All posts tagged: IMK

BSA Images Of The Week: 05.03.26

May 3, 2026 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! Yo, don’t sleep on New York – we’re still setting an eclectic standard of outlaw graffiti and street art and out-of-your-mind people on the street, in the clubs, concerts, and parks. When the weather warms like this week, all the subcultures emerge again on the streets, out of their apartments after a long winter, looking for action, and thankfully, there is plenty – 5-Borough bike rides, Smorgasbord, Shakespeare in the Park, cherry tree festival at the botanical gardens, LES skatepark, Union Square Market, Washington Park gatherings, Fleet Week. Yes all the prices are going up, but a lot of New York can be enjoyed for little or no money – just go outside.

Banksy confirms the statue of a man blinded by a flag in London is his father. Just checking to see if you were paying attention. The proudly strutting, suited statue stepping off a precipice—its face obscured by a flag—appeared overnight in London this week, and it’s hard not to see in it the same bluster driving some of today’s national leaders and war industries. As street art observers, we were also reminded of other similar pieces that pre-date this one, such as the mural in Aberdeen, Scotland by Jofre Oliveras four years ago and a mural by Conor Harrington in Miami almost a decade ago. The metaphor of being blinded by nationalism fits many who appear on the media and political stage today—though more accurately it’s often the suited ones who use the flag to blind everyone else.

Let’s see how the Met Gala sidesteps its Bezos-era funding this week during the annual craven catwalk of shallowness and hot air. The usual procession of “stars” will take the carpet—plenty of spectacle, putting very little at stake beyond the attention it generates. As a street art campaign heated up to boycott the event this spring, Hyperallergic’s article from mid-April nailed the gist of it. More recently, bus stop installations hit the message directly by stating “Amazon Powers ICE”. The Met doesn’t know how to do people-powered revolt – unless it can be pulled completely out of its original context (or happened 300 years ago). Remember the thorough de-boning of punk culture for the “punk” themed event in the twenty-teens? It was like a tasty punk Filet-O-Fish.

Surprisingly, corporate media didn’t pick up this new anti-corporate Amazon/Met story. See the video of a street poster installation at the end here.

So here is our weekly interview with the street, this time featuring Depoe, Dirt Cobain, Frank Ape, Gane, Guila, Gushe, IMK X, Jorit, Love X, Miss 17, Modomatic, Ollin, Pear, Qzar, Rems, Sonni, Stikman, Tuney, and Want Pear.

Frank Ape asks a question: WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE THING ABOUT AN ART SHOW: THE ART! THE OPEN BAR! PEOPLE WATCHING! MEETING SOMEONE NEW! Your answer, please. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

REMS DEPOE & friends (photo © Jaime Rojo)

QZAR OLLIN WANT PEAR JORIT (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist (photo © Steven P. Harrington)

Untitled. Manhattan, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

_______________________

BSA Images Of The Week: 04.12.26

April 12, 2026 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Welcome to BSA Images of the Week. We are following, with you and the rest of the world, the negotiations between Iran and the Trumpsters. We imagine that you cannot trust anything that comes from a foreign leader who said earlier in the week “a whole civilization will die tonight” in a social media post. Meanwhile, a 2-liter Coke is $4.10 at your local deli – about the same as a gallon of gas nationwide, and all young men 18-26 are going to be automatically registered for the draft. We’re trying to think of a clever joke to insert here, but nothing is coming up.

70s/80s NYC train writer Fab 5 Freddy has been on a book tour tied to a new memoir, “Everybody’s Fly” out this spring, re-centering his role as a connector between uptown graffiti writers, the downtown art world of the 1980s, and his early hip-hop media crossover in the 90s. Meanwhile, nobody is doing trains today, as rooftops and rappelling are the current popular practices in graffiti in Brooklyn and Queens, with names like Notice + Rams (MSK), Qzar, Vods, Timer, Sokem, Sickpay, and Dase circulating again for getting up—names you’ll recognize mixed with newer hands. And of course, the murals are starting to come out in force; private, community-led, and corporately sponsored.

Here are some new shots we caught this week on New York streets, featuring Eternal Possessions, Shev Lunatic, BESRK, IMK, El Avo, STOP, CRKSHNK, DEBT, FCM, Jenna Morello, Damsel, and Charm

Eternal Possessions (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Shev Lunatic. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Images Of The Week: 03.22.26

March 22, 2026 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Welcome to BSA Images of the Week!

In New York, the New Museum has reopened with its expansion by Rem Koolhaas and Shohei Shigematsu, pulling in steady lines of architecture watchers and contemporary art pilgrims. The opening exhibition, “New Humans: Memories of the Future,” sets out to parse what it means to be human as technology redraws the terms, gathering more than 200 contributors across art, science, and film—an experience that is by turns enthralling, overwhelming, poetic, and brutal.

Now four weeks into the war he started—and with little support from allies and low backing among U.S. voters, President Trump says he’s thinking about “Winding Down”. At the same time, the United States is deploying about 2,500 Marines and additional naval forces to the region and Trump is reportedly gearing up to ask Congress for 200 billion dollars more for the war. Estimated deaths so far: approximately 3,000 people.

In a display of the classic New York tension between preservation and redevelopment, a canonical piece of early street culture history—a 1987 mural by Keith Haring—is at risk. The City says it will preserve it, but many remain unclear how—and are openly skeptical.

At the mural festival called The Crystal Ship 2026 in Ostend, Belgium, a cleverly named exhibition “Subway Art”—curated by Alice Gallery—revisits the origins of graffiti culture, tracing its roots in the subway systems of New York and other early writing scenes. Presented alongside the festival’s citywide program, it anchors the broader theme of Curiosity by grounding it in the movement’s unsanctioned beginnings and writer-driven history.

Coming up in April, “Martha Cooper: A Retrospective” opens at the Bronx Documentary Center Annex in the Bronx, New York, offering a comprehensive survey of her five-decade career documenting urban life and creative expression. On view from April 9 through June 14, 2026, the exhibition brings together decades of work that helped define the visual record of graffiti and street culture.

César Chávez, long honored as a leader of the farmworker movement, has also been the subject of grave allegations reported in recent accounts, including statements by Dolores Huerta, who said publicly that he raped her twice in the 1960s and that she bore two children as a result. In recognition of the labor, sacrifice, and leadership of women in the movement, we call for Huerta’s name to replace his on parades, holidays, streets, schools, libraries, parks, post offices, vessels, monuments, murals, and other public institutions or commemorations that now bear his name.

¡Viva Dolores Huerta!

Here is our weekly photographic interview with the street, this time featuring: Carlos Alberto, City Kitty, Hanimal, Homesick, IMK, Le Crue, Mickalene Thomas, Queen Andrea, and Vesod.

Camaleon remixes Charlie Chaplin from the 1940 movie “The Great Dictator”. In it he plays the dictator Hynkel, who literally tosses and caresses the world like a balloon, a visual satire of totalitarian ambition and ego. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Manhattan, NYC. March 2026. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Images Of The Week: 03.15.26

March 15, 2026 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Spring is arriving, but conversations around the city keep circling back to the war—bombings, deaths, oil prices, and the prospect of boots on the ground. At bars, clubs, and bagel shops, the mood turns serious quickly. There’s little joking in today’s daily discourse. Mostly, people wonder how this war began when so few seem to support it; recent polls put approval around 29%. People don’t feel like they were consulted, or considered.

Across news agencies as days pile up, the stories grow of governments in more than 50 countries across Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and the Americas have calling for a ceasefire, de-escalation, or a return to diplomacy. It is a widening conflict involving the United States, Israel, Iran, and every contry in the region- with threats to Turkey and Europe. In New York—home to neighborhoods and communities from many of those same countries—the conversations are personal, and the tension is easy to notice.

The famous yet anonymous Banksy has finally been revealed—at least according to a lengthy new piece in Reuters. Over the years, the elusive street artist has weighed in on the plight of Palestinians, Ukrainians, and African and Syrian refugees, and has often returned to the images of children as a symbol of hope, innocence, and loss. At the moment, as events around the world turn darker by the day, few seem to be talking about his wry interventions.

In Washington public space, a satirical sculpture that appeared on the National Mall has been drawing laughs—and, for some, feelings of nausea. The piece depicts Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein in a Titanic-style pose and is titled “King of the World.” Reuters reports that the installation was created by the anonymous collective called Secret Handshake. The Epstein scandal has been mentioned in some circles as a possible motive for distraction in launching the war, though others argue the drivers are more likely rooted in geopolitics—namely oil, and the petrodollar that runs through it.

Elsewhere on the Mall in February, near the Lincoln Memorial and the steps where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech, a troupe of dancers staged a choreographed public performance. In stark, coordinated movements, the piece portrayed what organizers described as an erosion of civil rights and the violence of the state, referencing masked ICE raids in communities across the country. Part protest and part memorial, the performance used the site’s symbolism to connect today’s immigration-enforcement debates with the unfinished legacy of the civil rights movement. (video below)

Here is our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Alice Mizrachi, Calicho Art, City Kitty, Clark, Crash, Fun Quest, Humble, IMK, Inphiltrate, Manuel Alejando, Must Art, OSK, Outer Source, Rats, REPO, REVOLT, and TOWER.

Fun Quest. Biggie is in Da House! (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Humble. Manuel Alejandro. Must Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

TOWER…of 9 ¢ Dreams… (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. The last Amarillys of the season. Winter 2026. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Images Of The Week: 02.15.26

February 15, 2026 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Our hearts are full of love this Valentine’s weekend for you, dear reader.

A new study shows New York’s artist population is declining for the first time in decades due largely to housing costs, and most people here will agree with that conclusion. Brooklyn-based Street Artist Marka27 (Victor Quiñonez) found that censorship is strong on campus when his exhibition addressing immigration enforcement was cancelled at the University of North Texas, yet another example of universities not standing up for free speech but suppressing it. Meanwhile, Street artist Ernest Zacharevic has filed a lawsuit against AirAsia for unauthorized use of his famous Penang mural imagery, highlighting ongoing battles over ownership and reproduction of street art. In graffiti news, Street Art NYC has a brief interview with curator Christine DeFazio on her Tales from the Ghost Yard show in the Bronx. In Paris A Valentine’s Day exhibition yesterday brought together street and contemporary artists Clément Herrmann, Mr Byste, FinDAC, Uri Martinez, Belin, and Sandra Chevrier in a live, public-facing showcase.

The Federal government continues its campaign to remove people’s histories from public space, most visibly this week with the removal of the Pride flag from the Stonewall National Monument — the symbolic birthplace of the modern LGBTQ rights movement — before local officials and activists raised it again in defiance. New York Governor Kathy Hochul criticized the removal, calling it “hurtful”, noting that the LGBTQ community has been “discriminated against and oppressed for much of its history,” adding, “The Pride Flag has meant a lot to all of us here in New York and to those who come around the world to see this place.”

New York’s Public Art Fund is featuring a number of artists in 2026 whose paths have crossed with street art, including Barbara Kruger, whose early wheatpaste posters and later bus-shelter text works established a new language of the street; Nina Chanel Abney, whose large-scale murals and façade projects have extended the public wall tradition with socio-political critique; and Jane Dickson, whose decades of street-level and transit-based projects in Times Square and the subway system connect directly to New York’s urban visual culture. It’s encouraging to see institutions recognize artists whose methods have long existed outside the mainstream—even if that recognition often arrives only after the market has validated the work.

If you want to get out of your apartment and out of the cold and into a museum in New York right now you can check out “Colorful Korea: The Lea R. Sneider Collection” at The Met, “The Brooklyn Bridge Up Close” at The Met, “Gainsborough: The Fashion of Portraiture” at The Frick Collection, “Wifredo Lam: When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream” at MoMA, and the Claes Oldenburg retrospective at the Whitney.

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Appleton Pictures, Atomik, BK Foxx, Chuck U, Dee Dee, EASC, Homesick, IMK, NESC, and Siner One.

BK FOXX with East Village Walls celebrate The Year of The Horse. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

An unidentified artist is telling us that THE BIG GAME is coming to the USA…although foreigners are increasingly worried about visiting this year because of ICE actions against people living here. The number of foreign tourists who came to the United States fell by 5.4% during 2025 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Winter 2026. Brooklyn, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Duendita – Mind

Queens, New York-based Duendita often moves between NYC and Berlin contexts. “Mind” reads more as an intimate, interior/performance piece rather than a particular place.

BSA Images Of The Week: 11.16.25

November 16, 2025 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Welcome to BSA Images of the Week. Photographer Jaime Rojo hit the ground running upon getting back to dirty old Brooklyn this week from a Berlin/Prague tour. Lots to report from there on the walls, in the gallery, and in the museum spaces – and more to come for you to enjoy. In the meantime, here’s what he found on the streets of NYC; a mash-up of handstyles, graphics, pop cues, fine-art chops, humor, sarcasm, reverence, and straight-up rebellion — cultures colliding and talking back.

We begin the show with a new portrait of the much-loved graffiti and street art photographer Martha Cooper, based on a photo by Corey Nickols and painted by Swed Oner (Mathieu Taupenas) in Bushwick with Joe Ficalora and the Bushwick Collective by his side. Born in the south of France in the 80s, a graffiti writer in the late 90s, Swed Oner is now known for his hyper-realistic, monochrome portraits of people transformed into religious icons – featuring a “halo” motif for framing.

Featuring Dzel, EAZV, EXR, Gloom, Homesick, IMK, ISB, Jodi Da Real, KAMZ, Mike King, Notice, RIP Money, Shwan McArt, Silent, Smaer, Two Five, VENG, Warios, Werds, and ZOZS.

SWED ONER. Portrait of Martha Cooper. Detail. The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

DZEL. SILENT. WERDS. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Border with Germany and the Czech Republic. Vltava River. Fall 2025. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swed Oner for Bushwick Collective, 2025. Martha Cooper. Swed_Oner on Instagram

BSA Images Of The Week: 09.14.25

September 14, 2025 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! New York’s streets are in overdrive—diplomats and protesters jostle around the UN, teens climb a tree outside a storefront to chase FakeMink’s latest haircut on the Bowery, fans mob Cardi B as she perches on an SUV outside a deli in the Bronx, throngs pour through the 99th San Gennaro Festival in Little Italy, and a sudden storm of black-windowed SUVs swarms with cameras at the Soho Grand—just as a double-decker tour bus lumbers onto the block, because of course it does. You skip the spectacle, grab a sour pickle from the Pickle Guys on Grand Street, and pedal home on your e-bike to the cat.

Re: the latest sniper shooting in the US that tears hearts and inflames passions; Fox News says, ‘America is divided and headed for civil war.’ What they should admit is, ‘We’ve spent 25 years programming division—and now we’re congratulating ourselves for the results. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.’

The sun is warm and bright, like that fateful New York day 24 years ago. It’s a shame that a generation of New Yorkers has grown up since then, and there is more war than ever.

At least we still have bodegas open at 3 a.m., subway preachers who bark and yelp, and the Mets breaking our hearts! Aaron Judge and the Yankees are still keeping the World Series on the perennial wish-list.

Oh yes, and Anna Wintour is leaving Vogue. For some, that will feel like the end of an era. Others will ask, “Anna who?”

On our weekly interview with the street, we feature new stuff from De Grupo, Divock Okoth Origi, Eternal Possessions, Faile, Fumero, ICU463, IMK, Neko, Ollin, Turtle Caps, and ZamArt.

Zamart for the L.I.S.A. Project NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Hudson River, NY. Summer 2025. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Images Of The Week: 08.10.25

August 10, 2025 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! Hot time, summer in the city, the back of your neck getting dirt and gritty. Cross over on the ferry from that steamy Manhattan, over the East River, here, to that more placid cousin, Brooklyn.

“Flow on, river! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb-tide!
Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg’d waves!
Gorgeous clouds of the sunset!
drench with your splendor me,
or the men and women generations after me!
Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers!”
~
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, Walt Whitman, 1860

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this time featuring Caryn Cast, Chris (Robots Will Kill), Christian Penn, Fumero, Hugus, IMK, James Vance, Jenna Morello, Joao is Typing, Kosuke James, LeCrue Eyebrows, Luch, Mike Shine, Nandos Art, Ninth Wave Studio, Ottograph, Peachee Blue, Prez Arecta, Renek X, and VEW.

Peache Blue for Welling Walls (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mike Shine for Wooden Walls Project. Asbury Park, NJ. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Joao Is Typing for Welling Walls (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bradley Hoffer for Wooden Walls Project. Asbury Park, NJ.(photo © Jaime Rojo)

Chris RWK for Welling Walls (photo © Jaime Rojo)

LUCH for Welling Walls (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ninth Wave Studio for Wooden Walls Project. Asbury Park, NJ. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

James Vance for Wooden Walls Project. Asbury Park, NJ. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Caryn Cast for Welling Walls (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hugus Art for Welling Walls (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Fumero for Welling Walls (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nandos Art for Welling Walls (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kosuke James for Welling Walls (photo © Jaime Rojo)

IMK for Welling Walls (photo © Jaime Rojo)

LECRUE for Welling Walls (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ottograph for Welling Walls (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Midsommar Half Moon over Brooklyn, NY. August 2025. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Images Of The Week: 05.25.2025

May 25, 2025 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Welcome to BSA Images of the Week.

The George Floyd mural at Elgin and Ennis in Houston’s Third Ward has been quietly demolished — a move that caught many off guard, especially as the fifth anniversary of his death approached. More than a painting on a wall in the margins of the city, it was a community’s act of remembrance, a public reckoning, and a visual anchor for a moment when the country seemed to shift. To awaken.

And yet, here we are. Five years later, and it’s hard to say what lasting change took root. In some camps, being ‘woke’ is a pejorative, and going back to sleep is encouraged. The arc of justice bends, but it bends slowly. Or maybe it bends into circles.

Meanwhile in New York, a Banksy mural on a six-ton wall hit the auction block and… nothing. Not a single bid. Cue speculation: are we finally past the Banksy-buoyed street art boom that’s defined the last two decades? Or was the opening price just too steep? Maybe the rollout was sloppy. Maybe it was the economy. Whatever the reason, the silence in the salesroom is rare — and could signal a shift in the so-called urban contemporary art market.

And yet, the Banksy machine rolls on. At this point, there may be more Banksy museums than Starbucks — none sanctioned by the artist, of course, but still packing in the crowds. There’s The Banksy Museum in NYC, The World of Banksy in Paris, Museu Banksy in Barcelona and Madrid, and the touring Art of Banksy show, rolling through Jakarta, Melbourne, and Vancouver. It’s a brand now — maybe not quite as big as Mickey Mouse, but it’s definitely what cultural tourists reach for when they want a little edge with their museum day. What this says about the artist, the audience, or the architecture of commodified rebellion… you draw your own conclusions.

So here’s some of this week’s visual conversation from the street, including works from Shin, Crash One, GO, Ham, Hasp, Homesick, IMK, Jeff Henriquez, Mike King, Nela, Piggie the Pig, Queen Andrea, Stesi, Wetiko, Wild West, and Zimer.

Untitled. Reflection. Manhattan, NY. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Images Of The Week: 05.11.24

May 11, 2025 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Welcome to BSA Images of the Week.

This week, St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue was suddenly flooded with pealing bells and congregants. In a historic moment for the Catholic Church, Pope Leo XIV, born in Chicago, was chosen, following in the footsteps of his predecessor Francis and his namesake Leo XIII, who was widely admired for his steadfast advocacy for migrants and laborers at the turn of the 20th century. Many observers have noted that the selection of an American pope may reflect a conscious decision by the College of Cardinals to offer a moral counterbalance to the growing tide of authoritarianism and exclusionary politics seen in some of today’s global leadership. With roots in a city shaped by immigration, industry, and social struggle, Leo XIV arrives at a time when such grounding may prove especially relevant. Best wishes to all of us.

So here’s some of this week’s visual conversation from the street, including works from Homesick, Gabriel Specter, Clint Mario, Werds, IMK, EXR, Jorit, Wild West, JEMZ, Ribs, Diva, Ellena Lourens, APE, NOEVE, ENEKKO, Rene, Happy, Disoh, Peuf, and Off Key.

JORIT. This is a detail of a partially destroyed piece. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Specter and Rene collaboration. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

ENEKKO. WERDS. EXR. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Freedom Tower. Manhattan, NY. Spring 2025. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Images Of The Week: 02.16.25

February 16, 2025 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! Feeling that Valentine’s chocolate buzz? Gearing up for President’s Day? Thank goodness for holidays—little pauses in the relentless, whiplash-inducing news cycle we’re all riding.

First, some street art news:

San Francisco street artist Rabi Torres taps into ad culture subversion with his new “We Buy Souls” campaign, echoing the tactics of Cash For Your Warhol artist Hargo—right down to the cryptic answering machine message and documentation website. This kind of remixing of commercial signage also has historical roots in Ed Ruscha’s experiments with text, Barbara Kruger’s billboard-style commands, Jenny Holzer’s wheat pasted provocations, Corita Kent’s screen prints, and the bold aesthetics of the Colby Poster Printing Co. Certainly Rabi is getting people’s attention in a San Francisco cityscape that some may describe as hammered with advertising. Call the number on the signs, and you might get pulled into an existential rabbit hole—if you’re up for the game. SF Gate breaks it down here.

It looks like the card company using Banksy-style artwork for its designs may soon put the anonymous street artist in the public eye, as its trademark case with Full Color Black continues to progress in court. Depending on the twists and turns of this legal case, you may see Banksy making a public appearance.

In the news chaos generated from DC: Federal worker layoffs, Justice Department resignations, talks of ‘reciprocal’ tariffs, Trump doesn’t know China is in BRICS, or why Musk met with India’s Modi, swears in RFK Jr. to HHS and Gabbard to National Security, Macron calls Trump’s return “electroshock”, Trump tries a U.S.-Russia-Ukraine reset, JD Vance critiques democracy in the EU, all kinds of drama swirls around NYC Mayor Eric Adams, and on Valentine’s Day Tom Homan of ICE said he’ll be up the mayor’s butt if he doesn’t get his way on New York’s immigrants. Also, the White House has just renamed The Gulf of Mexico to The Bank of America. Just kidding. Somewhere, a screenwriter is getting really annoyed that reality keeps stealing their ideas.

Meanwhile, here’s our interview with the streets this week, including Nick Walker, Clown Soldier, IMK, EXR, W3RC, Sluto, Short, Zaver, Katie Merz, Geraluz, Helch, HVC, TOD, Peter Daverington, Carve, and Kee:

Peter Daverington for Audubon Mural Project. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Super Mario’s taller brother Luigi has become a parallel meme symbol for Luigi Mangione, the accused assassin of the CEO of United Healthcare. Gallows humor enveloped in Valentine motifs, this Luigi is part of a skeleton’s dark and threatening word-bubble, adjacent a guillotine. Artis IMK (photo © Jaime Rojo)

HELCH. SHORT. ZAVER. CARVE. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Katie Merz created this tribute in the windows at the WNYC/WQXR radio station location in Soho to mark the 100th anniversary of the station and to celebrate New York (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Valentines 2025. Brooklyn, NY. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Photos of 2024 on BSA – #13: Inkman’s Thin Line

December 18, 2024 Artists

We’re celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of the next by thanking BSA Readers, Friends, and Family for your support in 2024. Picked by our followers, these photos are the heavily circulated and “liked” selections of the year – shot by our Editor of Photography, Jaime Rojo. 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. Happy Holidays Everyone!

The polarity of positions is popular for simple journals today, a shamefully reductive assessment of the world and our complex interactions. If you were to fall for such easy explanations about politics and power, your only responsibility would be to pick a team. Sadly, that is the formula that takes hold right now, making citizens believe that life is just so black and white, left and right, wrong and right.

In truth it is a thin line, and many of those lines are blurred, leaving many vacillating between love and hate. And they feed off one another. Shakespeare’s famous depiction of love and hate comes in Romeo and Juliet, which is the most famous love story bought and sold. The young lovers’ intense and pure love contrasts sharply with the hatred between their families, the Capulets and Montagues.

“My only love sprung from my only hate!” encapsulates this tension. Love exists in a world filled with hatred.

IMK. Manhattan, NY. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Playful Utility in Public Space: Nacho Valentini in Pescara
May 12, 2026
Italian-Argentinian art director and illustrator Nacho Valentini spends much of his professional life moving through the polished worlds of branding, …Read More »
BSA Images Of The Week: 05.10.26
May 10, 2026
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week. Happy Mother’s Day – to all the mothers and caretakers who have watched …Read More »
Murals, Box Trucks, and the City: HKWalls 2026 in Hong Kong
May 7, 2026
New photos today from HKwalls, one of the global standouts on the street art festival circuit, in part because of …Read More »
Books in The MCL: Alison Young. Street Art World
May 5, 2026
Alison Young. Street Art World. 2016 Reprinted from the original review. In Street Art World, criminologist and cultural theorist Alison …Read More »
BSA Images Of The Week: 05.03.26
May 3, 2026
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! Yo, don’t sleep on New York – we’re still setting an eclectic standard …Read More »
A Working Object: Shoe’s Black Book (1985–1987)
April 30, 2026
With its smooth-to-the-touch pages and oversized, flapping format, this Black Book is a working object—a collection of shared memories stabilized …Read More »
Athena with a Mohawk: Helmet and Handstyle, PichiAvo in Athens, Greece
April 28, 2026
From April 10–19, 2026, on Pallados Street 28–30 in Psirri, within walking distance of the Acropolis, PichiAvo completed An Offering …Read More »