This is it! The last part of summer when you are still daydreaming, looking at the sky. The trees in all the parks are deep rich green, the city’s swimming pools are still teaming with people, the abandoned lots and railroad tracks are sprouting full-blown bushes and weeds that grow so tall they are over your head. Somewhere in those weeds is a secret hiding place where you’ll find a half pack of cigarettes and a porno magazine stowed by a teenager. Oh, they don’t read porno magazines anymore? It’s all on your phone?

Speaking of that topic, what about the disaster porn across all the corporate news shows every single day? Boy, that stuff sells! Hard to imagine they want to give up that money with all our eyes glued to TV millionaires like Rachel and Shawn and Blondy McBlonderstein and the rows of speaking Barbies and Kens spewing out one more outrageous piece of drivel after another. This presidency is a boon to business in so many fabulous ways! Almost better than war!

Street Art is alive and well and summer has produced a healthy crop of murals, wheat-pastes, stencils, tags, pieces, you name it. New Yorkers have a lot to say in public space – as well as a bounty of visitors, like the Brazilian Eduardo Kobra, who has been painting a new series of socially conscious walls with celebrities carrying the message around New York. On the street it’s always a mixed bag, and we like to see the huge walls as well as the small missives. You’re guaranteed a good crop this summer.

Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Arkane, Benjie Escobar, Caratoes, CRK, Goodie, Gum Shoe, Key Detail, Kobra, Mike Makatron, Mr. Never Satisfied (Never), Mr. Baby, Primal, R. Heak, and Shaun Bullen.

Our top image: Kobra (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kobra (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kobra (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kobra (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Somewhere in the middle there is art. Mr. Never Satisfied took inspiration from Benjie Escobar graphic (pictured below).  (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Benjie Escobar.  (photo © Benjie Escobar/Instagram)

Arkane for Owley. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Goodie…indeed… (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Key Detail (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Caratoes (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Shawn Bullen (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Shawn Bullen (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mike Makatron (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mr. Bbaby (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mr. Bbaby (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Gum Shoe. We have published this piece before as a wheat-pasted poster. This is probably the original hand painted canvas piece affixed to the wall with glue. The piece is based on the 1907 painting by Pablo Picasso called “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon”. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

CRK (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Primal. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

R Heak (photo © Jaime Rojo)

R Heak (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. July 2018. New York. (photo © Jaime Rojo)