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Lisbon Part II: Where Street Art is Becoming “Urban Contemporary”

Lisbon Part II: Where Street Art is Becoming “Urban Contemporary”

April 24, 2018

Street Art, graffiti, and murals are adding to the cultural character of Lisbon streets, this is undisputed. A quick tour of a museum show, a gallery exhibition, a hybrid art supply store/residency, and an artist’s studio give you an idea of the spirited and inventive contributors who are affecting the cityscape from behind closed doors as well.  Just ask artists and organizers here in the Portuguese capital a few questions and you’ll hear (and see) how the Street Art and graffiti scene graffiti scenes are also evolving to fine art and “urban contemporary”.

An Escher Show Reminds Us of His Influential Eye

Our look inside Lisbon begins with a visit to the M.C. Escher exhibition at the Museu de Arte Popular, which lays on a tract of land between Avenida de Brasília and the lapping waves of the waterfront. For some reason you always start or end near the water here, perhaps because this is where the city’s complex history brings you with nearly three centuries of international trade, culture and maritime lore forms the the foundation of this rich culture.

What brings us here today is the eclectic Dutch graphic artists work that is in our minds directly related to Street Art for a couple of reasons. A serendipitous intersection of visiting while the traveling exhibition stopped here, we had no idea that Escher’s original drawings of architecture and impossible spaces would be so handily on display for us to visually interrogate – and the artists’ wit and guile locked us into his gaze for an afternoon.

M.C. Escher. Museu De Arte Popular. Lisbon, Portugal. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Known perhaps best for his works popularized during the surrealist and op art youth culture of 1960s and 70s, his mathematically-inspired illusions on famous rock album covers, posters, and advertisements are often reflected in the works of Street Artists today who also play with photorealism, hyperrealism, and flights of rhythmic visual fancy.

M.C. Escher. Museu De Arte Popular. Lisbon, Portugal. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Secondly, as we had previously learned from architect Dennis Leo Hegic in Berlin, who was deeply involved in the design of the Urban Nation Museum for Urban Contemporary Art (UN) interiors, Escher’s famous drawings had inspired the museums walkway that wends its way overhead throughout the space. We were eager to examine many of the drawings which effectively play on bending perspective.

At any given point along the path of that walkway you are granted views near and far but you are unsure exactly how, and as you tour the artworks on walls you feel yourself inperceptibly rising and lowering your own angle. It may give the impression that you are in some way inside an Escher riddle yourself.

M.C. Escher. Museu De Arte Popular. Lisbon, Portugal. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

As museum curators at the UN, we were interested to see the original works of visual play that inspired the Graft Architects team to create the stunning interior of the haus in Berlin. We also better understood why Hegic refers to Graft as “the Rock´n´Rollers within the German architecture.”

M.C. Escher. Museu De Arte Popular. Lisbon, Portugal. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The darkened corridors of the exhibit itself seemed to play tricks on our bearings as we looked upon Eschers “subjects and patterns of mathematical precision, impossible objects, explorations of infinity, reflection, symmetry and perspective.”

Into the Gallery with Underdogs

Gallery Manager Raul Carvahlo leads us through the Mário Belém exhibition on display in the former industrial low-rise building that houses the Underdogs Gallery down by the river in an area of the city many remember for old factories and which is now becoming better known for its vast warehouses accommodating the city’s startup and coworking scene.

Mário Belém. Detail. Underdogs Gallery. Lisbon, Portugal. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“He always has this surreal quality,” says Raul about the 50 or so paintings, reliefs, lazer wood-cut sculptures, and suspended mobile installations by Belém that surround three sides of the pitched ceilinged space. “He uses his work to express his fantasy world and he is quite gifted with a number of techniques.”

Owned and guided by one of Lisbon’s best known Street Artist’s Vhils (Alexandre Farto), Carvahlo says that the 400 sm space is meant to act as a platform that provides support and encouragement to local and younger artists as well as the bigger names.

Mário Belém. Detail. Underdogs Gallery. Lisbon, Portugal. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

As an internationally recognized portraitist known for an unusual technique of blasting away the façade of a building to reveal the personality hidden within it, Vhils and the gallery also partner with and feature the occasional international Street Artist sensation like last year’s Shepard Fairey show, where the two collaborated on a street wall. This spring a full-scale exhibition blow-out by Downtown New York 1990s Street Art icon WK Interact is happening in the gallery with a large scale work also on the street.

Since the Underdogs space opened in 2013 and the initiative began in 2010, Vhils and company have invited a powerhouse parade of former or current Street Artists like Nunca, Sainer, Finok, Okuda San Miguel, How Nosm, Pixel Pancho, Remed, Cyrcle, Anthony Lister, and Felipe Pantone to mount shows and murals here – effectively putting the city on the map for high-quality international urban contemporary art.

Mário Belém. Detail. Underdogs Gallery. Lisbon, Portugal. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Notably Underdogs has also provided their platform to more conceptual artists in the Street Art/public art scene like Pedro Matos, Wasted Rita and ±MaisMenos±, perhaps indicating a healthy respect for cerebral engagement and interventions that are not primarily aesthetic.

Among the local talents, the gallery also gives support to artists like André da Loba the illustrator and sculptor known for his 2-D emblematic works in publications like the New York Times and Washington Post as well as the illustrator AkaCarleone, a 33 year-old Portuguese former graffiti writer now commercial illustration/graphic artist who has worked commercially with a number of international brands. He has also created a municipal wall mural in the city and elsewhere.

Mário Belém. Detail. Underdogs Gallery. Lisbon, Portugal. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“We’ve been working with him for quite a few years now and in 2018 we will be doing a big show with him,” says Raul of the poppy bright politics-free collages of typography, characters, and geometric forms. Later when touring with Carvalho through Lisbon streets we see on a rising hillside in the more historic part of town a large mural by AKACarleone overlooking the valley below, visible from many vantage points.

Mário Belém. Underdogs Gallery. Lisbon, Portugal. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Propaganda Posters, Art Supplies, and Street Art Tours

As a more accessible and commercial extension to the brand The Underdogs Gallery works collaboratively with their storefront space on Rua da Cintura in Porto de Lisboa only a 15 minute drive along the waterfront from here.

20th Century Propaganda Posters culled from the personal collection of Alexandre Farto AKA VHILS exhibited at the Underdogs Store. Lisbon, Portugal. (photo © Steven P. Harrington)

Shaped like a red brick channel that opens on one end into the Tagus River estuary that flows past into the Atlantic, the Underdogs store is part art supplies, print store, exhibition space, café, and mural tour company. In addition it just happens to have two small artist residencies above looking over (and on display for) art fans and tourists who make the small spot into a bustling and vibrant hub.

20th Century Propaganda Posters culled from the personal collection of Alexandre Farto AKA VHILS exhibited at the Underdogs Store. Lisbon, Portugal. (photo © Steven P. Harrington)

Raul tells us it is a family affair for Farto, with a father in business who acts as integral advisor and guide as Vhils continues to expand an international presence and nutures the business on many aspects of Street Art-graffiti-contemporary art here.

A member of an early 2000s loosely formed artist collective called Visual Street Performance that held annual exhibitions, a co-organizer of the seminal Crono Project in 2010/11 with Pedro Soares Neves and Angelo Milano, and more recently co-curator of the MURO Urban Art Festival, his is a formidable creative force that influences the flow of this multi-player and quickly professionalizing scene.

Prints for sale at the Underdogs Store. Lisbon, Portugal. (photo © Steven P. Harrington)

Beginning as a graffiti vandal writing his name in Seixal on the outskirts of Lisbon, Vhils now works with the government on occasion to facilitate public art projects and uses his own high profile art practice to spread socio-political goodwill internationally while proudly promoting his own heritage and city.

Underdogs Store on the foreground with the Montana store on the background sharing the same space. Lisbon, Portugal. (photo © Steven P. Harrington)

Underdogs Store. Lisbon, Portugal. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

In Studio with Add Fuel

Another local talent that Underdogs works with is Diogo Machado, otherwise known as Add Fuel. A trained graphic designer and illustrator well versed in the language of skating and his own youth as a graffiti writer, he’s become known internationally for his characters and his large-scale stencil-painted murals that incorporate the classic and traditional visual patterning of Portuguese tile work, or Azulejo.

On an overcast day his buddy and slightly younger peer, the sculptural Street Artist who works with recycled trash, Bordallo II, offers to take us to Cascais, a coastal town 30 kilometers west of Lisbon, where Add Fuel lives and has his studio.

Add Fuel. Studio Visit. Cascais, Portugal. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The brightly lit and spotless split level studio has a public viewing room in the front and his office/studio in the back, where a firing kiln that Bordallo II likes to experiment with sits in the corner. The two of them assemble a number of materials together and load them into the kiln while we gaze at the primarily blue and white artworks of symmetrical repetitions interspersed with Pop and cartoon elements that he is better known for in galleries.

While we visit the two of them break off into rapid-fire Portuguese conversations about some collaborative projects they are working on – and we learn that Add Fuel often gives his rejected tiles and discards to the recycling Bordallo II. “For me there are no mistakes,” says Bordallo II, “I love mistakes.”

Add Fuel. Studio Visit. Cascais, Portugal. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Add Fuel shows us screen prints, giclee high definition prints, lithographs, and multi-tile mounted works that he has for sale or is shipping to galleries and art fairs throughout Europe and the US. He even has created textiles – covering a chair using a technique called sublimation on fabric to reproduce the patterning of his tile creations.

“I think I have a lot of inspiration from cartoons and from 80s skate culture,” he says. “I also like Jim Phillips’ work. He made so many great skate graphics at that time. I sort of mix and match and create my own cartoon style. There are always some elements that people will recognize like some Disney character’s hands or some old cartoon characters’ eye but they are all sort of mixed together.”

Add Fuel. Studio Visit. Cascais, Portugal. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Working with the DNA strands of Portuguese design that go back centuries may scare some artists, but Add Fuel considers it an inheritance that he respects and has the latitude to mess with to make it accessible to modern audiences.

“I also use similar elements of the original tiles,” he says showing you the tiles that Lisbon buildings are skinned in. “Like this geometric one is a very traditional Portuguese or Mediterranean pattern and I just added some small details, why not?”

Add Fuel. Studio Visit. Cascais, Portugal. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bordalo II interjects, “You just f**ked it up.” The chide is answered rapidly.

“Yeah I just steal stuff, you know?,” Add Fuel retorts playfully. “Its not all from my imagination, I just stole it.”

Add Fuel. Studio Visit. Cascais, Portugal. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Then he turns to another tile work. “This one here is actually a two model pattern – is based on 13th century Portuguese leather work- small details that were in leather belts. But once tile making began the tile makers often took patterns from leather making and iron making as well. So many of the ornamental aspects that you see in tiles come from other artisans as well. I also grabbed them and then made them into something new.”

This moment is ripe for art in the streets for Lisbon, and based on the conversations we had and the artists and curators we met in galleries, museums, and studios, the collaborative action inside the door is as lively as the stuff out in public.

 

With most gratitude to Raul Carvalho, General Manager of Underdogs Gallery and to Pedro Soares Neves for taking the time to talk to us, for sharing their knowledge and insights with us and for showing us around Lisbon. Sincere thanks as well to Diogo Machado AKA Add Fuel for letting us visit his studio and for Bordallo II for taking us there.

 

 

This is the second of two articles with BSA in Lisbon in collaboration with UN Berlin, it was originally published on the Urban Nation website, and the project is funded in part with the support of Urban Nation Museum for Urban Contemporary Art (UN) in Berlin.

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3 Library Rats from XAV for Contorno Urbano 12 + 1

3 Library Rats from XAV for Contorno Urbano 12 + 1

April 23, 2018

“I was a library rat. Libraries are the mainstays of democracy. The first thing dictators do when taking over a country is close all the libraries, because libraries are full of ideas and differences of opinion, all the things we say we want in a free and open society.”

– novelist David Baldacci

XAV. “The 3 Rodents” Contorno Urbano Foundation. 12 + 1 Project. L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona. (photo © Clara Antón)

Spanish graffiti writer and tattoo artist Xav gives his own literal interpretation of the saying ‘library rat’ here in his new mural for Project 12+1 in Barcelona. Beginning with graffiti as a teen in Asturias (northern Spain) in the mid 2000s Xav has since honed a photorealist style on walls that has given him many commercial opportunities and taken him to participate in Street Art and graffiti festivals.

XAV. “The 3 Rodents” Contorno Urbano Foundation. 12 + 1 Project. L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona. (photo © Clara Antón)

But that doesn’t mean Xav doesn’t appreciate the folks who hang out in libraries and the value they have to everyone – he actually studied and taught himself most of what he knows about his craft. He also gives respect to the graffiti tradition and to his peers; if you look closely you may see the name of the recently passed graffiti writer Treze hidden in the mural, along with a shout out to his hometown of Asturias.

XAV. “The 3 Rodents” Contorno Urbano Foundation. 12 + 1 Project. L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona. (photo © Clara Antón)

XAV. “The 3 Rodents” Contorno Urbano Foundation. 12 + 1 Project. L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona. (photo © Clara Antón)

XAV. “The 3 Rodents” Contorno Urbano Foundation. 12 + 1 Project. L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona. (photo © Clara Antón)

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BSA Images Of The Week: 04.22.18 – Focus on BKFOXX

BSA Images Of The Week: 04.22.18 – Focus on BKFOXX

April 22, 2018 , ,

BSA-Images-Week-Jan2015

Welcome to BSA Images of the Week. Normally on Sunday we give you a hit parade of different pieces on the street so you can stay connected with the movement on the street. This Sunday we are looking at work-in-progress images of just one large piece by New York Street Artist BKFoxx, one artist of the current mural-making generation who draw inspiration from advertising, pop culture and photography, melding them together into a polished photo-hyperrealism.

An occasionally formally trained artist who joins the many professionally skilled artists who have put in the time on the current legal mural wall scene. Now travelling the world to paint at festivals as well as putting up walls in NYC, she is frank about her current home in Long Island and her roots, recently telling Graffiti Street “I’m from the suburbs. I was raised in a culture vacuum, so I’m just trying to learn as I go. It’s terrible.”

BKFOXX. Detail. JMZ Walls. Bushwick, Brooklyn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

It is a disarming admission perhaps for the hardcore graffiti scene that once characterized the New York street, but an otherwise perfect position for a globalized cultural hierarchy that been flattened by ubiquitous digital communications that obliterate boundaries. It’s a healthy message: we’re all trying to learn so bring your best game.

We have found a certain refreshing straightforward attitude among the late Millenials and first outliers of Gen Z that is not defiant to that “old” street order necessarily. Instead they seem ready to face the New Order of late capitalism with the communication tools that they have gathered and refined along the way.

BKFOXX. WIP. JMZ Walls. Bushwick, Brooklyn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

While there has been a lot of hand-wringing by critics from the 1st wave (80s-90s) and 2nd wave (90s-00-10s) of graffiti/Street Art over the exploding mural movement for reasons rooted in hard-won scrappy street cred (and some nostalgia) no one is debating the New Muralisms’ powerful impact worldwide on public space, even if there is not yet appreciable critical discourse. From the old rebels turned gatekeepers there is a guarded and qualified appreciation yes, but probably not enough props are given for the new space that this muralism is creating for more artists and voices.

With a commercial eye toward the natural world and larger societal issues BKFoxx chooses subjects for their emotional impact and their ability to translates easily for an image-savvy audience whose endless hours of personal screen entertainment has produced an expectation for big budget Hollywood and consumer culture slickness with high-production values.

BKFOXX. WIP. JMZ Walls. Bushwick, Brooklyn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

With much consideration and dedication to the craft of painting as well as content, this can be seen as a departure from the hit-and-run Street Art culture of a decade ago, one that can only be accomplished with many hours and days on a legal mural.

BKFoxx sees with a photographers eye and sometimes directs the image to address subtext, even with biting critique: an American movie/tv culture that normalizes violence, the consumer acquisition mindset that reduces human interactions to superficiality, our disrespect for the same Earth that we depend on. It’s a credence built around the metaphoric image, whether with direct agenda or not, and BKFoxx is gifted at crafting some the strongest ones to communicate.

BKFOXX. WIP. JMZ Walls. Bushwick, Brooklyn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

We spoke with her this week about her newest mural in Brooklyn, a fictionally realistic scene of actual bear cubs looking with curiosity at a patched up toy bear. We asked her a few questions in between her breaks.

BSA: The animals depicted in your work have the feel as if you personally know them. Do you know some of them?
BKFoxx: Some of them. The less wild ones. I try to take my own photos as much as possible, but it’s tough when you’re painting a grizzly bear.

BSA: How do you communicate with animals – through conversation?
BKFoxx: You communicate with animals the same way you do with someone who doesn’t speak a word of your language. And it’s difficult, but when you have a moment of understanding between you, it’s one of the best feelings.

BKFOXX. WIP. JMZ Walls. Bushwick, Brooklyn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA: What do you think will happen when wildlife runs out of space because of increasing encroachment of human displacement of their habitat?
BKFoxx: I don’t know. I hope it doesn’t come to that. I think the thing people seem to miss is that their environment is everything around them, not one person or one place, but everyone and everything. Nobody lives in a vacuum. We are all affected by the world, no matter how far it seems from us sometimes. Taking care of the environment is taking care of ourselves.

BSA: There’s realism in your work but it goes beyond that. Your pictures are often imbued with social commentary. How did you become interested in social issues and why is so important for you to give them voice on your work?
BKFoxx: Social issues are just human issues. I paint things that I think, that I feel, affect me or people I care about. It’s actually hard for me to paint sometimes unless I am able to speak through it, I need to feel like there’s a reason for the work. And like I mentioned in the last answer, your environment is everyone. If I can improve the lives of the people around me, the quality of my own life will improve. And the world is so small these days, everyone is not too far away.

BKFOXX. WIP. JMZ Walls. Bushwick, Brooklyn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA: There’s also a mild sense of humor in your work, a gentle wit about it. Do you agree and if so can you talk about it?
BKFoxx: Part of the challenge for me is being able to say something important and profound but also keep the image itself light. I want you to want to look at it and find it aesthetically pleasing, even it’s about something kind of negative. And I like things that are tongue in cheek and clever – life without a sense of humor is pretty terrible.

BSA: What is the biggest challenge to painting outdoors in the city besides the weather?
BKFoxx: Being (usually alone) in an uncontrolled environment and trying to focus all my energy on working at the same time. And honestly, being a female. But only because people take so many more liberties when interacting with women than men. I know people, mostly strangers wouldn’t be sneaking up on me and hovering a foot above my shoulder or grabbing me for a photo if I were a dude.

BKFOXX. WIP. JMZ Walls. Bushwick, Brooklyn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA: Who was your biggest influence when you were growing up?
BKFoxx: My dad. He is one of the best people I’ve ever met, everyone loves him – I’m very lucky to have him. He has always been incredibly supportive of anything I’ve wanted to do, and he really genuinely doesn’t care what I do as long as I am happy.

We used to play John Madden football on our Sega when I was a little kid. He would beat the crap out of me, and then at 60-0 he’d let me score and pretend I did it myself. I’d celebrate for a second, and then catch him smiling and throw a tantrum that he gave me any free points, which then made him laugh really hard. He’s my guy.

“Thanks so much to everyone who came to the opening and to everyone who supports my work!”

BKFOXX. WIP. JMZ Walls. Bushwick, Brooklyn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA: When you paint you listen to music. What’s on your play list?
BKFoxx: All kinds of stuff, depends on my mood. I have a classical playlist, a hip hop playlist, an alternative playlist – just having something going helps me focus and block out the world around me a little bit.

BSA: Have you ever lived someplace else besides Long Island?
BKFoxx: I was born on Long Island and have always lived there – although I won’t always live in NY. I keep moving closer to the boroughs but New York City life is expensive and small – I need some space for paint. So sometimes I feel like I live in Brooklyn during the day and sleep on Long Island at night.

BKFOXX. Detail. JMZ Walls. Bushwick, Brooklyn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BKFOXX. JMZ Walls. Bushwick, Brooklyn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

LowBrow Artique is currently hosting a small exhibition by BKFoxx and she has created a limited edition print called “The Long Road Ahead ” for it.

 

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Icy & Sot x Moniker x BSA

Icy & Sot x Moniker x BSA

April 21, 2018 ,

In advance of Moniker in Brooklyn this May, we are interviewing some of the artists who are influenced both by street practice and fine art as the contemporary urban art category continues to evolve. Today, BSA is talking to Icy & Sot.

Human rights, ecological justice, and socio-political issues dominate the world news with regularity and brothers ICY & SOT have found an original dual voice to address them on the street in places like the US, Iran, Germany, China, Norway, even Tbilisi, Georgia.

Iranian born and bonifide Brooklyn peeps for the last four years, these twenty-something guys started out on skateboards in Tabriz and still take them from their apartment to their studio in Bushwick. They have also taken their stencil work, interventions, murals and video installations into the street, the gallery, the museum, and private collections.

Icy & Sot (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Grabbing and holding hard to tenants artistic freedom without censorship, their minimalist style of discourse hits directly without the scolding tone of some overtly political work on the street, allowing the simplicity of the situation to speak for itself.

BSA: How would you describe your work to someone who is seeing it for the first time?
ICY & SOT: We do different type of works, but if we wanna to describe something in general it is that it’s simple and has a message that is easy to understand.

BSA: What is your intersection with Brooklyn and it’s history of Street Art and graffiti?
ICY & SOT: We love Brooklyn because of its diversity and the energy in the city. We feel lucky to be living and working in a city with a rich history of graffiti and street at and art in general – and being part of it now.

Icy & Sot (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA: What’s most important to you?
ICY & SOT: Beers 🙂

BSA: Are graffiti and Street Art allowed to change, or should there be a strict definitions they adhere to?
ICY & SOT: Everything is allowed to change

BSA: Moniker says your work has been influential and/or fundamental to urban & contemporary art’s growth. Can you see their point?
ICY & SOT: Yes, maybe

BSA: Name one artist whose work you admire today.
ICY & SOT: John Fekner

Icy & Sot (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

For more information please go to Moniker Art Fair HERE.

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BSA Film Friday: 04.20.18

BSA Film Friday: 04.20.18

April 20, 2018

bsa-film-friday-JAN-2015

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

Now screening :
1. The Man Who Stole Banksy: Debuting Tonight at Tribeca Film Festival
2. Los Borbones Son Unos Ladrones (The Bourbons Are Thieves) (Spain)
3. Kazzius and Elara Elvira at the 12 + 1 Project, Barcelona
4. Morgan Winter – The Brooklyn Burrow

bsa-film-friday-special-feature

BSA Special Feature: The Man Who Stole Banksy: Debuting Tonight at Tribeca Film Festival

Narrated by the gravel voiced Iggy Pop, this retelling of the story you haven’t heard manages to peel back layers of insight and intrigue while remaining judiciously opaque. Inside a walled and nearly completely closed-off city of Palestine a high profile European Street Artist (and his team) blasts pointed political messages that target audiences thousands of miles away.

Like so many of his street pieces, one of them is stolen. Because of the circumstances involved this Banksy heist takes on ramifications we haven’t thought of until now, and this film mines as many perspectives as it can. Written by Marco Proserpio and Christian Omodeo, this is a sleeper hit that reveals many many stories in the course of chasing one.

 

 

Los Borbones Son Unos Ladrones (The Bourbons Are Thieves)

“A new sharply political campaign championing the freedom of expression has caught fire in Spain in the last few weeks under the hashtag #NoCallaremos, and Street Artists are now adding their talents to the protest. Rather shockingly for a modern European nation, a rapper’s prison sentence for offensive lyrics was upheld in Spanish Supreme Court in February (Billboard) and that decision along with other recent events has sparked a number of creative protests across the art world in cities across the country,” we wrote last week when debuting images of artists creating murals inside a former prison.

Obviously tapping into a popular sentiment defending the right to free expression, the music video has garnered 2.1 million views in 12 days. Today we have new images showing some behind-the-scenes shots while the forceful protest video was being filmed, courtesy photographer Fer Alcalá.

Performers include: Elphomega | Machete en Boca | Frank T | Homes i Dones Llúdriga | La Raíz | Ira | Los Chikos del Maíz | Tribade | Def Con Dos | Noult | ZOO | Rapsusklei | Sara Hebe
Breakers and BBoying BGirling: Misty-k | Guille Vidal-Ribas | Movie One | Raza | Sofi Bpanther | Farky The Sunshine | Javi | Naza | Buba | Akness
DJ: DJ Enzo

DefConDos “Los Borbones Son Unos Ladrones” #nocallarem (photo © Fer Alcalá)

“Los Borbones Son Unos Ladrones” #nocallarem (photo © Fer Alcalá)

“Los Borbones Son Unos Ladrones” #nocallarem (photo © Fer Alcalá)

“Los Borbones Son Unos Ladrones” #nocallarem (photo © Fer Alcalá)

“In this video (below), Delabrave documented the artistic interventions by Franco Fasoli, Twee Muizen, Joan Tarragó, Txemi, Enric Sant, Reskat, MilVietnams, Javier de Riba and Werens and Fullet in the patio of one of Barcelona’s most historic prisons.”

“NO CALLAREMOS”, STREET ARTISTS FOR FREEDOM OF SPEECH from Montana Colors on Vimeo.

The latest videos from Contorno Urbano featuring a new murals from Kazzius and Elara Elvira.

Kazzius at the 12 + 1 Project. Sant Feliu, Barcelona.

 

Elara Elvira. Contorno Urbano Foundation. 12 + 1 Project. Sant Feliu, Barcelona.

Morgan Winter – The Brooklyn Burrow

The second episode of this new series that is looking at Brooklyn artists that intersect in some way with the Street Art scene.

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Jose Miguel Mendez x Moniker x BSA

Jose Miguel Mendez x Moniker x BSA

April 19, 2018 ,

In advance of Moniker in Brooklyn this May, we are interviewing some of the artists who are influenced both by street practice and fine art as the contemporary urban art category continues to evolve. Today, BSA is talking to Jose Miguel Mendez.

It’s like an 80’s pop poster illustration with incredibly sunny, sometimes phosphourescent colors melting into bizarre sex fantasies that may include a crocodile.

The hormonally riotously funny references are obviously tugging at your instinct below the belt nature and before you know it you are in the back seat of a pink Cadillac convertible watching the palm trees fly by with all these hot chicks eating tacos, ice cream sundaes and of course hotdogs.

This is California-tweaked skateboarding graffiti culture via Spain and London, an absurd and humorous hybrid that is sure to shock the kids in Greenpoint.

Jose Miguel Mendez. (photo from the artist’s Instagram Account)

BSA: How would you describe your work to someone who is seeing it for the first time?
Jose Miguel Mendez: Currently it’s a mysterious tropical world full of crocodiles and girls, bold shapes, a colorful palette, wavy lines and a strong use of contrast.

BSA: What is your intersection with Brooklyn and it’s history of Street Art and graffiti?
Jose Miguel Mendez: I became interested in graffiti since a pretty young age. When growing up in Spain we had many American influences, especially from TV. Style Wars and Downtown 81 were the movies that made me want to come to NY and make art.

Jose Miguel Mendez. (photo from the artist’s Instagram Account)

BSA: What’s most important to you?
Jose Miguel Mendez: Freedom.

BSA: Are graffiti and Street Art allowed to change, or should there be a strict definitions they adhere to?
Jose Miguel Mendez: I think labels are good when you want to sell art. When it comes to creativity things change all of the time. We are in constant evolution so why can’t Graffiti and Street Art couldn’t go with it?

BSA: Moniker says your work has been influential and/or fundamental to urban & contemporary art’s growth. Can you see their point?
Jose Miguel Mendez: I think we should let Moniker answer that 😉

BSA: Name one artist whose work you admire today.
Jose Miguel Mendez: Raymond Pettibon

Jose Miguel Mendez. (photo from the artist’s Instagram Account)

For more information please go to Moniker Art Fair HERE.

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Vermibus x Moniker x BSA

Vermibus x Moniker x BSA

April 18, 2018 ,

In advance of Moniker in Brooklyn this May, we are interviewing some of the artists who are influenced both by street practice and fine art as the contemporary urban art category continues to evolve. Today, BSA is talking to Vermibus.

Readers of BSA will know that we have written about Vermibus many times for a number of years, so it is great to see him here in New York for Moniker. The Berlin-based Spanish artist takes a full frontal attack on advertising in the beauty and fashion fields primarily, using a paint solvent to dissolve features of high fashion models to disrupt idealized standards of beauty.

A veteran of countless takeovers of public bus shelters and kiosks here and across Europe, the results are shocking and confusing to passersby, who perhaps wonder if they are seeing something official and fashion forward or if its a viral ad using surrealist melting forms.

Vermibus (photo © Jaime Rojo)

To quote one of our own many texts, Vermibus is using solvent “to paint his critique of the corrosiveness of a commercial beauty culture that tears down and divides, glorifies consumerism for its own sake, belittles and relentlessly attacks self esteem and plays on negative emotions to enforce normative values about appearance. He takes the posters back to a studio and selectively eliminates words, logos, facial features, even entire faces — and then carries them to another city to repost on new streets. Sometimes he also takes them to an art framer.”

BSA: How would you describe your work to someone who is seeing it for the first time?
Vermibus: With my work I talk about 3 main topics.

It’s a critique of advertising, a reflection about beauty standards and an investigation on the complexities of the human being, not necessarily in this order.

Vermibus (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA: What is your intersection with Brooklyn and it’s history of Street Art and graffiti?
Vermibus: I haven’t spend enough time in Brooklyn to be able to answer this question properly.

All I can say is that for those who come from the graffiti scene we are obviously very influenced by NYC and Brooklyn in particular.

BSA: What’s most important to you?
Vermibus: Keep on standing up every time I fall.

Vermibus (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA: Are graffiti and Street Art allowed to change, or should there be a strict definitions they adhere to?
Vermibus: I don’t think graffiti can change and still be graffiti, same like I don’t think street art can change and still be street art, will be another thing.

I believe in evolution and I think is not only good but necessary, but labels are made to define things. If things change then we’ll need more labels.

BSA: Moniker says your work has been influential and/or fundamental to urban & contemporary art’s growth. Can you see their point?
Vermibus: I guess for some people I could have been very influential and I think my work has the ingredients to open new perspectives in the scene.

But only people with a great overview of the scene can say and only time can confirm.

So far, Moniker has been very good at observing and guiding the scene over the years, so I’m happy they see my work as such.

BSA: Name one artist whose work you admire today.
Vermibus: Axel Void.

For more information please go to Moniker Art Fair HERE.

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Tina Ziegler Brings Moniker to Brooklyn (Interview)

Tina Ziegler Brings Moniker to Brooklyn (Interview)

April 17, 2018 ,

BSA is welcoming a number of friends and honored peers to Brooklyn this May as a full circle event takes place in Greenpoint on the East River; the Moniker Art Fair. Our original romance with the streets in Brooklyn included neighborhoods like this one, which served as a laboratory for the Street Art scene that erupted in the mid-late 90s and early 00s.

To see this wild unfettered growth of largely anonymous art-on-the-streets, a truck-full of new art practices spilling into abandoned neighborhoods and neglected buildings, was a time of magic for us, especially after 9/11 forced us to walk the streets just to clear our minds, witnessing the art explosion that had begun in earnest.

Roughly two decades later, the commercial art world accepts Street Art on its own terms – sometimes with genuine appreciation and understanding, other times as part of a bandwagon of current trends.

Academia and institutions still study the movement at arms length in some ways, perhaps allowing elements of class and orthodoxy to cloud their vision, even while grappling with the earthquake of people-powered art that is reaching directly to art fans through social media.

Now more comfortable with a rebranding of graffiti/Street Art/urban art as something more akin to Contemporary, collectors see that this work is frequently able to address the modern world better than other movements – but we are getting ahead of ourselves.

Screenshot of some of the exhibitors at Moniker 2018 in Brooklyn (© Moniker Art Fair)

Art Fairs have allowed Street Art inroads in recent years; first a sort of sideshow, perhaps, more recently as a bonifide category. Moniker, founded by Tina Ziegler, began with this as its foundation. Deeply influenced by her own involvement and exposure as a youth to a uniquely 1990s Californian alchemy of skater, graffiti, surf and hippie subcultures, she wasn’t going to frame this new multi-pronged sub cultural practice of Street Art purely in terms of commerce. She respected it too much. Even as a gallerist for a brief period, she quickly realized it was the process of art making, its intersection with street culture globally, that was critical to its full appreciation.

Starting in London and now in its ninth year, with a small gap to regroup near the beginning, Moniker heads to one of Street Arts’ original home laboratories with her first international edition in an enormous industrial BK warehouse.

Right in the neighborhood, Greenpoint a decade ago. Artists Skewville, Chris Stain, Veng RWK, Logan Hicks. India Street Mural Project (photo ©Jaime Rojo)

The by-invitation-only event, with strict provisions concerning only original pieces, no overlapping of representation, sincere concentration on individual artists, and the inclusion of artist residencies/installations , Ziegler is firmly redefining your expectations of art fairs. It is very likely she is quietly influencing the model for others as well. Past Moniker events have included academic and educational conferences as well and BSA is ready to help direct that effort when Brooklyn’s second edition pops off in 2019.

BSA spoke with Tina about her choice of location, artists, and exhibitors and what she envisions for the Moniker BK 2018 edition.

BSA: You have chosen the neighborhood of Greenpoint, Brooklyn to site the fair this year. What significance does this location have for you?

Tina Ziegler: It’s been a very deliberate decision to make our international debut at Greenpoint specifically. It’s an area that’s still developing while being a part of of greater Brooklyn, and it’s changing fast enough that you have elements of rugged history and new developments stood side by side.

For obvious reasons that holds huge parallels with the art scenes we work within, and in that respect Greenpoint Terminal Warehouse and the streets around it feel like such a comfortable fit for Moniker.

Additionally it’s an unexpected choice, and I think that’ll help to keep people on their toes, taking in their wider surroundings and understanding the art in context. I fell in love with the venue for that reason – it’s so far away from the standard ‘white tent’ format you’d usually expect to see, and it forces more engagement from our guests.

BSA: Is there a general theme to the show and are there artists whose work exemplify the scene for you at the moment?

Tina Ziegler: Its hard to pinpoint just one or even a few that I feel are representing the breadth of movement all its glory and beauty. But if there’s one thing that binds them all together, it’s a sense of growth and progression within the scene.

By that I mean that I try to make sure I’m presenting work from artists not necessarily because they’re popular, but because they are or have been influential and/or fundamental to urban & contemporary art’s growth.

Screenshot of some of the exhibitors at Moniker 2018 in Brooklyn (© Moniker Art Fair)

You’ll see names on our lineup, therefore, who not many might know, but who have been around for longer than people might suspect, contributing to and building the scene in their own way.

Skewville are a part of Brooklyn – they’re a good example of the fun, energy and community engagement that street art allows

Specter will be having only a small role within the fair this year, but he’s always challenged our idea of the public space, and done it in a way that’s so unique, so inspiring and unafraid, that he’s one of my favourite artists creating site-specific public artworks.

The curated aspect of Moniker also means that you’ll see artists who have inspired me personally; those who hold relevance still, and continue to work on their craft while allowing space for younger artists, building a collaborative platform to speak from.

So you’ll see Egle Zvirblyte & Jose Miguel Mendez as an example of that: two artists who I love for their energy, dedication and passion in staying true to their message.

BSA: We’ve been calling this category Urban Contemporary for lack of a better term. Is there any way to categorize such a varied number of street practices which are professionalized here for commercial purposes? Is it even possible or necessary?

Tina Ziegler: When I started working in this space we didn’t even have an idea of where this movement was going – it was all thrown under the umbrella terms of ‘graffiti’ or ‘street art’.

Now, we’ve opened that out into numerous different words and phrases to try and incorporate rate the broad spread of mediums, disciplines and styles: ‘new contemporary’, ‘urban contemporary’ and so on.

Maybe one day we will just call it ‘contemporary art’, but I’m not sure giving it a name is even possible anymore, it’s too big. Is it even necessary, in fact? Our little underground subculture isn’t so underground anymore and has made waves without needing to be properly defined.

But you can say that the defining characteristic of the art at Moniker is urban influence: I actually think the title for Roger Gastman’s new show, Beyond the Streets is really fitting. We came from the streets – from the urban environment – but we’ve gone very, very far beyond that, and have challenged ourselves to redefine what it is we’re doing at a level that’s practically left something as traditional as definitions behind altogether.

For more information please go to Moniker Art Fair HERE.

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The Many Faces of Lisbon on the Street

The Many Faces of Lisbon on the Street

April 16, 2018

A Scholarly Eye On Artistic Interventions in Public Space

The excitement that pours from city walls in Lisbon is palpable, an animated mix of graffiti, Street Art, murals, sculpture, and the traditional artisan tiles. Like the famous Bacalhau dish of Portuguese cuisine, it all can be mixed together almost a thousand different ways and each surprising recombination can be loved for its unique character.

To appreciate the varied elements playing into the Street Art scene here, you won’t find greater insight than by touring with Pedro Soares-Neves, and he’ll make sure you won’t leave without understanding the forty years that have contributed to the scene up to this point.

Park. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Most visitors are overtaken by the sweeping views, the heart of the old city in the valley, the winding Bairro Alto streets full of colorful illegal artworks, the ancient bricks, traditional azulejos tiled buildings, tiny streets, sloping topography, endless staircases and retro-style cable cars that are climbing impossible inclines – each slaughtered with colorful graffiti tags.

Unidentified artist. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Now an international destination for many Street Artists, the growing number of murals here is remarkable, if not outstanding. Soares-Neves can look at the huge variety of expressions on the street and explain why the art is here now and how it fits into a greater context of a historical city that has gradually embraced nearly all expressions of modern art-in-the-streets.

A self-described fan of urban history Pedro is one of the few scholars in the global urban art scene who calls graffiti writers “authors”, quite possibly because he was one himself in his early teens here during the city’s first stage of graffiti proliferation in the early 1990s.

“I am kind of an architectural urban history fanatic,” he says proudly but in a confessional tone. Completing his doctorate in Design and Urbanism this year he is also co-organizer of the Lisbon Street Art & Urban Creativity Conference and the Street Art & Urban Creativity Scientific Journal.


Lister. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A lifelong Lisboan born at the same time the revolution from the dictatorship was born here in the mid 1970s, Soares-Neves tells the story of urban art as a progression of social movement, individual engagement, immigration, urban planning, importation of culture, commercial incursion and coalescing of local artists as a quasi-professional network.

As you ride in his 4-door family SUV-hybrid with kids toys and storybooks scattered across the back seat, you gaze along the historic spice trade waterfront and the Jerónimos monastery and museum row, swerving through the central “filet mignon” of the ornamented city to the outskirts, which he calls “the back-office”.

He gestures at the trains and wooded walls and areas where he once painted graffiti , to some of the current crop of throwups along the highway and to wall murals that have been commissioned by municipal, professional, and commercial interests. As the trip unfolds the story is not quite linear of course, and city history intertwines with personal history.

Telmo & Miel. Bairro Padre Cruz. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

As is its personality, art-in-the-streets shape-shifts and redefines itself, creating new alliances, reconfiguring the balance. For example, currently Lisbon city leaders are working with former vandals and art school professionals to create programs of large colorful murals on soaring public housing towers.

The adjacent neighborhood of older single family houses laid out like suburbs features Soare-Neves’ own curated walls done by more conceptual artists who play with ideas about public space as well as aesthetics. The Portuguese +MaisMenos– directly intervenes with stenciled words here, creating quizzical conundrums for passersby and the French experimenter Matthew Tremblin who brings an online poll results via bar charts posing an existential question about Street Art.

Matthew Tremblin. Bairro Padre Cruz. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A truly unique insight into the rather omnibus experience of this urban academic, we actually get to look at two eras of Pedro’s own personal history as an artist are here as well, only blocks away from one another.

This IS a tour!

Pedro Soares-Neves. Bairro Padre Cruz. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

One Soares painting is on a low wall encircling a park. Part of a graffiti wall of fame (which he helped organize), it shows his 1990s affinity for character illustration and experimentation with letter styles. His more recent installation is a mixed media paint/land art derivation that converts disused construction materials and a habit-formed footpath leading up a grassy knoll to a numerical wall.

Again, the spirit of experimentation here is what is core to his art practice. Perhaps this is why his personal philosophies toward public space lean toward the organically Situationist act of creation, a practice that can be extended to all of the public and to the moment of inspiration.

Following are many images captured in Lisbon during our tour interspersed with this history of the last few decades courtesy Soares-Neves and our own research.

Corleone. Underdogs Gallery/Public Arts Program . Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

1980s-90s and Lisbon’s Dawn of Graffiti

Speaking with Pedro about the early graffiti of the 90s you capture a perspective on two important cultural factors that steered its direction.

The first is that through the lense of the liberators of the Carnation Revolution in the 1970s the style of aerosol bubble tags and characters recalled the earlier people-powered community murals and represented “freedom” in their minds, whereas cities elsewhere in Europe would have thought this painting indicated vandalism or a breakdown of the social fabric.

Suker. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Secondly, the fascination with graffiti was spurred by the children of African immigrants from former Portuguese territories of Angola, Mozambique and Capo Verde who moved to Lisbon after wars with them ended during the revolution. Now second generation teen immigrants from two cultures, they were looking for self-identity, according to Soares-Neves.

“They found resonance in this Afro-American and Latin American thing that was going on during the 80s so they connected with it and used it for language.”

Aire. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Quite possibly they were reacting to class and race prejudice and they identified with brothers and sisters in the music videos of American commercial hip hop culture. Seeing the exciting growth and the implied power of graffiti writers, musicians, and bboy movies like “Wild Style” in the 1980s, the expression of graffiti was alluring – a welcome visual art and anti-establishment practice that created identity, community, and newfound respect among a select peer group of cool kids.

“Actually it started with bboying culture in the mid 80s and then in the early 90s it started with a visual language of it,” he says, explaining the progression.

Unidentified Artist…speaking the truth. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A Personal Introduction to Graff

His own teenage aestheticism extended to characters, and a fascination for punk or “rough” magazines and the illustration stylings of artists in the classic Chiclete com Banana magazines. “I had this relationship with drawing and cartoons and this kind of stuff – this popular culture sort of thing,” he says.

His talents as an artist were well prized among his peers until he was nearly outshone by a graffiti writer from Capo Verde, a classmate who threatened Pedro’s status as the school artist; a funny story he explains this way:

“At that time in my high school I was ‘The’ guy who was doing the best cartoons and all this kind of stuff,” he says, reflecting on his celebrity. “Suddenly he did a big piece on the wall! So I was the king of the ‘drawing thing’ and this motherf***er came here and did a big and colorful piece!”

Edis1. Bairro Padre Cruz. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA: ..and everyone knew about it of course.
Pedro: Yeah of course it was much more visible than what I did. So I started to interact with the guy.

Pedro’s personal history with graffiti began there and never stopped. After starting on walls and greatly enlarging his own illustrations and experimenting with letter styles, he and his peers grew to about 10 or 12 writers and the graffiti scene appeared to blow up from there.

A community of writers from many backgrounds spread across the city practicing one-upsmanship in technical skill and logistical daring, operating singularly, in small groups, or the occasional Wall of Fame project. Because there wasn’t a strict evolutionary lineage of style, many young artists developed their own in the laboratory of the street, not necessarily related to the hip hop culture but adapting from their own culture.

Cola. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

2000s and the Turn Toward Street Art

By the late 90s and early 00s he feels that the scene suffered a sort of malaise when purely commercial murals began to take parts of the wall inventory and change the character of some areas. It was a development he deeply disliked for its perversion of a freer art practice yet he appreciated it for the employment it provided to professional artists. The city also borrowed the vernacular of graffiti for public service announcements painted as murals.

The mid 2000s began to reflect the influences of artists like Banksy and a new sort of community comprised of artists from old school graffiti writers and new generation Street Artist began to coalesce in Lisbon he says. Additionally the later 2000s began an increasing flow of international Street Artists and graffiti writers who began avoiding Barcelona after that city started cracking down on their famed urban art scene.

RAM. Bairro Padre Cruz. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“They (artists) started to add a few other languages to try to surpass this previous period and also began dialoguing with the new things that were happening in Street Art,” he says of the witty skewering of pop culture iconography, introduction of fine art illustration styles and the use of newer art-making methods.

“It was starting to really have lots of people doing stencils and paste ups and this kind of stuff all around. It started to influence the younger generation and that put some pressure on the older generations, who started to do that themselves.”

 

Visual Street Performance and the Crono Project

A collective guild comprised of artists from both graffiti and Street Art like HBSR81, Hium, Klit, Mar, Ram, Time and Vhils joined together in the mid 2000s and called themselves Visual Street Performance (VSP). A professional/DIY effort, they began to organize large events and an annual exhibition through 2010 that expanded the vernacular to hybrids of fine art and elements of pop, character illustration, photo realism, surrealist fantasy, found object art, abstract expressionist, more traditional graffiti and graphic design.

Pang. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pedro had been studying abroad in the Czech Republic and Rome for a few years, “And when I came back I noticed a different panorama. There were lots of younger kids with totally different skills and with that approach of making money out of it,” he says with a mixture of admiration and possibly concern at the professionalism entering the equation.

“They managed to invent themselves,” he says, “and also within the exhibitions the kids like Vhils were born from these,” he says as he talks about the commercial aspects of the cultural scene with connections to an aerosol art brand, print makers, and related clothing projects.

Kam Laurene. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A notable commercial and marketing milestone that married Street Art and urban culture with the image of Lisbon itself took place in 2010-11 when the year long Crono project, curated by Soares-Neves, Angelo Milano (of Fame Festival), and local Street Artist Vhils (Alexandre Farto), brought rising stars of the moment to a high profile block-long series of ornate Art Nouveau and shuttered buildings along a heavily traveled strip in the city, Avenida Fontes Pereira de Melo.

Os Gemeos . Blu . Sam3 . Erica Il Cane. Crono Project. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The Internet’s volleying of fresh images of pieces by the Italian anti-corporate BLU, the hallucinatory dream illustration style of Brazilian graffiti twins Os Gemeos, and the lyrical storytelling of Spanish 2-D SAM3 alerted the Street Art worlds’ knowledge of Lisbon, and the project quickly became a destination for travellers.

Os Gemeos . Blu. Crono Project. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Soares-Neves sometimes speaks about the commercial appropriation of the street art vernacular in his academic work and in some ways it appears that the unexpected success of the Crono Project unsettled him as well. The curators had worked with the city to finance the project with an intention of giving opportunities to artists and fostering new aspects of the public art conversation, but according to Soares-Neves the high profile of the project undermined their own anti-establishment sentiments when city leaders recognized that a comparatively modest investment had ballooned into a successful city “branding” campaign.

Os Gemeos. Crono Project. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Possibly this is a cautionary tale that underscores the incremental dangers present when subculture crosses the rubicon into simply “culture”. There is always the fear that the original philosophies encoded in a subculture will be irreparably transformed, candy-coated, cheapened, or worse, excised.

Recently closed London-based Street Art print pioneers “Pictures On Walls” lamented in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek way on their website in January when describing the evolution of their 15 year old business this way, “…inevitably disaster struck – and many of our artists became successful. Street Art was welcomed into mainstream culture with a benign shrug and the art we produced became another tradeable commodity.”

Borondo. Bairro Padre Cruz. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The City We See Today

The city seems like it is absorbing all of these changes well, and the variety of faces and styles of public artistic intervention that you see scattered throughout it feel vibrant and necessary. The city continues its 25 year heritage of organic graffiti and entertains international writers and has the occasional Walls of Fame. Elements of unsanctioned Street Art exists as well and neighborhoods are accented by the new generation of muralists with mad skillz.

Then there are those who are a little harder to categorize, like the subtle reworkings of traditional Portugues tiles with modern icons and patterns by Add Fuel and the prized sculptural pieces across the city by the trash-recycling animal naturalist Bordalo II, who just had a massive solo exhibition in November.

Bordalo II. In conjunction with his solo exhibition  ATTERO Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The contemporary urban artist and international Street Art star Vhils is a company at this point: operating a studio in a few cities, here running a gallery, a studio laboratory program for young artists, a street art tour business, and partnering with city art programming initiatives as well as brands. Somehow he still finds time to create artworks in the streets, including a recent portrait collaboration with Shepard Fairey in Lisbon and LA.

Shepard Fairey . VHILS. Underdogs Gallery/Public Arts Program . Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

At the end of our tour marathon Pedro Soares-Neves takes us to the Centro de Informação Urbana de Lisboa (Lisbon Urban Information Center) where we climb the stairs through the airy modernist foyer full of scholarly readers to discover a small scale maquette of the entire city that we have just been traversing.

Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Fanned out for you before the shiny blue Tagus River, perhaps 15 meters at its full expanse, the topographic features of the city are much less daunting when viewed from this perspective. As Pedro walks around the perimeter of the mini-city and points to neighborhoods, regions, the forest, the airport, the old city and the newly gentrifying areas of Lisboa he recounted stories of expansion, retrenchment, privatization, skullduggery and deliverance.

Thanks to him we appreciate graffiti/ Street Art/ urban art truly in its context of this city, its history, its people and the built environment like never before.

Lisbon. Pedro makes a point. December 2017. (photo © Steven P. Harrington)

Bordalo II. In conjunction with his solo exhibition  ATTERO Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Borondo. Bairro Padre Cruz. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Vhils. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Vhils. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Shepard Fairey. Underdogs Gallery/Public Arts Program . Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Shepard Fairey . VHILS. Detail. Underdogs Gallery/Public Arts Program . Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lister. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Crayon. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Andre Nada. Bairro Padre Cruz. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

Unidentified Artist. Amoreiras Wall Of Fame. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Slap. Amoreiras Wall Of Fame. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

RariOne. Amoreiras Wall Of Fame. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

±MAISMENOS± Bairro Padre Cruz. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Corleone. Bairro Padre Cruz. Underdogs Gallery/Public Arts Program . Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Utopia. Galeria De Arte Urbana. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tags. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Blu. Lisbon. Crono Project. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Blu . Sam3 . Erica Il Cane. Crono Project. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Erica Il Cane . Lucy McLauchlan . M-Chat. Crono Project. Lisbon. December 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

With gratitude to Pedro Soares Neves and to Raul Carvalho, General Manager of Underdogs Gallery for taking the time to talk to us, for sharing their knowledge and insights with us and for showing us around Lisbon.

BSA in Lisbon comes to you courtesy BSA in Partnership with Urban Nation (UN).

This is the first of two articles with BSA in Lisbon in collaboration with UN Berlin, it was originally published on the Urban Nation website, and the project is funded in part with the support of Urban Nation Museum for Urban Contemporary Art (UN) in Berlin.

 

 

 

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BSA Images Of The Week: 04.15.18

BSA Images Of The Week: 04.15.18

April 15, 2018 ,

BSA-Images-Week-Jan2015

Welcome to BSA Images of the Week. First we have a series of politically themed and powerfully timely images of ICY & SOT installations from their involvement with the third edition of the Crystal Ship Art Festival in Ostend, Belgium. With forced immigration caused by the war industry providing armaments to everyone including your cousin Judy, the even more disgusting flipside of all this is the xenophobic nationalism that is now spreading in various countries, treating refugees and immigrants like crap.

So Icy & Sot give us here the security fences that create prisons for people to keep them inside and out and, perhaps taking a page from Ai WeiWei, a floating vest installation in the local park – complete with the artists in a boat and daffodils on the grassy knolls. Right after that we have another life-vest themed piece, a mural by Gaia entitled “Requiem for Migrants, Requiem for the Liberal Order”.

Thanks to photographer Butterfly for her contributions here.

Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Adam Fujita, Barlo, Gaia, Icy & Sot, Not Art, Sidka Nubian, and the Reading Ninja

Top Image: The Reading Ninja (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Icy & Sot. The Crystal Ship Art Festival 2018. Ostend, Belgium.  (photo ©Butterfly)

Icy & Sot. The Crystal Ship Art Festival 2018. Ostend, Belgium. (photo ©Butterfly)

Icy & Sot. The Crystal Ship Art Festival 2018. Ostend, Belgium. (photo ©Butterfly)

Icy & Sot. The Crystal Ship Art Festival 2018. Leopold Park. Ostend, Belgium. (photo ©Butterfly)

Icy & Sot. The Crystal Ship Art Festival 2018. Leopold Park. Ostend, Belgium. (photo ©Butterfly)

Icy & Sot. The Crystal Ship Art Festival 2018. Leopold Park. Ostend, Belgium. (photo ©Butterfly)

Icy & Sot. The Crystal Ship Art Festival 2018. Leopold Park. Ostend, Belgium. (photo ©Butterfly)

Icy & Sot. The Crystal Ship Art Festival 2018. Leopold Park. Ostend, Belgium. (photo ©Butterfly)

Gaia. “Requiem for Migrants, Requiem for the Liberal Order”. The Crystal Ship Art Festival 2018. Ostend, Belgium. (photo ©Butterfly)

Gaia. “Requiem for Migrants, Requiem for the Liberal Order”. The Crystal Ship Art Festival 2018. Ostend, Belgium. (photo ©Butterfly)

Unidentified Artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Adam Fujita for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sidka Nubian (photo © Jaime Rojo)

NOT ART (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Barlo. “The Pet of the Archeologist” HK Walls 2018. Hong Kong.  (photo © Barlo)

Barlo. “The Pet of the Archeologist” HK Walls 2018. Hong Kong.  (photo © Barlo)

Untitled. Spring 2018. NYC (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Gola: Fresh Canvasses from “7.6 BILLION AND STILL GROWING”

Gola: Fresh Canvasses from “7.6 BILLION AND STILL GROWING”

April 14, 2018

 

Back in February we gave you a sneak peak at Gola Hundun’s preparations for his new show inspired by Earth’s population and our individual and industrial impact on the balance of the environment.

Gola Hundun. “Anthropocene” 19 Karen Gallery. Queensland, Australia. (photo © Tommaso Campana)

Today we have the completed canvasses, which you can see in person should you find yourself lost in Queensland, Australia. Entitled “7.6 Billion and Still Growing”, the show features organic fern and form, an ample layering of motifs and washes in an almost decorative vein, each an emotional distillation of larger systemic challenges. His own balance appears to be achieved by the gathering of these systems within geometric groupings, the riddles and solutions wrapped colorfully within.

Gola Hundun. “Beginning of Sedentary” 19 Karen Gallery. Queensland, Australia. (photo © Tommaso Campana)

Why people want to plunder the Earth for financial gain is not precisely baffling, everyone agrees. But why we can’t have and enforce laws to protect it for everyone is.

Gola’s organic forms and splendiferous color choices are shouting about the beauty and magic of the natural world and he says he took the opportunity to preach to assembled guests at his opening last week.

Gola Hundun. “Col-ono-izing” 19 Karen Gallery. Queensland, Australia. (photo © Tommaso Campana)

“It was a blast!!!  I also made a speech to the audience telling them about the story behind the canvases,” he says, “and making some active propaganda about how much every one of us can do for the world, like becoming vegan, minimizing use of plastic and refusing to buy from several brands and corporations.”

Gola Hundun. “Fading Away” 19 Karen Gallery. Queensland, Australia. (photo © Tommaso Campana)

Gola Hundun. “Fall of Macrofauna” 19 Karen Gallery. Queensland, Australia. (photo © Tommaso Campana)

Gola Hundun. “From Irrigation to Ocean” 19 Karen Gallery. Queensland, Australia. (photo © Tommaso Campana)

Gola Hundun. “Indonesia” 19 Karen Gallery. Queensland, Australia. (photo © Tommaso Campana)

Gola Hundun. “Moving After the Herds” 19 Karen Gallery. Queensland, Australia. (photo © Tommaso Campana)

Gola Hundun. “Obsolete Conception” 19 Karen Gallery. Queensland, Australia. (photo © Tommaso Campana)

Looking summer reading? Gola recommends Climate Change. A Defining Issue of Our Generation written by Antxon Olabe Egaña.

Click HERE for more information on the exhibition.

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BSA Film Friday 04.13.18

BSA Film Friday 04.13.18

April 13, 2018

bsa-film-friday-JAN-2015

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

Now screening :
1. Street Atelier – Rocco and his Brothers
2. Sam3 and His Troupe of Dancing Statues Pump Up the Jam
3. Valiente Creations – 12 + 1
4. Sue 975 – 12 +1

bsa-film-friday-special-feature

BSA Special Feature: Street Atelier – Rocco and his Brothers

It’s an Italian movie directed by Luchino Visconti in 1960, yes. It is also the name of a crew of Berlin graffiti/installation artists whose satirical interventions play on issues propriety and property – and on social experiments that dupe the media, the public, and banks.

Did they really set up an apartment inside the subway? Is that really the tracks and wall of a metro inside a gallery? Is that Wagner playing in the mobile war arcade set up in the Christmas market? Are those hand grenades being lobbed by children? Is the bank facade blinking red every 20 seconds?

Rocco und seine Brüder (Rocco and His Brothers) have you engaged. Now you have to answer the questions.

Shout out to Red Tower Films for the great storytelling.

Sam3 and His Troupe of Dancing Statues Pump Up the Jam

It’s Friday after all. Get up and dance! Aren’t they marbleous?

Two in a Row from the 12 + 1 Project in Barcelona

1. Valiente Creations – 12 + 1 Sant Feliu. Barcelona. Contorno Urbano Foundation

 

2 . Sue975. Contorno Urbano Foundation. 12 + 1 Project. Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona

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