All posts tagged: Roa

Eye on London Street Art : Spencer Elzey in Europe

November 23, 2013 Artists

For the first week-long “residency” on BSA, Spencer Elzey has been sharing his experiences and Street Art photos from his recent trip to Europe. Today we finish with London, a polished and presentable collection of some of the current scene from the streets.

The city has long played host to a rolling panoply of urban art and artists and is a prime example of the professionalization of the practice featuring a greater absorption into the culture and economy at large with galleries, museums, shops, and paid tour guides all joining in. The upshot is you will see some of the best examples of talent and it may at times seem all quite combed over and generally safe for a general audience. Not that there isn’t dynamism and risk taking, and you will still find unsanctioned work to be seen inside and outside of the tourist hotspots.

Sweet Toof and Roa (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Hosting the Olympics last year brought a self cleansing of much of the organically grown graffiti and Street Art, and the chilling effect of living in an electronically surveilled society with cameras nearly everywhere will undoubtedly be sited to when historians look at the nature of art on the streets from this era.

“London had a lot of Street Art but it felt more corporate and organized for the masses,” says Elzey of his time walking through Shoreditch, Brick Lane, Hackney, Bethnal Green, and Camden. “In the week that I was there I walked by around five Street Art tours.”

Sweet Toof (photo © Spencer Elzey)

“Most of London’s street art is confined to these places – The other areas that I explored around London all seemed pretty clean. This may have been due to the fact that there are security cameras everywhere,” he says. An international first world city, London usually is a destination for the international “circuit” of Street Artists whose names tend to reappear on lists of the various street/graffiti/urban art festivals that now pop up in global cities from Lima to Łódź and Living Walls to Nuart to Upfest and the recently ended FAME.

As with any art form that begins as transgressive and underground and evolves to be adopted by the dominant culture, at times the whole scene begins to resemble the commercial and institutional interests it once mocked or attempted to subvert. “London is great but felt more catered to the bigger players and had the most street art in commissioned form (by the various Street Art organizations), which is good to see some amazing work but cheapens the art a little,” he says.

In the images he shares with BSA readers today you can see the really strong work that is throughout those neighborhoods as many of the artists consider strongly what they will do – and it results in some quite striking pieces. As always, you want to keep an eye on London. Surely it will keep an eye on you.

Miss Van and B. Schu (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Otto Schade (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Shok 1 (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Gnasher (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Alexis Diaz (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Ben Eine (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Cranio (photo © Spencer Elzey)

For The Love Of Dog (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Banksy (photo © Spencer Elzey)

A sculptural installation by D*Face (photo © Spencer Elzey)

ROA (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Swoon (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Guy Denning (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Urban Solid (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Sokaruno (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Vinie and Reaone (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Anthony Lister (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Finabarr DAC (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Phlegm (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Faith 47 (photo © Spencer Elzey)

El Mac (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Conor Harrington (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Klone (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Dal East (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Dscreete (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Insa (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Martin Ron (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Jana & JS (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Christian Nagel (photo © Spencer Elzey)

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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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Unbridled Berlin Street Art : Spencer Elzey in Europe

November 21, 2013 Artists

Berliners are hard to crack, they say, but probably not for New Yorkers. We “get” them because of their no-nonsense frankness, sometimes sharp tongues, and because their “creative types” are unhinged in a way that New Yorkers have been historically.

When it comes to the volume and variety of art that is being loosed in Berlin these days, they are setting some standards that many are still catching up with. Right now when you look at the freewheeling expression that bolted out from a broken wall more than 20 years ago and never looked back, you realize that Street Artists in Berlin are not hard to crack, they may simply be a little bit cracked.

Various & Gould (photo © Spencer Elzey)

In the third city of our series this week for Spencer Elzey’s residency on BSA, we visit Berlin, which some argue is the preeminent scene for urban art right now. It does appear to have a perfect mix for vibrant arts growth – a creatively permissive atmosphere and affordable lifestyle prevails in this city of design. And while uncommissioned public art is not legal, it is also not verboten.

The kids may come for the music and the art collectives and the dance parties, but they stay for the aerosol and the expressive faces and figures that accompany you while you walk. So far, people seem happy to let this arts scene continue to evolve and not surprisingly, tourists are magnetically drawn to it.

Victor Ash (photo © Spencer Elzey)

As you walk through certain neighborhoods you may prepare to have your pre-conventions subverted and inverted. Awash with a decade plus of unbridled art, the scale, style, influences, and techniques of pop, illustration, and graffiti are all truly playing with each other.

Where a large spate of legal mural work has monopolized creative energies of many Street Artists in New York recently, some players have commented that the content is being tamed and neutered and the resulting scene is less risk-oriented stylistically. As you look at the work Elzey found in Berlin, you are reminded what it looks like when art laborers don’t have to self-censor or look over their shoulder. Also, it is still affordable for artists. Oh, wait, did we already mention that?

Robi The Dog (photo © Spencer Elzey)

“Out of the cities I visited the one that contrasted the most with NY was Berlin. It felt like a beautiful lawlessness with graffiti and rollers everywhere,” says Elzey as he tries to put his finger on the attitude of exploration and discovery that floods large areas of the city.

“Berlin by far had the most graffiti and Street Art in its most raw and authentic form, which is how I think it should really be experienced. It felt more free and genuine. Besides RAW and Urban Spree, which are commissioned areas, Berlin felt like a giant playground. There was graffiti and rollers everywhere and lots of abandoned factories to explore and have fun in.”

Blu (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Berlin has been an international draw for artists and arts institutions for the last decade at least and many of the Street Art world make sure to head here at least once, sometimes staying months and couch surfing and partying an staying out all night. Since the graffiti scene and the Street Art scene are not so polarized in the minds of people here there is also a freedom to experiment without fear of upsetting your peer group.

Luckily for BSA, local Street Artists Various & Gould were very hospitable and more than helpful and willing to tour Spencer around some of the hot spots and to give him some background on the Berlin streets. “Meeting someone you admire, be it an artist, musician, or actor, is always a special experience,” he says about being with V&G, “It feels a little different when that person is a Street Artist, or at least it does to me. The fact that part of their job means that they do illegal things, being trusted enough to be welcomed into their inner circle has deeper meaning.”

Blu. Detail. (photo © Spencer Elzey)

So he was in good hands with these two who have deep roots with the artist community and who frequently challenge themselves to look at their own work with new eyes – and to find new ways to engage with passersby with their art and a bit of theater. “In the case of Various & Gould in Berlin and C215 in Vitry I was able to meet these artists on their own turf. They showed me some of their new work in their studios and then toured me around the neighborhoods that they know best,” he recalls with some delight.

“While seeing art on the streets is one thing, getting the first hand history behind it makes it more meaningful,” he says. “You get more history and depth that way.”

Blu (photo © Spencer Elzey)

How long Berlin will continue to be a petrie dish for experimentation and discovery? Forever. Just kidding. But for the moment this ephemeral art movement is fiercely alive and more independent than many cities. Artists have always made life a bit of a moveable feast. Today its Berlin, tomorrow it could be Mexico City, or Lima, who knows?

“I think I would recommend it if you were a younger artist who was trying to break into the game and establish a name for yourself,” says Elzey.

Blu (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Alaniz (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Herakut (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Various & Gould (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Os Gemeos (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Nunca (photo © Spencer Elzey)

JR (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Cooked (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Vhils (photo © Spencer Elzey)

MTO (photo © Spencer Elzey)

MTO gives Alias a shout out. (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Klone (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Neurotitan (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Vidan The Weird (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Tafe (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Reaktor and Paulo Ito (photo © Spencer Elzey)

G (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Inti (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Ema Jones (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Klub 7 (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Broken Fingaz (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Blek le Rat (photo © Spencer Elzey)

BLO (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Maclaim (photo © Spencer Elzey)

ROA (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Otto Schade (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Nychos (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Our sincere thanks to Various & Gould for their hospitality and time.

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Street Art in Vitry-sur-Seine (France) : Spencer Elzey in Europe

November 18, 2013 Artists

BSA is lucky to be a clearinghouse for many people who participate in and celebrate the Street Art scene – artists, curators, designers, collectors, galleries, museums, researchers, academics, historians and fans. Because we have never taken advertising readers tend to trust our platform and people in the community give us great behind-the-scenes opportunities to learn and share freely with others about the creative process and the culture on the street. It also gives us the freedom to do whatever we want when planning editorial or content.

Claire Pinatel (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Recently we had this idea about giving our site out to artists or art-lovers a week at a time so they could also fully share their personal experiences of the Street Art/public art/graffiti/ scene. So this week before Thanksgiving we’re giving the whole week to one person as a “residency”, our way of sharing this valuable platform and inviting you to have a greater voice in this conversation.

Spencer Elzey loves art in general and is an avid Street Art fan in particular and he likes to take trips that include shooting images on the street in whatever city he visits. He also supports artists by buying their art, regularly attending art exhibitions, reading and studying about them and following their evolution. Over the last couple of years we have seen that he is also a dedicated Street Art hunter with camera in hand on the streets of New York City when he isn’t at his regular job – and he loves to share what he finds with others on social media and as an occasional contributor to BSA.

When we heard that Spencer was planning a trip to Europe this fall we proposed to him the idea of him keeping a photo journal to be shared exclusively with BSA readers and we offered to help connect him with some friendly guides on his trip so he could get some splendid and exclusive photos. He enthusiastically accepted the offer and here is the first day of Spencer’s one-week residency on BSA, an edited treasure trove of images and insights from the guy himself. We know you’re going to dig it.

STeW (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Here’s this weeks schedule:

Monday is Vitry-sur-Seine Street Art.
Tuesday will be Paris Street Art.
Wednesday will be a special collection of the installations from the Le Tour Paris 13 project.
Thursday will be his adventures in Berlin.
BSA Film Friday will feature a selection of videos reflecting the cities he toured.
Saturday will be Spencer’s London showcase.

ROA (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Of all four cities Spencer visited over a two week trip, this one seemed to really embrace the value of street art to the culture, he says. “In terms of which city was the most welcoming of street art I’d have to say Vitry-sur-Seine was because this is really a grassroots campaign kickstarted by C215,” he says of this city of 83,000 that is called a commune and lies on the outskirts of Paris.

It’s not hard to believe that the scene is attributed in large part to the influence of the well-regarded stencil artist C215 as this is a guy who considers his work to be community service and who regularly features people from the city he is in as subjects of his portraits. That’s why he was the perfect guide for Spencer, who says he learned a huge amount of information in a short time.

C215 (photo © Spencer Elzey)

“I have to say that C215 is one of the more interesting, opinionated and knowledgeable artists that I have come across. We started the morning at his local café with a coffee. I explored around a little by myself while he was attending to some prior engagements with his gallery and then he caught up with me out on the streets. We eventually had lunch and then went back to his house. Topics ranged from his opinion on the scene in general, on other artists, on galleries and it even touched on street art websites and documenters.

C215 (photo © Spencer Elzey)

“I hadn’t realized that he has only been doing stenciling for seven years but it was easy to see how far his pieces have come from the few monochrome stencils that still remain around Williamsburg (Brooklyn) from around 2008,” remarks Elzey.

C215 (photo © Spencer Elzey)

“What C215 has done in Vitry-sur-Seine is much bigger than I expected it to be, both in terms of quantity of work in the area as well as the impact on the community. The first piece that he put up there was about five year ago and within that time there have appeared at least 150 different pieces from him and other artists throughout the area,” says Spencer.

C215 (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Naturally, Elzey was shooting whatever odd or curious or thrilling piece he found on his travels through this city that celebrates artists, in addition to the work done by his host. “I was definitely surprised with how much Street Art there was in Vitry-sur-Seine. I took around 200 pictures of different pieces while there and I’m still seeing pictures on Instagram of things that I had missed,” he says.

C215 (photo © Spencer Elzey)

One piece in particular by C215 impressed him a lot – because of it’s impact visually and its perfectly contextual placement. Additionally, Elzey felt that it illustrated the regard that the residents have for the artists work and the fact that people didn’t appear to think of it as illegal or vandalism, per se. “While I was exploring and taking pictures, various residents pointed with excitement about pieces just around the corner that I should go look at,” he says.

C215 (photo © Spencer Elzey)

“There was one older gentleman, probably in his 70s, who just simply said “La porte” and smiled while pointing in a certain direction. I rounded the corner to see a stencil of the Virgin Mary on the back door of the main church,” he says of one of the few religious themed pieces that the artist has created. “C215 had indicated that this was one of his favorite pieces in the area and it was nice to see that residents appreciated it as well. Had it not been for this project there really would be no other reason for me to have travelled down to Vitry-sur-Seine but it was definitely worth it.”

C215 (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Jorge Rodriguez Gerarda (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Yuri Romagnoli (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Finabarr DAC to the left with Guy Denning to the right. (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Finabarr DAC (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Ripo (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Nychos (photo © Spencer Elzey)

EmileOne (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Amour (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Cristian Sonda (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Kashink (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Cope (photo © Spencer Elzey)

MP5 (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Nunca (photo © Spencer Elzey)

David Walker (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Etnik (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Indigo (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Gaia (photo © Spencer Elzey)

Alice Pasquini (photo © Spencer Elzey)

We hope you enjoy this one week residency on Brooklyn Street Art and we congratulate Spencer for his dedication, professionalism and enthusiasm.

Our sincere thanks also go to those who offered their hospitality and agreed to give Spencer a tour on our behalf; to the stencil artist C215, who graciously took him around Vitry and who shared with him a history and background on the scene there, to Maroune and Mehdi at Itinerrance Gallery for providing Spencer with special solo access to Le Tour Paris 13 while hundreds were queing outside, and to the dynamic German duo Various & Gould who welcomed him into their studio and showed Spencer some really cool spots around Berlin. This open and generous community spirit really makes the work that we do feel so inspiring to us, and we thank each of you for playing host to Spencer and for sharing your knowledge with the BSA family.

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A Saturday Mural in Mexico City with Tiburon 704, Navajas, and Shente

October 19, 2013 Artists

A ROA/SEGO Colab is Defaced and Replaced (VIDEO)

“It’s not illegal graffiti, it’s a contemporary mural,” says a passerby who is watching the new collaboration by Tiburon 7ö4, Navajas, and Shente in Mexico City. The Antique Toy Museum Mexico (MUJAM) and its director Roberto Shimizu decided it was time to refresh this wall after another collaboration by ROA and SEGO was finally tagged after running for two years.

“I respect the streets language and the cycle of the ephemeral artworks,” says Shimizu as he traces the relatively long life of the Dutch/Mexican mural that began the Mural Mujam project and in his estimation was “one of the most emblematic walls in Mexico City. That’s why I wanted to make something special to cover this historic tagged mural.”

brooklyn-street-art-tiburon704-navajas-shente-mujam-Roberto-Yuichi- Shimizu-mexico-city-10-13-web-1

The original ROA vs SEGO mural shown here after it was tagged. (photo © courtesy of Roberto Shimizu/MUJAM)

The new collaboration is all Mexican, drawn from three far spread cities in the country (Mexico City, Puerto Vallarta, and Tijuana) and stylistically it is equally diverse. In these images and the video below you see the Tiburon using a more traditional mural technique using brushes, vinyl and spray cans, Navajas skewing toward a monochrome realism, and Shente bringing some old school influences from Tijuana´s graffitti scene.

The gathering of different kinds of people in public space may be one of the overlooked qualities invariably arises with the appearance of cans, ladders and artists on your block on a Saturday morning. Here you get to meet people, trade opinions, learn new techniques of painting, see the original sketches, and hear how the artist is thinking about their progress. “What we enjoyed the most with this mural was we really had a great time as a group of friends, painting over a normal weekend and having a good time just hanging out with our people,” says Shimizu.

Special thanks to Omar Villa and Nasser Malek for sharing photos and timelapses of the new mural with BSA readers, and thank you to Daniel Sroor for making the video capturing the sense of community that surrounded the process.

Tiburon / 7ö4 . Navajas . Shente (photo © courtesy of Roberto Shimizu/MUJAM)

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Splashes of Color in the Norwegian Rain: NUART 2013

September 11, 2013 Artists

The pale wan institutional hues of the Stavanger International Airport now are punctuated by the brilliant blues and stencil patterning wrapping around the control tower.

Small multi-layered stencil portraits pop from post-boxes, primary color-clad children hang off of stoop stairs and balance on stacked chairs and a graffiti slathered Michaelango stands on the corner next to the eye doctors office. Turn up another street and an aerosoled sultry geisha rises, wrapped in boisterous brocade on a typically white wall in this rather monochromatic sea town.

With these new wall works by M-City, C215, Ernest Zacharevic, Martin Whatson, and Hush (respectively) and a number of others, Nuart 2013 brought a lot of color to the streets this year as it celebrated what founder Martyn Reed called “one of, if not thee, finest Nuart events yet”.

Ernest Zacharevic (photo © Martha Cooper)

“Best Wishes from cold and rainy Stavanger!” says Ernest’s friend Gabija in her note to us as she talks about the cool grey storms that held up many of the visiting artists waiting to paint. It didn’t delay the pieces going up on tunnel walls of the venue where the opening party crowds teamed Saturday night. The special installations by C215, David Choe, and Aiko among others also included a 1,300 slide show at the end of one tunnel that showed 50 years of graffiti, Street Art, and street life photography by Martha Cooper, who was invited as an artist.

Even the minister of culture stopped by for a tour on Thursday, which shows how far graffiti and Street Art have grown, or strayed, in the years since public service commercials equated aerosol art with illicit drug use, truancy, terror, and illegal firearms. Today we give tours in the streets to appreciative people who snap photos and pose with friends in front of the spray painted walls.

Ernest Zacharevic (photo © Martha Cooper)

Of course this is an international mural festival, and much of the work is done by more accomplished artists who may have once (or still do) sprayed their stuff illegally. The themes may need to pass some review process, but the opportunities that come from taking your time are appreciable also. One of the newest talents showing this year was the Lithuanian twenty-something Ernest Zacharevic, who photographs and paints kids interacting and playing on a variety of wheeled machines, usually the self propelled kind.

Ably steering clear of cute, Zacharevic uses props with his wall paintings to “tap into the original instincts of adult viewers who may have lost their ability to access their playful nature,” or so we said in our interview with him. He also merges 2D with 3D quite seemlessly. For his tunnel installation on opening night, Zacharevic sawed a car in half so his kids could dance on the roof, cram inside, and push it from the back like it was out of gas. More than likely it was the missing wheels that kept the car stationary. But no harm in playing.

Ernest Zacharevic (photo © Martha Cooper)

But of the 16 artists invited this year, each can say they brought life and their A-game to this jewel of an outdoor art show in Norway. Nuart 2013 included MARTHA COOPER (US), DAL EAST (CN), ROA (BE), M-CITY (PL), FAITH47 (ZA), HUSH (UK), VHILS (PT), ERNEST ZACHAREVIC (LT), C215 (FR), DOT DOT DOT (NO), DOTMASTER (UK), STRØK (NO), MARTIN WHATSON (NO), DAVID CHOE (US) AIKO (JP).

With very special thanks to photographer Martha Cooper for sharing these images with BSA readers.

Ernest Zacharevic (photo © Martha Cooper)

Stroek casts a shadow. (photo © Martha Cooper)

Stroek and a street scene. (photo © Martha Cooper)

Stroek finishing up his piece. (photo © Martha Cooper)

C215 does this portrait of fellow Street Artist Indi. (photo © Martha Cooper)

C215 self portrait looking perplexed, perhaps. (photo © Martha Cooper)

C215 (photo © Martha Cooper)

C215 on a post box in Stavanger. (photo © Martha Cooper)

Martin Whatson (photo © Martha Cooper)

AIKO (photo © Martha Cooper)

A tour of the walls in Stavanger with AIKO’s piece on the background. (photo © Martha Cooper)

AIKO and Martha Cooper’s collaborative tunnel, with Aiko’s stencils on both sides and a slide show at the end. This slide is of New York graffiti writer and fine artist Futura as a young buck at the tunnels’ end. (photo © Martha Cooper)

AIKO’s walls and Martha Cooper’s portrait of her in a perfect collaboration. (photo © Martha Cooper)

AIKO and Martha Cooper’ slide show on the background. (photo © Martha Cooper)

VHILS (photo © Martha Cooper)

M-City (photo © Martha Cooper)

M-City. Detail. (photo © Martha Cooper)

HUSH in a stunning shot by Ms. Cooper, who caught a woman in a hijab walking past at just the right moment. (photo © Martha Cooper)

DOT DOT DOT keeping warmed by the fire. (photo © Martha Cooper)

ROA’s whale is spouting oil, a reference to the driving force behind the local economy perhaps. (photo © Martha Cooper)

FAITH 47 (photo © Martha Cooper)

Dal East (photo © Martha Cooper)

Founder of NUART Festival Martyn Reed, standing in front of David Choe’s piece while giving a tour of the art to Norway’s Minister of Culture Hadia Tajik. (photo © Martha Cooper)

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Urban Forms 2013: ROA Goes First in Poland

September 10, 2013 Artists

In Poland the Urban Forms festival is underway with its new installations of large format mural works in Lodz this month, beginning with the Belgian ROA. The urban naturalist continues to explore the animal kingdom, but usually not the cute ones you find in cartoons or on inspirational posters in your kid sisters bedroom with phrases like “Hang In There!” emblazoned across them hanging adorably off a tree limb. ROA has us sort of stumped with this playful pack of Polish polecats – a combination of realistic and fantastic weasels who won’t sit still as they careen and cavort across a characteristically colossal wall – the 22nd or 23rd such mural in the series for Urban Forms.

ROA. Urban Forms 2013. Lodz, Poland. (photo © Urban Forms/Michał Bieżyński)

ROA. Detail. Urban Forms 2013. Lodz, Poland. (photo © Urban Forms/Michał Bieżyński)

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www.urbanforms.org

www.facebook.com/urbanforms

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www.instagram.com/urbanforms

www.youtube.com/user/UrbanFormsFoundation

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Martha Bikes the Hills, Martyn Keeps Up at NUART 2013

September 5, 2013 Artists, Interview

“We’re really honored to have Martha amongst us this week,” says Martyn Reed, the barely well behaved director of Nuart 2013, as he welcomes the photographer Martha Cooper, who has just touched down next to the new piece going up on the airport control tower by Polish Street Artist M-City. Not that Martyn was there when she landed. “Unfortunately not, what with the Mayor and everything there wasn’t room in the limo,” he says in the joking manner that tells you he is still kind of in awe of the success of this internationally known Street Art festival now underway for its ninth year.

Martha Cooper. “Banner on wall in arrival area at airport” -MC. (photo © Martha Cooper)

“The trip was fine—a short flight from Oslo,” says Ms. Cooper, who immediately snuck an iPhone photo of the welcome banner with her name at the top, before wondering whether photos were actually allowed in that area of the airport. “I was met by Krystal, a Stavanger resident who has worked with Nuart before and who is very knowledgeable about the artists and the whereabouts of murals past and present,” she says.

“Faith 47 and Daleast were also waiting at the airport, having arrived a few minutes earlier from Cape Town and it was fun to reconnect with them.” And did they all get a look at the new piece that M-City is painting? “Unfortunately it was raining so we were unable to get a good look at the airport control tower which was shrouded in scaffolding and plastic,” says Ms. Cooper, but “The fact that permission had been obtained to paint the tower is an indication of how city officials have embraced street art.”

Martha Cooper. “This is Stavanger. I have a bike to ride around on but need to get in better shape to handle the hills”- MC. (photo © Martha Cooper)

As the visiting artists continue to land in Stavanger, already a number of pieces have gone up – ROA and David Choe have installed theirs and run out of town, for example. “I was especially happy to see C215 again because I hadn’t seen him since visiting Vitry a couple of years ago. Also I was excited to see a number of artists on the list whose work I was unfamiliar with. That always makes a festival more exciting,” says Martha.

Brooklyn Street Art: Have you been to Nuart before?
Martha Cooper: This is my first trip to Stavanger and I was really looking forward to it because I’d heard many great things about the festival from How & Nosm and also photographer Ian Cox, who had shown me beautiful photos of the walls and the charming seaside town.

Brooklyn Street Art: Typically you are an invited guest as a photographer. This time you are also regarded as an artist, right?
Martha Cooper: Correct. Although I usually say that I’m not an artist, it’s actually a relief not to be responsible for official photography.

Ian Cox. David Choe teaser. (photo © Ian Cox)

Brooklyn Street Art: What sort of project are you thinking of doing?
Martha Cooper: I’m not doing anything unusual. I’m having a slideshow of over 1300 photos; a sort of graffiti/hip hop/Street Art retrospective that we’ll be showing in an underground tunnel in the main venue. There is a series of short tunnels that artists are painting. Aiko is stenciling the sides of mine and the slides will be projected at the end.”

Cooper mentions her buddy Aiko, who will also be stenciling some work of her own on distinctive Norwegian seaport architecture that sometimes has as much character as the new stuff that adorns it. Aside from her projected installations, Ms. Cooper will of course be every where she can possibly be with her camera in hand, and probably one or two in her backpack.

“Martha’s here as an artist and our guest, she’ll be treated the same as all of our artists; Like a Queen,” Reed cracks, “only on a bike with a camera.”

“But seriously,” he continues, ”Martha’s quite rightly perfectly happy being recognized as a documentary photographer and I wasn’t sure she would accept being invited as an artist, but she did and we’re very thankful of that. I don’t see any reason why Martha can’t occupy this space. Inviting Martha to participate as an artist is due to the fact that, when I look at her work, I see art. I’d also heard she was a wonderful down to earth person with few airs and that’s very important for Nuart, which is fundamentally a volunteer-run organization.”

Ian Cox. Aiko teaser. “The blurred character is a volunteer who was helping Aiko to move her scaffold”-IC. (photo © Ian Cox)

Already the two of them have been having fun together checking out possible walls for projects, digging up found materials and strategizing how to prevent visitors from stepping in front of the projector on opening night. Also there was the moment in one of the installation tunnels when Martha came rushing toward him with her phone out to him saying “,Quick, quick, it’s the attaché to the Norwegian Culture Minister, they want to speak to you”. It was a confusing moment he won’t ever forget he says, because he couldn’t imagine why the minister was on Martha’s phone.

Reed recalls, “I was thinking, a) it was a practical joke, b) ‘how did they know where I was,’ and more importantly, c) How the hell did they get Martha Cooper’s private number?” While Martha stood there beaming he took the phone and the voice on the other end said, “ Hello, this is the personal assistant to the culture minister Hadja Tajik, she’d like to visit Nuart on Thursday…” .

“After the call, we stood there a little dumbfounded, but after scratching our heads for a while trying to work out how they came to call Martha, we realized the festival had used my bank card to buy a Norwegian SiM card for her phone and that the Government had searched and found the number registered to me,” he says with a brightening realization, and then a darkening one. “I know, very NSA. Anyway, mystery solved.”

But for him, the moment was a marker in his memory, he says, “The image of Martha Cooper rushing over to pass me the phone to speak with the Culture Minister of Norway will stay with me for life. It felt like the festival had finally come of age.”

Martha Cooper. ROA. “Whale spouting oil. Stavanger is an oil rich town”-MC. (photo © Martha Cooper)

For her part, Ms. Cooper is laying plans for the out door component of her participation as artist/documentarian/photographer. “We are also planning to project photos on the sides of buildings in town,” she reveals, “ – including a huge silo. This will be the night of the opening and we won’t know whether it works until it happens. I’ve selected about 25 verticals and horizontals with a little more contrast that I think might work well.”

Reed doesn’t much mind what they end up doing – he’s just glad that he’s having this opportunity right now. “Martha holds the unique position of being a forerunner, pioneer, ambassador and also important contemporary voice in our culture – we wanted to salute that.”

Ian Cox. M-City painting the Air Traffic Control tower at Stavanger Airport. (photo © Ian Cox)

Martha Cooper. “M-City with his completed control tower mural. Scaffolding to be removed in a day or two but he has already left”-MC. (photo © Martha Cooper)

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Images of The Week: 08.25.13

August 25, 2013 Artists

Summer has been pretty stellar for those passersby on Brooklyn streets and here we have a great selection of installations including a couple from Dennis McNett, who posed a nine foot guy perched over traffic on Flushing Ave. Also notable is a new installation on the Williamsburg Bridge by Hot Tea using hundreds, maybe thousands of colored yarn strands washing over the pedestrian walkway in waves of color – not to mention the axonometric tags on fences that require you to stare and turn your head to finally see them. Finally you might want to check out the first really large scale piece that took N’DA days to complete in Bushwick, all by hand and on to top of a ladder. Cool lion, although those cherries really just look like big balls, right?

So here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week including Blanco, Buff Monster, Dain, Dennis McNett, Hot Tea, Judith Supine, Lamour Supreme, Misery, ND’A, Nychos, Pyramid Oracle, ROA, Rusty Rehl, Sheryo, Stikman, Tristan Eaton, and YOK.

Top image is by Dennis McNett (photo © Jaime Rojo).

Dennis McNett (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Stikman (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hot Tea. West view. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hot Tea. East view. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hot Tea (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pyramid Oracle (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sheryo . Misery (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Judith Supine (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Judith Supine. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tristan Eaton (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dain (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Rusty Rehl in Boise, ID (photo © Rusty Rehl)

Pyramid Oracle (photo © Jaime Rojo)

ROA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

ROA. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Buff Monster. Tristan Eaton. Nychos. YOK. Sheryo. L’amour Supreme (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Buff Monster (photo © Jaime Rojo)

An unknown artist in Berlin from New York artist Blanco. (photo © Blanco)

ND’A (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Williamsburg, Brooklyn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Wall \Therapy : Street Art Final Shots From Rochester

July 31, 2013 Artists

Diagnosis One: America’s deflated rustbelt cities can expect a deteriorated dust bowl demeanor until bankruptcy, followed by tumbleweeds.

Diagnosis Two: Street Art and graffiti are inextricably entwined with and contributing factors for broken windows, societal disarray, economic and moral decay of the aforementioned cities.

Both are failed and need to be re-examined.

Francey. Detail A. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Josh Saunders)

For the record, Rochester tops lists in terms of liveability, investment in new technology sectors, and has 91% of it’s citizens covered by health insurance – before Obamacare even kicks in. It has lost jobs and population due to stumbling giants like Xerox and Eastman Kodak and recent annual budgets have had significant shortfalls, but Rochester is putting up a good fight in the healthcare sector.

Dr. Ian Wilson should know. Which brings us to the second diagnosis. Ask the former Brooklyn graff writer now radiologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center if Street Art is synonymous with crime and disorder, and he’ll tell you all about the healing power of Wall\Therapy and murals.

The just-concluded community art project he spearheaded landed local and international graffiti/urban/street artists in Rochester for 10 days of painting – bringing certain parts of the city alive with curious locals hanging out in empty lots and hanging out of slow moving car windows, watching artists with cans as they bob up and down on cherry pickers.

Francey. Detail B. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Josh Saunders)

Co-curated this year with lead organizer Erich Lehman, Wilson has pulled off a stylistically wide-ranging collection of nearly 30 walls this year that go from aesthetically sweet to academically rooted. An apt balance, if you think of Ian.

It’s also been a balancing act to please all constituencies and manage to pull off something fresh; he’s dealt with a handful of outspoken critics who question every turn he’s made, yet the festival has been buoyed by a curious and enthusiastic under-30 youth culture whose minds explode with excitement at the thought of the global Street Art scene hitting their own city.

Lady Pink. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Jason Wilder)

“Mural art can enhance the life experience – an arguable effect of the arts in general,” the doctor says only a little didactically. All week during Wall\Therapy locals and visitors were taking tours on the El Camino Trail, watching walls going up in the South Wedge, and discussing art and the ideas that the artists are working with – whether it’s a portrait of Trayvon Martin in a piece by New Jersey’s LNY, a gentlemen’s fist fight by Ireland’s Conor Harrington, or a tribute to the influence of Xerox on the city by Baltimore’s Gaia.

Add the local talents, a cadre of volunteers and photographers and some serious old-skool big graffiti names from NYC rocking styles that started it all, this year there was more action than a Saturday night ER.

Lady Pink. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Josh Saunders)

Finally, Wall\Therapy is Wilson’s balancing act of bringing art to the people, and medical care to communities in need. Working with a group of colleagues, he has also embarked on a fundraising program to bring diagnostic equipment to people in the developing world who lack access – and he is now talking about cloud-based diagnoses by a pool of volunteer doctors around the world who can interpret the teleradiology scans remotely.

Can he get all the funding and the equipment and the artists and the walls all together at once? “Realistically, this will have to be done in stages or phases, like some of the procedures that I perform,” he says. If you’ve witnessed this years committed volunteers and organizers at Wall\Therapy, it is a fair assumption that these dual goals of art and healing will happen on a growing scale.

“There is no hope without inspiration. The two travel simultaneously, sharing the same bandwidth,” explains Wilson.

ROA. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Josh Saunders)

ROA. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Mark Deff)

Jessie and Katey. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Josh Saunders)

FreddySam. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Mark Deff)

Gaia. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Mark Deff)

Faith47. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Josh Saunders)

Mr. Prvrt. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Josh Saunders)

Mr. Prvrt. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Alex Stuart)

Mr. Prvrt. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Jason Wilder)

Freedom. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Matt De Turck)

Wise2. Detail. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Josh Saunders)

Smith. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Josh Saunders)

BSA gives a shout out for the valuable contributions to the Wall\Therapy over the last ten days by the artists, organizers, volunteers, and talented photographers. Special thanks to John Magnus Champlin, Erich Lehman, Ian Wilson, Matt DeTurck, Jason Wilder, Alex Stuart, Mark Deff, Lisa Barker, Mark Deff, and Josh Saunders. Shout out to Instagrammers @WallTherapyNY , @heliosunphoto , and @shotbywilder .

Check out excellent Wall\Therapy coverage by Rebecca Rafferty on the Rochester City Newspaper

Check out our previous posts on WALL\THERAPY:

WALL\THERAPY 2013 Starts With FREEDOM in a Tunnel

WALL\THERAPY 2013 Daily Checkup and Scan of Founder Ian Wilson

Wall\Therapy 2013 Tuesday Update 7.22.13

Sarah C. Rutherford Flies High at Wall\Therapy

Wall \ Therapy 2013 Friday Update 07.26.13

To learn more please visit:

www.wall-therapy.com

www.facebook.com/walltherapyny

twitter.com/walltherapyny

instagram.com/walltherapyny

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Brooklyn Street Art is proud to be the Media Partner of Wall Therapy 2013

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ROA Diary : New Work from Australia, Argentina, Brazil, and Panama

July 29, 2013 Artists

“I felt an intimacy with them…bordering on frenzy [that] must accompany my steps through life,” said the celebrated John James Audubon, the French-American naturalist and painter more than 200 years ago of his deep love for birds that began as a teenager and lead to his illustrations of the still revered book The Birds of America. By now we may consider the Belgian artist named ROA to be an Audubon of the Streets, so committed he is to documenting by hand and sharing with the public his studies of the animal world on walls, especially those that are often overlooked or dismissed as pests.

As we have tracked the aerosol orinthologist and urban naturalist for you during his travels of the last few years, his dedication to showcasing the oft-marginalized creatures of towns, cities, and regions around the world has not waned. Like Audubon, his depictions have become progressively more accurate in detail and now give a greater sense of mass, texture, and the presence of the subject.

Today we bring you new unpublished photos from some of his recent travels to Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Panama, along with some insights from ROA about some of the animals he has come in contact with. Not only do we not recognize a number of them, we also probably haven’t seen their skeletons or musculature, which the artist sometimes peels the skin off of for us to inspect.

As a body of work ROA’s mounting collection of birds and rodents must be nearing a hundred or so around the world, yet he continues to unveil more. As ROA told BSA a few years ago, “I like rodents. Birds and rodents. Without having made a choice, I feel really good painting birds and rodents.” We are very happy to bring you these newest birds and rodents for you to enjoy.

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA:

“This past November I was invited to Melbourne for my solo show ‘Carrion’ in the Backwoods Gallery. The installation I built for the show was inspired by the numerous amount of roadkill that there is on the Australian continent. During my stay I painted a few days in the Healesville Sanctuary which specializes in rescuing and recovering native Australian animals and conducts breeding programs for almost-extinguished species. The sanctuary adopted a litter of orphaned marsupial babies found in the pouch of a mother who had been hit by a car.”

One morning after a storm as I walked to the gallery through a park I found a dead bat. When I looked under its wings I also discovered a living baby, which I helped to rescue and it is doing fine.

Here you can see that I painted an echidna (first image), an egg-laying mammal that I had spotted a few days earlier while in a car driving in Tasmania.

The skeleton images are of a wombat, a marsupial that often is hit by cars in Victoria and should always be observed after finding it to assure that there is not a living baby left in the pouch who needs to be rescued”

~ROA

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA

After his visit to Melbourne, ROA traveled to Argentina where he was hosted and entertained by EVER and who showed him a great time for the New Year’s holiday in Buenos Aires. They also each did a new piece side by side while he was there.

“I painted a Serenia (sea cow) paradoxically also a ‘cow’. It’s a native (Patagonia) sea mammal and an herbavour,”says ROA. According to online sources Brazil outlawed hunting of sea cows (or manatees) in 1973.

ROA talks about this animal, “A three-toed sloth is a native slow-moving mammal who is hanging out in Buenos Aires nowadays.” ROA. Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2012. (photo © ROA)

Reminding you of the animal-as-food connection, ROA completed this partially skinned bull on the terrace of his friends place at the Post Bar and ‘Hollywood in Cambodia Gallery‘. “Maybe is is a sort of ‘Memento Mori’ in this beef and BBQ country,” he jests in a half-serious wisecrack

São Paulo, BRAZIL

ROA brought four new friends along to his first visit to São Paulo, a city that he has wanted to visit for a long time. “In March I stayed there a month and it was like a dream that finally came true. I loved it,” he says of the visit that was hosted by the people from Mathilda Cultural, who showed him around the city. Included in the walls were a bird, an anteater, an anteater, and the largest rodent in the world a capybara.

ROA. Capibara. ROA told us that this is largest rodent in the world and we confirmed it. That means that it gets bigger than the beaver and the porcupine, in case you were wondering. In fact, he is larger than this girl and the infant she is holding! São Paulo Paulo, Brazil. March, 2013. (photo © ROA)

An anteater is hanging out on the corner here in a neighborhood of São Paulo Paulo, Brazil. ROA. March, 2013. (photo © ROA)

PANAMA CITY, Panama

After Brazil, ROA visited Panama City at the invitation of the first Bienal Del Sur Panama 2013, a huge cultural festival that celebrated the 500th year of the discovery of the South Sea.

ROA would like to thank Sumo, INSANO and his other friends of Panama City for hosting him while there.

Finally, a new book cover by ROA

In March, 2013 ROA was one of ten Street Artists commissioned by Pinguin Books UK to create a cover for their series pairing Street Artists with contemporary authors whose modern classics novels are being re-issued.

A photo of ROA’s piece below graces the cover for the re-issue of singer, musician and author Nick Cage’s novel “And The Ass Saw The Angel”.

Other artists and authors included in these series are:

“Americana” by Don DeLillo. Art by Dr Henry Jekyll,
“Armadillo” by William Boyd. Art by YOK,
“Hawksmoor” by Peter Ackroyd. Art by BARN,
“How to Be Good” by Nick Hornby. Art by Agostino,
“Lights Out for the Territory” by Iain Sinclair. Art by ESPO,
“The Believers” by Zoe Heller. Art by Sickboy,
“The We Came to the End” by Joshua Ferris. Art by 45RPM,
“The Reluctant Fundamentalist” by Mohsin Hamid. Art by Mittenimwald and
“What a Carve Up!” by Jonathan Coe. Art by DAIN.

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Exposition Art Urbain – Colletion Nicolas Laguero Laserne (Paris, France)

July 28, 2013 Afghanistan

Exposition Art Urbain
Vernissage le mercredi 4 septembre 2013 de 18h à 21h
Exposition du 4 au 15 septembre 2013.

La collection d’art urbain sera accueillie dans les 200m2 de la Mairie du 1er arrondissement de Paris.

Environ 50 œuvres seront présentées à cette occasion. Des grandes figures de l’art urbain telles que Barry Mc Gee, Banksy, Blu, Boris Hoppek, Dem 189, Dran, Faile, Invader, Jacques Villeglé, Jef Aerosol, Jonone, JR, Lek, Ludo, Rero, Roa, Shepard Fairey, Sowat, Speedy Graphito, Swoon…
Mais aussi des nouveaux talents de la scène urbaine tels que Roti ou Studio 21 bis…

Exposition Art Urbain – Collection Nicolas Laugero Lasserre

Wall \ Therapy 2013 Friday Update 07.26.13

July 26, 2013 Artists

Skunk in the tunnel. ROA is back in Rochester.

But he’s not alone – a number of new artists arrived mid week to get the aerosol festivities reinvigorated. Not that they were flagging.

WALL\THERAPY has been up on a record number of walls all week – a rolling panoply of artists and organizers and volunteers and paint and sandwiches and water bottles and cherry pickers and neighbors stopping to watch and ask questions, offer opinions, and send it out on Instagram. Wednesday night was a meet and greet and panel talk with some of the artists and last night was a full on party at a local club. The wide variety of installations is providing entry for a lot of conversations online and in the street about the art and the artists – which is always good for building engagement with public space.

Here are new process photos from the last couple of days from Binho, Cern, Chris Stain, DALeast, Ever, Faith47, Gaia, Mr. Prvrt, Range, ROA, Siloette, Thieven Stephen, and Wise2.

Special thanks to photographers Sara Czernikowski, Jason Wilder, Alex Stuart, Josh Saunders, Lisa Barker, and Mark Deff, for sharing these great process images with BSA readers.

A 2 a.m. shot of a brand new piece by Chris Stain of the artists son. WALL\THERAPY. Rochester, NY. July 2013. (photo © Chris Stain)

Chris Stain got started earlier in the week and didn’t really like his original piece, so he regathered his ideas to do this brand new piece derived from a photo he took of his son Kesh this spring. Combining an urban cityscape from Queens with the portrait, Chris explains, “Lately I’ve been inspired by double exposure photography and I wanted to explore those possibilities in my own work.”

Take your phone and hit the road! Shoot your own pics and tag them @WallTherapyNY and @BKStreetArt – we’ll send them round the world! Click image above or HERE for the updated Google map.

Check out our previous posts on WALL\THERAPY:

WALL\THERAPY 2013 Starts With FREEDOM in a Tunnel

WALL\THERAPY 2013 Daily Checkup and Scan of Founder Ian Wilson

Wall\Therapy 2013 Tuesday Update 7.22.13

Sarah C. Rutherford Flies High at Wall\Therapy

To learn more please visit:

www.wall-therapy.com

www.facebook.com/walltherapyny

twitter.com/walltherapyny

instagram.com/walltherapyny

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Brooklyn Street Art is proud to be the Media Partner of Wall Therapy 2013

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