All posts tagged: Keith Haring

Top 15 Videos on BSA Film Friday From 2017

Top 15 Videos on BSA Film Friday From 2017

Every Friday we invite you to stop by and take a look at new videos that have been submitted or recommended or that we tripped over walking by the railroad tracks. This year we showed you about 250 of them.

We call it BSA Film Friday and it travels with us to cities around the world now when we do it LIVE with you and other audience members in theaters and lecture halls and museums. The beauty of the video/film form is you can get a full story quickly, and you are often surprised by how transformative it can be. You can also see how many people are affected by urban and street culture through these films – we see people’s eyes light up when they realize that they too can create in public space, that the world is not simply a product but is a piece of art that many of their peers are now jumping in to co-create.

As a collection, these 15 are illuminating, elevating, riveting, strange, soaring, and achingly beautifully normal. From looking at the Separation Wall and Banksy to a travelling crew of graffiti writers on farms in Polish pig country to the amazing dance troupe who interpreted the 5 floors of art installations in a downtown Berlin former bank, you have before you a massive buffet of a visual feast.

The final desert is hand-held phone video caught in the moment last month in Mexico City. We didn’t know Keith Haring was coming down the tracks to surprise us, and we didn’t know that this unpolished jewel would garner thousands of viewers and commenters – effectively placing this little piece of video at number 1 for its popularity. Maybe the fact that it is so raw is what people relate to – along with an ongoing adulation for Haring.

We hope you can take some time to enjoy some of the best Street Art videos from around the world and on BSA this year.


No. 15
Faith XLVII / Aqua Regalia Hong Kong

From BSA Film Friday 05.19.17

“Distant universes delicately tangled,” says the near-whispering narration as you are gazing upon scenes from Hong Kong – those interstitial moments that carry you between the more remarkable ones. Faith XLVII gives us a quiet look at these inside a the dencse cacophony called “Aqua Regalia”, looking at the parts of a culture that a visitor is sensitive to because they are not taken for granted. With this ability to see, one takes a quick course of a city, a society. Invariably you end up with more questions.

“We speak of death and birth in terms of celebration and mourning.” Faith XLVII is in search of more universal truths, the timeless ones, since we understand them so poorly. Herein are glimpses, romantic and unvarnished.

“This is one of the first videos I’ve co-directed, alongside filmmaker Dane Dodds,” Faith tells us. “Its a project that is close to my heart.”

No. 14
Gonzalo Borondo / Cenere

From BSA Film Friday 08.11.17

Borondo keeps it open for you. He provides the stage, the staging area, the proscenium, the altar, the emanating light, the associations and memories you have with your belief system, or lack of one. During his artist residency with Pubblica, curated by Carlo Vignapiano and Elena Nicolini in May, the Street Artist (among other things) creates a journey as much as a destination in this intimate chapel. The video by Gerdi Petanaj captures this and perhaps a little more.

 

No. 13
The Haus / Lunatix Dance

From BSA Film Friday 04.07.17

From the moment it opened on April 1st, the Haus was a hit! BSA was very lucky to be there in February for a full tour while still in development in Berlin, nearly dancing ourselves through all five floors of this former bank with full scale installations in places that once held offices, conference rooms, employee coffee lounges.

By inviting Creative Director/dancer Serdar Bogatin and the film crew “Shuto Crew” into the space with members of the Lunatix Dance Production troupe, these spaces and art environments come completely alive, invoking stories and dramas – clearly making the spaces into elaborate set-design pieces.

 

No. 12
Ella & Pitr / Frappés PinPins

From BSA Film Friday 05.05.17

The French duo Ella + Pitr here revel in the simplicity of the gestural act of a full-body full-bucket splash of black paint.

Carnal, visceral, overlaid with psychographical information, the motion of splashing inky pigment across a white quadrilateral is an act of defiance and a release of the inner chaos – instantly recognizable as chaos elsewhere in the world.

The uncontrollable quality, especially when purveyed within an atmosphere of prim control, provokes amplified emotions in some. Fear, liberation, rage, release. Which ones will you experience?

 

No. 11
Indecline/ Rail Beast

From BSA Film Friday 10.20.17

“This reminds why I hate vandals! All this does is create more unnecessary work for the guys at the paint shop,” says a commenter on the Vimeo page where INDECLINE has posted this locomotive takeover.

You see kids, this is why we can’t have nice things. I just mopped this floor and you come running in here with your muddy boots! For Pete’s sake.

Truthfully, this decidedly unpolitical piece is a surprise coming from INDECLINE. Guess they were taking the day off from railing against hypocrisy and injustice with this animated train that recalls Saturday morning cartoons like Bugs Bunny and the Road Runner.

 

No. 10
Olek / In the Blink of an Eye

From BSA Film Friday 01.13.17

“It is one thing to read about the events in those parts of the world, but it is something totally different to actually look in the eyes of the women who lost everything while running from the war,” says artist Olek about how her world view changed when crocheting the project featured this week.

While gathering and producing materials for her installation with Verket Museum in Avesta, Sweden, the Brooklyn based Street Artist was holding informal crochet workshops with volunteers who would be producing the decorative yarn skin that covered every single item inside and outside of the house with their handmade crochet stitches.

Some invited guests were refugees who had escaped war in Syria and Ukraine and the artist and local folks shared stories and crocheted, sewed, and prepared the art materials together over the course of a number of days. It was during these exchanges of personal stories that, “a conversation started that has changed me forever,” she says – and she immediately needed to reflect it in her project with the museum.

 

No. 09
Sebastian Purfürst – Soniconoclasm / Broken Motor

From BSA Film Friday 06.02.17

In Berlin recently we met a photographer/media artist/musician who showed us a music video he just made of regular people whom you might meet on the city streets at night. This spring he asked more than 25 of them to recite phrases and “cut-up of army radio slang phrases” and by splicing them together with his band mate’s recitation of the lyrics synched to their lips, the rawness and rage and disconnected connectedness of people whom you can meet on the street rang true. “

This unvarnished quality bypasses the styled self-awareness of a lot of commercial media, and the anger actually comes across as fear. Perhaps you’ll think its too dark in demeanor – but then suddenly the melding together of the faces into one common entity makes it magic, even transcendent – revealing a simple sameness of everyone.

“This suspenseful individuality of the people is almost completely dissolved in the chorus,” says Sebastian Purfürst of his video with bandmate Markus F.C.Buhl.

Together they are called SONICONOCLASM.

 

No. 08
Pixel Pancho/ UN – Berlin

From BSA Film Friday 09.22.17

Pixel’s original installation was nixed by the city at the last moment but that didn’t prevent the Italian Street Artist from rallying to find another solution!

This new installation in the back courtyard was conceived of, designed, and constructed over a period of 4 days last week and became the secret surprise behind the museum for those who wandered there. Using landscaping techniques and botanical knowledge that come naturally from his farm in Italy, the artist create a mise en scène of epic impact with his robotic folk-futurist sculptures. Night time lighting took it to another world, but you can see the details better here in this short video Jaime Rojo shot on site.

 

No. 07
FifthWall TV / Occupied in Bethlehem – A visit to BANKSY’s “Walled Off Hotel”

From BSA Film Friday 06.16.17

“It’s almost become a playground for people to come to,” says your host Doug Gille as he looks at the section of the Separation Wall that the Banksy “Walled Off” Hotel is installed upon. “I think it is so crucial for people not to just come to see the wall or to paint on the wall,” he says.

“50 years under military control makes it the longest occupation in history,” is a quote that Gillen brandishes across the screen from the United Nations. The fact that Banksy is using his art star power to keep this on the front burner says a lot about the man.

“I think a lot of these people feel like we are forgetting about them and we have to remind them that we’re not,” says Gillen as he soul searches next to the Dead Sea.

 

No. 06
Various & Gould / City Skins – Marx und Engels

From BSA Film Friday 07.14.17

Conceptual Street Artists often perform interventions without explanation, satisfied with their own observations of the outcome. For Berlians Various & Gould the process has more often included the participation of the public – a way for more to take ownership and inspire dialogue. Sometimes many dialogues.

You may have seen our piece on their most recent public project called “City Skins”: Marx and Engels Statues Re-Skinned & Re-Located : Various & Gould.  Here is a mini-documentary that shows you the artists, the process, and the thinking behind the process.

 

No. 05
Rurales

From BSA Film Friday 01.27.17

Now to the Polish pig farms! Another Street Art/Mural road trip movie, this time across Poland with JAYPOP, Seikon, Krik KONG and filmmaker Cuba Goździewicz. See the discoveries, the relationships, the reactions to the work from a warm and considered human perspective.

The beauty of randomness and the randomness of beauty. These guys are fully engaged with their surroundings, the opportunity, the myriad people they befriend or portend to make allies. It’s an uncharted trip where permissions are sought and often refused, but they never stop painting somehow.

 

No. 04
Swoon/ Fearless

From BSA Film Friday 10.13.17

Using existing and new footage of Street Artist Swoon and selected interviews with people in her orbit, director Fredric King presents and hour long documentary that looks over two decades of art making. The stories told and the insights that Calendonia Curry aka Swoon presents while en route to her next adventure illustrate the fluidity with which she pursues the creative spirit, whether on the street, on a vessel down a river, or installing in a museum. An integrated explorer, Swoon brings you into the fold to go on this journey that always feels like its just begun.

No. 03
Fin DAC/ Rooftop in San Francisco

From BSA Film Friday 08.25.17

On an expansive rooftop in rainy/sunny/rainy San Francisco, Street Artist Fin Dac brings to life ‘Shukumei’, an ebullient and mysterious muse. The film is largely a stop motion record of the work set to music, but did you notice how much dexterity and effort goes into this precision play when you are working at this angle, basically painting the floor? The remarkable integration of the glowing skylight orb, dramatically revealed, imparts the figure a mystical dimension as well.

Video editing by Tonic Media, Soundtrack by Mombassa/Lovechild, and shout out to Ian and Danielle at Rocha Art and Missy Marisa, model.

 

No. 02
Niels Shoe Meulman In Magic City / The Art Of The Street

From BSA Film Friday 12.01.17

Niels Shoe Meulman spent some nights in a Munich jail thirty years ago for mucking about on the walls. This year he was paid to do it in Munich for Magic City, the travelling morphing exhibition (now in Stockholm) where Street Art is celebrated along with all its tributaries – including a film program and a number of photographs by your friends here at BSA.

Born, raised and based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Shoe shares here his new improvisational piece and some of his reflections on his process and his evolution from being in advertising as an art/creative director and reclaiming his soul as a graffiti/Street Art/fine artist. As ever, Martha is in the frame, putting him in the frame.

No. 01
Keith Haring- Rough Cut / Mexico City Metro

This rough cut lil’ video reached more than 300K individuals and had 100K views with thousands of shares on FB and on Instagram with dozens of comments and high engagement was easily propelled to the #1 spot.

From BSA Film Friday 12.01.17

It all took us by surprise last week in Mexico City when suddenly a whole train covered on both sides with Keith Haring’s work approached while we were waiting at the platform to catch the Linea 2 of the Metro. He made his name in part by illegally doing drawings like these in NYC subways and here now they are crushing a whole train. The name of the project is “Ser Humano. Ser Urbano” or “Being Human. Being Urban” and it aims to promote human values and human rights. The pattern you see is from “Sin Titulo (Tokyo Fabric Design)” – now stretched across these whole cars, if you will.

The train itself is inexplicably having brake troubles, so we get some jerky spur-of-the-moment footage but all week on Instagram and Facebook we’ve received tons of comments from people reacting to this little bit of Keith video by Jaime Rojo on BSA.

 

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BSA Film Friday: 12.01.17

BSA Film Friday: 12.01.17

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Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.

Now screening :
1. Rough Cut of Haring on Train in Mexico City (DF)
2. Niels Shoe Meulman in Magic City
3. Carlo McCormick talks about ROA at Magic City
4. Miquel Wert / 12 + 1 Contorno Urbano
5. “Awareness, Optimism, Commitment” by GEC Art

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BSA Special Feature: Rough Cut of Haring on Train in Mexico City (DF)

It all took us by surprise last week in Mexico City when suddenly a whole train covered on both sides with Keith Haring’s work approached while we were waiting at the platform to catch the Linea 2 of the Metro. He made his name in part by illegally doing drawings like these in NYC subways and here now they are crushing a whole train. The name of the project is “Ser Humano. Ser Urbano” or “Being Human. Being Urban” and it aims to promote human values and human rights. The pattern you see is from “Sin Titulo (Tokyo Fabric Design)” – now stretched across these whole cars, if you will.

The train itself is inexplicably having brake troubles, so we get some jerky spur-of-the-moment footage but all week on Instagram and Facebook we’ve received tons of comments from people reacting to this little bit of Keith video by Jaime Rojo on BSA.

 

 

Niels Shoe Meulman in Magic City – The Art Of The Street :

Niels Shoe Meulman spent some nights in a Munich jail thirty years ago for mucking about on the walls. This year he was paid to do it in Munich for Magic City, the travelling morphing exhibition (now in Stockholm) where Street Art is celebrated along with all its tributaries – including a film program and a number of photographs by your friends here at BSA.

Born, raised and based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Shoe shares here his new improvisational piece and some of his reflections on his process and his evolution from being in advertising as an art/creative director and reclaiming his soul as a graffiti/Street Art/fine artist. As ever, Martha is in the frame, putting him in the frame.

 

Carlo McCormick talks about ROA at Magic City – The Art Of The Street / Dresden-Munich-Stockholm

The urban naturalist ROA gets the Carlo McCormick treatment here as the chief curator of Magic City does the talking for the anonymous Ghent-based artist who has globe-trotted for almost a decade with his marginalized animal parade in monochrome. Here you get to see the inside/outside of his practice, a genuine master as work – with the delicious insight of Carlo to guide your appreciation.

 

Miquel Wert / 12 + 1 Contorno Urbano

In studio with Miguel Wert we get to see him sifting through a pile of black and white photos, assessing the scene, the sitters, the psychological-emotional dynamics of families, lovers, haters.

“In most family photos the interpersonal dynamics are more subtle,” we wrote when the wall was first unveiled in Barcelona, “but a close reading of posture, body language, and facial expressions all give unconsciously a lot of information about the true nature of the relationships officially on display.”

See more in “Miquel Wert Brings Awkward Family Dynamics From the Shadows in Barcelona”

“Awareness, Optimism, Commitment” by GEC Art

Young gymnast takes the opportunity to practice and perform for a moment atop this traffic barrier in Torino.

And why not?

 

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BSA Images Of The Week: 02.20.17

BSA Images Of The Week: 02.20.17

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We have a lot to show you this week of art from the street, museum, and studio. This horrid and chaotic political environment is proving to be fertile soil for the growth of politically themed works by artists everywhere.

We start todays’ posting with the image above created with the simplicity of a mirror held up during a recent demonstration as if to say, “this is what America looks like”, by the artists “Icy & Sot”.  The people who is reflected back to the camera appear in stark contrast to the nearly exclusively white, male, ultra-rich cabinet he has selected as his advisors.

Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring: Chor Boogie, EC13, Homless, Icy & Sot, JPO Art, Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf, Love Breeds Love, Shepard Fairey, UNO, and Wayne.

Top image: Icy & Sot “United America” silhouetted mirror at a demonstration. (photo © Icy & Sot)

Love Breeds Love (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified Artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Shepard Fairey for #artinadsplaces (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A posed in-studio performance courtesy of Icy & Sot “Knitting Hate” (photo © Icy & Sot)

Wane (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Keith Haring. Detail. The Whitney Museum of American Art “Fast Forward: Painting From The 1980s” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Keith Haring. The Whitney Museum of American Art “Fast Forward: Painting From The 1980s” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kenny Scharf. The Whitney Museum of American Art “Fast Forward: Painting From The 1980s” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

Chor Boogie. “The Birds & The Bees” Santa Rosa, CA. CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE (photo © Chor Boogie)

Homless (photo © Jaime Rojo)

UNO. Lisbon, Portugal. (photo © UNO)

First thing to know about the new piece in Lisbon above is that the Street Artist who made it, UNO, has a phobia with birds. The second thing is to know that if you see a crow flying overhead in Lisbon, some people will tell you that it is protecting the city. The belief is a remnant from a 12th century story that says the beloved Saint Vincent was buried in Sagres, where his body was protected by crows. When his body was moved to Lisbon by the first King of Portugal, D. Afonso Henrique, it is said that two crows accompanied the body. This is why the flag of Lisbon has a ship and two ravens on either side with the motto “MUI NOBRE E SEMPRE LEAL CIDADE DE LISBOA” (the most noble and always loyal to the city of Lisbon) .

Unidentified Artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified Artist. We couldn’t read the signature. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified Artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified Artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified Artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified Artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

JPO Art (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified Artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

EC13 new piece in Granada, Andalucia. Spain.  (photo © EC13)

Untitled. Landing. NYC. January 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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BSA Images Of The Week: 05.22.16

BSA Images Of The Week: 05.22.16

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No time to talk, you’ve been running to the streets to see new pieces and peaches like a new D*Face in Soho, Rubin’s solo show in the Bronx, the Brooklyn-themed pop up at Doyle’s Auction house in Manhattan, Swoon and Shep and Swizz at Pearly’s in LA, the Social Sticker club collabo melee with Roycer and Buttsup at a bar in Williamsburg, and the growing collection of rocking new Coney Art Walls. Also, Post-It Wars in corporate agency-land Manhattan.

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring 1Penemy, BG 183 Tats Cru, Bio, Bristol, Daze, D*Face, Eric Haze, Goms, Nicer, Nova, Pegasus, POE, Stikki Peaches, Thiago Gomez, and Word to Mother.

Our top image: D*Face for The L.I.S.A. Project in Manhattan. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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HAZE completed this fresh tribute wall dedicated to MCA of the Beastie Boys for Coney Art Walls 2016 in Coney Island, Brooklyn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“Ain’t seen the light since we started this band
M.C.A. get on the mike, my man!
Born and bred Brooklyn
The U.S.A.
They call me Adam Yauch
But I’m M.C.A.”

No Sleep Till Brooklyn

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1PENEMY stenciled of a mock mug shot of famed supermodel Stephanie Seymour. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Stikki Peaches comes out with a dream posse of rebels; James Dean, Steve McQueen, Elvis Presley, and Marlon Brando on the streets of Brooklyn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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DAZE completed this wall for Coney Art Walls 2016. Included in the composition of this mural is the Elephant Hotel, a seven story, 31 room fantasy hotel built in old Coney Island in 1885 shaped like an elephant. Besides the guest rooms the structure also boasted an observatory, a gift shop and a concert hall before it burned down in 1896. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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A Banksy inspired window piece made entirely of Post-it notes makes an appearance on the Post-it notes war between two buildings that face each other in Manhattan. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

According to New York Magazine the Post-it “artists” took their craftsmanship to new heights after someone installed a simple “hi” message on  the window of one of the two buildings facing each other on Canal Street. After one week the “war” is in full effect with several messages directed at each other offices ranging from “Will you marry me” to songs’ lyrics and other pleasantries and pop references. The two buildings are known for housing several ad agencies, Getty images and New York Magazine.

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A Keith Haring-inspired window piece made entirely of Post-it notes makes an appearance on the Post-it notes war between two buildings that face each other in Manhattan. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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An unidentified “artist” applies his final touches to the Snoopy inspired window piece made entirely of Post-it notes makes an appearance on the Post-it notes war between two buildings that face each other in Manhattan. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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A close up of two window pieces made entirely of Post-it notes makes an appearance on the Post-it notes war between two buildings that face each other in Manhattan. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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A general view of several windows and pieces made entirely of Post-it notes makes an appearance on the Post-it notes war between two buildings that face each other in Manhattan. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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A “Marry Me?” sign made entirely of Post-it notes makes an appearance on the Post-it notes war between two buildings that face each other in Manhattan. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Unidentified artist. The piece is signed but we don’t recognize the signature. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Pegasus’ Trump piece on the streets of Bristol, UK. (photo © Urban Art International)

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POE (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Word To Mother beautified the AthenB Gallery van in Oakland, California on the occasion of his solo show currently on view.  (photo © Brock Brake)

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Bio, Nicer and BG 183 of Tats Cru completed their totally fun and vibrantly hued wall for Coney Art Walls 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Thiago Gomez and Emilio Cerezo collaboration wall in Barcelona, Spain. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

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NOVA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Untitled. Berlin. April 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

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BSA Images Of The Week: 01.10.16

BSA Images Of The Week: 01.10.16

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You did it! First week of 2016 DONE! Congratulations sis we still have a few blocks to go. Exciting new gallery shows already this weekend with Esteban Del Valle in LA and Dalek / Interezni Kazki in NYC and a home-baked hard nut trio of El Sol 25, Specter, and Russell Murphy “Putting It In” in Brooklyn this week. Actually the latter would like to further the dialogue with you about what is the current rightful state of illegal work among all the pretty murals going up now on the streets.

“Today the lines between legal and illegal works on the streets have been blurred by social media and the overcommercialization of the graffiti and street art aesthetic and although many of the artists working currently to create legal murals have helped the art form gain international recognition and acceptance, many of the artists strictly creating illegal works have not had opportunities to separate themselves from the growing roster of legal muralists,” says the press release.

Meanwhile this week the stock market was its worst since 2011, Obama readied his last State of the Union, El Chapo was thinking of vacationing north of the border, Hong Kong Street Art was asking people about 5 missing booksellers, the Lotto jackpot broke records and a Queen Victoria statue was “Vaj-ed” in Bristol.

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Apples on Pictures, Billi Kid, Brolga, Felix Semper, Honschar, Hot Tea, Kai, Keith Haring, Kerry James Marshall, Lunge Box, Mgr Mors, Otto “Osch” Schade, Phoebe New York, Scoutpines, Specter, Thiago Goms, and War Buck$.

Top Image: War Buck$ is ready for the next financial crisis. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Keith Haring (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Keith Haring (1958-1990) painted these two murals on the same handball wall verso and reverso in a park on Harlem River Drive and E 128 Street in 1986. The murals were restored last year. Keith donated the art work to the city of New York. We heard his name mentioned in conversation as we were riding the subway and wanted to share these art works with you as a reminder of his art and his influence on today’s Street Art world.

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Keith Haring (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Honschar (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Lunge Box (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Billi Kid (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Artist Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Thiago Goms. Fanzara, Spain. (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

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Scoutpines (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Apple on Pictures (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Otto “Osch” Schade in Vina del Mar, Chile. (photo © Urban Art International)

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Brolga (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Kai (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Mgr Mors. Stary Sącz / Poland  / 2016. Do It Yourself Festival. (photo © Mgr Mors)

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Mgr Mors. Stary Sącz / Poland  / 2016. Do It Yourself Festival. (photo © Mgr Mors)

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Phoebe New York is just all partied out after the holidays. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Artist Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Kerry James Marshall on the High Line.(photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Felix Semper (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Specter (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Ian (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Hot Tea VAAAAIN (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Untitled. NYC Subway. January, 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

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Owen Dippie “Radiant Madonna” Unites Raphael and Haring in Brooklyn

Owen Dippie “Radiant Madonna” Unites Raphael and Haring in Brooklyn

“Soooooo incredible!” says Owen Dippie about his chance to do some sight-seeing yesterday finally at the Brooklyn Museum, where they are showing the work of people he calls his heroes, including Jean-Michel Basquiat as well as the brand new Faile show that opened Friday and the newly installed KAWS sculpture in the entry hall.

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Owen Dippie. Radiant Madonna. The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Not too bad for a New Zealand child of the 1980s who grew up idolizing artists like Biggie Smalls, Tupac Shakur, Michael Jackson, Andy Warhol, Basquiat and Keith Haring. As he became a teenage painter himself Dippie also discovered the painters of the High Renaissance of the 14th century and pushed himself to emulate with aerosol cans the brush technique and style of those Italian masters.

When you speak with Mr. Dippie and the topic turns to Brooklyn, he is nearly reverential because of its history as part of the graffiti and Street Art movements that inspired one, perhaps two generations of artists on the street. Of course, this being dirty Brooklyn, Dippie also had to confront a scallywag who was stealing his paint this week; a chatty dude who had befriended him with conversation and whom Owen discovered was walking away and getting on his bicycle with a bag of cans while the artist was up on a ladder. Yes Holy Brooklyn can turn into “Holy Shit!” in a New York minute.

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Owen Dippie. Radiant Madonna. The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

So it is a measured miracle, a ratherish revelation this week that as a parting tribute to the city Dippie completed a deftly realized mashup of Raphael and Haring, with the Madonna dell Granduca holding Haring’s icon-symbol that is variously referred to as “Radiant Baby”, “Radiant Child”, and “Radiant Christ”. A self-professed Jesus Freak during his adolescence and a member of the Born-Again Christian movement from its halcyon days of the 1970s-80s, Haring would very likely have loved to see his work appropriated in this manner, the newborn messiah supported in the stately embrace of the virgin mother.

“If art is a religion then Keith Haring is a god,” Owen likes to say. He tells us that it is not exactly hyperbole when he makes a statement like that while creating this new mural entitled “The Radiant Madonna”.

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Owen Dippie. Radiant Madonna. The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“When I was 13 my teacher introduced me to Keith Haring – and it changed my life,” he explains. “I was young – a troublemaker – and already I was majorly into art. But from that point on I decided to dedicate my life to art and I have been on this crazy journey ever since.” When said in that way we are reminded of the words often used by the Born-Again Christians like Haring when describing the moment of their religious conversion.

Perhaps a Renaissance man in his own way of valuing the humanist, the religious, the classical and the modern, Dippie freely combines images that cross half-millenia to help represent this moment.

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Owen Dippie. Radiant Madonna. The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Like his recent merging of the cartoon characters of the Teenage Mutant Turtles with the four painters of the Renaissance whom they are named after (Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo and Donatello ), here in the “The Radiant Madonna” Owen feels that it is a natural marriage of imagery and influences and one he feels impassioned about.

“I am a child of popular culture and am inspired by my heroes,” he says. “By involving them in my art I pay my upmost respect to them in the best way I know how.”

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Owen Dippie. Radiant Madonna. The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Owen Dippie. Radiant Madonna. The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Owen Dippie. Radiant Madonna. The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Owen Dippie. Radiant Madonna. The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Owen Dippie. Radiant Madonna. The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Owen Dippie. Radiant Madonna. The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Raphael, Madonna dell Granduca, 1505 (public domain)

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“Radiantbaby”. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia

 

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The New Whitney Opens May 1 – “America Is Hard To See”

The New Whitney Opens May 1 – “America Is Hard To See”

The stunning new Whitney Museum opens tomorrow, May 1st, in the Meat Packing District of lower Manhattan and you will be overwhelmed to see the last 115 years or so of artistic expression in America on display for the exhibit “America Is Hard To See”. 400 artists of every discipline and many art movements during your life and your great grandparents are here – from film and video to painting and sculpture and new media and photography, from abstract, figurative, text based, landscapes, and our own visual jazz – abstract expressionism – you’ll be exhausted when you are through with this show.

You’ll also be energized by the sense of sheer possibility presented – and the amount of space and the many outdoor plaza views. This is a new jewel in New York, and you have discovered it.

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Donal Moffett. He Kills Me, 1987. The artist printed this poster and wheat pasted it on walls across New York City as a critique of President Reagan’s silence towards the AIDS epidemic. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

We don’t get a new museum every day, but tomorrow you do, and it is rather spectacular to be privileged this way in this city of constant change. No matter your perspective, you will find the inaugural show to be vast. You are certain to like or disagree or applaud or dish with someone here, and it is all strangely American – Here is just a partial sampling of names showing about 600 works that should whet your appetite; Vito Acconci, Ansel Adams, Diane Arbus, Rory Arcangel, John Baldessari, Mathew Barney, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Louise Bourgeois, Paul Cadmus, Alexander Calder, Chuck Close, Imogen Cunningham, Willem de Kooning, Mark di Suvero, Elsie Driggs, William Eggleston, Anna Gaskell, Milton Glaser, Nan Goldin, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, George Grosz, Keith Haring, Eva Hesse, Edward Hopper, Robert Indiana, Jasper Johns, Donald Judd, Mike Kelley, Jeff Koons, Barbara Kruger, Louise Lawler, Sherrie Levine, Sol LeWitt, Roy Lichtenstein, Rober Mapplethorpe, Gordon Matta-Clark, Paul McCarthy, Joan Mitchell, Donal Moffett, Louise Nevelson, Georgia O’Keefe, Jose Clemente Orozco, Nam June Paik, Jackon Pollock, Richard Prince, Christina Ramberg, Robert Raushenberg, Hans Richter, Mark Rothko, Edward Ruscha, David Salle, Dread Scott, Richard Serra, Cindy Sherman, Lorna Simpson, Kiki Smith, Frank Stella, Hedda Sterne, Alfred Stieglitz, Rirkrit Tiravanjia, Anne Truit, Cy Twombly, Kara Walker, Andy Warhol, Weegee, William Wegman, Gertude Vanderbuilt Whitney, David Wojnarowicz, Francesca Woodman, Andrew Wyeth.

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Barbara Kruger. Untitled. (We Don’t Need Another Hero), 1987. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

You’ll look through that list and want to add some of your own of course, everyone does. Despite the revered Biennial which periodically bowls you over with new talent, some still find that there are not enough of certain social groups represented, and that is probably fair.

We find it somewhat alarming that 50+ years of graffiti and street art is only minimally represented here –  especially when it has become one of the hugely praised cultural exports to cities around the world and it is highly collected and ever-more auctioned. Talk about American! New York is considered a birthplace for the urban art scene and we can recommend a short list of these artists who are daily defining a new contemporary art for serious consideration. Yes this show has Haring, Basquiat, Kruger – acknowledged. But a great deal has happened in the last two decades. Maybe now that formally trained artists are frequently killing it on the streets in the 2000s and 2010s we will see more of these names included as part of the American story in the future. In fact, there is no doubt.

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Glenn Ligon. Ruckenfigure, 2009 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The striking new modern home by Renzo Piano is twice the size of the old one and some of the views from the museum of this city that you love may rob your attention briefly from the art displayed inside. The inaugural show up until September is called America is Hard to See, and at $22 a ticket, so is the new Whitney Museum of American Art. That price may not seem like much when you consider it would get you four hours rent in a market rate one-bedroom in this neighborhood. But in a city where workers are fighting for a $15 minimum wage we’d like to see it accessible to more New Yorkers as it is the preeminent institution devoted to the art of the United States. Just had to say it. Hopefully they will find a way to institute frequent “pay what you want” nights, and to be fair, students get in FREE every day.

But this is your museum, and we hope you add your voice to the discussion.

Meanwhile, join us as we say “Welcome to the New Whitney!”

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George Segal. Walk, Don’t Walk, 1976 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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George Segal. Walk, Don’t Walk, 1976 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Christopher Wool. Untitled, 1990 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Edward Ruscha. Large Trademark with Eight Spotlights, 1962 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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John Baldessari. An Artist Is Not Merely the Slavish Announcer, 1966-68 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Mike Kelly. More Love Hours Than Can Ever Be Repaid and The Wages of Sin, 1987 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Lee Krasner. The Seasons, 1957 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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From left to right: Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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General view of one of the galleries. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Mary Heilmann. Sunset, detail. Site specific installation. 2015 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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The back yard. The view from the back of the building. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!

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BSA Images Of The Week: 12.14.14

BSA Images Of The Week: 12.14.14

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BSA-Images-Week-Nov2014

The year is winding down people, and the hits just keep on coming!

Bankers are ruling us and setting us up for their next crashing of the economy, mistletoe-carrying drones are a good idea gone wrong, and thousands continue to protest injustice toward black and brown people in Washington DC and Washington Square. In happier news: – just one photo we posted this week on Instagram – LMNOPI’s painting of a small boy protester – united the boy’s mother with the artist and us via social media, which was kind of magical. See a version of the image below. The city is also crammed with tourists (Hi Aunt Bobbie and Uncle Roy! Hi Kate and William!), drunken Santa’s are somewhat less cranky this year, and the Dyker Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn is already encrusted with Christmas lights.

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring $howta, Crummy Gummy, Dhear, Don John, Eelco Virus, LMNOPI, London Kaye, Mistakoy, Mr. Oneteas, Peter Van Flores, Rocko, Tracy168, WERC, and ZIMAD.

Top Image >> A Mr. OneTeas tribute to Keith Haring appeared in Soho. Earlier in the week an “I Can’t Breath” piece by the artist appeared on the street in Williamsburg but was torn down before we could get to it. Things happen fast sometimes with this ephemeral form of speech, and some pieces (like anything too cutesy or anything with male nudity) come down fast. The artists Instagram has a version of the large wheatpaste. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Mr. OneTeas (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Zimad just finished this tribute to Basquiat for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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A Tracey 168 re-resurgence appeared suddenly for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Mistakoy (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Crummy Gummy in Miami. (photo © Crummy Gummy)

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LMNOPI (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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London Kaye getting in the spirit of the season and sharing it on the streets. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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London Kaye (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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London Kaye (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Eelco Virus with Rocko for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Eelco Virus. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Artist Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Don John at work for Urban Xchange: Crossing Over in Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Nikko Tan)

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Don John. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Nikko Tan)

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Peter Van Flores in Miami. (photo © Crummy Gummy)

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WERC (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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$howta (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Dhear in Mexico City for MUJAM. (photo © Wladimir Sanchez)

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Untitled (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

 

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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!
 
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Tour Paris 13 : Fluorescent & Towering Show Book

Tour Paris 13 : Fluorescent & Towering Show Book

Another book to tell you about today! Remember when BSA took you to Paris that time and we skipped the line and went into all the floors of this soon to be demolished building?

“The numbers are astounding; 105 artists, 9 floors, 36 apartments, 30,000 visitors.

One hour.

That is how much time Street Art enthusiast Spencer Elzey had to himself inside the largest gallery of Street Artists and graffiti artists ever assembled specifically to transform a building for a public show. As he looked out a window to see the snaking lines of Parisians and tourists restlessly waiting to get in, he couldn’t believe his luck to be able to walk through the exhibit by himself and get off some clear shots before the throng hit.”

That is how we described it in November 2013 when Spencer took us on a whirlwind tour of TOUR 13.

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Tour Paris 13 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Published last month this towering book with the page edges sprayed neon orange was released by Mehdi Ben Cheikh in French and English to commemorate the event, and seeing the installations this way is going to make you wish the place wasn’t destroyed. 500 new photos previously unpublished allows you to see the show as you travel from the cellar to the top floors.

You may wish you had more background on the artists and the context and clearly not all of the artistry is of similar quality but you will be satiated by the images and thankful that they were recorded during their brief duration. Published by Editions Albin Michel, in partnership with the Itinerrance Gallery, this show will continue to soar long after the dust has settled.

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Entes . Tour Paris 13 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Inti . Tour Paris 13 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Ethos .Tour Paris 13 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Seth .Tour Paris 13 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Moneyless .Tour Paris 13 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Artists included in the Tour Paris 13 project:

108, 2MIL FAMILIA, A1ONE, ADD FUEL, AGL, AGOSTINO IACURCI, AMINE, ALEXÖNE, ARRAIANO, AWER, AZOOZ, BOM.K, BTOY, C215, CEKIS, CELESTE JAVA, CLET, COPE2, CORLEONE, DABRO, DADO, DAN23, DAVID WALKER, DEYAA, EIME, eL SEED, ENTES, ETHOS, ETNIK, FENX, FLIP, GAËL, GILBERT, GUY DENNING, HERBERT BAGLIONE, HOGRE, HOPNN, INDIE, INTI ANSA, INTI CASTRO, JAZ, JB ROCK, JÉRÔME GULON, JIMMY C, JOYS, JULIEN COLOMBIER, KAN, KATRE, KEITH HARING, KRUELLA, LEGZ, LEK, LE CYKLOP, LILIWENN, LOIOLA, LUDO, MAIS MENOS, MAR, MÁRIO BELÉM, MARKO, MARYAM, MATÉO GARCIA, MAZ, MONEYLESS, MOSKO, MP5, MYRE, NANO, NEBAY, NEMI “UHU”, NILKO, ORTICANOODLES, PANTÓNIO, PEETA, PHILIPPE BAUDELOCQUE, RAPTO, REA ONE, RODOLPHE CINTORINO, ROTI, SAILE, SAMBRE, SAMINA, SEAN HART, SÉBASTIEN PRESCHOUX, SENSO, SETH, SHAKA, SHOOF, SHUCK 2, SOWAT, SPAZM, SPETO, STeW, STINKFISH, SWOON, TELLA’S, TINHO, TORE, UNO, URIGINAL, VEXTA, VHILS, and WISIGN

 

Click HERE to read BSA’s coverage of this project before the building was demolished.

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Philadelphia Mural Arts, A Golden Age

Philadelphia Mural Arts, A Golden Age

It is a rainy day in Philadelphia, but you can’t tell it by listening to Jane Golden.

After 30 years and countless meetings with community groups, artists, city agencies, elected officials, volunteers, and donors, the founder and Executive Director of the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program has developed a perpetual advocacy style that leans decidedly toward axioms that tell you the glass is half full. No painting is happening on walls in the city of brotherly love today, but the phones are still ringing in this agency of 50, and as Golden sees it, the community is still being served by their educational programs and a remarkably wide variety of outreach efforts.

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Jetsonorama and Ursula Rucker “You Go Girl” Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia, PA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Street Art and graffiti have been parlaying with their cousin, the community mural, in recent years thanks to the growing popularity worldwide of the former so we thought this would be a great opportunity to learn about the largest and most successful version of the latter.  What we found was that we share an underlying philosophy toward and an awe of the creative spirit, however it is expressed.  In 2011 BSA curated a gallery show in LA with 39 artists called “Street Art Saved My Life” after hearing enough artists and graffiti writers express a similar sentiment over the previous 10 years or so. So it should not have been a revelation to find that Jane Golden is known to repeat an analogous mantra that summarizes her work here in Philadelphia: “Art Saves Lives”.

Initiated as an anti-graffiti campaign by the city in 1984, the program originally made the common mistake of equating a style of art-making with illegally made works. With time, education, and outreach to the graffiti-writing youth she met in the streets, Golden gradually helped the city to begin to make a distinction between aerosol art and vandalism. As graffiti writers and others were invited to participate in the mural program, interact with the community, and to get paid for their work, the city witnessed a slow and gradual metamorphosis to becoming a capital of public art revered by many.

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Joe Boruchow “Watchtowers” Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia, PA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A trained artist and political science scholar, Golden never embraced the so-called “Broken Window Theory” that typecasts people as it pertained to graffiti writers and instead she shepherded that creative instinct among artistic types whom she met into creating work that gives back.

“I think that it is almost the opposite of the “broken window” stereotype,” she says, “This is about opportunity and possibility. It is opening up a window that wasn’t previously open in a way that people hadn’t anticipated.” She talks about the impact the Mural Arts Program has with its tireless outreach to engage neighborhoods in the decision making process about what work goes where, and she guarantees you that the overall effect is greater than a pretty picture.

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Eric Okdeh “Family Interrupted”” Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia, PA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“I have seen it in communities where there was support for the project, but maybe not universal support. Then the mural goes up and suddenly there’s this ripple effect. When people start talking about it, connecting with it, thinking about other things and then sometimes thinking about things that are totally unrelated to us but if you were to do a diagram of the various outcomes, you know that it started with us.”

One example is a mural in the late 1980s that enlivened a neighborhood and inspired a community group to form and eventually become a powerful force of advocacy for the needs of neighbors. “When we did this “peace” mural the neighborhood reclaimed the space and then they bought a house from the city for a dollar and turned it into a headquarters. Then they lobbied for more art, then they lobbied for educational programs,” she says as she describes the evolution of a community that may have once felt like prey to a vocal one that now comes to speak to her students a the University of Pennsylvania about topics like economic development.

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Christophe Hamaide-Pierson of Assume Vivid Astro Focus  “All Very Amazing Fingers” Mural Arts Program in collaboration with Goldman Properties. Philadelphia, PA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“I’m not saying that what we do is a panacea for all that ails the city but the catalytic role that art plays can’t be discounted because it is igniting something in us; it’s transformative. Art engages people in a way that just doesn’t happen in their day-to-day life. We want to help change the city and we feel that art is part of it.”

A particular threshold sighted for Street Art into the mural arts program was when artist Keith Haring painted “We the Youth” here in 1987, and that mural became part of the city in such a strong way that Mural Arts undertook a painstaking restoration of it a few years ago, as it has with many murals.  It wasn’t unusual in those early years of the program for murals to be done without proper consideration for life of the paint or the surface it was on.

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Keith Haring “We The Youth” Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia, PA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

With the Keith Haring mural the stucco was in such a bad shape we had to almost re-do the entire surface and that was an extensive process of peeling layers off. We wanted to make sure as we were restoring it we were remaining true to the original that Keith painted and it had to be done with incredible care, love and integrity. So we took its restoration and preservation really seriously and because it was necessary to do it right, we re-routed some funding from new projects to restoration.”

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Keith Haring “We The Youth” Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia, PA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Procuring funding for the many Mural Arts programs is an original model that other public arts programs have looked at – a balance of public and private that has enabled it to grow and support artists as well as the city itself – a system of securing funding that Golden describes as sort of an art in itself. “We are a city agency and we have gotten to a point where our budget is 35 % city and the rest is non-city funding through foundations, corporation and individuals earned income. It is an interesting hybrid model but that city part still resonates.”

She describes the alchemy of going to private donors as well as testifying about her budget before the city periodically. “We formed a board, we got our own 501c 3, and I just went underground,” as she describes the additional funding that enables multiple programs and actually pays artists a fair price for their work – something that the majority of Street Art festivals and various real estate holders are very reluctant to do – to the tune of nearly $2.2 million a year.

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Kenny Scharf. Mural Arts Program in collaboration with Goldman Properties. Philadelphia, PA. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“Someone told me about this art festival recently and said that they are paying the artists 300-500 dollars to do a major work and I said ‘What?’” she says incredulously, and scoffs at the idea that artists would work simply for “exposure”.  “We pay our interns! We pay our middle school students in the summer. Seriously? Everybody here is getting paid.” Granted, it isn’t always as much as they would like to pay an artist, but she makes sure the artists understand the full scope of the project before asking them to commit.

Despite the negative association many still have with graffiti and Street Artists a fair number have been joining in with the Mural Arts Program in recent years. With known and respected Street Art blogger RJ Rushmore joining the enterprise as Communications Manager two months ago, you can expect to see perhaps a few more names from the Street Art scene on the walls as time goes forward.

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Steve ESPO Powers “Love Letter” Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia, PA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“The Street Artists are inspired by Mural Arts and we are inspired by them,” says Golden, who is enthusiastic about this subtle programming shift that she began a few years ago with the encouragement of people like real estate developer Tony Goldman, who was credited with transforming neighborhoods like Manhattan’s Soho and Miami’s Wynwood District, and whose company acquired 25 properties from 1998 through 2003 in Philadelphia, according to the Goldman website.

“When (graffiti and Street Artist) Steven Powers contacted me to work together and he had this great idea, I said ‘I totally want to work with you’,” she says of his multi-building text project “Love Letters” that you can view from an elevated train line.  There weren’t any rules that say I couldn’t – we just need to get funding.” Of course it was as simple as Powers may have originally thought because the neighborhood also needed to be consulted, a practice Golden will not waver from.

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Steve ESPO Powers “Love Letter” Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia, PA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“Steve couldn’t believe he had to go to community meetings and I said ‘but you have to’.” As it turned out, the neighborhood had no interest in love letters. “We don’t want to talk about love. We are actually really angry at the city because the mass transit agency has shot down one of the major thoroughfares for repair work'” she remembers.

Some also didn’t understand the idea of text-based artwork rather than representational or figurative work. “’This isn’t a Mural Arts mural’, some folks in the neighborhood remarked. And I said ‘There isn’t really such a thing as a Mural Arts mural – its about creativity and its impact on the world’ and people then interestingly enough started to open up. They started to talk to Steve about their past, about what they did love about their neighborhood, about their memories and history and stories. It was fantastic and so it was a different kind of process and it had power on its own. That was a clue to us that we had built up 20 years of goodwill and we can now take risks as long as we are respectful and that will never change. It paid off because it opened the door for us to think differently about how we work.”

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Shepard Fairey “Lotus Diamond” Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia, PA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

She speaks as well about some of the other Street Artists from recent years. “Then we had Shepard (Fairey), and Chris Stain and How & Nosm,” she recalls. “I think their art is terrific and when they are here I want them to be a role model for the kids. Like How & Nosm – they were role models. They couldn’t have been nicer, kinder to our kids. Here are guys who started writing graffiti on walls and now they are traveling the world with their art and that is a fantastic message. For our kids to know that Shepard started out as a student at the Rhode Island School of Design, that he was doing stickers, and that now he’s got a big design firm, it was important. We do have an entrepreneurial division at Mural Arts and Shepard is a role model for them.”

Sometimes the value of the project is not simply monetary but goes far deeper, which explains the level of commitment many have shown. We asked Golden to describe a couple of projects that have been personally satisfying for her, and we share one here that illustrates the entirely holistic approach Golden and the Mural Arts program take to art in the streets.

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Cesar Viveros and Parris Stancell “Healing Walls” Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia, PA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

She describes what evolutionary process contributed to the creation of a series of “healing walls” that depict all the members of community who are affected by crime; the criminal, the victim, and all the people they touch. Of  the many outstanding aspects of the project, one is that the people who are involved, including the offender, are deeply involved in its creation.

“We did a project with crime victims, victim’s advocates and prisoners in our mural class. We decided to start work in the prison.  The men in the class said they wanted to do outdoor murals. I said ‘you are lifers, you are never getting out, how in the world are you going to do that?’” she says as she describes a solution that enabled the artwork of the prisoners to be mounted on the mural walls. “We work a lot on parachute cloth, so we thought we could do this, we can work inside and take it outside.”

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Cesar Viveros and Parris Stancell “Healing Walls” Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia, PA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The rallying together of the participants was not always smooth as the project began, she says, as the raw emotions and torn lives at times overwhelmed the process of creating the mural and voices of discontent threatened to capsize the project. “So I went to the Pennsylvania Prison Society, and I did research and designed a project called “Healing Walls” and I said ‘We are going to bring together everyone to talk about the impact and consequences of violent crime, because when crime happens everyone loses.”

In a process emblematic of the painstaking lengths Mural Arts goes to seek common ground, Golden describes where the main obstacle to the project lay. “So we asked everyone in this group from all different walks of life to come together to create a series of murals about this.  We are going to work partially in the prison, we’ll work in a church in the neighborhood, we are going to work here at the Mural Arts offices and we are going to work in some schools. Then the project started and it was contentious,” she says.

“No one wanted to get along because everyone had their story;

‘My pain is bigger.’

‘I’m from the neighborhood and we are scarred.’

‘Our neighborhood has been victimized.’

And no one understands the pain of the victim; The victim said, ‘I lost everything.’ Then the prisoner said, ‘I have been in pain since I was young. I’m filled with remorse.’ ”

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GAIA. Mural Arts Program in collaboration with Goldman Properties. Philadelphia, PA. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

After each party was heard and the project threatened to fall in disarray, an unexpected outcome began to emerge, says Golden.

“Then eventually, over time, we started to create together. We’re in a giant auditorium and we have tons of tables. On each table we have crime victims, victims advocates and prisoners.  Then people started to say, ‘Can you pass the glue? Can you pass the brush? What about my shape? Then what happens was kind of miraculous because people began to listen to each other as they painted together. Eventually people were like ‘You know what? We really need to come together. We all want a safer city. What can we do about it and people started brainstorming – People behind the walls and people on the outside.”

“Then the murals went up and we had a dedication at this church and tons of people showed up. People’s whose sisters and brothers were incarcerated were there, victims were there, the Department of Corrections came and there was a major conversation about redemption and rehabilitation and giving people a chance. It sort of tapped into people’s humanity that no one had articulated.”

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How & Nosm. Mural Arts Program in collaboration with Goldman Properties. Philadelphia, PA. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Thirty years and a few thousand painted walls are only some of the outcomes of a program like this, but countless more are told in the generative effects, the rippling of waves of the efforts by artists and community. Those outcomes are impossible to measure or to quantify, even though we try.

BSA: It appears that you can use the art as a vehicle and you are a bit of an anthropologist, ethnologist, sociologist –  so along with your formal education you are getting many degrees as you go in the process.
Jane Golden: I believe in what we are doing, that art making is really about access, justice and equity. That’s the real deal for us, a lot of it. But I love this merging of worlds but you are right in order to do this work it is anthropology, sociology, urban planning, urbanism its everything…

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Steve ESPO Powers “Love Letter” Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia, PA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“When people think of mural arts I want them to think: ‘They have a little budget, they do tons of work, they are relevant to my life and they are impactful,’” says Ms. Golden. “And that, I think, is important and that connects me to something else that I have seen especially over the last five, six, or seven years. That is that when it comes to solving societies’ more intractable problems – we can never discount the role of innovation and creativity to make a difference when our traditional interventions have failed us.”

And then we go out and ride the train and look at more murals in the rain.

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Steve ESPO Powers “Love Letter” Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia, PA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Steve ESPO Powers “Love Letter” Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia, PA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Steve ESPO Powers “Love Letter” Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia, PA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Steve ESPO Powers “Love Letter” Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia, PA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

To learn more about the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program click HERE

BSA would like to thank Ms. Jane Golden for her generous time with us and also Mr. Brian Campbell and RJ Rushmore for their gracious hospitality, guided tour of the murals and lunch.

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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!

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This article was also published on The Huffington Post

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“The City As Canvas” Opens with the Collection of Martin Wong

“The City As Canvas” Opens with the Collection of Martin Wong

Last night the graffiti and early Street Art history from New York’s 1970s and 80s was celebrated by the City of New York – at least in its museum. Criminals and outlaws then, art stars and legends today, many of the aerosol actors and their documentarians were on display and discussed over white wine under warm, forgiving, indirect lighting.

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DAZE in the background sliced by a wall of cans at the opening of “The City As Canvas” (photo via iPhone © Jaime Rojo)

“City as Canvas: New York City Graffiti From the Martin Wong Collection” is an exhibition as well as a book released last fall written by Carlo McCormick and Sean Corcoran, with contributions by Lee Quinones, Sacha Jenkins and Christopher Daze Ellis, and all the aforementioned were in attendance. Also spotted were artists, photographers, curators, writers (both kinds), art dealers, historians, family, friends, peers and loyal fans – naturally most fell into a few of these categories at the same time.

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“The City As Canvas” exhibition at Museum of the City of New York welcome text with pieces by Futura 2000 and Zephyr to the right. (photo via iPhone © Steven P. Harrington)

“City as Canvas” is possible thanks to the foresight, eye, and wallet of collector Martin Wong, an openly gay Chinese-American artist transplanted to New York from San Francisco, which is remarkable not only because of the rampant homophobia and near hysterical AIDS phobia at the time he was collecting but because the graffiti / Street Art scene even today throws the term “fag” around pretty easily. A trained ceramacist and painter whose professional work has gained in recognition since his death of AIDS related complications in 1999, Wong is said to have met and befriended a great number of New York graffiti artists like Lady Pink, LEE, DAZE and Futura 2000, who were picking up art supplies where he worked at the Pearl Paint store – a four story holy place on Canal Street that thrived at that time.

 Brooklyn-Street-Art-Sharp-Paints-a-Picture-copyright-Martin_WongThe show contains black books full of tags and drawings as well as canvasses and mixed media Wong purchased, commissioned, and painted, including a portrait of graffiti artist Sharp wearing a respirator and standing before a canvas he’s working on entitled Sharp Paints a Picture (1997-98).

The mood at the museum was celebratory as guests looked at the 140+ works from Wong’s collection; a cross between an art opening and a graffiti trade show, with enthusiastic peers and fans waiting patiently to speak with, pose for pictures with, and gain autographs or tags in their black books from artists in attendance. The only officers that could be seen were holding back the line of guests to make sure there was no overcrowding of the exhibit.

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The famous Martha Cooper photograph of Dondi in action in the train yards. “The City As Canvas” exhibition at Museum of the City of New York. (photo via iPhone © Jaime Rojo)

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A Keith Haring and LA2 collaboration at “The City As Canvas” exhibition at Museum of the City of New York. (photo via iPhone © Steven P. Harrington)

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Artist LA2 with Ramona “The City As Canvas” (photo via iPhone © Jaime Rojo)

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Keith Haring (Smiling Face) from 1982 at “The City As Canvas” exhibition at Museum of the City of New York. (photo via iPhone © Steven P. Harrington)

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Lee Quiñones speaking with a never ending stream of fans before his canvas Howard the Duck, 1988, at “The City As Canvas” (photo via iPhone © Jaime Rojo)

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Digital prints of images shot by photographer Henry Chalfant brought the trains alive. On top is an image of a train with Sharp/Delta 2 from 1981 and below is “Stop the Bomb” by LEE (Quiñones), 1979 at “The City As Canvas” exhibition at Museum of the City of New York. (photo via iPhone © Steven P. Harrington)

 

 

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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!
 
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BSA in New York Issue of Graffiti ART Magazine

The French contemporary art magazine Graffiti ART has just released their New York issue, giving an overview of historical and current players on the graffiti/street art scene in New York City. Along with profiling the work of people like Keith Haring, Patty Astor, Crash, Dan Witz, and How & Nosm, you’ll find a nice piece about your favorite street art blog, Brooklyn Street Art (BSA).

Special thanks to editor Samantha Longhi, who once wrote a regular column here on BSA with her Top 5 Stencils of the Week, for her inclusion of us in this issue, and to BSA readers for your continued support. We appreciate the recognition for our work and labors of love.

GraffitiART issue #17 on news stands now. (photo © courtesy of Graffiti ART)

BSA shares the spread with some true leaders At149th Street in the New York Issue of GraffitiART. Thank you to Martha Cooper for the photo! (photo © courtesy of Graffiti ART)

 

Click here for more on the Graffiti ART Magazine New York Issue.

 

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