Girl With a Shred Balloon: Banksy Slices Live at Sotheby’s

October 6, 2018 Artists

Street Art fans are completely familiar with the ephemeral nature of art.

Sotheby’s may not be.

Last night at the venerated auction house in London the performance artist and wittily cerebral Street Artist Banksy apparently self-destructed an artwork that only seconds beforehand was hammered in at roughly a million.

Part of the October Contemporary Art Evening Auction here during the Frieze week, the auction had just sold the iconic “Girl With Balloon” when it slipped downward through the bottom of the frame before bidders eyes, turning the work into pasta pieces to be boiled and served al dente with a rich sayonara sauce.

Bansky. Image courtesy of the artist from the official Bansky Instagram account.

“Has Sotheby’s been framed?”
“Did Banksy sell and buy the piece for a stunt?”
“Is the art more or less valuable now?”
“Is Banksy Sticking it to the Man?
“Do unicorns really fart glitter?”

While the sometimes seemingly drunken conjecture and #hashtagging about who engineered this performance and who’s sorry/not sorry ricochets across our screens, a video that has been attributed to the artist asserts that this cutting achievement in ambush performance was on the boards for a while. As usual with the artist/team working collectively as Banksy, its not crystal clear who’s done what.

But there’s no doubt that Banksy again is the star and the reviews are apoplectic!

BSA Film Friday: 10.05.18

October 5, 2018 Artists

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

Now screening :
1. “Wasteland Wanderers” by MZM Projects in Two Parts
2. Medianeras Murales for Contorno Urbano and 12 + 1 Project
3. Pixel Pancho X Punto Urbano Art Musuem by Owley

BSA Special Feature: “Wasteland Wanderers” by MZM Projects

This week we feature a couple of new film pieces from the Ukraine based duo of Kristina Borhes and Nazar Tymoschuk which fairly present an insightful treatise on a particular flavor of Post-Graffiti. Think of it as a two volume textbook and your professors will guide you through the darkness into the light.

A Dilogy.

“The place tells you what to do,” is a poetic and truthful phrase uttered in “Night” on the relationship a vandal has to an abandoned factory, school, home, medical facility; it is spacial and alchemical.

It is also personal, says the female narrator. “The presence of their absence,” is something that every Wasteland Wanderer will be familiar with, the knowledge and feeling that others have been there before you. The work is undeniably affected, even created in response.

“The main aim of ‘Wasteland Wanderer/Night’ is to introduce the specific approach used by a particular post-graffiti community; their sentiment regarding abandoned architecture; precise work with the natural environment and consideration of architectural surroundings,” say the directors. Of the 20 artists who participated in the Black Circle Festival held in this abandoned Soviet health resort in Western Ukraine, you can see how the space is a frame and context, if not a lifeblood for many.

Part two is ‘Wasteland Wanderer/Day’, unnarrated by words but accompanied by sound, including the indistinct chatter and whispers that remain in your mind as the noise from your previous location quiets inside your head.

“Just like in real life, the voices of artists are transformed into lines and shapes on the remaining walls of wasteland. Before they left, people made their marks here. Artists in turn just attempted to re-think those marks, therefore this journey is full of recomposed stories and silent narrations.”

The range of styles is appreciable yet the palette is subdued and stark – recalling the desaturated “Homo Sapiens” documentary by Nikolaus Geyrhalter that the directors say inspired the presentation. The voices are many; clear, filtered, transitory, distinct, cryptic, diagrammatic, organic, gestural, bloated, wrapped, stripped, implied.

“Echoes, whispers, shadows, lines.”

WASTELAND WANDERERS / NIGHT

WASTELANDWANDERES / DAY

Wasteland Wanderers dilogy artists: Akey, Am-Am, Anton Varga, BGJA, CXCVIII, Don Forty, Eas, Fruits of the Lump, Kuba, Maniac, Mihail Melnichenko, Nazar Sladkovsky, Nick Viska, No Future, O.K., Orma, Raspazjan Jan, Seikon, Sewer, Serhii Radkevich (aka Teck), Serhii Torbinov (aka York), Simek, Stanislav Turina, SC Szyman, Tabu, Vave.

Medianeras Murales / Contorno Urbano Foundation / 12 + 1 Project

The striped MEDIANERAS gazes upon the humble sneaker as it lounges across this checkerboard floor in Barcelona. Lo-fi. Hi-Cool.

Pixel Pancho X Punto Urbano Art Musuem. Salem, MA By Owley

Decisive, imaginative and boldly street-debonaire in his newest project for the Punto Urbano Art Museum, Pixel Pancho still appears to have a geranium in the cranium. Enjoy the interlude by Owley.

1UP Crew on a Wall in Moscow / Artmossphere Biennale 2018

October 4, 2018 Artists

Berlin’s 1UP Crew was in Moscow to participate in this year’s Artmossphere Biennale. We caught up with the guys for an impromptu action on the walls of the Winzavod Art Center while the installations in the gallery were taking place.

It was good to see them in action without having to climb through holes in fences or dodge the third rail! Here they are in the company of other writers and we’re guessing this spot will become a future Hall of Fame.

1UP Crew. Artmossphere Biennale 2018. Moscow. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Monumenta: Large Scale Icon Celebrates “The Intelligence Of Many” in Leipzig

October 3, 2018 Artists, Interview

“Utopia is not dead!,” curator Denis Leo Hegic loves to exclaim. Maybe not, but it is elusive.

Monumenta Leipzig / The Intelligence Of Many. Viktor Frešo “Angry Boy”. Leipzig, Germany. September, 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

You may catch a flash of Utopia here among heady concepts he entertains regarding iconization, scale, the elimination of tastemakers and gatekeepers, urban planning and architecture, art in the streets juxtaposed with art in galleries, or at the thumping of electronic DJs and darting lazers at the sweaty bumping house parties every weekend inside a cozy ex-storehouse for equipment.

The bitter will simply call this reinvigoration of a former metal works factory by Berlin’s Wandelism collective a tool of gentrification for its new real estate owner, but that kind of reductive criticism overlooks the cultural evolution that often is spirited by large multi-tentacled environments such as these.

Monumenta Leipzig / The Intelligence Of Many. Viktor Frešo “Angry Boy”. Leipzig, Germany. September, 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Functioning as a large laboratory of experimentation that has entertained large crowds since late summer, Monumenta fosters thousands of conversations and strategies about art and culture and technology and the shifting geo-political future we will need to be prepared for it. It is almost as if the only preparation that we can hope to depend upon during increasing times of increasing complexity will be collective tribes like these, and ‘the intelligence of many’.

So here’s Jan Kuck melting wax and pouring it into light fixtures which, when turned on, will melt the wax again organically onto a pile of mirrors below – a curious kinectic sculptural installation you may call Wahnsinn, or madness. Kuck can easily mount his work at international art fairs, and he has – but this place affords an unquantifiable jolt of the D.I.Y. energy that powers artist spaces in big cities throughout Europe. Outside in the yard with his canvas leaning against the wall, Berlin’s Dino Richter is fastidious and attentive to detail with his sharp knife slicing through layers of tape, peeling off pieces to produce an intricately tight design evocative of circuit boards and ice cream pops.

Monumenta Leipzig / The Intelligence Of Many. The Monument-of-Many Installation. Detail. Leipzig, Germany. September, 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hosted on the post-industrial grounds of Pittlerwerke, 36,000 square meters of former machinery factories presents one sixth of that for a wide-ranging exhibition of urban, contemporary, graffiti, installation art, music, performance, talks and workshops. The spaces are generous, even holy in their scale; a conceptual big tent that gives room to a seriously considered eclecticism of artists and artworks that all somehow capture this moment before the abyss.

Here you’ll find one of the original Cologne “Neue Wilde” (Young Wild Ones) who also became known as a painter of the “Mülheimer Freiheit“, Hans Peter Adamski, his large abstractions only meters away from a fire extinguisher triptych by a current united graffiti power on city streets across Europe, the 1UP Crew. You’ll also see Berlin public/street art duo Various & Gould with an empty skin sculpture of Marx and Engels while Berlin art trio Innerfields creates machine guns of papier-mâché.

Monumenta Leipzig / The Intelligence Of Many. Dr. Molrok. Leipzig, Germany. September, 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The Ghanaian born, Vienna based painter Amoako Boafo brings one of his elegant figures of masculinity to a large canvas while down the hall Señor Schnu reenacts a sculptured scene of police brutality with a teen in a hoody half-submerged underfoot in murky water. Don’t forget the one hundred artist suspended installation of monuments-of-many flanking Viktor Frešo’s naked giant “Angry Boy” who may unhappily remind you of a certain president.

How do you begin to connect the dots here? Perhaps it’s more about opening the spaces between them for yourself.

Monumenta Leipzig / The Intelligence Of Many. Dr. Molrok. Leipzig, Germany. September, 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Monumenta is part exhibition and cultural fair; a ‘happening’ of sorts; a surprisingly ego-free environment for making art that you can immediately put on display and have conversations about with an eclectic mix of art fans and peers. The multi-member team of artists and producers and writers and media makers have created a nether space in transition from its industrial past to an inconclusive future, creating the kind of environment where artists are rather liberated from presupposition. It feels like the result of a positively reductive process that strips away artifice and reminds us what the raw creative process is – and where it may go if given room and respect.

Curators Denis Leo Hegic and Jan Fielder created the environment in the moment, on the spot, and with some audacity. They also smartly partnered with a selection of sparkling seers including contemporary gallerist and manager Isabel Bernheimer, visionary ringmaster at Urban Spree Pasqual Feucher, the storied collector Marc Omar, and Berlin Art Society’s Michelle Houston.

Monumenta Leipzig / The Intelligence Of Many. WENU. Detail. “Divide et Impera”. Detail. Leipzig, Germany. September, 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Uneven and happily unfinished, the collection of experiences launches a sense of unified eclecticism; a multi-storied series of Lo and Hi, fine art paintings, installations, sculpture, photography and electronic media that create a collective chorus of possibilities on the cusp of the next crash. In a odd world of flattening hierarchies and spirited inclusionary programming the two principal architects of this future vision suggest a re-ordering that brings the street directly into the cathedral and ivy covered hall.

BSA spoke with Monumenta curators Denis Leo Hegic and Jan Fiedler about some of their preferred ways of seeing art and the thrill of mastering an enormous iconic industrial space for exhibiting artworks from so many disciplines and perspectives.

Monumenta Leipzig / The Intelligence Of Many. Various & Gould. Leipzig, Germany. September, 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: You spoke in your presentation during the Momenta Talks program about the concept of space and emotion when considering how to mount an exhibition. What part does emotion play in the experience of an art installation?

Jan Fiedler: Emotion is one of the central aspects while being confronted with art, and the perception of the artwork changes with the emotions you are going through while being in contact with said artwork. When you are sad, a painting or sculpture will trigger different feelings than when you are in a happy mood. Also the quality of an artwork really shows, and it may “force” you to feel a certain way.

It is interesting to observe how certain artworks can move people from different cultures, countries and backgrounds in the same way. It really shows that the language of art is universal. Especially the old masters can evoke these, mostly holy, emotions, even in faithless people. If we talk about these paintings, then we have to keep in mind that the eyes they were created for were the main source for evoking religious feeling. The ears were useless in Mass, since the sermon was held in Latin, a language most people did not understand, and the eyes went on a journey, trying to find a foundation for their faith in the art that was displayed in the churches. So they were painted in a certain way, to evoke exactly these feelings.

Monumenta Leipzig / The Intelligence Of Many. Rocco and his Brohters.“Dezernat 52”. Leipzig, Germany. September, 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

These paintings hang in museums today, robbed of their original context and surroundings, but still are powerful to trigger feelings. And that applies to every artwork you want to put on display in an art show. You have to dedicate a certain amount of time to every single piece, feeling the emotional impact it has on you and arrange it in a way that highlights its qualities in the best way. So an art exhibition is in the best case a carefully arranged Orchestra that takes the visitor on an emotional journey.

Brooklyn Street Art: “The Intelligence of Many” is a phrase that was central to the formation and execution of Monumenta. Is this a model for curation that we may see in the future?

Denis Leo Hegic: Yes. It is not only a model of curation, it is a model of cooperation in different fields in a successful modern society. The information, which we have to deal with in every aspect of life, has reached such a great level of complexity, that working TOGETHER in a selfless way and profiting from the intelligence of many individuals involved is the only concept that can bring a true (and important) change.

Even if the world does not appear like that in this moment, it is actually the case that the era of self-centered egomaniacs is over. And that´s the good news.

In terms of curating something which we call “Urban Art”, there is absolutely no other way of doing it. This form of art is rooted within and powered by (urban) communities and the spirit that arrives from them. One can fake this credibility just for a limited time. The intelligence of many is the counter concept to the stupidity of one.

Monumenta Leipzig / The Intelligence Of Many. Rocco and his Brohters.“Dezernat 52”. Leipzig, Germany. September, 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: Can you talk about the cathedral quality of the initial hall at Monumenta?
Jan Fiedler: The “Church”, as we call the entrance hall of Monumenta, is a nickname that has its origins in the unique architecture which resembles a Basilica – is a very special room, which from a curatorial point of view demands a large amount of attention. This is especially so because it resembles a church, a place where there is only room for one god. We decided to dedicate it to the Monument-of-Many, the visions of one hundred different artists.

But there is a reason why churches and cathedrals have such an effect on the spectator, because they play with scale and the tools of iconization. We used the exact same tools, but not to promote one singular idea, but to present a grumpy baby, the symbol of hope and future, where nobody can be certain how it will turn out if it grows up. This again is one of the aspects of Monumenta; To let go of total control and to give artists the freedom to unfold their creativity.

Monumenta Leipzig / The Intelligence Of Many. Señor Schnu. Leipzig, Germany. September, 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Monumenta Leipzig / The Intelligence Of Many. HNRX “Paradoxism”. Leipzig, Germany. September, 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Monumenta Leipzig / The Intelligence Of Many. Play with art. Guillermo S. Quintana on the floor with several artists on the boards. Leipzig, Germany. September, 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Monumenta Leipzig / The Intelligence Of Many. Play with art. Detail. Leipzig, Germany. September, 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Monumenta Leipzig / The Intelligence Of Many. Les Enfants Terribles. Detail. Leipzig, Germany. September, 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Monumenta Leipzig / The Intelligence Of Many. NASCA. “Cruz”. Leipzig, Germany. September, 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Monumenta Leipzig / The Intelligence Of Many. Jan Kuck. Leipzig, Germany. September, 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Monumenta Leipzig / The Intelligence Of Many. Ron Miller. “Gun-Geisha”. Leipzig, Germany. September, 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Monumenta Leipzig / The Intelligence Of Many. 1UP Crew. Leipzig, Germany. September, 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Monumenta Leipzig / The Intelligence Of Many. Marina Zumi. “View Insight”. Leipzig, Germany. September, 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Monumenta Leipzig / The Intelligence Of Many. NeSpoon. Leipzig, Germany. September, 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Monumenta Leipzig / The Intelligence Of Many. KNS. “Where Is The Scene?”. This piece wasn’t commissioned but rather illegally painted during the opening days of the exhibition. The organizers of the exhibition decided to keep it in place instead of buffing it. Leipzig, Germany. September, 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Monumenta Leipzig / The Intelligence Of Many. SNOW. Leipzig, Germany. September, 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Monumenta Leipzig / The Intelligence Of Many. The organizaers. Standing, from left to right: Niklas Jedowski, Sabrina Markutzyk, Jan Gustav Fiedler, Denis Leo Hegic and on the floor Dorian Mazurek. Leipzig, Germany. September, 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Monumenta Leipzig / The Intelligence Of Many is currently open to the general public in Leipzig, Germany. Click HERE for general information, schedules of upcoming events, directions etc…

Discovering “The Kaos Factory” in Leipzig

October 2, 2018 Artists

The Industrial Revolution ushered in miracles of production, mechanics, engineering, speed, ease of global distribution – possibly the most important event in human history. It also killed cultures, decimated families, poisoned the Earth, air, water, radically changed civil society, enslaved people in dangerous conditions and caused workers to unite as never before.

The flight of industry has now given us incredible relics to explore and create art inside of or upon.

KAOS. The Kaos Factory. Leipzig, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

As industrial production migrated away from so-called Western societies in the last four decades we have been gifted the glorious and treacherous legacy of the factories in our cities. Urban explorers are now nearly legion on some cities, graffiti writers and Street Artist part of the mix. While the goals are often at odds – with explorers wishing only to preserve and archive and urban artists interested in finding new canvasses or installation environments – no one denies the sense of wonder and discovery wandering these carcasses of production in preservation or dilapidation.

If you have the luck to explore the steel and broken glass and possibly toxic materials sprayed with names and characters and patterns or adorned with sculptures of found materials spotlighted by natural beams of luminous fine matter, it can all present itself as a splendid chaos.

Or KAOS.

KAOS. The Kaos Factory. Leipzig, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Whenever we travel to a new city as guests for academic talks on Street Art, art curating, or just seeing festivals and exhibitions we make it our priority to visit the forgotten margins of the industrial environs; spots where creativity and loose talk can happen uncensored, without permission and absent considerations of financial gain. The abandoned, decaying buildings like this one serve as a laboratory for many artists around the world, presenting an unintended studio environment and university function for artists who are experimenting, discovering, refining their skills.

KAOS. The Kaos Factory. Leipzig, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

We had the good fortune to visit one such place during our most recent trip to Leipzig, Germany on the occasion of our participation in the first edition of Monumenta Art. With our friend and colleague, photographer Nika Kramer we visited the KAOS Factory, colloquially named because the German graffiti artist by the same name has slowly taken it over with his work during the last few years, by default converting the former steam factory into his de facto “residency”.

KAOS. The Kaos Factory. Leipzig, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

He gave us a tour of the sprawling compound and told us about how much he loves coming here to paint. He told us stories about how young writers come to the factory to paint and due to their lack of experience or knowledge of “street rules” go over his work or his friends work and how he has to confront them and inform them that it may look like chaos to some, but there is actually an unwritten set of guidelines of respect that graff writers show for one anothers’ work – usually.

Similarly these young, inexperience writers take unnecessary risks while walking through the occasionally dangerous factory ruins, he says, with sometimes disastrous results. Today we share with BSA readers some of the many KAOS rooms here where the hospitable graffiti writer has done installations, finding a certain joy when he sees people who have managed to break in to enjoy the works – or to add their own.

Our thanks to KAOS for sharing with us the glorious chaos.

KAOS. The Kaos Factory. Leipzig, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Plotbot Ken. The Kaos Factory. Leipzig, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

KAOS. The Kaos Factory. Leipzig, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Atomic Ant. The Kaos Factory. Leipzig, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ixus. The Kaos Factory. Leipzig, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The Kaos Factory. Leipzig, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Reve. The Kaos Factory. Leipzig, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The Kaos Factory. Leipzig, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Benuz. The Kaos Factory. Leipzig, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

KAOS. The Kaos Factory. Leipzig, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The Kaos Factory. Leipzig, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The video shows the attempt to implode the smokestack in the factory in 1995. While the implosion was somewhat successful it didn’t go as planned and it could have been a fatal disaster for the community around the factory. The photo below the video shows the very bottom part of the smokestack as it currently is and to the left it shows the potential damage to property and most likely fatalities as well should the stack have fallen to the left.

The Kaos Factory. Leipzig, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Alberto Montes, Catalonia on Oct 1 Anniversary of Vote to Secede – New Mural “Politics of Lucidity”

October 1, 2018 Artists

Fresh from his residency at a nun’s convent called Creença (Belief), Alberto Montes takes on the “Politics of Lucidity” in this new mural in Barcelona here on October 1^st one year after Catalan voted to secede from Spain in a vote Madrid deemed illegal.

A moody monocrome scene of people placing votes, Montes says he is paying tribute to peaceful democratic change in an era where democratic structures are under stress in much of the developed and developing world. In contrast, protesters have thrown at police a kaleidoscope of colored paints during the last couple of days in Barcelona, covering officers and the ground with aesthetically celebratory cheer.

Alberto Montes. “PolÍtica de Luicidez” Contorno Urbano Foundation / Kaligrafics. 12 + 1 Project. Sant Feliu del Llobregat. Barcelona, September 2018. (photo © Alex Miró)

“This mural reflects on the human condition and its ideals in moments of great tension and political decision,” says the Sevillian Montes, who achieves a depth of field in this scene by building up the layers and strategically masking.

It is times like these that we reexamine the fundamentals of democracies to see if they are healthy. Freedom of speech and artistic expression are often the first to go in oppressive police states so the existing of this work is a good sign. Meanwhile you can be continually reassured and hopeful because of the populist program he’s painting for, the heralded 12+1 Project in Sant Feliu del Llobregat outside Barcelona.

Alberto Montes. “PolÍtica de Luicidez” Contorno Urbano Foundation / Kaligrafics. 12 + 1 Project. Sant Feliu del Llobregat. Barcelona, September 2018. (photo © Alex Miró)

BSA Images Of The Week: 09.30.18 – UPEA Special

September 30, 2018 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

This week we have a selection of the UPEART festivals’ two previous editions of murals – which we were lucky to see this week after driving across the country in an old VW Bora. We hit 8 cities and drove along the border with Russia through some of the most picturesque forests and farmlands that you’ll likely see just to collect images of the murals that this Finnish mural festival has produced with close consultation with Fins in these neighborhoods. A logistical challenge to accomplish, we marvel at how this widespread program is achieved – undoubtedly due to the passion of director Jorgos Fanaris and his insatiable curiosity for discovering talents and giving them a platform for expression.

So here is a sample from what we found from UPEART’s two previous iterations before the recently completed UPEART 2018.

So here is our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Apolo Torres, Artz, Dulk, Espoo, Fintan Magee, Guido Van Helten, Pat Perry, Smug, Teemu Maenpaa, Tellas, and Telmo & Miel.

Top Image: Millo. UPEA 2017. Jyväskylä, Finland. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Telmo & Miel. UPEA 2017. Joensuu, Finland. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Fintan Magee. UPEA 2017. Helsinki, Finland. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

SMUG. UPEA 2017. Kotka, Finland. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Guido van Helten. UPEA 2016. Helsinki, Finland. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pat Perry. UPEA 2017. Helsinki, Finland. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Teemu Mäenpää. UPEA 2017. Espoo, Finland. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dulk. UPEA 2017. Espoo, Finland. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Apolo Torres. UPEA 2017. Helsinki, Finland. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Artez. UPEA 2017. Espoo, Finland. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tellas. UPEA 2016. Helsinki, Finland. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mantra in Hyvinkää for UPEART Festival 2018 Finland – Dispatch 5

September 29, 2018 Artists

BSA is in Finland this week to see firsthand the work of UPEART, an expansive mural art festival in its third iteration. Unique for its geographical breadth as well as it’s curatorial depth, UPEART has quietly revealed its amazing strengths without being self-aggrandizing or showy, slowly transforming cities and towns across the entire country with consultation of the locals and an eye toward the incredible international. Come with us this week as we traverse the country with you.

French entomologist, former graffiti writer, and muralist Mantra grew up in the country surrounded by nature – much like the rolling grassy hills and forests and farmland that we have been driving through this week in Finland. Naturally, when he moved to the city to do graffiti in the margins of the neglected sector of the modern metropolis he also brought his scientific/artistic studies of animals, insects and nature.

Mantra. Work in progress in Hyvinkää. UPEA Finland 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

On a cold and damp September day here in Hyvinkää, about 50 kilometers north of Helsinki, for the UPEART 2018 mural festival, we find Mantra high atop a cherry picker finishing the antennae of a butterfly and the shadow of a moth’s wing. He uses aerosol cans, rollers, and brushes to accurately represent a winged fivesome on the side of a residential apartment building.

As we gaze at the nearly-finished mural from across the katu on a slippery, grassy knoll that is littered with yellow leaves we see an oversized yet realistic display box. To the right and see a man in his t-shirt pulling aside a curtain and looking out his window at the wall where Mantra had stood only a moment before – his wife coming behind him in her house dress to see what he is trying to peer at.

Mantra. Work in progress in Hyvinkää. UPEA Finland 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“When I was a child I was not curious about painting,” Mantra says, “I was more curious about what I could find in the garden so that’s why I spent a lot of time studying these insects and these animals.” Later he shows us images of butterflies and other winged creatures rendered in high fidelity inside decaying factory rooms, including a large dead bird lying on its side. “I painted this because I had seen a dead bird in the garden only a week before.”

Recent years have brought some adamant critique to the Street Art world from so-called academics and thinkers due to commercial festivals that bring murals that lack social or political critique or have little sense of context with their surroundings; simply attractive and pleasant eye candy. While most people will like the image of a butterfly, Mantra’s wants to be clear that his interest is as an entomologist, not simply decorative.

Mantra. Work in progress in Hyvinkää. UPEA Finland 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“For me it makes sense to paint them scientifically the way a scientist would see them and not like a decorative motif for an illustration or an interpretation of them.”
He has often done extensive research to select the appropriate butterflies, even consulting experts to make sure he has chosen the correct ones – like the research he just did to prepare for a wall he will paint in Chile. “I recently traveled to Paris to meet two entomologists who are quite senior to this study – they are working with the Paris Museumand many other museums across the world,” he says.

Mantra. Work in progress in Hyvinkää. UPEA Finland 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

So are these new insects in Hyvinkää relevant to this region?

“These five species are living here in Finland or are migratory so that is why I have selected these five for this wall,” he says. “All of these you can find in Russia or Finland or Sweden…There’s not one that is endemic to this region because we are not really a butterfly paradise here because of the climate.”

And how did he make the mural work so well with the location and the building?

“Because of the architecture of the wall, because of the shape in the format I always have to compose. So in this case because it was very vertical I have not many options. I also use the window frames in the architecture as inspiration to create a frame of the same color.”

Because he insists on scientific accuracy, even the relative size of the moth and butterflies are appropriate. “I always paint them in the same proportion that they would be to one another in reality so we have four butterflies and I saved the middle for the moth. The moth is much larger in reality then the butterflies so for the composition it feels right.”

BSA Film Friday 9.24.18 – From UPEART in Finland. Dispatch 4

September 28, 2018 Artists

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

Now screening :
1. Mantra in Hyvinkää
2. Isaac Cordal in Espoo
3. Sainer in Helsinki
4. Eero Lampinen in Helsinki

BSA Special Feature: Scenes from UPEART this Week

This week BSA had the privilege of touring the sites from the mural arts program called UPEART in Finland which continues to showcase the work of many artists from graffiti/Street Art culture, their work now often morphing into public art. While on the road from city to city in this Nordic country full of natural lakes, forests and sparkling clean cities during the advent of fall, we also caught some past and present murals as well as a few artists in action. Here are a few quick home-made videos to share with BSA readers what we found.

Mantra in Hyvinkää

French entomologist and former graffiti writer Mantra studies insects – here specifically butterflies and a large moth that are all found in this region of the world. We found him just as he was finishing his newest work for UPEART in Hyvinkää.

Isaac Cordal in Espoo

Spanish Street Artist and sculptor Isaac Cordal has begun his nearly surreptitious installations of his concrete figures here above Finnish heads. Often businessmen, they contemplate existentially as you walk by them a number of times during your daily travails – until one day you discover them.

Sainer in Helsinki

Polish artist Sainer completed a massive portrait here in Helsinki this week on the side of a multi-story building – yet he tells us that he is less concerned with the mystery woman in the center than his is with the planes and palette that back her.

Eero Lampinen in Helsinki

Helsinki native, illustrator and graphic designer Eero Laminen is at work on his second large scale mural here behind a complex scaffolding. We walked with him during a break to see the characters that he is imagining for this neighborhood.

Isaac Cordal at UPEA Art Festival 2018 – Finland. Dispatch 3

September 27, 2018 Artists

The petite businessman looks up blankly from wiring money to the arms dealer over the phone and stares blankly at you, through you. He’s made his deal and his cut is secure. Now if only he can buy back his soul.

The philosopher/comedian/social critic Isaac Cordal has brought his guilt-ridden, depressed businessmen to transform the public space of Karakallio, and we have caught his first installation.

Climbing the ladder and pressing his handmade cement figure at the nexus of exterior panels in this residential community in Espoo, Finland, Cordal once again transforms a large space into an imaginary stage, an unsuspecting environment, for the drama that plays out in the minds of adults and children who pass it by.

This is the stunning simplicity of surreality that the Spanish Street Artist has been bringing to cities across the globe, one mournful soul at a time.

A first installation for him here, and a first for this community, where BSA and UPEART founder Jorgos Fanaris have begun preliminary planning for the inaugural events of the Karakallio Collective, a new initiative that looks to involve multidisciplinary artists in this suburban neighborhood outside of Helsinki. It’s an exciting time to engage in public space in new ways, and UPEART is laying plans long term here and in communities across the country.

We’re just excited to see Isaac again and see what new adventure his “cement elipses” take on.

Steven P. Harrington and Jaime Rojo of BSA with Jorgos Fanaris, UPEA’s curator and Isaac Cordal discuss current and future projects within the community of Karakallio on the outskirts of Helsinki. (photo courtesy of UPEA Art)

UPEA Art and BSA will be closely working with #karakalliocreative to bring a wide variety of art initiatives in the neighborhood…

Eero Lampinen at UPEA Art Festival 2018 – Finland. Dispatch 2

September 26, 2018 Artists

“The street has kind of a bad reputation in Helsinki and has a long history of illegal alcohol trade and strip clubs and sex shops and bars,” says Eero Lampinen, the young illustrator now working on his second large scale mural ever here for UPEART.

His characterization rings true as you stand with him on the sidewalk next to a sandwich board advertising scantily clad ladies in elegant, and difficult, poses. Across the street from this busy doorway is the multi-story mural that he is working on, heavily flanked and intersected by scaffolding that you can climb with him after donning a hard hat.

A Helsinki native, the graphic design and illustration student designed for school books, festival posters, and various editorial jobs while in training. Now on his own professionally, his magic realist illustrative style has earned him a number of awards, including at the Mikkeli Fiction Exhibition and the Grape’s Year Peaks competition – and his figurative fantasies have made their way into a number of prestigious publications.

Eero says he loves the work of filmmaker David Lynch, and for illustration he really loves the work of Winsor McCay, the American cartoonist and animator know for his comic strip Little Nemo.

Of his own work, he says, “It’s like a mix of fantasy with contemporary and realistic elements – kind of magic realism. I like to play around with fashion different types of characters.”

The characters are here in the evolving mural – three figures who are working the runways of the street in distinctly different styles.

“There is a night demon, a rubber-outfit person, and then an older character,” he says, “They are all walking separate ways in the streets – and it plays around with this street.”

As with all the murals in this nationwide festival of UPEART, the community plays an important role in the decision when creating the scene. As a result, the spirit of the street is somehow reflected in the new works on walls.

“We thought about it with the people living in the neighborhood. I proposed three different sketches for them to choose from and then we worked on the idea together,” he says. “They wanted to have like the spirit of the street somehow in the drawings so in that way it’s like a reference to the community and the life here.”

UPEA Art Festival 2018 – Finland. Dispatch 1 – Sainer

September 25, 2018 Artists

On a wall facing one of Helsinki’s traditional wood house style buildings in ochre you find a woman in shadow – soaring multiple stories above the street. She has significance surely, but Street Artist Sainer is allowing you to tell this story.

Here at UPEART 2018, the Polish artist is playing more with forms and shape and color than the typical centerpiece of portrait; the subject. He also likes the wood building that obscures the figure for many blocks before you are upon the new woman of mystery.

“I really like the idea that when you’re driving on this road the tower of this whole building covers the face so at some point you can only see the flat color of the painting in the background.” One half of the Etam Cru with Bezt, Sainer says that he is exploring less figurative aspects of painting these days on his own, despite the fact that during the last half-dozen years the duo made their name on the street with some of the most imaginative characters and scenarios suddenly sparking conversations in cities across the world .

While the late summer sun keeps him warm in the cherry picker basket above the street, the thirty year old blends the patches and plains of the sitters’ environs with a roller and paint. Sometimes he revises the color choice or timber, always absorbing the geometry and palette of his immediate environment. He lowers himself and steps out of the basket onto the driveway pavement to look at the deep green grapevines with plump blue fruits hanging on the chain-link fence and squints up at the evolving mural against the saturated blue sky.

“I think my work is changing recently,” he says. “I have liked to do plainer paintings – like small landscapes . I’m not really into the characters that much in the same way that I was. When I do paint characters they are in the shadow. I like the idea of making portraits where the portrait is not the most important part of the painting.”

BSA: That’s so anti-intuitive – because normally that would be the center focal point, right?

Sainer: Yes – even here the portrait is central but I am trying to play all around it just to hide it. It’s just one of the ideas that I am trying to work with these days.

The Etam Cru guys met in design school in Lodz as students even while working on class projects they quickly became known for their work on the Street Art seen at home and in many cities around the globe, their studio work garnering attention from gallerists and collectors as well. With many requests to paint large walls and with personal and family commitments to coordinate with, the professional duo found it was actually getting sort of hard to work together so they have loosened the arrangement for the immediate term, while their friendship and working relationship is as strong as ever.

“I’m trying to make life simpler these days – trying to focus more on the studio a lot more.”

And for larger commitments like this wall, he says that he values the project development when there is a feeling of spontaneity and discovery.

“I don’t prepare a final sketch for the wall. For me it’s always a sort of process. I am searching for the right ideas,” he says. “Sometimes when you have a small sketch you can put it on the wall but it doesn’t work – the sizes, shapes, colors, the elements. Anyway, if you have a final sketch before you start what’s the point of painting it? There’s no surprise, you are just repeating yourself.”

That said, since he isn’t leaving town till tomorrow, we’ll have to wait for the surprise of the finished wall. Meanwhile, we’ll take special note of the background, and keep looking into the eyes of the mystery woman in the middle.

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