What to do with 13 decommissioned factory pipes in Dnipro, Ukraine?
Why not convert them into a glorious bouquet of flowers…laser flowers that is. The city of one million is located in southeastern Ukraine and hopes to increase tourism to the city. Lighting designers at a private company called Expolight experimented with 5 of the 13 chimneys – “employing an amalgam of lasers, pixel lights, and wireless synchronization,” say the organizers.
Dnipro Light Flowers by Expolight. Dnipro, Ukraine. (photo courtesy of Expolight)
Named the “Dnipro Svitlovi Kvity” (Дніпро Світлові квіти), the new installation is visible at night far from the train yards where it originates, including along Slobozhanskyi Ave in this industrial city that runs alongside the Dnieper River.
Designers at Expolight created the light-art installation by “employing an amalgam of lasers, pixel lights, and wireless synchronization,” to make the stalks and blossoms dance in the middle of the nighttime cityscape.
Dnipro Light Flowers by Expolight. Dnipro, Ukraine. (photo courtesy of Expolight)
The project was originally published on Designboom and it’s part of their DIY Submissions series.
“Winner of the 2021 lighting design awards, the artists say they hope to illuminate all thirteen chimneys, creating a “real technological garden that covers a distance of 7km, visible from the right side of the Dnipro riverbank.”- Desingboom.
The Asalto Festival celebrated its 16th edition this past December 2021 in Zaragoza, Spain. With 300 artists over the years and Covid threatening to make it stop, somehow Asalto still came back strong – focusing on murals on a more human scale and on involving the community in a direct way.
Ekosaurio. Festival Asalto 16th Edition. Zaragoza, Spain. (photo courtesy of the festival)
Participating artists were Asis Percales, Berni Puig, Dani Hache, Ecosaurio, Letsornot, Maite Rosende, Mina Hamada, Nelio, Olga de Dios and Twee Muizen. Each artist appeared to create murals that are more on an intimate scale, perhaps just large enough for you to encounter with a friend, rather than 300 friends.
Organizers said one of their goals was for “artists to treat the history of the neighborhood of the Arrabal de Zaragoza and the relationship with its people with great sensitivity, as well as the structure and dimensions of the environment and its historical structures.”
Twee Muizen. Festival Asalto 16th Edition. Zaragoza, Spain. (photo courtesy of the festival)
The festival is well regarded, has received many accolades and awards, and is sponsored by the city council, some foundations, and a few commercial brands. In addition to the painting of murals the festival hosts workshops, education classes, and tours with citizens and visitors. One particularly unique program pairs Spanish artists with local citizens “to create unique works inspired by their stories.”
Today we have just a few shots of the new murals and artworks created for Asalto 16th Edition.
Asis Percales. Detail. Festival Asalto 16th Edition. Zaragoza, Spain. (photo courtesy of the festival)Asis Percales. Detail. Festival Asalto 16th Edition. Zaragoza, Spain. (photo courtesy of the festival)Maite Rosende. Festival Asalto 16th Edition. Zaragoza, Spain. (photo courtesy of the festival)Berni Puig. Detail. Festival Asalto 16th Edition. Zaragoza, Spain. (photo courtesy of the festival)Dani Hache. Detail. Festival Asalto 16th Edition. Zaragoza, Spain. (photo courtesy of the festival)
Martin Luther King Jr’s message throughout his life included the themes of Love, Peace, Unity, Hope, and Equality. That’s why we think that the work of graffiti writer, illustrator, and calligraphist Andres Medina on a wall in Brooklyn perfectly illustrates what we commemorate today.
Mr. King’s vision for a better world and specifically for the lives of the millions of African-Americans who were denied their basic human rights is as important today as it was when he was still alive; preaching, marching, shouting, counseling, and keeping tabs on the rulers.
We will continue to keep Dr. King’s messages clear and relevant to the new generations. We believe that it’s equally important to emphasize a singular theme that might have more relevance in today’s political atmosphere.
For us, the alarming erosion of voting rights, particularly in the “red” southern states is an issue of severe importance. In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Voting Rights Act of 1965 with Martin Luther King Jr. by his side. This law allowed African-Americans to overcome the legal barriers that state and local governments had implemented preventing African-Americans from exercising their right to vote as given to them in the 15th Amendment of the United States Constitution ratified in 1870.
But in 2013 the U.S. Supreme Court chipped away the Voting Rights Act by ruling that the law imposed constraints on states and that the federal voting procedures were outdated. This ruling allowed certain states to enact laws imposing restrictions and limiting the access to vote by demanding ID requirements, closing voting polling stations, eliminating early voting, and voting by mail. After Trump’s election, his defeat, and his denial of the legitimacy of President Biden’s win, Republican leaders at both the federal, state, and local levels have been furiously working on the further erosion of the Voting Rights Act to the point that the razor edge Democratic majority in Congress has been unable to pass voting legislation that would, among other things, ensure that African-Americans and other minorities retain and preserve their right to vote without interference from local legislatures and politics.
Each of us has a responsibility to make certain that voting rights for all citizens remain an inalienable right, one that can not be taken away by capricious, partisan autocrats nostalgic for the old days of white supremacy.
Because it is not just one day, it is 365 days. We celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. today for his leadership and his bravery, tenacity, vision, and ability to convey and light the way. The values that he and the Civil Rights movement championed are what we still have to pursue and fight for every day in large ways and small because those who are arrayed against equality never seem to stop.
Today we feature a mural that speaks to some of the greater themes, the connected values that Americans know are the right ones and which we’ll keep talking about and retaining at the ‘top of mind’. LOVE. PEACE. UNITY. EQUALITY. HOPE. While MLK Jr. could be poetic and soaring in his speeches and his rhetoric, these simple words speak directly to our greater goals for the greater good.
Admittedly today in 2022, the insidious deceptive movements against equality are disheartening, but MLK Jr. told us not to give in to the hot sting of hatred. “I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great of a burden to bear,” he said.
At the moment in New York most of us are staying off the street because it is bitterly cold outside. We just had a wind chill of -1 degrees fahrenheit (-18 celcius). Not a lot of graffiti and street art goes up during this weather.
But that doesn’t stop us from going out to shoot it.
So here’s our weekly interview with the street (in New York and Miami), this week featuring 2OX Crew, Arson, ATOMS, Boy Kong, Buff Monster, Ivan Roque, Jason Naylor, Jimenez, Kern Myrtle, MrKas, Patrick Kane McGregor, and Pleks.
There is such a thing called street knowledge – knowledge that equips you to navigate safely and successfully. The power of knowledge is something that we thought about this week in NYC when we ran into the most appealing public library we’ve seen in years. The organization Little Free Library is a nonprofit organization with more than 100,000 little libraries like this in public space worldwide. Primarily provided and maintained by volunteers, these literary kiosks hold miles of treasure, free for the taking. Truthfully, seeing books so publicly lauded and traded may give you hope for the future.
With the advent of smartphones and Social Media the public might be reading fewer books – and sometimes it feels like there is a “dumbing down” of your average lad because of the procurers of digital “content” play to the lowest common denominator. Not to mention that many young people feel like the stuff they see on their phones is plainly mean-spirited, demoralizing even. According to the American Psychological Association “teens today spend more time on Digital Media, less time reading”.
Longtime aerosol vandal and literacy activist READER aka READ MORE aka BOOKS aka BOOKMAN (and more!) has been encouraging citizens, particularly our youth, for many years to crack a book and self-educate because he knows that knowledge is power. So now you know.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening: 1. Humask & Shadow _ Light off/Light on. Tuco Wallach Pacifico 2. Bastardilla: La lingue dei carciofi 3. Saber: Escaping Los Angeles. From Chop ’em Down Films
BSA Special Feature: Humask and Shadow
For artist Tuco Wallach the street art story has nearly always been a family affair that mixes easily with his Humask campaign. His psychological treatise on man’s relationship with himself and society and masks may be internal, but the actual street practice is often externalized to include friends and family to create, place, document the new works that go into the public places. Here, as a chill holiday recording of a moment, we see the intimate and precise care that goes into his process – a process that is open and welcoming, and participatory. He says the video is about wood cabins, family, shadows, lights, friends, and Humask.
Humask & Shadow _ Light off/Light on. Tuco Wallach Pacifico
Bastardilla: La lingue dei carciofi
In the depths of New York winter, we like to escape to that sticky and warm time in summer when the air and the bees buzzed in unison, the thick richness of the days and nights, lingering in reverie. At the time we called it Bastardilla in Love With Bees and the Taste of Summer in Stornara, Italy. We dare you not to fall in love or at least be enchanted.
Saber: Escaping Los Angeles. From Chop ’em Down Films
“You can tell a lot about a city just by reading its walls.” Okay, Saber, you have our attention. And it’s shot by Chop ’em Down films? We’re there. Here the graffiti writer and fine artists narrate the police state of the LA during one of its more dismal periods caught on camera – and the record of a constant state of uprising.
Now a grand don of graffiti looking back, he sees the fall of LA hasn’t halted, only intensified, but his heart is still in it. He has become performative, crystalizing the movements of his work and his history into a gestural full-body modern performance; rebellious and distraught and yet full of passion – his own evolution from the street to the studio to the street again.
It was sunny that particular day in Wynwood, Miami in November of last year. The air was fresh and the humidity mercifully low. The sun rays weren’t piercing one’s shoulders. It was what winter in Miami is supposed to feel like. Dreamy.
That’s how we were feeling; dreamy – when we turned the corner and saw them. A motley crew of five or six men taking on a gargantuan wall in the less noisy part of Wynwood. The congenial 1UP Crew is the Berlin-based masters of the mixed message – here to vandalize, but politely. In this case of course the wall is completely legal, but associates of this notorious crew have been credited/blamed for leaving their marks on walls, trains, water tanks, elevators – anything that strikes their fancy in multiple cities across many continents.
The wall was still in progress that day with many more aerosol cans to go. We chatted, took photos, and reported on the encounter HERE. By the time we had to return to NYC, the wall wasn’t completed yet – so we returned to the winter paradise weeks later.
We were glad we pulled ourselves away from the ocean to see this in all its glory. Judging from the description below from one of the 1UP Crew members we think that this wall has it all.
“So it is kind of a movie planet, we don’t know which planet it is,” says one of the 1UP guys, “But it is a planet of the future – and there are all these Metro’s coming up out of the sand along with pyramids and street signs and figures… It’s growing now. I think that we have three more days to paint.”
Up to 13 artists joined in to complete it including members of 1UP Crew and members of the MSG Crew as well as Vlok, Giz, and Fuzi UV TPK crew from Paris.
Leave it to Shepard Fairey to tell you that he’s not too cool for school. The anti-establishment critic of corruption and hypocrisy throughout our history and our political system still knows that we have to have tools if we want to make a positive change.
It’s a shame that the dropout rate for many schools is high, and that many schools don’t have the resources needed to effectively encourage and train students for the future. But the LA-based street artist knows that by holding up role models and celebrating positive contributions to culture, his murals can have a positive impact on the next gen.
Here next to the track behind Miami Edison Senior High School in the neighborhood of Little Haiti, Fairey says “We all play a role in shaping the future, but high school is an especially important time in developing the tools to mold it.” He’s describing the new mural incorporating his graphic signature motifs, powerful personalities, and palette – including a fresh aqua that calls to mind the tropical connections between this neighborhood and the island from whence it gets its name.
Thanks to a program that has worked with the schools in the neighborhood for nearly a decade called The RAW Project, founded by Robert de los Rios and his partner Audrey Sykes, this mural joins many others by local and international street artists near here. Recent names on the roster inside and outside local halls of higher learning include Eric Skotnes, Jazz Guetta, Kai, Kevin Ledo, Sandra Chevalier, Hyland Mather, The Lost Object, Telmo Miel, Marina Capdavila, Mr. June, Niels ‘Shoe’ Meulman, Patrick Kane McGregor, and Wayne Horse.
As ever, Shepard had his sharpest hands on the can with him as his brilliant crew in Miami, including Dan Flores, Nic Bowers, Rob Zagula, and Luka Densmore.
The Pompei Street Art Festival features a familiar selection of events, tours, panels, workshops, performances, murals, and eye candy that you have come to expect from these public/private events meant to spark interest in a city, its downtown, its economy.
Emmeu. Pompei Street Art Festival. First Edition/2021. Pompei, Italy. (photo courtesy of Pompei Street Art Festival)
But the difference here is that the city of Pompei provides a link to ancient graffiti, the citizens of ancient Pompei used chalk and sharp tools to write on walls to express and communicate with each other and of course, it offers a link to the Romans and to the richest archaeological site perhaps in the world. It would be difficult to overemphasize its importance after the discoveries of Pompeii and Herculaneum, not only because of the scholarship that followed it but its influence over the 18th century in both France and England; the neo-classical style, of contemporary renditions of the imagination of the classical world. Buried under ash in 79CE, the history of the excavated city influences the environment, the architecture, the mosaics, water towers, schools, temples, taverns.
Bosoletti. Pompei Street Art Festival. First Edition/2021. Pompei, Italy. (photo courtesy of Pompei Street Art Festival)
So without narration, we first gaze over the murals produced during this festival. One may reflect on that influence of centuries past on every artist participating here, and wonder how this is informing their choices, their techniques, their sense of place in history. We look forward to bringing you the second edition of this fresh new festival in 2022.
M-City. Pompei Street Art Festival. First Edition/2021. Pompei, Italy. (photo courtesy of Pompei Street Art Festival)M-City. Pompei Street Art Festival. First Edition/2021. Pompei, Italy. (photo courtesy of Pompei Street Art Festival)C215. Pompei Street Art Festival. First Edition/2021. Pompei, Italy. (photo courtesy of Pompei Street Art Festival)C215. Pompei Street Art Festival. First Edition/2021. Pompei, Italy. (photo courtesy of Pompei Street Art Festival)Feoflip. Pompei Street Art Festival. First Edition/2021. Pompei, Italy. (photo courtesy of Pompei Street Art Festival)Feoflip. Pompei Street Art Festival. First Edition/2021. Pompei, Italy. (photo courtesy of Pompei Street Art Festival)Feoflip. Pompei Street Art Festival. First Edition/2021. Pompei, Italy. (photo courtesy of Pompei Street Art Festival)Feoflip. Pompei Street Art Festival. First Edition/2021. Pompei, Italy. (photo courtesy of Pompei Street Art Festival)Kilia Llano. Pompei Street Art Festival. First Edition/2021. Pompei, Italy. (photo courtesy of Pompei Street Art Festival)Kilia Llano. Pompei Street Art Festival. First Edition/2021. Pompei, Italy. (photo courtesy of Pompei Street Art Festival)Soen Bravo. Pompei Street Art Festival. First Edition/2021. Pompei, Italy. (photo courtesy of Pompei Street Art Festival)Leho. Pompei Street Art Festival. First Edition/2021. Pompei, Italy. (photo courtesy of Pompei Street Art Festival)Cool Disco Rich. Pompei Street Art Festival. First Edition/2021. Pompei, Italy. (photo courtesy of Pompei Street Art Festival)Cool Disco Rich. Pompei Street Art Festival. First Edition/2021. Pompei, Italy. (photo courtesy of Pompei Street Art Festival)Yessiow. Pompei Street Art Festival. First Edition/2021. Pompei, Italy. (photo courtesy of Pompei Street Art Festival)JahOne. Pompei Street Art Festival. First Edition/2021. Pompei, Italy. (photo courtesy of Pompei Street Art Festival)JahOne. Pompei Street Art Festival. First Edition/2021. Pompei, Italy. (photo courtesy of Pompei Street Art Festival)Asur. Pompei Street Art Festival. First Edition/2021. Pompei, Italy. (photo courtesy of Pompei Street Art Festival)Asur. Pompei Street Art Festival. First Edition/2021. Pompei, Italy. (photo courtesy of Pompei Street Art Festival)Asur. Pompei Street Art Festival. First Edition/2021. Pompei, Italy. (photo courtesy of Pompei Street Art Festival)Monks. Pompei Street Art Festival. First Edition/2021. Pompei, Italy. (photo courtesy of Pompei Street Art Festival)Mr. Kas. Pompei Street Art Festival. First Edition/2021. Pompei, Italy. (photo courtesy of Pompei Street Art Festival)Mr. Kas. Pompei Street Art Festival. First Edition/2021. Pompei, Italy. (photo courtesy of Pompei Street Art Festival)Mr. Kas. Pompei Street Art Festival. First Edition/2021. Pompei, Italy. (photo courtesy of Pompei Street Art Festival)Colectivo Cian. Pompei Street Art Festival. First Edition/2021. Pompei, Italy. (photo courtesy of Pompei Street Art Festival)Colectivo Cian. Pompei Street Art Festival. First Edition/2021. Pompei, Italy. (photo courtesy of Pompei Street Art Festival)Colectivo Cian. Pompei Street Art Festival. First Edition/2021. Pompei, Italy. (photo courtesy of Pompei Street Art Festival)
After three weeks of collecting plastic from nearby beaches, the fountain sculpture is completed with the hopes of bringing attention to the environment. The collection of plastic was done in conjunction with Plasticfreeit. The Cian team is composed of Carlos, Max, Rata, and Marcel.
Colectivo Cian. Pompei Street Art Festival. First Edition/2021. Pompei, Italy. (photo courtesy of Pompei Street Art Festival)
Somewhere between realism and abstraction lies a figurative allegory that plays out in saturated color for the Spanish street artist/studio artist Dan Ferrer.
Moving between a loosening of realism and tightening of abstraction and the storyland that only children inhabit, you find the bloodied, almost clownish dripping lips and limbs of his mamas and babies and children, their thickened blue patches inspired by jazz, he says.
Dan Ferrer. “Resilience”. Detail. Torrijos, Spain. (photo courtesy of the artist)
During these pandemic years, Ferrer has turned to his studio work, and turned to his family, enduring loss and finding inspiration, possibly hope.
A former graffiti kid from Madrid’s Hortaleza neighborhood, Dan tells us that his own feelings of a troubled childhood now come face to face with his ability to be a good father – a transformational experience. These newly painted pieces invoke the pride of nation and culture, of intimacy and the complexity of everyday life – a diary and an escape and a form of therapy as captured by a painter on an outside wall and on a studio canvas.
Dan Ferrer. “Resilience”. Torrijos, Spain. (photo courtesy of the artist)
“A roller coaster in my family life and in my interior,” says Ferrer of these last few years as an artist and a person, “these things have made me a different human being.” Listening to his stories of a families love and loss and joy and hope, it appears that this work cannot be closer to the skin, closer to the bone.
“This is why color suddenly floods my art,” he says, and you realize the saturation reflects passion. “That is why the firm lines are mixed with the delicate ones and the need arises in me to turn my eyes to look towards my roots, while I look towards the future, chewing every moment of my present.”
Dan Ferrer. “Art”. Detail. Torrijos, Spain. (photo courtesy of the artist)Dan Ferrer. “Art”. Torrijos, Spain. (photo courtesy of the artist)
Dan Ferrer. “Winter & Spring”. Canvas. Artist’s studio. (photo courtesy of the artist)
Welcome the first BSA Images of the Week of 2022! How are you feeling? You’re looking great!
The street art parade marches on, perhaps ever clearer in its intent to reflect the mood, the zeitgeist, the intellectual meanderings of the artist class. In the process of demystifying the graffiti and street art scene over the few decades, we’ve long realized that there always will be surprises, no matter how much of the scene you have decoded. That’s what keeps it FREEEESSSSSSSSHHHH!
This week, as the snow is falling in dirty old NYC and as people are rescinding into their homes for another de facto Covid “lockdown”, we discover that artists are hard at work getting out their message, their id, their frustrations, their aspirations, their wit.
May this adventure never end, and may this trail never go cold.
So here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Adam Fujita, Anderson Bluu, Dorothy Gale, Ernesto Maranje, ERRE, Ethan Minsker, Fake Banksy, Gold Loxe, Ill Surge, J. Cole, Johann Art, Marka 27, Miss 17, NEST, Praxis VGZ, Salami Doggy, and Winsten Tseng .
During the cold winter months, many of us Northerners in the US flock to Florida if we can – to relax in the sun, run on the beach, commune with the ever-present heron.
Emblematic of the “Sunshine State” and of Fort Lauderdale in particular, this pretty bird looks like it standing on one skinny leg most of the time, a clumpy cloud of white feathers hovering about the ground as it roosts. Some call it majestic, this commonplace unassuming neighbor will happily land on top of of bush near you as you present yourself on a chaise lounge to the sun god.
Here in Port Everglades the Italian street artist Peeta creates his ode to this down to earth yet soaring symbol, selecting “representative colors, shapes and subjects in order to create a harmonious relationship with the surrounding environment,” says Iryna Kanishcheva, who produced the project with the Broward County Cultural Division. In the composition you see echoes of the ocean, ground, sky, the sun… and you notice that the artist has engulfed the corner of the building, effectively hiding it if you stand at the right vantage point.
“Through the use of anamorphism, he creates a surreal space where selected symbolic elements live side by side,” says the organizer, and you can see that the sophistication of the presentation supercedes the typical fare offered by a municipally funded public mural. Undoubtedly it is largely due to the precise eye and cunning mind of Peeta, who has constructed exquisite optical illusions on walls all around the world.
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
