August 2020

BSA Film Friday: 08.07.20

BSA Film Friday: 08.07.20

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

Now screening :
1. Freight Train Graffiti Melbourne. Can’t Do Tomorrow Festival
2. Anthony Lister – Head Hunter 2020

BSA Special Feature: Freight Train Graffiti Melbourne from the “Can’t Do Tomorrow” Festival 2020

Graffiti Writers and a major collaboration with Southern Shorthaul Railroad (SSR) 

There is not unanimity of opinion about painting trains these days – in fact perspectives cannot be further apart when you consider the hot invective spilled on graff writers in some cities – and the invitation and embrace of them in others.

The video above from New York in January presents a conundrum of many sorts – a full train covered by graffiti is enraging to some, an indication of lawless disrespect for society. Only a month later Melbourne government blessed the Can’t Do Tomorrow Festival which invited graffiti writers to do something very similar to an entire train. Cognitive dissonance much?

Face it, for artists and fans the two videos below are a bit of freight porn – products of the urban art festival where a group of old school and prolific graff writers transformed a 22-carriage Southern Shorthaul Railroad (SSR) freight train into the largest outdoor gallery in Australia.

From the producers of the festival “Can’t Do Tomorrow was a massive celebration of urban art and contemporary culture in one of the most iconic underground spaces in Australia: The Facility. Across 10 days, over 16,000 PEOPLE immersed themselves in a new way of consuming, or being consumed by, art.” Eloquent and on-point.

We also appreciate the description of the aspirational outlook of the organization, “We don’t pretend to be custodians of the contemporary urban art scene. We’re a micro-movement inside a macro-movement. We are serious about creating a community that will garner the contemporary urban movement the recognition it deserves.”

Freight Train Graffiti Melbourne. Can’t Do Tomorrow Festival

Anthony Lister is Head Hunting in 2020

Automated speech synthesis transcription is a current fashion and Anthony Lister cleverly frightens you while hiding behind this audio accompaniment to the video – a disjointed emotionally vacant spirit that parses at a metronomic tempo before melting into the hounds of Satan. How better to introduce the fascinating masks he has been creating for years.

“But in so far as we are social beings who live in a community of similar individuals with whom we are in continuous and direct competition, often unconsciously, primitive beings also feel the urgent need to be different, to impress, to bewilder and to instill fear, so that they may make themselves revered and respected.”  Happy head hunting!

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Sewing the Walls: Elbi Elem  “Gemotrias Variables” in Berga, Catalonia

Sewing the Walls: Elbi Elem “Gemotrias Variables” in Berga, Catalonia

Street artist Elbi Elem is revealing shapes that are inside this old building in Catalonia- a series of “Variable Geometries”.

Elbi Elem. Geometrias Variables. Konvent. (photo courtesy of Elbi Elem)

Productively using these days of social isolation, the artist has often created surprise sculptural installations in unconventional spaces. This one arose from wanting to “draw with thread.” An curious description, but it gets even better!

Elbi Elem. Geometrias Variables. Konvent. (photo courtesy of Elbi Elem)

“I wanted to achieve the perception of actually sewing the walls,” she says, “as if it were a wound and suture, drilling and piercing them, without use no visible element for its subjection.”

Elbi Elem. Geometrias Variables. Konvent. (photo courtesy of Elbi Elem)

This old factory in Cal Rosal provided ample opportunity to test different techniques until finally the desired effect was achieved.

Creating it as a guest with Konvent Punt Zero the artistic residence in Berga, Catalonia, Elbi says its the kind of space that encourages experimentation, research, and expression. “I wanted to make a suspended composition of geometric shapes aligned with each other,” Elbi says, “without the use of knots, joining both ends to make them look like a unit.”

Elbi Elem. Geometrias Variables. Konvent. (photo courtesy of Elbi Elem)
Elbi Elem. Geometrias Variables. Konvent. (photo courtesy of Elbi Elem)
Elbi Elem. Geometrias Variables. Konvent. (photo courtesy of Elbi Elem)
Elbi Elem. Geometrias Variables. Konvent. (photo courtesy of Elbi Elem)
Elbi Elem. Geometrias Variables. Konvent. (photo courtesy of Elbi Elem)
Elbi Elem. Geometrias Variables. Konvent. (photo courtesy of Elbi Elem)
Elbi Elem. Geometrias Variables. Konvent. (photo courtesy of Elbi Elem)
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Elfo says “Elite: R.I.P. in 2020” on Walls of Verona

Elfo says “Elite: R.I.P. in 2020” on Walls of Verona

“The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”

That’s the text of a cable sent by the writer Mark Twain from London to the press in the United States after his obituary had been mistakenly published, so the story goes.

Similarly, the “elite” of 2020 may be suitably surprised by this new text piece by street commentator ELFO on the streets of Verona, Italy. Since there are roughly four months remaining to the year, maybe this is a meant to be prophecy, but from what we all can see, the “elite” are getting richer and richer from this pandemic, as well as the custom-tailored “bail-outs” from the right- and left-wing politicians who write the bills.

Elfo. Verona, Italy. (photo © Elfo)

The CARES Act Sent You a $1,200 Check but Gave Millionaires and Billionaires Far More,” says this headline from Pro Publica about the rescue plan that helped the common people. This piece and many others say it was a bonanza for the “elite” in the US.

Any prediction for the HEALS act, which has a TRUST act  inside it?

“This year because of the pandemic and protest situation I think the ‘elite’ is dying,” Elfo tells us. We’ll believe it when we see it.

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Stohead Sends De-Constructed Letterforms Across a Structure : UN “One Wall” Project

Stohead Sends De-Constructed Letterforms Across a Structure : UN “One Wall” Project

Stohead (Christoph Häßler) started writing graffiti at 14 in southern Germany, where he was born, and last month he completed his largest mural in Berlin for UN, three decades after he began.  

Stohead paints a One Wall for Urban Nation Museum in Berlin. (Photo © Nika Kramer)

Exhibiting on canvas for the last two decades in galleries and art fairs, he is an innovator with custom tools and he has mastered his own techniques of deconstructing the letterform, repeating and rolling them in layers behind translucence, complementary waves of motion cascading across, over, and down the wall of this eight-story residential building.

Part of the “One Wall” program at the Urban Nation Museum, Stohead is a calligraffitist of the newer international order, not afraid to experiment and grow, borrow and synthesize in untypical directions. Perhaps its this 6th sense that is causing this new work to slow motorists along Delpzeile 14 in Berlin-Charlottenburg.

Stohead paints a One Wall for Urban Nation Museum in Berlin. (Photo © Nika Kramer)
Stohead paints a One Wall for Urban Nation Museum in Berlin. (Photo © Nika Kramer)
Stohead paints a One Wall for Urban Nation Museum in Berlin. (Photo © Nika Kramer)
Stohead paints a One Wall for Urban Nation Museum in Berlin. (Photo © Nika Kramer)
Stohead paints a One Wall for Urban Nation Museum in Berlin. (Photo © Nika Kramer)
Stohead paints a One Wall for Urban Nation Museum in Berlin. (Photo © Nika Kramer)
Stohead paints a One Wall for Urban Nation Museum in Berlin. (Photo © Nika Kramer)
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Gabriel Pitcher Creates New Mural for “Project Zero” in Walthamstow, London

Gabriel Pitcher Creates New Mural for “Project Zero” in Walthamstow, London

“Encased in a wooden frame, the figure of Steve is shown seated, in a palette and pose reminiscent of traditional celebratory portraits of kings or popes. In his hand, he holds a timepiece, a symbol to the lost time waiting for change,” says the press release.

Gabriel Pitcher portrait of Steve Barnabis. Wood Street Walls/Project Zero. London, UK. (photo courtesy of Gabriel Pitcher)

UK artist Gabriel Pitcher has just completed a new community mural to address the topic of vulnerable youths and knife crime in London. Located on Canning Road, the figure of Steve Barnabis rises many stories upward, a local leader who has worked hard to address social and financial inequities for some time. Now the Covid economy is threatening to foist cutbacks and setbacks on the organization he is a youth worker at, Project Zero.

BSA gladly encourages readers, especially our London readers, to support this youth-centered project that bridges the gap, creates community engagement, and provides badly needed servies.

Gabriel Pitcher portrait of Steve Barnabis. Wood Street Walls/Project Zero. London, UK. (photo courtesy of Gabriel Pitcher)

I have seen first hand the positive impact Steve and Project Zero have had on young people in this borough, and the void it has left in the community. I also recognize the significant financial challenge faced by local authorities suffering cuts from central government funding. These critical services are desperately needed, programs like Steve’s have a life altering effect on the people using them.” ~Mark Clack, Wood Street Walls CIC


Project Zero https://projectzerowf.co.uk

Gabriel Pitcher portrait of Steve Barnabis. Wood Street Walls/Project Zero. London, UK. (photo courtesy of Gabriel Pitcher)

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO CONTRIBUTE


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BSA Images Of The Week: 08.02.20

BSA Images Of The Week: 08.02.20

Welcome to BSA Images of the Week.

Happy EID Mubarek to all our Muslim brothers and sisters. Full moon will wash over our warm summer skies in Brooklyn tomorrow – hopefully you can get up on a roof to see it.

Statues are still coming down like a summer rain storm, New Yorkers are officially out of unemployment benefits and are protected from eviction until Thursday. While they pull together a new rescue plan for hurting citizens the GOP is deviously trying to chop Social Security, which is keeping your grandmother fed and housed. Meanwhile those “Party of the People” Democrats voted against cutting the Pentagon’s budget by 10% last week and this week they removed Medicare for All from the Democratic platform for 2020 – at a time when 30 million? 40 million? people have no healthcare insurance and we have a Covid-19 crises that is projected to kill 200,000 Americans by election day. 20 million (or more) are out of work, millions are poised to lose their homes, and the US saw a 32.9% decrease in gross domestic product for the second quarter of 2020. It’s the largest drop in U.S. history. But the “party of the people” doesn’t want you to have health insurance. Let that sink in.

Please tell us again about that two-party system we hear about every day. Why does it look like one party? Have you heard about this new documentary coming called “The Swamp”?

Maybe its the time in quarantine but the quality of the workspersonship on the streets these days appears to have increased overall – perhaps because artists have much more time to pour into their paste-ups, stencils, paintings.

Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Amir Diop99, BK Foxx, Black Ligma, Captain Eyeliner, City Kitty, De Grupo, Downtown DaVinci, Epizod Tagg, Panam, Texas, Zuli Miau.

David F Barthold (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Black Channel Films (photo © Jaime Rojo)
BK Foxx. Detail. East Village Walls. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
BK Foxx. East Village Walls. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
New York (photo © Jaime Rojo)
New York by Epizod Tagg (photo © Jaime Rojo)
David F Barthold (photo © Jaime Rojo)
“I could stand on the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters” – Donald Trump by an unidentified artist. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
De Grupo (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Black Ligma (photo © Jaime Rojo)
De Grupo (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Captain Eyeliner (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Amir Diop99 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Zuli Miau (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Downtown DaVinci (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Texas (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Panam (photo © Jaime Rojo)
City Kitty (photo © Jaime Rojo)
#blacklivesmatter (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Untitled. SOHO, NYC (photo © Jaime Rojo)
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Borondo Stages “INSURRECTA” on 32 Billboards in Segovia

Borondo Stages “INSURRECTA” on 32 Billboards in Segovia

Gonzalo Borondo stages an insurrection against the authorities who would hope to instruct you how to think about art in the public sphere, the right of the overlord to pollute the visual landscape at will, and the limitations of our imaginations in Segovia a nine-month installation.

Borondo. Insurrecta. I Segovia, Spain. (photo © Roberto Conte)

A 32 billboard installation totaling 17 locations, the Spanish street artist and conceptual installation artist evokes sepia-soaked memories of history as told through the view of those recounted in a communal uprising here 500 years ago.

Extending beyond the frames with sculpture, layered textures, and projection, the post-industrial modernist documents events and takes liberties with his interpretation, a 5 chapter “INSURRECTA” that instructs and reflects with symbols and figures and open spaces. For those familiar with his vocabulary over the last decade+, it’s a fulsome maturity that commands as it expands, with poetry. Sometimes it plays with it background, other times the background has its way with the canvas.

Borondo. Insurrecta. II Segovia, Spain. (photo © Roberto Conte)

Paying homage to Goya, his engravings of “Los Caprichos” and “Los Desastres”, he works within a narrow palette and innovates forcefully, playing with perspective and your willingness to interpret.

In his description of the Segovian people and their fierce spirit of defiance and riotous acts in pursuit of autonomy and self-reliance, he says he is inspired by “humanity confronting nature, the discourse of the urban in the natural landscape, the effects of imposition on society, the reappropriation of spaces by different agents.”

Borondo. Insurrecta. III Segovia, Spain. (photo © Roberto Conte)

Leaning heavily on visual metaphor, many in the graffiti and street art communities can identify with his take on reappropriation of land, resources, and the expression of art in the public sphere. It has become commonplace to expound upon street art as an “outdoor gallery”, but this mapped and self-guided tour looks as close to a museum exhibition as we’ve seen, and it’s even walkable for many.

As ever, you decide the route.

Borondo. Insurrecta. V Segovia, Spain. (photo © Roberto Conte)
Borondo. Insurrecta. VI Segovia, Spain. (photo © Roberto Conte)
Borondo. Insurrecta. VII Segovia, Spain. (photo © Roberto Conte)
Borondo. Insurrecta. VIII Segovia, Spain. (photo © Roberto Conte)
Borondo. Insurrecta. IX Segovia, Spain. (photo © Roberto Conte)
Borondo. Insurrecta. X Segovia, Spain. (photo © Roberto Conte)
Borondo. Insurrecta. XI Segovia, Spain. (photo © Roberto Conte)
Borondo. Insurrecta. XII Segovia, Spain. (photo © Roberto Conte)
Borondo. Insurrecta. XIII Segovia, Spain. (photo © Roberto Conte)
Borondo. Insurrecta. XIV Segovia, Spain. (photo © Roberto Conte)
Borondo. Insurrecta. XV Segovia, Spain. (photo © Roberto Conte)
Borondo. Insurrecta. Map. Segovia, Spain. (photo © Roberto Conte)
Borondo. Insurrecta. Map key. Segovia, Spain. (photo © Roberto Conte)


Gonzalo Borondo presents INSURRECTA alongside the City Council of Segovia in collaboration with Acción Cultural Española (AC/E). The project sees the Department of Culture commemorate the 500th anniversary of the communal uprising in the city.

Segovia, Spain, from 29 June 2020 to 23 April 2021

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