Street Artist Swoon’s show at the Brooklyn Museum was named in the recent The 15 Best Art Exhibitions Of 2014 listing on The Huffington Posts Arts & Culture page. We’re excited that our article, the first in the major press to be published about the exhibition, is sighted for the story. Here is the original article,
‘Swoon: Submerged Motherlands,’ A Tree Grows in the Brooklyn Museum
You think that maybe the animated GIF is the equivalent of graffiti on the digital wall?
Artist Ryan Seslow has been experimenting for a little while with that hyper eye-blitzing looping tag called the animated GIF – and today you’re getting splendid platter of GIFs like holiday cookies glistening before you. With bright visual references to graffiti history, culture and art, Seslow manages to simplify the vernacular in a poppy way that pushes the work into a playful cartoon realm – like the stuff on subway cars in the 70s. If the connection to Street Art isn’t clear, he has also been doing artful collaborations with a number of figures you may have seen on the street and in subway stations.
“It has been great fun so far working with Cake and Jilly Ballistic and we are making more!” says Seslow of this collaborative approach to GIF making. “I wanted to work with them both because they have great contrasting work that translates well on the street, subway tunnels and as digital images online.”
So far Seslow has been “trickling out the gifs one at a time” on his blog and as a project with RJ Rushmore of the blog Vandalog. They will be exhibiting their project entitled “Encrypted Fills” at the end of January for Concrete to Data in the Steinberg Museum of Art. Seslow’s GIF animations will include a host of other graffiti and Street Artists including Stinkfish, Broken Fingaz, General Howe, Caroline Caldwell, Abe Lincoln Jr., Gaia, Enzo & Nio, John Fekner, Olek, Ryan Seslow, Swampy, Peter Drew, Adam VOID, Rone, Enzo Sarto, and Leon Reid IV.
In the meantime all these jolting lights may make you think of the first night of Hannukah (tonight) as well as all the Christmas lights that are blinking from apartment windows overhead wherever you go on the street. Enjoy!
Miami’s Art Basel might be the world’s largest summer camp for artists. Every year, artists, galleries and enthusiasts from around the world come together in one place to paint, party and socialize. With a never ending list of desired activities and events during the week, it’s impossible to see and do it all. And many of the artists whose work towers on the walls of Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood have been there a week or so longer than anyone.
You know you’ve made it to the right neighborhood coming from the airport when all you see from the highway are large murals and roadside graffiti…and you’re most likely stuck in traffic.
Every single street in Wynwood was filled with artists from various parts of the world who all share one goal: to create. Artist like Meggs, Word To Mother, Hush, Spencer Keeton Cunningham, Lauren Napolitano, Aaron Glasson, Pose, Cleon Peterson, Ron English, Rone, Swoon and many others were all present and active.
It was hard not to get distracted by all of their process while walking from event to event. I spent a total of three full days in Wynwood documenting, visiting some walls more than once. It’s impossible to see it all.
When the fairs close around 7pm, the streets of Wynwood and South Beach explode. There are live painting events like Basel Castle and Secret Walls, pop up galleries, live concerts by hotel pools and, of course, The Deuce; South Beach’s best dive bar beehive of visiting artists.
I’m grateful for my annual “camp” reunion trips to Miami. Reconnecting with old friends you haven’t seen in years while making plenty of new ones. It’s fun to see that as the years go by, everyone is just as much a kid as you remember them. You see the same friend throughout the week wearing the same shirt for four days covered in paint, with no shower or sleep. All of these artists work very hard to do what they do and that’s why I do what I do.
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The year is winding down people, and the hits just keep on coming!
Bankers are ruling us and setting us up for their next crashing of the economy, mistletoe-carrying drones are a good idea gone wrong, and thousands continue to protest injustice toward black and brown people in Washington DC and Washington Square. In happier news: – just one photo we posted this week on Instagram – LMNOPI’s painting of a small boy protester – united the boy’s mother with the artist and us via social media, which was kind of magical. See a version of the image below. The city is also crammed with tourists (Hi Aunt Bobbie and Uncle Roy! Hi Kate and William!), drunken Santa’s are somewhat less cranky this year, and the Dyker Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn is already encrusted with Christmas lights.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring $howta, Crummy Gummy, Dhear, Don John, Eelco Virus, LMNOPI, London Kaye, Mistakoy, Mr. Oneteas, Peter Van Flores, Rocko, Tracy168, WERC, and ZIMAD.
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Another book to tell you about today! Remember when BSA took you to Paris that time and we skipped the line and went into all the floors of this soon to be demolished building?
That is how we described it in November 2013 when Spencer took us on a whirlwind tour of TOUR 13.
Published last month this towering book with the page edges sprayed neon orange was released by Mehdi Ben Cheikh in French and English to commemorate the event, and seeing the installations this way is going to make you wish the place wasn’t destroyed. 500 new photos previously unpublished allows you to see the show as you travel from the cellar to the top floors.
You may wish you had more background on the artists and the context and clearly not all of the artistry is of similar quality but you will be satiated by the images and thankful that they were recorded during their brief duration. Published by Editions Albin Michel, in partnership with the Itinerrance Gallery, this show will continue to soar long after the dust has settled.
Artists included in the Tour Paris 13 project:
108, 2MIL FAMILIA, A1ONE, ADD FUEL, AGL, AGOSTINO IACURCI, AMINE, ALEXÖNE, ARRAIANO, AWER, AZOOZ, BOM.K, BTOY, C215, CEKIS, CELESTE JAVA, CLET, COPE2, CORLEONE, DABRO, DADO, DAN23, DAVID WALKER, DEYAA, EIME, eL SEED, ENTES, ETHOS, ETNIK, FENX, FLIP, GAËL, GILBERT, GUY DENNING, HERBERT BAGLIONE, HOGRE, HOPNN, INDIE, INTI ANSA, INTI CASTRO, JAZ, JB ROCK, JÉRÔME GULON, JIMMY C, JOYS, JULIEN COLOMBIER, KAN, KATRE, KEITH HARING, KRUELLA, LEGZ, LEK, LE CYKLOP, LILIWENN, LOIOLA, LUDO, MAIS MENOS, MAR, MÁRIO BELÉM, MARKO, MARYAM, MATÉO GARCIA, MAZ, MONEYLESS, MOSKO, MP5, MYRE, NANO, NEBAY, NEMI “UHU”, NILKO, ORTICANOODLES, PANTÓNIO, PEETA, PHILIPPE BAUDELOCQUE, RAPTO, REA ONE, RODOLPHE CINTORINO, ROTI, SAILE, SAMBRE, SAMINA, SEAN HART, SÉBASTIEN PRESCHOUX, SENSO, SETH, SHAKA, SHOOF, SHUCK 2, SOWAT, SPAZM, SPETO, STeW, STINKFISH, SWOON, TELLA’S, TINHO, TORE, UNO, URIGINAL, VEXTA, VHILS, and WISIGN
Click HERE to read BSA’s coverage of this project before the building was demolished.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening :
1. Mary Lacy: Life at Moran
2. Dhear: Similia Similibus Currentur
3. Sofles Black Book
4. Helpful Tips for Riding the Subway with Johnny T
The ever widening spectrum of culture that embraces graffiti-street art-muralism, gentrification, and commercialism blurs one more line in this promotional video for the development of an old factory on Lake Champlain. While well executed, it borrows completely from the urban explorers and graffiti artists who have been hitting up the walls of decrepit and abandoned places with paint for decades, while giving no credit for it.
Take note that the camera work neatly relegates those renegades work to the margins and incidental backgrounds while celebrating the “fine art” being blue taped into existence center stage. While not a straight up deal breaker, the sound track is principally a viola played with classical contemplation, making the whole rustic scene very palatable to investors and denotes a certain income level and educational background and well, class distinction.
That said, Mary Lacy chooses nature and flora to gently entice you to come in; her folk technique evoking stained glass or porcelain collage work, and she selects well placed vignettes that remind you of Cuba.
Makes you hanker for cup of rich fair trade hand pressed café mocha and a butternut elderberry quinoa bear claw glazed with raw sugar, doesn’t it? Fire up the Kindle and read insightful prose describing how factory jobs like the ones once here in this building were moved offshore, never to return.
Done in conjunction with MUJAM, Dhear creates this enormous mural on the side of a homeopathic hospital that recalls Mexico’s 20th century mural tradition and inspires the people visiting and working there.
Dude kills black books too, which is probably no surprise to anyone who has seen his previous videos here where he slaughters entire factories. Never imagined such a hard driving crunchy soundtrack would accompany art markers, did you?
Hey, whatsa matta wit you? Don’t do that! Jeez!
Urban Exchange: Crossing Over 2014 is a brand new street art festival in George Town, Penang in Malaysia. In November they hosted 16 artists to paint walls throughout this city of two and a half million on the Strait of Malacca.
It is not a city that has hosted Street Art traditionally and one that frowns strongly on graffiti, but ever since Lithuanian Street Artist Ernest Zacharevic did some very successful installations here in 2012 which drew crowds and cameras, the citizenry and elected officials have become very hospitable to the idea — and have even enacted a formalized process for approving public art.
Today we travel to Penang to see the brand new pieces for this first-year show, co-curated by Gabija Grusaite and Eeyan Chuah, who run Hin Bus Depot Art Centre, a creative space in the ruins of a bus depot that hosted a corollary gallery show. Alongside Berlin based Urban Nation’s director and curator, Yasha Young, the two invited a mixture of local and international artists to complete murals and to host some community workshops.
“There’s never a dull moment at Urban Nation’s exchange program,” says Young, “after a year in the planning we were excited to finally make the journey.”
Among the various murals you’ll see a selection of figurative, realistic, and illustration styles that carefully walk a community moderated fine line, hoping to bring locals to be more actively engaged in the program. As a novelty outlier, you’ll also see Brooklyn’s Mr. Toll installing his colorful hand formed clay sculptures in unusual spots if you keep your head up.
In an interview with Malay Mail Online, Ms. Grusaite says, “We want to create an artistic international cultural exchange so that local artists can learn from international artists who will be here for the project while the international artists will get exposure to the local culture and art scene.”
As is the case more often, with Urban Exchange we are again seeing a new model of public art developing where at the forefront are artists who have laid their groundwork in graffiti rather than university exclusively. We’ve been using a term we’re calling the “New Muralism” to indicate the grassroots nature and populist generation of these works and we still think its definition is evolving. Not quite community murals in the strictest sense, and not seeking the approval of gate-keeping institutions either, these artists are looking for and finding new ways to challenge themselves creatively in the public sphere while being responsive to needs of the public. Huh!
Included in the Urban Exchange project are Antanas Dubra (Lithuania), Bibichun (Malaysia), Don John (Denmark), Donald Abraham (Malaysia), Elle (United States), Ernest Zacharevic (Lithuania), Fauzan Faud (Malaysia), Karl Addison (Germany), Kenji Chai (Malaysia), Rone (Australia), Sk10 (Singapore), TankPetrol (United Kingdom), Black Fritilldea (Malaysia), 4Some (a crew from Kuala Lumpur consisting of Donald, Black, Fauzan and Jojo), Mr Toll (New York) and Vexta (New York)
Our heartfelt thank you to Henrik Haven, who took a trip from Copenhagen which took 31 hours (and four different flights) for sharing his excellent photographs here with BSA readers.
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We like you to have books, even though BSA is almost exclusively a digital companion for our readers and fans. But yes, we are in love with books and Christmas is coming and so is Hannukah in 5 days or so and the end of the year is just brimming with good heavy tomes to pour over.
Today we’re showing you the new monograph by a 1980s graffiti writer from Bristol who evolved his work into a different sort of experience entirely and is known for his bowler – and Mona Lisa’s bare bum as well. Nick Walker is a world traveler by now and spends much of his time in New York at the moment so it’s a great pleasure to let you know about this big beefy one – something to pour over while the weather outside is frightful.
The Art Of Nick Walker can be purchased at: http://www.theartofnickwalker.com/
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Gruner + Jahr, Europe’s largest publishing firm has just released a hot issue of their magazine ART that focuses exclusively on Street Art and we are pleased that they asked us to participate. You’ll see a number of names you recognize in this magazine that reads more like a book – although you’ll need to be familiar with German.
Of special note for us are the spreads that include many images by BSA editor of photography Jaime Rojo whose shots of work by Brooklyn’s Swoon make us happy just to see them here across the pages of this prestigious magazine.
ART Magazine: Swoon. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
We don’t usually mention print releases on the editorial part of the site but it just so happens that today a new screenprint edition of “Dawn and Gemma” by Swoon is being released at 12 noon New York time. We saw this image first this spring at the Brooklyn Museum exhibit “Submerged Motherlands” and spoke about it during our In Conversation show there with her in April. Currently she’s just done a version of this in Miami as well. Her print is being released alongside a new print by another Brooklyn Street Artist Elbow-Toe. Check out more news on Paper Monster’s site.
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A curator at a major American museum told us this weekend that he’s discovered there are two major categories of great artists: the first one hits on a great idea or process or technique and stays with it throughout the rest of their career, employing the creative spirit to evolve and reinforce the same idea again and again. The second artist type is more taken with the creative spirit itself and moves nimbly from one technique or process or discipline to another, exploring and experimenting with new approaches, discovering and often mastering one after another.
Specter appears to be the latter.
Only five years ago Specter was a realist painter who wheatpasted his large labor intensive portraits of people who collect scrap metal and other materials in New York neighborhoods. These social studies captured hours of time in studio carefully rendering and depicting – and when the enormous works appeared across old signage or construction walls, you felt like you had just run into someone you knew.
Other more sculptural installations were still lifes and ready-made in nature, employing shopping carts, bottles, hardcover books. Specter is not afraid to experiment with new mediums and messages and to carry them to fruition.
In the last year or so Specter began a much more conceptual and abstract series of bus stop takeovers using his own photography. Less obvious in their meaning, they nonetheless are contextual – often reflecting, refracting, relating to the geometry and perspectives of their location. Easy to miss as Street Art installations, they can be arresting as well – especially when you realize they may be mimicking their immediate surroundings…and that they are not selling you shampoo. Some times you realize he has ingeniously taken the street you are standing on and tilted it into a parallel world – which you may or may not occupy.
As a one-off, we were a little intrigued about this new creative direction for Specter. Now that time has passed and we have a little collection gathered of these installations, we can see that he is helping us see the city differently once again.
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Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Adnate, Amanda Wong, Clet, Dasic, David Walker, Droid 907, Eurotrash, Hunt, Jim Vision, Mr. Oneteas, Specter, and WUFC Crew.
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She’s a saint! A patron saint for Catholic believers who looks out for the poor, the ill, and shepherds and shepherdesses, who lived in France in the 1800s and is buried there at a convent. Collettivo FX gave her windows for eyes at this abandoned church in Sicily.
Below it they inscribed: “Questa è Santa Bernardette, patrona dei pastori e delle lavoratrice della terra. Decidete voi se non ha occhi per quello che avete fatto qui non si può vedere oppure ha la luce negli occhi per illuminare le vostre teste”
We just want to see it with the lights coming through her eyes…
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BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY