Yes, you are right.
Cats are not particularly hard-hitting as a topic, but you must admit they are ubiquitous right now. So why wouldn’t they be prowling around the streets as well? God knows there are enough rats. You would think they would make a calendar of these. Wait, they have.
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week!
People came together at Brandenburg Gate in Berlin to remember the victims of a racist attack in Hanau this week, vowing to stem the tide of right-wing movements in Germany and elsewhere. The more you see the remnants of the ugly past rearing their heads, the more determined we will all have to be to unify and celebrate our differences and similarities with equal enthusiasm.
Another promising sign of unity and community for us was the opening for the showcase of works donated by artists to benefit Daniel Weissbach aka DTAGNO aka COST88 in Berlin on Friday night. The musical/art-making performances were enervating and stirring – and there were so many people that the crowd on the sidewalk outnumbered the crowd in the gallery area. Please support – The online auction starts tonight and is refreshed with a new collection of art pieces donated by the old skool and new in a hybrid of genres. Please check out www.getwelldaniel.de
We also saw this incredibly well designed and curated show called WALLS at Urban Spree – with powerhouse names in graffiti, street art, contemporary art, and even a couple of pieces of antiquity, all examining the implications and ramifications of figurative and literal walls. The essays in the small catalogue further explore. More on this show later here but please go see it if you can.
One big find this week was this amazing collaboration of pieces on a wall with OS Gemeos and various other dignitaries atop an art supply store in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. Hope you enjoy the show here from our Director of Photography, Jaime Rojo.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring 1Up Crew, Berlinsky, Black Land, Daze, ISE.THR, Kevle, Marina Zumi, Mira, Mode2, Os Gemeos, Shine, TFB, The Birds, VLK, WENU, and Zabou.
In a striking decision that appears to favor the protection of graffiti and Street Artists works in the public space, the 5Pointz case came to a close this week with a ruling that punishes the owner/developer of the compound in Long Island City for acting “willfully” and out of spite toward the artists whose work had transformed his dilapidated property into a world-known holy place for exhibition of the art forms there.
Upholding the 2018 decision by Judge Frederic Block, the plaintiffs include 20 artists and the curator and founder of the 5 Pointz project, Meres One aka Jonathan Cohen.
“The legacy of 5 Pointz we hope is that this elevated art form is now valued and recognized in a court of law as art no less no more,” says Meres One in a statement with Marie Cecile Clageul co-founder of 5 Pointz Creates and the creator of Museum of Street Art (MoSA) on the Bowery.
“The other legacy is how this art form is now respected and it has been humbling to see in recent years how real estate entities want to collaborate with artists and understand the need for preservation…
“On a personal level, this is a validation that as difficult as these past 7 years have been, standing up was the right thing to do and justice prevailed.”
Many see the new ruling by a federal judge in the Second Circuit as a vindication of the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 (VARA), which grants specific rights to artists to control the use of their work, even if it is on someone else’s property. In the case of 5Pointz, it was not the act of destroying the art that eventually cost the wealthy developer a large fine of nearly seven million dollars, it was the manner in which it was done in defiance of the court proceedings and against the proscribed actions called for in the VARA.
Central to the events that were examined was the sloppy whitewashing of the compound under cover of night while legal proceedings to prevent the demolition of the property were underway – a poker game move that has ultimately cost the developer Wolkoff far more than the cheap paint his workers used for buffing.
Cautious observers say that the ruling is narrowly focused on the behaviors of this actor, rather than a carte blanche endorsement of illegal graffiti that protects it from being destroyed by property owners. “If he did not destroy 5Pointz until he received his permits and demolished it 10 months later, the Court would not have found that he had acted willfully,” said Judge Block in his original ruling.
As ever with an art form that muddies the waters of law and opinion, Street Art and graffiti’s countervailing winds are blowing a new direction in the city as a resurgence of illegal whole-car graffiti again is being seen by NYC train riders. With increased rhetorical anger from the MTA and newly beefed-up anti-graffiti resources targeting the illegal stuff, those winds are souring a cultural détente that has existed in the everyday person’s assessment of the relative value and contributions these artists make to our cityscapes.
Additionally, the courts are being challenged to dismiss the rights of artists in court cases by corporations and brands which appear to be overreaching when appropriating art found in the public sphere to sell their wares.
Jesse Cory, co-owner and director with Roula David of Detroit based Inner State Gallery and the annual Murals on the Market festival, has worked with hundreds of artists in these related genres for two decades or so. With Mercedes’ muscular defense of its right to use whatever art they find on the street as fair game to sell a product, many in Detroit say they have seen the shift of interest by private business toward Street Art and murals go from curious to passionate to predatory.
“This ruling to uphold the settlement and compensation to 5 Pointz artists affirm that judges consider (VARA) Visual Artists Rights Act statue as law and that the artists do control the right to their mark even if it’s on a property that they do not own,” says Cory.
“While this case of Mercedes Benz preemptively suing artists to make a claim that the artist does not have any rights in the usage of their art in corporate advertising is much different from the 5 Pointz legal dispute the fact that judges are ruling in the artists favor is a positive sign.”
For the moment, many artists and fans are celebrating a ruling that will undoubtedly be cited in future cases – a ruling that gives added credibility and cultural currency to the valuable contributions that graffiti, Street Art and many other forms of Urban Art have made to our cities and our culture.
ArtNet:
New York Times:
Graffiti Artists Awarded $6.7 Million for Destroyed 5Pointz Murals
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening :
1. 5 Minutes with: Plotbot Ken via I Love Graffiti.de
2. Nadia Vadori-Gauthier: One Minute of Dance
3. Ron English: The Road To Heaven (Tribute to Daniel Johnston)
Plotbot Ken first caught our eye in the remnants of a factory full of environmental and personal hazards. His is an apocalyptic view of humanity and our shortsighted predilection for creating destruction and for poisoning the earth. But somehow he has made something positive from our dire idiocy. You don’t have to speak German to enjoy this video, or to understand the symbolism of his recurring gas mask motif, or his genius for placement.
Nadia Vadori-Gauthier: Une Minute De Danse Par Jour (One Minute of Dance Per Day)
In reaction to terrorist acts, dancer Nadia Vadori-Gauthier began a program to dance for one minute a day.
I dance as one manifests, like a small but daily one, to work for a living poetry, to act by the sensitive against the violence of certain aspects of the world. It felt like a series of small acts that might possibly prove to reconnect the disconnections in her own society. She sites the wisdom of a Chinese proverb to talk about her repeating acts of expression in the public sphere over many years: “Dripping water ends up going through stone.”
This compilation of her works can help us see that the aggregate of many small acts can indeed be phenomenal.
Ron English: The Road To Heaven (Tribute to Daniel Johnston)
Putting his thoughts and emotions in visual vocabulary, artist Ron English gives this personal offering as a moving tribute to the great singer/ songwriter Daniel Johnston, who passed away last autumn.
If you know the Berlin Kidz you think about adrenaline every time you see their bi-color Pichação verticals on the side of a building – or smokestack. As foreigners, the official language is daunting enough, but this twisted Cyrillic scrawled while rappelling downward with can in hand.
Oh sure, it’s not as thrilling as parkour perhaps, and certainly, the speed can’t match train surfing, which the masked crew is known to do, but these cryptic missives are spooky in their otherness, their mystery. Yesterday just hanging out in one of our favorite BN neighborhoods we seemed to see Berlin Kidz everywhere we went.
Dave the Chimp is not really a chimp. And he’s not really Berlinian. Like all good comedians, he’s channeling exasperation into something more palatable: Humor.
A loveable and able debater, his carrot colored human bean is often discovered strolling through the streets and alleys of Berlin. A natural, easy and happy jaunt, his character is quick with an affable lecture, mini tirade, or bright insight. Of course, its open to your interpretation
Contrarian enough to not want to be called a Street Artist, the UK born Mr. Chimp takes his initial inspirations from his 1980s-90s skateboard culture immersion and he’s parlayed his illustrative style into work with fanzines, comics, brands, and art curation. An omnivore for the experiences of life, he’d love you to unplug from your electronic devices and plug into to your city, and relish the world around you.
This week in Berlin we keep seeing Dave’s human beans popping in the neighborhood of Kreuzberg, so we collected a few to share them with you.
Contemporary Urban Art fans, collectors, gallerists are coming together again this year in Madrid for Urvanity, a unique survey of current movements and trends along the Street Art/ graffiti/ urban art continuum, with a focus on canvasses and sculpture.
Again this year comes a strong program of talks with some scintillating professionals who have high profiles in many sectors of this ever-expanding field of art in the public sphere. We hosted last year and the conversations we had were enriching, the people whom we met well versed and passionate.
Please check out Urvanity 2020 to find out more.
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week!
Here’s our weekly interview with the street featuring Add Fuel, Almost Over Keep Smiling, BR163, Crash, Degrupo, Disordered, Early Riser, finDAC, Fours, Jason Naylor, Leleus, JL, Maya Hayuk, Obey, Sara Lynne Leo, Surface of Beauty, Telmo & Miel.
Innovative artist in the public sphere, Daniel Weissbach aka DTAGNO aka COST88 has charted new territory many times with his hand made experimentation that makes graffiti and street art search themselves for new definitions.
Creating new tools and techniques for applying the traditional aerosol spray to the wall, he inspired many imitators and redefines the artists’ relationship to art in public space. Rooted in graffiti culture but scaling a number of disciplines, he has trail-blazed his own idiosyncratic routes and aesthetics full of humor, discovery, and contradiction for more than two decades at work, and in the process he’s created new paths for us to explore.
Beginning next week with a special showcase of works by admiring peers in the graffiti/ Street Art/ Urban Art/ public art Berlin family, a large number of works will be auctioned to benefit the 44-year old artist as he lives with a medical diagnosis that is a great challenge. Since 2016 he has faced the challenge bravely and will need to have greater care as time moves forward, so the community is reaching out to help.
Following on the heels of a successful campaign on GoFundme last month, this multi-stage online auction of works donated by many local and international artists will assist him and his family during this time, so that he can spend it “in his familiar surroundings, at home, with his 8-year-old daughter and with us,” says artist Christian Hundertmark in his GoFundme essay.
“Get Well Daniel” is the charity auction initiative begun by Steffen Köhler, Markus Mai and Matthias Wermke with the support of many others.
BSA invites you to join with the family of admirers, companions, and friends and to participate at the opening exhibition this Friday, February 21 in Berlin to see many of the works donated Friday night and all day Saturday. If you cannot attend the exhibition please look online beginning Sunday night February 23 at 8 pm for the first group of 30 items.
The benefit auction, which gives 100% of the proceeds to Mr. Weissbach, will continue throughout the month of March and will be updated with new works March 2, 9, and 16, with the final group being unveiled March 23rd.
“Get Well Daniel” Exhibition
21.02.2020, 4 p.m. – 10 p.m. // 22.02.2020 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.
@ Salon am Moritzplatz (Oranienstrasse 58, 10969 Berlin-Kreuzberg)
CHARITY AUCTION
The first auction starts online Sunday, February 23, 2020 at 8:00 p.m.!
www.getwelldaniel.de
Participating artists include: Adams & E.B. Itso, Adrian Nabi, AKIM, AMIGO, André Simonow, Angabe noch zu klären, Anna Herms, Antwan Horfee, ARIS ONER, BARTO, Beerbird Press, Bernhard Uhlig, BIO, Brad Downey, BUNY, CHEERIO, Christian Falsnaes, Christian Schellenberger, Clemens Behr, Coco Bergholm, Conny Maier, CREAM – 247/MAD, CYOP & KAF, Dan Murphy, DEJOE, DELTA (Boris Tellegen), DEON, DES78, Dmitry Ilko, DRIK, DTAGNO & TRYONE & Jürgen Große, Dumar Novy, EGS, Emmett Edelstein, Enzo Ricordo & Mr.Z, Eric Winkler, ERUPTION (JB. Institute), ESHER, EXOT, Fabian Treiber, Felix Amerbacher, FISTER, Flatliners & Tuff City Kids, GATE, Gambette, Graffitimuseum (Joachim Spurloser, Stefan Wartenberg), HuskMitNavn, ICOS, IDEE, IMOS, Jakob Traxlmayr, Jan Kaláb, Jeremias Böttcher, Jeroen Erosie, Jeroen Jongeleen / influenza, JOLIE, Julien Fargetton, Kaos (VIM), Katdog Wartenberg, Kevin Kemter, Kiddo Oh, KingOfVoid / NICK, Konsens Berlin, KROK, LOFKER, Louise Drubigny, LOVER, LuluGazel, Markus Mai & Markus Butkereit, Matthias Wermke, Max Schaffer, Max Stocklosa, Mischa Leinkauf, MISERABLES, Mister Adam & Gijs Weijer, MONKEY, MOSES & TAPS™, Norman Behrendt, OLABO & AKAY, Olivier Stak / O.K-T, Pablo Tomek, Paul du Bois-Reymond, Paul Simon Krüger, Philip Emde, Philipp Clasen, Philipp König, Possible Books, RACHE, REACT, REVOK, REW KREUZBERG, ROY1st, ROZER, Ruohan Wang, SEEK, SOME SOScrew, SPAIR, Stefan Haehnel, Stefan Marx, Stefan Strumbel, Steve Paul Steven Paul, Streetfiles, SWOON, The WA, Thomas Bratzke, Thomas Korn, Tony Savas, VELI & AMOS, Velo Tramp, Vincent Grunwald, Wilhelm Klotzek & Konrad Mühe, 1UP Crew and φαντομας!
For further press information, please contact
Katia Hermann // press@getwelldaniel.de
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening :
1. “Who is TAKI183?”, Jim Prigoff and Cedric Godin
2. ESPO: A Love Letter For You
3. Exquisite Waste Of Time – Telmo Miel
Graffiti writers were going hard in New York City in the mid-late 1960s but it wasn’t until the elite cultural avatar The New York Times did a story on the prolific TAKI183 in July of 1971 that many felt that the graffiti scene was somehow validated. From that point forward, the writer’s reputation as being all-city and unofficial representative of taggers everywhere was gold plated among his peers, and competition to get up all-city was suddenly on fire.
Writer, photographer, author, lecturer and storied nonagenarian Jim Prigoff, who published Spraycan Art with Henry Chalfant in 1987, has just produced a new video with Cedric Godin that more closely examines this tagger/standard-bearer and lets the camera roll on stories from him and others inside his family’s car repair shop.
“A lot of the earlier graffiti was scratched or done with paint brushes. There weren’t really spray cans. I think because markers were available and you could do it quick,” says Taki.
“I discovered the first graffiti in NY as Taki 183. I was stunned. This determined my life direction,” says French Street Artist Blek le Rat.
“But in New York, it was the media capital of the world,” says Philadelphia graffiti king Cornbread, who was writing in the 1960s as well. “When they had done something, it was magnified. To be honest with you, New York overshadowed me.”
The storytelling leads to stylized writing and people like Stay High 149 and the dawn of more formalized or experimental gallery spaces like Fashion Moda in the Bronx. But Taki retained his tagger status, and remained a touchpoint for an era. “I never had a relationship with the art world because I was just so removed from it.
So much of this history is lost already, mostly because our art institutions and universities have been ignorant and adamantly so about the importance of graffiti in the language of society and its evolution as the most democratic global art movement ever. Videos like this one by Mr. Prigoff and Cedric Godin act to preserve and archive the images and voices of those at the forefront of a movement that influenced so many other parts of global culture.
WHO is TAKI183 A film by Jim Prigoff and Cedric Godin
ESPO: A Love Letter For You
“To mark the 10th anniversary of A Love Letter For You, ESPO and the film director Joey Garfield held a Q & A in Brooklyn’s Night Hawk Cinema. With this documentary, Mr. Garfield captures the artist’s process while directly asking the residents of this Philadelphia community, which was once ESPO’s own hood, what they wish was painted on the walls. ESPO took the inspiration that he received from the community and went onto painting 50 walls.
Exquisite Waste Of Time – Telmo Miel
Exactly how your dad describes your interest in painting, in music, in social work – an “Exquisite Waste of Time”. Luckily, this video promo for a show by Telmo and Miel will make you drool so much to paint that you won’t care what Dad says.
Okay, you are not likely to find Michaelangelo’s Pietà or Bernini’s Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, but you will serendipitously discover ruddy-cheeked siren or a pointillist Whistler’s Daughter made of plastic beads or a molten chess set or a brutalist architectural model as you scan the surface of the modern city for sculpture.
Easy to overlook as so much bumpy skin on the face of the metropolis, today’s street art sculptures have personality and drama and echoes of the “high art” that may be stuck on the other side of the wall, but here it is for everyone to enjoy. Or destroy.
Whether commercial or diagrammatic or exquisitely ornate, we always appreciate the added dimension that adds to what can be a rather flat “Street Art” scene sometimes – and an excellent entry point into the scene for your friend who is sight-impaired.
Here is a collection of small sculptures from Leipzig to Hong Kong to Moscow and Madrid for you to enjoy.
Neo-psychedelic-cosmic-abstract-expressionist Sickid took this wall by storm in Wynwood and is blowing minds daily with his curious cast of misshapen feverish oddballs and satiric characters doing nearly unspeakable things that you love to analyze.
Originally from Bristol, the Street Artist has done much travel since those late 2000s where he first hit Shoreditch with his logo and stretched his interpretations of archetypes, architecture, everyday scenery far enough for adventurous viewers to hop inside and slither around, imagining themselves just outside reality.
Frankly, this comic world he shows is not that much more surreal than this urban swamp called Wynwood, and he’s probably just painting allegory and metaphor to slag the scaley sidewinders he’s been meeting in the sun-beaten neighborhood. Delicious and salty street food for the unsuspecting tourist, this is a hot-steaming stacked meat sandwich baked inside a deep and chipped chafing dish in his fabulous fever-dream, braised with Corona beer and a hint of coconut suntan lotion.
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY