Welcome to BSA Images of the Week. Happy Mother’s Day – to all the mothers and caretakers who have watched over us. Today, we honor thank you for your love, care, determination, sacrifice, guidance, creativity, patience, and sleepless nights. For those who are no longer here with us, we remember you with love and gratitude. Everyone is doing the best we can with the light we have to live by.
We start this new collection of images by photographer Jaime Rojo: a bash of color and expression from Dae Law.
The mural feels like right now, with its tangled ribbons snaking across the wall, sprayed and brushed without hierarchy, crude symbols that emerge and disappear, drips and imperfections left visible, and clashing colors of acidic yellow, gritty white, flat reds, blues, muddy greys, and blushing pinks. This is contained chaos, with a Basquiat-style text interruption, brutish application, overlapping expressionism, you think of notebook doodling and low-volume excitement and urban anxiety at one time.
When the narratives and data are delivered by firehose, this is what we get: an information landscape nearly impossible to bring into focus. Headlines, propaganda, advertising, strangely personal appeals, subtle invective, outrage, and corn syrup – its all layered so densely that meaning begins to shift and reshape into jittery loops and disjointed slogans and artifacts of imagery.
On a different note, it looks like Instagram continues its purge, or rather, algorithm anarchy, as overnight we just lost 2K followers. We have lost more than 50K followers since the introduction of a new algorithm, years ago, that was designed to drive content to followers. It makes no sense at all, as BSA continues to travel around the world, bringing stories to tens of thousands of people every week. The new followers are not enough to offset the lost ones. Just sayin’.
Here is our interview with the street, this week featuring 1440, AIC Mosaic, Bukus One, Dae law, Dirty Bandits, HASH, Jappy Agoncillo, Jodi Da Real, Merck, Miss 17, Muck Rock, NOVA, Ragae, and Wigs.
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! Yo, don’t sleep on New York – we’re still setting an eclectic standard of outlaw graffiti and street art and out-of-your-mind people on the street, in the clubs, concerts, and parks. When the weather warms like this week, all the subcultures emerge again on the streets, out of their apartments after a long winter, looking for action, and thankfully, there is plenty – 5-Borough bike rides, Smorgasbord, Shakespeare in the Park, cherry tree festival at the botanical gardens, LES skatepark, Union Square Market, Washington Park gatherings, Fleet Week. Yes all the prices are going up, but a lot of New York can be enjoyed for little or no money – just go outside.
Let’s see how the Met Gala sidesteps its Bezos-era funding this week during the annual craven catwalk of shallowness and hot air. The usual procession of “stars” will take the carpet—plenty of spectacle, putting very little at stake beyond the attention it generates. As a street art campaign heated up to boycott the event this spring, Hyperallergic’s article from mid-April nailed the gist of it. More recently, bus stop installations hit the message directly by stating “Amazon Powers ICE”. The Met doesn’t know how to do people-powered revolt – unless it can be pulled completely out of its original context (or happened 300 years ago). Remember the thorough de-boning of punk culture for the “punk” themed event in the twenty-teens? It was like a tasty punk Filet-O-Fish.
Surprisingly, corporate media didn’t pick up this new anti-corporate Amazon/Met story. See the video of a street poster installation at the end here.
So here is our weekly interview with the street, this time featuring Depoe, Dirt Cobain, Frank Ape, Gane, Guila, Gushe, IMK X, Jorit, Love X, Miss 17, Modomatic, Ollin, Pear, Qzar, Rems, Sonni, Stikman, Tuney, and Want Pear.
From throw-ups to tags, banal to topical, paste-ups to high-gloss murals, the New York pays you back in grit and passion when you keep your eyes open. This summer the heat is on – and you really only need shorts, a tee-shirt, and comfy footwear to get lost in this city that is speaking to you at all hours and pouring poetic discourse into your head and heart. As hard as it may be sometimes, we are always thankful to be in a city full of people and artists that inspire daily.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring: Invader, Elle, Goog, Urban Russian Doll NYC, Homesick, King Baby, Miss 17, Cramcept, You Are Not Alone, Rambo, Dense, Beep Beep, Red Eye Mob, Crypto Compadres, and Dominator.
Welcome the first BSA Images of the Week of 2022! How are you feeling? You’re looking great!
The street art parade marches on, perhaps ever clearer in its intent to reflect the mood, the zeitgeist, the intellectual meanderings of the artist class. In the process of demystifying the graffiti and street art scene over the few decades, we’ve long realized that there always will be surprises, no matter how much of the scene you have decoded. That’s what keeps it FREEEESSSSSSSSHHHH!
This week, as the snow is falling in dirty old NYC and as people are rescinding into their homes for another de facto Covid “lockdown”, we discover that artists are hard at work getting out their message, their id, their frustrations, their aspirations, their wit.
May this adventure never end, and may this trail never go cold.
So here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Adam Fujita, Anderson Bluu, Dorothy Gale, Ernesto Maranje, ERRE, Ethan Minsker, Fake Banksy, Gold Loxe, Ill Surge, J. Cole, Johann Art, Marka 27, Miss 17, NEST, Praxis VGZ, Salami Doggy, and Winsten Tseng .
Gastman’s Massive Graffiti and Street Art Show Arrives at Epicenter.
“I’m really excited to bring this show to New York,” says curator, graffiti historian and urban anthropologist Roger Gastman, “because the city plays such a pivotal role in the origin and evolution of the culture. The iconic images of covered subway cars made graffiti famous worldwide.”
He’s talking of course about “Beyond The Streets” the hybrid exhibition that he mounted in LA last year featuring the work of 150 who have proved to be pivotal to the evolution of a fifty year global people’s art movement that includes graffiti, street art, and urban contemporary art. Filling over 100,000 square feet of new space in Brooklyn, this two-floor cross-section survey will feature artworks by many of the same vandals, graffiti writers, Street Artists, and art activists who hit NYC streets, created dialogue with passersby, and were sometimes chased by the authorities. To see them showcased here is to recognize that there is not just one route to take – in fact there are many.
“We have an incredible roster of artists for New York,” Gastman tells us, “and a brand new space in Williamsburg that has a stunning view of the Manhattan skyline as our backdrop.” Notably the lineup includes artists whose work BSA has documented on the streets in this very same neighborhood over the past two decades, including Shepard Fairey, Faile, Swoon, Bast, Invader, Aiko, and others. Ironically the appearance of free-range Street Art in the neighborhood has been seriously diminished since that time.
The exhibition is one more verification that a significant portion of the scene is being widely recognized for its cultural contribution and value in the contemporary art canon – a significantly fluid scene fueled by discontent and a desire to short-circuit the established routes to audience appreciation. Like large survey shows elsewhere, the takeaway is the significant impact street culture and its tangential subcultures continues to have on the culture at large.
Gastman says the New York version of “Beyond The Streets” will take an
additional interest at the role of music and art activism on the street, along
with immersive installations, a tattoo parlor, a special Beastie Boys
installation with artifacts and ephemera, a new 30th Anniversary
Shepard Fairey project “Facing The Giant: 3 Decades of Dissent,” and large
scale works by Gorilla Girls, Futura, Cleon Peterson, and Takashi
Murakami.
More news coming on programming and events, but the important opening date to know right now is June 21st.
“All in all, it will make for a really special show this Summer,” says Gastman.
BEYOND THE STREETS TEAM
Curator: Roger Gastman
Co-Curators: Sacha Jenkins SHR, Evan Pricco, David CHINO Villorente
A-ONE, AIKO, Al Diaz, Alexis Ross, Alicia McCarthy, André Saraiva, Barry McGee, BAST, Beastie Boys, Bert Krak, Bill Barminski, Bill Daniel, BLADE, Broken Fingaz, Buddy Esquire, buZ blurr, Carlos Mare, Carl Weston, Cey Adams, C.R. Stecyk III, Charlie Ahearn, Chaz Bojórquez, Claudia Gold, Cleon Peterson, COCO 144, Conor Harrington, Corita Kent, Craig Costello, CRASH, DABSMYLA, Dan Witz, Dash Snow, DAZE, DEFER, Dennis Hopper, Dondi White, Doze Green, EARSNOT, Estevan Oriol, Fab 5 Freddy, FAILE, Faith XLVII, Felipe Pantone, FREEDOM, FUTURA 2000, Gajin Fujita, Glen E. Friedman, Gordon Matta-Clark, Guerrilla Girls, HAZE, Henry Chalfant, Herb Migdoll, Husk Mit Navn, INVADER, Jane Dickson, Jason REVOK, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jenny Holzer, Jim Prigoff, John Ahearn, John Fekner, John Tsombikos, Joe Conzo, José Parlá, KATS, KC Ortiz, Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf, Kilroy Was Here, LADY PINK, LAZAR, LEE Quiñones, Lisa Kahane, MADSAKI, Maripol, Mark Gonzales, Mark Mothersbaugh, Martha Cooper, Matt Weber, Maya Hayuk, Michael Lawrence, MIKE 171, MISS 17, Mister CARTOON, Nina Chanel Abney, NOC 167, Pat Riot, Patrick Martinez, Paul Insect, POSE, PRAY, Rammellzee, Randall Harrington, RETNA, Richard Colman, Richard Hambleton, RIME, RISK, Ron English, Ruby Neri, SABER, Sam Friedman, SANESMITH, Sayre Gomez, Shepard Fairey, SJK 171, SLICK, SNAKE 1, SNIPE1, STAY HIGH 149, Stephen Powers, SWOON, Takashi Murakami, TAKI 183, TATS CRU, TENGAone, Tim Conlon, Timothy Curtis, Todd James, Trash Records, UGA, VHILS, and ZESER
The show is developed in partnership with Adidas and Perrier. Additional support provided by Modernica, Montana Colors, NPR, NTWRK, Twenty Five Kent and WNYC.
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BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
