Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. 5 Minutes with: Plotbot Ken via I Love Graffiti.de 2. Nadia Vadori-Gauthier: One Minute of Dance 3. Ron English: The Road To Heaven (Tribute to Daniel Johnston)
BSA Special Feature: 5 Minutes with: Plotbot Ken via I Love Graffiti.de
Plotbot Ken first caught our eye in the remnants of a factory full of environmental and personal hazards. His is an apocalyptic view of humanity and our shortsighted predilection for creating destruction and for poisoning the earth. But somehow he has made something positive from our dire idiocy. You don’t have to speak German to enjoy this video, or to understand the symbolism of his recurring gas mask motif, or his genius for placement.
Nadia Vadori-Gauthier: Une Minute De Danse Par Jour (One Minute of Dance Per Day)
In reaction to terrorist acts, dancer Nadia
Vadori-Gauthier began a program to dance for one minute a day.
I dance as one manifests, like a small but daily
one, to work for a living poetry, to act by the sensitive against the violence
of certain aspects of the world. It felt like a series of small acts that might
possibly prove to reconnect the disconnections in her own society. She sites
the wisdom of a Chinese proverb to talk about her repeating acts of expression
in the public sphere over many years: “Dripping water ends up going through
stone.”
This compilation of her works can help us see that
the aggregate of many small acts can indeed be phenomenal.
Ron English: The Road To Heaven (Tribute to Daniel Johnston)
Putting his thoughts and emotions in visual vocabulary, artist Ron English gives this personal offering as a moving tribute to the great singer/ songwriter Daniel Johnston, who passed away last autumn.
If you know the Berlin Kidz you think about adrenaline every time you see their bi-color Pichação verticals on the side of a building – or smokestack. As foreigners, the official language is daunting enough, but this twisted Cyrillic scrawled while rappelling downward with can in hand.
Oh sure, it’s not as thrilling as parkour perhaps, and certainly, the speed can’t match train surfing, which the masked crew is known to do, but these cryptic missives are spooky in their otherness, their mystery. Yesterday just hanging out in one of our favorite BN neighborhoods we seemed to see Berlin Kidz everywhere we went.
Wandering around Berlin Monday, well getting lost actually, we were surprised to cross paths with a certain simian from the painting duo Herakut in the Alt-Stralau, Friedrichshain area.
Set back from a walking/biking path and atop a grassy roof in a fenced compound that looks like it is undergoing some gentrification construction, this illustration was part of their “Giant Story Book” project in 2013. We were happy to see it in such good condition, and seemingly well in context with its surroundings – safely protected behind a band of graphic tags at its base.
Dave the Chimp is not really a chimp. And he’s not really Berlinian.
Like all good comedians, he’s channeling exasperation into something more
palatable: Humor.
A loveable and able debater, his carrot colored human bean is often discovered strolling through the streets and alleys of Berlin. A natural, easy and happy jaunt, his character is quick with an affable lecture, mini tirade, or bright insight. Of course, its open to your interpretation
Contrarian enough to not want to be called a Street Artist, the
UK born Mr. Chimp takes his initial inspirations from his 1980s-90s skateboard
culture immersion and he’s parlayed his illustrative style into work with
fanzines, comics, brands, and art curation. An omnivore for the experiences of life, he’d love you to
unplug from your electronic devices and plug into to your city, and relish the
world around you.
This week in Berlin we keep seeing Dave’s human beans
popping in the neighborhood of Kreuzberg, so we collected a few to share them
with you.
Contemporary Urban Art fans, collectors, gallerists are coming together again this year in Madrid for Urvanity, a unique survey of current movements and trends along the Street Art/ graffiti/ urban art continuum, with a focus on canvasses and sculpture.
Again this year comes a strong program of talks with some scintillating professionals who have high profiles in many sectors of this ever-expanding field of art in the public sphere. We hosted last year and the conversations we had were enriching, the people whom we met well versed and passionate.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street featuring Add Fuel, Almost Over Keep Smiling, BR163, Crash, Degrupo, Disordered, Early Riser, finDAC, Fours, Jason Naylor, Leleus, JL, Maya Hayuk, Obey, Sara Lynne Leo, Surface of Beauty, Telmo & Miel.
Innovative artist in the public sphere, Daniel Weissbach aka DTAGNO aka COST88 has charted new territory many times with his hand made experimentation that makes graffiti and street art search themselves for new definitions.
Creating new tools and techniques for applying the traditional aerosol spray to the wall, he inspired many imitators and redefines the artists’ relationship to art in public space. Rooted in graffiti culture but scaling a number of disciplines, he has trail-blazed his own idiosyncratic routes and aesthetics full of humor, discovery, and contradiction for more than two decades at work, and in the process he’s created new paths for us to explore.
Beginning next week with a special showcase of works by admiring peers in the graffiti/ Street Art/ Urban Art/ public art Berlin family, a large number of works will be auctioned to benefit the 44-year old artist as he lives with a medical diagnosis that is a great challenge. Since 2016 he has faced the challenge bravely and will need to have greater care as time moves forward, so the community is reaching out to help.
Following on the heels of a successful campaign on GoFundme last month, this multi-stage online auction of works donated by many local and international artists will assist him and his family during this time, so that he can spend it “in his familiar surroundings, at home, with his 8-year-old daughter and with us,” says artist Christian Hundertmark in his GoFundme essay.
“Get Well Daniel” is the charity auction initiative begun by Steffen Köhler, Markus Mai and Matthias Wermke with the support of many others.
BSA invites you to join with the family of admirers, companions, and friends and to participate at the opening exhibition this Friday, February 21 in Berlin to see many of the works donated Friday night and all day Saturday. If you cannot attend the exhibition please look online beginning Sunday night February 23 at 8 pm for the first group of 30 items.
The benefit auction, which gives 100% of the proceeds to Mr. Weissbach, will continue throughout the month of March and will be updated with new works March 2, 9, and 16, with the final group being unveiled March 23rd.
“Get Well Daniel” Exhibition
21.02.2020, 4 p.m. – 10 p.m. // 22.02.2020 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.
@ Salon am Moritzplatz (Oranienstrasse 58, 10969 Berlin-Kreuzberg)
CHARITY AUCTION
The first auction starts online Sunday, February 23, 2020 at 8:00 p.m.! www.getwelldaniel.de
Participating artists include: Adams & E.B. Itso, Adrian Nabi, AKIM, AMIGO, André Simonow, Angabe noch zu klären, Anna Herms, Antwan Horfee, ARIS ONER, BARTO, Beerbird Press, Bernhard Uhlig, BIO, Brad Downey, BUNY, CHEERIO, Christian Falsnaes, Christian Schellenberger, Clemens Behr, Coco Bergholm, Conny Maier, CREAM – 247/MAD, CYOP & KAF, Dan Murphy, DEJOE, DELTA (Boris Tellegen), DEON, DES78, Dmitry Ilko, DRIK, DTAGNO & TRYONE & Jürgen Große, Dumar Novy, EGS, Emmett Edelstein, Enzo Ricordo & Mr.Z, Eric Winkler, ERUPTION (JB. Institute), ESHER, EXOT, Fabian Treiber, Felix Amerbacher, FISTER, Flatliners & Tuff City Kids, GATE, Gambette, Graffitimuseum (Joachim Spurloser, Stefan Wartenberg), HuskMitNavn, ICOS, IDEE, IMOS, Jakob Traxlmayr, Jan Kaláb, Jeremias Böttcher, Jeroen Erosie, Jeroen Jongeleen / influenza, JOLIE, Julien Fargetton, Kaos (VIM), Katdog Wartenberg, Kevin Kemter, Kiddo Oh, KingOfVoid / NICK, Konsens Berlin, KROK, LOFKER, Louise Drubigny, LOVER, LuluGazel, Markus Mai & Markus Butkereit, Matthias Wermke, Max Schaffer, Max Stocklosa, Mischa Leinkauf, MISERABLES, Mister Adam & Gijs Weijer, MONKEY, MOSES & TAPS™, Norman Behrendt, OLABO & AKAY, Olivier Stak / O.K-T, Pablo Tomek, Paul du Bois-Reymond, Paul Simon Krüger, Philip Emde, Philipp Clasen, Philipp König, Possible Books, RACHE, REACT, REVOK, REW KREUZBERG, ROY1st, ROZER, Ruohan Wang, SEEK, SOME SOScrew, SPAIR, Stefan Haehnel, Stefan Marx, Stefan Strumbel, Steve Paul Steven Paul, Streetfiles, SWOON, The WA, Thomas Bratzke, Thomas Korn, Tony Savas, VELI & AMOS, Velo Tramp, Vincent Grunwald, Wilhelm Klotzek & Konrad Mühe, 1UP Crew and φαντομας!
For further press information, please contact Katia Hermann // press@getwelldaniel.de
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. “Who is TAKI183?”, Jim Prigoff and Cedric Godin 2. ESPO: A Love Letter For You 3. Exquisite Waste Of Time – Telmo Miel
BSA Special Feature: “Who is TAKI183?”
Graffiti writers were going hard in New York City in the mid-late 1960s but it wasn’t until the elite cultural avatar The New York Times did a story on the prolific TAKI183 in July of 1971 that many felt that the graffiti scene was somehow validated. From that point forward, the writer’s reputation as being all-city and unofficial representative of taggers everywhere was gold plated among his peers, and competition to get up all-city was suddenly on fire.
Writer, photographer, author, lecturer and storied nonagenarian Jim Prigoff, who published Spraycan Art with Henry Chalfant in 1987, has just produced a new video with Cedric Godin that more closely examines this tagger/standard-bearer and lets the camera roll on stories from him and others inside his family’s car repair shop.
“A lot of the earlier graffiti was scratched or done with paint brushes. There weren’t really spray cans. I think because markers were available and you could do it quick,” says Taki.
“I discovered the first graffiti in NY as Taki 183. I was stunned. This
determined my life direction,” says French Street Artist Blek le Rat.
“But in New York, it was the media capital of the world,” says Philadelphia graffiti king Cornbread, who was writing in the 1960s as well. “When they had done something, it was magnified. To be honest with you, New York overshadowed me.”
The storytelling leads to stylized writing and people like Stay High 149 and
the dawn of more formalized or experimental gallery spaces like Fashion Moda in
the Bronx. But Taki retained his tagger status, and remained a touchpoint for
an era. “I never had a relationship with the art world because I was just so
removed from it.
So much of this history is lost already, mostly because our art institutions
and universities have been ignorant and adamantly so about the importance of
graffiti in the language of society and its evolution as the most democratic
global art movement ever. Videos like this one by Mr. Prigoff and Cedric Godin act to preserve
and archive the images and voices of those at the forefront of a movement that
influenced so many other parts of global culture.
WHO is TAKI183 A film by Jim Prigoff and Cedric Godin
ESPO: A Love Letter For You
“To mark the 10th anniversary of A Love Letter For You, ESPO and the film director Joey Garfield held a Q & A in Brooklyn’s Night Hawk Cinema. With this documentary, Mr. Garfield captures the artist’s process while directly asking the residents of this Philadelphia community, which was once ESPO’s own hood, what they wish was painted on the walls. ESPO took the inspiration that he received from the community and went onto painting 50 walls.
Exquisite Waste Of Time – Telmo Miel
Exactly how your dad describes your interest in painting, in music, in social work – an “Exquisite Waste of Time”. Luckily, this video promo for a show by Telmo and Miel will make you drool so much to paint that you won’t care what Dad says.
“They
are criminals. They have assaulted a part of the city that is very special,”
says Sally Capp, Lord Mayor of Melbourne, Australia, to a reporter on the local
television news.
“It’s an
act of vandalism and it’s something that police are taking very seriously,”
says Inspector Troy Papworth, of the Victoria Police.
Alternately, one may describe these unarmed baklava-wearing youth with paint-filled fire extinguishers as performance artists for the tourists. As they slowly rolled through the cobblestones streets defacing in broad daylight you may say they are Situationists with a very healthy respect for satire and a thirst for attention-getting rebellion.
As you watch footage of this mismatched team of what appear to be white young male (and female?) sprayers in comfortable footwear quietly annihilating the sanctioned Street Art and murals on Hosier Lane, it strikes you that it was an appreciative crowd of onlookers who happily recorded them on their phones. Beyond the light whir of propellers keeping the camera drone over your head, also recording, that popping noise you hear in your mind may be the metaphorical sound of heads exploding all around the urban art world.
It’s
nearly impossible to peel back all the layers of irony involved to examine our
history. A previously reviled act of vandalizing property with paint was
eventually circuitously legitimized by galleries, high auction prices,
consumerism, and its ability to aid and abet gentrifying real estate
developers.
Pair it with a renewed interest in murals and attendant festivals, and any signs of its counter-culture originality have been subsumed into themes that are cute and edgy, with a writer in the Guardian commenting that definitions of Street Art have become predictable and formulaic. “(S)o many murals feature instantly recognizable tropes,” writes Sean Irving, “Among them, pop culture references, anthropomorphic animals and recognizable portraiture.”
Our knee-jerk addiction to social media and our seductive romance with AR/VR, of course, are both warping all our accepted archetypes and conventions of human interaction – with reality-based art being as relevant as staged and enhanced Photoshop versions of it. Are you an actual vandal or are you simply playing the role of one in a VR game?
Your
Granddad was just getting used to all this legal graffiti down the lane – and
now these rotten kids have come and vandalized it! Try changing the subject to
football or show him pictures on your Tinder account – because this vandal
topic won’t get any clearer for any of us as we go forward.
Can this
current situation be fixed? Certainly. “Come to Hosier Lane and go crazy on the
walls there,” says the Lord Mayor in her public entreaty to aerosol artists to
cover up this nasty spray paint.
*All images are screenshots from re-shared video alleged to be from the vandals.
Okay, you are not likely to find Michaelangelo’s Pietàor Bernini’s Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, but you will serendipitously discover ruddy-cheeked siren or a pointillist Whistler’s Daughter made of plastic beads or a molten chess set or a brutalist architectural model as you scan the surface of the modern city for sculpture.
Easy to overlook as so much bumpy skin on the face of the metropolis, today’s street art sculptures have personality and drama and echoes of the “high art” that may be stuck on the other side of the wall, but here it is for everyone to enjoy. Or destroy.
Whether commercial or diagrammatic or exquisitely ornate, we always appreciate the added dimension that adds to what can be a rather flat “Street Art” scene sometimes – and an excellent entry point into the scene for your friend who is sight-impaired.
Here is a collection of small sculptures from Leipzig to Hong Kong to Moscow and Madrid for you to enjoy.
Neo-psychedelic-cosmic-abstract-expressionist Sickid took this wall by storm in Wynwood and is blowing minds daily with his curious cast of misshapen feverish oddballs and satiric characters doing nearly unspeakable things that you love to analyze.
Originally from Bristol, the Street Artist has done much travel since those late 2000s where he first hit Shoreditch with his logo and stretched his interpretations of archetypes, architecture, everyday scenery far enough for adventurous viewers to hop inside and slither around, imagining themselves just outside reality.
Frankly, this comic world he shows is not that much more surreal than this urban swamp called Wynwood, and he’s probably just painting allegory and metaphor to slag the scaley sidewinders he’s been meeting in the sun-beaten neighborhood. Delicious and salty street food for the unsuspecting tourist, this is a hot-steaming stacked meat sandwich baked inside a deep and chipped chafing dish in his fabulous fever-dream, braised with Corona beer and a hint of coconut suntan lotion.
We remember walking down the street somewhere in Los Angeles with Shepard Fairey and a gaggle of other artists after a panel discussion we led at LA MOCA back in the day…Shepard was enthusiastically sharing stories about one thing or another and as he walked, and talked he discreetly and nonchalantly would reach into his back pocket grab a sticker and slap it – sometimes leaping into the air.
Quick. Fast. Done. Noone was the wiser. And that’s how it works. Instantly.
If the artist is a wordsmith he or she can deliver a zinger or a joke. A distilled sentiment can be just as effective as a sermon. A powerful graphic sticker can deliver a cogent idea to the masses.
Legendary photographer and collector, Martha Cooper wrote and published two books about stickers; “Name Tagging”, which shed light on the practice of graffiti writers writing their tag on the ubiquitous “Hello My Name Is” sticker usually displayed at conferences to identify oneself. The second book, “Going Postal” takes its name from the US post office sticker originally intended to address parcels. Graffiti and street art practitioners use them as a platform to deliver artworks and messages to the public on the streets.
Recently during a walk through the streets in Wynwood, Miami we found a set of wooden panels specifically created to be covered with stickers by the multitude of artists visiting the city. Below we share our finds with you. How many artists can you identify?
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
