Ann Lewis + StudioSpaceNYC Leave Things “Unspoken” in Manhattan

Ann Lewis + StudioSpaceNYC Leave Things “Unspoken” in Manhattan

February 5, 2018 ,

Some existential thoughts and questions are left UNSPOKEN in our lives. A new collaborative exhibit in a 14th Street pop-up space offers you the opportunity to engage with some of yours. Of course, you need not say anything.

Ann Lewis + studioSPACEnyc “Unspoken”. Manhattan, NYC. February 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Street Artist/conceptual artist Ann Lewis has been working with the design team of studioSPACEnyc to create and interactive an experiential installation incorporating linear digital rainstorms of light-mapped emotion and memory for you to lay beneath and look up into as it glitters and trickles and flickers across your mind. You may also just wish to walk around them as they flicker in geometric masses, easily punctuated by your hand or body.

Lewis invites you to contemplate weightier (or loftier) matters of impermanence and infinity with toe tags hanging at the end of these 115,000 feet of reflective strings. To further engage with the immersive installation, you can leave your mark on one of the toe tags by filling out short answers to some of life’s magnificient and somehow elusive questions.

Ann Lewis + studioSPACEnyc “Unspoken”. Manhattan, NYC. February 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

We spoke with the artist and the curator, Zahra Sherzad, of Killer Media, who produced the exhibition that runs through February 15th.

Brooklyn Street Art: You have used toe tags previously in your work. What do they symbolize for you.
Ann Lewis: Toe tags carry the weight of our lives on them. As much as their 5 or 6 lines can define a person they’re so impersonal but infer this inevitability to the living. I have used them in the past to humanize the data surrounding those who have lost their lives to police brutality, or drug addiction. They have, up until this point, symbolized a finality.

Brooklyn Street Art: As an interactive exhibit, viewers are invited to contribute their answers to rather existential questions like “ Do we actually exist” and “What is the ultimate freedom?” How did you arrive at these questions?
Ann Lewis: While developing this project the curator Zahra Sherzad and I lost a mutual friend to drug addiction. I spent a lot of time considering her death and began to recognize for the first time that the only reason I’ve ever feared death is because of the loss I associate with it when others have passed. Then I began to consider what if death is an amazing adventure? Just because it’s an unknown doesn’t mean it has to be feared. I went down a meta wormhole wondering if we’re even alive right now! It’s so great not to have the answers

Ann Lewis + studioSPACEnyc “Unspoken”. Manhattan, NYC. February 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: Immersive exhibitions usually have to strike a balance between leaving you alone and engaging you to participate. How do you plan for the variety of responses?
Ann Lewis: In my opinion good installation art must really consider how a participant will flow through the space. It must offer space and time for reflection as well as opportunities to engage. I like to offer those opportunities at the beginning of the experience and if possible create a movement throughout the space that is nonlinear which lends itself to personalized, unique experiences that in turn become strong memories that stay with the participant long after she leaves the space.

Ann Lewis + studioSPACEnyc “Unspoken”. Manhattan, NYC. February 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: When you work on the street do you ever think of elements or people in public space as part of your exhibition?
Ann Lewis: That’s the first thing I think of even before I know what the work will be. A good percentage of the work I’ve put outside has been site specific. Scouting is such a fun part of the job. One must recognize the context in which the work will be viewed in order to really have the opportunity to create an impactful experience for the viewer.

Brooklyn Street Art: What would be a good outcome for you if you could chose a viewers experience at this show?
Ann Lewis: I think having a participant leave the space questioning her understanding of her own perception of our world would be very exciting.

Ann Lewis + studioSPACEnyc “Unspoken”. Manhattan, NYC. February 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: How did you select Ann Lewis and studioSPACEart for this exhibition?
Zahra Sherzad: We wanted to create an interactive art installation, around the conversation of dying with dignity for the TV series “Kill Me”. We chose Ann as a multidisciplinary activist artist using painting, installation, and participatory performance. She has an ongoing work called “…and counting”, an interactive installation made with hung toe tags.  We brought the StudioSpaceNYC boys in with their projection mapping strings to add a cinematic experience and as a way to transport people into another world.

Brooklyn Street Art: Your projects have a social mission that runs parallel to your exhibits you curate. Are there particular symbols here that resonate with that mission?
Zahra Sherzad: “Unspoken” is a way to provoke thought around how we view death, which is what the series “Kill Me” is about.  We are not telling people what to think nor are we asking them to take a definitive position on the issues around mercy killing and dying with dignity. The viewers of the exhibition are asked to participate by filling out a questionnaire tailored to the shows script on the toe tags that asks questions about their relationship and experience with death.  As the days tick forward the installation grows as participants add new tags.

Ann Lewis + studioSPACEnyc “Unspoken”. Manhattan, NYC. February 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ann Lewis + studioSPACEnyc “Unspoken”. Manhattan, NYC. February 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ann Lewis + studioSPACEnyc “Unspoken”. Manhattan, NYC. February 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

Ann Lewis + studioSPACEnyc “Unspoken”. Manhattan, NYC. February 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ann Lewis + studioSPACEnyc “Unspoken”. Manhattan, NYC. February 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

UNSPOKEN

Ann Lewis + studioSPACEnyc

January 18 – February 15, 2018

Killer Impact, a Killer Content company, is pleased to present “Unspoken” – a collaborative exhibit between artists Ann Lewis and studioSPACEnyc, curated by Killer’s Director of Visual Art, Zahra Sherzad at
149 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10011.

 

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BSA Images Of The Week: 02.04.18

BSA Images Of The Week: 02.04.18

February 4, 2018 ,

BSA-Images-Week-Jan2015

Stomping through the streets of New York Friday looking for new Street Art and graffiti, the cold and the wind reminded us of a saying we learned from the Norwegians during recent trips there: “There’s no such a thing as bad weather, only bad clothing”.

Cold comfort perhaps, but an apt metaphor for weathering the storms. Prepare!

These photos draw from that frozen urban exploration we embarked upon to the hinterlands of places not typically known for a Street Art scene like Sunnyside, Queens and places now slaughtered with murals and some smaller illegal pieces like the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

Hope you are as impressed by what we found as we are as Gen Z is making some of those Millenials look like old grannies out here! Real Talk.

Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring A Cool 55, Alex Andre, Damien Mitchell, drsc0, Alexander Evans, Ardif, Angry Red, Arrex Skulls, Below Key, Dede, Dirt Cobain, Gongkan, Keith Haring, Praxis VGZ, SacSix, Sean Slaney, Special Robot Dog, Teg Artworks, Thrashbird, and Voxx Romana .

Top Image: Thrashbird…and LBJ at the #greatwallofsavas (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A Cool 55 at the #greatwallofsavas (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A Cool 55 at the #greatwallofsavas (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Alexandra Evans . Alex Andrae at First Street Green. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Damien Mitchell (photo © Jaime Rojo)

SacSix tribute to Biggie Smalls. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dirt Cobain at the #greatwallofsavas (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Arrex Skulls at the #greatwallofsavas (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Gongkan at First Street Green. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Special Robot Dog at First Street Green. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dede (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ardif. Detail. At the #greatwallofsavas (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ardif at the #greatwallofsavas (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Voxx Romana at the #greatwallofsavas (photo © Jaime Rojo)

drsc0 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Teg Artworks at the #greatwallofsavas (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Below Key and friends. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sean Slaney and Angry Red at First Street Green. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sean Slaney and Angry Red at First Street Green. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

Praxis VGZ (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Keith Haring (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. East River. January 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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New Print of “475 Kent” in Brooklyn Benefits Artists Who Built Community

New Print of “475 Kent” in Brooklyn Benefits Artists Who Built Community

February 3, 2018

475 Kent for Sale! Actually, it already sold to real estate developers a year ago – Roughly 20 years after an active artist community brought this nearly abandoned old pasta factory to life and made it desireable.

Buying one of these prints will defend their ability to stay in their live/work spaces.

475 Print # 1 Edition of 30. Rob Swainston . Alison Dell . Prints Of Darkness.

Today, those same artists and creatives are at the center of New York’s largest symbolic fight to keep artists in their live/work spaces, testing the letter of the Loft Law and the commitment to the people by the Loft Board. So far, nearly 50 families including older folks and children have been expunged from their spaces since the building was sold one year ago.

When you pay $56 million for a factory to turn it into a luxury loft building in Brooklyn, you probably kept some funds for lawyers to clean it out. Stop us if you’ve heard this one before.

There are multiple shades of color that wash over this brand new image by two artists who were married on the roof of this former pasta factory in 2001. Both accomplished professors (art and biology respectively) Rob Swainston and Alison Dell also began their print shop in the building in the mid 2000s, humorously called “Prints of Darkness”.

In one of the many incredible stories associated with the artists community at 475 Kent – three weeks after Swainston and Dell were wedded on the roof tenant and renowned photographer Robert Clark shot images of the 2nd plane hitting the World Trade Center from that same roof, a photo appearing on the cover of Time that week and in National Geographic among other publications.

475 Print # 2 Edition of 26. Rob Swainston . Alison Dell . Prints Of Darkness.

To help raise funds for tenants legal and architectural expenses here Swainston and Dell donate their talent, time, and print supplies for a very special release; a portrait of the building that made this a home and a community for 20 years of entrepreneurial artists, photographers, designers, musicians, filmmakers, curators, gallerists, publishers, writers, editors, teachers, models, programmers, architects, street artists, printers, sculptors, builders, fabricators, chefs, brewers, botanists, performers, and all their lovers, spouses, and kids.

Sales of the print will benefit the 475Kent Tenants Association and all funds raised will assist with legal and architectural expenses incurred as the building and its residents move through the legalization process under the Loft Law. A test case for the new 2010 Loft Law that provides protection for cultural creators like these, the process has been less than favorable according to a recent article by Ben Sutton in Hyperallergic: “If Things Were Going Well, We Wouldn’t Be Here”: Artists Protest NYC’s Loft Board”

Writes Sutton, “Despite a promise from Mayor de Blasio that he would defend them, New York City’s loft tenants feel more vulnerable than ever and are taking their concerns to the board charged with helping them.”

475 Print # 3 Edition of 23. Rob Swainston . Alison Dell . Prints Of Darkness.

You’ll be hearing more on the unique place that this building holds in the story of New York’s Arts community in coming months as residents will be adding to their legal war chest with fundraisers that have already received pledges of support from some of the biggest names in Street Art and photography, painting, food, and the plastic arts. True community builders, the activist spirit of the art scene here for two decades has already fought and won to fight off power plants by energy interests all along the riverside of Williamsburg, Brooklyn in the early 2000s, where thousands of school children would have been breathing polluted air.

They’ve fought for community gardens, funding for parks, protected bike lanes, and sane siting of waste-disposal plants, among other efforts. In January 2008 the entire building was evacuated, shoving 250 people out in two hours by the Fire Department because of dangerous conditions created by the matzoh factory that had been running in the basement for many years apart from the artists involvement. After actively mobilizing support from the City, the press, their politicians, the community board and the larger New York artists community and supporters, they helped the owners construct a new fire-safe sprinklers system among other things and moved back in the building en masse four months later.

Clearly this is a dynamic community of creatives that fights the good fight and you can help bolster their efforts today by bringing 475 Kent into your home.

Click on 475Kent.org .

Click HERE to learn more about Prints Of Darkness

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BSA Film Friday: 02.02.18 : BANE & PEST in Chernobyl

BSA Film Friday: 02.02.18 : BANE & PEST in Chernobyl

February 2, 2018 ,

bsa-film-friday-JAN-2015

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

Now screening :
1. RECOVER – Street Art in Chernobyl

bsa-film-friday-special-feature

BSA Special Feature: RECOVER – Street Art in Chernobyl

Chernobyl is a nuclear disaster that figures profoundly into the modern age – and for centuries into the future.

Today not so many people talk about this man-made horror that killed a Russian town and chased out its survivors in 1986 just 90 kilometers northeast of Kiev. Called the most disastrous nuclear accident in history, it evacuated 115,000 and spread a radioactive cloud around the Earth, with European neighbors like Scandinavia, Switzerland, Greece, Italy, France and the UK detecting the effects of radiation for years afterward. Three scientists at The New York Academy of Sciences have estimated that over time the number of people killed by effects from the meltdown was almost a million.

Because of the nature of radiation, Chernobyl has been estimated to not be safely habitable for about 20,000 years.

Not that you read many critical essays about the innate evil or catastrophic danger of nuclear power in your corporate media, possibly because they take paid advertising from the industry.

Naturally we’re not making light of the subject. But it is of great interest when two Street Artists have recently penetrated the Exclusion Zone of Chernobyl and today we present a short documentary of their experience. After securing permission and accompanied by a guide, BANE & PEST, a Swiss/Cypriot Street Art duo based in Chur, Switzerland, made it inside to paint. They learned not to touch anything and to tread lightly, Geiger counter in hand and 50 kilograms of paint in tow.

In the course of their 5 day excursion you can sense the gravity of the disaster as well as the effect of the experience on the artists. Faced with more existential questions perhaps than they contemplated previously, you learn that their art is transformed as well as their view of the Earth we depend on.

BSA spoke with one of the artists, Bane, and the Zurich-based directors Zoran Stojanovic and Thomas Brunner about their experiences creating art and filming a documentary inside Chernobyl, now considered part of a war zone in Ukraine.

BSA: It appears that your experience of Chernobyl continued to change – from the planning, to the traveling there, to discovering the city. Would you say that your perceptions of the former city evolved over time?
BANE: It was clear from the beginning that we did not know what to expect. The city itself was like a journey into the future.

This is what the world looks like when we no longer have people. Nature and everything around it is regenerating very fast. It was a very nice look into the future.

BSA: Were the preparations and precautions you took sufficient?
Tom & Zoran: Well – we received the request to accompany Bane and Pest on their trip to Chernobyl only about two weeks before they planned to start the trip. The film team who had initially accepted the job jumped off the project due to fear of radiation.

The time which was left for the preparation of this adventure was of course very short but the unique chance to travel to such a fascinating place and to be part of this project made us decide to do it.

Unfortunately our insurance did not accept the coverage of our camera for this trip as the Ukraine is still regarded to be a war area. In the very last minute we were able to buy a second hand camera at a reasonable price. But we did not have any time to test it and could only view the first footage when we were already in Kiev which is rather crazy.

As far as precautions were concerned, it was a lucky coincidence that Tom’s godfather, who had worked in the security department of a nuclear power plant in Switzerland for many years, could give us very valuable advice on the necessary preventive measures we had to take.

BSA: Not many Street Artists/graffiti writers can say that they painted in Chernobyl. Would you recommend it?
BANE: Only with caution. I think it’s the wrong place for a “hall of fame”

One should very consciously approach the matter and with extreme caution choose the subjects.

BSA: What was the thing that surprised you the most as filmmakers when approaching the environment?
Tom & Zoran: We knew that the exclusion zone was extremely fascinating from the visual point of view and would give numerous possibilities for our work. But what we found when we got there was beyond all our expectations. The number of abandoned buildings is amazing – there is everything: an old theater, a former swimming pool, a deserted hospital, a former school. Just a real town.

Chernobyl is nowadays a tourist attraction as well. So we found some ‘arranged places’ which were sort of ‘prepared’ for the photographers from all over the world. That is something we did not expect.

BSA: As you traveled through the factory and hospital and around the antenna, would you say that you felt the presence of life in a city that once was fully alive?
BANE: Life was pulsing everywhere. No civilization noise, no aircraft noise, no cars. Nothing at all.

The environment was so quiet you could almost hear the trees growing. Birds were heard from far away. Since no more people have an influence on the environment, this has the opportunity to live fully.

BSA: Did the team feel overwhelmed by your surroundings at any point?
Tom & Zoran: The moment we passed the nuclear reactor where the accident happened was very moving indeed. At that stage the reactor was still very clearly visible and not covered by a sarcophagus as it is now.

When we first came to the amusement park with the famous big wonder wheel we all were totally overwhelmed by unbelievable emotions. On one hand you feel very sad for all these people who had to leave their homes and
give up living in their town, on the other hand one is fascinated by the incredible silence and special beauty of this place. You just do not hear anything there – no cars, no people, no birds. You might be standing 30 meters away from somebody else and still be able to talk at a normal volume. This is stunning.

As a team we grew together very closely there.

BSA: Were you limited to only painting these official murals?
BANE: Actually, we only had the permission to paint on the outskirts. After our arrival we were told that we can paint wherever we want. Thus, we also decided to paint three pieces instead of one.

BSA: What is your observation about the animals and trees that have been taking over the area and how did that affect your choice of subjects to paint?
BANE: As we changed our way of choosing the spaces, we have decided to dedicate the pictures to the wildlife that have settled in the area. It can be said that the whole environment in Chernobyl first brought us to these subjects

BSA: Was there any kind of human threat while you were filming and the artists were painting? How animal threats?
Tom & Zoran: We have to say that we have been accompanied by a local guide who knew the area and also the dangerous parts of it very well. So we always felt very secure.

After a while we had the opportunity to walk around on our own with a radio set and a Geiger tube. In Chernobyl and in Pripyat this is all very well organized. You pass the military checkpoints and controls of your papers.

Tourist groups only stay for a short while at the known places and are then transported further on. The security is taken very seriously by the authorities.

Although we knew that nature is “fighting its way back” and animal population is growing again, we never got into a critical situation with animals. Rather, we were fascinated by horses grazing peacefully or foxes sneaking about.

All images are screenshots from film and ©Pixel Love 2017

 

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DavidL Paints Hitchcock, Warhol, Tim Burton, Kubrick: Through The Lens of Fer Alcala

DavidL Paints Hitchcock, Warhol, Tim Burton, Kubrick: Through The Lens of Fer Alcala

February 1, 2018

Photographer Fer Alcala recently explored an abandoned place known to some as Fraggle Rock with Street Artist/graffiti writer DavidL, who is specializing in personality infused portraits of cinematic and pop personae drawn primarily from the second half of the 20th century. Today he tells BSA readers about his experience on this road trip.

How I spent one day with DavidL in a marvelous abandoned place in the middle of nowhere watching him paint

~ Fer Acala

After 25 years writing graffiti, DavidL has found his own way of working. It’s funny because one of the inherent issues about graffiti and street art is visibility. All the trains, the bombing, the tagging…it’s all about being noticed, being every f-ing where. It has been like this since day one (Taki 183, Terror161, 1UP…you know how it works).

But for David it’s not like that anymore.

DavidL. Alfred Hitchcock. Fraggle Rock. Spain. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

Maybe it’s a sign of the days that we are living with social media, communication 2.0, etcetera. It’s obvious that if you have certain skills managing all this and a little bit of talent, plus a pinch of good taste, you can reach a global audience and show your work to the entire world even when you are concentrating the majority of your creations in a secret location.

What I like about David’s way of working is that he creates his own world. I’m not speaking about his wonderful caricatures. No. I mean that he has built (is still building) a certain kind of artwork with a lot of discipline and a strong working ethic behind it. Almost a hermit when we speak about painting walls, David is creating a beautiful personal universe ruled by his own choices. And, hey! It totally works.

DavidL. Alfred Hitchcock. Detail. Fraggle Rock. Spain. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

Some days ago I had the chance to accompany David to his ‘headquarters’. I can’t say much about the location, but it took a while to go there by car from Barcelona and the enchanted abandoned landscape was astonishing. Obviously, I wasn’t the first person to be there. Everyone who drives by can have their own “urbex” experience in this abandoned place and they wouldn’t be disappointed with their findings.

Other artists and friends have painted there but I felt very honored to have the opportunity to go with David, to explore and to watch him create a piece from nothing. It felt like a privilege to enter his world invited by the host and to witness the whole process.

DavidL. Edward Scissorhands. Fraggle Rock. Spain. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

Despite the cold, the hunger, and the absence of beers, it was important for me to capture the details. I wanted to share the thoughts and the doubts, to see the commitment behind the creation of a piece in a single room for seven hours while listening to hip hop beats. I explored the place and went here and there but it is not and everyday experience for me to witness such a private way of working outside of the four walls of a studio.

David’s pieces are about pop culture. He chooses them kind of randomly and takes them to his own world. Movies, comic books, art figures…have being transformed using a very recognizable style. As a part of the process, DavidL keeps the original sketches and drawings and he sells them at a very reasonable price.

DavidL. Tim Burton. Fraggle Rock. Spain. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

It’s just a matter of time before DavidL is discovered and we both wonder if he will be able to keep this place and the art of its walls under the radar much longer. How long it will it continue to paint in places like this without time constriction and be peaceful and be calm and work without any hurries and be in control of the timing and go back there the next day to finish the work?

I haven’t the answers to all these questions, but what I know is that there are still tons of empty rooms waiting for DavidL to paint them. And, my friends, that will happen for sure. – FA

DavidL. Beetlejuice. Fraggle Rock. Spain. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

DavidL. Hellboy. Fraggle Rock. Spain. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

DavidL. ET. Detail. Fraggle Rock. Spain. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

DavidL. ET. Fraggle Rock. Spain. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

DavidL. Doc Brown. Fraggle Rock. Spain. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

DavidL. Stanley Kubrick. Fraggle Rock. Spain. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

DavidL. Village of The Damned. Fraggle Rock. Spain. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

DavidL. Village of The Damned. Fraggle Rock. Spain. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

DavidL. Process shot. Fraggle Rock. Spain. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

 

DavidL. Process shot. Fraggle Rock. Spain. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

DavidL. Process shot. Fraggle Rock. Spain. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

DavidL. Process shot. Fraggle Rock. Spain. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

DavidL. Process shot. Fraggle Rock. Spain. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

DavidL. Process shot. Fraggle Rock. Spain. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

DavidL. Andy Warhol. Fraggle Rock. Spain. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

DavidL. Ursula. Fraggle Rock. Spain. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

DavidL. Invented character. Fraggle Rock. Spain. (photo © Fer Alcalá)

 

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Julieta XLF & Bifido Emancipate “Le Baccanti” in Requena

Julieta XLF & Bifido Emancipate “Le Baccanti” in Requena

January 31, 2018

The  Street Art duo of Julieta XLF and Bifido continues to produce works that blend together their strongest individual talents with elements of photorealism and decorative painting organically combined. This time we are in Requena, Spain and looking at the reflection of a girl looking at herself as a free woman, say the artists. “Le Baccanti”, from the Greek tragedian of classical Athens named Euripides, features such a figure unaware perhaps of the possibility of her own emancipation.

Julieta XFL . Bifido. “Le Baccanti”. Requena, Spain. January 2018. (photo © Roberto Palmer)

Say the artists; “The wine, represented by some grape berries held in her hands, serves as chance of something else; the richness of the land and unconsciousness of one’s ability to achieve full awareness. The girl, split, looks at her previous self. She is a free woman, able to be whatever she is, without compromise. A woman as fierce as the surrounding landscape that she holds strongly, making herself part of it.”

Julieta XFL . Bifido. “Le Baccanti”. Requena, Spain. January 2018. (photo © Roberto Palmer)

Julieta XFL . Bifido. “Le Baccanti”. Requena, Spain. January 2018. (photo © Roberto Palmer)

Julieta XFL . Bifido. “Le Baccanti”. Requena, Spain. January 2018. (photo © Roberto Palmer)

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Converting Gold From Our Waste: “Bordalo II / 2011 – 2017”

Converting Gold From Our Waste: “Bordalo II / 2011 – 2017”

January 30, 2018

Bordalo II 2011 – 2017. Editor & Publisher Bordalo II. In conjunction with ATTERO and exhibition by Bordalo II held in Lisbon. November, 2017. Lisbon, Portugal.

Are those Ai Weiwei bicycles clustered and suspended in the air overhead? Rather they are stored here like a 3 layer spoke, wheel, and frame cake, pressed to the side of this bricked wall tin-roof warehouse along with rolling office chairs waving their legs in the air like little lady bugs stuck on their backs.

Everything here has been pressed into position by the small mountains of white garbage bags filled with something soft, like dollops of whipped cream. The entire confection is sprinkled across the top with lanterns and light fixtures plucked from decades of the last half-century.

Bordalo II 2011 – 2017. Editor & Publisher Bordalo II. In conjunction with ATTERO and exhibition by Bordalo II held in Lisbon. November, 2017. Lisbon, Portugal.

Such is the splendid stuff of dreams and discovery for Bordalo II, the Lisbon-based Street Artist and maker of garbage relief animal portraits in cities across the world.

These are the things that when arranged on shelves and in placed relation to a floor plan, within parameters and boundaries of our mundanity, will comprise a perfect environment of domesticity; full of memory, associative emotion, symmetry. Objects, materials melted and poured, carved and plain, screwed and snapped, polished and sprayed, emulsified, inset, extruded, coiled, soldiered, plated, woven. These dimensional collections of matter matter to us. Metal alloy. Plastic polymer. Blown glass. Rubber, copper, steel, bakelite, particle board, glue.

Disarrange. You create chaos, disruption, disunity, discontent. Arrange again and create a muskrat, a buck deer, a petulant parakeet, an undulant octopus.

Bordalo II 2011 – 2017. Editor & Publisher Bordalo II. In conjunction with ATTERO and exhibition by Bordalo II held in Lisbon. November, 2017. Lisbon, Portugal.

Bordalo II, so-named after his watercolor master grandfather Real Bordalo who passed last year at 91, has in six or seven short years made a name for himself with your garbage, refusing to allow it to go to the junkyard or to float in the ocean just yet.

“After surveying the variety of offerings that included industrial, commercial, and consumer detritus, he speedily chose what appear to me to be a random bunch of junk,” writes five-decade photographer of urban art and artists, Martha Cooper about how he captured her interest.

“It was a genuine pleasure to watch an animal evolve before everyone’s eyes. As I watched him create the sculptural mural I was amazed to see how he utilized the shapes, textures, and aesthetic qualities of the found items to recreate the octopus in such a true-to-life manner.”

Bordalo II 2011 – 2017. Editor & Publisher Bordalo II. In conjunction with ATTERO and exhibition by Bordalo II held in Lisbon. November, 2017. Lisbon, Portugal.

Hers and others’ observations and essays are collected in “Bordalo II, 2011-2017” released in concert with his massive solo show “Attero” this November in Lisbon. A graffiti writer as a youth with his crew R315 Dream Team, the artist credits the three years at the Fine Arts Faculty in his city for allowing him to discover sculpture and to experiment with different materials, seducing him away from strictly painting. With it he is creating critique of our love of “things” and the excesses of consumerism, especially those excesses that are endangering wildlife.

“Bordalo is a master of our refuse,” says writer and critic Carlo McCormick, “what we throw way in our endless glut of consumption, the ideas, sensibilities and dreams we discard in the name of progress and all that accumulates unwanted, ignored, and even reviled by society’s voracious appetite for something disposable.” McCormick looks carefully at the implications of such an art practice and praises Bordalo II for the sharp tongue he brings to a sometimes superficial conversation occurring in the Street Art scene.

Bordalo II 2011 – 2017. Editor & Publisher Bordalo II. In conjunction with ATTERO and exhibition by Bordalo II held in Lisbon. November, 2017. Lisbon, Portugal.

No hero is he, nor does he pretend to be. Rather Bordalo II uses his work to remind us of our integral part of a cycle that includes everyone and everything. João Pedro Matos Fernandes, the Portuguese Minister of Environment adds his voice to those in this unassuming but powerful tome after laying out the treacherous story of our trash.

Speaking of Bordalo’s work, Mr. Fernandes writes,” It calls to our attention the choices we make in our everyday life, and to the consequences of our actions. And he does so in a scathing fashion, which I thoroughly enjoy, by using trash to represent some of the more emblematic species which our behavior puts at risk.”

It’s a brief snapshot of the artist in motion, with surely more evolutions to come. Ever the delicious quipster with the poetic tongue, McCormick lauds the street trash wizard.

“And in this world where we choke the planet with out incessant rubbish, let us celebrate those alchemical artists like Bordalo II who have that rare gift of being able to turn shit into gold.”

Bordalo II 2011 – 2017. Editor & Publisher Bordalo II. In conjunction with ATTERO and exhibition by Bordalo II held in Lisbon. November, 2017. Lisbon, Portugal.

Bordalo II 2011 – 2017. Editor & Publisher Bordalo II. In conjunction with ATTERO and exhibition by Bordalo II held in Lisbon. November, 2017. Lisbon, Portugal.

Bordalo II 2011 – 2017. Editor & Publisher Bordalo II. In conjunction with ATTERO and exhibition by Bordalo II held in Lisbon. November, 2017. Lisbon, Portugal.

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Vlady Art Spreads A Poem Across Stockholm : “Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep”

Vlady Art Spreads A Poem Across Stockholm : “Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep”

January 29, 2018

When you live in a city your everyday interaction with the built environment may make one feel quite divorced from nature. Thanks to the parks and trees and the changing of the seasons, however, you can be poignantly reminded of the passage of time and a touch upon a somewhat grounded awareness of life’s cycles.

Somehow we know that the proximity to the sun and the tilt of the globe determines the length of our days, and seasons appear in literature and lyrics across our various screens for all of our lives.

Vlady Art. “Do not stand at my grave and weep” (Mary Elizabeth Frye, 1905-2004) (photo © Vlady Art)

Stockholm Street Artist Vlady Art says that he waited through all of the seasons of a year to install a poem throughout his city that speaks to the season of loss, and remembrance. Using recycled real estate lawn signs, Vlady reprised in portions the poem “Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep”, written in 1932 by the American Mary Elizabeth Frye.

“Today is one of the most popular poems in the world, crossing national boundaries for use on bereavement cards and at funerals regardless of race, religion or social status. Its spiritual words demonstrated a remarkable power to soothe loss,” he says as he describes his text-based interventions that span locations as well as seasons.

Vlady Art. “Do not stand at my grave and weep” (Mary Elizabeth Frye, 1905-2004) (photo © Vlady Art)

“As the poem openly talks about nature and elements, I found that the perfect set for those spiritual words would have been outside. There the people should have it. The poem seemed to contemplate the same places that I admired while walking or cycling. Here in Sweden we have a close relation with the seasons and the outdoors. It’s not strange at all even for a Stockholm person to have a stroll in the forest or bath in a lake in the silence of the midnight light,” he says.

“During the summer days one of the most popular activities here is to wait the sunset on a top of a hill. And this is not a farming countryside, but a million’s people capital. I specify this because that might explain the mood behind the work. Also by disconnecting the verses and isolating them, I find it pleasant. Yes, I had to wait for the snow, the autumn rain or the mature grain. Is quite normal to handle more projects in the same time and wait for the right moment to strike.”

Vlady Art. “Do not stand at my grave and weep” (Mary Elizabeth Frye, 1905-2004) (photo © Vlady Art)

Obviously the foresight, planning, and dedication that this took to fully implement is much more than the more common Street Art interventions that we are familiar with. Viewing the documentation today makes it all seen worth it.

In case you’re wondering, Vlady is hooked on the process and will have more installations to come. “For another project involving the autumn leaves I waited also about a year. I have already a good idea for the next Christmas, as well!”

Vlady Art. “Do not stand at my grave and weep” (Mary Elizabeth Frye, 1905-2004) (photo © Vlady Art)

Vlady Art. “Do not stand at my grave and weep” (Mary Elizabeth Frye, 1905-2004) (photo © Vlady Art)

Vlady Art. “Do not stand at my grave and weep” (Mary Elizabeth Frye, 1905-2004) (photo © Vlady Art)

Vlady Art. “Do not stand at my grave and weep” (Mary Elizabeth Frye, 1905-2004) (photo © Vlady Art)

Vlady Art. “Do not stand at my grave and weep” (Mary Elizabeth Frye, 1905-2004) (photo © Vlady Art)

Vlady Art. “Do not stand at my grave and weep” (Mary Elizabeth Frye, 1905-2004) (photo © Vlady Art)

Do not stand at my grave and weep (Mary Elizabeth Frye, 1905-2004)

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,

I am the diamond glints on snow,

I am the sun on ripened grain,

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
of quiet birds in circling flight.

I am the soft star-shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Not_Stand_at_My_Grave_and_Weep


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BSA Images Of The Week: 01.28.18

BSA Images Of The Week: 01.28.18

January 28, 2018 ,

BSA-Images-Week-Jan2015

Stumbling and slipping and dancing through January here in New York requires dexterity and a tolerance for dry skin and flattened hat-hair and the occasional sore throat.  Thankfully there are great indoor activities sometimes like the huge trippy balloon installations by suave art dynamo Jihan Zencirli at her opening exhibition inside the NYC Ballet atrium Friday night. Hundreds of thousands of balloons, free bourbon, and a DJ after a surprisingly post-post-modern program of envelope pushing dancing on the mainstage by amazing pros! Gurl, that ballet is ballin’.

Elsewhere in art news the Guggenheim’s Nancy Specter offered a gold-plated toilet to the White House after turning down their request to borrow a VanGogh, people lined up to see “One Basquiat” at the Brooklyn Museum this week while they streamed by many Basquiats on New York Streets without looking in the 80s, and New York magazine announced a “public art” campaign with 50 artists (Yoko Ono, Barbara Krueger, Marilyn Minter) this year that sounds a lot like it is borrowing heavily from Street Art techniques “throughout the five boroughs and in a variety of formats, such as on street lamps or “wild postings” on walls around the city.” Wild postings?

One more indoor exhibit totally worth your time is Ann Lewis’s installations at a no-name popup in Manhattatan.  The conceptual Street/gallery activist artist continues to push her own boundaries, and many of ours, with her work addressing difficult social and political issues like police brutality, institutional bias against women, racism, the Resistance. At a time when we need women’s voices to rise, she collaborates with StudioSpaceNYC at a pop-up at 149 West 14th Street (shots from the installation below).

Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Ann Lewis, Atomik, Jihan Zencirli, Obey, Pet-de-None, Shepard Fairey, Studio Space NYC and Tona.

Top Image: TONA in Lisbon. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

OBEY in Lisbon. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ann Lewis and Studio Space NYC  exhibition/collaboration “Unspoken”. Stay tuned for more on this exhibition. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ann Lewis and Studio Space NYC  exhibition/collaboration “Unspoken”. Stay tuned for more on this exhibition. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist in Lisbon. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pet-de-None in Lisbon. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cinza in Lisbon. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist in Lisbon. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Atomik in Lisbon. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist in Lisbon. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist in Lisbon. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hasta la vista B2B in Lisbon. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

DON’T EAT ME in Lisbon. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

We couldn’t read this tag…help anyone? (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jihan Zencirli AKA Geronimo at the NYC Ballet installation. Detail. More to come shortly… (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jihan Zencirli AKA Geronimo at the NYC Ballet installation. Detail. More to come shortly… (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist in Lisbon. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Manhattan and the East River from the Williamsburg Bridge. January 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Saturday is Good for SAMO in China as Imagined by 0907

Saturday is Good for SAMO in China as Imagined by 0907

January 27, 2018

Street Artist 0907 is somewhere in China today with this new multiples stencil of Jean Michel Basquiat as shot by Andy Warhol. If you had a doubt about the global appreciation of these artists on the street, here’s at least one answer.

0907 tribute to SAMO in China. (photo © 0907)

0907 tribute to SAMO in China. (photo © 0907)

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BSA Film Friday 01.26.18

BSA Film Friday 01.26.18

January 26, 2018

bsa-film-friday-JAN-2015

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

Now screening :
1. Vermibus – In Absentia
2. Balú – Hutsean
3. Pati Baztán for Contorno Urbano 12 + 1 in Barcelona
4. Ai Weiwei: Human Flow. Trailer
5. Balloons Festoon the Ballet with Jihan Zencirli

bsa-film-friday-special-feature

BSA Special Feature: Vermibus – In Absentia

The Francis Bacon of advertising posters, Vermibus returns today in the Parisian Metro, solvent in hand. In such a fashionable city, where the image of beauty has been examined from every angle, it’s the visual pollution of consumerism that the Berlin-based artist targets. Shot in a very public series of venues, the Xar Lee directed video is significant for its absence of public, the intended audience for the beauty posters in this, their public space.

Hutsean – Balú

“Art is not in museums. Art is in all men and women,” proclaims Balú in tribute to Jorge Oteiza. The multidisciplinary artist from Basque country commissions his own intervention to honor this BAsque sculptor and thinker who has been a reference point for thought and art since Balú began his career. The intervention carried out in the Paseo Nuevo de Donosti, is located under the sculpture “empty construction” by Jorge Oteiza.

 

Pati Baztán for Contorno Urbano 12 + 1 in Barcelona

Pati Baztán takes special pleasure in savoring the color, the process, the materiality of her lifeblood. Here you can see the models of contemporary staking claim in the public sphere, asserting the massive blocks of color and volume as ends unto themselves, upending conventions of aerosol wizardry and defining a different approach to intervention.

 

Ai Weiwei: Human Flow. Trailer

Chinese contemporary artist and activist Ai Weiwei keeps the focus where governments and war profiteers would like to distract you from. When entire cultures are displaced, their lives made precarious, it is no longer simply geopolitical grabbing for resources – it is inhumanity. Ai Weiwei finds it and flows it into our midst.

Balloons Festoon the Ballet with Jihan Zencirli

Jihan Zencirli aka GERONIMO takes over the visuals with her ballooning imagination in the winter months at New York City Ballet for the sixth presentation of Art Series. Previous installations have featured notables like Faile,JR, Santtu Mustonen, and Dustin Yellen in the main atrium and onstage at Lincoln Center.

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Canemorto & Angelino Release “Golden Age”

Canemorto & Angelino Release “Golden Age”

January 25, 2018

Not quite Domingo, Carreras, and Pavarotti but it’s still an historic achievement in the field of music. The inimitable trio of lively street canines known as Canemorto (dead dog) have just dropped a new track straight from Italy entitled “Gipsy Kings”, the eponymous single from their EP “Golden Age”, performed near the end of the mini-documentary below.

Canemorto & Angelino “Golden.Age” Hand painted album cover. Studio Cromie. Grottaglie, Italy. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

And now they’ve brought Angelino into their mix so you know its all FAME for the future with 4 MCs on the mic. Or, to paraphrase the lyrics, Canemorto with their homie from Studio Chromie gives you zero phonies on the microphoney. Talents like this rarely make it past security, let alone into the studio, so the howling results of this musical are remarkably fresh, painfully funny, and sometimes just painful.

Canemorto & Angelino “Golden.Age” Printed album cover. Studio Cromie. Grottaglie, Italy. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Seen here is the still-warm vinyl for all the old skool DJs rocking turntables, with a custom screen printed B side. For a frameable edition of the cover the artists have also dug deep in created custom painted versions. A new single to add to a list of musical contributions to the Street Art/graffiti world, surely a greatest hits collection is on the horizon as these neo-brutalists show their tongue-style is as slick as their handstyle.

Canemorto & Angelino “Golden.Age” Lyrics. Studio Cromie. Grottaglie, Italy. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Canemorto & Angelino “Golden.Age” The vinyl. Studio Cromie. Grottaglie, Italy. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

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