All posts tagged: Lek

BSA Film Friday: 10.14.22

BSA Film Friday: 10.14.22

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

Now screening:
1. A tour through L’ESSENTIEL
2. Faith XLVII in Boston
3. A Team On Their Own: Maya Women Fight Inequality Through Baseball.

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BSA Special Feature: A tour through L’ESSENTIEL

Updating the 2010’s magpie approach to group show curation of the abandoned industrial palace, L’ESSENTIEL presents a video tour on par with the metaverse – since we are all still awaiting a functional version of that much-ballyhooed digital world we will expect to inhabit.

Here you find a tone-on-tone parade of installations by some of the best in the street art/graffiti game- a common palette and a mostly 2D execution in the spaces that helps keep it all cohesive. Aiding, or distracting, your trip is the glitchy electronic world-wailing soundtrack and the pixel-thin placards that pop out of concrete seams to introduce the pieces hanging in the air nearby. The show is impressive and gives a wholistic aura. The question is, does this ephemerous collection exist here in the physical world or in the digital one?

L’ESSENTIEL: A Collective Experience of The Ephemerous Art. Graffiti / Street Art

Faith XLVII in Boston

“Perhaps you could dream something that happens in the future,” says Faith.

A Team On Their Own: Maya Women Fight Inequality Through Baseball. Via The New Yorker

In Melissa Fajardo’s documentary short “Las Diablillas: The Mayan Rebels,” Mexican baseball players challenge the restrictive gender norms of their small town.

If you think you are being held back, the first step may be to look in the mirror. The second is to look for kindred spirits.

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LEK Solo in Paris on a Long Wall with Art Azoï.

LEK Solo in Paris on a Long Wall with Art Azoï.

Parisian OG Lek has been working on the streets for the last three of his five decades, growing up close to the Mecca of European graffiti in the 1980s, Stalingrad. By the 90s he was ready to experiment with abstract and futuristic, with a balancing influence from the rigid uncompromising Bauhaus. Today he easily contemplates the illegal and legal, commissioned and commercial, and his compositions are not always easily categorized as graffiti, street art, or mural.

But he is easily called a pioneer among peers, having been one half of Lek and Sowat, as well as a member of Da Mental Vaporz, French Kiss, LCA, GNS, RAW, and 1984. Here we present a brand new gig he scored with Art Azoï last month in his hometown.

LEK in collaboration with Art Azoï. Paris. (photo courtesy of Art Azoï)
LEK in collaboration with Art Azoï. Paris. (photo courtesy of Art Azoï)
LEK in collaboration with Art Azoï. Paris. (photo courtesy of Art Azoï)
LEK in collaboration with Art Azoï. Paris. (photo courtesy of Art Azoï)
LEK in collaboration with Art Azoï. Paris. (photo courtesy of Art Azoï)
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BSA Film Friday: 07.13.18

BSA Film Friday: 07.13.18

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

Now screening :
1. Lek & Sowat and the Towers of La Rochelle
2. ASTRO’s New Fresco in South of Paris
3. Jef Aérosol for Wall Street Festival in Evry
4. Art Meets Milk – Bonzai . Kenz / First & Second Edition

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BSA Special Feature: Lek & Sowat and the Towers of La Rochelle

The range and creative output of Street Artists and graffiti writers astounds many who would narrowly define these artists capabilities to the basic stereotypes. Often we find that people who began their art practice on the streets have a far greater depth of knowledge and interests.

Here we see two guys previously known primarily for being vandals educating us about the history of graffiti as a practice. In this case the Tour Saint-Nicolas, one of the three towers of the waterfront of La Rochelle,  contains evidence of serious mark-making that may date back to the time of its origin in the mid-late 1300s.

For this installation Lek & Sowat tell us about the history of the structure from an architectural point of view and describe how they planned their new sculpture  “in situ” using the bridge as inspiration architecturally, merging those aesthetics with their own history of graffiti.

ASTRO’s New Fresco in South of Paris

Parisian Street Artist and graffiti artist Astro (Odv/Cbs)is equally comfortable doing a sharply wild burner as he is with an optically magic trip to another dimension. His abstractions grew out of a passionate dedication to calligraphy, curvilinear finess, and attraction to dynamic forms. For this project last month in the south of the city with Galerie Mathgoth the artist created a multistory illusion that characterizes his unique style and soars above the street.

 

Jef Aérosol for Wall Street Festival in Evry

You may have seen our piece this week on this wall as well : Jef Aérosol Creates Huge Fresco in Paris Sud for Wall Street Art Festival

“He wanted to highlight youth, its beauty and diversity,” says Gautier Jordain about French stencil master Jef Aérosol for this new public mural he just completed in Evry, in the south of Paris.

 

 

Art Meets Milk – Bonzai . Kenz / First Edition

Since publishing a video a few weeks ago about this project the artists have alerted us to two more graffiti videos that promote cows and milk – an unusual combination of family farming and graffiti style from the urban center.

Art Meet Milk – BustArt . Homre . Kenz / Second Edition

 

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BSA Film Friday: 06.12.15

BSA Film Friday: 06.12.15

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

Now screening :

1. Born and Bred: The Rise of Street Art in Bushwick
2. Collettivo FX and Their Enormous Wall in Castellarano
3. Lek and Sowat Make an Art Print
4. TELLAS at Altrove, courtesy @BlindeyeFactory
5. Sh*t Brooklyn People Say

BONUS: FAT JOE Performing Live at Bushwick Collective Block Party 2015 Last Weekend

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BSA Special Feature: Born and Bred: The Rise of Street Art in Bushwick

It’s all about Joe! While you were looking for a brunch spot or a beard wax or simply at your navel, Joe took an opportunity to connect artists with walls and did more for the “scene” in Bushwick than an L Train full of pilgrims ever could. He cleared the way for a slew of local and international artists and writers looking for an opportunity to exercise their creative speech and courted the press with his local native personal story so often that you can imagine a Netflix series will be next.

In our mind, Joe is just a true cultural worker who probably saved many peeps from taking themselves too seriously. There was, no doubt, plenty of Street Art and graff in the neighborhood for years before he started getting walls for artists but this guy more-or-less opened the flood gates that answered a need many had for a welcoming public space to see and discuss art.

There is no actual “collective” unless you think of the collective audience of old-timers, new kids, and tourists who have been able to participate and contemplate and consider the creative spirit that is alive in each of us and on display here in many different iterations. That is who is called the collective WE.

 

Collettivo FX and Their Enormous Wall in Castellarano

This is an actual collective called Collettivo FX (Marco AvantGarde Cavazzoni and Emilio Campana) who slaughtered a wall with animals in the municipality of Castellarano, a town of 13,000 in Northern Italy. The drone cam shots and the sound track by Brian Eno are masterful and mature, adding to the scope of the collective’s undertaking.

Lek and Sowat Show How to Make a Print

Lithography enhanced by hand, this is a mixture of 19th century know-how and contemporary art. If you want to know how an art print is made, now you know.

 

TELLAS at Altrove, courtesy @BlindeyeFactory

You did you see our piece on the Altrove Festival yesterday? – Largely Geometric : Altrove ’15 Delivers Abstract Murals to Catanzaro. If you did you saw the work of Tellas, and this is a spritely video recounting the wall in its creation.

 

Sh*t Brooklyn People Say

Okay before you get your attitude all snarly, this is just one slice of Brooklyn. Brooklyn has something like a hundred languages being spoken on the streets and in the stores and hair salons and funeral parlors and restaurants and 54% don’t even speak English at home. That’s a fact. But this is still funny. One slice. You gotta better video? Send it to us!

BONUS: FAT JOE Performing Live at Bushwick Collective Block Party 2015 Last Weekend

Shot on the street by Christopher Smith. Lean Back!

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“Big City Life Rome” Exclusive Shots of All the Walls

“Big City Life Rome” Exclusive Shots of All the Walls

The first thing you’ll notice is that all the walls are the same size. For “Big City Life Rome” all of the artists were given equally large walls for their murals, which is good because you avoid fights that way. We have seen a few festivals where there are heated discussions about which artists have what walls, how large or small they are, and where they are located. This sort of uniformity is rather unique in that way.

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Seth (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

The second thing you may notice is that there are only men here. Even the children in photos on the website are male. There may be a couple of females on the Street Art scene here, but this is a male dominated game in Rome.

“Big City Life Rome” brings some of the names you are familiar with, and undoubtedly one or two of your favorites are represented here. Given the similar generous scale of the walls the artists have it is easier to make comparisons between the geometric minimalism of Moneyless, the calligraphic pulsating patterning of Domenico Romeo, and the metaphoric wrestling musclemen of Jaz. Each of these artists has a distinct voice and seeing them revealed over a the period of 7 week festival provides  you ample opportunity to appreciate them individually and as a group.

Our very special thanks to Stefano S. Antonelli, who curated this show for the 999 Contemporary Gallery, for sharing these exclusive images with BSA readers.

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Seth (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

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Seth (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

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Seth (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

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Seth (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

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Gaia (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

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Gaia (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

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Gaia (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

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Gaia (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

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Domenico Romeo (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

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Domenico Romeo (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

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Domenico Romeo (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

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Moneyless (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

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Moneyless (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

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Moneyless (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

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Alberonero (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

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Alberonero (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

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Alberonero (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

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Diamond (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

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Diamond (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

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Diamond (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

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Jaz (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

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Jaz (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

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Jaz (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

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Mr. Klevra (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

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Mr. Klevra (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

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Mr. Klevra (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

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Philippe Baudelocquebig (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

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Philippe Baudelocquebig tracing the hand of his muse. (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

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Philippe Baudelocquebig (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

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Philippe Baudelocquebig (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

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Reka (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

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Reka (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

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Reka (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

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Lek . Sowat (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

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Lek . Sowat (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

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Lek. Sowat. “Veni, Vidi, Vinci”  (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

 

 

 

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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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BSA Film Friday: 05.02.14

BSA Film Friday: 05.02.14

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

Now screening :

1. Da Mental Vaporz and ‘The Wall’
2. YZ – Lost in the City
3. NYCHOS: Pen and Paper
4. Stealing Banksy
5. E1000 x Pablo Herrero at Memorie Urbane 2014

BSA Special Feature: Da Mental Vaporz and ‘The Wall’

To mark their new show that opened this week at BC Gallery, the 10 member France-based collective known as “Da Mental Vaporz” release this panoply of inventive and tight wall work and, as it turns out, canvasses. It is reassuring to see original thinking and solid skills still can win the day, and good to see artists sticking together to make great collaborations.

Included are Bom.k, Blo, Brusk, Iso, Dran, Kan, Lek, Gris1, Jaw and Sowat.

“The works of these artists can speak for themselves independently, differentiating from each other mostly in medium as in style and technique that which as soon as they are shown in a common context, creates an extraordinarily interesting and thrilling relationship. As can be deduced from the name ‘Da Mental Vaporz’, which, translated, means “The Vapors of the Psyche” it is for the artists a matter of concern to make the observer aware of the abyss of the personal psyche.” – from the description on Vimeo.

 

YZ – Lost in the City

YZ takes us on a trip through her city and invites us to get lost with her. For those non-French speakers, it is still a rewarding discovery that comes two thirds of the way through the small film that features jazz rhythms that wend you through the avenues of Paris, the suburban streets and into her studio.

 

NYCHOS: Pen and Paper

“All of my family – my dad, my grandpa, they all are hunters,” says Nychos at the picnic table as he explains his fascination for slicing apart animals and allowing us to see what organs and systems are arranged within. While listening to heavy metal you learn that Nychos was elated when he discovered his love of depicting dissection in graphic detail. He said, “Okay this is something I can stick to and go crazy on it.” May we all be so fortunate to find that thing too.

 

Stealing Banksy

“It’s like looking at a collection of hunting trophies severed from their natural environment,” our narrator intones, “stuffed into frames and soon to be seen by the privileged few”. Fair enough, you say, as long as I’m one of them. Wendy Hurrell says in her description of her new documentary “Stealing Banksy”, that she has been following Banksy’s work for a decade or more, and “it has been my privilege to wallow through the moral dilemma that is taking his works from the streets, legally and selling them for charity – never to be seen by the masses again.”

 

E1000 x Pablo Herrero at Memorie Urbane

The Blind Eye Factory shot this very large mural painted on the wall of a cemetary for the 2014 Memorie Urbane Street Srt festival in Gaeta, Italy

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Exposition Art Urbain – Colletion Nicolas Laguero Laserne (Paris, France)

Exposition Art Urbain
Vernissage le mercredi 4 septembre 2013 de 18h à 21h
Exposition du 4 au 15 septembre 2013.

La collection d’art urbain sera accueillie dans les 200m2 de la Mairie du 1er arrondissement de Paris.

Environ 50 œuvres seront présentées à cette occasion. Des grandes figures de l’art urbain telles que Barry Mc Gee, Banksy, Blu, Boris Hoppek, Dem 189, Dran, Faile, Invader, Jacques Villeglé, Jef Aerosol, Jonone, JR, Lek, Ludo, Rero, Roa, Shepard Fairey, Sowat, Speedy Graphito, Swoon…
Mais aussi des nouveaux talents de la scène urbaine tels que Roti ou Studio 21 bis…

 

Exposition Art Urbain – Collection Nicolas Laugero Lasserre

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Fun Friday 12.14.12

Hey bro and sis! Here are some of our favorite picks for the weekend around the global way as we head into the final holiday and New Year beauty that we hope everyone is surrounded by. Happy 7th night of Hanukkah to the Jews, and Happy ongoing holidayz to the Christmas and Kwanzaa and Solstice people.

1. 215 “Orgullecida” (Barcelona)
2. “Kids Eat For Free” at Tender Trap (BKLN)
3. Fresh Low-cost Original Silkscreens at “First Worldwar in Silkscreen” Group Show (BKLN)
4. “Graffuturism” at Soze Gallery (LA)
5. “Dark Corners, Savage Secrets”, Photography by Imminent Disaster (BKLN)
6. “Snap Back…” Rime and Toper at Klughaus (Manhattan)
7. New2 at White Walls (San Francisco)
8. Dave Kinsey “Everything at Once” at Joshua Liner (Manhattan)
9. Brett Amory at 5 Pieces (Switzerland)
10. RISK: The Skid Row Mural Project by Todd Mazer (VIDEO)
11. Swoon’s Konbit Shelter in Haiti (VIDEO)

215 “Orgullecida” (Barcelona)

French Street Artist C215 has a new solo show titled “Orgullecida” at the Montana Gallery in Barcelona, Spain. The artist has been for awhile using a lot of color with his multilayered stencil work – expanding his established vocabulary bravely in a way that most artists are too afraid to do. His portraits are placed well, are individually hand-cut, and sprayed with a sense of the humanity he’s always giving center stage.  This show is now open to the general public.

A one color stencil from an earlier period by C215 on the streets of Brooklyn, NY. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A detail from a more recent C215 (© and courtesy the gallery)

For further information regarding this show click here.

“Kids Eat For Free” at Tender Trap (BKLN)

A phrase lifted from restaurant franchises that serve food like you are livestock at a trough, “Kids Eat For Free” is a mini survey of train riders who know the back sides of the country well. Under the moniker of The Superior Bugout, curator Andrew H Shirley continues to explore fresh talent from the emerging margin, and this group exhibition features work by North Carolina’s NGC Crew. Now open, and don’t forget the kids!

For further details regarding this show click here.

Fresh Low-cost original Silkscreens at “First Worldwar in Silkscreen” Group Show (BKLN)

The best way to support your local artist is to give their stuff as a Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanza/Soltice present. No kidding. Everybody wins. Tonight a show of original silkscreens at totally reasonable prices is at Low Brow Artique in Bushwick. For tonight’s opening of their silk screen print show where you’d be able to purchase prints for $20…yes you read it right $20 bucks buys you art from 25 artists – many of them with work on the street – from Sao Paulo, Brooklyn, Buenos Aires and Berlin. Participating artists include: Selo, Markos Azufre, Hellbent, El Hase, ND’A, XOXU, Daniel Ete, Salles, Baila, Anderson Resende, DOC, SHN, XILIP, Serifire, Vero Pujol, Marquitos Sanabria, Diego Garay, Desastre, and Head Honcho.

Head Honcho. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Salles (photo © Jaime Rojo)

For further information regarding this show click here.

“Graffuturism” at Soze Gallery (LA)

This is like an exclamation point for the end of the year. No kidding.

POESIA, founder of Graffuturism, the term and website, continues to explore the depths of “Progressive Graffiti” or, as it was previously known, “Abstract Graffiti”. With great intelligence, passion and an acute eye for detail, POESIA brings to the forefront the importance and beauty of this emergent new direction that is impacting the Street Art and graffiti scene (with ramifications for others).

“Graffuturism” opening tonight at Soze Gallery in Los Angeles and promises a smart-headed visual feast of shapes, patterns and color from a mini-galaxy of talent from all over the world. Perhaps more significantly, it’s a bit of a decentralized movement that has been centralized for you. The artists list includes: 2501, Aaron De La Cruz, Augustine Kofie, Boris “Delta” Tellegen, Carl Raushenbach, Carlos Mare, Clemens Behr, Derek Bruno, Doze Green, Duncan Jago, DVS 1, El Mac, Eric Haze, Erosie, Franco “Jaz” Fasoli, Futura, Gilbert 1, Greg “Sp One” Lamarche, Graphic Surgery, Hense, Hendrik “ECB” Beikirch, Jaybo Monk, Joker, Jurne, Kema, Kenor, Lek, Marco “Pho” Grassi, Matt W. Moore, Moneyless, O.Two, Part2ism, Poesia, Rae Martini, Remi Rough, Samuel Rodriguez, Sat One, Sever, Shok-1, Sowat, Steve More, West and Will BarrasSoze Gallery in Los Angeles .

Also New York chronicler and enthusiastic lover of the graff/street art scene  Daniel Feral will be there with a  special edition of the Feral Diagram in glicee prints, and a couple other formats (salivate). An ambitious exhibition like this is rare and not easy to come by so if you are in Los Angeles you must go.

El Mac on the streets of NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

For further information regarding this show and to read a great essay for the show written by Daniel Feral click here.

“Dark Corners, Savage Secrets”, Photography by Imminent Disaster (BKLN)

Self-appointed moral custodians (mostly white men) have traditionally hampered the exploration of sexuality in formal art history and the academic canon of what gets celebrated and revered continues to evolve more quickly now. The sea change that modern social liberation that was once revolutionary is now a given, but the debate of the appropriate role of sex and sexuality in the arts is far from over. We may have just quashed one Trojan horse of social conservatism in the White House, but the radical right wing has pulled the center pretty far in the last decade and some have even said there was a war on women launched legislatively throughout 2012. So we are pleased to tell you about fine artist and Street Artist Robyn Hasty AKA Imminent Disaster, who has a new show in collaboration with Alex Pergament entitled “Dark Corners, Savage Secrets”. Furthering her exploration of photography Ms. Hasty has semi-retired her now well known hand cut paper pieces and lino prints on the street and traded the cutting knife for the camera. With this show of photographs, sculptures and performance art she’s aiming to tear apart the inhibitions associated with the  sexual act. “Dark Corners, Savage Secrets” opens tomorrow at Weldon Arts Gallery in Brooklyn.

Imminent Disaster and Alex Pergament (exclusive photo for BSA © courtesy of the artist)

For further information regarding this show click here.

“Snap Back…” Rime and Toper at Klughaus (Manhattan)

Freshly snapping back to New York from their successful truck trip to Miami, Klughaus Gallery brings Brooklyn natives RIME and TOPER for their new exhibition titled “Snap Back – Dangerous Drawings About New York”. The storytelling show features illustration and painting inspired by personal stories. Says RIME. “This show aims to tap into our life experience coming up in New York.” Show opens Saturday.

Rime and Toper shown here with Dceve in NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

For further information regarding this show click here.

New2 at White Walls (San Francisco)

The White Walls Gallery in San Francisco are fortunate to host Australian artist New2 with his solo show titled “In One Hand a Ghost, The Other an Atom”. New2’s work on the streets is complex and dynamic with aerosol, but his handcut collage work for the gallery is moreso somehow – maybe because of a painstaking process of arranging thousands of hand cut pieces of paper. This show opens on Saturday.

New2. Detail of one of his hand cut paper pieces. (photo © courtesy of the gallery)

New2 on the streets of San Francisco. (photo © courtesy of the gallery)

For further information regarding this show click here.

Also happening this weekend:

Dave Kinsey with “Everything at Once” at the Joshua Liner Gallery in Manhattan. This show is now open to the general public. Click here for more details.

Brett Amory at the 5 Pieces Gallery in Berne, Switzerland opens on Sunday with his solo show “Lil’ Homies”. Click here for more details.

RISK: The Skid Row Mural Project by Todd Mazer (VIDEO)

Art in the Streets from MoCAtv

 

Swoon’s Konbit Shelter in Haiti (VIDEO)

Street Artist Swoon is looking to return to Haiti to build more shelters for people in the rural part of the country. This video gives a great look at the families and community who are helped. You also can participate by donating to the Kickstarter campaign to help Swoon make it happen.

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Soze Gallery Presents: “Graffuturism” A Group Exhibition (Los Angeles, CA)

Graffuturism

Graffuturism.com, opens in the new Soze Gallery location at 2020 E 7th St, Unit B, Los Angeles, CA, 90021.

Since Graffuturism’s inception as a public blog and private Facebook group in 2010, there have been two major group exhibitions that featured associated artists: “Rudimentary Perfection” in Glasgow and “Futurism 2.0″ in London. Both were successful in their curatorial intentions and created a sense of community and motion for the movement. Soze Gallery also has been an early advocate hosting solo exhibitions in 2012 by Jaybo Monk, Moneyless, Remi Rough, Dale Marshall, and a two-man show with Augustine Kofie

and Jaybo. Recognizing the significance of the Graffuturists, Soze Gallery also presented the opportunity for Poesia to curate this exhibition, which he chose to simply call ““Graffuturism.” This exhibition has been eagerly anticipated as the first group show to be curated by Poesia, because he is the founder of Graffuturism.com and also a well-respected graffiti artist with a twenty-year history. Ending up in this unique dual position as artist and commentator, it has fallen on him to be the cultural instigator and diplomatic facilitator of this renewed interest, practice and discourse surrounding what he calls “Progressive Graffiti,” which has also previously been called “Abstract Graffiti.” At this juncture in the three-year history of the website, as well as in the thirty-year history of this over-looked aesthetic trajectory within the Graffiti movement, Graffuturism.com has become a hub and Poesia the dedicated and consistent chronicler and theoretician. With the internet as his podium and round table, he has been historicizing and canonizing these artists, young and old, who have been creating art outside the norms of traditional graffiti, esoteric forms of painting and sculpture that veer outside of the proscribed boundaries into the experimental, the abstract, the poetic, and the hybrid.Artists that fall under the term Progressive Graffiti are generally innately gifted draftsmen, who aspire to a Master’s Level at their craft. Overall this movement could be classified as a “High Style New Millennial Aesthetic.” The art they produce is derived from a dialogue that ricochets around within a pin-ball matrix constructed of coordinates lying between the historical and the contemporary, including high and low influences, fine art and graffiti studies, scholarly and street pursuits, intellectual and visceral marks. Whether the resulting output is graffiti, painting, murals, design, sculpture or installations, the pictorial elements are mutated and transformed through each artist’s unique vision into a personal vocabulary of cross-pollinated styles. Whereas the Street Art movement of the mid-2000s tended to focus on figurative stencils and wheat-pastes, this group of artists on the whole is more concerned with hands-on, singular creation, whether within an academic or street setting. Unlike Post-Modernism, the resultant overall aesthetic is a seamless personal statement, not a collaged juxtaposition of historic styles.

Because of Poesia’s dual roles within the movement, he as been in the unique position to attract this international line up of esteemed contemporary artists, which includes many of the significant forefathers from the seventies and eighties. As a result, by including so many of these original Masters, he has created a chronological continuum within the line up, which defines this historical thread from its earliest days. Therefore this group show has developed into a “survey” that historicizes and canonizes each artist within the Progressive Graffiti thread, as well as within the larger Graffiti movement. One of the earliest, and possibly the most influential to most these artists, is Futura. In the early eighties, after a ten-year career as one of the early seventies writers, he broke away from one of graffiti’s most sacred traditions, the letterform as subject matter. At that point he began to paint in what became known as an “Abstract Graffiti” style. With his groundbreaking subway whole-car “Break,” as well as on the canvasses he was painting at the time, he pushed an atmospheric geometric style to the forefront of his work and began to experiment with a wide array of experimental spray can techniques that had not been seen before.

Around this same time, other early NYC writers, who had also started their careers in the seventies, began to experiment with new hybrid directions not based in pure graffiti traditions. In 1985, Carlos Mare began to combine abstraction and Wildstyle within the medium of sculpture, which over the past couple of decades has expanded to include other mediums under the term Urban Modernism. Haze also began to cross over into the fine art domain and over the years has created a body of work that might be referred to as Iconographic Minimalism. Doze Green was also a significant member of the early community of writers who crossed over with an experimental style that included the use of archetypal icons, poetic typography, figurative motifs and painterly styles. West was also another early intrepid explorer, adopting a gestural expressionist style, applying the muscle memory of train and wall painting to the canvas with his long whole-body marks and splashy, dripping strokes.

This exhibition has also united artists from the second generation who took off along the path forged by those early pioneers. These artists started to formulate their progressive aesthetics in the late eighties, such as Delta, the European three-dimensional geometric letterform pioneer turned pure abstractionist; New Yorker Greg Lamarche aka SpOne, who has been able to establish an abstract typographic collage aesthetic parallel to his foundation as a graffiti writer obsessed with the hand-written letterform; Part2ism was one of the earliest UK experimentalists in Hyperrealism, as well as co-founder of the Ikonoklast Movement in the UK with Juice126, which also came to include abstract colorist Remi Rough in the early-nineties.

Also beginning in the late eighties on the West Coast of the US, the Wildstyle-reductionist Joker was one of the first graffiti artists to paint purely geometric abstractions and pushed for its acceptance within the graffiti community by founding the Transcend Collective in 1991 with She1, who was an abstract writer in the UK. Poesia, became a key member of the collective in 1995, exploring a more hybrid, expressionistic approach to Wildstyle, as well as taking it into pure abstraction, which he is currently pushing in new directions, as well as reaching back to the Baroque painters and reinterpreting their masterpieces as graffiti-dissected new millennial re-paintings. Over in Europe, first in Paris then Italy during the same time period, Marco Pho Grassi started out as a wall and train painter but quickly started mixing in abstraction and more painterly expressionist techniques much like Poesia, yet totally unknown to each other. Then in the mid to late nineties, back in the US along the West Coast, other artists with alternative, experimental mind-sets, who were aware of recent developments, were coming out with brilliant, refined hybrid styles, such as Augustine Kofie and El Mac.

Artists such as these had been forced to skirt the edges of graffiti culture as well as the fine art world for the past ten to thirty years. Due to the esoteric nature and hybrid aesthetics of their graffiti-based paintings, and their disparate locations around the globe, they had no way to band together or find an audience to support them because of the lack of enough interest in their local communities for their esoteric and singular aesthetics. On the other side of the tracks, they were also ignored by the fine arts establishment because of their association with graffiti culture and for unabashedly continuing their gallery-related practices under the term Graffiti, which they still did not entirely leave behind. But, as the world population grows and becomes more connected through the internet, these geographically disparate artists have found it easier to come together, work together, and share global opportunities with each other, rather than being confined to tiny local communities.

Now, as this historical thread comes of age and recognizes itself in the mirror of history and on the faces of its youth, as the pioneers of the culture are canonized and the younger artists are united, there are many more opportunities afforded them within the design market, auction houses and fine art world, as these communities continue grow in their recognition of the cultural value and influence of Graffiti and Street Art, as the most prevalent styles and art movements in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This particular Graffuturist group exhibition, as well as the previous two, are significant steps in the growth of awareness and activity. This is a significant exhibition because it connects all the artists across the continuum of this overlooked historical trajectory back to these forefathers to finally make the connections and give the recognition due to Progressive Graffiti in all its current manifestations and their historical referents.

Across the board, 2012 has been an explosive year for Progressive Graffiti. The synchronicity of all these group exhibitions and solo shows can only emphasize that there is increased activity by the artists and an amplified interest in the audience. Futura had his first solo show in ten years, which attracted a massive turn out of the wealthy and the fashionable, as well as the highly-respected hardcore members of the graffiti community, which is a testament to his growing importance outside the culture, as well as cementing his stature within it. Following on the heels of the success of his solo show, Futura exhibited with two other crucial esoteric Old School Masters, Rammellzee and Phase2, in conjunction with the Modernist Master Matta in the exhibition “Deep Space” in NYC. This exhibit was particular significant because it canonized these three graffiti artists within the fine art pantheon by successfully illustrating their undeniable aesthetic accomplishments in relation to Matta’s masterworks. Rammellzee also had a banner year, being included in the “Vocabularies Revitalized” exhibition at the MoMA, as well as being given a complete retrospective at the Children’s Museum, both of which were in NYC, not even to mention his solo show at the Suzanne Geiss gallery in 2011 called “The Equation.”

In London, also significant in its curatorial aims to canonize and historicize, as well as it’s grand scope, was “Futurism 2.0,” which compared and contrasted the Futurists and the Graffuturists in an exhibition, book and documentary. Another group show of significance was BrooklynStreetArt.com’s exhibition “Geometricks” which held high the torch of Abstract Graffiti in it’s title and Progressive Graffiti in its roster, which included Hellbent (the curator), Augustine Kofie, Drew Tyndell, Momo, OverUnder and SeeOne. One of the most significant of the many murals and “in situ” collaborations painted this year by Graffuturist-related artists was the abstract mural painted on the Megaro Hotel by Agents of Change members Remi Rough, Augustine Kofie, Lx.One, and Steve More, which is currently the largest mural ever painted in London. Also, a slew of solo and duo exhibitions opened every month around the world by many of the artists associated with Graffuturism and Progressive Graffiti: Poesia, Dale Marshal, Part2ism, Remi Rough, Augustine Kofie, Jaybo Monk, Mark Lyken, Moneyless, Carlos Mare, She One, Matt W. Moore, Jurne, Greg Lamarche, Delta, Hense, Rae Martini, Marco Pho Grassi, and Graphic Surgery. In order to see the full scope of activities though, one would have to go back through Graffuturism.com for a complete review.

Above and beyond the growing interest in Progressive Graffiti is the expanding interest in the over-all culture as well during these first two decades of the new millennium. Massive museum exhibitions encompassing the full spectrum of subcultures and historical threads within the Graffiti and Street Art cultures have also opened to wide acclaim. The success of ticket sales for “Street Art” in 2008 at the Tate Modern in London and “Art in the Streets” in 2011 at the MOCA in Los Angeles revealed the mass cultural interest of these art movements and all the art forms that are connected to them. The fact that these two exhibitions happened at all signifies the growing acceptance by the fine art community as well.

These museum exhibitions, as well as the trend towards many other smaller historical exhibitions, such as “Deep Space” and “Futurism 2.0” at the end of 2012, and “Pantheon: A history of Art from the Streets of NYC” in 2011, indicate a new interest in the study of the history and cultural significance of these movements. Other indicators are the release of high quality scholarly books, articles and movies, such as “Abstract Graffiti” by Cedar Lewisohn in 2011; “Beyond Graffiti” published in ArtNews in 2011 by Carolina Miranda; the 2005 documentary “Next: A Primer on Urban Painting” by Pablo Aravena; and “The Feral Diagram 2.0: Graffiti and Street Art” published in 2012 by Daniel Feral. These are all testament to the growing enthusiasm of scholars, historians, and theoreticians to examine, define and record the fifty year history of graffiti and street art, and recently in particular the Progressive Graffiti thread. Like any misunderstood movement before these, such as rock’n’roll, comic books, and cinema, eventually the art forms, the audiences and the scholars united to finally recognize the movement’s undeniable cultural value, relevance and resonance in all their forms from the simple and visceral to the esoteric and intellectual.

Text by Daniel Feral

On Friday, Dec 14, 2012, the eponymously-titled “Graffuturism” exhibition curated by Poesia, the founder of Graffuturism.com, opens in the new Soze Gallery location at 2020 E 7th St, Unit B, Los Angeles, CA, 90021.

The complete artist list in alphabetical order by first name is as follows: 2501, Aaron De La Cruz, Augustine Kofie, Boris “Delta” Tellegen, Carl Raushenbach, Carlos Mare, Clemens Behr, Derek Bruno, Doze Green, Duncan Jago, DVS 1, El Mac, Eric Haze, Erosie, Franco “Jaz” Fasoli, Futura, Gilbert 1, Greg “Sp One” Lamarche, Graphic Surgery, Hense, Hendrik “ECB” Beikirch, Jaybo Monk, Joker, Jurne, Kema, Kenor, Lek, Marco “Pho” Grassi, Matt W. Moore, Moneyless, O.Two, Part2ism, Poesia, Rae Martini, Remi Rough, Samuel Rodriguez, Sat One, Sever, Shok-1, Sowat, Steve More, West, Will Barras.

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Fun Friday 04.13.12

 

Uh-Oh, should I be wearing a necklace of garlic today? It might not be too cool to wear it indoors. Oh snap it’s only a movie. Happy Friday the 13th everybody!

1. “Vice & Virtue” Shai Dahan (Stockholm)
2. “It Felt Like a Kiss”, Alexandros Vasmoulakis at Gallery Nosco (London)
3. “The Birds & The Bees” with H. Veng Smith and Gigi Chen (BKLN)
4. Isaac Cordal Solo tonight in Barcelona
5. Hellbent at C.A.V.E. Saturday (LA)
6. Buff Monster at Corey Helford Saturday (LA)
7. Sowat and Lek present: “Mausolee”
8. Arabic Graffiti and Egyptian Street Art in Frankfurt
9. John Crash Matos’ “Study In Watercolors” at the Addict Galerie in Paris
10. ARMO and his world of color, shapes and textures. (VIDEO)
11. Ana Peru Peru Ana “meanwhile, in new york city (VII)” (VIDEO)

“Vice & Virtue” Shai Dahan (Stockholm)

Shai Dahan’s solo show  “Vice & Virtue” opened last night at the Scarlett Gallery in Stockholm, Sweden and is open today to the public.  Are your virtues bigger than your vices?

For further information regarding this show click here.

“It Felt Like a Kiss”, Alexandros Vasmoulakis at Gallery Nosco (London)

An exploration of the seductive kiss and the female power of attraction – sounds like a valiant pursuit, doesn’t it? Alexandros Vasmoulakis’s solo show is open to the general public at Gallery Nosco in London today.

For further information regarding this show click here.

“The Birds & The Bees” with H. Veng Smith and Gigi Chen (BKLN)

A perfect theme for a show right now as the temperatures rise and skirts rise and shirts come off on the grassy knolls in Prospect Park.  “The Birds & The Bees” H. Veng Smith show with Gigi Chen at the Mighty Tanaka Gallery opens today in Brooklyn as Spring time’s gallant breeze calls you hither to Dumbo.

Veng (photo © Jaime Rojo)

For further information regarding this show click here.

Isaac Cordal Solo tonight in Barcelona

Curated by Street Art author Maximiliano Ruiz, this solo show gives platform to Isaac Cordal, a small-scale sculptor who has thus far used the street as the only necessary stage. Mr. Cordal’s little cement characters at RAS Gallery will stop you in your tracks and reconsider your giant self.

Isaac Cordal (photo © Isaac Cordal)

For further information regarding this show click here.

Hellbent at C.A.V.E. Saturday (LA)

New York Street Artist and fine artist Hellbent shares the space at C.A.V.E Gallery in Venice Beach, California this weekend with his offering “A Quilted Life”.

Hellbent (photo © Jaime Rojo)

For further information regarding this show click here.

Buff Monster at Corey Helford Saturday (LA)

Buff Monster is back at his most mischievous at the Corey Helford Gallery this time all covered in delicious pink. His solo show “Legend of the Pink” opens tomorrow in Culver City as the monster celebrates 10 years of work on the street.

Buff Monster (photo © Jaime Rojo)

For further information regarding this show click here.

Also happening this weekend:

Maya Hayuk solo show “2012 Apocabliss” in Mexico City at Anonymous Gallery. Click here for more details on this show.

Sowat and Lek present: “Mausolee”. An art show and book release in Paris, France. Click here for more details on this show.

From Here to Fame Publishing Presents: Arabic Graffiti and Egyptian Street Art in Frankfurt, Germany. Click here for more details on this show.

John Crash Matos’ “Study In Watercolors” at the Addict Galerie in Paris, France. Click here for more details on this show.

ARMO and his world of color, shapes and textures. (VIDEO)

Armo (photo © Armo)

“meanwhile, in new york city (VII)” (VIDEO)

Peru Ana Ana Peru are Street Artists, jokesters, and film makers in New York. Here is their new mini-movie of unscripted New York scenes, sounds and soliloquies collected together for your amusement and befuddlement.

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Sowat and Lek Presents: “Mausolee” Art show and Book Release (Paris, France)

Mausolee

On August 12, 2010, Lek and Sowat found an abandoned supermarket in the north of Paris. For a year, in the greatest of secrets, both artists continuously wandered in this 430,000 sq ft monument to paint murals and organize an illegal artistic residency, inviting forty French graffiti artists to collaborate, from the first to the last generation of the graffiti movement.  Together they built a Mausoleum, a temple dedicated to their disappearing underground culture, slowly being replaced by street art and its global pop aesthetics.

R. Skyronka (photo © R.Skyronka)

Butterfly

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