August 2018

BSA Film Friday 08.31.18

August 31, 2018 Artists

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

Now screening :
1. Martha Cooper and Adele Renault at Artmossphere Biennale 2018
2. Canemorto at Artmossphere Biennale 2018
3. Pablo Harymbat at Artmossphere Biennale 2018
4. Hyland Mather at Artmossphere Biennale 2018

BSA Special Feature: 4 BSA Homemade Videos From This Week in Moscow for Artmossphere

There is a certain glory to all of this; 50 or so artists from around the world who started in Street Art and graffiti now making art that cannot be easily classified as such. After a handful of international curators sifted through 350 applications this represents a moment, possibly one flashpoint in the movement between the street and the contemporary art scene and academia and the public.

For a capital city in Russia to be a facilitator of this conversation is unique because the modern stories we tell each other about this public art practice have rarely centered here. But Moscow has its own towering splendor and is taking a leadership role in helping us tell the history and possibly helping to form the future of this scene. Thursday night the legion of guests trolling the arched halls of the wine cellar could not have been more engaged, more full of question, more willing to consider that the minds and craft of these artists, at least in some cases, are apt reflections of our society, provide insight and critique.

Enjoy these small videos made by photographer Jaime Rojo on his phone this week as we surveyed some of the artists preparing their work for Artmossphere 2018.

Process at Artmossphere Biennale 2018: Martha Cooper and Adele Renault

Process at Artmossphere Biennale 2018: Canemorto

Process at Artmossphere Biennale 2018: Pablo Harymbat

Process at Artmossphere Biennale 2018: Hyland Mather

MONUMENTA / LEIPZIG

Next Stop – LEIPZIG for an audacious new festival that celebrates the flattening of the hierchies and the Intelligence of Many.

Martha Cooper And Adele Renault: Pigeon Fanciers In Moscow

August 30, 2018 Artists, Interview

BSA is in Moscow as curators of 50+ international artists in the Artmossphere Biennale 2018 for its 3^rd edition called Street Art Wave. Till the end of the month we’ll working with a stellar cross section of people involved with Urban Art/Street Art/Graffiti at curious and fascinating intersections. We’re meeting with Street Artists, academics, collectors, gallerists, museum curators, organizers, and thoughtful pontificators of all sorts in studio, on the street, behind the scenes, and on display. Come with us!

As curators we were asked to write a text about Martha Cooper and Adele Renault and their collaborative project for the Artmossphere Biennale 2018 in Moscow. We think it is equally appropriate for the work in process photos here and the interviews BSA had with both:

“A perfectly paired duo of artist and photographer who each engage with Street Art from two distinctly different perspectives, this collaborative project puts the focus on a shared interest.

Adele Renault grew up in the Belgian Ardennes and at a very early age began traveling the world; sometimes solo, quickly developing an adept eye at studying places and people. A classically trained painter with a realistic style, she focuses her camera and her brushes on smaller details that may sometimes be overlooked but which add texture and rich interest to the mundane or unrecognized. With her beautifully realized portraits she is able to capture the depths of her subjects by the expression in their eyes, the details of lines on their face, and the candid innocent smile that flashes quickly.

However her love is with pigeons. Her pigeon paintings and murals give the oft-derided birds their rightful place in our cities where they are often considered pests that are equal to rats.

Martha Cooper / Adele Renault work in progress at Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Teaming up with famed photographer Martha Cooper is a pure coup d’état. Ms. Cooper’s fame within the graffiti and Street Art community is legendary but her photographic interests are many. A documentarian and ethnographer, she grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, a US city that is famous for its once-thriving community of pigeon fanciers – and their elaborate coops. For Ms. Cooper the intersection of pigeons and their fanciers presents a fascinating and educational opportunity to capture with her lens the relationship between humans and their aviary friends in their habitats…the coops.

Ms. Cooper has been photographing pigeon coops in Baltimore and in New York where she currently lives – and in many other cities that she visits every year. For Artmossphere both Ms. Renault and Ms. Cooper have found a shared passion that drives them both even harder to create. Designing a site-specific environment and using locally found materials; both artists have trained their attention to the Russian tradition of painting pigeon coops. They hope that their installation respectfully represents the local culture and history while combining Adele’s paintings of pigeons and Martha’s photographs of the pigeon’s coops.”

Martha Cooper / Adele Renault work in progress at Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pigeons were the original Internet, email, messenger. As carriers they were the quickest and most efficient way for people across cultures to communicate. Cooper and Renault have created the ultimate exhibit that ties together the themes of OFFLINE in a very local and global way. With Martha’s photographs of pigeons from over forty years and Adele’s uncanny ability to faithfully create the plumage and character of the bird over the last decade on city walls everywhere, the original message carriers are more than getting their due in Moscow.

BSA: Yesterday at the round table discussion someone made the connection between this show being “Offline” and pigeons carrying messages. Can you talk about that a bit?
Martha: That was a brilliant connection because neither of us had thought about it. Yes there were lots of pigeons that used to carry messages, specially during wartime. The messages were secret and written in code stuffed in little capsules and attached to the pigeon’s legs. The pigeons were able to fly across enemy lines. So here we have the Internet and the name of this exhibition is “Offline” so what can be more offline than a pigeon carrying a message.

Martha Cooper / Adele Renault work in progress at Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA: About this project in Moscow. What was the most surprising element?
Adele: When I travel I try not to have expectations but for this project the most surprising thing was the location. The space is so beautiful and it’s inspiring being here. And the people of course. Sabina, I knew she was going to be nice because Martha has been telling me great things about her but she and her team are wonderful. It is very nice to work with nice people. The most important thing is the people.

BSA: Where were the photos being shown here taken?
Martha: Africa, Asia, North America and Europe.

BSA: Adele, what’s your fascination with pigeons? Was it from childhood?
Adele: No, I grew up on a farm but we had more chickens than pigeons. The first time I saw a lot of pigeons was in Venice in the Piazza San Marco. My parents had a hard time pulling me away from them. I just wanted to stay with the pigeons. The fascination is mostly that they are everywhere, in every city and they look the same everywhere and I never run out of subjects. They are like a metaphor for people. In 2007 or 2008 I painted the first oil close-up painting of a pigeon and my first mural of a pigeon was in 2010.

Martha Cooper / Adele Renault work in progress at Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA: You found an Icon at the flea market in Moscow.
Martha: We did! And it has a pigeon painted on it.

BSA: So was the found icon the inspiration to make the display wall in the shape of an icon?
Adele: No it was the other way around. I knew that in Russia there are a lot of religious triptychs with Madonna and other religious imagery in gold leaf and inside the churches. When we came in and saw the exhibition space with all of these arches we thought that we wanted to have an arch and actually paint the arch directly on the wall but because the building is a landmark we were not permitted to paint directly on it.

So we asked if the temporary wall could be a triptych instead of a simple long panel. So then at the flea market we found the triptych with the Madonna and two pigeons painted on it. So everything about this installation makes so much sense and the process has been entirely organic. We also wanted to have real pigeons inside the coop but we found that that wasn’t permitted. So we then thought about having a porcelain pigeon or something like that inside the coop. Today a Russian girl who I gave a book to a couple of days ago came back to visit and told me that she had a present for me; a souvenir from Russia and she proceeds to pull out this porcelain pigeon!

So we are going to hang it in the coop.

Martha Cooper / Adele Renault work in progress at Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA: What was the genesis of this collaboration with Martha?
Adele: Every time we see each other we talk about our attraction to pigeons and she tells me that she has been taking photos of pigeons for a long time. We were together in Los Angeles for “Beyond The Streets” and she mentioned to me the Moscow Biennale and how in Moscow artists paint the pigeon’s coops on the outside. So she encouraged me to send an application for us to participate in this year’s biennale in collaboration and I did.

Martha Cooper / Adele Renault work in progress at Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA: Can you tell us about the small pigeon on the front of the pigeon coop?
Adele: The small one on the front is the last passenger pigeon who died in 1914. The original passenger pigeons are extinct. And this pigeon’s name was ironically Martha – and it resides in taxidermy in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC. So we named this coop “Coop’s Coop” because Martha’s friends call her Coop. So it really is Martha Cooper’s coop. But passenger pigeons were used in the two big wars to bring messages in code and they were rewarded with medals for their service.

Martha Cooper / Adele Renault work in progress at Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA: So what about the old, paint peeling off frames you are using to display the photos?
Martha: When we first thought about putting photos up we wanted rough looking frames and I had this idea, based on my previous visits to Moscow and the flea market that we would be able to find them at the flea market and we found tons of frames actually. We got them cheaply and it was a lot of fun going around collecting them.

BSA: Martha our eyes gravitated to the B & W photo of the boy holding two pigeons. What’s his name and who is he?
Martha: His name is Edwin but his writer’s name is HE3 and he introduced me to Dondi. I was working on a project on the Lower East Side and I was interested in his pigeons and he asked me why didn’t I take pictures of graffiti and proceeded to show me his notebook with his drawings in it.

He said “I can introduce you to a King”. And the King was Dondi. So I said “OK let’s go”. We drove to East New York in my car and directed me to Dondi’s house.

We knock on his door and Dondi was there. He recognized my name because when he opened his black book on the first page he had a clipping from The New York Post with a photo of a very simple throw up and I was amazed that anybody would identify it and it said CIA, Crazy Inside Artists. That was his crew and I didn’t know anything about crews. When he saw me he knew I wasn’t a cop but instead he saw me as someone that could help him get fame. Boom!

BSA: So the B & W photo above is 40 years old?
Martha: Yes

BSA: Can you talk about the large painting of the pigeon in the center of the triptych?
Martha: This is a painting of a pigeon that we actually met in Moscow in a pigeon coop. One of the pigeon fanciers showed this magnificent pigeon and Adele took a photo of it with her phone so this is the portrait of the pigeon and I took a photo of Adele taking a photo of the pigeon and that photo is included in this exhibition.

Martha Cooper / Adele Renault work in progress at Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Click on the link below for more details about the opening of this exhibition:
OFFLINE: The 3rd Artmossphere Biennale Of Street Wave opens this Thursday August 30th at Vinzavod in Moscow.

Canemorto and the Master “Txakurra” Rise in Moscow For Artmossphere

August 29, 2018 Artists

Belgium-based Italian-born three-headed monster Canemorto have been laboring in a tunnel underground to create their installation at Artmossphere this week. The final result will be their analog oracle “Txakurra”, a molten gold god that occurs in their paintings and figures prominently in their full length Street Art road movie Amo-Te Lisboa where this trash-talking deity taunts and harangues them for not being authentically “street” enough, among other failings.

Canemorto at work at Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The vision of this glowing golden dog-god at the end of the tunnel perfectly melds the anarchic anti-conventional aesthetic of Canemorto on the street as well as the humorous, almost magical aura that envelopes these artists who have respect for their Italian art history and who are openly mocking of the consumer-culture hypocrisies that shape our present. Ernest and disrespectfully respectful behind their ripped t-shirt and plastic bag masks, Canemorto are nearly everything you need in a post-graffitti world; Graff writers, Street Artists, actors, rappers, and pizza makers.

The interactive piece made of wood, wire, and paper mache follows the “OFFLINE” theme of this years exhibition by returning our communications to an analog form that is all but obsolete today: the written note on a card that is dropped in the mail. Instead of instant communication, guests will write a question, include their return mailing address on the card, and drop it in the mouth of the dog-shaped spirit that represents the key figure of their visual and narrative imagination.

Canemorto at work at Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“So then we liked the idea of people sending and receiving postcards” says one of the guys, who are all staying anonymous at this stage of their career. “We were also thinking about the time involved with communication because it is obvious with the Internet now everything is immediate – you want to know something and you have 100 options to choose from.” The three friends who met in art school as teens in the early 2000’s develop ideas and concepts slowly and make their final determination after a lot of debate.

“For us it was also about communications between public and the people,” one of them says,” relating a story about letters that passed between artists and fans, between artists and artists in the past.

Canemorto at work at Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“Years ago you would have to look somewhere for the artists’ work and then try to find his address and once you found the address you would have to take time to write in the best way that you could. So we were thinking about all of these things together when we were planning for the exhibition and how to communicate with the people. This is also about hope and faith. You write this letter and then you hope to hear back from them.”

Visitors to the exhibition will be assured of a response – effectively an original piece of art from Canemorto – and it sounds like it will be at least partially related to how thoughtful their question is.

“So if you take your time to write a nice interesting question,” one of them says, “Maybe if you really want a good answer you should ask a big question like ‘Who’s the best street artist in the world?’ or ‘Who is one of the flashiest motherfuckers in the game?’ ”

Canemorto at work at Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Click on the link below for more details about the opening of this exhibition:

OFFLINE: The 3rd Artmossphere Biennale Of Street Wave opens this Thursday August 30th at Vinzavod in Moscow.

Hyland Mather. Street Assemblage and his Scupture at Artmossphere 2018, Moscow

August 28, 2018 Artists, Interview

Amsterdam resident Hyland Mather (street name X-O) is a hybrid of outside artist, Street Artist, muralist, sculptor, exhibition curator and gallery owner. Recently he also become owner of an apple orchard in Portugal, so perhaps you’ll add “farmer” to the list. This unique cobbling together of interests and art practices is often emblematic of the eccentric art practices that can be found on the street today, somehow tangentially related to the mark-making of graffiti and fine art studio practice at the same time – yet rather unclassifiable.

Hyland Mather at work at Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mather’s drilled, stacked and strung 3-D works on the street tend to be monochromatic in palette with geometric patches of white paint. Part assemblage, part outsider art, possibly art brut, elements of craft maker, some Louise Nevelson, a dollop of Caldor.

For his sculpture at Artmossphere’s OFFLINE exhibition he collected pieces of discarded wood, metal, glass, even string from Moscow streets and refuse bins and began to lay them out to find their commonalities and begin the process of assembly.

Hyland Mather. Process detail. Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“I’m the kind of guy that mothers move their strollers across the street to avoid when they see me,” he says only half-joking when describing the practice of salvaging refuse for his painting-sculptures. “I look like a fucking crazy person when I’m collecting the materials and dragging the stuff through the street,” he says.

“But when the neighborhood people see you working and your earnest attempt to turn their trash into something great they are more supportive.”

Hyland Mather. Process detail. Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Here the work has turned into something more fulsome and possibly interactive, an elevated stage and block of wood pieces and screws and string and rusted metal that may look like an invitation to enter.

“I think habitually I kind of make things that are sort of fort,” he says, and you can certainly envision this new piece cradled in the limbs of a tree with a ladder hanging down to the ground. Although there are a lot of holes in the walls…

Hyland Mather. Process detail. Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA: Well, it doesn’t look like it would be very protective.
Hyland Mather: Yeah, even in a shantytown this would not be a desirable dwelling, right? Any kind of exposure to the weather would be a disaster here – including mosquitoes.

BSA: How do you decide on the shapes and the forms? Is it about geometry?
Hyland Mather: Obviously it depends on what I find in the streets. Some times it becomes more organic just because these are the shapes I have to begin with. Between organic or geometric I don’t know if I have a real preference but I do like simple geometries.

BSA: Are the works that you leave on the street meant to stand the test of time?
Hyland Mather: They are meant to interact with time. It is a collaborative effort between myself and nature over time.

Hyland Mather. Process detail. Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lucy McLauchlan / Pablo Harymbat. “OFFLINE” Process At Artmossphere 2018, Moscow

August 27, 2018 Artists

This year’s biennale is directly inspired by our collective reactions of dissatisfaction to our daily experience of being invaded by digital content and all the artists have been charged with reclaiming a creative life “OFFLINE”. Two of the Street Artists invited to exhibit here in Moscow, Pablo Harymbat of Buenos Aires, Argentina and Lucy McLauchlan of Birmingham, UK, return to hand making tools and techniques that are distinctly separate from the digital.

Naturally, a self-imagined and eclectic DIY practice like graffiti and Street Art is born from such ingenuity and both artists showed us their custom created wooden/hardware tools with a definite degree of pride and delight.

Lucy McLauchlan at the studio. Artmossphere 2018 “Offline” Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Typically associated with a fluid curvilinear geometric formation of her expression on huge murals and canvasses, McLaughlin comes to Artmossphere with a true-to-nature technique by literally printing canvasses with trees. Using local Moscow trees on the street and in the 1,000-hectare Khimki Forest that lies within the city (said the third largest in-city forest and ecosystem in the world), Lucy and her small team used a custom-made trough on wheels to cart her acrylic paint around to reach the trees.

Lucy McLauchlan at the studio. Artmossphere 2018 “Offline” Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“It was such a good trolley that the great team of Artmossphere built for me! It went off the road on the dirt track,” she says as she shows us the multi-brush contraption she used to add the paint across a film on the surface of the bark before wrapping the tree with her linen canvasses. The resulting patterns and masking with white echo her usual geometric interpretations of rhythm and energy, but being so close to natural systems has had a strong effect on her and in comes across in this temporary studio in an architectural art university.

Lucy McLauchlan at the studio. Artmossphere 2018 “Offline” Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“I think I’m always following the abstract way from the direct form,” she says. “Here literally I’m stealing the organic form directly instead of letting it try to go through me and come out in my own way. Here I am putting it directly into the work – which I feel like I’ve been trying to do for quite a long time. I feel this kind of fits for the theme of OFFLINE.”

Lucy McLauchlan at the studio. Artmossphere 2018 “Offline” Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Similarly, Mr. Harymbat is known for his interpretations of energetic impulses and electricity-like tubes of banded color that course quickly across his murals and canvasses in organically, optically challenging and pleasing ways.

Pablo Harymbat at Vinzavod. Artmossphere 2018 “Offline” Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Here Pablo is using the handful of days that are leading up to Thursday’s opening of the exhibition to illustrate a process of creation and recreation with a wheel-shaped multi-brush tool that has a handle in the center like a warriors’ shield. Sweeping across the freestanding arch shaped wall in a full-body fluid gestural way, he captures the outlines for his multi-colored liquid energy tubes and fills the new shapes with paint capturing the evolution for a future stop-action video.

Pablo Harymbat at Vinzavod. Artmossphere 2018 “Offline” Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

We have the opportunity to see the creative process as it plays out, each swing and swoop recorded by eye and hand, flooded with energetic hue with the warmth of humanly attentive intimacy. Absent is the rumbling of the street here deep in the earth where this exhibition space once sheltered perhaps hundreds of thousands of bottles of wine. Using these custom handmade wooden tools Harymbat is continuously in a tactile relationship with his materials as well as their resulting artworks.

Pablo Harymbat at Vinzavod. Artmossphere 2018 “Offline” Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Click on the link below for more details about the opening of this exhibition:

OFFLINE: The 3rd Artmossphere Biennale Of Street Wave opens this Thursday August 30th at Vinzavod in Moscow.

BSA Images Of The Week: 08.26.18 / Moscow Special

August 26, 2018 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

It’s part of the fascinating world that you inhabit when you follow street art – you have no idea what you will discover in any city at any time because of it’s LIVE daily evolutionary personality. Here in Moscow we don’t see so much of the improvisational extra-legal type of works that characterize cities like Rio or Berlin or Paris, but we have been seeing a bunch of familiar international names in the last few days. Here are some shots of stuff we’ve found – much of it that you will also recognize – along with some great local Moscow stuff.

We’ll bring you more of the scene at the Artmossphere Biennale this week as artists and curators like us are arriving right now at the Winzavod Center for Contemporary Art. We’ve already seen Faith XLVII, FAUST, Adele, Martha Cooper, CaneMorto, Cedar Lewisohn … As the lounge singers say, “We’ll be here all week folks”. Don’t forget to tip your waitress.

Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring 0331c, Ben Eine, C215, Felipe Pantone, Haculla, Interenzni Kazki, Jan & JS, Losaer, N888K, Neue, Stasdobry, The RUS Crew, Theo Lopez, Tristan Eaton, Vasya, and WK Interact.

Our top image: Interezni Kazki (photo © Jaime Rojo)

C215 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jana & JS (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

WK Interact (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The RUS Crew (photo © Jaime Rojo)

N888K (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ben Eine (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Haculla (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Theo Lopez (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

NEUE (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Stasdobry (photo © Jaime Rojo)

0331c (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Vasya (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Felipe Pantone (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

LOSER (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Banksy Genius Or Vandal? It’s Up To You! Currently Playing In Moscow

August 25, 2018 Artists

They could have called it “Smoke & Mirrors”. Now you see him, now you don’t.

Instead the name of the new exhibition about the British Street Artist Banksy here in Moscow is posed by the organizers as a question – “Genius Or Vandal? It’s Up To You!”

Absent of a substantial collection of original pieces of art, the exhibition relies heavily on print editions (some of the editions higher numbers), blown up oversized photographs and a multi screened multi-media video montage in a darkened spooky area that may impart a sense of Street Art’s original transgressive nature to visitors. There don’t appear to be any masterpieces, but its hard to say.

In order to fill the enormous entire second floor of the venue, Central House Of Artists located in Gorky Park in Central Moscow, the organizers printed large photos taken of the actual original works placed on the streets of England, The USA and Palestine. There isn’t a problem with the photographic material, and many of them are of good quality but the show isn’t advertised as an exhibition of street art photography.

The naming of the show and its description implies that this is a solo exhibition of Banksy, actually, and not only is a large percentage of space taken for documentation of the work, the Instagram account attributed to the anonymous artist has recently announced that Banksy has no involvement in it whatsoever. In reality these are finer distinctions that the majority of visitors will care little about.

Spare yourself the incredulity; this is a marketing exercise and entertainment show meant to draw a general audience to view the works of Banksy, his greater ideas, his wit, and his politics. In the process the show acquaints them with the general practice of Street Art, and very possibly strengthens the value of his works on the market and in private collections. Truthfully, we are no more assured of Banksy’s or his teams’ involvement / disinvolvement in this show than we are of his hands performing the spraying of stencils on walls or animating stuffed animals in the back of a truck. In this way anonymity has a slew of benefits, and the veracity of any public statements attributed to him must necessarily also be viewed with at least a little suspicion.

If successful, and by unofficial count “Genius or Vandal?” has drawn between a third to a half million visitors, it will probably be packaged as a mobile exhibition and go on the road like the one by his former Manager Steve Lazarides “The Art of Banksy”, which is currently in Toronto, after being shown in Melbourne, Amsterdam, Tel Aviv and Auckland. If this indeed has drawn half a million visitors, that would mean roughly 1 in 26 of Moscow’s 13.2 million inhabitants have seen the show.

And this is as much a show (or more) as it is an exhibition. To augment the slim collection of original works the organizers created a video montage that is splashy and attractive; a sort of a retrospective in 20 minutes that is lengthened because every slide or animation with text has to be shown twice, in English and in Russian. The designers of the exhibition create a series of environments or installations meant to be evocative of the margins of metropolis – cargo pallets, metal drums, street cones and a recreation of what we imagine is the artists’ studio as featured in the movie “Exit Through The Gift Shop”. It’s an edgy theme park feeling for everyday folks as well, meant to imbue the show with an aura of authenticity and street cred.

Along the way visitors can also learn about his political opinions and forays into Israel/Palestine/Bethlehem, his sorrowful Dismaland theme park, his general upending of pleasant conventions and his deeper commitment to social justice. Cheesy as it might be, this show isn’t a bad introduction to Banksy the person and Banksy the brand, and if he has no involvement with this it can be argued that it is still beneficial in some ways.

Yes there’s a gift shop as well, naturally, as you exit the show.

For more information please visit http://banksyexhibition.com/

BSA Film Friday: 08.24.18

August 24, 2018 Artists

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

Now screening :
1. Scenes from the Banksy Exhibition in Moscow
2. Obey Giant – Shepard Fairey

BSA Special Feature: Scenes from the Banksy Exhibition in Moscow

“But the fact that a personal exhibition of a living artist is being held, and he has nothing to do with this – that’s strange.” – Olga Proskurnina and Elizaveta Podkolzina write in a recent article for “The Village”.

“Hm, not sure I’m the best person to complain about people putting up pictures without getting permission,” says a text bubble attributed to the anonymous Street Artist on his Instagram account.

It’s a highly unusual exhibition of the British Street Artist Banksy’s work in Moscow, one that the artist himself says he has nothing to do with. Yes there are original works of his and many highlights of his public career are covered, but the unofficial traffic number of 300,000 attendees since it opened in June are largely going to remember the impressively animated multi-media montages that splash across the multiple screens for the exhibition of 2000 square meters.

Approved or not, this is about Street Art, a practice in public space that frequently is transgressive and flaunts the conventions that we once accepted as a given. It’s difficult to anticipate or measure the repercussions of any given creation once it is up, a fact that Street Artists everywhere know and appreciate.

Below is a version of the video montage that greets visitors to the exhibition. The montage has been edited for brevity and includes only selected scenes from the massive projection inside the Central House of Artists as the works of Banksy once again create a stir, this time in Moscow.

Obey Giant – Shepard Fairey

And Speaking of global masters on the Street Art scene, here’s a full movie documentary on Shepard Fairey and his work to bring us up to speed. The American Fairey will be in the cosmopolitan Russian capital September 19th to debut his new exhibition at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, called “Force Majeure”. Organized with RUArts Foundation, curated by MMOMA and Wunderkammern Gallery the exhibition will be with the collaboration of the 3rd Artmosphere Biennale, which opens August 30th.

C215 and Two Fine Ladies In Moscow

August 23, 2018 Artists

Finding Street Art is sort of like a treasure hunt – one that you become addicted to and can never fully peel away from your psychological experience of the city.

Today we found by chance an eight year old stencil piece in Moscow that we had imprinted in our minds probably ever since French Street Artist C215 first posted it on his Flickr page in 2010. Of course his stencil style is his alone, but the style of these two figures is also impeccable – if fading from its original grandeur. If we find more information regarding their identity, we’ll update this post. In the meantime we’ll enjoy the serendipity of meeting old friends for the first time on the streets of Moscow.

Tristan Eaton Pops The Cosmonaut Theme In Moscow

August 22, 2018 Artists

Ask most Street Artists looking for fame and they’ll tell you it is a bonifide space race out there – looking for the right wall that gets the best exposure to peers and fans is key to winning. Tristan Eaton is launching his murals around the world this summer – including New York’s famed Houston/Bowery wall and this cosmonaut themed installation that has landed in a heavily trafficked section of Moscow’s inner ring.

It’s part of a project called The Artrium that has been inviting high profile international and Russian Street Artists to paint this summer. We hear news that more Americans will touchdown before cold weather arrives, including Futura and Shepard Fairey in September.

WK Interact Leaping From Rooftops In Moscow

August 21, 2018 Artists

Last week we featured several photographs from Martha Cooper of WK Interact while they were both participating at the 20x21EUG Mural Project in Eugene, Oregon. So naturally we were surprised to see him jumping from rooftops here in Moscow – or more appropriately maybe he was para-troopering down from the sky, having been dropped by a plane. As he does.

No surprise here, Martha is on her way to Moscow as well!

Ben Eine Welcomes You to Moscow

August 20, 2018 Artists

BSA has just arrived in the home of the Kremlin and while waiting 5 hours for a hotel room to become available after the 10 hour plane trip we hit the streets to capture whatever we could find – hopefully without walking directly into traffic because of the deliriously heavy jet lag.

None of the Artmossphere artists who will be creating and installing have arrived yet here, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing fun to see on the Street Art scene in the capital and most populous city of Russia (13.2 million).

Earlier in the year we spent some time with Ben Eine in Colombia so imagine our surprise when turning a corner we saw this welcoming sign in his signature letters looming high and bright – reaffirming to us that YES we are indeed in the right place at the right time here in Moscow.

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BSA Special Feature: 4 BSA Homemade Videos From This Week in Moscow for Artmossphere

Process at Artmossphere Biennale 2018: Martha Cooper and Adele Renault

Process at Artmossphere Biennale 2018: Canemorto

Process at Artmossphere Biennale 2018: Pablo Harymbat

Process at Artmossphere Biennale 2018: Hyland Mather

MONUMENTA / LEIPZIG

“A perfectly paired duo of artist and photographer who each engage with Street Art from two distinctly different perspectives, this collaborative project puts the focus on a shared interest.

However her love is with pigeons. Her pigeon paintings and murals give the oft-derided birds their rightful place in our cities where they are often considered pests that are equal to rats.

Martha Cooper / Adele Renault work in progress at Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Martha Cooper / Adele Renault work in progress at Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Martha Cooper / Adele Renault work in progress at Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Martha Cooper / Adele Renault work in progress at Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Martha Cooper / Adele Renault work in progress at Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Martha Cooper / Adele Renault work in progress at Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Martha Cooper / Adele Renault work in progress at Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Martha Cooper / Adele Renault work in progress at Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Martha Cooper / Adele Renault work in progress at Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Martha Cooper / Adele Renault work in progress at Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Martha Cooper / Adele Renault work in progress at Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Martha Cooper / Adele Renault work in progress at Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Martha Cooper / Adele Renault work in progress at Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Martha Cooper / Adele Renault work in progress at Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Martha Cooper / Adele Renault work in progress at Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Martha Cooper / Adele Renault work in progress at Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Canemorto at work at Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Canemorto at work at Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Canemorto at work at Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Canemorto at work at Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hyland Mather at work at Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hyland Mather. Process detail. Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hyland Mather. Process detail. Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hyland Mather. Process detail. Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hyland Mather. Process detail. Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hyland Mather. Process detail. Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hyland Mather. Process detail. Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hyland Mather. Process detail. Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hyland Mather. Process detail. Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hyland Mather. Process detail. Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hyland Mather. Process detail. Vinzavod for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lucy McLauchlan at the studio. Artmossphere 2018 “Offline” Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lucy McLauchlan at the studio. Artmossphere 2018 “Offline” Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lucy McLauchlan at the studio. Artmossphere 2018 “Offline” Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lucy McLauchlan at the studio. Artmossphere 2018 “Offline” Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lucy McLauchlan at the studio. Artmossphere 2018 “Offline” Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lucy McLauchlan at the studio. Artmossphere 2018 “Offline” Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pablo Harymbat at Vinzavod. Artmossphere 2018 “Offline” Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pablo Harymbat at Vinzavod. Artmossphere 2018 “Offline” Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pablo Harymbat at Vinzavod. Artmossphere 2018 “Offline” Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pablo Harymbat at Vinzavod. Artmossphere 2018 “Offline” Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Our top image: Interezni Kazki (photo © Jaime Rojo)

C215 (photo © Jaime Rojo)