Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! Optimo NYC on the Houston wall yo! Born and bred, a true New Yorker, and deserving of this wall after paying dues for years. Why does this wall sometimes look better when curated by the street? The holy chaos that reigns here is the pure DNA of the city, unbossed and unbought.
This week the street art is fresh! Never mind the proxy wars, the exploding trains, the 30% YOY drop in 401Ks, the transitory inflation that wasn’t, the Chinese spy balloons that weren’t, the Nordstream 2, the effort to privatize Social Security, the polarization that is encouraged by the media, and the increasing difficulty of New Yorkers to pay the bills… we still have a lot of extraordinary artists, and they are profligate! Also, we have Flaco, the Central Park owl fugitive, and his adorable ear tufts.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring: Shepard Fairey, Sticker Maul, Modomatic, Bad Brains, NYC Kush Co, Optimo NYC, Pest AC, Valentin Vewer, Holly Sims, Eternal Possessions, Cloudy is Here, and Gosup.
This time of the year, many people become nostalgic, remembering earlier times that seemed simpler, bathed in sepia tones. Walking into the Pop International Gallery a couple of weekends ago – fresh from a Swoon talk with Jeffrey Deitch and on the way to the opening of Graffiti Kings at HOWL – it was a surprise trip to the mid-2000s of New York streets when the graffiti scene was adjusting to a fleet of new street art kids on the block.
Fernando “SKI” Romero was one half of a graphic team called UR New York at the time with co-writer 2Easae, and they were making their own transition from the street to the studio. In the new show at Pop called WON FOR ALL!, Mr. Romero takes us back to see a cluster of youth who were in his orbit, and if you were walking on the streets of Brooklyn and Manhattan, probably yours.
“I’ve known these artists for years,” he says, “Many of us came up together in the art world. They are my friends and family.”
Born and raised in New York, Romero is very familiar with the graffiti scene that made the city famous, even recently curating a show of some graffiti-writers-turned-artists who originally inspired him, like CRASH, DAZE and Tats Cru. After attending Parsons School of Design and selling his own stuff on the street in SoHo for six years, he took a decade to dedicate himself to developing his own deconstructed letter style for the gallery.
Now SKI is reflecting on a golden age for his own development as an artist with WON FOR ALL and shows solidarity with a small cluster of talents who have pursued their professional careers that were supercharged by their experiences on the street and around the culture. Here’s Dark Clouds with his patterned and swooping pockets of rain, alongside the graphic output of Matt Siren that hints at superheroes and graphic novels.
Elsewhere the bright font-centric Queen Andrea evokes 1980s teen mag optimism, while Gigi Chen’s formal painting techniques venture into fantasy and photo-realism. In the main window on the Bowery is perhaps the most recognizable top-hatted character, Optimo, another true born and bred New Yorker whose love for the culture is evidenced by a prodigious mass of street stickers incorporated into one of his canvasses. Partnered perhaps in their historical reverence for graffiti writers are SKI, with his sideways blown layers of bright letterforms and gritty graphic cityscapes, and Cerns’ omnivorous forays across realities – anchored by colorful characters that may remind some of the train writers during the 1970s.
“I chose these people because of talent, skills, and dedication,” he says. “During the pandemic, these artists were the ones who kept me sane and motivated during a time when I felt alone. This show is a way to bring them all together to say ‘Thank You”.
WON FOR ALLI FEATURED ARTISTS include Queen Andrea Dark Cloud Gigi Chen Matt Siren Optimo NYC Victor Ving Emilio Martinez Cern Chris Boss
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
