All posts tagged: Evan Roth

BSA Film Friday 05.17.19

BSA Film Friday 05.17.19

Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.

Now screening :
1. Evan Roth “Since You Were Born”
2. “Island” Hamburg Max Mortal and Robert Lobel
3. Isaac Cordal In-Studio Visit. Bilbao, Spain.
4. ARTRIUM in Moscow

BSA Special Feature: Evan Roth “Since You Were Born”

Graffiti Research Lab co-founder Evan Roth has been hacking his way through life and art practice for the mid-2000s when he was a student at Brooklyn’s Parsons, where he was valedictorian. Now an older wiser daddy of two, he turns his attention to the saturated everyday data pileup generated from Internet browsing. The accumulated images, logos, maps, banner ads in the cache is like so much DNA of the person behind the mouse, and when it is printed to display, one becomes engulfed.

Our favorite term from his new exhibit? “An alternate form of art-making, memory-making, and storytelling”.

Project Atrium: Evan Roth

“Island” Hamburg Max Mortal and Robert Lobel

From Hamburg an animated short video by Max Mörtl & Robert Löbel explores the irresistible desire to communicate with this stop motion & 2D animation piece. Adorable exotic creatures come alive during the day to explore and seek kindred spirits.

Isaac Cordal In-Studio Visit. Bilbao, Spain.

From our visit to his studio comes this silent overview of how to turn a pig into a pig-man. “Here is where you see the craftsman at work; carefully attentive, problem-solving industry in play, possibly more at peace while he is creating than when he is left to think too much. He picks up a pink pig figurine and begins the plastic surgery, the fine reconstruction; a gentle whirring, a whittling away of snout and a defining of chin-line.”

See our full interview HERE:

ARTRIUM in Moscow

When we were in Moscow last summer as curators at Artmossphere, we had the opportunity to meet the director of the new program to bring international Street Artists to paint a shopping mall.  The magnetizing force that drew artists to hit these walls is pretty strong; just ask Shepard Fairey, Felipe Pantone, Tristan Eaton, Ben Eine, PichiAvo, Okuda San Miguel, Pokras Lampas, Faith47, WK Interact, Faust, and Haculla.


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“ALL BIG LETTERS” : Exhibition of Style, Tools, and Technique of Graffiti

“ALL BIG LETTERS” : Exhibition of Style, Tools, and Technique of Graffiti

It’s called ALL BIG LETTERS but it could easily be called ALL BIG DREAMS because the outward techniques, the history, and the tools of the trade of graffiti on display at Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery all lead to more internal aspirational matters.

All Big Letters curated by RJ Rushmore at Haverford College’s Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery. Philadelphia, PA. (photo © Lisa Boughter)

Yes, the earliest New York and Philly graffiti writers of the 1960s took special pains and circumvented norms to get their message out, even if the message was simply their name or a street alias. But the drive to repeat it as often as possible in as many locations as possible spoke to grander dreams of recognition among peers and the addictively elusive effervescence of capturing “fame” on a public stage. Add competition, complexity, and clever innovation to the mix, and wall writers devised ever larger strategies to pursue and acquire those dreams.

RJ Rushmore, Editor-in-Chief of Vandalog, curates ALL BIG LETTERS at his alma mater Haverford College with this as one of his principal goals; helping viewers better understand the motivation behind the tag as well as the style and techniques used.

Faust. All Big Letters curated by RJ Rushmore at Haverford College’s Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery. Philadephia, PA (photo © Lisa Boughter)

“I wanted to exhibit the mind of a graffiti writer in a gallery, and make that mindset understandable to your average gallery-goer,” he tells us. “To me, that means appreciating not just the finished piece, but how and why it came to be.”

By showing artists, works, photography, and tools that judiciously span the 50 or so years that mark the era of modern mark-making in the public sphere, Rushmore threads a story line that he hopes a visitor can gain an appreciation for in this art, sport, and quest for fame.

Faust . Curve. All Big Letters curated by RJ Rushmore at Haverford College’s Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery. Philadephia, PA (photo © Lisa Boughter)

We spoke with RJ about the show to help BSA readers get a better appreciation for ALL BIG LETTERS and Rushmore’s own use of technique for communication.

Brooklyn Street Art (BSA): How have you tried to demystify graffiti for a more general audience?
RJ Rushmore: In a gallery full of “graffiti on canvas,” you’ll see some beautiful art, but you won’t actually learn that much about graffiti. All you’ll see are things that resemble the end result of writing. That can be stunning, but it’s not the right approach for a gallery with an educational mission. Just seeing the finished product does not give you a sense of how it was made. That’s still a mystery.

ALL BIG LETTERS takes writers’ tools and strategies as its starting point, which gives a more holistic vision of graffiti. The exhibition covers style, but also the tools writers use and the importance of strategies like repetition and innovation, or the ways that writers respond to architecture. Someone should be able to enter the exhibition with zero knowledge of graffiti and leave with the ability to see a piece on the street and understand roughly how that got there, why it’s there, and why it looks the way it does.

Curve. All Big Letters curated by RJ Rushmore at Haverford College’s Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery. Philadephia, PA (photo © Lisa Boughter)

BSA: What role does innovation play in the pushing of the evolution of writers’ techniques? Your text accompanying the exhibition describes the drive of competition that influenced Blade in developing his style in the 70s, for example.
RJ: Reading Blade’s book, it struck me that almost every change in his style was in response to what people were doing around him. When all it took to stand out was a simple two-color piece, that’s what he painted. When other writers were using four or five colors, he used seven. When the trains were crowded with graffiti and he was forced to paint over other writers’ partially-buffed or dissed pieces, he hid that old work with cloud backgrounds or his trademark blockbuster pieces. Blade was innovating, constantly staying one step ahead of the curve, and that’s why he stood out.

Graffiti is largely a game of one-upmanship, and innovation can happen in other ways too. The first writers to discover destructible vinyl stickers stood out because their stickers were so difficult to remove. Today, anybody can order destructible vinyl from Egg Shell Stickers. Destructible vinyl is still useful, and arguably makes stickers a more appealing medium, but it’s no longer novel. Or take COST and REVS. One of their greatest innovations was using wheatpaste and sticking their work on the backs of street signs and traffic lights. They dominated a physical space that most writers ignored.

Lee Quinones. Lee George Quinones/Museum of the City of New York. Gift of Martin Wong, 1994. 94.114.1  All Big Letters curated by RJ Rushmore at Haverford College’s Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery. Philadephia, PA (photo © Lisa Boughter)

BSA: What is it like to watch the act of writing? How does “performance” enter into the equation? Katsu’s fire extinguisher tag seems like a polar opposite performance from one by Faust.
RJ: Writing is a performance, and graffiti is a kind of documentation of the performance. Writers have to climb fences, repel down buildings, and break the law in highly-visible places without being seen. I’m terrible at deciphering wildstyle graffiti or dense tags, but I love reading graffiti as a remnant of a performance, looking at a piece or a tag and trying to figure out how it happened.

KATSU and FAUST may be stylistically quite different, but whether you’re looking at a FAUST sticker or a KATSU extinguisher tag, you can appreciate that acts necessary to make them. KATSU’s extinguishers are a moment of epic lawbreaking. FAUST’s stickers are subtler. There’s the moment of putting up the sticker, but there’s also the intense focus and perfectionism that goes into making it, something that FAUST’s installation in ALL BIG LETTERS touches on. KATSU innovated mostly with tools, and FAUST innovated mostly with style. Their respective methods of getting up, their performances, reflect that.

Tools of the trade under plexi: All Big Letters curated by RJ Rushmore at Haverford College’s Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery. Philadephia, PA (photo © Lisa Boughter)

BSA: When you compare graffiti writing to hacking, in this case, a city, – wouldn’t it be smart for the government to hire these hackers to better understand their city in the way that the FBI and NSA are said to hire hackers to develop spy programs and national security measures?
RJ: I suppose most cities would think to hire former graffiti writers to learn how to combat graffiti. What I would love to see, as you suggest, is a city planner hiring graffiti writers to learn how to make cities more fun.

The people who have figured this out are advertising executives. Ever wonder why so many graffiti writers go into marketing and graphic design? It’s because that’s essentially what graffiti is. Writers were developing their own “personal brands” decades before social media made the concept mainstream. Writing is a competition for fame, which is basically what advertising and marketing is.

EKG on the left. All Big Letters curated by RJ Rushmore at Haverford College’s Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery. Philadephia, PA (photo © Lisa Boughter)

BSA: When you talk about hacks, are you really describing how graffiti writers have often used ingenuity and adaptation?
RJ: I have to give Evan Roth credit for this whole idea of graffiti as a series of hacks. It’s the idea that writers often use things for unintended purposes. They use subway cars as canvases, because the cars travel all over the city. They use easy-to-carry spray paint for vandalism, when their intended use is modest arts and crafts. They use fire extinguishers, because they can create massive tags. So yes, it’s ingenuity, but particularly ingenuity around using existing things for new and unintended purposes. Montana Gold is not a hack. KRINK is not a hack. Egg Shell Stickers are not a hack. But all of those commercial products developed from, and improved upon, hacks.

EKG. All Big Letters curated by RJ Rushmore at Haverford College’s Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery. Philadephia, PA (photo © Lisa Boughter)

BSA: What was one of your challenges in communicating a concept or idea with this exhibition?
RJ: If you’re walking in with zero knowledge, seeing a display case full of different spray cans or 140 different S’s on a wall might require some context to make sense of it all. We solved with wall text, and there’s a lot of wall text. So that’s a big ask that we make of visitors: look at the work, but also read the text we’ve put next to it.

CURVE’s piece is a great example of that challenge and how we solved it. Without context, it’s beautiful and engaging as artwork. If you come in with pre-existing knowledge of graffiti, you can probably guess at what he’s trying to do. Without that knowledge, and without reading the wall text, you might miss that the piece is as much an artwork as a teaching device, a demonstration of all the different sorts of tools and styles that a writer might use to adapt to the surface they are writing on.

I’m not sure that lots of wall text is the perfect solution, but I think it means that ALL BIG LETTERS rewards the curious. We’re asking people to spend a few minutes in the gallery, because there is an argument being made, not just a bunch of cool stuff to Instagram.

Different artists. All Big Letters curated by RJ Rushmore at Haverford College’s Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery. Philadephia, PA (photo © Lisa Boughter)

Different artists. All Big Letters curated by RJ Rushmore at Haverford College’s Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery. Philadephia, PA (photo © Lisa Boughter)

 

All Big Letters is currently on view at Haveford College’s Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery. Click HERE for more details.


This article is also published on The Huffington Post

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FUN FRIDAY 09.14.12

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!

Bäst (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

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.

ND’A (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

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.

LUDO (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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.

Reyes (image © courtesy of the gallery)

Steel (image © courtesy of the gallery)

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.

“Here is a Street Artist who has very effectively escaped the street, an introvert traveling quietly in the extroverted world, with open eyes and an acute talent for observation; decoding the universe through study of the natural, and unnatural.” BSA

ROA at work on his recent stop over in NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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.

MOMO at work on his recent participation on Baltimore Open Walls this Summer. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

For further information regarding this show click here.

See MOMO in GEOMETRICKS, presented by BSA and curated by Hellbent next weekend in BROOKLYN, baby.

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.

Don’t Fret in Miami. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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)

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Black River Festival 2012 (Vienna, Austria)

Black River Festival

BLK River 2012 

To the age its art, to art its festival.
13. – 22. September 2012
Artists
Blu
Evan Roth
Florian Riviere
Isaac Cordal
Mark Jenkins
ZukClub

Isaac Cordal (photo © Isaac Cordal)

 Program 
Thursday Sept. 13, Gartenbaukino, Start 23:00. Film: This aint California, D 2011
Friday Sept. 14, Workshop, BLK River rsvp@blkriver.at
Saturday Sept. 15, Sept. BLK River Projects
Sunday Sept. 16, BLK River Projects
Monday Sept. 17, Workshop, Florian Riviere rsvp@blkriver.at
Tuesday Sept 18, Bike Tour, Start 14:00 rsvp@blkriver.at
Wednesday Sept. 19 BLK River Projects
Thursday Sept. 20, Evan Roth FREE SPEECH
Friday Sept. 21, Bike Tour, Start 14:00, Free rsvp@blkriver.at
Saturday Sept. 22, Kunsthalle, Begin 13:00 Free Entrance
Plakat*zine Fair, Free Entrance
The BLK River Festival team gets some of the most significant representatives of the international street art scene to Vienna. Every September, artists from all continents are invited to honour Vienna by realizing projects in various locations all around the capital. Black River utilizes the whole city. Public artist talks, where the stars of an art scene that simultaneously seek and avoid publicity in equal measure are participating in discussions, as well as a group exhibition and a filmprogram with selected street art movies to complete the program.
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“Wall & Frames”, Today’s Street Artists, Tomorrow’s Masters

There is an uneasy reluctance among some artists in the graffiti and the Street Art community to let themselves be seen hanging with art collectors or even entering galleries sometimes because they might lose credibility among peers for not being ‘street’ enough. Seeing well manicured men in pinstripes and shrieking birdberry women with tinted/straightened/plumped everything looking at your shit hanging on a wall and asking vaguely patronizing questions about it like you are an exquisite curiosity could make you go out and slice their tires after downing a few white wines.  Not surprisingly, “keeping it real” sometimes translates to keeping it out of private collections.

Even as there is an every-growing recognition of art and artists who work sometimes illegally in the street, it’s a sort of high-wire act for anyone associating with art born in margins, mainly because it forces one to face the fact that we marginalize.

Sociological considerations aside, over the last decade there is a less traditional definition of Street Artist entering the fray. The graffiti scene originally boasted a sort of grassroots uprising by the voiceless and economically disempowered, with a couple of art school kids and the occasional high-minded conceptualist to mix things up. It’s all changed of course – for myriad reasons – and art in the streets takes every form, medium, and background. Now we see fully formed artists with dazzling gallery careers bombing right next to first time Krinks writers, graffiti writers changing gears and doing carefully rendered figurative work, corporations trying their hand at culture jamming (which isn’t a stretch), and all manner of Street Art referred to as an “installation”.

A new book by Maximiliano Ruiz called “Walls & Frames”, just released last month by Gestalten, presents a large collection of artists who have traversed the now permeable definitions of “street”, gallery, collector and museum. Admittedly, this may be a brief period of popularity for Street Art, if the 1980s romance with graffiti is any indication, but there is evidence that it will endure in some form.  This time one defining difference is that many artists have already developed skill, technique, and a fan base. Clearly the street has become a venue, a laboratory for testing and working out new ideas and techniques by fine artists, and even a valued platform for marketing oneself to a wider audience.

A spread of work by Conor Harrington in “Walls and Frames”.

The resulting work, whether hanging on a nail inside or painted on a street wall, challenges our previously defined boundaries. The current crop of street art stars and debutantes, many of the strongest whom are collected here by Ruiz, continue to stay connected with the energy of the street regardless of their trajectory elsewhere. Some are relatively new, while others have been evolving their practice since the 70s, with all the players sliding in and off the street over time. The rich and varied international collection is remarkable and leaves you wanting to see more work by many of the artists. All considered, “Wall and Frames” is a gorgeously produced book giving ample evidence that many of today’s artists in the streets are tomorrow’s masters, wherever they practice.

Augustine Kofie in “Walls and Frames”.

 

Sixe in “Walls and Frames”.

Remed in “Walls and Frames”.

Anthony Lister in “Walls and Frames”.

Judith Supine in “Walls and Frames”.

Alexandros Vasmoulakis in “Walls and Frames”.

D*Face in “Walls and Frames”.

Interesni Kazki in “Walls and Frames”.

Jorge Rodriguez Gerada in “Walls and Frames”.

M-City in “Walls and Frames”.

 All images © of and courtesy of Gestalten and Maximiliano Ruiz.

Artists included are Aaron Noble, AJ Fosik, Alexandre Farto aka Vhils, Alexandros Vasmoulakis, Alëxone Dizac, Amose, Andrew McAttee, Anthony Lister, Antony Micallef, Axel Void, Basco-Vazko, Base 23, Ben Frost, Blek le Rat, Bom-K, Boris Hoppek, Boxi, C215, Cekis, Conor Harrington, D*Face, Dan Witz, Daniel Muñoz aka San, Dave Kinsey, Der, Dixon, Docteur Gecko, Doze Green, Dran, Duncan Jago aka Mr. Jago, Eine, Ekundayo, El Mac, Evan Roth, Evol, Faile, Faith 47, Fefe Talavera, Gaia, George Morton-Clark, Herakut, Herbert Baglione, Interesni Kazki, Jaybo, Jeff Soto, Jeremy Fish, Jesse Hazelip, Johnny “KMNDZ” Rodriguez, Joram Roukes, Jorge Rodriguez Gerada, Josh Keyes, JR, Judith Supine, Katrin Fridriks, Kevin Cyr, Kofie, L’Atlas, Lightgraff, Logan Hicks, Ludo, M-City, Mark Jenkins, Mark Whalen aka Kill Pixie, Maya Hayuk, Medo & Demência, Meggs, Miss Bugs, Miss Van, Morten Andersen aka M2theA, Mr. Kern, Mudwig, Nicholas Di Genova, Okuda, Patrick Evoke, Paul Insect, Pedro Matos, Peter Owen, Pose, Pure Evil, Remed, Remi/Roughe, René Almanza, Retna, Ripo, Ródez, Sam3, Sat One, Shepard Fairey, Sixe, Smash 137, Sowat, Sten & Lex, Stephan Doitschinoff, Tec, Tilt, Troy Lovegates aka Other, Turf One, Vitché;, Wendell McShine, Will Barras, and Zosen.

 

The launch; “Walls & Frames” will be presented at Gestalten Space Berlin on December 15th.

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NUART Update: The Show Goes On!

The throngs of Norwegian fans were finally allowed the NUART Gallery space last night in at the end of a productive week by the street artists of Brooklyn at Stavanger!

The pictures here are primarily of the last preparations, but here’s one of the opening.

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The crowds roll in and Skewville looks wild. (photo Evan Roth)

Hi-Jacked! (photo Evan Roth)

Hi-Jacked! (photo Evan Roth)

Two people almost talking, but not quite (Swoon) (photo Logan Hicks)

Two people almost talking, but not quite (Swoon) (photo Logan Hicks)

The bros in repose (photo Logan Hicks)

The bros in repose (photo Logan Hicks)

Leon Reid getting his piece ready for a large outdoor installation (photo Logan Hicks)

Leon Reid getting his piece ready for a large outdoor installation (photo Logan Hicks)

David Cho taking a break (photo Logan Hicks)

David Cho taking a break (photo Logan Hicks)

Logan Hicks outdoor piece plays with parallel lines (photo Logan Hicks)

Logan Hicks outdoor piece plays with parallel lines (photo Logan Hicks)

detail (Logan Hicks)

detail (Logan Hicks)

Working man (Chris Stain) (photo Logan Hicks)

Working man (Chris Stain) (photo Logan Hicks)

Inspired photography of Swoon by Logan Hicks

Inspired photography of Swoon by Logan Hicks

David Cho in skater's paradise (photo Logan Hicks)

David Cho in skater's paradise (photo Logan Hicks)

It's skaterworld! (photo Logan Hicks)

It's Skaterworld! (photo Logan Hicks)

Golly, Dolly is tired (James Powderly) (photo Logan Hicks)

Golly, Dolly is tired (James Powderly) (photo Logan Hicks)

More great pics on Evan Roth’s blog

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NUART ONSLAUGHT, I mean “Update”

Bridge and Tunnel Doyenne Judith Supine has arrived, Logan has pretty much finished his new piece, GRL’s Evan Roth is analyzing Chris Stain’s graffiti skills electronically, the Skewville brothers haven’t cut off any fingers nor bonked heads while working.

(photo Logan Hicks)
Judith tries to make new friends with the other artists but they just turn their back (photo Logan Hicks)

Look at this too long and your head starts to hurt - Judith Supine (photo Logan Hicks)
Look at this too long and your head starts to hurt – Judith Supine (photo Logan Hicks)

Guess I put lip sunscreen on a little heavy - Judith Supine (photo Logan Hicks)
Guess I put lip sunscreen on a little heavy – Judith Supine (photo Logan Hicks)

Hesitate to be complimentary of this
Logan is looking into Logan’s eyes.  Does this make the piece introspective?

Have you seen my comb? (Skewville) (photo Logan Hicks)
Have you seen my comb? (Skewville) (photo Logan Hicks)

df (Ad Deville) (photo Logan Hicks)
No jokes should be made around power saws (Ad Deville) (photo Logan Hicks)

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Watch your thumbs! (photo Logan Hicks)

AND NOW FOR SOME LOCAL COLOR

And now for some local color. This is where they

STAVANGER, a seaport of Norway, capital of Stavanger amt (county), on the west coast in 59° N. (that of the Orkney Islands and northern Labrador). Pop. (1900), 30,541. It lies on the south side of the Bukken Fjord, and has a picturesque harbour well sheltered by islands.

THERE, THAT WAS REFRESHING WASN’T IT?

Seriously though, 30,541 people?  That was my graduating class!!

And Now, Back to the Artists and their good work…

Swoon whistles as she works, bless her (photo Logan Hicks)
It’s not unusual to catch Swoon whistling as she works, bless her (photo Logan Hicks)

Here she gives Chris his daily Geography lecture (photo Logan Hicks)
Here she gives Chris his daily Geography lecture (photo Logan Hicks)

Anyone notice that
Group consultation (photo Logan Hicks)

James Powderly uses the scheduled downtime for play (photo Logan Hicks)
James Powderly uses the scheduled “downtime” for play and idea-ating. (photo Logan Hicks)

Shards of streaming light bid us fint bye for this visit. (photos Logan Hicks)
Shards of streaming light bid us fint bye for this visit. (photos Logan Hicks)

Evan and Chris are fooling around with the tablet and pen. Patience, people, it’s the experimentation phase.

Nuart: Chris Stain on Graffiti Analysis from Evan Roth on Vimeo.

And here’s a trailor from the NUART people about the success of previous NUART festivals.

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Street Signals 09.05.09

“Oh, my God! We slept on our own important art movement for all these years.” – Lee Quinones

He was talking broadly about graffiti, but he might as well be talking about Street Art too. New York-based Lee Quinones is one of the most important graffiti artists – with some of his work in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

Here he explains how graffiti has evolved from its early days into “something much more mature, and much more expensive.” Video Interview With Lee Quinones on BBC

Lee Quinones talking to BSA at "Whole in the Wall" show (photo Steven P. Harrington)

Lee Quinones talking to BSA at "Whole in the Wall" show (photo Steven P. Harrington)

Brooklyn Street Art Inteview at the “Whole In The Wall” opening in May

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GRL Arriving at Nuart Festival to Demo the Eyewriter Project

Yesterday the Graffiti Research Labs (GRL) arrived in Stavanger, Norway, in advance of their presentation at the Brooklyn street art celebration called the Nuart Festival.

Rockin the Kanye-Tronic GRL Style (image courtesy GRL)
Rockin the Kan-Eye-tronic GRL Style (image courtesy GRL)

James Powderly and Evan Roth are artists and hackers (the good kind) of technology, always looking for ways to project art without damaging property, but in new and innovative ways.  This week at Nuart Festival GRL are showcasing their own works as well as the “EyeWriter” project, which is seeking to enable people who are otherwise disabled to use only the movement of their eyes to create art and communicate.

On hand Nuart special guest will be old school LA graffiti writer Tony Quan, aka Temptone, with whom the “EyeWriter” project has done experiments with the developing technology.

The EyeWriter project at work (image courtesy GRL)

The EyeWriter project at work (image courtesy GRL)

“The EyeWriter project is on ongoing collaborative research effort to empower people, who are suffering from ALS, with creative technologies. The project began in Los Angeles, Caifornia in 2009, when members of the GRL, FAT, OF and TEG communities teamed-up with TEMPTONE. Tony was diagnosed with ALS in 2003. The disease has left him almost completely physically paralyzed… except for his eyes.”

Read More Here

Day #03- KanEye Tracking from Evan Roth on Vimeo.

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Pedestrians & Sidewalks Urban Art Program – Check out this Open Call for Urban Artists to do a project by the WTC Site

“69 Meters,” by artist Magda Sayeg, on Montague Street in Downtown Brooklyn organized in partnership with the Montague BID
“69 Meters,” by artist Magda Sayeg, on Montague Street in Downtown Brooklyn organized in partnership with the Montague BID (image courtesy Alternaventions)

Call for Proposals

The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, in cooperation with NYCDOT invite artists and/or designers to propose conceptual designs for a temporary mural to be installed on the part of the construction fence surrounding the World Trade Center Site, located on Church Street between Liberty and Vesey streets in Lower Manhattan. The deadline is October 1, 2009.

Go here to learn more and download full RFP.

About the Urban Art Program

The Urban Art Program is an initiative to invigorate the City’s streetscapes with engaging temporary art installations. As part of the World Class Streets initiative, art will help foster more vibrant and attractive streets and offer the public new ways to experience New York City’s streetscapes.

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Street Art Shrine on Williamsburg Bridge honors DJ Josh Link

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This bicyclist lights a candle for Josh Link. He said he didn’t know who the guy was, but wanted to pay tribute anyway. (photo Steven P. Harrington)

A not uncommon sight in New York is the street-side shrine, a public and very personal outpouring of grief for a loved one who lost their life due to an accident on the streets.  Currently on the pedestrian walkway of the Williamsburg Bridge between Manhattan and Brooklyn an impromptu tribute is sprayed on a city plaque, a photo taped to it, flowers laid nearby, and candles are kept alight.  While not art for it’s own sake, these displays have a powerful way to symbolize love, grief, and tribute… while the traffic continues to rumble by.

DJ Josh Link (image courtesy Nicky Digital)
DJ Josh Link (image courtesy Nicky Digital)

On August 24 well known DJ Josh Link was hit by a black car on the Williamsburg Bridge while riding his Vespa, and the accident was fatal.  According to news reports, he was knocked from his ride and died as a result.

A very poignant observation can be found here by a person who discovered the accident.

Sadly and ironically, graffiti had just begun to appear around town paying tribute to another New York DJ saying, “R.I.P. DJ AM”, who died 4 days later, reportedly of a drug overdose.

Rest in peace.

Rest in peace.

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