Here is our weekly interview with the street: this week featuring Faile, Stikman, Elle, Queen Andrea, CRKSHNK, Shiro, Espo, Homesick, DeGrupo, Michael Alan, Dark Clouds, Gats, Manik, Drones, ICU463, El Chalvo Del Ocho, Saxgraf, Smart RIS, Bianca Does New York, Uloang, and Chespirito.
Welcome to Memorial Day Weekend in NYC, when New Yorkers remember those who died in wars, and we have parades, barbecues, smoke reefer on the stoop, ride the Circle Line, go to the Met Museum, hit Ellis Island, stroll through the park, play kickball with your neighbors, see fireworks, ride your bike across the bridge, blast loud music out of car windows, spray paint on walls, bring food to the elderly, and head to the beaches, which are officially open now.
Each year we try new foods too, because there are so many dishes you have heard of but haven’t tried – one venue with live music here in Brooklyn is touting a menu that Smash Burgers, Lobster Rolls, Snow Cones, and Fresh Coconuts. Haven’t tried all of those before, but that does sound like a recipe for summer. It’s Fleet Week so welcome Sailors! Welcome immigrants! Welcome trans folk! Welcome summer. Welcome Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Atheists. Get in here! Celebrate us all ya’ll. This is worth fighting for.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring: City Kitty, CRKSHNK, Jet, Eternal Possessions, Manik, Gent, SKAM, BEOR, Natadee, Ivan J. Rogue, Phaser, Goders, Peso Neto, Liz Christy, Danana Tree, Mini Mantis, Peto, Budar, Geps, Riotk, void, Mung, Dats, and Kalypso Manu.
Boy, that Kevin McCarthy is as popular as an STD in a bordello. After begging and paying off more and more people to vote for him so he could become Speaker of the House, it was well past midnight before he got some serious action – and it took 15 ballots over 4 days to award him into his position finally. A classy bunch too, if the pushing and shoving is any indication. Not to be outdone, our own favorite Brooklyn right-wing corporate progressive homesnack Jeffries sliced and diced his foes with some fancy alphabetics in his speech that somehow looked suddenly like a State of the Union speech via Sesame Street.
“FREEDOM OVER FASCISM. GOVERNING OVER GASLIGHTING. HOPEFULNESS OVER HATRED. INCLUSION OVER ISOLATION. JUSTICE OVER JUDICIAL OVERREACH. KNOWLEDGE OVER KANGAROO COURTS. LIBERTY OVER LIMITATION. MATURITY OVER MAR-A-LAGO. NORMALCY OVER NEGATIVITY.”
Meanwhile the BSA office game on Friday was Kevin McCarthy name-that-tune day – challenging us to find popular songs to describe the ongoing losing of votes: Winners of the contest were “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” by the Rolling Stones, “Big Pimpin”, by Jay Z, “Burning Down the House,” by Talking Heads, “Fool on the Hill,” by the Beatles, and “Please, Please, Please” by James Brown, “If It Ain’t Ruff,” by NWA.
Meanwhile, BSA was starting the year in Jersey City to catch some of the newer street art murals that we haven’t published, and the graffiti was on-point as well.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring: Nespoon, SETH, MadC, Homesick, Manik, Mack, WASP, Beset, JCMP, and Louie Gasparro.
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week. Our hearts and minds are heavy and quiet this weekend as we contemplate the two decades and lost lives and liberties since September 11, 2001.
It’s impossible to know what the world would have looked like had those fateful events not taken place twenty years ago, and only a handful would have predicted that it would have been used as a springboard for more wars that cost more lives. As the country pulls out of Afghanistan so badly and obviously, a real examination of the soul is taking place. There is no real purpose served by trying to extricate the pain of loss locally from those sufferred globally as a result of the events of September 11th, except for us New Yorkers to reflect on how our city is forever changed. Thankfully, New Yorkers prove time and again that we are also forever determined to overcome and to come together.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring BAT, Below Key, BK Foxx, Chris RWK, Chupa, De Grupo, Early Riser NYC, Fumero, Futura, Hand Up, Manik, Modomatic, Naito Oru, Pope, Rezo, and Toofly.
It comes as no surprise that the explosion of new graffiti in New York is evident across the river in Jersey City, where we have been hanging out the last few day for the Jersey City Mural Festival. And for those who know their history, it will also come as no surprise that we always dig the illegal unapproved organic graffiti and street art as much as that which has received official approval from our city fathers and mothers.
So here’s new pieces and tags from under the bridges, passageways, and inside the abandoned buildings in JC. The looseness of line and exuberance of color combinations tell us that graff kids are feeling at liberty to get up wherever necessary to get out their name. In the oceanic metaphor of ebbs and flows – this wave is flowing, bro.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Acro, Amore, Carbo, Chaos, Chees, Dzel, Gear, Hugo Girl, Jinx, Loser, Manik, MES, Nate Paints, Pesco, Reato, Rozr, Sean 9 Lugo, Serbo, Short, Sophie Xeon, Sugar, and Visit.
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! Ramadan Kareem to Muslim brothers and sisters in New York and around the world. May you have an easy fast.
We’re bowled over by the beauty in the streets and parks and rooftops right now, with performances and painting and the blossoming of flowers underfoot and on branches overhead. Fires are alit in hearts everywhere.
“All the roofs are wet and underneath smoke that piles softly in streets, tongues are on top of each other mulling over the night.”
from Gamin ~ Frank O’Hara
Yes, there is a sort of battered nervousness in conversations on the streets and as we go about our quotidian duties; a discerned increase in agitation due to economic instability, surges of new Covid strains in our hospitals, and ongoing examples of police brutality toward black and brown people is met with resistance and sometimes violence as well.
Still, consider the robin. In your heart, may hope spring eternal. Also, we learn today that summer may be returning at least one exceedingly creative and participatory public art event as the Gothamist reports that “Coney Island’s Mermaid Parade May Return In The Flesh This Summer.”
And yo! Don’t sleep on the street artists who are putting up new work right now. They are addressing our ills, regaling us with visual puns, poking at our foibles, recontextualizing and performing feats of wonder under cover of night, or while heads are turned in broad daylight. Entertaining, bragging, dreaming… onward they go.
So here’s our weekly interview with the street, this time featuring: Absconded Project, Atakbf, Bastard Bot, City Kitty, Clown Soldier, Degrupo, George Collagi, Lexi Bella, Manik, Marka27, Matt Siren, Peachee Blue, Royce Bannon, Sonni, Teens for Press Freedom, Vexta, and Zaver.
Manchester’s Northern Quarter is known for its vibrant street art scene (including the Cities of Hope festival), independent music venues, …Read More »