September 2019

BSA Film Friday: 09.06.19

BSA Film Friday: 09.06.19

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

Now screening :
1. Swoon and The Heliotrope Foundation: A Catalyst For Local Change
2. One Minute Dance: Petites Deambulations Sur “Paradis Perdus”
3. Festival Concreto #5 – Narcelio Grud in Fortaleza, Brazil
4. Murfy Paints Mural for La Fiesta de los Corremayo


BSA Special Feature: Swoon and The Heliotrope Foundation: A Catalyst For Local Change

Long term economic development? From a Street Artist? Sustainable homes? Jobs? Schools?

Yes, if the question is about Cormiers, Haiti and the answer is Street Artist Swoon with her Heliotrope Foundation. You can draw a direct through-line from her earliest wheatpastes of people on the street to the earthquake surviving Haitians whom these buildings and programs are for and from. By listening, sharing, and working alongside, the volunteers and foundation have been building community. And you thought it was all about vandalism, didn’t you?

One Minute Dance: Petites Deambulations Sur “Paradis Perdus”

Nadia Vadori-Gauthier, the performance artist behind the project One Minute of Dance Per Day, has teamed up with other dancers for a new project titled Petites deambulations sur “Paradis Perdus”

Festival Concreto #5 – Narcelio Grud in Fortaleza, Brazil

For 6 years artist, professor, and organizer Narcelio Grud has gradually grown the Concreto Festival in Forteleza. As he and the team prepare for November’s new edition, he tells BSA readers about this video recap of Concreto 5.

“In the timespan of 9 days, downtown Fortaleza received more than 40 artists from Brazil and all over the world to participate in the 5th edition of Festival Concreto – International Festival of Urban Art. Great names from the urban art scene, such as Mônica Nador, Guto Lacaz, Inti Castro, Sabek, SatOne and others, met between November 16 and 24 to color and democratize art in the city.

In the year of 2018, the Festival brought interventions and other activities to Downtown neighbourhood in Fortaleza, Brazil, called ‘Centro’. The idea was to occupy and reestablish the connection with an area of the city that was once a great place of cultural movement, especially in the city’s ‘Belle Époque’. All this brought color and movement to the local landscapes, realigning the neighbourhood to a greater valorization of urban culture.

In the video, you can watch most of the activities and artworks that took place in the Festival, as well as participant artists, staff members and the general public talking about their experience within Concreto.”

Murfy Paints Mural for La Fiesta de los Corremayo

Muralist Murfy was in the south of Spain to paint this four-story portrait of a child on the street. “This is a girl dressed in a harlequin costume,” he says of the outfit, “a typical feature at a party in southern Alhama de Murcia, which is where this is.” The La Fiesta de los Corremayo is at the end of April and beginning of May and features bands, music, food, and lots of dancing in the streets by people wearing variations of the harlequin.

Read more
INO: “Freedom For Sale” in Athens

INO: “Freedom For Sale” in Athens

It’s true, Athens is still in the throes of austerity, but not for everyone, darling.

The severe financial austerity imposed on Greece’s government and people by the international bankers was never meant for everyone – vulture capitalism is designed with winners in mind.

INO. “Freedom For Sale”. Athens. August 2019. (photo © INO)

Just check out the clubs and nighttime entertainment near Kolonaki Square where this new INO mural is.

Once you pass the phalanx of security, you are welcomed into the party – preferably wearing designer labels – the men are in blazers and “casual cool” as they watch barely dressed women in high heels dancing on the stage, sometimes acting out fantasies to the aural euphoria and plumes of smoke blown skyward. In these thumping houses of free-market hedonism, you can feel free while waving your hands and glow sticks in the air at the DJ booth, but for a comparably hefty price.

INO. “Freedom For Sale”. Athens. August 2019. (photo © INO)

The average annual salary in Athens is €21,618, or about 60€ a day. A visitor to one of these clubs reports that “prices start from 90€ (bottle of proseco/wine), 290€ for a bottle of vodka, and 145€ for a bottle of gin”.

This financial inequality may have been on his mind when INO painted this new mural. “They did not give me a specific theme and I chose to create an image that from the first point of view may look optimistic but it is not,” he says. The title is “Freedom for Sale”.

Who’s buying?

INO. “Freedom For Sale”. Check out the 1UP extinguisher tag across the street. Athens. August 2019. (photo © INO)
INO. “Freedom For Sale”. Athens. August 2019. (photo © INO)
Read more
Laia and “Magic Avenue” in Barcelona for Contorno Urbano

Laia and “Magic Avenue” in Barcelona for Contorno Urbano

Today we return to community murals for a minute, just to check on the progress of Barcelona based artist Laia. She says she started as a graffiti writer in ’99 at age 14, eventually gaining respect from peers for her serious skillz with tags, pieces, and style on underpasses, trains, walls, and freights.

I am Laia. On The Way To Magic Avenue. Contorno Urbano Foundation. 12 + 1 Project. Barcelona, Spain. August 2019. (photo © Clara Anton)

Two decades later, she’s redefining her style, she says. Here you may think more of street art motifs and when you look at her new wall for community group Contorno Urbano in her hometown Barcelona.

See Laia’s graffiti- inspired works on IAMLAIA on Instagram.

She says she’s looking for positivity these days for herself, and she wanted to create something that reflects it to the neighborhood of Civic Center Cotxeres Borrell. Maybe something kid-friendly.

She’s calling it “Magic Avenue”. “There is no negativity, no sad colors, no violence!,” says Laia.

I am Laia. On The Way To Magic Avenue. Contorno Urbano Foundation. 12 + 1 Project. Barcelona, Spain. August 2019. (photo © Clara Anton)
I am Laia. On The Way To Magic Avenue. Contorno Urbano Foundation. 12 + 1 Project. Barcelona, Spain. August 2019. (photo © Clara Anton)
I am Laia. On The Way To Magic Avenue. Contorno Urbano Foundation. 12 + 1 Project. Barcelona, Spain. August 2019. (photo © Clara Anton)
Read more
Nuart Journal Punches Forward: “Eloquent Vandals,” Vol 1, No. 2

Nuart Journal Punches Forward: “Eloquent Vandals,” Vol 1, No. 2

The nascent voyage of ‘Nuart Journal’ comes slowly into view as a softly bound Street Art/graffiti cultural preservation document; its glossy cover is purple for issue Number 2, like a thick royal-court velvet, or a bruised eye.

Editor-in-Chief Martyn Reed opens this forum to a hand-selected series of thought leaders, artists, organizers, academics and friends who are invited to impart, illustrate, confound and inspire. It is an extension of what he has endeavored to do with his annual invitational public art/commercial art festival Nuart- the newest edition which commences this week in Stavanger, Norway.

An impossible goal; to track the precise movement of the dancing tentacles of this scene as it grew – as it grows – much less to assign motivation or significance or measure impact. A mutational march of interconnected disconnectedness, no amount of pontification will ever fully capture the width of this circle, but Nuart Journal is beginning to take its measure and introduce a sense of order if only to better examine it. The theme is “Eloquent Vandals”, a reference to Nuart’s 2011 self-survey in hardcover. Themes range from colorless black street bombing to definitions of place and authenticity, to Street Art’s movement into conceptual, and decolonizing artivism.

The layout is the new utilitarian modern; clean-framing articles, essays, interviews, inquisitions – text-based and visual. Editor and academic Suse Hansen is nimble, streetsmart, and canny in her guiding of contributors. Hopefully, she can continue to steer confidently through these choppy waters, guiding a forward-moving course of enlightening observations – as the ship passes icebergs of false intellectualism, pirate boats of one-eyed tribalist gatekeepers, or the occasional showboat. Anglers ahoy!

Here’s the lineup of contributors for “Eloquent Vandals”, Nuart Journal Volume 1 Number 2, 2019;

Jeff Ferrell, Oskolki, Jens Besser, Georgios Stampoulidis, Daniel de Jongh, Jaime Rojo, Vlady, Alison Young, Reuben Woods, Lindsey Mancini, Christian Omodeo, Vittorio Parisi, Faith XLVII, and Milu Correch.

Nuart Journal, Stavanger, Norway. Editor@nuartjournal.com Click HERE for more about Nuart Journal.

Read more
Street Art, Labor Day & Child Labor

Street Art, Labor Day & Child Labor

Labor Day in the US and around the world draws our attention to the rights of workers. A compounding topic is the fact that 265 million children are working around the world, according to the International Labour Organisation.

Because of our collective neglect as human society, children are being forced to work to provide for their families in countries all over the world. In many poor countries, children must work to provide for their families otherwise their families will go hungry.

Finnish street artist and political activist Sampsa puts a child at the center of a corporate labor machine – from 2014. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Why do children have to work? Shouldn’t they be free to enjoy their childhood, be fed and clothed, go to school? This is a problem that needs to be condemned as much as it needs to be understood. Simply advocating for universal children’s rights to education, housing, and health care isn’t enough. For as long as greed and unchecked capitalism run amok, families are pushed into poverty – and some children are forced into labor, exploited, and abused under a constant threat of violence.

What Congress can do to end child labor in the US

Netherlands Takes Big Step Toward Tackling Child Labor

“There Is Enormous Suffering: ”Serious Abuses Against Talibé Children in Senegal, 2017-2018

Submission by Human Rights Watch to the Committee on the Rights of the Child Concerning Cambodia

More US Child Workers Die in Agriculture Than in Any Other Industry

Read more
BSA Images Of The Week: 09.01.19

BSA Images Of The Week: 09.01.19

The fires of summer still burn, as do their romances. Yet September 1 brings news of the racing teams of muscular autumn artworld horses just beyond the next valley, thundering their way through the streets of New York to the galleries and museums. Among the cries, “Hail Henry!” “Hail JR!” “Hail Roger!”

And the streets! As inspiring and perplexing and exciting as ever, providing the ultimate exhibition.

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this time featuring Dee Dee, Hugh Brisman, Hysterical Men, Jazz Guetta, City Kitty, Steve The Bum, De Grupo, Frank Ape, Gianni Lee, Never, Kendra Yee, Ruo Han Wang, Jazz Guetta, Nicholas Di Constanzo, Myth, Terry Urban, A Lucky Rabbit, Molly Crabapple, Ms Saffaa, and Vy.

The artist named Never says, “Always Pay The Artists”. You would be surprised to find out how many festivals, galleries, and museums are still ripping off artists – we’ll write a book about it one of these days. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Terry Urban and A Lucky Rabbit collaboration. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Gianni Lee (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Gianni Lee (photo © Jaime Rojo)
We don’t know who painted this cosmic vision. The style resembles a combination between Terry Urban and Gianni Lee, both shown above but we believe neither of them painted this. Of course some may say that both Mr. Urban and Mr. Lee are influenced by Basquiat, and possibly Stikman in their work. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Hysterical Men (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)
De Grupo (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Frank Ape as charismatic leader of the warriors. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
It’s nice to see Myth back on the streets of New York. Say their names! (photo © Jaime Rojo)
“Blessed are the destroyers of false hope, for they are the true messiahs. Cursed are the God adorers, for they shall be shorn sheep.” Thus ends todays’ reading from the Book of Myth (photo © Jaime Rojo)
New Yorker Molly Crabapple and Ms Saffaa, Saudi Arabian artist and activist created this new small piece on New York streets called
“Rest in power, Orouba and Halla Barakat.” It is a tribute to the Syrian opposition activist and her daughter who were found killed in their apartment in Istanbul (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Collaboration between City Kitty and Steve The Bum (photo © Jaime Rojo)
City Kitty (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Vy (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Dee Dee (photo © Jaime Rojo)
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” ― Albert Einstein. This piece is based on a photo of Einsteins often credited as taken California Institute of Technology trustee Ben Meyer on 6 February 1933 in Santa Barbara.
Hugh Brisman (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Kendra Yee and Ruo Han Wang (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Jazz Guetta for The Bushwick Collective (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Untitled (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Read more