Nuart Main Gallery: It’s peaceful setting and appearance belie the great struggles of humanity inside (photo Logan Hicks)
What is it with that Norwegian air that makes some people so fresh? Or maybe that’s the beer…
One off-handed reference to Empires and before you know it, some closet soldiers start falling into character and spouting military metaphors and going off about seiges and skullduggery.
We aren’t completely positive what our in-the-field reporter is talking about but until they have a live blogging tent at Nuart this is what we can pass along your way, dear reader…. (The apparent rift between Baltimore and Non-Baltimore contingents has been independently verified however)
In the field, Chris Stain breathlessly relates the events as they unfolded;
“Yesterday BK converged in Stavanger at 1200 hours and planned a city-wide assault under the guise of NUART. During the meeting Skewville and Chris Stain were informed by Swoon that Stockholm and Copenhagen were not in Germany. ”
Lessons in geography.
“Swoon and accomplice Ben Wolf formed a plan to conquer the eastern wing of SKUR 2 by setting up an ambush in an adjacent alley.” (photo Chris Stain)
“Infantryman Logan Hicks wasted no time breaking into a full war cry with a new tactical approach on stenciling” (photo Chris Stain)
“…while the diabolical Leon Reid got busy drafting his piece for installation to take out a bank in the city center.” (photo Chris Stain)
“David Choe was meet with resistance when attempting a mission in allied territory.” (Photo Logan Hicks)
Finally, it was brought to the attention of NUART commander-in-chief Martyn Reed that two of the BK artists were originally from Baltimore and subsequently were made to ride in the back of the bus and eat at separate lunch counters to keep from contaminating the rest of the troops.
End apartheid in Stavanger! I’m putting this on my Facebook profile and if you really cared you would too. (Now, Baltimore is in Sweden right?)
“But seriously folks this sh*t is gonna be a classic!” – Private Stain
Okay, not to get carried away – and anyway there are a fair number of anti-empire peeps out there….The next phase of Nuart begins tonight and street artists from New York have started in earnest deep into the Norwegian night to bring the best of Brooklyn to the walls. While Brooklynites are back home celebrating the long Labor Day weekend with backyard, rooftop and sidewalk barbecues, Brooklyn street artists have begun the hard labor of installing brand new works in the main exhibition space for the Nuart Opening Weekend coming next.
Skewville is unpacking the suitcases and rolling out the orange caution fence and milk crates.
Chris Stain lightly sketches the outlines of a working fella.
Unveiling a new piece and style that he’s been working on, first to appear is a stairway by Logan Hicks
Brooklyn favorite Swoon anchors her piece with a figure.
David Choe is already pulling out the stops at 3 a.m.
Thanks to on-the-spot Workhorse Logan Hicks for letting us all take a look behind the scenes.
Here’s Paddy! Where’s Paddy? (Images copyright Ian Cox)
Street artist Chris Stain is painting again tonight, since last nights’ job didn’t turn out so well in Stavanger, our sister city. It could be a funny story, but I’m not the one who put 4 hours into it and had to duck somebody spewing chunks of kjøttkaker out the window so I shouldn’t really say that.
Chris explains what happened below, and luckily there were some great pics of the piece before it disappeared. Nice job Ian!
“It was the first night that it hadn’t rained all week so I was eager to get out to paint. After we got everything set up it was well after 9p.m. so I got straight to work. The piece I chose was my “Poor Paddy” piece, named after the Pogues song about a guy who was sick of working for the railroad. The image is of an older worker in a hat with a look of disgust on his face.
Chris rockin another one (image copyright Ian Cox)
As I was painting some sick f*ck across the alley was hanging out the 2nd story window, pukin’ their guts out. I guess the toilet was broke or occupied?
"Flying Cock" by C6 at Nuart (photo C6)
C6 from London showed up with his brand new “Flying Cock” stencil and did a bit of decorating himself. We finished up about 1 a.m. and made our way back to the flat. Today I found out the pieces were buffed although the wall was legal. I didnt get any pictures of my own but Ian Cox was there documenting the whole thing.
Excellent shot of Chris in action (photo copyright Ian Cox)
Come to find out, there was a mistake and the clean up crew was sent to buff some pro-communist sickle-and-hammer thing that was there so we had a clean slate to work on. Oh well, thats life.”
“Oh, my God! We slept on our own important art movement for all these years.” – Lee Quinones
He was talking broadly about graffiti, but he might as well be talking about Street Art too. New York-based Lee Quinones is one of the most important graffiti artists – with some of his work in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.
GRL Arriving at Nuart Festival to Demo the Eyewriter Project
Yesterday the Graffiti Research Labs (GRL) arrived in Stavanger, Norway, in advance of their presentation at the Brooklyn street art celebration called the Nuart Festival.
Rockin the Kan-Eye-tronic GRL Style (image courtesy GRL)
James Powderly and Evan Roth are artists and hackers (the good kind) of technology, always looking for ways to project art without damaging property, but in new and innovative ways. This week at Nuart Festival GRL are showcasing their own works as well as the “EyeWriter” project, which is seeking to enable people who are otherwise disabled to use only the movement of their eyes to create art and communicate.
On hand Nuart special guest will be old school LA graffiti writer Tony Quan, aka Temptone, with whom the “EyeWriter” project has done experiments with the developing technology.
The EyeWriter project at work (image courtesy GRL)
Pedestrians & Sidewalks Urban Art Program – Check out this Open Call for Urban Artists to do a project by the WTC Site
“69 Meters,” by artist Magda Sayeg, on Montague Street in Downtown Brooklyn organized in partnership with the Montague BID (image courtesy Alternaventions)
Call for Proposals
The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, in cooperation with NYCDOT invite artists and/or designers to propose conceptual designs for a temporary mural to be installed on the part of the construction fence surrounding the World Trade Center Site, located on Church Street between Liberty and Vesey streets in Lower Manhattan. The deadline is October 1, 2009.
The Urban Art Program is an initiative to invigorate the City’s streetscapes with engaging temporary art installations. As part of the World Class Streets initiative, art will help foster more vibrant and attractive streets and offer the public new ways to experience New York City’s streetscapes.
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Street Art Shrine on Williamsburg Bridge honors DJ Josh Link
This bicyclist lights a candle for Josh Link. He said he didn’t know who the guy was, but wanted to pay tribute anyway. (photo Steven P. Harrington)
A not uncommon sight in New York is the street-side shrine, a public and very personal outpouring of grief for a loved one who lost their life due to an accident on the streets. Currently on the pedestrian walkway of the Williamsburg Bridge between Manhattan and Brooklyn an impromptu tribute is sprayed on a city plaque, a photo taped to it, flowers laid nearby, and candles are kept alight. While not art for it’s own sake, these displays have a powerful way to symbolize love, grief, and tribute… while the traffic continues to rumble by.
DJ Josh Link (image courtesy Nicky Digital)
On August 24 well known DJ Josh Link was hit by a black car on the Williamsburg Bridge while riding his Vespa, and the accident was fatal. According to news reports, he was knocked from his ride and died as a result.
Sadly and ironically, graffiti had just begun to appear around town paying tribute to another New York DJ saying, “R.I.P. DJ AM”, who died 4 days later, reportedly of a drug overdose.
David Cho is featured Artist on cover of Nuart 09 Publication
GRAFF -> STREET ART -> PUBLIC ART
The first images out of our Sister City Stavanger’s Nuart Festival are starting to come in, and they start off with Part I of Leon Reid IV‘s talk which has just been posted. Artists and historians like to listen to Reid because he takes the time to give full context to his experience as a person and an artist, and he begins to expand the concept of art in the public sphere beyond simply legal and illegal, but how it’s existence is part of a public discourse that continues to evolve.
Stay tooned for behind the scenes fun and official talks with Chris Stain, Logan Hicks, and Brad Downey as part of the Nuart 09 Education Program currently under way.
The Nuart official publication is nearly wrapped and the cover features a piece by inimitable David Choe.
After being in development for 13 years, Droo says the new Skewville site is ready to roll!
Actually, that’s not how long it took to build the site – just it’s content. This roll-through left-right scroller is a quick primer for the uninitiated on the history and accomplishments of Skewville and the multiple projects they have embarked on over the last decade plus.
Or, as Ad and Droo say, “If you don’t know – now you know.”
All the round the whirl with Skewville irony
From launching galleries to launching thousands of pairs of their wooden dogs over wires around the globe, to offering shows to their peers and participating in shows internationally, and always adding their smart-aleck commentary about the street art “scene” to the discussion, these brothers have piled a sizeable stack of HYPE.
Complexity and mastery comes with practice. Blah Blah Blah
This must be the place. Skewville actually was a physical location and a lifestyle for the middle class and unfamous.
No strangers to sarcasm, the brothers have conceived and built a number of contraptions to get their message out.
Currently the Skewville Corporation is participating inNuart, a festival in Stavanger, Norway that celebrates the contributions of Brooklyn Street Artists.
Check the Tubeness below to see a piece that MTV Brasil did – After the first minute in Portuguese, Ad DeVille pretty much takes the show!
Vandalog’s RJ Hard at Work on “The Thousands”
His first “Pop-Up” is taking shape this November in London
An open and sincere voice in the street art blog world, RJ Rushmore is a stone cold street art lover. Albeit still in his teens, this guy posesses a maturity and modesty that many of his peers may not develop for another 10 years. More significant; his industry is matching the size of his dreams.
This time the dream is a “Pop-Up” show featuring the big names in street art today, exposing a larger audience to the genre that has captured the imagination of the youth culture.
RJ has been planning the show for many months methodically and feels secure about it’s ultimate success but he is very aware that he is taking a big leap to undertake this labor of love, where most of the work won’t even be for sale.
So far the 40 pieces in the show are from most of the big names in street art – Adam Neate, Banksy, Barry McGee, Jenny Holzer, Bast, Swoon, Kaws, Os Gemeos, Shepard Fairey, Herakut, Blek le Rat and others.
People are jumping into “The Thousands” every day as word spreads, and RJ’s been sorting out the details that come along with this kind of show – Artists, Collectors, Permissions, Love. In addition he’s working on a companion coffee table book to be published by Drago in November with photos and bios and a few guest contributors like Gaia and Panik.
His first exhibition includes some of the better known names and he’s looking forward to doing a future show with more emerging artists, but he’s smart to limit the scope the first time out. “The purpose of my efforts is to bring street art to the attention of a wider art community, and the best way to do that is to take the very best street artists’ artwork instead of all the emerging artists that I might love and think are promising”, says Mr. Rushmore.
The Thousands will be open from November 18th through the 22nd of November at Village Underground in London. Keep up on the details at the blog for “The Thousands” HERE
Eastern District, a 400sf gallery opened for about a year in Bushwick is looking to extend it’s reach by asking street art veteran gallerists Allison and Garrison Buxton to curate a new show in the ED space next door. Most people know that Ad Hoc Art recently announced it’s downsizing it’s square footage due in their 49 Bogart space and stories of ED’s impending closure have been swirling around also.
Well, this is how neighbors do it in Brooklyn: by reaching out and working together. If either one of these parties had been the snooty white-box types, it never would have worked. But this is an arts community that knows that the resulting strength is greater with two. When asked by ED to partner on shows, Ad Hoc Art happily and quickly accepted the invitation to curate and bring their peeps too. Now they are looking at ways to bring more great shows to ED. That’s very good news for the nascent Bushwick gallery scene, not to mention the artists who get to show there.
And that brings us to today. Garrison says, “AHA & ED have a Bushwick-focused show opening specifically highlighting very local talent from the hood where it all started.” Included are AHA/Bushwick favorites like like Destroy and Rebuild, LogikOne, Michael Allen, Molly Crabapple, Pagan, and Robert Steel”
Ad Hoc Art’s is now planning a fall exhibition featuring the work of Joe Vaux and Gilbert Oh to open in November at Eastern District and more shows planned into the winter, such as veteren British/French street artist Jef Aerosol in January. For now, it sounds like the Ad Hoc extravganza and shenanigans will continue!
Prepare for exciting art extravaganzas and shenanigans in the present and continuing into the near future, for Bushwick and beyond.
SuperDraw Keeps Developing – Now it’s an Iphone App
Remember BSA’s Projekt Projektor last year at the Dumbo Festival, full of new projectionists stretching the definition of Street Art? Remember the projectionists at the end of our Street Crush Show in February?
Then you’ll remember Josh Ott, or SuperDraw. Dude developed an interactive interface for people to project their own art through a project with their iPhones, and at our shows he eagerly transferred it to your phone for free so you could slap your work all over the Manhattan Bridge.
True, GRL keeps setting some of the standards, but we firmly believe that the future of street art may be vibrating in your front pocket right now. There is a whole crop of projectionists and video and multimedia artists that are sharpening their skillz for that Brave New Street Art World as we chase the wheat-pasters.
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
