Everybody falls. Some know how to do it with great style.
Today we give tribute to the man who showed us how to do it right and spawned a thousand dancing and performing imitators and variations practiced since he flew across TV screens in the 1970s..
When it comes to the dance known Campbellocking – later shortened to “Locking” – Don Campbell was the originator of the series of pop and lock joint movements that fueled what would become part of the hip-hop dance lexicon.
Esquire – 1974 Photo by Harry Hamburg / J.P. Goude
The Camblelock Dancers were comprised of with members Toni
Basil, Fred ‘Mr. Penguin’ Berry a.k.a. Rerun, Leo ‘Fluky Luke’ Williamson, Greg
‘ Campbellock Jr.’ Pope, Bill ‘Slim The Robot’ Williams, and Adolpho ‘Shabba
Doo’ Quinones
Don “Campbellock” Campbell. Artwork by Cleveland Palmer
He passed in April in his home of Santa Clarita, California and we just wanted to pay tribute to the innovator, incorporator, and top notch operator. Put your hands together as we send off Mr. Campbell to a Soul Train dance floor in the heavens.
Funky Fresh pages for your fresh paint from the Museum of Graffiti in Miami today.
They’ve been doing their best to make your quarantine dope! Every week for the last month they’ve been releasing new pages in what will ultimately be the biggest most supercharged graffiti coloring book we’ve seen.
This week Volume IV is here with a special cover designed by PURE TFP, featuring art by CES, DOC TC5, DR. DAX, INTEL TCI, and MICKEY. Pick it up a hardcopy by ordering it online – and they’ll immediately send you a PDF file to print.
Don’t forget to be sure to tag your work-in-progress or finished photos at @museumofgraffiti on instagram or Facebook!
Judy Chicago, Jane Fonda and Swoon are teaming up for a Global Open Call to #CreateArtForEarth, and the hashtag is picking up speed quickly.
“There are so many ways that art will be part of how we survive this climate crisis and the current pandemic, from helping us work through paralyzing fears so that we can act constructively, to keeping our hearts and minds inspired by what matters, and even using the creative process to tackle tangible solutions. I’m such a believer that the first step to action is an act of imagination.”
– Swoon
Swoon. “Healing Arises in Slowness” 2020 (photo courtesy of Swoon)
Working side by side with Greenpeace USA, National Museum of Women in the Arts and $FireDrillFridays invite you to join the launch of #CreateArtforEarth – a global initiative to encourage art that addresses the climate crisis and hopes to inspires action.
Plastic arts, songs, performance, poems, – all are encouraged. Just follow the hash tag to see where you can participate. #CreateArtforEarth
“Over the last few decades, we have witnessed the melting of the Arctic ice; the warming of the oceans; massive wildfires; dramatic changes in weather patterns; the extinction of hundreds of living creatures; and now, the coronavirus which is upending human behavior all over the planet, causing the disruption of economic systems at a level never seen before and death for many thousands of people. The most pressing issue for us today are the conditions out of which these dire occurrences have happened, which artists can help illuminate if they start addressing what matters in understandable modes.” – Judy Chicago
On Thursday, April 30th, at 1:00 PM MST @Hansulrichobrist and I will be in conversation with on @SerpentineUK account for an Instagram Live. Join us as discuss the global creative campaign ‘Create Art For Earth’ and my involvement in Serpentine’s #BackToEarth project.
“Like everyone in the world, my family has been affected by this pandemic,” says celebrated Street Artist, painter, pop culture jammer, and marketer Ron English.
He’s reflecting on Covid-19 from the perspective of someone who’s been knocked down by it and who was able to get back up. While he is feeling good now, he says the impact on his health was substantial and says it will affect his art-making going forward due to damaged lung capacity.
“That means no more spraypaint for now,” he says, “and it’s
possible that I may never paint another public mural.” Let’s hope that changes
with time.
For now his wife Tarza has poured herself into making
amazing masks to give to nursing homes, postal workers, grocery clerks – first with
leftover fabric scraps, eventually with Ron’s PopLife Popaganda cotton shirts.
Now that the English’s joining with Threadless and “a purchase price that goes directly to MedShare”, his custom design face masks are going to the next level.
Ron says he is proud to do this work and BSA is proud to support families – his and ours – and yours!
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week and Ramadan Mubarak for all our Muslim brothers and sisters this week. We all know that we have to keep a safe distance and wash our hands, even during holy days – science is science whether its Jesus or Mohammed or Timothy Leary whom you worship.
Overall this pandemic is disproportionately affecting the most vulnerable around the world. If you are okay, please share what you have. This week we recommend The International Rescue Committee.
If you, or someone you care about, are feeling overwhelmed with emotions like sadness, depression, or anxiety, or feel like you want to harm yourself or others
Call National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255.
The Marshall Plan, also known as the European Recovery Program, was a U.S. program providing aid to Western Europe following the devastation of World War II. We need a Marshall Plan for everyday people right now and the next year. Instead, we have a circus.
In other news, we’re still quarantining inside so we thought you would enjoy these cool instant classics shot in Miami recently. Please send us your art in the streets! We love to hear from you. Spread love!
So here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Bubblegum, Carolina, Dicesar Love, Friks84, Inphiltrate, Jodi Cox, Joshila Dhaby, Le Doers Club, Outrank Brand, Oz Fua, Ric Azevedo, Roger Peet, Smogeone, The Suited Racer, Toosphexy, Tomer Linaje, and Toysnobs.
Bill
Posters knows his street art and activism history.
From Beuys’ practice of ‘social sculpture’ and John Fekner’s blunt upbraiding of urban planning hypocrisies to AIDS activists using street art to shame government homophobia and the paint-bombing of a Mao portrait that led to the arrest and torture of the artists/activists for counter-revolutionary propaganda, he’ll give you a solid foundation on precedence for this rebellious art life in “The Street Art Manual.”
He also knows how to yarn-bomb.
And myriad other techniques for freelance intervening in city spaces that you own, that all of us own, but which are often commandeered for commercial messages, political propaganda messages, or commercial-political propaganda messages – otherwise known as fascism.
His new book on hacking public space is one of the most instructive, constructive, serious and light-hearted romps through your world with new eyes. He has mastered a balance of educational and fun, sane and irreverent as he takes you methodically with text, photos, and cleanly modern diagrams through practices such as graffiti, stencils, paste-ups, subvertising, large-scale murals, yarn bombing, guerrilla theater, dropping banners, light projections, launching paint projectiles, and mastering aerial art via drone.
One may say that it is a handbook for taking back your voice in a sea of disinformation to advocate for a point of view. But don’t take yourself so seriously, dawg. Also, mind your manners. For being a rule breaker, Bill Posters wants you to be gentlemen and gentleladies and gentlepersons – Don’t just hit the streets as a hormone-fueled dunderhead who rides roughshod over others in a toxic, abusive way.
Check out his list for how to do the most fundamental of forms, graffiti. The “DO” list includes admonitions to “say something more than your name. Stick up for those less privileged”, which may sound like a tear-jerking sermon. But then he also tells you not to bring your cellphone to the train yard, which just seems logical.
In the “DON’T” list he suggests you don’t go into train yards without experienced writers, and he implores aspiring aerosol mark makers to be original, “Focus on developing your own voice and your own style.” In many ways, Bill Posters is the supportive dad you never had, which probably would have helped you avoid this whole vandalism lifestyle to begin with.
But since you are a vandal or are unwittingly breaking some municipality’s law by wrapping a sculpture with crochet to look like a clown, he does offer direct advice on dealing with authorities, knowing your rights, knowing what your options are, and knowing that some times police actually like your art and might let you off if you don’t act like a jerk. All that said, this book is not about breaking laws, it’s philosophically about reclaiming public space and having a voice in your society.
“Throughout
history, people have used creativity to push against conformity in search of
experiences that create more meaning,” he says in his introduction. “Street
art, and its predecessor, graffiti, are two art forms that do just that.”
And
when doing your subversive or society-saving art installation under cover of
night, elsewhere he recommends, “Don’t forget to scope things out and check for
onsite security. Dogs are a real issue when you’re stuck on a fence, hanging
there like a tasty human sausage.”
The Street Art Manual by Bill Posters. The Street Art Manual new US on-sale date is now Sept. 8th. 2020. Published by Laurence King Publishing Ltd. London, UK. 2020.
The famous piece inspired by the other more famous piece
“Girl with a Pearl Earring” by Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer has been
enhanced by the addition of the now-ubiquitous blue face mask on the girl’s
face.
Word on the street is that the addition might not be that of the famously reclusive artist himself but that of an admirer. Usually, Banksy gives his pieces on the street his imprimatur by posting them on his Instagram account. At the time of this posting on BSA, such action hasn’t yet been taken.
Unfortunately it doesn’t realize that all this clean air and water from the last couple of months is not intentional – we just had to stay inside our homes and not ruin stuff.
Shepard Fairey. Earth Day 2020. (photo courtesy of Studio No. 1)
Airplanes
are grounded, parks are closed, and asthma is down. Wild animals are enjoying
their natural habitat without the hordes of humans traipsing about their
territory. Mountains, rivers, lakes, and our oceans are experiencing less
stress and our cities, in general, are calmer and cleaner. When people float
conspiracy theories about Covid-19, we always like the one about the Earth
creating it to get our attention and be better earth citizens.
50
years after the first Earth Day, we pause to recognize people like US Senator
Gaylord Nelson, a Democrat from the state of Wisconsin who founded it. He
probably had no idea that corporations would take over the Senate and House and
White House and the media here in 2020.
Who
did?
Shepard Fairey. Earth Day 2020. (photo courtesy of Studio No. 1)
But
the good work of those first environmentalists hasn’t been completely reversed,
however they have tried to smear the name of people who love the Earth, eroding
laws that protect it. “Teach-ins” from the Vietnam War era actually inspired Senator
Nelson to envision a “national-teach-in-movement” where neighbors taught each
other and empowered and encouraged one another to act positively and directly
to protect natural resources. For all those who have fought for our environment
and our fellow creatures, some at great personal cost, we salute you.
Street
Artist and activist Shepard Fairey has been sounding the alarm on environmental
issues and the climate for years now. His voice resonates because he’s informed
and straight-forward with his graphic campaigns to elevate the discussion where
we all can participate with the shared goal of leaving this planet in much
better shape than it was when we were born. Here are a couple of posters he
just released through his design studio Studio No 1.
Since most of us are
quarantined at home right now, arts and cultural institutions have been
challenging themselves to devise new programming that can be engaged with in
virtual ways. Some of them require you to join in a meeting or event, others
are self-directed.
Urban Nation Museum of Urban Contemporary Art in Berlin, like most museums, has been forced to close its doors for the near future, but they still want to give you an opportunity to walk through the exhibition with a warm and informative guide who also understands critical thinking.
It’s a difficult task to give a tour to a guest when you cannot see them, but Markus Georg has a disarming natural way of describing his ideas so that you definitely feel sometimes like you are there with him looking at the studio art by many of today’s graffiti and Street Artists. We were particularly thrilled to see him talk about the Swoon piece because we brought her to Berlin as UN curators in 2015, and this was the collaged menagerie of her imagery made for that show.
Jan Sauerwald’s enthusiasm for the urban art scene dates back at least to his own experience on the street in the 1990s, and he knows what a special challenge it is for youth and families to be cooped up inside. As a cultural manager in Berlin for many years and today as Urban Nation’s Director, Mr. Sauerwald is especially pleased that the museum can offer an unhindered opportunity to see the works on display.
We asked him a few questions about the new video.
Brooklyn Street Art:What gave you the idea to have a virtual tour of the museum? Jan Sauerwald: It is an unfortunate development that the museum and all the excellent works by different artists won’t be available for the visitors for such a long time period. It is pretty sad for an educational art institution like ours, so we were thinking hard about alternatives and we decided to implement an online tour to deliver easy access for all groups of interested people. We want them to feel like they are having a unique experience that is similar to the real thing as possible.
Brooklyn Street Art:Can you tell us a little about the guide who is helping us become familiar with the works? Jan Sauerwald: Markus Georg is an experienced art mediator and tour guide. We have worked with him on other projects as well and we are very glad that he responded very quickly to our call to produce the digital tour through the museum. Speed is everything when it comes to mounting such a project in these times.
Brooklyn Street Art: What is one of the works you find most interesting? Jan Sauerwald: One of my favorite works is the London Police painting in the exhibition. London Police do give us a lot of inspiration with their view of a fantastic and futuristic, but always friendly world. If our future could be like that – a friendly coexistence of men and machines- then I think it could I would be glad about that.
This way when the neighbors in the building across the street see you hanging out the window during our 7 pm public applause session — they’ll know even more about your worldview.
Social Distancing (courtesy of Studio Number One)
“Art has the power to bring us together, even when we’re apart,” says Street Artist, graphic artist, fine artist Shepard Fairey, who has designed posters along with his Studio Number One for us all to use as we like. It may even help many of us feel like we are doing this together, instead of solo.
“We are all in this together,” Shepard says, “and we will
overcome this.”
Where is the People’s Bailout? Why has the bailout that was promised to small businesses already run out? Why is congress on vacation? Why is Biden staring up at the wall like he’s concentrating on a dead spider? The people are dying, running out of food, the economy is dying, businesses are dying. The Post Office, starved and bad-mouthed for years by the capitalists who want to kill it, is finally dying. Do we realize which direction the US is being dragged by the oligarchs and their one party corporate Republicrat-Demoblicans?
Banksy, with his typical sense of humor and levity, came out from isolation to share with us his visual metaphor that accurately illustrates one of the many ways in which isolation affects humans…photos were taken directly from the artist’s Instagram account. (photos @Banksy)Banksy. Detail. (photo @ Banksy)Banksy. Detail. (photo @ Banksy)Banksy. Detail. (photo @ Banksy)Banksy. Detail. (photo @ Banksy)Untitled. Brooklyn, NY. Spring 2020 (photo @ Jaime Rojo)
An unusual worldwide quarantine requires unusual solutions. Because the virus is preventing us all from going to a gallery show at the moment, it’s been fun to see artists, museums, galleries, gallerists and organizers devise new ways for us to interact with each other and art. One you can participate in Sunday is called “What’s In the Box?”.
You might also call it “Who’s On the Box.” Seriously, Duster? Al Diaz? Terrible TKID170? Zimad? That would make you sit up and pay attention.
Duster ua (photo courtesy of 3Alx)
Organized by Adam Levine (@3Alxnyc) this is a project whose central conceit is a secret – and you have to get inside a virtual space to find it out. In addition the works are all completed on a box which may contain an object of “precious metals and jewels”. We’re curious!
“I’ve assembled close to 30 artists – some old school legends, some NYC staples, West coast players and some fresh faces,” he tells us. “They have all come together and each artist created one unique and original design on a custom wooden box sent to them to decorate that will house something very special.”
Really?
Sacsix (photo courtesy of 3Alx)
“When I say ‘special’ I’m not kidding. This is something that you guys or anybody else on the planet for that matter has never ever seen before.” Those are big promises. Hell, you’re just stuck on this couch for the next forever, so text PIPEBOX to 31996 to get on the VIP list.
Show starts Sunday at 4:20pm in New York, so that’s 21:20 in London and 22:20 in Paris Sunday night. Have fun and support many artists whose work you know from serious well regarded old school writers to Street Art new kids on the scene.
Sf Grajales (photo courtesy of 3Alx)
Participants include Al Diaz, A Lucky Rabbit, AJ Lavilla, AngelOnce, Baston, Belowkey, Captain Eyeliner, City Kitty, Dirt Cobain, Duster ua, EASY, Free Humanity, GoopMassta, Stephanie Grajales, Jeff Henriquez, Nite Owl, Sara O’Connor, The Postman, Raddington Falls, Reggie Warlock, Renda Writer, Sacsix, Vincent Scala, Savior Elmundo, Terrible TKID170, TRAP.if, Turtlecaps, Uncutt, Zero Productivity, Zimad.
Goop Massta (photo courtesy of 3Alx)Raddington Falls (photo courtesy of 3Alx)Zimad Art (photo courtesy of 3Alx)Joz and Easy (photo courtesy of 3Alx)Free Humanity (photo courtesy of 3Alx)Vincent Scala (photo courtesy of 3Alx)Savior El Mundo (photo courtesy of 3Alx)Aj Lavilla (photo courtesy of 3Alx)A Lucky Rabbit (photo courtesy of 3Alx)The Postman Art (photo courtesy of 3Alx)Terrible Kid (photo courtesy of 3Alx)Captain Eyeliner (photo courtesy of 3Alx)Angel Once (photo courtesy of 3Alx)Naito Oru (photo courtesy of 3Alx)Baston714 (photo courtesy of 3Alx)Below Key (photo courtesy of 3Alx)Sara Connor (photo courtesy of 3Alx)
What’s in the Box? Tune in to the live stream Sunday, 4.19.20 at 4:20 P.M. EST. The only way in, is to text the word:“PIPEBOX” to 31996 to get on the V.I.P. launch list and receive the live link. Video production by Silvertuna Studios
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
