Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. “InkStemism” from Tinta Crua in Lisbon 2. STIK at Picadilly Lights in London: Hope & Solidarity 3. The PR Economy Shapes “News” and Perception 4. Big Joanie, “Fall Asleep”
BSA Special Feature: “InkStemism” from Tinta Crua in Lisbon
Portuguese activist, street artist and illustrator Tinta Crua says he hasn’t had a lot of action in Lisbon since the virus outbreak, so he’s been experimenting with animation and seeing his figures come to life across the screen. Today we have a look at the homemade video called InkStemism.
He says he’s been using wheat-pasting to display his hand-painted original acrylic pieces on construction walls or downtown shop windows. The style of figures and archetypes may recall for some the hand-drawn aesthetic punk/heavy metal fanzines: A stark wit and a bit of sarcasm – softened by an underlying sentiment of goodwill, romantic tendencies.
“I started back in 2008 when the crisis hit Portugal with its full impact. Lots of shops closed. People lost their jobs like me at the time and now again…but this window became my canvas!” says Tinta. Given the dire economic situation that appears to be headed our way, its safe to say there will be more artists working on the street soon, addressing fundamental issues in social, economic, and geo-political spheres.
“I don’t know
what will be the scenario post-pandemic,” says the artist. “I hope that
people will keep their jobs and that the
shops keep open. Well I’ll keep doing my thing – just have to walk more and
wait till I find a good place to paste.”
STIK at Picadilly Lights in London: Hope & Solidarity
A curious turn of events leads STIK to Picadilly. His forms unite in a warm glow, yet few are here to see it.
The PR Economy Shapes “News” and Perception
When you hear and see the same story repeated multiple times by serious faces in authoritative positions, does it affect your perception of a company, politician, poet, artist, businesswoman, race, war? Sidenote: Is this journalism?
Big Joanie, “Fall Asleep“
London based trio Big Joanie going from strength to strength. A great sound evolving from the DIY community and a fresh frank take on feminist punk.
Barcelona, Spain has begun
the process of re-opening the city from the confines of Covid-19. Lluis Olive,
a frequent BSA collaborator tells us that phase I of re-opening includes bars
and restaurants but only at 50% of their capacity. Stores under 400 square
meters are also allowed to re-open. Groups up to 15 individuals are permitted
to gather in public as well. For him this is a welcome relief for much needed
open air.
And what does a street art
fan and photographer do when you let him outside after weeks stuck in his home?
That’s right, he captures the voice of the artists in the public sphere.
Here Mr. Olive shares a few
shots on the streets of Barcelona – artists’ view on the pandemic.
“One paste up per month for the public health,” is the theme for this program called Le Mur, now on their 84th piece. In our time of self-imposed quarantines, invariably we feel our liberties are being infringed. Yet seeing this lad skipping down roof-tops of trains may provide the viewer an imaginary doorway to jump through – a momentary mental health break.
“I guess you could say that the boy running on the train reminds us of the innocent freedom to play that we don’t now have,” says photographer Martha Cooper of this youthful romp taken forty or so years ago. The original plan was for Martha to be there documenting Ella & Pitr at work pasting her photograph on the wall. Alas, Covid-19 thwarted those plans, just like millions upon millions of people all over the world have seen their own plans derailed, canceled, and postponed.
In the middle of a pandemic, artists Ella and Pitr succeeded in getting this image printed large format and pasted it here in St. Etienne. There is something reassuring about seeing this image persisting through time, emancipated into the public realm, waving its flag of self-directed liberation here on the street.
Brazilian street artist and public artist Narcélio Grud favors kinetic and sound-producing sculpture, preferably with your direct interaction completing it. What fun is a bell if you can’t tap it with your finger or bang it with a percussive drumstick of some girth?
Grud’s pieces are often on the street beckoning the passerby to use them to play music and we can see this new one could prove to be a thrilling prototype.
Adapting the
call bell, that metal dome that alerts the attendant behind the counter at a hotel,
Grud places shiny metallic cupolas all over plexi mothership one. Peal, peep, clap,
clink, ping! He says we need something like this to draw attention to what is
happening at this this moment.
“The alert
calls us at this moment to pay attention!” Mr. Grud says. “Which are the bells
that we can ring, and which are the bells that ring us?”
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! Happy Memorial Day Weekend in the US. Happy Eid-ul-Fitr 2020 to all our friends celebrating it, wherever you are. Wash you hands, practice social distancing, don’t fight with people over small things. It’s not worth it.
This week we have some new art from the streets that appears purposeful and dense with meaning – not beating around the bush these days. Maybe there is too much at stake, and artists know it too.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Caryn Cast, Cheer Up, City Kitty, Dylan Egon, Gane , Glare Rakn, Hearts NY, Praxis, and Sara Lynne-Leo.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. SOFLES: Layers
BSA Special Feature: SOFLES: Layers
Without the pomposity and subtle class-conscious signaling that those Youtube ads for MasterClass use to coat their appeal with, here is Australia’s master of myriad graffiti styles, SOFLES, giving you the inside look at tools and techniques for his craft with confidence and flair.
Yes, he’s spraying and showing you the right caps to use, but if this hadn’t been abundantly clear before, this discipline is as much about choreography and parry and thrust as it is anything involving paint and hue. Here are the details, the product of knowledge and history, his 10,000 hours.
Technology has enabled the ease of this conveyance of knowledge in a way that early graffiti writers couldn’t have dreamed, and the classroom here is amply captured and framed for you by director/editor/artist/instructor Colin Mckinnon (@profetsone), but it is also the mindset of a generation so far removed from graffiti’s roots that enables SOFLES to instruct us this way as well as his personal character.
Generous in his instinct to share with you, SOFLES gives all
to his gesture, his handstyling, his tracing of contour, his building of
volume, application of dimension and texture, his sweep, his footwork. Did he
just perform a pirouette?
Have you noticed that the air and sky in your city is cleaner than you ever remember it to be? Car traffic is down, plane traffic is scant. Many polluting industries have had no workers in the last few months either. Mother Nature is happy.
Okuda “Mother Natura” for Justkids/Park MGM Las Vegas. (photo courtesy of Justkids)
One wonders about the connection between our outright
slaughter of nature and the fact that this virus is wreaking havoc on our
physical health and economies. Mother Nature inserts herself into every
conversation eventually – what fools we were to think that we were separate
from her.
Okuda “Mother Natura” for Justkids/Park MGM Las Vegas. (photo courtesy of Justkids)
Street Artist OKUDA San Miguel says that he has been inspired by Mother Nature in his new commission for that natural oasis Las Vegas. Creating 3 new sculptures and a mural inspired by Mayahuel, the Mexican goddess of agave and fertility, his fragmented pop surrealist dreams will great guests and invite them to gamble the future at this luxury resort. He created this installation in coordination with Justkids founder and curator Charlotte Dutoit and he’s calling it “Mother Natura”.
Okuda “Mother Natura” for Justkids/Park MGM Las Vegas. (photo courtesy of Justkids)Okuda “Mother Natura” for Justkids/Park MGM Las Vegas. (photo courtesy of Justkids)Okuda “Mother Natura” for Justkids/Park MGM Las Vegas. (photo courtesy of Justkids)Okuda “Mother Natura” for Justkids/Park MGM Las Vegas. (photo courtesy of Justkids)Okuda “Mother Natura” for Justkids/Park MGM Las Vegas. (photo courtesy of Justkids)Okuda “Mother Natura” for Justkids/Park MGM Las Vegas. (photo courtesy of Justkids)
The street and its art is a reflection of the society that
it is part of, and right now in New York many in our communities are mourning
the loss of family, friends, leaders, and followers.
Because of the circumstances of the illness, many people
could not see their loved ones while they were in the hospital, could not bid
them goodbye in the way they would have wanted, worry about what their last
days had been like.
No matter the station, the loss of someone can have an
impact on you. One street artist has created a new campaign honoring those who
have left us called “Forget Me Not”.
“For those parts of our community whom we can not
properly mourn, a small tribute asking that we honor the overlooked. Reminding
us of our fellowship,” the artist says.
A serious bomber and a bit of a barbed bard from Brooklyn has his first virtual contemporary art show with the Museum of Graffiti in Miami. You couldn’t write a sentence like that a decade ago.
Cash4. A Tough Pill to Swallow / Museum Of Graffiti / Miami, FL (photo courtesy Museum of Graffiti)
Straddling his own chaotic line between graffiti and Street Art for a decade and a half now, this smart aleck at times is layering the abstract and hand-styling the letters like a pro sign maker. Profane and smashed imagery, nearly profound snatches of two-edged prose, and a penchant for truth-telling that gets him in trouble are all hallmarks of Cash4’s game, but this selection of new pieces is timely and searingly on-point.
Cash4. A Tough Pill to Swallow / Museum Of Graffiti / Miami, FL (photo courtesy Museum of Graffiti)Cash4. A Tough Pill to Swallow / Museum Of Graffiti / Miami, FL (photo courtesy Museum of Graffiti)Cash4. A Tough Pill to Swallow / Museum Of Graffiti / Miami, FL (photo courtesy Museum of Graffiti)
While New York has always been a melting pot of cultures and languages and people from all over the world, it’s also a fundamental responsibility to also keep our eyes and ears on the folks who are “born and bred” here as they say.
They hold a deeper sense of the DNA of an ever-evolving city and its history, its true nature; the lowdown of what it means to be from this place.
The economics and their implications of this Covid-19 disaster are devastating to many of us, but the mourning and human loss compounds our sense of sadness, even while we are resolute to overcome. If we are all metal in that melting pot of New York that explains how we create a powerfully strong alloy of humanity. We know how to triumph together in times of need and we are unbeatable and loyal allies, despite our sometimes aggressive side.
Artist Oliver Rios was raised in El Barrio of New York from Puerto Rican parents and grew up as an artist drinking in the color, sounds, smells, and style of late 70s Hip Hop culture. Shaped and formed by the beauty and the devastation that life can bring to us, he has channeled his spirit into memorial wall painting, illustration, photography, advertising, digital design.
Profoundly moved by the events that Covid-19 has spun into existence here, Rios is sharing with us a dense and meaningful piece of art that speaks to his history, his heroes, his fears, and his passion for this city and the people in it. Using a subway map for canvas, he depicts first responders – in this case people he knows personally or admires sincerely.
“The image of the nurse is my wife Carol Rios,” he tells us. “She is a Nurse Practitioner at the John Therur Cancer Center in Hackensack, NJ. The police officer is PO Ramon Suarez who perished in 9/11 and who was also my first daughters’ grandfather. The image of the fireman is inspired by a retired fireman and childhood friend from East Harlem who helped at Ground Zero in the days after 9/11. His name is Dennis Mendez. The subway train is an homage to the Late Great Dondi White.”
We asked him more about the creation of and motivations behind “Native New Yorker 2020”:
Brooklyn Street Art: As a Native New Yorker you’ve probably seen and experienced this city being hit hard by different crises while living here: Financial crisis, economic downturns, 9/11 etc…This pandemic is possible New York’s biggest crisis during our lifetimes. What do you think makes New Yorkers get up and fight every day? Oliver Rios: In order to survive you have to be “NY Tough”, to quote Governor Andrew Cuomo! It’s a different kind of toughness that not many people understand. To live in NYC you have to understand and go through the city’s everyday grind! Understanding the everyday hustle, the history, the diverse cultures, the crime, the rats, the pigeons, the parades, the clubs, the bars, the historical sites, the crowded subways, the cabs… everything. Once you live in NYC and understand that lifestyle – to overcome anything is possible.
Going out to party in the greatest city in the world also helps ease the daily stress. We as New Yorkers protect and love the city and that’s why we get up every day and fight!!
BSA: Your work on the poster sends a message of unity and perseverance while at the same time it honors those who are at the forefront of the pandemic. Can you tell us what was your inspiration to create this artwork? OR: This project was really about painting a piece on a subway map. As I tuned into Instagram and join DJ DNice’s “Club Quarantine”, I heard him play “Native New Yorker” by Odyssey , a favorite song of mine. I immediately started with the “Native New Yorker” theme and decided to give it a 2020 version. I wanted to really honor my wife Carol Rios who’s a Nurse Practitioner at the John Theur Cancer Center in Hackensack NJ, my Brother-in-Law who’s a Fireman/Veteran in Belleville, NJ, all the first responders and essential workers dedicating their lives to help fight this pandemic.
I started with my wife who is on the top of the poster and it evolved from there.
BSA: You mentioned that your wife is a nurse. How has it been for the family to see her every day going to work knowing the risks and dangers she will confront at the hospital? OR: It’s an uncomfortable feeling every day, knowing that your loved ones are heading out the door to face danger every day. I try to keep the kids busy with school work and video games as we wait for her to get home to have dinner, watch our favorite TV shows, or play board games. We appreciate all she does and her patients do as well.
BSA:By including some members of your family and friends in your artwork you are honoring them and their work, preserving and commemorating their memory, and at the same time you are persisting with your creativity. How does an artist find the motivation to create works like these in such challenging times? OR: For me, it’s never easy… the inspiration is around me every day in my studio; I have a framed photo taken by Martha Cooper of a memorial mural dedicated to my good friend Juan Anthony “TEE” Castro that I painted during 1993 in El Barrio (East Harlem). On the frame, I have prayer cards of family and friends who have passed away during the years. Next to it I have a photo of my brother who was murdered by gun violence in 1981. My oldest daughter’s grandfather PO Ramon Suarez is there too; He perished saving lives during the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers. The UPS worker is the guy I see driving up and down the street delivering packages. Fireman Dennis Mendez is a childhood friend from East Harlem who helped dig out debris at ground zero days after 9/11. The Subway train is an homage to the Late Great Dondi White.
I find that as artists we have to remind ourselves how we are all connected. This is my way to thank and connect to my Native New Yorkers. God Bless!
Such a New York sentiment and at the heart of it we believe in our fellow New Yorkers and people in general to pull through this series of cavalcading catastrophes that are befalling us as many of our would-be leaders stand by and watch.
“Times are tough..” – It’s also a new piece this week on BSA Images of the Week from Captain Eyeliner. Let’s look for common ground, fundamental fairness and a common dream – without being tricked into fighting each other.
Meanwhile here’s some of the genius and humorous works this week on New York streets (and one from Tel Aviv), as we nurse our wounds and mourn our dead, and praise our nurses – and so many others. Hang tough people!
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Adam Fujita, Almost Over Keep Smiling, Billy Barnacles, Captain Eyeliner, CRKSNK, Lunge Box, Maya Hayuk, Merk, No Sleep, Praxis, Quasar, Sac Six, Tag, and You Go Girl!
You’re forgiven if you didn’t realize that – it’s not so easy right now to tell what day it is; when it is the week or the weekend as we have been endlessly in quarantine, so many of us.
Many of us are without jobs, without school, without those events that provide punctuation, making life into one long run-on sentence. But it is easy to tell who has been getting up on the street, if you are able to venture outside to go to the store and see new Street Art popping off the wall as you scurry back to your hovel.
Here we have some of the new faces from Damon NYC, who’s suddenly peeking out of doorways on the street. Frustrated, consterned, befuddled? Yeah, Damon gets that.
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
