All posts tagged: Jaime Rojo

BSA Film Friday: 11.25.16

BSA Film Friday: 11.25.16

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Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.

Now screening :
1. Fra Biancoshock: “Digital Vandalism vs Vandalism on Digital”
2. CANEMORTO: TOYS
3. Dont Fret and Edwin – London/Chicago Wall Texts
4. Know Hope: “Parallels”


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Fra Biancoshock: “Digital Vandalism vs Vandalism on Digital”

Real, Digital, Virtual. These three ways of experiencing the world remain distinct, for now.

With his small experiment captured here on video, Street Artist Fra Biancoshock is examining the ‘looking glass’ – that thin gossamer veil that separates our experience of the world and is trying to puncture it.

“Digital tools allow you to change reality; today an act of protest, vandalism or art can be done sitting comfortably in front of your PC,” he tells BSA.

It’s a conundrum – how much of what you see digitally is real. And if you are pre-disposed to expect never to witness the graffiti or Street Art in person, does it even matter whether it actually existed to begin with?

Fra. is not going to give you that answer directly. “The value of an action (be it a protest, an artwork or a provocation) is in the act, whether it is actually done, and how it is introduced to a virtual audience.”

CANEMORTO: TOYS

Canemorto are back with tales of their exploits as hard running graffiti kings with blunt instruments, namely their heads. With the wink-wink of a comedy troupe, the three are airing their disgust with the various hypocrisies and poseurs that surround them in the street and in the wider Street Art world that would seek to commodify and capitalize on an organic grass-roots culture. And then there are the conservators…

Aside from the entertainment and the dope rhymes, somehow the brutalist long-pole roller characters that Canemorto create supercede the storyline, rising above and frankly mocking the world with a dead-dog stare. Imposters are many – and very possibly there is a scenario where we’re all a bunch of TOYS.

 

Dont Fret and Edwin – London/Chicago Wall Texts

Graffiti pen pals Don’t Fret and Edwin have been telecommunicating their thoughts and passages and humorous non-sequitors to one another from Chicago and London via TEXTING. Text-based graffiti writing seems like a natural analogue to this digital transmission and this video bears witness to the experience of sharing – with your buddy as a live aerosol printer of your ideas on a wall thousands of miles away.

“It has been an interesting sort of “graffiti pen pals” project,” Dont Fret tells us,  “and with the Brexit vote and our Presidential election madness, our project kind of transformed into 2 artists trying to relate and understand what is happening across each others Atlantic.”

Know Hope: “Parallels”

 There are certain parallels between geopolitical situations in different regions, and the Israeli Street Artist/fine artist KNOW HOPE likes to lead you up to that dividing line and leave you there.

“This is an abbreviated version of video diptychs from the installation ‘Parallels’ presented as part of ‘Wall Drawings – Icônes Urbaines’ commissioned by and currently showing at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Lyon.

For this installation, a series of outdoor interventions were created during the artists stay in Lyon.
The documentation of these interventions in-situ were later juxtaposed with other representations of borders or the meeting point of two separate realities, allowing a correspondence and reflection on the notions of territory, identity and our emotional structures.”

 

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Karl Addison “Carina” at Le M.U.R. in Paris

Karl Addison “Carina” at Le M.U.R. in Paris

Across the US today families are joining together/avoiding each other for Thanksgiving in a spirit of gratitude. For those who are afraid to have potentially firey political conversations at the dinner table or for those who are living too far away from home to afford to travel, Thanksgiving often becomes “Friendsgiving” – just gathering friends and like-minded neighbors together to eat, drink, tell stories, be grateful for the blessings of life that we recount to one another.

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Karl Addison Carina Le M.U.R, Paris, November 2016. (photo © Karl Addison)

American contemporary/street artist Karl Addison lives in Berlin right now but still created this tribute to a dear friend on a Parisian wall last week for the Le M.U.R. Project. Over 200 artists have created installations on this wall at 107 Rue Obrkampf and Karl’s is #221. He says he was inpired by the palette of autumn in the Northern Hemisphere this time of year, specifically the trees and leaves in Paris, when he created this portrait.

A tribute to a friend is a noble endeavor. As we reach across the table and the difficult cultural divide, may we all make just one more friend this week in the spirit of Thanksgiving.

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Karl Addison Carina Le M.U.R, Paris, November 2016. (photo © Karl Addison)

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Karl Addison Carina Le M.U.R, Paris, November 2016. (photo © Karl Addison)


 

With special thanks to Elisabetta.


 

“Title: Carina
Medium: Mural – Acrylic and Spraypaint
Size: 7m x 5m
Year: 2016
Location: Paris, France – Le M.U.R”

http://www.lemur.fr/.


Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!

 

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Exposing Politics and Scholarship at “Open Walls Conference 2016” Barcelona

Exposing Politics and Scholarship at “Open Walls Conference 2016” Barcelona

Screenings, workshops, and talks – and murals of course.

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Sixe Paredes. Open Walls Conference 2016. Barcelona, Spain. (photo © Fernando Alcalá)

These are the markings of at least some of the increasingly serious Street Art / Urban Art festivals that have emerged in the last few years thanks to calls for genuine scholarship and the creation of academic frameworks to help us understand something that began as a grassroots form of expression in the mid and late 20th Century.

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Muretz. Open Walls Conference 2016. Barcelona, Spain. (photo © Fernando Alcalá)

Open Walls Conference in Barcelona this year featured new public artworks by Dumar NovYork, Fasim, Muretz, Roc Blackblock, Sam3, Sheone, Sixe Paredes, and Syrup; a relatively small roster of artists compared to larger commercial festivals – and one that is heavily weighted toward local talents.

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Sixe Paredes. Open Walls Conference 2016. Barcelona, Spain. (photo © Fernando Alcalá)

But as an artist, researcher and educator in the fields of graffiti and street art, Javier Abarca will tell you that this fourth edition of Open Walls Conference holds the “conference” aspect on center stage, with heated debates about the politics of art in public space – and private space for that matter.

This years’ debate had as its central argument the propriety of bringing Street Art into the exhibition space, how, and under what circumstances. Among the questions posed were whether it is ethical to bring urban art into the museum or whether the arts true nature is to live out its natural life wherever it has been painted illegally.

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From Left to right: Elena Gayo, Christian Omodeo, Jorge Rodriguez-Gerarda and Javier Abarca during the panel discussion at the Open Walls Conference 2016. Barcelona, Spain. (photo © Enrique Escandell)

For fans, collectors, curators and artists in the Street Art world, this will sound like a familiar debate in light of an exhibition this spring in Bologna, Italy that was controversial to some because it contained illegal works taken from an abandoned factory.

The “Banksy and Co.” exhibit sparked a revolt by the artist Blu, who made a splendid show of his own by destroying others of his public artworks and inspiring the support of kindred painters to assist him, with some even holding a counter exhibition.

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The audience at the panel discussion during the Open Walls Conference 2016. Barcelona, Spain. (photo © Enrique Escandell

Says Abarca, who moderated the debate, “This year’s focus shifted on the very contentious topic of the conservation of public art pieces produced without permission, resulting in an extremely intense three-hour discussion in a packed auditorium where two opposed visions on the topic were scrutinized.”

On panel were one of the exhibition’s curators Christian Omodeo, along with artist Jorge Rodríguez-Gerada, and Elena Gayo, whom Albarca calls, “a prominent Spanish restorer and head of a think tank that for the last two years has developed a set of ethical parameters for the conservation of street art pieces.”

We all benefit from examinations and cogitations such as these, and it is good to see a level of popular support to attend discussions, panels, and lectures that help shape and codify our understanding of such a widespread art movement/practice.

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Sheone. Open Walls Conference 2016. Barcelona, Spain. (photo © Fernando Alcalá)

In addition the conference featured a publishing fair called “Unlock“, which was dedicated to graffiti and street art and gathered close to sixty publishers from Europe and America, a first for the field, say the organizers. Another first, they say, is the academic study of the British artist Banksy launched here in book form as Banksy: urban art in a material world, by Ulrich Blanché.

Finally the fair featured a lecture by British journalist Marcus Barnes, “who nearly went to jail last year for publishing a graffiti magazine,” says Abarca, as well as “a breathtaking reading of What Do One Million Ja Tags Signify? by Brooklyn artist and author Dumar NovYork.”

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Sheone. (CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE). Open Walls Conference 2016. Barcelona, Spain. (photo © Fernando Alcalá)

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Sam3. Open Walls Conference 2016. Barcelona, Spain. (photo © Fernando Alcalá)

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Sam3. Open Walls Conference 2016. Barcelona, Spain. (photo © Fernando Alcalá)

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Syrup. Open Walls Conference 2016. Barcelona, Spain. (photo © Fernando Alcalá)

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Syrup. (CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE). Open Walls Conference 2016. Barcelona, Spain. (photo © Fernando Alcalá)

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Fasim. Open Walls Conference 2016. Barcelona, Spain. (photo © Fernando Alcalá)

 

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Dumar NovYork reads from his book “What Do One Million Ja Tags Signify” at Unlock during the Open Walls Conference 2016. Barcelona, Spain. (photo © Javier Abarca)

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Scenes from Unlock the first Street Art Publishing Art Fair as part of the Open Walls Conference 2016. Barcelona, Spain. (photo © Enrique Escandell)

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Scenes from Unlock the first Street Art Publishing Art Fair as part of the Open Walls Conference 2016. Barcelona, Spain. (photo © Enrique Escandell)

 


 

Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!


 

This article is also published on The Huffington Post.
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A Jaguar in Phoenix: Louis Masai and “The Art Of Beeing”

A Jaguar in Phoenix: Louis Masai and “The Art Of Beeing”

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“By the time I get to Phoenix, she’ll be rising…”

Not that Louis Masai is on the run from his girl, but he is still making tracks fast on this US circuit like a sailor shipping from port to port. As it turns out he was only in Phoenix long enough to paint a jaguar.

“It’s always hard to formulate too much of an understanding of a city when you are only there for a very short time…and I guess a lot of this trip has been that way, but even more so in Phoenix, with only two nights and one day.”

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Louis Masai: The Art of Beeing USA Tour. Jaguar. Only 15K remain in the wild. Phoenix, AZ. November 2016. (photo © Emil Walker)

Publicizing animals who are the endangered species list, Masai chose the big cat because they are “near endangered” and because they are the largest felines native the Americas. Elsewhere in the world they are third in line after the tiger and lion. Unfortunately, the number of jaguars is decreasing.

Louis says he was happy to hang out with Breeze, “an indigenous and humble spirit, who explained the dam issues that have affected the land.” He says their talks centered around the serious lack of respect for the environment from our present civilization.

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Louis Masai: The Art of Beeing USA Tour. Jaguar. Only 15K remain in the wild. Phoenix, AZ. November 2016. (photo © Emil Walker)

And of course they discussed how Phoenix is “yet another city is victim of gentrification,”he says.

We say “of course” because in Europe and America it seems that every conversation between visitor and host includes a discussion of a) the disappearing middle class, and b) gentrification of neighborhoods.

Meanwhile, Mr. Masai’s “Art of Beeing” tour is heading eastward across the US now.

Next stop? See the map below.

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Louis Masai: The Art of Beeing USA Tour. Jaguar. Only 15K remain in the wild. Phoenix, AZ. November 2016. (photo © Emil Walker)

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Louis Masai: The Art of Beeing USA Tour. Jaguar. Only 15K remain in the wild. Phoenix, AZ. November 2016. (photo © Emil Walker)

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Louis Masai: The Art of Beeing USA Tour. Jaguar. Only 15K remain in the wild. Phoenix, AZ. November 2016. (photo © Emil Walker)

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Louis Masai: The Art of Beeing USA Tour. Jaguar. Only 15K remain in the wild. Phoenix, AZ. November 2016. (photo © Emil Walker)

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Louis Masai: The Art of Beeing USA Tour. Jaguar. Only 15K remain in the wild. Phoenix, AZ. November 2016. (photo © Emil Walker)

 

Click http://louismasai.com/projects/the-art-of-beeing/ to learn more about the project.

 

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BSA Images Of The Week: 11.20.16

BSA Images Of The Week: 11.20.16

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New York is bracing, as is the rest of the country, for the fallout of the election.

We’ve seen an uptick in anti-semitic graffiti on the street, but not a great deal of other stuff aside from acidic disgust toward Trump – but that was true before the election. The governor and the mayor are warning the new administration that no discrimination or hate will be welcomed in the State or City. Most of the time the president elect is still hanging out at his towers in Manhattan choosing rich, connected, white men to fill all his cabinet posts. Almost every one those choices have people up in arms.

Meanwhile, the autumn has been spectacular and we’re all reminding ourselves and each other that we have a lot to be thankful for, and to fight for – for all of us across the country in every city, town, suburb, and rural home.  It looks like winter is coming, so gather wood for the fire.

It’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Aaron Ki, C-3, Dan Witz, Ganzeer, Individualactivist, Livio Ninni, Mark Bode, Mr. Fijodor, ODeith, Ouizi, Qi Xinghau, Raphael Federici, Roteo, SpY, and Voxx Romana.

Our top photo: Raphael Federici #parissketchculture (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Ouizi (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Invididualactivist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Aaron Kai (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Voxx (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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LOVE indeed. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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C_3 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Ganzeer at Magic City Life. Dresden, Germany. November 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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SpY (Andy K and Jens Besser on the bottom) at Magic City Life. Dresden, Germany. November 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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This 3-D effect totally works by the way. Odeith at Magic City Life. Dresden, Germany. November 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Dan Witz at Magic City Life. Dresden, Germany. November 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Qi Xinghua at Magic City Life. Dresden, Germany. November 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Mark Bode at Magic City Life. Dresden, Germany. November 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Mr. Fijodor somewhere in Italy. (photo © Livio Ninni)

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Mr. Fijodor somewhere in Italy. (photo © Livio Ninni)

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Roteo (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Men’s bathroom talk… (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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The former Pearl Paint store on Canal in Manhattan where so many students and Street Artists and artists of all kinds used to congregate. Still looking good, now festooned with big bubble tags. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Untitled. Manhattan. Fall 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Australian Italian Museum Honors Immigration With Alice Pasquini Mural on Façade

Australian Italian Museum Honors Immigration With Alice Pasquini Mural on Façade

Italian Street Artist and muralist Alice Pasquini pays tribute to immigrants and the struggle to leave one’s home to go to a new country to live with her new painting on the façade of Melbourne’s Italian Museum in Carlton.

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Alice Pasquini. “Per L’Australia / Passenger.” Melbourne, Australia. November 2016. (photo © Lou Chamberlin)

Remembering historically how many people around the world were forced to immigrate to new countries is very important to do today as rhetoric fills the air in countries that would seek to  scapegoat the victim – rather than the banks, war industry, oil industry, etcetera who are creating new refugees daily.

Almost no one wants to leave their home, their culture and their families by choice – they are usually forced to. They also invariably endure hardship and varying degrees of discrimination that compounds their struggle.

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Alice Pasquini. “Per L’Australia / Passenger.” Melbourne, Australia. November 2016. (photo © Rick Utano)

“The wall is also personal to me, as I myself have family living in Australia,” says Pasquini. “I think that in our current times, it’s essential to remember that we all come from somewhere. Tracing a line through our ancestry, almost everyone has at least one relative who was a passenger at one point in time.

“We must remember this and the struggles they must have faced,” she says, “and recall that empathy, compassion, and knowledge lead to growth.”

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A local resident stops to exchange stories with Alice Pasquini. “Per L’Australia / Passenger.” Melbourne, Australia. November 2016. (photo © Lou Chamberlin)

According to the Spartacus Educational website, the US also received a flood of Italian immigrants at the turn of the 20th Century, a fact which many Americans may not remember – along with the extreme prejudice that greeted many of these immigrants in our history. Says the website;

“From 1890 to 1900, 655,888 arrived in the United States, of whom two-thirds were men. A survey carried out that most planned to return once they had built up some capital.

Most Italians found unskilled work in America’s cities. There were large colonies in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore and Detroit. From 1900 to 1910 over 2,100,00 arrived.”

See Ms. Pasquini talk about her her new painting and her observations of the current growth of interest in public art HERE.

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Alice Pasquini. “Per L’Australia / Passenger.” Melbourne, Australia. November 2016. (photo © Lou Chamberlin)

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Alice Pasquini. “Per L’Australia / Passenger.” Melbourne, Australia. November 2016. (photo © Alice Pasquini)

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Alice Pasquini. “Per L’Australia / Passenger.” Melbourne, Australia. November 2016. (photo © Lou Chamberlin)

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BSA Film Friday: 11.18.16

BSA Film Friday: 11.18.16

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Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.

Now screening :
1. Labrona Unveiled
2.  Opiemme: Lodz Of Eggs
3. Resoborg “Love Imvelo” in South Africa
4. Brad Eastman AKA Beastman in Sydney


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BSA Special Feature: Labrona Unveiled

Not exactly overlooked but perhaps under-sung, the work of freight train-writer/figurative painter Labrona has appeared on BSA since our beginning and for the first time you have an opportunity to see the artist and hear his voice. Up until now he has preferred to be remain somewhat anonymous individually but is pulling back the curtain in his unassuming way.

See and hear him describe his sort of organic progression from the illegal walls on street to the to legal murals and gallery canvasses. You do not get the sense that Labrona has been in it for fame, rather the love of art and his own studies of art history.

Opiemme: Lodz Of Eggs

The Italian artist Opiemme realized a site specific project for Urban Forms Foundation recently in Lodz with a collective performance involving community members throwing paint filled eggs.

It is rather difficult to understand what it all means, or how it is related to the astrological sign Taurus, or even if the participants had a clear idea what the bigger story was. But it looks like a fun interactive event for people to engage with art.

 

Resoborg “Love Imvelo” in South Africa

Wesley van Eeden aka Resoborg was in South Africa recently painting a mural for a lifestyle brand of clothing. He says that “Love Imvelo” is influenced by the Zulu word for the environment and he was to encourage our love for it.

Brad Eastman AKA Beastman in Sydney

Brad Eastman talks about his wall for a real estate firm in downtown Sydney.

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Louis Masai, Leaping Frogs and Crawling Crayfish in LA : “The Art Of Beeing”

Louis Masai, Leaping Frogs and Crawling Crayfish in LA : “The Art Of Beeing”

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Yellow legged frogs don’t know who the president is.

Either do Shasta Crayfish.

Regardless, both of these species are facing extinction and endangered, respectively. Are you doing anything about this?

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Louis Masai: The Art of Beeing USA Tour. Yellow Legged Frog. 90% have disappeared in the last 100 years. Downtown, LA. November 2016. (photo © TeeByFord)

Street Artist Louis Masai is raising the specter of the Extinction Crises we are currently living in with his paintings of animals in cities across the US this fall and early winter.

The tour is called “The Art of Beeing” and here are new images of some walls he hit in Los Angeles.

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Louis Masai: The Art of Beeing USA Tour. Yellow Legged Frog. 90% have disappeared in the last 100 years. Downtown, LA. November 2016. (photo © TeeByFord)

“I painted the Shasta crayfish (or as Americans call it; crawfish) in Venice,” Louis says of the stylized patchwork fabric covered animal. The patchwork is a metaphor for the different people who will be needed to protect it – “an endangered species native to northeast California There are only seven remaining populations of the Shasta crayfish left and are found only in Shasta County, California, in the Pit River drainage and two tributary systems, Fall River and Hat Creek drainages,” says the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Louis painted this one on the back of an environmentally aware nature photography gallery, he says, in an instance of what he calls “synchronicity.”

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Louis Masai: The Art of Beeing USA Tour. Yellow Legged Frog. 90% have disappeared in the last 100 years. Downtown, LA. November 2016. (photo © Lmnotree)

And what about that little yellow-legged frog that doesn’t know we are transferring from President Obama to President Trump? This one is in the Korea Town area of LA and in general these amphibians are “threatened by predation by introduced trout, disease, pesticides, environmental changes from drought and global warming, and habitat degradation due to livestock grazing,” says the Center for Biodiversity.

“All in all it was a great week,” says Mr. Masai as he recounts the number of people who offered him walls to paint in this city of angels. “Now we set off for Joshua Tree and slab city before heading out to Phoenix.”

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Louis Masai: The Art of Beeing USA Tour. Yellow Legged Frog. 90% have disappeared in the last 100 years. Downtown, LA. November 2016. (photo © Lmnotree)

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Louis Masai: The Art of Beeing USA Tour. Yellow Legged Frog. 90% have disappeared in the last 100 years. Downtown, LA. November 2016. (photo © Lmnotree)

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Louis Masai: The Art of Beeing USA Tour. Yellow Legged Frog. 90% have disappeared in the last 100 years. Downtown, LA. November 2016. (photo © Louis Masai)

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Louis Masai: The Art of Beeing USA Tour. Shasta Crayfish. Critically Endangered. Venice, LA. November 2016. (photo © Lmnotree)

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Louis Masai: The Art of Beeing USA Tour. Shasta Crayfish. Critically Endangered. Venice, LA. November 2016. (photo © Arnelle)

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Louis Masai: The Art of Beeing USA Tour. Shasta Crayfish. Critically Endangered. Venice, LA. November 2016. (photo © Lmnotree)

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Louis Masai: The Art of Beeing USA Tour. Shasta Crayfish. Critically Endangered. Venice, LA. November 2016. (photo © Louis Masai)

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Louis Masai: The Art of Beeing USA Tour. Shasta Crayfish. Critically Endangered. Venice, LA. November 2016. (photo © Louis Masai)

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Louis Masai: The Art of Beeing USA Tour. Shasta Crayfish. Critically Endangered. Venice, LA. November 2016. (photo © TeeByFord)

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Louis Masai: The Art of Beeing USA Tour. Shasta Crayfish. Critically Endangered. Venice, LA. November 2016. (photo © TeeByFord)

 

Click http://louismasai.com/projects/the-art-of-beeing/ to learn more about the project.

 

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“Magic City” in Dresden : Exhibition of Street Artists and City as Muse

“Magic City” in Dresden : Exhibition of Street Artists and City as Muse

An unusual amalgam of the interactivity of the street combined with the formality of a gallery environment, Magic City opened this fall in a converted factory in Dresden, Germany with an eclectic selection of 40+ artists spanning the current and past practices of art in the street.

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Skewville. Children enjoying Skewville’s “tete-a-tete” shopping cart. Ernest Zacharevic’s mobile in the background. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

With revered culture critic and curator Carlo McCormick at the helm alongside curator Ethel Seno, the richly marbled show runs a gamut from 70’s subway train writers and photographers like Americans Daze, Henry Chalfant, and Martha Cooper to the Egyptian activist Ganzeer, Italian interventionist Biancoshock, popagandist Ron English, and the eye-tricking anamorphic artist from the Netherlands, Leon Keer.

Veering from the hedonistic to the satiric to head-scratching illusions, the collection allows you to go as deep into your education about this multifaceted practice of intervening public space as you like, including just staying on the surface.

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Ernest Zacharevic mobile with a “listening station” on the left. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

It’s not an easy balance to strike – some of these artists have heavy hearts and withering critiques of human behaviors and institutional hypocrisies ranging from 1st World treatment of refugees to celebrity culture to encroaching surveillance on individual rights, government oppression, and urban blight.

Magic City doesn’t try to shield you from the difficult topics, but the exhibition also contains enough mystery, fanboy cheer, eye candy and child-like delight that the kids still have plenty of fun discoveries to take selfies with. We also saw a few kissing couples, so apparently there is room for some romance as well.

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 A visitor to Magic City enjoys a “listening station”. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“We believe that even the typical city is uncommon, and that the idiosyncrasies that make each city unique are collectively something they all have in common,” says McCormick in his text describing the exhibition. “This is then a celebration of the universal character of cities as well as a love letter to their infinite diversity. The special magic that comes from our cities is germinated in the mad sum of their improbable juxtapositions and impossible contradictions.”

Of particular note is the sound design throughout the exhibition by Sebastian Purfürst and Hendrick Neumerkel of LEM Studios that frequently evokes an experiential atmosphere of incidental city sounds like sirens, rumbling trains, snatches of conversations and musical interludes. Played at varying volumes, locations, and textures throughout the exhibition, the evocative city soundscape all adds to a feeling of unexpected possibilities and an increased probability for new discovery.

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Olek’s carousel from above. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Obviously this Magic City cannot be all things to all people, and some will criticize the crisp presentation of a notably gritty series of subcultures, or perhaps the omission of one genre or technique or important artist. It’s not meant to be encyclopedic, rather a series of insights into a grassroots art and activism practice that continues to evolve in cities before our eyes.

For full disclosure, we curated the accompanying BSA Film Program for Magic City by 12 artists and collectives which runs at one end of the vast hall – and Mr. Rojo is on the artist roster with 15 photographs of his throughout the exhibition, so our view of this show is somewhat skewed.

Here we share photographs from the exhibition taken recently inside the exhibition for you to have a look for yourself.

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Olek (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Ron English (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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A MadC installation made with thousands of spray can caps. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Belgian urban naturalist ROA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Skewville . ROA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Skewville (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Daze (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Martha Cooper at the gallery. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Henry Chalfant at the gallery. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Bordalo II (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Andy K. detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Dan Witz (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Dan Witz (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Isaac Cordal. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Isaac Cordal (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Anders Gjennestad AKA Strok (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Icy & Sot with Asbestos on the left. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Replete (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Truly (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Leon Keer (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Jaime Rojo. A young visitor enjoying the Kids Trail through a peephole with Jaime’s photos inside an “electrical box”. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Jaime Rojo. The Kids Trail wasn’t only for kids it seems. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Tristan Eaton on the right. Olek on the left. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Aiko at the Red Light District. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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The Yok & Sheryo (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Herakut. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Herakut (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

Full list of participating artists:

Aiko, AKRylonumérik, Andy K, Asbestos, Benus, Jens Besser, Biancoshock, Mark Bode, Bordalo II, Ori Carino & Benjamin Armas, Henry Chalfant, Martha Cooper, Isaac Cordal, Daze, Brad Downey, Tristan Eaton, Ron English, Shepard Fairey, Fino’91, Ganzeer, Anders Gjennestad, Ben Heine, Herakut, Icy & Sot, Leon Keer, Loomit, MadC, OakOak, Odeith, Olek, Qi Xinghua, Replete, Roa, Jaime Rojo, Skewville, SpY, Truly, Juandres Vera, WENU, Dan Witz, Yok & Sheryo, Ernest Zacharevic.

 

Visit MAGIC CITY DRESDEN for more details, news, videos and the blog.

 


This article is also published on The Huffington Post

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Labrona and Troy Lovegates Paint Everyday Pillars of Toronto

Labrona and Troy Lovegates Paint Everyday Pillars of Toronto

If you ever wonder who the government actually is, take a look under the highway of Toronto. You’ll see there that it is the people, as in We The People, who are holding up the roads in Underpass Park – thanks to Street Artists Labrona and Troy Lovegates (a.k.a. OTHER).

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Troy Lovegates in Toronto, Canada. (photo © Labrona)

“OTHER did portraits of local residents and I did a crowd of people,” he tells us of the new spate of painting that measures 180 feet (55 meters) and 83 people. Friends since they were about 8 years old, the guys have each developed solid art careers at least tangentially reflected through their mutual love for graffiti and hopping freights across the massive and wooly North American continent.

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Labroba in Toronto, Canada. (photo © Labrona)

So it is no surprise that idiosyncratic figures and their interpersonal dynamics have figured strongly into the distinctly different styles of painting over three and a half decades. Now more often illegal work is turning more often into legal mural work, as in the case of these portraits on these “Legacy Pillars” in Underpass Park, located between Cherry Street and Bayview Avenue, under the Eastern Avenue and Richmond/Adelaide overpasses. That is not to say that they have stopped hopping freights, graffiti gods forbid.

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Troy Lovegates and Labroba in Toronto, Canada. (photo © Labrona)

The area itself used to be industrial wasteland where kids like he and Labrona used to hang out, so it is significant to OTHER that the new project is beautifying and that there are shiny new condos nearby.

“I used to come down here for raves in the early 90’s in damp old brick warehouses,” he says on his Facebook post about the project.

He looks at a portrait of a balding chap in a short blue jacket walking with aplomb, eyes cast downward at his route. “I thought I would paint a working class Dude down here in remembrance of what was … a lot of the oldies come for walks to see all the shiny new aluminum condos and duck ponds and to play in the park with their grandchildren.”

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Troy Lovegates and Labroba in Toronto, Canada. (photo © Labrona)

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Troy Lovegates and Labrona in Toronto, Canada. (photo © Labrona)

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Troy Lovegates in Toronto, Canada. (photo © Labrona)

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Troy Lovegates and Labrona in Toronto, Canada. (photo © Labrona)

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Troy Lovegates and Labrona in Toronto, Canada. (photo © Labrona)

 

Legacy Pillars from Path TV on Vimeo.


Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!

 

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BSA Images of the Week 11.13.16

BSA Images of the Week 11.13.16

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After absentee voting last week in NYC it was a quick trip to Germany this week to see new stuff in Berlin and Dresden and to find that it’s autumn there too, and getting cold. Of course it was zero sleep election night because of the time differnce it was 6 am Wednesday before the Electoral College pushed Trump into the win zone.

Can’t even.

It’s getting harder and harder to explain things to people when we travel, let’s just say that much.

It was crisply chilly, rainy, and windy and the shop keepers were putting up Christmas trees in the windows, but the streets of Berlin were in bloom with new Street Art. Here is a very abbreviated autumn bouquet picked fresh from Berlin for your splendid review.

It’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring A Squid Called Sebastion, Adele Renault, Bailon, Dainel Nehaus, Nafir, and Snik.

Our top image: Adele Renault for Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. 11.16. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Bailon and Ricardo AKN for Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. 11.16. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Nafir for Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. 11.16. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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A Squid Called Sebastian for Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. 11.16. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Snik Arts for Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. 11.16. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Okay this lady has lazer beams coming out of her eyes. Seriously. Lister in Berlin for Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Daniel Neuhaus. Berlin. 11.16. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Untitled. Berlin. November. 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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