It’s a new collection of works found on the street here in New York as we head into Thanksgiving week. The boisterous and celebratory party at Skewville in Bushwick last night to celebrate the new Stikman sign show was well attended and full of fans of the artist. The old fans and new donned Stikman masks and wore name stickers saying, “Hello, I’m Stikman.” The long-time imaginative artist is a fixture on New York streets as new generations of artists come and go. Completely anonymous, he never seeks the limelight, preferring to let his copious ideas on lampposts, doorways, mailboxes, and street signs talk for him. In an age of personal influencers and attention seeking, it is refreshing to see his new works quietly capturing attention and imagination on the streets in his way. Bushwick on a Saturday night is teaming with so many crowds of people you may think you are in Wynwood, Miami, complete with food trucks and neon and thigh-high patent leather boots. But the crowds are far more diverse, and the occasional rat is scurrying across the sidewalk before you.
Here is our weekly interview with the street: this week featuring City Kitty, Adam Fujita, Below Key, Eternal Possessions, Hektag, Hops Art, Aidz, Ali Six, Tkid170, Tracy 168, Hydrane, Otam1, Abloker, Nos Ck One, Madison Storm, Melissa Schainker, Wally, J$T, FatJay, Sens-Sational, Aaron Wrinkle, and 5inck.
It’s no joke, this feeling of connectedness across cities and time zones that the street art and graffiti scene encourages – and often, it all overlaps in NYC, yo! This week, we have Martin Whatson and Hama Woods from Norway on the wall in New York, and it was a pleasure to see them both. It’s another honor to see Niels “Shoe” Meulman in the hood for only a minute, but long enough to see his new wall in Bushwick go up! We’ve been very lucky over these last 15 years to meet so many great people and talents worldwide, making streets in new cities seem like home because we see the work of friends and acquaintances wherever we are exploring. This week we have shots of New York and LA mixed together – enjoy the show!
Here is our weekly interview with the street: this week featuring Adam Fujita, Martin Whatson, Adam Fu, Niels ‘Shoe’ Meulman, Solus, Danielle Mastrion, Optimo NYC, Hama Woods, Cody James, BK Sckler, Toe Flop, Hiero Veiga, Hydrane, Notice, Jayo V, Alexali Gonzales, TBanbox, and Fenji93.
Welcome friends! Shout out to Joey, owner of the Village Works bookstore, whose new location opens this weekend on St Marks Place in Manhattan. Friday night the river of people flooded the banks in this pantheon to New York culture, history, and stylish bravado – and special guests Homesick were in the house to welcome the hundreds of excited streetwise Gen Z’ers to flip through and ponder these curious paper things that you cannot scroll through or zoom in with your fingers, but which are strangely satisfying and enriching non-the-less. If anyone wonders if Covid decimated New York, you have to witness the throngs of people walking, running, riding through a beery haze on the weekend at St. Marks, to know that this city is in full effect, bro.
We say ‘bro’ in the hood way, not the privileged apathetic way – although both are intermingling in the LES right about now with Brooks Brothers boys in camel suits huffing up the sidewalk while a muscled spandexed guy with a six-foot set of wings on his back weaves through the street. It’s not that NY is so liberal, it’s that we really don’t care what your look like or who you’re doing it with – let’s have fun and hang out.
The pumping music from the bars in this neighborhood reflects this moment, of course, with two Mexican pop hits blasting out to the streets in many locations – Grupo Frontera x Bad Bunny’s hit “Un x100to” and Peso Pluma’s “Ella Baila Solo.” A fusion of corridos, banda, urban music, trap, and reggaeton? Porque no? The popularity reflects the influence Latino culture has had on the youth this spring while old white men are busy militarizing the southern border and treating regular people like criminals for seeking a better life.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring: Dan Witz, Adam Fujita, Adam Fu, Winston Tseng, SacSix, Little Ricky, Roachi, Alicho Art, Chupa, Huetek, A Visual Bliss, Riisa Boogie, Ideal, Rezones, WEKUP, KIRSE, SMOR, Italo Causa, Georgia Violet, Jenna Leigh, and Never Satisfied.
YOU ARE NOT ALONE. That’s very important for you to know.
Whether or not one suffers from mental health issues, knowing that one doesn’t walk alone on a scabrous path is comforting. Feeling supported, especially in times of crisis, brings assurance and healing to our anxieties and despairs.
We’re now being traumatized almost daily by news reports of mass shootings, vigilante shootings, and murder. Sometimes we simply feel that we are not safe anymore. When we talk about mental health, we should broaden the discussion to include all of us, not just those with acute symptoms but all of us who are affected by what we experience, see, and read. Our mental health is affected directly by the violence being perpetrated upon others.
The collective YOU ARE NOT ALONE MURALS has been very active in bringing the issue of mental health and its importance to the forefront of the conversations with large murals on the streets of NYC. Here they produced ten murals created by a diverse group of artists, all using the same color palette while addressing the importance of community, belonging, and support with a single and simple phrase: YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
If you are in any need or are in crisis emotionally or psychologically, or you simply would like to speak to someone, please call the numbers below. You can do it! You can do it, sis. You got this, bro. We love ya!
New York City: The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene provides a 24/7 Mental Health Hotline for New Yorkers who need immediate help. The hotline can be reached at 1-888-NYC-WELL (1-888-692-9355).
United States: The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline provides free and confidential emotional support to people in suicidal crisis or emotional distress 24/7 across the United States. The lifeline can be reached at 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255).
International: The International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP) is a global organization dedicated to preventing suicidal behavior, alleviating its effects, and providing a forum for academics, mental health professionals, crisis workers, volunteers, and suicide survivors. The IASP website offers a directory of crisis centers and helplines around the world. The directory can be accessed at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/.
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! Happy Halloween
Enjoy this Halloween parade of art on the streets of NYC. Stay safe!
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring: Adam Fujita, Lunge Box, Entes, Clint Mario, CMYK Dots, Font 147, Laurier Artiste, Nathan Nails, Lin Feitel, Spit, Eyeball Crew, Minvske, Gigstar, and Lou Hugus.
Rocking this little neighborhood since 2009, The Welling Court Mural Project in Queens, New York brought a bevy of old skool and new again this summer to add to the collaborative art project that cheers the locals and thrills visitors. By now, you could call it historic, with writers from the OG crowd like Tats Cru, Lady Pink, John Fekner, and Chino giving their best alongside a slew of newbies in the mural art scene. Alison Wallis is the sole director these days, and her roots with the graffiti and street art community go deep, which means a well of trust is involved.
As she scans the list of artists who have given of themselves to this neighborhood for more than a decade in this community project, Wallis writes in the manifesto: “with early career, mid-career, and burgeoning young artists to help foster beauty of all life, peace, and support for all people of any race, belief, and/or sexual identity around the globe.” Once again it is good to see the many ways a community can join together in an evolving and inspiring collective statement that integrates positive social change via the culture of street art.
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! Happy Fathers Day to all the fathers and those filling that role for families. We know it’s not easy work. We’re thankful to all the guys who are there to raise our kids, to provide guidance and love, and to model love and respect for their partners and wives.
Also today is Juneteenth, one of our country’s newest official holidays, recognizing the foundational earthquake of African emancipation from slavery in the US. Institutional slavery and all its effects – events in our history that continue to impact our laws, institutions, education, civil and economic justice, our relationships with one another – are yet to be addressed in many ways. For Juneteenth, this is a sweet and joyful celebration that is also deeply needed.
It doesn’t get any better with the weather than at this time of the summer in New York – and street art and graffiti are enjoying a very prolific crop this season. The politics of this moment are also showing up the street, with abortion and gun rights and vaccines surfacing as themes alongside what seems like ever-present LGBTQ+ rights. We keep seeing the graffiti/street art spots enlarge, contract, and scatter like a sneeze from one neighborhood to another, largely do to the rampant gentrification rate in some areas and the tendency for people to kill off the very arts culture that attracted them to the neighborhood in the first place. Right now street art in Manhattan is concentrated on the Lower East Side and Chinatown – Chelsea has a few remaining pockets left but it could be gone soon, and a little still remains in Soho and Noho. In Brooklyn, the neighborhoods Bushwick of going strong, Williamsburg Industrial park Williamsburg and Dumbo not so much. In Queens there is Welling Court, maybe Ridgewood, and of course Mott Haven and South Bronx are still popping
But let’s not get distracted by the city topography – lets look at some new stuff Jaime Rojo caught this week.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring: Sipros, Adam Fu, CRKSHNK, Below Key, Modomatic, Hijack, Homesick, BK Ackler, Sally Rumble, Real Art Daddy, Yosnier, JG, The Eyeknow, Fear Arte, and Natalie Robinson.
“Let’s dial down the rhetoric. Let’s work sincerely to negotiate a cease-fire. We need serious diplomacy” said no one who profits from war.
Ka-ching!
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring: REVS, Adam Fu, JerkFace, Sac Six, Voxx Romana, Roachi, MTA, 4Some Crew, Huetek, Angurria, Swrve, WTG Studios, Enjoy, Six Million Dollar Steve, Carlitos, Dovente, and Danny Ebru.
Colors wash over the city again, the greys now fading to the background. Even now, we stand in the shadow of war and all those who profit from it. Nevertheless, thanks to artists the streets are popping with promises, warnings, aspirations, exhortations, codes, and proclamation.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring: Faile, Adam Fujita, Jason Naylor, Almost Over Keep Smiling, Lauren Asta, Chris Soria, DEK@DX, SidkaOne, Misha Tyutyunik, TDM2DX, Ergot, Flye Lyfe, YoYo Cam, Let It Out, and Suizid.
“It has taken 232 years and 115 prior appointments for a Black woman to be selected to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States,” Jackson said in a speech outside the White House.
“But, we’ve made it. We’ve made it, all of us,” Jackson said.
We’ll be looking for her face to pop up on the street soon!
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring: City Kitty, Chris RWK, Adam Fujita, Icy and Sot, Clint Mario, Gane, Irak, RX Skulls, Smells, Bublegum, Acroe, Bertstit, and Eric John Eigner, Lawrence Weiner.
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week. The streets are reflecting this moment in New York this week as artists are showing their colors. Or Ukraine’s colors, rather. Hard to sleep through the night when you know that Gotham is on the hit list if this Russian invasion turns nuclear, hard to process the idea that a cold war is never far from a hot one, despite activists best efforts for all these decades. Hard to believe that sanctions won’t damage many more people than the intended targets. Hard to believe that money-printing is never discussed in the news as THE creator of this inflation and much more inflation to come.
Let’s do everything we can to de-escalate this war, this perpetual specter.
And thank you to the street artists who are keeping the conversations alive. Also this week, new works from F**kin REVS !
Remember to Set Your Clocks Ahead One Hour Today.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring: Adam Fujita, Fuckin REVS, Below Key, Sticker Maul, Sara Lynne-Leo, Hek Tad, Gold Loxe, Mike Raz, Smetsky Art, Hear Eye Am, Equalist, Liagam, and Mitya Pisliak.
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week, where New York keeps pushing forward through this stormy winter – although the amount of new street art and graffiti dissipates this time of year as artists stay in their creative caves, waiting for spring. Hang in there peeps.
Great news for New York artists this week: artists can now apply for a monthly stipend of $1,000. This is big news because unlike a lot of Europe, the US and its institutions do not support artists or cultural workers.
Speaking of exemplary New Yorkers, Jeffery Epstein’s friend Jean-Luc Brunel has been found dead in his prison cell, mysteriously. One of Epstein’s other friends, Prince Andrew, reportedly settled out of court this week. “Prince Andrew reportedly agreed to never again deny raping Virginia Giuffre”, says the New York Post, The Independent, and The Sun. The Times says: “A new nursery rhyme is doing the rounds at the Palace:
‘The grand old Duke of York, he had 12 million quid. He gave it to someone he’d never met, for something he never did’”.
Jesus, let’s go out for a walk and see if we discover some new street art.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring: Skewville, Specter, City Kitty, Adam Fujita, Pork, Jason Naylor, Below Key, Lexi Bella, Jowl, Nimek, Klonism, Harvey Ball, Eloy Bida, Kat Blouch, Timmy Ache, and Eyedao.
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
