All posts tagged: Jaime Rojo

Buxtons Bring “Welling Court 2” to Queens, Artists and Scooters in Tow

June 28, 2011 Artists, Events, Features, NYC, On the Street, Performance, Queens

Street Art in the Community, Creating Community. Again.

John Ahearn (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ad Hoc Art “brought it” for the second year to Queens and at Welling Court with a collection of Street Artists and local families hanging out and painting the neighborhood. The tireless Alison and Garrison Buxton invited 40 or 50 of their closest friends with aerosol to take part over a two day period to transform the atmosphere in this neighborhood which doesn’t get much attention. The lineup includes artists who are pioneers in the graffiti and Street Art game who create alongside emerging talent. The styles vary, but the sentiments of connectedness and community are consistent throughout.

John Ahearn with his assistant Kevin with his friend and model Karlee, daughter of his good friend Otto. Karlee and Otto posed for the sculpture to the right. John had planned a live casting with Karlee later in the day but we couldn’t stay to witness it. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Leon Reid installing his sculpture (photo © Jaime Rojo)

In this extensive collection of photos BSA gives you artists hard at work and hard at play with a little help from their friends. A traditional community mural format where everyone has their own slab to cover in their own style, Welling Court also engages the kids in the neighborhood, who frequently get to try their hand at painting or otherwise assisting the artists.

Leon Reid (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The day’s proceedings are part plastic art and part performance art as the artists often stop painting to interact with fans, inquisitors, Street Art aficionados and their fellow artists. Its part summer camp and part family reunion with the neighbors getting out the BBQ grill and setting up tables in the street while artists from around the globe are reconnecting and telling long tales and kids on scooters and skateboards weave in and out of the clusters of cans everywhere. With the abundance of homemade food and a variety of music playing at high volume the streets are alive and there’s nothing else you’d want to do on day like this.

Debuting a new secret doorway, Mr. Dan Witz (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dan Witz (photo © Jaime Rojo)

John Ahearn is a pioneer in the area of public art known for making sculptures with local people posing as models. His technique of live casting requires the model to sit while John creates a cast of them in plaster. As far back as the mid 1970s Mr. Ahearn’s tributes to his neighbors have been seen affixed to many walls throughout the Bronx. Sited as an important part of the development of the Street Art scene Ahearn’s work has also traveled to private collections of prominent and noted art collectors and art institutions.

Brooklyn Street Art spoke with Mr. Ahearn and asked him about participating in this open venue and how he felt doing his live casting in Queens. He responded with excitement about the word “live”.

“You used the word very properly. I feel alive today. I feel alive and I just turned 60 two weeks ago and I feel this is where my roots are. Right in the sidewalk, doing casting, particularly aimed at little children. We are going to do a piece that involves a child. She is a friend of mine from way back and we are expecting to have a crowd of kids here and it is going to be fun,” said Ahearn.

Ezra Li Eismont and Bunnie Reiss bring a fanstastical and folksy humor to this very urban setting. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hmmmm, wonder who lives here. Ezra Li Eismont and Bunnie Reiss. Detail (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ezra Li Eismont and Bunnie Reiss (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Deeks and El Celso sing a stunning duet. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

El Kamino and Alice Mizrachi murals in process (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Alice Mizrachi at work (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Always good to get a new view; El Kamino listens to a live critique of his work by local observers. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

El Kamino at work (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cern at work (photo © Jaime Rojo)

ROA in a tight spot. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Fumero at work (photo © Jaime Rojo)

JMR on the left and The Wretched Rapture Crew: Dave Loewenstein, Ashley Jane Laird and Cecilia Ross-Gotta (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Too Fly almost completed mural with Chor Boogie to the right (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Too Fly’s original sketch. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ani, Too Fly’s friend helping out with a little pink. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Zam at work on a very large roach. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Zam (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Zam’s roach doesn’t make Too Fly too happy. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Chris Stain and Billy Mode mural in process (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Chris Stain and Billy Mode detail shot (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jesse Jones to the left and Sinned to the right at work (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Joe Iurato at work (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jordan Seiler at work (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Katie Yamasaki and Caleb Neelon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lady Pink at work (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Overunder at work (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pablo Power at work (photo © Jaime Rojo)

R. Robots and Victor collaborating on a piece on Victor’s house. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The original inspiration for R.Robots and Victor. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

R. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ron English (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Royce Bannon and Matt Siren collab in process (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Royce Bannon and Russell King (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Veng RWK mural in process (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Veng RWK (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Clown Soldier: New Images from His Show “The Human Cannonball”

June 27, 2011 Artists

Clown Soldier’s “The Human Cannonball” Show in Chicago opened this Friday at The Pawn Works Gallery. Here’s a dazzling circus of images that illustrate the collage based art that Clown Soldier holds closest.

Clown Soldier (image © courtesy of the artist)

When the huge Clown Soldier wheat-paste first appeared on the street a about a year and a half ago (see Images of the Week 01.17.10), few people understood that it was the result of a long process of selecting elements, combining, and re-combining to reach a sense of balance – Most of us just took it at clown-face value. Here are some images from the new show and a few behind the scenes pics for context.

Clown Soldier (image © courtesy of the artist)

Brooklyn Street Art: So what do you do, how do you make these, what is the process?
Clown Soldier: I start with collage. I cut up thousands and thousands of pieces of imagery until something works. What’s great about collage is you come with things that you wouldn’t come up with if you were drawing. So you cut up all these fragments, you know – it’s inspired by (William) Burroughs and it goes back to Picasso right? Anyway that process, you cut up these things and you put them together and not in a million years I would put these things together or come up with… so when I find this gem, this absurd thing.

Read more from his first public interview and studio visit here:

A New Clown Comes to Town : Clown Soldier in Studio http://www.brooklynstreetart.com/theblog/?p=18922

Clown Soldier is participating this August in the BSA presented “Street Art Saved My Life” 39 New York Stories” show in Los Angeles.

Clown Soldier (image © courtesy of the artist)

Clown Soldier “Billy Craven Monarchy” (image © courtesy of the artist)

Clown Soldier (image © courtesy of the artist)

Clown Soldier “In God We Trust” (image © courtesy of the artist)

Clown Soldier (image © courtesy of the artist)

Images of the Week 06.26.11

June 26, 2011 Artists

Our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Anthony Sneed, El Mac, Elle, Goata, Joshua John, JR, Katsu, Leba, Obey, R. Robots, Retna, REVS, Reskew ACC.

Joshua John. Detail (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“The piece is called “Moon Mask” and it’s ink and acrylic on paper. The concept of the piece is based on the idea of revealing one’s true self and letting go of masks that blind us” Joshua John

Joshua John. Imminent Disaster old piece serves as a background for this beautifully rendered and hand painted wheat paste (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Joshua John. Detail (photo © Jaime Rojo)

French artist and Ted Prize winner JR on the Houston Street wall. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Obey…interrupted. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

R. Robots (photo © Jaime Rojo)

R.Robots (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Leba at the Fringe Show in LA (photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

Elle and Goata (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Elle (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Revs…here today… (photo © Jaime Rojo)

…gone tomorrow:-( (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Katsu (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Retna and El Mac in LA (photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

Unknow. Reskew ACC (Thank you Luna Park) Tag painted on wood and then screwed into the wall (photo © Jaime Rojo)

After a bit of power washing, this wall was cleared of any remnants of Nick Walker, Lister, and Goons to make way for the abstract minimalism of Anthony Sneed (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Photo © Jaime Rojo (No worries. These two baby birds didn’t end up on the dinner table of a rat. A kind New Yorker scooped them up to nurture them at her home until they learn how to fly)

See more images by photographer Carlos Gonzalez on Facebook

Specter Glorifies Graffiti With New Paintings, “Things Change”

June 25, 2011 Artists, Events, Features, France, Gallery, Paris

The More “Things Change”, the More They Stay the Same

Opening last night at Since-Upian Gallery in Paris, “Things Change”, Specter’s solo show is a collection of hand drawn, painted, carved, stenciled and collaged materials showing how the Street Artist continues to broaden technically while focusing socially.

Specter “Things Change” (photo © courtesy of the artist)

In these images special to BSA readers, these individual paeans to the unflinching rugged personality of Brooklyn streets capture a moment and a bit of humanity as a rapidly downshifting economy gusts and blows through the streets, catching more people off guard as Towncars with tinted windows glide by. It’s hard to feel romantic about a fraying social net through which more people are falling, which is where the care of Specter’s hand rendered scenes, unpatronizing, clear eyed, and possibly sarcastic, take us again.

Specter “Things Change” (photo © courtesy of the artist)

Similarly and with great determination, this Street Artist uses painting to capture and somehow give honor to the stickers and graffiti tags and stencils and commercial advertisements that appear on New York’s streets in some neighborhoods. Holding a mirror up, clearly with these paintings Specter appears to be glorifying graffiti and street art – a scathing charge leveled at certain museum exhibitions of late.

Specter “Things Change” (photo © courtesy of the artist)

As in his work over the past few years this show Specter continues to draw attention to the gentrification that speeds unabated throughout many neighborhoods of New York today, as local character is buffed and expunged for vertical glass big-screen sanitized living. The commentary is not so much the lost vibrance and character of a city that doesn’t return, but a focus on the people who are pushed further and further, but to where?

Specter “Things Change” (photo © courtesy of the artist)

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Specter “Things Change”

Since-Upian Gallery
211 rue Saint-Maur 75010 Paris

Getting High on Public Space: Old Rollers and Urban Planning

June 23, 2011 Artists, Features, Manhattan, NYC, On the Street

Seen from the perch of the Highline, surrounded by a carefully curated urban wilderbush and postmodern biosculpture, the boisterous cacophony of the honking screeching streets below fades into a minimalist Phillip Glass plain, peppered with sharpened and sweet Sufjan Stevens sonnets and Nina Simone longings. Sometimes NYC is best viewed and enjoyed from its high points. Most of the city is up here anyway.

Revs and Cost. This tag by these legendary duo echoes despite power washing (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Summer streets are a swirling gritty brew of culture and commerce, happenings and happenstance. To have the opportunity to go to heaven without leaving earth or NYC for that matter is what a well designed public space like the Highline is successful at. Of course it took years of fostering, finagling, financing. A melding of vision and vitriol, the outcome has been an astounding urban oasis. Opened in June of 2009 it has been an instant success, attracting thousands daily.

Ceptr (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A once abandoned carcass winding through this lower west side swath of Manhattan, the reclaimed former elevated freight railroad once connected factories and warehouses. Unused for nearly 30 years except by youthful graffiti artists and couples in love, it has debuted as on open pedestrian thoroughfare, a private and public place for citizenry, born from the vision of people and planners. As the second section opened last week the talents of so many are on display : architects, landscape designers, furniture designers, lighting designers and engineers all continue to work on its development (a 3^rd phase is in the works) exhausting the limits of their talents and imagination to make this urban gem; a work of art in a city famous for being a difficult place to make things happen.

Photo © Jaime Rojo

Here is a taste of the visual experience on the new section and some of the neighborhood it rises above and amidst; Blending the architecture with a bit of archeology, you can see old graffiti that was on the walls of the buildings next to it. It ads relevance, and interestingly, a sense of history, complimented by new commissioned public art installed along the park’s pathways and today’s Street Art below. Despite efforts to pressure wash some of these burners and rollers, one can still appreciate the outlines of the tags and the remnants of the paint on the brick walls; strains of an eroded and beautiful decay rising from the orchestra.

Photo © Jaime Rojo

A view of the old rail tracks and the possible future Section 3 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sarah Sze. An installation entitled “Still Life With Landscape (Model for Habitat)” Photo © Jaime Rojo

Ms. Sze’s sculpture is for birds, butterflies and insects wtih perches, feeding spots and birdbaths. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sarah Sze. Animal dwellings against the backdrop of their fellow human dwellings (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Photo © Jaime Rojo

An old Skullphone wheat paste (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The Park has been successful for business below with some new impresarios bringing amusements for children and adults (next to these balloons there is the beer garden). (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The view looking south (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The view looking East (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Gaia installed this piece right below the park on the 20th St. entrance (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kenny Scharf right below the park near the 30th Street entrance (photo © Jaime Rojo)

For information about The High Line Park click on the link beow:

http://www.thehighline.org/

You Animal! Shark Toof Solo at LeBasse Projects (Culver City, LA)

June 22, 2011 Artists, California, Culver City, Gallery

‘Nature Will Always Win’

Street Artist Shark Toof clips the short chain on the animal inside for his debut solo gallery exhibit with paintings and portraits of fantasy future hybrids with an air of rough trade, yet cuddly.

Shark Toof. Detail. (photo © Jennifer Strauss)

Known around New York for his schools of large Zen master sharks swimming proudly and quietly in formation across ever greater lengths of the city’s walls, Mr. Toof brashly expands his animal vocabulary here to include furry chested lounge singers, knife carrying romantic astrologists, forlorn front desk motel tramps with long pointy teef – and any other kind of role playing character he can coax from your subconscious.

Shark Toof. Detail. (photo © Jennifer Strauss)

Cooking with a killer instinct, tonight’s chef Shark Toof blows the trucker caps off expectations with this astonishing painting/illustration/finished/raw visual stew served over a bed of fresh graffiti tags. You’ll be too full for dessert, but maybe you would like your paws massaged?

Shark Toof. Detail. (photo © Jennifer Strauss)

From the LeBASSE projects website:

“After being featured in the recent Portsmouth Museum of Art’s
‘Street’ exhibition, Shark Toof returns to LA for his first major solo
gallery show. ‘Nature Will Always Win’ will feature a series of
paintings in Shark Toof’s signature style, but will surprise his fans
with a greater technical acumen than his traditional work on the
streets”.

Location – LeBASSE projects (Culver City Location)
6023 Washington Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232

Exhibit – Shark Toof :: ‘Nature Will Always Win’
Running – June 18th – July 10th, 2011
General Gallery Hours – Culver City: Tue – Sat, 12 – 6 pm

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Special thanks to photographer Jennifer Strauss

For more on Jennifer’s work click on the link below:

http://www.facebook.com/JenniferLeighStraussPhotography

Brooklyn Museum Cancels “Art in the Streets” Show for Spring 2012; Currently at LA MOCA

June 21, 2011 Artists

Director Sights Financial Difficulties

When we visited the LA MOCA “Art In the Streets” exhibit days before it opened in April, the feeling of camaraderie and expectation hung thick in the air as artists and curators and museum directors put the final touches on what they knew was the first major show of it’s kind; an historical taking stock of the route graffiti and Street Art travelled over the last half century to become an undeniably positive influence on art, music, fashion, … the culture. That week when talking with Sharon Matt Atkins, The Brooklyn Museum’s Managing Curator of Exhibitions, about the plans for bringing the show to our beloved city in Spring 2012, we were nearly apoplectic about the prospect of somehow being involved in the welcoming.

Banksy “Art in the Streets” MOCA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sadly this afternoon we hear from the museum and friends that the show has been withdrawn. Sally Williams from the Museum’s Public Information Department confirmed the news to BSA over the phone. “This is a very important show for anybody to have but it is also a huge and very costly exhibition and we just couldn’t get funding for it”.

Os Gemeos. Detail. “Art in the Streets” MOCA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Meanwhile the last hour in the Twitterverse has raised a bit of a buzz about the statement by Brooklyn Museum Director Arnold L. Lehman’s that the decision is “due to the current financial climate”. The current home for “Art in the Streets” has found the show receiving great critical and popular acclaim and the much sought after younger demographic forming lines, making their own videos of the show, and yes, hitting up the giftshop. It really looks like it is proving to be a blockbuster for the museum and business in the community. That’s why its even more sad and a little confusing to find that Brooklyn can’t host what would surely be a boon to the organizers, the museum, and the city.

We thought that the cultural history of our city would have been greatly enhanced by the Brooklyn Museum’s decision to be the next stop of this exhibition. Despite it’s association with the negative aspects of vandalism and all that go with it, graffiti and Street Art have transformed global arts culture in many positive ways and New York is known worldwide as one of the birthplaces, an epicenter of this rich cultural history and what it has evolved from it.

Swoon. Detail. “Art in the Streets” MOCA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

From the museum’s press release:

Brooklyn Museum Withdraws from Art in the Streets Exhibition

Brooklyn, New York–June 21, 2011. The Brooklyn Museum has canceled the spring 2012 presentation of Art in the Streets, the first major United States museum exhibition of the history of graffiti and street art. Organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, where it is currently on view at The Geffen Contemporary through August 8, 2011, the exhibition had been scheduled at the Brooklyn Museum from March 30 through July 8, 2012.

“This is an exhibition about which we were tremendously enthusiastic, and which would follow appropriately in the path of our Basquiat and graffiti exhibitions in 2005 and 2006, respectively. It is with regret, therefore, that the cancellation became necessary due to the current financial climate. As with most arts organizations throughout the country, we have had to make several difficult choices since the beginning of the economic downturn three years ago,” states Brooklyn Museum Director Arnold L. Lehman.

Fab Five Freddy speaking at the press conference of “Art in the Streets” LA at MOCA. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Fab Five Freddy in front of his piece. “Art in the Streets” LA at MOCA. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The Sharpshooting of Street Artists In Amsterdam : DosJotas

June 21, 2011 Amsterdam, Artists, On the Street, The Netherlands

Cities and municipalities around the globe have no cohesive opinion or set of organized practices in response to Street Art. Heated rhetoric and strict criminal proceedings in one city contrasts sharply with a laissez faire or even loving embrace in another. Terminology in one city may lump all artistic expression together with vandalism while another carefully makes distinctions between categories such as vandalism, sanctioned, graffiti, street art, and others.

DosJotas “Street Wars in Amsterdam” (photo © Courtesy of the artist)

While one city has on-the-spot buffers and power spray washers and special authorities on the lookout for even a sticker, others are sponsoring projects and setting aside walls or neighborhoods specifically for the growing interest and expression in what they consider a peoples art movement. Some are even rushing to preserve certain Street Art works as important landmarks. Among the contributing factors that determine how a city responds to the occurrence of graffiti and/or Street Art include cultural attitudes, class issues, relative wealth, historical attitudes, the ebb and flow of public opinion, the educational system, the influence of business and arts constituencies, and even the potential for one to make political hay. In between the extremes are a patchwork of options including, of course, the indifferent.

DosJotas “Street Wars in Amsterdam” (photo © Courtesy of the artist)

Some times the cat and mouse game in the mind of a street artist can become quite intense and storied. DosJotas is a Spanish Street Artist residing in Amsterdam who has been exploring with his art the relationship between the government and their Street Artists. With his installation titled “Street Wars in Amsterdam” he depicts the relationship in blunt warlike terms, with the power and military might far overshadowing the unarmed aerosol spraying individual. Using plain black stickers cut out as silhouettes, DosJotas portrays a very stark and severely unbalanced use of violent force brought to bear – helicopters, drones, sharpshooters – all allied to blow away the wheat paster or man with a can.

Dude, watch out in Amsterdam, they’ll crush you with a tank. No lie.

DosJotas “Street Wars in Amsterdam” (photo © Courtesy of the artist)

Of course, we know (or sincerely hope) the scenes are a metaphor, an exaggeration intended to illustrate. Looking at a description of the project from the artist, we’re thinking there are no snipers on the roof, but that it is a commentary on a more pervasive cleansing of public space that the artist is reacting to;

“To speak of weapons is not to strictly speak of pistols, machine guns or tanks; but of strategies.

The streets have become controlled and tamed by the architects, politicians and businessmen, where any expression contrary to power is censored or criminalized.

A spray, a poster, a stencil or a sticker, may be the best weapons in a city. All subversive and illegal acts performed in public spaces are a defense of public spaces.”

~ DosJotas

DosJotas “Street Wars in Amsterdam” (photo © Courtesy of the artist)

Visit DosJotas site for more on his art:

http://dosjotas.blogspot.com/

Skewville Completes Mural, Jon Burgerman Flashes People

June 20, 2011 Artists

Saturday was a magnificent day for creativity and Street Art in North Brooklyn – The Northside Music Festival and Northside Open Studios and Crest Fest all conspired to bring thousands of music and art fans to trounce and march and maraud through the streets and parks and abandoned lots to discover why the axis of culture has been shifting away from Manhattan these last few years. For many important and evident reasons, it is immensely easier to make stuff happen in Brooklyn for artists and the people who love them to aid and abet them in the creative spirit. We were immensely fortunate to be around to assist talents like near legendary Street Artists Skewville and Championship Doodler Jon Burgerman to make cool work this week and we’re happy as hell about it.

Skewville. And on the Seventh Day the other half shows up (for a photo op) (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The foot traffic was heavy beneath the scissor lift as Street Art duo Skewville was finishing up a weeklong engagement with a wall across from the Brooklyn Brewery – a Grand Finale of a cityscape called “Last Exit to Skewville” that evolved over the 7 days to become a sweeping playland of sharp abstract shapes and poppy color. In many ways it is the culmination of a direction Skewville has been taking further away from representational and closer to abstract, less text heavy and literal – more implied.

The steady stream of inquisitors on this street and the unsolicited advice and comments brought a smile to Ads’ face and a wisecrack to his lips often. In particular he liked the observation that a guy had about the two crossed boxes he tagged in the yellow patch of color in the corner. “I like the eyes you put in the sun,” he told the artist. Others just stopped to take pictures or even get their picture taken with Skewville. At one point it was a family affair as Ad and Droo and his young son were all spraying with the aerosol – as the youngster tried his luck first on a dropcloth with the pros giving advice, and then he hit the wall with two hands clasped around the can. Good to see Father’s Day weekend in full effect and the skillz being passed down to the next generation.

Skewville. The mark of the twins. Their legs are apparently insured for millions by Lloyds of Brooklyn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Images of the Week 06.19.11

June 19, 2011 Artists

A certain surreality is slipping through the sunbaked streets as we cross the summer threshold. The mashup aesthetic of course has been going since the early days of Bast (or before), but now that visual moorings are loosed, all manner of recombinant strains of references and their assigned meanings are also aflight. Not all of these are examples of this movement, but many appear influenced by it. As usual, Street Art is as much a reflection of the society as it is a participant in its directional moves.

Our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Banksy, Clown Soldier, CV, Cyrcle, Delicious Brains, Gaia, Hellbent, Hugh Leeman, ILL, Imminent Disaster, Jolie Soutine, KAWS, Mosstika, QRST and ROA with photographs by Jaime Rojo, Carlos Gonzales, and Birdman.

Mosstika has a new installation in the park in Dumbo, recalling the da-daist Brooklyn performance artist Gene Pool and his grass suits. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

It looks like Clown Soldier now guards the only Banksy in Chicago. An unknown artist stenciled the image of the woman laying down on the “steps”, themselves a shadow of previous construction. (photo © Clown Soldier)

JR’s global project “Inside Out” on the gates of the Green Hill Food Co-Op, where a huge neighborhood community reception was held Friday night to celebrate the new installations here. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A casualty of lust on the streets. An unknown artist wheat-pasted the portrait of Brooklyn/Queens congressman Anthony Weiner, an outspoken powerhouse who advocated for populist causes during his 20 years of public service and who resigned his post this week amidst a Sexting scandal. Now the only question for Weiner is what’s up? (photo © Jaime Rojo)

To the left there is a new “Splasher” in town. To the right the “sorry” wheat paste is a faux street art installation for a movie shoot about love and youth. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

This new QRST piece in Manhattan is an inscribed funeral dirge mourning the “disneyfication” of a once vibrant and envelop-pushing arts culture that made way for new artists in the city, with the visage of the current mayor worn as a mask by a plump and relaxed rat. We can only assume it is a reference to Manhattan, because a creative Babylon is going full force in some parts of Brooklyn as we speak. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kaws reacts to the cost of bottle service in the Meat Market while sitting below the lush, landscaped, and recently extended Highline. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sneak Peek of Hardware Inspired Crest Fest, Opening Today

June 18, 2011 Artists

No you haven’t.

Seen this before.

Joe Franquinha is creating an operetta of hardware-inspired art by 150 artists in his store before your eyes, and even the jaded cannot claim to have experience such a rich, relevant and comedic art show. “Joe, did you see the cat in the middle of the plants?” his mom asks about a sculpture during the last rush of installations that has run late into the wee hours every night this week.

In a Wiliamsburg hardware store opened by Joe’s dad and his uncle in 1962, even the curating of a 200-piece art show is a family affair. A light opera of jazz and syncopated rhythms and even burlesque, as you roll through the aisles the mostly local art sings arias and raps rhymes of the working people from every hook and particle board, dangled from the ceiling, and, in the case of Street Artist Olek, crocheted entirely around a shopping cart and hand truck.

For a decade Manny and his young son Joe, now in his late twenties, have thrown open the doors of the store to invite the artistic newcomers in this neighborhood to bring their creativity inside. What may be seen as a sly marketing maneuver to court a changing demographic actually morphed into a celebration of community, and comedy, with little tragedy. Cast on this leveling stage, Joe’s own passion for the arts enables a rare harmonic volley, where new talents never shown in a gallery before are hanging in the same aisle as more established performers with a global audience. As a participant in this real time interactive play, it’s up to you to discover them among the flat latex paint and gardening gloves.

BSA gives our thanks to Joe as a partner in provoking and invoking the creative spirit, and with this little sneak preview, encourages you to hop on the L train to Lorimer today and check it out. Follow the sound of bands and DJs and the smell of food vendors and walk past Jon Burgerman doodling all over a car on the sidewalk and you’ll be at the front door of Brooklyn’s own curious ode to hardware.

Street Artist General Howe has been manufacturing arms to sell on the open market. What you do with them is your business. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Click on the link below for more details about CrestFest and The Crest Hardware Art Show:

http://www.brooklynstreetart.com/theblog/?p=21765

Public Interventions: Swings and Hammocks Make People Really Happy

June 16, 2011 Artists, California, Features, London, Los Angeles, Manchester, On the Street, U.K.

Summertime, and the Swinging is Easy

Swinging over to the topics of public art and public engagement for a minute, here are two artists doing the heavy labor of providing a place to relax, to access the reverie of the sky and leaves and a moment of solitude. Appearing to be gorilla actions acting independently of one another on two different continents, artists Jeff Waldman and Narcelio Grud were inspired to ask friends help them place swings and hammocks in public places for people to enjoy. The process and results are here in some screen shots of the videos.

Swings: Los Angeles, by Jeff Waldman

The L.A. chapter of something called The Awesome Foundation awarded a grant to install $1000 worth of swings throughout Los Angeles. In spots all over the city conceptual artist Jeff Waldman installed a series of illegal swings and, judging from this video, Los Angelinos loved them.

Narcelio Grud: Brazilian Hammock Interventions

In another Urban “intervention” created by Brazilian artist Narcelio Grud with the traditional Braxilian hammock, displayed in public spaces in European cities for the free interaction with the population.

Alternating between tentative to full body immersion in the simple movement, it looks like it is a lot of fun for people to interact with this installation.

Here we see hammocks installed in the Manchester Town Centre in England. Lindenberg Munroe captured the experiences on this video.

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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 »
Merry Christmas 2025 From BSA
December 25, 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 # 10
December 24, 2025
This one caught our eye for the merging of classic graffiti nerve, blunt style execution, sentimental velvety roses, inspirational verses, …Read More »