Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! The clocks fell back last night, which means it gave NYC marathon runners a much needed extra hour to lie in bed and stare at the ceiling thinking about the race. Speaking of race, people of different colors are accused of vandalizing in New York with hate crime messages like the anti-semitic messages in a Brooklyn synagogue and anti-African American messages at an African burial ground. We publish a lot images of Street Art and graffiti here and sometimes people call the pieces vandalism, but let’s be clear – this is a different situation altogether.
So here is our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Ad Tumulum Arts, Al Diaz, Anthony Lister, Claw Money, Duke A. Barnstable, Grimm The Street Kat, Invader, Jeffrey Beebe, JR, Kobra, Raf Urban, and Tomokazu Matsuyama.
Got anything lined up for Valentines Day? No pressure bro. Just be yourself sis! All that baloney about wine and dine and flowers – oh HELL NO! We’re all on a budget up in here! In fact we did some research for you and here’s 8 Cheap Valentine’s Day Dates in NYC thanks to writer Melanie Gardiner.
And for the rest of you non-attached and gorgeous BSA Readers may we recommend the delightful new cinematic pleasure from Urban Spree and the Berlin Kidz called “F**k the System” now available for the price of a movie house soda on Vimeo. Each time you think they won’t do it, they totally do it. Including riding bikes on top of the train. That part is NOT recommended.
In other news, the people in Washington are playing with fire and it looks like a large percent of them probably want to burn the whole government down. A second shutdown in one month? We have pyromaniacs bent on destroying basic stuff that the people built and need. Now that the taxes for the rich have been lowered so that social programs will go on a feeding tube, how many minutes will it take before they say, “we simply can’t afford to pay for Medicare and Social Security’? Tick Tick Tick.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Avocado, Baston, City Kitty, Dede, Duke A. Barnstable, Irak, James Goldcrown, Joe Iurato, Little Ricky, Nora Breen Project, Pear, Smiler, Tez, The Joe Miller, Token 3784.
People all over the world (everybody)
Join hands (join)
Start a love train, love train
People all over the world (all the world, now)
Join hands (love ride)
Start a love train (love ride), love train
Shout out to all the great Swoon fans we met last night during the artists talk with her. All the seats were filled so it was standing room only in the back but yet it felt so intimate. Ya’ll are stupendous and smart and handsome and beautiful and we were honored to be with you.
Shout out to the family of American blues institution BB King who passed on this week. His music and talent influenced so many. Sending love and condolences to his family and friends.
Let’s see what Jeffery Deitch has in store for Smorgasburg Coney Island starting this week in preparation for the Memorial Day weekend opening – published reports have the roster of street artists at 15 but we’re hearing closer to 25 will be hitting up temporary concrete walls in this outdoor gallery he is doing in partnership with a large real estate firm to promote the new Coney Island. Some names you’ll recognize are old skool 70s-80s train writers like Lee Quinones, Crash, Daze, Lady Pink, Futura, and new people he has been reaching out to from the 2000s and 2010s scene who we bring you regularly like How & Nosm, Skewville, Steve Powers, possibly even ROA . This list will surely grow as word gets out and artists besiege Mr. Deitch to participate. The full installation is to last a month and will be surely caught on film and timelapse video.
Meanwhile, here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Alexis Diaz, Alka Murat, Appleton, Marco Berta, Blaqk Blaqk, City Kitty, Creepy Creep, Dain, Dasic Fernandez, Duke A. Barnstable, Elsa Sauguet, Eva & Adele, Ever, Goldman Rats, Ines Maas, JR, Penny Gaff, Robert Janz, Sebastian Reinoso Salinas, Seikon Stav6, and Swoon.
” ‘头部 (The Head)’ is an art installation based on the analysis of Chinese Communist posters. When the posters represent the ‘idea’, people are always down the picture and the Mao Tse Tung portrait always floating in heaven, protecting that theory founded in the Russian winters. When they want to describe the pragmatics, Mao is cultivating flowers, going to visit schools, etc.
The idea with ‘The Head’ is to think why the “communist theory” fails in its application to reality, and this is because many times the idea has to be corresponded o taken through a body, a body that exercises the idea, that exercises power. That’s why, part of the installation that we present here, invites people to get into the head, so we all can have the feeling that we are not loyal to the theory; the idealization is as dangerous as it is obsessive.”
The Halloween Parade through the Village in NYC is tonight, the 40th actually, and you will see a greater number of ghostly guys and ghouls on the bus and subway and hanging out on the street today. Of course New York has a fair share of freaks throughout the year, and some people love a dancing skeleton or screeching witch or marching Zombie almost anytime, really. When it comes to Street Art, you can always count on skulls and monsters and the occasional raven.
Last year Halloween in NYC was basically cancelled by the sincerely frightening Superstorm Sandy that left half of the city in darkness for days, and this year we hope it will be more about the fantasy aspect of All Hallows Eve.
We start off the BSA collection by photographer Jaime Rojo with this brand new one from Banksy’s Grim Reaper on Houston Street this weekend. Also, check out the video by Kadshah Nagibe of the last Halloween parade that NYC hosted. Have a great day and a haunted fun night everybody!
Feliz Cinco De Mayo to all the Mexicanos/Mexicanas in the NYC today! Actually it’s more of a beer company sponsored holiday for los gringos but What the Infierno, it’s a big Spanglish Sunday in our multicultural city. Yo, speaking of spanish, check out José Parlá above rocking the installation he did with JR on a wall in Chelsea. And speaking of JR, the Times Square excitement continues till Friday so head on over to tourist central and be a part of it and a volunteer will help you get your mug turned into a piece of street art. Also keep your eyes open for news of his trip this week to Rikers Island. Bro, we weren’t there, we’re too scared to even think of it. But we did get to hang out with visiting Tunisian/Parisian calligraphic Street Artist El Seed this week while he was hitting up a wall and we’ll show you that action soon.
Anyway, here’s our weekly interview of the street, this week featuring Billi Kid, Bishop 203, Classic, Duke A. Barnstable, Earth Chronicles, Fink NY, Foxx Face, Fumero, Gilf!, Havan, Jon Hall, José Parlá, JR, Mr. Toll, ND’A, Rene Gagnon, Sno, Stikman, and Wishbe .
Here’s our weekly interview of the street, this week featuring Ai WeiWei, B.D. White, Billy Mode, Bishop 203, BR1, Chris Stain, Duke A. Barnstable, Free Humanity, Ice & Sot, Indigo, JM, Mataruda, Meres, Billy Mode, NARD, ND’A, Os Gemeos, Palladino, PTV, Ryan McGinley, Shai Dahan, Shin Shin, and Specter.