Biden, Harris honor COVID-19 victims at ceremony on eve of inauguration.
A recognition by the highest officials in this land that 400,000 people have died in the United States of Covid-19. However the future looks for us with a new administration taking their role in the White House tomorrow, we know that the level of dedication to this illness will be serious and appropriate. We know that from today going forward we will have a unified, focused leadership pushing to get help to all the states, all of the country, all of the people who are sick, who are dying, who need vaccines, who need comfort and support and empathy in their time of grief. Our sorrow unites us.
Scenes from a video speak to the loss and the ceremony to mark it.
U.S. president-elect Joe Biden and vice president-elect Kamala Harris and spouses with lighted columns along the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool commemorating the 400,000 who have died of Covid-19 in the US.
When you’re losing the argument, children learn that another strategy is to shift the focus and make it personal. If smearing or logic fails, a schoolyard bully may teach you that you can simply punch your opponent.
For years civil rights activist and minister Martin Luther King Jr. peacefully organized people and effectively made the arguments against segregation and for the full extension of freedom and agency to blacks in America as citizens. More declassified documents are revealing that opponents stopped at nothing to halt these ideas from spreading.
A young Martin Luther King, Jr. (still from MLK/FBI)
Using the power of the police and the power of the state, many whites attacked MLK from every angle and sustained repressive behaviors overtly/covertly against everyday Americans using the most despicable means and methods. They worked to erode support for them, shred their social networks, sow division, throw suspicion on them, smearing them as instigators and troublemakers and terrorists for demanding equal treatment and opportunity under the laws of their own country.
(still from MLK/FBI)
As we reflect on the events of the last year with such corollaries in the streets and in the “press”, we realize that a vocal and threatening minority of the US is still unwilling to accept its responsibility for systemic racism; they discredit all demonstrations of black and brown skin people as “riots” when most have simply been vocal demonstrations. On the other hand when you are reporting whites breaking through fences, windows and doors and marching inside the Capitol building in Washington – that is described by many as something else – something honorable, patriotic. During the events of January 6th the world also saw that the reaction of the police and the state to these primarily white marchers was very different, even ineffective, or strangely hospitable to the invaders.
(still from MLK/FBI)
“It is so relevant, and in some ways very tragic,” says film director Samuel D. Pollard of his new documentary film MLK/FBI. “Here we are in 2021 and America is still going through the same things that happened with King in the 60s.” He was speaking in an interview with the Toronto Film Festival about the FBI using wiretapping and various strategies to fan the flames of racism, rather than admit to our systemic racism, to apologize for, and to act to make whole.
J. Edgar Hoover and the power of the FBI (still from MLK/FBI)
Indeed as you watch the movie and see what can only be described as a cabal of entitled white government and police officials arrayed against King (thanks to newly declassified documentation), you wonder how the Civil Rights leaders ever managed to make one step forward. Unfortunately half a century later, we watch similar scenes unfold as they are shrouded in what Pollard calls ‘dog whistle dialogue.’
Martin Luther King, Jr. (still from MLK/FBI)
“(J. Edgar) Hoover was a hero for many people,” says Pollard of the FBI director who oversaw the wiretapping of MLK during intimate assignations outside his marriage and sent them to him and his wife – even writing to the activist encouraging him to commit suicide. No low was too low for Hoover to stoop to. “They were going to do it by any means necessary – bugging his colleagues, his house, anything they could.” A clear and growing threat to the established white order, all forces were marshaled to discredit him and frame MLK as a villain – and Hoover knew he had the support of the majority.
“He was a torch-bearer for ‘Justice and the American Way’ “.
Today we mark a holiday in the name of Martin Luther King, Jr. and not J. Edgar Hoover. At least it gives Americans an annual reason to countenance our status as a country in regard to equal rights and opportunity for all citizens. Invariably, we are reminded that while many things are better than they once were, there is much work to be done.
“You are done. There is but one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy, abnormal fraudulent self is bared to the nation.” (still from MLK/FBI)
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Chupa, Elsie the Cowww, Gane, Gemma Gene, Kai, Li-Hill, Mr. Babby, Panic, Peachee Blue, Pork, Skewville, Sydney G. James, and Zexor.
We were happy to speak with journalist Justin Kamp recently about subtle and fine distinctions in terminology surrounding street art as it pertains to street practice, fine art, institutions, and collectors. Here are some out-takes from his recent column on Artsy.
“The ascent of so-called street artists into the moneyed realms of the blue chip is not exactly a new phenomenon—it’s been nearly two years since KAWS skyrocketed to a new auction record of HK$116 million (US$14.8 million) with the sale of The Kaws Album (2005) at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, which was followed six months later by the record-breaking sale of Banksy’s Devolved Parliament (2009) for £9.8 million ($12.1 million). These two mononym artists could be seen as the loosely defined category’s twin princes, despite their stylistic differences—KAWS’s vibrant cartoon riffs and Banksy’s wry stencils are two of the most easily recognizable, not to mention consistently lucrative, styles in contemporary art. But as collectors the world over continue to be fascinated with “Companion” figures and Girl With Balloon prints, the exact parameters of what constitutes “street art” remain nebulous. According to Charlotte Raybaud, head of 20th-century evening sales at Phillips in Hong Kong, the category comes with a certain amount of ambiguity baked in. “Street art is inherently hard to define,” Raybaud said. “It is difficult to categorize as sometimes it can feature graffiti, or other times more image-based work. The former oftentimes features alongside the latter, but I would say some uniting elements include the use of stencils and/or elements of reproduction, allusions to and questioning of everyday visuals or slogans, and of course its ‘street’ setting—or indeed proximity to its roots.” When highlighting street art works for potential bidders, Raybaud said she emphasizes both the above aesthetic elements as well as a piece’s conceptual underpinnings, which she said often center on themes of democratization.
Scholars of the category expressed similar views. Jaime Rojo and Steven P. Harrington, co-founders of the online street art community Brooklyn Street Art, stated that while graffiti art should be generally viewed as a distinct category due to its focus on lettering and authorial expression, the bounds of street art are more aesthetically slippery. “It may borrow heavily from advertising, branding, traditional mural making, and pop culture aesthetics or methods of creation and dissemination,” the duo said. While the category may focus more on figuration than graffiti, they said, it’s not limited to pictorial representation—conceptual, sculptural, electronic, and performance practices have been variously incorporated into the porous bounds of street art. Daniel Feral’s Feral Diagram—a riff on Alfred Barr’s similar diagram of the lineages of modernism for the Museum of Modern Art—maps the overlapping historical movements that congealed into street art’s interrelated practices, spinning a complex web of influences from Pop art and action painting to semiotics and the cut-up creations of Beat poetry…
CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING “What Qualifies as Street Art?” by Justin Kamp for Artsy.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. Escif: Greenpeace, For a Sustainable City. 2. Street Art in 2020 3. Mathieu Libman: The Moon’s Is Not That Great
BSA Special Feature: Escif: Greenpeace, For a Sustainable City.
Street Art in 2020
Doug Gillen of FifthWall TV reflects on the world of street art in the year of 2020.
Mathieu Libman: The Moon’s Is Not That Great
After an astronaut returns from her lunar mission to find that the public lost all interest in the moon, the stories of the astronaut, a film director, and a bear intersect.
It’s a pity that the pandemic has kept so many people away from seeing great exhibitions in museums and galleries, among other things. At the Albright Knox Gallery in Buffalo, street artist Swoon’s “Seven Contemplations” ran its course without nearly as many visitors as you would expect.
So we decided to show you the exhibition in a mini-tour. Who else could be your host today but the artist herself, Swoon.
I feel incredibly grateful to have gotten to continue creating large scale immersive experiences for people in a year when so many things were impossible, but when spaces of solace and wonder and creation are needed more than ever.
This exhibition contained a hidden layer, in the form of a series of meditation and contemplation prompts. Small seats were placed within the exhibition, and fixed-gaze meditation instructions given, alongside a set of contemplations for visitors who wanted to settle deeper than usual into the experience of the artwork.” – Swoon
Contemplation – The miracle, grace, forgiveness, that which is given without reason, that which arises spontaneously:
New life is given to us freely with each breath we take. Our cuts heal, our hearts pump blood without being ever asked, and every spring new flowers push up from under the snow. Are there ways that we can appreciate, or even mirror this spontaneously giving aspect of life? Think of a time when you became able to understand someone you had been angry with and so found yourself able to forgive them, or they you. Think of a bit of luck that changed your life, or a gift you were given whose generosity still surprises you. Sit and feel into the tinge of the miraculous that hangs around something as simple as a single breath or as wondrous as a second chance.
Sometimes terrifying events can scare us out of our skin. We become dislocated from ourselves and may seem to float outside of our bodies, or feel cut off from our lives. Suffering can make us reach for destructive behaviors or substances in an attempt to release ourselves from pain and anxiety. Can we use small instances of discomfort or anxiety to help ourselves learn to face big emotions when they arise? For just a few moments, recall something small in your day to day life that usually makes you uncomfortable or a bit anxious. How do these feelings show up in your body? Do you feel them in your chest or hands? Or in the quality of focus you are able to give to things that need your attention? Practice staying with an uncomfortable emotion, observing it, and allowing it to pass on its own. When we can sit with and experience the things that scare us, or the things we would like to escape from, we gain a great deal of strength and power. We become more able to chose how we want to react to the world around us.
Who were you before you were born? Who were you before the earth was born? Sometimes our personal selves get stuck. The mind’s tendency is to fasten onto things it perceives as problems, or threats to self, and to ruminate there. Is it possible to step outside of our individual ‘I’ for a moment and give our consciousness more room to breathe? Sometimes a seemingly nonsensical question can shift our focus and connect us to a more spacious awareness. If you were to arise right now from the primordial sea, what form might you take?
Team: Curator Aaron Ott. Special thanks to Zack Boehler, Eric Jones, Kristine Virsis, Caroline Caldwell, Frances Segismundo, Andrea Tults, Marshall LaCount, Greg Henderson, Ryan McDaniel, Karl Mattson, Zach Prichard, Eileen Saracino, Carolyn Padwa and, the rest of the incredible Albright Knox installation team. All photos by Tod Seelie.
To learn more about Swoon’s “Seven Contemplations” click HERE
We are seeing more municipalities and institutions settle upon aspirational messages about the Earth and environmental issues every month now – a very common theme with murals in cities worldwide.
Mrfijodor and Corn79.Turin, Italy. January 2021 (photo courtesy of the artists)
This new collaboration combines the skills of two former graffiti artists, Mrfijodor and Corn79, in Turin, Italy. The two murals interplay Mrfijodors illustration-inspired figurative elements and Corn79’s elegant language of abstraction to adorn the façade of the Museum A Come Ambiente (MAcA).
“The focus is on the balance between man and nature,” says Mrfijodor, “a balance that needs to be re-established.”
Mrfijodor and Corn79.Turin, Italy. January 2021 (photo courtesy of the artists)Mrfijodor and Corn79.Turin, Italy. January 2021 (photo courtesy of the artists)Mrfijodor and Corn79.Turin, Italy. January 2021 (photo courtesy of the artists)Mrfijodor and Corn79.Turin, Italy. January 2021 (photo courtesy of the artists)Mrfijodor and Corn79.Turin, Italy. January 2021 (photo courtesy of the artists)
The project is possible thanks to the contribution of the City of Turin, Area Giovani e Pari Opportunità – Torino Creativa, and the Museum A come Ambiente – MAcA.
“The artwork invites us to think about the lack of empathy we demonstrate towards the rest of the species and to the action/reaction process that ensues”, says street artist and muralist Gola Hundun. An environmentalist at heart and scientific lover of nature, the artist has painted this interesting ocean-themed mural in his hometown of Bellaria-Igea Marina in Italy this month as a way to focus on the bleaching of coral and the damage that the tourism industry can do to our natural treasures.
Mimicking the subtle changes of our developmental practices on the ocean and its species, Gola’s façade presents a scene that becomes less and less visible as it reaches the completely white corner of the wall. “The white space symbolizes means the absence,” he tells us, “the emptiness, the loss of the ecosystem that is caused by men.”
Now that the orange man has been censored by social media he’ll have much more time to pack his boxes and do some deep vacuuming of the living room furniture.
All tolled, this week was perhaps the most effective public demonstration of white privilege on parade for everyone to see – and one that was beamed across the world, including into the countries who once looked to the US for leadership and promise. BLM could not have made a more powerful and impactful statement about the systemic inequality that is baked into American society. Did you see all those video split screens of how police treated the different crowds?
Trump is on his way out, but as the author Thomas Frank likes to say, Trumpism is here to stay.
Ahhhh, but the future is unwritten. Where’s you marker?
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Adrian Wilson, Bastard Bot, De Grupo, Ethan Minsker, Gane, Glare, HeartsNY, Lunge Box, Timothy Goodman, Wane, Winston Tseng, and You Are Loved. Yes, you are loved.
When in Oostende, Belgium recently the conceptually minded artist took some of these dimensions in hand as well, blasting 5 high-powered lasers into the sky to transform open air and to create new visual experiences for anyone lucky enough to witness it from great distances and up-close perspectives as well.
We are riveted by the idea: That this projected light form is repurposed from its industrial and war applications to be presented for the public simply as an aesthetic entity – with its own deliberate transcendence; claiming space, altering it, commanding it, re-defining sightlines delineating new borders with righteously crimson beams of electromagnetic radiation powered light.
When one considers modern light masters like Dan Flavin, Mary Corse, James Turrell or Olafur Eliasson, you understand instinctively that it is only through accident or alert experimentation that such powerful effects such as these that we can be afforded the opportunity for discovery, and only inquisitive minds like SpY’s would push this idea so far that it becomes a revelation.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. Medicos Del Mundo #Esperanza #AlwaysHope 2. SOFLES / The Minibus (feat. Treas) 3. SpY / Luna
BSA Special Feature: Medicos Del Mundo #Esperanza #AlwaysHope
Today we present an inspiring video that reaches all the corners of the world – which is where Doctors of the World goes. The organization looks past the geographic and political barriers to care for all of us. Here film directors, directors, and artists – across five continents – participate in telling lived stories of people on the front line.
New graffiti porn from Brisbane this week as Sofles and Treas take camping to a new dimension in aerosol madness. The team of Grug & Bustaflux keep the audio details and effects tight with camerawork that trips and makes the heart skip by After Midnight Film.
SpY / Luna
Can you trust your eyes? Is that the moon?
SpY draws an indirect connection to the moon and the television depictions of 1969 showing a team of astronauts landing on it. The Madrid installation artist uses the simplest of gestures to make clarion statements. Installed on one of the construction cranes of the fifth tower of the Caleido complex in the north of Madrid, SpY hangs the moon in the sky with an inflatable nylon structure illuminated with high intensity LED system.
A psychedelia of this moment, the modulated visual liquid was produced by the artists use of digital copies made of shiny aluminum papers. Printed on vinyl, she transformed this exterior into a trippy grid of lenswork that allows passersby to see fields that instantly challenge imaginations.
Vieux says she enjoys stretching beyond limits of data and physical space, a description analogous for some with cinema itself.
“In this piece, I wanted to disrupt the solid geometries of the architecture with a hyperreal fluid painting placed in the landscape,” she says, and something in the description makes it conversant with the chaos and surrealist quality of US life today.
“I reflected on these ideas in a cultural/political context,” says Vieux, “thinking that a larger takeaway of this piece is that through disrupting and dissolving boundaries we can create a fluid open space where there’s room to unite.”
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
