NYC’s 55th annual Pride March down 5th Avenue kicks off today, themed “Rise Up: Pride in Protest,” taking on a decidedly defiant stance on equality for all. Suppose you are in the subway, dance club, or park in Bushwick, Chinatown, or midtown. Like every June, it’s a lavender parade all weekend, with all members of the LGBTQUA+ communities from around the country and the world laughing, dancing, fighting, posing, and canoodling.
Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani clinched the Democratic nomination here this week after defeating former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, possibly igniting a polarized reaction across NYC politics. Hm, wonder if anyone will mention his religion in the next few months. What do you think? But, de facto, he’s going to be the next mayor – unless Bloomberg wants to blow more money before the November election.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Andre Trenier, Dirt Cobain, Drones, Dzel, Fear Art, Jappy Agoncillo, Jason Naylor, Jeff Rose, Kam S. Art, Manik, Modomatic, Par, Riot, Senisa, Tom Bob, Werds, and Zimer.
Right out of the gate, Pres-elect Trump is telling us that one must destroy the government to save it, just like the towns in Vietnam in the 70s. His candidate for a brand new Department of Government Ethics, Elon Musk, says they have a ‘Mandate to Delete” cumbersome rules and regulations. Trump’s selections to head various arms of government this week also include RFK Jr. and Matt Gaetz . Next week, rumors are that Ex-Subway Sandwich Spokesman Jared Fogle will be nominated to Childcare Secretary, and the Hamburgler will be nominated to head the Commerce Department. Meanwhile VP Harris could be polishing up her resume to get some speaking gigs at Cantor Fitzgerald and the Carlyle Group once she leaves office. Oops, sorry, that was Obama’s reported move in 2017 when he left the White House.
In New York, the weather has been so dry that we have been warned about more fires like the one in Prospect Park recently. Up along the Hudson River, the fall foliage is still putting on a show, though many leaves have turned brown due to the lack of rain. Meanwhile, if you venture north for a weekend escape, don’t miss the career retrospective of Brooklyn artist Deborah Masters at the farm she shares with her husband, Geoff. The exhibit has been a popular destination this autumn, drawing hundreds of visitors on weekends who are eager to see her impressive outdoor works and many smaller sketches, drawing, and painting spanning 50 years. Masters’ large-scale figurative sculptures grace numerous parks and private collections. Still, she is perhaps best known for “Walking New York,” a monumental 350-foot-long relief in JFK Airport’s Terminal 4, which won the Municipal Arts Society Award for Best Public Art. The show, Deborah Masters: A Life in Art, is still on view, making it the perfect excuse for a scenic country drive.
The city feels like it is resting now between holidays, a rare 10 days or so when we are not absolutely overtaken by tourists clamoring for tickets to Broadway and entry into sexy burlesque entertainment clubs like The Slipper Room, Duane Park, and House of Yes. Sure, the ice skating in Bryant Park has begun and we know Thanksgiving is around the corner, but we just passed Veterans Day, Election Day, the World Series, Halloween, and the New York Marathon – and we’re all taking one big breath before the holiday vortex begins.
Naturally, Street Artists and graffiti writers are here to accompany us on the way, surprises in tow.
Here’s our weekly conversation with the street, this week featuring; Jason Naylor, Jappy Agoncillo, IMK, Deborah Masters, Dais, ScoJo, HOP Krew, Kenji Chai, Szel, The Girl with the Brushes, Skwerm, and Loose Tea.
“It’s the only time of the year when New York City smells good,” says your cranky Uncle Jaime about the flowers and blossoms everywhere as he stretches on the couch with his second cup of coffee and gazes out the window at the sky. Outside, there is a battle between the diverse vocal repertoires and mimicry of mockingbirds singing from branches, utility poles, and wires – and the little league fans squealing, exhorting, and shouting with joy from the bleachers every time a smartly uniformed child whacks a ball with the wooden bat and trundles up the path to first base.
We are constantly amazed by the new street art that is popping up in the boroughs – on construction fencing around empty lots, on doorways in industrial zones, on chain-link fences under bridges, on old telephone booths, lamp posts, crumbling brick facades, and the backs of street signs. With the New York spring, there are tulips popping up from the grassy patches everywhere – even those random 3-foot-long rectangles surrounded by concrete and piled with dog poop.
There are blooms on the trees – the Kwanzan and Yoshino cherry trees are in bloom at the Brooklyn and Bronx Botanical Gardens, in Central Park in Manhattan, in Flushing Meadows Park in Queens, in the New York Chinese Scholar’s Garden at Snug Harbor in Staten Island. Spring also brings us a new crop of fresh aerosol missives, wheat-pasted characters, stenciled witticisms, radical opinions, and secret yearnings. Together with the weathered and the worn street art from previous seasons, it’s an ongoing visual cacophony.
And now, here are images from our ongoing conversation with the street, this week, including: Captain Eyeliner, Tats Cru, Stikki Peaches, Eternal Possessions, Jappy Agoncillo, One Rad Latina, Tom Bob NYC, Travis, BBW.BUND.COP, Lunar YCP, NAY 381, and Kristian Boyum (visiting from Norway).
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! Set your clocks forward an hour!
Guess you can’t bite a graffiti artist and expect to make bank – without getting bitten. This new Nekst campaign on the Manhattan streets appears to have Claudia Schiffer and Anna Nicole Smith putting their best face forward, aside from the streams of wrinkles caused by the wet wheat paste. Time is a cruel mistress, even as our nostalgic memories of the 90s are suddenly aflame when seeing these large-scale posters and images on the catwalk named New York.
This takes the fashion labels’ accused theft of Nekst’s tag to a new level – and back to the street, where the best fashion houses traditionally find creative inspiration. The deceased graffiti writer was bold in his command of high-profile spots, and his output was profligate, giving him a reputation that current writers still pay homage to a decade after his passing. With the fashion label Guess, Inc. publicly traded, one wonders if this restyling of their brand in a fashion capital will hit them in the ticker, especially when it appears they directly ripped their style from a self-made artist/vandal and took it to the cash register.
This act highlights the ongoing debate about the street’s raw, authentic creativity and the fashion industry’s appropriation tactics. The situation questions the consequences for a major brand like Guess, primarily when the originality in question stems from the underground art world.
As Daniel Cassady from ARTNEWS and Deborah Belgum from WWD illuminate, the recent uproar in the street art/graffiti community is not merely about the misuse of street credibility but a deeper infringement on street artists’ intellectual and cultural property. Cassady discusses the blatant replication of Nekst’s signature by Guess, bringing to the forefront the fashion industry’s recurrent pilferage from street art’s raw, unfiltered energy without due homage or consent. Meanwhile, Belgum adds a familial and emotional layer, highlighting the distress caused to Nekst’s family by the unauthorized commercialization of his legacy, an act they describe as “horrifying.”
In a city where the lines of art, fashion, and identity blur, these incidents prompt us to question the ethics of inspiration versus theft. As we showcase these charged visuals, we invite our readers to ponder the fine line between tribute and exploitation in the ever-evolving narrative of street art. This is not merely about images on a wall or polished cotton; it’s a testament to the indelible impact of artists like Nekst on the fabric of urban culture and the complexities of their posthumous relationships with the commercial world.
New Yorkers are having a grand celebration this weekend as the Year of the Dragon begins, and traditional lion and dragon dances wend their way through Chinatowns in Manhattan and Queens. You’ll be seeing lots of red, hopefully getting some money in red envelopes (hongbao), and eating dumplings (symbolizing wealth), fish (representing surplus and abundance), and sticky rice cakes. To all our neighbors celebrating, “恭喜发财” (Gōngxǐ fācái), which means “Wishing you wealth and prosperity.”
Later this week, we’ll all profess love for one another on Valentine’s Day. Looks like red is the color for New York this week.
Here is our weekly interview with the street: this week featuring Homesick, Toxicomano, ERRE, CP Won, Qzar, Hektad, Jappy Agoncillo, ToastOro, Senk, Stesi, CASH RFC Crew, OSK OSK, NAY, and Kosuke James.
How are feeling? Did you have a good Thanksgiving day, and did you see the crowds and balloons and marching bands along the parade route and the still intact orange and yellow leaves on the trees on Central Park West? Did you see Dolly Parton dressed as a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader singing at the halftime game, and did you see your girl Ava from up the block with her vintage vest and platform boots when grandma sent you out for a can of whipped cream for the pumpkin pies?
“Have you kept pace with the latest revelation in the art world? A remarkable BBC interview with Banksy, dating back two decades, has recently surfaced, sparking renewed excitement. These are indeed vibrant times for art enthusiasts and creators alike. Take, for instance, the Brooklyn Museum’s current showcase. It features an engaging Spike Lee exhibition alongside the innovative ‘Copy Machine Manifesto.’ This zine exhibition is a deep dive into five or six decades of subcultural and counter-cultural movements. It highlights a diverse range of self-published works, including gossip magazines, graffiti newspapers (a nod to David Schmidlapp and Phase 2), and expressions from queercore to hardcore. The exhibit is an eclectic mix of self-aware conceptual art, original fashion, explorations of sexual desire and confusion, comix, handmade collage, and expressions of nihilism, ennui, satire, humor, and lamentation. It’s a vivid reflection of art and expression – and inspirational to any artist who wants to have a voice.
We’re going back for a second helping.
Here is our weekly interview with the street: this week featuring Stikman, Cosbe, Below Key, No Sleep, Huetek, Optimo NYC, Jay Shells, Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, OH!, Muebon, Humble, Jappy Agoncillo, Jeff Roseking, Hu, Manual Alejando, Deter, Jason Shelowitz, and KIR.
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! And how beautiful this city is, even when the heat is on. The amount of talent on our streets is so overwhelming, thank you New York.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring: Homesick, Mort Art, Optimo NYC, Savior El Mundo, Neckface, Lungebox, DEK2DX, Hektad, Paolo Tolentino, Jappy Agoncillo, SMURFO, Mike King, Mat Lakas, Lasak Art, Snith Node, Big808, Talia Lempert, Individual Activist.
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! New York is coming alive as spring approaches – and there is a lot of new graffiti and street art suddenly. We are also awash in news that keeps everyone jumping! The international-soon-to-be-national-bank crisis that is underway, the possible (likely) imposition of CBDC’s in its wake, the BRICs alliances building and de-dollarization of the world economy, the US funding of war in Ukraine, the attacks on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid by the same actors, the pending candidacy and/or arrest of NYC native Donald Trump, the non-transitory inflation rate that is outpacing our wages, creeping facial recognition software and cameras into every part of our culture without our permission, the total capture of our news outlets… .
On the good news side, our crime rate has been dropping a lot – even though dunderheads like Mike Mother Pence says we’re having a “crime wave.” Ya’ll just better educate yourselves – New Yorkers are a pain in the arse and are quick to argue about stupid things, but we also like credit for our crime rate dropping, please. Also, we like our new tulips and daffodils and pretty birds singing in the trees. Thank you.
And now, onto our new selections of fabulous graffiti and street art for your pleasure.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring: Louis Masai, Praxis VGZ, Degrupo, Jorit, Phetus88, Hektad, Qzar, Hugo Gyrl, Jim Tozzi, Toe Flop, Jappy Agoncillo, Tukios Art, BlackStar, Rocking Bones, and Dana van Vueren.
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BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
