BSA Film Friday: 01.03.20

BSA Film Friday: 01.03.20

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

Now screening :
1. Swoon: Cicada at Deitch
2. Biancoshock: GRAFFITRICKS
3. Bien Urbain Festival 2019 Re-Cap by Kristina and Nazar from MZM Projects
4. ARTinfect 4 – The Pfaff Project Part 2

BSA Special Feature: Swoon: Cicada at Deitch

Long time supporter of Street Artist Swoon in her work on the street and in the studio, gallery director Jeffery Deitch has again given a platform to the enlightened wanderings and otherworldly investigations of the artist with a new exhibition in Manhattan. Directed by Frederic King, the character/s of the artists now have dimension, and movement, and a curious way of revealing and concealing. Once again the undercurrents in Swoon’s work are formidable, the presentation ornately manifested.

Biancoshock: GRAFFITRICKS

Biancoshock is back with a new collection of handmade tools that enable hoodlums to write graffiti, or some variation of it in a multitude of ways. In a continuous stance of provocation, the Italian conceptualist redefines the street game by creating one ingenious invention after another. For him, “This is a simple demonstration that creativity can easily fight every kind of institutional control and prohibitive policies.”

Bien Urbain Festival 2019 Re-Cap by Kristina and Nazar from MZM Projects

The 9th edition of Bien Urbain is just completed and MZM Projects presents a tonal treatment to the uniquely contextual festival. You don’t know who the stars are, because in the case of Bien Urbain it truly is a more inclusive conversation – to use an overused word – about the role of art and intervention in the urban environment.

ARTinfect 4 – The Pfaff Project Part 2

The graffiti writer’s lexicon continues to evolve and spread into areas that early writers would have considered verboten.  Today graffiti artists often do the same stuff as Street Artists but the labels aren’t important as long as you know how to command the can. 

Here in Kaiserlautern, a city in southwest Germany, the artist Carl Kenz has curated the new edition of ARTinfect with a sensibility toward space that recognizes the individual artist – and is a little uncommon in the ‘graffiti jam’ event world. Here you see that each artist is afforded ample industrial framing to develop their work – unimpeded by a too-close neighbor. These abandoned factories are often splendid staging spaces, and it is good to see this international selection of artists granted a good place to create harmony with the decay.

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Compilation: 15 Wishes From BSA To You for 2020

Compilation: 15 Wishes From BSA To You for 2020

To welcome the new year we spent the last few weeks presenting a collection of images that stirred us and paired them with BSA Wishes for 2020.

Below the video is the full list of all the wishes, along with our non-scientific lists of “Top” stories, videos, images, books for the year (and in one case, for the decade which we’ve just departed). For the past couple of weeks we have been sharing one wish at a time with you.

Here’s a compilation of all the wishes. Enjoy!

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Happy New Year From BSA 2020

Happy New Year From BSA 2020

With gratitude for the year that was, and hope for the year that will be, our hearts are full. We’re sending love to you BSA friends and family. Happy New Year.

photo ©Jaime Rojo
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15 Wishes From BSA To You: Wish No. 15: Join an Uprising

15 Wishes From BSA To You: Wish No. 15: Join an Uprising

We’re finishing the decade and we’re completing the year. More importantly, you are still here. And so is our holiday tradition of BSA wishes for the new year.

Certainly there is much work to be done, and we believe that art and the creative spirit can heal our people, our cities, our nations, our planet. May we all look toward 2020 with a clear vision.

At BSA our hearts are full and our minds are untroubled as we look confidently toward these new days- with hopes and wishes for the New Year – and a daily image that inspired us in 2019.

15.

Join An Uprising

The peoples’ hands in Caracas, Venezuela. Photo ©Federico Parra

No meaningful structural or societal change ever happened out of the charity of those in power.

This year we witnessed uprisings of people in the streets including but not limited to Hong Kong, Iran, Barcelona, Paris, Argentina, Peru, Chile, Malta, Moscow, Israel, Palestine, Serbia, Sudan, Montenego – check out this amazing list.

Street Art has its roots in protest, in its insistence on being seen by the people, on being considered, on being heard. With multinationals, institutional corruption, and unbridled greed pushing us all back on our heels, you can expect to see a lot more protests in the streets around the world in 2020. We wish you the courage to rise up and join the people and get your voice heard – that is part of what true democracy looks like.

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15 Wishes From BSA To You: Wish No. 14: Consider Bob, the Flamingo

15 Wishes From BSA To You: Wish No. 14: Consider Bob, the Flamingo

We’re finishing the decade and we’re completing the year. More importantly, you are still here. And so is our holiday tradition of BSA wishes for the new year.

Certainly there is much work to be done, and we believe that art and the creative spirit can heal our people, our cities, our nations, our planet. May we all look toward 2020 with a clear vision.

At BSA our hearts are full and our minds are untroubled as we look confidently toward these new days- with hopes and wishes for the New Year – and a daily image that inspired us in 2019.

14.

Consider Bob, the Flamingo

Caribbean flamingo “Bob”, with Odette Doest and the family cat. ©Jasper Doest

We just think that Bob is a great metaphor for the heightened awareness we all are developing to see the world as it is, and our proper place in it.

After flying into a hotel window, this flamingo was rescued by a local vet and has become a rising educational star on the island,” according to National Geographic, whose photographer Jasper Doest followed him around on the Dutch Caribbean island of Curaçao into homes, schools, and the street.

“If you see what looks like a flamingo in the driver’s seat of a car, don’t worry. That’s just Bob.”

We wish that you will meet Bob the flamingo, or his equivalent, this new year.

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15 Wishes From BSA To You: Wish No. 13: Give the Kids Props

15 Wishes From BSA To You: Wish No. 13: Give the Kids Props

We’re finishing the decade and we’re completing the year. More importantly, you are still here. And so is our holiday tradition of BSA wishes for the new year.

Certainly there is much work to be done, and we believe that art and the creative spirit can heal our people, our cities, our nations, our planet. May we all look toward 2020 with a clear vision.

At BSA our hearts are full and our minds are untroubled as we look confidently toward these new days- with hopes and wishes for the New Year – and a daily image that inspired us in 2019.

13.

Give the Kids Props

Greta Thunberg photo ©Elisabeth Ubbe

Weird how Greta Thunberg became a sensation worldwide this year because of her personal oppositional campaign against disgusting adults who are callously throwing away the Earth’s future. Weirder still was how many adults (men mainly) had little mini freak-out attacks because of the things she said and did this year, revealing more about them than her, frankly.

The 16 year old climate activist was named Person of the Year, by Time Magazine, and her Gen Z is going to be saddled with the fallout from the endless wars, endless pollution, and irresponsible consumption that is killing off species and fouling air and water. At the very least, we wish that we all would start listening to these kids and give these little leaders proper respect for pushing against this adversity the rest of us have selfishly created.

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15 Wishes From BSA To You: Wish No. 12: Wear a Costume

15 Wishes From BSA To You: Wish No. 12: Wear a Costume

We’re finishing the decade and we’re completing the year. More importantly, you are still here. And so is our holiday tradition of BSA wishes for the new year.

Certainly there is much work to be done, and we believe that art and the creative spirit can heal our people, our cities, our nations, our planet. May we all look toward 2020 with a clear vision.

At BSA our hearts are full and our minds are untroubled as we look confidently toward these new days- with hopes and wishes for the New Year – and a daily image that inspired us in 2019.

12.

Wear A Costume

photo ©REUTERS/Gustavo Graf

It shouldn’t only be parade revelers who get to dress as Monarch’s as these folks did in the annual Day of the Dead parade in Mexico City, Mexico, on October 27 this year. Cosplay, the kids are calling it.

“We know from psychology that we all play different roles through the day and week,” says Robin S. Rosenberg, a clinical psychologist at University of California at San Francisco. “Different aspects of me — ‘psychologist,’ ‘wife,’ ‘mother’ — come to the fore in different contexts. I became curious about people who truly inhabit a role, and what’s coming to the fore when you wear a costume.”

RuPaul taught us all a long time ago, whether its a Brooks Brothers suit or a tutu or a nurses scrubs or a police uniform, it’s all drag. We wish the opportunity to try on another persona sometime in 2020.

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15 Wishes From BSA To You: Wish No. 11: See the Earth in Its Wonder

15 Wishes From BSA To You: Wish No. 11: See the Earth in Its Wonder

We’re finishing the decade and we’re completing the year. More importantly, you are still here. And so is our holiday tradition of BSA wishes for the new year.

Certainly there is much work to be done, and we believe that art and the creative spirit can heal our people, our cities, our nations, our planet. May we all look toward 2020 with a clear vision.

At BSA our hearts are full and our minds are untroubled as we look confidently toward these new days- with hopes and wishes for the New Year – and a daily image that inspired us in 2019.

11.

See the Earth in Its Wonder

Payhoa Hawaii ©Jae C. Hong

This scene in Hawaii showing a lava-covered road in a subdivision near Pahoa has a compelling, thrilling, jaw-dropping effect on people who see it. Imagine if you are a resident in the area near this “fissure” and you are told to evacuate from this ground deformation, but you feel powerfully drawn to go and watch it happen.

Molten rock like this simply bursts through the ground, destroying homes, livelihoods, lives. And yet this is just one of hundreds of thousands of opportunities we have to see the glorious and powerful and serene Earth and allow it to blow our minds. We wish you the chance for a full immersion into one of those opportunities in the new year.

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15 Wishes From BSA To You: Wish No. 10: More Plastic-Free Days

15 Wishes From BSA To You: Wish No. 10: More Plastic-Free Days

We’re finishing the decade and we’re completing the year. More importantly, you are still here. And so is our holiday tradition of BSA wishes for the new year.

Certainly there is much work to be done, and we believe that art and the creative spirit can heal our people, our cities, our nations, our planet. May we all look toward 2020 with a clear vision.

At BSA our hearts are full and our minds are untroubled as we look confidently toward these new days- with hopes and wishes for the New Year – and a daily image that inspired us in 2019.

10.

More Plastic-Free Days

This is not a stylized Christmas tree, but you could be forgiven for thinking so. This is one Brooklyn tree choked with yellow caution tape that was blowing around in the air during one particularly windy day. It’s funny to see it, and then maybe it is not so funny anymore.

2019 seems like the year we saw news of countless animals washing up on beaches with bellies full of plastic, and reports of minute parts of plastic ingested and floating inside all of us – micro plastics. We collectively began to realize that our laws aren’t working to force companies to stop making stuff with plastic or to force us to stop using it.

Next year, let make sure we figure out how to have more plastic-free days. Sounds good right? At the least it can help draw our attention to how much we’re using. In the future your next gen kids are going to ask “knowing what you knew, what did you do?”

Check out “I Quit Plastics”

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Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays From BSA!!!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays From BSA!!!

Merry Christmas from BSA!!

On Christmas we send our very best wishes to you and your family and loved ones.

Happy Hanukkah to you as well! Happy Kwanzaa! Happy Solstice!
No matter your religion or non-religion is we wish you the best.

Isaac Cordal. Installation at the BedStuy Art Residency. Brooklyn, NY. December, 2019. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

These days of big holidays can be happy times and can also be difficult times for people. We chose to take stock of the year and thank you for your support and love while looking forward to the new year and decade.

We’re also thankful that we could bring Spanish Street Artist Isaac Cordal to the Bedstuy Artist Residency in Brooklyn this month. We think his very unconventional Christmas display pictured here is entertaining and brilliant as he is; a witty critique of modern society, religious traditions, and more.

Sending love to all BSA readers!

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15 Wishes From BSA For 2020. No. 9: A Good Storm to Stir You

15 Wishes From BSA For 2020. No. 9: A Good Storm to Stir You

We’re finishing the decade and we’re completing the year. More importantly, you are still here. And so is our holiday tradition of BSA wishes for the new year.

Certainly there is much work to be done, and we believe that art and the creative spirit can heal our people, our cities, our nations, our planet. May we all look toward 2020 with a clear vision.

At BSA our hearts are full and our minds are untroubled as we look confidently toward these new days- with hopes and wishes for the New Year – and a daily image that inspired us in 2019.

9.

A Good Storm to Stir You

Photo 2019 ©Jaime Rojo

New Yorkers clamor for walk in Central Park, especially during a snow storm. Perhaps because it is calming, perhaps because it is aesthetically sensorially full of wonder. We dive right into the middle of a snowstorm because it stirs your interior world in equal measure to the outside one, uprooting and tossing your senses, blowing winds through your head, temporarily blinding you while regaling you with its every moving show. In a way, the storm makes you dig inside to reestablish your own sense of equilibrium. 

For fans of Christmas, this is a scene of a white one in New York, because obviously we love storms.  Let it snow let it snow let it snow!

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15 Wishes From BSA For 2020. No. 8: Be Who You Are

15 Wishes From BSA For 2020. No. 8: Be Who You Are

We’re finishing the decade and we’re completing the year. More importantly, you are still here. And so is our holiday tradition of BSA wishes for the new year.

Certainly there is much work to be done, and we believe that art and the creative spirit can heal our people, our cities, our nations, our planet. May we all look toward 2020 with a clear vision.

At BSA our hearts are full and our minds are untroubled as we look confidently toward these new days- with hopes and wishes for the New Year – and a daily image that inspired us in 2019.

8.

Be Who You Are

2019 photo © Jaime Rojo

Our 8th wish to you for 2020 is to be who you are, wherever you are.

Martin Luther King Jr. said “no one is free until we are all free.”

We know that many BSA fans and readers are not free to live a full open unapologetic life in their communities, whether they are gay or trans or black or female or disabled or any number of categories that a dominant culture uses to hurt people.

We want you to know that we do believe in you, just the way you are.  


On the verge of a new century twenty years ago in 1999, Brooklyn rapper Nas (Yasiin Bey) sang;

“My elders said shine your light on the world,
Shine your light for the world to see.”


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