It’s great to see that artists on the streets are actually reaching out to help passersby with enthralling words of encouragement these days – the signs and messages we’re seeing are sentiments such as “We will persevere!” and “No Fear. Keep Going!”
Perhaps it is the vacuum of support that has been created by the Divider in Chief – as well as the acquiescent one-party corporate Demoblicans who all haven’t the slightest desire to lead or actually support you in these times of crisis for millions.
And to this we add our voice; Hang in there people! You got this! We are going to pull through this stronger and more united, despite the disinformation war that is arrayed before us. Today people are once again taking to the streets around the world in a populist fervor not seen since the ’60s when Baby Boomers hadn’t abandoned their principles yet. What a pendulum we swing on!
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Buff Monster, Dan Witz, Gianni Lee, Mtitya Pisliak, Praxi, Skewville, and Techno Deco.
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! Happy Memorial Day Weekend in the US. Happy Eid-ul-Fitr 2020 to all our friends celebrating it, wherever you are. Wash you hands, practice social distancing, don’t fight with people over small things. It’s not worth it.
This week we have some new art from the streets that appears purposeful and dense with meaning – not beating around the bush these days. Maybe there is too much at stake, and artists know it too.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Caryn Cast, Cheer Up, City Kitty, Dylan Egon, Gane , Glare Rakn, Hearts NY, Praxis, and Sara Lynne-Leo.
Such a New York sentiment and at the heart of it we believe in our fellow New Yorkers and people in general to pull through this series of cavalcading catastrophes that are befalling us as many of our would-be leaders stand by and watch.
“Times are tough..” – It’s also a new piece this week on BSA Images of the Week from Captain Eyeliner. Let’s look for common ground, fundamental fairness and a common dream – without being tricked into fighting each other.
Meanwhile here’s some of the genius and humorous works this week on New York streets (and one from Tel Aviv), as we nurse our wounds and mourn our dead, and praise our nurses – and so many others. Hang tough people!
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Adam Fujita, Almost Over Keep Smiling, Billy Barnacles, Captain Eyeliner, CRKSNK, Lunge Box, Maya Hayuk, Merk, No Sleep, Praxis, Quasar, Sac Six, Tag, and You Go Girl!
The New York State Plastic Bag Ban is in effect March 1! That’s today.
This is troublesome because New Yorkers have started to use their single use plastic grocery bags to wrap their feet, hands, and entire heads before going outside to protect them from the Coronavirus.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring 1Up Crew, Blanca Romero, Captain Eyeliner, Flash, Frank Ape, M Quan, Makh21, Neon Savage, Neckface, Praxis, Pure Genius, RAW, Shiny, The Brujo, Theo, Yiannis Bellis.
The pronounced disparities and hypocrisies of society are now on display and on parade in our politics, on our multiple screens, in our bank accounts, our hospitals, our music, our schools, our neighborhoods, and in our Street Art — which again proves an apt and reliable reflection of society, despite the fog.
While our politicians and political machines and corporate media and cultural institutions are now being questioned more openly and often for their alliances, their entrenched classism, and exploitation of the rank-and-file, you can see those dynamics reflected in the messages and alliances that are occurring in Street Art as well – and questioned more often as well.
Will a torrent of populism be unleashed? Will our institutions fall or further erode? Who knows. As ever, one must be vigilant to spot the colorful wolf in populist clothes, often right in front of you in black and white.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street featuring Adam Fu, Albertus Joseph, Anthony Lister, Captain Eyeliner, COSBE, CRKSHNK, JR, Poet Was Taken, Praxis, Sara Lynne Leo, Vivid Trash, Will Power, Wing, and WK Interact.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this time featuring BRCEDU, Captain Eyeliner, Damon, Dark Clouds,Fhake, Ghake, Jerk Face, Mad Villian, Mattew Hyte, MurOne, Praxis, R Burns Wilder, Shepard Fairey, Sinned, Stikman, Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, Thomas Allen, and Vy.
Dog days of summer
be damned, the Street Art in all of its fabulous illegal varieties, the true Vox
Populi (and self-advertisment) persists and insists through the streets this
July.
On the topic of illegal, we’ll state it again for the many persons who have an incorrect impression – Street Art, by definition, is illegal. If it is not illegal, please do not call it Street Art. That work you are looking at is probably a mural. Unfortunately we’ve seen some recent flagrant misuses of the term by some folks who probably should know better.
Good to see “Hysterical Men” here in New York, after
admiring the campaign from Philly. The artwork reminds us of Robbie Conal as
well, who is reliably skewering public officials with his wilting depictions of
them on posters on the street. This week we also were reminded of Chicago’s Dont
Fret when we saw the work of Matt Starr, with his textual witticisms. Don’t get
us wrong, its not a criticism to have similar work – it’s just an observation.
Finally, considering the treatment of immigrants, the mounting
fascism, racism, misogyny, and rageful ignorance being modelled and engendered
from the highest offices in the land, we’re shocked that, with a few notable
exceptions, Street Artists are not taking those messages to the streets. So
much for its reputation for being activist. Not so much.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this time featuring Benjamin’s Brother, Bones, Cammix Vx, Captain Eyeliner, Diva Dolga, Domingo Zapata, Dr. Nothing, Hysterical Men, Invisible Essence, Little Ricky, Matt Siren, Matt Starr, Mattew Wythe, Mr. Djoul, Obey, Praxis, Raddington Falls, Rammellzee, Sara Lynne Leo, Sinclair, Sunflower Soulz, The Postman Art, and You Go Girl!
It’s an annual event in Street Art and mural programs in New York for the last decade, The Welling Court Festival – now poised to be a victim of its own success. The original concept by a couple who ran Ad Hoc gallery in Bushwick, Brooklyn, the neighborhood was full of working class and economically struggling families in a part of the city that had fallen into the margins. Suddenly it was full of color and imagination thanks to Garrison and Alison Buxton and their eclectic and widely dispersed cadre of local and international graffiti and Street Artists who spent one weekend out of the summer smashing walls side by side with community members in a cacophonous untamed way.
This year was no different, with families and children getting into the action, and relationships renewed between artists and admirers on a gorgeous New York summer weekend in June. But what is also evident is the invasion of developers and higher-rent homes and businesses being built. You’ve seen this movie before, and you know how it ends. Owners cash in, renters are priced out, and these walls will be commercial shortly – used to sell shampoo.
The connection between murals and gentrification? That debate continues, but for some, it’s a settled causational relationship. The question about what to do about it, if anything, is unsettled – and unsettling.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street (or boardwalk), this time featuring Caleb Neelon, Cey Adams, Depoe, Rene Gagnon, JCorp, Kimyon333, NYC Hooker, Peat Wolleager, Pinky Weber, Sara Erenthal, Caryn Cast, Joe Iurato, John Fekner, Never, Praxis, Queen Andrea, Hellbent, Bella Pharma, Color Eyes, and Hiss.
“Anxiety is normal in an unjust society” says the new piece by Disordered in Welling Court, Queens, a working class neighborhood of New York where the latest Ad Hoc mural party was held a couple of weekends ago under the direction of Garrison Buxton. He started this festival with his former partner Alison Buxton nine years ago to create community here with a number of artists from across the graffiti/Street Art spectrum, and it has always been a great day to see families and kids interacting with artists on the street.
Anxiety rings true when the giveaways to business interests for nearly four decades under both dominant parties have gradually placed folks like these in this neighborhood constantly in fear of missing the rent, the grocery bill, the car payment, the cost of providing for their kids.
Some companies adore this dynamic exactly the way it is because when you are always feeling anxiety about losing your job and worried about paying the bills you won’t speak up to notify anyone when your boss is dumping poison in the river or placing his hand upon your seat. Imagine working so hard and getting paid so little that you are still relying on public assistance, as Walmart is known for now. Anxiety is normal for many today, and it is reflected in the art on the streets as well.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Cern, Caleb Neelon, Col Wallnuts, Damien Mitchell, Daze, Disordered, FKDL, Hellbent, JCBK, Joe Iurato, John Fekner, Lena McCarthy, LMNOPI, Maria Wore, Michel Velt, Never, NYC Hooker, Praxis, Queen Andrea, Robots Will Kill, Rubin415, Seeone, and Toofly.
This week’s edition of BSA Images Of The Week is heavy with messages, especially on the subject of refugee children and our responsibility to keep them safe. Family Values, as we once heard on a near daily basis here, are apparently not to be mentioned when applied to certain families according to the people pulling children away from immigrants – certain immigrants anyway.
New York streets had people marching yesterday about these families, and our top Street Art image by Ernest Zacharavic features little kids set afloat figuratively. As Mexico elects a new president today, the US Supreme Court looks rightward with Kennedy’s resignation last week. Meanwhile the country will celebrate “liberty and justice for all” this week – and the streets are thick with politics like we haven’t had in a while.
On a practical, art-making level, we have also noticed the prevalence of wheat-pasted posters on the streets this spring/summer. Whether mass-printed or labor-intensive one-off paintings, wheatpasting is a practice that has been a staple since we began documenting the arts on the streets worldwide. We are glad to see that the ‘paster, like the humble one-color stencil, hasn’t lost its appeal in the face of the current fascination with big murals.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Adage, AJ LaVilla, Baron Von Fancy, Boutros Buotros Bootleg, C3, Damon NYC, Drsc0, Ernest Zacharevic, Indie184, Jason Naylor, Jeff Henriquez, LMNOPI, Praxis, Simon (Xi An), REVOK, Tristan Eaton, Unapologetically Brown Series, and Voxx.
The wheat pastes above and below remind us of the early works of Faile and Bast…on the streets of Williamsburg. It’s fun to see their influence on the streets today.
While You Were Sleeping is a Korean TV series about a woman who can see the future in her dreams, and a prosecutor who fights to stop these future events from happening. The title also makes us think about the scam of a Tax bill passed while you were sleeping in the middle of the night between Friday and Saturday.
The servants of the rich, these wolves, are facilitating the largest transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class up to their masters for well into the future, and it appears that few are awake to see it. It also pulls health insurance out from underneath 13 million sleeping people. The majority of the country was against this but the servants pushed it through anyway when you weren’t stirring. Good night!
Street Art better be dope ya’ll, because that’s where many of us will be living soon – the street.
But we are wide awake for sex scandals, by golly. Powerful men are being accused by past alleged victims from every sector in society right now. We are keeping our fingers crossed that Santa Claus can stay above the fray!
Meanwhile, the tree got lit this week in Rockefeller Center, a lot of people are going to get lit this month at their office holiday party, many NYC art denizens are heading to the Miami Basel Circus this week, and apparently there is supposed to be some Street Art thing happening there too.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring BD White, Daek, Elbi Elem, Elisa Capdevila, Faile, Jason Woodside, Jerkface, Kai, Killjoy, Magda Love, Mazatl, Mr. Toll, Ola Kalnins, Praxis, Timothy Goodman, and Sonni.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring BK Foxx, City Kitty, Dain, Jucer, Nick Walker, Praxis REVOK, Sam Himer, Sheryo, Skount, Smells, The Yok, Turtle Caps, UFO 907, WRDSMTH.
Entitled “Home of the emotional flow”
~from the artist
“This mural depicts the search for a state of emotional flow. The background of our emotional life runs in a way, even to the flow of our thoughts. At the bottom of our consciousness there is always some state of mind although, generally, we do not realize the subtle moods that flow and reflux as we carry out our daily routine.
To achieve the Emotional Flow State, the development of qualities and abilities of emotional intelligence is required. These are; self-knowledge, empathy in order to understand the reactions of others, sympathy, balance, optimism and self-control. The state of flow, is a state in which alone, the person manages to surpass himself in situations that generate internal conflict, and this allows him to develop more activity, thus boosting enthusiasm.
In short, to find a state of emotional flow it is necessary first to delve into the deepest of our inner self, strive to understand the situations and states that generate internal conflicts, in order to achieve a state of harmony with ourselves and our environment.”
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
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