Editorz

Editorz

Photos Of BSA #6: Photo Realistic, X-Rayed, in 3-D by Insane 51

Photos Of BSA #6: Photo Realistic, X-Rayed, in 3-D by Insane 51

December 26, 2022

Happy Holidays! We’re celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of the next by thanking BSA readers, friends, and family for all of your support in 2022. We have selected some of our favorite shots by our Editor of Photography, Jaime Rojo, and we’re sharing a new one every day to celebrate all our good times together, our hope for the future, and our love for the street.

The new mural movement of the last decade has produced a few categories and recurring themes. One is the photorealistic portrait, and another is the x-ray that enables you to see within the physical presentation. Combine these trends with the penchant for punchy pop palettes in primary hues, and you have this pensive penitent from 2022 – who is best viewed with 3-D glasses – by the Greek artist Insane 51.

Insane 51. The Bushwick Collective. Brooklyn, New York City. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Read more
Merry Christmas 2022 From BSA

Merry Christmas 2022 From BSA

December 25, 2022

Happy Holidays! We’re celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of the next by thanking BSA readers, friends, and family for all of your support in 2022. We have selected some of our favorite shots by our Editor of Photography, Jaime Rojo, and we’re sharing a new one every day to celebrate all our good times together, our hope for the future, and our love for the street.

From BSA to all of you, a very Merry Christmas. Here’s street artist Clint Mario, who has a genuine talent for creating unusual installations, and getting into the spirit.

Clint Mario (photo © Steven P. Harrington)
Clint Mario (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Read more
Photos Of BSA #7: Warm Weather Thoughts in the Midst of Winter Storm

Photos Of BSA #7: Warm Weather Thoughts in the Midst of Winter Storm

December 24, 2022

Happy Holidays! We’re celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of the next by thanking BSA readers, friends, and family for all of your support in 2022. We have selected some of our favorite shots by our Editor of Photography, Jaime Rojo, and we’re sharing a new one every day to celebrate all our good times together, our hope for the future, and our love for the street.

On one of the coldest days in years in New York City, thoughts turn to verdant days and the gentlest flowers you may find, the pansy. During this time of Sturm und Drang, may it encourage you to look at this photo from springtime. Also, as a reminder, the Solstice is over, and days are getting longer!

Pansy. Berlin, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Read more
Photos Of BSA #8: Blek and Hambleton on a New York Street

Photos Of BSA #8: Blek and Hambleton on a New York Street

December 23, 2022

Happy Holidays! We’re celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of the next by thanking BSA readers, friends, and family for all of your support in 2022. We have selected some of our favorite shots by our Editor of Photography, Jaime Rojo, and we’re sharing a new one every day to celebrate all our good times together, our hope for the future, and our love for the street.

A bit of serendipity this fall led us to see Blek le Rat painting on the street, an event that is rather rare these days. A French stencil artist whose earliest works on the street date back to the 1980s, Blek has been touring a few cities in the US this year with gallery exhibitions and associated events for a growing fan base. In New York, he did a number of new and classic pieces in public spaces as well. His portrait of New York street artist Richard Hambleton was particularly poignant for us.

Bleck Le Rat. L.I.S.A. Project NYC. Lower East Side, New York City. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Read more
Photos Of BSA #9: Keeping it Small and Contextual

Photos Of BSA #9: Keeping it Small and Contextual

December 22, 2022

Happy Holidays! We’re celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of the next by thanking BSA readers, friends, and family for all of your support in 2022. We have selected some of our favorite shots by our Editor of Photography, Jaime Rojo, and we’re sharing a new one every day to celebrate all our good times together, our hope for the future, and our love for the street.

In an era where the monster mural can envelop an entire building or set of grain elevators, we are reminded that placement is everything. This year the UK street artist JPS left a number of small pieces in Berlin – just in the right place to catch your eye. This ingenious miniature box truck with a KLOPS tag appears on the riser of some steps in the Schöneberg neighborhood. It is evocative of a child’s imagination, which leads them into all sorts of adventures.

JPS – Klops. Urban Nation Museum Berlin. Berlin, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Read more
Photos Of BSA #10: La Flor de Mexico

Photos Of BSA #10: La Flor de Mexico

December 21, 2022

Happy Holidays! We’re celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of the next by thanking BSA readers, friends, and family for all of your support in 2022. We have selected some of our favorite shots by our Editor of Photography, Jaime Rojo, and we’re sharing a new one every day to celebrate all our good times together, our hope for the future, and our love for the street.

We do our best, but nature always wins. Here’s one of our favorites from Mexico in 2022.

Wild flower. Chihuahua, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Read more
Photos Of BSA #11: War is a Racket

Photos Of BSA #11: War is a Racket

December 20, 2022

Happy Holidays! We’re celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of the next by thanking BSA readers, friends, and family for all of your support in 2022. We have selected some of our favorite shots by our Editor of Photography, Jaime Rojo, and we’re sharing a new one every day to celebrate all our good times together, our hope for the future, and our love for the street.

“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small ‘inside’ group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.”

~Major General Smedley D. Butler

The Haus der Statistik. Berlin, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

*From Wikipedia:

Butler confesses that during his decades of service in the United States Marine Corps:

“I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.”

Berlin Diary. Day #1 / Stop Wars

Read more
Photos Of BSA #12: Tagging on a Snow Day

Photos Of BSA #12: Tagging on a Snow Day

December 19, 2022

Happy Holidays! We’re celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of the next by thanking BSA readers, friends, and family for all of your support in 2022. We have selected some of our favorite shots by our Editor of Photography, Jaime Rojo, and we’re sharing a new one every day to celebrate all our good times together, our hope for the future, and our love for the street.

Nothing like a snowstorm to bring out the graffiti!

Something about the excitement of a winter squall that feeds the air with electricity and sends writers reaching for their cans. Maybe it’s because police and road crews are too busy clearing streets and sidewalks, but for some reason, you’ll see a tempest of text on walls when winter’s storms roll through. The work is often dashed off and possibly unfinished – and it can be funny too.

It is a ‘snow day’ after all.

Hest. Brooklyn, New York City. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Read more
Photos Of BSA #13 Golden Sunsets on the Cityscape

Photos Of BSA #13 Golden Sunsets on the Cityscape

December 18, 2022

Happy Holidays! We’re celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of the next by thanking BSA readers, friends, and family for all of your support in 2022. We have selected some of our favorite shots by our Editor of Photography, Jaime Rojo, and we’re sharing a new one every day to celebrate all our good times together, our hope for the future, and our love for the street.

When the sun hits the city’s skyline and bathes it in shades of red and gold, you are suddenly lifted a foot off the ground, almost levitating in its hypnotic trance. If you are lucky to be in a highrise gazing at the crown of the Chrysler Building at that moment, you are lifted toward someplace more heavenly.

Chrysler Building. Manhattan, New York City. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Read more
Photos Of BSA #14: Women and Children First

Photos Of BSA #14: Women and Children First

December 17, 2022

Happy Holidays! We’re celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of the next by thanking BSA readers, friends, and family for all of your support in 2022. We have selected some of our favorite shots by our Editor of Photography, Jaime Rojo, and we’re sharing a new one every day to celebrate all our good times together, our hope for the future, and our love for the street.

“Women and children first” is an axiom used to infer we are chivalrous, caring, and considerate. When disaster strikes, as in a capsizing ship, we imagine men helping women and children to the available lifeboats.

When we look at the disbelief and despair depicted in this mural by Berlin’s DEVITA, we think of the fact that, with little exception, in actual terms, women and children are usually the first to suffer in man-made and natural disasters and that suffering is profound and systemic.

This spring, a series of murals made for the “Equality Jam” in a Berlin park impressed us and we think of them as we end the year. Organized by Emily Strange 202 and Graffiti Lobby Berlin, the 30 or so murals employed many styles of painting to illustrate how very far away we are in terms of human rights and gender equality in global societies.

Let’s recommit ourselves to these goals in the new year.

DeVita. Berlin, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Heightened gender-based violence in conflict and post-conflict zones

Militarization, women’s labor force participation, and gender inequality: Evidence from global data

How conflict disproportionately targets women

Read more
Photos Of BSA #15: Holiness of Bubble Tags and Skate Ramps to Heaven in Chinatown

Photos Of BSA #15: Holiness of Bubble Tags and Skate Ramps to Heaven in Chinatown

December 16, 2022

Happy Holidays! We’re celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of the next by thanking BSA readers, friends, and family for all of your support in 2022. We have selected some of our favorite shots by our Editor of Photography, Jaime Rojo, and we’re sharing a new one every day to celebrate all our good times together, our hope for the future, and our love for the street.

New York has a number of holy spots for street culture, and none of them should ever be regarded as permanent. Here the bubble tags pile up, levitating over the skaters who bring an energy of competition, camaraderie, constant movement, and shifting scales of athletic mastery.

They say that all the legends and masters eventually end up here at the Chinatown Skatepark directly under the roaring Manhattan Bridge. Whatever pipe you are hitting, there are cheap dumplings around the corner to fortify more tricks for hours.

Call it an altar, call it a hallowed hall; when you swerve into a place like this, you will be changed.

Tags. Chinatown, New York City. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Read more
Photos Of BSA #16: Sweetly Sharp Agave and Museum Design in San Luis Potosi

Photos Of BSA #16: Sweetly Sharp Agave and Museum Design in San Luis Potosi

December 15, 2022

Happy Holidays! We’re celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of the next by thanking BSA readers, friends, and family for all of your support in 2022. We have selected some of our favorite shots by our Editor of Photography, Jaime Rojo, and we’re sharing a new one every day to celebrate all our good times together, our hope for the future, and our love for the street.

Not exactly a Christmas tree, but these agave plants were as exuberant and festive as you can imagine this May at the impressively designed former prison in San Luis Potosi, Mexico. Now converted into the Centro de las Artes, the grounds and architecture of this severely geometric compound are centered around a panopticon that reminds you of its former us. Fortunately, its function today is dedicated to the preservation of Mexican history, modern art, and design – and starkly sharp external groundwork like this.

Agave. San Luis Potosi, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Have a look at our five visual diaries from that stately Mexican city in 2022.

Read more

Recent Articles on BSA