It’s when you have an opportunity to see a piece of art on the street in person. The combination of portraits, graphic design, and text treatments may spring more from the imagination of those in the design fields but up close you can get an appreciation of the warmth and vulnerability of the figures as well. The stories that are told are down to earth, universal, and here for you to bear witness to.
“Quoting Isaiah 54:17 in the Bible, this mural inspires us and girds us and reminds us that when it comes to systemic racism the battle is not for the faint of heart. Can we get an ‘Amen’?”
Hanging tough is what New York does, and the art in the street is 10X more potent than six months ago. It’s almost cliche to say that Street Art and graffiti are about a conversation on the street, but the words and sentiments being expressed right now on monuments, edifices, and in doorways are a direct reflection of the high-emotion, high-stakes conversations that we must have about the true state of race, freedom and social mobility in 2020 US.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Art 2 Heart Art, Calicho Art, Chris RWK, Col Walnuts, Eortica, Irena Kenny, Jilly Ballistic, John Ahearn, Know Justice, Sac Six, Scratch, Shiro, Top Bun Artist, Zachary Ginsberg, and Zero Productivity.
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week and Happy Pride NYC.
No pride parade today, not that New York needs a special day for LGBTQI parades – that’s simply called walking on the catwalk, err, sidewalk.
The US is officially a pariah on the world stage – banned to travel to Europe. Because, you know, masks. But dude, we’re like in totally good company with other countries like Brazil and Russia. It’s a race to be number 1.
A special shout-out and respect today goes to the creater of the I (heart) NY logo and campaign, Milton Glaser, who passed away this week at 91. Many artists on the street today are aware of his other contributions to graphic design and illustration in the last fifty years or so. Rest in Peace.
In street art news, downtown Manhattan is still largely boarded up, so artists are taking advantage of the new canvasses. You see, there is a silver lining to everything if you look for it. Or a plywood one.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Daze, DPF Studio, Dragon 77, Hek Tad, Sara Lynne Leo, and Stikman.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. 1UP in Napoli “This is Not Art Anymore” Parts 1 & 2 2. FLW_IN – Open Letter
BSA Special Feature: 1UP in Napoli “This is Not Art Anymore” Parts 1 & 2
There is spraycation, and then there is the 1UP Family Reunion, which was recently in Napoli. Members came from far and wide to see one another and to spread the familial gospel in aerosol. There were rounds of cards, bowls of pasta, storytelling, backslapping, and some family fights about perceived slights, or girls. But as far as most dysfunctional families and their reunions go, this one was pretty tame. Yeah, right.
“The architecture
is chaotic and in the midst of it we are just walking around. Roll ups, roll
downs. Partying hard in the streets.”
“There
would be a lot less love in my life without the graffiti, without One United
Power.”
FLW_IN – Open Letter
Musician Joseph Gabriel Harris AKA FLW-IN speaks from the heart in an “Open Letter” about the issues of systemic racism and being a black man in a hostile society that is now openly talking and examining. An American now living in Barcelona, he has an inside/outside perspective that can help bridge gaps in understanding. Of note, he also leans on the talents of a number of street artists/ mural artists and the Black Walls Movement for background art in this piece.
Black Lives Matter is rolling forward, quickly and unevenly, causing revelation, elevation, discomfort, and hopefully eventually liberty and freedom and equality.
Until then, big wheels keep on turning. Berliner’s Various and Gould are the duo behind these new vintage clip-art wonders that may recall the permutations of yesterday’s kaleidoscopes, although the images may be new. That’s the paradox baked in to the truisms that these perennial mixologists offer. Just think of these new powerful and ironic artworks as a mirror on events of this moment, with a through-line to the past.
The murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis on Monday, the murder of Ahmaud Arbery while jogging in Georgia in February, the racist threats and intimidation toward Christian Cooper over the Memorial Day Holiday while he was merely “birding” in Central Park in New York City, Breonna Taylor shot, unarmed in her apartment in March in Louisville; These are the recent examples, but there are more, thousands more…
Street artists and graffiti
writers around the world are responding visually to current events with new works
on the street. Sometimes it is a full-blown community mural or a hand-posted
sign. Other times it is the scrawl of a vandal in text – a visual equivalent to
a scream in the night. When it comes to issues of race and identity, many so-called
western societies are now adding a deliberate massive social and economic dislocation
to the cauldron; one where nearly the whole of the middle class is sliding into
serfdom – and the police are acting like a military.
A street artist from one of the centers of this national uprising who goes by the name HOT TEA tells us about a project he just took to the streets.
“I had to do something for George, being that I live in Minneapolis and am so fed up with police harassment and injustice,” he says. We projected his image on very iconic Minneapolis structures. The feedback while they were being projected was overwhelmingly positive and everyone wanted to help. We need to stick together and make sure that change starts to finally happen.”
As we near the new year we’ve asked a special guest every day to take a moment to reflect on 2016 and to tell us about one photograph that best captures the year for him or her. It’s an assortment of treats for you to enjoy and contemplate as we all reflect on the year that has passed and conjure our hopes and wishes for the new year to come. It’s our way of sharing the sweetness of the season and of saying ‘Thank You’ for inspiring us throughout the year.
Author, editor, curator, and cultivated corraler of unruly Street Artists for exhibitions like “Art in the Streets”, Wynwood Walls, Coney Art Walls, and this falls’ “Magic City” in Dresden, which she co-curated with Carlo McCormick, Ethel Seno is the sage point person for many Street Art, graffiti, and contemporary art heads. Endlessly curious and steeped in the geo-political influences and activist roots of Street Art, Seno shares with us this powerful image that shook her conscience this year.
Ieshia Evans in a Black Lives Matter protest
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Date: July, 2016.
Photograph by Max Becherer / AP
I love this photo by Max Becherer, which went viral this summer, because it is an inspiring example of peaceful resistance against state violence. The photo is of a nurse named Ieshia Evans in a Black Lives Matter protest in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in July 2016 after the fatal shooting of Alton Sterling.
Unfortunately the November presidential election marks 2016 like a historical turning point, and makes it more urgent to act on what we believe in; to stand up against any unprovoked aggression, bullying, or terror being inflicted on innocent people, and against the destruction of our social and natural environments.
I am planning to go to the Women’s March on Washington on January 21st because so much is at stake. As a good friend said, we must never normalize rhetoric rooted in fear, hate, greed, and ignorance. My wish for the new year is that we are braver and more empowered to move forward together.
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
