Johannes Mundinger: Leave No One Behind / Dispatch From Isolation # 50

May 11, 2020 Artists

#leavenoonebehind #savethem

That’s the message from Berlin based street artist Johannes Mundinger in his latest mural of melting slabs and abstraction and murky text. He tells us that he is thinking about the disparity of responses his government has toward immigrants when flying them in to harvest asparagus versus saving them from living in refugee camps in Lesbos.

Johannes Mundinger. *“Leave No One Behind”*. Urban Spree. Berlin, Germany. (photo courtesy of the artist)

“While borders are closed due to the lock down the German government invited around 40.000 foreign workers to fly in and harvest German asparagus,” he says. “This decision was taken within days.”

Meanwhile, he tells, “it took almost two months to discuss inviting 50 children from the refugee camp Moria on the Greek Island.”

He says his new 700 x 1200 cm acrylic mural at Urban Spree made him open up artistically, made him feel free after so long in quarantine. That city is trying to open up, as it were, to greater social and economic opportunity’s and to move beyond Covid. Only time will tell us all, and places like this are leading the way. This is good, we agree.

Mundinger just wants to make sure that we leave no one behind.

BSA Images Of The Week: 05.10.20 / Dispatch From Isolation # 49

May 10, 2020 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Happy Mother’s Day in the US and in Mexico too.

We praise the work and the love that mothers around the world are giving today and every day, with gratitude and recognition for their shaping of our global society. Salute to all the mothers! Without them, it goes without saying, we’d be nowhere.

So here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Cake$, DG, Diez, GCG, HOACS, PREZ, Roachi, and Tag.

#TAG with commentary on one Mark Zuckerberg and the use of Pokemon to fully map and trace and predict our behaviors, and of course drive sales. In Tel Aviv. (photo © #TAG)

“This Space is Not for Advertisements.” AJ in Chihuahua, Mexico with commentary on walls free of advertisements. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

AJ in Chihuahua, Mexico with commentary on walls free of advertisements…and immigration. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

AJ in Chihuahua, Mexico with commentary on walls free of advertisements and immigration. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tribute to Jason DG. We don’t know who painted “Jason” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tribute to DG by PREZ. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Don’t Believe The Hype…in Wynwood… (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist…please help…(photo © Jaime Rojo)

GGC in Chihuahua, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Diez in Chihuahua, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artists in Chihuahua, Mexico…please help…(photo © Jaime Rojo)

In da dog house in Wynwood…(photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cake$ Stencils in Bethlehem. (photo © Cake$)

“Today people all over the world are wearing the keffiyeh to offer support to Palestinians in their struggle for freedom,” says Street Artists Cake$, who sends us this new piece he did near the separation wall. He says he considers the wall to be a symbol of oppression – but worries more now that Coronovirus has hit the region as well – so he depicts Jesus with a face covering. “Because of the pandemic, this stencil is also a caution sign for locals that you need to cover your face to protect yourself and others. A new study and computer model provide fresh evidence for a simple solution to help us emerge from this nightmarish lockdown. The formula? Always social distance in public and, most importantly, wear a mask, scarf or bandana.”

Elfo: “Help Alive Inside” / Dispatch From Isolation # 48

May 9, 2020 Artists

Dark humor is precisely what we need at this moment. 20,000 people in New York City have died. Bodies are stacking up in refrigerated trucks and unmarked common graves in New York while the obtuse Trump is trying to tell us its safe to “reopen” states.

Right. You first.

Meanwhile Italian artist Elfo is taking inspiration from the classic horror zombie film, “Day of the Dead” with this new text intervention scrawled across a wall.

Elfo *“Help Alive Inside”*. (photo © Elfo)

Part of it also speaks to the frustrating feelings one can experience stuck inside your home and keeping your distance from the rest of humanity, even if you feel like you are doing the safe thing, the responsible thing — while privileged and otherwise entitled navel-gazers are hanging out in Domino Park like its 1999.

A film still from *“Dawn of the dead”* by Jorge A. Romero. 1978.

A well-timed and apt intervention on a rooftop by Elfo somewhere in Italy.

BSA Film Friday: 05.08.20 / Dispatch From Isolation # 47

May 8, 2020 Artists, BSA Film Friday

Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.

Now screening :
1. Kraftwerk: Pop Art, Remembering Florian Schneider

BSA Special Feature: Kraftwerk: Pop Art, Remembering Florian Schneider

They predicted what music would sound like and what the world would look like, fifty years before it happened. Merging man, machine and avant garde theatric sensibilities, these where the young artists were at the forefront of imagining and creating the future while residing inside a completely different one and enduring the overconfident and snide dismissals – later to be followed by the masses.

Florian Schneider, Karl Bartos, Wolfgang Flür and Ralf Hütter in Rotterdam.
copyright Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns

Over time, with critical embrace by the recognized academic and institutional authorities who were finally catching on decades later, the group itself was transformed in the eyes of global culture as a work of art.

Oh, the influence they have had; Karl Bartos, Wolfgang Flür, Ralph Hütter and Florian Schneider. Countless musicians in many genres point to their ground breaking sound for inspiration on thousands of pieces.

The Face Magazine, “The Werk Ethic” (Issue 23, March 1982)

Somewhere between the Black Forest and Cologne, the spirit of Kraftwerk swells and speeds and glides and calculates the upcoming curve up above on the Autobahn, this modern classicism sweeping minds and imaginations.

Our thoughts today to the family and friends of Kraftwerk co-founder Florian Schneider, who passed away recently at 73. May all our young men and women who are creating today reach this age, and may they inspire us to imagine a future one.

Cane Morto in Txakurrassic Park (Video & Poster) / Dispatch From Isolation # 46

May 7, 2020 Artists

The idea that the boys of Canemorto are in danger is both repelling and dinosaurian. But the paint-roller free thinking rapping brutalists of Italy are staying safe in quarantine, thank Dios.

But they, like so many people who are not working right now, are in distinct danger of economic monstrosities lurking around every corner. Their real fears are mixed with imagined ones from movies of your childhood, so you can identify with their plight.

You can save them from ruin by getting one of their new Jurassic posters. “As for most of the artists during the lockdown, online sales are the only form of support and income we have,” they tell us. And then we hear the sounds of large talons of the Velociraptor thumping down the hallway to our door…

CLICK HERE TO ORDER YOUR LIMITED EDITION POSTER AND HELP THE ARTISTS IN THE PROCESS

Cane Morto. *Jurassic Park*. Detail. (photo courtesy of Cane Morto)

CLICK HERE TO ORDER YOUR LIMITED EDITION POSTER AND HELP THE ARTISTS IN THE PROCESS

The Thealang Collective: “El Cuco” Stealing Souls of Children, Notre Dame, & the Amazon / Dispatch From Isolation # 45

May 6, 2020 Artists

A new joint mural from LAPIZ and Elmar Karla as the newly formed “Thealang Collective”. Both formerly living in Argentina, the two artists have distinctly different styles to combine here in a scene from a fever dream in Hamburg, Germany.

Thealang Collective. Elmar Karla and Lapiz. *“El Cuco”*. Hamburg, Germany. (photo courtesy of Thealang)

And what a hot steamy shape-shifting surrealist diarama this is on a backyard wall in St. Pauli, full of fire and raging destruction and ultimately, deception, with the main character called EL CUCO.

The combination of cut stencils and fluidly brushed paint, the two say that El Cuco is a mystical creature who steals the souls of innocent children. The Wikipedia entry says “El Cuco is a mythical ghost–monster, equivalent to the bogeyman, found in many Hispanophone and Lusophone countries.”

Thealang Collective. Elmar Karla and Lapiz. *“El Cuco”*. Detail. Hamburg, Germany. (photo courtesy of Thealang)

“The mural portrays the impact of today’s society,” they tell us as we gaze upon these exclusive shots, “the eternally growing economy is symbolized by the donations for the partially destroyed Notre Dame, and its effect is one of constantly destroying the environment, here symbolized by the burning green lung – the Amazon Rainforest.”

It’s fearfully treacherous, this adventurous scene mixing childhood myths and fun-loving characters who appear out of context under a sky of flames, Its an amalgam of the imaginations and experiences of the two –Elmar Karla’s painted characters from the comic world and the stencil techniques of Lapiz, who often likes to take a jab at socio-political themes.

Both members of Thealang have painted extensively internationally and have participated in festivals and exhibitions such as the Ibug, Meeting of Styles, Grenoble Street Art Fest and at the Street Art Museum Amsterdam.

Mark Titchner: “Please Believe These Days Will Pass” / Dispatch From Isolation # 44

May 5, 2020 Artists

Yes, out door advertising is often a pox, a blight, most agree. But once in a while, artists take it over and it becomes a service to society.

Mark Titchner. London, UK. (photo @jack__Arts)

Example; this new campaign by Mark Titchner that reassures all of us that this is a temporary situation, and we will pass through it. The bold lettering and direct statements may bring to mind original text-based culture-jammers like Barbara Kruger or Jenny Holzer, who wrested the nomenclature of mass marketing and rather rearranged it. Clearly the sentiment here is a bit easier to connect with.

But during a time where there appear to be more questions about the virus than there are answers, and the power-holders are slyly seizing more while the rest of us drift further toward poverty, it is a nice bit of a reassuring sentiment. Don’t you believe?

CLICK HERE TO PRINT A FREE HOME VERSION OF THE POSTER

John Fekner Exchanges “MEMORY” with Brad Downey / Dispatch From Isolation # 43

May 4, 2020 Artists

As you watch and wait to see the festering uprisings of workers and the growing crowds of poor and hungry in the US, we take you back to Friday, which was Labor Day in Europe. It was also the release date for this curious and interesting project by the artist and people’s advocate, the New Yorker John Fekner.

John Fekner “Memory” (photo courtesy Bien Urbain)

This unique collection of objects and images and textures called MEMORY is a publication linked by projects that are strung together in a constellation across five decades, a few continents, and pivotal moments that reflect the themes in this New York artists’ activism on the street and through various public interventions. A true innovator, trouble maker, and activator of moribund spaces, its Fekner’s cryptic pronouncements that can read as final judgements and humorous summaries.

“This publication gathers 6 objects edited by projects : a parcel memory from the artist’s archives,” says the description of this limited edition. “It is the result of exchanges between the artists John Fekner and Brad Downey, the artistic director of the Bien Urbain festival David Demougeot and the graphic designers Laura Bouchez and Bart Lanzini.”

John Fekner (photo courtesy Bien Urbain)

It all seems so current, of this moment: with references to broken promises, saving schools, worker’s movements, the remains of industry, government abandonment, citizen participation, engaging memory, beseeching the power of poetry. It’s all of one cloth, and all a wistful piece of our collective memory – now brought to life again.

For more on MEMORY click here for a PDF description

CLICK HERE TO GET YOUR EDITION OF “MEMORY”

BSA Images Of The Week: 05.03.20 / Dispatch From Isolation # 42

May 3, 2020 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

The Majority of lawmakers in Congress are millionaires.

Nancy Pelosi? She’s worth $115 million. Mitch McConnell? $34 million – his wife Elaine Chow has $30 million.

Republicans or Democrats – it doesn’t matter. The median is just over a million. Just like you, right?

Most of the people “reporting” on them are also millionaires.

Rachel Maddow gets $7 million a year. Sean Hannity makes $40 million a year. Anderson Cooper $12 million a year. Joe Scarborough $8 million a year. Even Erin Burnett, who started her professional career as a financial analyst for Goldman Sachs GS, has a net worth of $13 million.

“Right” wing or “Left” wing, it doesn’t matter – these “news” reporters are millionaires looking at the world through your eyes, right?

We’re all in this together, right?

Maybe this is why there are few positive news stories or policy debates or discussions or “Special Investigation” programs about student debt forgiveness, housing issues, workers rights, unions, Medicare for All, rent strikes, a guaranteed Basic Universal Income on the main networks and news sites. There are NO grand, sweeping financial/job/infrastructure solutions for everyday people that are being proposed, or being reported. There are more people out of work and without a safety net than any time in your life, and there are no big solutions to this?

Huh.

In other news, we’re still quarantining inside. 18,610 people are dead from Covid 19 in New York. That is 6 times as many as we lost on 9/11 – Please send us your pics of art in the streets! We love to hear from you. Spread love!

So here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Ines, JJ Veronis, King Baby, One-Tooth, Moe, Pollyn, Praxis-VGZ, and Woe.

Our banner illustration is by Ben Wiseman (photo © the artist)

Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

One Tooth and friends (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Please help with this writer’s ID (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Don “Campbellock” Campbell RIP, Creator of Locking / Dispatch From Isolation # 41

May 2, 2020 Artists

Everybody falls. Some know how to do it with great style.

Today we give tribute to the man who showed us how to do it right and spawned a thousand dancing and performing imitators and variations practiced since he flew across TV screens in the 1970s..

When it comes to the dance known Campbellocking – later shortened to “Locking” – Don Campbell was the originator of the series of pop and lock joint movements that fueled what would become part of the hip-hop dance lexicon.

Esquire – 1974 Photo by Harry Hamburg / *J.P. Goude*

The Camblelock Dancers were comprised of with members Toni Basil, Fred ‘Mr. Penguin’ Berry a.k.a. Rerun, Leo ‘Fluky Luke’ Williamson, Greg ‘ Campbellock Jr.’ Pope, Bill ‘Slim The Robot’ Williams, and Adolpho ‘Shabba Doo’ Quinones

Later as The Lockers, the troupe danced on Soul Train, Saturday Night Live, the Dick Van Dyke Show, The Carol Burnett Show, and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.

Don “Campbellock” Campbell. Artwork by Cleveland Palmer

He passed in April in his home of Santa Clarita, California and we just wanted to pay tribute to the innovator, incorporator, and top notch operator. Put your hands together as we send off Mr. Campbell to a Soul Train dance floor in the heavens.

LINK TO HIS WEBSITE: https://campbellock.dance/about-don-campbellock-campbell/

BSA Film Friday: 05.01.20 / Dispatch From Isolation #40

May 1, 2020 Artists

Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.

Now screening :
1. Alaniz: A Journey’s Diary
2. Randy Rainbow – A Spoonful of Clorox

BSA Special Feature: Alaniz: A Journey’s Diary

It’s impossible to overestimate the expansive potentiality of an open heart fueled by curiosity. Alanis reminds us of the creative nature we’re all born with, not the twisted one that many of us end up with.

The painter/muralist is glimpsed and occasionally captured before he wriggles away from your slippery embrace to paint his face or riddle a cabbie or play coy with a dog or surf through traffic. Filmed by Federica Macis and directed by Emanuel Alaniz, this nomadic tale is a loosely knit selection of intergalactic and earthbound, fantasies and miseries. His figurative works are archetypes, emotional and real and wavering. His inclusion of others in his explorations is open, without an evident agenda except to experience as fully as possible.

A journey as guest of St.Art India, the diary presents the artist as one connected by lights that flow through the earth, the people, the plant life, the atmosphere, the multiple galaxies that he uses as trampolines and curtains and hammock and ladder and pedestal. Trusting in his approach to his divine nature you may sight a glimpse of your own.

Randy Rainbow – A Spoonful of Clorox

And now, as Monty Python may say, its time for something completely different. The musically pugilistic satire of Randy Rainbow often hits the spot, reassuring you that a. you are living in a surreal world, and b. you are not alone.

With a shout out to Julie Andrews, here is his “Spoonful of Clorox”.

Museum of Graffiti: “Stay Home” Graffiti Coloring Book / Dispatch From Isolation # 39

April 30, 2020 Artists

Funky Fresh pages for your fresh paint from the Museum of Graffiti in Miami today.

They’ve been doing their best to make your quarantine dope! Every week for the last month they’ve been releasing new pages in what will ultimately be the biggest most supercharged graffiti coloring book we’ve seen.

This week Volume IV is here with a special cover designed by PURE TFP, featuring art by CES, DOC TC5, DR. DAX, INTEL TCI, and MICKEY. Pick it up a hardcopy by ordering it online – and they’ll immediately send you a PDF file to print.

Don’t forget to be sure to tag your work-in-progress or finished photos at @museumofgraffiti on instagram or Facebook!

Click here to download your Graffiti Coloring Book!

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD YOUR “STAY HOME” GRAFFITI COLORING BOOK

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