BSA Film Friday: 10.16.15

October 16, 2015 Artists

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

Now screening :

1. Welcome To America Owen Dippie by Erin Dippie
2. Covert To Overt: Photography of Obey Giant by Jon Furlong
3. Taken By Storm: The Art Of Storm Thorgerson And Hipgnosis Trailer
4. Sobecksis Mural “Motion” in Mannheim

BSA Special Feature: Welcome To America Owen Dippie by Erin Dippie

A nice homemade video this week by New Zealand painter Owen Dippie’s talented wife Erin, who documented his trip to New York and LA. Without the hype this gives you an idea what it is like to be a tourist here, and it is good to see the experience through the eyes of a loving partner.

Covert To Overt: Photography of Obey Giant by Jon Furlong

A unique way of promoting a book and a photographer, this video introduces us to Jon Furlong, who has been trailing Shepard Fairey for about a decade and has become a trusted and valued member of the team.

Taken By Storm: The Art Of Storm Thorgerson And Hipgnosis Trailer

Commonly called “The Best Album Designer in the World”, Storm Thorgerson was the guy most responsible for many teens twisted and sublime view of the world before video was the normal accompaniment for popular rock music. These artists all had many album covers conceived and executed by Storm over roughly five decades: Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Nik Kershaw, Black Sabbath, Scorpions, Peter Gabriel, Genesis, Al Stewart, Europe, Catherine Wheel, Bruce Dickinson, Dream Theater, Anthrax, The Cranberries, The Mars Volta, Muse, The Alan Parsons Project.

Sobecksis Mural “Motion” in Mannheim

In September in Mannheim the artist duo SOBEKCIS put up a new wall in this “City of Music” as part of the Stadt.Wand.Kunst Project.

Swoon and 20,000 New Roof Tiles: “Braddock Tiles” Project Takes Off

October 15, 2015 Artists

We’re all about this project.

Street Artist Swoon and many friends and volunteers are getting this huge community art project in full swing and it is more than just a feel-good project. This impacts people first-hand and builds something that can house a community.

And you can support it right now.

The Braddock Tiles project – designing and making 20,000 tiles to fix this old church and make it into a community center is underway and you can be a part of it.

“As artists who spend our lives attempting to build spaces that induce wonder and bring people joy, we felt we were the right people to work together with friends and neighbors in North Braddock to help invent a new life for the building. Our goal is to reopen this building as a living work of art that is in service to it’s neighborhood. To do this, the first thing we need is a new roof.”

Simple enough! You get great swag too. Everybody is jumping on this — your turn.

Check out the KICKSTARTER Campaign and Get Amazing Swoon and Braddock Tiles stuff.

Thank you for your support.

Off the Path: Street Art & Graff in An Old Military Compound in Sweden

October 14, 2015 Artists

Street Art festivals are popping up like mushrooms across the globe, bringing murals, not street art, to cities primarily as a means of injecting life and culture into a community or business district. When we travel to see these walls we also like to check out the local organic spots off the beaten path where real street art and graffiti can run wild.

Shai Dahan (photo © Jaime Rojo)

You go exploring partly out of respect for the roots of this rapidly evolving art practice – It was the graffiti writers, Situationists, radical hippie students, culture jammers, political anarchists and all manner of freewill installationists who brought us to this moment where cities are almost pleading for murals.

You also hike into tunnels, abandoned lots, underpasses, and neglected former industrial sectors because that is where you know the scene will be alive with experimentation, the spark of discovery, and a splash of old-school in-your-face rebellion without censorship.

Shai Dahan (photo © Jaime Rojo)

For teens and 20-somethings of a certain disposition there’s nothing like grabbing some cans on a sunny Saturday and slaughtering a burned out bus with paint. Even better if its in the middle of a decommissioned military training site used by testosterone raging paintballers with guns full of color ducking behind concrete facades in camouflage fatigues. Amid the clouds of aerosol and bonfire smoke you find these paintings in the ruins, the remaining signs of an un-wasted youth.

According to locals people all the way from Stockholm and Gothenburg travel to paint at this 18,500 square meter former training facility for the Swedish armed forces. It’s built to mimic a real city to practice urban warfare training with rudimentary buildings, marked streets, and below ground tunnels to crawl though. No one remembers when it was first built but it was closed in 1989, left for hikers, berry pickers, and x-urban explorers to discover.

Shai Dahan . DAWG (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“The traces of bonfires most likely are from paint ballers having a barbecue during their games,” says one of our guides named Anders, “or possibly they’re for heating their hands during winter games.” Either way the aerosol tags, characters, paintings, and occasional wheatpastes are still popping up and fresh ones ride alongside some now decades old.

So nevermind the prickers and the poison ivy and take a hike off the path and see some free-range artworks in their naturally unnatural environs – directly to you from Sweden.

Simple (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ollio (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ollio . MSCR (photo © Jaime Rojo)

SMUH (photo © Jaime Rojo)

S Camilla E Bostrom (photo © Jaime Rojo)

DAWG (photo © Jaime Rojo)

NESH (photo © Jaime Rojo)

JARN (photo © Jaime Rojo)

GWC (photo © Jaime Rojo)

HANS (photo © Jaime Rojo)

HAS (photo © Jaime Rojo)

GOBS (photo © Jaime Rojo)

GES (photo © Jaime Rojo)

PEBS . DAWG (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mogul . Hoplouie (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mogul . Hoplouie . Ollio (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ollio (photo © Jaime Rojo)

AGUA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!

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This article is also published on The Huffington Post

Nemo’s Hangs Us Out to Dry “Without Name” in Italy

October 13, 2015 Artists

Nemo’s is hanging us all out to dry with his newest mural on a multi-story factory wall in Messina, Italy that features his familiar hapless chaps clipped to a clothesline, sans clothes.

Nemo’s. Messina, Italy. October, 2015. (photo © Nemo’s)

His critique is of a shallow and shock-addicted press and media that exaggerates and simplifies the suffering, the unmitigated tragedy of people – sometimes for our comfort.

His focus is on immigrants escaping oppression who have drowned and the pseudo-compassion of contemporary news coverage and grand-standing politicians that feed xenophobia. He says we are overlooking the complete desperation of an escaping individual that causes them to take such risk, only to be swallowed in a watery death due to unseaworthy vessels.

Nemo’s. Messina, Italy. October, 2015. (photo © Nemo’s)

“I’m depicting an insane state imbued with selfishness, where the deaths of the sea are overshadowed by sterile discussions on how migrants can create much discomfort to our conditions,” he says. Here he points to us behaving as outsiders, perhaps guilty of xenophobia, willing to flatten a tragedy of its dimension in order to keep the “other” at arms length, distancing ourselves from any responsibility.

“With those four naked bodies I am representing, through a surreal metaphor, the total and absurd unconsciousness that newspapers and diplomacy use for talk about the theme of the deaths in the sea.

In the tragedy of death, the worst and selfish aspects of our society, with banal and thoughtless actions, take the bodies from the sea and hang them out like clothes to dry. It is as if the problem of these people is to be wet and not to be drowned.”

His method is a dark comedy, depicting these very similar looking guys in an unlikely situation. His attached message may not be clear to the average unlooker, but it may pique their curiosity to inquire what NemO’s newest piece is about.

Nemo’s. Messina, Italy. October, 2015. (photo © Nemo’s)

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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!
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Ernest Zacharevic Painting Martha Cooper in Brooklyn

October 12, 2015 Artists

If you are looking for a neighborhood that is analogous to what the Lower East Side of Manhattan was like in the 1970s, you have to go to the outer part of the outer boroughs because very few working class everyday people can afford to live on the island anymore. When photographer Martha Cooper was shooting with black and white film in those days the LES was more or less a bombed-out scene of urban abandonment and municipal decay.

Drugs were prevalent, so were gangs, police were not. Nor were jobs, opportunities or parks that kids could safely play in. Cooper was interested in capturing the games that kids devised, sometimes out of the most common items that were available – like giving a ride to your brother by commandeering his stroller around the sidewalk at top speed.

Ernest Zacharevic x Martha Cooper. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lithuanian Street Artist Ernest Zacharevic is sitting cross-legged on a sidewalk in Bushwick, a neighborhood in Brooklyn that is rapidly changing – at least that’s what real estate interests have banked on. On a typical weekday you will see many families struggling to keep the bills paid, more carefully selecting food and household items from the stores along Broadway and Graham Avenue and Metropolitan than in previous years – many just balancing their payments, others falling behind. Here on a graffiti tagged wall Zacharevic is painting with brushes to bring Cooper’s 37 year old photo from Manhattan to life in Brooklyn.

Ernest Zacharevic x Martha Cooper. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

As he has done in Malaysia principally and in selected other cities in Europe, Zacharevic is creating street art that includes a sculptural aspect that pops his portraits out from the wall, bringing the street scene closer to you, somehow closer to life. The image of children at play is integrated with its surroundings, a scene that may be repeated in the flesh here on the sidewalk while you watch him carefully checking his source image and replicating with brush.

In this second of three installations he is creating in New York using Cooper’s photos, Ernest is an unassuming figure and completely focused on his work as the car horns honk, brakes squeal, and the elevated train rumbles inelegantly overhead. In fact, most people walk by without taking note of his work and few stop to ask a question, so integrated is his small scene with the surroundings.

Ernest Zacharevic x Martha Cooper. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Images Of The Week: 10.11.15

October 11, 2015 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring 2:12, Boxhead, Buff Monster, bunny M, City Kitty, drscO, Fanakapan, Haculla, Icy & Sot, Jilly Ballistic, Jorit Agoch, Lungebox, Miishab, Myth, REVS, Stikman, Voxx, WA, and What Will You Leave Behind.

Top image above >>>Icy & Sot for #NotACrime Campaign. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jorit Agoch (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jilly Ballistic (photo © Jaime Rojo)

bunny M (photo © Jaime Rojo)

2:12 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Artist Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Fanakapan (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Artist Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Voxx (photo © Jaime Rojo)

What Will You Leave Behind (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Haculla finds the whole thing funny. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Stikman (photo © Jaime Rojo)

REVS (photo © Jaime Rojo)

As Putin’s Russia co-bombs Syria with the US, someone is assessing the politics. Artist Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

City Kitty with friends Miishab and Lungebox. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

drsc0 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

How dare you, Myth? (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Boxhead (photo © Jaime Rojo)

AW (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Buff Monster (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. NYC Sky Landscape. Manhattan. 2105 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Daze Does a “Paix” Piece in Port Au Prince, Haiti

October 10, 2015 Artists

New York graffiti artist DAZE just got back from Haiti where he was inaugurating a mural project for The Academy of Peace and Justice in Port Au Prince, Haiti. Along another admired and well-revered New York graffiti artist KET, DAZE worked with local students to create some new pieces for a huge new project spearheaded by pop artist and APJ advisory board member, Peter Tunney, who hopes to launch it as the “Haiti Walls” project.

Daze (photo © Daze)

“The design that I came up with doesn’t deal with peace in a political or military sense, but is more about inner peace,” DAZE tells us. “I wanted to create something that would be offering a kind of inner peace in order to achieve further goals.”

Daze (photo © Daze)

In his original design (above) for the huge piece DAZE included an area for students to add their own voice, enabling this school of nearly 3,000 students on 100% scholarship to take ownership of the artwork as well. Not only did students paint, they also played music for the team just in time for the beginning of the school year.

Taking inspiration from the letter forms, patterns, and color palette used in signage and everyday street life, DAZE incorporated a gently held and supported “PAIX” (peace) to the streets as well.

Daze. Selfie. (photo © Daze)

“During my time in Haiti I did see many examples of extreme poverty that were hard to bear,’ DAZE says of his daily explorations while there. “A lot of the students I worked with came from an area called ‘Cite de Soliel” which is the largest slum in Haiti. I also saw many examples of the 2010 earthquake that remained. Having said that, I saw many examples of a resilience, resourcefulness, and creativity that could only be found there. The Hatian people were kind, generous and open to my presence there. The cultural creativity there is incredible. Haiti is a really beautiful country that I encourage people to experience firsthand.”

A lot of horse power in the Puissance Devine bus! Daze. Haiti bus. (photo © Daze)

Daze. Market (photo © Daze)

KET (photo © Daze)

Daze . KET (photo © Daze)

Daze (photo © Daze)

Daze. Students (photo © Daze)

Daze. Students group shot. (photo © Daze)

Landscape (photo © Daze)

Daze. CLICK on photo to enlarge. (photo © Daze)

BSA Film Friday: 10.09.15

October 9, 2015 Artists

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

Now screening :

1. Dale Grimshaw Heroically Celtic in Camden, London.
2. Zalez Surfs and Stencils a Goodbye to Summer in France.
3. Hama Woods and “Children of the Forest”
4. Zlatan as Jumping Jack back in His hometown Malmö

BSA Special Feature: Dale Grimshaw Heroically Celtic in Camden, London.

“It’s always what I end up doing. It’s always kind of concerned around the human form and flesh and the face in a portrait. It is very theatric in a way but it’s the very dramatic lighting. It’s a reference to European figurative painting that I’ve always liked anyway.”

Zalez Surfs and Stencils a Goodbye to Summer in France.

The French west coast is strikingly similar to the US west coast in this ode to our fading friend summer. Interesting how the chillax Ibiza soundtrack of wistful longing smoothly integrate ocean view longshots, skateboarding, surfing, and the occasional spraying of stencils on concrete into the same milieu.

Hama Woods and “Children of the Forest”

Straight from the Smaabyen Festival 2015 in Flekkefjord Norway here is a skewed view of distribution of resources, err, strawberries. The mural by Hama Woods features a giant rabbit being fed by small frogs, inspired by a popular youngster’s tale called “Children of the Forest” by Elsa Beskow.

Zlatan as Jumping Jack back in His hometown Malmö

This jumping jack appeared outside of Malmö Stadium at a recent Wednesday night game. Look a little closer and you may recognize Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s face – it’s his hometown afterall. The marionette-like footballer actually works too. So far the artist remains anonymous.

Fanakapan Bubble Letters Flying High in Bushwick, BK

October 8, 2015 Artists

The UK’s Fanakapan popped by Brooklyn for some balloon lettered mural painting recently, something he has been doing for about five years — when not painting cakes, sweets, and phallic shaped balloon creatures that spell out your name or initials. He calls his signature metal work a bit of nostalgia on acid and people have been dropping whatever he’s giving out in Jersey City and at The Bushwick Collective. He’s floated off to Texas but you can still check out the sound of the balloon underground here in BK.

Boijeot + Renauld Update : Rain, Wind, & Inquisitive Upper West Side

October 7, 2015 Artists

The French duo Boijeot & Renauld have logged one full week and three days of crossing Manhattan via Broadway. As you know they are embarking on an ambitious project where they intend to cross Manhattan with their living room, breakfast room and bedroom in tow. They started in Harlem on 125th Street and the last time we caught up with them they were moving down the Upper West Side and running into the inquisition of friendly and sometimes oddly parochial locals.

The first few days they enjoyed typical NYC Autumn weather with crisp air and sunny days. Then things turned for the worse with the prickly hurricane season wrecking havoc somewhere offshore in The Atlantic bringing heavy winds and downpours.

“One night we woke up and right before our eyes we experienced a cascade of water falling down from our plastic tarp. The water was taking the edges of the mattress and everything was so soaked that we used our photographer friend as a pillow, ” says Laurent Beijot.

Sebastien, Laurent and photographer Clement are keeping their spirits high despite the cold, the rain and the wind. New Yorkers are their fuel, their source of warmth and entertainment. They recently have been regaled with an impromptu recital on the street composed of two opera singers and one young violinist. As the singers and the musician performed on the street for the artists and their street guests a rather large crowd of spectators formed around their encampment for a quintessential New York Minute.

So far the love affair between the artists and the Upper West Side denizens continue with multiple offering of generosity: Food, well wishes, bathrooms and showers and many gestures of gratitude. “This is the first crossing ever where we have been told by so many passersby ‘Thank you for doing this’. It hasn’t just happened once or twice but all the time and we are floored with how nice New Yorkers are. When we did this in Berlin and in Paris almost no one stopped to offer any support let alone say thank you to us,” says Sebastian.

There were a couple of occasions when anxious merchants told them to move away from their storefronts and the police were called. Upon further inspection the police deemed the artists free of culpability or guilt of trespassing or blocking traffic and allowed them stay.

When we were visiting with them we witnessed several pedestrians stopping by to inquire about their presence on the street with so much furniture. The questions ranged from “Are you selling these furniture?” to “I give up! Can you tell me what’s going on here?” Unfazed, the artists responded to each questions with candor, humor and enthusiasm. The inquisitors usually seemed satisfied with their answers and wished them good luck.

Boijeot & Renauld: Crossing Manhattan With Your Living Room on the Sidewalk

Leanna Valente: “Instant Art Exposure” 1000’s of Instant Photos of NYC Graff/Street Artists

October 6, 2015 Artists

Today we want to shout out a photographer on the street and to ask you to support the KICKSTARTER for Leanna Valente’s very first book project.

YOUR CHANCE TO GET ART
and support her KICKSTARTER
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/instantartexposure/instant-art-exposure-by-leanna-valente/description

Pledge Leanna’s Kickstarter Right Now to get T-Shirts, Prints, and Hand Painted Originals from NYC and International Graffitti and Street Art names like

BINHO, TATS CRU, NICER, BIO, JOHN “CRASH” MATOS, LUIS ‘ZIMAD’ LAMBOY, LENNY ACHAN, JERMZ & TOPAZ, CHRIS RWK, SOLUS, SEAN LUGO 9, DAMIEN MITCHELL, ATOMIK, ICY AND SOT, KING BEE, JOE IURATO.

Leanna Valente’s book project will feature images from 1,000 PLUS instant photos she’s taken on the Streets of New York with some of the best on NY Streets today.

She helps artists get their work seen, now artists are helping her by giving this incredible collection of T-Shirts, Prints, and Hand Painted Original Artworks.

You can help get this book published by pledging her Kickstarter and scoring a cool piece all for yourself!

“Instant Art Exposure” Book – Author/Photographer

Urban Arts Publish Group, Inc.

Instagram: @leannav / #InstantArtExposure

Get Cool T-Shirts, Prints, and Original Hand-Painted Artworks! KickStarter:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/instantartexposure/instant-art-exposure-by-leanna–valente?ref=nav_search

Our Moment of Need: Herakut in Rome

October 5, 2015 Artists

Herakut is in Rome for their current exhibition with Galeria Varsi, “Santa Miseria”. A quote they use on the gallery wall is also repeated here on the exterior wall of a building for this new mural in Tor Pignattare . The duo like to collect personal stories and re-tell the moment they were relayed to them.

In this case a powerful sentiment, an observation that the human response to the suffering of another is often immediate and even overwhelming – but not always, and not sustained. We reflect on this observation drawn from another and appreciate that Herakut brings it to the fore.

“Each individual is portrayed with the exact gaze and breath of the instant in which they narrate their experiences to the artists. This powerful moment of interaction gives viewers the chance to feel the strength of those who in life have learned to move on, to overcome their difficulties and to start living again,” says the show description.

The texts on the mural wall read;

“In our moment of need we rely on the family of humans. I wished we could remember these family bonds in our moments strength”

“Nei nostri momenti di bisogno ci affidiamo alle persone come famiglia, sarebbe bello se potessimo ricordarci di questi legami anche nei momenti di forza”.

~Herakut

This mural is part of the STREET HEART PROJECT, curated by Marta Gargiulo, Massimo Scrocca and Marco Gallotta.

Thank you to Blind Eye Factory for sharing these exclusive images with BSA readers.

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