All posts tagged: Jaime Rojo

“ABOVE” in New York City

August 9, 2016 Artists

In dense cities like Hong Kong and Tokyo and New York there is so much activity that takes place above you, yet we primarily grant relevancy to what happens at street level from our pedestrian perspective.

Perhaps those machinations and love affairs and backroom deals and elegant dances and mergers of all sort on higher floors are what continue to fascinate Tavar Zawacki to direct our attention ABOVE our heads. Perhaps he is simply reminding us that there is a sky.

Tavar ABOVE Zawacki at The Quin Hotel. Manhattan, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

As an artist in residence this summer with the Quin hotel, the California born artist is currently visiting from Berlin but, as happens to many, is falling in love with New York.

His current show is a collection of highly glossed icons placing his nom de street front and center. These abstracted kaleidoscope-induced neon versions of his tag may bring to mind street signage and the blinking store window vernacular of nighttime commercial districts in many cities.

We’ve been seeing him around town and caught him painting last week in Little Italy with the Lisa Project and you will undoubtedly be seeing of ABOVE’s work in New York in the future. You know where to look for it, right?

Tavar ABOVE Zawacki at The Quin Hotel. Manhattan, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tavar ABOVE Zawacki in Little Italy for his mural in collaboration with The L.I.S.A. Project. Manhattan, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tavar Zawacki AKA Above solo exhibition at The Quin Hotel in Manhattan is currently on view and it is free to the public. Click HERE for more information.

Two brothers. Two Murals. Two Countries. One Great Great Grandfather.

August 8, 2016 Artists

Overunder and his Bro create “Nostalgia”

A migration story has just been completed between Osnago, Italy and Vogorno, Switzerland by two Reno artist brothers who traced their great great grandfather’s journey via bicycle adventure this summer.

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“At either end of the bicycle trip I proposed to create a mural. Or half mural to be exact,” says Erik Burke, a Street Artist (Overunder) who has worked on walls in many cities over the last decade. He proposed the idea of creating half a portrait of Guisseppe Mozzetti in each town. “Each mural would be painted at the border of a building to create a break in the composition. By allowing the imagery to break at the edge it hopefully would hint at the absence of image, identity, and a larger picture,” he explains.

Using their only known photo of him for a study, these brothers connected the story of his past and their family roots going back to the mid 1800s. They say that the art project and the entire trip gave them a unique opportunity to study the countries and cultures that formed him before he eventually immigrated to the United States (Reno, Nevada) in 1890.

Overunder with help from his brother. “Nostalgia”. The first half of the project goes up for La Voce Del Corpo Festival in Osnago, Italy. (photo © Overunder)

“My brother and I were navigating the Ticino countryside on borrowed mountain bikes without a map or knowledge of the language,” Erik says. “Regardless we approached most encounters with ‘Tutto bene’ and we think we came to a deeper understanding of both pizza and penne, valleys and peaks, nostos and algos.”

Those last two words speak directly to the name of the collaborative two-mural immigration mural project which they named “Nostalgia”. According to the brothers there was a certain sentimentality about the natural beauty of the countries and the people whom they encountered on their trip. All of the gathered information also permitted them to imaginine what this great great grandfather may have been like.

Overunder with help from his brother. “Nostalgia”. The first half of the project goes up for La Voce Del Corpo Festival in Osnago, Italy. (photo © Enrico Ponzoni)

Erik explains, “The word nostalgia is a learned formation of a Greek compound, consisting of νόστος (nóstos), meaning “homecoming” and ἄλγος (álgos), meaning “pain, ache”. The term was coined by a 17th-century medical student to describe the anxieties displayed by Swiss mercenaries fighting away from home. As I discovered my own Swiss heritage I wondered what nostalgia would mean to someone like me – a person not going home but curious about his family’s home.”

Overunder with help from his brother. “Nostalgia”. The first half of the project goes up for La Voce Del Corpo Festival in Osnago, Italy. (photo © Overunder)

The story of actual research is slightly more complicated, including targeted emails to strangers in Vogorno in search of a possible wall to paint. Erik was already booked to paint a mural for a festival in Osnago (La Voce Del Corpo Festival) so his vision of sharing this bike trip with his brother needed a welcoming person willing to have their building painted at when they arrived in Switzerland.

“After many failed attempts at making contact with Vogorno residents I sent a seemingly unlikely email to a woman I found on the Internet who was running the Rustico Cioss who happened to share the Mozzetti name. Luckily she responded and a dialogue grew,” says Erik of the detective work that finally landed their artwork on the right building. “Her family research unearthed a document for Giuseppe Mozzetti and a few emails later she had secured permission from the municipality for the mural and was allowing us not only to paint on the house of Giuseppe Mozzetti but also stay there!”

Overunder with help from his brother. “Nostalgia”. The first half of the project goes up for La Voce Del Corpo Festival in Osnago, Italy. (photo © Overunder)

The images form physical and psychological bookends to an immigrant story that both brothers found profound and rewarding. It also raised more questions about the concept of borders and nationality – a search further elucidated by way of painting and meeting new people.

“Many borders presented themselves to us throughout the ride from Osnago to Vogorno in the form of dialect, currency, value, power sources, politics, culture, and physical geography. The painting component also utilizes my own physical borders by taking advantage of moments of fatigue and endurance directly following cycling to paint these works, ” he concludes.

The route from La Voce Del Corpo Festival in Osnago, Italy to Vogorno, Switzerland.

Overunder. A road rest to re-charge. (photo © Overunder)

Overunder. Going up in Vogorno, Switzerland. (photo © Overunder)

Overunder. Abandoned home. The Bergamo Alps in the background. (photo © Overunder)

Overunder. Doing tricks because the bike trip wasn’t enough to tire him…why not? (photo © The Bud)

Overunder. The original photo of Joseph Mozzetti. Photo from Ancestry.

Overunder. “Nostalgia”. The second half of the project on the original house of Joseph Mozzetti in Vogorno, Switzerland. (photo © Overunder)

Erik and Mike would like to extend their great thanks to Mayor Paolo Brivio of Osnago and the many people of Osnago and Vogorno for their hospitality – especially Bruno Freddi, Michele, Frederica, Enrico, Flavio, Fabio, Jacopo, and Valeria for their generous support and friendship.

BSA Images Of The Week: 08.07.16

August 7, 2016 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring ABOVE, City Kitty, Corn79, Crisp, D7606, Damien Mitchell, Dee Dee, EC13, Gregos, Hiss, Homo Riot, Imamaker, Invader, Mark Jenkins, MOMO, Olek, OneArt, Savior El Mundo, Stik, Wing, and Zimad.

Our top image: Stik for The L.I.S.A. Project. July 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Olek new installation in Avesta, Sweden. August 2016. (photo © OLEK)

We first called her the Christo of Street Art a number of years ago, and this latest project seems to finally confirm it. Olek created a two part installation for the Verket Museum in Avesta – in short it is about destruction and rebuilding. Above is the latest picture of the house she mounted the installation within – wrapped in meters and meters of pink crochet.

“Our pink house is about the journey, not just about the artwork itself. It’s about us coming together as a community. It’s about helping each other. In the small Swedish community of Avesta we proved that we are stronger together, that we can make anything happen together. People from all walks of life came together to make this project possible. Someone donated the house, another one fixed the electricity and Red Heart Yarns donated the materials. The of course, most importantly, many women joined us in the effort to make my dream a reality.

After I exploded the house I wanted to create a positive ending for them as a symbol of a brighter future for all people, especially the ones who have been displaced against their own wills. Women have the ability to recreate themselves. No matter how low life might bring us, we can get back on our feet and start anew.

We can show everybody that women can build houses, women can make homes. “

Gregos (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mark Jenkins in Montreal. July 2016. (photo © Andre Pace)

MOMO (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tavar Zawacki AKA ABOVE (Invader on top) for The L.I.S.A. Project in Manhattan. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Corn79 in Mantova, Italy for Without Frontiers. July 2016. (photo © Corny79)

OneArt (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified Artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

HISS (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Zimad in collaboration with Damien Mitchell. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dee Dee (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Wing (photo © Jaime Rojo)

City Kitty (photo © Jaime Rojo)

City Kitty in collaboration with D7606. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Homo Riot (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Savior El Mundo (photo © Jaime Rojo)

EC13 in Granda, Spain. August 2016. (photo © EC13)

Unidentified Artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Imamaker (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Crisp (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Speaking of the Constitution. Wall Street. NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

David Walker Contemplates the Role of His Mural in a French City

August 6, 2016 Artists

“I was conflicted about making the mural in France,” says Street Artist and muralist David Walker about the new sky-gazing countenance of a woman he painted there during the recent terrorist attacks. “I felt it I wasn’t commenting on the current situation there.”

It’s often a point of contention with public art and one that is discussed by city elders, academics, passersby: what role does art in the public have? Is it to advocate, reflect, comment upon, distract, reassure?

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David Walker in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France for Galerie Mathgoth. July 2016. (photo © Galerie Mathgoth)

Commissioned public and private murals and illegal Street Art are all judged by many and assumptions about the artists intent or role are called into question, – even by the artist. “What’s the point of taking up more wall space?,” asks Walker. “Due to the nature of my work, I can have internal conflictions wherever I go,” he says.

Even though Boulogne-sur-Mer is three hours north of Paris, people in the town felt very affected by the attacks, and many conversations touched upon the events – which seemed to be unfolding even as he painted. “During my stay the TV looped with news of another attack in a northern city just a few hours away,” he says.

David Walker in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France for Galerie Mathgoth. July 2016. (photo © Galerie Mathgoth)

It was a 7-day long installation and he says he enjoyed the conversations that he had with people on the street. Some paid him compliments and he says he even appreciated those who didn’t particularly like his work.

“A few commented that the image was not exactly to their taste, but they appreciated that I worked hard everyday and the gesture.” Not exactly work for the thin-skinned, that’s for sure.

David Walker in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France for Galerie Mathgoth. July 2016. (photo © Galerie Mathgoth)

Ultimately, Walker says that he decided the new mural plays an important part in the dialogue of the city.

“After painting and seeing and hearing the buzz happening around the wall, in the newspapers and cafes and restaurants we visited, the people made me feel that actually sometimes something simple, hopeful and human can be enough – or even what’s needed from art. I was, at times, taken aback by the positivity I felt towards the work and I was relieved that somehow it did have a place there.”

David Walker in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France for Galerie Mathgoth. July 2016. (photo © Galerie Mathgoth)

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BSA Film Friday: 08.05.16

August 5, 2016 Artists

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

Now screening :

1. “Watching My Name Go By”
2. Nicolas Romero AKA Ever: “Logo II”
3. Gilf! …and counting

BSA Special Feature: “Watching My Name Go By”

Directed by Julia Cave and originally shown on the BBC documentary series OMNIBUS in December of 1976, this was actually the second half of a program that followed a tour through the art gallery scene of Soho.

A hidden gem that surveys the variety of opinions held by citizens, historians, police and front stoop sociologists about the graffiti scene on trains and the streets, the story is measured and inquisitive. It’s without glamour, although there may be guile.

This documentary predates Style Wars by about seven years and you get a surprising understanding about the priorities of the day at a time when New York was financially in a tailspin and socially ready to boil over. You see this resignation in the body language and descriptors about the state of the city, and while there is a stated desire by many to rid the city of graffiti, there are fervent fans of it as art and impassioned allies of the practice as political speech.

Notably, one commenter who is familiar with law enforcement practices says that police were actively encouraged to focus more on violent offenders like muggers and rapists than graffiti writers. The hand style is pretty basic, certainly not wild, and check out the difficulty of painting with those cans; but that doesn’t detract from the ubiquity of the social-art phenomena and the fact that many consider these early writers as pioneers of what became so much more.

“Watching My Name Go By” © Karen Goldman, Philip Bonham-Carter, BBC. 1976

Nicolas Romero AKA Ever: “Logo II”

Nicolas Romero, the Street Artist variously known as EVER or EVERSIEMPRE brings you a conceptual performance from his recent stay in Cordoba, Argentina for the exhibition “Pioneros de un viaje a ningún lado”.

A would-be heroic/holy/handsome businessman/pop star/savior marches through the street buckling under the weight of his brand.

“ Logo II is a public test”, EVER tells us. “It is a study that I have been conducting on the relationship between the ‘individual’ and the ‘logo’. The logo by definition usually includes some symbol that is associated with almost immediate way what it represents. This means that the individual summarizes his being as a symbol. In this case I wanted to use two logos, one with a political charge and one with a purely economic burden. Both carried in a theoretical context are antagonistic, but in your reality are quite similar.

Based on this, we decided to take this intervention in the most literal way.”

Gilf! …and counting

Street Artist and political activist GILF! recently created an installation called “And Counting” in Cleveland during the Democratic National Convention there. Focusing purely on the surface data of the persons killed during a police encounter this year, she says that the installation will continue to enlarge as it will eventually cover the entire year.

“It presents the facts around each police involved death in America during 2016,” she says. “By presenting only the facts this project gives the viewer an objective and all encompassing opportunity to face our nation’s heartbreaking and ubiquitous problem of death at the hands of police, which will aid in developing solutions.”

THIS JUST IN: LOVE MAKES WORLD GO AROUND (Millo in Kiev)

August 4, 2016 Artists

Dateline: Kiev, August 2016

Mural Social Club Festival continues apace in Kiev (also spelled as Kyiv) with a huge wall by Italian Street Artist Millo (Francesco Camillo Giorgino).

Millo work in progress in Kiev for Mural Social Club Festival/NGO Sky Art Foundation. (photo © Maksim Belousov)

The 9 story high piece illustrates quite literally the axiom that one’s personal emotional intentions produce an energy which affects the local and the global. Using his customary line drawn method to set the scene, Millo places an outsized figure amidst a miniaturized dense cityscape, not unlike Kiev. “It’s a message of peace in a city zone where there are just blocks and blocks and blocks for kilometers,” says the artist.

Millo work in progress in Kiev for Mural Social Club Festival/NGO Sky Art Foundation. (photo © Maksim Belousov)

Highlighted in this monochrome metropolis in saturated color is a rudimentary series of gears and pinions rotating to establish a direct route originating from personal internal machinations which, in turn, act upon the functioning of greater events elsewhere.

It’s a clarifying moment writ large. Without being sentimental we will venture the august opinion that we here at BSA tend to be in agreement with such a viewpoint.

Millo work in progress in Kiev for Mural Social Club Festival/NGO Sky Art Foundation. (photo © Maksim Belousov)

In observation of the traveling record of Millo, who has participated in street art/ public art festivals and exhibitions in Portugal, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Morocco, Belarus, London, Rio de Janeiro, Chicago, Milan, Rome, Florence, Turin, and more, one may surmise that this outward expression of an emotional worldview is rooted significantly in his personal course of research and study as well.

Millo at work on his mural in Kiev for Mural Social Club Festival/NGO Sky Art Foundation. (photo © Maksim Belousov)

Millo in Kiev for Mural Social Club Festival/NGO Sky Art Foundation. (photo © Maksim Belousov)

Our sincere thanks to the team at Mural Social Club, founder Dmytro Palienko and curators Oleg Sosnov and Julia Ostrovska as well as the NGO Sky Art Foundation for sharing these images exclusively with BSA.

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Dan Witz’s “Breathing Room” Installs Meditating Figures in 10 London Phone Booths

August 3, 2016 Artists

“It was an insane install,” says Dan Witz of his London phone booth, “probably one of the most challenging of my career.”

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Dan Witz. “Breathing Room” London, July 2016. (photo © Dan Witz)

The New York Street Artist who began working anonymously putting art on the streets in the late 1970s is sometimes given to hyperbole, but when you see the map of the ground he covered in the city in search of the right homes for his “Breathing Room” guerilla installations, you think he may be hewing to the truth. He’s also got the timing and delivery of a Catskills comedian when describing his efforts to put up these new people deep inside a spiritual practice.

“All 10 of the pieces are up and scattered nicely around greater London,” he says wide-eyed and nearly out of breath as if he had just finished running an interventionist art marathon. “Greater is the word. That place is huge. Vast. Endless. And it seems like I’ve seen every scruffy inch of it now.”

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Dan Witz. “Breathing Room” London, July 2016. (photo © Dan Witz)

“Take my wife, please!” He didn’t actually say that one. Besides, Dan’s wife Tiffaney is the linchpin who helped him realize this project, putting together the video and Kickstarter page that raised money to bring him from New York to glue these paintings to the iconic red phone booths.

As it turns out, these quietly meditating illusionistic figures were measured and created for a size of booth that has fallen into disuse – a fact that he may have liked to know before painted these in his Brooklyn studio. There are two sizes of phone booths in London, Dan tells us; the K2 and the K6.

“The one that I measured for, the K2, is the older, rare and widely dispersed one. Apparently there are only a couple of hundred of them in use at remote and largely undisclosed locations. But, through the deep research skills of Mark Clack of Wood Street Walls and my ever intrepid wife Tiffaney, we were able to locate enough K2’s for me to put my paintings on.”

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Dan Witz. “Breathing Room” London, July 2016. (photo © Dan Witz)

Witz’s newest work is meant as a response to the terrorist attacks in many cities that have hurt many people psychologically and stirred an atmosphere of fear – now he hopes to encourage a place for people to create “breathing room” for reflection. He has dealt directly with darker issues before, particularly a well-documented street art campaign a couple of years ago in Frankfurt, Germany, of figures caught just behind dark windows and metal grates. It is a guerrilla style he has honed over years to subtly draw attention and unnerve a passerby, perhaps into action.

For that campaign a nearby QR code could be scanned and followed to the Amnesty International campaign in support of political prisoners. Here he hopes to spark individual acts of hope, with these serene images radiating an optimism and focus on more peaceful matters.

Dan Witz. “Breathing Room” London, July 2016. (photo © Dan Witz)

Mr. Witz says that the whole experience tracking down and installing in London phonebooths was challenging, and fun and rewarding as well. “Fortunately I had the foresight to rent a motorcycle and I figured out how to mount my phone with Google maps on the handlebars,” he says.

“I’m not sure how I would have done any of this without that. But don’t even get me started on how crazy it was to drive on the left side of the road for the first time in my life,” then adds somewhat conspiratorially, “Don’t tell Tiffaney but there were some close calls.”

Dan Witz. “Breathing Room” London, July 2016. (photo © Dan Witz)

INO “Instability” in Kiev

August 2, 2016 Artists

The frank pop symbolism and dark sarcasm of artists like Banksy and the early punk graphics of albums and ‘zines has reached into the monumental public murals of today and this new one of a ballerina balancing on a lit bomb is an apt example. Idealized beauty teetering upon disaster is an image that you’ll understand quickly. Certainly everyone has experienced this feeling at one point in life, if not many points.

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INO. Work in progress for ArtUnitedUs in Kiev, Ukraine. (photo © INO)

Greek artist INO may have familiarity with “Instability”, the name of the piece, which could easily apply to economic matters in that country. The symbolism of paintings will of course be interpreted by the viewer, as ever, and instability often applies to our politics, our trade relations, our warring countries and cities, immigration of refugees, access to clean food and water, our shifting environment, even our our banking systems. Ukraine itself has suffered the crisis of war and division in recent years as well, so this mural may evoke emotions which people in Kiev can relate to.

INO. Work in progress for ArtUnitedUs in Kiev, Ukraine. (photo © INO)

The monochrome figure, split across the middle and slightly shifted to one side, is a common treatment of the subject by INO, as is the accented splash of a bright hue that rides across the composition as different layer. This blue divination of the sky appears to be melting the celestial sphere and dripping downward into the main piece.

Sponsored by the arts organization called ArtUnitedUS, the new mural is 48 meters above the ground and the group says it is the largest that INO has ever created.

INO. Detail. For ArtUnitedUs in Kiev, Ukraine. (photo © INO)

Our sincere thank you to co-founders/curators of Art United Us; Geo Leros, Iryna Kanishcheva, and Waone Interesni Kazki for sharing the project with BSA readers.

Dot Dot Dot Creates ‘Analogram’ as a Concrete Status Update in Norway

August 1, 2016 Artists

Some walls just lend themselves perfectly to a piece, don’t they?

This arching-forward piece reminded Oslo-based DOT DOT DOT of the bending of a filmstrip and called to mind the continuous updating of images that people feel compelled to do right now in the “always on” social media world.

The single image is DOT DOT DOT’s strength: Not overly cluttered or a complex composition, and rarely a direct in-your-face confrontation. But the intention is there, and the layers of implication are as well. Here the analogy is the status of a person (or the social image of the person) is dependent upon a constant self-report. This new piece in Kristiansand, Norway is telling you that his current status is sunnily “Okay”.

On the topic of social media “sharing” DOT DOT DOT tells us his critique of this evolutionary moment; His actual phsyical art and the expectations he feels from a connected digital life lead him here with a piece called ‘Analogram’

“So this is what is expected as social behavior from us : always be out there and feed the people with content and information all the time. Social media keeps putting the pressure up and often creative work is now measured by how fast the progress or by the way you reveal your activity,” he says.

“The social media scene and the activities that come with it has escalated almost like a stock market or marketing view, the focus has shifted and often it is no longer about just making art for art.”

BSA Images Of The Week: 07.31.16

July 31, 2016 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

This week we bring you fresh stuff from Berlin where the final Project M/10 was debuted with a collection of artists curated by Instagrafite and we had an opportunity to ride the streets looking for interesting art, to avoid getting swept away by a sudden massive flood, and to visit Urban Spree for some great prints and paintings, and even to hang out in a boxing club for days with a cluster of curators.

Our special thanks to Yasha Young and the entire UN Team for their UNflagging support as we collectively are bringing a new institution that recognizes a wide swath of history and influences forward. More to come…

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring A Squid Called Sebastian, Anarkia, Axel Void, Hop Louie, JAZ, Marshal Arts, Mindaugas Bonanu, Nafir, Olek, Panmela Castro, RoboSexi, Roxi, Speto, Uriginal, and Various & Gould.

Our top image: Panmela Castro AKA Anarkia. Detail. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Project M/10. Curated by Instagrafite. Berlin, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Panmela Castro AKA Anarkia. Detail. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Project M/10. Curated by Instagrafite. Berlin, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Panmela Castro AKA Anarkia. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Project M/10. Curated by Instagrafite. Berlin, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Olek in collaboration with Robosexi. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Project M/10. Curated by Instagrafite. Berlin, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

New interventional pieces of objects in clear resin from the Polish duo Robosexi in collaboration with Polish/Brooklyner artist OLEK placed IN the streets of Berlin this week. An anagram of their first names Roxi and Sebo, the duo say their “Time Capsules” are an effort to freeze the truth about this time and people today. They say that they also do performances and video art in addition to these installations, but this week they are in town with OLEK for PM/10 at Urban Nation.

Olek in collaboration with Robosexi. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Project M/10. Curated by Instagrafite. Berlin, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A selfie gun from Hamburg based stencillist Marshal Arts. Berlin, Germany. One source tells us the title is “How to Take a Great Selfie.” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Uriginal in conjunction with Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Project M/10. Berlin, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A Squid Called Sebastian in conjunction with Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Project M/10. Berlin, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

An unidentified artist’s painting of these two amorous lovers appears under the train tracks that lead across Oberbaum Bridge (German: Oberbaumbrücke), a double-deck bridge crossing Berlin’s River Spree. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Axel Void. Detail. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Project M/10. Curated by Instagrafite. Berlin, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A new sculpture by Franco JAZ Fasoli commands the center exhibition space at Project M/10, which opened last evening in Berlin. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Curated by Instagrafite.(photo © Jaime Rojo)

Beards and man buns are the default fashion accessory for men who would like to give an air of hipness at this moment. Arguably however, they are probably considered mainstream. Hop Louie. Berlin, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Speto. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Project M/10. Curated by Instagrafite. Berlin, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Roxi. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Project M/10. Curated by Instagrafite. Berlin, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Alleged ties between US Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimer Putin made it to the street via Lithuanian artist Mindaugas Bonanu and this week on the cover of Frankfurter Allgemeine. Although the German newspaper doesn’t credit the creator of this image (which happens a LOT with street art), we can tell you that the significance of the image is directly tied to Berlin Wall art history. As writer and art critic Carlo McCormick notes in a recent PAPER magazine portfolio of Trump-related art, this piece refers to ” a famous fraternal kiss in 1979 between Russian leader Leonid Brezhnev and his East German counterpart Erich Honecker that gained fame as a painting by Dmitri Vrubel on the Berlin Wall.”

Apolo Torres In São Paulo, Brazil for #EducationIsNotACrime

July 30, 2016 Artists

Education should not be out of reach. Without it people are captives, especially when technology and resources are kept just beyond your grasp. Bluntly stated, keeping entire populations and countries uneducated plays directly into the hands of those who would manipulate them.

Knowledge is power.

Street Artist Apolo Torres is an important player in Brazilian contemporary muralism and here he brings São Paulo on board with London, New York, Toronto, Sydney and Cape Town for an initiative called #EducationIsNotACrime.

Begun in 2014 by filmmaker and Newsweek journalist Maziar Bahari, the campaign continues to expand in defense of a universal right to education.

In these exclusive photos Torres is seen scaling a tower to depict a girl whose reaching for a cloud of books, not quite clamping her small hand around one. Wrapped around her feet is a serpent, representing those who would prefer to keep her ignorant.

A father of two young girls himself, the topic is close to Torres’ home and heart, which is why he is excited about the conversations he will spark by doing this huge mural, which he tells us took more than 200 liters of paint. “It is essential that it dialogues with the place and the people who walk by and see the work. Public artworks have a huge potential to raise relevant issues to society,” he says in a press release.

Torres’ mural “Education is not a Crime” is produced by Da Terra Productions and was approved by the Urban Landscape Protection Committee (CPPU).

BSA Film Friday: 07.29.16

July 29, 2016 Artists

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

Now screening :

1. STARE: Sans Titre
2. EMISSIONS: ANDRECO
3. ABCDEF Style Writing. Part I
4. ABCDEF Style Writing. Part II

BSA Special Feature: STARE: Sans Titre

Quick cuts and overlays, tracing outlines and abstracts floating in color washes are set to a popping beat by Toast Dawg in this new video by Craeon to set the stage for Stare. In the game for 20 years since starting with Montreal’s NME crew, the writer is also an abstract geometrist as well. Extra points for the hoisting of a title tag with a “SOLD” red dot next to it.

EMISSIONS: ANDRECO

The second site-specific artwork of a series called “Climate” by Bologna based Andreco – the first was his initial installation at the UN COP21 climate change conference in Paris last fall, here the artist/geologist spreads it long and wide to show the impact of pollution on cities and our air quality.

In a statement he released with the project Andreco says he once again is depicting the relationship between man and nature with “an intense criticism about anthropogenic pollution generated by of the use of fossil fuels.”

Created on posters over a multi-block distance for the CHEAP festival in Bologna, Italy, he is telling the story of emissions “This thickening process increase more and more billboard after billboard: from fine dust (PM10) scattered into the air to their precipitation on earth until it gets to the mountain and gradually ends in a completely black poster,” he says.

ABCDEF Style Writing. Part I

And now a two-part series on one man’s pursuit of stylewriting his tag in multiple ways. Edutainment.

ABCDEF Style Writing. Part II

Happy New Year 2026 From BSA
January 1, 2026
Okay let's do this! The future is unwritten. Get out your marker.Read More »
Photos of BSA 2025 # 4
December 31, 2025
We’re celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of the next by thanking BSA Readers, Friends, and Family …Read More »
Photos of BSA 2025 # 5
December 30, 2025
We’re celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of the next by thanking BSA Readers, Friends, and Family …Read More »
Photos of BSA 2025 # 6
December 29, 2025
It's not all doom and gloom, but sometimes you may get that impression. In New York—like everywhere else—economic stress, global …Read More »
Photos of BSA 2025 # 7
December 28, 2025
Somewhere along the King’s Road, punk hardened into a classic ‘look’ - or dictionary of ‘looks’. Stripped of its insurgent …Read More »
Photos of BSA 2025 # 8
December 27, 2025
“When I watch people holding their smartphones, I often ask myself: are they holding their phones because they want to, …Read More »
Photos of BSA 2025 # 9
December 26, 2025
This was the year that rappelling from high places tipped the balance in New York graffiti. No matter the style …Read More »

Tavar ABOVE Zawacki at The Quin Hotel. Manhattan, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tavar ABOVE Zawacki at The Quin Hotel. Manhattan, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tavar ABOVE Zawacki at The Quin Hotel. Manhattan, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tavar ABOVE Zawacki at The Quin Hotel. Manhattan, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tavar ABOVE Zawacki at The Quin Hotel. Manhattan, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tavar ABOVE Zawacki at The Quin Hotel. Manhattan, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tavar ABOVE Zawacki in Little Italy for his mural in collaboration with The L.I.S.A. Project. Manhattan, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Overunder and his Bro create “Nostalgia”

Overunder with help from his brother. “Nostalgia”. The first half of the project goes up for La Voce Del Corpo Festival in Osnago, Italy. (photo © Overunder)

Overunder with help from his brother. “Nostalgia”. The first half of the project goes up for La Voce Del Corpo Festival in Osnago, Italy. (photo © Enrico Ponzoni)

Overunder with help from his brother. “Nostalgia”. The first half of the project goes up for La Voce Del Corpo Festival in Osnago, Italy. (photo © Overunder)

Overunder with help from his brother. “Nostalgia”. The first half of the project goes up for La Voce Del Corpo Festival in Osnago, Italy. (photo © Overunder)

The route from La Voce Del Corpo Festival in Osnago, Italy to Vogorno, Switzerland.

Overunder. A road rest to re-charge. (photo © Overunder)

Overunder. Going up in Vogorno, Switzerland. (photo © Overunder)

Overunder. Abandoned home. The Bergamo Alps in the background. (photo © Overunder)

Overunder. Doing tricks because the bike trip wasn’t enough to tire him…why not? (photo © The Bud)

Overunder. The original photo of Joseph Mozzetti. Photo from Ancestry.

Overunder. “Nostalgia”. The second half of the project on the original house of Joseph Mozzetti in Vogorno, Switzerland. (photo © Overunder)

Overunder. “Nostalgia”. The second half of the project on the original house of Joseph Mozzetti in Vogorno, Switzerland. (photo © Overunder)

Our top image: Stik for The L.I.S.A. Project. July 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Gregos (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mark Jenkins in Montreal. July 2016. (photo © Andre Pace)

Mark Jenkins in Montreal. July 2016. (photo © Andre Pace)

MOMO (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tavar Zawacki AKA ABOVE (Invader on top) for The L.I.S.A. Project in Manhattan. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Corn79 in Mantova, Italy for Without Frontiers. July 2016. (photo © Corny79)

OneArt (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified Artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

HISS (photo © Jaime Rojo)

HISS (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Zimad in collaboration with Damien Mitchell. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dee Dee (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Wing (photo © Jaime Rojo)

City Kitty (photo © Jaime Rojo)

City Kitty in collaboration with D7606. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Homo Riot (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Savior El Mundo (photo © Jaime Rojo)

EC13 in Granda, Spain. August 2016. (photo © EC13)

Unidentified Artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Imamaker (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Crisp (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Speaking of the Constitution. Wall Street. NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

David Walker in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France for Galerie Mathgoth. July 2016. (photo © Galerie Mathgoth)

David Walker in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France for Galerie Mathgoth. July 2016. (photo © Galerie Mathgoth)

David Walker in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France for Galerie Mathgoth. July 2016. (photo © Galerie Mathgoth)

David Walker in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France for Galerie Mathgoth. July 2016. (photo © Galerie Mathgoth)

David Walker in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France for Galerie Mathgoth. July 2016. (photo © Galerie Mathgoth)

BSA Special Feature: “Watching My Name Go By”

Nicolas Romero AKA Ever: “Logo II”

Gilf! …and counting

Dateline: Kiev, August 2016

Millo work in progress in Kiev for Mural Social Club Festival/NGO Sky Art Foundation. (photo © Maksim Belousov)

Millo work in progress in Kiev for Mural Social Club Festival/NGO Sky Art Foundation. (photo © Maksim Belousov)

Millo work in progress in Kiev for Mural Social Club Festival/NGO Sky Art Foundation. (photo © Maksim Belousov)

Millo at work on his mural in Kiev for Mural Social Club Festival/NGO Sky Art Foundation. (photo © Maksim Belousov)

Millo in Kiev for Mural Social Club Festival/NGO Sky Art Foundation. (photo © Maksim Belousov)

Dan Witz. “Breathing Room” London, July 2016. (photo © Dan Witz)

Dan Witz. “Breathing Room” London, July 2016. (photo © Dan Witz)

Dan Witz. “Breathing Room” London, July 2016. (photo © Dan Witz)

Dan Witz. “Breathing Room” London, July 2016. (photo © Dan Witz)

Dan Witz. “Breathing Room” London, July 2016. (photo © Dan Witz)

Dan Witz. “Breathing Room” London, July 2016. (photo © Dan Witz)

Dan Witz. “Breathing Room” London, July 2016. (photo © Dan Witz)

Dan Witz. “Breathing Room” London, July 2016. (photo © Dan Witz)

Dan Witz. “Breathing Room” London, July 2016. (photo © Dan Witz)

Dan Witz. “Breathing Room” London, July 2016. (photo © Dan Witz)

INO. Work in progress for ArtUnitedUs in Kiev, Ukraine. (photo © INO)

INO. Detail. For ArtUnitedUs in Kiev, Ukraine. (photo © INO)

INO. Detail. For ArtUnitedUs in Kiev, Ukraine. (photo © INO)

INO. Detail. For ArtUnitedUs in Kiev, Ukraine. (photo © INO)

INO for ArtUnitedUs in Kiev, Ukraine. (photo © INO)

INO for ArtUnitedUs in Kiev, Ukraine. (photo © INO)

DOT DOT DOT in Kristiansand, Norway for KRS Gadekunstlaug. July 2016. (photo © @Ardcon)

DOT DOT DOT in Kristiansand, Norway for KRS Gadekunstlaug. July 2016. (photo © @Ardcon)

DOT DOT DOT in Kristiansand, Norway for KRS Gadekunstlaug. July 2016. (photo © @Ardcon)

DOT DOT DOT in Kristiansand, Norway for KRS Gadekunstlaug. July 2016. (photo © @Ardcon)

DOT DOT DOT in Kristiansand, Norway for KRS Gadekunstlaug. July 2016. (photo © @Ardcon)

DOT DOT DOT in Kristiansand, Norway for KRS Gadekunstlaug. July 2016. (photo © @Ardcon)

Our top image: Panmela Castro AKA Anarkia. Detail. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Project M/10. Curated by Instagrafite. Berlin, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)