Welcome to the first BSA Images of the Week of 2021 !
We start our collection this week with an image of Christ crucified on a Facebook logo. If this is the level of subtlety that we can expect from the new year…gurl, we in trubble.
In fact, we have found that much of the organic street art that we find today has become increasingly strident in opinions expressed, especially around themes of social justice and political skullduggery. It’s all mixed in with favorites like pop figures, sports figures, cats. In a way, the artists are ahead of us, so we consider these images as the tea leaves for what is coming.
How will you interpret these messages from the street? Will you become emboldened? Scared? Or will they not have any impact on passersby?
Here is our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring 7 Line Arts Studio, Bastard Bot, Calicho Art, Captain Eyeliner, Calisi Maultra, City Kity, CRKSHNK, David F Barthold, Degrupo, Elle, Jeff Roseking, Joseph Grazi, NohJColey, Poi Everywhere, Sickid, Sticker Maul, and Stikman.
You could be forgiven for feeling a little like a Grinch for a part of this Christmas; a global virus and a completely fumbled response to the economic well-being of all Americans has left many without home, food, jobs, healthcare, security on this day in 2020.
But let’s rejoice that we persevered, and we found some reasons to be positive, to be hopeful, and to work together. New York is unbeatable! God Bless NYC!
And we are thankful for you. From your friends at BSA we wish you a very Merry Christmas.
Looking for a Christmas tree? An accurate barometer of the income gap perhaps, we found two vendors on the streets of Williamsburg who each told us a 6 foot tree this year starts at $150 this year. Later in the neighborhood of Bushwick we saw a collection of 6 foot tall trees for $60 each. In Soho or 5th Ave just double it, or quintuple it.
Here is our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring City Kitty, Elfo, Exposure, Easy and Joz, Gak, Giani NYC, Kest, No Sleep, Quality Mending, Raw Raffe, Skewville, TV Head ATX, UFO907, Muk 123, Gen 2907, Oze108, and Unlok.
Happy Diwali to all our Hindu neighbors here in Brooklyn and around the world. We hope you find some ways to celebrate safely over the next few days in this year of COVID-19. Diwali is a festival of lights that symbolizes the spiritual “victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance”. We need that for sure.
A week after the US election was called, the current president is trying to foment discord and raise funds for himself, but with war-loving folks like John Bolton and Carl Rove jumping ship, can it be much longer until a stampede of similar careerists and military industrialists follow suit?
And while certain yellow newsreaders on corporate TV were desperate for open warfare in the streets in the days around the election, most people are just waiting until the inevitable capitulation. This has hardly been a bloody revolution, but keep trying Rachel and whatsisname?
Street art is reflecting the current mood in broad strokes and pointed ones. New Yorkers can never keep their big yaps shut, so the level of discourse may sometimes be crude and brash – but it can also be insightful, enlightening, and even an invitation for thoughtful exchange. It’s times like these you can be proud of the voices on the streets, which very likely will persevere.
Here is our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Baston714, Cake$, City Kitty, Dan Bennett, De Grupo, Faile, I Heart Graffiti, Lunge Box, Pure Genius, Reisha Perlmutter, Rubin 415, and Sac Six.
Feeling dizzy? Not much to worry about should be a slow week coming up.
Here is our weekly interview with the streets, this week including Billy Barnacles, Calicho Art, City Kitty, D7606, Fire Flower, GoInco, Lucky, Lunge Box, Phetus, Praxis, Ree Vilomar, Turtle Caps, Wayne, Zuliamiau.
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week. Shana Tova to our Jewish brothers and sisters, even as we mourn the Friday passing of one of Brooklyn’s own, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She was born here on East 9th Street in Midwood to Russian immigrant parents in 1933 and the governor says we’ll have a statue honoring her here too.
Meanwhile in our strained semi-democracy, daily anti-ICE protests continue in Times Square amidst accusations of heavy handed practices of the police, exotic animal complaints this year are up 77 percent possibly because people want to quarantine with roosters and monkeys to stay sane, and in-person school classes are again being delayed due to lack of preparedness and generalized fears of Covid-19 outbreaks among students and teachers.
Compared to all these news, the scene with Street Art appears tame. But from Red Hook to Soho to LES to Bushwick to Ridgewood, it is definitely not lame.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring BK Foxx, Chris Tuorto, City Kitty, CRKSHNK, De Grupo, Downtown DaVinci, Freakotrophic, Half, Joe Iurato, Kesta, Logan Hicks, Mish, Ouch, Praxis VGZ, Sac Six, Sean Lugo 9, Stikman, and You Go Girl!
The winds of change are gathering force and weaving together – social, political, financial, environmental… and it is all being reflected in street art today. Ironically, because media in the US is addicted to money and misdirection and is completely disinterested in the poor and working class as a whole, thoughtful analysis that pops off city walls seems unadulterated, capable of giving you more truthful assessments of what is missing, what is out of whack, and who’s gotta take action. Your face here.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Adam Fu, AJ LaVilla, Antennae, Black Ligma, City Kitty, CRKSHNK, De Groupo, Hearts NY, Novy, Pork, Surface of Beauty, The Greator, Winston Tseng, X Rebellion NYC, and Zuli Miau.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Almost Over Keep Smiling, Billy Barnacles, Gianni Lee, City Kitty, CRKSHNK, Early Riser NYC, Seven Line Arts Studio, M*Code, Ori Carino, Sticker Maul, Turtle Caps, Urban Russian Doll NYC, and You Go Girl!
Happy EID Mubarek to all our Muslim brothers and sisters. Full moon will wash over our warm summer skies in Brooklyn tomorrow – hopefully you can get up on a roof to see it.
Please tell us again about that two-party system we hear about every day. Why does it look like one party? Have you heard about this new documentary coming called “The Swamp”?
Maybe its the time in quarantine but the quality of the workspersonship on the streets these days appears to have increased overall – perhaps because artists have much more time to pour into their paste-ups, stencils, paintings.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Amir Diop99, BK Foxx, Black Ligma, Captain Eyeliner, City Kitty, De Grupo, Downtown DaVinci, Epizod Tagg, Panam, Texas, Zuli Miau.
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! Happy Memorial Day Weekend in the US. Happy Eid-ul-Fitr 2020 to all our friends celebrating it, wherever you are. Wash you hands, practice social distancing, don’t fight with people over small things. It’s not worth it.
This week we have some new art from the streets that appears purposeful and dense with meaning – not beating around the bush these days. Maybe there is too much at stake, and artists know it too.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Caryn Cast, Cheer Up, City Kitty, Dylan Egon, Gane , Glare Rakn, Hearts NY, Praxis, and Sara Lynne-Leo.
The numbers of sick and dying continue to climb this week in New York, and so does our determination.
And our appreciation. Stuck inside a building full of artists and weirdos, we hang our heads and hands out the window to clap loudly at 7 o’clock, our Hasidic neighbors across the street gathered on their tiny verandas to do the same. United in our illness, fears, and pain, we are reminded of our common heroes; doctors, nurses, healthcare workers, grocery store workers, restaurant workers, truck drivers, sanitation workers, friends, neighbors and colleagues
“I keep a saucepan and spoon at my window to join in the 7 pm clapping every night,” says photographer Martha Cooper as she describes her solo venture out the window while her cat Melia most likely hides under the bed. “People have even started beating drums. Of course, I never cook in the saucepan but it was my dear mom’s and I remember her cooking in it so I think of her when I’m beating it.”
“The healthcare workers deserve more than applause,” she adds. Amen.
Also, applause can go to at least one landlord in the Williamsburg-Greenpoint neighborhoods of Brooklyn. Mario Salerno reportedly has waived the rent for April, relieving hundreds of people from fear and stress during this economic crash.
Bottom line is, we need BIG thinkers, BIG proposals, and BIG solutions for the hundreds of thousands of people who cannot pay the rent in this expensive city – and around the world. We need a Rent Forgiveness Jubilee, a Universal Basic Income and an actual Infrastructure building mass jobs program. The idea is not going to come from all the millionaires in the White House, the Congress, or the Senate. If people get desperate enough, these changes will be born from the street.
Let’s keep positive, safe, and strong as we weather what comes next.
So here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Berlin Kidz, Chris RWK, City Kitty, Darla Kitty, David Saenz, Food Baby Soul, Surface of Beauty, The Postman Art, TiHumph, Martha Cooper and TV Boy.
Only two weeks ago we were making jokes here about the NYC plastic bag ban and Coronavirus. Now the city, state, and federal government are in official states of emergency. What will this city look like in another two weeks?
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring City Kitty, Erdogan Terrorist, Lego Party, Little Lucky, LMNOPI, Lunge Box, Messy Fart, Neon Savage, Sara Lynne Leo, The Mushroom, and Urbanimal.
It is notable when an organized gang of aerosol-wielding vandals protests your protest against censorship with censorship. It’s also odious. …Read More »
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
