Luca Ledda and Troubled Dreams in Bosnia-Herzegovina

June 25, 2016 Artists

Lucca Ledda’s chubby men are constantly being tormented and abused by someone.

If it’s not a full-bosomed dominatrix holding his leash then he is being pulled by his long rabbit ears from a hat, sandwiched between two buns with lettuce, or spinning slowly on a rotisserie with a sprig of rosemary.

Luca Ledda “The Dreamers” Festival Mostar. Bosnia. June 2016. (photo © Luca Ledda)

For his newest bad dream in Bosnia, the Italian Street Artist is equally surreal, set afloat from a jack-in-the-box, corkscrewed by a thorny rose, but still free to imagine – little dreams issuing forth from his reverie. Looking closely you see he is holding a key to his chest, perhaps this is the one that will free him.

The title is “The Dreamers” and the 6 meter x 4 meter piece was completed during Street Arts Festival Mostar last month in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Luca Ledda “The Dreamers” Festival Mostar. Bosnia. June 2016. (photo © Luca Ledda)

BSA Film Friday: 06.24.16

June 24, 2016 Artists

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

Now screening :

1. Faith47’s New LGBT Themed Mural in Manchester for “Cities of Hope”
2. NYCHOS: Making of Vienna Therapy. “Dissection of Sigmund Freud”
3. LIVE Webcam of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s “Floating Piers”

BSA Special Feature: Faith47’s New LGBT Themed Mural in Manchester for “Cities of Hope”

Cities of Hope Mural Project creates more than a selection of eye popping visuals for Manchester, it creates community. Pairing artists with local grassroots organizations, the content and themes are related to the neighborhood and the local issues in many ways.

South African Street Artist Faith47 brought her socially conscious practice to combine the Triangle Project back home with the Partisan Collective in Manchester to create this new kissing couple for a slice of wall. Here her focus is to support LGBT peoples’ rights to access a safe environment away from the commercial venues in other parts of the city.

“Relationships rise and fall, societies blossom and crumble,” says faith47. “The profound connectedness between us creates and destroys life. We are sensitive and caring, yet at the same time vulnerable and cruel.”

NYCHOS: Making of Vienna Therapy. “Dissection of Sigmund Freud”

An unusual tour through some of the cultural institutions and locations in Vienna associated with Sigmund Freud, as seen through one of the cities newer inhabitants, the dissectionist Nychos. A dual promotion of tourism in the city as well as the artist himself and his new show opening at Jonathan Levine this Saturday in New York, the artist gives you a backstage view of how that crazy Freud brain sculpture was conceived and made this spring to ready it for last weeks’ debut on 23rd street in front of the Flat Iron Building.

LIVE Webcam of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s “Floating Piers”

First it was Christ walking on water, now it’s Christo. At 80, and without his dear love at his side, their project is now something they can share with thousand of others with “Floating Piers”

Skount Ferries You To Hell via Amsterdam

June 23, 2016 Artists

Go to Hell!

Pay your fare!

In Greek mythology there is a ferry man who will take you there in a boat. Skount brings all of this to the beach in Amsterdam in a quick mural he put up last week.

In his capitalist critique, only the rich can afford the ride across the rivers Styx and Acheron into Hades (Hell) in this painting of the Charon (ferryman).

“A coin used to be paid to Charon for passage, usually an obolus or danake, was sometimes placed in or on the mouth of a dead person. The people who could not pay the fee, or those whose bodies were left unburied, has to wander the shores for one hundred of years,” he says.

Bon Voyage!

Skount. Amsterdam. June 2016, (photo © Skount)

Stik : His First Collected Volume of Work

June 21, 2016 Artists

An unusual little tall man, this Stik man.

Deceptively simple, he expresses profound truths that are anything but. Since the turn of this century in his hometown of Hackney, the formerly homeless Stik has been bringing his unassuming line drawn character out to the streets of northeast London, often Shoreditch. With few details and is as uncluttered as a logo, Stik towers above on the side of a housing behemoth, or a water tower, or a doorway.

Now comes a handsome tome in red canvas that tells more about this artist who has been staying mum for so long. Like the unflashy Stik man, Stik is not malicious but thoughtfully quietly present, giving modest and monumental witness to the street – as well as social issues common to the street. While he does many authorized projects for human rights, social equality, and issues addressing immigration, homelessness, and family, Stik is largely and quietly advocating for an equitable view where each one is treated fairly.

Simple enough, right?

STIK. Published by Penguin Books – Random House. New York City. 2016

Photos of the book plates by © Jaime Rojo

Greetings From Berlin – Soaring Walls from HowNosm, London Police Borondo, Van Der Sluijs, Super A

June 20, 2016 Artists

Traveling around Berlin this weekend we took a couple of trains and an unexpectedly looooong walk into the neighborhood of Tegel in search of Urban Nation’s huge One Wall installations that we haven’t been able to catch in person. The gentle breezes, smells of leafy trees, and unending barrage of mocking birds was punctuated by the excited fans of German football yelling out car windows and waving flags.

Collin Van Der Sluijs . Super A. Detail. Urban Nation Berlin. One Wall. Berlin, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Here in this semi-suburban breezy summer bliss far from the Kreuzburg artists enclave that Street Art and graffiti fans think of Berlin for, you’ll find Tegel boasts these four towering pieces by How & Nosm, The London Police, Borondo, and a collaboration between Collin Van Der Sluijs and Super A. Singularly, each one impresses. Seeing the quartet of soaring murals all at once; let’s just say it is well worth the trip.

After that, we figured out how to take the double decker public bus back to the U6 train line. Berlin has this public transportation thing nailed.

Collin Van Der Sluijs. Super A. Urban Nation Berlin. One Wall. Berlin, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The London Police. Urban Nation Berlin. One Wall. Berlin, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Borondo. Urban Nation Berlin. One Wall. Berlin, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Borondo. Detail. Urban Nation Berlin. One Wall. Berlin, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

How & Nosm. Urban Nation Berlin. One Wall. Berlin, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Images Of The Week 06.19.16

June 19, 2016 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

No we’re not worried about Donald Trump falling from grace, as in the new piece by Ron English leading the show this week. That’s not the point, people. It’s that we have fallen so far that a guy like this can get so close to the White House.

By the way, Nychos is killing it in New York right now. Pieces in Coney Island, Bushwick, a truck side, a Freud sculpture at the Flat Iron, a new show at Jonathan Levine this week, a couple other walls planned including one at MANA. He’s very impressive in technique and work ethic. A shout out to the fellas who are capturing the action at Chop’em Down films. Top notch!

Meanwhile, we have a LOT of summer to enjoy. Get going!!!

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring 18ism, AskewOne, Balu, CDRE, Dabs & Myla, GIZ, KAS, City Kitty, Myth, Nekst, Nychos, OG23, Rime MSK, Ron English, and Vik.

Our top image: Ron English brings Donald Trump as Humpty Dumpty on a wall – in collaboration with The Bushwick Collective and Mana Urban Art Projects. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Giz and Bart kick it with the Smurf next door for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dabs & Myla for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Vik for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

AskewOne MSK for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

RIME MSK for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

OG23 for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

18ism for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Indelible Funk for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

AskewOne. Nekst tribute for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Myth (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nychos “Translucent Heart Attack” for The Bushwick Collective and Mana Urban Art Projects. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nychos (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nychos. Dissection Of Sigmund Freud Flatiron Plaza. NYC. Vienna Therapy. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kitty City with Balu (photo © Jaime Rojo)

CDRE (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kas. Brussels, Belgium. June 2016. (photo © KAS)

Untitled. Manhattan. June 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Who is That Masked King? Olek and Virginia MOCA Disrobe Neptune

June 18, 2016 Artists

Troubled waters here just off Virginia Beach as the tourist season kicks into high gear and families spend the day collecting seashells and the random plastic bottle cap that washes up on the sand.

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Olek. King Neptune Intervention for Virginia MOCA. Virginia Beach. June 2016. (photo © Olek)

Street Artist Olek ran into a snag this week here as she and a team of volunteers made and installed a crocheted covering for Paul DiPasquale’s original statue of King Neptune that has been here a little over a decade. The two year process for the project with Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) and the New York based artist came to an inauspicious halt during the installation Wednesday when the inclusion of a rubberized gas mask caused a dispute that ended with King Neptune left to brave the elements in his raw mid-prime once again.

“Art is intended to be controversial. To some degree it’s intended to spark dialog,” MOCA executive director Debi Gray was quoted just last month when defending a couple of challenging artworks by artist Mark Ryden in “Turn the Page”, the museums’ Hi-Fructose 10^th Anniversary exhibition, a show Olek is also a part of.

Olek. King Neptune Intervention for Virginia MOCA. Virginia Beach. June 2016. (photo © Olek)

Whether it was the prospect of another potential controversy so soon, an unapproved design change, or some other perturbed local gadfly whispering in her ear, the director and the museum were not letting the rubber mask go forward during the installation. With only about 60% of the installation completed, all of it came down, leaving the volunteers from the middle and high school and other local artists without the satisfaction of seeing the completed project for this week’s ArtWalk.

In terms of the interstitial approach to documentation that exists on The Internet, it doesn’t matter of course that the project was only partially up for part of one day because there were many good photos captured before it was disassembled, leaving the impression that Olek’s project was a success. Coming from the graffiti and Street Art milieu, we are all accustomed to the ethereal nature of art and our chance encounters with it. Not that this is much conciliation to those who had contributed toward the project.

Olek. King Neptune Intervention for Virginia MOCA. Virginia Beach. June 2016. (photo © Olek)

According to statements from the artist and the museum, it appears that the mask would have been allowed to go forward if it had been entirely crocheted – at least that is our reading of the situation. We asked Olek why the monarch of the waters was wearing a mask in the first place, she told us that it was a commentary on our collective responsibility for dumping all kinds of waste into the oceans.

“My mission was to deliver the strongest work that would bring awareness to Mother Nature’s current disturbing situation; namely, the alarming state of our oceans. I added the mask because it was made a strong point. Everyone including the executive director, Debi Gray, and both curators, Alison Byrne and Heather Hakimzadeh agreed that it was a brilliant idea.”

Olek. King Neptune Intervention for Virginia MOCA. Virginia Beach. June 2016. (photo © Aaron McLellan)

“We placed a lot of trust in her and are dismayed that she would take advantage of that,” says Ms. Gray of the museum in an interview with local website WAVY.com. “Although MOCA and the city embraced her message of ocean conservation, the addition was not part of the approved proposal,” a statement from the museum said.

Comments sections on local website stories are mixed with anger at both parties, regret, indifference and naturally, some comments are unhinged, misinformed and completely hilariously unrelated. From our perspective, we’re sorry that an agreement could not be reached and it didn’t work out because we know what the power of art can be. That said, maybe there is a solution yet to be discovered! The summer has just commenced and the future is unwritten.

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Olek. King Neptune Intervention for Virginia MOCA. Virginia Beach. June 2016. (photo © Olek)

Olek spoke with us about the situation and answered a few questions as well.

Brooklyn Street Art: Did the artist of the sculpture embrace your vision?
OLEK: The first person I contacted regarding the project, and then subsequently the Mask idea was of course the artist, Paul DiPasquale. He loved the idea of crocheting Neptune and agreed that the mask would make a stronger statement.

Olek. King Neptune Intervention for Virginia MOCA. Virginia Beach. June 2016. (photo © Olek)

Brooklyn Street Art: Did you have an agreement with the museum that was changed?
OLEK: I had an agreement with the museum and the only real issue that arose was the addition of a huge uncrocheted rubber mask. Initially the museum didn’t want the rubber mask to be included. However, after a number of meetings a compromise was made. The museum and I agreed that if the mask was crocheted, it would be acceptable.

Brooklyn Street Art: Aside from the difficulty of the events, do you feel disappointed that the piece will not be on display?
OLEK: The work created a dialog so I think the piece accomplished something. I hope art in general can inspire and initiate change. As I said in my statement:

“My work is never finished – the continuous response of the viewers makes the art. My contribution is the tool that helps people realize their own expressions. I hope that it proves that all things are interconnected.”

Olek. King Neptune Intervention for Virginia MOCA. Virginia Beach. June 2016. (photo © Olek)

Olek. King Neptune Intervention for Virginia MOCA. Virginia Beach. June 2016. (photo © Aaron McLellan)

Olek. King Neptune Intervention for Virginia MOCA. Virginia Beach. June 2016. (photo © Olek)

De-installation begins with the mask coming off as shown in the above picture.

Olek. King Neptune Intervention for Virginia MOCA. Virginia Beach. June 2016. (photo © Olek)

Olek. King Neptune Intervention for Virginia MOCA. Virginia Beach. June 2016. The Team. (photo © Olek)

Our special thanks to Aaron McLellan and his company North End Bag Co. for additional images of them fabricating the mask. The rubber and the aluminum part was provided by Geoff Long.

Also included in Olek’s commentary to us about the project and related events:
This was not completed by the artist alone. MOCA and Olek would like to thank the many volunteers including students from The Visual and Performing Arts Academy at Salem High School and art students from Virginia Beach Middle School. They have spent countless hours to help create this work. They all came and crocheted without knowing what the final project would be. They lent their talent and trust in both MOCA and the artist, knowing that they were spreading a positive message of hope to our community and beyond.

BSA Film Friday: 06.17.16

June 17, 2016 Artists

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

Now screening :

1. Portrait of an Artist Guido Van Helten
2. Who’s Your Daddy?
3. Shida Bombing – Hong Kong . Seoul . Tokyo
4. Moses & Taps™ EUROPA™ From The Grifters

BSA Special Feature: Portrait of an Artist Guido Van Helten

“First when you say ‘Can I do a Street Art piece?’, the answer is no,” says Guido van Helten, known, among other things, as an Australian Street Artist.

“I see it as some sort of a finale for me,” he says as he describes the years of experience as a preparation to paint this ship in only two days – a restriction placed on him by nature of the ship being an active courier during the week and he is only granted access to it during the weekend.

“I’m trying to create a sense of identity that relates to all of the people who live in a place,” he says while the camera shows him painting on a dock in near darkness. People always gravitate to capturing well known people but I’m not trying to capture that. It’s got to be a painting where people are relating in their own way. They make their own story up.”

Director Selina Miles does the capturing here in a town named Akureyri on the north coast of Iceland, and as usual she captures something more than what the eye sees.

Kolly Gallery / Who’s Your Daddy?

“In September 2015 the Kolly Gallery initiated a series of exhibitions, held in temporary locations, that are intended to bring attention to urban art movement. Temptingly entitled “Who’s Your Daddy?” each of these shows presents new works from a selection of cutting-edge international artists coming from a graffiti background. For its first edition in New York City, the gallery is pleased to exhibit the new paintings and sculptures of Crash, SupaKitch, Grotesk and Flying Förtress.”

Shida Bombing – Hong Kong . Seoul . Tokyo

Berlin-based Mik Shida is not your typical bomber, especially when using a very wide brush in a calligraphic manner to create figurative and patterned abstract works. Here you travel with him to dingy spots in a guerilla fashion with a sharply skipping glitch soundtrack and murky lighting, which rather adds to the atmospheric primitivism effect of his work as he skips through Hong Kong, Seoul, and Tokyo.

Moses & Taps™ EUROPA™ From The Grifters

Opening tonight Kolly Gallery in Zurich, graffiti writers turning conceptual artists MOSES & TAPS™ re-work the typical nomenclature of illegal/legal while asserting their right to command the elements. If successful, they will have caused you to ask “who owns public space” and to question how many inroads into your consciousness you have allowed advertising, media and branding to go. Also, art.

Summertime Swoon in New York

June 16, 2016 Artists

Come on, you know the weather has been gorgeous, New York. So many memories to make right now, rolling in the grass, rocking in a swing, chasing after a skirt, slathering up a wall with goopy wheat paste and pressing your freshly colored lino type print on a dilapidated wall or doorway. At the apex of our Brooklyn reverie what, to our smog clouded disbelieving eyes do we see, but the sight of new Swoon pieces up around the BK.

The figures are not all familiar as she has been adding folks to the street party and the color palette is somehow more saturated and pungent, but yes these are the real thing, often imitated, never matched.

A portrait of Sonia from her program last summer with Philadelphia Mural Arts. Swoon. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A relatively new figure from Swoon – a man she met during a program with Philadelphia Mural Arts who is an inmate at Graterford state prison. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo) “

“A historical portrait of the American steel industry based off a very inspiring man named Henderson, who fought for equality in the mills, taught himself to become a crane operator, and, I just learned, was also a jazz guitarist,” says Swoon in her Instagram feed.

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Artists Bring 22 New Murals to “Coney Art Walls 2016”

June 15, 2016 Artists

Just in time for this weekend’s Mermaid Parade, London’s D*Face is finishing up “Live Fast Die Young,” his beauty-and-the-zombie comic couple sipping an ice cream float at the soda counter. Austrian surrealist slicer Nychos has completed his dissection of a Ronald McDonald-ish character without a sketch; running, jumping, nearly flying through the air with aerosol in hand, flinging the spent cans over his shoulder blindly to skitter across the pavement. Baltimore-based freeform anthropologist Gaia is cavorting with passersby who want to take cellphone selfies in front of his painted wall that depicts exactly that; selfies taken in Coney Island.

This is a modern version of the multi-mirror funhouse in mural form, and Coney Art Walls is bringing it again.

Nychos. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

22 new murals on standing slabs of concrete join a dozen or so that were retained from last summer to present an eclectic and savory selection from the old-school and the new. When it comes to art in the streets, a salty luncheonette of city-style treats is on a large public platter these days, with names like graffiti, street art, urban art, installation art, public art, fine art, even contemporary art. For some of those hapless gatekeepers of any of these respective categories, this show in this location presents degrees of discomfort and anger as many subcultural roots are now brought into the light in tandem with one another in a public display – funded by a real estate firm. For the artists and majority of fans, however, the trend is more toward delight and gratitude.

While you are unpacking that, consider that lead curator Jeffrey Deitch has often proved very adept at plumbing the aesthetic margins of our culture while rearranging and intermingling the parties, helping the viewer to appreciate their differences. This outdoor exhibit co-curated with Joseph Sitt provides a venue for a wide audience to contemplate the range of expression that New York streets have had over the last few decades, including a few artists who are trying this manner of expression for the first time.

As the Thunderbolt, Steeplechase, Cyclone and Wonder Wheel spin and swerve nearby and overhead, sending screams and personal projectiles into the ocean breeze, you have this paved lot full of paintings to peruse, lemonade in one hand and the cotton-candy-sticky hand of a sunscreen-slathered child in the other. Here you’ll see a large two-walled corner smashed with Coney Island themes by Bronx graffiti masters Tats Cru (Bio, BG183, and Nicer), a selection of hand-drawn wheat pasted portraits of Coney Island youth by Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, and 4 full-form sculptures by John Ahearn creating a modernist view of divers on the beach .

Tooling elsewhere through the loose labyrinth you come upon a monochromatic cryptically patterned tribute to Brooklyn-born Beastie Boys vocalist Adam “MCA” Yauch by Brooklyn tagger/train writer/artist Haze and a seemingly lighthearted abstractly collaged wall of mermaids by fine artist Nina Chanel Abney, whose work is currently on the cover of Juxtapoz. There is also a spectacular underwater-themed symmetrical fantasy topped by pylons bearing the likenesses of characters from “The Warriors” film by artist duo The London Police, and a stenciled “Last Supper” featuring heads of world currency playing the disciples and George Washington as Jesus sprayed across the face of a huge dollar bill by Iranian brothers Icy & Sot.

We often travel streets and neglected spaces in cities looking for signs of freewill artistic expression and often the creative spirit surprises us as it can be expressed in so many ways with emotion, agenda, and idiosyncratic point of view. It may be the plurality of voices one experiences surfing the Internet or the multi-cultural nature of living in New York with a continuous river of fresh arrivals mixing in with established and old-timers every day, but one comes to expect this variety of viewpoints and rather naturally creates accommodation for inclusion that celebrates without negating – and in many ways Coney Art Walls does that as well.

Oppositional viewpoints are present if you look: There are coded messages and obvious ones, critiques of corporate hegemony, issues of race, commentary on police relations, sexuality, religion, capitalism, community, the languages of advertising, movies, music, entertainment, local history, and examination of roles and power structures.

When tooling around this collection, you may wonder what, then, are the commonalities of this survey. Certainly there are the recurring references to Coney Island lore and aspects of performance and flimflam, oddity, fantasy, even the erotic. Naturally, there are elements of natural wonder as well, perhaps expected with the proximity to the beach and the ocean and the history of this place as a vacation getaway.

Aside from this, the connective tissue is what we frequently identify as what is distinctly New York – the plurality of voices. Arguing, making fun, praising, preening, bragging, lambasting, mocking, singing. Despite the continuous attempts by others to divide us, we’re strangely (very strangely), beautifully united.

Marie Roberts has multi-generational roots here and her work makes you stop and study it. She has painted many visions and views around the neighborhood, and is considered the artist-in-residence. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Originally from Japan, Brooklyn’s AIKO has a double sided stencil sonnet to the romance of the sea. With “Tale of the Dragon King and Mermaids in Water Castle” Aiko tells a new version of Urashima Tarō, an old Japanese legend about a fisherman who rescues a turtle and is rewarded for this with a visit to Ryūgū-jō, the palace of Ryūjin. Says Aiko, “This piece speaks to my and all women’s fantasies; chilling hard super sexy in the beautiful ocean with friendly dragon who is super powerful and a smart guy – they are about going to water castle having good time.”

Coney Art Walls
2016 New Artists: Nina Chanel Abney, John Ahearn, Timothy Curtis, D*Face, Jessica Diamond, Tristan Eaton, Gaia, Eric Haze, Icy & Sot, London Police, Nychos, Pose, Stephen Powers, Tats Cru, and Sam Vernon. Returning artists who created new works: Lady Aiko, Mister Cartoon, Crash, Daze, Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, and Marie Roberts. 2015 Murals on display: by Buff Monster, Eine, Ron English, How & Nosm, IRAK, Kashink, Lady Pink, Miss Van, RETNA, eL Seed and Sheryo & Yok. There are also three community walls.

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This article is also published on The Huffington Post

Borondo in Kiev Paints Saint Sophia’s Cathedral on a Wall

June 14, 2016 Artists

You could call it a mural, this new piece celebrating Saint Sophia’s Cathedral in Kiev. You may also simply refer to it as an outdoor painting of a majestic and Byzantine indoor view.

Spanish Street Artist/artist/muralist/painter Borondo completed this interpretation of the 11^th century Ukrainian Baroque cathedral this month during the Mural Social Club festival in Kiev and named it “Portals”. Epic, haunting, grandly meta, the arches and openness may feel as if you are seeing an outside view and the bottom third reflective surface could place you in the seat of a Venetian gondola.

Borondo executed this mural with the support of Sky Art Foundation and Mural Social Club and shortly after this one, he was again on an enormous wall with Urban Nation Project M/9 in Berlin. Go Borondo!

Our thanks to founder Dmytro Palienko and curators Oleg Sosnov and Yulia Ostrovska.

Never Crew: “Inhuman Barriers” and Cities Of Hope

June 13, 2016 Artists

Manchester in UK hosted a street art convention in May called “Cities of Hope” and 10 international artists worked on pieces that often addressed issues of social justice. Swiss duo Christian Rebecchi and Pablo Togni, who comprise Nevercrew, addressed the theme of immigration and there piece gives a sense of the seemingly impossible odds that many people face when attempting to escape war and persecution in search of a refuge.

brooklyn-street-art-NEVERCREW-Inhuman-barriers-Manchester-Cities-of-Hope-2016-web-2

“We are extremely glad to have been part of this project based on social justice issues and so strongly connected to the city and to its people,” the guys say in reference to the experience painting “Inhuman Barriers.” The two worked in support of the local solidarity group WASP (Women Asylum Seekers Together).

Additional participants in Cities of Hope include Axel Void, C215, Case Maclaim, Faith47, Phlegm, Martin Whatson, Pichi&Avo, Hyuro, and Dale Grimshaw.

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Luca Ledda “The Dreamers” Festival Mostar. Bosnia. June 2016. (photo © Luca Ledda)

Luca Ledda “The Dreamers” Festival Mostar. Bosnia. June 2016. (photo © Luca Ledda)

Luca Ledda “The Dreamers” Festival Mostar. Bosnia. June 2016. (photo © Luca Ledda)

Luca Ledda “The Dreamers” Festival Mostar. Bosnia. June 2016. (photo © Luca Ledda)

BSA Special Feature: Faith47’s New LGBT Themed Mural in Manchester for “Cities of Hope”

NYCHOS: Making of Vienna Therapy. “Dissection of Sigmund Freud”

LIVE Webcam of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s “Floating Piers”

Skount. Amsterdam. June 2016, (photo © Skount)

Skount. Amsterdam. June 2016, (photo © Skount)

Skount. Amsterdam. June 2016, (photo © Skount)

Skount. Amsterdam. June 2016, (photo © Skount)

STIK. Published by Penguin Books – Random House. New York City. 2016

Collin Van Der Sluijs . Super A. Detail. Urban Nation Berlin. One Wall. Berlin, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Collin Van Der Sluijs. Super A. Urban Nation Berlin. One Wall. Berlin, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The London Police. Urban Nation Berlin. One Wall. Berlin, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Borondo. Urban Nation Berlin. One Wall. Berlin, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Borondo. Detail. Urban Nation Berlin. One Wall. Berlin, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

How & Nosm. Urban Nation Berlin. One Wall. Berlin, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

How & Nosm. Urban Nation Berlin. One Wall. Berlin, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Our top image: Ron English brings Donald Trump as Humpty Dumpty on a wall – in collaboration with The Bushwick Collective and Mana Urban Art Projects. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Giz and Bart kick it with the Smurf next door for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dabs & Myla for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Vik for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

AskewOne MSK for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

RIME MSK for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

OG23 for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

18ism for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Indelible Funk for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

AskewOne. Nekst tribute for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Myth (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nychos “Translucent Heart Attack” for The Bushwick Collective and Mana Urban Art Projects. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nychos (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nychos (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nychos. Dissection Of Sigmund Freud Flatiron Plaza. NYC. Vienna Therapy. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nychos. Dissection Of Sigmund Freud Flatiron Plaza. NYC. Vienna Therapy. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nychos. Dissection Of Sigmund Freud Flatiron Plaza. NYC. Vienna Therapy. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kitty City with Balu (photo © Jaime Rojo)

CDRE (photo © Jaime Rojo)

CDRE (photo © Jaime Rojo)

CDRE (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kas. Brussels, Belgium. June 2016. (photo © KAS)

Untitled. Manhattan. June 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Olek. King Neptune Intervention for Virginia MOCA. Virginia Beach. June 2016. (photo © Olek)

Olek. King Neptune Intervention for Virginia MOCA. Virginia Beach. June 2016. (photo © Olek)

Olek. King Neptune Intervention for Virginia MOCA. Virginia Beach. June 2016. (photo © Olek)

Olek. King Neptune Intervention for Virginia MOCA. Virginia Beach. June 2016. (photo © Aaron McLellan)

Olek. King Neptune Intervention for Virginia MOCA. Virginia Beach. June 2016. (photo © Olek)

Olek. King Neptune Intervention for Virginia MOCA. Virginia Beach. June 2016. (photo © Olek)

Olek. King Neptune Intervention for Virginia MOCA. Virginia Beach. June 2016. (photo © Olek)

Olek. King Neptune Intervention for Virginia MOCA. Virginia Beach. June 2016. (photo © Olek)

Olek. King Neptune Intervention for Virginia MOCA. Virginia Beach. June 2016. (photo © Aaron McLellan)

Olek. King Neptune Intervention for Virginia MOCA. Virginia Beach. June 2016. (photo © Olek)

Olek. King Neptune Intervention for Virginia MOCA. Virginia Beach. June 2016. (photo © Olek)

Olek. King Neptune Intervention for Virginia MOCA. Virginia Beach. June 2016. (photo © Olek)

Olek. King Neptune Intervention for Virginia MOCA. Virginia Beach. June 2016. (photo © Olek)

Olek. King Neptune Intervention for Virginia MOCA. Virginia Beach. June 2016. (photo © Olek)

Olek. King Neptune Intervention for Virginia MOCA. Virginia Beach. June 2016. The Team. (photo © Olek)

BSA Special Feature: Portrait of an Artist Guido Van Helten

Kolly Gallery / Who’s Your Daddy?

Shida Bombing – Hong Kong . Seoul . Tokyo

Moses & Taps™ EUROPA™ From The Grifters

A portrait of Sonia from her program last summer with Philadelphia Mural Arts. Swoon. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A relatively new figure from Swoon – a man she met during a program with Philadelphia Mural Arts who is an inmate at Graterford state prison. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo) “

Nychos. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nychos. The London Police photo bomb. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nychos. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pose. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

John Ahearn. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jeffery Deitch with John Ahearn. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

John Ahearn. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Icy & Sot. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Gaia. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Gaia. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“11 Instagram Posts”, by Gaia. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Gaia. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)