All posts tagged: Philadelphia

BSA Film Friday: 12.06.19

BSA Film Friday: 12.06.19

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

Now screening :
1. “Realm: Shanghai” Vhils directed by Jose Pando Lucas
2. ARTRIUM, Moscow. (part 1)
3. Faith XVLII x Philadelphia, ‘The Silent Watcher’.

BSA Special Feature: “Realm: Shanghai” Vhils directed by Jose Pando Lucas

Like other fashion and luxury brands, certain contemporary art galleries are commissioning higher-end film quality videos to put muscle behind the marketing. Naturally, some artwork is camera-ready, infused with the potential for storytelling that creates the “rich content” that social media thrives on, and aids sales teams in the gallery space and at art fairs. Portuguese Street Artist Vhils has director Jose Pando Lucas along as sophisticated seer; The artist once again bringing a storyline into savvy focus, capturing your imagination with his.

“I remember the story I was told,” intones the mystical modern while staring into the camera. “That in time I would know my place in this world.”

The tone is perhaps meant to reassure an unsteady heart in a chaotic modern world, to center oneself in a dislocating environment. Viewed as an appealing sales tool, it also skillfully fortifies a self-image of the entitled powerful class who are pre-ordained or chosen to dominate and to lead. Anonymous and existential mournful stares through city windows and at bus stops, the artworks under construction are born of destruction; mottled, rough-hewn, defiant in the city’s margins.

Tradition struggles for its place amidst amazing new technology and rapidly growing infrastructure. The artist posits himself as working man pounding on walls, without airs of class. With this art in your home you are keeping in touch with the common, the everyday insecurities, for you are citizen. You can afford it because, after all, you are also a ruler.

“Nobody really got the answers they longed for.”

“Do we live as we dream?”

“Who else can hear me right now?”

Youthful, fashionable, under constraint, free of constraint, traditional and unconventional power players laying plans quietly, focusing a pent-up hunger for more. This is the ocean of wealth and capacity that will define epochs, not decades.

It ends sweetly, a bon mot that suggests a sense of human camaraderie among competitors of this race. But it is an uncertain connection, born more of wistful desire for a pleasant resolution than actual brotherhood or sisterhood.

“Yesterday is gone. This moment has ended.”

VHILS – REALM (Shanghai, 2019) A film by Jose Pando Lucas

ARTRIUM, Moscow. (part 1)

An educational insight into the people and the place.

Unusual in the Russian Federation, if not the commercialized western cultures which have willfully merged graffiti and Street Art culture to the point of quotidian, The Artrium combines a shopping mall with murals by Street Artists. What is remarkable is the list of names who regale this city skin with new pieces inside and outside, bringing to life an otherwise normal grey and beige block.

Astounding to discover in the center of Moscow, the outdoor gallery boasts artists such as Shepard Fairey, Felipe Pantone, Tristan Eaton, Ben Eine, PichiAvo, Okuda San Miguel, Pokras Lampas, Faith47, WK Interact, Faust, and Haculla. Average visitors may not grasp the remarkable collection of talents, but if you are shopping in this capital city, you wouldn’t want to miss this opportunity that captures a stunning moment in the rotation of the Street Art universe.

Faith XVLII x Philadelphia, ‘The Silent Watcher’. By Chop ’em Down Films

In the words of Faith XLVII;
‘I come from a country that is seething with the frustration of uncontrollable violence and woman abuse, xenophobia , class and racial divide.
And have moved to a country where there seems to be a fundamental crisis in the very soul of the nation.

We know this ache of our lands.
And we all know personal ache.
Everybody has their struggle to bear.

And with the weight of the world on our shoulders,
we must still be able to live with empathy
We must somehow keep our hearts open.

The words on this wall are a reference to the City Seal of Philadelphia with calls out for brotherly love.
This is no small commitment.

It also references a quote ‘Optimism is a strategy for a Better Future.’
Paying tribute to Noam Chomsky who was born in Philadelphia and is 91 years old this year. .

The harsh experiences of life can easily make us fall into a negative world view,
or inner psychological depression.
But we each have the ability to transform this base metal of knowing suffering,
into the gold of higher aspiration.

The name of this mural is ‘The Silent Watcher’
We can be the silent watcher, who knows, who loves and who endures.’

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BSA Images Of The Week: 04.21.19

BSA Images Of The Week: 04.21.19

This week has been on fire.

Notre-Dame has been sorrowfully tested this week by fire. The Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn burned fires of bread in the streets Friday in a religious ritual for Passover known as chometz. Even the Orthodox Christians have Holy Fire celebrations on the day before Easter, which was yesterday.

Thanks to the visions of artists, the street continues to set imaginations on fire as well. Just don’t get burned.

So here’s our weekly interview with the street, this time featuring Antennae, Captain Eyeliner, Caze, Franco “Jaz” Fasoli, Hiss, Hot Tea, Pyramid Oracle, Rek La Blatte, Samuffa, Sensbale, Smells, Steve ESPO Powers, and Texas.

Franco JAZ Fasoli (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Pyramid Oracle in Philadelphia (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Vizie (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Vizie (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Vizie (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Vizie (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Unidentified artist in Philadelphia (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Rek La Blatte in Philadelphia. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Hiss (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Antennae (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Ephemeron in Philadelphia (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Gane and friends… (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Texas (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Steve ESPO Powers in Philadelphia (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Captain Eyeliner (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Scamuffa in Philadelphia (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Smells . Texas . Sensbale . Surts . Caze (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Hot Tea (photo © Jaime Rojo)
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“All Big Letters” Opens, Curated by RJ Rushmore

“All Big Letters” Opens, Curated by RJ Rushmore

ALL BOLD CAPS.

Early graffiti train writers knew they could gain their widest audience on elevated train tracks the same way cigarette manufacturers broadcast from billboards looming above streets. BLADE emblazoned entire train sides with his five letters, as did LEE with his three. Audacious, confident, commanding: the ultimate tag.

Faust at work on his installation. All Big Letters. Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery At Haveford College. Philadelphia. (photo © Courtesy of RJ Rushmore)

In 2017 the bold technique helps to cut through the information clutter as well, even when your billboard is reduced to a canvas the size of a smart phone icon. Keep it simple, brash, attention grabbing. RAMBO of course does slaughter actual billboards regularly across NYC, and on the street level the technique works as well, as Brooklyn’s graffiti writer FAUST can attest with his ever enlarging scripted tag recently emblazoned in metallic gold across a long wall in Berlin with Urban Nation. Here Faust is preparing his tag with ALL BIG LETTERS for ALL BIG LETTERS, a new exhibition opening Friday at Haverford College in Pennsylvania.

The new show is “is less about the art of graffiti and more about the craft of writing it,” says curator RJ Rushmore, editor in chief of Vandalog and alumnus of Haverford, in his description of the show. Rushmore enjoys the and studies the lore as much as the technique and here he brings a balanced cross-section of photographers, mark makers, painters, and ingenious tool crafters together to examine the methods of creating illicit missives meant to broadcast publicly. With thoughtful position paper at hand, the somewhat recent grad returns to the campus’ Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery with an exhibit that “acknowledges and investigates the surprising variety of tools that artists use,” to make hopefully a BIG impression. In the end, after all it’s how you use the tools and ALL BIG LETTERS examines strategies and techniques of hard driving urban artists working in the public sphere to capture your attention.

Faust. All Big Letters. Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery At Haveford College. Philadelphia. (photo © Courtesy of RJ Rushmore)

 

All Big Letters opens Friday January 20th at Haveford College’s Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery. Click HERE for more details.

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Ben Eine A to Z (and then some) in Philadelphia

Ben Eine A to Z (and then some) in Philadelphia

We are texting every day and everywhere these days. Ben Eine appears to be doing it across the entirety of South Philadelphia.

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Ben Eine. Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia. July 2015. (photo © Steve Weinik/Mural Arts Program)

The prolific London artist who is known for his distinctive lettering style sits right at the border of graffiti and Street Art with a nod to both. Now he is firmly also a muralist after knocking out nearly forty letters in his circus font on metallic pull-down shutters for neighbors and businesses here.

“Honestly, we started with me finding Ben about 7 shutters to paint,” says RJ Rushmore of the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, “and he just went from there and wound up getting permission for literally dozens more.” The program has a way of uniting artists with community in a holistic way.

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There’s no place like it. Ben Eine. Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia. July 2015. (photo © Steve Weinik/Mural Arts Program)

“It’s a great experience getting positive feedback from the people who live in the neighborhoods I paint,” says the former graffiti writer who might not have asked for permission when he began a couple of decades ago. “When I did graffiti no one enjoyed what I painted aside from a few writer friends. Now days it’s the total opposite. What I paint is pretty happy. It’s hard not to like it.”

The idea to ask Eine to come to the city began when Rushmore and local muralist Shira Walinsky were looking for good ways for the mural program to engage with the neighborhood of settlers from Bhutan, Burma, and Nepal. Many of these folks are refugees and meet at a community arts and resource center here named Southeast-by-Southeast.

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Ben Eine. Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia. July 2015. (photo © Steve Weinik/Mural Arts Program)

While Street Art has been accused alternately of being a tool for vandalism and for gentrification, this mural program had a Street Artist in mind to bring the neighborhood something positive, slowly transforming the feelings of connectedness and even pride.

“We both love seeing shutters painted, and we thought that more painted shutters would be a positive contribution to South 7th Street. As for bringing Ben specifically, we both love his work, and we wanted to see some of it in Philly,” says Rushmore, “We also hoped that having an internationally recognized artist paint near Southeast-by-Southeast would bring wider attention to the community center and the neighborhood’s under-served refugee population.”

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Ben Eine. Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia. July 2015. (photo © Steve Weinik/Mural Arts Program)

What the organizers and the artist may not have anticipated was the enthusiastic support that came from the community once they saw how Eine’s pleasantly poppish letters perked up the place – nor how many excited neighbors would begin requesting them.

“I think it was 39 shutters,” says a newly exhausted Eine with some satisfaction. “That’s the most I’ve painted over the course of four days. Random shutters scattered around a city are cool – but when you paint every shutter on a block you totally change the dynamic of that area.”

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Ben Eine. Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia. July 2015. (photo © Steve Weinik/Mural Arts Program)

“Ben hadn’t planned to paint 39 shutters, but once he got to about 15, it became about painting an entire alphabet, and then he just kept going,” RJ tells us. “It was a marathon. Luckily, the interest from building owners just snowballed. People would come by while he was painting, love what they saw, and offer up their own shutters down the street or around the corner. Ben’s work sold itself.”

Did he find the uneven and rolling surface of the metal grating especially difficult to paint? “It really depends on what I’m painting. Big walls are great for big words. The shutters are perfect for one letter. They are super quick to paint. It almost feels like graffiti,” he says, perhaps thinking of his earlier years of “hitting” and running, can in hand.

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Ben Eine. Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia. July 2015. (photo © Steve Weinik/Mural Arts Program)

They say the project gathered steam after the first people said yes to Ben’s work. Savannah and Julio are a husband and wife team who co-own and run a bodega right in the heart of the neighborhood and they requested that Ben paint their initials on their two shutters.

Rushmore points to their openness and generosity as contributing to the positive buzz. “Once Ben arrived, Julio and Savannah loaned us a stepladder.” Other neighbors got excited and RJ said their excitement fueled him as he kept knocking on more doors.

“There were even a few locations that had initially turned me down, but changed their minds once they met Ben and saw exactly what he was doing. I didn’t hear a single negative reaction from anyone living or working nearby.”

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Ben Eine. Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia. July 2015. (photo © Steve Weinik/Mural Arts Program)

Eine says he feels good that he is leaving behind something that the neighborhood can relate to and feel proud of and he appreciates the restorative nature of programs like Philadelphia Mural Arts.

“It’s important to involve the community in these art projects,” he says, “These are the people who live there. I get on a plane, fly somewhere else, and most of the time I never see my painting again. I always consider who is going to walk past my painting everyday and how it’s going to change their day.”

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Ben Eine. Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia. July 2015. (photo © Steve Weinik/Mural Arts Program)

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Ben Eine. Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia. July 2015. (photo © Steve Weinik/Mural Arts Program)

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Ben Eine. Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia. July 2015. (photo © Steve Weinik/Mural Arts Program)

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Ben Eine. Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia. July 2015. (photo © Steve Weinik/Mural Arts Program)

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Ben Eine. Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia. July 2015. (photo © Steve Weinik/Mural Arts Program)

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Ben Eine. Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia. July 2015. (photo © Steve Weinik/Mural Arts Program)

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Ben Eine. Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia. July 2015. (photo © Steve Weinik/Mural Arts Program)

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Ben Eine. Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia. July 2015. (photo © Steve Weinik/Mural Arts Program)

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Ben Eine. Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia. July 2015. (photo © Steve Weinik/Mural Arts Program)

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Ben Eine. Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia. July 2015. (photo © Steve Weinik/Mural Arts Program)

 

To learn more about The City Of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program and to Volunteer click HERE

 

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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!
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This article is also published on The Huffington Post

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BSA Images Of The Week: 08.02.15

BSA Images Of The Week: 08.02.15

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Did you see the blue moon over New York Friday night? Looked to be more crimson actually. Welcome to August and the hot sticky band of dirty grit that comes with it. Escape from New York if you can, even if it is just on a lawn chair in a park. NYC parks have a lot of free movies this summer and a huge array of free concerts all through the remainder of dog days. Naturally there is great deal of artful expression on the streets available on your way to and from the venue, very dramatic in its own way.

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring $howta, 52, Brolga, BustArt, Esteban Del Valle, Dain, Dasic, Don Rimx, Droid, JR, Julien de Casablanca, KFA, LMNOPI, London Kaye, Ron English, Rubin415, Sokar Uno, and Willow.

Top image above >>>  London Kaye. This is perhaps the artist’s largest piece and, as is the artist’s practice, it was made entirely with crocheted yarn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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London Kaye (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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London Kaye (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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KFA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Ron English. Hot Pink Temper Tot. Zephyr. For LoMan Art Fest 2015/L.I.S.A. Project (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Dain for LoMan Art Fest 2015/L.I.S.A. Project (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Rubin415 . Dasic (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Esteban Del Valle . Don Rimx (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Bikismo (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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LMNOPI. Portrait of Indian girl Dongria Kohnd. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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LMNOPI. Portrait of Iranian kid. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Willow. Portrait of Rwandan child with Emu turban. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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JR. Migrants, Ibrahim, Mingora-Philadelphia. For Mural Arts Program “Open Source” Series. (photo Steve Weinik. Courtesy Mural Arts Program).

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Sokar Uno (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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52 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Julien De Casabianca (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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BustArt and shades of Lichtenstein in Basel, Germany. July 2015. (photo © Bustart)

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BustArt. Basel, Germany. July 2015. (photo © Bustart)

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Brolga goes skinny dipping to beat the summer heat (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Ben Felis traces flight patters with tape (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Ben Felis (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Droid (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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$howta (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Baphomet (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Untitled. Flying over New York State. July 2015. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!
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BSA Images Of The Week: 04.12.15

BSA Images Of The Week: 04.12.15

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This Sunday’s collection of images of the week presents a fair number of unknown artists alongside better known names such as Dennis McNett and Stikman expressing fantasies, fears, politics, geopolitics, economics, and existential matters… such is the nature of the street.

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Clint Mario, Dennis McNett, Observer Obscura, Sean 9 Lugo, Sobr, Stikman, Taousuz, and Tona.

Dennis McNett. Detail. Philadelphia. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Dennis McNett. Philadelphia. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Dennis McNett. Detail. Philadelphia. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Dennis McNett. Philadelphia. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Artist Unknown. Philadelphia. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Taosuz message about Capitalism’s “side effects” collides with the upbeat tone of SOBR in Berlin. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Word. Observer Obscura (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Artist Unknown. All revolutionaries of the world please drop your pants and fight! (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Artist Unknown. The caption reads: “My heart is at the east, and I’m at the end of the west”. Quote from 11th Century Jewish poet Yehuda Halevi expressing his longings for Jerusalem. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Stikman. Philadelphia. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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TONA in Berlin gets playful. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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TONA. Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Clint Mario takes over the coppertone and gets surprised by that frisky cocker spaniel. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Sean 9 Lugo takes advantage of a Shepard Fairey’s old vandalized mural in Philadelphia to use as background. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Artist Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Google all those names…then you’ll know.

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Artist Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Untitled. A Grandfather and his Grandson practicing the chametz in preparation for Passover. Brooklyn, NY. April 2015. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!

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Cash For Your Warhol (CFYW) Says “No Questions Asked” in Philadelphia

Cash For Your Warhol (CFYW) Says “No Questions Asked” in Philadelphia

“No Questions Asked” says Hargo of this slyly-named collection of Cash For Your Warhol pieces opening this week at a small gallery in Philadelphia’s Fishtown neighborhood. But you may want to ask a few questions of your own.

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The large CFYW billboard outside Penn Station in Philadelphia is more than an appeal, and less. Cash For Your Warhol. Philadelphia, PA. April, 2015. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

That’s the typical response that most viewers have when they see his printed plastic signs on telephone poles in desperate parts of town from Boston to New York to Miami to Los Angeles and many points in between. For six years the foxy Street Artist has been happily perplexing inquisitive and inquiring minds with evolving iterations of the sign he first placed on the lawn of Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachussets at the height of the financial crisis.

“So it was in March of 2009, it was the bottom. It was also the time when the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis was having tremendous financial difficulty and they had announced that they were going to be selling their art collection.”

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He says these are the sorts of signs that appear in the more desperate parts of town. Cash For Your Warhol. Philadelphia, PA. April, 2015. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“It is one of the best university art collections in the country, and people went nuts,” Hargo explains in a lumberjacked-cuffed-denim-bearded-flannel-plaid-drip-coffee shop a couple of blocks away from the newly installed show.

“So the first sign that I installed was actually on their lawn,” he says with a certain glint in his eye. “That sign got taken down and it is currently in the Rose Museum in the employee lunchroom I’m told. ”

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Image © Hargo

He knows his signs are collected directly off the street by all types of people – including a board member of the Warhol Foundation. Once the message catches the eye, certain people also feel compelled to call the number, which he eventually changed and connected to an answering machine. Listen to the messages on the phone installed at “No Questions Asked” and you’ll hear a randomized collection of the hundreds he’s collected so far. Sometimes they are simply confused, other times irate, or self aggrandizing. They warn him about vandalism or insult him for a variety of reasons.

Sometimes they inquire about selling art.

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Cash For Your Warhol. Philadelphia, PA. April, 2015. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“I think the Cash For Your Warhol thing is funny, and I think it’s okay for art to be funny. Sometimes people think that it has to be all serious and intellectual,” he says as he discusses the more surface emotional aspects of turning the low cost sales medium on its head – a continuous source of entertainment and education for the artist and those who follow his work. He doesn’t mind if people don’t get it or if they literally take the signs for themselves. He has amassed a collection of similar signs himself, and some of their designs are mashed together in a handful of one-of-a-kind pieces in the show as well.

BSA: What kind of signs do you collect and how many do you have?
Hargo: I have a couple hundred – I only want the ones that are plastic signs that are printed – and only those that have a phone number.

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Cash For Your Warhol. Philadelphia, PA. April, 2015. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA: So even with those narrow parameters, it comes out to be 200 signs. That’s crazy.
Hargo: So wherever I travel – like I was in Florida and I collected a dozen of them. Before I go home I go to a UPS store and I mail them to myself. So I have “Cash for Your House’, “Cash for Your Junk Car”, um, but also “Tattoo Removal” is prominent. I have “Divorce $299”, “Insurance For Diabetics”, signs for Karate lessons, sports camps, dancing lessons.

BSA: Do the dancing lessons signs have a silhouette of a couple in a romantic embrace?
Hargo: Yeah, they’re like doing the tango or something.

BSA: So it is good that you are using these different signs to mash together in your own work.
Hargo: Yeah I think the last thing the people who made these signs expected was that someone would take this sign deliberately and blend it into one of these works.

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Cash For Your Warhol. Philadelphia, PA. April, 2015. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Part conceptual, part culture jamming, sociology and anthropology, many iterations of his signage is on display in this brief but tightly packed overview of the entire short career of CFYW – including the special new one in Spanish that features green and red ink  referencing the Mexican flag.

“It’s sort of the full collection,” he says, “and I made the new Spanish sign, which is larger format than previously but two sided. Each side is slightly different because when you pull the screens the ink is slightly different.”

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Cash For Your Warhol. Philadelphia, PA. April, 2015. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“I think a lot of people in Philly are not familiar with his work but they are getting excited about this show,” says LMNL Gallery curator RJ Rushmore, who tells about a further irony where a deli in Fishtown saw one his signs on the street and sent out a tweet about it. Hargo saw the tweet and sent them a sign as a gift – which they promptly put in the front window.

“I just find it so surreal,” says Rushmore, “that an actual store is displaying it in their window display – an artwork that is an advertisement for an art show about a guy looking to buy art.”

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Cash For Your Warhol. Philadelphia, PA. April, 2015. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The longer he continues with the CFYW project, the greater the layers of irony and commentary, and the more fulsome is the tribute to the projects namesake Warhol, who became famous by appropriating and elevating the mundane for consideration as art.

“There are numerous ways in which the viewer could relate to CFYW,” he explains, “and I don’t want my views to narrow or shift that experience. It’s part prank, yes, but also part outsider art, part art as commodity, part commentary on the 1%, part performance, part interaction with the viewer, part parody, and, as you pointed out, part Warhol homage. It can be light and funny, or complex and serious – take your pick. I want the viewer’s experience to be open-ended.

“It’s a street art project in the literal sense, because it often goes on the street, but I deliberately don’t abide by traditional street art ‘rules’ because some of those are kinda silly, and I don’t feel I need to follow them in order for the project to succeed. Ideas around permission, fabrication, acceptable media, a gallery presence, hanging off a building with a roller – I feel that sorta stuff doesn’t apply to me because I’m not actually trying to be a street artist.”

Okay, if you say so. No questions asked.

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Cash For Your Warhol. Philadelphia, PA. April, 2015. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

Cash For Your Warhol AKA CFYW “No Questions Asked” will open on April 10 at the LMNL Gallery in Philadelphia. Click HERE for further details.

 

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BSA’s Piece on “Submerged Motherlands” Acclaimed for Year

BSA’s Piece on “Submerged Motherlands” Acclaimed for Year

BSA with Swoon at Brooklyn Museum Sited by Huff Post Editors as Proud Moment of 2014

We’re very pleased and thankful to be included in this short list chosen by the editors of Huffington Post Arts & Culture as a story they are most proud of publishing last year.

In her introduction to the list, editor Katherine Brooks writes:

“It turns out, 365 days is hard to summarize in anything but a laundry list of seemingly disparate phenomena, filled with the good — woman-centric street art, rising Detroit art scenes, spotlights on unseen American art– and the bad less than good — holiday butt plugs, punching bags by Monet, Koonsmania. But, as a New Year dawns, we found ourselves just wanting to focus on the things that made us beam with pride in 2014. So we made a list of those things, a list of the pieces we’re proud of.”

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Describing why we thought this was an important story for us we wrote:

“We loved a lot of stories this year, but this hometown Brooklyn one about a street artist with humanity mounting her first solo major museum exhibition was a special turning point — and an astounding success. For us street art is a conversation, a continuum of expression, and Swoon is always a part of it. From following her street career to her transition to international fame to witnessing this exhibition coming to fruition in person in the months leading up to the Brooklyn Museum show, it is easy to understand why Swoon still remains a crucial part of the amazing street art scene and continues to set a standard.”

-Jaime Rojo & Steven Harrington, HuffPost Arts&Culture bloggers and co-founders of Brooklyn Street Art

In fact, we wrote 48 articles that were published on the Huffington Post in 2014, and as a collection we hope they further elucidate the vast and meaningful impact that the Street Art / graffiti / urban art movement continues to have on our culture, our public space, and our arts institutions.

Together that collection of articles published by BSA on Huffpost in ’14 spanned the globe including stories from Malaysia, Poland, Spain, France, Norway, Switzerland, Germany, New York, Arizona, The Navajo Nation, Philadelphia, Sweden, Istanbul, New Jersey, Lisbon, The Gambia, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, Rome, India, Italy, Delhi (India), Montreal, San Francisco, London, Coachella, Chicago, Kabul (Afghanistan), and Kiev (Ukraine).

Here on BSA we published another 320 postings (more or less).

We thank you for allowing us to share these inspirational and educational stories with you and we are honored to be able to continue the conversation with artists, art fans, collectors, curators, academics, gallerists, museums, and arts institutions. Our passion for Street Art and related movements is only superceded by our love for the creative spirit, and we are happy whenever we encounter it.

Our published articles on HuffPost in 2014, beginning with the most recent:

 

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BSA Images Of The Week: 09.28.14

BSA Images Of The Week: 09.28.14

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Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Bikismo, Cera, Conor Harrington, indie184, Knarf, London Kaye, Nemo, NemO’s, Pyramid Oracle, Sheryo, Stikki Peaches, The Yok, Troy Lovegates, UNO, and Wolfe Work.

Brooklyn-Street-Art-Nuart-Mcity-2014-Screen-Shot-2014-09-27-at-5.34Scroll to the end to see the brand new video of M-City stencilling atop a sea vessel during his Nordic oceanic installation off the coast of Stavanger. Also, check out the blowing winds on the mic at the beginning.

Top Image >> Bikismo’s new mural for the New York Street Gallery sends mixed messages brought during the fog of war, an age in which we currently live. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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London Kaye rather trapped behind a fence (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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NemO’S “Arrow-d Signal ” New piece in Piacenza, Italy. (photo © NemO’S)

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Conor Harrington in town for his pop-up with Lazarides did this mural for The L.I.S.A. Project. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Troy Lovegates in Chicago for Pawn Works. (photo © Pawn Works)

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NEMO and the undercover carrot (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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UNO taking the pig out for a stroll in this new piece in Rome, Italy. (photo © UNO)

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Slim shady and The Yok and Sheryo (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Sometimes my mind gets so muddled and confluszed and I can’t straight think. CERA in Philadelphia. (photo © CERA)

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CERA in Philadelphia. (photo © CERA)

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Dude, you seen my wheels? Wolfe Work (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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No regrets!  Okay, maybe one. Pyramid Oracle (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Pyramid Oracle (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Knarf in Vienna, Austria for Inoperable Galley. (photo © Knarf)

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Stikki Peaches (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Stikki Peaches (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Stikki Peaches (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Stikki Peaches (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Stikki Peaches (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Stikki Peaches collaboration with Indie184. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Untitled. SOHO, NYC. September 2014. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

M-City and Nuart present Ocean Art

 

 

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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!

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Philadelphia Mural Arts, A Golden Age

Philadelphia Mural Arts, A Golden Age

It is a rainy day in Philadelphia, but you can’t tell it by listening to Jane Golden.

After 30 years and countless meetings with community groups, artists, city agencies, elected officials, volunteers, and donors, the founder and Executive Director of the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program has developed a perpetual advocacy style that leans decidedly toward axioms that tell you the glass is half full. No painting is happening on walls in the city of brotherly love today, but the phones are still ringing in this agency of 50, and as Golden sees it, the community is still being served by their educational programs and a remarkably wide variety of outreach efforts.

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Jetsonorama and Ursula Rucker “You Go Girl” Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia, PA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Street Art and graffiti have been parlaying with their cousin, the community mural, in recent years thanks to the growing popularity worldwide of the former so we thought this would be a great opportunity to learn about the largest and most successful version of the latter.  What we found was that we share an underlying philosophy toward and an awe of the creative spirit, however it is expressed.  In 2011 BSA curated a gallery show in LA with 39 artists called “Street Art Saved My Life” after hearing enough artists and graffiti writers express a similar sentiment over the previous 10 years or so. So it should not have been a revelation to find that Jane Golden is known to repeat an analogous mantra that summarizes her work here in Philadelphia: “Art Saves Lives”.

Initiated as an anti-graffiti campaign by the city in 1984, the program originally made the common mistake of equating a style of art-making with illegally made works. With time, education, and outreach to the graffiti-writing youth she met in the streets, Golden gradually helped the city to begin to make a distinction between aerosol art and vandalism. As graffiti writers and others were invited to participate in the mural program, interact with the community, and to get paid for their work, the city witnessed a slow and gradual metamorphosis to becoming a capital of public art revered by many.

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Joe Boruchow “Watchtowers” Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia, PA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A trained artist and political science scholar, Golden never embraced the so-called “Broken Window Theory” that typecasts people as it pertained to graffiti writers and instead she shepherded that creative instinct among artistic types whom she met into creating work that gives back.

“I think that it is almost the opposite of the “broken window” stereotype,” she says, “This is about opportunity and possibility. It is opening up a window that wasn’t previously open in a way that people hadn’t anticipated.” She talks about the impact the Mural Arts Program has with its tireless outreach to engage neighborhoods in the decision making process about what work goes where, and she guarantees you that the overall effect is greater than a pretty picture.

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Eric Okdeh “Family Interrupted”” Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia, PA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“I have seen it in communities where there was support for the project, but maybe not universal support. Then the mural goes up and suddenly there’s this ripple effect. When people start talking about it, connecting with it, thinking about other things and then sometimes thinking about things that are totally unrelated to us but if you were to do a diagram of the various outcomes, you know that it started with us.”

One example is a mural in the late 1980s that enlivened a neighborhood and inspired a community group to form and eventually become a powerful force of advocacy for the needs of neighbors. “When we did this “peace” mural the neighborhood reclaimed the space and then they bought a house from the city for a dollar and turned it into a headquarters. Then they lobbied for more art, then they lobbied for educational programs,” she says as she describes the evolution of a community that may have once felt like prey to a vocal one that now comes to speak to her students a the University of Pennsylvania about topics like economic development.

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Christophe Hamaide-Pierson of Assume Vivid Astro Focus  “All Very Amazing Fingers” Mural Arts Program in collaboration with Goldman Properties. Philadelphia, PA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“I’m not saying that what we do is a panacea for all that ails the city but the catalytic role that art plays can’t be discounted because it is igniting something in us; it’s transformative. Art engages people in a way that just doesn’t happen in their day-to-day life. We want to help change the city and we feel that art is part of it.”

A particular threshold sighted for Street Art into the mural arts program was when artist Keith Haring painted “We the Youth” here in 1987, and that mural became part of the city in such a strong way that Mural Arts undertook a painstaking restoration of it a few years ago, as it has with many murals.  It wasn’t unusual in those early years of the program for murals to be done without proper consideration for life of the paint or the surface it was on.

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Keith Haring “We The Youth” Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia, PA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

With the Keith Haring mural the stucco was in such a bad shape we had to almost re-do the entire surface and that was an extensive process of peeling layers off. We wanted to make sure as we were restoring it we were remaining true to the original that Keith painted and it had to be done with incredible care, love and integrity. So we took its restoration and preservation really seriously and because it was necessary to do it right, we re-routed some funding from new projects to restoration.”

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Keith Haring “We The Youth” Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia, PA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Procuring funding for the many Mural Arts programs is an original model that other public arts programs have looked at – a balance of public and private that has enabled it to grow and support artists as well as the city itself – a system of securing funding that Golden describes as sort of an art in itself. “We are a city agency and we have gotten to a point where our budget is 35 % city and the rest is non-city funding through foundations, corporation and individuals earned income. It is an interesting hybrid model but that city part still resonates.”

She describes the alchemy of going to private donors as well as testifying about her budget before the city periodically. “We formed a board, we got our own 501c 3, and I just went underground,” as she describes the additional funding that enables multiple programs and actually pays artists a fair price for their work – something that the majority of Street Art festivals and various real estate holders are very reluctant to do – to the tune of nearly $2.2 million a year.

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Kenny Scharf. Mural Arts Program in collaboration with Goldman Properties. Philadelphia, PA. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“Someone told me about this art festival recently and said that they are paying the artists 300-500 dollars to do a major work and I said ‘What?’” she says incredulously, and scoffs at the idea that artists would work simply for “exposure”.  “We pay our interns! We pay our middle school students in the summer. Seriously? Everybody here is getting paid.” Granted, it isn’t always as much as they would like to pay an artist, but she makes sure the artists understand the full scope of the project before asking them to commit.

Despite the negative association many still have with graffiti and Street Artists a fair number have been joining in with the Mural Arts Program in recent years. With known and respected Street Art blogger RJ Rushmore joining the enterprise as Communications Manager two months ago, you can expect to see perhaps a few more names from the Street Art scene on the walls as time goes forward.

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Steve ESPO Powers “Love Letter” Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia, PA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“The Street Artists are inspired by Mural Arts and we are inspired by them,” says Golden, who is enthusiastic about this subtle programming shift that she began a few years ago with the encouragement of people like real estate developer Tony Goldman, who was credited with transforming neighborhoods like Manhattan’s Soho and Miami’s Wynwood District, and whose company acquired 25 properties from 1998 through 2003 in Philadelphia, according to the Goldman website.

“When (graffiti and Street Artist) Steven Powers contacted me to work together and he had this great idea, I said ‘I totally want to work with you’,” she says of his multi-building text project “Love Letters” that you can view from an elevated train line.  There weren’t any rules that say I couldn’t – we just need to get funding.” Of course it was as simple as Powers may have originally thought because the neighborhood also needed to be consulted, a practice Golden will not waver from.

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Steve ESPO Powers “Love Letter” Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia, PA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“Steve couldn’t believe he had to go to community meetings and I said ‘but you have to’.” As it turned out, the neighborhood had no interest in love letters. “We don’t want to talk about love. We are actually really angry at the city because the mass transit agency has shot down one of the major thoroughfares for repair work'” she remembers.

Some also didn’t understand the idea of text-based artwork rather than representational or figurative work. “’This isn’t a Mural Arts mural’, some folks in the neighborhood remarked. And I said ‘There isn’t really such a thing as a Mural Arts mural – its about creativity and its impact on the world’ and people then interestingly enough started to open up. They started to talk to Steve about their past, about what they did love about their neighborhood, about their memories and history and stories. It was fantastic and so it was a different kind of process and it had power on its own. That was a clue to us that we had built up 20 years of goodwill and we can now take risks as long as we are respectful and that will never change. It paid off because it opened the door for us to think differently about how we work.”

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Shepard Fairey “Lotus Diamond” Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia, PA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

She speaks as well about some of the other Street Artists from recent years. “Then we had Shepard (Fairey), and Chris Stain and How & Nosm,” she recalls. “I think their art is terrific and when they are here I want them to be a role model for the kids. Like How & Nosm – they were role models. They couldn’t have been nicer, kinder to our kids. Here are guys who started writing graffiti on walls and now they are traveling the world with their art and that is a fantastic message. For our kids to know that Shepard started out as a student at the Rhode Island School of Design, that he was doing stickers, and that now he’s got a big design firm, it was important. We do have an entrepreneurial division at Mural Arts and Shepard is a role model for them.”

Sometimes the value of the project is not simply monetary but goes far deeper, which explains the level of commitment many have shown. We asked Golden to describe a couple of projects that have been personally satisfying for her, and we share one here that illustrates the entirely holistic approach Golden and the Mural Arts program take to art in the streets.

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Cesar Viveros and Parris Stancell “Healing Walls” Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia, PA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

She describes what evolutionary process contributed to the creation of a series of “healing walls” that depict all the members of community who are affected by crime; the criminal, the victim, and all the people they touch. Of  the many outstanding aspects of the project, one is that the people who are involved, including the offender, are deeply involved in its creation.

“We did a project with crime victims, victim’s advocates and prisoners in our mural class. We decided to start work in the prison.  The men in the class said they wanted to do outdoor murals. I said ‘you are lifers, you are never getting out, how in the world are you going to do that?’” she says as she describes a solution that enabled the artwork of the prisoners to be mounted on the mural walls. “We work a lot on parachute cloth, so we thought we could do this, we can work inside and take it outside.”

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Cesar Viveros and Parris Stancell “Healing Walls” Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia, PA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The rallying together of the participants was not always smooth as the project began, she says, as the raw emotions and torn lives at times overwhelmed the process of creating the mural and voices of discontent threatened to capsize the project. “So I went to the Pennsylvania Prison Society, and I did research and designed a project called “Healing Walls” and I said ‘We are going to bring together everyone to talk about the impact and consequences of violent crime, because when crime happens everyone loses.”

In a process emblematic of the painstaking lengths Mural Arts goes to seek common ground, Golden describes where the main obstacle to the project lay. “So we asked everyone in this group from all different walks of life to come together to create a series of murals about this.  We are going to work partially in the prison, we’ll work in a church in the neighborhood, we are going to work here at the Mural Arts offices and we are going to work in some schools. Then the project started and it was contentious,” she says.

“No one wanted to get along because everyone had their story;

‘My pain is bigger.’

‘I’m from the neighborhood and we are scarred.’

‘Our neighborhood has been victimized.’

And no one understands the pain of the victim; The victim said, ‘I lost everything.’ Then the prisoner said, ‘I have been in pain since I was young. I’m filled with remorse.’ ”

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GAIA. Mural Arts Program in collaboration with Goldman Properties. Philadelphia, PA. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

After each party was heard and the project threatened to fall in disarray, an unexpected outcome began to emerge, says Golden.

“Then eventually, over time, we started to create together. We’re in a giant auditorium and we have tons of tables. On each table we have crime victims, victims advocates and prisoners.  Then people started to say, ‘Can you pass the glue? Can you pass the brush? What about my shape? Then what happens was kind of miraculous because people began to listen to each other as they painted together. Eventually people were like ‘You know what? We really need to come together. We all want a safer city. What can we do about it and people started brainstorming – People behind the walls and people on the outside.”

“Then the murals went up and we had a dedication at this church and tons of people showed up. People’s whose sisters and brothers were incarcerated were there, victims were there, the Department of Corrections came and there was a major conversation about redemption and rehabilitation and giving people a chance. It sort of tapped into people’s humanity that no one had articulated.”

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How & Nosm. Mural Arts Program in collaboration with Goldman Properties. Philadelphia, PA. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Thirty years and a few thousand painted walls are only some of the outcomes of a program like this, but countless more are told in the generative effects, the rippling of waves of the efforts by artists and community. Those outcomes are impossible to measure or to quantify, even though we try.

BSA: It appears that you can use the art as a vehicle and you are a bit of an anthropologist, ethnologist, sociologist –  so along with your formal education you are getting many degrees as you go in the process.
Jane Golden: I believe in what we are doing, that art making is really about access, justice and equity. That’s the real deal for us, a lot of it. But I love this merging of worlds but you are right in order to do this work it is anthropology, sociology, urban planning, urbanism its everything…

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Steve ESPO Powers “Love Letter” Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia, PA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“When people think of mural arts I want them to think: ‘They have a little budget, they do tons of work, they are relevant to my life and they are impactful,’” says Ms. Golden. “And that, I think, is important and that connects me to something else that I have seen especially over the last five, six, or seven years. That is that when it comes to solving societies’ more intractable problems – we can never discount the role of innovation and creativity to make a difference when our traditional interventions have failed us.”

And then we go out and ride the train and look at more murals in the rain.

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Steve ESPO Powers “Love Letter” Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia, PA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Steve ESPO Powers “Love Letter” Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia, PA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Steve ESPO Powers “Love Letter” Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia, PA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Steve ESPO Powers “Love Letter” Mural Arts Program. Philadelphia, PA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

To learn more about the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program click HERE

BSA would like to thank Ms. Jane Golden for her generous time with us and also Mr. Brian Campbell and RJ Rushmore for their gracious hospitality, guided tour of the murals and lunch.

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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!

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This article was also published on The Huffington Post

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X-O and Amanda Marie Go To Philadelphia

X-O and Amanda Marie Go To Philadelphia

‘Beautiful Times – Philly Stop’

As we follow the “Beautiful Times” summer tour of X-O and Amanda Marie we find them in the city of brotherly love laying down layers of stencils and building out abandoned places with found object constructions. All tolled, the number of completed projects in this city made it the most prodigious of the tour so far.

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Amanda Marie at a Community Garden. Beautiful Times. Philadelphia. August 2014 (photo © courtesy Amanda Maire and X-O)

First off they took a nice tour of Steve Powers ‘Love Letters’ murals that he did a couple of years ago with the Philadelphia Mural Project, and worked with that program to create their own project – something X-O refers to as an #emogarden called ‘High 5 Times’. Most likely that is about walking on stilts, we’re guessing.

As another project Amanda made some time to create a ‘camping’ scene in one of the many community gardens that dot the city of Philly, thanks to friends at HAHA x Paradigm, a magazine and gallery respectively. “Painting in the community garden was a good match for the ‘Beautiful Times’ vibe,” says X-O.

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Amanda Marie at a Community Garden. Detail. Beautiful Times. Philadelphia. August 2014 (photo © courtesy Amanda Maire and X-O)

On their next investigation the two went on the hunt for more destitute architectural decay and hit the jackpot when X-O “found a beautiful demolition / construction site that had a super good sunken window temporarily covered in plywood,” he says excitedly. Did anyone mind that he created a new piece with various pieces of wood in the framed ventana? “The owners were happy to get a ‘lost object’ piece for the space,” he says, “and the neighbors are happy to have something more interesting than blank plywood to look at.”

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X-O at a Community Garden for Mural Arts. Beautiful Times. Philadelphia. August 2014 (photo © courtesy Amanda Maire and X-O)

Moving along, the two found “Tattooed Mom,” and they thought they were in a celestial graff palace.  “If the paint store equals the candy store, then ‘Tattooed Mom’ equals the playground,” he exclaims the legendary graff writer / Street Artist hangout on South Street. “The whole upstairs is completely smashed with tags and pieces and a constantly shifting smorgasbord of aerosol madness,” says X-O.

Here Amanda Marie made some more urban ‘camping’ vignettes while X-O gave a Hanksy piece of his namesake actor some gender-reassignment surgery. “I dropped in a field of flowers behind him and updated his substantial forehead with the slogan ‘I Like Your Girlfriend’.”

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Amanda Marie at work on the street. Beautiful Times. Philadelphia. August 2014 (photo © courtesy Amanda Maire and X-O)

The last thing that got done before we split town was a big beautiful total street move from Amanda where she painted a few of her ‘Pretty Baby’ images on 5th street just a half block off of South Street … a really nice match of image with the hodge podge coloring of the empty building behind it,” X-O says.

“For both Amanda and me, one of the most impressive things about Philly were all of the walls that have been left exposed when adjacent buildings are torn down,” he says. It looks like the great experience with the mural program and these more organic adventures have gotten their wheels turning on even larger ideas for Philadelphia in the future.

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Amanda Marie. Beautiful Times. Philadelphia. August 2014 (photo © courtesy Amanda Maire and X-O)

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X-O. Beautiful Times. Philadelphia. August 2014 (photo © courtesy Amanda Maire and X-O)

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X-O. Detail. Beautiful Times. Philadelphia. August 2014 (photo © courtesy Amanda Maire and X-O)

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Amanda Marie at Tattooed Mom. Beautiful Times. Philadelphia. August 2014 (photo © courtesy Amanda Maire and X-O)

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Amanda Marie at Tattooed Mom. Detail. Beautiful Times. Philadelphia. August 2014 (photo © courtesy Amanda Maire and X-O)

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Amanda Marie at Tattooed Mom. Detail. Beautiful Times. Philadelphia. August 2014 (photo © courtesy Amanda Maire and X-O)

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X-O at work at Tattooed Mom. Beautiful Times. Philadelphia. August 2014 (photo © courtesy Amanda Maire and X-O)

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X-O at Tattooed Mom. Beautiful Times. Philadelphia. August 2014 (photo © courtesy Amanda Maire and X-O)

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X-O gives Hanksy a make over at Tattooed Mom. Beautiful Times. Philadelphia. August 2014 (photo © courtesy Amanda Maire and X-O)

 

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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!
 
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ThinkSpace Gallery Presents: “Vanguard” A Group Exhibition. (Culver City, CA)

Thinkspace is pleased to present ‘Vanguard’, an exciting group exhibition of new works by the gallery’s established artists, and by recent additions to its roster. This special exhibition will provide a curated glimpse into the New Contemporary Art Movement with a dynamic selection of artwork representing the diverse range of its artists and their practices. These artists are unified by the shared intent to create exceptional artwork that speaks relevantly to contemporary culture. Distilling inspiration from a variety of sources including illustration, pop culture, comics, street art, and graffiti, the New Contemporary Art Movement culls its content from the world and presents imagery saturated with powerfully populist forms. As a movement with its beginnings firmly grounded in Los Angeles, Thinkspace has been a significant conduit and catalyst for its expansion worldwide. While it is young, New Contemporary Art has gained traction and recognition the world over and continues to establish itself as a potentially inveterate art movement with a steadily evolving history.

‘Vanguard’ will feature artwork by Thinkspace artists Allison Sommers, Derek Gores, Kevin Peterson, Sarah Joncas, Seth Armstrong, Shark Toof, and Yosuke Ueno, and will also include works from recent gallery additions: Curiot from Mexico, NoseGo from Philadelphia, Jeremy Enecio from Brooklyn, Kikyz1313 from Mexico, and Halsey Swain from Portland. Each artist imparts their own unique and unrepeatable contribution to the movement in keeping with its core tenets of accessibility and contemporaneity; their work speaks democratically in a relatable way, and draws from the realities of the contemporary culture in which we are all imbricated. As an art movement that seeks to reflect popular cultural forms rather than to exclude them, the New Contemporary Art Movement is unified by its diversity and its appeal to shared sensibilities and social currencies. An aggregate of distinct and yet concomitant voices, each exponent is different and informed by his or her own vision, but each resonates with a desire to show the viewer something identifiable, real, imminent, and firmly grounded in the now. ‘Vanguard’ will present an inspired cross-section of these exceptional and varied talents, offering a rare opportunity to hear their voices in unison.

http://thinkspacegallery.com/shows/2013-05/#photos

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