All posts tagged: Banksy

BSA’s 15 Most Popular Murals of 2018: A “Social” Survey

December 13, 2018 Artists

There’s street cred, and then there’s social media credit. These are 15 of the latter, compiled by BSA by our own rigorous methodology.

Bears lead the pack! A monkey is here as well. Skulls and Biggie Smalls make it in again. Text wisdom also wins along with representations of the natural world like Pejac’s tree and Naomi Rag’s flower. And a rep for Game of Thrones and the horrors of Hitchcock as well – you knew popular culture would represent.

These are the top murals from 2018 via tabulations of our website, Instagram, Twitter, and two Facebook pages. In a thoroughly unscientific survey that calculates “likes” and “clicks” and “re-Tweets” and “impressions”, and every year we cannot predict which one’s are going to be popular, but sometimes you can guess. We don’t publish a lot of murals of cats, but if we did, they would probably win. Just guessing.

This year we’re drawn to the two written word pieces, likely because they are erudite and witty to some extent – and because it is good to see how smart BSA readers are. Brilliant, we say!

Welcome to your favorite murals of the year:

15 – Banksy.

A tribute. A plea. A denunciation. A well used example of the artist’s platform to bring awareness of the plight of artists who dare to set themselves free with their art. Depicted here is Ms. Zehra Doğan, an editor and journalist from Turkey. She is presently serving time in jail for painting Turkish flags on a painting showing destroyed buildings and posting the painting on Social Media. Marking the time with tick

Banksy. Free Zehra Doğan. NYC. Houston/Bowery Wall. March 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

14 – Sonny Sundancer.

Sonny Sundancer finishes his final mural for his #totheboneproject , a grizzly titled “Standing Tall” looking out over Greenwich Village.

“Standing Tall” was done in conjunction with The L.I.S.A Project NYC. May 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

13 – Axe Colours.

Axe Colours goes GOT and the question going into 2019 in many people’s minds is: Will she or won’t she?

The Mother of Dragons on the streets of Barcelona as interpreted by Axe Colours. This photo was taken on November 2017 but shared on Instagram on February of 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

12 – Owen Dippie.

New Zealand artist Owen Dippie is known for pairing pop characters in his realistic large scale work. Here’s an odd couple of film director Hitchcock and Brooklyn rapper Biggie Smalls.

Pigeons, Ravens, Cigars, Mystery and Music on the streets of Brooklyn. September 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

11 – Kobra.

Brazilian artist Kobra gave himself a residency in NYC this year with the goal of painting as many murals as time and available walls would permit him. He succeeded by painting 18 walls throughout NYC – mostly the top level easy to identify icons found on t-shirts, posters and postcards for decades here. One of his portraits of Amy Winehouse proved to be hugely popular.

Kobra. Amy Winehouse. Manhattan, October 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

1o – Disordered.

Anxiety rings true when the giveaways to business interests for nearly four decades under both dominant parties have gradually placed folks like these in this neighborhood constantly in fear of missing the rent, the grocery bill, the car payment, the cost of providing for their kids. Disordered is right.

#DISORDERED. Done in Welling Court, Queens for Welling Court 2018. July 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

9 – Kaos.

The KAOS Factory, colloquially named because the German graffiti artist by the same name has slowly taken it over with his work during the last few years, by default converting the former steam factory into his de facto “residency”.

KAOS. The Kaos Factory. Leipzig, Germany. October 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

8 – Naomi Rag.

Not specifically a Street Artist, Naomi Rag crochets her favorite things and puts them up mainly on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. This simple rose on a school yard fence steadily garnered attention throughout the year – and reminded us of this song from the 1960s.

“There is a rose in Spanish Harlem
A red rose up in Spanish Harlem
It is a special one, it’s never seen the sun
It only comes out when the moon is on the run
And all the stars are gleaming
It’s growing in the street right up through the concrete
But soft and sweet and dreaming…”

Jerry Leiber & Phil Spector

Naomi Rag. Red Rose in Spanish Harlem. March 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

7 – GlossBlack.

New York is a constant source of inspiration for countless artists of all disciplines who have made a home and hopefully a career in this dynamic city of endless serendipity and challenge. GlossBlack hit the mark with this tough and tumble tribute to the city.

GlossBlack in collaboration with Klughaus in Manhattan. March 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

6 – Bordalo II.

Bordalo II has evolved a spectacular practice of creating street works from our refuse that shock and thrill many a passersby with his ingenuity and evocative image making – while raising our collective consciousness about our responsibility to the earth.

Bordalo II. Lisbon, Portugal. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

4 – BKFoxx.

With a commercial eye toward the natural world and larger societal issues BKFoxx chooses subjects for their emotional impact and their ability to translates easily for an image-savvy audience whose endless hours of personal screen entertainment has produced an expectation for a big budget Hollywood and consumer culture slickness with high-production values.

BKFoxx in collaboration with JMZ Walls. Bushwick, Brooklyn. April 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

3 – Terry Urban.

Inspiration to create flows from many rivers and tributaries. Many times that inspiration comes from a fellow artist as is the case here. Art is for everyone, and the street is more than ever a perfect place to see it.

Terry Urban channeling Basquiat in Manhattan. January 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

3 – Egle Zvirblyte.

Egle’s feminism is abundantly clear on her work. A mixture of pop and riddles and unabashedly self assured.

Egle Zvirblyte. A project curated by BSA with the production assistance and wall access from Joe Franquinha / Crest Hardware and paint donated by Montana Cans. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

2 – Pejac.

The Spaniard Pejac came for a few weeks to New York this spring and left this piece in Bushwick. The wall is a brick façade typical of many Brooklyn neighborhoods, but this one appears to have grown a tree this week. Perhaps he chose to paint this tree because the promise of spring had inspired him, or because this neighborhood remains industrial and could benefit from some more of nature’s influence. For us it’s all about context so it is good to see that a tree grows in Brooklyn.

Pejac. The Bushwick Collective. Brooklyn, NYC. March 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

1 – Adrian Wilson

Just in under the wire and straight to number 1, this cleverly turned phrase and hooded ideogram is an ironic amalgam of Banksy and Warhol that hit the nerve of readers who are becoming acutely aware of us all slipping into a surveillance society. Also, it’s funny.

We only published this mural in December but the number of hits and comments across social media indicated that it resonates strongly across a wide demographic. Photographer, videographer, former gallery owner and infrequent Street Artist Adrian Wilson clearly is not shooting for anonymity.

Top image: Adrian Wilson plays with words to reflect our pop culture trolling both Warhol and Banksy. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Film Friday: 10.19.18

October 19, 2018 Artists

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

Now screening :
1. Shredding the Girl and Balloon – The Director’s Cut
2. JKS Crew in Italy & France
3. Vigilante Vigilante: The Battle For Expression / Trailer
4. The Hut – A Partial X / Felipe Pantone

BSA Special Feature: Shredding the Girl and Balloon – The Director’s Cut

By the way, this is not the first Street Artist to shred art in public with a home-made apparatus. Check out BSA Film Friday in April of 2014 for a stunning example of slicing public advertisements with Bandes de Pub.

We start our weekly selection with the followup release that takes hold of the narrative of the moments leading up to this month’s Banksy auction and self-destruction at Sotheby’s.

In it you hear the auctioneer chit-chatting beforehand saying things like “It’s a fun auction, you know. Everyone’s got a chance.” And by ‘everyone’ he means…everyone here in this room and on the 30 phones who are also bidding.

In other revelations this week, the Financial Times is reporting that the original artwork contained a “dedication reading ‘Thanks Jo’, which art market experts said could be a reference to Banksy’s long-time publicist, Jo Brooks.” Not so fast there Mr. Brillianteen. Perhaps Banksy is just a Jimi Hendrix fan (Hey Joe) or it was a gift to rapper Fat Joe (I’m Not a Player I Just Crush Alot) (RIP). Joe the Lion? Smokin’ Joe?

JKS Crew in Italy & France

Okay class, who wants to tell us what they did on their summer vacation?

Looks like JKS Crew were on spraycation this summer in Italy and France. The jazz bassy groove that accompanies the scenes in this video make us pine for those dreamy days of July and August already, and its only mid-October.

Vigilante Vigilante: The Battle For Expression / Trailer

Who owns public space? The oligarchs, yes, but after them?

You do!

Who should paint it?

When graffiti writers and Street Artists take it over with acts of transgressive painting one may expect that the next step is probably the buff, unless you living are in an aesthetic lawlessness like Berlin, or Athens, or 2000s Detroit. It is infrequent that one may countenance the self-appointed citizen buffer, but they exist in many a neighborhood. A combination of ornery rebel and a justice-minded citizen; This is the vehement, street cleaning vigilante.

If you were writing a bespectacled urban guidebook about characters found on city streets you may advise, “Think twice before crossing this curiously civic interbreed, broken windows can be sharp.”

The Hut – A Partial X / Felipe Pantone

A Liberian surfer camp that just happens to capture the artworks of some of the biggest names in Street Art? Organizers say that its to reduce the stigma that surrounds the country that was hurt so badly by ebola a few years ago. Perhaps that what has drawn artists like Faile, Conor Harrington, 1010, Martin Whatson, Marke Jenkins, Herakut, Ted Pim, Sandra Chevrier, Ben Eine, and Seth Globepainter here to create new works here. Today we see works by Felipe Pantone, JR, and Slinkachu.

Banksy Genius Or Vandal? It’s Up To You! Currently Playing In Moscow

August 25, 2018 Artists

They could have called it “Smoke & Mirrors”. Now you see him, now you don’t.

Instead the name of the new exhibition about the British Street Artist Banksy here in Moscow is posed by the organizers as a question – “Genius Or Vandal? It’s Up To You!”

Banksy. Genius Or Vandal? It’s Up To You! Central House of Artists. Moscow, Russia. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Absent of a substantial collection of original pieces of art, the exhibition relies heavily on print editions (some of the editions higher numbers), blown up oversized photographs and a multi screened multi-media video montage in a darkened spooky area that may impart a sense of Street Art’s original transgressive nature to visitors. There don’t appear to be any masterpieces, but its hard to say.

In order to fill the enormous entire second floor of the venue, Central House Of Artists located in Gorky Park in Central Moscow, the organizers printed large photos taken of the actual original works placed on the streets of England, The USA and Palestine. There isn’t a problem with the photographic material, and many of them are of good quality but the show isn’t advertised as an exhibition of street art photography.

The naming of the show and its description implies that this is a solo exhibition of Banksy, actually, and not only is a large percentage of space taken for documentation of the work, the Instagram account attributed to the anonymous artist has recently announced that Banksy has no involvement in it whatsoever. In reality these are finer distinctions that the majority of visitors will care little about.

Banksy. Genius Or Vandal? It’s Up To You! Central House of Artists. Moscow, Russia. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Spare yourself the incredulity; this is a marketing exercise and entertainment show meant to draw a general audience to view the works of Banksy, his greater ideas, his wit, and his politics. In the process the show acquaints them with the general practice of Street Art, and very possibly strengthens the value of his works on the market and in private collections. Truthfully, we are no more assured of Banksy’s or his teams’ involvement / disinvolvement in this show than we are of his hands performing the spraying of stencils on walls or animating stuffed animals in the back of a truck. In this way anonymity has a slew of benefits, and the veracity of any public statements attributed to him must necessarily also be viewed with at least a little suspicion.

If successful, and by unofficial count “Genius or Vandal?” has drawn between a third to a half million visitors, it will probably be packaged as a mobile exhibition and go on the road like the one by his former Manager Steve Lazarides “The Art of Banksy”, which is currently in Toronto, after being shown in Melbourne, Amsterdam, Tel Aviv and Auckland. If this indeed has drawn half a million visitors, that would mean roughly 1 in 26 of Moscow’s 13.2 million inhabitants have seen the show.

Banksy. Genius Or Vandal? It’s Up To You! Central House of Artists. Moscow, Russia. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

And this is as much a show (or more) as it is an exhibition. To augment the slim collection of original works the organizers created a video montage that is splashy and attractive; a sort of a retrospective in 20 minutes that is lengthened because every slide or animation with text has to be shown twice, in English and in Russian. The designers of the exhibition create a series of environments or installations meant to be evocative of the margins of metropolis – cargo pallets, metal drums, street cones and a recreation of what we imagine is the artists’ studio as featured in the movie “Exit Through The Gift Shop”. It’s an edgy theme park feeling for everyday folks as well, meant to imbue the show with an aura of authenticity and street cred.

Along the way visitors can also learn about his political opinions and forays into Israel/Palestine/Bethlehem, his sorrowful Dismaland theme park, his general upending of pleasant conventions and his deeper commitment to social justice. Cheesy as it might be, this show isn’t a bad introduction to Banksy the person and Banksy the brand, and if he has no involvement with this it can be argued that it is still beneficial in some ways.

Yes there’s a gift shop as well, naturally, as you exit the show.

Banksy. Genius Or Vandal? It’s Up To You! Central House of Artists. Moscow, Russia. August 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

For more information please visit http://banksyexhibition.com/

BSA Film Friday: 08.24.18

August 24, 2018 Artists

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

Now screening :
1. Scenes from the Banksy Exhibition in Moscow
2. Obey Giant – Shepard Fairey

BSA Special Feature: Scenes from the Banksy Exhibition in Moscow

“But the fact that a personal exhibition of a living artist is being held, and he has nothing to do with this – that’s strange.” – Olga Proskurnina and Elizaveta Podkolzina write in a recent article for “The Village”.

“Hm, not sure I’m the best person to complain about people putting up pictures without getting permission,” says a text bubble attributed to the anonymous Street Artist on his Instagram account.

It’s a highly unusual exhibition of the British Street Artist Banksy’s work in Moscow, one that the artist himself says he has nothing to do with. Yes there are original works of his and many highlights of his public career are covered, but the unofficial traffic number of 300,000 attendees since it opened in June are largely going to remember the impressively animated multi-media montages that splash across the multiple screens for the exhibition of 2000 square meters.

Approved or not, this is about Street Art, a practice in public space that frequently is transgressive and flaunts the conventions that we once accepted as a given. It’s difficult to anticipate or measure the repercussions of any given creation once it is up, a fact that Street Artists everywhere know and appreciate.

Below is a version of the video montage that greets visitors to the exhibition. The montage has been edited for brevity and includes only selected scenes from the massive projection inside the Central House of Artists as the works of Banksy once again create a stir, this time in Moscow.

Obey Giant – Shepard Fairey

And Speaking of global masters on the Street Art scene, here’s a full movie documentary on Shepard Fairey and his work to bring us up to speed. The American Fairey will be in the cosmopolitan Russian capital September 19th to debut his new exhibition at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, called “Force Majeure”. Organized with RUArts Foundation, curated by MMOMA and Wunderkammern Gallery the exhibition will be with the collaboration of the 3rd Artmosphere Biennale, which opens August 30th.

BSA Film Friday: 07.06.18

July 6, 2018 Artists

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

Now screening :
1. Gonzalo Borondo Matiére Noire
2. r1. on the corner of August House in Johannesburg
3. Banksy in Paris on FWTV
4. Joan Cabrer “Hot Pixel”

BSA Special Feature: Gonzalo Borondo Matiére Noire

A short documentary today taking us through last autumns On October 7^th in Marseille, France in collaboration with Galerie Saint Laurent and Spanish artist Gonzalo Borondo as they presented Matière Noire. A massive collection of individual installations that took over the top floor of an exhibition space normally used for shops, Borondo’s influence in the selections is throughout, a story told in three acts on Projection, Perception and Interpretation.

Artists include BRBR FILMS, Carmen Main, Diego López Bueno, Edoardo Tresoldi, Isaac Cordal, Robberto Atzori, Sbagliato and A.L. Crego, with curatorial guidance from Carmen Main.

Borondo has thrown open the doors to this cavernous space for a vitrine displaying our strong attachments to the fragile, ethereal objects and impressions. Their original meanings mixing with your own, projecting yourself as you do upon them. This is a chance for the artist to experiment and explore – perhaps to pursue something they have not been able to previously. Here is the laboratory, here in the interstitial. Yours is the gift of perception.

Directed by Matteo Dellangelo, reflections blur into paintings and tapestries, shadows morph into cats sleeking moving just beyond your periphery. An army of executives kneel, their faces distraught and mournful as they ask forgiveness for ushering in the fascist age their now caught in; Revolutions of video, scraps of family warmth and other things that aren’t there; benchmarks in social ritual, humble sets for theaters of manners, possibe deceptions, probable blurry sherries, fizzy Tom Collins, tortoise shell horn rims, cracked crystal, hair cream, horny men and haberdashers snapping apart girdles and garters, knocking over the slide tray and projector.

There are dark natural wonders and new highways in this Internet of things; prize winning cakes and first communions and turtles and turtlenecks; crying babies, bonbons, blond wood, great escapes and many lost opportunities mixed among the found ones.

But we wander….The project is to successfully outline an object onto another surface, and each artist in this curiously lit labyrinth of myth, memory and phantasma plays with these objects to bend perception. Carmen Main helps you find the way.

r1. on the corner of August House in Johannesburg

The thrilling drilling of geometic chromadek adornment of the corner installation by artist r1 in South Africa. “It took me 4 days to install and I drilled 688 holes,” he says. “One of the key aspects I love about the work is its placement on the corner wall, creating a 3D like effect. It makes the artwork seem to pop out of the building, creating a sculptural-like mural.”

Banksy in Paris on FWTV

Join Doug Gillen as he assembles and analyzes the recent Banksy installations in Paris.

Joan Cabrer “Hot Pixel”

Dig this dark funky groove that accompanies the sweep of the spray as Joan Cabrer paints a recent wall in Barcelona. For more on the story check out

“Joan Cabrer. “Hot Pixel” Digitizes Life and Nature For Contorno Urbano. 12+1 Project”

Copenhagen Diary: A Street Survey of the Moment

March 26, 2018 Artists

A current survey today from the streets in Copenhagen thanks to a couple of BSA fans and friends who share with readers their recent finds in one of the world’s happiest places, according to the 2018 World Happiness Report. Apparently it is also a good place for gay birds to come out of the closet.

DalEast is the author of the bird. Spyo tells the world who he really is… (photo © Tor Staale Moen)

With a storied history of graffiti bombing of the red trains that goes back many years, possibly generations, Copenhagen has long been a treasured destination for graffiti writers.

Now you will also find murals and installations illegally and legally by local and international Street artists – and the iconic full sides of buildings here are subtly transforming the public face of the city.

Edward von Lõngus (photo © Tor Staale Moen)

Interestingly, a number of these pieces are rather monochromatic, shunning the exuberant colors that are associated today with the hyper realists and fantastical forays that are common throughout Street Art/mural festivals around the world.

Joining artists like the Danish Street Artists like HuskMitNavn, the sculptor Tejn, and well-known bomber Soten are now international names like Ireland’s Conor Harrington, Spain’s Isaac Cordal, and Estonian stencil artist Edward von Lõngus have added their voices.

Our very special thanks to Borghild Marie Kvale and Tor Staale Moen for their support and for sharing here with BSA readers.

Edward von Lõngus (photo © Tor Staale Moen)

ROA (photo © Tor Staale Moen)

Conor Harrington (photo © Tor Staale Moen)

Borondo (photo © Tor Staale Moen)

Don John (photo © Tor Staale Moen)

1UP Crew (photo © Tor Staale Moen)

Old, old Banksy from 1993…the last survivor in Copenhagen. (photo © Tor Staale Moen)

ABYS (photo © Tor Staale Moen)

Bill Savarese from 1995. (photo © Tor Staale Moen)

Swet71 (photo © Tor Staale Moen)

Enlighten people know… (photo © Tor Staale Moen)

BSA Images Of The Week: 03.25.18

March 25, 2018 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Sharp tongued and defiant, that’s the way we like our young people, and Gen Z has a lot of loud mouthed articulate and savvy ones who are not going to be fooled out of gun control, if yesterdays marches in NYC and hundreds of cities are any indication. As Spring officially arrived in New York on Thursday, we are expecting even more action in the streets from artists and activists each passing day now.

Here’s our weekly interview with the streets (and elsewhere), this week featuring Adam Fujita, Anthony Lister, Balu, Banksy, Baron Von Fancy, Bifido, Dain, Dede, Gane, GlossBlack, Hoxxoh, JerkFace, Kuma, Lacky, Nitzan Mintz, Paper Skaters, Pussy Power Posse, Ratanic, RESP, Shock, and Texas.

Top Image: GlossBlack in collaboration with Klughaus (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Gane . Texas (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Adam Fujita (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Baron Von Fancy (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Anthony Lister (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Balu (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lacky. Built to Mob (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dede . Nitzan Mintz (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Resp . Shock . Kuma (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Banksy (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Banksy no more… (photo © Jaime Rojo)

08AM (photo © Jaime Rojo)

We can’t read the signature on this massive wall. Help please. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dain (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pussy Power Posse (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ratanic (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jerkface (photo © Jaime Rojo)

HOXXOH (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bifido “We Are Only Guests” in Volos, Greece. (photo © Bifido)

Paper Skaters (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. New York City. March 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Images Of The Week: 03.18.18

March 18, 2018 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

A quick recap of two big stories of the week in cold New York: Revok’s lawsuit against retailer H&M for using his work, done illegally, in an ad campaign was answered this week by a counter lawsuit from them. It set off a backlash among Street Artists on social media and elsewhere, garnering a large number of stories in media outlets large and small. Others have said everything we would have – except that whether this suit is withdrawn or not, there is still question whether the matter of illegally done artworks will be copyright protected in the future or not. We like how Juxtapoz has covered the topic HERE.

Secondly, Banksy has been in New York pulling our chain again, putting up new works in the city and announcing them on his social media, then putting them up without announcing them? Regardless, photographers and fans are racing to capture images. Who knows how long this visit lasts or what trick is up his sleeve next.

Here’s our weekly interview with the streets (and elsewhere), this week featuring Adam Fujita, Banksy, Don Rimx, Hox Hoh, K-Nor, Naomi Rag, Timothy Curtis, and Zehra Doğan

Top Image: Banksy? We’ll have to wait…(photo © Jaime Rojo)

Banksy. Detail. A tribute. A plea. A denunciation. A well used example of the artist’s platform to bring awareness of the plight of artists who dare to set themselves free with their art. Depicted here is Ms. Zehra Doğan an editor and journalist from Turkey. She is presently serving time in jail for painting Turkish flags on a painting showing destroyed buildings and posting the painting on Social Media. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Banksy. Free Zehra Doğan. NYC Houston/Bowery Wall. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Banksy (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Banksy. Detail.(photo © Jaime Rojo)

Banksy (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Naomi Rag. Red Rose in Spanish Harlem. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Naomi Rag. Hope for the Spring… (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Toy Ass…Toys are Not Us… (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Don Rimx (photo © Jaime Rojo)

HOX XOH (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Adam Fujita (photo © Jaime Rojo)

K-Nor (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Timothy Curtis (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Charles…Home Run… (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Manhattan, NYC. March 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Magda Danysz Brings “Art From The Streets” to Singapore Art Science Museum

January 16, 2018 Artists

“Art From the Streets”, an exhibition at the Art Science Museum in Singapore opened this weekend to coordinate with Singapore Art Week that runs from tomorrow until the end of the month with fairs, festivals and art exhibitions. Commercial art dealer and writer Magda Danysz curated the show with names she represents and whom you will be familiar with – Banksy, Shepard Fairey, Faile, and Futura, for example.

Two versions of the catalogue, one by Felipe Pantone, the other by Futura, are available on the Magda Danysz website .

But she also brings an eclectic mix of others on her roster and possibly lent from some private collections. Collectively they span many of the high profile, the saleable and known over the past 5 decades from various disciplines and philosophical practices; In the case of Jacques Villeglé, whose practice of lacerating posters in the 1960s predates Failes’ by 4 decades, a lineage can be drawn. Other connections are not as easy.

Ultimately the collection gives a sense of the vast number of personalities and techniques that have characterized the street practice in Europe and North America primarily without focusing on any one specialty too greatly. Here are the revered names along with mid-career folks and current darlings who are sure to leave a mark. There is also a small inclusion of more regional favorites like Eko Nugroho from Indonesia, and Singapore’s Speak Cryptic, who each were on hand this weekend with many of the artists for the opening.

Giving tours with microphone in hand during the opening days, the energetic Ms. Danysz educates new fans and potential buyers about an organic artists scene that grew from the streets and is now more frequently being offered for sale in places such as her three gallery locations in London, Paris, and Shanghai. Today it is slowly appearing more often in museums as well.

“Conscious that promotion of the emerging scene is necessary, Magda Danysz took part in many fairs,” says a press release, “such as for example Art Brussels, Arte Fiera in Bologna, Artissima in Torino, Fiac in Paris or Pulse in New York, and is one of the four galleries at the origin of the Show Off Paris art fair.”

This weekend’s activities included short presentations panel discussions and a screen of Wild Style.

Art from the Streets tickets are $17.00 on the Marina Bay Sands website.

A complete list of artists varies online with artists listed on the museum website including:

Banksy, Tarek Benaoum, Stéphane Bisseuil, Blade, Crash, Speak Cryptic, D*face, Fab 5 Freddy, FAILE, Shepard Fairey (aka Obey), Futura, Invader, JR, L’Atlas, Ludo, M-City, Nasty, Eko Nugroho, Nunca, Felipe Pantone, Quik, Lee Quinones, Blek le Rat, Rero, Remi Rough, André Saraiva, Seen, Seth, Sten Lex, Tanc, Hua Tunan, Yok & Sheryo, YZ, Zevs “and many more“.

Elsewhere online the roster is said to include 2Koa, Jef Aérosol, Ash, André, A-One, Aplickone, Banksy, Benjamin Duquenne, Tarek Benaoum, Stephane Bisseuil, Blek Le Rat, Boulaone, C215, Crash, Dface, Dondi, Dran, Eror729, Shepard Fairey, Faile, Futura, Keith Haring, Isham, Jayone, Jonone, Jr, Katre, Kaws, L’atlas, Lem, Ludo, Barry Mc Gee, Mikostic, Miss.Tic, Mode 2, Steve More, Nasty, Nord, Yoshi Omori, Os Gemeos, Psyckoze, Quik, Rammellzee, Recidivism, Rero, Remi Rough, Seen, Seth, Skki, Sore, Space Invader, Spazm, Spécio, Swoon, Tanc, Toxick, Vhils, Jacques Villeglé, Nick Walker, West, Yz, Zevs, Zhang Dali, Zlotykamien and Zuba.

BSA Top Stories 2017 – As Picked by You

December 14, 2017 Artists

Berlin, Kathmandu, Santa Fe, Brooklyn, Sweden, London, New York, the country of Georgia, Raleigh, North Carolina. The favorite stories of BSA readers spanned all of these places this year as we documented this global people’s art movement variously described as Street Art/ graffiti/ urban art. We put it out there daily and you react to it – sharing it on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram – starting conversations and creating connections.

The topics of these 15 favorite stories run the gamut as well; From Banksy and Brexit, Marxism and Urvanity to a bodega completely made of felt, your voracious appetite was wide ranging. From a well crafted graffiti writing exhibition at a white suburban Pennsylvania college where the tuition is 50K to an attempt to bring reassuring cultural heritage art to the streets of Kathmandu where the museum was destroyed by an earthquake – the extremes and ironies only peaked your interest.

You loved seeing and hearing Martha Cooper getting her first solo exhibition in New York and the mania that queued thousands to see the transformation of a 5 floor bank in Berlin by graffiti writers, Street Artists, installation artists and performers. You care about the earth and its people, like the story of ICY an SOT in the country of Georgia making human sculptures of trash as a critique of globalized waste, and the story of Chip Thomas using his Street Art to draw attention to a traditional Hopi farming technique called “dry farming”.

And in 2017 the resonance of ‘Resistance is Female’ catapulted our story of the illegal campaign of phone booth takeovers to the top 15, showing that a uniquely impactful high-jacking of the advertising streetscape is always going to win fans.

No matter where we went in 2017, BSA readers were always invited to go along with us and discover people and art on the street and in the gallery or the museum whether it was in Scotland, Hong Kong, Berlin, Sweden, Mexico or Tahiti. We captured what we could and interpreted it – and you told us what you liked by re-Tweeting and re-Gramming and re-Facebooking.

From 365 postings over the last year, here are the 15 you liked the most.

No. 15

Marx and Engels Statues Re-Skinned & Re-Located : Various & Gould

Various & Gould. Berlin, June 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“Why do you glorify and duplicate these two criminals?! They shouldn’t have a monument at all. Next you’re doing Hitler?”

Various and Gould try to paraphrase some of the comments they received from passersby in a park near the town-hall in centrally located Berlin-Mitte while working on their latest project with a statue of the creators of Marxist theory. Some imagined they were glorifying, others alleged defamation.

“It’s a shame how you treat Marx and Engels!”

Truthfully, this new project in public space that literally copies a monument and then transfers it to another location didn’t have much to do with the capitalist system that creates/allows very rich and very poor people, but it certainly adds stories to the overall experience of Various and Gould.

Various & Gould: Marx & Engels. Continue reading HERE

No. 14

“MADRID ME MATA”: Another Look at “Urvanity”

Roc Blackblock Milicians Madrid, Spain. February 2017 (photo © Fer Alcalá FujifilmXT10)

MADRID ME MATA…in a good sense,”

says Fernando Alcalá Losa, the avid Barcelona based photographer of street culture. He doesn’t literally mean that the Spanish capital is deadly, but rather speaks of his devotion to Madrids’ energy, its possibility, its history, its people, and to its art. The torrid affairs of the heart are invariably complicated, as is the evolution of graffiti and Street Art from their outlaw illegal roots to their flirtations and trysts with other forms and venues; murals, in-studio practice, gallery representation, institutional recognition, or commercial viability.

We are pleased that Mr. Alcalá Losa comes to talk to BSA readers today and takes us to Madrid for the new art fair called “Urvanity” to see what he discovers with you, courtesy his words and his lovers’ view behind the camera.

Madrid Me Mata…in a good sense. Continue reading HERE

No. 13

Lucy Sparrow Opens an All-Felt Bodega in NYC : “8 ‘Till Late”

Lucy Sparrow 8 ‘Till Late (photo © Jaime Rojo)

It’s 8 ‘Till Late, artist Lucy Sparrows first all-felt store in New York, and it’s literally just under the Standard Hotel in the Meat Packing district. She’s made 9,000 items over roughly 9 months out of this soft fabric-like craft material – and at first impression it sincerely looks like everything you would have found in a New York bodega in the 1990s aside from the hard liquor, which is actually illegal to sell outside a liquor store in NYC, but relax, its all heartfelt.

“We sell quite a lot of self-help books as well,” chimes in Clare Croome, a cashier.

“Yes! Self-help books! Have you seen them?” says Brooks “They’ve got nothing in them on the pages, they’re just blank.”

Lucy Sparrow 8 ‘Till Late. Continue reading HERE

No. 12

“All Big Letters” Opens, Curated by RJ Rushmore

Faust. All Big Letters curated by RJ Rushmore at Haverford College’s Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery. Philadephia, PA (photo © Lisa Boughter)

“I wanted to exhibit the mind of a graffiti writer in a gallery, and make that mindset understandable to your average gallery-goer,” he tells us. “To me, that means appreciating not just the finished piece, but how and why it came to be.”

By showing artists, works, photography, and tools that judiciously span the 50 or so years that mark the era of modern mark-making in the public sphere, Rushmore threads a story line that he hopes a visitor can gain an appreciation for in this art, sport, and quest for fame.

All Big Letters. Continue reading HERE

No. 11

Anonymouse: Miniature Vignettes on the Street for “No Limit” Festival in Boras, Sweden

Anonymouse. No Limit Boras 2017. Boras, Sweden. September 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Miniaturization on the street or in the museum (or in the street museum) causes you to focus on detail, draw closely, to recall your childhood ability to freely invoke a sense of fantasy.

“Since our visitors are mostly nocturnal, our opening hours are quite generous,” the artists known as Anonymous say in reference to their nighttime installations, sometimes glowing with electric light in the lee of a bridge column, or the shadow of a door. They reference the famous Swedish children’s book author Astrid Lindren in their work, and you can easily visualize a small mouse family or a business mouse or a house mouse or church mouse astutely moving through these vignettes, living their important lives.

Possibly one is currently occupied in a back room of one of these installations at the moment but they will be returning presently to greet their new visitor – you, with your big face. Don’t worry, they like you to get up close. They may even provide a magnifying glass for you to get a closer look.

Anonymouse. Minuature Vignettes. Continue reading HERE

No. 1o

Bunnies, Birds, Sexuality and VINZ Feel Free’s “Innocence” in Brooklyn

Vinz Feel Free. “Innocence” The Marcy Project. Williamsburg, Brooklyn. November 4th. 2017 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Birds are associated with freedom, fish remind him of mindless consumerism, and frogs convey authority. He reserves reptiles for soulless soldiers of capital and authoritarian types. And the sudden preponderance of rabbits? Why sexuality and innocence of course.

“Innocence” is the name of the exhibition here curated by BSA and DK Johnston, and Vinz Feel Free has been preparing these works for many months. A project that has included his study of innocence, the show is meant to demarcate such shadings of the concept as to appear only subtly different from one another. To wit:

1. The quality or state of being innocent; freedom from sin or moral wrong.
2. Freedom from legal or specific wrong; guiltlessness.

Vinz Feel Free. “Innocence”. Continue reading HERE

No. 09

Julien De Casabianca, Angry Gods, and Hacking Disaster in Kathmandu

Julien De Casabianca. Outings Project. Kathmandu, Nepal. January, 2017 (photo © Karma Tshering Gurung & Sanam Tamang/ Artudio)

If you are not going into the museum to see art, Julien De Casabianca is happy to bring it out to the street for you. Additionally, if the museum has been closed by an earthquake, he’ll make sure the art gets a public viewing nonetheless.

In Kathmandu recently Street Artist Julien de Casabianca continued his Outings Project by bringing a centuries-old painting outside to the side of the Artudio building in Swoyambhu on Chhauni Hospital Road with the help of Matt Rockwell of the humanitarian hackers group called DisasterHack.

He tells us that the obstacles to getting this piece up seemed insurmountable at times due to the broken social and infrastructural systems in Nepal that still plague people even today, nearly two years since the catastrophic earthquake that killed nearly 9,000 and injured 22,000 more.

Julien De Casabianca/Outings Projects in Kathmandu. Continue reading HERE

No. 08

Rocking “THE HAUS” : A 5-Floor Berlin Bank is Transformed by Artists

“Normally we paint advertising – hand-painted advertising, mostly with cans. So we work all over Germany, with a lot of crews, “ says Kimo, a bearded, bald energetic and sharp witted guy who is lighting up a cigarette in this tattered, beige ex-conference room. That explanation doesn’t prepare you for what you will see in the rooms upstairs.

The floors are piled with unopened paint buckets and brushes and cans and the walls in this organizing office are covered with scotch-taped project timelines, to-do lists, and floor plans of the old bank. Each former office space is plainly labled with names of German Street Artists or graffiti crews, some you recognize, others you don’t. More recent Street Art names are next to classic Graff heads, installation artists mix freely with Optic Artists, photographers, sculptors, even a live moss installation.

Case Maclaim is right next door to Turbokultur with Stohead out in the hall on floor 1. El Bocho and Emess are in small rooms to either side of 1UP on the 3rd. Herakut in a corner room numbered 506 is right next to Nick Platt and Paul Punk in 505.

Rocking The Haus. Continue reading HERE

No. 07

Working the Cornfields on a Santa Fe Facade with Jetsonorama

18 year old Hawthorne Hill has learned the traditional Hopi farming technique called “dry farming” from his mom, according to Jetsonorama, and he places seeds in shallow holes, while his sister Metzli creates rows of wind blocks using nearby brush.

The photos are taken on Second Mesa on the Hopi nation, but the artist brings them here to Santa Fe as part of a project he’s doing with Biocultura Santa Fe.

A project originally conceived of as part of Earth Day, with a focus on where our food comes from and traditional farming methods, its good to think of who works to bring food to your table.

Working The Cornfields. Continue reading HERE

No. 06

“A Real Turning Point” : Sculptures on the Art Mile at Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art

“I think it’s a real turning point as far as seeing three dimensional things,” says Street Artist and fine artist Ben Frost while hand painting text on the side of the large facsimiles of pharmaceutical boxes that he’s creating for the UN Art Mile. “I think sculptures and installations have been paving a way forward for Street Art.”

In fact sculpture and all manner of three dimensional installations as Street Art have been a part of the current century for sure, from the variety of lego and yarn artists to the soldiered steel tags of REVS and eco-bird houses of XAM and small little men made of wood by Stikman – among many others.

For the opening of UN this weekend, the Urban Nation Museum of Urban Contemporary Art in Berlin this week, a curated selection of artists working in such dimensions were invited to create substantial pieces – including video installation, mobile, interactive, the purely static. Enjoy the variety of works by Street Artists who are working today.

Urban Nation Berlin. Art Mile. Continue reading HERE

No. 05

“Resistance is Female” Takes Over Phone Booths in New York

The decentralized Resistance, as it turns out, is a majority of Americans.

And leading the charge are women and girls.

So it makes perfect sense that a new grassroots takeover of telephone booth advertising in New York is a campaign called, “Resistance is Female”. Organizers and artists say that the ad takeover project is putting out a message that corporate controlled media seems to be quelling: keep fighting, keep speaking up, persevere.

The artists have put up a couple of dozen or so new art pieces in places where typecast women typically sell shampoo or fashions: a high-jacking of the advertising streetscape which the French and the Situationists would have called détournement in earlier decades.

Resistance Is Female. Continue reading HERE

No. 04

Street Artist OLEK and Volunteers Create NINA SIMONE Tribute in Raleigh, NC

Olek. Nina Simone “Here Comes The Sun” Love Across The USA. Raleigh, North Carolina. October 2017. (photo © courtesy Olek)

Susan B. Anthony, Harriet Tubman, Nina Simone; Three of the women whom Street Artist Olek would like us to remember from U.S. history, and who have been recently featured in public crochet portraits. Her most recent portrait done with help from the community brings art made by the public to the public in a country-wide project called “Love Across the USA”.

Sparked a year ago leading up to the US national election where a woman was on the ballot, Olek says that despite the negativity that followed, “it inspired me to create a project that would celebrate the accomplishments of women, many of whom had been forgotten throughout U.S. history.”

Today we go to Raleigh, NC to see the most recent banner of Nina Simone crocheted by Olek and a small army of volunteers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_Simone, the American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and activist in the Civil Rights Movement.

Olek. Here Comes The Sun. Continue reading HERE

No. 03

Icy & Sot and a Man of Trash in Tbilisi, Georgia

15 centuries old, Tbilisi may not last as long as this garbage man sculpture by Street Artists Icy & Sot.

“It took us only 10 minutes to collect all this trash because there was so much of it – including American brands – in the river by this village,” says Icy as he tells us about the trip he and his brother Sot made last month. A gorgeous and historically diverse city of 1.5 million people, Tbilisi reflects art, architecture, trade and culture that have given the Georgian capital a reputation as a crossroads for Europe and Asia.

During their stay with the Art Villa Garikula, a self organized community contemporary art center begun Tbilisi born painter and educator, Karaman Kutateladze in 2000, Icy and Sot did two pieces and an ad takeover that reflect the global problems posed by a consumer culture sold by corporations with little concern for its impact long term.

Icy & Sot. Human reflections on nature. Continue reading HERE

No. 02

“Martha Cooper” Solo Exhibition Reveals Many Unseen “Action Shots”

An intrepid photographer who has launched a million dreams (and perhaps a few thousand careers) in graffiti and Street Art with her photography that captured crucial and seminal aspects of our culture that others overlooked.

That is just one way of seeing this brand new collection of images by Martha Cooper that is spread across one wall featuring artists at work, sometimes intimately. Here is where you see 102 individual shots of artists at work, a stunning testament to the range of art-making techniques that are practiced in the public realm, as well as a testament to the passion and curiosity of the woman behind the lens.

For Ms. Cooper’s first solo photography show in New York, Steven Kasher Gallery is featuring 30 new editions of her legendary street art photographs, the ones that have burned themselves into the collective memory of New York and of our streets in the 1970s and 1980s. While her photographs in the 1984 seminal “Subway Art” and her early Hip Hop street shots may be what she is most known for by artists and collectors and fans in cities around the world to which she travels, the new exhibit also contains more than a foreshadowing into the vast collection of important images she has not shown to us.

Martha Cooper Solo Show. Continue reading HERE

No. 01

Banksy Hits Brexit With New Piece, MaisMenos & BLU Used EU Flag Earlier

Banksy. Dover, England. Photo @banksy Instagram

The appearance of a new mural by Banksy in Dover, England caught the attention of many followers on his Instagram account and the mass media folks quickly reported on the new piece that comments on the current state of the EU.

10 months since the Brexit vote, the anonymous artist has created a thoughtful piece marking the crack in the European Union, depicting a white male worker on a ladder chipping away one of the stars on the EU flag, a fissure produced by the action reaching upwards and outwards toward the others.

Banksy Brexit. Continue reading HERE

Top 15 Videos on BSA Film Friday From 2017

December 13, 2017 Artists

Every Friday we invite you to stop by and take a look at new videos that have been submitted or recommended or that we tripped over walking by the railroad tracks. This year we showed you about 250 of them.

We call it BSA Film Friday and it travels with us to cities around the world now when we do it LIVE with you and other audience members in theaters and lecture halls and museums. The beauty of the video/film form is you can get a full story quickly, and you are often surprised by how transformative it can be. You can also see how many people are affected by urban and street culture through these films – we see people’s eyes light up when they realize that they too can create in public space, that the world is not simply a product but is a piece of art that many of their peers are now jumping in to co-create.

As a collection, these 15 are illuminating, elevating, riveting, strange, soaring, and achingly beautifully normal. From looking at the Separation Wall and Banksy to a travelling crew of graffiti writers on farms in Polish pig country to the amazing dance troupe who interpreted the 5 floors of art installations in a downtown Berlin former bank, you have before you a massive buffet of a visual feast.

The final desert is hand-held phone video caught in the moment last month in Mexico City. We didn’t know Keith Haring was coming down the tracks to surprise us, and we didn’t know that this unpolished jewel would garner thousands of viewers and commenters – effectively placing this little piece of video at number 1 for its popularity. Maybe the fact that it is so raw is what people relate to – along with an ongoing adulation for Haring.

We hope you can take some time to enjoy some of the best Street Art videos from around the world and on BSA this year.

No. 15
Faith XLVII / Aqua Regalia Hong Kong

From BSA Film Friday 05 .19.17

“Distant universes delicately tangled,” says the near-whispering narration as you are gazing upon scenes from Hong Kong – those interstitial moments that carry you between the more remarkable ones. Faith XLVII gives us a quiet look at these inside a the dencse cacophony called “Aqua Regalia”, looking at the parts of a culture that a visitor is sensitive to because they are not taken for granted. With this ability to see, one takes a quick course of a city, a society. Invariably you end up with more questions.

“We speak of death and birth in terms of celebration and mourning.” Faith XLVII is in search of more universal truths, the timeless ones, since we understand them so poorly. Herein are glimpses, romantic and unvarnished.

“This is one of the first videos I’ve co-directed, alongside filmmaker Dane Dodds,” Faith tells us. “Its a project that is close to my heart.”

No. 14
Gonzalo Borondo / Cenere

From BSA Film Friday 08.11.17

Borondo keeps it open for you. He provides the stage, the staging area, the proscenium, the altar, the emanating light, the associations and memories you have with your belief system, or lack of one. During his artist residency with Pubblica, curated by Carlo Vignapiano and Elena Nicolini in May, the Street Artist (among other things) creates a journey as much as a destination in this intimate chapel. The video by Gerdi Petanaj captures this and perhaps a little more.

No. 13
The Haus / Lunatix Dance

From BSA Film Friday 04.07.17

From the moment it opened on April 1st, the Haus was a hit! BSA was very lucky to be there in February for a full tour while still in development in Berlin, nearly dancing ourselves through all five floors of this former bank with full scale installations in places that once held offices, conference rooms, employee coffee lounges.

By inviting Creative Director/dancer Serdar Bogatin and the film crew “Shuto Crew” into the space with members of the Lunatix Dance Production troupe, these spaces and art environments come completely alive, invoking stories and dramas – clearly making the spaces into elaborate set-design pieces.



No. 12
Ella & Pitr / Frappés PinPins

From BSA Film Friday 05.05.17

The French duo Ella + Pitr here revel in the simplicity of the gestural act of a full-body full-bucket splash of black paint.

Carnal, visceral, overlaid with psychographical information, the motion of splashing inky pigment across a white quadrilateral is an act of defiance and a release of the inner chaos – instantly recognizable as chaos elsewhere in the world.

The uncontrollable quality, especially when purveyed within an atmosphere of prim control, provokes amplified emotions in some. Fear, liberation, rage, release. Which ones will you experience?

No. 11
Indecline/ Rail Beast

From BSA Film Friday 10.20.17

“This reminds why I hate vandals! All this does is create more unnecessary work for the guys at the paint shop,” says a commenter on the Vimeo page where INDECLINE has posted this locomotive takeover.

You see kids, this is why we can’t have nice things. I just mopped this floor and you come running in here with your muddy boots! For Pete’s sake.

Truthfully, this decidedly unpolitical piece is a surprise coming from INDECLINE. Guess they were taking the day off from railing against hypocrisy and injustice with this animated train that recalls Saturday morning cartoons like Bugs Bunny and the Road Runner.

No. 10
Olek / In the Blink of an Eye

From BSA Film Friday 01.13.17

“It is one thing to read about the events in those parts of the world, but it is something totally different to actually look in the eyes of the women who lost everything while running from the war,” says artist Olek about how her world view changed when crocheting the project featured this week.

While gathering and producing materials for her installation with Verket Museum in Avesta, Sweden, the Brooklyn based Street Artist was holding informal crochet workshops with volunteers who would be producing the decorative yarn skin that covered every single item inside and outside of the house with their handmade crochet stitches.

Some invited guests were refugees who had escaped war in Syria and Ukraine and the artist and local folks shared stories and crocheted, sewed, and prepared the art materials together over the course of a number of days. It was during these exchanges of personal stories that, “a conversation started that has changed me forever,” she says – and she immediately needed to reflect it in her project with the museum.

No. 09
Sebastian Purfürst – Soniconoclasm / Broken Motor

From BSA Film Friday 06.02.17

In Berlin recently we met a photographer/media artist/musician who showed us a music video he just made of regular people whom you might meet on the city streets at night. This spring he asked more than 25 of them to recite phrases and “cut-up of army radio slang phrases” and by splicing them together with his band mate’s recitation of the lyrics synched to their lips, the rawness and rage and disconnected connectedness of people whom you can meet on the street rang true. “

This unvarnished quality bypasses the styled self-awareness of a lot of commercial media, and the anger actually comes across as fear. Perhaps you’ll think its too dark in demeanor – but then suddenly the melding together of the faces into one common entity makes it magic, even transcendent – revealing a simple sameness of everyone.

“This suspenseful individuality of the people is almost completely dissolved in the chorus,” says Sebastian Purfürst of his video with bandmate Markus F.C.Buhl.

Together they are called SONICONOCLASM.

No. 08
Pixel Pancho/ UN – Berlin

From BSA Film Friday 09.22.17

Pixel’s original installation was nixed by the city at the last moment but that didn’t prevent the Italian Street Artist from rallying to find another solution!

This new installation in the back courtyard was conceived of, designed, and constructed over a period of 4 days last week and became the secret surprise behind the museum for those who wandered there. Using landscaping techniques and botanical knowledge that come naturally from his farm in Italy, the artist create a mise en scène of epic impact with his robotic folk-futurist sculptures. Night time lighting took it to another world, but you can see the details better here in this short video Jaime Rojo shot on site.

No. 07
FifthWall TV / Occupied in Bethlehem – A visit to BANKSY’s “Walled Off Hotel”

From BSA Film Friday 06.16.17

“It’s almost become a playground for people to come to,” says your host Doug Gille as he looks at the section of the Separation Wall that the Banksy “Walled Off” Hotel is installed upon. “I think it is so crucial for people not to just come to see the wall or to paint on the wall,” he says.

“50 years under military control makes it the longest occupation in history,” is a quote that Gillen brandishes across the screen from the United Nations. The fact that Banksy is using his art star power to keep this on the front burner says a lot about the man.

“I think a lot of these people feel like we are forgetting about them and we have to remind them that we’re not,” says Gillen as he soul searches next to the Dead Sea.



No. 06
Various & Gould / City Skins – Marx und Engels

From BSA Film Friday 07.14.17

Conceptual Street Artists often perform interventions without explanation, satisfied with their own observations of the outcome. For Berlians Various & Gould the process has more often included the participation of the public – a way for more to take ownership and inspire dialogue. Sometimes many dialogues.

You may have seen our piece on their most recent public project called “City Skins”: Marx and Engels Statues Re-Skinned & Re-Located : Various & Gould. Here is a mini-documentary that shows you the artists, the process, and the thinking behind the process.

No. 05
Rurales

From BSA Film Friday 01.27.17

Now to the Polish pig farms! Another Street Art/Mural road trip movie, this time across Poland with JAYPOP, Seikon, Krik KONG and filmmaker Cuba Goździewicz. See the discoveries, the relationships, the reactions to the work from a warm and considered human perspective.

The beauty of randomness and the randomness of beauty. These guys are fully engaged with their surroundings, the opportunity, the myriad people they befriend or portend to make allies. It’s an uncharted trip where permissions are sought and often refused, but they never stop painting somehow.



No. 04
Swoon/ Fearless

From BSA Film Friday 10.13.17

Using existing and new footage of Street Artist Swoon and selected interviews with people in her orbit, director Fredric King presents and hour long documentary that looks over two decades of art making. The stories told and the insights that Calendonia Curry aka Swoon presents while en route to her next adventure illustrate the fluidity with which she pursues the creative spirit, whether on the street, on a vessel down a river, or installing in a museum. An integrated explorer, Swoon brings you into the fold to go on this journey that always feels like its just begun.

No. 03
Fin DAC/ Rooftop in San Francisco

From BSA Film Friday 08.25.17

On an expansive rooftop in rainy/sunny/rainy San Francisco, Street Artist Fin Dac brings to life ‘Shukumei’, an ebullient and mysterious muse. The film is largely a stop motion record of the work set to music, but did you notice how much dexterity and effort goes into this precision play when you are working at this angle, basically painting the floor? The remarkable integration of the glowing skylight orb, dramatically revealed, imparts the figure a mystical dimension as well.

Video editing by Tonic Media, Soundtrack by Mombassa/Lovechild, and shout out to Ian and Danielle at Rocha Art and Missy Marisa, model.



No. 02
Niels Shoe Meulman In Magic City / The Art Of The Street

From BSA Film Friday 12.01.17

Niels Shoe Meulman spent some nights in a Munich jail thirty years ago for mucking about on the walls. This year he was paid to do it in Munich for Magic City, the travelling morphing exhibition (now in Stockholm) where Street Art is celebrated along with all its tributaries – including a film program and a number of photographs by your friends here at BSA.

Born, raised and based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Shoe shares here his new improvisational piece and some of his reflections on his process and his evolution from being in advertising as an art/creative director and reclaiming his soul as a graffiti/Street Art/fine artist. As ever, Martha is in the frame, putting him in the frame.



No. 01
Keith Haring- Rough Cut / Mexico City Metro

This rough cut lil’ video reached more than 300K individuals and had 100K views with thousands of shares on FB and on Instagram with dozens of comments and high engagement was easily propelled to the #1 spot.

From BSA Film Friday 12.01.17

It all took us by surprise last week in Mexico City when suddenly a whole train covered on both sides with Keith Haring’s work approached while we were waiting at the platform to catch the Linea 2 of the Metro. He made his name in part by illegally doing drawings like these in NYC subways and here now they are crushing a whole train. The name of the project is “Ser Humano. Ser Urbano” or “Being Human. Being Urban” and it aims to promote human values and human rights. The pattern you see is from “Sin Titulo (Tokyo Fabric Design)” – now stretched across these whole cars, if you will.

The train itself is inexplicably having brake troubles, so we get some jerky spur-of-the-moment footage but all week on Instagram and Facebook we’ve received tons of comments from people reacting to this little bit of Keith video by Jaime Rojo on BSA.

BSA Film Friday: 10.20.17

October 20, 2017 Artists

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

Now screening :
1. INDECLINE: Rail Beast
2. INDICLINE: DREAMERS
3. Basquiat, Banksy & Brutalism in London
4. Restoring Banksy
5. Erik Burke: Park Blossom

BSA Special Feature: INDECLINE: Rail Beast

“This reminds why I hate vandals! All this does is create more unnecessary work for the guys at the paint shop,” says a commenter on the Vimio page where INDECLINE has posted this locomotive takeover. You see kids, this is why we can’t have nice things. I just mopped this floor and you come running in here with your muddy boots! For Pete’s sake.

Truthfully, this decidedly unpolitical piece is a surprise coming from INDECLINE. Guess they were taking the day off from railing against hypocrisy and injustice with this animated train that recalls Saturday morning cartoons like Bugs Bunny and the Road Runner.

INDECLINE: DREAMERS

Ahhh this is more like it, the acidic satire. A short punchy video that shows the creation of a satirical take on Trump’s frightening attitude toward kids brought across the border into the US. These days, they are called Dreamers and have protections and options to do radical things like go to college and get a job. But not if this clown has anything to say about it. Want a balloon?

Basquiat, Banksy & Brutalism in London. Brought to you by Fifth Wall TV

And all this time you thought it was abstract expressionism! Please people, you can throw those labels out the window. Here Doug tells you about the new Basquiat exhibit and in a fit of perfect timing, the Banksy piece that appears in support of it in London. Doug says its arguably the city’s finest hour.

Restoring Banksy. Doug Gillen of Fifth Wall TV

This is the second time London has seen a snorting copper, since this 2006 Banksy piece has resurfaced, or rather was re-surfaced, as the case may appear.

Favorite quote out of context, “just so happened to oversee the sale of ‘Slave Labor’ “.

Erik Burke: Park Blossom

“My name is Erik Burke and I am a muralist,” says the Nevadan about his new blooming temporary Mall parking lot piece. For those fans playing at home, he’s also a graffiti writer/Street Artist and there are clues embedded here in the video for you to piece together.

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BSA Images Of The Week: 04.14.24 / “Return2Burn” in Hunts Point, Bronx
April 14, 2024
Welcome to BSA’s Images of the Week. We decided to dedicate this weekly survey to the artists of “Return 2 …Read More »
Martha Cooper and Seth in Kibera. Kenya: Part 2 / “We Are One”
April 11, 2024
Nestled within the bustling city of Nairobi, Kenya, Kibera is a testament to its inhabitants’ challenges and its collective indomitable …Read More »