Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! It’s a melange of cities and styles this week from Berlin, Brooklyn, and Chihuahua, Mexico. The week has been a traditional holiday time in New York and in the US, and people really reconnected with each other with a vengeance, so eager are we to pretend that these are normal times. It is a laundry list of what is going haywire today. Still, families hosted families, many had “friendsgiving” celebrations, volunteered to serve meals to folks through various organizations, or sat quietly at home and made a list of things they were thankful for. Gratitude is the attitude.
Join us for this week’s wild ride through the streets and hidden margins of cities, our weekly interview with the street. This week we feature BAD35, Birds CRS Crew, Bjorn Out, DSE, ESFER, Fractures194, J’Dart, Mate, MODE NBC, One Truth, Roker TCK, Sestry Feldamn, and TBanBox.
Mexican street artist, muralist, and graffiti writer Mode Orozco — known as Mode NBC — is currently transforming the perimeter walls of Estadio de Béisbol Manuel L. Almanza in Chihuahua City with a sweeping new mural. Originally from Tijuana and active for more than 25 years in graffiti and large-scale portraiture, he has gained recognition for honoring sports icons, including UFC champion Brandon Moreno and boxer Yamileth Mercado, on public walls throughout northern Mexico.
This latest commission from the State of Chihuahua highlights standout hometown baseball players, along with respected broadcasters, sports journalists, and Mexican Olympians who have earned medals on the world stage. Mode NBC has been working on the piece intermittently for the past two months and expects to complete it by the end of December — adding another significant chapter to his ongoing celebration of athletes who inspire their communities.
This week we’re hitting Berlin and Prague on a quick-turn street survey, looking at how each city is evolving its own visual language in real time. You feel the contrast immediately: Berlin may still carry the reputation for boundary-stretching experimentation, but Prague is stepping forward with its own confident push — inventive palettes, disciplined letterforms, and murals that challenge the assumptions of what belongs in a city celebrated for its Gothic and Baroque silhouettes. Where Berlin is sprawling now with more sanctioned façades and yet an intense train graffiti scene, Prague concentrates its energy into transitional zones and tight networks of writers and muralists. Both cities are accelerating — but Prague surely has a particular spark right now, maybe because it’s new to us, or because you can divine a kind of tension between reverence and rebellion that makes walls talk in new ways.
Berlin’s streets are currently balancing big, commissioned façade murals with a still-active, letter-based graffiti scene that keeps pushing trains, rooftops, and hidden spots. Artists and writers are freely mixing spray paint with stencils, paste-ups, installations, and interventions, turning infrastructure and abandoned spaces into experimental laboratories. Political and social commentary remains central and fully reflects the conversations you hear, with quick-strike formats like posters and stickers addressing gentrification, migration, targeted geopolitical screeds, and a sense of increasing surveillance. At the same time, more legal and curated walls are emerging, opening opportunities for scale and collaboration while possibly sharpening a tension with the underground scene. If that’s a correct assessment, Berlin points toward an even sharper split: increasingly hybrid mural practices on sanctioned surfaces and faster, more disruptive actions in the rest of contested spaces, which tourists may not sense are diminishing, but locals assure you they are.
Smaller in scale than Berlin but fueled by a strong talent pool, Prague’s hybrid of academically inclined muralism and street-taught graffiti culture feels agile and confident. It is a city where the past stands tall, and the future writes itself across the margins. Maybe you would say it thrives on a tension between its historic Gothic and Baroque architecture and a new generation that likes to test what belongs elsewhere on the city’s walls. You’ll find those who push a hybrid language of abstract fields, figurative lines, and unconventional color, and others inject an assertive brand of pop-inflected text and graphic punch. As it is the 21st century, we are interested in finding conceptual figures we hear about who are raising questions about public space and control. At the same time, the graffiti scene keeps the pulse fast and restless: rooftops, tunnels, and rail corridors loaded with wild palettes, overlapping styles, and formats that nod to tradition, while stretching its edges. You’ll find most of this in transitional spaces — industrial seams, construction coverings, legal walls, and edges just beyond the postcard views.
Here is a quick drop into a melange of things we found in both for our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring 1UP Crew, B.S., Caer8th, Dibs, Exit RIP, EXOT Diamonds, Gunther Schaefer, MORT RIP, ONG, Paradox, Phoebe Graphy, Tona, XOXO, ZMG, and Zosen Bandito.
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week. Photographer Jaime Rojo hit the ground running upon getting back to dirty old Brooklyn this week from a Berlin/Prague tour. Lots to report from there on the walls, in the gallery, and in the museum spaces – and more to come for you to enjoy. In the meantime, here’s what he found on the streets of NYC; a mash-up of handstyles, graphics, pop cues, fine-art chops, humor, sarcasm, reverence, and straight-up rebellion — cultures colliding and talking back.
We begin the show with a new portrait of the much-loved graffiti and street art photographer Martha Cooper, based on a photo by Corey Nickols and painted by Swed Oner (Mathieu Taupenas) in Bushwick with Joe Ficalora and the Bushwick Collective by his side. Born in the south of France in the 80s, a graffiti writer in the late 90s, Swed Oner is now known for his hyper-realistic, monochrome portraits of people transformed into religious icons – featuring a “halo” motif for framing.
Featuring Dzel, EAZV, EXR, Gloom, Homesick, IMK, ISB, Jodi Da Real, KAMZ, Mike King, Notice, RIP Money, Shwan McArt, Silent, Smaer, Two Five, VENG, Warios, Werds, and ZOZS.
Aerosol, Avignon, astronauts, and an ornery ornithologist under the U-Bahn feeding hundreds of pigeons, making threats toward a visiting photojournalist about revealing her identity — it’s all part of a typical sunny fall survey of Berlin as we track the streets under the U3 from Urban Spree to Urban Nation on foot. It’s a hike, but why not? You’ve got to burn off last night’s Schultheiss beers that add to your girth and your bleary, sun-streaked view of the streets. Keep your eyes darting across surfaces and you’re rewarded in this city: stickers, tags, stencils of owls and cats, and Haring and Frida, impossible Berlin Kidz pieces sliding down walls from high altitudes, and 1UP tags in nearly every possible — and impossible — location.
Closer to Nollendorfplatz station, the formal murals from UN mix with a kaleidoscope of local spray — a lively conversation about fame, the environment, politics, gentrification, fear, love, and the many Paradoxes of life (see what we did there?).. Alive and kicking, shall we say, in Berlin. Next stop; Prague.
This week’s interview with the streets includes: 1Up Crew, Berlin Kidz, Cartonneros, Dylan Mitro, Erka, Kranz, Media’s, Paradox, Phoebe Graphy, Push X, The London Police, Unplatonic, and Victor Ash.
Canadian artist Dylan Mitro collaborated with residents of the so-called “Omabunker”—a senior apartment building near URBAN NATION in Berlin—to create the community wall project “Love Letter from the Omabunker.” During his Martha Cooper Fellowship, Mitro invited the folks who live there to photograph one another and their surroundings, turning everyday snapshots into large black-and-white portraits now covering the building’s façade.
The project reflects Martha Cooper’s documentary spirit—finding beauty and dignity in ordinary lives—while reworking it into a collective, site-specific gesture. Here, the street becomes both subject and canvas: the photographers and the photographed are the same people, turning their home into an image of itself and making visible a community that often may be unseen.
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week, LIVE from New York! Gorgeous weather for the NYC Marathon today, where more than 50,000 runners will go through all five boroughs. Still that doesn’t beat the number of costumed freaks, monsters, fairies and K-Pop Demon Hunters at the Village Halloween Parade, where over 80,000 costumed participants (and around 2 million spectators) flooded the streets Friday Night.
On the street and on the subway, in corporate and boutique offices, in the library, and in the frozen food aisle of your grocery store, Friday was full of children and adults in costumes prancing and preening, looking for goodies, posing for pictures, and battling the autumn winds that feel like they could lift and carry some small children and dogs that were not tied down. Shout out to the hot babe in fangs and clever cleavage leaning out the window of her Escalade at the stop light on Delancy Street yesterday afternoon. Despite all of these jubilant and tempestuous personalities parading across the city, there is only one Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black, the New York punk rock band that gave a free concert at Tomkins Square Park leading up to Halloween.
In other number news, reinforcing the growing disconnect between festivity and hardship across the city, nearly 3 million New Yorkers receive food aid from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and the federal government shutdown is cutting off their food, as of yesterday. The New York State Governor Kathy Hochul declared a food state of emergency. It makes us all wonder who the true monsters are.
Speaking of politics, roughly 370,000 New Yorkers have already cast early ballots in this new mayoral race. As the country leadership leans hard right, it looks like New York City is going left, like the Netherlands did this week.
For a few more days this week, BlankMagBooks (17 Eldridge Street, Chinatown) — run and curated by Jun Ohki — is featuring photos by Sonny Gall from her newly launched book 99 of New York, with texts by Mila Tenaglia. The streetwise romance of this photographer’s eye draws the viewer into often overlooked streets and scenes of New York with acute observation, adoration, and a sense of possibility. With texts that contextualize and accentuate the images throughout the slim and ample hardcover, the reader comes to see everyday scenes anew. If you’ve spent any time amid the post-industrial rubble of Brooklyn and Queens—graffiti, clouds, pigeons, basketball courts, and construction cranes—you’ll recognize that Gall has captured them precisely as they are lived.
Here is our weekly interview with the street, this time featuring AKUD, BornOner, ENT, EXR, Frodrik, Humble, Never Satisfied, OPE TFP, One Mizer, SOULS, Tess, VENA, Vers 718, Zero Productivity, and Zooter.
If you were in the room Friday night at The New School, you caught Matteo Pasquinelli throwing down ideas that lit up the crowd with his keynote “AI and Madness: On the Disalienation of the General Intellect.” It kicked off the Vera List Center Forum 2025: Matter of Intelligence—a weekend asking who gets to define intelligence and what happens when machines, bodies, and institutions all start claiming a piece of it. Later, over a community dinner, we met artists, curators, journalists, researchers, and assorted brainiacs who traded stories about neural nets, algorithms, kimchee, pulled pork, and tarot card readings that were available at many tables.
The rest of the weekend unfolded in forums with titles that could’ve doubled as concept-album tracks: “Embodied Intelligence: The Art of Sensing,”“Artificial Agency and Autonomy,”“Collective Intelligence and the Politics of Data,” and “Unlearning Intelligence.” If the weekend has a takeaway, it’s that intelligence isn’t something we own; it’s something we’re swimming in. Like all the street art and graffiti that city dwellers are surrounded by daily on walls, trains, doorways, and fences – it’s not exactly organized by algorithm, but patterns do emerge if you care to decode them.
So here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring CKT Crew, Dain, Dmote, Dream, Famen, King157, KNOT!, Luch, Mr. Cenz, OptimoNYC, Phetus88, SHOCK, Skulz, Staino, Stevie Dobetter, and Sweater Bubble.
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week. This fall in New York institutional museum offerings, people are checking out “Sixties Surreal” at the Whitney, “Robert Rauschenberg: Life Can’t Be Stopped” at the Guggenheim, “Coco Fusco: Tomorrow, I Will Become an Island” at El Museo del Barrio, Yvette Mayorga’s “PLEA$URE GARDEN$” Midnight Moment in Times Square, “Monet and Venice” and “Seydou Keïta: A Tactile Lens” at the Brooklyn Museum.
The Whitney offers all Fridays free from 5–10 p.m., every second Sunday free, and if you’re 25 or under, it’s always free. The Museum of Modern Art welcomes New York State residents free of charge every Friday from 5:30–8:30 p.m. (proof of residency required). The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum invites visitors to pay what they wish on Mondays and Saturdays from 4–5:30 p.m., with a suggested minimum of one dollar. The New-York Historical Society follows suit with pay-as-you-wish admission on Fridays from 5–8 p.m. And for those who prefer art in the Bronx, the Bronx Museum of the Arts remains free every day of the week. And right here in Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Museum opens its doors every First Saturday of the month from 5–11 p.m. for free admission with registration, and visitors are always welcome to pay what they can at the desk.
Meanwhile, much of our street art is busy with cats, pop icons, ambient dread, and general sweetness. For anyone assuming the scene remains activist or subversive, evidence is not plentiful. Still, it photographs beautifully.
Here is our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Chloe, I Am Frankie Botz, Jappy Agoncillo, Jeff Rose King, Kam S. Art, Lucia Dutazaka, Mad Villian, Man in the Box, Manuel Alejandro, Nandos Art, Rommer White, Sonni, Sophia Messore, and Tone Wash.
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week. As Fall arrives the leaves turn, the lattes spice up, and Washington does its ghoul impression by shutting down the government, shuttering what’s public while pretending it’s principled. This great pumpkin is being hollowed out, and some appear to be waiting for it to collapse. Ah, but we’ve had these tricksters at our door before, their masks artfully placed.
Happily, street art runs the gamut, and not all of it is scary, despite the times. The first piece in this week’s collection seeks to be reassuring by quoting Bob Marley’s song Three Little Birds, when he sings, “Don’t worry about a thing because every little thing is gonna be alright”. (see the video at the end of today’s posting)
Let’s see what the street art tea leaves are saying. Here is our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Barbara Galiniska, Below Key, Gane, Hope, Jason Naylor, Merk, Mike King, Miki Mu, Modomatic, Pin, Steph Costello, and Tover.
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! Fall is here today, and summer’s crop of graffiti, street art, and murals has been a bounty in New York City this year. You’ll see it on your way to the park to lie under a tree.
All in all, America’s playing tug-of-war with itself, while New York shrugs, sprays another mural, and proves you can cram the whole world into one city block without it blowing up.
Here is our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Allison Katz, Bikismo, Dattface, Hehuarucho, Joe Iurato, Low Poly, Manfo, Muck Rock, Sandman, and Shelby and Sandy.
For Mr. and Ms. Everyday, there is a feeling of being financially trapped, with no relief in sight. Remember the Princeton study from a decade ago that stated average people have almost no voice in making change?
Street artists often aim their spray cans at social and political fault lines, wielding invective and knife-sharp wit. Yet this week’s BSA interview with a pair of artists questions whether today’s practitioners still have the conviction to confront society’s social and economic ills. “One of the things I was playing with was the overly positive, banal affirmation-type quotes you see in a lot of street art,” says artist Alex Itin. “I see the country in a dangerous place, and positive bromides are not as important as anger and cogent analysis of our present state. So I wanted a bit of salt and burn… while still being funny.”
If the Princeton study still holds—and it does—then maybe it makes sense that artists confront this swilling morass of a kleptocracy and turn walls into soapboxes. After all, when billionaires and hedge funds treat your society like a yard sale and Congress keeps playing cashier, we could at least point out the absurdity. A stencil or mural won’t topple the problem, but it can cut through the haze, sharpen the joke, and remind us that resistance still has a voice—even if it has to shout from a brick wall.
This week, we have a lot of new stuff, particularly in the graffiti vein, from the Boone Avenue Festival in the Bronx a few weeks ago. Boone Avenue Walls is an artist-led, community-rooted street art festival in the Bronx, founded by renowned graffiti writer WEN C.O.D.. Organized by the Boone Avenue Walls Foundation, the event features large-scale murals and public art installations. Local and international artists are invited to paint in neighborhoods such as West Farms, Mott Haven, Foxhurst, and Hunts Point—often directly reflecting local pride and cultural touchstones of resilience and creativity. Many of these refer to music stars and reflect our fascination with celebrity. Some of these pieces were under production when we stopped by, while others were so fresh that you could still smell the fresh paint.
On our weekly interview with the street, we feature AESOP ONE, Albertus Joseph, Busta Art, Call Her Al, El Souls, EWAD, MELON, Miki Mu, NEO, Pazzesco Art, Persue, Pyramid Guy, Sue Works and Tony Sjoman.
When discovering a series of currency-themed street art in the city this week, we were reminded of the relentless daily pressure there is today to make ends meet—and of the regular headlines showing how the big players run their own schemes to squeeze the public. It also calls to mind the 1980s hip hop track “What People Do for Money” by Divine Sounds, with its sly reminder: “They’ll sell their soul to the devil, just to make a dime.” (See video at end of posting)
Whether it’s war profiteering, scamming public programs, turning charities into piggy banks, buying up public goods to squeeze ratepayers, or preaching salvation from the cabin of a private jet, corporations, banks, and street hustlers only differ in scale, not intent.
From the street perspective, this may look like the same hustle that they do – but with a press release accompanying it.
Here’s a survey of our weekly interview with the street, featuring Atomiko, Cash4, Drones, Grouchy, Jappy Agoncillo, Rene Lerude, Skewville, TFP Crew, and Zexor.
Welcome the BSA Images of the Week! Recent exhibitions, festivals, mural programs, and artist movements demonstrate that street art’s vitality continues to evolve—shifting from unsanctioned and underground to mainstream and institutional, and then back to the public streets. Far from fading, the street art and graffiti movement continues to adapt and engage more people, sparking dialogue about art, culture, creativity, property, politics, and its role in urban life. Our inbox at ABC runs like the city itself: fast, loud, nonstop—thankfully, this deli coffee is strong.
Global Graffiti Festival: The Meeting of Styles international graffiti festival just took over Rruga B Street in Kosovo’s capital, marking its 9th edition in Pristina. The city’s embrace of this festival – and the participation of artists from as far afield as Europe, the Americas, and Asia – underscores how the street art movement continues to span the globe, including places that rarely feature in mainstream art news.
As we speed through block parties, outdoor concerts, graffiti jams, and the end of New York’s summer art scene, we note next month’s arrival of the Gaza Biennale, a roving exhibition spotlighting artists from the embattled Gaza Strip. Previously exhibited in London, Berlin, and Athens, the show is a powerful cultural statement, taking place at 19 venues across 12 cities worldwide. The biennale’s New York iteration will span five days (September 10-14) at the non-profit art space Recess in Brooklyn.
Theatergoers have been flocking to Central Park’s Delacorte Theater for Twelfth Night, starring Peter Dinklage and Sandra Oh – in this New York tradition that’s open to everyone. Fans are lining up hours—even overnight—for free tickets, turning the event into a communal spectacle of Shakespeare for our treacherous time, of this moment.
“If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.” (Twelfth Night, Act III, Scene IV)
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring works from Acet, AIC Mosaic, Below Key, Benny CRuz, Hektad, Homesick, JerkFace, Marly McFly, Obey, Paul Richard, Qzar, Sasha Gordon, Shepard Fairey, Tom Bob NYC, and Werds.
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
