The springtime wall jams have begun! And random Saturdays or Sundays are usually perfect days to schedule an event in many cities – since most people have time off during that time, depending on their work schedule. If an artist is lucky enough to have a job these days…
An informally organized event like this provides an opportunity to explore and create alongside peers, converse and discuss ideas and techniques, and hang out with visitors who stop by saying hello.
“We thought it was a good idea that we could notify each time any of us was going to paint,” says Spanish artist Jaume Montserrat, “in case someone else wanted to accompany them and have a good time doing what we like so much.”
He says he and his buddies have a WhatsApp group to keep each other apprised of their street art and mural projects. For this particular Sunday a couple of weeks ago, it was as simple as reaching out via text to fellow artist Núria Farré, he tells us.
“I wrote to her asking if she would like to do it on one of Wallspot’s legal walls, and when we found a date that suited us, we decided to invite some friends.”
BSA contributor and photographer Fer Acala was there in Barcelona to capture the action and the art, and we’re pleased to share his shots of the artists at work and the days’ activities.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening: 1. Sofles / Kawaii. The artist paints a piece for his daughter Violet. 2. ACBR and ZONE take Rick and Morty Underground 3. Honet x Art Azoi in Paris
BSA Special Feature: Sofles / Kawaii. The artist paints a piece for his daughter Violet.
Remember when Nirvana did that concert without electric guitars? You can call this one “Sofles Unplugged.” He has no soundtrack revving up your adrenaline or accentuating his skills. He’s just pure skillz.
Sofles / Kawaii. The artist paints a piece for his daughter Violet.
ACBR and ZONE take Rick and Morty Underground.
Ahhh, here we go! Vandals, surreptitious underground graffiti pieces, knives, mad scientists, syncopated dance numbers, and a ripping soundtrack. Back to what we all expected from our graff videos.
Honet x Art Azoi in Paris
A creation by HONET on the wall of the Pavillon Carré de Baudouin (Paris 20th district).
The same week we published Carlo McCormick’s extensive essay entitled “Why Monuments?,” in which he posits that we need to find a valid way to deal with statuary that celebrates enslavers, among other things, the county District Attorney Michael Jackson is looking to arrest members of “White Lies Matter” in Selma, Alabama for kidnapping a monumental chair.
Ransom note. (image courtesy of White Lies Matter)
This Friday, the anonymous artivists said they were set to return their ransomed confederate chair monument, “The Jefferson Davis Memorial Chair.” It was first reported missing from Live Oak Cemetery in Selma last month – an ornately carved stone chair dedicated in 1893 to the Confederate president’s memory and estimated to be worth $500,000.
They had demanded, via email, that a banner with a quote by Assata Shakur be hung from April 9th to April 10th at the headquarters of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia, on Friday, the 156th anniversary of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender at the end of the Civil War.
“The rulers of this country have always considered their property more important than our lives,” said the banner.
A rendering of how the chair will be as toilet should the demands not be met. (image courtesy of White Lies Matter)
A member of the Black Liberation Army, Shakur was convicted of the murder of a New Jersey state trooper in 1977. In light of the currently running court case of police brutality in the killing of George Floyd, the use of Shakur’s quote is deliberate.
According to ransom documents, the chair would be returned unharmed if the banner was hung – but a new communication Wednesday evening showed images of the chair possibly being used as a toilet by a historically costumed and mustachioed actor.
A photoshopped image of the banner that the group is demanding to be put on display in front of the UDC headquarters in Richmond, Virginia for 24 hours. The banner reads: “The rulers of this country have always considered their property more important than our lives,” which is a quote by Assata Shakur. (image courtesy of White Lies Matter)
“As the UDC has given us every indication that they had no intention of hanging the banner, even going as far as declaring our demands, ‘fake news, White Lies Matter has decided to move forward prematurely with the alteration of the chair. It will be returned to the UDC immediately.”
According to news reported in The Washington Post, the White Lies Matter group wrote, “We took their toy, and we don’t feel guilty about it. They never play with it anyway. They just want it there to remind us what they’ve done, what they are still willing to do.
The original chair being carted into an unknown storage awaiting its fate. (image courtesy of White Lies Matter)
“But the south won’t rise again. Not as the Confederacy. Because that coalition left out a large portion of its population. All that’s left of that nightmare is an obscenely heavy chair that’s a throne for a ghost whose greatest accomplishment was treason.”
This image shows the chair being stolen from the Live Oaks Cemetery in Selma, Alabama on March 19. (image courtesy of White Lies Matter)
UPDATE: The Washington Post is reporting that the New Orleans police have made an arrest on the theft of the chair. Two individuals are being held in connection to the theft while they search for a third suspect. The chair was recovered without damage to it and it will be returned to its original place.
Barcelona-based KENOR has traveled around the world and worked with brands creating his own take on kinetic graffiti, whether on walls, on canvas, or as sculpture. Blowing air into his pieces of colorful geometric confetti, the painter catches the chaos of the city and paints it.
It’s a mismatched style that recalls the Memphis movement of the 80s, complete with a poppy palette and occasional patterning. Here with Art Azoi on a lower wall of Parc de Bellville in Paris, you can see how his emphasis on movement drives his creative choices at Place Alphonse Allais.
KENOR in collaboration with Art Azoï. Paris. (photo courtesy of Art Azoï)KENOR in collaboration with Art Azoï. Paris. (photo courtesy of Art Azoï)KENOR in collaboration with Art Azoï. Paris. (photo courtesy of Art Azoï)KENOR in collaboration with Art Azoï. Paris. (photo courtesy of Art Azoï)
The era of fractured attention spans, heightened emotions, and ravaged hierarchical systems for ordering institutions, beliefs, and the truth is ripe for examination and dissection – even if it takes a looking glass to see it.
The anonymous art-activist thinkers at INDECLINE have spawned many interventions in the last decade in public space – intricate and smartly storied at times, obvious and deliberately provocative at others.
For Easter, we appreciate how they cleverly hopped between the pagan practices adapted to Christianity – namely the signs of spring and fertility – and the surrealist White Rabbit of Louis Carroll and the magical beliefs of so-called Q-Anon.
For children and adults of many generations, it has been an un-rewarding exercise to parse the bloody crucifixion of Christ who rises from the dead – combined with the story of a human-sized rabbit who breaks into your home at night to leave a colorful woven basket of decorated eggs, jelly beans, and bunnies made of chocolate. This all makes as much sense as the Q-Anon theories alleging that a secret cabal of Satan-worshipping, cannibalisticpedophiles who operate a global child sex-trafficking ring was plotting against former U.S. President Donald Trump while he was in office.
So while Washington DC is supposedly ringed in high-security apparatus since the capital riots, INDECLINE decided to hop through several parks – Garfield Park, Stanton Park, Lovejoy Park, Meridian Hill Park, Rose Park, Logan Circle, Kalorama Park, and Farragut Square – spreading their cheerful and colorful egg-hunt for presumably confused kids and parents to discover yesterday morning while Christians the world over proclaimed “He Is Risen.”
They also hung customized banners that mimicked the kind that may accompany a typical “Egg Hunt” on soft green lawns across parks nationally, subvertising an event sponsored by Q-Anon – filling eggs with packets of cleverly designed Qool-Aid.
An INDECLINE spokesperson says they chose Qanon as the focal point of this series of interactive, engaging public art installations precisely because of the wayward thinking that is necessary to support its evolving theories – and the many dangers of manipulation that are now at play.
“As far as conspiracies go,” they say in a statement, “QAnon has blazed a remarkable and confounding trail into the era of information, organizing itself as an interactive game where adherents are encouraged to become participants, crowdsourcing the narrative through a patchwork of YouTube tutorials and Facebook rants. Supposedly, Q, and insider, is leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for them to follow (originally across Reddit, then into the Chans), and as they collect enough, they are supposed to ‘bake’ them into a full-fledged narrative.”
As the military has gamified the hell of war for a generation of young men, today GenZ is gamifying the stock and currency markets and blockchain gallerists are gamifying art with NFTs, so why not gamify the disinformation industry that distracts us from the Rich v. Everybody battle that is firmly afoot in the 21st century? INDECLINE admits that “the gamified nature of the QAnon conspiracy is really the appeal.” What could possibly go wrong?
Happy Easter to all the Christians! Happy end of Passover to the Jews! – and welcome to a new spring of spiking daffodiles and spiking Covid cases in New York City even while the age for vaccinations drops to 16 this week. The graffiti and Street Art is blossoming under bridges and in empty lots, as are the much needed $1400 checks and PPP loans are blossoming as well. They are meant to keep us all barely above water, which is where many New Yorkers are financially.
Maybe the trillions that Biden and Yellen and the banksters are suddenly printing will lift us, or maybe instead they’ll just trigger hyperinflation so your savings will be worth ever less? Perhaps we could require corporations and the rich to pay their fair share of taxes – or any at all? Secular heresy to suggest such a thing!
Ahhhh, but the streets! They are still alive and well, and budding with small hand-made one-off pieces, multiples, and murals. Not quite a renaissance, but we are seeing a sincere march forward by all many of artistry in the shadows and in the broad daylight, even as Rome appears to languish.
So here’s our weekly interview with the street, this time featuring: Bastard Bot, Billy Barnacles, Captain Eyeliner, Cucker Tarlson, Jesse Kreuzer, Kiki the Fox, Lunge Box, Mort Art, Nicholai Kahn, Nite Owl, NY State of Mind, Praxis VGZ, Puke Punk, SacSix, Trades Only Bro, and Urban Russian Doll NYC.
“I left all my memories in Syria, so there’s nothing left to take”.
“Husband works in construction. Husband salary depends on luck, waits on side of the street to get picked”.
“Prefer by land, but by sea if there’s no choice”.
“I have no dreams in Europe. I just want my husband to get a proper job, a proper life for my children”.
“I will bring nothing with me”.
“For sure, I’m nervous”.
And so these are their stories, their troubles, their worries. People who are compelled to migrate from their lands in search of a better life and brighter conditions have little choice or no choices at all. They are among the most vulnerable of humans walking on earth. Their plight gets made even worse by the cruelty and greed of their fellow humans, by the indifference of governments, which many times use them as political pawns and by nature. Harsh conditions at sea or at inhospitable land crossings may fatally end their journey.
A Molly Crabapple piece on the street – surrounded by quotes with a piece by Raddington Falls to the left. (photo @ Jaime Rojo)
The irony of this drawing of an immigrant mother with her son carefully placed next to an “alien” cartoon is not lost on us. By labeling the immigrants who come to this country as “aliens” the authorities deem to strip them of their dignity, their character and make them into something strange, different, void of consideration and worth. By being called “aliens” these humans are being lumped together into a cultureless subgroup with no defining characteristics on their own. The label allows the immigration department to treat them all as law-breakers, offenders of the norm.
The current “crisis” at the southern border comes as a surprise every year during this time of the year. Due to better climate conditions on the southern border immigrants from Central American countries take on a journey fraught with danger first through Mexico where they fell prey to criminal gangs, violent cartel groups, and human trafficking networks. If they are lucky to make it all the way to the border with the USA, their problems are often amplified by hypocritical, posturing, and cynical politicians hoping to get a sound bite on Fox News so they can use it in the next fundraising letter.
Yes, human migration is a crisis. It is a global crisis with roots in wars, ethnic cleansing, natural disasters, and, corrupt and authoritarian governments all over the world who steal from the treasury and pretend to care and lead but have little to no intention to seriously invest in infrastructure, education, real security and health programs to keep their citizens from leaving their homes, their families, and their roots.
The collusion of law enforcement with drug cartels and criminal gangs creates all war conditions for anybody to live and prosper. Children and young adults are forced to hide and quit their education as the simple routine of walking to school and back home becomes an act of hide and seek, run and stop just to evade getting caught in a cross fire or just simply getting caught and never seen again.
President Biden succinctly and without hesitation put the matter to rest when the somnolent and apathetic members of the White House press pretended to ask hard questions at his first press conference. “They don’t come here because I’m a nice guy,” he told them, and suggested that rather than pouring billions of dollars in erecting measures to combat immigration at home the funds should go directly to the suffering people of Central America to improve their living conditions so they remain at home rather than embark on a dangerous journey that most certainly will turn into hell.
But this solution might not be good enough for those who are looking for culture wars to score points and for the press who need identity politics to keep the ratings up.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening: 1. “We Run NYC” and the Return of Wholecar Graffiti Pieces 2. MADC1 in Abu Dhabi via Tost Films 3. El Mac in Wynwood, Miami
BSA Special Feature: “We Run NYC” and the Return of Wholecar Graffiti Pieces
NYC yards, layups, top-to-bottoms, wholecars. Is this 2021 or 1981?
The second volume of the mysterious project titled We Run NYC dropped this March 15th. on the System Boys Platform which reports on daily graffiti news since 2012. The project whose apparent goal is to bring back the golden years of subway art during the 70’s by painting whole subway cars in NYC is a mystery to most people. The writers themselves use different aliases when painting on the cars to evade the law.
We Run NYC / Vol. 01/10. For some reason Volume 1 from December 2019 has restrictions but you can watch it by clicking on WATCH ON YOUTUBE.
MADC1 in Abu Dhabi via Tost Films
See? I told you she’s mad!
In Abu Dhabi last year for @forabudhabi, German graffiti writer and mural artist Mad C (Claudia Walde) did her largest mural to date with a team that she says “from 7 different countries.” The 56 meter (184′) high piece is stunning in its warping geometry, full of action high above Al Ruwaysi Street.
El Mac in Wynwood
“With this piece, as with most of my pieces, my focus is on creating something with timelessness.” He succeeded in that pursuit because this large mural by El Mac in the Wynwood District of Miam has been there a couple of years already and still looks as fresh and immediate as the day he finished it.
On a day where we are all reeling from a public display of violence this week toward a 65-year-old Asian New Yorker on her way to church, we reiterate what the street artists are telling us – “Stop Asian Hate.” More upsetting than the violence was the seeming apathy of some toward it – and they should feel ashamed for not helping.
We know that our individual actions speak louder than words. Don’t stand by and feel helpless when you see someone being abused! You can help! It’s everyone’s responsibility to do whatever we can to stop the hate.
Billboard message subversion dates back to at least The Billboard Liberation Front and The Guerrilla Girls undercover antics of the 1970s and 1980s mangling commercial messages to expose their underside or to call out hypocrisy. Later artists like Ron English did scores of billboard “takeovers” that focused on fast food and cereal brands and their links to obesity and diabetes.
Despite an assumed increase in surveillance these days, it is surprising how many artists still get up every year on these high-profile slabs to re-engineer their message, or to put up an entirely new message altogether.
In that tradition, the activist art collective who call themselves INDECLINE say they recently took over a rather plain billboard ad-space from Christian Aid Ministries on Interstate 22 West in Byhalia, Mississippi – re-configuring their message into one they would presumably abhor. Indecline states that the new work offering Planned Parenthood services is “in direct response to lawmakers throughout the South who continue their attempts to overturn Roe v. Wade.”
In a modern twist on this story of detournement, the anonymous crew says they plan to convert the imagery of the vandalized billboard into an NFT. For profit? No, they say they plan to auction it off and give the proceeds to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund.
Sara Lynn-Leo. Well-placed, well-rendered, witty, insightful, incisive.
These are hallmarks of the miniature pieces of street art that New Yorker Sara Lynn-Leo has been putting up in many neighborhoods in alleyways, doors, dirty corners, magnet walls, street furniture, and lamp posts. Finding these offerings can be difficult. They may be tiny in size and often placed out of eye view.
Look carefully; her furtive insecure, and smart characters will wag their intellect at you, eliciting empathy and possibly delight if you are not too bitter and hardened. During a year where everyone you met had a meltdown or two, she melts with you.
Actually, the first one we found in Brooklyn was made of vinyl – maybe in 2019? She mostly works on paper now, and she’s been experimenting with collage. She’s a regular on the BSA Images Of The Week section and a previous special feature HERE.
Her appeal rests in grand part for her willingness to explore scabrous issues without lecturing or grandstanding and, as we mentioned, with humor. This week we found five new pieces on the streets of Manhattan…
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
