The sight of this stylized skull may not have evoked the same reminiscence by Prince Hamlet as Yorick’s did but Street Artist Otto Schade brings it to London streets once again.
The context is wholly appropriate for a city that summons the spirit of Shakespeare rather year round – including this summer from Hamlet at the Globe Theatre to Ian McKellen as the tragic King Lear at the Duke of York’s Theatre, and Regents Park gives you open air performances of As You Like It.
For Mr. Schade, this freehand painting is about protest and power, particularly as it refers to women. Here on Bateman’s Row in Shoreditch he turns another Hamlet phrase to title it, “The Lady Don’t Protest Enough”. Hethinks.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Boy Kong, Cane Morto, Dmote, El Sol 25, Hower, Invader, Joe Iurato, Logan Hicks, Pixel Pancho, Resistance is Female, Rime, Sean9Lugo, Smells, UFO 907, Vhils, Vik, Voxx Romana, XSM, and Zimad.
THE SEARCH IS OVER! Jonathan LeVine Projects 2nd Annual Delusional Art Competition opens on August 1st and will feature work by the following 40 artists:
1st, 2nd and 3rd place winner from the list above will be announced on the opening night on August 1st.
In addition to the artists listed above, the following were selected for People’s Choice, which is an opportunity for the public to vote for their favorites and award cash prizes and products from Denik and Trekell.
Here is some insight into the grueling harrowing sweaty process that Jonathan and jurors had to go through these past months..
Click on each name to learn more about these Delusional artists. Please join us at the opening reception of Delusional on August 1st from 6 to 9 pm where winners will be announced! The exhibition will remain on view through August 25. Stay tuned for details regarding People’s Choice – voting begins on August 6th!
Below is a small selection of works culled from the finalists’ list and their Instagram accounts.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. Broken Fingaz Animates Video by Beck & U2 2. ResistanceX in Bilbao, Spain
3. Jeremy Fish: “The Whine Train”
4. Dan Witz: “Punk And Freedom” from “Beyond The Streets”
5. Manifiesto #FaltenPintades
BSA Special Feature: Broken Fingaz Animates Video by Beck & U2
Israeli graffiti/Street Art/multi-dimensional art crew Broken Fingaz comes out swinging with this new fully animated video by U2, as remixed by Beck. Just goes to show you how graffiti is frequently a gateway drug to other creative pursuits. Beware!
“We used two animation techniques we never tried before,” they say as they describe the top shelf story-telling here, “the classic animation is made up of 1,200 (!) acrylic paintings and for the stop-motion we teamed up with the amazing ZAZ animation studio to create a world from plasticine.”
An instant animation classic, this is the first time the Tel-Aviv base Broken Fingaz Crew have used animation on any of their projects. Some how they managed to entangle love, death, sexuality, yearning, and hope into their narrative tale – breathing life into everything.
ResistanceX in Bilbao, Spain
The Basque country as depicted in Bilbao here is glitch-trippy and light-footed with a bucket full of sexy public art and murals. Produced to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of SC Gallery. They call it ResistanceX and this festival has brought over the years artists like Aryz, Axel Void, Fefe Talavera, Laguna, Remed, Eltono, Michael Grudziecki, Size Paredes, SpY, Suso 33, Velvet, and Zoer Frederick Battle.
Jeremy Fish: “The Whine Train”
Artist Jeremy Fish breaks it all down for you about the multiple references that were running through his mind and whiny heart when he created this commission for the Napa Valley Wine Train.
Dan Witz: “Punk And Freedom” from “Beyond The Streets”
Somehow they manage to jam his entire career into one minute. Did they mention he is a genius with oils and with light? Dan Witz is all of this and much much more.
Manifiesto #FaltenPintades
Art and activism meet in the name of free expression in Spain in the next few days as a number of Street Artists, graffiti writers, and muralists join together for an upcoming action on July 21 and 22 to paint and protest. ‘No Callarem’ is the call in response to censorship – “We will not shut up”.
The collective says that “the only walls we can and want to admit are the ones that can be painted on, with freedom of action and expression, using criticism and satire.”
Here is a video announcing their manifesto and the upcoming days of paint and protest.
Berlin’s notorious 1UP Crew hits Ridgewood Saturday night along with graffiti/Street Art patron saint Martha Cooper to celebrate the first city in their US tour for their new book with co-shooter Ninja K.
Martha Cooper & Ninja K. One Week With 1UP. (photo courtesy of the team)
A hot summer night pop-up is available only one night at Superchief and we’ll be there with you to eyeball the new book, get it signed, and screen the new 1UP movie. Bring your juice box kiddies!
We reported HERE on the launch of this book in Berlin at Urban Spree back in May. New York peeps have an opportunity to see a Pop-Up exhibition and book signing at Superchief Gallery in Ridgewood, NY this Saturday, July 21st. Click HERE for all the details…
Martha Cooper & Ninja K. One Week With 1UP. (photo courtesy of the team)
Martha Cooper & Ninja K. One Week With 1UP. (photo courtesy of the team)
Martha Cooper & Ninja K. One Week With 1UP. (photo courtesy of the team)
Martha Cooper & Ninja K. One Week With 1UP. (photo courtesy of the team)
Martha Cooper & Ninja K. One Week With 1UP. (photo courtesy of the team)
Martha Cooper & Ninja K: One Week With 1UP opens this Saturday at Superchief Gallery in Ridgewood, NYC. Click HERE for all the details.
From cave carvings in Angoulême in western France 27,000 years ago to your daily, perhaps hourly selfie on a cell phone today, our desire to depict the figure is as much a reflection of the artist and their times as it’s sitter.
A new show at MUCA Munich (Museum of Urban Contemporary Art) opening today invites 30 primarily Street Artists to choose a significant reference portrait of any historical time, country of origin, or artistic movement and interpret their inspirations into a portrait.
Whether drawing influences from Vermeer, Courbet, or Lucien Freud, each artist ultimately represents their own life experiences in their choice of subject and the technique of portrayal. Perhaps that is why curator Elisabetta Pajer has asked each of the artists to give us a statement with their work to help put it into context. Pajer tells us that she looks at the collection of works and the statements create a ‘harmonic mosaic’ of these figurative and written testimonies.
“These artists have sought out inspiration from many mediums that portraiture finds itself interpreted within,” says Pajer. “Taking their themes and inspiration from classical paintings, sculpture, film, theater, photographer, interactions, culture, religion, and science. Exhibiting a great understanding of the complexity of self-reflection with art as the catalyst.”
We’re pleased to be able to present some of the artists and their own words here.
Andreas Englund
Andreas Englund. Tripping. IMAGO. MUCA Munich. (photo courtesy of the artist)
TRIPPING
Media: Oil on canvas
Size: 116 x 90 cm
-Statement
“I chose to tribute my artwork to the ‘‘Portrait of a smoking man’’ by Anders Zorn 1860-1920 – Swedens most internationally acclaimed artist. Born in my home region and very inspirational when it comes to his sketchy technique. By doing my own version of this masterpiece with my superhero, I have learned more about ‘‘the great Zorn’’ and his technique.”
Martha Cooper
Martha Cooper. Futura 1983. IMAGO. MUCA Munich. (photo courtesy of the artist)
FUTURA 1983
Media: Archival pigment print
Size: 50,8 x 76,20 cm
-Statement
“This is a 1983 photo of Futura, a legendary New York City graffiti writer, with a classic can of Krylon spray paint. Thirty-five years later, Futura is still spray painting and I am still taking photos of graffiti writers.”
Icy + Sot
Icy & Sot. Under The Water Light. IMAGO. MUCA Munich. (photo courtesy of the artists)
UNDER THE WATER LIGHT
Media: Stencil spray paint on canvas
Size: 91,5 x 123 cm
-Statement
“This portrait is part a series we created reflecting on the relationship between human and nature. Nature plays a big role in human lifespan, but nowadays people have distanced from nature. With this work, we want to show humans closer to nature and pay a tribute to it.”
Swoon
Swoon. Thalassa. IMAGO. MUCA Munich. (photo courtesy of the artist)
THALASSA
Media: Screenprint on paper with coffee stain and hand painting with collage mounted on board
Size: 123 × 138 cm
-Statement
“The name Thalassa is Greek word for ‘‘ocean’’, a primordial incarnation of the sea that is not often personified. Thalassa is said to have given birth to all tribes of fish in the sea. She is the pull of the sea that comes from inside the salt water in our blood. ‘Thalassa was originally created for New Orleans. It was the months after the Deepwater Horizon exploded in the Gulf in 2010, and this body of water that I’d loved since I was a child was in peril. As I drew Thalassa surging up from the water I felt her rising like a wake up call, one reminds us of our inseparability from the sea. When I stand in front of the ocean, the word that always appears first in my mind is “mother”. For me there is no mistaking the sense that the sea is our first mother.’ ”
GONZALO BORONDO & DIEGO LOPEZ BUENO
SELFIE ELVIS II
Media: Acrylic and plaster on wood – Plasma TV 50’’- Video on loop – 16:9 Digital – Color
Size: 7 panels each – 120 x 70 x 1 cm + 1 TV
-Statement
“Inspired by several passport photos found within the Marseilles “Marché aux Puches” (FR), Borondo and Lopez Bueno have designed an installation project with the title “Selfie Elvis II”. Imagination is the basis of the multimedia work with self-portraits of a man recalling the contemporary “selfie”. There are dozens of frames describing human aspects and obsessions. They have been digitally elaborated and assembled in a video by López Bueno. Borondo portrayed Elvis with acrylic on wood and applying gypsum, then scratched with sharp instruments. Faces appeared by subtraction, the absence tells about an ancestral and intangible dimension, wondering about its existence. Is Elvis looking at himself or us in that picture? And what about our images, do they look like us or they are just our dreams? Elvis is not there, Elvis is still there.”
Addison Karl
Addison Karl. Kamassa. IMAGO. MUCA Munich. (photo courtesy of the artist)
KAMASSA
Media: Bronze, edition 1 of 10
Size: 30,48 x 20,32 x 15,24 cm
-Statement
“Portraiture in context to sculpture and form – referencing the masterpieces from both European Classical and Neoclassical time periods. From a culture l mirror of taking inspiration from Gods and Goddess of the ancient world, my sculpture’s subject is focused on a contemporary Chickasaw Elder. Using portraiture as a means of Cultural Preservation but equally re-appropriating classic sensibilities of art history to a Native Cultural narrative. “
Various & Gould
Various & Gould. Trigger (Rokhaya Diallo). IMAGO. MUCA Munich. (photo courtesy of the artists)
TRIGGER (ROKHAYA DIALLO)
Media: Acrylic on canvas
Size: 200 x 140 cm
-Statement
“Our portrait of Rokhaya Diallo refers to an iconic work by Nikide Saint Phalle: The artistically revised film still “Daddy” shows the artist pointing a gun directly at the viewer. Even almost 50 years later, her eye and the muzzle of her rifle leave no doubt that she is serious about it. Anyone who sees the work feels immediately like coming into the firing line.
In our painting, the French journalist and film maker Rokhaya Diallo takes the place and – freely recreated – also the pose of Niki de Saint Phalle. Thus, an early feministic, vigorous artist of the twentieth century is followed by a modern, committed internet feminist with no less strong verve than her predecessor. Both women are even the same age at the time of the illustration. Only instead of the rifle, Rokhaya Diallo relies on her very own “weapon”, the hashtag. At first glance, it may seem more harmless than a rifle, but in times of #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo it can be an even more powerful tool.”
Fintan Magee
Fintan Magee The Removalist. IMAGO. MUCA Munich. (photo courtesy of the artist)
THE REMOVALIST
Media: Canvas and acrylic on wall installation
-Statement
“The portrait has been ripped off the canvas and dragged across the ground and projected onto the wall. The artist has destroyed the canvas and made the portrait ephemeral, rendering it worthless and unsellable. The work comments on the commodification of artwork and the uneasy and paradoxical relationship between artist and the financier of his artworks. With street art becoming increasingly commoditized and contributing to gentrification this work doesn’t aim to make any grand statements on how art should or shouldn’t be produced, only highlight the illusionary, absurdist and contradictory image the art industry presents of itself.”
VHILS
VHILS. Matta. IMAGO. MUCA Munich. (photo courtesy of the artist)
MATTA
Media: Bas-relief carving on plasterboard mounted on metal structure
Size: 181 x 120,5 x 34 cm
-Statement
“Resorting to a bas-relief carving technique, applied here to a free-standing structure of plasterboard, this piece is a homage to the work of Gordon Matta-Clark, which became a major influence on me after I first saw it at an exhibition in Portugal, in 2002. Matta-Clark was one of the first artists to look at the urban space as a space of creation and reflection on the human condition in the contemporary times we live in. Those are the considerations I try to translate in my own work too, reflecting about the human condition in the contemporary times we live in.”
Andrea Wan
Andrea Wan. Being Of Light. IMAGO. MUCA Munich. (photo courtesy of the artist)
BEING OF LIGHT
Media: Ink on paper
Size: 50 x 70 cm
-Statement
“Fascinated by the lively and dynamic landscape in the paintings of native Canadian Artist Emily Carr, I chose one of her most renown works, Indian Church (1929) as the subject of reinterpretation. Seemingly more accurate than a realistic approach, Carr’s abstraction of nature elements not only communicated to me that nature is vast and subliminal but also ever-changing in form and expression. The white church which stands calmly in the midst of the mystical environment inspired me to personify the subject as a being who is in tune with all that’s around her.”
DALeast
DALeast. FIII. IMAGO. MUCA Munich. (photo courtesy of the artist)
FIII
Media: Acrylic on canvas
Size: 100 x 80 cm
-Statement
“A still moment of Fiii standing in the windy land, which is existing inside the transitory gathering of the particles of the magical net.”
IMAGO: A History of Portraits opens today at MUCA Museum of Urban And Contemporary Art. Munich. Curated by Elisabetta Pajer the show runs until November 2018.
IMAGO is a show dedicated to the history of portrait: over 30 artists from five different continents are invited to pay homage and interpret a portrait in their medium of their choice. IMAGO aims to lead visitors through different artistic eras, helping discover the international history and evolution of the portrait.
Artists include:
Jef Aerosol
ASKEW ONE
Borondo
Vesod Brero
Martha Cooper
DALeast
Paola Delfin
Anna Piera Di Silvestre
Andreas Englund
Evoca 1
Ricky Lee Gordon
Hubertus Hamm
Handiedan
Icy&Sot
Addison Karl
Know Hope
Klone Yourself
Fintan Magee
Mario Mankey
Marco Mazzoni
Antony Micallef
Miss Van
Nychos
Sepe
David Shillinglaw
Søren Solkær
Sten Lex
SWOON
TelmoMiel
TWOONE
The communication methods of public advertising has always been aided by the repetition of the message by way of the printing press. Whether selling soap, snake oil, or announcing a public hanging, the multiples put your message in many hands quickly. When artist Jenny Holzer created her Inflammatory Essays as posters in the 1970s, her “hot, flaming, nasty things,” as she called them, needed the immediacy afforded by the format for spreading the word on New York Streets.
Swoon. Owls. (photo courtesy of Swoon Studio)
Similarly New York graff duo REVS/COST relied on the multiples of photocopies that could be quickly wheatpasted to spread their tags and cryptic messages on phone booths and street lamp poles in 90s. The practice quickly morphed with wild posting in the early 2000s when wheatpasters like Faile and Bast found that their more graphic screen prints and copyshop replications could easily be slapped up in seconds on construction sites.
With the hand carved and inked linotype prints Swoon began sharing her family of characters and their metaphors on city walls as well – a way to share the same story with many on the street and in the gallery.
Swoon. Red Riding Hood. (photo courtesy of Swoon Studio)
Today Swoon introduces a new method to her print practice by replicating the organic Rorschach imagery you’ve seen on her wall coverings in exhibitions. Evocative of early book illustrations and diagrams melting with psychologists’ tools of analysis, she tells us that these new prints are “drawn from fairytale, childhood imagery, and myth.”
It’s an interesting overlapping of practices that bring us to this point – as “each of these works is adapted from cutouts that Swoon created to be the basis for the repeat patterned wallpaper that covered the walls of her recent retrospective, titled ‘The Canyon’ at the Contemporary Arts Center,” says Kristine Virsis, manager of her studio. Working with Haven Press to investigate new letterpress print methods, they say these new editions are coming out tomorrow. It will be interesting to see where this new direction in printing leads Swoon, and if any of it will make it to the street.
To learn more about the new letterpress print set release please visit SwoonStudio.org
As an artist you can sometimes address, even resolve, emotional and intellectual conflicts with your creative practice, at least that it how it appears in this new “Unbound” campaign begun by Faith XLVII in San Francisco. A lifelong observer and analyst of socio-politico events and their greater implications, the South African graffiti/Street Artist tells us that today the state of many things cause her feelings of frustration.
Faith XLVII . Unbound. San Francisco, CA. July 2018. (photo courtesy of 2:32 AM Projects)
“Watching the disharmony, the dismantling of human rights and the continuous struggle for equality is exhausting,” she says.
“The only way I can keep going is if I can transform some of this into my work.”
Each flag here at the corner of Golden Gate Ave and Hyde Street in downtown San Francisco speaks to the root of many societal ills, a coded reference to a poem/manifest by Dion Fortune named “The Cosmic Doctrine.”
Faith XLVII . Unbound. San Francisco, CA. July 2018. (photo courtesy of 2:32 AM Projects)
Here in the heart of the Tenderloin district where the fallout of emotional and physical pain and abuse is played out on the streets openly by those seeking to dull the torment with drugs, the winsome and lithe artist talks about the power of the manifesto for her.
“It is not that I believe in an idealistic future, on the contrary I am at times overwhelmed with cynicism. But despite this, I do think that we have to push for the betterment of the future, for the sheer love of the planet and for each other.”
Faith XLVII . Unbound. San Francisco, CA. July 2018. (photo courtesy of 2:32 AM Projects)
And the flowing golden umber fabric at the tips of these poles? I spent time researching the symbolism of the white flag as well as the history of the Peace Manifesto,” she says, and talks about them taking many forms, “with voices spanning from the scientist who is protesting the use of the atom bomb, to Greenpeace and worker parties to Woman’s Rights associations.”
“The words speak of an existential search, for essentially, this is the root of our suffering and confusion.”
Avalon of the Heart
The Building of The Atom
The Beginnings of Consciousness
The Beginnings of Mind
The Creation of a Universe
Evolution Upon the Cosmic Planes
Influences Upon Humanity
The Natural Laws
The Law of Polarity
Influences Acting on Human Evolution
The Law of Action and Reaction
The Evolution of Form and Mind
The Evolution of Consciousness
The Evolution of a Solar System
Developing the Power to Communicate Thoughts
The Manifested Universe
Faith XLVII . Unbound. San Francisco, CA. July 2018. (photo courtesy of 2:32 AM Projects)
Faith XLVII . Unbound. San Francisco, CA. July 2018. (photo courtesy of 2:32 AM Projects)
Faith XLVII . Unbound. San Francisco, CA. July 2018. (photo courtesy of 2:32 AM Projects)
The “Unbound” Mural Project is for UC Hastings College of Law in San Francisco, California.
New York, New York, in the thick of summer. The heat is heavy with humidity, smells of hotdogs, marijuana, perfume, piss. The flat screen sunglasses now on every sweet face hide the glances and stares of the voracious, the vacuous, the visionary, the vexed, and those voluntarily enraptured by romance. Again we take refuge under a tree, on a bench, in the grass with our dog, in the frozen food section with our kids, on the sunbaked and garbage strewn sand in Coney Island, on the fire escape with our swollen-lipped and rosy cheeked lover. And everywhere is art and architecture and stoop sales and thumping music and jackhammers and the swooping yell of “gooooooooaaaaaaaalllll!” from a nearby sports bar during this month of the World Cup.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Alex Proba, Arkane, Blanco, City Kitty, David Hollier, Invader, Irak, Jason Naylor, LMNOPI, Mowcka, Phoebe New York, Renee Caoulette, Rubin 415, Staino, and Stikman.
Known for its humorist take on daily norms of societal behavior, historical events, fantasy adventures in the imagined world, and European man’s manifest destiny to conquer, the famous Imagerie d’Epinal flourished here in the 19th Century with thousands of prints and products exported far afield to other continents.
Today you can tour this illusory world in its namesake Epinal in the museum and workshops.
Additionally in this small city of 45,000 you can see its newest “Perpetual Illusion”, a four story mural by French graffiti/Street Artist Astro.
His unique techniques of optical illusion takes you back in space, often leading you to a place that looks like it would be sleekly modern and full of even, calming, light. The city itself has quite a few murals around and is well poised to receive this new art in the streets, facilitated by the Jourdains of Mathgoth Gallery in Paris.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. Lek & Sowat and the Towers of La Rochelle 2. ASTRO’s New Fresco in South of Paris
3. Jef Aérosol for Wall Street Festival in Evry
4. Art Meets Milk – Bonzai . Kenz / First & Second Edition
BSA Special Feature: Lek & Sowat and the Towers of La Rochelle
The range and creative output of Street Artists and graffiti writers astounds many who would narrowly define these artists capabilities to the basic stereotypes. Often we find that people who began their art practice on the streets have a far greater depth of knowledge and interests.
Here we see two guys previously known primarily for being vandals educating us about the history of graffiti as a practice. In this case the Tour Saint-Nicolas, one of the three towers of the waterfront of La Rochelle, contains evidence of serious mark-making that may date back to the time of its origin in the mid-late 1300s.
For this installation Lek & Sowat tell us about the history of the structure from an architectural point of view and describe how they planned their new sculpture “in situ” using the bridge as inspiration architecturally, merging those aesthetics with their own history of graffiti.
ASTRO’s New Fresco in South of Paris
Parisian Street Artist and graffiti artist Astro (Odv/Cbs)is equally comfortable doing a sharply wild burner as he is with an optically magic trip to another dimension. His abstractions grew out of a passionate dedication to calligraphy, curvilinear finess, and attraction to dynamic forms. For this project last month in the south of the city with Galerie Mathgoth the artist created a multistory illusion that characterizes his unique style and soars above the street.
“He wanted to highlight youth, its beauty and diversity,” says Gautier Jordain about French stencil master Jef Aérosol for this new public mural he just completed in Evry, in the south of Paris.
Art Meets Milk – Bonzai . Kenz / First Edition
Since publishing a video a few weeks ago about this project the artists have alerted us to two more graffiti videos that promote cows and milk – an unusual combination of family farming and graffiti style from the urban center.
Art Meet Milk – BustArt . Homre . Kenz / Second Edition
Bifido is frequently using his photography and wheatpastes to conjure a realistic vision of the plays and odysseys that children imagine, balancing as they do along the margins of reality and fantasy. In this new piece he just finished for Collettivo Boca he looks at the practice of putting on a mask figuratively, knowing very well that many of us use masks as adults as well.
He names the new piece after the painter of Dorian Gray in the Oscar Wilde novel about youth and its loss – and appearances. “Basil Hallward” joins other walls made for the festival by artists such as Bosoletti, Millo, Alex Senna, Nemo’s, an Milu Correch in this town called Bonito in the south of Italy.
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
