Brooklyn got a visit from former New Yorker MOMO this week as he stopped by for a few days after summer trips to FAME festival in Italy, the Bien Urbain project and a collaboration with Eltono in Besançon, France, and just before he headed to Baltimore for a lecture today at MICA. A staple in the mid-2000s NY Street Art scene known by many for his wheat-pasted tissue paper geometric formations and screen prints, you may remember more recently seeing his massive work for Baltimore this spring for Gaia’s OWB project and we’re really glad he is participating in our gallery show curated by Hellbent in Red Hook right now called GEOMETRICKS.
An easy-going ever-thoughtful modern minimalist who has a love for graffiti fundamentals, MOMO is usually experimenting with his pieces, his process (see his MOMO Maker), his techniques. You may grow familiar with the vocabulary he uses but you’ll never see the same outcome twice because his exploratory mind is always spacing out new ways to deduct, add, unmask, recombine, and ultimately find balance.
Here he leaves his newest marks on a wall in Brooklyn in collaboration with Bushwick Five Points.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Barry McGee, Berth Control, BustArt, Cash4, Hot Tea, JM, Michael DeFeo, OverUnder, Rae, Shie Moreno, Smells, Spiro, Swoon, and Willow. First we start with a selection of details from the brand new piece by Brooklyn Street Artist Swoon that appeared on the street recently – in her inimitable style of revealing an internal world at play within the larger structure.
There is a stretch of highway from Bitter Springs to Moenkopi Wash where you might slow down or stop all together to take a look into the eyes of a Navajo. They are there looking at you. Artist and photographer Jetsonorama is telling more stories out here about the Navajo people and their neighbors in black and white poster-sized wheatpastes.
The portraits, snapshots of life, and representational scenes are telling you their stories, even if you didn’t ask a question. The sun-baked creases on their faces are maps of roads you may have traveled but probably not. Serene, apprehensive, jovial, content, resigned, pensive, beautiful – that’s how these individuals are captured and blown up; a way of life on display for the world to see.
1. Mitt Hunts Big Bird for Thanksgiving Dinner #defendthearts
2. Stormie Mills in Melbourne
3. Ambush Group Show (Sydney)
4. TrustoCorp at Outsiders (Newcastle, UK)
5. Guy Denning Solo at Signal (London)
6. Goons Go Inside (Chicago)
7. Graffitimundo Needs Your Help to Finish Documentary (VIDEO)
Stormie Mills has a solo show “Peoples and Places 2012” at the Metro Gallery in Melbourne, Australia that’s open to everybody and Mr. Mills will delight you with his funny, industrious little characters done mostly in monochrome palette. Also, it was snowing at the opening Wednesday. Kind of stormy.
For further information regarding this show click here.
Ambush Group Show (Sydney)
The Australians are putting in a good game it seems as the Ambush Gallery in Sydney has an interesting line up of dozens of Aussies for their group show “Living In A Glass House”. This exhibition is now open to the general public. Also interesting because all the profits go directly to the artists.
For further information regarding this show click here.
TrustoCorp at Outsiders (Newcastle, UK)
The Outsiders Gallery has invited American Street and Fine Artist TrustoCorp to come and mint wads of money, honey. Currency is power and with this show titled “The International Bank of TrustoCorp” you’ll find plenty of both. Opening today.
For further information regarding this show click here.
Guy Denning Solo at Signal (London)
Guy Denning’s solo show “Paradiso” at the Signal Gallery in London, UK is now open to the. This show is the last of a trilogy inspired by Dante’s The Divine Comedy. Go and be tempted.
Guy Denning. (image courtesy of the gallery)
For further information regarding this show click here.
Goons Go Inside (Chicago)
Goons, the Chicago based Street Artists are exhibiting at the Maxwell Colette Gallery in Chicago with a solo exhibition titled “Welcome to Goonswood”. This show opens today.
For further information regarding this show click here.
Graffitimundo Needs Your Help to Finish Documentary (VIDEO)
Graffitimundo in Argentina is working on documentary “White Walls Say Nothing” to capture the art and activism on the streets of Buenos Aires. Take a look at the trailer for the film and please help them to raise the funds needed to complete their film by clicking on the link to their Kickstarter campaign.
Even as they shoot spit-wads at the windows and doodle intensely in the margins of their notebooks while constantly shifting in their chairs in the back row of English class, these two ADHD kids are paying sideways attention to the teacher and not really trying to cause trouble. If you want to keep their attention you just need to keep them engaged and help them channel their energy productively because the next thing you know Overunder and ND’A will be eyeballing the fire extinguisher or pulling apart the wall clock to see what makes it tick…
Two of the new crop of painters on the street who can’t keep their metaphors unmixed, Overunder and ND’A are sprinting through Brooklyn looking for new walls and ladders right now, and they’ve covered a lot of space already this new fall semester. The fast talking buddies have a way of playing off each others’ fantastic ideas and stories that will get you lost if you try to follow them, with words and symbols and meanings tossed into a clothes dryer and tumbled. Give ’em a spot, some bucket paint, and a couple of cans, and who knows what you’ll get. But you won’t be bored.
While their individual styles are distinct, with OU blending realism and figurative forms with architectural elements and ND’A giving a gritty low-brow cartoon monster treatment to his symbols and characters, the fluidity of undulating shapes and the free flow of ideas keeps these two in the same school. Here are a couple of new pieces of theirs for you to grade as they run down the hall and out the double back doors onto the playground to swing from the monkey bars and look up girls skirts. Here on this wall Overunder found a way to interact with that other devilish, horns ‘n all bad boy LNY. The results are well balanced with both pieces complimenting each other.
Street Artist and fine artist Dan Witz is prepping for his part in a new group show titled “Bedlam” in the deep recesses of London with Lazarides Gallery. “We’re doing this huge thing in the tunnels below the Old Vic – should be massive,” he tells us with some thrill in his email voice. It’s good to hear Dan happy, because his work can be so dark. Just back from Frankfurt where he worked with Amnesty International to highlight the human rights and justice work that organization does for all of us, these new images on the streets of London are the Street Art component of Witz’s practice that is quietly compelling and unsettling.
Certainly the aim of these pieces is not to put us at ease, to “Keep Calm and Carry On”. The figures behind the glass are depicted as imprisoned or trapped, and your second glance at them will leave you disconcerted and troubled. Witz goes where many artists won’t or can’t in his explorations of the human condition and man’s inhumanity – reminding us that art can serve more than to just send us home happy and content. It can also connect us with a truer sense of the world, provide a bit of grounding and remind us of the work that needs to be done. With this work Witz give a voice to those who don’t have words to express their suffering.
Our thanks to Dan for sharing these super fresh images exclusively for BSA readers.
Dan Witz in Frankfurt for Amnesty International. Frankfurt, Germany 2012. Work in Progress. All artworks by Dan Witz. Photos by Dan Witz and Hans-Juergen Kaemmerer.
Lazarides is mounting “Bedlam” in a maze of tunnels below Old Vic beginning October 09, evoking the historic mental asylum. “Bedlam over the years has become synonymous with madness, chaos and pandemonium, it seemed like the perfect theme for a world gone mad. Be afraid.” -Steve Lazarides. Participating Artists include: Vhils, Conor Harrington, Doug Foster, Ian Francis, Kelsey Brookes, Karim Zeriahen, Klaus Weiskopf, Lucy McLauchlan, Artists Anonymous, Michael Najjar, Till Rabus, Jonathan Yeo, DAn Witz and Antony Micallef.
A one woman urban renewal project, Street Artist Gilf! has been prettifying the decay in a few cities over the last year or so with hand made fluorescent blooms. Not purely decorative, she thinks of them as sculptural, a public works project, and a sort of rorschach test that reveals as much about the audience as the artist. As with any artworks put out on the street, the public will render a verdict. In New York, they ride for about a minute before someone rips them off the wall – to take home in many cases. Also, New Yorkers don’t like “pretty” as much as they like tough stuff – skulls, violence, brooding, etc. With recent blooms popping up inside abandoned buildings, it will be interesting to see how long the garden grows.
We’ve collected a number of these for you to look at together, a sort of urban bouquet for Tuesday. While not wholely representative of Gilf!s various ventures on the street, these installations have a certain signature that’s revealed through these shots from Brooklyn, Baltimore, and Detroit.
The Fame Festival doesn’t take itself too seriously, but you should. Now in its fifth year, the festival is run by one fella and his friends, offering interesting walls and an opportunity to work with local artisans in the “aesthetically depressed” areas of this beautiful town named Grottaglie. A dozen or so international artists descended here again this year as summer turned to fall to eat amazing food, paint huge walls, and to create pottery works and limited edition prints with their host, Angelo Milano, in his print shop called Studiocromie.
Free from corporate sponsors or too many meddlesome civic interests, which can muddy the creative waters and contort presentation, FAME has reliably produced singularly striking work on the Streets: the kind of free-form ingenuity that could only result from a being in a positive environment. Artists who return from the experience report that Studiocromie and their peeps know how to make you feel right at home, complete with the dysfunctional human frailties we’re all prone to. Again this year some of the pieces that have come out of FAME have been remarkable for one reason or another – it also helps when the talent pool is so strong.
Photographer and BSA contributor Henrik Haven was on hand the to cover FAME and he shares these exclusive images with BSA readers of works in progress by Erica Il Cane and completed walls by Vhils, Interesni Kazki and Conor Harrington. The videos are produced by FAME and they give an additional cinematic appreciation and humor to the entire experience.
Angelo remarks on the FAME website what his take on the festival has been as he sets up the video below, “It’s been an intense couple of weeks here at FAME, three artists at the same time and it was a hell of a mess. This is what happened with KING Erica il Cane. Here’s my advice to all artists around, both new and old, watch him doing what he does, and how he does it. You won’t get as good as he is, you won’t end up painting such a huge wall in just two days, but at least you can take notes: have fun and don’t think about the whole art world bullshit.”
The harrowing and hilarious video helps explain why Interesni Kazki needed 12 days to complete the piece. Angelo describes it as “an extreme amount of bad luck”.
This week seemed busy on the streets of New York after LA graff writer Saber started us off on Sunday with a sky-writing campaign that was politically charged arts advocacy and a social media-soaked smackdown of the right wing in the US. From culture-jamming to political commentary to social advocacy, it looks like some Street Artists are getting back their voice in many pieces that are espousing a message. Not all of them of course.
So here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Bast, Billi Kid, Creepy, Classic, Espo, Home Sick, JB Rock, Jeice 2, Meer Sau, ND’A, Olek, OverUnder, PM AM, Reader, and Ugo Rondinone. Locations include New York, Istanbul, London, Portugal, Sicily, and the Pilbara desert in the Northwest of Australia.
As he paints the giant 8-shaped snake biting it’s tail, the Italian Street Artist JB Rock explains his new piece this way, “This is a portrait of our modern society and especially of my beautiful but very counterproductive country. For this work I’ve been inspired by the UROBORUS concept, remixed with the Infinity symbol”.
“I traveled up to Port Hedland which is an industry Port in the North West of Australia and painted some walls and found objects in the desert as part of a residency with FORM gallery,” says the Perth-based Creepy.
Gola Hundun, Kenor and H101 otherwise known as the Art Collective Los Brujos, recently participated in the Sub Urb Art 2 in Torino, Italy with a patchwork hand-painted re-creation of the mystic Eye inside a large open warehouse space.
Call it The Eye of Glory, The All Seeing Eye, The Eye of The World, The Eye of Providence or the Eye of Horus, the human eye has been imbued with supernatural powers, omnipresence, and intuitive abilities for centuries by various cultures and belief systems worldwide. Three members of Los Brujos pose carefully here with the new piece by way of drawing our focus back to it’s various meanings.
As they draw your attention to the third eye looming behind them, Los Brujos appear in various costume while positioning themselves symbolically in front of the work, adding a decidedly pagan connotation to the work. The juxtaposition reminds you that dimension, abstraction, and geometry have roots in folk art, religion and mysticism – far predating the modern age fascination with geometry and minimalism. While these guys and many in the alt-art party circuit are sometimes thought of as avant-garde, you can also see them as revivalists of our clan-based past.
BROOKLYN! Jay-Z opens the new stadium in Brooklyn tonight with a lot of fanfare – and if you don’t have tickets just have a blast in the hundreds of studio spaces and gallery shows and “in the street” installations and performances starting tonight at the Dumbo Arts Festival that brings thousands coursing through the neighborhood over the next three days.
Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, and Quincy Jones. (VIDEO)
Here’s a clean way to see writing on Brooklyn walls and to practice your lyrical skillz.
1. Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, and Quincy Jones. (VIDEO)
2. Nuart 2012 Begins in Norway
3. NY ART BOOK FAIR at PS1 (LIC, Queens)
4. DUMBO ARTS FESTIVAL 2012 (Brooklyn)
5. Futurism 2.0 at Blackall Studios (London)
6. JAZ “Metodologias del Discurso” (Argentina)
7. Narcelio Grud “Paraphernalia” (VIDEO)
8. Daytime Bombing with HNR (VIDEO)
Nuart 2012 Begins in Norway
Named the Cultural Capital of Europe a few years back, Stavanger has remarkably open minds and has embraced a select slice of the Street Art scene that is displayed this time of year via large mural installations, indoor shows, and speakers. NUART was born here and it set the standards for many Street Art Festivals that have followed since NUiART first opened its walls to visiting international Street Artists in the early 2000s. NUART 2012 opened Thursday with a full day of activities related to NUART PLUS and it will continue thorughout the weekend with the opening of Tout Scene on Saturday. The list of participating artists this year include: AAKASH NIHALANI (US), DOLK (NO), EINE (UK), RON ENGLISH (US), SABER (US), HOWNOSM (US), MOBSTR (UK) NIELS SHOW MEULMAN (NL), JORDAN SEILER (US), THE WA (FR), SICKBOY (UK).
For more information on all activities and schedules regarding NUART PLUS click here.
For more information regarding Saturday’s Opening of Tout Scene click here.
NY ART BOOK FAIR at PS1 (LIC, Queens)
People who are designing and creating independent zines and books are a really important part of the Street Art and graffiti D.I.Y. culture and PS1 in Long Island City is a vast feast of cool printed matter this weekend. Starting today and running through Sunday, the Fair is presented by the esteemed establishment Printed Matter and if you don’t find stuff that engages you and blows your mind, it will be a surprise. One of the groups we highly recommend that you go and visit is the Pantheon Projects table (#12) where you’d find delicious hand crafted zines by Avoid, Droid, R2 and Carnage.
These little art books capture stuff on the street in a way that helps you organize and appreciate it – with wit and a street poet approach. They also can give advice occasionally, like the recipe we found for juicing cucumbers/pineapple and something else to produce “donut water”. Feast your eyes on the dope images and take in the authors’ notes and observations as they rack up serious road miles for the love of art and discovery. Here is a selection of images from spreads of these zines to give you an idea of what we’re talking about.
For further information, schedules and transportation regarding this Art Fair click here.
DUMBO ARTS FESTIVAL 2012 (Brooklyn)
This weekend Brooklyn is the the cultural STAR of New York City once again. The DUMBO Arts Festival opens today with more than 500 artists participating from all over the world. There will be open studios for you to visit, outdoor installations for you to explorer and huge video projections for you to be in awe of. Hop on the F train and get off at Jay Street and take in the breathtaking and majestic views of the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges with the city’s skyline as a background.
The Future is in London tonight with FUTURISM 2.0 a group exhibition at the Blackall Studios presented by Gamma Proforma is now opens today to the general public with a reception starting at 6:00 pm.
For further information regarding this show click here.
JAZ “Metodologias del Discurso” (Argentina)
JAZ’s new solo show is now open at the Kosovo Gallery in Cordoba, Argentina. Known for his representational exploration of beasts and men this artists likess to work big with over scaled representations of his subjects. Internationally known, you’ll see his stuff at Street Art Festivals around the world, and in some back alleys and empty lots too.
This spring we were invited to attend and speak at this years Nuart festival and although we can’t be there personally we’ve still have some great talents on the Stavanger front who will be providing you with stunning and scintillating BSA exclusive action over the next few weeks. So two days before the official opening, here are a few shots of Street Artists in preparation for this non-commercial festival/symposium/party/debauched art camp that has taken place in Norway for the last decade or so.
All the artists arrived a week ago and they have been getting busy on their designated outdoors walls and indoors tunnels. Martyn Reed invites participants inside this complex of buildings that once housed a brewery with interconnecting tunnels – a fitting atmosphere for the hooligans who are accustomed to exploring the urban environment. The official date for the public to see the completed walls is this Saturday with the opening night of Tout Scene.
This year’s talent lineup again represents a wide swath of mostly European and American Street Artists including Aakash Nihalani (US), Dolk (NO), Eine (UK), Ron English (US), Saber (US), How Nosm (US), Mobstr (UK), Niels Show Meulman (NL), Jordan Seiler (US), The Wa (FR), Sickboy (UK).
With our sincere thanks to the talented photographer and occasional BSA contributor Ian Cox who is also in NUART snapping away as the artists work on their installations. Our thanks also to partners Martyn, Marte and Victoria for helping us bring Nuart to BSA.
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
