Italian street artist Bifido finishes this rough wall with the sweetest of sentiments here as summer draws ever nearer to its end. Quoting Keats, as romantics are wont to do, Bifido tells us his latest staged photo wheatpaste is transparent in its sentiment, opaque in his specific meaning.
“It is a hug, so it is something that can be shared,” he offers. “For this time I have nothing to say about this piece.” Enough said.
“You turned a wall of dust into an artwork,” says an organizer of the ArtAeroRap, the International Urban Arts Festival sponsored by a digital services firm with municipal and city partners. The current “2021 Vaccine Edition” features music and art installations and performances here in La Bañeza, a municipality located in León, Spain.
Mounted on a grizzled façade that fell apart while he was installation his new artwork on it, Bifido’s photographic mural is on one of the most decrepit walls we’ve seen in a while.
“I’m super proud of this piece because I chose a really, really bad wall.,” he tells us. “Full of dust, shitty things, holes, different materials and levels. I had a really good time there.”
“Stanotte, riesco ad immaginarti… So che indosserai la tua bellezza, un sorriso di tale gioia, così brillante e luminoso, come quando con occhi rapiti e doloranti, perso in una dolce meraviglia, io ti guardai, io ti guardai!”
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening: 1. Banksy: Great British Spraycation 2. NYC! Sound (Back) On 3. Sofles in Brisbane featuring Gamo & Kitsa
BSA Special Feature: Banksy : Great British Spraycation
The summer days begin to wane and you’ve played all the games with your siblings and cousins three times or more. Before heading back to school, time to rummage around Uncle Bob’s garage and find a can of spray paint he used to fix a kitchen chair for Aunt Keisha. You wonder to yourself, “What could we do with this?”
BANKSY: Great British-Spraycation
NYC! Sound (Back) On
Been waiting for Covid to give us a break so New York could get back to our version of normal. This summer it’s still been hard but New York is definitely back in all its many ways. Makes us wanna dance!
Sofles in Brisbane with Feat. Gamo&Kitsa
You been getting up lately? Just released here’s a Brisbane, Australia wall jam with Sofles in collaboration with honored guests Gamo and Kitsa from Marseille, France.
The brilliant Patrick Hartl & Christian Hundertmark (C100) have been at the graffiti/street art/contemporary art nexus for much of the last decade, delineating the boundaries, and then artfully shifting them.
A multi-year project now welcoming guests at Urban Nation’s Special Projects space in Berlin reveals the imprecision of terminologies and commonly-used nomenclature in this period of hyper-hybridization.
Mick La Rock/Aileen Middel VERSUS Layer Cake. Versus Project. Urban Nation Berlin. (photo courtesy of UN/layer Cake)
When you consider the volley of influences that bounce and collide on metro cars and street walls and digital screens these days, it makes sense to describe the experimentation now afoot as a dialogue. As the Munich-based duo called Layer Cake, the two artists have been doing exactly that with one another’s art for a half dozen years.
“One begins to paint, the other reacts,” say Hartl and Hundertmark in their recent interview for the UN website. “Thus (we) conduct an artistic dialogue. The marker asks a question, the paint can answers, the brush completes or provokes,” they say, “until both artists agree that the mural is finished.”
It is not an automatic process for graffiti writers to create work this way; as one of the basic tenets of the street, you don’t go over someone else’s work unless you mean to show disrespect or provoke a battle.
Drawing upon an eclectic selection of participants with experience on the street, the two act as curators of the new show called ‘Versus’. The rules are similar to their personal practice – produce a collaborative piece with another artist whose style and references may not match yours directly – with each contributor agreeing when the piece is complete.
The clashing and crashing can be seen on the canvass as each new addition rebalances the abstraction, and not everyone was sure it would work.
Bisco Smith VERSUS Layer Cake. Versus Project. Urban Nation Berlin. (photo courtesy of UN/layer Cake)
Artist Flavien Demarigny hesitated to participate versus Layer Cake because he wasn’t sure if he could work with their style that often incorporates calligraffiti techniques, he says. “As it is a major ingredient of Layer Cake‘s visual language I wasn’t sure if I was the right fit for it,” he says in a Facebook post.
“Then I remembered this is precisely what collaborations are about: pushing your limits, opening your perception, and create together new horizons. As a result, we started three collaborative pieces and one came out fantastic, which we decided to present in this show. Their choice of sticking to the repetitive pattern of my style was the wise one, so the two vocabularies can interact, as accidents make it unexpected and create the poetry of it.”
Dave The Chimp VERSUS Layer Cake. Versus Project. Urban Nation Berlin. (photo courtesy of UN/layer Cake)
With 13 different artists passing canvasses back and forth – each adding and subtracting, obliterating and augmenting, they say that at the root of the process was a rule not to consult, but rather, react.
The results fairly wrestle under the constraints, each cutting forward, marking and gesturing and claiming space on the canvass. These works illustrate the tension you may associate with the harshly pounding street in cities, sometimes still glittering insistently despite the struggle.
Usugrow VERSUS Layer Cake. Versus Project. Urban Nation Berlin. (photo courtesy of UN/layer Cake)
“It is not easy to make an intervention in someone else’s painting,” says graffiti style-writing veteran Mick La Rock of her ingrained hesitancy during the art-making process. “You want to avoid taking the painting over and make it your own style. Every part I added to the painting was thought over at least ten times before painting it,” she says in an interview for the show.
On view in the Special Projects room near the museum, “Versus” is a sharp reminder of the community that joins together on walls and surfaces all over the world. Each style challenges the one next to it, sometimes holds it accountable, other times revealing its true nature. The curators say “The Versus Project is an artistic experiment in communication, challenging dialogue, the struggle for a final form.”
Chaz Bojorquez VERSUS Layer Cake. Versus Project. Urban Nation Berlin. (photo courtesy of UN/layer Cake)Wandal VERSUS Layer Cake. Versus Project. Urban Nation Berlin. (photo courtesy of UN/layer Cake)Flavien VERSUS Layer Cake. Versus Project. Urban Nation Berlin. (photo courtesy of UN/layer Cake)Layer Cake. Versus Project. Urban Nation Berlin. (photo courtesy of UN/layer Cake)
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS:
Layer Cake (Patrick Hartl und Christian Hundertmark aka C100), Chaz Bojorquez (Los Angeles / US), Mick La Rock / Aileen Middel (Amsterdam / NL), Sebastian Wandl (München / DE), Dave the Chimp (Berlin / DE), Bisco Smith (New York / US), Vincent Abadie Hafez (Zepha) (Toulouse / FR), Formula 76 (Hamburg / DE), Usugrow (Tokio / JP), Bust (Basel / CH), Jake (Amsterdam / NL), Egs (Helsinki / FI), Imaone (Tokio / JP) und Flavien (Apt / FR).
“The Versus Project” curated by Layer Cake is currently open to the general public at the Urban Nation Project Space. The exhibition will be on view until December 31, 2021. Click HERE to find more information about the exhibition, Covid protocols, and schedule.
Project space of the URBAN NATION Museum, Bülowstrasse 97, 10783 Berlin
Our thanks to writer Igor López at El Pais for his article about Martha Cooper and our exhibition running right now in Berlin until Spring 2022. Appearing in the Spanish newspaper’s magazine called ICON, Lopez describes the New York social matrix of the 1970s with pithy acuity; one where the city seemed at war on many fronts while various important cultural scenes were germinating alongside graffiti writing and musicians like Afrika Bambaataa, Grandmaster Flash or DJ Kool Herc who were laying the foundations of hip hop as the dominant global culture.
“One of the first measures of Mayor Ed Koch, who had taken office in 1978 to save the city from bankruptcy and chaos, was to put concertina wire around the subway garages to prevent “vandals” from accessing the city at night,” he writes.
Martha Cooper: Taking Pictures. Urban Nation Museum Berlin. El Pais ICON Magazine Madrid
Enter the documentarians who capture the quickly shifting winds of change, like Martha Cooper, and forty years later we have solid evidence of multi-cultures in motion.
“I thought I was capturing a phenomenon unique to the city and that it would disappear in a few years,” recalls Cooper of her now seminal body of photography that captured the birth of many movements. Dryly modest, Cooper doesn’t brag much. “I am surprised and grateful that my photos continue to be of interest.”
Check out this article in print and online, and please feel welcome to Urban Nation on our behalf this fall, winter, and spring!
Martha Cooper: Taking Pictures. Urban Nation Museum Berlin. El Pais ICON Magazine MadridMartha Cooper: Taking Pictures. Urban Nation Museum Berlin. El Pais ICON Magazine MadridMartha Cooper: Taking Pictures. Urban Nation Museum Berlin. El Pais ICON Magazine Madrid
The exhibition, Martha Cooper: Taking Pictures at Urban Nation Museum for Urban and Contemporary Art in Berlin is currently open to the general public. To learn more about the exhibition’s details and schedules click HERE
To commemorate the third anniversary of the collapse of a 210 meter section of the Ponte Morandi on August 14, 2018, today we share Dourone’s newest mural in Genoa, Italy. The bridge collapsed during a torrential rainstorm, crossing the Polcevera river and an industrial area of Sampierdarena. The bridge was gradually replaced, but for many in the city, the events of that day are still very fresh.
“The mural is an homage to the 43 victims of the tragedy,” the mural duo says, “which is why we have used 43 colors for these portraits.”
Dourone. Morandi Bridge. Genoa, Italy. (photo courtesy of Dourone)Dourone. Morandi Bridge. Genoa, Italy. (photo courtesy of Dourone)Dourone. Morandi Bridge. Genoa, Italy. (photo courtesy of Dourone)
We like findings spots that feature walls slammed with street art in a most organic way, the aesthetic signature of a current ecosystem mid-evolution. These spots are often a magnet for street artists to get up in NYC, L.A., Berlin, Lisbon, Madrid, Paris, Barcelona, Mexico City, Miami, Boston, London, and beyond. Usually illegal, they allow the artists a quick way to safely leave their imprint on the chaos of the city, a welcome to international artists on their spraycation as well as locals who relish the feeling of standing among peers. The art is usually limited to small original pieces, stickers, and posters, wheat pastes.
We call them “magnet walls” – and NYC has had its share of them. Now, however, they are increasingly endangered because of Gentrification and the voracious real estate market in the city with its apparent never-ending appetite for building new soaring soul-free glass towers. One spot is still welcoming artists to its walls: Freeman Alley. This favorite enclave, composed of two long walls along a narrow corridor in the Lower East Side, is constantly updated in an organic way with contributions by local and international artists. We have surveyed it for years, often publishing our findings in the popular “BSA Images Of The Week.”
Last week we rolled by the alley again and to our surprise, we discovered a gate ajar; one that leads the lobby of a relatively new hotel. Usually locked with a code, this secret Bowery spot instructs guests to enter through the alley. Once inside, they’re greeted with a nicely landscaped, small-scale courtyard leading to a lobby. Surprisingly, it is now bursting with new stickers, posters, stencils, paintings, collages, wild imaginings. Technically, this is a legal magnet wall – but most of the artists whose work is on display here can also be found illegally on the walls of the alley. Here’s a fresh selection just for you:
Ah, never mind, there’s gold in these here streets.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring 4sakn, Adrian Wilson, Against Dgrams, Billy Barnacles, Captain Eyeliner, Corn Queen, De Grupo, DLove, Eye Sticker, Goblin, Mister Alek, Moka, More Less Eveything, Plannedalism, Sara Lynne Leo, Stikman, Sule, The Art of Will Power, Trace1, Werd Smoker, and Winston Tseng .
We’ve had the privilege to travel to many cities and cultures over the last decade and a half, from Russian to Chinese to North African to Tahitian and Norwegian, to witness the affecting power of street art on cities, communities, and everyday people. Regardless of the street author’s intent, however earnest or carefully considered, we’re often surprised by the variety of interpretations that can arise from a singular work of art or intervention.
This new mural by the Spanish conceptual artist and social philosopher Escif for this year’s Ljubljana Street Art Festival (LJSAF), begun in Slovenia’s capital in 2019, is just far enough removed from the obvious to have triggered myriad interpretations. In the race for capturing imagination, adoration, and vilification, his seemingly simple, if unconventional, mural has scored a stunning trifecta.
Our reporter on the ground, the renowned photographer and ethnologist Martha Cooper, one of the few who have stayed active on the graffiti and street art scene continuously for the last five decades, tells us that she keeps thinking that we are witnessing a more pronounced movement toward work like this on the global stage. Describing how the unique curation by festival director Sandi Abram and the program directors Anja Zver and Miha Erjavec strikes a balance, Cooper says they chose what may appear as a quirky selection of artists to participate, “with an emphasis more on conceptual, political work than on aesthetics.”
“I’m wondering if this is a general street art trend or maybe just more prevalent in Eastern Europe,” she says. A veteran of the last decade’s evolution of street art festivals that may now appear as baldly commercial or trite “revitalization” efforts by moribund city councils, Ms. Cooper is fascinated by unusual festivals such as Ljubljana’s. It may be due to Abram’s pursuit of a Ph.D. in anthropology, but Cooper observes that her Slovenian experience was of a program “thoughtfully curated with some interesting and innovative twists.” Since this year’s festival theme centered on the preservation and documentation of street art, Cooper was an honored guest and speaker as well.
With a borrowed bear from a local school child’s wall painting, Escif created a re-contextualization of the original furry friend. Enlarging it to fill the wall of a two-story building and attaching a stolen slogan from a nearby graffitied wall, Escif declared that “ograja mora past” (the fence must fall). The reactions haven’t stopped since. Depending on the opiner, the deceptively simple mural is addressing the contentious issue of immigration with Croatia, the historical memories Slovenians have of Hitler, or the increasingly impeded flow of wildlife along historical natural routes through Europe.
When Sandi took Martha to shoot the original bear painting, Mojca, a teacher in Vodmat Kindergarten, shared a sense of optimism she had by witnessing the resounding waves of impact that rippled outward from the original project. “The goal of the project was for the children to develop the heterogeneous language of art. If by painting this bear we have impacted society and the environment, then we have accomplished more than we could have ever imagined.”
The thoughtful and resolute Escif, as ever, developed and delivered a manifesto on his piece, “The Fences Must Fall”, where he states that “Painting a big wall in a big city is a firm and decisive position” for an artist.
“I set out to find the truth that children paint on the walls of kindergartens. I cruised around the city streets, looking for the truth that crazy people spray paint on the walls. As I matched the truths of crazy people and children, of the walls of the former with the walls of the latter, the idea for the mural was born. An angry bear roaring ‘the fences must fall’.”
He continues, “As a foreigner, ignorant of the local reality, I couldn’t quite grasp what this mural was all about. Fortunately, it seems that the locals came to wise insights. Some seemed annoyed by the content. Others seemed happy and read it in a variety of ways. They spoke of the bears in Slovenia that the government wants to control. Of the cruelty of the border fence with Croatia, where refugees are harmed trying to cross it. Of the wild animals that can’t cross that fence either, locked in with no way to migrate. Of the fences that the government puts up to protect the National Assembly from protests. Of the problem of the privatisation of natural resources. And of many other fences that should be coming down everywhere.”
The simplicity of the design and placement are undoubtedly what makes it most magnetic; If you don’t understand the slogan, you want to. If you do understand it, you may crave the opportunity to respond.
“I found Escif’s wall much more interesting after I understood the story behind it,” says Cooper.
We spoke to directors Abram and Zver about the goals of this year’s festival and why they chose Escif to paint one of the larger, higher-profile walls of the Ljubljana 2021. We discussed how it became a somewhat emblematic piece that was at once surprisingly provocative and also caused dialogue in the streets. “To paraphrase what Escif said about his mural in Ljubljana: painting a mural is a political act, a responsibility, and a commitment,” they say.
“This is also true for the entire production of LJSAF – it is a commitment that requires the recognition that the festival is not a stable and fixed entity, but a heterogeneous and fluid mosaic of events, people, and creativity, operating at a micro and macro level. This is similar to Michel Foucault’s definition of heterotopias – a multiplicity of fragmentary spaces in a single place that allows for spontaneity. LJSAF is also about the experience as the essence of festivals – being part of the festival crowd means mingling with other creative bodies and forging new vectors of collaboration.”
Escif appears pleased with the effect as well, perhaps occupying the ideal role of an artist working in public space today in a meaningful way.
“The etymological root of the word ‘politics’ is anything that directs, conditions, or modifies life in cities,” he says. “So painting a big wall in a big city is a big political act, as it directs, conditions, and modifies the urban landscape. Consequently, it also directs, conditions and modifies the lives of the citizens.”
In many cases, we’d have to agree that well-placed graffiti can have a similar effect.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening: 1. DOES. Transition Documentary. Via I Love Graffiti. Directed by Strictua 2. First 20 Years. The Rhythm of Sketching 3. DOES: Magic Water Documentary. Via I Love Graffiti. Directed by Strictua 4. DOES – XL Mural in Antwerp in collaboration with Matthias “zenith” Schoenaerts. Video by Scott Ray George. 5. DOES: Somewhere in Europe. Video by Scott Ray George
BSA Special Feature: He Does it All: 5 In a Row from DOES
From time to time we focus our BSA Film Friday section on one artist or filmmaker. The focus of this Friday’s edition of BSA Film Friday is the Dutch artist DOES.
DOES aka Joos van Barneveld was born in The Netherlands in 1982. Active in graffiti since 1997 DOES was at some point balancing his soccer career with his secret life as a graffiti writer. Becoming a professional soccer player for one of the premier soccer teams in the highest division in his native country, DOES was forced to stop playing soccer after an injury at the age of 28. Joos took this setback as an opportunity to perfect his craft as an artist and to dedicate all his time to the pursuit of his love for art and graffiti. He has since excelled at his craft and is now internationally known for his abstract paintings, murals, and sculptures still based on the letterform. Below we share with you five videos of DOES journey as an artist.
DOES. Transition Documentary. Via I Love Graffiti. Directed by Strictua
First 20 Years. The Rhythm of Sketching
DOES: Magic Water Documentary. Via I Love Graffiti. Directed by Strictua
DOES – XL Mural in Antwerp in collaboration with Matthias “zenith” Schoenaerts. Video by Scott Ray George.
DOES: Somewhere in Europe. Video by Scott Ray George
Meanwhile, artists are still getting up and we must continue living even if we have to take extra precautions and listen to the science and to those who care.
This year’s Welling Court festival in Queens took place under the same health measures as last year. There wasn’t a big block party. The artists painted at their own pace and time sometimes only one alone at the compound – sometimes two at a time.
For the moment, the big gatherings and week-long shenanigans are gone due to Covid. Here are some selections of this year’s proposals and some from previous years that we missed either due to weather, traveling, or simply because those darn cars are always parked in front of the murals.
It’s not every day that you have an 800th anniversary.
Bringing monumental aesthetics, theologic references, and the language of classical architecture to this massive wall at Calle Fernán González, 52, the French duo MonkeyBird celebrates the Burgos Cathedral in grand style. Louis Boidron and Edouard Egea say they worked painstakingly to prepare their tribute to the original workers and artisans who first built the Gothic and Baroque-styled Cathedral, a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1984.
Monkey Bird. “L’ouvreur de chemins” in collaboration with StARTer Cultural Projects. Burgos, Spain. (photo courtesy of StARTer Cultural Projects)
With gradually larger and complex works in the years since they first met in Bordeaux, the street art duo have here shown their academic understanding matches their technical wizardry, and rich appreciation for the interiors crafted over many years. By bringing this cultural wealth into the public sphere, Monkeybird once again shares with everyone who walks by an overwhelming sense of the history and the creative spirit alive. They call the new mural work “L’ouvreur de chemins” (or The Opener of Pathways).
Monkey Bird. “L’ouvreur de chemins” in collaboration with StARTer Cultural Projects. Burgos, Spain. (photo courtesy of StARTer Cultural Projects)
“Our intention was to offer an effect of complex depth and monumentalism,” they say, “combining some of the most spectacular references of the temple, such as the main altarpiece, with its many details, the Golden Staircase, or the circular oculus in the center of Santa María façade.”
You’ll agree they have succeeded in accomplishing their intention. Gazing upward at the soaring work in the presence of the feted cathedral, the sense of the devotion to higher ideals and the potential of humankind may even be evoked; a tall order not easily accomplished.
Monkey Bird. “L’ouvreur de chemins” in collaboration with StARTer Cultural Projects. Burgos, Spain. (photo courtesy of StARTer Cultural Projects)Monkey Bird. “L’ouvreur de chemins” in collaboration with StARTer Cultural Projects. Burgos, Spain. (photo courtesy of StARTer Cultural Projects)Monkey Bird. “L’ouvreur de chemins” in collaboration with StARTer Cultural Projects. Burgos, Spain. (photo courtesy of StARTer Cultural Projects)Monkey Bird. “L’ouvreur de chemins” in collaboration with StARTer Cultural Projects. Burgos, Spain. (photo courtesy of StARTer Cultural Projects)Monkey Bird. “L’ouvreur de chemins” in collaboration with StARTer Cultural Projects. Burgos, Spain. (photo courtesy of StARTer Cultural Projects)
“Atlanta has long been considered a black Mecca,” the summary of the latest INDECLINE press release opines, “And yet it only takes a quick drive out into the country to be standing at ground zero of the “Lost Cause” narrative.”
Today we have the clever retort of the anonymous art interventionists with an ax to grind – targeted, they say at those who would like to continue the racist systems that have allowed perfectly average folks to feel superior for decades, centuries. INDECLINE says they went undercover to gain the confidence of a Civil War memorabilia store owner to surprise the neighborhood with this mélange of smurfs and clever wordplay on the side of his store.
The action, entitled “Respect Existence or Expect Resistance”, was pulled off in Kennesaw, GA, where the George Floyd protests last summer brought many rough conversations to the fore – including some just outside that store. In the heated and somewhat meandering statement put out by INDECLINE that accompanies these photos, they end with “The smartest thing the Confederates ever did was keep us fighting a war of rhetoric after they lost with cannons.”
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
