November 2018

BSA Film Friday: 11.30.18

BSA Film Friday: 11.30.18

bsa-film-friday-JAN-2015

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

Now screening :
1. RUN: Bye Bye Dolphin
2. RERO: Installation in situ – Desert d’Agafay – Montresso Art Foundation
3. Street Atelier: L’Atlas
4. Street Atelier: DOES

bsa-film-friday-special-feature

BSA Special Feature: RUN: Bye Bye Dolphin!

“Where’s my dolphin?”

“The dolphin is gone,” says street artist RUN on this London wall as school kids run and roll past him.

You wonder when you see these murals that we publish week after week what it must be like for a Street Artist to interact with the public while painting. The truth is, it varies from city to city – people can be quite timid. Or blithely disinterested. Or loquacious, opinionated, even invasive.

Not only do you have to orchestrate your idea, plan the logistics, and execute your vision, you have to be this agreeable sociologist who takes all commentary in stride and even occasionally have a meaningful exchange. It’s up to you. And its up to the street.

In this new video by RUN we have the opportunity to see the interactions of people on the street with the artist in London, and it can be very illuminating.

You may recognize the finished piece from our posting in August; “RUN” Plunders Subtle Summer Bourgeoisie Hypocrisies at the Beach

 

 

RERO: Installation in situ – Desert d’Agafay – Montresso Art Foundation

Ahh, to gaze upon the Atlas mountains across the desert in Marakesh in April. Anything but stressful. Yet..

French Street Artist and conceptual artist RERO can as easily be inside as outside, urban and, as you can see here, rural.

Balancing the image negation of his text based works, these installations with Montresso Foundation and Jardin Rouge show how the artist defines the space, adapting and adopting the context as actor.


Here are a couple of insightful, high quality videos from ILoveGraffiti.de and their web series STREET ATELIER in cooperation with ARTE CREATIVE, featuring the artists L’Atlas and DOES.

 

Street Atelier: L’Atlas

 

Street Atelier: DOES

 

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Nulo Conjures “Supernatural” in Sant Feliu de Llobregat, Spain

Nulo Conjures “Supernatural” in Sant Feliu de Llobregat, Spain

“In this artwork, nature and its forces are represented,” says the artist of the newest “12+1” project.

NULO. “Sobrenatural”. Contorno Urbano Foundation/12 + 1 Project. Sant Feliu de Llobregat, Spain. (photo © Alex Miró)

A recent act of extreme weather in Italy inspired this new mural in Sant Feliu de Llobregat by Lucia Pintos (aka Nulo) from Montevideo, Uruguay. A huge storm had devastated an entire forest, destroying thousands of trees, scattered like toothpicks across the mountains and land.

Nulo says that she thinks of nature as a balance of two forces: dynamic and static. Despite the power of the wind to mold mountains and transform landscapes, she also concentrates on the static force of the trees roots, which hold them in place until they snap.

NULO. “Sobrenatural”. Contorno Urbano Foundation/12 + 1 Project. Sant Feliu de Llobregat, Spain. (photo © Alex Miró)

In the face of such a torrent of power, she admires the countervailing power of resistance. Of the trees and mountains and stones, she says, “They don’t give up, they don’t fall, they don’t let the wind win.”

You can see these forces at play in this abstraction that may also remind you of earth science diagrams, but this one does capture the energy Nulo is going for, capturing “Two equal forces that, at the same time, are completely different,” she says.

NULO. “Sobrenatural”. Contorno Urbano Foundation/12 + 1 Project. Sant Feliu de Llobregat, Spain. (photo © Alex Miró)

NULO. “Sobrenatural”. Contorno Urbano Foundation/12 + 1 Project. Sant Feliu de Llobregat, Spain. (photo © Alex Miró)


Contorno Urbano Foundation – 12 + 1 Project

As FUNDACIÓ CONTORNO URBANO ends another year of their project called “12 + 1”, the community-based organization expands from one wall to four. Collectively they give opportunities to artists to paint in public and to the people on the street to appreciate the processes, techniques, and motivations that artists employ in the creation. The model for engagement is similar to many yet entirely separate from previous notions of public art: an engaged responsible program that is accountable to community yet still gives wide berth to the individual styles of the artists and their need to express ideas or experiment with new approaches.

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50% Off Everything at MET Museum! Nelson Saiers Commercializes the View

50% Off Everything at MET Museum! Nelson Saiers Commercializes the View

Not to say that folks punching each other over a flatscreen are philistines, but you have to wonder if they’d be better off gazing upon the ravishing and lucid Delacroix exhibition instead of unreality TV.

If you want mystery or to trace the lines of power, corruption, and examine who’s pulling the strings behind so-called “Western democracies”, you might want to skip up the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see the Everything is Connected: Art and Conspiracy exhibition.

” . . . as much a reckoning with our past as a road map of our current era . . . “Surface

Nelson Saiers. MET Intervention. (photo © Jazmin G)

Alas, on the Friday after Thanksgiving, artist Nelson Saiers wondered why there weren’t many people hanging out in the museum’s gracious galleries to gaze upon masterpieces of the world – and thought he would install SALE signs that might draw crowds away from Best Buy.

“If you went to the Met as it opened on Friday many of the galleries were essentially empty, so you could spend some quality one on one time with some of the greatest works of art ever created,” says Saiers, who has been experimenting with “statement” Street Art installations like putting a large inflateable “Bitcoin Rat” on Wall Street in front of the Federal Reserve building last month.

Nelson Saiers. MET Intervention. (photo © Jazmin G)

Whether many people saw the “Black Friday Special 50% Off” signs he placed around the museum or not (he estimated they each lasted about a half hour) he is still glad to have his critique on societal priorities.

“It was meant to be a bit of a satirical commentary on the non-stop commercialism we experience daily,” says the Hedge Fund manager turned artist, posing wittily or scurrying in some of the photos in the empty galleries with romantic artists like Ernest Meissonier, Paul Cezanne and his wife.

“Would you prefer to spend time with some of the most significant culture ever produced or shop?” Saier asks. “In the end, it was meant to be a humorous commentary, and hopefully, it was entertaining for the few who did see it.”

Nelson Saiers. MET Intervention. (photo © Jazmin G)

Nelson Saiers. MET Intervention. (photo © Jazmin G)

Nelson Saiers. MET Intervention. (photo © Jazmin G)

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Etnik Splashes a Watery Icosahedron in Jacksonville, Florida

Etnik Splashes a Watery Icosahedron in Jacksonville, Florida

“If you look on the map, Florida is like Italy, all surrounded by water,” says Etnik as he finishes this new spatial composition of geometrical forms. “Ocean, river, fishes and everything that is in the water represented in the elements. Nature in opposition with geometric shapes.”

Etnik. Eikosi. In Collaboration with GNV Urban Art. Jacksonville, Fl. (photo © Iryna Kanishcheva)

In fact he accounts for all five Platonic elements combined with a geometric shape for a series of walls he’s planning; the cube and the Earth, Air with the Octahedron, Fire with the Tetrahedron, and the Dodecadedron with the Universe.

Here in Jacksonville he’s not far from the Atlantic, St. John’s River, Nepture Beach – and the building itself houses a seafood market. With this environment lapping at his ankles wherever he turns, one can easily imagine his influences when conjuring and painting this 38 foot x 150 foot “Eikosi”, his largest mural ever, here organized by Iryna Kanishcheva.

Etnik. Eikosi. In Collaboration with GNV Urban Art. Jacksonville, Fl. (photo © Iryna Kanishcheva)

The twenty-sided icosahedron overlooking a stream of cars on the highway is full of rippling, swirling, splashing aqua – something the Turin, Italy based Etnik finds refreshing and in alignment with his urban art practice.

“The icosahedron of Plato is a metaphor to represent the ocean sections created in my style,” he says. “Urban agglomerations and natural elements (that float in an indefinite space and represent the contradictions of the urban spaces we live in) is the line that always mark my evolving style in recent years, on the revenge of the nature on urbanization.”

Etnik. Eikosi. In Collaboration with GNV Urban Art. Jacksonville, Fl. (photo © Iryna Kanishcheva)

Etnik. Eikosi. In Collaboration with GNV Urban Art. Jacksonville, Fl. (photo © Iryna Kanishcheva)

Etnik. Eikosi. In Collaboration with GNV Urban Art. Jacksonville, Fl. (photo © Iryna Kanishcheva)

 

Etnik. Eikosi. In Collaboration with GNV Urban Art. Jacksonville, Fl. (photo © Iryna Kanishcheva)

Etnik. Eikosi. In Collaboration with GNV Urban Art. Jacksonville, Fl. (photo © Iryna Kanishcheva)

Etnik. Eikosi. In Collaboration with GNV Urban Art. Jacksonville, Fl. (photo © Iryna Kanishcheva)

Etnik. Eikosi. In Collaboration with GNV Urban Art. Jacksonville, Fl. (photo © Iryna Kanishcheva)

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Just In Time for #CyberMonday: Mr. Bill Posters Brandishes “Waste World” in UK

Just In Time for #CyberMonday: Mr. Bill Posters Brandishes “Waste World” in UK

To coincide with #CyberMonday we’re bringing you the satiric stylings of Billboard takeover artist Bill Posters in Manchester, England.

Bill Posters. “Waste World” (photo still from the video)

His newest ‘Waste World’ billboard and video (below) chides our blithe consumerism and the colonialist practice of dumping our waste and “recycling” on poor people in other countries – so they can sift through our lifestyles and possibly become poisoned by the toxic materials inside discarded electronics.

Installed last Friday, or as advertisers are training the population to say, “Black Friday”, Mr. Posters tells us that he was thinking of better activities to do rather than get stampeded by TV addicts in a big box store.

Bill Posters. “Waste World” (photo still from the video)

“We should probably be paying more attention to where the majority of our ‘recycled’ waste actually ends up,” he says. “In low-income countries, 93% of global waste is dumped due to inadequate urban provisions. Western countries can’t process their own waste, instead – they sell it to other low-income countries in Asia and Africa.”

It’s true, we don’t see photos of people sitting and sifting on mountains of trash when we’re chasing bargains. That’s why Mr. Posters says he wants to create a campaign that commandeers advertising space to show “the profound social and environmental impacts of consumer waste in countries and communities hidden from view”.

Bill Posters. “Waste World” (photo still from the video)

Done in concert with Brandalism and other individual artists around the world who stripped ads from bus stops, phone kiosks, and billboards on Saturday for NO AD Day, the new billboard features a collage of people celebrating the fabulous products rich people can buy amidst an ocean of consumer detritus. With new installations that take aim at at brands including Nike, Pretty Little Thing, Apple and Gucci, the artists says he is also inspired by the latest issue of the magazine New Internationalist’s which talks about our garbage stream in a scintillating piece called “Modern Life is Rubbish”.

A bit of an exaggeration, right?

“Over 15 million people around the globe – the majority women and children, earn their living as waste pickers, literally sifting through westerners waste to earn a living,” he says.

Bill Posters. “Waste World” (photo still from the video)

 

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BSA Images Of The Week: 11.25.18

BSA Images Of The Week: 11.25.18

BSA-Images-Week-Jan2015

You made it! Thanksgiving is over and you did not explode from eating too much pumpkin pie. Right?

A number of subverting artists and activists took over billboards in cities around the world this Thanksgiving holiday to celebrate “NO AD DAY” – an aesthetic effort to reclaim public space from advertisers who have slowly but surely crept into everything, producing an ever-present artificial and continuous knawing in the stomach that you are not handsome or pretty enough, rich enough, or somehow incomplete in a thousand ways.

Check out folks like Brandalism to learn more about a growing grassroots movement that began perhaps in the 60s with folks like the Billboard Liberation Front but has picked up speed and technique in the last decade. Of course artists like Abe Lincoln Jr. don’t need a special day to take over a phone booth – any day is fine.

So here is our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Abe Lincoln Jr. Adam Fu, Bortusk Leer, Kenny Scharf, Lucky Rabbit, Maia Lorian, Mastro, Norm Magnusson, Tito Ferrara, Rawraffe, Solus, and Uncle Susan.

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

The hi-jacking of civically minded historical markers is done very well here in the suburbs by Norm Magnusson “Jane King” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Norm Magnusson “Jane King” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

Tito Ferrara for East Village Walls. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Street Artist Abe Lincoln Jr.  and artist Maia Lorian created a series of phone booth ad take overs in NYC that spoof and critique advertising, the barren vapidness of consumer culture, Trump, hypocrisy in general. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Abe Lincoln Jr. & Maia Lorian phone booth ad take over. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Abe Lincoln Jr. & Maia Lorian phone booth ad take over. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Rawraffe (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Uncle Susan (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bortusk (photo © Jaime Rojo)

#mtamuseum Some space take over on the NYC Subway platforms. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

#mtamuseum Some space take over on the NYC Subway platforms. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kenny Scharf for The L.I.S.A. Project NYC (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kenny Scharf for The L.I.S.A. Project NYC (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Adam Fu art work on his message of given thanks. We published the completed on Thursday for BSA Happy Thanksgiving. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Artist Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Detail of Lucky Rabbit mural on Houston Street. We wrote a little article on this mural on Tuesday on BSA. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mastro (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Beacon, NY. Fall 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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New Images from the Parees Festival in Oviedo, Spain 2018

New Images from the Parees Festival in Oviedo, Spain 2018

A continuation of our Film Friday coverage from yesterday, today we bring you still photos of the murals created during this years Parees Festival in its 2nd edition.

Rock Blackblock. Parees Festival 2018. Oviedo, Spain. September 2018. (photo © Fer Alcalá & MiraHaciaAtrás)

With a focus on quality over quantity, fair fees for artists and participants, and a wholistic approach to contextual creation, the festival is entirely subsidized by the Municipal Culture Foundation of the City of Oviedo – free from possible conflicts with galleries or commercial brands.

Reputation is built on behavior and results and this model for community-conscious mural making is one that organizers can be proud of.

Rock Blackblock. Parees Festival 2018. Oviedo, Spain. September 2018. (photo © Fer Alcalá & MiraHaciaAtrás)

Alfalfa. Parees Festival 2018. Oviedo, Spain. September 2018. (photo © Fer Alcalá & MiraHaciaAtrás)

Alfalfa. Parees Festival 2018. Oviedo, Spain. September 2018. (photo © Fer Alcalá & MiraHaciaAtrás)

Andrea Ravo. Parees Festival 2018. Oviedo, Spain. September 2018. (photo © Fer Alcalá & MiraHaciaAtrás)

Andrea Ravo. Parees Festival 2018. Oviedo, Spain. September 2018. (photo © Fer Alcalá & MiraHaciaAtrás)

Colectivo Liquado. Parees Festival 2018. Oviedo, Spain. September 2018. (photo © Fer Alcalá & MiraHaciaAtrás)

Colectivo Liquado. Parees Festival 2018. Oviedo, Spain. September 2018. (photo © Fer Alcalá & MiraHaciaAtrás)

XAV. Parees Festival 2018. Oviedo, Spain. September 2018. (photo © Fer Alcalá & MiraHaciaAtrás)

XAV. Parees Festival 2018. Oviedo, Spain. September 2018. (photo © Fer Alcalá & MiraHaciaAtrás)

Kruella. Parees Festival 2018. Oviedo, Spain. September 2018. (photo © Fer Alcalá & MiraHaciaAtrás)

Kruella. Parees Festival 2018. Oviedo, Spain. September 2018. (photo © Fer Alcalá & MiraHaciaAtrás)

Taquen. Parees Festival 2018. Oviedo, Spain. September 2018. (photo © Fer Alcalá & MiraHaciaAtrás)

Taquen. Parees Festival 2018. Oviedo, Spain. September 2018. (photo © Fer Alcalá & MiraHaciaAtrás)

Taquen. Parees Festival 2018. Oviedo, Spain. September 2018. (photo © Fer Alcalá & MiraHaciaAtrás)


https://www.instagram.com/pareesfest/

http://paredesfest.net/en/the-festival/

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BSA Film Friday: 11.23.18

BSA Film Friday: 11.23.18

bsa-film-friday-JAN-2015

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

Now screening :
1. Colectivo Licuado and ‘Pandereteras’ at at Parees Fest 2018
2. XAV. Parees Fest 2018
3. Rock Blackblock. Parees Fest 2018
4. Andrea Ravo Matoni. Parees Fest 2018

bsa-film-friday-special-feature

BSA Special Feature: Colectivo Licuado and ‘Pandereteras’ at at Parees Fest 2018

Four videos in a row this week from one international mural festival – PAREES.


The Uruguayan Street Artists/muralist Florencia Durán and Camilo Nuñez are “Colectivo Licuado” and here in the middle of Oviedo in Northern Spain to create a new mural for the Parees fest this September. As is their practice they study the culture that they are visiting and create an allegory that is familiar to the community, if still rather mystical.

In this case they visit Colectivo Licuado & Nun Tamos Toes for a visit of great cultural exchange – sharing sketches, songs, and learning the history of women’s roles in traditional Asturian culture. The resulting mural project is collaborative in nature and powerful in person.

XAV. Parees Fest 2018

Spanish graffiti writer, mualist and tattoo artist XAV produces an idealized portrait of one of the most popular (and lavishly attired) pop singers during the 1980s, Tino Casal. Created during the Paree Festival in Spain this September.

Rock Blackblock. Parees Fest 2018

Andrea Ravo Matoni. Parees Fest 2018

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Happy Thanksgiving 2018 from BSA

Happy Thanksgiving 2018 from BSA

A special wish to the BSA family from us on this Thanksgiving Day in New York.

Each of us has at least one reason to be thankful so we concentrate on that today.

Adam Fu. Give Thanks (photo © Jaime Rojo)

We are thankful for your support and encouragement to do our work.

With gratitude we wish Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.

Adam Fu. Give Thanks (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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“Martha” the Movie: Selina Miles’ Most Ambitious Project To Date

“Martha” the Movie: Selina Miles’ Most Ambitious Project To Date

The Director Invites You to Participate in the New Documentary

The rising star film director who has captured and woven riveting narratives of artists and graffiti virtuosos like Melbourne’s Sofles and the ultimate train-jumping outlaws 1UP Crew from Berlin – verifiably raising their respective games and profiles in the process – Brisbane’s Selina Miles has been tackling a graffiti/Street Art juggernaut right before our eyes; a full scale movie-length documentary on famed New York photographer Martha Cooper.

Martha Cooper (photo © Selina Miles)

We knew that these two talented and powerful personalities would compliment each other stunningly and that’s why we encouraged them two years ago to do a doc. A short term one was the original plan. But the two hit it off so well and when you are looking at a five decade career like Ms. Cooper’s and you have the dogged determination to do her story justice, Ms. Miles tells us that even an hour and a half film feels like its just getting started.

Now “Martha” the movie is at a unique juncture in the project and YOU may be able to participate; Selina and the team are looking for any original footage you may want to show them – and it may be used in the documentary.

Martha Cooper. Subway Art (photo © Selina Miles)

We have an amazingly involved, interconnected, and brilliant audience of BSA readers across the time zones, so she’s asking you first. Please click this link and let Selina and Martha know if you might have something to show them.

Specifically right now the team  is looking for:

1.     Historical photos and video of artists interacting with “The Holy Book of Graffiti”, Subway Art, by Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant, and

2.     Modern day footage of Martha Cooper going to any and all lengths to get the shot.

Read more at “Martha” the Movie and please contact them ASAP.


In an exclusive interview director Selina Miles today shares with Martha Cooper fans some unseen images from making the movie. She also gives insights into what it has been like making the biggest movie ever produced about the famed photographer.

Martha Cooper. Archives. (photo © Selina Miles)

Brooklyn Street Art: What gave you the idea to do a documentary about Marty?
Selina Miles: As with most of us interested in graffiti, I knew of Marty’s book Subway Art from a young age. We first met at ONO’U Tahiti Graffiti Festival in 2014, and I was immediately taken with her approachable, passionate and vibrant character. In 2015, I had been working on a series called “Portrait of an Artist,” an anthology of 10 minute documentaries profiling artists, and a good friend asked me “Who’s next?.” Martha was an obvious choice.

We both returned to Tahiti the following year for the same festival. Seated around a dinner table with a group of artists, I casually asked “When do you think you’ll be in New York next?” she replied “I’m not sure, why?” I ended up asking her right on the spot if I could make a film about her, in front of the whole group. It felt very much like awkwardly asking out a prom date. Luckily she said yes.

Martha Cooper at work at the Houston/Bowery Wall in NYC with Pichi & Avo. (photo © Selina Miles)

BSA: Is it true that at the start of the project you were thinking of doing a short film?
Selina Miles: The following February, I had just finished directing my biggest TV commercial yet, and wanted to the use bigger-than-usual pay check to do an ambitious project. I booked myself a 2 week trip to New York, as well as a ticket for Marcus Autelli, an amazing cinematographer from London. Our mission was a 10 minute piece.

Like so many fans of Martha’s work, I discovered her through the graffiti subculture. I did my best to research before the trip. I scoured Youtube and Vimeo for videos and interviews with Marty, flicked through Subway Art, pored over Street Play, re-watched Style Wars and thought I had done a pretty good job.

Martha Cooper. Archives. (photo © Selina Miles)

When I arrived in New York, Marty met me at her train station, and together we walked to her studio. She gave me a key and pointed me in the direction of her archives. Large folders lined the shelves. I still remember the first time reading those labels, hand-drawn in Marty’s signature authoritative, all-caps handwriting. “Windsurfing.” “Korea.” “Tunisia.” “Israel.” Each one full to the brim with boxes of Kodachrome mounted slides, stamped and dated.

The first person Martha suggested I interview was her good friend Susan, who flew down from her home in Maine to speak to me. It wasn’t until a few days before the interview that I learned that “Marty’s friend Susan” was actually Susan Welchman, photo editor of the New York Post and of National Geographic Magazine for 35 years. I began to learn of Martha’s incredible, rich photographic career, too often obscured behind the monumental popular reverence for her graffiti work.

Martha Cooper with her longtime friend Susan Welchman, the former photo editor at The New York Post and Senior Picture Editor at National Geographic  (photo © Selina Miles)

I realized with a combination of terror and excitement that I was facing much more than a 10 minute graffiti video. That this was the story of a photographer who had shaped entire generations of a worldwide subculture. A woman whose camera had witnessed historical events from the 1960s until now, whose story was deeply entangled with that of New York City, whose work had touched so many lives across boundaries of time and place and culture. And most importantly, a story that was relatively unknown, absolutely begging to be told, and that Martha had put her faith in me to tell that story.

It was then that I realized that 10 minutes wasn’t going to cut it.

Martha Cooper. Graffiti Writers. (photo © Selina Miles)

BSA: Is there anything call “a typical day” when you are following Marty in her travels?
Selina Miles: There is never a boring moment when you’re with Martha. What she has can’t even be described as work ethic, because she doesn’t see photography as work. It is just who she is, and there is nothing else. She will go anywhere, any time, to any extreme to do the projects she wants to do.

That being said, there are certain consistencies in her days. Any time she is presented with a window of downtime of more than 3.5 seconds, she is playing Pokemon Go. When it comes to food, Marty frequents exactly 2 restaurants in New York, both 4 blocks or less from her apartment. In total she has about 4 dishes on rotation, supplemented on particularly busy days by Lunchables, ready-made snack packs of deli meats and Oreos.

Martha Cooper. Pokemon fun with Steven P. Harrington at Metro Diner in NYC. (photo © Selina Miles)

It is well documented that many successful entrepreneurs and geniuses keep rigid routines or wear the same clothes every day as a way to save precious cognitive resources for what they really love to do. Marty is no exception. My best tip for anyone lucky enough to share a lunch with her – you have about 30 seconds to decide on your order before her patience runs out.

Marty’s life is chaos wrapped in deeply ingrained habit, on a bed of compulsive, obsessive collecting and photo-taking. An ideal combination for a documentary subject.

Martha Cooper. SIM cards from her international travels. (photo © Selina Miles)

BSA: You have unprecedented access like no one ever before to the archives of 50 years. It must to have felt overwhelming sometimes.
Selina Miles: Most of my career has focused on making short films where the objective is creating something out of nothing. This project is the opposite. The real challenge is to distill 50 years, 17 published books, hundreds of travel destinations and more than an estimated half a million images into a singular, watchable 90 minutes. In this case, making a good film is as much about what you choose to leave out as what you include.

Martha Cooper. Archives. (photo © Selina Miles)

My team and I have collected archive from every major medium, from Super 8 film, to VHS, to DV tapes, to our own 4K video. We have searched high and low over the 19 months working on this project, and there hasn’t been a week that we don’t discover some essential snippet of the story. Friends and colleagues of Marty have sent in material from South Africa, Prague and Germany. Her ex husband’s basement held over 6000 feet of Super 8 home movies, unseen since the ‘80s.

This constant digging and discovery is anxiety inducing, chasing leads that never end, having nightmares of dusty tapes sitting in a basement somewhere that could unlock all the answers if only I could find them. On the flip side, the elation that comes when you find that perfect piece makes it all worth it.

Martha Cooper. Archives. (photo © Selina Miles)

BSA: Were you able to speak to individuals whom you considered to be close to Martha personally or professionally?
Selina Miles: Out of every subject we approached, all but one agreed, the exception being a prominent anti-graffiti policymaker from New York City during the early ‘80s.

I interviewed in 6 cities and had material translated in 4 languages. I spoke to friends and family, peers, cultural commentators, graffiti writers. Each contributor was more varied and vibrant than the last. After the interview, when I would thank each contributor for their time, they would often respond with the same phrase, jumping out at me like a mantra – “Anything for Martha.” It became quite ridiculous how often I heard this exact phrase coming from everyone from kids at the skate park in Baltimore to curators at major New York museums. Access was not an issue on this project.

BSA: Can you share a special insight that you gained one day with her?
Selina Miles: I have been inspired in so many ways by this project, but I would say the most significant lessons I took away from the Marty Cooper approach to life would be to take risks, embrace failure, never grow up, and choose your own path in life. Although it takes place in very fantastical world full of weird and wonderful characters, Marty’s story is full of extremely universal, relatable human experiences, failures and triumphs. I hope that in watching the film, each viewer can find their own insights and take home lessons within her story.

Martha Cooper with the Brazilian twins Os Gemeos. (photo © Selina Miles)

BSA: You live In Australia and Martha lives in Manhattan. How do you make a feature film documentary when you have to travel such long distances?
Selina Miles: Firstly I am very fortunate to have built a freelance career that allows me to work when and where I choose. I can definitely encourage anybody thinking of making that leap to go for it. Not having a boss that you need to ask for time off makes it much easier. Secondly, being Australian you get really used to working weird time zones and traveling long distances. Modern aviation is a wonderful thing! Get on a plane, fall asleep for 14 hours, wake up and you’re in a different country! How cool is that!

Martha Cooper. Archives. (photo © Selina Miles)

Our world is so connected now, and filmmaking has become infinitely easier than it was for previous generations. Martha Cooper traveled the world photographing for National Geographic before the days of digital photography. She would have to physically purchase, carry, store, develop and print the hundreds of thousands of exposures of film required for one story.

She constantly battled against the physical mass and cost of that medium. This made photography or filmmaking accessible only to those with a formal education and money. We don’t have any of those issues anymore, anyone can walk into a store and purchase a $500 camera and a hard drive and start a career as a photographer or a documentary filmmaker. This project has given me a greater appreciation for how easy we have it now, and for the skill that was required to shoot on film.

A Subway Art fan clutching his copy close while looking at some of Martha Cooper’s more recent Street Art photography. (photo © Selina Miles)

BSA: Martha was one of the first documentors of the graffiti scene. What will the audience learn about how Martha first found out that she wanted to document the graffiti movement?
Selina Miles: It is my firm belief that I cannot make a film that will do anything for the documentation of early graffiti that wasn’t done by Style Wars in 1983, but I hope that the graffiti community leaves this film feeling well represented, and with greater context of how Martha Cooper became the legend we regard today.

BSA: How can people help you complete your film?
Selina Miles: Right now we are wrapping up our last month of post production, and searchin over the last few weeks we have been able to dig for new archival material. If anybody out there has footage of Marty, no matter what quality or how big or small, please send it to me! It might be just the bit that I am missing.

Marty’s story is such an international one, it’s so great to receive clips showing her at work in different locations around the world. Every little bit helps really bring to life the incredible bond that is shared within the graffiti and street art communities.

Martha Cooper. Archives. (photo © Selina Miles)

The slides of early tags were a selection for a chapter in Martha’s book “Hip Hop Files”.  “Make Your Mark” was a possible chapter heading she and the publisher eventually decided not to use. It comes from a 1982 anti-graffiti poster Koch put in the subways saying “Make your mark in society not on society.” It became a joke among graff writers, still remembered and quoted today.


Please click this link and let Selina and Martha know you might have something to show them.

Specifically right now the team  is looking for:

1.     Historical photos and video of artists interacting with “The Holy Book of Graffiti”, Subway Art, by Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant, and

2.     Modern day footage of Martha Cooper going to any and all lengths to get the shot.

Read more at ” ‘Martha’ the Movie’ ” and please contact them ASAP.


www.marthathemovie.com

Instagram.com/marthathemovie

Facebook.com/marthathemovie

 

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Lucky in New York

Lucky in New York

Back when we began this BSA journey we used to tell people we felt lucky to be in New York and to witness the birth of a new Street Art movement here and to walk the streets discovering people, fashion, architecture, and Street Art like Walt Whitman taking a walk through Leaves of Grass.

Happily we’re still saying it, with total conviction.

Lucky Rabbit (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Serendipity happens again here as we discover a new painter, a new style of painting on the street. It recalls the illustrations on commercial greeting cards and children’s story books from the 1960s and 1970s perhaps; a blushing bashful blundering bushel of big-eyed bliss bisecting the blond head of a slumbering beauty. It’s all Bambi and Mary Poppins up in here.

Lucky Rabbit (photo © Jaime Rojo)

For the quote you have to go back to the 1860s and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.

“I can’t go back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”

Is their more that we need to know? The artist, maybe? No, they say never meet your heroes.

Getting back on the bike, we still feel lucky.

Lucky Rabbit (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lucky Rabbit (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lucky Rabbit (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lucky Rabbit (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lucky Rabbit (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lucky Rabbit (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lucky Rabbit. A day later the quote on top of the mural was buffed. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Igor Ponosov Enlightens with “Russian Urban Art: History and Conflicts”

Igor Ponosov Enlightens with “Russian Urban Art: History and Conflicts”

An academically sourced opinion-based essay in book form that looks to art, social, economic, and geopolitical movements during the start of the 20th century to better understand the evolution of Urban Art in post-Soviet Russia, Igor Ponosov delivers a welcome reconstruction of the timeline and movements that bring urban art to this day.

With the renewed interest in public art and muralism that has erupted over the last decade in many so-called Western cities it is good to learn how the public space in Russia has been catalyzed not-only by Hip Hop and new graffiti forms from Europe but also the history of Avant-garde art movements and Soviet Muralism in Russian Urban Art: History and Conflicts.

With a thorough yet brief recap of a dozen decades of art/social movements, Ponosov illustrates that it is a slowly but widely fluctuating wave of events and sentiments and social-political upheaval that brings art to the street over a century; during times of relative liberalism in artistic freedom during the Tsarists one century ago contrasted a short time later with abolishment of political expression of the Stalinist era that heralded state power and monumentalism, suprematists, and propagandizing the public. Interestingly it’s the constructivist and the realism aesthetics that are currently being repurposed for much of the colorful commercial and state-funded muralism that is happening today on massive Moscow and St. Petersburg walls, and Ponosov helps to illustrate, if not disentangle, the movements that co-evolve over the previous century.

It may prove fascinating to graffiti writers and Street Artists to learn the trajectory and timing of the arrival of Hip Hop culture in the USSR and how it proved itself an enthusiastic student to what was originally an organically occurring series of artistic practices within a mix of communities. The “expansion of Western culture” into post Soviet Russia, as he describes it, occurs a decade (or more) after the original birth of hip hop, yet the importation retains many of the same art practices and ethos during the cultural translation.

The evolution of Street Art on the scene may have been quicker due to immediate digital communications and because of the new practices having similarity to pre-existing mural and fine art practices in Russian cultural history as well as global graffiti ‘jams’. Similarly, the rise in international ‘street art’ festivals looks like it has influenced events here as well as the co-opting/ cultivating of non-political eye-candy murals for commercial and gentrification goals.

It’s enlightening to learn about the rise of something called ‘Actioning’ that recalls the Situationists, and urban performance as part of the thawing post Cold War Glasnost approach to public space. Equally riveting are Posonov’s observations and interest in the more modern, less flashy conceptual street practices and the diverse nature of expressions that defy classification in typical Street Art terms that he describes as a “Partizaning” – a phenomenon of socially engaged street art.

“The tactics and numerous actions of the activists of the Partizaning movement, organized over the course of several years, reflects the ideals of collectivism, metal assistance and responsibility,” he writes of a practice that defies the commonly held assumptions of Urban Art as being antisocial and purely vandalism. “They are intended to restore citizens’ faith that global changes are possible even when working on a local level – be it a staircase, a yard or a neighborhood – through the discourse of urban planning.”

Densely compiled, amply illustrated, and providing an endless series of sparks for future fires, Mr. Posonov makes the discussion open and easy to access, adroitly staying free of corrupting jargon or self-important Art-speak that proves empty. Consider it a concise, reliable eye-opening primer that you can reference into the future to appreciate the evolution of Urban Art in Russia.

Igor Ponosov. Russian Urban Art: History And Conflicts. Moscow 2018. Published in collaboration with Street Art Museum, St Petersburg, Russia.

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