2022

“Alter Ego” Presents Fascinating Human Portraits at BSMT Space

September 26, 2022 Artists

Just in time for considering Halloween costumery that evokes fantasies of alter ego, BSMT Gallery in the creative hub of North East London gives you a push, encouraging you to explore the possibilities.

Perspicere. *Alter Ego*. BSMT Space Gallery. London, England. (photo courtesy of the artist)

The beauty of opening the field of street art up to nearly anyone to join means that today’s “urban contemporary” scene also embraces those with formal art-school education and commercial art industry careers – sometimes delivering a fusion of street and modern aesthetics that are eye-popping. In the case of ‘Alter Ego’ opening on October 7th, you get to see portraiture that is varied as the practice, each selection presenting personality, character, and life in the post-industrial, knowledge-worker, surveillance age.

Alexander Chappel. *Alter Ego*. BSMT Space Gallery. London, England. (photo courtesy of the artist)

A meditative survey in the search for meaning, these profiles offer varied lenses through which one can gaze, backed by bonified painting talents. The results are distinctly human, and interpretive. As a collection the group show reflects this moment, this extended network, this Western society on the cusp of economic hardship and expanding war; the last moment before all the rules change again.

Artists include Aches, Alexander Chappel, Ange Bell, Angela Ho, Belin , Ben Wakeling, Caryn Koh, Edwin, Guy Denning, Jose Luis Cena, Joseph Loughborough, KMG, Pang, Panik, Perspicere, Stephen Anthony Davids, and Sweet Toof.

Ange Bell. *Alter Ego*. BSMT Space Gallery. London, England. (photo courtesy of the artist)

Aches. *Alter Ego*. BSMT Space Gallery. London, England. (photo courtesy of the artist)

Panik. *Alter Ego*. BSMT Space Gallery. London, England. (photo courtesy of the artist)

BSMT Space. ‘Alter Ego’ will run from October 7th through to October 30th. 529 Kingsland Rd, London, E84AR

BSA Images Of The Week: 09.25.22

September 25, 2022 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! It’s Fall Y’all !

If you know us, it’s a Mexico-Brooklyn fusion. Just one of the endless combinations you discover when you truly explore New York, where we speak 700 languages and dialects.

It is no surprise that graffiti, its style and aesthetic, spanned many of the world’s cities and cultures over five decades – as does street art today. You’ll see similarities this week between pieces we just caught in Chihuahua, in the north of Mexico, and NYC, in the North of the USA. The styles recognize history, but there is definitely a youthful vibe out there and here.

Shout out to the Brooklyn (now LIC) street art duo Faile for opening Deluxx Fluxx in the underground of Manhattan’s Webster Hall this week. Thursday night’s opening was full of fans, admirers, friends, and collectors – with Patrick Miller walking the line outside on the sidewalk to greet patient guests who were waiting to get in. Wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling Faile, the new club is eye-popping with fluorescent image making and graphic design in the Faile vocabulary – and yes, there are new video games that are digital eye candy with a sense of irony and humor. Miller told us that the new version of their classic kiosks would hopefully also provide a platform to other artists – an open inclusive attitude that only comes from street artists who actually believe in community. With a stage for performances, a DJ HQ, smoke, and lasers – it is going to be an instant New York classic house to escape into.

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring: Donut, Muck, Maze, Diez, Imok, Ollin, Griz, Tee, Derk, Bonk, Retos, Merck, and TCK.

TCK. Chihuahua, Mexico. 09-2022 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Merck. Chihuahua, Mexico. 09-2022 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentifed artist. Chihuahua, Mexico. 09-2022 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Maze. Chihuahua, Mexico. 09-2022 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bonk and Retos. Chihuahua, Mexico. 09-2022 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Diez. Chihuahua, Mexico. 09-2022 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Derk. Chihuahua, Mexico. 09-2022 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tee. Chihuahua, Mexico. 09-2022 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Donut. Queens, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Gridz. Queens, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Visit. Queens, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ollin. Brooklyn, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Imok. Brooklyn, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Chihuahua, Mexico. September, 2022. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Davide DPA: Calligraffiti, Portraits, and Poetry at Pulpa 2022

September 24, 2022 Artists

Rounding out our week of Italian street artists and muralists, we see the newest by Davide DPA at the Pulpa Festival 2022 in Montesilvano. A city of the province of Pescara in the Abruzzo region of Italy, Montesilvano has hosted this mural festival for only two years. Still, already the lineup of artists has distinguished itself.

Davide DPA. *“Bekala”*. Pulpa Festival 2022. Montesilvano, Italy. (photo courtesy of the festival)

Davide DPA, a self-described street poet, has been writing on the street, literally for a dozen years, beginning with chalk texts on the pavement. His writing style is a calligraffiti style that may call to mind those found in Middle Eastern works like those of the Tunisian El Seed, or LA’s Retna, the French Duo Monkeybird, or the Mexican Said Dokins.

Davide DPA. *“Bekala”*. Pulpa Festival 2022. Montesilvano, Italy. (photo courtesy of the artist)

He’s also wheat-pasted more straightforward poetry texts on walls, painted wall murals, done hand lettering on rolldown gates, and painted large portraits on parking lots best visible from a plane. Here at Pulpa he brings “Bekala” whose very skin looks like layers of calligraphy in flesh tones.

Davide DPA 2015. (photo copyright the artist)

Davide DPA. 2016 (photo copyright the artist)

Davide DPA. 2018 (photo copyright the artist)

Pulpa Festival 2022

BSA Film Friday: 09.23.22

September 23, 2022 Artists, BSA Film Friday

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

Now screening:
1. “Gilded Darkness” Fondazione Nicola Trussardi
2. Edoardo Tresoldi. Monumento. Procuratie Vecchie. Venice, Italy.
3. How To Make A Concrete Bike. Via DIY
4. Britain’s Long Goodbye to Queen Elizabeth II. via The New Yorker

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BSA Special Feature: “Gilded Darkness” Fondazione Nicola Trussardi

“An Omni-comprehensive, multimedia spectacle,” says Massimiliano Gioni of Nari Ward’s ‘Gilded Darkness’ now on display at Centro Balneare Romano in Milan. The artistic director and the artist speak about the new exhibition that is on view until October 17th.

It’s part of an ongoing opportunity for artists to conceive of and build their sculptures and other installations in an environment that blends seamlessly into street culture, says Gioni.

“We rediscover forgotten or hidden places in the neighborhoods of Milan and invite artists to intervene in these very charged and unusual spaces. The center is a complex of buildings dating back to the 1920s; a very beautiful mixture of metaphysical architecture and rationalist and modernist architecture,” he says.

Read more at Design Boom, who created this video.

“Gilded Darkness” Fondazione Nicola Trussardi

Edoardo Tresoldi. Monumento. Procuratie Vecchie. Venice, Italy.

“Monumental architecture is a composition that neglects function in order to ritualize a thought by means of a three-dimensional work. The history of peoples is that of a hereditary flow of rhetorical figures which continuously recur in cycles; they redefine their own meanings and establish symbolisms that we have not only learned to read but which, generation after generation, we have absorbed as a sort of latent language of the collective unconscious.”

How To Make A Concrete Bike. Via DIY

Questions answered. That’s our job here. You were dying to learn how to make a concrete bike. You’re welcome.

Britain’s Long Goodbye to Queen Elizabeth II. Via The New Yorker

The largest funeral in modern memory, this week people said goodbye to the Queen

Alessio Bolognesi: The Whale-Man Bond

September 22, 2022 Artists

Ferraro-based mural artist Allessio Bolegnesi continues our summertime fascination with Italian painters on this last day of summer. This “Whale-man” is a provocative fusion you haven’t probably considered, yet now you may wonder if it will be possible someday. Actually, he says the new 15 x 7.5-meter mural is just a metaphor.

Alessio Bolognesi. *“The Whale-Man”*. Caorle Sea Festival 2022. Caorle, Italy. (photo courtesy of the artist)

Allessio tells us, “The Whale-man is a symbol of the relationship that binds the human being to the sea and vice-versa.” It is true if you have ever met an oceanographer or a surfer. This relationship, the artist says, is, “A bond that we’re forgetting.”

Alessio Bolognesi. “The Whale-Man”. Caorle Sea Festival 2022. Caorle, Italy. (photo courtesy of the artist)

Cey Adams. Departure: 40 Years of Art And Design

September 21, 2022 Artists

By way of highlighting the talents of a creative class who often work behind the scenes, a new exhibition mounted at Boston University Art Galleries puts one creator in the graffiti and Hip Hop story on center stage.

CEY ADAMS, DEPARTURE: 40 Years of Art and Design, curated by Liza Quiñonez, features original artworks and archives from an artist who helped put some of the greatest artists of the age on the turntable, screen, and streets with his design eye and ability to be a step ahead of the curve stylistically.

The founding Creative Director for Def Jam, he created some of the iconic imagery that brought you the Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, LL Cool J, Jay-Z, and Mary J. Blige, among others. A Queens, NY, native running the streets as a teen in the 70s and 80s, Adams was also a graffiti writer – giving him a strong sense of the street aesthetic that would reverberate in commercial design as well. He parlayed his talents into the commercial realm of hip hop just as it was taking off, capturing the zeitgeist of that moment.

Now after a storied career, he’s collaborating with some of the documentarians of the age like Martha Cooper, Janette Beckman, Ricky Powell, & Robert Bredvad on newer works, some of them instantly re-classic. The press release calls Adams a “visionary artist, a cultural pioneer, and an innovative designer.” The show opens on October 4^th and runs through December 11.

Here we show you some more recent works Adams has on the streets in the last few years.

Cey Adams at work Detroit, 2016. (photo © Steven P. Harrington)

Cey Adams. (photo © Courtesy of Street Theory Gallery)

OCTOBER 4 – DECEMBER 11855 Commonwealth Ave Boston, MA CEY ADAMS, DEPARTURE: 40 Years of Art and Design.

Fabio Petani: MUSA SIKKIMENSIS in Covo, Italy

September 20, 2022 Artists

In Covo, Italy for the CURE Festival you’ll find the street artist/naturalist/muralist Fabio Petani hard at work on his newest mural.

Fabio Petani. *HYDROGEN CARBONATE & MUSA SIKKIMENSIS*. Cure Festival 2022. Covo, Italy. (photo © Fabio Petani)

He is calling it “HYDROGEN CARBONATE & MUSA SIKKIMENSIS,” part of an ongoing series of paintings that combine in their name the plants’ names and the chemical or compound that one may associate with them. Musa sikkimensis, also called Darjeeling banana, is a species of the genus Musa. It is one of the highest altitude banana species and is found in Bhutan and India.

Biancoshock Shot: Making Cameras in Lodi, IT

September 19, 2022 Artists

The Italian street art interventionist named Fra. Biancoshock loves to reinvent space – especially public space.

Biancoshock. *“Cannot – 2022”.* Lodi, Italy. (photo © Biancoshock)

Always on the lookout for patterns in the piles of discarded urban detritus, he converts them with paint to match his imagination. Recently in Lodi Italy, he looked through the viewfinder of his mind and discovered a couple of cameras that looked suspiciously like classic Cannons.

He calls these “Cannot”.

BSA Images Of The Week: 09.18.22

September 18, 2022 Artists

Welcome to BSA Images of the Week!

Hasidim schools are reported to fleece the public and ignore the kids, A 10-year-old Syrian refugee towers over visitors in Times Square, Afropunk returns to Brooklyn in full force, and you must be 21 to buy whipped cream. Other than that, New York is completely normal as usual.

No wonder we have the weirdest street art and you can’t explain half of it. Embrace the chaos, people, and ride it like a surfboard.

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring: Modomatic, Degrupo, Pear, Server Up, Dzel, Ergot, OH!, Werox, and Forte.

Tags flying freely under this expansive space under the bridge. Do you know which one? (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Billion Dollar Club (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Your boys Bezos and Guliani lurking and ready to surprise you. Degrupo, Dzel and friends (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Johnny Depp is rather green and intuitive, as depicted by Degrupo (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Possibly a reference to the Nas song, this slogan by an unidentified artist for us, but maybe you know who? The pieces below have been previously published on BSA. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Modomatic on the left with an unidentified artist on the right. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Server Up and friends (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Poliniza-DOS Elevates the Intervention Art Form in Valencia, Spain

September 17, 2022 Artists

Festival d’Art Urbà Poliniza Dos may have an online presence that is difficult to access for the average street art fan. Still, the murals created for this ongoing urban art festival at the Polytechnic University of Valencia speak for themselves.

Slim Safont. POLINIZADOS Urban Art Festival. Polytechnic University of Valencia. Valencia, Spain. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Brilliant productions and unusual investigations are created in and around the campus, engaging students and the local community to consider the role of art in the public sphere, its pertinence and meaning, and our relationship to it. Its direct and scholarly approach means that the public is invited, and artists are given an opportunity to share their practice with an appreciative and considered audience.

For more than a decade, this competition has selected from an open call for submissions and invited many of Spain’s curious thinkers, experimenters, interventionists, trouble-makers, street artists, and muralists to create new pieces for consideration, discussion, and appreciation. This program is where the work is done on the wall, inside the mind, and in the heart.

Recently photographer Luis Olive captured these murals from the 2021 and 2022 editions of PolinizaDos, and he shares what he found today with BSA readers.

Escif and Axel Void. POLINIZADOS Urban Art Festival. Polytechnic University of Valencia. Valencia, Spain. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Guzman/Subterraneos. POLINIZADOS Urban Art Festival. Polytechnic University of Valencia. Valencia, Spain. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Subterraneos. POLINIZADOS Urban Art Festival. Polytechnic University of Valencia. Valencia, Spain. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Eddith Chavez. POLINIZADOS Urban Art Festival. Polytechnic University of Valencia. Valencia, Spain. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Taller Burro Press. POLINIZADOS Urban Art Festival. Polytechnic University of Valencia. Valencia, Spain. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Mari Mariel. POLINIZADOS Urban Art Festival. Polytechnic University of Valencia. Valencia, Spain. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Sucri / Furyo. POLINIZADOS Urban Art Festival. Polytechnic University of Valencia. Valencia, Spain. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Edoardo Ettorre. POLINIZADOS Urban Art Festival. Polytechnic University of Valencia. Valencia, Spain. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

MOHA. POLINIZADOS Urban Art Festival. Polytechnic University of Valencia. Valencia, Spain. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Lula Goce. POLINIZADOS Urban Art Festival. Polytechnic University of Valencia. Valencia, Spain. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Berni Puig. POLINIZADOS Urban Art Festival. Polytechnic University of Valencia. Valencia, Spain. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

Learn more about Poliniza Dos on their Instagram account.

BSA Film Friday: 09.16.22

September 16, 2022 Artists, BSA Film Friday

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

Now screening:
1. Sofles / Elevate. By Sofles and Aftermidnight Film Co.
2. Queen Elizabeth II Almost Died / The Simpsons
3. SAABE, “I’M NOT DONE YET” Via Montana Colors

BSA Special Feature: Sofles / Elevate. By Sofles and Aftermidnight Film Co.

Oh yes, the oppressive, stultifying, soul-sucking corporate office job. It deviously diminishes you, taking credit for your ideas, and uses a thousand cuts to demoralize you slowly but surely (human “resource”, anyone?). Australian graff/street artist Sofles plays the role here as a character lifted from a graphic novel; the unwilling cog in the machine whose urge to create bucks the system.

“Awesome editing and story!” says one of the hundreds of comments amassed on this 5-day-old video that suggests no one gives up on their dreams, especially you.

Sofles / Elevate. By Sofles and Aftermidnight Film Co.

Queen Elizabeth II Almost Died / The Simpsons
During this period of mourning where many are reflecting on QE II’s influence on society, culture, art, even Homer Simpson…

SAABE, “I’M NOT DONE YET”

Sabe knows. After three-plus decades getting up he has inspired a lot of fans and peers with his wild style writing in Europe, making him what some call a true legend from Copenhagen. He’s known for a wide range of styles, bombs, burners, and panels, seemingly talented at them all. Stay to the end, as they say, to hear some of the insights that he shares about himself, his work, and his life.

This is not your average graff head video because he keeps it real, even if painful to say or hear.

“I feel like I had a family.”

“Maybe I feel like a loser.. but Iam happy because I can paint.”

“I’m not done yet.”

Mr. Kas Reminds; “Time is what you do with it” in Waterford, Ireland

September 15, 2022 Artists

Waterford Walls, a mural festival in Waterford Ireland, may make you think of the famous crystal first, and you would be correct to make that association. The Waterford Glass House was founded around the same time as Beethoven was publishing his first works in 1783, say local historians. The festival offers a collection of quality painters from many backgrounds, formal and informal, a number of walls. With local Irish and invited international artists in league, the festival has been creating murals across the county – including in Tramore, An Rinn, Ballyduff Upper and Tallow.

MrKas. *“Time is what you do with it.”* Waterford, Ireland. (photo © Gringo Pictures)

Speaking of time, today we see the new piece by street artist Mr. Kas, who reminds us of the ephemerality of life.

“Time is what you do with it,” he says as he reflects upon his portrait of a senior with her eyes closed.

If you are lucky, you’ll reach the age of his subject – and it may happen far quicker than you had assumed. Mr. Kas suggests we take each moment with serious consideration and learn how to enjoy while embracing the rather quick march of time.

“The only moment we have is now,” he says, “Shall we have this in mind to use our time in the most fulfilling way possible.”

“Time is now. Enjoy it, because we don’t know when it will be our last moment.”

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