They don’t call it World Pride for nothing, and many artists are creating new public artworks this month to commemorate the 5oth anniversary of the modern rights movement for LBGTQ+ people in many cities.
Artist Mr. Sis is in Barcelona painting this pair of full figured females
going in for the kiss on this billboard for Contorno Urbano. The community
powered initiative invites all manner of artists to participate and this
illustrator who also is formally trained in dance and theater is gratified to
have the opportunity to create a public painting. He calls this “Sol Un Beso”
or “Just a Kiss”.
As we recognize that not everyone around the world has the freedom to love who they want, in fact face violence and threats from state and civil entities, Mr. Sis says he would really love it if people use his new hashtag #SoloUnBeso.
Post a kiss and tag it! Your image may go a long way.
The artistic duo just brought two new pop culture inspired billboards last week to this small town in Catalonia to entertain you with their hybrid brand of graffiti, video games, and sports references. Like many today they’re using the free association split-attention style of memes and the Internet that is now our lingua franca – or should we say linqua españa
At the
intersection of graffiti, the Internet, and cute things, Imon Boy has developed
a fun-centric database of pop-cultre references merged and interplayed in
scenarios from many a ‘00s teen memories surfing YouTube and catching tags –
and showing his work in a gallery setting in Munich, Hamburg, Phillipines,
Miami, Sydney, and New York. He says this game is typical of writers and cops –
but it looks a lot more fun from this perspective.
A
native of Badalona (Barcelona), Dagoe is similarly well travelled
geographically as well, taking his illustration, design, and animation powers
to France, Tunisia, Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Here he namedrops Cope
and references Tupac and Drake – with the sensitive Canadian rapper wearing a FC
Barcelona team shirt and crying into a phone – that’s a mashup, bro.
The 1990s lo-tech graphics of glitches and gifs and simplistic digitized objects continue to find their way into Street Art and murals, including this new app-activated chromo-keyed mural by Vic-born Degon.
A part-time post-rapper and a co-founder of his own graphics studio for creating beautiful-ugly logos, Degon says he began his first forays into graffiti in ’99, eventually becoming a bonafide crew member of the NGFX.
Now his interventions are straddling the physical and the digital and to enjoy fully this new “Green Screen Art” for the 12+1 project in Barcelona you’ll need a phone to see the motion graphics that are triggered. Or you can just look at the animation posted here at the end.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. INTI “Soleil”. Blinded by the Light. 2. Martha Cooper: Queen der Street Art 3. Elisa Capdevila x Anna Repullo. Contorno Urbano Foundation. 12+1 Project 4. Mare 139 : L’ avenir” Graffuturism. Group Exhibition. 5. FAUST: L’ avenir” Graffuturism. Group Exhibition.
BSA Special Feature: INTI “Soleil”. Blinded by the Light.
OMG WHERE does Chop ’em Down get their music from? Finally we said it out loud.
Yes, the monstrous archive of top-notch video that they are amassing of Street Artists and others creating work in the world is scintillating, the gut-punch editing is riveting, the pickings are lush. But time and again Zane nails it into next week with the music choices. Bless you brother.
INTI “Soleil”. Blinded by the Light. Video by Chop ’em Down Films for Peinture Fraiche Festival. Lyon, France.
Martha Cooper: Queen der Street Art via ZDF German TV (in German no subtitles)
Our sincere thanks to Susanne Lingemann and ZDF German TV for this great piece on Martha Cooper during the premiere of Selina Miles’ movie “Martha: A Picture Story” at Tribeca Film Festival. Next stop Sydney!
Elisa Capdevila x Anna Repullo. Contorno Urbano Foundation. 12+1 Project
Easily the winner of wackiest choice of concept and music for the year so far is this wiccan themed duo in Spain painting walls across from each other on an underpass. Something to do with sensuality and competitiveness and … witchcraft? Good painting tho.
L’avenir
L’avenir Graffuturism Group Exhibition
A special collection of works opened on April 26th under the banner “Graffuturism”, guided by its creator and advocate, the artist Poesia. The lineup includes a number of artists along the street art/graffiti /contemporary continuum such as Augustine Kofie, Tobias Kroeger, Carlos Mare, Doze Green, Jaybo Monk, Faust, Kenor, and Matt W. Moore – each with distinct graphic voices of their own. Below are a couple of brief profiles from the show follow here.
“L’ avenir” Graffuturism. Group Exhibition. Mare139.
“L’ avenir” Graffuturism. Group Exhibition. Faust.
Owing to the scarceness of resources that are usually
allotted to those who arrive as refugees, Street Artist and muralist Sebastien
Waknine relies solely upon the thinnest piece of charcoal as he works on this
new wall.
“Learning from Migrants and Refugees” is the name of the collection
of scenes that document the situations that people can be in when escaping from
strife and fear – the human aspect of appealing to the help of another society.
After five weeks of intensive work, Waknine stood aside during a public
introduction as a Syrian man held the microphone and described the scenes to an
assemble crowd in Barcelona.
Created
in the gardens on the Hospital of Sant Pau in Barcelona, the mural was
commissioned by the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona and will be exhibited in
various locations within the city of Barcelona.
Organizers
say that the mural highlights the journey of refugees from the ravages of war
and poverty in their countries as well as the realities of their living conditions
in their host countries.
It is an unusual technique for a public work these days, as
many have become accustomed to the splashy nature of big murals and festivals
that present them. Here the warmth of the rendering and the humanity conveyed
in the faces and gestures is only magnified when one gets close enough, even
intimate with, the artwork.
The detached impersonal nature of war by drone has enabled
such masses of people to be uprooted and chased from their lives – and a viewer
may contrast the experience of the driver of that drone drawn in the sky with
close-up terror of innocents whom Waknine depicts.
Yes, it is Saturday. It’s also#Caturdayif you are a fan of the felines and you want to contribute to or simply scroll through the roughly 7.5 million photos with that hashtag onInstagram.
This Spanish cat named Tommy looks like he could have belonged to Matisse, due to the overlapping abstract collage method, but British artist Christina Lina says he was her grandmother’s cat – so we guessed wrong. The artist and educator often creates props, temporary sculpture, and installations for kids and places they frequent, and finds her work easily moves from public to private space and back again.
“My
work as artist and my work as educator are not easily or tidily separated,” she
says of her work. “Mostly I work within a sort of collapse between the two.”
This mural part of a public art program done in concert with local Ferran Sunyer school (so-named after the mathematician) in a neighborhood of Barcelona and students had the opportunity to create puppets during the final phase of the program.
With special thanks to the 12 + 1 walls program by Contorno Urbano.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. Ibie vs Pelucas. Battle on the Streets Using VideoGame Metaphor 2. Jorge Rodriguez-Gerarda “Perpetual Flow” in Morocco 3. Nuria Toll. Contorno Urbano Foundation. 12+1 Project. Barcelona 4. MUSA vs Siro Wild West. Dueling Walls at the 12+1 Project, Barcelona
BSA Special Feature: Ibie vs Pelucas. Battle on the Streets Using VideoGame Metaphor
A new one from Contorno Urbano, this video is scored/styled as a digital battle with a Ludonarrative dissonance ,these two 3-D gaming masters are the ludic elements of gameplay and pushing the narration of discovery and slaughter by paint.
With each player reaching deeper into his quiver for arrows, bolts, and darts, the resulting paintings are deep and lush – compiled with many actions per minute. This isn’t just player versus environment versus player – this is player versus imagination.
Jorge Rodriguez-Gerarda “Perpetual Flow” in Morocco
“My work uses natural materials and technology. I try to do this in a way so that it has very little impact (environmentally),” says artist Jorge Rodriguez-Gerarda here in Morrocco where he has created a huge land-art installation called “Perpetual Flow.”
MUSA vs Siro Wild West. Dueling Walls at the 12+1 Project, Barcelona
An awesome duel between can-slinging cowboy and cowgirl! Scored to a wild west musical theme, see these two artists on opposite sides of the tunnel painting fire and rattlesnakes and their individual wild styles.
Artist Anna Repullo is bringing the excitement of attraction to the street in her new mural, “El Beso” (The Kiss). It’s her sentimental contribution as part of a 3-woman program for walls here in Sant Vicenç dels Horts, curated by Contorno Urbano.
The figurative painter who loves to hike and explore nature lives in Granada Spain and is comfortable painting on canvas or walls. Her worko often depicts acts of intimacy and refuge between people in romantic or platonic embrace; sometimes even between people and pets.
This particular kiss is well timed for Spring, where many a passion is stirred by the caress of a warm breeze in the sunshine, the sounds of birds arriving with their song, the sight of trees bursting with their fresh blooms everywhere.
“You kissed me! My head drooped low on your breast With a feeling of shelter and infinite rest, While the holy emotions my tongue dared not speak, Flashed up as in flame, from my heart to my cheek; Your arms held me fast; oh! your arms were so bold —
Heart beat against heart in their passionate fold. Your glances seemed drawing my soul through my eyes, As the sun draws the mist form the sea to the skies. Your lips clung to mine till I prayed in my bliss They might never unclasp from the rapturous kiss.”
One of three female artists keep these walls on lockdown right now in Sant Vicenç dels Horts, Capdevilla says she’s calling into question our classical comparisons of our own bodies to those ideals of Eurocentric sculptures and painters from centuries ago.
She says “the plaster bodies are a good analogy for the rigid canons of beauty we’re used to,” and you can see exactly what she is talking about, from many angles.
Organizers
of the parent project “Contorno Urbano,” itself a grassroots run collection of
public and Street Artists and their admirers, say work like this hits one of
their many people-fueled goals. “We keep working every day to normalize women’s
participation in Street art projects, because art belongs to all of us.”
La Ciutat Vella or The Old City is a district in Barcelona also known as the Gothic Quarters. Among many things it is also known as the stomping grounds for the young Pablo Picasso, who attended the Fine Arts school that once stood on Calle Avinyó.
Not to mention the impressive Gothic architecture and the first project of Famed Catalan architect Antonio Gaudi. Rambling up La Rambla is a good way to check out the parade of Barceloneons with its long walking avenue and take get great food in El Raval which is 50% populated by immigrants who come from many places including South America, Pakistan, the Phillipines, and Romania. Also, its close to the beach.
For those looking for street art this is also a remarkable point of destination. There are no big walls really but The Old City has plenty of back allies where artists find old rusty doors or windows to put up small pieces of Street Art.
Figurative, fantastical, surreal, dark pop, illustration techniques are favorites for local artiststs, who use all the compliment of modern Street Art techniques, including stencils, posters, stickers, and wheat pastes.
Our sincere thanks to photographer Lluis Olive who visited this part of the city recently and sends this dispatch of small offerings to share with BSA readers.
With a nod to La Danse by Henri Matisse and many human tribes’ rites of Spring, artist Falvita Banana creates her new “Juntes sumem” (add together) here on the façade of Cotxeres Borrell in Barcelona.
Her illustrations have been in magazines, books and on public walls, often with the most basic and courageous technique at play; the simple stroke in monochrome. Humor, absurdity, melancholy all are intertwined. Here the expansive commanding of space and convivial craze infers the spirit as well as the movement of these celebrants.
But as with many of her humorous works, she says that this new wall completed Wednesday has a sadness – the clan-like closeness on display is for safety as well as intimate sisterhood.
This is a feminist ring-around-the-rosy says the artist. “At any
time and situation, women have to be alert and united. We have to protect and
help each other; unfortunately, even when we’re having fun,” she says of the
jovial scene. “Above all, we have to remember that we are stronger together.”
This past Sunday, February 17 at La Plaza de las Tres Chimeneas ( Three Smokestacks Square) in Barcelona an international group of artists participated in the first “No Borders Festival.”
Called “Murs Contra el Murs”, which is Catalan for “Walls Against Walls”, the multi-mural festival intends to highlight the ongoing humanitarian crises of refugees and immigrants at international borders around the world.
Graffiti artists, Street Artists, painters, and illustrators came together to create new murals to speak to the issue and encourage debate and conversation. Artists included Btoy, Carles G.O’D, Dixon, Eledu, Enric Sant, Javier Arribas, Juanjo Surace, Julieta XLF, Kenor, Kram, Pincho, Roc Blackblock, Ruina, Saturno, Simón Vázquez, Tutzo, and Wati Bacán, among others.
NO
BORDERS is a grassroots organization that was created to raise awareness about
the refugees, to demand their acceptance, and to raise funds through debates,
art and documentaries.
They say they want to raise the uncomfortable questions – which will undoubtedly lead to uncomfortable answers as well. To paraphrase the text on their website:
“Do we settle for a society that violates its moral and legal obligations to refugees? A refugee is a person who flees – Flees because he is on the losing side. Because he thinks, feels or prays differently than those who point him with their weapons.”
As
usual, artists are bringing these matters to the street for the vox populi to
debate.
Our sincere thanks to photographer Lluís Olive for sharing his shots of the walls with BSA readers.
For more information on the festival running through March 3rd that includes documentaries, panel discussions, workshops, and prints, please go to https://noborders.es/ and follow @nobordersrefugees on Instagram
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
