Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening :
1. Street Atelier – Rocco and his Brothers
2. Sam3 and His Troupe of Dancing Statues Pump Up the Jam
3. Valiente Creations – 12 + 1
4. Sue 975 – 12 +1
BSA Special Feature: Street Atelier – Rocco and his Brothers
It’s an Italian movie directed by Luchino Visconti in 1960, yes. It is also the name of a crew of Berlin graffiti/installation artists whose satirical interventions play on issues propriety and property – and on social experiments that dupe the media, the public, and banks.
Did they really set up an apartment inside the subway? Is that really the tracks and wall of a metro inside a gallery? Is that Wagner playing in the mobile war arcade set up in the Christmas market? Are those hand grenades being lobbed by children? Is the bank facade blinking red every 20 seconds?
Rocco und seine Brüder (Rocco and His Brothers) have you engaged. Now you have to answer the questions.
A new sharply political campaign championing the freedom of expression has caught fire in Spain in the last few weeks under the hashtag #NoCallaremos, and Street Artists are now adding their talents to the protest. Rather shockingly for a modern European nation, a rapper’s prison sentence for offensive lyrics was upheld in Spanish Supreme Court in February (Billboard) and that decision along with other recent events has sparked a number of creative protests across the art world in cities across the country. Today BSA contributing Street Art photographer Fer Alcalá shares his opinions and new images of the murals in progress with BSA readers.
THE NO CALLAREM PLATFORM
~ by Fer Alcalá
…or how some of Spanish top artists react against censorship and repression of the freedom of speech from the central government…
It’s now known worldwide: the Spanish government is imprisoning hip hop artists like Valtonyc and Pablo Hasel because of their sharp and truthful lyrics as well as sentencing people like you and me because of their critical posts on social media.
As a reaction to these acts against the freedom of speech that are more in tune with a well established dictatorship than with 40 years of democracy, some projects like the No Callarem (we won’t shut up) platform have raised their voices.
One of the direct actions organized by the platform for fighting against Partido Popular’s civil rights oppression was to film a video clip featuring some of the most renowned lyricists on the scene as Frank T, Elphomega, Los Chikos del Maíz, La Ira, Rapsusklei, and César Strawberry, among others, at the old La Modelo prison. The location is an accurate metaphorical scenario when you are seeing that your liberty is being cut off thanks to laws like ‘Ley Mordaza’.
The song ‘Los Borbones son unos ladrones’, which alludes directly to the Spanish monarchy, includes some excerpts from some of the songs created by rappers serving a prison sentence. The video clip for the song, which you can watch at the end of this article, has become viral and almost all media outlets in the country are speaking about this big shout-out in the name of freedom.
I was invited to witness the filming and painting session by local artist Javier de Riba, from Reskate Studio, who invited some fellow artists to paint at La Modelo walls as a part of the whole process. Franco Fasoli JAZ, Twee Muizen, Txemy, Joan Tarragò, Enric Sant, Milvietnams, Werens and Fullet gave a new voice to the walls surrounding that backyard, providing 2D images that perfectly matched the spirit behind the beats and the rhymes.
This is what Javi has to say about his collaboration with the project:
“Our involvement with No Callarem happened thanks to the Catalan rap artist Pau Llonch. He lit the spark for recording a clip against the Valtonyc and Hasel sentences. They wanted to do it at La Modelo no matter what and the No Callarem platform supported the action. We helped to spread the word for putting together a team with different languages together to visually enhance the video clip.
At the beginning, was what meant to be an ‘atrezzo action’ turned into a bunch of pieces that can be visited in the backyard of Gallery 4. In fact that backyard is not open to the public, but you can see it from the watch guard pit. We think that, from a conceptual point of view, it’s very powerful to keep those pieces locked – especially when thinking about how things are going in Spain regarding freedom of speech.”
Additionally it’s worth mentioning Reskate’s initiative about shouting against the suffocating atmosphere that we are experiencing here for some time: ‘Our idea is that every artist post one piece / illustration / painting / picture (old or new) supporting our initiative promoting freedom of speech in order to criticize the lack of democracy within the Spanish government.
Some of the hashtags that we will use are #NoCallarem #EzGaraIsilduko #NonCalaremos #NunVamosCallar #NonCararam,#NoCallaremos being the main one.
Visual artists from Madrid, Zaragoza, Almería, Oviedo, Valencia, Vila-real, Barcelona, Bilbao, Valladolid, Tenerife…are supporting this initiative. Some of them are: Malakkai, Escif, Paula Bonet, Aryz, Ricardo Cavolo, Enric Sant, Twee Muizen, Franco Fasoli, Hyuro, Javier Jaén, Boa Mistura, Conrad Roset, Jordi Borràs, Danjer, Cinta Vidal, David de las Heras, Juan Díaz-Faes, Chamo San, and Marina Capdevila, among others.
La Semana por la Libertad de Expresión (Freedom of Speech Week) is happening now, with different activities taking place all over the country. The funds raised from these activities will go to a resistance fund for the platform in order to defend all those people chased and brought to justice because of censorship and repression. You can check the whole program of the week HERE.
So, yes: we have a fight going on. Comedians, actors and actresses, musicians, journalists, visual artists, the guy / girl next door who is active in social media… It’s kind of a Russian Roulette game where, if you are critical with the established system and you are using 3rd grade humor as a weapon, you can end in jail. And all of it is happening in a country whose government is accused of being the most corrupt on the whole continent.
I have a very well informed friend who has been kind of disappointed with the absence of critical vision and combative behaviors from most of the big names in the local street art / graffiti scene. Thanks to initiatives such as No Callarem and the impulse of people like Javi de Riba, she is reconciling herself with this small, but powerful little world whose images have the strength for making important things happen.
Finally, I’d like to recommend that you check the publications under the hashtag #nocallaremos that are out, as there will be some fine and unique art being produced for the occasion in the upcoming days.
As it’s being said in Los Borbones son unos Ladrones:
– rap music is not a crime
– we need scratches, we need paintings
– I don’t dream about Versace, I dream about barricades
– …because of the poetry that still sleeps in the ditches…
Big props to Javi de Riba, Xavier Urbano and all the artists behind the No Callarem movement.
Barcelona graffiti artist Treze passed away from cancer at the age of 31 in January and many of his peers have done tribute pieces to him in the last couple of months, including Tenor, Z. Rock, Magg, Phen, Snok, Hurt, and Smot.
An alumni of the Contorno Urbano family, painting the 12+1 wall only 2 years ago in April 2016, he was respected for his masterful skills with illustrative line, texture, and an atmospheric, almost watercolor wash techniques, intermixing people and the natural world in his compositions.
As a tribute to his work and his memory, the modernist minimalist SUE975 brandishes one of his signature geometric centerpieces with the old-skool throw up shine of silver surrounded by a field of euphoric phosphorescent yellow.
Illustrator, muralist, stop-motion animator, and co-founder of FURRR Studio in Barcelona, Elara Elvira gives us “No title” for her new piece for the community mural program Project 12+1.
Organic shapes and patterns found in nature create the abstract composition, perhaps owing to her spare line-drawn aesthetic in her lo-fi illustration work. A native of this city who studied fine art at the university, Elvira has lived in Berlin and Nantes while participating in residencies, exhibitions, and interventions.
At the moment she’s just completed a rock-n-roll themed stop animation with her team at FURR – a teaser for the song “Motosaurio” from Gigatrin – which we post at the end of this post for your entertainment.
Images today from La Nau Bostik, an artist run complex in Barcelona that aims to be sustainable, inspirational, and a breathing living cultural oasis. By most accounts, it succeeds wildly.
Murals often accompany citizen-run cultural initiatives and art spaces like these, frequently to great effect. The spaces are raw and neglected and needs a sense of life and color; new narratives to fill the space with interactions and hopefully inspire collaboration.
Xavier Basiana and his cultural compatriots have established a community cultural and intellectual place in a settlement of ex-industrial warehouses over the last decade along the train tracks in La Sagrera, and the once barren soil now sprouts an ever growing crop of portraits, characters, fantasies, political and social messages.
In cities that we have the opportunity to visit we occasionally get to see these vibrant spaces like La Nau Bostik, now a cultural fixture that draws thousands throughout the year for a rich mix of programming and engagement. Surrounded by great organic works on the walls by fine artists and current or former Street Artists and graffiti writers, the environment seems to foster a re-generation of people-fueled ideas for progress, problem solving and dreaming.
Ivan Floro. Nau Bostik, Barcelona. (photo LluÍs Olivé Bulbena)
Without the synergistic effects of weaving all of these elements of education, celebration, theater, academic examination, civic engagement, the plastic arts, performance, labor, and commerce, these places may not be able to offer a safe place for free thought and internal exploration. As ever, it is the combined effect of a variety of talents that creates the greater sum. With so many factors and parties at play, maintaining a sense of balance is an ongoing goal.
Today we are happy to visit this arts space via the camera work of photographer Lluis Olive Bulbena, who we thank for sharing his images with BSA readers.
We made it! But it was a rough few days just finished with storms and rain and snow and high winds and flooding and downed trees around New York and its environs. Similarly, as one surveys the chaos reigning in Washington, one must not be blinded by the sound and fury and has to measure what foundations are being broken and what soil is being eroded during this deliberate and man-made storm. Also Tax Payers, You’ve Been Scammed.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Below Key, Bond TruLuv, Bunny M, Combo, Crash, Eleonora Arosio, Faith XVVII, Free the Bunny, Imraan Christian, Jaeraymie, Lamkat, Little Ricky, Manyoly, Olek, Ollio, PAM, Paper Skaters, RAD, SK, Specter, and UFO907.
Las Ramblas is a good place for rambling foot tours on a Saturday afternoon before reaching the ocean at El Raval. This neighborhood of Barcelona champions the small one-off Street Art piece – the antithesis of the large splashy murals that popular in other cities.
Rice (photo Lluís Olivé Bulbena)
A barrio of narrow streets adorned with mysterious and grandly heavy wooden doors keeps the throngs of tourists at arms length. Windows and balconies with intricately and beautifully crafted iron work create an old world charm and invite smaller thoughtful portraits by Street Artists looking for a setting with character.
Turn the corner and there’s a genteel plaza buzzing with seniors in their golden years sitting on benches or at sidewalks cafes nursing a coffee or a brandy.
Rice (photo Lluís Olivé Bulbena)
Here in these secret niches, doorways, sidewalk level windows, lampposts, and just about any other surface you’ll discover small pieces of Street Art installed illegally. Multi-layered or one color stencils, one-of-kind, hand-painted wheat pastes, sticker multiples, fully realized acrylic portraits and posters; all small works waiting for a small audience.
BSA contributor and Barcelona native Lluís Olivé Bulbena recently took a stroll through the winding streets and found this treasure trove of goodies. Thanks to him and enjoy!
Graffuturism in Barcelona today as KAZZIUS speaks geometry and abstraction on a wall for Contorno Urbano. Rapid fire planes of aqua, marine, and yellow all shoot along an invisible line, pile, collide, sub divide, reform, and continue forward in a split second. He calls this “In Search of the Movement”, but it looks like the dude found it.
Kazzius. Fundación Contorno Urbano/Kaligrafics. 12 +1 Project. Sant Feliu de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain. (photo Alex Miró)
Writing graff since ’93 his interest in architecture eventually formed this fine-artist’s vector-sharp vocabulary, breaking apart letters and forms and elevating the simplest geometric shapes to center stage. Movement, depth, and the spaces in between all interplay in KAZZIUS’ balanced compositions, an insight into the jolt of energy and spontaneous practice that drives this painter.
Kazzius. Fundación Contorno Urbano/Kaligrafics. 12 +1 Project. Sant Feliu de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain. (photo Alex Miró)
Kazzius. Fundación Contorno Urbano/Kaligrafics. 12 +1 Project. Sant Feliu de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain. (photo Alex Miró)
KAZZIUS “In Search of the Movement” is part of Proyect 12+1 an Urban Art initiative created by Contorno Urbano in Sant Feliu de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain.
Organic patterning that verges on Op Art tumbled with flatly folk outsider aesthetics, commercial diagrammatics and Picasso cut-outs, Spanish artist Alva Moca has a lot going on in his head.
Seen through a multi-practice lens of graffiti, collage, painting, illustration and advertising, this omnivore is multi-tasking at all times so it’s a surprise to you and probably him when it all comes spilling out on a wall, like this new “Panther Power” mural he’s just finished in Barcelona for the 12 + 1 project.
Mr. Moca says that this time he is thinking about the animal world and about colors as representing aspects of society; red for love and blood, blue for organic life and water, ocher for gold and power, black and white for conformity.
In his mind there is a Mateo Kigman electronic cumbia playing, and he hopes to impart some of that same hypnotic, shamanic rhythm to his mural.
He says he wants us “to be able to remember that we are tiny in the immensity of the universe; to feel more, to question the visible and invisible of society.”
Welcome to Images of the Week! Great stuff this week from Portugal, Spain and good old NYC to flip your Aunt Betty’s wig.
The big news this week of course was that the 5 Points graffiti compound case was awarded to the 21 plaintiffs. But its not just local: it may have national implications when building owners will be insisting on contracts with anyone who paints their property. It may also confuse and scare off many opportunities for artists, where building owners will simply say no to the proposal.
The settlement, which we covered in Tell It to The Judge ; Graffiti Artists Win in 5 Pointz Case, has infuriated many and thrilled others expressing their opinion on social media. One of our 5 Ptz postings on Facebook this week garnered 1,300 comments, a nest of misunderstanding mediated by the occasional level head, offset by congratulations and victory laps. Naturally, folks from other parts of the country insulted us New Yorkers. Welcome to the world of graffiti and Street Art!
The Black Panther movie has many New Yorkers enthralled as it premiered on Tuesday night at the Museum of Modern Art. Theaters drew entire families and school groups many standing in line in costume as they waited to see powerful and positive black super-heroes and heroines. The Times Magazine says it is a defining moment for black America.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Atomik, Bigod, City Kitty, Daniel Eime, Desla, Exit.Enter.K, Fatal Fake, Free the Nipple, Gane, Gebraël, Kram, Little Ricky, Obey, Texas, We’kup, and Zest B.
Barcelona Street Art may have been booted from many streets a few years ago during a period of commercial fueled gentrification but that organic scene sparked a generation of talents who continue to transform abandoned spots nevertheless. We continue to see fully executed pieces from this area of Spain that are highly imaginative and technically tight, like these dark characters from graffiti writer DavidL.
In an abandoned restaurant 40 miles outside BCN artist DavidL has created a menagerie of wicked characters, all from his fantastical cogitations and frequently inspired by comics and cinema. A recent post with images by Fer Acala focused on the aerosol painters’ famous people and/or characters.
In these new images by LluÍs Olivé Bulbena we see another breed of characters from this versatile artist – perhaps taking inspiration from the spirits who are still inhabiting this former house and restaurant.
Photographer Fer Alcala recently explored an abandoned place known to some as Fraggle Rock with Street Artist/graffiti writer DavidL, who is specializing in personality infused portraits of cinematic and pop personae drawn primarily from the second half of the 20th century. Today he tells BSA readers about his experience on this road trip.
How I spent one day with DavidL in a marvelous abandoned place in the middle of nowhere watching him paint
~ Fer Acala
After 25 years writing graffiti, DavidL has found his own way of working. It’s funny because one of the inherent issues about graffiti and street art is visibility. All the trains, the bombing, the tagging…it’s all about being noticed, being every f-ing where. It has been like this since day one (Taki 183, Terror161, 1UP…you know how it works).
Maybe it’s a sign of the days that we are living with social media, communication 2.0, etcetera. It’s obvious that if you have certain skills managing all this and a little bit of talent, plus a pinch of good taste, you can reach a global audience and show your work to the entire world even when you are concentrating the majority of your creations in a secret location.
What I like about David’s way of working is that he creates his own world. I’m not speaking about his wonderful caricatures. No. I mean that he has built (is still building) a certain kind of artwork with a lot of discipline and a strong working ethic behind it. Almost a hermit when we speak about painting walls, David is creating a beautiful personal universe ruled by his own choices. And, hey! It totally works.
Some days ago I had the chance to accompany David to his ‘headquarters’. I can’t say much about the location, but it took a while to go there by car from Barcelona and the enchanted abandoned landscape was astonishing. Obviously, I wasn’t the first person to be there. Everyone who drives by can have their own “urbex” experience in this abandoned place and they wouldn’t be disappointed with their findings.
Other artists and friends have painted there but I felt very honored to have the opportunity to go with David, to explore and to watch him create a piece from nothing. It felt like a privilege to enter his world invited by the host and to witness the whole process.
Despite the cold, the hunger, and the absence of beers, it was important for me to capture the details. I wanted to share the thoughts and the doubts, to see the commitment behind the creation of a piece in a single room for seven hours while listening to hip hop beats. I explored the place and went here and there but it is not and everyday experience for me to witness such a private way of working outside of the four walls of a studio.
David’s pieces are about pop culture. He chooses them kind of randomly and takes them to his own world. Movies, comic books, art figures…have being transformed using a very recognizable style. As a part of the process, DavidL keeps the original sketches and drawings and he sells them at a very reasonable price.
It’s just a matter of time before DavidL is discovered and we both wonder if he will be able to keep this place and the art of its walls under the radar much longer. How long it will it continue to paint in places like this without time constriction and be peaceful and be calm and work without any hurries and be in control of the timing and go back there the next day to finish the work?
I haven’t the answers to all these questions, but what I know is that there are still tons of empty rooms waiting for DavidL to paint them. And, my friends, that will happen for sure. – FA
Spanish artist Gonzalo Borondo, from Valladolid, arrives at LuzMadrid Festival with Redentora, a site-specific installation that continues his steady movement …Read More »
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
