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.”
Thealang Collective. Elmar Karla and Lapiz. “El Cuco”. Detail. Hamburg, Germany. (photo courtesy of Thealang)
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.
Thealang Collective. Elmar Karla and Lapiz. “El Cuco”. Detail. Hamburg, Germany. (photo courtesy of Thealang)Thealang Collective. Elmar Karla and Lapiz. “El Cuco”. Detail. Hamburg, Germany. (photo courtesy of Thealang)
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.
Mark Titchner. London, UK. (photo @jack__Arts)
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?
Mark Titchner. London, UK. (photo @jack__Arts)
CLICK HERE TO PRINT A FREE HOME VERSION OF THE POSTER
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.
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?
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.
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
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.
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”.
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!
It’s good to see that Stikman is still lucidly dreaming himself into a world of mid-century superheroes and gorgeous dames even while in lock-down for this never-ending quarantine.
A charmingly witty self-insinuator into all manner of Americana from yesteryear, the mysterious Street Artist who started simply as a man made of matchsticks regularly utilizes a sophisticated array of printing methods to place himself in pop and pulp settings.
And he shape-shifts into the background easily, sometimes assuming a character or using himself as a billboard, or in a couple of these, a reminder to wash your hands and stay home.
Judy Chicago, Jane Fonda and Swoon are teaming up for a Global Open Call to #CreateArtForEarth, and the hashtag is picking up speed quickly.
“There are so many ways that art will be part of how we survive this climate crisis and the current pandemic, from helping us work through paralyzing fears so that we can act constructively, to keeping our hearts and minds inspired by what matters, and even using the creative process to tackle tangible solutions. I’m such a believer that the first step to action is an act of imagination.”
– Swoon
Swoon. “Healing Arises in Slowness” 2020 (photo courtesy of Swoon)
Working side by side with Greenpeace USA, National Museum of Women in the Arts and $FireDrillFridays invite you to join the launch of #CreateArtforEarth – a global initiative to encourage art that addresses the climate crisis and hopes to inspires action.
Plastic arts, songs, performance, poems, – all are encouraged. Just follow the hash tag to see where you can participate. #CreateArtforEarth
“Over the last few decades, we have witnessed the melting of the Arctic ice; the warming of the oceans; massive wildfires; dramatic changes in weather patterns; the extinction of hundreds of living creatures; and now, the coronavirus which is upending human behavior all over the planet, causing the disruption of economic systems at a level never seen before and death for many thousands of people. The most pressing issue for us today are the conditions out of which these dire occurrences have happened, which artists can help illuminate if they start addressing what matters in understandable modes.” – Judy Chicago
On Thursday, April 30th, at 1:00 PM MST @Hansulrichobrist and I will be in conversation with on @SerpentineUK account for an Instagram Live. Join us as discuss the global creative campaign ‘Create Art For Earth’ and my involvement in Serpentine’s #BackToEarth project.
“Like everyone in the world, my family has been affected by this pandemic,” says celebrated Street Artist, painter, pop culture jammer, and marketer Ron English.
He’s reflecting on Covid-19 from the perspective of someone who’s been knocked down by it and who was able to get back up. While he is feeling good now, he says the impact on his health was substantial and says it will affect his art-making going forward due to damaged lung capacity.
“That means no more spraypaint for now,” he says, “and it’s
possible that I may never paint another public mural.” Let’s hope that changes
with time.
For now his wife Tarza has poured herself into making
amazing masks to give to nursing homes, postal workers, grocery clerks – first with
leftover fabric scraps, eventually with Ron’s PopLife Popaganda cotton shirts.
Now that the English’s joining with Threadless and “a purchase price that goes directly to MedShare”, his custom design face masks are going to the next level.
Ron says he is proud to do this work and BSA is proud to support families – his and ours – and yours!
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week and Ramadan Mubarak for all our Muslim brothers and sisters this week. We all know that we have to keep a safe distance and wash our hands, even during holy days – science is science whether its Jesus or Mohammed or Timothy Leary whom you worship.
Overall this pandemic is disproportionately affecting the most vulnerable around the world. If you are okay, please share what you have. This week we recommend The International Rescue Committee.
If you, or someone you care about, are feeling overwhelmed with emotions like sadness, depression, or anxiety, or feel like you want to harm yourself or others
Call National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255.
The Marshall Plan, also known as the European Recovery Program, was a U.S. program providing aid to Western Europe following the devastation of World War II. We need a Marshall Plan for everyday people right now and the next year. Instead, we have a circus.
In other news, we’re still quarantining inside so we thought you would enjoy these cool instant classics shot in Miami recently. Please send us your art in the streets! We love to hear from you. Spread love!
So here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Bubblegum, Carolina, Dicesar Love, Friks84, Inphiltrate, Jodi Cox, Joshila Dhaby, Le Doers Club, Outrank Brand, Oz Fua, Ric Azevedo, Roger Peet, Smogeone, The Suited Racer, Toosphexy, Tomer Linaje, and Toysnobs.
Bill
Posters knows his street art and activism history.
From Beuys’ practice of ‘social sculpture’ and John Fekner’s blunt upbraiding of urban planning hypocrisies to AIDS activists using street art to shame government homophobia and the paint-bombing of a Mao portrait that led to the arrest and torture of the artists/activists for counter-revolutionary propaganda, he’ll give you a solid foundation on precedence for this rebellious art life in “The Street Art Manual.”
He also knows how to yarn-bomb.
And myriad other techniques for freelance intervening in city spaces that you own, that all of us own, but which are often commandeered for commercial messages, political propaganda messages, or commercial-political propaganda messages – otherwise known as fascism.
His new book on hacking public space is one of the most instructive, constructive, serious and light-hearted romps through your world with new eyes. He has mastered a balance of educational and fun, sane and irreverent as he takes you methodically with text, photos, and cleanly modern diagrams through practices such as graffiti, stencils, paste-ups, subvertising, large-scale murals, yarn bombing, guerrilla theater, dropping banners, light projections, launching paint projectiles, and mastering aerial art via drone.
One may say that it is a handbook for taking back your voice in a sea of disinformation to advocate for a point of view. But don’t take yourself so seriously, dawg. Also, mind your manners. For being a rule breaker, Bill Posters wants you to be gentlemen and gentleladies and gentlepersons – Don’t just hit the streets as a hormone-fueled dunderhead who rides roughshod over others in a toxic, abusive way.
Check out his list for how to do the most fundamental of forms, graffiti. The “DO” list includes admonitions to “say something more than your name. Stick up for those less privileged”, which may sound like a tear-jerking sermon. But then he also tells you not to bring your cellphone to the train yard, which just seems logical.
In the “DON’T” list he suggests you don’t go into train yards without experienced writers, and he implores aspiring aerosol mark makers to be original, “Focus on developing your own voice and your own style.” In many ways, Bill Posters is the supportive dad you never had, which probably would have helped you avoid this whole vandalism lifestyle to begin with.
But since you are a vandal or are unwittingly breaking some municipality’s law by wrapping a sculpture with crochet to look like a clown, he does offer direct advice on dealing with authorities, knowing your rights, knowing what your options are, and knowing that some times police actually like your art and might let you off if you don’t act like a jerk. All that said, this book is not about breaking laws, it’s philosophically about reclaiming public space and having a voice in your society.
“Throughout
history, people have used creativity to push against conformity in search of
experiences that create more meaning,” he says in his introduction. “Street
art, and its predecessor, graffiti, are two art forms that do just that.”
And
when doing your subversive or society-saving art installation under cover of
night, elsewhere he recommends, “Don’t forget to scope things out and check for
onsite security. Dogs are a real issue when you’re stuck on a fence, hanging
there like a tasty human sausage.”
The Street Art Manual by Bill Posters. The Street Art Manual new US on-sale date is now Sept. 8th. 2020. Published by Laurence King Publishing Ltd. London, UK. 2020.
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
