Graffiti and street art are cyclical in many ways – reflective of society, urban planning, politics, current events, demographics… Currently the city of Barcelona is pushing hard on cleansing itself of the wild graffiti and street art that brought it so many tourists 15 years ago.
With the pendulum of real estate development and gentrification swinging from aesthetic chaos to antiseptic order, street artists are changing tactics as well, opting for smaller pieces that are quickly and surreptitiously installed.
“The Raval / Ciutat Vella neighborhood used to have 4 or 5 ‘orchards,’” says photographer Lluis Olive-Bulbena, using a slang term to describe empty areas between blocks where freelance painters like to adorn abandoned walls. “Nowadays there are only one or two.”
We’re pleased to introduce a number of artists specializing in smaller works; artists with names like BL2A, Karma, and Radical Playground. Each has their own style and each are part of a new wave using a smaller canvas, sometimes ingeniously; the sticker, the stencil, paste-ups, even ceramic – on the streets of Barcelona.
As you make your resolutions for the new year, you may find yourself trimming the bushes of your life, pruning away the unproductive branches, as it were. Polish poet Tadeausz Nowak (1930-1991) may have been thinking of clearing away the dead brush when he wrote about “ludzikowie” (petty people) in his “Frolic Psalm”.
Polish street artist Michał ‘Sepe’ Wręga was born in Warsaw and tells us about this new mural he painted in his hometown as a tribute to the poet. Always in touch with his graffiti roots, Sepe now plays with a sophisticated palette like an illustrator and painter, giving these figures a maudlin cheer, mired as they are in trifling fixations.
To better describe his intentions with these pink and blue painterly depictions, Sepe quotes Nowak for us: “Heaven, oh heaven, pricked with spears, pierced through with a cow’s horn, poor petty people standing beneath with their God swamped in plaster”.
“The glacier has melted by about one meter annually since the turn of the millennium,” says Swedish street artist Vegan Flava. In fact, he says, the southern peak was Sweden’s highest mountain until two years ago as the 40 meter thick glacier continues to melt due the warming of the atmosphere. Now it is lower than the northern peak.
Today we are looking at the artists’ newest mural in Linköping, the title of which references this specific melting occurence “From Here to the Southern Peak.”
The circuitous artist mind imagines a bird from the roots of a blue corn flower in the Swedish province of Östergötland, and this painter meditates on the birds’ flight over rooftops up to the Southern Peak.
Vegan Flava’s interconnectedness of themes reminds us that one vital life system is affected by and often dependent upon the next. “Everything we humans build and live from depends on a stable climate,” Vegan Flava says, “like our water supply, agriculture, infrastructure and healthcare.”
Welcome to the first BSA Images of the Week of 2021 !
We start our collection this week with an image of Christ crucified on a Facebook logo. If this is the level of subtlety that we can expect from the new year…gurl, we in trubble.
In fact, we have found that much of the organic street art that we find today has become increasingly strident in opinions expressed, especially around themes of social justice and political skullduggery. It’s all mixed in with favorites like pop figures, sports figures, cats. In a way, the artists are ahead of us, so we consider these images as the tea leaves for what is coming.
How will you interpret these messages from the street? Will you become emboldened? Scared? Or will they not have any impact on passersby?
Here is our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring 7 Line Arts Studio, Bastard Bot, Calicho Art, Captain Eyeliner, Calisi Maultra, City Kity, CRKSHNK, David F Barthold, Degrupo, Elle, Jeff Roseking, Joseph Grazi, NohJColey, Poi Everywhere, Sickid, Sticker Maul, and Stikman.
Happy Holidays to all BSA readers, your family and dear ones. We’re counting down some of our favorite photos to appear on BSA in 2020 taken by our editor of photography, Jaime Rojo. We wish each person the very best as we look forward to a new year together with you.
The stunning simplicity of this billboard reverberated for many privileged white people who read it.
Happy Holidays to all BSA readers, your family and dear ones. We’re counting down some of our favorite photos to appear on BSA in 2020 taken by our editor of photography, Jaime Rojo. We wish each person the very best as we look forward to a new year together with you.
Brooklyn’s own Joan Ruth Bader Ginsburg (March 15, 1933 – September 18, 2020) was an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until her death on September 18, 2020. Her passing this year spawned many a tribute on the street, including this doorway – something she opened for countless people during her career.
Happy Holidays to all BSA readers, your family and dear ones. We’re counting down some of our favorite photos to appear on BSA in 2020 taken by our editor of photography, Jaime Rojo. We wish each person the very best as we look forward to a new year together with you.
Some of the richest exchanges you will have are with New York’s least-rich people. When Jaime spoke with this gentleman one day, time melted away.
Happy Holidays to all BSA readers, your family and dear ones. We’re counting down some of our favorite photos to appear on BSA in 2020 taken by our editor of photography, Jaime Rojo. We wish each person the very best as we look forward to a new year together with you.
Tones captures the culture and the comedic part of storytelling that is intrinsically tied to the graffiti game. This piece is a master from many perspectives.
Happy Holidays to all BSA readers, your family and dear ones. We’re counting down some of our favorite photos to appear on BSA in 2020 taken by our editor of photography, Jaime Rojo. We wish each person the very best as we look forward to a new year together with you.
When the going gets tough – take it out to the streets. We spotted this hairdresser doing business under the Williamsburg Bridge this summer. We hope the business was good.
You could be forgiven for feeling a little like a Grinch for a part of this Christmas; a global virus and a completely fumbled response to the economic well-being of all Americans has left many without home, food, jobs, healthcare, security on this day in 2020.
But let’s rejoice that we persevered, and we found some reasons to be positive, to be hopeful, and to work together. New York is unbeatable! God Bless NYC!
And we are thankful for you. From your friends at BSA we wish you a very Merry Christmas.
Happy Holidays to all BSA readers, your family and dear ones. We’re counting down some of our favorite photos to appear on BSA in 2020 taken by our editor of photography, Jaime Rojo. We wish each person the very best as we look forward to a new year together with you.
Street artist Sara Lynne Leo got big this year on New York Streets – or at least her tiny genderless figures did. Hoisted high on these boarded-over businesses in Soho these human sized figures illustrate the difficulty we’re all having with spacial relations.
As an unofficial collaborator, the wise and veteran Stikman shows up to put in his two cents, saying, “Wash your hands.”
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
