It’s the BSA Reader Video Request edition of Fun Friday for all us peeps who are not shopping today. We asked our Facebook friends and fans for their favorite street art related video flicks and give them to you here- in no particular order. Peace out and have a great Black Friday everybody.
1. Vhils in Germany
2. Wild Style Part 1
3. Open Air
4. In Bed with Invader
5. En Masse in Miami
6. Berlin Street Art as Lyrics (Emus Primus)
7. Shai Dahan new Ted Talk “Beyond Borders”
8. TEJN LOCK ON STREET ART – Street Art Sculpture by Tejn
9. Burn – Episode 3
10. Graffiti Verite Part 1
11. Japanese Stencil
12. BLU – BIG BANG BIG BOOM
14. Hanoi Lantern Bearers – Vietnam with The Yok
15. Bomb It
Vhils in Germany
The Portuguese Street Artist at work, produced by Euromaxx, recommended by Crist Graphicart (German language)
“In 2006, we created this short for the University of Southern California’s Public Arts Studies Program.
This documentary explored the studios and methods of six of the top street artists in America: Faile, Skewville, Mike De Feo, Dan Witz, Espo and Tiki Jay One.” Recommended by Lou J Auguste
“At the end of November (2011), the En Masse Art Initiative flew down to Miami to take part of the Miami Art Basel events. With the help of Sodec Quebec and Galerie Pangée, EM teamed up with Scope Art Fair, Fountain Art Fair, Safewalls, Primary Flight and the Found store to create multiple work of art. During 10 days, the team grew exponentially, adding members from all around the globe; Tel-Aviv, Montreal, Brooklyn, Woodstock, Staten Island, San Fransico, San Diego, Miami etc.” – recommended by Beth Tully
Berlin Street Art as Lyrics (Emus Primus)
Emus Primus and photography of Berlin Street art, set to music. As recommended by Da Andal
Shai Dahan new Ted Talk “Beyond Borders”
The keynote is about my travel into Palestine. Considering what is going on there – Being that everyone is talking about the violence, this video can reflect a bit of light on how there are some ways to find peace. It may not find the sort of wide peace we hope to all gain there, but through the message in the keynote, I hope people can see that Israel and Palestine can share a common beauty: Street-art.” Shai Dahan
TEJN LOCK ON STREET ART – Street Art Sculpture by Tejn
“The third episode of BURN graffiti video series. Best episode so far! Featuring rolling freight, live painting and more! As recommended by Beyond The Rail Photography
Graffiti Verite Part 1
“Part 1 of the 1995 Los Angeles graffiti documentary directed by Bob Bryan. Featured artists include Duke, Skept, Tempt, Prime, Mear, Relic, Cre8, and Design9.”
Japanese Stencil
A stencil artist creates a piece as a tribute to Japan in the wake of the destruction it suffered last year. – As recommended by Crist Graphicart
BLU – BIG BANG BIG BOOM
“an unscientific point of view on the beginning and evolution of life … and how it could probably end. direction and animation by BLU.” This one recommended by Martha Becker
The full documentary – “Through interviews and guerilla footage of graffiti writers in action on 5 continents, BOMB IT tells the story of graffiti from its origins in prehistoric cave paintings thru its notorious explosion in New York City during the 70’s and 80’s, then follows the flames as they paint the globe.” Recommended by Orson Horchler
Today we welcome Monica Compana to BSA to share with you her experiences during a recent Street Art/community program in Johannesburg, South Africa that took place in September. As one of the principal originators of Atlanta’s Living Walls festival, Campana brings a wizened eye to the events as they unfolded, and presents here what she observed and experienced.Special thanks to Martha Cooper, who shares with BSA images that display her personal vision of Joburg and some layouts from her new zine “Soweto/Sowebo”.
Considered one of the wealthiest cities in Africa, Johannesburg is not only rich in gold and diamonds, but also rich in arts and culture. In the month of September, Johannesburg hosted the largest mural project in the city and possibly even the continent.
I Art Joburg brought the artists Espo, ROA, Cameron Platter, Falko, Remed and graffiti photographer legend Martha Cooper to South Africa to create art in the streets, start a dialogue about street art in the city and to document a month where artists worked together alongside a commercial production team and community members to bring color to Joburg and Soweto.
“Color creates energy, energy creates inspiration and inspiration creates change. It is our responsibility to inspire ourselves to inspire others to inspire the change. Art is the remedy for this,”says Ricky Lee Gordon, organizer and curator of I Art Joburg.
Gordon’s carefully selected list of renowned street artists not only managed to put the festival amongst one of the best ones of the year, but also it created a chemistry between artists and community. With 6 murals installed around the Maboneng Precinct it hosted a night of lectures and the screening of Espo’s “Love Letters to You” documentary. The precinct is also referred to as “a place of light”, as it is a hub for young creatives and artists, and it also hosted a gallery exhibit by the participating artists.
To inspire kids from a local school, organizers created a workshop and a mural with kids in Soweto, a name synonymous in the northern hemisphere with the historic anti-apartheid black resistance movement that inspired so many artists in the 70s-80s around the world. The name Soweto has an auditory similarity to the neighborhood of Sowebo in Baltimore, which photographer Martha Cooper has been documenting as a personal passion for nearly a decade.
Already in Joburg to document all of the murals and exhibit her own work, she took the experience and project to a whole new level with the development of her zine titled: “Soweto/Sowebo.” Martha owns a house in South West Baltimore, also known as Sowebo, an area so affected by urban decay that it is often compared to Soweto in South Africa. Needless to say, when she arrived in Soweto she immediately saw the similarities and she decided to create a zine honoring the richness of both cultures. It was fascinating to see through her work how these two places, so far away from each other geographically in two completely different continents, could pass as one and the same.
Soweto/ Sowebo was not the only example of this wonderful dialogue. Each artist tried to leave something to the city of Joburg that would not only last for a long time visually, but something that could continue to spark some kind of dialogue. During my stay in Joburg I was able to spend quite a bit of time with ROA and Martha Cooper. It was amazing to see how their easily they interacted with the people on the streets of the city and even though they had been there for only about a week by the time that I arrived, Martha and ROA had already made dear friends in the neighborhood.
On the subject of friends we made: Bongani Mathebula, my Joburg tour guide, is the one that stole my heart. Seeing the city through the eyes of a local 25 year old artist was very inspirational. He told me that projects like I Art Joburg are what the city of Johannesburg needs – an outsider’s view and conversation starter to inspire the local community.
“Artists are like heroes. Art is crazy, people need to let that happen. More art, more crazy communication and growth,” says Bongani.
I hope to see more mural festivals happen in Joburg and Soweto. I know the artists who were part of the project were left wanting more. So, who knows? Maybe this really is just the start to a much bigger conversation in Joburg! Fingers crossed!
This week seemed busy on the streets of New York after LA graff writer Saber started us off on Sunday with a sky-writing campaign that was politically charged arts advocacy and a social media-soaked smackdown of the right wing in the US. From culture-jamming to political commentary to social advocacy, it looks like some Street Artists are getting back their voice in many pieces that are espousing a message. Not all of them of course.
So here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Bast, Billi Kid, Creepy, Classic, Espo, Home Sick, JB Rock, Jeice 2, Meer Sau, ND’A, Olek, OverUnder, PM AM, Reader, and Ugo Rondinone. Locations include New York, Istanbul, London, Portugal, Sicily, and the Pilbara desert in the Northwest of Australia.
As he paints the giant 8-shaped snake biting it’s tail, the Italian Street Artist JB Rock explains his new piece this way, “This is a portrait of our modern society and especially of my beautiful but very counterproductive country. For this work I’ve been inspired by the UROBORUS concept, remixed with the Infinity symbol”.
“I traveled up to Port Hedland which is an industry Port in the North West of Australia and painted some walls and found objects in the desert as part of a residency with FORM gallery,” says the Perth-based Creepy.
It’s a BSA Fun Friday and we’re gonna tell you all about some stoopendous Street Art shows this weekend from Brooklyn to Chicago to Paris to Vienna but first….Everybody get up and do some FF dancing like my homeboy PSY in Korea.
This sh*t is Gangnsta, bro.
SEOUL, YOU THINK YOU GOT TALENT…
1. VIDEO “Gangnam Style” Dance Frenzy from Korea
2. Bäst Sells Olive Oil and Opens New Show at Opera Gallery (NYC)
3. “Just Your Type” at Low Brow Artique (BKLN)
4. LUDO “Metal Miltia” at Galerie Itinerrance (PARIS)
5. “All Write You Scumbags” with Reyes and Steel at Klughaus (Chinatown, NYC)
6. “Dominant Species” by ROA at 941 Geary (San Francisco)
7. GAIA, MOMO AND MICHAEL OWEN in “Zim Zum” (Baltimore)
8. Don’t Fret in “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Chardonnay”(Chicago)
9. Tel Aviv: Israeli Street Artist and poet Know Hope “Others’ Truths”
10. The Black River Festival in Vienna, Austria
11. Stephen Powers AKA ESPO “A Love Letter for You”
12. “Permanence at Space 27 Gallery in Montreal, Canada
13. eL Seed in Tunisia (VIDEO)
14. When Lucent Met Herakut (VIDEO)
15. Voice Of Art “Graffiti Against The System” Presents GATS (VIDEO)
Bäst Sells Olive Oil and Opens New Show at Opera Gallery (NYC)
Street Artist Bäst has always mixed a savory chopped image salad. With his dicing, cutting, collaging and stencilling work on the street over the last decade, a lot of his recent stencils are twisted Bodega style signs advertising basic staples for the pantry. But of all the collaborative advertising that Street Artists have been getting into, we never could have predicted this; Olive oil. You can actually go to snooty classist foodery Dean and Deluca and buy a bottle of Bast style olive oil right now. Only 500 were made in this limited edition and the oil smells better than the petroleum-spilled brownfields in industrial Bushwick where you usually see his work, so why not?
This Brooklyn native artist has been amusing, hijacking, and inspiring with his work on the streets of New York for well over a decade and it’s also cool to see his gallery work at his solo show “Germs Tropicana” opened last night at Opera in Manhattan. If the pieces are too pricey, Dean and Deluca is just a couple of blocks away!
For further information regarding this show click here.
“Just Your Type” at Low Brow Artique (BKLN)
Outside is the brand new wall piece by ND’A and Dirty Bandits. Inside this art store/gallery they are joined QRST and Gilf! in this new small show called “Just Your Type”, opening tonight.
For further information regarding this show click here.
LUDO “Metal Miltia” at Galerie Itinerrance (PARIS)
Parisian Street Artist LUDO was in multiple shows around the world and blanketed the Paris Metro and bus shelters with his subvertisements for two years before a gallery in his native city invited him inside. Tonight Galerie Itinerrance will have LUDO’s first solo show entitled “Metal Militia”.
With a truly unique approach to social critique that serves as a cunning indictment of the advertising industry and the military industrial complex, you won’t find anything like the pretty disgust than the work of LUDO.
For further information regarding this show click here.
“All Write You Scumbags” with Reyes and Steel at Klughaus (Chinatown, NYC)
Ever the ballsy wiseguy, the Klaughaus Gallery in Manhattan continues to produce and present quality shows that challenge your possibly prejudicial pre-formed perceptions of propriety and pugnacity. This time they invited West Coast natives Reyes and Steel to exhibit at their space with a show titled “All Write You Scumbags”.
From the press release, “The New York debut for both artists and showcases a distinct chemistry cultivated over years working together as friends, creative partners and members of MSK, one of the highest regarded graffiti artist collectives in the world.” To find out what this means go to their show opening tonight.
For further information regarding this show click here.
“Dominant Species” by ROA at 941 Geary (San Francisco)
Street Artist ROA concludes his US Summer Tour 2012 in San Francisco at his own victorious opening Saturday at 941 Geary Gallery. The show is aptly called “Dominant Species” and will feature many of the cast of creatures you have grown to expect.
For further information regarding this show click here.
To read BSA’s feature on ROA this week and to see beautiful images of his work in Mexico, Africa and Cambodia earlier this year click here.
GAIA, MOMO AND MICHAEL OWEN in “Zim Zum” (Baltimore)
GAIA, MOMO AND MICHAEL OWEN are transforming the space at the Creative Alliance Gallery in Baltimore with a collaboration that promises to spill over the street and beyond. If you want to see what the trio is up to put the gameboy down and head out to the gallery for their opening tomorrow night with an exhibition titled Zim Zum.
Don’t Fret in “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Chardonnay”(Chicago)
Chicago based Street Artist Don’t Fret has a new solo show, “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Chardonnay” opening Saturday night at the Bizzare Gallery in Chicago. So if you are planning to arrive naked, BYOB and put your wallet under your armpit. Lo-fi comic book doodling that make most people look like family day at the tractor pull, Don’t Fret drawings are people you know and often dang hilarious.
For further information regarding this show click here.
Also happening this Weekend:
If you are in Tel Aviv: Israeli Street Artist and poet Know Hope is releasing a new zine titled “Others’ Truths” and he’s mounted a small exhibition of the drawings that illustrate it. This exhibition will remain open all day today until 4:00 pm. Click here for more details on this show.
The 2012 Edition of The Black River Festival in Vienna, Austria is now open. The festival has an important selection of Street Artists putting up works throughout an entire week of programs. Roster includes Blu, Evan Roth, Florian Riviere, Isaac Cordal, Mark Jenkins, and ZukClub. Click here for more details on this festival.
The film screening by Stephen Powers AKA ESPO “A Love Letter for You” is being hosted by the Joshua Liner Gallery in conjunction with their current show by the artist “A Word is Worth A Thousand Pictures”. The screening will take place tomorrow at The Tribeca Grand Hotel. The artist will be in attendance along with the director and a Q & A will follow the film. Click here for more details on this event.
“Permanence” is the title of the new group show at Space 27 Gallery in Montreal, Canada. With an ambitious line up international and Canadian artists this show aims to juxtapose the “ephemeral nature of street art with the permanence of collectible art.” From their press release. Click here for more details regarding this show.
In the spirit of Unity, we present Street Artist eL Seed in Tunisia (VIDEO)
This week there has been much news of sadness, discord, and suffering in Libya, Egypt, and Yemen. Street Artist and painter eL Seed gives us a moment to pull back and reflect on the beauty and poignancy that a religious belief system can contribute to the lives of some.
Here he creates ‘Madinati’ Calligraffiti on Jara Mosque in Gabes.
When Lucent Met Herakut by The One Point Eight (VIDEO)
“A short documentary which presents the show involving graffiti duo Herakut and the Lucent Dossier group, detailing both the rehearsal process and the final performance in a unique and different way.”
Voice Of Art “Graffiti Against The System” Presents GATS (VIDEO)
In conjunction with our current solo exhibition, A Word is Worth a Thousand Pictures, Joshua Liner Gallery and Stephen Powers will be hosting a screening of Powers’ feature film A Love Letter For You followed by Q&A with Stephen Powers and director Joey Garfield.
The screening will be held this Saturday 9/15, at the Tribeca Grand Hotel at 8pm. Tickets are limited, so get them while you can!
Click here to buy tickets. Click here (or click on the image below) to watch the trailer.
Joshua Liner Gallery is pleased to announce our September exhibition with Stephen Powers. A Word is Worth a Thousand Pictures will be Powers’ first solo exhibition in New York in over seven years. The prolific artist will present a panoramic assemblage of paintings that will occupy the entire breadth of the gallery. A Word is Worth a Thousand Pictures will consist of a multitude of enamel on aluminum paintings, ranging from 10 x 8 inches to 10 x 10 feet.
Joshua Liner Gallery
548 W 28th St. 3rd Floor
New York, New York 10001
212-244-7415 joshualinergallery.com
Philadephia born New York Street Artist Stephen Powers AKA ESPO has been covering walls in Brooklyn since last summer with puns, phrases, and messages that hide in plain sight. Borrowing from a visual vocabulary of mid 20th century commercial signage and injecting his low-brow sarcasm and a knack for wordplay, the former graffiti writer perfected this kind of lettering more than a decade ago doing non-commissioned street art work in broad daylight on storefront grates in dilapidated New York neighborhoods.
Like his barking carney signage for famous Coney Island, the work has all the subtlety of a cannonball. But you may be bamboozled. The sharply sweet uptown fonts and punchy retro palette could look like he’s giving you the straight dope, but a second glance reveals the winking eye of a court jester. With an advertisers sensibility, his recent expansive public art installations – “Love Letters” to Philadelphia, Syracuse, and now Brooklyn – have a tough-as-nails enamel gloss while the soft center swirls a sentiment more gooey, even maudlin.
Using phrases snatched directly from Brooklyn folks conversations on the street as well as his penchant for the parlance of snake oil salesmen, Powers yells boldly these non-sequitur and illusory missives across a parking garage, regularly looking back to see if “yah heard?”. It’s what emotional signage this size demands and gets, if only for a second.
Todd “Reas” James and Stephen “ESPO” Powers joined forces again this weekend and brought to Brooklyn a large selection of works from “The Street Market”, their installation shown this April at the “Arts in the Streets” exhibition at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art.
Steve ESPO Powers is a man of letters and he likes to play with them like other kids play with Legos. Informed with a rich commercial vintage signage vocabulary and a sharp eye, and armed with buckets of paint and brushes Powers has created bold messages in a number of cities that play on and satirize meanings and advertising jargon.
Under the watchful eye of Jesus, Street Artist Steve Espo and associate paint. (Still from video)
To celebrate adman David Ogilvy’s birthday and his command of the language in service of fooling people to buy things, Ogilvy & Mather New York and Joshua Liner Gallery commissioned a series of murals by ESPO interpreting quotes of their revered agency founder. ESPO nails it.
The video below by Jun Lee gives a brief introduction to ESPO’s work:
Here’s Part II of our tour of the museum at the “Art in the Streets” show that opened a week ago at MOCA LA. The breadth and depth of the show must have blown away many of the potential critics, because the grousing never really materialized. For our part, the review on the Huffington Post of the show itself (Red Hot and Street: “Art in the Streets” Brings Fire to MOCA) and the images of stuff on the street in 4 0r 5 neighborhoods in LA (Hitting Up LA: The Streets Outside the Show) have been fodder for some conversation (and voting!) and it’s a blast to see how this graffiti/street art movement sparks such intense opinion and feelings.
MOCA Part II Images of the Week, this week featuring Banksy, Barry McGee, ESPO,Steve Powers, Craig Stecyk III, Ed Templeton, Freedom, Invader, Martha Cooper, John Fekner, John Ahearn, Kenny Scharf, Lee Quinones, Margaret Kilgallen, Nunca, Os Gemeos, ROA, and Swoon.
Curbs and Stoops in Bushwick for “Beat Nite” Tonight
The Grand Opening of Curbs and Stoops Active Space! A proud New York tradition for artists and collectives – the opening of a big welcoming space in which to explore and celebrate the creative spirit. This is where you find the wild seeds of what will grow tomorrow. Big Ups to courageous peeps like Ashley Zelinskie and Jeffrey Pena and all the friends that are putting their skills into action.
Sebastian Vallejo Detail. Image courtesy of Curbs & Stoops
The goal is to create a progressive cultural center designed to promote community through art; a 6,000 square foot space will host new works by Angel Otero, Ashley Zelinskie, Brian Maller, Brian Matthew, Christopher Rivera, Hector Arce, Hector Hernandez, Jason Mones, Jeffrey Pena, Jonathan Chapline, Korakrit Arunanondchai, Pep Williams, Rachel LaBine, Sebastian Vallejo, Lapiztola Collective, UR New York Collective and Super Pop Collective
566 Johnson Street 2nd Floor Friday, February 18, 6-10PM Morgan L Stop
Opening night party with DJ Grimmace.
Sponsor: DogFish Head
For more information on this show click on Curbs & Stoops site:
Check out the artists collaboration show at Art Bazaar in Chelsea to see new work by a number of artists, including some you have seen on the street like painters Mario Pena and Fumero.
C215 Prepares for “Community Service”: New Show and Book
“Painting in the streets puts limits on you, as far as the number of colours you can bring with you, how much time you have to paint, and even the subject matter since I like to put a link between the stencils I paint and the context around where I paint them.”
C215 speaks about his process, his travels, and his new book that features street images from our own Jaime Rojo and an introduction from our editor. More from the interview with Ripo on No New Enemies.
Aakash Nihilani at Bose Pacia Gallery
Aakash has been riding that tape into the gallery – including this homage to Jeff Koons. Says the gallery for the “Overlap” show that opened last night, “The common denominator of all works in the exhibition is the overlapping of isometric square shapes to create new forms that move towards figurative representation.”
The celebrated Street Artist from Brooklyn talks about her approach to her work, and how it continues to evolve.
Invader Accused of Stealing Cow
This courtesy of graffart.eu, apparently Street Artist Invader has a sidebuster called Id-iom. Invader’s iconic digital spaceship had a rather close encounter of the bovine kind on the street recently.
This new video from Nick Walker in an interview at the opening of his current show at Art Sensus Gallery contains two of the pieces he did first with us this summer on a some walls BSA secured for him in The People’s Republic of Brooklyn. The pieces also look great in the gallery, but the time hanging out with this talented and down-to-earth Street Artist was stellar and a really nice memory for summer 2010.
An earnest text-based approach to Street Art, this duo treats their work more like Public Service Announcement than Street Art. The messages posted are in support of Proposition 19, a referendum to legalize use of marijuana this past Tuesday in California, which was voted against by 53.9% of the populace.
Interestingly, the first part of the video is a primer on how to make fresh wheat paste in your kitchen. Suddenly BSA is the cooking channel!
Saber, Shepard Fairey and American Pride
From the West Coast, where smoking pot is still illegal without a doctor’s prescription, Shepard Fairey posted excellent photos by Todd Mazer of a big mural he and Saber recently completed for a project with a name that sounds kind of familiar.
“Saber and I have been friends for over 10 years and previously collaborated on the Brooklyn Projects wall on Sunset in Echo Park. We also both recently coincidentally made art inspired by the American flag,” says Fairey.
Street Artist Stephen Powers aka ESPO sends this video of an amorous train trip along the same elevated line that affords riders a birds-eye view of his “Love Letters” project in Philadelphia. On the way, the Beatles get involved, and we all start to cry.
Here’s the new video for the next chapter in adoration; Love Letters Syracuse, in a mid-sized city in the center of New York State.
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
