Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. Bordalo II “A Life of Waste” A short film by Trevor Whelan & Rua Meegan 2. One Day With Lady K in Paris 3. The London Police Dogumentary, by Wayne Horse
BSA Special Feature: Bordalo II “A Life of Waste”
Bordalo II “A Life of Waste” A short film by Trevor Whelan & Rua Meegan
Spending a lot of time and effort clawing your way to the top of the pile, braying
loudly about your achievements and kicking the people behind you back down the
hill? Look where you are standing. It’s a mountain of garbage. And you don’t really
care for the others up here.
Bordallo II has been examining our culture of waste. And making sculpture from it. “The artwork is really a reflection of what we are,” he says. “I always had my conscience.”
One Day With Lady K in Paris
Two decades into the game on her own and with Parisian graffiti crews 156 and CKW, Lady K tours the streets in a beret and a silk scarf with can of dark magenta aerosol in her purse, tagging concrete, marble, and ceramic tile on the streets as she goes. The interview shows one reason for her staying power – she’s an omnivore of style and technique, unwilling to limit herself to color or chrome, roller or extinguisher, vandal or Street Artist. Such distinctions are of little interest to her as she openly challenges your comfort zone, and presumably those of the police as well.
“I got this vision from God that said, ‘Go out and help the dogs of the world,’ ”says Chaz with a misty gaze at the camera. Clearly, dog songs have really brought their practice up a level, vastly expanding their artistic practice in three-part harmony, causing their core Street Art fans to howl with delight.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. Facing The Giant: Three Decades of Dissent Part Two – Shepard Fairey 2. Stephanie Boyce: If You Know Me Is To Love Me. 3. Dotmasters: Why Is That Shovel There?
BSA Special Feature: Facing The Giant: Three Decades of Dissent Part Two – Shepard Fairey
The sky is on fire! And it’s not just because of the gorgeous sunset.
Shepard Fairey has been respectfully smacking us in the head for 30 years with his earnestly alarmist art in the streets. Challenging a narrative pushed by the corporate state via smiling blond newsreaders fronting a well funded armature of skullduggery, this perpetual dissenter has found ways to deliver the poison pill with ever-more sophisticated graphic design and plain spoken diatribe.
“I
was trying to encourage people to just be more analytical and to come to their
own conclusions,” he says as he describes his work during the steady hail of
disinformation called “The War on Terror”. Bless his heart.
He
says he was looking for a more honest manifestation of his work and how he
represented the observations and opinions he had based on his own research.
“I felt like I had the courage to become myself what I had emulated in a lot of my heroes.” Faced with a hostile political environment from the corporatized media machine and the dazed inertia response from a significant portion of his intended audience, it is surely maddening at times. Regardless, as an artist, catalyzer and a citizen, Fairey continues to challenge himself, and us.
Stephanie Boyce: If You Know Me Is To Love Me.
Brooklyn
Artist Stephanie Boyce has been drawing all her life and takes you on a tour of
her neighborhood and the Muddguts Gallery that represents her.
“It’s
difficult to tell my story in a ten minute movie,” she says, but you get a good
idea of the ups and downs that she has faced through her art, their symbolisms,
and of course her own words.
Special
props go out to Director Nicolas Heller for this insightful and well-balanced
storytelling.
Dotmasters: Why Is That Shovel There? Nuart Aberdeen. By MZM Projects
Dotmasters
also takes you on a tour in his new video, and even instructs you how his
technique is done. Mostly, it’s a relaxed conversation about his history and
his approach.
“Oh
that’s just a silkscreen process with a spraycan,” he said of his initial
realization of how certain pieces on the street were done when seeing
stencillists like Blek Le Rat in the 80s. “And I thought, ‘Wow, that’s a good
way of invading public space’.”
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. ShowZart – Man One / A Street Art Story 2. “Opening Lines” with Pat Perry 3. Kids Dancing it out on the streets with murals …because it’s summer baby! 4. The “Go Back to Your Country” Singers
BSA Special Feature: ShowZart – Man One / A Street Art Story
Artists helping artists – yes it actually happens. Here in downtown Los Angeles, where Street Art has been a large part of the scene for quite a while, a residency in an old abandoned hotel gives artists an opportunity to live and create. One artist curated a brother artist who was homeless into his own residency, and the results are inspiring.
ShowZart – Man One / A Street Art Story / Film by Vonjako
“Opening Lines” with Pat Perry
Michigan Street Artist/muralist/commercial artist Pat Perry lives in Detroit but created this sister city mural duo that bridges the gap between countries and cultures. With children as messengers, this video illustrates universal truths and the power of art to break down barriers, build bridges between people in Biddeford, Maine and Slemani, Iraq. Also, its cheaper than bombs – although less profitable for the war industry.
Kids Dancing it out on the streets with murals …because it’s summer baby!
Summer’s here and the time is right for dancing in the streets! Where better to shoot a video of these kids doing their stuff than in front of Welling Court murals in Queens. Students from Arya Dance Academy, these Bollywood beauties act like tough stuff as they incorporate South Asian dance techniques with the latest global youth culture moves, making New Yorkers proud.
The “Go Back to Your Country” Singers
Breaking down the ignorance in the most glamorous way.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. WK Interact in NYC by Fifth Wall 2. Rub Kandy & Biancoshock: “All the Lights” 3. Not Rented To Humans: Grip Face 4. Elrow’art: Kaos Garden with Okuda San Miguel and Paco Osuna
BSA Special Feature: WK Interact in NYC by Fifth Wall
“It was some sort of freedom,” says WK in this retrospective of NYC locations that he tries to recall with original photo in hand overlaying the original city spot. For some of us, the memories of all of these spots are sufficient, as the city was different then – perhaps more wild and dirty. For WK, the stories and the memories continue to evolve.
Well shot and edited, its a mature way to let the artist speak and evocative of his current manner.
Rub Kandy & Biancoshock: “All the Lights”
In the face of sexy new machine-learning and Artificial Intelligence
– and the auxiliary tales related to art-making, perhaps this video is a way of
preserving the authentic feeling of human discovery in its unglamorous
basicness. Not to overplay this, but this conceptual piece is a meditation on
the underwhelming mechanized aspects of industry, a blatant taunt of banality
in the midst of high gloss unrealness.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conceptual mundanity of the
Italian urban artists Rub Kandy and Biancoshock,
who here demonstrate how to create electricity with a generator in an abandoned
industrial space. It’s a marvelously underwhelming demonstration of the means
of production. To “jazz” things up they throw in intermittent blasts of pop-star
banality as well, sprinkled with blinky graphics.
…Turn up the lights in here baby Extra bright, I want y’all to see this Turn up the lights in here, baby You know what I need Want you to see everything
Not Rented To Humans: Grip Face
First, they look like run down sheds, these new wooden
structures in high weeds – possibly stopped mid-construction, perhaps during
the last economic downturn. Here the missed opportunity of housing, suddenly
coupled with the found opportunity of art exhibition!
“There’s
something both bizarre and magical in abandoned places,” writes Grip Face in
the description of this video. “The course of time invades them, colonizes
them, makes it into its own. The invisible imprints impregnate the walls and
the experiential trace of past inhabitants slips through the cracks like winter
would through a badly insulated window.”
Elrow’art: Kaos Garden with Okuda San Miguel and Paco Osuna
A warmup video for
multi-disciplinary artist Okuda San Miguel and dj/producer Paco Osuna and their
creative intermingling of avant-garde aesthetics with electronic music to
create their vision of ‘The Garden of Delights’. The premiere of the artistic
partnership of Ink and Movement and elrow will be on September 28 at Amnesia
Ibiza. Here’s a taste of things to come!
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. “Melania”, Directed by Brad Downey 2. Said Dokins. “Runaway Writings” Solo Show 3. “Who’s the Daddy?” A film by Wong Ping
BSA Special Feature: “Melania”, Directed by Brad Downey
Street Artist/Interventionist Brad Downey widens his oeuvre with a
documentary, and his exquisite critiques of hypocrisy – and his appreciation of
life’s beautiful ironies are still fully intact.
Here in a grassy area between a dirt service road and the Sava
River Mr. Maxi Z
creates his ode to Melania, a girl born in the same hospital and year as he.
Using his chainsaw to coax the immigrant/model/First Lady Melania from this
tree whose roots go deep into her Slovenian homeland, the sculptor creates a
painted tribute and a direct connection between art and life for all to see
publicly. Hearing him describe his work is important, as is appreciating the
struggle and sacrifice he speaks of. Hearing a traditional song and reading its
lyrics, well crafted with nostalgia and heartache, buttresses the storytelling
with context.
For us Mr. Downey’s brilliance is his examination of the assumed, his
breakdown of folly, his ability to see. Here he shares his view with us, with
warmth and satire. Among his targets, implied at least, may be the art world,
the Street Art world, social anachronisms, international power structures, craven
corruption. Among his tributes are the creative spirit, individual ingenuity,
and the will to overcome. Long live Melania.
“Melania” 2019, Sevenica, Slovenia A film by Brad Downey Featuring Maxi Z. Production Miha Erjavec Camera Aljaž Celarc Editing Eva Pavlič Seifert Song pevskizbor Bunkarji Sound Editing Simon Kavsek Translation Ana Bohte Assitance Jaka Erjavec Thanks to Son of Maxi Z, wife Jožica, Graveks d.o.o
Said Dokins. “Runaway Writings” Solo Show
Graffiti
artist, contemporary artist, calligrapher and curator Said Dokins organizes
images, objects and personal questions in his new exhibition at Centro Nacional
de las Artes in San Luis Potosi, Mexico.
With works on paper, on canvas, video, light, and photograph,
the show speaks of conflict, community, the empire to the north, and his
expansive practice with calligraphy. With each letter, each word, Said Dokins’
strokes free the steps of those who lived between these walls.
“Who’s the Daddy?” A film by Wong Ping
Hong Kong film director/animator/artist Wong Ping creates with the excesses and superficiality of non-stop consumer culture – humorously mixed and mingled with a young man’s insecurities, search for identity, and desire to get laid. His social, racial, cultural, political observations resonate beneath the eye candy. His sense of humor makes the formerly difficult easier to contemplate, the questions now tempered with the colorful absurdity of the world. Consider here, his ruminations on the length and curvature of the penis, among other things one might write in an online public diary.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. VHILS “Debris” Sets Macau in Golden Nostalgia 2. OKUDA: The International Church Of Cannabis 3. Mr. Sis. and #SoloUnBeso 4. Parees International Mural Festival. Oviedo, Spain. Edition 2018.
BSA Special Feature: VHILS “Debris” Sets Macau in Golden Nostalgia
Is
anybody listening?
Last year Vhils published this film about communication – personal, intimate, and global. We waited a year to see if it felt equally timeless as the first time we viewed it and indeed it is. Some stories like these have an additional element that secures their status. Surrounding the portraits created by the Portuguese Street Artist in Macau, this collage of images, interactions, flashes of expression and sequences of behavior is accompanied by a linear/circular narration that attempts to reconnect to a personal history while chiding the narrators own behavior.
It’s a winsome recounting of memories that are shared globally; a communal and personal experience at once told with clarity and emotional nostalgia, written and directed by José Pando Lucas.
OKUDA: The International Church Of Cannabis
One would hope that the International Church of Cannibis would look like this! Owing perhaps to psychedelic art of 1960s counterculture, liquid light art, concert posters, murals, underground newspapers, and of course kaleidoscoping the world with new eyes, the Spanish Street Artists Okuda San Miguel transformed this internal architecture into a truly holy space. Denver is one of those American cities that still has a good economy thanks to Colorado’s low taxes, growing marijuana industry and soaring real estate market. It seems like the whole city has invited many Street Artists to transform street space over the last decade and with a good collector’s base, the art galleries are busy and special projects are popping up everywhere to show off the skillz.
With a new church that uses pot as a sacrament, this project is spearheaded by Steve Berke, who’s Wikipedia posting lists him as “two-time candidate for mayor of Miami Beach, cannabis activist, rapper, YouTuber, entrepreneur, and former All-American tennis player.” Dude, just gaze at the ceilings here and you realize that the possibilities are awesome.
Mr. Sis. and #SoloUnBeso
“Artist Mr. Sis is in Barcelona painting this pair of full figured females going in for the kiss on this billboard for Contorno Urbano,” we wrote a few weeks ago in a posting about this wall. Today we have the finished video.
Parees International Mural Festival. Oviedo, Spain. Edition 2018.
A new mini-doc from the
Parees Festival in Oviedo, Spain has just been released about the 2018 edition.
It features on-screen interviews with many of the artists who were involved,
including Colectivo Licuado, Roc BlackBlock, Taquen, Xav, Andrea Ravo Mattoni,
Kruella d’Enfer, Alfalfa y Twee Muizen.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. Gonzalo Borondo “Merci” Temple des Chartrons 2. ELLE in Allentown 3. Pejac: YIN-YANG 4. “Beyond The Streets” In A New York Minute – By Chop ‘Em Down Films 5. LL Cool J – I’m Bad
BSA Special Feature: Gonzalo Borondo “Merci” Temple des Chartrons, France. 2019
Finally opened, its the spirit of man and nature working in concert in this vast emporium, a transformatorium, of images and pieces of memory from Street Artist Borondo. If you are in Paris before August 18, it is a must see.
ELLE in Allentown
Former tagger and now fulltime muralist, Elle talks about a new work in Allentown, PA, which is trying to kindle a creative arts / high tech reputation after the iron industry left. “The gist of the entire collage is that all of women are more powerful together,” says Elle.
Pejac: YIN-YANG
Spanish Street Artist and studio artist Pejac is back with one of his visual aphorism that addresses climate change ironically.
“Beyond The Streets” In A New York Minute – By Chop ‘Em Down Films
Like we said earlier this week when this video debuted:
“It’s a unique talent to capture the fervor of an opening like “Beyond the Streets” in one minute. The show spreads over two floors and fifty years – the reunions alone were enough for an hour movie. But somehow Zane catches an individual, personal, flavor in a New York minute.”
LL Cool J – I’m Bad
Also, the because it’s Friday and because LL is Bad
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. INTI in Moscow: РАБОТНИЦА” (Worker Woman) 2. Beyond The Streets New York; Press Preview 3. Shepard Fairey Celebrates 30 Years on the Street 4. Penique Productions and BSA Talks at Urvanity 2019 Madrid
BSA Special Feature: INTI in Moscow: РАБОТНИЦА” (Worker Woman)
This is a brief once-over video of Chilean Street Artist INTI’s new mural in Moscow for the Artrium project. The latest painting by a slew of international Street Artists on and in this mall called Atrium, Inti says that his mural is an allusion to the important roles women have played in “the great social changes of the 20th century”.
Nameless heroines This new mural by INTI, alludes to the important role that women have played in the great social changes of the 20th century. The mural is one of several that are part of the “Artrium” project, which has managed to subtract advertising space in exchange for murals in the center of Moscow.
Beyond The Streets New York; Press Preview
A quick look at the press opening day for Beyond The Streets, a large survey of contemporary canvasses, sculptures, and installations by artists who have a direct connection to graffiti, Street Art, and other forms of unpermissioned installations in public space. It gives you a quick feel for the excitement that was palpable this week.
Shepard Fairey Celebrates 30 Years on the Street
Shepard Fairey’s Facing The Giant show within the massive Beyond The Streets exhibit now opening in Brooklyn. We had a chance to see the large rooms before the public poured in this week, and we quickly gained an appreciation for the range of issues and subcultures he has championed and promoted over the last three decades, as well as his consistency in style and quality.
A quick glimpse at the artist’s ouvre in less than a minute…this is a teaser of sorts. The retrospective is meticulously organized and presented to give the viewer ample time to get lost in Shepard’s career on the streets and inside galleries and institutions worldwide.
Penique Productions and BSA Talks at Urvanity 2019 Madrid
We’ll not quickly forget the plunge into crimson that BSA Talks lived in for our three days of curated discussions this March in Madrid. This video gives an idea what the artmosphere was there while we presented some of the most curious minds and visuals at URVANITY and met educated audiences, artists, and rebels of all stripes.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. NeverCrew – “Celsius” 2. Boulevard Paris 13 3. Isaac Cordal “Follow The Leaders” at Urvanity 2019 Madrid.
BSA Special Feature: NeverCrew – “Celsius”
The streets are awash with artists visions these days, but few play so well with technology as these new whales from Nevercrew. The Swiss duo often use their work on the street to call attention to the plight of our water bodies, and the bodies that live within them. In these new multi-layered street pieces water is also the great reveal.
“Thermochromic paint allows us to create an immediate transformation,” Christian Rebecci tells us, “and at the same time it provides a silent litmus paper of the actual situation.”
Splashing the water upon the majestic animals certainly gives a look inside their living situation. The guys are calling it “Celcius”, an oblique reference to temperature and the effect rising temperatures due to climate change in fact changes the equation.
Boulevard Paris 13
With Mehdi Ben Cheikh at Galerie Itinerrance and Jérôme Coumet, the Mayor of Paris’ 13th arrondissement, this neighborhood of Paris has become a top-shelf open air museum over the last decade or so. With the common critique of the illegal Street Art movement evolving into a legal mural system of business development, one may overlook the few programs that have actually gotten the quality and the balance right. De facto public art for the 2010s, this execution has proven to pack a powerful visual punch and a possibly timeless quality. This newly produced video helps put the entire project’s best foot forward.
Isaac Cordal “Follow The Leaders” at Urvanity 2019 Madrid.
Radiating the drama dread of Isaac Cordal’s springtime installation at Urvanity Madrid is no easy task, but this commercial shoe brand took the time and dedicated their observation skills to help viewers reflect on the absurdities of our human condition.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. Non-Trivial – Jesse Hazelip 2. Banksy Overlooked in Venice 3. DEGON 12+1 Project / Contorno Urbano Foundation. Barcelona 4. Christian Rex van Minnen ponders aloud about the creative process and how words can’t really explain a painting. 5. Gonzalo Borondo MERCI. Teaser #2
BSA Special Feature: Non-Trivial – Jesse Hazelip
“People think ‘Oh, prison is for people that are bad.’ That’s
not the case. It’s a racist system. We need to raise the awareness on that.,”
says graffiti writer, street artist and fine artist Jesse Hazelip in this new
video.
In addition to speaking about his technique of engraving
animal skulls, he speaks about the US justice system of incarceration that he
compares to a “mass epidemic that is affecting marginalized people, mainly people
of color who are black and brown.”
Preach!
Banksy Overlooked in Venice
The Street Artist Banksy posted this video to cry crocodile tears on his Instagram during the Venice Biennale. “Despite being the largest and most prestigious art event in the world, for some reason I’ve never been invited.” Is the large seafaring vessel spread over multiple canvasses a self portrait, perhaps? It’s simply massive.
Christian Rex van Minnen ponders aloud about the creative process and how words can’t really explain a painting.
It begins with the heaviest of sighs.
“There’s never really a blank canvass moment in my process.
There is a constant cycle of paintings that are at very stages of completion”
“ I guess I see these as just one long continuous painting”
And so we end our excepts from the dramatic reading.
Thumbs up to visual effects editor Mike Gaynor.
Gonzalo Borondo MERCI. Teaser #2
Spanish Street Artist and installation artist Borondo is taking over a church, bringing the cathedral qualities of the dark forest with him. His teasers for this project (culminating as “Merci” on June 21) are as illuminating as they are elusive.
“The church has been closed for 30 years,” we wrote this week. “If you wait long enough the natural world will overtake this temple, covering it with moss, wrapping it with ivy, filling it with trees. “
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. ENCHENTE (FLOOD) Eduardo Srur and Tché Ruggi 2. “LA PARED ES NUESTRA” por ESCIF (spanish) 3. Shepard Fairey. Facing the Giant: Three Decades of Dissent. Part 1 4. Hot Tea. New installation in Asbury Park, NJ for Wooden Walls Project.
BSA Special Feature: ENCHENTE (FLOOD) Eduardo Srur and Tché Ruggi
News from Brazil this month reminds us that annual flooding in São Paulo kills people and destroys homes, thanks to the city being built on one of the largest river basins in the country. Public artists Eduardo Srur and Tché Ruggi combine mural painting and sculpture to address the struggles that people here face – including the displacement of people and homes and destruction of their lives.
The artists say, “With its exponential urban growth, the conflict of space
between the water and the city is getting more violent each year. The public
art portrayed is an answer to this sad reality of São Paulo. The film put light
on this conflict and approaches the relation of the
public art with the city and its inhabitants.”
“LA PARED ES NUESTRA” por ESCIF (spanish)
A new retrospective video on the community
wall created in response to a people’s history. Inspired by the neighborhood
movements of 1970s Spain, specifically the city of Sant Feliu de Llobregat, an
open call to paint a central wall was responded to by 300 applicants in 42
countries. The jury selected 12 finalists and in council with local city
council, local artists, and local historians and community leaders, an
international jury selected Street Artist and ‘artivist” Escif as winner of the
residency.
With thanks to the artist, the
community, and to Kaligrafics urban art organization and Contorno Urbano
Foundation and jury members Jaime Rojo (Brooklyn Street Art, NY), Mónica
Campana (Living Walls, ATL), Veronica Werkmeister (IMVG, Vitoria), Fernando
Figueroa (Doctor of Art History) and Esteban Marín (President, Fundación
Contour Urbano), here is the story.
Shepard Fairey. Facing the Giant: Three Decades of Dissent. Part 1 by Chop ’em Down Films.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. “Nuart Aberdeen 3” by Fifth Wall TV 2. “The Green and Pleasant Land” by Max Colson 3. Jorge Rodriguez-Gerarda in NYC for Street Art For Mankind 4. 0h10m1ke live drawing at the opening of Wastedland 2 in Manhattan.
BSA Special Feature: “Nuart Aberdeen 3” by Fifth Wall TV
Mural art as a cultural catalyst and promotional campaign for the reinvigoration of cities has proved successful in recent years for tourism and business development initiatives eager to re-engage people in the public square – luring peoples’ attention away from their phones, or perhaps inviting them to bring with.
The Nuart brand from Norway continues to build on and amplify its success for templating a skillful mix of community events, street tours, painting, talks, and screenings for enthusiastic local folks to the walk the streets of Aberdeen. It also helps that the Scottish city happens to be blessed with a growing economy, soaring granite gothic architecture, sweeping vistas by the sea, and a rich history. This year’s installations by a diverse group of artists reach a variety of demographics (including graffiti grannies), making the story appear quite rich, especially as told by Fifth Wall TV.
“The Green and Pleasant Land” by Max Colson
As a tearful Theresa May resigns today, we reflect upon the fact that everything is an invention, including the concept of nationality. We turn to the animation of Max Colson, who allows us to pretend that creating a new world from scratch is realistic. It is a series of experiments at the computer using 3D software, attempt to reimagine the tangible UK as digital, its complexity reduced, its natural open spaces expanded. No hurry, just play.
Jorge Rodriguez-Gerarda in NYC for Street Art For Mankind
Silently he paints. Some up close footage from Jaime Rojo of Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada in NYC painting his mural for Street Art for Mankind. More about the project here: Fighting Child Labor With NYC Murals
0h10m1ke live drawing at the opening of Wastedland 2 in Manhattan.
Ohio Mike makes your portrait in a minute or two, despite the milling crowd and excitement that surrounds. Last week at a group show hosted by Russel Murphy and Lou August on Broome street that pulled together a true New York graff/street art crowd of fans, this artist wowed attendees with his on-point talent.
Named in honor of photographer Martha Cooper—whose lifelong commitment to documenting everyday life, cultural expression, and human dignity has shaped …Read More »