Street artist Gaia is often thought of primarily for wheat-pasted lino prints of animal/human mashups as metaphor, but it’s nice to note that adept hand-painting is also in Gaia’s quiver of skills.
Here’s a brief motion collage of a hand-painted installation a few weeks ago on a roll-up door in Chinatown, NYC. Photographed by Keith Schweitzer and invited by No Longer Empty, Gaia creates a rooster portrait, where the proud sitter penetrates the passerby with an intense gaze.
“I Want My Ninja Turtles, and Turn Mommy’s Lights Back On!”
RUN DMC puts BSA in the Holiday Spirit, yo.
MOMO at Nelly Duff
A wheat-pasted fixture on construction sites (usually overhead) in Brooklyn for many years, Momo’s bright geometric overlayed shapes are understated and mute somehow. They don’t seem to have any agenda in their cheerful modernist abstract sort of way. Now Momo is offering some on the Nelly Duff website.- just click the pic and check them out.
New York Holiday Sightssssss 2009
If you are not from this city, you may not have an opportunity to just walk the streets and see the lights, smell the smells, get yelled at for being in my f*&king way! Ahhhhhhhhhhhh, it’s the holiday spirit, peeeepul!
This guy caught NYC at an exciting time of year and made a pretty good collection of the things you’ll see if you were a tourist in ’09. It includes Rockefeller Center, Madison Square Garden, Macy’s windows, Radio City Music Hall, Lord & Taylor Windows, Saks Fifth Avenue windows and light show, Fuse, Sixth Avenue, Downtown Manhattan, Time Warner Center, Empire State Building, The UNICEF Snowflake, JAF Station Post Office, Grand Central Terminal, Times Square and the Haydenettes Skating Team. Warning: In this video there are no street-walkers, crackheads, or homeless shelters….
TrustoCorp Sign Sighting
Someone sent us this pic from the West coast. Looks like TrustoCorp doesn’t it? Hmmmm. P.S. BSA doesn’t encourage vandalism. It’s totally not in the Christmas spirit.
Artist Karen O’Leary made this Manhattan map and married it with a barcode. Their extending the contest for a free poster for BSA readers till Dec. 25. Hooray!
CASIO DEATHBEAT
This isn’t holiday related, but I still feel a little warm and fuzzy at the end.
Don’t ask me who Casio is, I’ve never heard of them, but this video is strangely futuristic, low-fi, and even romantic at the end with the flocks of birds. People have been taking pictures of these birds that swarm around over certain buildings at dusk in Brooklyn for years. It looks like it is shot around Brooklyn with a cell phone.
They say it was filmed with a vhs-c and dubbed online with a webcam. Help me out, people, that was English right? Okay I know Casio is the synth, so don’t hit me, but the video portion, dunno. All I know is, you don’t need the latest hi-tech gadgetry to make cool things. Also, it is mercifully short for todays’ short attention spans.
JustSeeds Collective featuring Chris Stain and Josh MacPhee
Artists Josh MacPhee and Chris Stain and the Just Seeds crew will be having an informal relaxed event in Williamsburg tonight – Chris promises new prints! Click HERE for full details.
JustSeeds Collective featuring Chris Stain and Josh MacPhee
Artists Josh MacPhee and Chris Stain and the Just Seeds crew will be having an informal relaxed event in Williamsburg tonight – Chris promises new prints!
Print Show and Book Release by Just Seeds Crew
There will be new work by the Justseeds artists on display and for sale, free snacks and drinks.
Friday, Dec. 18th
8-11pm
at Book Thug Nation
100 N.3rd St.
Brooklyn, NY
Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative is a decentralized community of artists who have banded together to both sell their work , to collaborate with each other, and create art in support of social movements. We believe in the power of personal expression in concert with collective action to transform society.
Outside the new Book Thug Nation store
About the book:
Paper Politics: Socially Engaged Printmaking Today
Josh MacPhee (ed.) (PM Press, 2009)
Paper Politics: Socially Engaged Printmaking Today is a major collection of contemporary politically and socially engaged printmaking. This full color book showcases print art that uses themes of social justice and global equity to engage community members in political conversation. Based on an art exhibition which has traveled to a dozen cities in North America, Paper Politics features artwork by over 200 international artists; an eclectic collection of work by both activist and non-activist printmakers who have felt the need to respond to the monumental trends and events of our times.
After partially white-washing the image, Tristan retraces and pulls the subject forward.
Tristan Eaton of New York’s Thunderdog Studios was working last week in Miami during the Primary Flight exhibition with many of his peers and yet-to-meet friends. The show was an opportunity for people to show their skills, gain appreciation from a new audience, and enjoy the pleasures of a sanctioned wall.
“The background was wheat pasted, then white washed, then hand painted with enamel, brushes, markers and mop tops, ” says Tristan.
Brooklyn Street Art:How did you get this wall in Miami? Tristan Eaton: I got it from my pal Books who organized all the artists and walls for Primary Flight. It was on Easy Street Gallery which was founded by Crome of MSG.
A Wild Beauty, Indeed! (Tristan Eaton)
Brooklyn Street Art: Can you talk about the inspiration behind the project? Tristan Eaton: It’s gonna sound really corny, but I was inspired by something my Mother said about ‘Wild Beauty’. Before painting, I had no pictures or layouts of the wall, so I couldn’t really plan what to do in advance. I had to make it all up on the spot over the course of 3 days and hope for the best.
Tristan Eaton
Brooklyn Street Art:What kind of preliminary work did you have to do before getting there? Tristan Eaton: I normally get my giant photocopies (for background) made here in the city then cut them out by hand at my studio in LIC. We prepared about 1,000 square feet of wheat paste graphics for this mural and general bombing and stuff.
Ron English stops by to talk and pose for a pic.
Brooklyn Street Art:Did you get hit by the rain or have other distractions? Tristan Eaton: Yes! We had torrential rain on and off over 2 days. We kept having to stop and wait it out. Luckily it only rains for about an hour in Miami! On top of that you have legends like Futura and Ron English are just walking around town all week at Art Basel, so we’d stop to BS every once in a while when someone came to visit our wall.
Brooklyn is always in the mix. (Tristan Eaton)
Brooklyn Street Art:Are you satisfied with your final project? Tristan Eaton: I think so. Working on that scale in that time frame, little things always go wrong. It’s not supposed to be perfect I guess, so I’m okay with a certain amount of messy mistakes. I’m most satisfied with the response from locals so far. Even if I could of done better, they love it!
Friends stop by for immoral support. Pictured are Phetus and KaNo in front, Alex of Easy Street, Tris, Den & Sket in back (photo courtesy T. Eaton)
Reporter Chuck Marvin examined the intersection of graffiti and street art in the Brooklyn area recently and filed this report in the WG News in print and on the web. We don’t know a lot about graff, but we were glad to help out with the Street Art aspect.
Still snorking around looking for something nice for a Kwanzaa Gift? Here are two nice crisp prints by two of the new-gen renaissance print masters… and one is going on sale tomorrow.
Iminent Disaster has released this silkscreen called "Laura Reclining"
For that special somebunny on your list, how about this print by Gaia?
The print will be available on Nelly Duff tomorrow!
***********************And for those of you who don’t have the bucks for some arty-prints…
OWW! MY HEAD! Talk about your Economic Indicators*
Based on the old children’s favorite aggression release and hand-eye coordination game Whack-a-Mole…
Now there is WHACK-A-BANKER (available in the U.K. only so far)
Taxpaying adults who footed the bill for the bank bailout but yet strangely cannot get a loan or a job may really enjoy taking out some of that frustration on the
Last Thursday Factory Fresh Gallery hosted “Fresh Geezers”, a new show by The London Police and Galo. In a departure from his regular street art job, photographer Vinny Cornelli takes Brooklyn Street Art to the opening with these shots.
Plus NohJ’s remarks on his
Personal Primary Flight in Miami last week.
NYC street artist NohJColey has been steadfast and focused in his determination to do his homework, refine his skills, and challenge himself artistically. In turn his art and the ideas behind them continue to surprise, perplex, and provide brain candy to the viewer. NYC video artist and director Lou Auguste started documenting art on the streets of New York in 2004, and this fall he approached NohJColey to capture the young artist’s new series, “Sprayed N Stone”, a wheat-pasted trio of graff writers who have passed.
Here’s the gorgeous and lyrical result that captures the influences and tempo of NohJ’s approach in only two minutes. The Thelonius Monk tune not only nails it, that’s exactly what you’ll hear in NohJ’s studio all day. Special Thanks to Lou for sharing it with BSA readers first.
Lou remembers the experience, “NohJ had been calling me all week, he kept reminding me we had to go film. I told him I’d be there no matter what on Friday, but it rained. So instead we met up around 6AM on Sunday morning to make this video. The light in his apartment was quite yellow I remember.”
“I started focusing on the small things; a pack of cigarettes, discarded paper, details of the work lying there on the table waiting. All of it was telling the story of the artist and his new Sprayed N Stone without words. Hope you enjoy it.”
Auguste has been documenting with video regularly since releasing his first work Open Air in 2006, which gave viewers an inside-look at studio life and the creative spirit while profiling Brooklyn street artists Faile, Dan Witz, and Skewville, as well as Espo, Mike DeFeo and Tiki Jay One. The artistic process is what drives the narrative for this life-long devotee of art and Lou broadened his scope to shoot his first feature length documentary, Day in the Life released two years later in November 2008. In addition to developing an “evolving canvas” project known as Concious Cycle, Auguste currently spends his time between London and New York, where he is gearing up to produce his first feature film.
Just last week NohJ reprised the Sprayed N Stone series inside a gallery setting for the BKMIA show in Miami Beach (part of Art Basel). In the full wall installation, NohJ very nearly re-created the New York City disarray that accompanies blighted parts of the city with found wood, metal, and disgarded street signs.
In addition to the BKMIAshow indoors he managed to pull off 3 murals outside too. In the artist’s tradition, street art veteran Logan Hicks reached out to the promising new dude and hooked him up with a very cool Primary Flight location surrounded by overgrowth and vines. NohJ killed it with portrait of a reflective musician holding her violin.
“Logan referred me to Slow and Slow gave me and amazing spot,” says NohJ. The piece is called “Th3 Violinist annd h3r Window of Opportunity” (NohJColey)
“Then Gaia gave me a call (with an offer) while I was working on an installation. I really wanted to paint this picture I had read an article about, so I dropped eveything and went to paint! ”
When you work on the street, you can expect to meet just about anybody. This guy insisted that NohJ take his portrait. ” He was just walking around and noticed the camera and became adamant about being in the shot,” says NohJ. This painting for the “Art Whino” show is called “3y3’ll l3ad you”, by NohJColey
Finally, a guy named Max, owner of AE District, approached NohJ to do a mural for him, so of course the hungry artist obliged by doing this piece of an older lady and a church.
The contrast between more formal subject matter and the dripping graff-inspired running of paint somehow makes my head hurt with hard thoughts. Where are the damn academics when I need them?? This one is called “o!p!p!”, which does not help matters, in all honesty.
Finally when he got back to NYC 7 lbs. slimmer (I told you he was hungry), NohJ told Brooklyn Street Art a little more about his Miami experience;
Brooklyn Street Art: These images – are they people you have known, or just people in your imagination?
NohJColey: These images are not of anyone I have known in this lifetime. All the murals I painted in Miami are all images that visually grab me.
Brooklyn Street Art: How many days did you spend painting these?
NohJColey: I did a little bit of each mural over the course of three days.
Brooklyn Street Art: Did people come up and talk to you, and what did they say?
NohJColey: For the most part everyone wanted to know where I was from. Some people actually want to know what the piece is about or who is the person that I was painting.
Brooklyn Street Art:How would you describe the vibe on the street in that part of Miami?
NohJColey: Miami in general is a great place to work. Everyone is pretty much supportive of the whole beautifying public space idea.
who finds a lot of inspiration from people he has met on the street. He also is clearly influenced by the street art movement. “Ever since I started combining mixed media and street art…makes me more free when I’m working. No more stress, ” says Lee.
This posting isn’t really about street art – except it is about painting literally on the street in Brooklyn. We just received an email from a Brooklyn club inviting us to a memorial for a friend who was killed on her bicycle.
“In Loving Memory of Solange – DJ Reverend Soul. Yesterday, we lost one of our dearest members of the Rose family to a tragic accident. We were so lucky to have had this lovely lady spin for us every Monday night at the Soul Sessions. Her joyous spirit and soul was truly infectious and brought a smile to everyone she ever encountered” (image to the right courtesy Rose Live)
Yesterday, in a Brooklyn neighborhood named Greenpoint where she lived, Solange Raulston, an artist and musician originally from the U.K., was struck and killed by a flatbed truck while riding her bicycle. She DJ’d regularly at Rose Live and Bembe, two clubs in Williamsburg.
There have been a number of articles in the past couple of weeks regarding the mysterious disappearance of bike lanes in parts of Brooklyn and the efforts of people to restore them. The discussions taking place over the appropriate location for bicycle lanes are pretty firey.
It hasn’t been reported if there was a bike lane there yesterday, or if Solange was riding in it when she was struck and killed, but it has become more obvious that more and more intrepid and low-to-moderate income artists, professionals, musicians, dancers, photographers, pizza delivery dudes, construction workers – you name it – are using their emission-free human-powered bicycles to get around New York. It isn’t just for David Byrne anymore! Many people have begun riding bikes since the economy took a downward turn and they could not afford public transportation or car services, let alone a car.
The fact that bike lanes exist in the first place is the result of community-powered activists who have fought for them for years and worked with the City to get them in place. The streets, which everyone pays for, are largely unsafe for bike riders still and riding on the sidewalk can endanger pedestrians and will get you a ticket in some areas. Luckily, newly re-elected Mayor Bloomberg celebrates the plans to “green” our city with hundreds of miles of bike lanes over the next few years. And it’s universally acknowledged that bike lanes save lives and improve safety.
Rose Live club in Williamsburg will be having a memorial for DJ “Reverend Soul” and is raising money to send to her family. You can find them through their website www.roselivemusic.com
According to the new issue of New York Magazine , whose cover story “Reasons to Love New York” is on newsstands today, Reason Number 31 is because our street art is collaborative.
click to enlarge and see all the names they helpfully tracked down
Billi Kid provided pictures that document the ongoing conversation of street artists in one part of the city. And it’s pretty rare to hear about “Beef”, something that was a mainstay of graff culture back in the daze.
According to the article, “In gallery-rich Chelsea, a brick wall on West 22nd Street became, over the past year, an ephemeral showroom for international street art. The canvas changed appearance almost daily, as artists (some identified here) overlaid new pieces over the work of their predecessors.”
When reached by BSA for comment, street artist Billi Kid was big-hearted and magnanimous, full of Holiday Spirit, “It’s all about community. It’s all about collaboration. It’s all about joy. HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!”
That just makes me want to say “Ho-Ho-Ho!” or, as we used to say at Christmas when I worked at a mega-club on West 29th Street, “Whore-Whore-Whore!”
Now it is probably inpolitik to say such a thing, but “Sex Worker-Sex Worker-Sex Worker” just doesn’t have a Christmas ring to it.
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
