Surreally yours! The art on the streets this week appears to reflect the times. It’s going to take all this creativity and force to turn the tides!
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this time featuring 1Up, AJ LaVilla, Android Oi, Cern, Dark Clouds, Dirty Cobain, Early Riser, Invader, Jason Naylor, Little Ricky, Lubaina Himid, Lucas Blalock, Oscar Lett, Robson, SacSix, Subway Doodle, Zimer .
The eyes have it.
Have you noticed the number of faces and eyes that are pasted, painted, drawn on the Streets right now? Maybe they are an indicator that many more of us are truly paying attention and that we see how close the danger is, even if we don’t know exactly what to do.
The first step of course, is to pay attention. Turning off the corporate controlled media helps.
What do you see?
So here’s our weekly interview with the street, this time featuring Arkane, CP Won, Dylan Egon, Eyebrows, Greta Thunberg, Himbad, Hiss, Little Rickey, LMNOPI, Lungebox, SacSix, Sara Lynne Leo, Soten, The Postman Art, and Who is Dirk.
Top image: Little Ricky imagines three icons through the eyes of a ewe – Madonna, George Washington, and John Lennon (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Sometimes we refer to Street Art as part of an ongoing conversation. Who will argue?
Whether it is clever wordplay, a lovelorn cry, a dire warning, or raging rant, artists are addressing us with their written texts in public space.
A reflection of our collective state, our worries, our values, our unquenched fires, when you happen upon these words they are as much a part of the public as they are personal.
Somehow, even if we do not know what they mean exactly, they deserve to be seen and heard. Photographer Jaime Rojo shares with BSA readers some of his recent collected missives on the streets.
What do you have to say?
Words in papers, words in books
Words on TV, words for crooks
Words of comfort, words of peace
Words to make the fighting cease
Words to tell you what to do
Words are working hard for you
Eat your words but don’t go hungry
Words have always nearly hung me.
Sliding into the chaos this week with great new stuff that hits on pop, poetry, technology. The madness of New York sometimes fuels the message on the street; other times it feels like NYC is merely channeling the forces that run through it. Embrace the chaos!
If you have a chance please check out the “Punk Lust” show at Museum of Sex, curated by Carlo McCormick and a small team. The array of zines, record covers, posters, photography, costume and McCormicks’ brilliant didactics is revelatory for its take on a distinctly New York punk scene that was simultaneously awash with discontents from LA and London and an utter revulsion at the likes of the Reagan/Thatcher Revolution.
Yeah but how was sex involved, you ask? Wayne and Jayne, you’ll be surprised. Check out Scott Lynch’s excellent photos on Bedford and Bowery of the opening.
We used to say that half of the New York art world was in Miami when Art Basel rolls around every year – and again many artists are making the trek to the art fairs and to Wynwood to see whose hitting walls this week. But we’re sensing a twisted sort of backlash in people’s opinions these days – kind of like Williamsburg in 2008 and Bushwick in 2014. But Dude, it’ll still be a party, yo!
So here is our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Adam Fujita, Calangoss, Edward Senf, Graphic Fury, Himbad, JerkFace, Little Pink Pill, Luis, Lunge Box, Mr. Frostee, REVS, Sac Six, Trasher, and WISE .
100 years since the end of World War I today. The US is engaged in 7 wars right now. Two facts to contemplate as the city takes a breath and regroups from another election cycle.
Republicrats won at the polls and the ratings were high on TV – yet for some reason you still don’t have health care and you have about $1,000 in savings.
This week in NYC there were Anti-Trump Pro-Mueller demonstrations in Times Square, the head of the subway system has resigned, and NYC is turning into a major tech hub with 25,000 more tech workers said to be flocking here for jobs at Google and Amazon.
Also Manny down at the corner deli just got this new calico cat that has already caught two mice this week.
Somehow the streets are always alive, always teaming with new images, installations, paintings, fire extinguisher tags.
So here is our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Adam Daily, Adam Fu, Bortusk, Cy Tremblay, DAIN, Dolganov, Invader, JeimeOne, Kobra, Sabio, and SacSix.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring AJ LaVilla, Boy Kong, BunnyM, ColpOne, Cycle, Haculla, Jappy Lemon, JR, Lungebox, Raddington Falls, RX Skulls, SacSix, SAMO, Sheryo, The Yok and Winstont Seng.
“…but no one was interested in the facts. They preferred the invention because this invention expressed and corroborated their hates and fears so perfectly.” ~ James Baldwin, from Notes of a Native Son.
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 .
A celebrated American, the New York poet Langston Hughes, leads off this edition of BSA Images of the Week, with a firebox posting of a portion of his work “Oh Let America Be America Again.” A part of the Harlem Jazz Age that gave birth to a freedom of expression and heralded fame for many black and brown artists across artistic disciplines, it was Hughes that spoke to the depths and sorrows and aspirations of the human experience here with such poetry. We don’t know who brought his words to the street here, but the timing could not be better.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Abe Lincoln Jr., Anthony Lister, Apexer, Borondo, Katsu, Langston Hughes, Paul Kostabi, SacSix, and Willow.
Of the thousands of images he took this year in places like New York, Berlin, Scotland, Hong Kong, Sweden, French Polynesia, Barcelona, and Mexico City, photographer Jaime Rojo found that Street Art and graffiti are more alive than every before. From aerosol to brush to wheat-paste to sculpture and installations, the individual acts of art on the street can be uniquely powerful – even if you don’t personally know where or who it is coming from. As you look at the faces and expressions it is significant to see a sense of unrest, anger, fear. We also see hope and determination.
Every Sunday on BrooklynStreetArt.com, we present “Images Of The Week”, our weekly interview with the street. Primarily New York based, BSA interviewed, shot, and displayed images from Street Artists from more than 100 cities over the last year, making the site a truly global resource for artists, fans, collectors, gallerists, museums, curators, academics, and others in the creative ecosystem. We are proud of the help we have given and thankful to the community for what you give back to us and we hope you enjoy this collection – some of the best from 2017.
Brooklyn Street Art 2017 Images of the Year by Jaime Rojo includes the following artists;
Artists included in the video are: Suitswon, Curiot, Okuda, Astro, Sixe Paredes, Felipe Pantone, Hot Tea, Add Fuel, Hosh, Miss Van, Paola Delfin, Pantonio, Base23, R1, Jaune, Revok, Nick Walker, 1UP Crew, SotenOne, Phat1, Rime MSK, Martin Whatson, Alanis, Smells, UFO907, Kai, Tuts, Rambo, Martha Cooper, Lee Quinoes, Buster, Adam Fujita, Dirty Bandits, American Puppet, Disordered, Watchavato, Shepard Fairey, David Kramer, Yoko Ono, Dave The Chimp, Icy & Sot, Damien Mitchell, Molly Crabapple, Jerkface, Isaac Cordal, SacSix, Raf Urban, ATM Street Art, Stray Ones, Sony Sundancer, ROA, Telmo & Miel, Alexis Diaz, Space Invader, Nasca, BK Foxx, BordaloII, The Yok & Sheryo, Arty & Chikle, Daniel Buchsbaum, RIS Crew, Pichi & Avo, Lonac, Size Two, Cleon Peterson, Miquel Wert, Pyramid Oracle, Axe Colours, Swoon, Outings Project, Various & Gould, Alina Kiliwa, Tatiana Fazalalizadeh, Herakut, Jamal Shabaz, Seth, Vhils, KWets1, FinDac, Vinz Feel Free, Milamores & El Flaco, Alice Pasquini, Os Gemeos, Pixel Pancho, Kano Kid, Gutti Barrios, 3 x 3 x 3, Anonymouse, NeSpoon, Trashbird, M-city, ZoerOne, James Bullowgh, and 2501.
Cover image of Suits Won piece with Manhattan in the background, photo by Jaime Rojo.
4th of July weekend here in New York so we are headed to a barbecue and a frisbee game. Maybe to the Jersey shore for some sun. Happy 4th ya’ll! Looks like the country needs to take itself back from the corporate overlords – if we want to declare the US to be independent ever again. Right now we’re in trouble, gurl – and everyone knows it!
So here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Banksy, Clint Mario, Crash, El Sol 25, Felipe Pantone, FinDAC, Hopare, Hot Tea, Invader, John Ahearn, Logan Hicks, Mark Jenkins, Resistance is Female, SaxSix, and Sonny Sundancer.
As New Yorkers (and the world) discuss whether Trump will self-combust, start a war, take control as a dictator, be revealed as a Russian operative, or be impeached, some things are for sure – every day the reputation of the US is sustaining damage among friends and allies, billionaires are grinning like Cheshire Cats and US citizens are feeling insecure as hell.
In New York, his “hometown”, we found this article from the Bronx Weekly to be full of informative responses from every day neighbors like the ones you see on the street and in the subway, at the laundromat, in the grocery store. Protests against him and his policies keep happening and more are planned; According to this piece in AM New York we’ve already had demonstrations this year outside Trump Tower, Trump International Hotel and Tower, at the Stonewall National Monument, Battery Park, Tompkins Square Park, Washington Square Park, Times Square and outside Kennedy Airport. And of course, we had Melissa McCarthy as Sean Spicer riding his podium through Midtown on Friday morning.
With this as a backdrop, its amazing that more Street Art isn’t overtly political. But what most of us are worried about these days isn’t specifically political – its our lives. And the street always has its way of reflecting us back to ourselves.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring: Aito Katazaki, City Kitty, Crash, Crime Scene, drsc0, Extinct Species, Felix Semper, GM.145, Himbad, Megzany, Pink Power, Raf Urban, SacSix, Stikman, and Xors.
Hooray! Spring is here in New York again. That means daffodils and crocuses are sprouting up among the soda cans and candybar wrappers and cigarette butts in the park’s gardens, and new proud or furtive aerosol missives are being sprayed on crumbling walls and phone booths are getting hi-jacked with posters by artists and galleries are again overflowing onto sidewalks for openings.
Our thanks to everyone who came out for the Heliotrope fundraiser this Thursday, to Swoon for being Swoon, and to her for asking us to curate the new line of prints, and to the six artists who gave their best to us all and to the Heliotrope projects in Haiti specifically: Case Maclaim, Faith XLVII, Icy And Sot, Li-Hill, Miss Van, and Tavar Zawacki (Above). Thank you also to all of Swoon’s team for helping us mount the show.
Also saw the press preview of the new documentary about NYC Street Artist Richard Hambleton called “Shadowman” this week, which was thrilling, frightening, sickening, and beautiful. People in the room were all feeling a bit nauseous when the lights came up – but for various reasons; the commercial art world seems to suck the beauty out of things, artists can be finicky like cats, and the worship of drug culture is dreadfully overglamorized and it killed off lots of cool people and cancer (from smoking) is actively killing the artist right in front of your eyes, which he freely admits to. Also, his work is amazing.
Accurately capturing the ragged, wooly, wildly creative downtown scene in which Hambleton first came up, Director Oren Jacoby premieres “Shadowman” at The Tribeca Film Festival in NYC on April 21, 2017.
On a totally related note, we were sad to learn Friday afternoon of the death of Glenn O’Brien, influential part of the NYC “Downtown” art and cultural scene in the 1970s, 80s and much much more. We had last seen him doing an interview with Lee Quinones in Chinatown for Lee’s show two years ago.
This week we’ll be seeing you at Nuart Aberdeen! It’s Nuarts’ first foray into another city and really it’s just a stone’s throw across The North Sea to Stavanger, the original home of Nuart in Norway. The kids are on spring vacation in Aberdeen all week so we know we’ll see a lot of swag youth traipsing around to see new artworks going up by artists and thoughtful academic types attending conference lectures. Drunken types will be attending the Friday night fight at a local bar. BSA will be at Belmont theater presenting BSA Film Friday LIVE and introducing “Saving Banksy” and “Beautiful Losers” over the weekend. Come on over; can’t wait to meet you!
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring: Bifido, Chip Thomas, Chzz, Faust, Hydeon, Janz, Mdom, Nick McManus, Pyramid Oracle, Rubin 415, SacSix, Sheryo, Sonni, Swoon, Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, and The Yok.
The photographer and, in our humble opinion, performance artist Nick McManus perilously stands atop a foot stool to snap the perfect Polaroid group shot at The Heliotrope Foundation’s Pop-Up on Thursday with Swoon’s new hand drawn sketches to his right. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
