All posts tagged: HK Walls

disCONNECT In Total : All the Artists Who Created This London Show During Lockdown

disCONNECT In Total : All the Artists Who Created This London Show During Lockdown

Back in June, BSA published the first article on disCONNECT, a project created in London during the lockdown due to Covid-19. A collaboration between Schoeni Projects and HK Walls, disCONNECT involves the take over of a period building by 10 artists from different countries.

Alex Fakso. disCONNECT Schoeni Projects / HK Walls. London. (photo © Ian Cox)

Disconnect “reflects on the creative and physical constraints of the current global crisis, exploring psychological and political reactions to the crisis, as well as the role of technology as conduit between the two.”

We’re pleased to bring you our final article on the project with images of the works of all 10 participating artists. For our previous coverage click HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.

Isaac Cordal. disCONNECT Schoeni Projects / HK Walls. London. (photo © Ian Cox)
Isaac Cordal. disCONNECT Schoeni Projects / HK Walls. London. (photo © Ian Cox)
Mr Cenz. disCONNECT Schoeni Projects / HK Walls. London. (photo © Ian Cox)
Mr Cenz. disCONNECT Schoeni Projects / HK Walls. London. (photo © Nick Smith)
Icy & Sot. disCONNECT Schoeni Projects / HK Walls. London. (photo © Nick Smith)
Icy & Sot. disCONNECT Schoeni Projects / HK Walls. London. (photo © Nick Smith)
Herakut. disCONNECT Schoeni Projects / HK Walls. London. (photo © Ian Cox)
Herakut. disCONNECT Schoeni Projects / HK Walls. London. (photo © Ian Cox)
David Bray. disCONNECT Schoeni Projects / HK Walls. London. (photo © Nick Smith)
David Bray. disCONNECT Schoeni Projects / HK Walls. London. (photo © Nick Smith)
Aida Wilde. disCONNECT Schoeni Projects / HK Walls. London. (photo © Ian Cox)
Aida Wilde. disCONNECT Schoeni Projects / HK Walls. London. (photo © Ian Cox)
Adam Neate. disCONNECT Schoeni Projects / HK Walls. London. (photo © Nick Smith)
Adam Neate. disCONNECT Schoeni Projects / HK Walls. London. (photo © Nick Smith)
Vhils. disCONNECT Schoeni Projects / HK Walls. London. (photo © Ian Cox)
Vhils. disCONNECT Schoeni Projects / HK Walls. London. (photo © Nick Smith)
Alex Fakso. disCONNECT Schoeni Projects / HK Walls. London. (photo © Nick Smith)
Zoer. disCONNECT Schoeni Projects / HK Walls. London. (photo © Ian Cox)

Tickets

Free Tickets for disCONNECT are now available.
24 July – 24 August, Wednesdays – Sundays.
Hourly slots starting from 11am to 5pm, with a maximum of 8 people per slot.
Please book below, we can’t wait to share this journey with you!

Click here to book your tickets.

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BSA Film Friday: 07.31.20

BSA Film Friday: 07.31.20

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

Now screening :
1. disCONNECT, a “Lock-Down” Artists Takeover

BSA Special Feature: disCONNECT, a “Lock-Down” Artists Takeover

London / 24 July – 23 August 2020

Today a series of videos from the artists takeover of this London home, a testament to the fortitude of organizers and artists who didn’t accept “Lock-down” for an answer. Yes, everyone practiced social distancing, and no, a large public opening event could not take place. But this may serve as one welcome new model for art in the time of Corona.

The video series is expertly produced by Fifth Wall TV and a small consortium of commercial/cultural partners including HK Walls and Schoeni Projects. Details at the end of the video parade.

Mr Cenz / disCONNECT / Fifth Wall TV

David Bray / disCONNECT / Fifth Wall TV

Aida Wilde / disCONNECT / Fifth Wall TV

Alex Fakso / disCONNECT / Fifth Wall TV

Isaac Cordal / disCONNECT / Fifth Wall TV

Herakut / disCONNECT / Fifth Wall TV

Zoer / disCONNECT / Fifth Wall TV

To find more about disCONNECT A “Lock-Down” Artists Takeover / London / 24 July – 23 August 2020 click HERE

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disCONNECT / Alex Fakso / Between The Collective And The Individual.

disCONNECT / Alex Fakso / Between The Collective And The Individual.

The marauding crowd, faceless and multi-podel, rumbling with half ideas and mislead missions. If you have lived in cities you know the feeling of being swept along inside one as it hurtles down the stairs, up the escalator, through the lobby, across various stadia.

Alex Fakso. Schoeni Projects / HK Walls. London. (photo © Ian Cox)

We like it because we feel like we are part of something bigger, something that must have a logic of its own. In losing yourself, in becoming one with these others, we are reassured for that moment that there is something larger and of consequence, if only to break apart again into one once more.

Alex Fakso. Schoeni Projects / HK Walls. London. (photo © Ian Cox)

Isolation and pandemic have scarred many minds in the last few months because they’ve been couple with fear, but these events have opened a few minds as well because we’ve had time to examine, correlate, critique, observe our own impulses and needs and wants.

Artist Alex Fakso tells us that he used to be an avid traveler for his work, relying perhaps on incessant movement for his sanity – moving from city to city sort of mindlessly. He says he may have taken some things and people for granted, including himself. and the current world crisis has allowed him to reflect on what was left for granted by many people including himself.

Alex Fakso. Schoeni Projects / HK Walls. London. (photo © Ian Cox)

In his installation for the disconnect exhibition in London, he says these ideas of panic and isolation are at the core. A distanced exhibit, he’ll be happy to see you contemplate the images of crowds placed here. He hopes it will be “a dive into a world which has dramatically changed,” he says, and one in which, “as individuals, we currently long to belong again.”

Alex Fakso. Schoeni Projects / HK Walls. London. (photo © Ian Cox)

Participating artists:

Adam Neate (UK)
Aida Wilde (Iran)
Alex Fakso (Italy)
Mr.Cenz (UK)
David Bray (UK)
Herakut (Germany)
Icy and Sot (Iran)
Isaac Cordal (Spain)
Vhils (Portugal)
ZOER (Italy)

Alex Fakso. Schoeni Projects / HK Walls. London. (photo © Ian Cox)
Alex Fakso. The Couple. Photo on vinyl on old reclaimed photos. Schoeni Projects / HK Walls. London. (photo © Ian Cox)
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disCONNECT / VHILS / A Red Door’s Journey

disCONNECT / VHILS / A Red Door’s Journey

disCONNECT – a ‘locked-down’ artist takeover


If you send your red painted door to Vhils in Lisbon you KNOW that you’ll be thrilled to see it come back!

Doors removed from the library to be shipped to Vhils’s studio in Lisbon. (photo © Schoeni Projects)

The folks organizing the disCONNECT exhibition in this Victorian townhouse in South West London can confirm that this sensation of anticipation and discovery is exciting indeed, for anyone who has been watching the street artists’ work over the last decade.

Vhils. Studio, Lisbon, Portugal (photo © Alexander Silva)

Named disConnect because of our communal feeling of disconnection during quarantine these last few months, the unconventional art exhibition is breaking some new ground. Pulling the doors off the hinges in the library and popping them in the mail is one.

Vhils. Studio, Lisbon, Portugal (photo © Alexander Silva)

The pandemic show opens in a few weeks with the bas-relief works re-installed for the socially distanced attendees who can see it in person. It is also “accessible to online audiences through Matterport software, (with) each work further activated through an accompanying programme of digital initiatives, including downloadable artworks, online videos, virtual tours and an Instagram Live interview series.”

Vhils. Studio, Lisbon, Portugal (photo © Alexander Silva)
Vhils. Doors arrive in London. (photo © Ian Cox)
Vhils. Schoeni Projects / HK Walls. London. (photo © Ian Cox)
Vhils. Schoeni Projects / HK Walls. London. (photo © Ian Cox)
Vhils. Schoeni Projects / HK Walls. London. (photo © Ian Cox)

Participating artists:

Adam Neate (UK)
Aida Wilde (Iran)
Alex Fakso (Italy)
Mr.Cenz (UK)
David Bray (UK)
Herakut (Germany)
Icy and Sot (Iran)
Isaac Cordal (Spain)
Vhils (Portugal)
ZOER (Italy)

We’re thankful to show you these exclusive images of the new Vhils work to BSA readers today.

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disCONNECT Wall Of Fame / Free Coloring Books

disCONNECT Wall Of Fame / Free Coloring Books

In need a calming yet stimulating distraction during these tumultuous times? Artists from Schoeni Projects and HK Walls have made a free coloring book for you and so much more.

Aida Wilde (photo © Jenny Lewis)

They’re also mounting a show in a Victorian townhouse in South West London as part of an exhibition created during our Covid-19 lockdown and we’ll be bringing you exclusive installations from them. They’re calling it the disCONNECT Wall of Fame and it will run July 24 – August 24.

And here’s a sweet spot: You can participate in the exhibition with your own work. Submissions of your complete own creation on your thoughts and feelings about the pandemic are welcomed; a quote, a poem, a drawing, a painting.

Click here for all the details https://schoeniprojects.com/

Participating artists:

Adam Neate (UK)
Aida Wilde (Iran)
Alex Fakso (Italy)
Mr.Cenz (UK)
David Bray (UK)
Herakut (Germany)
Icy and Sot (Iran)
Isaac Cordal (Spain)
Vhils (Portugal)
ZOER (Italy)

David Bray (photo courtesy of Schoeni Projects)

An unusual approach to most unusual circumstances, this joint London/Hong Kong show will reflect on the creative and physical constraints of the current global crisis, exploring psychological and political reactions to the crisis, as well as the role of technology as conduit between the two. Accessible to online audiences through Matterport software, each work is further activated through an accompanying program of digital initiatives, including downloadable artworks, online videos, virtual tours and an Instagram Live interview series.

Mr Cenz (photo courtesy of Schoeni Projects)
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BSA Film Friday: 05.04.18

BSA Film Friday: 05.04.18

bsa-film-friday-JAN-2015

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

Now screening :
1. FAR//FERN – An interpretation of “The Hero’s Journey” by NDZW.
2. Doug Gillen On The Road in Hong Kong

bsa-film-friday-special-feature

BSA Special Feature: FAR//FERN – An interpretation of “The Hero’s Journey” by NDZW.

Full of wise philosophical bon mots delivered in a modulated voice with a monastic cadence, artist NDZW stars as the hero who breaks from well established patterns to go outside his comfort zone with the possibility of being transformed by it.

Directed by Christian Fischer, the stark monochrome palette keeps the journey in Vienna and Upper Austria within visual boundaries, but the variations and textures are rich. Elements of magic are neatly punctuated by the hypnotic, at times heavenly, vocals and arrangement of musical group Down With The Gypsies. The truths are parcelled out like grandpa’s life wisdom delivered while you take a ride in an old 1993 station wagon that smells like gasoline, bumping over potholes in the asphalt on a country road. There is a pause while he looks out the window, then he thinks of something else he wanted to tell you. Pay attention.

Inspired by an interpretation of Joseph Campbells book “The Hero’s Journey” you can here the romance literature woven with Sanskrit and the Buddha here in this narration of truths. Overlaid onto the artists life, here more specifically the graffiti or Street Artists’ practice of painting in abandoned spaces, it is a curiously appropriated adaptation that is ultimately inspiring.

 

 

Doug Gillen On The Road in Hong Kong

Doug is actually in Brooklyn this weekend but here’s his latest release from his recent trip to Hong Kong. It is full of interviews, shots of the work (not all of which is part of HKWalls), and some personal existential observations.

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BSA Images Of The Week: 04.15.18

BSA Images Of The Week: 04.15.18

BSA-Images-Week-Jan2015

Welcome to BSA Images of the Week. First we have a series of politically themed and powerfully timely images of ICY & SOT installations from their involvement with the third edition of the Crystal Ship Art Festival in Ostend, Belgium. With forced immigration caused by the war industry providing armaments to everyone including your cousin Judy, the even more disgusting flipside of all this is the xenophobic nationalism that is now spreading in various countries, treating refugees and immigrants like crap.

So Icy & Sot give us here the security fences that create prisons for people to keep them inside and out and, perhaps taking a page from Ai WeiWei, a floating vest installation in the local park – complete with the artists in a boat and daffodils on the grassy knolls. Right after that we have another life-vest themed piece, a mural by Gaia entitled “Requiem for Migrants, Requiem for the Liberal Order”.

Thanks to photographer Butterfly for her contributions here.

Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Adam Fujita, Barlo, Gaia, Icy & Sot, Not Art, Sidka Nubian, and the Reading Ninja

Top Image: The Reading Ninja (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Icy & Sot. The Crystal Ship Art Festival 2018. Ostend, Belgium.  (photo ©Butterfly)

Icy & Sot. The Crystal Ship Art Festival 2018. Ostend, Belgium. (photo ©Butterfly)

Icy & Sot. The Crystal Ship Art Festival 2018. Ostend, Belgium. (photo ©Butterfly)

Icy & Sot. The Crystal Ship Art Festival 2018. Leopold Park. Ostend, Belgium. (photo ©Butterfly)

Icy & Sot. The Crystal Ship Art Festival 2018. Leopold Park. Ostend, Belgium. (photo ©Butterfly)

Icy & Sot. The Crystal Ship Art Festival 2018. Leopold Park. Ostend, Belgium. (photo ©Butterfly)

Icy & Sot. The Crystal Ship Art Festival 2018. Leopold Park. Ostend, Belgium. (photo ©Butterfly)

Icy & Sot. The Crystal Ship Art Festival 2018. Leopold Park. Ostend, Belgium. (photo ©Butterfly)

Gaia. “Requiem for Migrants, Requiem for the Liberal Order”. The Crystal Ship Art Festival 2018. Ostend, Belgium. (photo ©Butterfly)

Gaia. “Requiem for Migrants, Requiem for the Liberal Order”. The Crystal Ship Art Festival 2018. Ostend, Belgium. (photo ©Butterfly)

Unidentified Artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Adam Fujita for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sidka Nubian (photo © Jaime Rojo)

NOT ART (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Barlo. “The Pet of the Archeologist” HK Walls 2018. Hong Kong.  (photo © Barlo)

Barlo. “The Pet of the Archeologist” HK Walls 2018. Hong Kong.  (photo © Barlo)

Untitled. Spring 2018. NYC (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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The Tiniest Brutalist Sculptures – HKWalls 2017, Dispatch 3 (as in 3 x 3 x 3)

The Tiniest Brutalist Sculptures – HKWalls 2017, Dispatch 3 (as in 3 x 3 x 3)

This week BSA and Urban Nation (UN) are in Hong Kong for the 4th edition of HKWalls to capture a very international and local mix of artists in this East/West nexus; a world-class city for art and culture, English and Cantonese, hi-tech and traditional methods – all during the enormous Art Basel week. We’ll bring you the new walls, some previous pieces, some graffiti, stickers, and a whole lot of color from this fast moving and dynamic city on the Pearl River Delta of East Asia.


When you spot one of these palm-sized concrete sculptures on the street in Hong Kong they may remind you of Brutalist architecture  or the dense clustering of concrete beehives like so many of this cities’ neighborhoods.

3 x 3 x 3. HK Walls. Hong Kong – March 2017 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The tiny formations by UK Street Artist Steev Saunders aka 3x3x3 may point you toward the man-made environment, but they may also recall organic shapes, sort of like industrial barnacles which attach themselves to the bodies of factory-whales during their free-swimming concrete larval stage.

These could be hi/low tech sensors of the city environment, in much the same way as Hong Kong ocean scientists use selected barnacles as biomonitors to measure concentrations of trace metals like arsenic, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, copper, iron, lead, manganese, nickel, silver, zinc.

3 x 3 x 3. HK Walls. Hong Kong – March 2017 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

3x3x3 has worked as a sculptor and sound designer with complex creations that employ fundamentalist mechanics in rather a Steam-Punkian manner and style. On the street simply as “3” he has used a triad of sprayed repetitions of stenciled symbols and the numeral 3  as well as larger complex tags formed with rebar that is fired and pounded and beaten and bent into outlines.

These smaller pieces are so understated that they may well be overlooked, but once you discover them you are tempted to childhood, playing with your toys, imagining all the tiny people who live within them and realizing what a gargantuan giant you have become.

3 x 3 x 3. HK Walls. Hong Kong – March 2017 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Certainly these expressions of the creative spirit on the street are not easily grouped with the massive murals that have characterized the rise of so-called Street Art festivals, and their humble simplicity and scale makes the impact that much more impressive.

An invited exhibiting artist in the formal inside exhibition at HKWalls this year, 3x3x3 tells us that these pieces on the street art not only recalling his experience of the city, but also the country.

BSA: What inspires these small sculptures? Architecture? Materials? Comic books?
3x3x3: Architecture is the inspiration behind the concrete pieces, as you can see around, HK is packed with the stuff. Yeah they are brutalist style but in a delicate way. I’m not a fan of giant skyscrapers, I like the countryside, mountains and rocks.

3 x 3 x 3. HK Walls. Hong Kong – March 2017 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA: Have you watched someone discover one of these pieces? How do they react?
3x3x3: I haven’t watched anyone discover the pieces. They are so small I think few people notice them and I often put them in positions where they blend into the surroundings, I like that they can be unnoticed but in plain view. Some government workers have even painted around them.

BSA: You have also tagged with a metal cutout of the number “3”. Are you the 3rd child in the family?
3x3x3: Ha ha , I’m not the 3rd but I like the number, it has many graphic possibilities , it’s a nice shape and it’s a lucky number too. In the graffiti scene it’s all about getting your name up so I thought “I’ll be just a number”.

3 x 3 x 3. HK Walls. Hong Kong – March 2017 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA: There is a rebar sculpture in the fine art show for HK Walls. Can you talk about your interest in art that takes a third dimension in public space?
3x3x3: I’ve always been interested in sculpture, making stuff is fun and the processes bring up new ideas. Welding and bending steel is physically demanding so I don’t focus on that exclusively. In 1995 I started carving spirals into wet concrete whenever I came across it, which was fairly often in HK. When street art started to become noticed more I was inspired but wanted to do something unique so in 2003 I put up my first concrete pieces.

3 x 3 x 3. HK Walls. Hong Kong – March 2017 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

3 x 3 x 3. HK Walls. Hong Kong – March 2017 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

3 x 3 x 3. HK Walls. Hong Kong – March 2017 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

3 x 3 x 3. HK Walls. Hong Kong – March 2017 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

3 x 3 x 3. HK Walls. Hong Kong – March 2017 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

3 x 3 x 3. HK Walls. Hong Kong – March 2017 (photo © Jaime Rojo)


How to Detect a Brutalist Building by Charles Humphries (© Charles Humphries)


HKWalls and Hong Kong stories come to you courtesy BSA in Partnership with Urban Nation (UN)

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