Welcome to BSA Images of the Week. The first day of February brought New York a blizzard – a foot and a half of snow, complete with winds and drifts and buried cars. It drives everyone outside to experience the new world, especially kids, big and small.
I am a poem of blizzards trapped in snow; paralyzed in a city of 8 million snow-poems digging out of record wind-fuelled drifts of snow; trapped in the wintery vice of its wintery vice-like grip of treachery.
–Rupert The Red Nosed, “The Language of Snow”
And like kids, we too like to stomp through the snowy streets in big boots, looking for hidden missives and pieces of poems, delighted by the mysteries buried in this cold and windy town.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Carl J. Gabriel, Chris RWK, Dare2, Eye Sticker, George Floyd, HOACS, Jeremy Novy, Par, Praxis VGZ, Roachi, Skewville, Sticky, Viler, and Zexor.
Many people in New York and around the world breathed a collective sigh of relief this week when our native son from Queens got on that helicopter with his immigrant wife and A. left the White House and, B. flew to Florida.
But for this week anyway, the streets are saying let’s give Biden and Harris and this new administration the congratulations and the honeymoon they deserve. We wish them (and us) the best!
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Anna is a toy, Bastard Bot, CRKSHNK, Elfo, Jason Naylor, Lunge Box, Praxis VGZ, and Queen Andrea.
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week. Shana Tova to our Jewish brothers and sisters, even as we mourn the Friday passing of one of Brooklyn’s own, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She was born here on East 9th Street in Midwood to Russian immigrant parents in 1933 and the governor says we’ll have a statue honoring her here too.
Meanwhile in our strained semi-democracy, daily anti-ICE protests continue in Times Square amidst accusations of heavy handed practices of the police, exotic animal complaints this year are up 77 percent possibly because people want to quarantine with roosters and monkeys to stay sane, and in-person school classes are again being delayed due to lack of preparedness and generalized fears of Covid-19 outbreaks among students and teachers.
Compared to all these news, the scene with Street Art appears tame. But from Red Hook to Soho to LES to Bushwick to Ridgewood, it is definitely not lame.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring BK Foxx, Chris Tuorto, City Kitty, CRKSHNK, De Grupo, Downtown DaVinci, Freakotrophic, Half, Joe Iurato, Kesta, Logan Hicks, Mish, Ouch, Praxis VGZ, Sac Six, Sean Lugo 9, Stikman, and You Go Girl!
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week. The weather has been beautiful in NYC and the organic art popping up on the streets is still forcefully advocating for social and political solutions amidst great upheaval, even while…
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Adam Fujita, Almost Over Keep Smiling, Billie Barnacles, Black Lives Matter, Bosko, Detor, Downtown DaVinci, Eric Haze, Fumero, Insurgo, Marco Santini, Marina Zumi, Praxis VGZ, Sara Lynne Leo, and Who is Dirk.
The New York street artist who works under the moniker “Almost Over Keep Smiling” reinterprets slightly this Boston warning poster telling anybody who was black in a “free” state like Massachusetts or New York to stay away from the police because the federal government had passed a law empowering people to capture them and return them to slavery.
The Act was one of the most controversial elements of the 1850 compromise and heightened Northern fears of a “slave power
conspiracy”. It required that all escaped slaves, upon capture, be
returned to their masters and that officials and citizens of free states
had to cooperate. Abolitionists nicknamed it the “Bloodhound Bill,” for the dogs that were used to track down runaway slaves.[2]
The Act contributed to the growing polarization of the country over the issue of slavery, and is considered one of the causes of the Civil War.
Rachel Maddow gets $7 million a year. Sean Hannity makes $40 million a year. Anderson Cooper $12 million a year. Joe Scarborough $8 million a year. Even Erin Burnett, who started her professional career as a financial analyst for Goldman Sachs GS, has a net worth of $13 million.
“Right” wing or “Left” wing, it doesn’t matter – these “news” reporters are millionaires looking at the world through your eyes, right?
Maybe this is why there are few positive news stories or policy debates or discussions or “Special Investigation” programs about student debt forgiveness, housing issues, workers rights, unions, Medicare for All, rent strikes, a guaranteed Basic Universal Income on the main networks and news sites. There are NO grand, sweeping financial/job/infrastructure solutions for everyday people that are being proposed, or being reported. There are more people out of work and without a safety net than any time in your life, and there are no big solutions to this?
Huh.
In other news, we’re still quarantining inside. 18,610 people are dead from Covid 19 in New York. That is 6 times as many as we lost on 9/11 – Please send us your pics of art in the streets! We love to hear from you. Spread love!
So here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Ines, JJ Veronis, King Baby, One-Tooth, Moe, Pollyn, Praxis-VGZ, and Woe.
Happy Sunday ya’ll! April is the cruelest month, true. Magnolias today, snowstorm tomorrow.
Great to see the Spanish Pejac here in New York after years of writing about his work elsewhere. It has an extra special quality that plays with perception and that people respond to – especially when he paints blossoming trees at the exact time they are blossoming in our parks, back yards and front stoops. At the other end of the spectrum, the deliberately monstrous and unhinged west coast Neck Face was back for a couple cameos to add some jarring electricity to an increasingly homogenized and candy-covered NYC.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Cogitaro, Kusek, Libre, Lister, Manyoly, Neck Face, Pejac, Praxis VGZ, Skewville, and Stickman.
Art was popping up like crokuses and animated robots all week here in NYC with a plethora of art fairs gathered under Armory Week, a number of fresh green gallery openings, and the welcome sign of perturbed perennials appearing on the street.
Although it is not surprising in any way any more, Street Artists are represented across all three of those options today, like Pixote, Swoon, and Ian Strange (Kid Zoom) at Spring/Break. Also John Matos, aka Crash One, and Lady Aiko in conversation with cultural critic and curator Carlo McCormick moderated by Harrison Tenzer of Sotheby’s at Scope. And you can’t forget the gallery openings of Buff Monster with Dalek, and the first solo show of Brendan Fagen (the artist formerly known as Judith Supine).
You try to see as much as possible, and of course a number of non-Street Art installations caught our eye like the top image of Fernando Orellana‘s animated “Robot Protest”, which you can participate in HERE, and see a video of at the end of this post. For the actual street we’ll mention some new art in ad places from Abe Lincoln Jr and Swiss Miss as a dominatrix in pink latex and Trump as the submissive on bus shelters.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets (and elsewhere), this week featuring Anna Kustera, Annette Bragasuma, Danielle Mastrion, Demsky, DrscO, Eric Mistretta, Fernando Orellana, Ian Strange, Jonathatn Rosen, Laura O’Reilly, Abe Lincoln Jr. LMNOPI, Megzany, Pixote, Praxis VGZ, Sarah Walkco, Screw Tape, Stick N Twisted, Stylist of the Lambs, Swiss Miss NYC, and Turtle Caps.
Stomping through the streets of New York Friday looking for new Street Art and graffiti, the cold and the wind reminded us of a saying we learned from the Norwegians during recent trips there: “There’s no such a thing as bad weather, only bad clothing”.
Cold comfort perhaps, but an apt metaphor for weathering the storms. Prepare!
These photos draw from that frozen urban exploration we embarked upon to the hinterlands of places not typically known for a Street Art scene like Sunnyside, Queens and places now slaughtered with murals and some smaller illegal pieces like the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
Hope you are as impressed by what we found as we are as Gen Z is making some of those Millenials look like old grannies out here! Real Talk.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring A Cool 55, Alex Andre, Damien Mitchell, drsc0, Alexander Evans, Ardif, Angry Red, Arrex Skulls, Below Key, Dede, Dirt Cobain, Gongkan, Keith Haring, Praxis VGZ, SacSix, Sean Slaney, Special Robot Dog, Teg Artworks, Thrashbird, and Voxx Romana .
It is notable when an organized gang of aerosol-wielding vandals protests your protest against censorship with censorship. It’s also odious. …Read More »