All posts tagged: Coney Art Walls 2016

Artists Bring 22 New Murals to “Coney Art Walls 2016”

June 15, 2016 Artists

Just in time for this weekend’s Mermaid Parade, London’s D*Face is finishing up “Live Fast Die Young,” his beauty-and-the-zombie comic couple sipping an ice cream float at the soda counter. Austrian surrealist slicer Nychos has completed his dissection of a Ronald McDonald-ish character without a sketch; running, jumping, nearly flying through the air with aerosol in hand, flinging the spent cans over his shoulder blindly to skitter across the pavement. Baltimore-based freeform anthropologist Gaia is cavorting with passersby who want to take cellphone selfies in front of his painted wall that depicts exactly that; selfies taken in Coney Island.

This is a modern version of the multi-mirror funhouse in mural form, and Coney Art Walls is bringing it again.

Nychos. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

22 new murals on standing slabs of concrete join a dozen or so that were retained from last summer to present an eclectic and savory selection from the old-school and the new. When it comes to art in the streets, a salty luncheonette of city-style treats is on a large public platter these days, with names like graffiti, street art, urban art, installation art, public art, fine art, even contemporary art. For some of those hapless gatekeepers of any of these respective categories, this show in this location presents degrees of discomfort and anger as many subcultural roots are now brought into the light in tandem with one another in a public display – funded by a real estate firm. For the artists and majority of fans, however, the trend is more toward delight and gratitude.

Nychos. The London Police photo bomb. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

While you are unpacking that, consider that lead curator Jeffrey Deitch has often proved very adept at plumbing the aesthetic margins of our culture while rearranging and intermingling the parties, helping the viewer to appreciate their differences. This outdoor exhibit co-curated with Joseph Sitt provides a venue for a wide audience to contemplate the range of expression that New York streets have had over the last few decades, including a few artists who are trying this manner of expression for the first time.

As the Thunderbolt, Steeplechase, Cyclone and Wonder Wheel spin and swerve nearby and overhead, sending screams and personal projectiles into the ocean breeze, you have this paved lot full of paintings to peruse, lemonade in one hand and the cotton-candy-sticky hand of a sunscreen-slathered child in the other. Here you’ll see a large two-walled corner smashed with Coney Island themes by Bronx graffiti masters Tats Cru (Bio, BG183, and Nicer), a selection of hand-drawn wheat pasted portraits of Coney Island youth by Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, and 4 full-form sculptures by John Ahearn creating a modernist view of divers on the beach .

Nychos. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tooling elsewhere through the loose labyrinth you come upon a monochromatic cryptically patterned tribute to Brooklyn-born Beastie Boys vocalist Adam “MCA” Yauch by Brooklyn tagger/train writer/artist Haze and a seemingly lighthearted abstractly collaged wall of mermaids by fine artist Nina Chanel Abney, whose work is currently on the cover of Juxtapoz. There is also a spectacular underwater-themed symmetrical fantasy topped by pylons bearing the likenesses of characters from “The Warriors” film by artist duo The London Police, and a stenciled “Last Supper” featuring heads of world currency playing the disciples and George Washington as Jesus sprayed across the face of a huge dollar bill by Iranian brothers Icy & Sot.

Pose. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

We often travel streets and neglected spaces in cities looking for signs of freewill artistic expression and often the creative spirit surprises us as it can be expressed in so many ways with emotion, agenda, and idiosyncratic point of view. It may be the plurality of voices one experiences surfing the Internet or the multi-cultural nature of living in New York with a continuous river of fresh arrivals mixing in with established and old-timers every day, but one comes to expect this variety of viewpoints and rather naturally creates accommodation for inclusion that celebrates without negating – and in many ways Coney Art Walls does that as well.

Oppositional viewpoints are present if you look: There are coded messages and obvious ones, critiques of corporate hegemony, issues of race, commentary on police relations, sexuality, religion, capitalism, community, the languages of advertising, movies, music, entertainment, local history, and examination of roles and power structures.

John Ahearn. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

When tooling around this collection, you may wonder what, then, are the commonalities of this survey. Certainly there are the recurring references to Coney Island lore and aspects of performance and flimflam, oddity, fantasy, even the erotic. Naturally, there are elements of natural wonder as well, perhaps expected with the proximity to the beach and the ocean and the history of this place as a vacation getaway.

Aside from this, the connective tissue is what we frequently identify as what is distinctly New York – the plurality of voices. Arguing, making fun, praising, preening, bragging, lambasting, mocking, singing. Despite the continuous attempts by others to divide us, we’re strangely (very strangely), beautifully united.

Jeffery Deitch with John Ahearn. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

John Ahearn. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Icy & Sot. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Gaia. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“11 Instagram Posts”, by Gaia. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Gaia. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Haze. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

D*Face. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Marie Roberts has multi-generational roots here and her work makes you stop and study it. She has painted many visions and views around the neighborhood, and is considered the artist-in-residence. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Marie Roberts. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The London Police. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

AIKO. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

AIKO. Side A. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Originally from Japan, Brooklyn’s AIKO has a double sided stencil sonnet to the romance of the sea. With “Tale of the Dragon King and Mermaids in Water Castle” Aiko tells a new version of Urashima Tarō, an old Japanese legend about a fisherman who rescues a turtle and is rewarded for this with a visit to Ryūgū-jō, the palace of Ryūjin. Says Aiko, “This piece speaks to my and all women’s fantasies; chilling hard super sexy in the beautiful ocean with friendly dragon who is super powerful and a smart guy – they are about going to water castle having good time.”

AIKO. Side B. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Daze. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nina Chanel Abney. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mister Cartoon. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Steve ESPO Powers. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jessica Diamond. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tristan Eaton. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tatiana Fazlalizadeh. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tatiana Fazlalizadeh photographing her subjects. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tatiana Fazlalizadeh. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Crash. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BIO – Tats Crew. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

NICER – Tats Crew. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BG183 – Tats Crew. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tats Crew. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sam Vernon. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Timothy Curtis. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Martha Cooper. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Coney Art Walls
2016 New Artists: Nina Chanel Abney, John Ahearn, Timothy Curtis, D*Face, Jessica Diamond, Tristan Eaton, Gaia, Eric Haze, Icy & Sot, London Police, Nychos, Pose, Stephen Powers, Tats Cru, and Sam Vernon. Returning artists who created new works: Lady Aiko, Mister Cartoon, Crash, Daze, Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, and Marie Roberts. 2015 Murals on display: by Buff Monster, Eine, Ron English, How & Nosm, IRAK, Kashink, Lady Pink, Miss Van, RETNA, eL Seed and Sheryo & Yok. There are also three community walls.

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This article is also published on The Huffington Post

BSA Images Of The Week: 06.05.16

June 5, 2016 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

It’s Bushwick Collective Weekend Yo! The assembled faces and artists is local, national, international – a melange of what Brooklyn has become in recent years and the streets are alive with involved citizenry in search of entertainment, art and community. The Street Art scene is alive and well, just mutating weirdly as it always does; charges of commercialism and the whitening power of gentrification notwithstanding. A little further out in BedStuy was the #PrincePartyBK yesterday with Spike Lee celebrating the Purple One’s birthday, along with a lot of Biggie love, and Muhammad Ali love, and you, Love.

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring 1Penemy, BG183, Bio, City Kitty, Coro, Crash, GIZ, JMR, KLOPS, Loco Art, Marie Roberts, Nepo, Nicer, Samantha Vernon, Sheryo, Tats Crew, The Yok, Thomas Allen, Tristan Eaton, UNO, XSM, and You Go Girl!

Our top image: Marie Roberts for Coney Art Walls 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist’s portrait of Muhammad Ali who passed away this Friday. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BG183 TATS Crew for The Bushwick Collective Block Party 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

CRASH TATS Crew for The Bushwick Collective Block Party 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nicer TATS Crew for The Bushwick Collective Block Party 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BIO TATS Crew for The Bushwick Collective Block Party 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“Oh my God, I am totally getting a selfie with this. No one back in Nazareth will believe this. Suurreeusly.” KLOPS for The Bushwick Collective Block Party 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

JMR for The Bushwick Collective Block Party 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

NEPO . CORO for The Bushwick Collective Block Party 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

GIZ. Joe Ficalora The Bushwick Collective founder with his BFF Pope Francis. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

You Go Girl! (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Protestors at the entrance of the Brooklyn Navy Yard have been drawing attention to their opinion that the Duke Riley “Fly By Night” art project with Creative Time is cruel to the pigeons in some way and that the animals are being exploited for profit. Riley has reportedly consulted pigeon clubs, an avian veterinarian, experts from animal welfare groups and been given a good review from the Audubon society so the opinion does not seem unanimous. Regarding the charge of making a profit, we’re pretty sure all the tickets are free, right? Our favorite one is the sign that also insults the artistic quality of the project as “mediocre.” Oh, gurl, you did not manage to throw some shade while protecting those birds did you? Snap! (photo © Jaime Rojo)

XSM (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pizza on the run. The Yok and Sheryo shot through the driver’s seat of a parked UPS truck. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

UNO. Marseille, France. May 2016. (photo © UNO)

Thomas Allen, partially obscured by some green buffing. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Thomas Allen (photo © Jaime Rojo)

City Kitty. A mash up of two giants of rock whom we lost withing months of each other this winter/spring – with that intuitive third eye. “You will be missed” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Prince. Is VJZ the signature of the artist who painted the portrait? (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified Artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“The monster within and the fool that follows.” Heard that. Tristan Eaton for Coney Art Walls 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Samantha Vernon for Coney Art Walls 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Is there a story behind this, or simply a fantasy scenario? 1Penemy (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“I hate your negative energy”. Unidentified Artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Loco Art (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Brooklyn Navy Yard. Duke Riley’s Fly By Night performance with pigeons in collaboration with Creative Time. Brooklyn, NY. June 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Icy & Sot: International “Last Supper” & Almighty Dollar in Coney Island

May 25, 2016 Artists

“In this piece they are all figures from different currencies – like from Iran, Korea, China, England, the US, Pakistan…,” says Sot of the new one layer stencil they are preparing for Jeffrey Deitch’s Coney Art Walls, opening this Memorial Day weekend in Brooklyn to 80 degree temperatures.

We’re inside their Bushwick studio, which is about the size of a one-car garage and its walls are covered with newly stenciled book covers for their upcoming monograph launch. Icy sits at the bench with a sharply bladed knife casually pressing shapes out of the roll of white paper and flicking them aside.

Icy & Sot. At the studio cutting, cutting, cutting… Coney Art Walls 2016. Coney Island, Brooklyn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“We have been two days from 11 to 11 cutting,” says Sot as he looks over the rolls of paper accumulating against the wall and begins to roll a cigarette. “And we’re still not finished,” says Icy as he crouches over his work. “I mean we have like 19 parts and we still have some more to cut.”

Fast forward a few days and the light wind is whipping the seagulls overhead in 55 degree oceanside late spring, and the brothers are carefully unrolling and taping their new stencils across a large freestanding wall that adds to a colorful Coney labyrinth and will soon be painted on the other sided by another Brooklyn Street Artist from this generation. It is the second year of this public art show that features graffiti and Street Artists and some new contemporary artists as well who haven’t been known for this scale or venue.

Icy & Sot. Coney Art Walls 2016. Coney Island, Brooklyn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The huge Icy & Sot dollar sign first came about when they were preparing their show “Cutitalism” in Stavanger, Norway last year for Reed Projects Gallery, for which we wrote the exhibition text, part of which reads “a slicing condemnation of many true costs of free-range rampant capitalism using world currency, razor sharp blades and aerosol.”

By combining the heads from multiple currencies around the last supper of Christian storytelling, you may wonder which one is Judas – but typically the brother’s aren’t saying.

Icy & Sot. Coney Art Walls 2016. Coney Island, Brooklyn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mainly, they are just happy to have been invited to the second iteration of this outdoor exhibition that highlights many players over the culture of the last 50 years of graffiti and Street Art while acknowledging the older histories of community murals and sign painting in this iconic Coney Island setting. “We always wanted to bring this piece out but we never had an opportunity,” says Icy of the new huge format for a piece that originally used an actual dollar bill as its canvas.

“This is the right, perfect wall for it and this is the time to do it,” says Sot.

Icy & Sot. Coney Art Walls 2016. Coney Island, Brooklyn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Icy & Sot. Documenting their own work. Coney Art Walls 2016. Coney Island, Brooklyn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Icy & Sot. Coney Art Walls 2016. Coney Island, Brooklyn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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BSA Images Of The Week: 05.22.16

May 22, 2016 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

No time to talk, you’ve been running to the streets to see new pieces and peaches like a new D*Face in Soho, Rubin’s solo show in the Bronx, the Brooklyn-themed pop up at Doyle’s Auction house in Manhattan, Swoon and Shep and Swizz at Pearly’s in LA, the Social Sticker club collabo melee with Roycer and Buttsup at a bar in Williamsburg, and the growing collection of rocking new Coney Art Walls. Also, Post-It Wars in corporate agency-land Manhattan.

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring 1Penemy, BG 183 Tats Cru, Bio, Bristol, Daze, D*Face, Eric Haze, Goms, Nicer, Nova, Pegasus, POE, Stikki Peaches, Thiago Gomez, and Word to Mother.

HAZE completed this fresh tribute wall dedicated to MCA of the Beastie Boys for Coney Art Walls 2016 in Coney Island, Brooklyn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“Ain’t seen the light since we started this band
M.C.A. get on the mike, my man!
Born and bred Brooklyn
The U.S.A.
They call me Adam Yauch
But I’m M.C.A.”

No Sleep Till Brooklyn

Stikki Peaches comes out with a dream posse of rebels; James Dean, Steve McQueen, Elvis Presley, and Marlon Brando on the streets of Brooklyn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

DAZE completed this wall for Coney Art Walls 2016. Included in the composition of this mural is the Elephant Hotel, a seven story, 31 room fantasy hotel built in old Coney Island in 1885 shaped like an elephant. Besides the guest rooms the structure also boasted an observatory, a gift shop and a concert hall before it burned down in 1896. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A Banksy inspired window piece made entirely of Post-it notes makes an appearance on the Post-it notes war between two buildings that face each other in Manhattan. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

According to New York Magazine the Post-it “artists” took their craftsmanship to new heights after someone installed a simple “hi” message on the window of one of the two buildings facing each other on Canal Street. After one week the “war” is in full effect with several messages directed at each other offices ranging from “Will you marry me” to songs’ lyrics and other pleasantries and pop references. The two buildings are known for housing several ad agencies, Getty images and New York Magazine.

A Keith Haring-inspired window piece made entirely of Post-it notes makes an appearance on the Post-it notes war between two buildings that face each other in Manhattan. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

An unidentified “artist” applies his final touches to the Snoopy inspired window piece made entirely of Post-it notes makes an appearance on the Post-it notes war between two buildings that face each other in Manhattan. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A close up of two window pieces made entirely of Post-it notes makes an appearance on the Post-it notes war between two buildings that face each other in Manhattan. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A general view of several windows and pieces made entirely of Post-it notes makes an appearance on the Post-it notes war between two buildings that face each other in Manhattan. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A “Marry Me?” sign made entirely of Post-it notes makes an appearance on the Post-it notes war between two buildings that face each other in Manhattan. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Word To Mother beautified the AthenB Gallery van in Oakland, California on the occasion of his solo show currently on view. (photo © Brock Brake)

Bio, Nicer and BG 183 of Tats Cru completed their totally fun and vibrantly hued wall for Coney Art Walls 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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BSA Images Of The Week: 05.15.16

May 15, 2016 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Coney Art Walls is back for 2016 and the artists have already begun painting, Duke Riley is on week two of performance with pigeons in The Brooklyn Navy Yard , the #notacrimecampaign is happening in Harlem to support a free press in Iran, Newark has started a huge public mural program called “Gateways to Newark: Portraits”, Urban Nation in Berlin promises a huge announcement this week, and Vladimir Putin is in a lip-lock with Donald Trump on the street in Lithuania. There is also a lot of new free-range, unsanctioned art on the streets.

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring bunny M, Cdre, Crash, Dain, Dee Dee, Etnik, finDAC, Futura, Icy & Sot, Mister Cartoon, Myth, Pegasus, and Rone.

Our top image: CRASH and the first wall completed for the 2016 edition of Coney Art Walls, courtesy of Jeffrey Deitch and his amazing crew, especially Ethel Seno. BSA will bring you all the details, works in progress and behind-the-scenes juiciness for the entire duration of the project until all the walls are completed. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

We are hoping that one of you dear readers will help us ID this artist, whose signature we can’t figure out. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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