All posts tagged: Holidays 2022

Photos Of BSA #1: The All-Seeing Eye

December 31, 2022 Artists

Happy Holidays! We’re celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of the next by thanking BSA readers, friends, and family for all of your support in 2022. We have selected some of our favorite shots by our Editor of Photography, Jaime Rojo, and we’re sharing a new one every day to celebrate all our good times together, our hope for the future, and our love for the street.

The eye has been blinking at us throughout art history, Western and Eastern, high and low. Whether intended to ward off evil, illustrate anatomy, or be a window into the soul, the artist has opened our perceptions with the image of an eye for centuries. Here we see the Iranian artist Shirin Neshat on display in New York this year to remind us of our responsibility to see each other, to safeguard individual liberty, and to provide witness to injustice, corruption, and suffering.

Today of course, we wonder what kind of life awaits us as we have allowed technology to trace our faces and eyes and every action, transaction, reaction, and inaction we have – an electronic eye, if you will. We are reminded of this regularly by images that appear on the street.

Let’s vow this year to keep an eye on each other like a community, a family, or a loved one.

Shirin Neshat. *Offered Eyes, 1993*. From the exhibition *Eyes on Iran* at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms State Park. Roosevelt Island, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Photos Of BSA #2 : The Red Chair Under the U-Bahn

December 30, 2022 Artists

Do you believe that the only way to make an impact with art on the street is to paint multi-story murals of cute kittens, mysterious women, or zestful geometrics?

Try this tiny little red chair suspended under the U-Bahn elevated train tracks.

Floating perilously close to the seam of your imagination, this crimson seat has remained suspended in our minds most of this year – returning us to Jaime Rojo’s photo again periodically. Does it have a special meaning? Is it part of a set of other furniture? Is this simply one of the hundreds floating throughout the city that we didn’t spot?

The lesson we decided to learn is that one cannot underestimate the impact that their artwork may have.

Unidentified Artist. Berlin, Germany 2022. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Photos Of BSA #3: Paola Pivi’s “You know who I Am”

December 29, 2022 Artists

She is the kind of artist whom you would also like as a babysitter. Entertaining and playfully absurd, her installation art is imaginative and within reach of a daydream. Here is a polar bear behind an executive’s desk with his legs crossed and hands folded behind his head; here is a huge plane – a skewered readymade if you will; the rotating Piper Seneca rolling forward slowly above people’s heads in the middle of a midtown sidewalk.

This summer Paola Pivi’s You know who I am presented a large-scale cast bronze replica of the Statue of Liberty on the Highline wearing a series of cartoon-like masks that were changed over the course of the installation. She described the characters as “stylized portraits of individuals whose personal experiences of freedom are directly connected to the United States.”

We don’t know who this kid is, but he looks familiar. Perhaps the idea is that the Statue of Liberty could have been anyone – we all want and need the same things.

Paola Pivi. High Line Park. Manhattan, New York City. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Photos Of BSA #4: Brooklyn King Biggie Still Rules

December 28, 2022 Artists

Brooklyn is in Kings County, New York. It’s common for people here to refer to graffiti kings, barbecue kings, Kings of the Sea, the King of Glory, and kings of myriad realms; so infatuated are we with the concept of royalty- despite the US history of breaking away from King George III to form a more perfect union.

In the terminology of our pop hagiography, there can be no doubt which portrait appears in the most murals throughout our borough – Christopher George Latore Wallace, better known by his stage names the Notorious B.I.G., Biggie Smalls, or simply Biggie. 25 years after his death, you see Biggie all over Brooklyn, and he truly is a king.

Hip Hop is my Religion. Bedstuy Walls. Brooklyn, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Photos Of BSA #5: Calla Lillies

December 27, 2022 Artists

Calla lilies remind us of Diego Rivera, the Mexican muralist who used them often in his paintings. We think of the Mexican mural movement, of painters such as José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros – and their connection to the community murals of today. This year we see these calla lilies, and we think of Maria Esther, with all our love.

Calla Lilies for Maria Esther. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Photos Of BSA #6: Photo Realistic, X-Rayed, in 3-D by Insane 51

December 26, 2022 Artists

The new mural movement of the last decade has produced a few categories and recurring themes. One is the photorealistic portrait, and another is the x-ray that enables you to see within the physical presentation. Combine these trends with the penchant for punchy pop palettes in primary hues, and you have this pensive penitent from 2022 – who is best viewed with 3-D glasses – by the Greek artist Insane 51.

Insane 51. The Bushwick Collective. Brooklyn, New York City. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Photos Of BSA #7: Warm Weather Thoughts in the Midst of Winter Storm

December 24, 2022 Artists

On one of the coldest days in years in New York City, thoughts turn to verdant days and the gentlest flowers you may find, the pansy. During this time of Sturm und Drang, may it encourage you to look at this photo from springtime. Also, as a reminder, the Solstice is over, and days are getting longer!

Pansy. Berlin, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Photos Of BSA #8: Blek and Hambleton on a New York Street

December 23, 2022 Artists

A bit of serendipity this fall led us to see Blek le Rat painting on the street, an event that is rather rare these days. A French stencil artist whose earliest works on the street date back to the 1980s, Blek has been touring a few cities in the US this year with gallery exhibitions and associated events for a growing fan base. In New York, he did a number of new and classic pieces in public spaces as well. His portrait of New York street artist Richard Hambleton was particularly poignant for us.

Bleck Le Rat. L.I.S.A. Project NYC. Lower East Side, New York City. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Photos Of BSA #9: Keeping it Small and Contextual

December 22, 2022 Artists

In an era where the monster mural can envelop an entire building or set of grain elevators, we are reminded that placement is everything. This year the UK street artist JPS left a number of small pieces in Berlin – just in the right place to catch your eye. This ingenious miniature box truck with a KLOPS tag appears on the riser of some steps in the Schöneberg neighborhood. It is evocative of a child’s imagination, which leads them into all sorts of adventures.

JPS – Klops. Urban Nation Museum Berlin. Berlin, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Photos Of BSA #10: La Flor de Mexico

December 21, 2022 Artists

We do our best, but nature always wins. Here’s one of our favorites from Mexico in 2022.

Wild flower. Chihuahua, Mexico. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Photos Of BSA #11: War is a Racket

December 20, 2022 Artists

“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small ‘inside’ group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.”

~Major General Smedley D. Butler

The Haus der Statistik. Berlin, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

*From Wikipedia:

Butler confesses that during his decades of service in the United States Marine Corps:

“I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.”

Berlin Diary. Day #1 / Stop Wars

Photos Of BSA #12: Tagging on a Snow Day

December 19, 2022 Artists

Nothing like a snowstorm to bring out the graffiti!

Something about the excitement of a winter squall that feeds the air with electricity and sends writers reaching for their cans. Maybe it’s because police and road crews are too busy clearing streets and sidewalks, but for some reason, you’ll see a tempest of text on walls when winter’s storms roll through. The work is often dashed off and possibly unfinished – and it can be funny too.

It is a ‘snow day’ after all.

Hest. Brooklyn, New York City. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Martha Cooper and Seth in Kibera. Kenya: Part 2 / “We Are One”
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Nestled within the bustling city of Nairobi, Kenya, Kibera is a testament to its inhabitants’ challenges and its collective indomitable …Read More »
“Tiempos Muertos”. Idle Time With Isaac Cordal in Madrid
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“Idle Time has become that free moment we have between one task and another in the production process. Productive inertia …Read More »