NYC’s 55th annual Pride March down 5th Avenue kicks off today, themed “Rise Up: Pride in Protest,” taking on a decidedly defiant stance on equality for all. Suppose you are in the subway, dance club, or park in Bushwick, Chinatown, or midtown. Like every June, it’s a lavender parade all weekend, with all members of the LGBTQUA+ communities from around the country and the world laughing, dancing, fighting, posing, and canoodling.
Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani clinched the Democratic nomination here this week after defeating former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, possibly igniting a polarized reaction across NYC politics. Hm, wonder if anyone will mention his religion in the next few months. What do you think? But, de facto, he’s going to be the next mayor – unless Bloomberg wants to blow more money before the November election.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Andre Trenier, Dirt Cobain, Drones, Dzel, Fear Art, Jappy Agoncillo, Jason Naylor, Jeff Rose, Kam S. Art, Manik, Modomatic, Par, Riot, Senisa, Tom Bob, Werds, and Zimer.
Spring 2025: Growth creeps in — leaf by leaf, blade by blade, decree by decree. You barely notice the buildup, but gradually it gathers, until suddenly, you’re surrounded.
On New York walls right now, you’ll spot a mix of collage-style cut-and-paste work, aerosol rendered full fantasy – and a surge in vertical graffiti done while hanging from ropes. This high-risk approach echoes Brazil’s Pixação scene, where writers have been scaling buildings since the ’80s to get their monikers out there running north to south; a technique later amplified by crews like 1UP and Berlin Kidz in Europe. Now, numbers of New York graffiti writers are embracing this daring vertical style — a radical shift that some see clearly, while others barely register. Across styles and mediums, there often appears a recurring presence of scarlet, crimson, rose, magenta, purple, pink, and fuchsia. These grab attention an resonate at deeper undercurrents — power, sacrifice, passion, and perhaps even the stirrings of revolution.
Here are some images from this week’s visual conversation from the street, including works from Werds, Humble, EXR, Great Boxers, Dzel, Meres One, Go, Man in the Box, DK, Luch, 1440, Fridge, El Souls, Natural Eyes, Lisart, Ilato, YOSE, Miki Yamato, HypaArtCombo, Senator Toadius Maximus, HOH22, Hound, Mr. Must Art, Lucia Dutazaka, and Tess.
The White House is running a masterclass in rapid-fire policy moves, deploying a ‘shock and awe’ strategy that keeps everyone—reporters, analysts, and politicians alike—scrambling to keep up. This week alone, the administration launched a ‘Faith Office’, proposed a federal task force to tackle anti-Christian bias,slapped sanctions on ICC officials looking into U.S. and Israeli military actions, floated the idea of turning Gaza into the ‘Riviera of the Middle East’, and sent Congress a $7 billion arms sale notification for Israel.It’s a policy blitzkrieg that leaves no time to process one move before the next headline drops. Some of these proposals will gain traction, and others will fizzle, but the message is clear: the news cycle belongs to them. We haven’t heard a lot of policy changes that repair the holes in the social safety net and help the poor and struggling middle class yet, but we’re sure those are just around the corner.
Meanwhile, New York City Mayor Eric Adams is catching heat to clarify a contentious ICE memo. Critics say it gives federal immigration agents way too much leeway, potentially endangering city employees and immigrant communities alike. We’re not cracking any jokes here because it’s too serious, and too many people living in New York are impacted. The anti-immigrant fever that has infected parts of the US has thus far not surfaced here in any appreciable quantity, perhaps because New York has traditionally been proud to be a city of immigrants.
While you won’t find murals explicitly tackling these new and rekindled political firestorms (yet), the chaotic, overlapping narratives on NYC’s walls feel like a fitting reflection of the moment. Confusion, authority, resistance, chaos, cats—it’s all out there, spray-painted and wheat-pasted for anyone paying attention.
Here’s our weekly conversation with the street, this week featuring Shiro, Sticker Maul, Werds, One Rad Latina, Dzel, George Collagi, Jocelyn Tsajh, Quaker Pirate, Guadalupe Rosales, and Lokey Calderon.
Well, the world ended this week—again. Yet here we are, still standing, and so are you. It turns out Donald Trump has successfully rallied the resentment of those feeling abandoned by the system, and they now firmly believe he’s their champion. Meanwhile, disbelieving technocrats and exasperated suburbanites are left shaking their heads at the audacity of those who elected this populist strongman. Twice. With another election loss under their belts, will anyone soften their stance enough to find common ground? Probably not. In fact, if everything goes according to plan, they won’t. For some, the longer we keep fighting one another, the better.
Look, the pigeons in New York do not care about all of that noise. As long as those pizza crusts keep coming, bro.
Here’s our weekly conversation with the street, this week featuring: Nick Walker, City Kitty, IMK, JEMZ, STOMP, Yevgeniya Shevchuk, Mendoza, PAR, SNIPE, DZEL, OPTIMO NYC, Lorenzo Masnah, ZOOT, and Iván Argote.
Happy St. Patricks Day to all our Irish brethren and sisteren (?) — unless you are unlucky to be a gaylesbitrans Irish resident of Staten Island: their official Saint Patty parade bans all of those other types. Our 5th borough always complains that it doesn’t get enough attention because Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx and Queens hog the spotlight. So bigotry, because why not? But Manhattan shouldn’t bray too loudly; we’re old enough to remember the LGBT bans by The Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH) at the beery 5th Avenue parades for decades.
And now images from our ongoing conversation Specter, Cern, Homesick, Peter Phobia, Dzel, REW, Folk, Appear 37, BRK. Nover NYC, GUS, Hand of Tess, 1krlOs, Pirdb!, Kool Hand, Croke, Regae, Nova44, and Spyee.
It comes as no surprise that the explosion of new graffiti in New York is evident across the river in Jersey City, where we have been hanging out the last few day for the Jersey City Mural Festival. And for those who know their history, it will also come as no surprise that we always dig the illegal unapproved organic graffiti and street art as much as that which has received official approval from our city fathers and mothers.
So here’s new pieces and tags from under the bridges, passageways, and inside the abandoned buildings in JC. The looseness of line and exuberance of color combinations tell us that graff kids are feeling at liberty to get up wherever necessary to get out their name. In the oceanic metaphor of ebbs and flows – this wave is flowing, bro.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Acro, Amore, Carbo, Chaos, Chees, Dzel, Gear, Hugo Girl, Jinx, Loser, Manik, MES, Nate Paints, Pesco, Reato, Rozr, Sean 9 Lugo, Serbo, Short, Sophie Xeon, Sugar, and Visit.
BSA Special EditionLOVE LETTERS TO THE CITY at Urban Nation MuseumNewly released Interview snippet with curator Michelle Houston and Steven …Read More »
Reprinted from the original review. The catalogue Writing the Future: Basquiat and the Hip-Hop Generation, accompanying the Museum of Fine …Read More »
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
