The clear, crisp September days, like that one 25 years ago this week, have returned to us. Street art and graffiti have morphed over the intervening years, but the feelings from that day are still raw. There are a few narratives about what happened, and who did it, and why. But one thing is for sure: many families lost their loved ones, and ceremonies on Friday brought it all back in Lower Manhattan.
Here’s our selection of new pieces from the street, this week featuring AIC Mosaic, Below Key, Benny Bean Bag, D7606, DARA, Delude, Dissatisfied, Duality Industries, Flyless, Homesick, IMSE704, JerkFace, Mike King, MUK, Never, OH!, Praxis, RX Skulls, SAKOKA704, Slasher, Smells, and Wild West.
New York, for us, is at least three things right now: the Knicks, FIFA, and the streets.
The city is dreaming of a championship for the first time since 1999. If the Knicks win Game 3 tomorrow night at home, it may be pandemonium. We even caught Spike Lee in front of a Knicks mural by Zimer this week (see below). You’ll hear even more music by Prince in the streets than you have in the last two weeks, as his anthem “1999” serenades you from bars, radios, and TV news segments covering the story. Also, happy birthday to Prince, born on this day in 1958. See you at the Prince party tonight on the roof.
Secondly, the World Cup begins any minute now, and athletes, organizers, media crews, and fans have already started pouring off planes. Daily news reports exhort all of us to do one thing or another in preparation for the arrival of thousands of visitors from around the globe. New York does this sort of thing regularly, so most of us remain focused on doing the laundry and paying the rent. Still, discussions of fan zones, shuttle bus routes, transit plans, gridlock alerts, waterfront gatherings, and neighborhood festivals are everywhere. Once again, New York is negotiating who gets to use public space—and how.
Speaking of the ’80s (the decade, not her age), Madonna popped up live in Times Square this week, turning it into a dance floor to unveil new songs, including an ode to Gotham called “I Love NY,” a pleasant way to kick off Pride Month. City Hall also hosted a Pride Ball—a ballroom culture celebration featuring voguing, runway competition, and performance. Meanwhile, Queens Pride and Brooklyn Pride are already underway.
And the walls, the murals, the street art, and the graffiti are all abuzz with news of pop icons, sports, cartoons, equality, love, masters of war, fear of inflation, fear of surveillance – it’s a whole ball of its own.
You may call it chaos.
We call it Wednesday.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this time including AIC Mosaic, Atomiko, Chris RWK, Crancept, D7606, Gush, Homesick, Huetek, Little Ricky, Mike King, Nexas, Nite Owl, Puntz, Ratchi, Shane, Silent, Sluto, Staino, Stop Men, and Zimer NYC.
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week. Happy Mother’s Day – to all the mothers and caretakers who have watched over us. Today, we honor thank you for your love, care, determination, sacrifice, guidance, creativity, patience, and sleepless nights. For those who are no longer here with us, we remember you with love and gratitude. Everyone is doing the best we can with the light we have to live by.
We start this new collection of images by photographer Jaime Rojo: a bash of color and expression from Dae Law.
The mural feels like right now, with its tangled ribbons snaking across the wall, sprayed and brushed without hierarchy, crude symbols that emerge and disappear, drips and imperfections left visible, and clashing colors of acidic yellow, gritty white, flat reds, blues, muddy greys, and blushing pinks. This is contained chaos, with a Basquiat-style text interruption, brutish application, overlapping expressionism, you think of notebook doodling and low-volume excitement and urban anxiety at one time.
When the narratives and data are delivered by firehose, this is what we get: an information landscape nearly impossible to bring into focus. Headlines, propaganda, advertising, strangely personal appeals, subtle invective, outrage, and corn syrup – its all layered so densely that meaning begins to shift and reshape into jittery loops and disjointed slogans and artifacts of imagery.
On a different note, it looks like Instagram continues its purge, or rather, algorithm anarchy, as overnight we just lost 2K followers. We have lost more than 50K followers since the introduction of a new algorithm, years ago, that was designed to drive content to followers. It makes no sense at all, as BSA continues to travel around the world, bringing stories to tens of thousands of people every week. The new followers are not enough to offset the lost ones. Just sayin’.
Here is our interview with the street, this week featuring 1440, AIC Mosaic, Bukus One, Dae law, Dirty Bandits, HASH, Jappy Agoncillo, Jodi Da Real, Merck, Miss 17, Muck Rock, NOVA, Ragae, and Wigs.
Welcome the BSA Images of the Week! Recent exhibitions, festivals, mural programs, and artist movements demonstrate that street art’s vitality continues to evolve—shifting from unsanctioned and underground to mainstream and institutional, and then back to the public streets. Far from fading, the street art and graffiti movement continues to adapt and engage more people, sparking dialogue about art, culture, creativity, property, politics, and its role in urban life. Our inbox at ABC runs like the city itself: fast, loud, nonstop—thankfully, this deli coffee is strong.
Global Graffiti Festival: The Meeting of Styles international graffiti festival just took over Rruga B Street in Kosovo’s capital, marking its 9th edition in Pristina. The city’s embrace of this festival – and the participation of artists from as far afield as Europe, the Americas, and Asia – underscores how the street art movement continues to span the globe, including places that rarely feature in mainstream art news.
As we speed through block parties, outdoor concerts, graffiti jams, and the end of New York’s summer art scene, we note next month’s arrival of the Gaza Biennale, a roving exhibition spotlighting artists from the embattled Gaza Strip. Previously exhibited in London, Berlin, and Athens, the show is a powerful cultural statement, taking place at 19 venues across 12 cities worldwide. The biennale’s New York iteration will span five days (September 10-14) at the non-profit art space Recess in Brooklyn.
Theatergoers have been flocking to Central Park’s Delacorte Theater for Twelfth Night, starring Peter Dinklage and Sandra Oh – in this New York tradition that’s open to everyone. Fans are lining up hours—even overnight—for free tickets, turning the event into a communal spectacle of Shakespeare for our treacherous time, of this moment.
“If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.” (Twelfth Night, Act III, Scene IV)
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring works from Acet, AIC Mosaic, Below Key, Benny CRuz, Hektad, Homesick, JerkFace, Marly McFly, Obey, Paul Richard, Qzar, Sasha Gordon, Shepard Fairey, Tom Bob NYC, and Werds.
For decades, graffiti, street art, and contemporary art have spoken with one another, exchanging ideas, aesthetics, techniques, and attitudes along …Read More »
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