Interview with Doug Gillen | Video Feature from Fifth Wall TV
Ghosts of concrete modernism and whispered nostalgia drift through “The Morning Will Change Everything,” the first solo museum exhibition by Spanish artist Sebas Velasco, now on view at the History Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo. In this new video interview, filmmaker and art observer Doug Gillen sits down with Velasco to unpack the layers of emotional and political weight carried in these oil-painted nocturnes—each a meditation on memory, architecture, and the complex afterglow of Yugoslavia’s post-socialist present.
Sebas Velasco. The Morning Will Change Everything. (image still from the video by Doug Gillen for Fifth Wall TV)
The conversation reflects Velasco’s realism, influenced by photography – reinterpreted by hand and heart. “It’s a love story with the region, for sure,” he tells Gillen, reflecting on years of travel and a growing personal bond with Sarajevo and its surrounding cities. His works hum, layering light, concrete, shadow, and silence to capture what it feels like. “Maybe the nostalgia I paint is for something I’ve never really known,” he says.
Sebas Velasco. The Morning Will Change Everything. (image still from the video by Doug Gillen for Fifth Wall TV)
Set inside the former Museum of the Revolution—a hulking modernist edifice now asserting its cultural relevance—the exhibition includes Velasco’s paintings alongside films, photographs, and collaborations that stretch across borders and disciplines. It’s an act of giving back to a city that continues to inspire. “We wanted this to be more than paintings on a wall,” he explains. “To feel like home—for other artists too.”
Watch the full interview below to hear from Velasco in his own words, and to feel the atmosphere of a show that makes the past present—and personal.
Sebas Velasco. The Morning Will Change Everything. (image still from the video by Doug Gillen for Fifth Wall TV)Sebas Velasco. The Morning Will Change Everything. (image still from the video by Doug Gillen for Fifth Wall TV)
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening: 1. URBAN NATION 2022 – “Talking… & Other Banana Skins” – on FWTV 2. Flower Punk”- Azuma Makoto 3. JR: Can Art Change the World?
BSA Special Feature: URBAN NATION 2022 – “Talking… & Other Banana Skins” – on FWTV
In his first official visit back to Urban Nation since its opening in 2017, Fifth Wall host Doug Gillen finds a more democratic collection of artists from various points in the street art/urban art constellation. That impression is understandable due to the heavy presence of commercial interests involved in the selection of bankable street art stars and OGs chosen to represent five decades of graffiti/street art at the opening of a new institution dedicated to the scene. Curators were careful to program several relative unknowns and lesser-recognized artists into that initial grab-bag collection, but we take the point.
It’s refreshing to hear the current show’s curator Michelle Houston speak about her personal and professional philosophy toward street art and our collective relationship to it. A hybrid of the existing UN permanent collection and new works, it comes off as a rather wholistic approach that respects more players and their contribution to what has proven to be a very democratic grassroots art movement on streets around the world.
With decidedly less focus on the ever-more codified, commodified, and blue-chip-ivy-league-endorsed criterion of exclusivity that plagues the ‘art world’, this varied collection may represent a retaining wall against trends we witness that threaten to erect the same sort of structures of exclusivity that unbridled art-in-the-streets set out to destroy. Of course, every modern counterculture eventually gets transformed on its way to accepted culture, and we’re somewhat resigned to that reality. However rather than zapping the life out of the free-wheeling nature of graffiti and street art, Urban Nation may be staking a claim of departure from peers to defend some of those original tenets – in this insistently self-defining scene.
And speaking of every modern counterculture that eventually gets transformed on its way to accepted culture, we present the Punk Florist, artist Azuma Makoto, who uses plants in a sculptural manner. It is a practice that he hopes can connect humanity and nature. It may help if you are listening to Dead Kennedys or Black Flag – or perhaps something more industrial, or no-wave. But when he and his team send a ragged bundle of beauty literally into space, all bets are off. It’s a new game.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening: 1. Chile Estyle, from Pablo Aravena 2. ARCHIFONT 3. Tartu Street Art Comes to Berlin – Hello Mister Police Officer | FWTV
BSA Special Feature: Chile Estyle, from Pablo Aravena
The evolution of a graffiti/street art movement is not unilateral in its formative influences nor its cities of germination. Not only does Chile have a unique genesis story born of oppression and rebellion that is written into the history of the modern street art movement, it has produced a number of strong proponents of the current global scene.
“Young people took to the streets with political muralism all over Chile in the late 60’s at the same time as young people in New York were starting Modern graffiti and May 68 happened in Paris. Chile Estyle is a documentary film that explores the past and present of Chile’s unique street art tradition which comes from a remix of political muralism and graffiti and has been part of the Chilean cultural and political life since the 60s, resulting in a visually arresting, informative and entertaining film.”
Chile Estyle – Trailer – Pablo Aravena
ARCHIFONT
“I kept looking at it and saying, ‘I could do a whole alphabet based on it.'”
ARCHIFONT Letters dressed in architecture. For the fonts lovers and the architecture lovers this little video of the names of master architects, past and present will stir emotions, we are certain of that. But we also know a thing or two about the letter form art we call graffiti…certainly, our emotions were stirred…will yours?
Tartu Street Art Comes to Berlin – Hello Mister Police Officer | FWTV
It’s been a little while since we’ve seen the folks from Tartu and are happy to see them doing a show in Berlin. Doug from Fifth wall interviews 4 of the originators/artists from the “Stencibility” festival in Estonia – as they mount their exhibition in Berlin. Open till June 25th!
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening: 1. BSA Special Feature: ‘Gold Mine’ by Pejac 2. Graffiti & Jail: Doug Gillen and FWTV 3. Said Dokins, Cix, and Spaik: Memoria Canera
BSA Special Feature: ‘Gold Mine’ by Pejac
Pejac recently completed a series of interventions within the oldest prison in Spain, the Penitentiary Center of El Dueso. Located at the entrance of artist’s hometown of Santander, overlooking the Cantabrian sea and surrounded by marshes, the prison built at the beginning of the 20th century on the remains of an old Napoleon’s fort was another challenging setting to carry out his poetic interventions.
For 11 days, its walls, courtyards, and corridors became the artist’s workplace, giving life to the Gold Mine project in that sense. The project integrates three singular pieces, which as a whole represent the value of the human condition, its resistance to adversity, the need to create, and its desire, above all, to leave a mark.
“A prison itself is a place wrapped in harsh reality and at the same time, I feel that it has a great surrealist charge. It is as if you only need to scratch a little on its walls to discover the poetry hidden inside.” PEJAC
Graffiti & Jail: Doug Gillen and FWTV
And on another side of the coin, Doug Gillen of FifthWall TV talks about graffiti and street artists who go to prison as punishment for doing illegal graffiti on the streets.
Memoria Canera
Said Dokins, Cix, and Spaik: Memoria Canera was part of a three mural series made by the outstanding Mexican Street Artists Said Dokins, Cix, and Spaik at the Maximum Security Penitentiary in Morelia, Michoacán.
The project intended to shed light on a discussion about Cultural Rights and how artistic and cultural practices can be a valuable tool to mediate against exclusion and marginalization. By disrupting the space with color and text, symbols and patterns, the environment is transformed. The new murals are “Puedes Volver a Volar” (You can Fly Again) by Spaik, “Estado Mental” (Mental State) by Cix, and “Memoria Canera” (Memories from Jail) by Said Dokins.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening: 1. Global Street Art: “Cultural Vandals”? 2. DOES: Cement Graffiti piece at Amsterdam’s STRAAT Museum 3. New Border. Imagine a different kind of Southern Border between the USA and Mexico.
BSA Special Feature: Global Street Art: “Cultural Vandals”?
Calmer, more measured perhaps, and still pissed off at those who appropriate the culture and then mow it over, here’s Doug Gillen examining a community led mural program being dissed by a fast food corporation in Cardiff, Wales. More alarming perhaps are the middle people who smooth the path and take a cut, according to this new episode of Fifth Walls, called “Cultural Vandals”.
DOES: Cement Graffiti piece at Amsterdam’s STRAAT Museum
An unusual feat of art-making that brings his piece into another dimension, DOES builds up the foundation for his lettering with a carefully applied layer of cement. STRAAT Museum has the story and DOES brings the skillz.
New Border. Imagine a different kind of Southern Border between the USA and Mexico.
The project is called “New Border” and it proposes a constructive alternative bilateral, ecological and humanistic solution to the wall erected (in part) under the Trump administration on the decaying US-Mexican border.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening: 1. A Kaleidoscopic Journey Through Money 2. My Dog Sighs “Inside” as Discovered by Doug Gillen and FWTV 3. PichiAvo’s Paris St-Michel mural
BSA Special Feature: A Kaleidoscopic Journey Through Money
The confidence and reverence that humans give to currencies is as much an article of faith as any religion can conjure. In fact, it is a requirement for any money not backed by gold – your faith. The motifs and icons and design flair employed in its presentation to the user are indicative of our values as well. Here the director and designer Lachlan Turczan breaks apart the elements, finds their similarities and differences, and delightfully, mesmerizingly, re-flows the results to a musical soundtrack by Blake Mills.
“I made hi-resolution scans of banknotes from 23 countries ranging from the 1800s to the modern-day. Machine learning was used to further enhance these scans so that I could zoom in on the intricacies of the engravings. Using replacement animation techniques, the guilloché patterns wash over the viewer in a barrage of linework and geometry. Iconic scenes throughout history are also shown: the age of exploration leads to industrialization, wonders of the world are replaced by office buildings and icons of freedom stand in stark contrast to images of slavery. The project culminates with the collective eyes of all world leaders staring back at the audience.”
My Dog Sighs “Inside” as Discovered by Doug Gillen and FWTV
Paul Stone aka My Dog Sighs in Portsmouth, UK is one of the interior immersive exhibitions that you have been hoping to go inside again but have been leary of because you might get sick and die. Now watch as your Doug sighs walking through the “inside” of this artist’s animated mind.
The PichiAvo duo continues around the world with classic gods intermingled and floating among graffiti gods. Here in Paris they depict Poseidon and Niké on the Boulevard St-Michel.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening: 1. “Bubble Tea” with Sofles 2. Doug Gillem Discusses Stereotypes in Street Art 3. Vero Rivera in Columbia, SC. Via Tost Films
BSA Special Feature: “Bubble Tea” with Sofles
Sofles gives us such beautiful Fridays – with a jump in his step and a flair in the sweep of his arm. It’s bubble time!
Our Expectations of Street Art’s Role in Projecting and Reflecting Values
It is not a surprise that street art reflects the culture back to itself, including elements that some will find objectionable or disgusting – this has always been true. As the so-called “culture” of street art becomes professionalized and monetized and regarded as legitimate by institutions and commercial interests like brands, we continue to hear that it is now being, to some extent, more closely examined. Doug Gillen of FifthWall TV explores criticisms of one artist’s work – FinDac – in regard to Asian tropes and stereotypes.
People have mentioned FinDac’s work for the last half-decade at least, so it is interesting that a current heated awareness regarding identity politics is pushing the conversation further. Truthfully, stereotypes about blacks, gays, the police, media, the military, women, men, religious institutions, politicians, sex roles, gender roles, political parties, geopolitics… have always been on display in myriad forms in street art and graffiti. It can be a worthwhile exercise when we begin to examine them in greater detail.
Vero Rivera in Columbia, SC. Via Tost Films
A commission for a suburban coffee shop mural, this hand painted work by Vero Rivera is a few steps removed from the street art and graffiti scene that first sparked out interest decades ago. The dynamics are different, but the spirit of creativity is the same.
“This is a celebration of them directly,” artist Helen Bur says as she describes her new six-story high painting in Ferizaj, Kosovo. Warm and idiosyncratic, it is a candid photo of local youth whom she paints in this once war-torn area. Even today, about 20 years after the end of hostilities and with the enormous “peace-keeping” US Camp Bondsteel nearby, a mixture of Albanians, Serbs, and Roma all are rebuilding a common life in the shadow of not-so-past events.
Given such taut social politics that govern the memories and leave their mark on the daily lives of residents, Scottish film maker Doug Gillen jumped in to record the observations and experiences of artists and local creators who were there for a mural festival. One current fashion for murals created for these public art events is to be “responsive” to the community. Undoubtedly you can see that many of these are reflecting the environment – including more literally the botanicals of the region.
Elsewhere Gillen captures the stories of locals, including one resident who recalls being ‘usurped’ by a ‘hooligan’ who took over her attic and who brought sex workers there during the conflict. You can sense the relief she feels to finally tell her story in a public way. These singular stories provide clarity and can be rather jewel-like.
Muralist Ampparito touches on the denial that is also in play as he describes his mural which addresses the ultimate non-controversial topic bound to engage a respectable constituency: weather.
“When you arrive at a place that you don’t know and you want to talk about serious stuff” the artist explains with a smile, “I think you have to be careful.” For both the sensitive and the coarse, it is a given; whether its political or personal self-censorship, it will enter the life of an artist at one point. “It’s like when you don’t talk about something, sometimes you say more than if you don’t talk about it.”
You can see how the commitment to acknowledging and participating with community is realized by a talented collection of artists – like the aforementioned Ampparito, Aruallan, Micheal Beitz, Helen Bur, Emilio Cerezo, Doa Oa, Alba Fabre, Ivan Floro, Maria Jose Gallardo, Retry One, Zane Prater, Vlada Trocka and Axel Void.
Artist and organizer Axel Void may embody similar contradictions as he describes goals of the pro-artist organization named after himself. “In a way it’s a similar idea to every, like, Void Projects – which is pretty much trying to cut out the middle man and trying to have a more direct interaction between the artist and the people.” That being said, the annual mural festival relies on private and institutional partners, staff, professionals, and the efforts of volunteers to mount it – as well as a biosphere of media professionals and amateurs and private platforms to help Void and the artists get the word out about their creations around the globe.
Executive producer Lebibe Topalli rests her finger carefully upon the local pulse, and she parses words gently when describing the challenges of mounting this event today as she thinks of Kosovo of two decades ago. To even have considerations regarding the ‘art world’ at an earlier time “would have been a luxury,” she says.
“The difference is best recognized by the people who have experienced it.” As the debate in the street art world continues about the elusive ideal mix of factors for the perfect mural festival, filmmaker Gillen helps capture those who struggle as well with their sense of responsibility to the community.
Produced by Fifth Wall TV in collaboration with the Kosovo Mural Festival and Void Projects
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. Escif: Greenpeace, For a Sustainable City. 2. Street Art in 2020 3. Mathieu Libman: The Moon’s Is Not That Great
BSA Special Feature: Escif: Greenpeace, For a Sustainable City.
Street Art in 2020
Doug Gillen of FifthWall TV reflects on the world of street art in the year of 2020.
Mathieu Libman: The Moon’s Is Not That Great
After an astronaut returns from her lunar mission to find that the public lost all interest in the moon, the stories of the astronaut, a film director, and a bear intersect.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. Doug Gillen/Fifth Wall TV: Is New Brighton a future model for the British Sea Side Town? 2. Lidia Cao. Tribute to Dolores Medio. Parees Fest 2020 3. INDECLINE: On Second Thought. A reflection on gun violence in collaboration with artist David Fay.
BSA Special Feature: Visit a Sea Side Town with Doug Gillen
You can’t really send out a gilded invitation to your cousin Gentrification to come visit and be surprised when his emotionally draining wife and video-game playing snot-nosed kids are in the car with him. When you use words like “platform” to describe art-washing of a town, and your organization has a “brand director”, there won’t be much surprise when the moneyed professionals complain that music at the curated-bar across the street is keeping their new baby awake at night.
Doug at Fifth Wall is more surreptitiously stealthy than ever, gradually upping his stealthy-stealthitude as he lets this story basically tell itself while posing as a merely curious art-fan.
The story is literally everywhere you look right now, and apolitical, non-confrontational Street Art and murals are almost always intercedent. A small town is sucked dry after decades of neo-liberal economics and back-room political deals, leaving a godless lot feeling listless and depressed without prospects for the future. Broad strokes, but you’ve undoubtedly heard the concept proffered by real estate investors that comes next.
“Yes there’s a commercial side to it but there is also very much a community element to what we’ve been doing,” says one male voice as the camera scans some run-down architecture with good bones and historical character. They’ve been buying up properties and “introducing a new independent concept into them”.
You predict what comes in this chapter; small portions of fussy food, art galleries, street art, vinyl!, kooky cafes with drip coffee and cold brew, clever grandma-anti-fashion fashion, artisanal cheeses, greater police presence and the occasional night-time social cleansing of hardscrabble types pushed into other neighborhoods.
Next step, edgy
lifestyle brands will need some quirky space to set up shop.
“We’re
trying to keep the big boys out of our little part of town.”
“2020 is a year calling out for change,” says Doug in his wrap-up, but he knows this particular model is not at all new. It’s still a reaction to the devastation, and we all seem to be trapped in it. Even so, this can be a kind of rejuvenation that many small towns would ache for and there is reason to think that the formula can be configured to be more just to those who will get displaced – if you’re dedicated to it.
And your cousin Gentrification could be cool to hang out with, even if his very classy wife gently insults your wife and the décor of your home and the food you eat and the music you listen to.
Doug Gillen/Fifth Wall TV: Is New Brighton a future model for the British Sea Side Town?
Lidia Cao. Tribute to Dolores Medio. Parees Fest 2020
Lidia Cao paints a portrait of Dolores Medio, the Spanish writer, teacher, and journalist for the Parees Festival in Spain in this short video by Titi Muñoz.
INDECLINE: On Second Thought. A reflection on gun violence in collaboration with artist David Fay.
600 decommissioned weapons were
combed over and refashioned by Las Vegas based artist David Fay into this
semi-kinectic sculpture that recalls Rodin’s “The Thinker”. In an America that
is fascinated by weapons, at least in movies and television, this sculpture may
make people think, or not.
From their press release: “The
piece stands just over 6 feet tall and weighs approximately 250 pounds. It took
David Fay 4 months and over 750 man-hours to complete the piece.”
The United Nations has 17 Sustainable Development Goals
(SDG).
If you pick one of those goals and create a piece of art
about it you may win 10,000 pounds – which is roughly the same amount of weight
the average apartment dweller has gained in Brooklyn since the beginning of
March.
This art-centered program named TOward TOmorrow 2030 has its sights set on 2030 and is working hard to get us close to achieving those 17 goals in a program they started last year with many mural artists.
BSA supports artists and we support this project because we know some of the folks behind it.
Submissions close 5th June 2020 so check out the rules from the coffee company that is sponsoring this competition HERE. Also look them up on #TOwardTomorrow
The 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) of the United Nations by 2030
Void Projects. “Homeless” Miami, 2019. (photo still from the video by Doug Gillen/FWTV)
“The aim is to create quality shows outside of the conventional art scene, cutting the middlemen, galleries or institutions,” says Axel Void’s mission statement for “Homeless.”
When his Instagram following gets big enough, will he add art websites and magazines to that list of superfluous middlemen/women?
Void Projects. “Homeless” Miami, 2019. (photo still from the video by Doug Gillen/FWTV)
In the meantime, here’s London based filmmaker/vlogger and Radio Juxtapoz co-host Doug Gillen with his take on the “residency” that Void (Alejandro Dorda) hosted this year in Miami during Art Basel. As his craft evolves, more of his subjects are emerging; his languorous takes are fulsome, his pacing creating space.
It’s
a meditation on what “home” means for 15 or so artists who are in Void’s house “to
eat, sleep and create together”. The construction of that phrase suddenly makes
this residency sound a LOT more interesting.
Void Projects. “Homeless” Miami, 2019. (photo still from the video by Doug Gillen/FWTV)
For Axel Voids’ project, the location is North Miami and the temperature is 75 degrees Fahrenheit and the architectural era in the 1920s. From the looks on the face of this crew of international painters, “home” has a lovely barefoot-in-the-grass quality, a sun-drenched smokey Arkestra of soul and silliness.
When you look at these paintings and these people and think of this environment you may ask yourself, “What is home?”
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
