Brooklyn Street Art | …loves you more every day.

Basquiat Evoked on the Street in Sassuolo, Italy

September 16, 2013 Artists

Remember when we were with French stencil pioneer Jef Aerosol on a Brooklyn roof back in January ’10 where he created a portrait of Jean-Michel Basquiat? His influence has continued unabated among some Street Artists who talk with us today. When you travel around the world meeting different folks on the Street Art and graffiti scene you’ll get an idea of the impact that the New York downtown/uptown/train painting scene of the 1970s and 1980s had and continues to have on the imagination – from Millenials who were weened on MTV to Boomers who watched it evolve in real time.

Jean-Michel Basquiat stands as a composite of what the scene looked like and what it became – possibly because he straddled the pronounced demarcation between graffiti/Street Art/fine art so well, in a way that allowed them to compliment each other. It didn’t hurt that he had a great sense of personal style, an underlying defiance of anyone’s attempt to label him, and an innate political sense of who to hang with and how to garner attention.

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Collettivo FX. “Basquiat. May ’81”. Sassuolo, Italy. (photo © Collettivo FX)

Brooklyn’s Basquiat happened to be in New York when the artist community hotbed of performance, experimentation and avant-garde was bubbling in lower Manhattan, coinciding with a growing celebrity culture, cheap rents, and the ever-more affordable tools of audio and video that could capture the shenanigans. A bubble on Wall Street helped provide the fuel. Without simplifying his impact personally and as an artist, a danger of repeated storytelling that reduces people’s complex lives to smooth cornered app icons to poke, let’s just say that the image of Basquiat still inspires many artists around the world.

Today we take a look at a Basquiat tribute on the streets in the northern Italian city of Sassuolo, where Basquiat made an impact just by visiting in the spring of 1981. Street Artist collective FX just completed a small series of installations around this city of about 40,000 to commemorate that visit, which FX says was big news for a lot of people in a way that would not have necessarily impressed a larger metropolis. With stickers and hand painted posters FX brings the ghost of that visit to the streets – until the rain and wind washes it away.

“In May of 1981 Basquiat went outside of New York and came to Modena for two weeks for an exhibition,” says Collettivo FX. “During that time he lived in Sassuolo and some Italian guys brought him around town to see the city and go dancing. Since he was still SAMO he always had his pocket sprays, so Basquiat did many sketches on the wall, on windows, and on garbage.”

Thanks to FX for sharing these images with BSA readers.

Collettivo FX. “Basquiat. May ’81”. Sassuolo, Italy. (photo © Collettivo FX)

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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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Images of the Week: 09.15.13

September 15, 2013 Artists

September in New York is a fusillade of the new! And it flies at you from every direction! New movies, museum shows, gallery shows, art benefits, charity galas, concert series, new film series – they all conspire together to overload your senses and if they are worth their weight they challenge and push you/us forward. Street Art never really takes a break and is not programmed, but this fall a number of gallery shows and public installations are taking place. This week alone we were in galleries as much as on the street – as increasingly some Street Artists are able to make the jump to the gallery, and commercial interest continues to build, at least for some.

So call this the Fall opening of Images of the Week – a variety show of work including Elbow Toe (Brian Douglas), Barry McGee, and Zevs in Chelsea galleries, the legal wall of Faile with Collosal Media in midtown, and Paul Kasmin and Michael Shvo converting a corner gas station into a Sheep Station with grassy mounds and mouton sculptures by the late Francois-Xavier Lalanne. We also managed to find some new illegal work – which we have always featured on BSA.

On that note, a quick mention of a recent posting on the site Vandalog by our colleague RJ Rushmore where he reflected on his experiment avoiding posting legal work on his site for a month, and his interpretation of the experience. Cool idea and we love his curiosity and examination of the outcome on his own perceptions. Since he mentioned our work, we’d also like to direct you to our August 21st round-up of Atlanta Living Walls that explores the increasing appearance of legal work in festivals and the like, in case you missed it. BSA has always considered the continuum of Street Art, graffiti, public art, performance art, projection art, commissioned work, gallery work and museum shows. With our roots and track record as artists, performers, professionals, curators, documenters, and directors in New York for the last 25 years, we feel like we have a pretty solidly grounded appreciation for the spectrum of unpermissioned/permissioned works on the street and the multiple entanglements they imply. You probably do too.

And BSA is going to keep exploring so come on and jump on the bus, there’s plenty of room for everyone.

Speaking of buses, here’s an omnibus collection of BSA Images of the Week featuring street, gallery, legal, and illegal work from Angel Ortiz (LAII), Barry McGee, Billi Kid, Brian Adam Douglas (Elbow-toe), Deekers, El Seed, Faile, Francoise-Xavier Lelanna, Gilbert & George, José Parlá, JR, Keely, Niels Shoe Meulman, Spaik, and Zevs.

Top image: Faile with Colossal media on the old Record Plant recording studios – check out a great piece by Becki Fuller on The Street Spot for more detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brian Adam Douglas AKA Elbow Toe has a solo exhibition “How To Disappear Completely” at Andrew Edlin Gallery. His technique has only improved as it evolves wholistically – with collage, painting, and illustration bringing together his imagined fears and hallucinations with a richly cheery 1950s palette to rally around the metaphors stirred in more recent natural disasters. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brian Adam Douglas AKA Elbow Toe solo exhibition “How To Disappear Completely” at Andrew Edlin Gallery. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brian Adam Douglas AKA Elbow Toe. Detail. Solo exhibition “How To Disappear Completely” at Andrew Edlin Gallery. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brian Adam Douglas AKA Elbow Toe solo exhibition “How To Disappear Completely” at Andrew Edlin Gallery. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Deekers and Keely have a monstrous collaboration in BK that is going to surprise more people as the weather wears this down and the days grow shorter. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Francois-Xavier Lalanne “Sheep Station” at the Getty Station for a true installation in the public sphere on private property. JR and Jose Parla’s collaboration in the background from their earlier unrelated show repositions their subject as sheep herder. Quel Suprise! (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Francois-Xavier Lalanne and the “Sheep Station” at the Getty Station. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Francois-Xavier Lalanne “Sheep Station” at the Getty Station. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

We are expecting Julie Andrews to come frollicking across the grass in a striped jumper. Francois-Xavier Lalanne “Sheep Station” at the Getty Station. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Francois-Xavier Lalanne “Sheep Station” at the Getty Station. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Billi Kid shares one of his blue pills with you. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Somehow these days, it feels like Andy is always watching. Billi Kid (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A smart and focused Zevs solo – “Traffics in Icons” at the De Buck Gallery – messes with the modern religious iconography of the corporate logo, liquidating it as he has done a number of times on the street. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A passerby examines the window display at Zevs solo exhibition “Traffics in Icons” at De Buck Gallery (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Artist Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Barry Mc Gee solo exhibition at Cheim & Reid Gallery. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Barry Mc Gee solo exhibition at Cheim & Reid Gallery (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The saturated and sly living sculptures Gilbert & George are newly invigorated spurting up among the bushes on the Highline. It feels like early photoshop tricks on the High Line Billboard and the colors are popping- read into for your delight, titillation, and possible discomfort. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

eL Seed at “Calligraffiti 1984/2013”, a collection of works selected by Jeffrey Deitch to help us trace the lineage of the decorative qualities of the graffiti line, according the hand of the artist in question. Leila Heller Gallery. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A modern master at his craft, good to see works by Niels “Shoe” Meulman at “Calligraffiti 1984/2013”. Leila Heller Gallery. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

LA2 has the front room at “Calligraffiti 1984/2013”. Leila Heller Gallery. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A full wall on the street from artist Spaik in Queretaro, Mexico (photo © Spaik)

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Martha Cooper Gets Up Huge at NUART 2013

September 14, 2013 Artists

“If this was New York, this would be the place they dumped the bodies,” says Martha as she and Martyn Reed scope out the new location for her drizzly outdoor light show after hours. Nuart 2013 had a stroke of genius when the international Street Art festival didn’t invite the famous photographer as a documenter but rather as an artist – an important distinction that may be overlooked by many graffiti and Street Artists when speaking about the work of photographers sometimes.

Martha Cooper’s iconic photo of graffiti and train writer DONDI, perhaps one of the most famous of Ms. Cooper’s images, is projected on silos in the Stavanger Harbor. (photo courtesy of NUART 2013 © Ian Cox)

The crew lit up the night in the dodgy part of the Norwegian town using car headlamps for their work and with a projector Reed says costs about $350,000. Not part of the official program, the team was determined to splash some of the 1,300 slides from Cooper’s 50+ year career as large as possible like a beacon. “It was in the dead of night, and pitch dark,” says Reed.

Not for long.

Using a rented van and a portable power generator, the boom of charged particles soon blasted upon the large rolling expanse of an industrial canvas, and with the help of other talented photographers, these exclusive images capture the nocturnal scene for BSA readers.

Special thanks to Ian Cox and Kay Donnolly.

Kids at play across the Stavanger silos. Martha Cooper. (photo courtesy of NUART 2013 © Ian Cox)

Martha Cooper. The projection headquarters and the ubiquitous Norwegian rain. (photo courtesy of NUART 2013 ©Kay Donnolly)

You know who is on the screen, but who is that in the foreground? (photo courtesy of NUART 2013 © Kay Donnolly)

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Judith Supine Scratch and Win Tonight at “Thanks for Nothing”

September 14, 2013 Artists

Brooklyn Street Artist Judith Supine is opening “Thanks for Nothing” tonight at Known Gallery and while the gender/mind bender is fluffing up her petticoats (or being fluffed) for the doubtless throngs you may want to go just to get lucky.

In an unusual and ingenious promotional stroke, guests will have an opportunity to win one of the new collage pieces from Judith that comprise this new show if you have a winning lottery card. All this summer and for much of the spring the sanguine Supine has been painstakingly slicing and arranging magazines and art rags to turn out the cranium melting collages that distinguish his work on street walls and doorways, with the scale determined by the canvas of old lottery cards. So obsessed has he been with these little potential tickets to paradise that a special edition card will be given to guests this evening – and an additional 400 of them will be for sale.

The promotional piece for Judith Supine’s art lottery scratchers. One more way to try and get lucky at “Thanks for Nothing”.

“We made a lottery scratcher that can actually be scratched off and we are giving away five original collages to the winners,” says Naheed Simjee, the brains behind this beauty of an idea. “The winning tickets reveal ‘YOU LUCKY FUCK’ and the rest say ‘YOU LOSE’,” she explains of the functional art pieces. The remaining 400 art cards will be sold for ten bucks.

Seems like you will be lucky either way.

Here are some extreme closeups of the small pieces at “Thanks for Nothing” and see more along with a short interview on The Huffington Post here.

All images © and courtesy of Judith Supine and Known Gallery.

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BSA Film Friday: 09.13.13

September 13, 2013 Artists

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

Now screening: Joe Caslin on Achill-Henge in Ireland, Canemorto with Borondo in Bologna, Italy .

BSA Special Feature: Joe Caslin
on Achill-Henge in Ireland

BSA Film Friday this week brings you exclusive photos and film documentation of the new “collaboration” of an Irish Street Artist and a renegade real estate developer. For the next chapter of his socio-political Street Art project “Our Nation’s Sons”, artist Joe Caslin has an unmatched choice for a venue – an illegally constructed concrete sculpture called Achill-Henge.

Banksy had Toilet-Henge, in Nevada Jim Reinders created Carhenge, and this unauthorized 30 column, fifteen foot high tribute to Stonehenge has been under threat of demolition since it was erected one November weekend two years ago unilaterally by property developer ‘Anglo Avenger’ Joe McNamara, according to news reports.

A perfect spot for graffiti and Street Art, right?

Enter Joe Caslin, the recently graduated illustration artist who completed his public awareness campaign “Our Nations Sons” that we shared with you earlier this year on the streets of Edinburgh, Scotland. The contentious discussions that surround the existence of the massive sculpture as well as the fact that it is still standing makes it a superb location to wheatpaste the images of young men whom Caslin believes are callously demonized within Irish society. “It is a really controversial site which is loaded with opinion and as such was very important to the subject matter of my drawings,” says the artist.

Mr. Caslin and his small team, at least one of which is a participating subject of the campaign, have just completed a full installation on the walls of this poured concrete Achill-Henge high atop the wind-whipped hills overlooking the ocean.

The installation continued late into night and there were of course a number of technical issues to overcome but today BSA readers get to see exclusive photos of the project – along with a pretty stunning professionally shot video just released of the full installation.

(photo above © Gavin Leane)

Joe Caslin “Our Nation’s Sons”. Achill-Henge, Ireland. (photo © Gavin Leane)

Joe Caslin “Our Nation’s Sons”. Achill-Henge, Ireland. (photo © Emily O’Callaghan)

Joe Caslin “Our Nation’s Sons”. Achill-Henge, Ireland. (photo © Gavin Leane)

Joe Caslin “Our Nation’s Sons”. Achill-Henge, Ireland. (photo © Emily O’Callaghan)

See our piece on “Our Nation’s Sons” on The Huffington Post.

CANEMORTO with BORONDO in Bologna, Italy.

And on an entirely different tip, the wild and wooly lowfi classical Canemorto continue to impress with their raw wit. Why aren’t more people talking about Canemorto? This new stop action video by El Pacino features a collab with Borondo in an abandoned building with a soaring roof. Also, idiot sounds.

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Phlegm Flees With a Marauding Animal Exodus in Albany

September 11, 2013 Artists

Exclusive Photos of the Wildly Charging Herd by Phlegm

As the global geopolitical-econo-social storms continue to swirl us into and out of oil wars and natural disasters and disease and pestilence and famine – or at least the threat of them, you may rightly feel as if you are living inside a comic book or a late summer blockbusting thriller.

Phlegm (photo © Bob Anderson)

The gift of an illustrator like Sheffield-based Street Artist Phlegm is that he can, at will, play the master of chaos in a Dionysian drama, creating the horror afoot, and he can as well create the salvation. It is up to his imagination and his hand/can. Today we look at a new installation of exodus, the stretching and contorting competition of man and animal to flee imminent disaster. Or maybe they’re headed to the Apple store.

Phlegm (photo © Bob Anderson)

The New York State capital of Albany hosted an extensive series of walls across many neighborhoods two years ago this month, but has since been relatively quiet, as local Street Art fan and photographer Bob Anderson can attest. But for the longest time Bob says, “I have had my eye on an 85′ wall of Earthworld Comics, the oldest comic book store in town.” As luck would have it, Phlegm was in Bushwick BK finishing up a wall just as this one opened up north, and the floodgates of exodus were let loose across the expanse of brick.

Not a bad venue for an outsized illustrator like Phlegm, who is as adept at small hand-rendered drawings as he is of this happily hellish scene of a rumbling and frenzied herd charging forward. It helps that the wall is shot by an artist behind the camera and augmented by the invisible hand of the god of light and shadow.

If this is a film still, it is still moving. If this is a painting, may it never stop. Long live Phlegm.

Our special thanks to Bob Anderson for capturing and sharing these images with BSA readers.

Phlegm (photo © Bob Anderson)

Phlegm blending with his characters as he makes progress on the wall. (photo © Bob Anderson)

Phlegm (photo © Bob Anderson)

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Splashes of Color in the Norwegian Rain: NUART 2013

September 11, 2013 Artists

The pale wan institutional hues of the Stavanger International Airport now are punctuated by the brilliant blues and stencil patterning wrapping around the control tower.

Small multi-layered stencil portraits pop from post-boxes, primary color-clad children hang off of stoop stairs and balance on stacked chairs and a graffiti slathered Michaelango stands on the corner next to the eye doctors office. Turn up another street and an aerosoled sultry geisha rises, wrapped in boisterous brocade on a typically white wall in this rather monochromatic sea town.

With these new wall works by M-City, C215, Ernest Zacharevic, Martin Whatson, and Hush (respectively) and a number of others, Nuart 2013 brought a lot of color to the streets this year as it celebrated what founder Martyn Reed called “one of, if not thee, finest Nuart events yet”.

Ernest Zacharevic (photo © Martha Cooper)

“Best Wishes from cold and rainy Stavanger!” says Ernest’s friend Gabija in her note to us as she talks about the cool grey storms that held up many of the visiting artists waiting to paint. It didn’t delay the pieces going up on tunnel walls of the venue where the opening party crowds teamed Saturday night. The special installations by C215, David Choe, and Aiko among others also included a 1,300 slide show at the end of one tunnel that showed 50 years of graffiti, Street Art, and street life photography by Martha Cooper, who was invited as an artist.

Even the minister of culture stopped by for a tour on Thursday, which shows how far graffiti and Street Art have grown, or strayed, in the years since public service commercials equated aerosol art with illicit drug use, truancy, terror, and illegal firearms. Today we give tours in the streets to appreciative people who snap photos and pose with friends in front of the spray painted walls.

Ernest Zacharevic (photo © Martha Cooper)

Of course this is an international mural festival, and much of the work is done by more accomplished artists who may have once (or still do) sprayed their stuff illegally. The themes may need to pass some review process, but the opportunities that come from taking your time are appreciable also. One of the newest talents showing this year was the Lithuanian twenty-something Ernest Zacharevic, who photographs and paints kids interacting and playing on a variety of wheeled machines, usually the self propelled kind.

Ably steering clear of cute, Zacharevic uses props with his wall paintings to “tap into the original instincts of adult viewers who may have lost their ability to access their playful nature,” or so we said in our interview with him. He also merges 2D with 3D quite seemlessly. For his tunnel installation on opening night, Zacharevic sawed a car in half so his kids could dance on the roof, cram inside, and push it from the back like it was out of gas. More than likely it was the missing wheels that kept the car stationary. But no harm in playing.

Ernest Zacharevic (photo © Martha Cooper)

But of the 16 artists invited this year, each can say they brought life and their A-game to this jewel of an outdoor art show in Norway. Nuart 2013 included MARTHA COOPER (US), DAL EAST (CN), ROA (BE), M-CITY (PL), FAITH47 (ZA), HUSH (UK), VHILS (PT), ERNEST ZACHAREVIC (LT), C215 (FR), DOT DOT DOT (NO), DOTMASTER (UK), STRØK (NO), MARTIN WHATSON (NO), DAVID CHOE (US) AIKO (JP).

With very special thanks to photographer Martha Cooper for sharing these images with BSA readers.

Ernest Zacharevic (photo © Martha Cooper)

Stroek casts a shadow. (photo © Martha Cooper)

Stroek and a street scene. (photo © Martha Cooper)

Stroek finishing up his piece. (photo © Martha Cooper)

C215 does this portrait of fellow Street Artist Indi. (photo © Martha Cooper)

C215 self portrait looking perplexed, perhaps. (photo © Martha Cooper)

C215 (photo © Martha Cooper)

C215 on a post box in Stavanger. (photo © Martha Cooper)

Martin Whatson (photo © Martha Cooper)

AIKO (photo © Martha Cooper)

A tour of the walls in Stavanger with AIKO’s piece on the background. (photo © Martha Cooper)

AIKO and Martha Cooper’s collaborative tunnel, with Aiko’s stencils on both sides and a slide show at the end. This slide is of New York graffiti writer and fine artist Futura as a young buck at the tunnels’ end. (photo © Martha Cooper)

AIKO’s walls and Martha Cooper’s portrait of her in a perfect collaboration. (photo © Martha Cooper)

AIKO and Martha Cooper’ slide show on the background. (photo © Martha Cooper)

VHILS (photo © Martha Cooper)

M-City (photo © Martha Cooper)

M-City. Detail. (photo © Martha Cooper)

HUSH in a stunning shot by Ms. Cooper, who caught a woman in a hijab walking past at just the right moment. (photo © Martha Cooper)

DOT DOT DOT keeping warmed by the fire. (photo © Martha Cooper)

ROA’s whale is spouting oil, a reference to the driving force behind the local economy perhaps. (photo © Martha Cooper)

FAITH 47 (photo © Martha Cooper)

Dal East (photo © Martha Cooper)

Founder of NUART Festival Martyn Reed, standing in front of David Choe’s piece while giving a tour of the art to Norway’s Minister of Culture Hadia Tajik. (photo © Martha Cooper)

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Urban Forms 2013: ROA Goes First in Poland

September 10, 2013 Artists

In Poland the Urban Forms festival is underway with its new installations of large format mural works in Lodz this month, beginning with the Belgian ROA. The urban naturalist continues to explore the animal kingdom, but usually not the cute ones you find in cartoons or on inspirational posters in your kid sisters bedroom with phrases like “Hang In There!” emblazoned across them hanging adorably off a tree limb. ROA has us sort of stumped with this playful pack of Polish polecats – a combination of realistic and fantastic weasels who won’t sit still as they careen and cavort across a characteristically colossal wall – the 22nd or 23rd such mural in the series for Urban Forms.

ROA. Urban Forms 2013. Lodz, Poland. (photo © Urban Forms/Michał Bieżyński)

ROA. Detail. Urban Forms 2013. Lodz, Poland. (photo © Urban Forms/Michał Bieżyński)

WWW.GALERIAURBANFORMS.ORG

www.urbanforms.org

www.facebook.com/urbanforms

www.vimeo.com/urbanforms

www.instagram.com/urbanforms

www.youtube.com/user/UrbanFormsFoundation

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NUART UPDATE: Talk with Ernest Zacharevic and Images of C215, Hush, STROK

September 9, 2013 Artists, Interview

Nuart 2013 continues to engage and converse with people in Stavanger Norway as the big formal opening Saturday night was packed with guests and tours have begun around town with Gt Aamdal and Kristel Talv, who yesterday had a group of a hundred people following them around as they helped explain the new works that have been appearing and the artists who have been creating them.

Today we bring you some recent photos of works in progress shot by Gabija Grusaite and a brief interview with one of the artists this year at Nuart, Ernest Zacharevic from Lithuania, who has a pretty large following of ardent fans who dig his technique of interplay with mural and sculpture for an integrated third dimensional experience. By focusing on the spontaneity of children’s play, Zacharevic can tap into the original instincts of adult viewers who may have lost their ability to access their playful nature. His street work is unpretentious and sometimes ingenious, while steadily staying away from being cloying or overly sentimental.

Ernest Zacharevic. Detail. (photo © Gabija Grusaite)

Ernest took a few moments during a break from this weekends preparations to talk to BSA about his work.

Brooklyn Street Art: Many of your pieces include play and more specifically, children at play. How important is that theme for you and what attracts you to it?
Ernest Zacharevic: Most of my work is photography based and site-specific, so I photograph my subjects and later choose angles for painting. Working with children allows more anonymity, I don’t consider my artworks to be portraits of a specific person, rather a universal experience. It is also easier to work with children – they are not self-concious and are not afraid to look stupid or ugly. So we play together and I take pictures that later translate into my artwork. I really like this unrestricted energy.

Ernest Zacharevic at work on his installation. (photo © Gabija Grusaite)

Brooklyn Street Art: You have been traveling a lot in the last year – where have you gone and can you talk about one of your favorite experiences on the street with your work?
Ernest Zacharevic: I do travel a lot. Japan, Italy, Norway, Lithuania, Malaysia – to name few places I’ve been this year. At the moment I am based in Penang, Malaysia, but originally I come from Vilnius, Lithuania and I graduated from Middlesex University, London where I lived for 5 years. My artwork is heavily influenced by all these layers of geographical backgrounds.

Probably the most memorable project I’ve done so far is Mirrors George Town murals that I created for George Town Festival in 2012. The murals became so popular that they started having a life of it’s own – there are people lining up to take pictures with it and Malaysian Government recognized them as valuable tourist objects. Crazy! It was even copied by one Chinese town near Shanghai. It is really nice for an artist to realize that his piece of work means so much to other people.

Brooklyn Street Art: Many of your characters have mischief in their eyes and their actions. Are you getting into trouble in Stavanger?
Ernest Zacharevic: I wish, but the weather is taking it’s toll. Stavanger is great! Everywhere you go there are traces of street art and amazing murals round the corner, places you would never expect to see it. It really inspires me to do a few smaller pieces if the Norwegian summer will be kind to me tomorrow.

Brooklyn Street Art: Can you talk about using wheeled forms of transportation in your vignettes – bicycles, shopping carts, rickshaws… do you use them to create a sense of movement?
Ernest Zacharevic; Yes! It’s a part of play, but also a wider narrative about the continuous desire by human beings to travel, push forward, explore unknown horizons. Cars and bicycles and tricycles were invented because just walking is too slow to most of our imagination. That is way my main installation for Nuart 2013 will feature a car – half sliced – continuing the theme of my previous work.

Brooklyn Street Art: Sometimes you integrate something that is already on the street or the wall into your piece. Do you find yourself doing this mentally as you walk through the streets?
Ernest Zacharevic: I find everyday objects to be fascinating. Signs that look like animals, doors that smile, little holes in the wall that look like part of a Tom & Jerry cartoon. It’s fun and I love to reveal this to other people just to make them smile.

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Images of The Week: 09.08.13

September 8, 2013 Artists

First there was Labor Day, then the Jewish New Year, so it was easy to get a seat on the subway, and sometimes next to a model who’s here for Fashion Week and who got a room in Brooklyn on Air BnB (thinking BK is just steps away from Manhattan). Now everybody’s getting ready to vote in the mayoral primary on Tuesday and all the students are gearing up to start the new school year, and most people you meet on the street and on stoops are talking distrustfully/quizzically about O taking us to war in Syria. Meanwhile no humidity and lots of sunshine means every day seems nice for painting, pasting, or dissing somebody else’s work – depending on your frame of mind.

The big Calligraffiti show in Chelsea was packed Thursday night, where you could see some of your favorite artists in person like El Seed, Niels Shoe Meulman, Rostarr, and Olek, and you could catch work from Haring, Basquiat, and a room full of LAII. Out in Bushwick you could even catch Blek Le Rat, one of the originators of this kind of work, putting up some new pieces as he prepared for his opening last night at Jonathan Levine. And yesterday Faile started a monstrous new wall in Hells Kitchen that will create a swarm of fans and cameras on the street (more on that later). New York is spoiled, yo.

So here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week including Bast, Bishop203, Blek le Rat, Dede, DZIA, El Kamino, Faile, GIJ Van Hee, Icy & Sot, Pastel, Palladino, QRST, Skuzz, Wonky Monky, and You Go Girl!.

A surprise to find this new small sculpture, and even more surprised to find that it was made by QRST, a Street Artist we have been bringing you since he first hit the streets a few years ago. Gonna keep our eyes open for more of these… (photo © Jaime Rojo)

NUART 2013 Update – David Choe, C215, Aiko, Vhils, Ernest Zacharevic, Dot Dot Dot, Hush, and M-City

September 7, 2013 Artists

“We’ve had terrible weather–rained most of the day today–so artists have been slow getting their walls done,” said Martha Cooper about the scene in Stavanger for Nuart 2013 on Friday. Today is looking much better, she reports, almost good enough for a boat ride.

Each of the artists have been commenting on the sometimes heavy rains, which can sort of kill your aerosol buzz, but no one really minds because the festival buzz is building toward tonight’s big events. We think the folks at Nuart had it planned this way because there is work that needs to be done underground in the tunnel gallery spaces for the Saturday night opening.

Ernest Zacharevic uses the attitude of childs play in his Street Art installations around the world, often incorporating a third dimensional installation element to complete it. Look for an interview with him on BSA shortly. (photo © Martha Cooper)

Here under cover from the storms C215 is hard at work on a very large and color drenched portrait, Hush is on a ladder glossing the lips of a modern geisha, and Aiko is stenciling a signature sexy pop-inspired theme that covers two thirds of the front of one tunnel – leaving the remaining space for Ms. Cooper to project some 1300 of her photos for the expected crowd this evening.

DalEast and Faith47 have been slowed down a bit too. “Raining now,,, waiting for it to stop,” she taps out on her keyboard in a brief cadence as if sending a guarded cable in Morse code across the Atlantic. Meanwhile, there are some other diversions to be inspected, and other artists to meet. Everyone has been talking about taking a local fjord boat ride up Stavanger Peninsula so they may accompany Martha on the voyage to see the natural beauty of the Norwegian coastline while things are drying out today.

Founder of NUART Festival Martyn Reed, standing in front of David Choe’s piece while giving a tour of the art to Norway’s Minister of Culture Hadia Tajik. (photo © Martha Cooper)

Luckily a fair share of work has been completed, and the Minister of Culture has already stopped by to tour and pose for a photo in front of the David Choe piece, and the scaffolding on the airport control tower came down to reveal the new large stenciled mural wrapping it by M-City, who has since moved on with ROA to Lodz, Poland for the Urban Forms festival.

“We’ll all be here through the weekkend so that’s when the bigger walls may get finished,” says Martha. Martin Whatson is just about finished and Ernest Zacarevic completed his outside installation with a stack of chairs for his stencil to balance upon. He also rather conspiratorially reveals this teaser to BSA, “my main installation for Nuart 2013 will feature a car, half sliced.” He says it will continue a theme in his previous work.

More from Nuart soon, but in the mean time, here are some progress shots for BSA readers including work by David Choe, C215, Aiko, Vhils, Ernest Zacharevic, Dot Dot Dot, Hush, and M-City.

Martha captures the mimicry of Martin Whatson’s body language with the fellow working in his piece. (photo © Martha Cooper)

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BSA Film Friday 09.06.13

September 6, 2013 Artists

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

Now screening:Narcelio Grud “Bus Stop Sound”, Pablo Aravena “Time Wastes For Nobody”, Dan Witz – Light Star Express, El Ton0 – Random Mural Painting, and Mimi The Clown is a Rock Star .

BSA Special Feature: Narcelio Grud
Bus Stop Sound

Narcelio Grud knows how to experiment – in fact his primary driving force as a Street Artist is to innovate and discover. Released earlier this summer, this new video details the refurbishing of a bus stop with musical instrumentation. Not only does Mr. Grud and his assistant reconfigure the bus stop in broad daylight while people are standing in line and waiting, there is a natural curiosity and interaction alerted at the prospect of beating a drum.

Pablo Aravena “Time Wastes For Nobody”

Ripo and She One are in Barcelona adorning the rubble, hidden from the main veins of commerce and the public stampede. Presented as a wistful tone poem, the sense of being there is as palpable as just the sense of being. This work is not opportunist as much as a concert, a collaborative trio – a destroyed building and two painters. It’s a moment caught, and lost.

Dan Witz – Light Star Express

A succinct overview with the artist of some of the projects on the street that he has executed including his “Wailing Walls” series of Street Art installations, his project called “WTF”, his 9/11 shrines and his masterful way with oils and glazes to create tableaus of glowing light – intimate moments of warm illumination.

El Ton0 – Random Mural Painting

An indoor mural incorporating the concept of randomness with 51 kids over 2 days creating 62 lines, which together create this mural with Street Artist El Tono at the International Montessori School of Beijing.

Mimi The Clown is a Rock Star

The French Street Artist continues to mess around with stencils and celebrity – his own. Set to a soundtrack of Ramones reprising the 1960s “Let’s Dance” Mimi cavorts with walls and gallery shows in makeup, a rare combination of performance, personality, and preening. A clown in the most serious sense, Mimi brings the tradition of public maudlin/comic performance and overlays it with the celebrity culture of the modern age, an entanglement that is difficult to decode.

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Collettivo FX. “Basquiat. May ’81”. Sassuolo, Italy. (photo © Collettivo FX)

Collettivo FX. “Basquiat. May ’81”. Sassuolo, Italy. (photo © Collettivo FX)

Collettivo FX. “Basquiat. May ’81”. Sassuolo, Italy. (photo © Collettivo FX)

Collettivo FX. “Basquiat. May ’81”. Sassuolo, Italy. (photo © Collettivo FX)

Top image: Faile with Colossal media on the old Record Plant recording studios – check out a great piece by Becki Fuller on The Street Spot for more detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brian Adam Douglas AKA Elbow Toe solo exhibition “How To Disappear Completely” at Andrew Edlin Gallery. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brian Adam Douglas AKA Elbow Toe. Detail. Solo exhibition “How To Disappear Completely” at Andrew Edlin Gallery. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brian Adam Douglas AKA Elbow Toe solo exhibition “How To Disappear Completely” at Andrew Edlin Gallery. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brian Adam Douglas AKA Elbow Toe solo exhibition “How To Disappear Completely” at Andrew Edlin Gallery. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Deekers and Keely have a monstrous collaboration in BK that is going to surprise more people as the weather wears this down and the days grow shorter. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Francois-Xavier Lalanne “Sheep Station” at the Getty Station for a true installation in the public sphere on private property. JR and Jose Parla’s collaboration in the background from their earlier unrelated show repositions their subject as sheep herder. Quel Suprise! (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Francois-Xavier Lalanne and the “Sheep Station” at the Getty Station. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Francois-Xavier Lalanne “Sheep Station” at the Getty Station. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

We are expecting Julie Andrews to come frollicking across the grass in a striped jumper. Francois-Xavier Lalanne “Sheep Station” at the Getty Station. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Francois-Xavier Lalanne “Sheep Station” at the Getty Station. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Billi Kid shares one of his blue pills with you. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Somehow these days, it feels like Andy is always watching. Billi Kid (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A smart and focused Zevs solo – “Traffics in Icons” at the De Buck Gallery – messes with the modern religious iconography of the corporate logo, liquidating it as he has done a number of times on the street. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A passerby examines the window display at Zevs solo exhibition “Traffics in Icons” at De Buck Gallery (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Artist Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Barry Mc Gee solo exhibition at Cheim & Reid Gallery. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Barry Mc Gee solo exhibition at Cheim & Reid Gallery (photo © Jaime Rojo)

eL Seed at “Calligraffiti 1984/2013”, a collection of works selected by Jeffrey Deitch to help us trace the lineage of the decorative qualities of the graffiti line, according the hand of the artist in question. Leila Heller Gallery. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A modern master at his craft, good to see works by Niels “Shoe” Meulman at “Calligraffiti 1984/2013”. Leila Heller Gallery. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

LA2 has the front room at “Calligraffiti 1984/2013”. Leila Heller Gallery. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A full wall on the street from artist Spaik in Queretaro, Mexico (photo © Spaik)

Martha Cooper’s iconic photo of graffiti and train writer DONDI, perhaps one of the most famous of Ms. Cooper’s images, is projected on silos in the Stavanger Harbor. (photo courtesy of NUART 2013 © Ian Cox)

Kids at play across the Stavanger silos. Martha Cooper. (photo courtesy of NUART 2013 © Ian Cox)

Martha Cooper. The projection headquarters and the ubiquitous Norwegian rain. (photo courtesy of NUART 2013 ©Kay Donnolly)

You know who is on the screen, but who is that in the foreground? (photo courtesy of NUART 2013 © Kay Donnolly)

The promotional piece for Judith Supine’s art lottery scratchers. One more way to try and get lucky at “Thanks for Nothing”.

All images © and courtesy of Judith Supine and Known Gallery.

BSA Special Feature: Joe Caslin on Achill-Henge in Ireland

Joe Caslin “Our Nation’s Sons”. Achill-Henge, Ireland. (photo © Gavin Leane)

Joe Caslin “Our Nation’s Sons”. Achill-Henge, Ireland. (photo © Gavin Leane)

Joe Caslin “Our Nation’s Sons”. Achill-Henge, Ireland. (photo © Emily O’Callaghan)

Joe Caslin “Our Nation’s Sons”. Achill-Henge, Ireland. (photo © Gavin Leane)

Joe Caslin “Our Nation’s Sons”. Achill-Henge, Ireland. (photo © Gavin Leane)

Joe Caslin “Our Nation’s Sons”. Achill-Henge, Ireland. (photo © Emily O’Callaghan)

Joe Caslin “Our Nation’s Sons”. Achill-Henge, Ireland. (photo © Emily O’Callaghan)

CANEMORTO with BORONDO in Bologna, Italy.

Exclusive Photos of the Wildly Charging Herd by Phlegm

Phlegm (photo © Bob Anderson)

Phlegm (photo © Bob Anderson)

Phlegm (photo © Bob Anderson)

Phlegm blending with his characters as he makes progress on the wall. (photo © Bob Anderson)

Phlegm (photo © Bob Anderson)

Phlegm (photo © Bob Anderson)

Phlegm (photo © Bob Anderson)

Phlegm (photo © Bob Anderson)

Phlegm (photo © Bob Anderson)

Phlegm (photo © Bob Anderson)

Phlegm (photo © Bob Anderson)

Phlegm (photo © Bob Anderson)

Phlegm (photo © Bob Anderson)

Phlegm (photo © Bob Anderson)

Ernest Zacharevic (photo © Martha Cooper)

Ernest Zacharevic (photo © Martha Cooper)

Ernest Zacharevic (photo © Martha Cooper)

Ernest Zacharevic (photo © Martha Cooper)

Ernest Zacharevic (photo © Martha Cooper)

Stroek casts a shadow. (photo © Martha Cooper)

Stroek and a street scene. (photo © Martha Cooper)

Stroek finishing up his piece. (photo © Martha Cooper)

C215 does this portrait of fellow Street Artist Indi. (photo © Martha Cooper)

C215 self portrait looking perplexed, perhaps. (photo © Martha Cooper)

C215 (photo © Martha Cooper)

C215 (photo © Martha Cooper)

C215 on a post box in Stavanger. (photo © Martha Cooper)

Martin Whatson (photo © Martha Cooper)

Martin Whatson (photo © Martha Cooper)

Martin Whatson (photo © Martha Cooper)

Martin Whatson (photo © Martha Cooper)

AIKO (photo © Martha Cooper)

A tour of the walls in Stavanger with AIKO’s piece on the background. (photo © Martha Cooper)

AIKO and Martha Cooper’s collaborative tunnel, with Aiko’s stencils on both sides and a slide show at the end. This slide is of New York graffiti writer and fine artist Futura as a young buck at the tunnels’ end. (photo © Martha Cooper)

AIKO’s walls and Martha Cooper’s portrait of her in a perfect collaboration. (photo © Martha Cooper)

AIKO and Martha Cooper’ slide show on the background. (photo © Martha Cooper)

VHILS (photo © Martha Cooper)

M-City (photo © Martha Cooper)

BSA Special Feature: Joe Caslin
on Achill-Henge in Ireland

BSA Special Feature: Narcelio Grud
Bus Stop Sound