All posts tagged: Brooklyn Street Art

NemO’s, Ericailcane and Andrea Casciu Ride a Tandem Resistance In Bologna, Italy.

October 15, 2018 Artists

Highlighting collective efforts that advance events during war and the tales of heroism, butchery, resistance, intrigue, and subterfuge that are braided into historical retelling, three Italian Street Artists commemorated citizen resistance and a Nazi massacre in a lengthy mural for the Penneli Ribelli Festival this month in Bologna.

Naked men share the elongated tandem bicycle with uniformed fighters, and each character contains details and symbology that point to events or qualities known to locals of a certain generation about the Marzabotto massacre that killed between 770 and 1,000 civilians, now presented to a new one in this city where these events took place.

Street Artist NemO’s tells us that this first edition of the Penneli Ribelli Festival is born in memory of the events that happened during the Second World War.

Ericailcane . NemO’s . Andrea Casciu for Pennelli Ribelli Festival. Bologna, Italy. October 2018. (photo © NemO’s/Andrea Casciu)

At the center of the story is the resistance by everyday Italians of various ages, genders, and social classes, a movement known as the Italian resistance and the Italian Partisans, or Partigiani. The icon of the festival is a wolf in honor of the Partisan who led the group, Mario Musolesi, whose nickname was “Lupo”, or “Wolf”.

Pennelli Ribelli Festival. Bologna, Italy. October 2018. (photo © NemO’s/Andrea Casciu)

“Here a big battle broke out between the Nazis and the Partigiani, who fought for the freedom of Italy,” he tells us. “This is one of the most important areas, because here was where the largest group of civilian Partigiani were killed by the Nazis as revenge.”

Nemo’s naked men, hapless and without even bicycle seats, appear unprepared for any battle, burdened and exposed. Andrea Casciu’s “uniformed” riders are prepared, comfortable, confident, even jubilant in the efforts forward – their red star and flags of resistance assuring victory.

Ericailcane. Pennelli Ribelli Festival. Bologna, Italy. October 2018. (photo © NemO’s/Andrea Casciu)

The three artists worked for twelve hours a day for four days on the side of the old Lama di Reno paper mill that closed in 2013. Locals of various ages stopped to inquire about the stretched bicycle and its meanings, and local news accounts say that many people in the neighborhood supported the artists work.

“The full presentation is meant as a symbol of the resistance,” says NemO’s, “in honor of the women who, with their bicycles, carried secret messages and food for the people hidden on the forest.

A badger at the head of the procession breaks apart traps of war that were meant to ensnare and disable, the kerchiefed animal even converting one into a stringed instrument to play.

Ericailcane. Pennelli Ribelli Festival. Bologna, Italy. October 2018. (photo © NemO’s/Andrea Casciu)

NemO’s . Andrea Casciu. Pennelli Ribelli Festival. Bologna, Italy. October 2018. (photo © NemO’s/Andrea Casciu)

NemO’s. Pennelli Ribelli Festival. Bologna, Italy. October 2018. (photo © NemO’s/Andrea Casciu)

Andrea Casciu. Pennelli Ribelli Festival. Bologna, Italy. October 2018. (photo © NemO’s/Andrea Casciu)

For more information on the Pennelli Ribelli festival https://www.facebook.com/pennelliribellifestival/

Artists:

Andrea Casciu https://www.facebook.com/casciuandrea/

Nemo’s https://www.facebook.com/whoisnemos/

Ericailcane https://www.facebook.com/ericailcane/

BSA Images Of The Week: 10.14.18

October 14, 2018 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Hope it isn’t trite, but don’t give up on your dreams – that’s what Street Artist AJ Lavilla advises in this piece on the sidewalk in Brooklyn. Dude and Dudette, this life can kick the stuffing out of you or just gradually wear you down, but we encourage you to keep you eyes on the prize! You can do it, in fact, you must.

In addition we have a Kiwi (Owen Dippie) in Brooklyn and an Australian (Lister) in Berlin this week. In fact, most of what follows is from a recent visit in that city we think of as a sister to Brooklyn – the chaotically beautiful Berlin. Special thanks to Various & Gould for helping us ID some of these works as well.

So here is our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring AJ LaVilla, Anthony Lister, Crypoe, Hyland Mather, Marycula, Owen Dippie, OXOX, Pappas Pärlor, Styro, and Vyoky.

Top Image: AJ Lavilla (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Owen Dippie (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Anthony Lister in Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Styro in Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Styro standing on Push in Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hyland Mather in Moscow for Artmossphere Biennale 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

VYOKY in Moscow. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pappas Pärlor in Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentidied artist in Moscow. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

OXOX in Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Crypoe in Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

La Rouille at Urban Nation Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Care at Urban Nation Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist (but it looks a lot like Carlos Mare’s B Boyz. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist memorial in Moscow. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Marycula at Urban Nation Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

David Walker in Studio Prepping for “Shake Your Skin Loose”

October 13, 2018 Artists

We’re pleased today to bring new works from David Walker in studio as he prepares for his first US solo show at Black Book Gallery in Denver, “Shake Your Skin Loose”. A departure from his style that many have seen in murals in many cities, these new works are less literal, more impressionist; a product of his own “shaking loose” of expectations for his work.

David Walker at work in his studio. (photo © Yuli Gates)

The works on paper particularly remind us of the public spots where paper advertisements are posted – getting damaged by time and weather, ripped off time and again to make way for new ones, revealing traces of the old. With heavy paint overlaid with irony and personal phrases, they’re are more raw than we are used to seeing the controlled and thoughtful Walker, making way for emotion and imprecision.

David Walker. His studio. (photo © Yuli Gates)

“In the age of social media where the treatment of others is inhuman at times and the currency is judgement: Like/Dislike, Left/Right, Us/Them, Pretty/Ugly – All done in a millisecond,” says Walker en route to the new works. “I feel like portraiture and painting or ‘slow media’ is becoming more vital. A good painting can elevate its subject, command inspection, ask questions of the viewer.”

David Walker. His studio. (photo © Yuli Gates)

“Whether sitting completely still or sleeping we are internally pulsating as our physiological systems constantly work to keep us functioning,” says the gallery text accompanying the show. “Our nervous system crackles with electricity, blood vessels expand and contract from head to toe in perfect harmony while our mind swirls with contemplation”

David Walker. His studio. (photo © Yuli Gates)

David Walker at work in his studio. (photo © Yuli Gates)

David Walker. “Lydia”. Work on canvas. (photo © David Walker)

David Walker. “Jelena”. Work on canvas. (photo © David Walker)

David Walker. “Dorcas”. Work on canvas. (photo © David Walker)

David Walker. “Alex”. Work on canvas. (photo © David Walker)

David Walker. “So This is a Broken Heart”. Work on paper. (photo © David Walker)

David Walker. “Tiger On a Tiger Skin Rug”. Work on paper. (photo © David Walker)

David Walker’s exhibition “Shake Your Skin Loose” opens today at Black Book Gallery in Denver, CO. Click HERE for further details.

BSA Film Friday 10.12.18

October 12, 2018 Artists

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

Now screening :
1. The (mostly) True Story of Hobo Graffiti
2. Bathroom Run at Urban Spree in Berlin
3. 1UP Crew in Moscow for Artmossphere Biennale 2018

BSA Special Feature: The (mostly) True Story of Hobo Graffiti

Anthropologists and graffitiologists have been trying to piece together the antecedents for mark-making in the modern era. Many times the history is rather North America-based, as is this particular tributary, but of course our need to leave proof of our existence is global and forever. How to fit that into a 3 minute video that won’t send Millenials to sleep? Instead, we present: Hobo Graffiti! Have a good ride friends.

Bathroom Run at Urban Spree in Berlin

This would be the precisely perfect time for Smell-O-Vision! Sometimes photographer Jaime Rojo finds a location so completely three dimensionally awe-inspiring that the only way to fully share it with you is through video. Like the Sistine Chapel, for example. Or the bathrooms at Urban Spree! Imagine these during a night of eclectically selected music thumping, full of a splendid selection of thespians, punks, painters, poets, fornicators, miscreants, and the occasional real estate investor all drunkenly scuffling through – and you’ll get a better idea of these walls in all their glory.

1UP Crew in Moscow for Artmossphere Biennale 2018

A few weeks ago in Moscow we had the opportunity to co-curate the exhibition for the Artmossphere Biennale 2018 with some knowledgeable and talented folks and leaders in the expansive field of graffiti/Street Art/urban art/contemporary art. Among those were the envelope pushing all-city, all-world 1UP crew. Anonymous and amorphous, you never know who is behind the t-shirt mask, but when the cans start there is no doubt. Here are a couple from the crew who left their mark at Winzavod while on break from installing their work in the Biennale.

Marx Turns 200 in Montevideo. 3 Street Artists Paint “After Marx” for Goethe-Institut

October 11, 2018 Artists

Karl Marx had his 200^th birthday this year, proudly rocking a “Black Lives Matter” t-shirt.

Vince. Tunnel , Avenida 8 de October. Montevideo, Uruguay. September 2018. (photo © Various & Gould)

“History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce,” said the author of The Communist Manifesto, and to mark the bicentennial of the polarizing figure in Montevideo, Street Artists Various & Gould (Germany), Min8 (Uruguay) and Vince (France) created new artworks along the Avenida 8 de October and the walls of a former prison, now turned art space.

“The Goethe-Institut in cooperation with the French Embassy took the bicentenary of Karl Marx as an opportunity to discuss what remains of Marx today, and what we can learn from him,” says Katharina Ochse, the director of Goethe-Institut Uruguay. “The idea of inviting three artists from different countries was to obtain very different perspectives of people who have had very different experiences in their past with the ideas of Marx.”

Collectively the program is entitled „Después de Marx“, or “After Marx”

Vince. Tunnel , Avenida 8 de October. Montevideo, Uruguay. September 2018. (photo © Various & Gould)

In Vince’s portrait of Marx you realize that the beard he sported is very modern and a bit bookish, perfect for the political theorist and revolutionary socialist of 2018. Supporting the “Black Lives Matter” movement is a given, as you know he would be in the thick of thirty different socio-political initiatives on this eve of another economic crash. In another image of Marx posed with Engels, the two look like a couple of college bros with send-ups of modern novelty t-shirts.

Various & Gould “Despues de Marx”. Sketch. Tunnel , Avenida 8 de October. Montevideo, Uruguay. September 2018. (photo © Various & Gould)

Various & Gould “Despues de Marx”. Tunnel , Avenida 8 de October. Montevideo, Uruguay. September 2018. (photo © Roger Eychenne)

The Berlin based art duo Various & Gould took an abstract decontructivist approach to the German philosopher, a free-associative recombining of elements of his physical and his theories.

“Marx does not appear as a complete portrait with us – only in the form of his typical beard,” says Various. “The rest of the head is made up of more abstract fragments and industrial elements such as a chimney, a gear and an actual still existing landmark in Montevideo, an old gasometer.”

Various & Gould “Despues de Marx”. Tunnel , Avenida 8 de October. Montevideo, Uruguay. September 2018. (photo © Various & Gould)

Gould expands on their aesthetic answer to a complex character and symbol. “His profound scientific analysis of working conditions and production processes seems to be the core of his work. From this examination of relationship between man and work, we have been inspired to a metaphorical game with human elements and machine parts. And the infinity sign at the other end of the tunnel, in combination with gears, is a tongue-in-cheek symbol of never-ending work.”

Various & Gould “Despues de Marx”. Sketch. Tunnel , Avenida 8 de October. Montevideo, Uruguay. September 2018. (photo © Various & Gould)

For her part, Uruguayan graffiti writer and style experimentalist Min8, working comfortably here in her hometown in this South American capital, employed symbol and metaphor, combining the royal eagle and the lion, which she calls her personal totem.

Min8. Tunnel , Avenida 8 de October. Montevideo, Uruguay. September 2018. (photo © Various & Gould)

“I wanted to represent the fight, the struggle, and the freedom,” she says. “It is a ‘must’ for me. You should always fight and sacrifice yourself for your goals.” Says Min8.

Min8. Tunnel , Avenida 8 de October. Montevideo, Uruguay. September 2018. (photo © Various & Gould)

The murals are not without detractors however. Photos posted on a Facebook page called “Uruguay Primero” (America First, anyone?) feature a handful of protesters rather respectfully taping handmade posters over the works during the night – each deriding the figure for causing deaths, creating concentration camps and other oppression of the poor.

Image from “Uruguay Primero” Facebook page (photo © Nicolás Quintana)

A commenter on the page was in agreement with the protest, saying “After Marx left this capitalist system, which generated all that that the poster you put said it did. I congratulate you for the intervention.”

In street art terms, they may have “gone over” the works, but they didn’t permanently destroy them, while censuring the message. In an ironic turn of events, a video posted by the group was pulled down by Facebook – another form of censorship.

Presumably this kind of open discussion of ideas would appeal to those savoring the exchange of ideas and ideals, long after Marx.

Various & Gould “Despues de Marx”. Sketch. Tunnel , Avenida 8 de October. Montevideo, Uruguay. September 2018. (photo © Various & Gould)

Various & Gould “Despues de Marx”. With Vince at work on his piece. Tunnel, Avenida 8 de October. Montevideo, Uruguay. September 2018. (photo © Various & Gould)

Vince. Tunnel , Avenida 8 de October. Montevideo, Uruguay. September 2018. (photo © Various & Gould)

Vince. Tunnel , Avenida 8 de October. Montevideo, Uruguay. September 2018. (photo © Vince)

Vince. Tunnel , Avenida 8 de October. Montevideo, Uruguay. September 2018. (photo © Various & Gould)

Vince. Min8 . Various & Gould. Tunnel , Avenida 8 de October. Montevideo, Uruguay. September 2018. (photo © Various & Gould)

Min8 . Various & Gould. Espacio de Arte Contemporaneo. Montevideo, Uruguay. September 2018. (photo © Jessica Porley)

Various & Gould. Espacio de Arte Contemporaneo. Montevideo, Uruguay. September 2018. (photo © Jessica Porley)

Various & Gould. Espacio de Arte Contemporaneo. Montevideo, Uruguay. September 2018. (photo © Various & Gould)

Min8. Espacio de Arte Contemporaneo. Montevideo, Uruguay. September 2018. (photo © Various & Gould)

Min8. Espacio de Arte Contemporaneo. Montevideo, Uruguay. September 2018. (photo © Min8)

Vince. Espacio de Arte Contemporaneo. Montevideo, Uruguay. September 2018. (photo © Various & Gould)

Felipe Pantone: Transformable Systems, Possible Futures at Joshua Liner

October 9, 2018 Artists

Our challenge in the new world may not to fly, but to be grounded.

Felipe Pantone: Transformable Systems at Joshua Liner Gallery. Manhattan, NYC (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Felipe Pantone may see the dangers of the modern age, as he contemplates the over saturation of images and messages – traditional symbols and systems neatly sliced away from their original meanings and histories. It is a world of movement and alienation and dislocation coursing with eye candy and violence. For his current show at Joshua Liner he looks to the kinetic art of the recent past (Victor Vasarely, Carlos Cruz-Diez) and pays homage while setting it alight in the ideal promise of a digital future.

Felipe Pantone: Transformable Systems at Joshua Liner Gallery. Manhattan, NYC (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The graffiti writer, Street Artist, mural painter, kinetic sculptor and multi-media fine artist is brave facing the future; embracing his own 90s childhood full of earlier digital fantasies, now transforming the geometry, waffling the levels and oscillating the transparencies and streaming the patterns. Are these laboratories or galleries. Is this a time, or is this timeless.

“In a powerful dynamic, Pantone extends on the walls with its futuristic style with psychedelic accents that evokes Italian Futurism,” says the show description from the gallery. “There are also abstract and stroboscopic touches that articulate black and white geometric shapes that he combines with bright metallic colors, not unlike the Mire, a visual that appears on the television when there is no show.”

Felipe Pantone: Transformable Systems at Joshua Liner Gallery. Manhattan, NYC (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Felipe Pantone: Transformable Systems is currently on view at Joshua Liner Gallery in Manhattan until October 13th

The Outings Project, Bouguereau, and a Memphis Factory Facade

October 8, 2018 Artists, Interview

Julien de Casabianca of the Outings Project was invited to the Brooks Museum in Memphis, Tennessee last month for an exhibition, workship, lecture, and a monumental installation that we have exclusive shots of today here for you. In accordance with the artists practice in this project, he selected artwork from inside the museum and brought it to the streets in very grand fashion to a part of town that typically would not have occasion to look at this kind of work.

Outings Project. William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s 1886 painting “Au pied de la falaise”. (photo courtesy of Outings Project)

His is a self-realized philosophically-rooted street practice that is intended to democratize the experience of appreciating art and to break past the inhibitions, and often the entrance fee, that the average person has to contend with when entering galleries, museums, or other institutions to see artworks. This seven story tall neoclasssical/realist girl sits on the fire escape of a dilapidated industrial building, geographically and historically far from the milieu of the 19th century French academic painter who created the original.

It is notable that Brooks Museum and other art institutions are somewhat beginning to embrace the Street Art practice in their programming – even as many graffiti and Street Artists have remained uninvited to be exhibited inside the doors or added to permanent collections despite a half century history of painting, sculpting, projecting, and creating installations in public space around the world. In the description for this project the museum webpage says that this project is part of “Brooks Outside, an innovative curatorial program that launched in conjunction with the museum’s centennial in 2016, consisting of an ongoing series of outdoor installations that, depending on each project’s scope, will enliven and invigorate Brooks Museum grounds, Overton Park, or our community at large.”

Outings Project. William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s 1886 painting “Au pied de la falaise”. (photo courtesy of Outings Project)

Mssr. de Casabianca tells us that this is only the first of 3 large wheat-pastes he is planning to do. The remaining two will be chosen in collaboration with the community and as part of a workshop he is planning. He says that he wants to consult with people who live in the area and that there will be a voting process.

We spoke with the artist about the project to find out more about his Memphis project.

Brooklyn Street Art: What is this original piece of art and where did you find it?
Julien de Casabianca: It’s William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s 1886 painting “Au pied de la falaise” (At the Foot of the Cliff). Its part of the Brooks Museum collection.

Brooklyn Street Art: Why does it resonate for you and how do you think she likes her new home?
Julien de Casabianca: She seems melancholic, I wanted to give her a second life in the real life, liberate her from the frame. I feel always guilty when I leave from a wall where I pasted a child, as in Nuart Aberdeen in Scotland, because even they are giants, I feel they are so fragile in this violent world and in this contemporary world. She’s a time traveller, she doesn’t know our new world and she’s probably surprise and moved.

Outings Project. William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s 1886 painting “Au pied de la falaise”. (photo courtesy of Outings Project)

Brooklyn Street Art: One of your underlying philosophies is to bring art that is hidden away to the public. Why is this important for you and society?

Julien de Casabianca: Museums are always in rich areas. I bring the art from the museum to paste in a poor area. Beauty has to be shared too. Classical beauty as well. There is lot of urban street art in poor areas which is of course amazing and beautiful, but where there is modern architecture and street art there and there is no place for the classical beauty. And the classical beauty has one power: to reunite all generations about a same taste. Old, young, teenagers, everybody loves what I paste, and that is not normal, not ordinary. It’s because we have all something in common; a long history of art and beauty that built the present. Nike is a brand and a goddess from Antiquity. Apple is a brand and an apple formed Adam & Eve. These two brand names this century have continuity 2000 year old stories that we still talk of!

Read more about the Outings Project at the Brooks Museum HERE.

BSA Images Of The Week: 10.07.18

October 7, 2018 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

This week Banksy shredded his piece at Sotheby’s and Kavanaugh was approved to shred your future. Dang, a lot of people got seriously punked bro.

Other than that we have to say to New York, we love you because of your fabulous diversity – and the fact that you prove every day that we can all get along really well even though we are all kinds of cultures and languages and backgrounds.

If only those (primarily) old white men who are legislating from Washington and from corporate board rooms could see and appreciate the richness that we have here in New York – they might realize that they have been completely and utterly foolish and blind to their own people, which is all of us.

It feels like this swing to the right is not about ideology but about protecting power and wealth – and we’re witnessing the dying Old Boy network kicking and screaming to protect the system that has served them best. How else can you explain the contingency that once called themselves the moral majority today exhibit almost zero morality – being brutal, haughty, and defiantly cynical – and still getting support?

On a happier note, how about those Yankees M-I-RIGHT ?

So here is our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Cash4, City Kitty, d.w. krsna, Dede, Izzrad, Kobra, Mark DiSuvero, Mer, Mr. Toll Troll, Mr. Tongue, Nitzan Mintz, Nobs, Onis, Pleks, Pork, Sickid, Stray Ones, and Subway Doodle.

Top Image: PLEKS. Where is it? (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mr Toll Troll (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Stray Ones (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Subway Doodle for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sickid (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cash4 . Pork (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Poem 2 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dede . Nitzan Mintz (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Poem 3 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Poem 5 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mr. Tongue (photo © Jaime Rojo)

City Kitty (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Be Cool Dont Trip (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Not Invader (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Girl With a Shred Balloon: Banksy Slices Live at Sotheby’s

October 6, 2018 Artists

Street Art fans are completely familiar with the ephemeral nature of art.

Sotheby’s may not be.

Last night at the venerated auction house in London the performance artist and wittily cerebral Street Artist Banksy apparently self-destructed an artwork that only seconds beforehand was hammered in at roughly a million.

Part of the October Contemporary Art Evening Auction here during the Frieze week, the auction had just sold the iconic “Girl With Balloon” when it slipped downward through the bottom of the frame before bidders eyes, turning the work into pasta pieces to be boiled and served al dente with a rich sayonara sauce.

Bansky. Image courtesy of the artist from the official Bansky Instagram account.

“Has Sotheby’s been framed?”
“Did Banksy sell and buy the piece for a stunt?”
“Is the art more or less valuable now?”
“Is Banksy Sticking it to the Man?
“Do unicorns really fart glitter?”

While the sometimes seemingly drunken conjecture and #hashtagging about who engineered this performance and who’s sorry/not sorry ricochets across our screens, a video that has been attributed to the artist asserts that this cutting achievement in ambush performance was on the boards for a while. As usual with the artist/team working collectively as Banksy, its not crystal clear who’s done what.

But there’s no doubt that Banksy again is the star and the reviews are apoplectic!

BSA Film Friday: 10.05.18

October 5, 2018 Artists

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

Now screening :
1. “Wasteland Wanderers” by MZM Projects in Two Parts
2. Medianeras Murales for Contorno Urbano and 12 + 1 Project
3. Pixel Pancho X Punto Urbano Art Musuem by Owley

BSA Special Feature: “Wasteland Wanderers” by MZM Projects

This week we feature a couple of new film pieces from the Ukraine based duo of Kristina Borhes and Nazar Tymoschuk which fairly present an insightful treatise on a particular flavor of Post-Graffiti. Think of it as a two volume textbook and your professors will guide you through the darkness into the light.

A Dilogy.

“The place tells you what to do,” is a poetic and truthful phrase uttered in “Night” on the relationship a vandal has to an abandoned factory, school, home, medical facility; it is spacial and alchemical.

It is also personal, says the female narrator. “The presence of their absence,” is something that every Wasteland Wanderer will be familiar with, the knowledge and feeling that others have been there before you. The work is undeniably affected, even created in response.

“The main aim of ‘Wasteland Wanderer/Night’ is to introduce the specific approach used by a particular post-graffiti community; their sentiment regarding abandoned architecture; precise work with the natural environment and consideration of architectural surroundings,” say the directors. Of the 20 artists who participated in the Black Circle Festival held in this abandoned Soviet health resort in Western Ukraine, you can see how the space is a frame and context, if not a lifeblood for many.

Part two is ‘Wasteland Wanderer/Day’, unnarrated by words but accompanied by sound, including the indistinct chatter and whispers that remain in your mind as the noise from your previous location quiets inside your head.

“Just like in real life, the voices of artists are transformed into lines and shapes on the remaining walls of wasteland. Before they left, people made their marks here. Artists in turn just attempted to re-think those marks, therefore this journey is full of recomposed stories and silent narrations.”

The range of styles is appreciable yet the palette is subdued and stark – recalling the desaturated “Homo Sapiens” documentary by Nikolaus Geyrhalter that the directors say inspired the presentation. The voices are many; clear, filtered, transitory, distinct, cryptic, diagrammatic, organic, gestural, bloated, wrapped, stripped, implied.

“Echoes, whispers, shadows, lines.”

WASTELAND WANDERERS / NIGHT

WASTELANDWANDERES / DAY

Wasteland Wanderers dilogy artists: Akey, Am-Am, Anton Varga, BGJA, CXCVIII, Don Forty, Eas, Fruits of the Lump, Kuba, Maniac, Mihail Melnichenko, Nazar Sladkovsky, Nick Viska, No Future, O.K., Orma, Raspazjan Jan, Seikon, Sewer, Serhii Radkevich (aka Teck), Serhii Torbinov (aka York), Simek, Stanislav Turina, SC Szyman, Tabu, Vave.

Medianeras Murales / Contorno Urbano Foundation / 12 + 1 Project

The striped MEDIANERAS gazes upon the humble sneaker as it lounges across this checkerboard floor in Barcelona. Lo-fi. Hi-Cool.

Pixel Pancho X Punto Urbano Art Musuem. Salem, MA By Owley

Decisive, imaginative and boldly street-debonaire in his newest project for the Punto Urbano Art Museum, Pixel Pancho still appears to have a geranium in the cranium. Enjoy the interlude by Owley.

1UP Crew on a Wall in Moscow / Artmossphere Biennale 2018

October 4, 2018 Artists

Berlin’s 1UP Crew was in Moscow to participate in this year’s Artmossphere Biennale. We caught up with the guys for an impromptu action on the walls of the Winzavod Art Center while the installations in the gallery were taking place.

It was good to see them in action without having to climb through holes in fences or dodge the third rail! Here they are in the company of other writers and we’re guessing this spot will become a future Hall of Fame.

Discovering “The Kaos Factory” in Leipzig

October 2, 2018 Artists

The Industrial Revolution ushered in miracles of production, mechanics, engineering, speed, ease of global distribution – possibly the most important event in human history. It also killed cultures, decimated families, poisoned the Earth, air, water, radically changed civil society, enslaved people in dangerous conditions and caused workers to unite as never before.

The flight of industry has now given us incredible relics to explore and create art inside of or upon.

As industrial production migrated away from so-called Western societies in the last four decades we have been gifted the glorious and treacherous legacy of the factories in our cities. Urban explorers are now nearly legion on some cities, graffiti writers and Street Artist part of the mix. While the goals are often at odds – with explorers wishing only to preserve and archive and urban artists interested in finding new canvasses or installation environments – no one denies the sense of wonder and discovery wandering these carcasses of production in preservation or dilapidation.

If you have the luck to explore the steel and broken glass and possibly toxic materials sprayed with names and characters and patterns or adorned with sculptures of found materials spotlighted by natural beams of luminous fine matter, it can all present itself as a splendid chaos.

Or KAOS.

Whenever we travel to a new city as guests for academic talks on Street Art, art curating, or just seeing festivals and exhibitions we make it our priority to visit the forgotten margins of the industrial environs; spots where creativity and loose talk can happen uncensored, without permission and absent considerations of financial gain. The abandoned, decaying buildings like this one serve as a laboratory for many artists around the world, presenting an unintended studio environment and university function for artists who are experimenting, discovering, refining their skills.

We had the good fortune to visit one such place during our most recent trip to Leipzig, Germany on the occasion of our participation in the first edition of Monumenta Art. With our friend and colleague, photographer Nika Kramer we visited 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”.

He gave us a tour of the sprawling compound and told us about how much he loves coming here to paint. He told us stories about how young writers come to the factory to paint and due to their lack of experience or knowledge of “street rules” go over his work or his friends work and how he has to confront them and inform them that it may look like chaos to some, but there is actually an unwritten set of guidelines of respect that graff writers show for one anothers’ work – usually.

Similarly these young, inexperience writers take unnecessary risks while walking through the occasionally dangerous factory ruins, he says, with sometimes disastrous results. Today we share with BSA readers some of the many KAOS rooms here where the hospitable graffiti writer has done installations, finding a certain joy when he sees people who have managed to break in to enjoy the works – or to add their own.

Our thanks to KAOS for sharing with us the glorious chaos.

The video shows the attempt to implode the smokestack in the factory in 1995. While the implosion was somewhat successful it didn’t go as planned and it could have been a fatal disaster for the community around the factory. The photo below the video shows the very bottom part of the smokestack as it currently is and to the left it shows the potential damage to property and most likely fatalities as well should the stack have fallen to the left.

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