Welcome to BSA Images of the Week. Yesterday, New York’s streets filled with protests, marches, performances, and signs—you might even call some of it art.
From Columbus Circle through Times Square and across the boroughs, the No Kings march moved with swing, swagger, rage, humor, and a street rhythm that feels like NYC at its best. Hand-lettered signs and flags bobbed above the crowd like fresh ink on a city wall, while chants carried down the avenue, through the parks, up the blocks. “Regime change begins at home” stood out among the messages, mere weeks before the country’s mid-term elections, expected to change things, at least in some measure. Police counted tens of thousands in New York City; organizers put the citywide turnout at more than 350,000.
Here is our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring AESOP One, Albertus Joseph, Barb Tropolis, BG 183 Tats Cru, Bio Tats Cru, BLUME, Call her Al, CRKSHNK, Danie, Kam S. Art, KENOS, Kobra, Miss Lushy, Pazzesco Art, Phetus88, Pyramid Guy, Sebi Sketch, SHUX, SOZE527, Sue Works, The Butchers Cru, and Vers
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week. This fall in New York institutional museum offerings, people are checking out “Sixties Surreal” at the Whitney, “Robert Rauschenberg: Life Can’t Be Stopped” at the Guggenheim, “Coco Fusco: Tomorrow, I Will Become an Island” at El Museo del Barrio, Yvette Mayorga’s “PLEA$URE GARDEN$” Midnight Moment in Times Square, “Monet and Venice” and “Seydou Keïta: A Tactile Lens” at the Brooklyn Museum.
The Whitney offers all Fridays free from 5–10 p.m., every second Sunday free, and if you’re 25 or under, it’s always free. The Museum of Modern Art welcomes New York State residents free of charge every Friday from 5:30–8:30 p.m. (proof of residency required). The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum invites visitors to pay what they wish on Mondays and Saturdays from 4–5:30 p.m., with a suggested minimum of one dollar. The New-York Historical Society follows suit with pay-as-you-wish admission on Fridays from 5–8 p.m. And for those who prefer art in the Bronx, the Bronx Museum of the Arts remains free every day of the week. And right here in Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Museum opens its doors every First Saturday of the month from 5–11 p.m. for free admission with registration, and visitors are always welcome to pay what they can at the desk.
Meanwhile, much of our street art is busy with cats, pop icons, ambient dread, and general sweetness. For anyone assuming the scene remains activist or subversive, evidence is not plentiful. Still, it photographs beautifully.
Here is our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Chloe, I Am Frankie Botz, Jappy Agoncillo, Jeff Rose King, Kam S. Art, Lucia Dutazaka, Mad Villian, Man in the Box, Manuel Alejandro, Nandos Art, Rommer White, Sonni, Sophia Messore, and Tone Wash.
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! It’s the Wild West out here, and there, there, there, and there. Is this deliberate? Does it all have to go up in a fireball, people? Honestly.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this time featuring Ben Keller, BIR, Buff Monster, Caleb Neelon, Caryn Cast, Fernando “SKI” Romero, Homesick, Joe Iurato, Kam. S. Art., Katie Yamasaki, Loky Oner, Marco Checcheto, NAST 404, Paul Richard, Porkshop, RUDE, Sky Adler, Wild West, and Yo Skills.
This week’s collection leans toward graffiti—city writers rekindling a romance with old styles, tracing our urban aesthetic lineage with fresh hands, new eyes, and scribes. Beyond that, the crime stats continue their long downward drift, despite some corporate outlets insisting our city is in daily chaos, as if Bedlam had moved in. Immigrants are valued members of New York’s sense of community and multi-culture, as ever, but a strangely well-funded machine would have you think differently- if they could. NYC is far more youthful, open-hearted, and innovative than that kind of thinking can imagine.
National heaviness seeps into the local air: relentless headlines, instability abroad, inhumanity and warmaking, higher costs, service cuts to some of the most in need, attacks on institutions—and on your search for sanity. You can feel it rumbling like the subway underneath: a slow, grinding disquiet, the weight of evident inequalities, the steady drip of absurdity and distraction.
Maybe that’s why the streets speak in heightened tones: sometimes glorious, other times surreal, opaque, saccharine, macabre. Rage simmers alongside wistful nostalgia. Escapism too. As old certainties dissolve, strange new forms begin to emerge. The atmosphere feels charged—thick with tension, possibility, change.
Everyone agrees New York is hot this summer—oppressively so—until, suddenly, there’s a breeze, a clear sky, and you exhale. Let’s go for a walk. How much of what is seen is real? How much is perception? How much is projection? Hard to say. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s all part of the picture.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week including Couch, D30, Dopamine, Homesick, Jappy Agoncillo, Kam S. Art, KEG, Nekst (tribute), RatchiNYC, Sefu, SMLZ, Sower Kerd, Wild West, and Zoot.
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.
Welcome to BSA’s Images of the week. Mockingbirds are bringing sprigs from the cold, grey, churning East River to build nests on the banks of abandoned lots of Williamsburg/Greenpoint before further ugly gentrification paves it over. Up and down the Brooklyn waterfront, it’s a procession of architectural mediocrity—glass boxes and bland slabs posing as progress. With few exceptions, these vertical office parks evoke visions of photocopier showrooms or surplus staplers stacked in a supply closet.
Magnolias and cherry blossoms are starting to bust out all over Brooklyn. Spring is here, and it’s coming in hot—and cold. April’s throwing weather tantrums like a toddler on espresso, bouncing us around like a pinball between heatwaves, cold snaps; all while dodging the political side-swipes we read and hear on social media and the press room. Add in soaring grocery bills (despite what the “official” numbers say), and it’s no wonder everyone’s feeling a little punch-drunk.
In a notable week for New York’s graffiti and street art scene, Dutch artist Tripl, also known as Furious, unveiled his decade-long project, Repainting Subway Art. This ambitious endeavor meticulously recreates the iconic 1984 book Subway Art by Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant, with Tripl reproducing each original piece on European trains and re-enacting the accompanying photographs. The project culminated in the publication of the 196-page book that was featured Friday night and feted Saturday night.
Friday to a packed auditorium the Museum of the City of New York hosted a panel discussion on featuring Tripl, Cooper, Chalfant, and artist John “Crash” Matos. Moderated by graffiti scholar Edward Birzin and introduced by MCNY’s Sean Corcoran, the conversation delved into the evolution and global impact of graffiti and street art culture and the powerful reverberation of the book’s influence on generations of writers and artists.
Last night, Crash’s gallery WallWorks New York in the Bronx inaugurated the Repainting Subway Art exhibition, offering an immersive experience juxtaposing pages from the original Subway Art with Tripl’s reinterpretations. As word gradually spreads about this project, the graffiti and related communities will undoubtedly debate its significance—as homage, reinterpretation, and artistic intervention—while celebrating the obsessive dedication it took to recreate one of graffiti’s foundational texts from a contemporary, transnational perspective.
We continue with our interviews with the street, this week including stuff from Homesick, Kobra, Humble, Sluto, Wild West, V. Ballentine, Bleach, Toast, CAMI XVX, Vew, Tover, Dreps, Leaf!, Aneka, Kam S. Art, and John Sear.
G. James Daichendt. Robbie Conal: Streetwise: 35 Years of Politically Charged Guerrilla Art. Schiffer, 2020. Reprinted from the original review. …Read More »
A vast aquatic landscape painted on the pavement becomes a collective artwork and an open-air playground.Artistic direction by Andrea Conte …Read More »
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