“I guess this is what happens when you can’t leave your home for a year,” says Joe Iurato. Undoubtedly that is why its called “Cabin Fever”
Joe Iurato. Cabin Fever. Taglialatella Galleries NY. (photo courtesy of Taglialatella Galleries NY)
With some irony, the new collection of editions on paper, photography, original paintings on canvas, and wood assemblages didn’t happen while he was on lockdown with his family. Still, it came flying out of him this spring after the long year of cabin fever lifted.
Joe Iurato. Cabin Fever. Taglialatella Galleries NY. (photo courtesy of Taglialatella Galleries NY)
The new show is crisp and clean, tightly gathered, thoughtfully narrated, more mature than ever – in his vernacular of childhood as told through his street art stencillist hand. “This body of work is my crossroads and a quick rundown of each path to explore what lies ahead. It’s an unfiltered, visceral reaction to a life event that I’ll never be able to explain fully.”
Leon Keers is subversive, if that is the way your mind works. His mind-bending plays on real and surreal perspectives may lead you down a path of suspicion, for it appears that he is adept and agile when playing with perspective.
For this seaside mural in Plougasnou, France, however, it is more likely that he taps into childhood nostalgia. A package of small plastic boats like this was an object of longing for many a child – a door to adventures of the imagination and an opportunity to imitate the real ships you can watch from shore. Possibly, this Kit de Secours (Rescue Kit) is still desirable among a certain set of would-be sailors.
Kit de Secours is part of the MX arts tour festival.
“…. At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could reach the nation’s ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.” – Frederick Douglass in Rochester, New York 1852
While the West of the US was having an exceptional drought and extreme heat, when you looked north to Canada, you witnessed 710,000 lightning strikes; Western Canada was a literal firestorm. According to The Guardian, “The previous week, northern Europe and Russia also sweltered in an unprecedented heat bubble. June records were broken in Moscow (34.8C), Helsinki (31.7C), Belarus (35.7C), and Estonia (34.6C).” On the east coast of the US, we suffered 4 days of a heatwave, and many graffiti writers found themselves banished to underground tunnels to keep cool – which was okay with almost everybody.
Remember when you used to say that things were DOPE until you saw your cousin get hooked and spiral downward unglamorously? DOPE took on a new connotation after that. Maybe we have to stop saying, “Yo, that girl is FIRE!” because, you know, fire. That thing that is scorching the Earth, but not because of Climate Change, you freak.
But the graffiti and street art we have been finding here: some of these are FIRE!
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Arcadio, Benjamin Keller, BMC, Cdre, Ditty, Luke Dragon, LWart, Mena, MeresOne, MHI, MoiOne, Rat Rockster, RH Doaz, and Scartoccio.
Updated with his boyfriends’ name, the graffiti/street/public/contemporary artist Eric Reiger is re-booting his successful installation on the New Jersey shore for the Wooden Walls Project. You may recall our 2019 article Windswept Public Art at the Beach when the artist first took on this soaring project stirred by ocean breezes and thusly brought alive for hundreds or thousands who walk beneath it in this historic town.
With the debut of “Aaron,” we learn that the new design is an allusion to the isolation many felt during the darkest times of Covid-19 in the last year or so. “If you look closely at this installation, you will notice fluorescent pink squares spaced out 6 feet from each other,” he says. “At the top, they remain apart, but as the threads reach the bottom, the wind will sometimes allow them to touch.” Our reunions, tentative and unsure, may be alluded to by that overlapping, that distance, that connection he refers to. Alone or together, art fans will again become mesmerized and delighted by Hot Tea’s installation here outside/inside.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening: 1. HEREDITAS – Gonzalo Borondo 2. HOTTEA “Aaron.” Wooden Walls Project. Asbury Park, NJ. 3. DRAGON76 “COEXIST” Video by Tost Films
BSA Special Feature: HEREDITAS – Gonzalo Borondo
A companion video to his exhibition project Hereditas at The Esteban Vicente Museum of Contemporary Art artist Gonzalo Borondo reveals the complexity of his intervention here.
“Its aim is to question the past on the basis of present presuppositions, in particular, to recognize the museum as a place to preserve our cultural heritage for future generations and to show art’s amazing capacity to bring back to life objects that have lost their original purpose. In addition, it pays tribute to nature as the foundation of culture and inspiration of art and religious symbols.”
HOTTEA “Aaron”. Wooden Walls Project. Asbury Park, NJ.
Back with his second installation in this historic and tourist town of Asbury, HOTTEA dances with the breezes of the sea.
DRAGON76 “COEXIST” Video by Tost Films
A fresh piece in Jersey City by Dragon76, the folks at Tost Films offer an up close view of the work in progress.
High in a number of nutrients, today it is used to treat inflammation, blood pressure, blood sugar, even hayfever.
Pursuing her new fascination with detailed realism and the plant world muralist Adele enlarges the leaf for you to gain a greater appreciation of its aesthetic qualities, its patterning and geometries.
Sadly, during this painting in Sweden, the artist learned of the untimely passing of “two beautiful teens who died in an accident,” she says. Children of her friends, whom she says, are “beautiful amazing people who do a lot for the community,” the loss is incalculable. For them, she dedicates this new mural to “friends Edson and Nica and Spehrane, Andrea and Antonella.”
In our ultimate meta-posting, today we feature photos from street photographer Lluis Olive of images left on the street by an artist named “The Photographer”. Needless to say, much of the past graffiti and Street Art would not even be discussed today without a small pool of photographers who documented the scene at great cost to themselves.
Despite the ocean of cameras in use today, it is still true that very few are directed by even-handed photographers whose interest is not simply in their favorites, but documenting a greater scene. Unfortunately, it’s still rare to find a good photographer on the street, but we think we got the shot this time.
You would like to think that we all have a basic set of priorities, although it’s not readily apparent. Street artist and muralist Mr. Kas boldly posits that we need to remember that it’s “Humanity First”.
His personal tribute to firefighters, he painted this photorealist piece in Vila nova de Gaia, Portugal.
MrKas. “Humanity first”. Vila nova de Gaia, Portugal. (photo courtesy of the artist)MrKas. “Humanity first”. Vila nova de Gaia, Portugal. (photo courtesy of the artist)MrKas. “Humanity first”. Vila nova de Gaia, Portugal. (photo courtesy of the artist)
Spidertag continues his mission of interpolating neon in public and private spaces around the world, this time conjuring his “Interactive Immersive Neon Space #1 -IINS#1”, which appears at the cultural space/café/bistro Amasada in Timisoara, Romania.
“I did this project trying to take all the power of my neons and the good vibes and energy of my symbols and signs to create a space full of colors and hope,” he says.
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! These are the beautiful long summer days that we all wait for. As New York frees itself from the shackles of Covid and our cloistered lives alone the sense of freedom to explore our city and commune with its fabulous chaos is sweeter still. But suddenly restaurants can’t sell you a bottle of booze, so maybe we also will stop seeing sidewalk sales of cocktails as well. Of course with legal weed in New York, people will still be strange and slightly hallucinated and punching random other New Yorkers, no doubt.
When it comes to freewheeling handmade one of a kind art in the public sphere, we still follow the beat on the street.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Drecks, Le Crue, Mirs Monstrengo, Modomatic, Mort Art, SacSix, SMiLE, Sticker Maul, and TV Head ATX.
The unbridled joy and adventure of youth! Axel Void has captured both in this new street diptych in a Student dormitory in Seville, Spain, called Livensa Living Sevilla.
With roots in Haiti, Miami, and here in Andalusia, Void invites viewers to access their own childhood through distinct lenses that are at once nostalgic and contemporary by way of interpreting photographs of young daredevils jumping into the sea from the Carranza Bridge in Cádiz. The framing of the works is an outstanding example of working with the architecture to create works that strongly suggest much more to the surrounding community than their content.
Axel says that he hopes the murals inspire a certain spirit of the residence itself, connecting the future residents with the city and the students living there. With these new works, he is returning to his own roots, invoking the spirit of play and the natural and manufactured environment, highlighting the little things that enrich the quality of life in this region. The murals lie between Antonio Maura Montaner and Genaro Parladé streets.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening: 1. Guido Van Helten – L’attesa – (The Wait) – 2017 2. “Spaciba” INO in Athens, Greece. 3. TrueSchool Hall of Fame via Dope Cans
BSA Special Feature: Guido Van Helten – L’attesa – (The Wait) – 2017
Today we look back a couple of years to a massive yet poignant project from artist Guido van Helten in Ragusa, Sicily where he honors the history of a modern place and an age-old practice of youth finding their own significant part of a city to meet up and socialize casually. Part of the third edition of FestiWall, a public art festival, he photographed friends and invited them to write their names in aerosol along the base of a wall while he painted their portraits above on a lift.
“It’s very much an expression of the young people and it is their space,” he says.
“I invited the class who I took photos of to write their names all along the base of that wall. It was a good symbol of them taking back the wall in that space.The wall is a popular space where people come to hang out so there is an energy in that wall and in energy of that space which I really enjoyed”
Guido Van Helten – L’attesa – (The Wait) – 2017
“Spaciba” INO in Athens, Greece.
Accessing a difficult wall using only rope suspension, INO paints this Athens mural of young girl with a big hammer. He says it is a symbol of ” a new generation breaking barriers of equality.”
TrueSchool Hall of Fame via Dope Cans
A short Hall of Fame video with writers from Wrocław, Poland featuring Dope Cans Classic & Dope The Wall
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
