Street
artist Swoon’s Heliotrope Foundation continues to add artists to its lustrous roster
of prints and projects with a new program of pieces for you and your kids to
color in.
“We worked
with a few artists to make this activity book in response to all the need for
home schooling and anyone else who likes to color,” she tells us.
Book Cover art by Swoon. Compass. Heliotrope Foundation.
The
collection is called Compass: “a unique and beautiful handbook, a collection of
creative activities and an inspirational journal. The aim of the project
is to generate work for artists while sharing the joy and necessity of art to
heal, grow and play.”
COMPASS is a free PDF activity book available for distribution to those at home, those with children, and those looking for something to be motivated by. If you would like to distribute Compass in your local area, please contact us: info@heliotropefoundation.org
Tag @TheHeliotropeFoundation on Instagram with your finished COMPASS pages & we may share your work! #HeliotropeCompass
The international art fair Art
Basel announced today that this year’s flashy Miami event is cancelled, joining
its two other high-profile annual fairs in Hong Kong and Basel, Switzerland, which
had both already met this fate earlier – all due to the complication of
COVID-19.
One of the best parts about graffiti, street art, mural, and hip hop culture events like Urbane Kunst here in the city of Basel is you don’t have to worry about air kissing on both cheeks.
Graffiti jams are more interested in getting up on the wall, drinking beer, and having a barbecue – which 40 local and international artists did here from August 20-30, thanks to the event’s sponsor, Bell on Neudorfstrasse in Basel.
“The top criterion for artists was we have to know them: because we’re going to spend a lot of time together,” explains street artist BustArt, who has been working for about five years to make this wall happen. “You are together every day for about two weeks and so the main important thing is having a good time and for this, we just wanted to have cool people here with whom we’ve worked in the past and who we could trust that we were going to have a great outcome.”
Not that “Change of Colours”, as this event is called, didn’t have a lot of complications from the worldwide virus. The artist list kept changing as certain countries were eventually banned from traveling here – First the US, later Spain.
A final list of names was not available at press time but scheduled were artists like Boogie, Cole, Kesy, Kron, Tizer, Seyo, and Sonic. Photographer and journalist Nika Kramer caught a handful of the artists to ask a few questions, including Mr. Cenz (UK), Chromeo and Bane (CH), and event organizer BustArt (CH).
Street artist Julian Phethean aka Mr. Cenz is internationally known for his unique, expressive portraits of women. He tells us “I created one of my futuristic female portraits that I’ve been doing for a few years now and I paint a lot of black women as well because I think they are under-represented in the street art world. It’s very important to me, coming from a multicultural city like London.
Also for me, hip-hop is a black culture that’s why I paint mainly black power for women,” he says. “If you look at it, it’s quite spiritual as well. My style is kind of something transcendent. It’s for people to look at and to get lost in. That’s just what I do, and it’s amazing to do it on a big scale in such a prominent place and I hope people enjoy it.”
Two Swiss artists Fabian
Florin aka Bane and David Kümin aka Chromeo, have worked together on smaller
walls in the past, but the two masters of photorealism have never truly collaborated
on something new together, and they say that they’re very satisfied with the result.
For Chromeo, Basel holds a special meaning to him in the development of his career as a graffiti writer and an artist.
“Basel is history. Back in the days when I started graffiti it was like a duty: you have to go to Basel!” he says. “Because it was considered state of the art. No disrespect to other places in Switzerland but… The graffiti history is here and it is the most important, I would have to say – even though I’m not from Basel.”
In the opinion of Bane, Basel left a major impression as well, but it is much more personal. “I came here with completely fresh eyes. I was drug addicted during the time that Chromeo’s referring to,” he explains. “I’ve just been painting for about 10 years so Basel for me is a very fresh place, like new. What I enjoy here is the community. There’re so many people. It’s a community I’m stepping inside of – kind of a small family already. It was heartwarming and I felt very welcomed and for me, that is the best thing about Basel.”
For
organizer and hometown boy BustArt, who just completed his largest wall to date
for Urban Nation Museum in Berlin a couple of months ago, this wall has been
beckoning to him and the event is the result of persistence in pursuing it. “I’ve
been wanting to paint this wall for 20 years so we are happy that the company
actually paid for it,” he says. He calls his new piece, “Home Sweet Home”
because it symbolizes the place and the city he loves more than any other.
The Bristol based street artist Banksy is again walking the fine line between activism and self-promotion, uncomfortable bedfellows at best.
Sponsoring a ship “M.V. Louise Michel” to rescue refugees can probably be accomplished without branding the ship with your artwork, and he’s received criticism for what could appear to some as patting himself on the back for his generosity. Conversely one could argue that placing his name and art on the ship raises the profile and plight of those who otherwise get ignored, even creating a protective immunity of sorts around them.
Banksy. “M.V. Louise Michel” (photo courtesy of M.V. Louise Michel)
His new campaign, or stunt, went perilously bad this weekend when the vessel was overloaded and its ability to navigate freely was hindered, according to news reports. What’s more the team sounding increasingly more panicked in successive Tweets appealing for official recognition and rescue.
We tend to overlook human failings when they are backed by goodwill, and this team will get it right, no doubt. At least you can say that this is an artist who walks his talk, which is refreshing as an ocean breeze.
To learn more about the rescue boat and their mission from their website:
Every season brings new artists to the street art scene, while others leave town, or simply fade away. The summer, born in the age of Covid-19 and #BLM when the federal government tries its latest attempt to kill off postal services so it can privatize one more thing the taxpayers used to own, we now see work in New York re-engineering that time-honored graffiti-tag vehicle, the USPS address sticker.
Sticker Maul (photo Jaime Rojo)
Sticker Maul is a mixed-media collagist with a loose style of irony and a textual wit paired with photos, as well as straight-up wordplay. Topics are vaguely social, mainly clever, the demeanor sincere without pomposity. These are good qualities for an artist working within a smaller canvas on the street who wants to “cut through the clutter” – and its working!
The winds of change are gathering force and weaving together – social, political, financial, environmental… and it is all being reflected in street art today. Ironically, because media in the US is addicted to money and misdirection and is completely disinterested in the poor and working class as a whole, thoughtful analysis that pops off city walls seems unadulterated, capable of giving you more truthful assessments of what is missing, what is out of whack, and who’s gotta take action. Your face here.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Adam Fu, AJ LaVilla, Antennae, Black Ligma, City Kitty, CRKSHNK, De Groupo, Hearts NY, Novy, Pork, Surface of Beauty, The Greator, Winston Tseng, X Rebellion NYC, and Zuli Miau.
“Music with repetitive structures,” is how pianist and composer Phillip Glass describes his works, and our thoughts turn to this new solar storm by Pener (Bartek Świątecki).
Bartek Pener Świątecki. Spinning in Daffodils. Poland 2020 (photo courtesy of the artist)
No prancing sonata-allegro here, this spinning daffodil tempest is formed by minimalist geometric planes built up from repetition, whipped into shifting layers of motion, following one another in succession, each catching the light and the clouds as they pass warmly like so many chips of reflective and modernist musical notes.
Bartek Pener Świątecki. Spinning in Daffodils. Poland 2020 (photo courtesy of the artist)
Referencing his favored flower of the early spring and bringing it forward to stand alongside late August sunflowers, the Polish muralist and studio painter shares with BSA readers this inside wall he has just finished called Summer Daffodils. It’s a diagonal energy funnel descending down cubist stairs as auburn tinged solar forms, a storm sweeping out through the foyer to kick up and conviviate with abandon, or hold fire, folding down upon the cool green grass.
Bartek Pener Świątecki. Spinning in Daffodils. Poland 2020 (photo courtesy of the artist)
“I often take the names of walls or canvases from songs that I listen to while painting”- Bartek Pener Świątecki
Bartek Pener Świątecki. Spinning in Daffodils. Poland 2020 (photo courtesy of the artist)Bartek Pener Świątecki. Spinning in Daffodils. Poland 2020 (photo courtesy of the artist)
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. Plain Brutality Again: Jacob Blake. 2. INDECLINE: Get Dead – Pepper Spray 3. Shepard Fairey: Arts Vote 2020
BSA Special Feature: Plain Brutality Again: Jacob Blake
The violence against black people continues. The latest shooting of a black American citizen by the police took place in Kenosha, Wisconsin where a police officer shot Jacob Blake on Sunday.
Mr. Blake, a father, a son, a brother, and uncle, was shot seven times by the police as he leaned into the driver’s seat of his car resulting in Mr. Blake being paralyzed and unable to walk and under intensive care at the hospital. Yet he is being handcuffed to his bed. Mr. Blake was not carrying a weapon.
Are we only to add his name to the endless list of black and brown people brutalized and killed? Here we post a recent short film that examines this moment in American history as well as through the lens of system racism.
Voices from the Black Lives Matters Protests ( A short film) Vanity Fair
INDECLINE: Get Dead – Pepper Spray
An amalgam of blinding rage and graffiti, anti-authoritarian self-destructive vandalism melded into a demand for the end of state-sponsored violence played out to a raspy-voiced tirade and gutter-crunch guitars and drums. Many of society’s contradictions are here on display for all to see.
Artists Shine Light on Trump, GOP Atrocities in Emotionally-Charged New Billboard, Street Art Campaign
The billboards are going up in Detroit, Michigan, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Phoenix, Arizona – all so-called “battleground” states for this years presidential election. Using their talent as street artists to draw attention in public, this group of billboards is grabbing the attention of passersby with aesthetics as well as content.
Rafael Lopez. “I don’t care” (photo courtesy of RememberWhatTheyDid.com)
In a campaign funded by Collective
Super PAC, the SuperPAC affiliate of The Collective PAC, a number of street
artists as well as artists from other genres and practices are lending their
individual skills to remind potential voters what has already been done – with a
warning that four more years would march us straight off a cliff, in their
opinion.
Artists Shepard Fairey, Nekisha
Durrett, Nate Lewis, Rafael Lopez, Robert Russell, Rob Sheridan, and Swoon each
take on their variation of the messages on topics like police brutality,
racism, hate speech, immigration and the Coronavirus pandemic. Some are simply dedicated
to controversial statements made by Trump and others on his team.
Swoon. “A beautiful picture” (photo courtesy of RememberWhatTheyDid.com)
“Our message is simple:
Remember what they did and vote them out,” says organizer Robin Bell, whose
known for his projections on the façade of the Trump Hotel.
For Shepard Fairey, it was
the irony that this spring and early summer Trump was trying to solve our
problems with police brutality with, uh, police brutality.
Nate Lewis. “…that’s going to sort of just disappear, I hope.” (photo courtesy of RememberWhatTheyDid.com)
“My art piece is a reminder
that while the American public was protesting in the streets, in record
numbers, against racism and police brutality, Donald Trump was encouraging
police brutality against the protesters, reinforcing the very same problems
within law enforcement and the criminal justice systems the protesters were
demanding to be reformed,” says Fairey. “This image implies that the police are
supposed to be peacekeepers, not warriors, and that Donald Trump is on the
wrong side of social justice and the wrong side of history!”
Shepard Fairey. “When The Looting Starts The Shooting Starts” (photo courtesy of RememberWhatTheyDid.com)
The images are stark, sometimes
shocking, but then so are the times they are documenting – and street art is
often holding a mirror up to society. “Life imitates art, and the images we see
have a direct impact on our democracy,” says Quentin James, Founder and
President of The Collective.
As the economy continues to
deflate and the Greater Depression is waiting to be triggered by a crash, not
only will we see more street art, we’ll depend on it as tea leaves to read about
ourselves and hopefully remember what we all did (and didn’t), so we can learn
from it.
Nekisha Durrett. “We must build upon our heritage” (photo courtesy of RememberWhatTheyDid.com)Robert Rusell. “Fine people on both sides” (photo courtesy of RememberWhatTheyDid.com)Rob Sheridan. “Even if the world goes to hell in a handbasket, I wont lose a penny” (photo courtesy of RememberWhatTheyDid.com)
The dreams of men; full of adventure, longing, Doritos, cars, robots, babes. Vesod knows this all too well, as his newest wall unmoors them and sets them aflight, afloat, askance, atwitter. Stuck inside our homes, the dreams merge with fears and the need to escape. Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz” was said to be in an oneiric state, and the Italian street artist is as well, all tumbly and tittly.
Vesod. Dualismo. For Premio Antonio Giordano. Santa Croce di Magliano, Italy. (photo courtesy of Premio Antonio Giordano)
Here in the imagination is “where architectures, female bodies and machines merge together in a futuristic vortex, open to double or multiple interpretations in contrast to each other,” says Vesod as he leaves this vision of dualities, beauties and bounty just outside the window of this teen.
Vesod. Dualismo. For Premio Antonio Giordano. Santa Croce di Magliano, Italy. (photo courtesy of Premio Antonio Giordano)
It’s the 7th edition of Antonio Giordano urban art award (Premio Antonio Giordano) in Santa Croce di Magliano, Italy that brings him here with this new façade on a private building in the heart of the village. But the dreams… these are universal.
Vesod. Dualismo. For Premio Antonio Giordano. Santa Croce di Magliano, Italy. (photo courtesy of Premio Antonio Giordano)
Those longing gazes are from your family, those red-lines are through your neighborhood, those abstractions are your intersections with poverty, wealth, race, beauty, and power.
OverUnder had a “whirlwind 72-hour pandemic tour” that led him through Chicago and Gary, Indiana, and his brilliantly human painted wheatpastes showed up on many a pressed-wood board. The impolite truths of neoliberalism – neglected neighborhoods of our de-industrialized 2020, now licking ever closer to you and yours.
OU brought his kids too, at
least in his paintings. “I also put in one piece that I made with my daughter –
you can see her nice little pink additions.”
“There is also a portrait of a young man named Adonis next to a piece I put up of Mayor Hatcher with some abstract red lines across it (redlining),” he says.
“He was the first Black Mayor of a big US city along with Carl Stokes of Cleveland in 1967.”
Oh yes, those days of promise back then, you think.
I believe that as artists we have a commitment to society,” says PERSAK, “and in these difficult times art helps people a lot to keep busy and to distract themselves from so much bombardment of news about COVID-19.”
His new street mural in San Miguel de Allende in Mexico borrows a culturally significant icon to bring home a message to as many people as he can. “The use of a mask is essential to avoid contagion,” he says.
One of a three-mural program he painted here, he says he chose images of worldwide recognizable icons like Van Gogh and the Mona Lisa as well, but this one is closest to home. For PERSAK (Daniel Martínez Carrillo), the goal was simple; “I just want to raise awareness about the health measures that must be followed at this time,” he says.
What a week – as bad news is replaced by horrible news. But seriously, the summer has been beautiful in the streets of New York in so many ways, and we feel lucky here – even though there appears to be an exodus? Yeah we remember it from the 60s and 70s too but it was called “White Flight” then. Wonder who’s leaving now? Kitchen too hot? Please, gurl, go home. The rest of us will be just fine here because we’ve always loved New York in good times and in bad. These are the Golden Years.
The DNC 2020 infomercial this week looked like the 1996 RNC one but with “diversity” – as we get pulled/pushed further and further toward the right. This weeks’ RNC infomercial broadcast from White House grounds will march us off a cliff, no doubt. Speech writers are searching now to set the reich tone. Austerity for all! War is Peace! Suburban Karens Will Crush You!
Let’s see what the streets are telling us.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring 7 Line Art Studio, Adam Fu, Billy Barnacles, CB23, Cern, Gee Whiskers, One Rad Latina, and Rar Grafix.
Street art welcomes all manner of materials and methods, typically deployed without permission and without apology. This hand-formed wire piece …Read More »
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
