All posts tagged: Jaime Rojo

Mint & Serf Cover District 36 …and Fairey, Gaia…

December 18, 2010 Artists, Interview, Manhattan, NYC

Mint & Serf (Mirf), the New York City based Street Art Collective give a nod to the era of mega clubs as they proudly unveil an ambitious new nightlife project with the opening of District 36.

Mirf Site Specific Installation at The Entrance of District 36 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Since this summer the duo have been creating three site-specific permanent art installations inside the newly opened nightclub in the garment district.

No strangers to indoor walls Mirf collaborated recently on the interiors of rooms in the Ace Hotel, giving visitors very individual experiences according to their location. When Mirf heard of a new club being planned in a former garment warehouse in Manhattan, memories of their own wild fun times as teenagers in Gotham’s mega-clubs came rushing back. The artists jumped on the offer to help in the planning of the club as it was being built and what has resulted from Mirf’s concepting is a visual experience evocative of today’s richness and yesterday’s rawness.

Mirf (photo © Jaime Rojo)

For the epic staircase of District 36 Mirf’s inspiration was the iconic New York big clubs that drew crowds of students and creatives and freaks in the mid 1980s and 90s, a time when the city seemed to have a more robustly participatory artistic nightlife – and a feeling that they would like to bring back. Says Mint, “We both grew up in the nightlife in the 90s so when we met the owners they told us that we should reference the vibe of The Tunnel and Limelight.”

“Those days it wasn’t about bottle service – It used to be more about dancing and losing yourself for about three to four hours. So we wanted to create a piece that was site specific to this place and that referenced the NYC nightlife of clubs like Area, Danceteria, Palladium, The Tunnel and Twilo,” says Mint.

The two poured over press clippings for research and Lucien Samaha a friend, gave the guys photos from his days as a DJ in The Tunnel and Limelight and Osvaldo Chance Jimenez a friend as well, gave them photos from today’s nightlife. The resulting hallway staircase is a collage of vintage photographs and graffiti that merges the city’s nightlife over a few decades into one.

“The Tunnel was such a great inspiration to me. I started going there when I was 16 or 17 and you just would walk in, paid your $20 and lose yourself. It was fun. It was entertaining. The clubs now days are very bland. Getting in and enjoying is not just for rich people,” says Mint.

The Middle Wall by Mirf at District 36 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: Tell me about this middle wall. What was the process and inspiration?

Mint: Since the early 2000’s we started with the idea of mixing genres. We both have backgrounds in graphic design and we always wanted to combine the sensibility of graffiti and graphic design and mash it up. We wanted to create something very surreal and visually stimulating where people can look at it and say, “this is a beautiful thing” regardless of whether or not they know what it is. To me the nightlife then (1990s) was about seeing so many interesting things including the decorations like the Kenny Scharf room (The Lava Lounge) at The Tunnel. That room was also the inspiration for this wall.

Mirf (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: Did you get inspiration from the ocean/underwater landscape also?

Mint: This wall is not so much about aquatics as it is about plants. We went on trips and took photographs of individual plants and began processing them in Photoshop, creating these original compositions. I really didn’t think about the design being too aquatic until we put it on the wall and took a picture and we went “Wow it looks almost like a fish tank!”

Brooklyn Street Art: Yeah in certain spots it looks like you are underwater and the sunlight is coming through.

Mint: It is a surreal landscape with elements of graffiti. I draw a lot inspiration from nature. I like the translucency of light.

Mirf Lounge (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: And the Lounge; Is this a place for people to drink and have conversation?

Mint: The sound system in this place is amazing and it is loud so if you are spending three or four hours in this place you might want to get away from the sound, sit down and maybe have a conversation. That’s why is set up as a lounge.

Brooklyn Street Art: Can you talk about the images on this wall? It seems like some of these images were ever-present in the city this summer.

Mint: The original concept for the image was Mirf, which is Mint and Serf put together. When we used to write on roofs and there wasn’t enough room for both our names we would combine our names into Mirf. So back in April I designed the original Mirf poster and put a bunch of them in Russia. It was one of the first times I’ve seen graffiti being put up on the street but with wheat paste.

Back from their trip Mirf decided that they were going to grab their posters and go through the city over everything. Says Mint: “It wasn’t about beef it was creative because the conversation with Street Art a lot of times is how ephemeral it is, but the funniest thing is, once someone goes over someone it’s like ‘Oh my God I can’t believe someone went over a Swoon piece.’ But it is like if you are putting stuff on the street you have to realize that it is either going to be buffed or someone is going to go over it and you just can’t have these feelings about it.”

Eliciting charges of “Wall Hogs” and worse, Mint and Serf covered walls like this with other street artists on them with their giant wheat-pastes this summer. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“If you say it’s ephemeral then you say is ephemeral that’s it. So we wanted to make that point present and we started going over everything to make sure people don’t take that seriously,” says Mint unapologetically.

Taking that message more formally into the gallery, Mirf’s show at Lyons Wier in Manhattan this summer shook some street art fans when they saw framed pieces by artists like Shepard Fairey and Gaia gratuitously tagged over by Mirf. “Collabo”, as Street Art term, instantly became muddied.

Phone pics at the gallery of Mirf going over Gaia (left) and Shepard Fairey (right) (photos © Steven P. Harrington)

For his part, Mirf found the whole experience with their peers to be positive, despite some of the negative responses. “The response was great. This conversation needs to happen more often. When people think, “Oh Mirf went over us”, it is not going over you at all. We are kind of opening up people’s minds. So that’s what the whole idea behind what this Mirf thing is”

At the gallery show they also created fresh black and white posters using some of their graffiti friend’s tags and stylized them in the Mirf style – now reprised for the back wall of the new lounge.

Mirf (photo @ Jaime Rojo)

“When we saw this round wall we knew the posters would be perfect. We wanted to pay an homage to all our friends we did graffiti with over the years. So these are a series that will probably be an ongoing project and we’ll add more people to it”

To go to Mint & Serf site click here

For more information about District 36 click here

Fun Friday 12.17.10

December 17, 2010 Artists, Brooklyn, Events, Fundraising, Gallery, Interview, NYC, Opening

Fun Friday

Bing and Bowie Reunion 2010!

To put you in the right spirit for your holiday shopping and spray painting, BSA reader Jodi has alerted us to this charming holiday classic, remade by two of today’s singing sensations! Grab your cardigan and pipe!

Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy with Will Ferrell & John C. Reilly from Will Ferrell

Veng from RWK Flies Solo

Detail of “Jerome”, by H. Veng Smith (photo © Jaime Rojo)

H. “Veng” Smith “Identifiable Reality”at Pandemic
BSA Interview with H. Veng Smith this week.

Legacy of Letters

Luca Barcellona really impresses with his command and his almost choreographic hand style at calligraphy. Sit back and enjoy on this fun friday.

New SWOON “Walki” Print

As she readies to return to Haiti (interview next week), Swoon is offering a new print to support The Konbit Shelter Project.

“The Walki print is an immediately touching portrait by Swoon of a boy named Walki who lives in the village of Bigones and spent time with the Konbit Shelter team at the community center building site this last summer. The print is made of a three-layer screenprint on handmade Indian jute paper measuring 13″ x 21″ and is limited at an edition of 300 – all proceeds from the sale will go towards support of the Konbit Shelter Project.

The Konbit Shelter Project was created with the idea that a group of artists, engineers, architects and builders could pool their individual knowledge, resources and time to make a lasting difference in post-earthquake Haiti”

Learn more here at Upper Playground

Looptaggr: Endless tags on the Run

BSA Technology and Art UPDATE: This weekend the new Tron movie comes out to thrill and chill techno geeks everywhere. Apparently they took 28 years off of Jeff Bridges with new developments in CGI. I’ve pre-ordered the personal CGI device coming out this spring by Apple – the iDigress personal age reducer should enable me to jump fences and run through empty lots with more agility. Speaking of Hi-Tech wizardry, take a look at the new LoopTaggr, which really cuts down on your stenciling time.

Censorship! MOCA Has A BLU Tiger By The Tail

December 15, 2010 Artists, California, Events, L.A., Los Angeles, Museum

It’s hard to believe that Jeffrey Deitch censors artists.

One quick look into his adventurous past incarnation as the director and owner of Deitch Projects in New York shows a guy who has championed the work of artists outside the mainstream and given them a forum to speak. Hard to see the same guy who mounted a burned-out meth lab by Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe, (Black Acid Co-op) being queasy about offensive content. Did you ever see the parade he sponsored through the streets of Lower Manhattan for a few years? Don’t remember anyone crying censorship in those very public multi-membered panoplies of costume and conceptual art. The fact is there is a very public record stretching back many years that shows he routinely encouraged his artists to expand intellectually and explore new ideas regardless of how difficult or controversial they might have been.

The BLU mural as it was completed on the MOCA wall last week. (photo © Brain Forrest/MOCA)

The public controversy of the buffing of a large wall on the side of the Geffen Contemporary Wing of MOCA by internationally known street artist BLU shortly after it’s completion last week feels more like an easy way to pile on him, maybe by those who didn’t like him in the first place. Sometimes people just like to see successful people fall. If you were to listen to the wailing of the Censorship Battalion you would have thought that Mr. Deitch himself had run screaming, bucket in hand, through the streets splashing paint on the mural and all over his pink suit, ranting about the dollar-draped coffins BLU had arranged in formation across the massive wall. But the timeline of how Deitch mismanaged the quickly exploding events after the buffing really points more to being obtuse than obstreperous. He didn’t handle the information communication very well. Looks like he made some rookie mistakes in his new position as the head of a major public institution of art. And?

Only a year ago in October 2009 BLU finished another giant mural on the Deitch Projects location in Long Island City in Queens that some said was a fun-loving jab at Deitch himself. So it looks like this curator-artist relationship has some history.

Blu at Deitch Studios in Long Island City, New York, October 2009 (photo @Jaime Rojo)

It just doesn’t add up.

Censorship in this country, especially art censorship, is always a hot spicy topic – Why, did you hear about the Smithsonian? Less obvious is the ongoing sort of cleansing across our increasingly corporate mono-culture and this alien creature politics-as-sports media that exhausts the populace into confusion and conformity. That kind of censorship of the many gray areas simplifies everything to an Us vs Them mentality. Rather than the knee-jerk suggestion of boycotting his upcoming show of Street Art, let’s give the new guy a chance to acclimate to this new position he’s had for six months.

BLU Mural being buffed. (Photo courtesy of and © Casey Caplowe/Good Culture)

That said, if Deitch was being sensitive to the Veteran Affairs neighbors and cognizant of the history of the Japanese community in the US, his timing was a bit late. And if we are talking about sensitivity and communication, it looks like BLU got left out of the equation altogether. How can this be? A very prolific artist travels to LA to paint a big commissioned wall and there wasn’t a sketch?

We all censor ourselves every day. Sometimes for honorable reasons like not mentioning your co-workers’ deceased wife, or even pragmatic reasons, like rolling down your sleeves to hide your tattoos from your girlfriend’s dad. It’s all about context, and nuance. In the end, this microscopic chapter in Street Art is between BLU and MOCA, and only they know the contracts they have and the inner workings of their relationship. Maybe we can all find something else to speculate about.

BSA Holiday Giveaway : Banksy, C215, Street Art New York, Beautiful Losers

December 14, 2010 Artists, BSA Giveaway

Dear BSA Readers: We’ve invited six artists to participate in this year’s “Eleven Wishes for 2011”. That leaves 5 empty spots. Now we would like to invite five BSA family like you to be a part of it — and win extravagant prizes for your efforts:

All you need to do is send ONE wish and ONE picture or image file to Giveaway@brooklynstreetart.com no later than December 17 and we’ll pick the 5 winners.

PRIZES

THE DEEEELUXE PLATINUM BUCKET: This prize will go to the first TWO submissions we pick. In addition to being featured on BSA “Eleven wishes for 2011” these two lucky readers will also get:

A copy of Banksy’s “Exit through the gift shop” DVD.
A copy of “Beautiful Losers” DVD.
A copy of C215 new book “Community Service” (release date 01/28/11, but you get yours now!)
A signed copy of our new book “Street Art New York”.

THE GOLD PLATED BUCKET: This prize will go to the next THREE submissions we pick. In addition to being featured on BSA “Eleven Wishes for 2011” these three lucky readers will also get:

A copy of Banksy’s “Exit through the gift shop” DVD.
A copy of “Beautiful Losers” DVD
A signed copy of our new book “Street Art New York”.

RULES: You must write a wish for 2011 that you wish for yourself or others; extra points for personal and respectful. Image can be anything BUT you must hold the copyrights to publish the image. Image must be at least 740 wide, and can be in .jpg, .tif, .png, or similar format. Submissions must be received no later than December 17, 2010. Please include your postal address to receive the prizes. Final selections are made by the editors and buckets are not included. We can’t wait to hear from you!!!

5 Examples from last year; Martha Cooper, Broken Crow, Jef Aerosol, Hellbent, Cake

SHOUT OUTs: To Beastie Boy Adam Yauch and Joshua Fu at Oscilloscope Laboratories for donating the DVDs. Go to this link to see their full selection of titles. Also to our editor Jeremy Echard at Critères éditions for the c215 books before they are even published, and to Ali Gitlow at Prestel Publishing for Street Art New York. Thank you all!

PRIZE Descriptions

Exit Through the Gift Shop, Director: Banksy
A chaotic trip through low-level criminality, comradeship, and incompetence. By turns shocking, hilarious and absurd, this is an enthralling modern-day fairytale… with bolt cutters.
Exit Through the Gift Shop DVD

Beautiful Losers, Director: Aaron Rose
In the early 1990’s a loose-knit group of like-minded outsiders found common ground at a little NYC storefront gallery. Rooted in the DIY (do-it-yourself) subcultures of skateboarding, surf, punk, hip-hop, and graffiti, they made art that reflected the lifestyles they led. Featuring, Shepard Fairey, Ed Templeton, Mike Mills, Harmony Korine, Barry McGee, Chris Johanson, Geoff McFetridge, Jo Jackson, Margaret Kilgallen, Stephen Powers, and Thomas Campbell.
Beautiful Losers DVD

Street Art New York, Authors: Steven P. Harrington and Jaime Rojo
with forward by Carolina A Miranda, published by Prestel
Written by the founders of BrooklynStreetArt.com, Street Art New York the authors take you on a fast sprint through the streets, along the waterways, on the rooftops, and up the walls of todays ever-morphing Street Art scene, as only New York can tell it. Featured in this unplugged and dynamic collection of images are works by 100+ artists, some wildly exciting newcomers as well as some of the “old masters”, each one telling their New York story.

C215 Community Service, Author: C215
with introduction and interview by Steven P. Harrington, and preface by Marc & Sara Schiller from Wooster Collective and Thierry Froger, published Jan 2011 by Critères éditions.
World famous globe-trotting French stencil artist C215 as seen through the eyes of 12 of today’s renowned street art photographers, covering ground in New York, London, Tel Aviv, Dakar, Moscow, Vitry, Casablanca, and New Delhi among others. In a style recognizable by Street Art fans everywhere, C215 raises the game to poetry while keeping it very human. Photographers include Vitostreet (FR), Chrixcel (FR), RomanyWG (GBR), Luna Park(US), Jaime Rojo (US), Lois Stavsky (US), Jessica Stewart (IT), Vinny Cornelli (US), Elodie Wilhem (CHE), Lionel Belluteau (FR), Unusualimage (GBR), and Gregory J. Smith(BR).

H.Veng Smith Solo At Pandemic: Studio Visit And Interview

December 13, 2010 Artists, Brooklyn, Events, Features, Gallery, Interview, new york, NYC, Opening, Street Talker Interview

Aerosol, Arsenic and Squared-Jawed Vikings

Forging Identity in “Identifiable Reality”

“Visual Thought”, by H. Veng Smith (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A traditional A-frame wooden easel smacked up with street art stickers sits in a tiny pitched roof attic studio. The focused artist sits, poised brush in hand, staring intently at his palette of carefully selected and mixed pigments with linseed oil, deciding how to recreate a spray painted tag by Street Artist Dark Cloud onto the stone walled bridge in his canvas.

“With these pieces I’m more interested in trying to have fun with them. I want to give you a reality, but at the same time an alternate reality,” so explains Veng of Robots Will Kill, now H. Veng Smith. The name itself indicates his desire to consolidate two extremes in his career so far – “Veng” from his days as a graff/street artist and member of the New York collective Robots Will Kill – and the formal name “H. Smith” under which he first showed his finely rendered oils on canvas.

Detail from “Visual Thought”, by H. Veng Smith (photo © Jaime Rojo)

As Veng painted canvasses over 3 months for his first solo show as a “Street Artist” on display indoors at Pandemic Gallery this Friday, he found himself again reconciling his two distinct interests – graff culture and the Dutch Masters. Looking at the oil painting of a survey of the expanse of a river alongside a non-descript European town from perhaps a few centuries ago, you see he has included tags from Street Artists circa 2010 like ECB, Chris from RWK, and Dark Cloud on walls in the village.

Brooklyn Street Art: I like the way that you pay homage to street artists and graffiti artists in these formal, painterly, old-world settings

Veng: That to me is the ideal world. I really enjoy that piece because it mixes the things that I like all in one. It’s got the street art, which I like, it’s got the graffiti, which I like, it’s got some modern conveniences like trucks moving because obviously you need to drive. I don’t want to be sitting around with a horse and buggy or something. Airplanes…. I like my laptop. At the same time I like the simple quiet old times, and the ideas of them, the old buildings. You know if you look at the city today I don’t think it looks as nice as it did a hundred years ago or in the 1800’s. If you go to some of the old Brooklyn or Manhattan buildings, you see that they’re beautiful. And the Manhattan skyline is beautiful too – it’s world-famous obviously. But I’m for classy, rustic, old world aesthetics. And I hope that’s what you get when you look at these pieces.

“Jerome”, by H. Veng Smith (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“Identifiable Reality”, his first solo show as a Street Artist will showcase his own version of reality, which is to say, fictional.

Brooklyn Street Art: What does the title of the show refer to?
Veng: Just to all the pieces in the show that are realistic – you know what you are looking at, nothing is abstract in the design. But at the same time the ideas are a little abstract. You don’t usually see somebody with a hat made of books on their head with candles. Even though the candles on the hat is a realistic idea, because in olden days they would put candles on their hats for visibility to paint at night. Michelangelo and Goya both wore hats with candles when they were painting. A lot of people assume that this is all fantasy but it is not completely fantasy.

Goya’s ” Self-Portrait in the Workshop”, 1795, shows the artist with candles in his hat. (Courtesy Museo de la Real Academia de Bellas Artes, Madrid)

Out the open hinged window comes the sound of two Black-capped Chickadees calling each other in the branches of the blazing fall yellow trees. The conversation turns to the poker-faced man who appears throughout his giant street pieces and in these smaller canvasses. Veng calls the reappearing ever morphing costume-changing dude his “character”, and his blunt center stage presence is always beguiling with a hint of the comic. Truthfully, these “characters” are all probably versions of Veng, exhibiting different qualities of his own character, if only slyly.

Detail of “Jerome”, by H. Veng Smith (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: In a lot of your work there is a healthy dose of humor, however subtle.
Veng: Yeah – I wouldn’t consider it too serious. It’s kind of playful.

Brooklyn Street Art: Your character for example; It’s got this expression in this piece. What is that expression? Is he tasting a sour lemon?
Veng: He’s an unhappy Viking. You know, he’s plundering and he’s just not in the best of times I guess.

Brooklyn Street Art: I’ve noticed the shape of the face of the character has now become completely square, even with corners now.
Veng: I started off doing a more circular shape and I like it because it is recognizable and I always want to stick to more simple shapes, and I like them to be unrealistic. So no matter how realistically you paint an eye or a nose, no matter what you ever do to it, it is never going to look real because the shape alone is going to kill that for you totally. I would never use, say, a triangle or something. I like the idea of having that clean edge circular or square shape to break up the reality that you might otherwise get. I think it separates it from other things that are going on. I could sit here and do all of these with more realistic facial proportions but I feel like, for me, it would take out some of the fun of the character.

Brooklyn Street Art: And in fact, the character is fun.
Veng: Yeah, you look at first and it almost looks “identifiable” but then you realize it’s completely square. You take away the eyes and nose …..

(image © Jaime Rojo)

For a minute you forget you are talking to a well known aerosol wielding Brooklyn Street Artist in this cozy Staten Island hideaway. It’s stillness is free of clutter and there are neatly stacked glass jars of pigment, oils, a mortar and pestle. Reconciling these two worlds must be work in itself.

Brooklyn Street Art: Recently there was a show at 17 Frost Gallery with Erik Burke & Cahil Muraghu where they married graffiti techniques and vocabulary with the Hudson School of painting. When I saw some of their pieces I was impressed and I was also thinking of the way that you are marrying two styles are a few centuries apart from one another.
Veng: You know if you look at the books I have on my shelf, people usually get a kick out of it because there will be a Chuck Close book next to a book on Jan van Eyck, or some Dutch guy. I personally find great interest in all of them and I reference them and I think when you can combine them using creativity it is a great luxury. Technique-wise, we have a lot to learn from the past.

Brooklyn Street Art: I’ve heard you talk before about having within your style these polar opposites and you’ve withstood some criticism from people like your peers for example. When you were doing graff on the street and you started to do Street Art based stuff – let alone Dutch Masters influenced pieces- what were some of the responses you were getting?
Veng: It’s definitely been tougher from the graffiti crowd than the Street Art crowd. But the graffiti crowd, especially here in New York, has loosened up on it’s ideas basically due to a lot of Europeans coming over doing graffiti too. The graffiti scene was always sort of A-B-C-D.

Brooklyn Street Art: In what way?
Veng: You spray paint, you use your caps, that’s it. You do it illegally, you never get too artsy. Whereas with Street Art, you can kind of get almost as artsy as you want.

Brooklyn Street Art: So you are saying that those people who might have given you a hard time before might not be doing it now.
Veng: Now they don’t do it at all. But at the same time, a lot of people won’t consider it graffiti. They’ll say, “Oh, he uses spray paint to do it but it’s not graffiti”. So I think a lot of the borders have all been cut down.

Brooklyn Street Art: So would you say a certain level of respect exists across all of it?
Veng: Yeah. I mean I’ve always been pretty peaceful and I’m pretty easy going. I’ve never really had any personal problems. I mean some people give their opinions, which is fine obviously, because not everybody likes everything the same and thank God.

(image © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: So you pick all of your paints.
Veng: Yeah, a lot of the paints, about 85% of them, I mix myself from the pigments. There are certain pigments I don’t use.

Brooklyn Street Art: What do you mix the pigments with
Veng: Oil – linseed oil or possibly walnut oil. – Which you can kind of smell in here. And then I add to them different stuff like resin, which will speed up the drying and give it a glossy hardened feel.

Brooklyn Street Art: Where do you get your pigments and supplies?
Veng: A lot of the supplies I get from a local colorman in Brooklyn, Robert Doak in Dumbo. His business has been around longer than I’ve been living. A lot of the pigments and materials I use come from him. It’s really specific, not just to oil paintings but to traditional materials. Also I get a lot of stuff from a company out in California called Natural Pigments, which specializes in all the hard-to-find pigments. Also I use the more dangerous stuff like lead-based paints and paints that contain arsenic.

Brooklyn Street Art: Really? Arsenic?
Veng: Yes, it’s a color called Opiate. It’s a really gorgeous yellow, but it contains arsenic.

Brooklyn Street Art: So do you have to wear a mask using some of these pigments?
Veng: When I mix the pigments I have little dust mask on for the super dangerous ones. – Not that I feel like I really need one because I’m dealing with it in very small doses. Obviously I don’t have the window open in front of me or the fan going. But just to be on the safe side I do wear a dust mask. Some are more dangerous if absorbed through the skin. Like Vermillion – (takes the glass bottle to show) – it’s a really really nice red. But if you absorb it through your skin it’s dangerous.

Brooklyn Street Art: This is a pestle.
Veng: It’s a grinder for the paints. You put it on here with the oil. Here are different oils, here is the walnut you can smell if you want.

Brooklyn Street Art: Yeah I think I can smell the linseed. That is really understated. I think people use linseed oil for furniture.
Veng: Yup, linseed oil – if you would ask people, probably 80% of them use linseed oil for their paints.

A partial lineup of pieces by H. Veng Smith (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: How does it feel doing a solo show?
Veng: It feels great. I’m nervous. I hope everyone enjoys the work and likes it and shows up. It’s been good to get a body of work together in this genre because I’ve never really had a full collection of these pieces before that is more influenced by my Street Art. I’ve done a single piece for a commission or a group show here or there. So I’m really excited putting them together and coming up with similar ideas, breaking them down into groups, and having them all come together.

Finally it’s like a family of these street art pieces. To be honest I’ve never seen so many of these character paintings together in the studio.

Excerpt: Painting Birds

Veng photo © Jaime Rojo

A Nuthatch by H. Veng Smith (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“I think they are the neatest things to paint. They give you all sorts of texture, they give you colors. I just think that technically they are great to paint, they give you the details, you can keep them super rendered. I’ve always been a big fan of birds in general – watching them, taking pictures of them. When I lived in Pennsylvania I did a lot of bird watching. So I just like them in general, and to paint them it’s a lot of fun and so far people have shown a lot of interest in my birds.”

“Alone in Thought” by H. Veng Smith (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Excerpt: Swedish/Norwegian Architecture

“Gotland” by H. Veng Smith ( photo © Jaime Rojo)

We had relatives from Sweden here and they gave me this tile, which has a Stave church in it, which I thought was really great. So I looked up these churches and they all have these really good architectural features, so I did my character like them. It’s a church. Instead of saying church building, you would say “stave”

Norwegian Stave Church (photo © Sue Renault)

“I thought the buildings looked amazing so I automatically thought of putting it in. I just like the old wooden buildings like that. They are fun to paint and not a lot of people reference stuff like this. It’s not secret, everything I have at home is kind of European, or fantasy based. But at the same time, this church is an actual architectural design that exists.

Detail of “Gotland” by H. Veng Smith ( photo © Jaime Rojo)

Portrait of the Artist by Jaime Rojo ( © Jaime Rojo)

BSA…………………….BSA…………………….BSA…………………….BSA…………………….BSA…………………….BSA…………………….

“Identifiable Reality” at Pandemic Gallery with H. Veng Smith

Friday December 17, 2010, 7-9 pm

Images of the Week 12.12.10

December 12, 2010 Artists, Brooklyn, BSA Images Of The Week, Manhattan, new york, NYC, On the Street, Week in Images

Our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Burning Candy, Deeker, DsCreet, Earl Greyhound, Goya, Jimmy Snatch, KARMA, Kill, Nineta, Paul Richard,Plasma Slug, Shin Shin, Skewville, Tek33, and UFO

Burning Candy Tek 33 and Dscreet at Factory Fresh Gallery (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A cluster of original pencil drawn faces by an anonymous artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Whatever you say, Paul! Paul Richard (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A B&W photograph of a boy by an anonymous artist. And by the way, Brooklyn trio Earl Greyhound Rocks! (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Deeks offers this withering assessment: “Good For Nothing”. And there’s a little pink Plasma Slug too. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Skewville sayz: “You are not in Kansas anymore” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Skewville (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Goya and UFO (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A Death Panel of some sort. Kill (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nineta (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dashing through the snooooww. ShinShin (photo © Jaime Rojo)

KARMA “Be Kind To One Another Because Most Of Us Are Fighting A Hard Battle” Dublin, Ireland (photo © Jimmy Snatch)

Huichol Art: Transforming A Vintage Beetle in Mexico

December 11, 2010 Artists, Fundraising, Mexico, Museum

Pimping Your Ride Via Indigenous Traditions

Applying beads to the “Vochol” (Vocho + Huichol) Image from the Facebook page of Museo de Arte Popular.

Mexico’s Indigenous people have been making art from millenia. When the Spanish invaded and conquered what’s now modern Mexico in 1492 they found complex metropolis, their buildings decorated with intricately carved sculptures and brightly colored painting. The painful conquest didn’t annihilate their passion for art making and in modern times their new works of elaborate pieces of art are often displayed in museums’ collections.

For the opening, some of the artists appeared in traditional garb of The Huichol, an indigenous ethnic group of western central Mexico

For this piece eight members of two Huichol families took the task to create a piece of art, seven months in the making, by using more than two million glass beads and a vintage Volkswagen as a canvas. Inspired by the designs of Francisco Bautista, a patriarch of one of the families, they incorporated their traditional indigenous theologies and cultural symbols with modern vernacular.

The serpents on the the front design represent “rain”, while the the roof is decorated with the sun and four eagles. Birds were thought to be the intermediaries between gods and mortals. The rear part and sides are tributes or “ofrendas” of fruits of the earth to their gods.

The piece will be shown at Museo de Arte Popular for a period of time and then the four wheeled piece will be go on tour in Europe and the in the rest of the Americas. Finally the piece will be sold at auction with the proceeds of the sale to benefit the programs of the museum.

The New Kid Zoom on the Block: A Steady Hand, Taxidermy and His Solo Show in NYC

December 9, 2010 Artists, Brooklyn, Events, Gallery, Manhattan, new york, NYC, Opening

A frigid Brooklyn late night studio visit with Australian street artist Kid Zoom includes an impressive roaring taxidermied brown bear on his hind legs, a cache of finished canvasses spread all around, and a tiger-striped kitten named Trouble rambunctiously attacking anything that moves, including your foot. In this large industrial hideout infused with spray fumes, Kid Zoom is madly joyfully preparing for his first solo show in New York City.

A big bear hug from Kid Zoom. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kid Zoom’s only tools are aerosol cans, a free hand and his imagination. For the Opera Gallery pop up in the Meat Packing District this Saturday he’s completed 25 pieces since summer. Looking at the varied lot of canvasses, painted swords, and the bear, he feels well prepared.

Kid Zoom photo © Jaime Rojo

A relatively new kid on this block, Kid Zoom began as a graffiti artist back home seven years ago, eventually mastering a vocabulary of realism with amazing speed and branching out into a mock horror genre of beasts and phantasma in street art that took over walls and even sides of suburban houses. The young buck brings a love of dark film to the game; the human body parts, hands, eyes, skulls and even some of his portraits resemble stills from movies. His Hitchcockian black and white paintings are detailed and precise – with a sudden shard of crimson slicing through them. Dredging the fearful underground sewers of the subconscious, his subject matter often appeals to our current fascination with vampires and zombies.

Kid Zoom photo © Jaime Rojo

This new show will also reveal his natural talent for rendering portraits of the living with a realism hard to get from the aerosol can – which is probably why his street art has brought him into the gallery. For his colorful portraits he “sketches” his subjects in black and white paint until the full portrait emerges. Afterward he builds the portrait with color until the black and white paint is not visible anymore. Two canvasses of giant gesturing hands are intimidating and boldly lyrical.

Kid Zoom photo (© Jaime Rojo)

At BSA we always say that everyone drinks from the same river of ideas and creativity that passes by – it’s a river full of possibilities. What differentiates one artist’s work from the others is their personal imprint, and the level of their craftsmanship. Kid Zoom’s development of both qualities in a relatively short period is remarkable and we’re looking forward to seeing the currents of his own distinctive style fully merging into a body of work that is sure to come. We also encourage him to wear a mask when spraying!

The spoils. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kid Zoom (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kid Zoom portrait (photo © Jaime Rojo)

To learn more details about his show click here

To see more of Kid Zoom’s work click here

The Simple Street Art Stencil: Cut To the Truth

December 8, 2010 Artists, Brooklyn, Manhattan, new york, NYC, On the Street

“All I want is the truth. Just give me some truth” – John Lennon

John Lennon, a guy who lived in the eye of a hurricane of hype for a major portion of his adult life once screamed at the top of his lungs for something called truth. At a time when we are condescendingly shouted at to give up our previous conceptions of personal privacy for security and cookies, naked air travelers and torture victims and spillcams and spreadsheets and state secrets are now streaming live via the world wide buffet and everybody is seeing more truth than they were ready for.

Amidst the data storm, something about the simple, uncluttered straight-forward real deal is straight-up appealing. Maybe that is why the one layer stencil, however ornate it can be sometimes, is an enduring favorite of street art fans and artists. Effective visual communication doesn’t have to be fussy, filigreed, or high-falutin’, and some would argue that it takes real courage to let one stencil do the simple truth-telling.

C215 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Care (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

$howta (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nothing To See Here Sir Carry On (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bishop 203 (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

American Family With Red Son (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The Ghost of tax cuts past. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

GILF does Betty White? (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Joe Franquinha Peace and Sport (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Silver Ghost (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Um, nice socks. Olympia (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Look who’s on the TeeVee. Sunset Boulevard (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Poison Rabbit (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Walt Whiskers Alley Cats (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Reading under the learning T. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

On the 30th anniversary of Lennon’s death in NYC… We love you John and Yoko.

Miami 2010: Tales of the Streets

December 6, 2010 Art Fair, Artists, Events, Florida, Miami, On the Street, Primary Flight

Welcome to Miami! Now go home.

– It’s a paraphrase of the Christmas crabby New Yorker who relies on the tourists who pump money into Broadway and Times Square restaurants and FAO and who actually eat those hot dogs and pretzels on the street. In the case of Miami, Art Basel 2010 draws to a close now and one billion dollars are estimated to have been transacted. When you pair that figure with the estimated 2-3000 artists participating, it looks like the artists must have made out rather well, right?

Certainly there were more Street Artists than ever attending the events and transforming walls everywhere with their work and creativity – at least in the unofficially sanctioned areas. At the moment Miami is “The only city in the US where graffiti appreciates property value,” ironically says Mint and Serf, a Street Art collective visiting the tropical city from frigid New York. In an odd twist on the “broken window theory” and urban blight, artists who are normally looking over their shoulder can actually wave to and talk with police who are driving by in some run-down areas where they are given free reign over large swaths of walls. At this sunny moment in time various agendas are intertwined and one wonders how long this golden age lasts.

Street Art photographer and observer Geoff Hargadon took in the breadth of the week on the street and attended a number of the events over the past weeks’ art orgies. He captured many jewels and quick moments with his camera and his 6^th sense, which are below. As various larger pieces are unfinished right now, we’ll be going back in a few weeks for a year-end overview.

In addition to an intuitive eye about the art trends happening that impact the scene, Geoff gives a commentary about what else he’s thinking about: “Here is the other thing that’s a trend: property owners have their hands over all these walls for artists to takeover, and then suddenly they are leased out to restaurants, coffee shops, and other businesses. It’s hard to know who’s playing whom here – maybe it’s a happy co-existence – but when does the property owner step up to support these guys in other ways? (Unless, of course, it’s already happening.) Either way, artists are playing a big role in the development of these neighborhoods, and whether they know it or not, as the area gets more developed and gentrified, they will eventually run themselves out of town. Whether they are getting paid or not, they are creating their own extinction in Miami.”

brooklyn-street-art-cash-for-your-warhol-miami-2010-web

Images of the Week 12.05.10

December 5, 2010 Artists, Brooklyn, BSA Images Of The Week, Manhattan, new york, NYC, On the Street, Week in Images

Our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring: Alec, El Celso, Faile, Kenny Scharf, Kouk, Robots, and UFO

The finished Kenny Scharf Houston Street wall has brought a jolt of flamboyant color to New York just as all the leaves have finally been beaten off the trees and we transition to grays. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

This dead bird sticker has been on this spot in the Meat Packing District of Manhattan since 2007. Some street art is made to last! (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kouk’s paintings of American Indians have been appearing in New York City – maybe they are a reference to this land that once was theirs before all the European illegal immigrants swarmed in? (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brian Adam Douglas AKA Elbow-Toe : Inside Out

November 30, 2010 Artists, Events, Gallery, Interview, Museum, Street Talker Interview

Brian Adam Douglas née Elbow-Toe stands inside looking out a third floor Brooklyn window down the block as late autumn winds whip and churn leaves and debris across the sidewalk, blowing lids off garbage cans and a Yankees cap off a bike messenger. At his feet and all over the blond hardwood floor behind him are scattered piles of loose ArtForum pages; poked, pocked and carved with a sharp blade to cull their very particular hues.

“There’s a certain amount of chaos but I know where everything is. This is the brown palette, right? This is all browns. This is greys, oranges, violets, blues, yellows, greens. I use that palette (pointing) – I have that set up. That’s how I learned how to paint – with that particular palette. The chromatic values are laid out in a grayscale value,” says the artist as he explains the disarray.
Brooklyn Street Art: I don’t know what that means.
Brian Adam Douglas: So basically the color goes from white to black. If you were to take a black and white photo of this right now, you would see. That yellow would be a real light grey, and it works it’s way down to black.

His Street Art peers a few blocks from here, the Brooklyn Street Art collective Faile, have been exploring a new technique this year they call wood painting; not quite collage, nor sculpture or painting. Since the leaves that are blowing outside these windows first began to bloom in March this year, Brian has been exploring another difficult to categorize method of “painting” by assembling thousands of custom cut pieces of paper to create nearly 20 new canvasses. Its a process he calls collaging, and it’s effect leaves viewers stupified.

Brooklyn Street Art: You’ve been doing status updates on your Facebook and Twitter feed forever saying that you are collaging.
Brian Adam Douglas: I know! (laughing) That’s all I’m doing man! I can’t wait to say, “Today I’m sleeping”.

Technically, yes, they are collage; a composition of materials and objects pasted over a surface. But it’s so easy to miss this obvious fact as you look at the painterly forms, their musculature, expression, gesture and puzzling symbolism. Each one of these new pieces fits somehow into an overriding theme that revealed itself to the artist only while Douglas labored. Surprising even the author, it took his wife and friends sometimes to help him see what was right in front of his exacting scalpel; through dream inflected symbolism he has unwittingly written a treatise about family, parenthood, and how they profoundly impact the formation of character. Without intending to, his inner world pushed it’s way to the outside, where he will be displaying this new powerfully personal collection December 4th at The Warrington Museum of Art in England with a show called “Due Date”, followed by a March show at Black Rat Projects.

But the artist won’t reveal to you their exact meanings necessarily when you are standing with him looking at a new piece at the easel or laptop, throwing out possible interpretations. “This is what I enjoy,” he says a bit mischievously, “people bringing in their own sort of meaning into the pieces.” Other times he’ll gladly offer a backstory. Even then, you are left to your own observation skills to intuit the relative intensity of the symbolism.

Brooklyn Street Art: How successful have you been at fielding questions on what these pieces are about?

Brian Adam Douglas: Pretty good. There are certain things within them that I don’t talk about. I mean I think that they are kind of universal enough that they could mean a number of things. As far as I’m concerned with the work, I’d rather people bring their own interpretations of the work in. Rather than me saying, “This is what this work is about, this is my idea and this is what it has to be,” I find the most interesting art becomes better when you make it personal.

Even so, some of these are quite unusual depictions to trust oneself to interpret accurately. We did take a few guesses, and with time Brian also decided to help us uncover the meanings in these new paper paintings. One thing is not nebulous; this methodical and meticulous cutting and pasting has taken over his imagination so much that he’s confident that he’ll be doing it for a long time.

Brooklyn Street Art: Do you want to continue to explore this technique? Have you gotten tired of it? Is it still capturing your interest?
Brian Adam Douglas: As far as I’m concerned I understand the medium really well. Each piece builds confidence. Now I’ve got something and I want to really see what I can say with it. I’ve got so much inspiration about things that I want to really plump into that I want to figure out that I could do this for like 15 or 20 years.

And Street Art? What about the twisted forms and ephemeral poetic passages that put Elbow-Toe plainly on the public radar a handful of years ago? Now that he has a gallery presence, has he abandoned his street persona? “About the street stuff – I’ll do that but it will be purely for fun. An outlet, like it was at the beginning. It kind of became a pain a year or two in. It got very stressful for a while, it wasn’t fun anymore,” he says.

“Now that I’ve kind of got my ‘gallery voice’ I just want to have a street voice that is it’s own thing. – strictly for the street and completely ephemeral.

Brian Adam Douglas: You get all this loaded meaning that’s happening behind it. The fire that’s happening in the backyard. This one is partly autobiographical of when I was a kid.
Brooklyn Street Art: The split-level ranch?
Brian Adam Douglas: Well, we didn’t live in one like that but I had to find a photo of the suburbs. It was wintertime, I was pretty young, maybe 12 or 13, and I was playing around with my paper airplanes. I had this great idea – I can light these on fire and it will look like World War II planes coming down crashing. Right? And I had the hope that they would burn up before they hit the ground. It’s winter time. Texas. I light this thing on fire and throw it and it’s one of those trick planes. Instead of curving up and flying it goes down into my yard. I see it land and it is like, “Floom!” – the ring of fire is running across my yard.
Brooklyn Street Art: And that’s how you burned down your house and killed your parents?
Brian Adam Douglas: Yeah, exactly! No. This piece is all about the fact that your kid is going to f*ck up a lot. But as a parent, the kid gives you that look and you are going to be like, “Oh, right, it’s okay” Like you still love them regardless the insanity they can produce.

Brooklyn Street Art: Ha! Now that seems like a metaphor, doesn’t it?
Brian Adam Douglas: Yeah, but also it comes from life. My Dad is a landscaper and one day when I was in high school he was up in a tree and he’s got the chain saw and he cuts the branch off. He’s so busy in the tree – he’s like “zhrooom!, Vrooooooom!” And he’s like 30 feet up! And so he’s falling, with this chain saw going in one hand as he’s failing. He grabs a branch as he’s falling and he’s hanging there swinging. He drops the chainsaw. Then he climbs down the tree. This is so….. I can imagine that moment when you find out you are going to be a parent and you are like, “Fuck! Everything is changing”. In order to take care of something else you are having to let a lot of other things go, and adapt. You are pruning things in your life. Certain things are taking precedence that maybe didn’t before.

Brian Adam Douglas: This one is called “Tradition”
Brooklyn Street Art: So the elders are in a supportive pose.
Brian Adam Douglas: Yeah
Brooklyn Street Art: And there is a lantern and a nest on your head?
Brian Adam Douglas: On my head. Yes.
Brooklyn Street Art: Well I like the body language of the guy in the middle. I suppose that could be a father figure.
Brian Adam Douglas: Yeah.
Brooklyn Street Art: It’s supportive, but directional also. With intent.
Brian Adam Douglas: Yeah.
Brooklyn Street Art: Wow, that says a lot of love there. That’s very nice.

BSA…………………BSA…………………BSA…………………BSA…………………BSA…………………BSA…………………

Brian Adam Douglas will be showing these pieces and more beginning December 4, 2010 at The Warrington Museum of Art . He is currently preparing for his solo show at Black Rat Projects in March 2011

To see more images for “Due Date” visit the artist’s web site at:

http://www.elbow-toe.com/studio.html

“Due Date”
December 4, 2010 – February 19, 2011
Warrington Museum
Museum St
Warrington, Cheshire WA1 1JB, United Kingdom

http://museum.warrington.gov.uk/

Black Rat Projects
through Cargo Garden
Arch 461, 83 Rivington street
London EC2A 3AY

http://www.blackratprojects.com

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Mint & Serf (Mirf), the New York City based Street Art Collective give a nod to the era of mega clubs as they proudly unveil an ambitious new nightlife project with the opening of District 36. Mirf Site Specific Installation at The Entrance of District 36 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mirf (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The Middle Wall by Mirf at District 36 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mirf (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mirf Lounge (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Eliciting charges of “Wall Hogs” and worse, Mint and Serf covered walls like this with other street artists on them with their giant wheat-pastes this summer. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Phone pics at the gallery of Mirf going over Gaia (left) and Shepard Fairey (right) (photos © Steven P. Harrington)

Mirf (photo @ Jaime Rojo)

Fun Friday

Bing and Bowie Reunion 2010!

Veng from RWK Flies Solo

Legacy of Letters

New SWOON “Walki” Print

Looptaggr: Endless tags on the Run

The BLU mural as it was completed on the MOCA wall last week. (photo © Brain Forrest/MOCA)

Blu at Deitch Studios in Long Island City, New York, October 2009 (photo @Jaime Rojo)

BLU Mural being buffed. (Photo courtesy of and © Casey Caplowe/Good Culture)

PRIZE Descriptions

Aerosol, Arsenic and Squared-Jawed Vikings

Forging Identity in “Identifiable Reality”

“Visual Thought”, by H. Veng Smith (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Detail from “Visual Thought”, by H. Veng Smith (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“Jerome”, by H. Veng Smith (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Goya’s ” Self-Portrait in the Workshop”, 1795, shows the artist with candles in his hat. (Courtesy Museo de la Real Academia de Bellas Artes, Madrid)

Detail of “Jerome”, by H. Veng Smith (photo © Jaime Rojo)

(image © Jaime Rojo)

(image © Jaime Rojo)

A partial lineup of pieces by H. Veng Smith (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Excerpt: Painting Birds

Veng photo © Jaime Rojo

A Nuthatch by H. Veng Smith (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“Alone in Thought” by H. Veng Smith (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Excerpt: Swedish/Norwegian Architecture

“Gotland” by H. Veng Smith ( photo © Jaime Rojo)

Norwegian Stave Church (photo © Sue Renault)

Detail of “Gotland” by H. Veng Smith ( photo © Jaime Rojo)

Portrait of the Artist by Jaime Rojo ( © Jaime Rojo)

Burning Candy Tek 33 and Dscreet at Factory Fresh Gallery (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Burning Candy Tek 33 and Dscreet at Factory Fresh Gallery (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A cluster of original pencil drawn faces by an anonymous artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Whatever you say, Paul! Paul Richard (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A B&W photograph of a boy by an anonymous artist. And by the way, Brooklyn trio Earl Greyhound Rocks! (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Deeks offers this withering assessment: “Good For Nothing”. And there’s a little pink Plasma Slug too. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Skewville sayz: “You are not in Kansas anymore” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Skewville (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Goya and UFO (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A Death Panel of some sort. Kill (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nineta (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dashing through the snooooww. ShinShin (photo © Jaime Rojo)

KARMA “Be Kind To One Another Because Most Of Us Are Fighting A Hard Battle” Dublin, Ireland (photo © Jimmy Snatch)

Pimping Your Ride Via Indigenous Traditions

For the opening, some of the artists appeared in traditional garb of The Huichol, an indigenous ethnic group of western central Mexico

A big bear hug from Kid Zoom. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kid Zoom’s only tools are aerosol cans, a free hand and his imagination. For the Opera Gallery pop up in the Meat Packing District this Saturday he’s completed 25 pieces since summer. Looking at the varied lot of canvasses, painted swords, and the bear, he feels well prepared.

Kid Zoom photo © Jaime Rojo

Kid Zoom photo © Jaime Rojo

Kid Zoom photo (© Jaime Rojo)

The spoils. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kid Zoom (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kid Zoom (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kid Zoom portrait (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“All I want is the truth. Just give me some truth” – John Lennon

C215 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Care (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

$howta (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nothing To See Here Sir Carry On (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bishop 203 (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

American Family With Red Son (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The Ghost of tax cuts past. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

GILF does Betty White? (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Joe Franquinha Peace and Sport (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Silver Ghost (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Um, nice socks. Olympia (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Look who’s on the TeeVee. Sunset Boulevard (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Poison Rabbit (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Walt Whiskers Alley Cats (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Reading under the learning T. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

On the 30th anniversary of Lennon’s death in NYC… We love you John and Yoko.

Welcome to Miami! Now go home.

Aiko (photo © Geoff Hargadon)

Mint & Serf (Mirf), the New York City based Street Art Collective give a nod to the era of mega clubs as they proudly unveil an ambitious new nightlife project with the opening of District 36.

Mirf Site Specific Installation at The Entrance of District 36 (photo © Jaime Rojo)