Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. Shredding the Girl and Balloon – The Director’s Cut
2. JKS Crew in Italy & France
3. Vigilante Vigilante: The Battle For Expression / Trailer
4. The Hut – A Partial X / Felipe Pantone
BSA Special Feature: Shredding the Girl and Balloon – The Director’s Cut
We start our weekly selection with the followup release that takes hold of the narrative of the moments leading up to this month’s Banksy auction and self-destruction at Sotheby’s.
In it you hear the auctioneer chit-chatting beforehand saying things like “It’s a fun auction, you know. Everyone’s got a chance.” And by ‘everyone’ he means…everyone here in this room and on the 30 phones who are also bidding.
In other revelations this week, the Financial Times is reporting that the original artwork contained a “dedication reading ‘Thanks Jo’, which art market experts said could be a reference to Banksy’s long-time publicist, Jo Brooks.” Not so fast there Mr. Brillianteen. Perhaps Banksy is just a Jimi Hendrix fan (Hey Joe) or it was a gift to rapper Fat Joe (I’m Not a Player I Just Crush Alot) (RIP). Joe the Lion? Smokin’ Joe?
JKS Crew in Italy & France
Okay class, who wants to tell us what they did on their summer vacation?
Looks like JKS Crew were on spraycation this summer in Italy and France. The jazz bassy groove that accompanies the scenes in this video make us pine for those dreamy days of July and August already, and its only mid-October.
Vigilante Vigilante: The Battle For Expression / Trailer
Who owns public space? The oligarchs, yes, but after them?
You do!
Who should paint it?
When graffiti writers and Street Artists take it over with acts of transgressive painting one may expect that the next step is probably the buff, unless you living are in an aesthetic lawlessness like Berlin, or Athens, or 2000s Detroit. It is infrequent that one may countenance the self-appointed citizen buffer, but they exist in many a neighborhood. A combination of ornery rebel and a justice-minded citizen; This is the vehement, street cleaning vigilante.
If you were writing a bespectacled urban guidebook about characters found on city streets you may advise, “Think twice before crossing this curiously civic interbreed, broken windows can be sharp.”
The Hut – A Partial X / Felipe Pantone
A Liberian surfer camp that just happens to capture the artworks of some of the biggest names in Street Art? Organizers say that its to reduce the stigma that surrounds the country that was hurt so badly by ebola a few years ago. Perhaps that what has drawn artists like Faile, Conor Harrington, 1010, Martin Whatson, Marke Jenkins, Herakut, Ted Pim, Sandra Chevrier, Ben Eine, and Seth Globepainter here to create new works here. Today we see works by Felipe Pantone, JR, and Slinkachu.
FART Fatti Urbani is a two day festival (Oct 6&7) in the Municipality of Cerignola in the south of Italy (population 58,534) that holds as its central hub an interest in Street Art and Urban Culture. In this context Street Art is primarily a reference to mural art, rather than the practice of unsanctioned art-making that the term originates from.
Bifido. “Too many kids finding rain in the dust“. Fart festival. Cerignola, Italy. October 2018. (photo courtesy of Bifido)
The weekend features artist workshops for youth on the themes of digital art, scenography, illustration, photography and there are exhibitions, talks, screenings and participatory art projects for children. Central to the events is the installation of murals in three neighborhoods of Torricelli, the San Samuele district, and the downtown.
Italian Street Artist Bifido staged one of his theatrical photoshoots with two young actors to create this metaphor for strife in the metaphysical sense, a battle perhaps between good and evil. Organizers say that public art events like this provide impetus for a social gathering around artist expression and ideas, catalyzing discussion and appreciation for art and culture. We particularly like the description on the itinerary under “Social Lunch”, which roughly translated, says “to counter the weariness, the alienation of modern life and lunches of solitude, Saturday we all eat together. Everyone brings something, we sit at the table”.
Bifido. “Too many kids finding rain in the dust“. Fart festival. Cerignola, Italy. October 2018. (photo courtesy of Bifido)
Bifido’s piece has garnered a lot of attention, and a public festival like this appears to engage people just at a historical time when the “alienation of modern life”, at least in the so-called developed societies, is at its highest in decades.
The artist tells us that the wall is in a peripheral and notoriously dangerous neighborhood. “That kind of dormitory neighborhood where you can only find concrete and desperation,” he says. “I called my mural: ‘Too many kids finding rain in the dust’ .”
Bifido. “Too many kids finding rain in the dust“. Fart festival. Cerignola, Italy. October 2018. (photo courtesy of Bifido)
The Instagram page of the AAD , the architectural design firm sponsoring some of the events, reflects their impression of the effect of art performed in public like this, “It was an incredible experience – it introduced us to a community that wants novelty and beauty. The work of @bifidoart has been adopted and taken to heart by the entire district as a symbol of a good omen for the not too distant future. The wonder is in everyone’s eyes, whatever their path of life.”
Fantastic? In many ways. A difficult name of a festival for English speakers to deal with? No doubt.
“This is the first time that it is been done in alignment with what I’m truly trying to do as an artist,” Shepard Fairey says about this new venture into virtual/augmented reality being unveiled this week in New York, and on a phone near you.
A stunning realization of the experience that a visitor would have had at his “Damaged” exhibition a year ago in his hometown of Los Angeles, the freshly released app is the product of millions of incremental images taken in 360 degrees that enable you to tour the show – even though it was dismantled a while ago.
“It was by far my biggest exhibition – bigger than “May Day” at Deitch Projects, bigger than the project I did in Dumbo and in New York with Jonathan Levine,” Fairey says of the exhaustive solo show of 230 pieces that opened to 21,000 people who had waited in 5-block long lines to get into the industrial warehouse. The new app designed by VRt Ventures captures each of those pieces in high definition of course, along with the more environmental experiential elements that the exhibition featured in the multi-faceted real life show.
“I had the newsstand, billboard, murals, sculptures, the printing press, and the whole print studio,” Shepard says, “That was really probably the greatest thing about that space was that it was this hybrid – a street gallery feeling because it was this kind of industrial warehouse – and we built these white walls as well. It had all the corrugated metal and you could see all these beams and we set up this print shop in there so I feel like it really balanced the best of both worlds in terms of the presentation of the work.”
Last night in a Manhattan popup pre-opening show on the Bowery Mr. Fairey and his wife Amanda made the rounds with guests in goggles to tour the exhibition where it exists now – as Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR). Billed as a “VR/AR immersive experience”, the open bar and crunchy hip-hop/punk medley pumping loudly across the speakers may have impaired our abilities to pan and click inside the virtual world frankly. But we could easily see how a quieter home environment, or even a subway ride, would make it easier to listen to Fairey’s narrated portions and to appreciate the navigation around the space. So we downloaded the app for phone exploration later.
“The accessibility of the art is so much more in your hands and really, truly it is like being in the space,” says Ms. Fairey as she compares the new virtual experience to the original. “It was a giant warehouse and an amazing exhibition of his work – It’s like you are in it, I mean. Oh my god. It revives the moment for us.”
As an activist on the street, and later in galleries and museums, Fairey has always communicated clearly and in detail about the inspirational factors and contextual circumstances that are foundational to his work – whether in canvasses for private homes or prints for t-shirts or in the many stickers, stencils and hurried wheat pastes he’s left on walls in the middle of the night. So it’s no surprise that the works in the virtual “Damaged” are augmented with his voice describing the works and what he was thinking about when making them.
He imagines what it would be like for him to experience this with other artists as well.
“For me to hear Warhol giving a tour through the Factory – or any number of artists – explaining first hand rather than learning about the show through all of these people who may or may not be credible to be saying what they are saying,” he remarks. “When I think about how valuable it would’ve been for me; I like to hear things from the artist if it is possible. I did 100 minutes of narration on this. I usually write about all of the pieces that I create, about what’s happening in current events that are relevant to the work as well as the general principles of the work. So the VRt team went through all of the pieces in the show and found additional text to supplement my audio narration.”
BSA: So do you think that this experience with this app and the way that people experience the exhibition when they cannot be there physically will be a good tool, not just for you but for a lot of artists to spread their message?
Shepard Fairey: Yeah I definitely do. Of course I think it’s always most important for people if they came to see the work in person. But when you think about the high percentage of people that basically are sort of scrolling through a slideshow of static images and that’s the best they’re going to get, this technology is really important for the future of art. Not just for artists but for museums that spend a huge amounts of money on an exhibition and it comes down after a finite amount of time, you can see this being more important especially as the technology improves.
To capture “Damaged”, the exhibit was scanned with lasers–generating an exact replica of the exhibit.
These guys from VRt, you know they spent a lot of money to be ahead of the curve on this. Very used the highest technology to laser-map the entire space. You can go up to the pieces and see the textures. You can walk around the printing press. It’s really impressive. As this technology comes down in price it is going to democratize all kinds of experiences even more so I’m glad that maybe I can provide a little example a case study of how beautiful this technology is.
To celebrate the launch of the “DAMAGED” mobile App, VRt Ventures, Shepard Fairey, Juxtapoz Magazine and ABSTRKT NYC host a pop-up will be open to the public from 10/17 – 10/21 at 136 Bowery in New York City from 10am – 6pm where fans can come check out the experience, make sure to follow @JuxtapozMag @ObeyGiant @VRtVentures on social media for more information.
BISUAL’s post-human sallow skinned characters are laboratory inventions that contain elements of animal, chemical, organic, electronic, psychedelic – minus the superpowers or sleekness of your typical cyborg. They also like to smoke something now and then while gazing at phones in a cartoon dystopia, a handful of helpers to mellow the menacing low-level paranoia.
The illustrator and painter has a history with graffiti as well, which may explain his ease creating casually comic surrealities on large walls in public space, like this new one in Barcelona.
The mural features leaves of the Acanthus mollis, a common and invasive species of plant, creeping up onto the street, blended with “geometric architectonic elements” he says. The pinkish protagonist may be pausing on his way to an errand at the liquor store, or he may just be waiting for his man, €26 euros in his hand. Certainly those psycheldelio creatures from the organic wild who are slithering with wide eyes slowly up to him are attentive to his actions, perhaps listening to his words. Not that he should be concerned of course.
Highlighting collective efforts that advance events during war and the tales of heroism, butchery, resistance, intrigue, and subterfuge that are braided into historical retelling, three Italian Street Artists commemorated citizen resistance and a Nazi massacre in a lengthy mural for the Penneli Ribelli Festival this month in Bologna.
Naked men share the elongated tandem bicycle with uniformed fighters, and each character contains details and symbology that point to events or qualities known to locals of a certain generation about the Marzabotto massacre that killed between 770 and 1,000 civilians, now presented to a new one in this city where these events took place.
Street Artist NemO’s tells us that this first edition of the Penneli Ribelli Festival is born in memory of the events that happened during the Second World War.
At the center of the story is the resistance by everyday Italians of various ages, genders, and social classes, a movement known as the Italian resistance and the Italian Partisans, or Partigiani. The icon of the festival is a wolf in honor of the Partisan who led the group, Mario Musolesi, whose nickname was “Lupo”, or “Wolf”.
“Here a big battle broke out between the Nazis and the Partigiani, who fought for the freedom of Italy,” he tells us. “This is one of the most important areas, because here was where the largest group of civilian Partigiani were killed by the Nazis as revenge.”
Nemo’s naked men, hapless and without even bicycle seats, appear unprepared for any battle, burdened and exposed. Andrea Casciu’s “uniformed” riders are prepared, comfortable, confident, even jubilant in the efforts forward – their red star and flags of resistance assuring victory.
The three artists worked for twelve hours a day for four days on the side of the old Lama di Reno paper mill that closed in 2013. Locals of various ages stopped to inquire about the stretched bicycle and its meanings, and local news accounts say that many people in the neighborhood supported the artists work.
“The full presentation is meant as a symbol of the resistance,” says NemO’s, “in honor of the women who, with their bicycles, carried secret messages and food for the people hidden on the forest.
A badger at the head of the procession breaks apart traps of war that were meant to ensnare and disable, the kerchiefed animal even converting one into a stringed instrument to play.
Hope it isn’t trite, but don’t give up on your dreams – that’s what Street Artist AJ Lavilla advises in this piece on the sidewalk in Brooklyn. Dude and Dudette, this life can kick the stuffing out of you or just gradually wear you down, but we encourage you to keep you eyes on the prize! You can do it, in fact, you must.
In addition we have a Kiwi (Owen Dippie) in Brooklyn and an Australian (Lister) in Berlin this week. In fact, most of what follows is from a recent visit in that city we think of as a sister to Brooklyn – the chaotically beautiful Berlin. Special thanks to Various & Gould for helping us ID some of these works as well.
So here is our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring AJ LaVilla, Anthony Lister, Crypoe, Hyland Mather, Marycula, Owen Dippie, OXOX, Pappas Pärlor, Styro, and Vyoky.
We’re pleased today to bring new works from David Walker in studio as he prepares for his first US solo show at Black Book Gallery in Denver, “Shake Your Skin Loose”. A departure from his style that many have seen in murals in many cities, these new works are less literal, more impressionist; a product of his own “shaking loose” of expectations for his work.
The works on paper particularly remind us of the public spots where paper advertisements are posted – getting damaged by time and weather, ripped off time and again to make way for new ones, revealing traces of the old. With heavy paint overlaid with irony and personal phrases, they’re are more raw than we are used to seeing the controlled and thoughtful Walker, making way for emotion and imprecision.
“In the age of social media where the treatment of others is inhuman at times and the currency is judgement: Like/Dislike, Left/Right, Us/Them, Pretty/Ugly – All done in a millisecond,” says Walker en route to the new works. “I feel like portraiture and painting or ‘slow media’ is becoming more vital. A good painting can elevate its subject, command inspection, ask questions of the viewer.”
“Whether sitting completely still or sleeping we are internally pulsating as our physiological systems constantly work to keep us functioning,” says the gallery text accompanying the show. “Our nervous system crackles with electricity, blood vessels expand and contract from head to toe in perfect harmony while our mind swirls with contemplation”
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. The (mostly) True Story of Hobo Graffiti
2. Bathroom Run at Urban Spree in Berlin
3. 1UP Crew in Moscow for Artmossphere Biennale 2018
BSA Special Feature: The (mostly) True Story of Hobo Graffiti
Anthropologists and graffitiologists have been trying to piece together the antecedents for mark-making in the modern era. Many times the history is rather North America-based, as is this particular tributary, but of course our need to leave proof of our existence is global and forever. How to fit that into a 3 minute video that won’t send Millenials to sleep? Instead, we present: Hobo Graffiti! Have a good ride friends.
Bathroom Run at Urban Spree in Berlin
This would be the precisely perfect time for Smell-O-Vision! Sometimes photographer Jaime Rojo finds a location so completely three dimensionally awe-inspiring that the only way to fully share it with you is through video. Like the Sistine Chapel, for example. Or the bathrooms at Urban Spree! Imagine these during a night of eclectically selected music thumping, full of a splendid selection of thespians, punks, painters, poets, fornicators, miscreants, and the occasional real estate investor all drunkenly scuffling through – and you’ll get a better idea of these walls in all their glory.
1UP Crew in Moscow for Artmossphere Biennale 2018
A few weeks ago in Moscow we had the opportunity to co-curate the exhibition for the Artmossphere Biennale 2018 with some knowledgeable and talented folks and leaders in the expansive field of graffiti/Street Art/urban art/contemporary art. Among those were the envelope pushing all-city, all-world 1UP crew. Anonymous and amorphous, you never know who is behind the t-shirt mask, but when the cans start there is no doubt. Here are a couple from the crew who left their mark at Winzavod while on break from installing their work in the Biennale.
“History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce,” said the author of The Communist Manifesto, and to mark the bicentennial of the polarizing figure in Montevideo, Street Artists Various & Gould (Germany), Min8 (Uruguay) and Vince (France) created new artworks along the Avenida 8 de October and the walls of a former prison, now turned art space.
“The Goethe-Institut in cooperation with the French Embassy took the bicentenary of Karl Marx as an opportunity to discuss what remains of Marx today, and what we can learn from him,” says Katharina Ochse, the director of Goethe-Institut Uruguay. “The idea of inviting three artists from different countries was to obtain very different perspectives of people who have had very different experiences in their past with the ideas of Marx.”
Collectively the program is entitled „Después de Marx“, or “After Marx”
In Vince’s portrait of Marx you realize that the beard he sported is very modern and a bit bookish, perfect for the political theorist and revolutionary socialist of 2018. Supporting the “Black Lives Matter” movement is a given, as you know he would be in the thick of thirty different socio-political initiatives on this eve of another economic crash. In another image of Marx posed with Engels, the two look like a couple of college bros with send-ups of modern novelty t-shirts.
The Berlin based art duo Various & Gould took an abstract decontructivist approach to the German philosopher, a free-associative recombining of elements of his physical and his theories.
“Marx does not appear as a complete portrait with us – only in the form of his typical beard,” says Various. “The rest of the head is made up of more abstract fragments and industrial elements such as a chimney, a gear and an actual still existing landmark in Montevideo, an old gasometer.”
Gould expands on their aesthetic answer to a complex character and symbol. “His profound scientific analysis of working conditions and production processes seems to be the core of his work. From this examination of relationship between man and work, we have been inspired to a metaphorical game with human elements and machine parts. And the infinity sign at the other end of the tunnel, in combination with gears, is a tongue-in-cheek symbol of never-ending work.”
For her part, Uruguayan graffiti writer and style experimentalist Min8, working comfortably here in her hometown in this South American capital, employed symbol and metaphor, combining the royal eagle and the lion, which she calls her personal totem.
“I wanted to represent the fight, the struggle, and the freedom,” she says. “It is a ‘must’ for me. You should always fight and sacrifice yourself for your goals.” Says Min8.
The murals are not without detractors however. Photos posted on a Facebook page called “Uruguay Primero” (America First, anyone?) feature a handful of protesters rather respectfully taping handmade posters over the works during the night – each deriding the figure for causing deaths, creating concentration camps and other oppression of the poor.
A commenter on the page was in agreement with the protest, saying “After Marx left this capitalist system, which generated all that that the poster you put said it did. I congratulate you for the intervention.”
In street art terms, they may have “gone over” the works, but they didn’t permanently destroy them, while censuring the message. In an ironic turn of events, a video posted by the group was pulled down by Facebook – another form of censorship.
Presumably this kind of open discussion of ideas would appeal to those savoring the exchange of ideas and ideals, long after Marx.
The 20 tentacles are inflated and 30 to 40 feet long, waving out of windows and into the air, beckoning you to look inside, scaring the bejesus out of people walking by the intersection of 13th Street and Flagship Avenue.
Created by the UK artists Filthy Luker and Pedro Estrellas who started working with tentacles like these in the mid-nineties, the effect is creepily delicious, especially when October breezes blow and night time encroaches with these massive protrusions slowly undulating in silhouette against the sky.
Since the northern seaboard of the US is currently feeling the warm sticky effects from a hurricane to the south, those breezes that we’ve experienced since this was installed Monday have been warm and tropical, more appropriate perhaps for the few massive octopi who just might be stuck inside Building 611.
Felipe Pantone may see the dangers of the modern age, as he contemplates the over saturation of images and messages – traditional symbols and systems neatly sliced away from their original meanings and histories. It is a world of movement and alienation and dislocation coursing with eye candy and violence. For his current show at Joshua Liner he looks to the kinetic art of the recent past (Victor Vasarely, Carlos Cruz-Diez) and pays homage while setting it alight in the ideal promise of a digital future.
The graffiti writer, Street Artist, mural painter, kinetic sculptor and multi-media fine artist is brave facing the future; embracing his own 90s childhood full of earlier digital fantasies, now transforming the geometry, waffling the levels and oscillating the transparencies and streaming the patterns. Are these laboratories or galleries. Is this a time, or is this timeless.
“In a powerful dynamic, Pantone extends on the walls with its futuristic style with psychedelic accents that evokes Italian Futurism,” says the show description from the gallery. “There are also abstract and stroboscopic touches that articulate black and white geometric shapes that he combines with bright metallic colors, not unlike the Mire, a visual that appears on the television when there is no show.”
Julien de Casabianca of the Outings Project was invited to the Brooks Museum in Memphis, Tennessee last month for an exhibition, workship, lecture, and a monumental installation that we have exclusive shots of today here for you. In accordance with the artists practice in this project, he selected artwork from inside the museum and brought it to the streets in very grand fashion to a part of town that typically would not have occasion to look at this kind of work.
Outings Project. William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s 1886 painting “Au pied de la falaise”. (photo courtesy of Outings Project)
His is a self-realized philosophically-rooted street practice that is intended to democratize the experience of appreciating art and to break past the inhibitions, and often the entrance fee, that the average person has to contend with when entering galleries, museums, or other institutions to see artworks. This seven story tall neoclasssical/realist girl sits on the fire escape of a dilapidated industrial building, geographically and historically far from the milieu of the 19th century French academic painter who created the original.
It is notable that Brooks Museum and other art institutions are somewhat beginning to embrace the Street Art practice in their programming – even as many graffiti and Street Artists have remained uninvited to be exhibited inside the doors or added to permanent collections despite a half century history of painting, sculpting, projecting, and creating installations in public space around the world. In the description for this project the museum webpage says that this project is part of “Brooks Outside, an innovative curatorial program that launched in conjunction with the museum’s centennial in 2016, consisting of an ongoing series of outdoor installations that, depending on each project’s scope, will enliven and invigorate Brooks Museum grounds, Overton Park, or our community at large.”
Outings Project. William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s 1886 painting “Au pied de la falaise”. (photo courtesy of Outings Project)
Mssr. de Casabianca tells us that this is only the first of 3 large wheat-pastes he is planning to do. The remaining two will be chosen in collaboration with the community and as part of a workshop he is planning. He says that he wants to consult with people who live in the area and that there will be a voting process.
We spoke with the artist about the project to find out more about his Memphis project.
Brooklyn Street Art: What is this original piece of art and where did you find it? Julien de Casabianca: It’s William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s 1886 painting “Au pied de la falaise” (At the Foot of the Cliff). Its part of the Brooks Museum collection.
Brooklyn Street Art: Why does it resonate for you and how do you think she likes her new home? Julien de Casabianca: She seems melancholic, I wanted to give her a second life in the real life, liberate her from the frame. I feel always guilty when I leave from a wall where I pasted a child, as in Nuart Aberdeen in Scotland, because even they are giants, I feel they are so fragile in this violent world and in this contemporary world. She’s a time traveller, she doesn’t know our new world and she’s probably surprise and moved.
Outings Project. William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s 1886 painting “Au pied de la falaise”. (photo courtesy of Outings Project)
Brooklyn Street Art: One of your underlying philosophies is to bring art that is hidden away to the public. Why is this important for you and society?
Julien de Casabianca: Museums are always in rich areas. I bring the art from the museum to paste in a poor area. Beauty has to be shared too. Classical beauty as well. There is lot of urban street art in poor areas which is of course amazing and beautiful, but where there is modern architecture and street art there and there is no place for the classical beauty. And the classical beauty has one power: to reunite all generations about a same taste. Old, young, teenagers, everybody loves what I paste, and that is not normal, not ordinary. It’s because we have all something in common; a long history of art and beauty that built the present. Nike is a brand and a goddess from Antiquity. Apple is a brand and an apple formed Adam & Eve. These two brand names this century have continuity 2000 year old stories that we still talk of!
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
