New Yorkers are having a grand celebration this weekend as the Year of the Dragon begins, and traditional lion and dragon dances wend their way through Chinatowns in Manhattan and Queens. You’ll be seeing lots of red, hopefully getting some money in red envelopes (hongbao), and eating dumplings (symbolizing wealth), fish (representing surplus and abundance), and sticky rice cakes. To all our neighbors celebrating, “恭喜发财” (Gōngxǐ fācái), which means “Wishing you wealth and prosperity.”
Later this week, we’ll all profess love for one another on Valentine’s Day. Looks like red is the color for New York this week.
Here is our weekly interview with the street: this week featuring Homesick, Toxicomano, ERRE, CP Won, Qzar, Hektad, Jappy Agoncillo, ToastOro, Senk, Stesi, CASH RFC Crew, OSK OSK, NAY, and Kosuke James.
It’s a new collection of works found on the street here in New York as we head into Thanksgiving week. The boisterous and celebratory party at Skewville in Bushwick last night to celebrate the new Stikman sign show was well attended and full of fans of the artist. The old fans and new donned Stikman masks and wore name stickers saying, “Hello, I’m Stikman.” The long-time imaginative artist is a fixture on New York streets as new generations of artists come and go. Completely anonymous, he never seeks the limelight, preferring to let his copious ideas on lampposts, doorways, mailboxes, and street signs talk for him. In an age of personal influencers and attention seeking, it is refreshing to see his new works quietly capturing attention and imagination on the streets in his way. Bushwick on a Saturday night is teaming with so many crowds of people you may think you are in Wynwood, Miami, complete with food trucks and neon and thigh-high patent leather boots. But the crowds are far more diverse, and the occasional rat is scurrying across the sidewalk before you.
Here is our weekly interview with the street: this week featuring City Kitty, Adam Fujita, Below Key, Eternal Possessions, Hektag, Hops Art, Aidz, Ali Six, Tkid170, Tracy 168, Hydrane, Otam1, Abloker, Nos Ck One, Madison Storm, Melissa Schainker, Wally, J$T, FatJay, Sens-Sational, Aaron Wrinkle, and 5inck.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring: De Grupo, JPS, The Postman, Savior El Mundo, DrscØ, Hektad, Buttsup, MCA, Fumeroism, Ottograph, and Lysefjorden.
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! And how beautiful this city is, even when the heat is on. The amount of talent on our streets is so overwhelming, thank you New York.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring: Homesick, Mort Art, Optimo NYC, Savior El Mundo, Neckface, Lungebox, DEK2DX, Hektad, Paolo Tolentino, Jappy Agoncillo, SMURFO, Mike King, Mat Lakas, Lasak Art, Snith Node, Big808, Talia Lempert, Individual Activist.
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! New York is coming alive as spring approaches – and there is a lot of new graffiti and street art suddenly. We are also awash in news that keeps everyone jumping! The international-soon-to-be-national-bank crisis that is underway, the possible (likely) imposition of CBDC’s in its wake, the BRICs alliances building and de-dollarization of the world economy, the US funding of war in Ukraine, the attacks on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid by the same actors, the pending candidacy and/or arrest of NYC native Donald Trump, the non-transitory inflation rate that is outpacing our wages, creeping facial recognition software and cameras into every part of our culture without our permission, the total capture of our news outlets… .
On the good news side, our crime rate has been dropping a lot – even though dunderheads like Mike Mother Pence says we’re having a “crime wave.” Ya’ll just better educate yourselves – New Yorkers are a pain in the arse and are quick to argue about stupid things, but we also like credit for our crime rate dropping, please. Also, we like our new tulips and daffodils and pretty birds singing in the trees. Thank you.
And now, onto our new selections of fabulous graffiti and street art for your pleasure.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring: Louis Masai, Praxis VGZ, Degrupo, Jorit, Phetus88, Hektad, Qzar, Hugo Gyrl, Jim Tozzi, Toe Flop, Jappy Agoncillo, Tukios Art, BlackStar, Rocking Bones, and Dana van Vueren.
Many media outlets and advertisers will give us the impression that Valentine’s Day is about having a special someone else in our life to provide a gift for. We would like to remember that your first love is you. Take yourself out to dinner, buy yourself a heart-shaped box of chocolates, and take yourself for a walk around the park. It may not be easy initially, but it’s a worthwhile endeavor. An article in Psychology Today quotes writer and editor-at-large Hara Estroff Marano, “Self-love doesn’t happen by luck or the grace of God. You have to create it.” In the meantime, BSA loves you.
On a day where we are all reeling from a public display of violence this week toward a 65-year-old Asian New Yorker on her way to church, we reiterate what the street artists are telling us – “Stop Asian Hate.” More upsetting than the violence was the seeming apathy of some toward it – and they should feel ashamed for not helping.
We know that our individual actions speak louder than words. Don’t stand by and feel helpless when you see someone being abused! You can help! It’s everyone’s responsibility to do whatever we can to stop the hate.
Whether by design or organically grown, we have always gravitated to what we call “Magnet Walls” – those graffiti/Street Art gardens in a town or city that are an open canvas for artists to get up, try out new ideas, experiment with materials, implement a strategy. These walls play an important role in the ecosystem of what we call Street Art or Urban Art. They’re not always explicitly illegal because their reputation draws 10s or 100s of artists to pile on year after year without interruption. The building owners could be allowing the expressions to take place for charitable reasons, more likely just neglect.
The role of these magnet walls is important …and so we are happy to see that while some walls have ceased to exist in some New York neighborhoods in recent years, mostly due to the voracious appetite of developers and the dulling effects of gentrification – “the shack” in Bushwick, the candy factory in Soho to mention just two of them – others are flourishing elsewhere. Today we have many images from a block known as the Great Wall of Savas in Queens.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring: Aito Katazaki, A Cool55, Amanda Marie, bunnyM, Dirt Cobain, Hektad, JerkFace, Key Detail, Martian Code Art, Pat Perry, Stikman, Thrashbird, What Will You Leave Behind, and WhisBe.
A small poem in the corner reads, “Email me your heart. Then in the morning while we watch the sun rise, kneeling down by the river, the blood drips freely as we wash our hands clean”
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
