Ori Carino, Leah Tinari and Friends. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

NYC OUT OF USA is a Pop-Up exhibition at the old bicycle shop on 3rd Street and Avenue A in The East Village. The exhibition will stay open until tomorrow Sunday, July 1st.

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BSA Film Friday: 06.29.18

BSA Film Friday: 06.29.18

bsa-film-friday-JAN-2015

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

Now screening :
1. Banksy in Paris
2. Art Meet Milk III – Zeso – Carl Kenz
3. UDANE: 12 + 1 Project.
4. Beyond The Streets Presents: Felipe Pantone
5. Beyond The Streets Presents: Lee Quinones

bsa-film-friday-special-feature

BSA Special Feature: Banksy in Paris

A quick overview to catch you up on the 7 most recent pieces attributed to Banksy in Paris. He’s said to be creating work more attuned to the plight of migration, but others have observed it is a return to the classic Banksy sarcastic sweetness that has characterized the clever sudden missives he has delivered since he began. See Butterfly Art News’ coverage here: Paris: Banksy for World Refugee Day

Art Meet Milk III – Zeso – Carl Kenz

Zeso and Carl KENZ are splashing about in that white liquid you are all familiar with. The title leads you to believe there have been two more graffiti/Street Art murals meditating on this as well, and in fact it is a campaign. Not sure what its about.

 

UDANE: Contorno Urbano Foundation. 12 + 1 Project.

The temptation for the typical young buck who is hitting up a wall with cans is to completely cover it in as much paint as possible and leaving the view reeling with combustible imagery. UDANE decides that strength is in restraint, leaving part of the wall uncluttered, giving room for you to think and consider and wonder what this guy with the backpack is thinking about.

We have more details for you in our original posting: Udane Paints Light and Color, A Guy and His Backpack, for Contorno Urbano

 

Beyond The Streets: Felipe Pantone

A sneaker brand has sponsored some of the Beyond the Streets exhibition currently running in Los Angeles and following are a couple of brief artist spotlights. The first is the Spanish Argentinian master of visual glitch and kinectic/op-art Felipe Pantone.

 

Beyond The Streets Presents: Lee Quinones

“The voice of the ghetto continues,” says Lee Quinones as he references himself and talks about this recreation of a wall he did nearly four decades ago. Yes, the ghetto has continued and and vastly widened with about 28 million people in poverty when he first painted this mural and 40 million now.

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Spidertag’s Impromptu GOAL! In Marseille

Spidertag’s Impromptu GOAL! In Marseille

GOAL!

Call it the ‘World Cup Effect’ as your daily news features rousing updates about wild eyed athletic men kicking a ball on a grassy plane in Russia. How this impacts your day, one cannot be sure, but don’t tell that to your brother-in-law, who is currently screaming something and jumping up and down in front of his living room screen, covered in bi-color grease paint that matches his teams’ kit, a sword in his hand. Or is that a spear?

Spidertag. Marseille, France. June 2018. (photo © Spidertag)

Spanish Street Artist Spidertag is in Marseille, France this week working with Galerie Le Container and late one night he decided to create an impromptu glowing geometric form in the goal cage, floating aloft. This holy apparition of electric string appears on a field very near the Cathedral, so may be some sort of sign perhaps, or a bit of drunken reverie.

Spidertag. Marseille, France. June 2018. (photo © Spidertag)

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Urban Art, Human Space. 6th Edition of “Avant Garde Tudela” in Spain

Urban Art, Human Space. 6th Edition of “Avant Garde Tudela” in Spain

“Contemporary Muralism” is the tag that organizers of this international exhibition gives to the current practice, and this northeastern Spanish city of 35,000 has hosted a number of primarily European Street Artists for a half dozen years here to do just that.

Miquel Wert. Avant Garde Tudela VI. Tudela, Spain. June 2018. (photo © Fer Alcalà)

“Urban art is an incomparable tool for the transformation of the public space,” say organizers, and this years roster includes SpY, Miquel Wert, Kenor and Lucas Milà. Additionally a program of workshops was given by Andrea Michaelsson – Btoy, along with round tables and conferences in which international and local speakers participated.

Miquel Wert. Avant Garde Tudela VI. Tudela, Spain. June 2018. (photo © Fer Alcalà)

Under the auspices of the Department of Culture and the City Council of Tudela – EPEL Castel Ruiz, the program of “Arte Urbano, Espacio Humano” focuses on a democratic approach to the city that recognizes the contributions of many people who make a city work.

“In the street the work merges with the morphology and geometry of the city,” says one of the curators of this years edition, Arcadi Poch, “at the artistic level the city is an extraordinarily fertile land”.

Our sincere thanks to photographer Fer Alcalà for sharing his excellent documentation here with BSA readers.

Miquel Wert. Avant Garde Tudela VI. Tudela, Spain. June 2018. (photo © Fer Alcalà)

Miquel Wert. Avant Garde Tudela VI. Tudela, Spain. June 2018. (photo © Fer Alcalà)

Btoy. Avant Garde Tudela VI. Tudela, Spain. June 2018. (photo © Fer Alcalà)

Btoy. Avant Garde Tudela VI. Tudela, Spain. June 2018. (photo © Fer Alcalà)

SpY. Avant Garde Tudela VI. Tudela, Spain. June 2018. (photo © Fer Alcalà)

SpY. Avant Garde Tudela VI. Tudela, Spain. June 2018. (photo © Fer Alcalà)

Lucas Milá. Avant Garde Tudela VI. Tudela, Spain. June 2018. (photo © courtesy of the artist)

In this new piece by Catalan artist Lucas Milá the paint itself plays a role in the story because it appears and disappears with the light and temperature – a project of photochromic paint.

In the mural, made in the town of Peralta, you can see a vegetable farmer, possibly from the area known as the Ribera, whose shirt goes from a dark blue to an absolute white covered with vegetables. Similarly in the background landscape some clouds disappear when the sun hits.

Lucas Milá. Avant Garde Tudela VI. Tudela, Spain. June 2018. (photo © courtesy of the artist)

Kenor. Avant Garde Tudela VI. Tudela, Spain. June 2018. (photo © Fer Alcalà)

Kenor. Avant Garde Tudela VI. Tudela, Spain. June 2018. (photo © Fer Alcalà)

Jorge Rodríguez Gerarda. Work in progress. Avant Garde Tudela VI. Tudela, Spain. June 2018. (photo © Fer Alcalà)

Jorge Rodríguez Gerarda. Avant Garde Tudela VI. Tudela, Spain. June 2018. (photo courtesy of the artist)

C215. Avant Garde Tudela (Work from previous edition). Detail. Tudela, Spain. June 2018. (photo © Fer Alcalà)

C215. Avant Garde Tudela (Work from previous edition). Tudela, Spain. June 2018. (photo © Fer Alcalà)


VI AVANT GARDE TUDELA Y RIBERA 2018
International Exhibition of Contemporary Muralism
‘ARTE URBANO, ESPACIO HUMANO’ VI International exhibition of contemporary muralism. Avant Garde Tudela ‘Arte Urbano Espacio humano’ is an international exhibition of contemporary muralism that was organized by the Department of Culture of the City Council of Tudela – EPEL Castel Ruiz. In this VI edition, the exhibition opened to Ribera with the participation of the towns of Arguedas and Peralta.

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WASP Crew in Turin with a Elegant, Migratory Stork

WASP Crew in Turin with a Elegant, Migratory Stork

Migration is as human as it is aviary, and Italian graffiti writer/mural painting duo the WASP collective tells us with this new painting of a stork. Eddyone a.k.a. Edoardo Kucich and Ride a.k.a. Gabriele Guareschi are on top of a building in Turin painting a vertical mural that celebrates extols the elegant migratory bird here where families have been living in “emergency housing”, having escaped strife in their home countries.

WASP Crew. Torino, Italy. June 2018. (photo © WASP Crew)

Whether the journey is caused by hopeful aspiration or horrified escape, the symbol of the nest in a tree or tucked beneath the eves is also temporary. The housing provides shelter from the elements, a place to have respite before rising to face the new day.

“In the nest we have hidden the symbol of the infinite,” Edoardo says of the stylized lemniscate hovering atop the circular cluster of twigs beneath the large billed stork. “We wanted to represent the fact that over the years, generations of families from all over the world always have emigrated,” he says, perhaps thinking of the families living beneath his feet while he paints.

“These events that have always occurred in the history of humanity, and nothing can stop them.”

WASP Crew. Torino, Italy. June 2018. (photo © WASP Crew)

WASP Crew. Torino, Italy. June 2018. (photo © WASP Crew)

WASP Crew. Torino, Italy. June 2018. (photo © WASP Crew)

WASP Crew. Torino, Italy. June 2018. (photo © WASP Crew)

WASP Crew. Torino, Italy. June 2018. (photo © WASP Crew)

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Anders Gjennestad: A Door as “Canvas”

Anders Gjennestad: A Door as “Canvas”

A door as canvas. A door as canvas.

It sounds the same on the street as it does in the gallery space, and for Norwegian Street Artist Anders Gjennestad the two appear nearly identical, aside from context.

Anders Gjennestad. “Canvas”. Published by Galerie Friedmann – Hahn. Berlin 2018

Whether he is discovering the neglected urban factory door long after the spirit of industry has roared its last turbine and reaching toward his backpack for a spraycan, or he is hoisting a piece out from the pile of collected iron-bound wooded slabs in his Berlin studio, functionally each of these doors is a canvas.

Every urban explorer sees the potential of walls that are long abandoned and spoiled with rot and piss and pushed open by weeds, worn away by rain. The world is a temporary place anyway. I am only here temporarily.

Anders Gjennestad. “Canvas”. Published by Galerie Friedmann – Hahn. Berlin 2018

This cavorting, twisting, athletic dance with long shadows by men in hooded sweatshirts is a flicker across the canvas that you catch from the corner of your eye as your life dances by. His stenciled figures are expressive, interactive, fully alive, kinetic in spirit – singular and plural.

The symmetry and rythmic action is sport and performance and energetic expression across this patinaed, warped wood; this oxidized and oddly puckered and heavy iron and brick.

Anders Gjennestad. “Canvas”. Published by Galerie Friedmann – Hahn. Berlin 2018

Step many paces back from the aged factory wall and your perspective has been altered and the burr bushes and Bishop’s weed and crumbled concrete rubble you are standing in are strangely moved, even moving. Staring at his figures as they run diagonally up and across the entire expanse of a massive wall you realize he has tilted them along an axis in such a way and at such a scale that your own feet may be on a plane that is perpendicular to their ground, and you may fall.

You too have begun to dance to Anders’ optics, a figure in his urban choreography, and you too can take flight before gravity pulls you downward, as it will.

Anders Gjennestad. “Canvas”. Published by Galerie Friedmann – Hahn. Berlin 2018

Anders Gjennestad. “Canvas”. Published by Galerie Friedmann – Hahn. Berlin 2018

Anders Gjennestad. “Canvas”. Published by Galerie Friedmann – Hahn. Berlin 2018

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BSA Images Of The Week: 06.24.18

BSA Images Of The Week: 06.24.18

BSA-Images-Week-Jan2015

As upbeat as celebrations like today’s LGBTQ Pride events are here in NYC, they are rooted in defiance of the suffocating unjust norms that entrapped people in this city and across the country for generations – newly emancipating broad groups of people over the last 50 years or so. As New York City led the way with the Stonewall riots for sexual minorities, it sends this message today to people across the globe that you will be free too, even if it doesn’t feel that way right now in your country.

But LGBTQ folks needed straight allies to get their rights over five decades. Today we have to speak up loud and proud for immigrants. If you need to punch, figuratively, don’t punch downward. These people have done nothing to hurt you and are bringing a the identical aspirations your parents, grandparents, great grandparents did. Don’t believe the hype of the traumatizer who blames the traumatized.

Punch UP at the folks who shifted all the jobs away, just lowered their own taxes to their lowest rate in your entire lifetime, who are shredding the social safety net, who are creating jobs that pay so little you still have to get food stamps, who are trying to convince poor people that poor people are their enemy.  It’s an old old trick and it appears to still work marvelously.

This week on BSA Images of the Week we see that just a few Street Artists are addressing these new disgusting revelations and systemic problems, even as 700 Migrant Kids Separated From Parents Are in NY.

Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Anthony Lister, Bordalo II, Charles Williams, City Kitty, Danny Minnick, Etnik, FKDL, Lapiz, LMNOPI, Individual Activist, Niko, Nick Walker, Olivia Laita, Revaf, Sofles, Soten, and Strayones.

Top image: This beautifully hand rendered drawing is signed but unfortunately we can’t read the language so we can’t identify the artist. Please help. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

This beautifully hand rendered drawing is signed but unfortunately we can’t read the language so we can’t identify the artist. Please help. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Individual Activist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Anthony Lister being entertained by The Drif in Little Italy for The L.I.S.A. Project NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

An outstanding collaboration between Charles Williams and Bordalo II in Moorea, French Polynesia for ONO’U Tahiti Festival 2018. (photo © Olivia Laita)

Strayones (photo © Jaime Rojo)

NIKO (photo © Jaime Rojo)

City Kitty in collaboration with LMNOPI. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

LMNOPI (photo © Jaime Rojo)

LMNOPI (photo © Jaime Rojo)

LMNOPI (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lapiz. Farblut Festival 2018. Bremen, Germany.  (photo © Lapiz)

“The soccer world cup has begun and I took the opportunity to paint a mural about Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. It was painted during the FARBFLUT festival which took place last weekend where 200 artist painted a 1000 m wall. The mural itself measures 6 x 3.50 m.

The motive shows the Russian president Vladimir Putin kissing Vladimir Putin. The colours are those of the rainbow flag and it has the words ‘One Love’ written above it. The picture addresses Putin’s narcissism and even more the homophobic tendencies supported by the Russian
government.”

Artist Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Soten. Moorea, French Polynesia for ONO’U Tahiti Festival 2018. (photo © Olivia Laita)

Soten. Moorea, French Polynesia for ONO’U Tahiti Festival 2018. (photo © Olivia Laita)

Etnik. Prato, Italy. (photo © Etnik)

Sofles. Tahiti, French Polynesia. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sofles. Tahiti, French Polynesia. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Danny Minnick for The L.I.S.A. Project NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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

Not Invaders in Tahiti, French Polynesia. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Gulf Revaf (photo © Jaime Rojo)

FKDL (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. West Village, NYC. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Gola Hundun Brings Botanicals and Bees to Paris

Gola Hundun Brings Botanicals and Bees to Paris

Now that we have had our longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere and Solstice has stirred libidos, plunging us into midnight runs through abandoned lots and local parks and naked splashing in the fountains, we leave our cities for something more botanical. It’s instructive that despite the many wonders of the built urban environment, most city dwellers find life incomplete without grasses, flowers, leaves, honey bees.

Gola Hundun. “The Bee”. Paris, France. June 2018. (photo © Lucas Barioulette)

Street Artist Gola Hundun is fully immersed in nature with this 6 story open atrium he has just painted in the Parisian Hôtel Le Belleval and it may set your senses buzzing as well. Carefully planned and executed according to an order that mimics the natural one, these botanicals spring from the Gola well, which runs quite deep, if you are asking.

Not quite outside, and not quite in, the fresco mimics the evolution of previous works by this Italian-born Ambassador for Earth and All Her Creatures and Energies. Hopefully the hotel’s patrons will look up from their screens and glasses of Rosé to see the birds and bees, because without them we are nothing.

Gola Hundun. “The Bee”. Paris, France. June 2018. (photo © Lucas Barioulette)

Gola Hundun. “The Bee”. Paris, France. June 2018. (photo © Lucas Barioulette)

Gola Hundun. “The Bee”. Paris, France. June 2018. (photo © Lucas Barioulette)

Gola Hundun. “The Bee”. Paris, France. June 2018. (photo © Lucas Barioulette)

Gola Hundun. “The Bee”. Paris, France. June 2018. (photo © Lucas Barioulette)

Gola Hundun. “The Bee”. Paris, France. June 2018. (photo © Lucas Barioulette)

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BSA Film Friday: 06.22.18

BSA Film Friday: 06.22.18

bsa-film-friday-JAN-2015

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

Now screening :
1. Rammellzee: It’s Not Who But What
2. JANZ Artist in Time – Joanna Kiernan – Trailer
3. Frida Kahlo at V&A on FWTV
4. Sonner’s Sonnet by Resoborg

bsa-film-friday-special-feature

BSA Special Feature: Rammellzee: It’s Not Who But What

At first the cult of Rammellzee only consisted of the artist and the characters in his mind. That was a universe.

Less than 10 minutes, this crush of visuals, words, and graphics and storylines converged under the guidance of Oscar Boyson to begin to represent the New York artist. As he would have told you himself, Rammellzee is an equation, as is history, as is hiphop and theater, as is every aspect of your life, your character, your ability to fantasize about a parallel life. He was many things at once.

The grand wizard of Gothic Futurism and Ikonoklast Panzerism from Far Rockaway sprung from the underground and the streets at a time in New York when the city was bankrupt and artists could afford to live and make work there. Here. He made Gods out of garbage and weapons out of skateboards, a full immersion dive into the in-between world with fresh terminology and multiple variations.

After all its not who but what.

JANZ Artist in Time – Joanna Kiernan – Trailer

In production for five years, a feature documentary about the somewhat unappreciated New York Street Artist Robert Janz shows Janz working in different mediums and environments, primarily the streets of the city. It reveals some of Janz’s history and stays with him, revealing his philosophy of presence in the world as he acts upon it, within it.

 

Frida Kahlo at V&A on FWTV

London’s V&A Museum has a Frida Kahlo show up until November and Doug Gillen takes a break from the Street Art world to delve into the biography and psychological drama that formed the life and work of this great Mexican artist.

 

Sonner’s Sonnet by Resoborg

A small Virginia town of 6500 looks for a mural program to boost its community and revitalize it with Street Artists from the city like Gilf!, Alice Mizrachi, NDA, and OverUnder and todays featured artist, the South African graphic designer, illustrator, art director and muralist Resoborg.

 

 

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Opiemme Writes “To Stephen Hawking”

Opiemme Writes “To Stephen Hawking”

Famed cosmologist and theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking unveiled his ambitious Breakthrough Starshot two years ago; a plan to send a tiny, light-propelled robotic spacecraft through space. For a man of such brilliance the concept of transcending our limitations was a common one to contemplate and explore.

Opiemme. Museo di Arte Urbana. Torino, Corso Tassoni, Italy. June 2018. (photo courtesy of Opiemme)

Street Artist and poet Opiemme uses language, or rather the raw matter of its letters, to propel a column of light across this wall in Torino, Italy for the Museo di Arte Urbana (MAU). As many distinguished guests paid homage to Hawking at a memorial in Westminster Abbey this week and his ashes were interned alongside those of Darwin and Newton, Opiemme says the new street piece is meant as as a tribute to Hawking and his work and his many ambitions, like visiting Alpha Centauri, our nearest star.

“For all the passion about the Universe you infused us with,” Opiemme writes, “your easy words for amateurs of outer space.”

Opiemme. Museo di Arte Urbana. Torino, Corso Tassoni, Italy. June 2018. (photo courtesy of Opiemme)

Opiemme. Museo di Arte Urbana. Torino, Corso Tassoni, Italy. June 2018. (photo courtesy of Opiemme)

Opiemme. Museo di Arte Urbana. Torino, Corso Tassoni, Italy. June 2018. (photo courtesy of Opiemme)

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Mina Hamada & Zosen Bandido Mediating the Streets With Abstract Color in Corbeil-Essonnes. France

Mina Hamada & Zosen Bandido Mediating the Streets With Abstract Color in Corbeil-Essonnes. France

A public/private mural campaign in the southern suburbs of Paris continues to bring international Street Artists to create works for the public space. While France continues to grapple with an increase of new immigrants, a rise in right wing sentiments and xenophobic attitudes toward populations that differ from the dominant culture, projects like this may help keep the peace and foster community.

Mina Hamada & Zosen Bandido. “Spring Colour”. Wall Street Art Festival of Grand Paris Sud. Corbeil-Essonnes. France. (photo © Mathgoth Gallery)

The Wall Street Art Festival of Grand Paris Sud continues with their mural program here with a fresco on the “Paul Langevin” school, named after the prominent French physicist who developed Langevin dynamics and the Langevin equation. Art duo Mina Hamada and Zosen Bandido live in Barcelona and braved the rains here during a week of painting 5 walls to create an abstract collection of “Spring Colour” in a rather spontaneous way.

Mina Hamada & Zosen Bandido. “Spring Colour”. Wall Street Art Festival of Grand Paris Sud. Corbeil-Essonnes. France. (photo © Mathgoth Gallery)

“They were the best ambassadors for painting a wall in a popular neighborhood where people of different origins and religions live together,” says Gautier Jourdain, who curates the ongoing festival. In an atmosphere where tensions between cultures has hit some high points in recent years nationally and locally, the artists themselves hail from Japan and Argentina are quite familiar with some of the issues at hand here.

“That is also why we have chosen light, simplified forms,” say Hamada and Zosen in a joint statement. “We want to paint creations that speak to everyone’s heart, that are accessible to everyone and give joy.”

 

Mina Hamada & Zosen Bandido. “Spring Colour”. Wall Street Art Festival of Grand Paris Sud. Corbeil-Essonnes. France. (photo © Mathgoth Gallery)

Mina Hamada & Zosen Bandido. “Spring Colour”. Wall Street Art Festival of Grand Paris Sud. Corbeil-Essonnes. France. (photo © Mathgoth Gallery)

Mina Hamada & Zosen Bandido. “Spring Colour”. Wall Street Art Festival of Grand Paris Sud. Corbeil-Essonnes. France. (photo © Mathgoth Gallery)

Mina Hamada & Zosen Bandido. “Spring Colour”. Wall Street Art Festival of Grand Paris Sud. Corbeil-Essonnes. France. (photo © Mathgoth Gallery)

Mina Hamada & Zosen Bandido. “Spring Colour”. Wall Street Art Festival of Grand Paris Sud. Corbeil-Essonnes. France. (photo © Mathgoth Gallery)

Mina Hamada & Zosen Bandido. “Spring Colour”. Wall Street Art Festival of Grand Paris Sud. Corbeil-Essonnes. France. (photo © Mathgoth Gallery)

 

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Tahiti So Long : BSA X ONO’U Festival 5: Bora Bora

Tahiti So Long : BSA X ONO’U Festival 5: Bora Bora

Last week BSA was checking out French Polynesia to get an appreciation for the Street Art, graffiti and street scene there while the 5th Annual ONO’U was taking place. BSA readers joined in the tropical action while we took you to Tahiti, Raiatea, Bora Bora, and Moorea to see the artists and the action.


Here’s our last posting from Tahiti, now that we’re recovered from the jet lag and are back in dirty old New York. We parted ways with the artists on Bora Bora who continued to paint in a place where the word ‘paradise’ is redundant. How many times did artists here simply jump in the water to cool off after painting and installing in the tropical sun for a few hours?

Vinie. ONO’U Tahiti 2018 / Bora Bora. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The community was involved as well, with public officials and traditional representatives hosting welcoming ceremonies and receptions, artists like Pixel Pancho and Bordello II teaching students about technique in an art class, and countless interactions with clusters of interested onlookers who provided a revolving audience for the muralists while they created new works. Local artists Rival and Abuzz helped with explanations and communications also while they joined in with their international guest artists in painting new walls.

Vinie. ONO’U Tahiti 2018 / Bora Bora. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

French muralist Vinie reimagined her popular female figure as an underwater explorer in a way that delighted and reassured some of the kids in the neighborhood. In an unexpected twist, Portugal’s BordalloII and Spain’s Okuda decided to collaborate on a piece, a unique collaboration of pop surrealism and spontaneous sculpture with recycled materials on the end of a seaside home.

In the end ONO’U is always far more than you expect, a unique collection of settings, interactions with people, meeting of new friends, learning of history and communing with nature that inspire the artists to dig a little deeper inside to find a response to all they are seeing and experiencing.

Vinie. ONO’U Tahiti 2018 / Bora Bora. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Vinie. ONO’U Tahiti 2018 / Bora Bora. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

Vinie. ONO’U Tahiti 2018 / Bora Bora. June 2018. (photo © Olivia Laita)

Okuda . BordaloII. ONO’U Tahiti 2018 / Bora Bora. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Okuda . BordaloII. ONO’U Tahiti 2018 / Bora Bora. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Okuda . BordaloII. ONO’U Tahiti 2018 / Bora Bora. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Okuda . BordaloII. ONO’U Tahiti 2018 / Bora Bora. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Okuda . BordaloII. ONO’U Tahiti 2018 / Bora Bora. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Okuda . BordaloII. ONO’U Tahiti 2018 / Bora Bora. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Okuda . BordaloII. ONO’U Tahiti 2018 / Bora Bora. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Akimbo. ONO’U Tahiti 2018 / Bora Bora. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Akimbo with Narvila who inspired the artist for the themes on this wall of human rights, inclusion, acceptance, GLBTQ rights and love. ONO’U Tahiti 2018 / Bora Bora. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lady Diva. ONO’U Tahiti 2018 / Bora Bora. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cranio. ONO’U Tahiti 2018 / Bora Bora. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cranio. ONO’U Tahiti 2018 / Bora Bora. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cranio. ONO’U Tahiti 2018 / Bora Bora. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cranio. ONO’U Tahiti 2018 / Bora Bora. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The Yellow Buff: Cranio painted the character plus the door and the walls next to it. As you can see most of what he did got buffed with yellow paint by the owners of the wall. They told us they didn’t like the words and lettering on the other walls, preferring the figurative to the text-based. A shame that the hard work was destroyed so quickly. ONO’U Tahiti 2018 / Bora Bora. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pixel Pancho. ONO’U Tahiti 2018 / Bora Bora. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Charles Williams. ONO’U Tahiti 2018 / Bora Bora. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Charles Williams and Soten. ONO’U Tahiti 2018 / Bora Bora. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Charles Williams . Soten . Abuze. ONO’U Tahiti 2018 / Bora Bora. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Abuze. ONO’U Tahiti 2018 / Bora Bora. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Abuze. ONO’U Tahiti 2018 / Bora Bora. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A triptych from Charles Williams, Soten, and Abuze at ONO’U Tahiti 2018 / Bora Bora. June 2018. (photo © Olivia Laita)

Rival. ONO’U Tahiti 2018 / Bora Bora. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Rival. ONO’U Tahiti 2018 / Bora Bora. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

Rival. ONO’U Tahiti 2018 / Bora Bora. June 2018. (photo © Olivia Laita)

Bordalo II. ONO’U Tahiti 2018 / Bora Bora. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bordalo II. ONO’U Tahiti 2018 / Bora Bora. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bordalo II. ONO’U Tahiti 2018 / Bora Bora. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bordalo II. ONO’U Tahiti 2018 / Bora Bora. June 2018. (photo © Olivia Laita)

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