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.
The Primary Flight Opening Party Wednesday night blast featuring Dr. Dre and Peanut Butter Wolf lasted late into the morning hours and Logan Hicks was on his hotel ledge contemplating a couple of manatees late Thursday afternoon with his head in his hands, quietly, while street artist Bask was working with some birdies of his own on a wall.
Take a look at some of the progress!
Thanks to Jeremiah Garcia for capturing some of the action!
Bask rendered a splashy orinthine trio with flair.
Tes One sends a mixed message in stark tone.
Lee Quinones considers hopping the fence just for old times sake.
Adam 5100 at work on an elongated form in the foreground of a foreboding scene. This can come to no good.
Ron English is knocking outlines for his giant animated wall.
No slouch in the magnificence - Ron English has bitten a big piece offa that street art cake.
Stencil artist C215 creates portraits of humanity; family, friends, and people who live on the street.
His clarity of detail and multi-lined visages can even give the impression that something more is employed than simple stencilling, but that’s why the word “master” enters the conversation sometimes when people discuss his work.
This street artist has shown in Brooklyn galleries as well as most of the world (most recently in Toronto), and he receives regular invitations to participate in exhibitions.
He’s also partial to running art workshops for local kids and counts Brazil, Morocco, even Senegal among the places he’s had the pleasure of playing art teacher. This love for kids is easy to see in the many depictions of nearly glowing children.
We don’t know when he is coming to New York, but we always know when he has been here.Suddenly these new faces are peering from the sides of dumpsters, doorways, and de-commisioned fire boxes.
His images are often portraits of fellow humans of all ages and genders. He captures his models’ character with compassion – You can almost feel the emotions of his models just by looking at their portraits: pain, sorrow, happiness, peace, longing and loneliness seep through the rivers of creases and wrinkles on their faces.
The intensity of gaze and the way in which he draws their eyes is a captivating invitation to go inside their souls and glimpse their lives. It can be difficult to draw yourself away from their piercing and sometimes furious gaze.
His portraits of children in particular are always inspiring and reassuring. With those images he manages to convey a sense of hope and innocence that we hope is no lost yet. By his own account, he makes a new stencil every week of his daughter to remind her that she is on his mind. In that way, every new stencil is really a snapshot.
The technique of using multiple pieces in one stencil means that he can achieve effects that few stencil artists do, and the details – facial hair, folds in fabric, wrinkles… all transcend the pedestrian act of cutting and spraying.
C215 is reported to makes stencils of people in the particular city he is visiting at that time. It is quite possible that some of these stencils are only found here in Brooklyn.
These images are just a few of C215’s work in Brooklyn as well as a couple of old pieces that have not yet been published here before. Hope you like looking at them.
This week photographer Vinny Cornelli shows us a few images from one spot in Gotham that gets hit with some regularity, and then destroyed and re-hit – and always visited by street art followers.
It’s entertaining how abandoned places on the street turn into a “venue” over time. Then, like Elton John taking residency at Ceasars Palace, one or two street artists seem to gravitate to the same spot again and again, nonplussed by the destruction of their last piece.
This spot on Crosby street has been a regular showcase for Haculla, a tripped out pop culture commentator and comedian who weaves criticism with private stories in bold splashes of fluorescence, black and white photos of celebs re-doctored, and thick marker freehand characters.
Of course it all gets piled on by others as part of the “conversation of the street”, and in these layers you can see Matt Siren, Cake, Feral, among others.
Cornelli pumps up the saturation to give the chaos a campy quality and lets the decrepitude dazzle.
“The Workhorse” gallops through Brooklyn and Sets Another Record
Stencil artist Logan Hicks completed his largest stencil to date today on the streets of Brooklyn. Then he posed for a few photos and ran off to his next art gig.
Logan Hicks (photo Jaime Rojo)
As he goes he leaves in his wake a 30′ x 8′ mural dedicated to somebody that keeps Logan’s horse power pumping at full speed, titled simply “Sailor”.
Fresh from his trip to Toronto for a show with another modern stencil master C215 and just before heading to Miami for Primary Flight to do the world’s largest site-specific street level mural with artists like D*Face, Shepard Fairey, Chris Stain, and the London Police, Logan Hicks gave his biggest present to his current hometown of Brooklyn and to his family.
Logan Hicks (photo Jaime Rojo)
Moving away from subject matter involving city canyons, tunnels and teaming crowds that he has been closely identified with over the last couple of years, Hicks has been feeling lately like it is time for him to concentrate on the stuff that really matters to him. Family, art, sanity.
Logan Hicks (photo Jaime Rojo)
The 5-layered piece required about 150 stencil plates to execute, and we watched what a logistical bad dream can ensue just laying out all the pieces on the sidewalk and following the plan. Not to mention how wind can whip those well placed plates down the sidewalk toward the East River.
Logan Hicks (photo Jaime Rojo)
Curated by Brooklyn Street Art for Espeis Outside, this mural is a hot blast of Logan Red to take us through the impending winter holidays and into the new year. Not that the burly plain-talking-force-of-nature stencil master has any plans for 2010.
Unless you count the shows he’s scheduled to do in Hong Kong, Paris, Gambia, London, Rome, Vienna, Miami and of course The People’s Republic of Brooklyn (at the Opera Gallery).
“Next year is going to be a little nuts. So basically I am not going to sleep until 2011. I keep telling myself that this is the life that I asked for. The stress gets to be a little much, but I think I secretly like it.”
Logan is pretty psyched to be working in what he calls “vector-based” stenciling, and his process is quite complex, even when planning a portrait of a boy with a toy train (photo Jaime Roj0)
Adding a layer, Logan Hicks (photo Jaime Rojo)
Brooklyn Street Art was really happy to hang out with hard-charging but surprisingly somewhat normal Hicks for a couple days this weekend, even helping out with a paint brush once in a while. The sun was pretty bright although it’s duration brief, and the wind did keep everybody humble – but the continuous racket of skateboarders in this industrial neighborhood kept the pace of work lively. Below is an interview where Logan let’s us know what the story is behind the piece he debuted here.
Yep, Brooklyn is part of the Empire State. (photo Jaime Rojo)
Brooklyn Street Art: Your earlier subject matter tended toward architecture and large anonymous crowds on the street. More recently you have become more personal in your work. Where did you get the inspiration for this piece?
Logan Hicks: My son – Sailor Hicks, and watching him grow. The funny thing about time is that you don’t realize how fast it is passing until you have a kid to remind you. Each day my son grows, and although I love watching him sprout up, it reminds me of how quickly time is passing. Because I communicate with so many friends through email, I don’t normally realize that so many months have gone by when I see them in the flesh. Now though, when I see someone, I can take note “I haven’t seen you since Sailor started walking” or “I haven’t seen you since he started talking”. It really punctuates how quickly things go by.
Logan Hicks putting the black frame on to finish the piece (photo Jaime Rojo)
So watching him, it has made me reflect on my life. Made me thing about how much I am changing. Not so much in the physical aspect, but mentally. Striving to refine my craft. Striving to sustain stability. Striving to be a good parent. All this makes me want to be a better person. I look at myself 6 years ago, and I don’t even recognize that guy any more. So with this mural, I just think of it as a quick snapshot of my life. It give me a chance to pause and appreciate my life as it exists now.
Father and son. (photo Jaime Rojo)
Brooklyn Street Art:Does Sailor know he’s going to be immortalized?
Logan Hicks: No, but I don’t think he’s too pressed to take note of anything other than trains, letters, toys, and cars. I wouldn’t have it any other way. One of my reasons for doing this piece is because of an early conversation I had with C215. When I first met C215 I noticed that he kept doing a stencil of this one girl. I asked him who it was and why he kept doing stencils of her. His response floored me. He said that it was his daughter. He didn’t have full custody of his daughter and didn’t get to see her as often as he would like. He said he did at least one stencil a week of her because he didn’t want her to ever think that he forgets about her. That punched a hole in my heart. It was the most brutally honest comment that he could have said. I was amazed that he opened his life up so quickly and said something that was so personal. I guess for me I have always been a bit guarded. The older I get though, the more I realize that I’d be better if i shared more, instead of trying to protect it.
Logan Hicks with the original illustration he did taped to the mural (photo Jaime Rojo)
Brooklyn Street Art:How can an artist put something so personal out in the public?
Logan Hicks: How can an artist NOT put something that is personal? For so long I feel like I have been striving to hone the craft of using stencils. I have worked on the technical side of things and I feel like in the past year or two I have, for the most part, conquered that. So now the question becomes, not how you make it, but what you make with it. For me. I feel like I have started back at square one. I have started to speak about what is most personal to me. I am tired of trying to be witty or technical or vague.
I am trying to filter out all the background noise in my life and make my art. All the haters, all the fans, all the blogs or magazines, or other artists. I think it’s gotten to a point where the best thing that I can do is just retreat into myself and speak honestly about what I am going through. For so long I have worked to gather information. Information about galleries, artists, processes, blogs, magazines, curators, etc. Lately I realized though that none of it matters. The only thing that matters is the here and now. The only thing that matters is what I am going through.
Brooklyn Street Art:How many layers are involved in this stencil?
Logan Hicks: There are 7 colors, but only 5 layers of stencils.
Brooklyn Street Art:What are some of your goals as an artist who works on the street sometimes? Logan Hicks: Just to do a good job
Logan Hicks (photo Jaime Rojo)
Brooklyn Street Art:Does Sailor know he’s going to be immortalized? Logan Hicks: No, but I don’t think he’s too pressed to take note of anything other than trains, letters, toys, and cars. I wouldn’t have it any other way. One of my reasons for doing this piece is because of an early conversation I had with C215. When I first met C215 I noticed that he kept doing a stencil of this one girl. I asked him who it was and why he kept doing stencils of her. His response floored me. He said that it was his daughter. He didn’t have full custody of his daughter and didn’t get to see her as often as he would like. He said he did at least one stencil a week of her because he didn’t want her to ever think that he forgets about her. That punched a hole in my heart. It was the most brutally honest comment that he could have said. I was amazed that he opened his life up so quickly and said something that was so personal. I guess for me I have always been a bit guarded. The older I get though, the more I realize that I’d be better if I shared more, instead of trying to protect it.
It’s an artist’s tradition to use their own life for inspiration. (photo Logan Hicks)
Brooklyn Street Art:How can an artist put something so personal out in the public? Logan Hicks: How can an artist NOT put something that is personal? For so long I feel like I have been striving to hone the craft of using stencils. I have worked on the technical side of things and I feel like in the past year or two I have, for the most part, conquered that. So now the question becomes, not how you make it, but what you make with it. For me. I feel like I have started back at square one. I have started to speak about what is most personal to me. I am tired of trying to be witty or technical or vague.
I am trying to filter out all the background noise in my life and make my art. All the haters, all the fans, all the blogs or magazines, or other artists. I think it’s gotten to a point where the best thing that I can do is just retreat into myself and speak honestly about what I am going through. For so long I have worked to gather information. Information about galleries, artists, processes, blogs, magazines, curators, etc. Lately i realized though that none of it matters. The only thing that matters is the here and now. The only thing that matters is what I am going through.
Writing the dedication (photo Jaime Rojo)
Brooklyn Street Art:How many layers are involved in this stencil? Logan Hicks: There are 7 colors, but only 5 layers of stencils.
Brooklyn Street Art:What are some of your goals as an artist who works on the street sometimes? Logan Hicks: Just to do a good job
“Sailor”, by Logan Hicks (photo Jaime Rojo)
Brooklyn Street Art:How important is risk-taking in art?
Logan Hicks: Guess it depends on how you define risk. For me I just want to feel like i have accomplished something. I want to feel that i have done a service to my craft. to my trade. I want to feel that I have spoken honestly about my work, and done the best that i can. One of my favorite quotes is by Paul Rand, who designed the logos for companies like IBM, ABC, UPS, Westinghouse even Enron. He said “Don’t try to be original. Just try to be good.” That’s a motto that I have sort of lived by. I just try to do a good job. If that means that there is risk involved, so be it, but I don’t search out risk. It’s the sort of thing that you drive by on your way to the final destination.
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Check out the time-lapse we did with Mr. Hicks – and at the end you’ll see the Sailor himself in action with his train.
At 11 Spring Street in Nolita, a neighborhood in lower Manhattan, sits a 19th Century brick building that two centuries ago was a stable and carriage house.
As the 2oth Century turned, the building had gained a following by urban art fans and street artists from all over the world. Over the course of the 1990’s graffiti and street artists had used the exterior walls of this building as their multi-storied canvas. Within a short time the address had become a destination, an uncurated museum for graffiti, street artists, and tourists alike – an up-to-the-minute ever changing conversation of street culture.
But the blanding plague of gentrification that swept across the city claimed the urban art gallery and it succumbed to condoitus a couple of years ago. Like the visual equivalent of a New Orleans funeral march, street artists and graffiti artists took one last chance to festoon the edifice as it’s soul departed to allow conversion to condominiums, and the local paper did a story on it. Every inch of the facade and much of the interior was covered and recovered by layers of art and graffiti. “11 Spring” took one last bow.
Demolition, buffing, and upgrading to the comforts of a new Manhattan wealthy class soon followed the celebration, and pinstriped men and pencil skirted women strutted through it’s white plastered interior waving their arms and referring proudly to it’s storied past; the artists that once brought attention to the location, abruptly “unfriended”. Among the many ironies of the story, the market for the new spaces has not materialized, reportedly forcing it’s owners to cut their asking prices almost in half this year.
Street photographer Vinny Cornelli used to arrive at the building early in the morning, before the streets came alive with commuters and shop keepers, to gaze upon the raw collage.
He captured the thick layers of art that formed the exterior finish of the walls; covered in spray paint, wheat pastes, rubber, metal, plastic, cardboard, wood and just about anything available. As if in a zen haze, he zoomed in on details, and stepped back to frame the visible cacophony.
This small sample of images show the layering of creativity in the moment before mute. The organic collage speaks to the many contributors and the conversations of the street: a collective contribution evoking chaos, humor, classical, commercial, pop and poetry.
A new installment in Specter’s series of portraits of New York’s homeless individuals (photo Jaime Rojo)
Specter (detail) (photo Jaime Rojo)
A “vintage” ElbowToe and C215 (photo Jaime Rojo)
Something new incorporating farm animals and airplanes (photo Jaime Rojo)
And another (photo Jaime Rojo)
Quel Beast (photo Jaime Rojo)
Brooklyn got a new sculpture this week – a 3D version of Specter’s homeless series. When we saw this, many people were walking up to it, taking pictures of it, discussing it with each other. One woman said, “This is New York!” (photo Jaime Rojo)
Specter (photo Jaime Rojo)
Oopsy Daisy (photo Jaime Rojo)
(photo Jaime Rojo)
Mutual of Ohamastan’s Wild Kingdom (photo Jaime Rojo)
Brooklyn Street Art – Our Weekly Interview With the Streets
Man on the street by Specter (photo Jaime Rojo)
Specter (detail) (photo Jaime Rojo)
Specter (detail) (photo Jaime Rojo)
Vintage botanical by Elbow Toe (photo Jaime Rojo)
“And, but, see, the thing is, the lady at the desk didn’t even know that I had about a thousand dollar bills rolled up in my back pocket and I could of bought any of those pictures. She just looked at me and told me I couldn’t come in”. (Pickett) (photo Jaime Rojo)
The new Damon Ginandes figures look with ennui and curiosity at the ebullient high school students passing by. (photo Jaime Rojo)
Damon Ginandes (detail) (photo Jaime Rojo)
Found this little lady hiding inside a phone booth (photo Jaime Rojo)
MBW is delving back to the early days of comedy and cinema with this portrait of Charlie Chapman (photo Jaime Rojo)
You send INCREDIBLE pictures and videos to us every day! We love you for it too.
Hooray for Fun Friday!
I gotta go right now to the Yankees parade down Broadway (a true 3-D street art installation) and then to find some great street art sites elsewhere in La Gran Manzana so enjoy these…
Light graff in Brooklyn by Sweatshoppe
Aakash Nihilani and Know Hope at the Black River Festival
Street photographer Vinny Cornelli joins Brooklyn Street Art today to contribute his voice to the dialogue of the street, in what we hope will be an ongoing conversation.
An enthusiastic traveler and documenter, with his images Vinny reveals an inner world that lies behind the camera; affecting his choices of subjects and how he frames them.
In addition to shooting street art, he specializes in something he calls street layers; those accumulated overlapping stratum of posters and wheatpastes common on abandoned buildings and work-sites, layers of paper torn back to reveal the inside guts of the street and it’s history. Part collage, part archeology, the resulting street layers are finished presentations in his view, as much as they are one more ethereal moment in street history.
This week is the first of a two-part photo essay by Cornelli focusing on one of New York’s more recently famous addresses in street art’s oeuvre. Before it became a celebrated event space, this location was one of the destinations regularly visited by myriad street artists.
As is often the case, it was also an urban scene of neglect and, in Vinny’s eye, beautiful decay. Vinny takes this first opportunity to talk to BSA’s readers in these, some of his first contemplative images of the street early in this decade.
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
