All posts tagged: Steven P. Harrington

Images of The Week: 01.19.14

January 19, 2014 Artists

New York’s Street Art/graffiti/public/urban art scene is poppin’ baby – new shows, new spaces opening up or rumored to be, a new fleet of artists going out to the street doing sanctioned and unsanctioned work, and new debates about what it all means to the scene and who should rush to take credit for each phase or element of it. Answer: all of us, none of us.

Also a renewed and flawed discussion has erupted again, as it periodically does, around the need to have a “critique” around street art. We know that critical observation can be useful for those who are unsure about forming their own opinions, it’s just that we advocate widening that circle of who gets to offer the critique to include, um, everybody.

We also usually trust people on the street to make their own judgements about an art piece and its value or importance in that context. The inner world and material world of art is vastly larger than we can usually imagine and our rush to measure it often hilariously misses the point or the intention of the artist, so let’s take this impulse to judge it with some humility.

In the case of graffiti and Street Art, we all have seen examples over the last half-century where educational or cultural institutions implicitly or explicitly dismiss work on the street until it has been validated by market forces. The caustic undertone of this habitual and snide dismissal can be tied directly to classism, racism, or fear of the unknown. This is a generalization of course, so take it as such, but the neo-liberal cycle of “critical thought” has been too often reserved for the dominant culture or class, and that paradigm is really of no service to any of us anymore.

The folks who put missives on the street do so with a wide variety of motivations, needs, desires, and expectations. They are perfectly happy to have their work judged by the average passerby, and in New Yawk there is never a shortage of opinions, regardless of what school you went to. In the case of art in the streets, those are the opinions that still matter the most.

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Ainac, AwerOne, Bluedog 10003, Joan Tarrago, Judith Supine, Kalen Hollomon, Maki Carvalho, Pastel, REVS, Wolftits, and ZAH

Top Image >> Judith Supine is really piling on the winter layers. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Wolftits unveiled an astounding sculpture on this unused pedestal in Brooklyn this week – a three dimensional interpretation of the multi-mammaried aerosol character that normally carries the name. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Wolftits (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Barcelona’s Joan Tarrago (photo © Jaime Rojo)

ZAH (photo © Jaime Rojo)

REVS (photo © Jaime Rojo)

This is an update from a previous piece that was comprised of a framed empty pack of cigarettes. It is unclear if this is a diss or an update. Also, the word is bills. Artist Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A new campaign of unsanctioned pseudo ads appeared on the NYC Subway recently and have gone undetected for days and days. With subtle replacements of limbs, Kalen likes to reassign gender or simply take peoples pants off. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kalen Hollomon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pastel has a new wall in Buenos Aires (photo © Pastel)

Maki Carvalho suddenly appeared like magic in BK. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

This stencil wasn’t signed and while we see resemblances in style and technique from various artists we can’t with certainty establish authorship. Can you help? (photo © Jaime Rojo)

AwerOne in Italy showing a heavy influence by Never2501 . (photo © AwerOne)

Bluedog 10003 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Banksy… is still on New York’s mind (photo © Jaime Rojo)

AINAC (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. New York City. January 2014 (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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Street Artist Olek Goes To Jail in Poland

January 18, 2014 Artists

Street Artist Olek went to jail this week. We’re pleased to report that she made quick friends and crocheted a 65 foot long wall hanging.

“Pocaluj Przyszlosc” (Kiss the Future) is inscribed in a handwritten style crochet font across the corridor banner that leads the inmates to the outside world, should they ever be granted freedom again. “Inmates also pass it when they first enter the cold confines of their brick environment, picking their mattresses and clothes from the jail’s stockroom,” she says as she describes the prison in Katowice, Poland that she visited for a few days this week.

Olek. Katowice, Poland. January 2014. (photo © Olek)

An artist who relishes collaboration as much as the solo aspect of creation, Olek took this project into the prison as a way to share her work and to further examine freedom, a concept she has been giving much thought to over the last year.

Under house arrest herself in London as 2013 began, Olek’s own freedom was curtailed for a few months after a bar skirmish where a drunk fella, she quotes the judge as saying, “called her a whore, prostitute and slut.” The judge had recounted Olek’s reaction at her sentencing to home curfew the previous November, “she dumped the content of her glass over his head”.

Completing her sentence just a year ago, freedom has been on her mind ever since.

Olek. Katowice, Poland. January 2014. (photo © Davido Wojtek)

“No one knows what freedoms means until it is taken away,” she says, “I started 2013 with one foot in and the other out,” she observes of the experience that frankly pushed her spirit to very low depths, “That was the moment I pulled myself from the bottom,” she says, “but not everyone has this kind of strength.”

As she moved into 2014 Olek marked her experiences with a street installation in Vancouver in a neighborhood that has largely been abandoned by city planners and where many people who have lost hope languish on the sidewalks, sometimes turning to prostitution or the drug trade to get their basic needs met, or to just get awy. On a grey cold rainsoaked December 31st a multicolored crocheted piece rose on the street with her message “kiss the future” in what she describes as a “5 block of hell in Vancouver.”

Olek. Katowice, Poland. January 2014. (photo © Davido Wojtek)

Here in prison, she created the piece and translated the sentiment with the help of people who live there. “I taught the women how to crochet and the men installed the frame for my crocheted piece. It was truly a collaborative effort,” she says of the new work in this public prison.

“The beauty of public art is that it can speak, inspire and change anyone, even those not educated in art. Prison is definitely a public space. The inmates can’t come and see my art on the street, so I came to them with my colors and brightness.”

Olek. Katowice, Poland. January 2014. (photo © Olek)

Another crochet banner that she installed the previous week on the street in New York’s Little Italy had recently been stolen. The still unsolved theft of that one, which also carried a message about freedom, was still a source of sadness and anger so here in jail Olek celebrated the fact that this installation was likely to be more secure.

“The best way to insure that your work won’t be stolen is to install it inside a prison, ” she says hopefully, although most people familiar with the penal system might amend that statement. But yes, the new collaborative piece will bring a dynamic and colorful element to an otherwise restricted body and mind space.

Olek. Katowice, Poland. January 2014. (photo © Davido Wojtek)

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BSA Film Friday: 01.17.14

January 17, 2014 Artists

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

Now screening :

1. Artful Ad Busting: Vermibus Melt Ads and Minds Across Europe
2. HotTea is an MN Original: Bares Soul for Public Television

BSA Special Feature: Vermibus Replaces Lightbox Ads with Art

“Dissolving Europe”

Ad Busting work on the streets just doesn’t happen enough these days, does it? Seems like we are slammed from every angle by ads on every surface in every social and professional situation, music video, televison show, and movie. They are so insidiously well designed to take up space in our minds that we can’t flush them out with Liquid Plumbr or even Drano. See?

So how remarkable this campaign by Vermibus is, who tells us of his rather artful brandalism with a scenic video trip – whereby he replaces ads with remade versions of themselves. Traveling by train, he dons an orange vest and carries official looking customized tools to hijack these slick ad blocks that guild the tonier neighborhoods in Europe. “It was around 6 Countries over 18 days,” he tells BSA, “and I made 100 Interventions.”

Like a Francis Bacon with swirling brush strokes of turpentine carving into skin and tracing eye sockets and cheek bones in circular motion, Vermibus melts the flesh and reallocates adipose like a plastic surgeon of the grotesquerie. Occasionally he smears away the entire face, leaving a quiet storm in its place. While the transformations of the unspeakably beautiful into a cabinet of curiosity does undoubtedly trouble an onlooker, the glow from behind blows the mind in one swoop while you hurriedly look for a logo or a tagline or explanation that makes it all okay.

Other pieces are more impressionist than disfigured, meant to be blurred pleasantly in the minds eye, emblematic of an ideal. But usually it is an ideal that has run amuck, and thanks to great video by Xar Lee and a sound track entitle “A Painter’s Journey” by
music composer Marcello De Francisci, you may reconsider the effect of ubiquitous advertising in our built environment and our minds.

HotTea is an MN Original

Minneapolis based Street Artist HOTTEA gets the documentary treatment here from PBS/TPT and MNoriginal. A very thoughtful and informative background look at how he does his work, how he thinks about it, conceptualizes it, sees it.

AND you will find out where that name came from courtesy of a dramatic re-enactment! Without spoiling the end, he gets tasered. Oh dang I think I just blew it.

Two thumbs up for frank vulnerability and long live HOTTEA!

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Opiemme Bus Stops with Memorie Urbane and “In Attesa”

January 16, 2014 Artists

Italian Street Artist and text-loving wordsmith Opiemme hit bus stops last month in the cities of Gaeta and Terracina – about 75 miles from Rome. While he has done a number of freelance customizations of public space in the past with his text pieces, this one is part of a project by Memorie Urbane called “In Attesa – Art at the bus stop”. As you can see, Opiemme’s hand cut stencils are pure poetry – deliberately arranged.

Opiemme. Gaeta, Italy. December 2013. (photo © Arianna Barone)

Opiemme. Terracina, Italy. December 2013. (photo © Arianna Barone)

A Sudden Secret Street Art House Party in Manhattan

January 15, 2014 Artists

It’s a House Party Y’all!

With studio apartments in Manhattan now hitting nearly 3K a month the closest thing most Milennials will ever get to a house party in Gotham will be snagging a VCR tape of the Kid ‘n Play danceoff movie at their parents stoop sale. Last week during the “polar vortex” cold freeze some lucky invitees did get access to a secret house party in a dilapidated building on the Lower East Side for 2 hours however. There wasn’t much heat, no DJ, and your flask of Jack Daniels substituted as the bar, but if you made it in you scored a free condensed Street Artist show that is as rare as a New Jack Swing hit these days.

A subtle beam of light from Heaven (or Kevin) above Hanksy. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A little more than 40 (mostly) Street Artists brought the four floor former tenement building to life one last time before it will be destroyed – and they did it almost entirely in secret over the course of a week. Just how secret this event was is debatable considering the multitude of blog posts and photos of it that appeared in the days following but in the Internet age, news about stuff like this goes viral no matter what.

All tolled, the varied collection of participants was a cross-section; a blurry screenshot of Street Artists on the New York scene along with a few graff writers, taggers, sticker slappers, painters, illustrators, aerosol experts, installationists, art school students, and visitors to the big city who happened to be around at the right time. Also, a couple of pyros.

A collaborative wall for “Surplus Candy” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

While this sort of artist takeover of an abandoned house or building is increasingly occurring in bankrupt cities and neighborhoods in America and Europe where no one wants to live except the creative types, you don’t find this unruly and freewheeling expression much in the increasingly scrubbed and mall-like playground for the rich in Manhattan.

Similarly, producers of large Street Art/Urban Art events in global cities can deliver murals that make you salivate and on a scale that dwarfs this “event” thanks to corporate underwriters and shills for sneakers/sodas/urban-themed tampons these days, but few can truthfully rival the unpolished impromptu spirit of a semi-secret House Party jam session. For one week during installations and on opening night it was like the ghost of New York’s downtown 1970s-80s Bohemia was coming back to the island in all it’s imperfectness to remind everyone of Manhattan’s former greatness as a petri dish for experimentation and discovery.

Icy & Sot (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Considering the huge increase in sanctioned walls over the last two years in New York, this work looks surprisingly alive, and is just the sort of balm needed for the raw nerves of anarchists everywhere who have bemoaned the polished soul-deadening mural painting of late. Even if some of this looks sort of slap-dash and ragged in spots, and it does, it also gives off an air of being authentic and in-the-moment.

Icy & Sot (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Notably, the ratio of penis, breast, and defacation-related themes was higher than your average art show but as you know, there is an audience for every artist, even the ones gravitating to bathroom humor as creative wellspring. Judging by the few hundred images floating around on Flickr and elsewhere, this pop-up was a hit for the people.

Given the growing number of artists communities that have blossomed outside of Manhattan, this could have been one of its last jams for Street Art. Yo! That’s my jam!

And now please step aside as we build another luxury condo.

Icy & Sot (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Gilf! (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Alice Mizrachi (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Trap (photo © Jaime Rojo)

ASVP (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tony DePew (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tone Tank (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sonni (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Royce Bannon at work on his installation. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Royce Bannon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

LNY (photo © Jaime Rojo)

ELLE (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dee Dee (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Foxx Face (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Rusell King (photo © Jaime Rojo)

CB23 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Col Wallnuts (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cosbe (photo © Jaime Rojo)

This show, “Surplus Candy” was organized by Hanksy, and is now closed.

A near complete artist list includes:

Alice Mizrachi/AM, ASVP, BD White, Bishop203, CB23, Cernesto, Col Wallnuts, Cosbe, Dee Dee, Dick Mama, Drippings, Edapt, EKG, El Sol 25, Elizabeth Glaessner, Elle, Enzo and Nio, Foxxface, GILF!, Hanksy, Icy and Sot, Left Handed Wave, Lunar New Year, Magda Love, Martha Cooper, Mata Ruda, Moustache Man, Mr. Toll, Mr. Two Three, Mrs. Big Stuff, NDA, Never, Nicolas Holiber, Royce Bannon, Russell King, Sonni, Tako, Tone Tank, Tony Depew, Trap, UR New York, Vulpes Vulpes, Wizard Skull, and Wretched Beast.

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Spaik Goes Seaside in Quintana Roo

January 14, 2014 Artists

Mexican Street Artist Spaik continues to combine his love of urban art with the historic mural art of his country, mixing folk elements and cultural symbols to tell stories both real and imagined. Here he is combining the indigenous maritime life with references to the traditions of the region, as shown through a fluorescent prism of the modern global age. Last month in Quintana Roo on the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, Spaik created this mural for a festival celebrating Caribbean culture, Festival de Cultura del Caribe or FECUCA.

Spaik Spaik. Caribbean Cultural Festival. Holbox Island. Quintana Roo, Mexico. (photo © Spaik)

Skount Reveals “Inner Colour” in Amsterdam

January 13, 2014 Artists

After a year that included painting walls and exhibiting canvasses and giving talks about his mythologically inspired painted universe in Australia, US, France, Spain, and the Netherlands in 2013, Street Artist Skount ended 2013 with a big wall back in Amsterdam called “Inner Colour”

He says that he was motivated by an observation that most people create a mask to hide their real emotions and he thinks it creates a kind of identity disorder and loss of the inner self. He describes the colorful mural as a “metaphorical representation of an imaginary colorful soul, a capture of that special moment when she or he removes the fake mask and starts to enjoy the moments in life as a child in a playground would, sharing and transmitting all that we are, colour, imagination, positivity, energy and good vibes with all the people around, and with the rest of the world.”

Here are some images of that work as it progressed in December.

Skount. Amsterdam, December 2013. (photo © courtesy Skount)

Images Of The Week: 01.12.14

January 12, 2014 Artists

Great week in NYC with the new mayor shaking hands for hours in the cold outside City Hall with all New Yorkers last Sunday, then we got smacked with the devastating cold, then sleet, then high winds. Next up, ice locusts! Also, if your Christmas tree is still up, don’t plug it in because that puppy will go up in 25 seconds of flaming glory. Wait until it is safely on the street before igniting.

This week we also featured not one but two yarn artists, which has gotta be a first for us – London Kaye and the Olek. Yarn on the street isn’t exactly a trend, but it is sort of a trend.

– In a related story, Olek is now reporting that the piece we documented her installing in 4 degree temperatures has mysteriously disappeared. Street Art vanishes all the time but the size of this piece was gargantuan and it was a complicated install and it was hung in a very heavily traversed part of Little Italy. Says Olek in her FB/Twitter all-points-bulletin “Alert: 376 square feet of #crochet art stolen.” Keep your eye on Grandma, also Aunt Betty. ‘Cause you know, knitters sometimes get competitive, that’s all I’m saying.

And here we are with our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Beau Stanton, EC13, Etnik, Haculla, Icy & Sot, Miron Milic, Olek, Pyramid Oracle, Rene Gagnon, Seville, Sexer, Steep, Swoon, Team Low Brow, Team Mishka, and Zimad.

Top Image >> Haculla. We are happy to see this veteran Street Artist on this old spot in Manhattan and of course back on the streets of NYC. Nice stash. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pyramid Oracle (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon’s collaboration with Groundswell was tagged very heavily during the most recent snow storm in the city. Luckily, the color palette of the new graffiti work complements the overall scheme. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Miron Milic’s sketch for his most recent work in Croatia. (photo © Miron Milic)

The finished piece by Miron Milic. When translated, we still didn’t understand the meaning but here it is: “We played at war because it was healthy that were as much in the air.” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Steep at The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Icy and Sot depict a feeling of impotence fighting the war machine and the ubiquity of guns and violence. What’s your interpretation? (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Beau Stanton for The L.I.S.A. Project NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A new piece in Turin, Italy by Etnik, who is preparing for his first solo show at Square23. Dude’s got skillz. (photo © Etnik)

Zimad at The Bushwick Collective. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

RIPO for The L.I.S.A. Project NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

EC13 new installation in Spain. (photo © EC13)

Team Mishka vs Team Low Brow for The L.I.S.A. Project NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sexer at The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“There is no such thing as part freedom”. Olek for The L.I.S.A. Project NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Rene Gagnon opened with an extensive solo show at the new Mecka Gallery last night. Heavily attended. Read more about the venue, the show, and an interview with the artist HERE. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. The Golden Hour becomes the Manhattan skyline. January 2014. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Rene Gagnon Inaugurates Mecka Gallery : Opening Today in Brooklyn

January 11, 2014 Artists

“HI! My name is…

Brooklyn hasn’t opened a new Street Art gallery in a little while – in fact it has lost some formal spaces that welcome artists of the street kind over the past couple of years. So you’ll be happy to know we can now announce a new Street Art show at a new Street Art centric gallery is opening tonight. And you’ll jump out of your boots when you find out there will be a free print release to the first hundred people in line.

Rene Gagnon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“HI! My name is… A Solo Exhibition of This and That”, a new show by Rene Gagnon opens tonight and inaugurates the Mecka Gallery in Bushwick, or East Williamsburg, depending on which real estate agent or Midwestern transplant is showing you the neighborhood.

“Its really fitting actually,” says Gagnon, whose wheat-paste and stencil work was more prevalent on the streets in North Brooklyn in the mid to late 2000s when the neighborhood was still an industrial wilderness for arriving scrappy artists looking for space, and Ad Hoc gallery was the only game in the area. “This show is a formal introduction of me and my conceptual work in a gallery setting in NYC and a formal introduction of Mecka Gallery. I think it’s perfect.”

Rene Gagnon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ironically, it was at another event begun by Ad Hoc’s Garrison and Alison Buxton in Queens in recent years that facilitated this opportunity for Gagnon and Mecka to work together.

“I met Justin DeDemko at the Welling Court Mural Project,” says Gagnon of the huge free Street Art event sponsored by the Buxtons as an opportunity for artists to get get exposure and, not surprisingly, it worked. After discussing the idea of a smaller show with a second artist at Bottleneck Gallery, Justin offered a new possibility.

“He was like, ‘we got something better for you’,” recalls Gagnon about the brand new raw space that DeDemko had in mind as a showcase for street artist. “I was super excited and overwhelmed at the same point,” he says of the October conversation. “I went into high gear and completed the entire body of work for this show in about two and a half months.”

Along with partners Joseph Bouganim, Arseny Libon, and Joshua Harris, DeDemko runs the small south side Williamsburg gallery that focuses on pop art and posters. Mecka Gallery however plans to be more of a street art and contemporary art gallery space.

“I have been collecting street art for years,” says DeDemko of his primary expression of interest in the scene thus far. He lists favorites of his eclectic collection to include How & Nosm, Miss Bugs, Judith Supine, Faile, Priest and Banksy. Although this venture will include his three other friends, DeDemko says they “just starting to get into” collecting work by Street Artists. “They have been slowly grabbing some pieces from Phlegm, Faile and Banksy.”

Rene Gagnon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Already Mecka is lining up a varied roster of artists for planned installations that is spread widely among folks known for Street Art, graffiti, murals, fine art, and one remarkable one known for photography – many of which are not commonly associated with one another. 2014 will showcase names like Pr1est, Judith Supine, a dual show with Martha Cooper and ELLE, a group show with GraffitiPrints including artists like Martin Whatson and Dot Dot Dot, and another duet by Pahnl and Romacouch. DeDemko says the selections are based on who the partners like personally as artists and who is looking to push themselves forward with a certain degree of creative risk involved.

“We want to challenge the artist – we want them to push the boundaries of what they thought their gallery show would be,” says DeDemko of the open approach to planning and installing that Mecka plans to offer artists and that will combine elements of the street in an environmental way rather than simply as a storefront with pieces for sale. “We want to infuse the street and a viewing gallery into one place,” he says. Also, “Expect some very large scale installations down the road.”

The choice of Rene Gagnon as the inaugural show is remarkably appropriate because the artist has ventured into a wide variety of styles that reflect the contemporary idea of what urban art is during his career as a graffiti writer and Street Artist, which started around 1986. Over that time his work has reflected the visual language popular at the time as he likes to investigate processes and techniques that he sees and hopefully to create a new take on a style. Notably, he’s had a few hits that are his and his alone, like the “Cash Rules Everything Around Me” stencil.

Rene Gagnon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“As you know I have a very diverse body of work,” explains Gagnon when describing the array of pieces he’ll be showing tonight. “It’s always been hard for me to lock down to one approach when creating my work – but honestly it’s the most fulfilling aspect of being an artist. I get to do something different every day which is an extreme positive but the negative is that galleries never know what to expect from me. So when I got this opportunity I wanted to take a look at what I envisioned was one of my greatest strengths. I believe my conceptual ability was at the forefront.”

Will visitors see works that span the previous twenty plus years? You bet. There are plenty of stencils and wheatpasted works that he considers some greatest hits –as well as some more sculptural installations and video work that he has explored in recent years.

Rene Gagnon at work on his installation. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“When I decided to go the conceptual route for this show I went back into my print and street archives and realized there were a lot of classic images that I had never made fully realized pieces of fine art so that was my starting point. Also during the first month of preparation I was on a super creative high. I think one day over 20 concepts I deemed worthy of creating were recorded. When I finally had to go into production mode I think I had enough fodder for two or three more shows,” says Gagnon of the font of ideas and inclinations that flooded his mind.

“I’ve always had the ability to turn my creative flow on and off, but that doesn’t mean ideas don’t strike me on a daily basis. I just usually have a balance between creating and producing. For this show it was all creating then a mad fury of producing.”

Doors open at Mecka Gallery tonight at 6 pm and the first hundred or so people in the door will score “Heart Breaker” a print release that will not be offered for sale, as well as a copy of a book by Michelle Gaudencio titled ‘A small collection of This and That’. It is a pretty generous gift that most galleries and artists would never think of, but Gagnon feels like it is a cool way for people who are not familiar with his work to get to know him better. “It was produced to give the gallery goers some insight into the vast array of artistic approaches I have experimented with.”

Mecka Gallery
65 Meadow Street
Brooklyn, NY 11206

More information on “HI! My name is… A Solo Exhibition of This and That” is HERE.

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BSA Film Friday: 01.10.14

January 10, 2014 Artists

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

Now screening :

1. Vhils x Pixel Pancho in Lisbon
2. How Nosm in Lisbon
3. NEKST FOREVER from Pose & Revok in Detroit
4. Knarf, Mafia and Fresh Max “3500” in Vienna
5. Bisser in London “Last Breath I” at Blackfriars Cafe

BSA Special Feature: Lisbon Double Feature from Underdogs
Pixel Pancho x Vhils
and How Nosm

Two beautiful videos in a row this week from the platform called Underdogs. “Underdogs is an international working platform based in Lisbon, Portugal that aims at creating space within the contemporary art scene for artists connected with the new languages of urban visual culture.” Since one of the original organizers is Street Artist Vhils, it makes sense that these two videos capture that additional essence of the experience of art making, the discipline, the dedication, the drive. The camera work, editing, and story telling are fresh and above par here.

Pixel Pancho and Vhils for Underdogs. Lisbon 2013

How & Nosm for Underdogs. Lisbon 2013

NEKST FOREVER from The Seventh Letter: Pose & Revok

With baritone narration from Pose about the impact of one guy on many, this video relates the level of respect the late graffiti artist Nekst had among his peers. Together with Revok and other members of the MSK crew you’ll see them knock out one of the biggest tributes yet in Detroit.

Knarf, Mafia and Fresh Max “3500” in Vienna

KNARF, MAFIA and FRESH MAX spent the last 3 months working on a 3500 square meter wall complex near Vienna. Here is a brief overview of their process. They will also be releasing a book on the 24th documenting the project, sketches, and images of the entire painted building.

Bisser in London “Last Breath I” at Blackfriars Cafe

A local cafe of 35 years is going to be torn down with the entire building it has been housed in Southwark (South-London). Artist Bisser did an installation, a “one-off beautification” last month to say goodbye to the place. As it turns out, an entire project has been spawned to create more work by more artists in the building before it is slated for demolition. This video is the first of the series for “The Last Breath Project”

More about the project here: lastbreathproject.co.uk

Olek Warms Little Italy With Giant Multi-colored Freedom

January 9, 2014 Artists

The previous NYC record for frigid cold on January 7th was 6 degrees (F).

Tuesday broke that record at 4 degrees.

Olek decided we needed a blanket.

With the help of Shir Lieberman, London O’Donnell, and Whitney Spivey, the crochet Street Artist installed a 60 foot long multicolored comforter to warm a parking lot fence in coordination with Wayne Rada and RJ Rushmore of the Little Italy Street Art Project. The LISA Project, as it is more commonly referred to, is a private initiative that has brought a variety of street and graffiti artists to this tourist neighborhood in the last two years.

Olek never does a project half way, and the size and scope of her psychedelic camouflage skin street projects continue to barely keep pace with her imagination. The sentiment of the slogan appears to augment the work ethic and of course, and it is perfectly timely as the concept and practice of freedom is debated daily in the public and digital spheres.

Having part freedom is like being part pregnant. More germanely perhaps, we think of those “free speech” zones set up outside of political conventions that are basically just cages to contain people and prevent them from moving about freely to protest. They are part free speech/ part totalitarianism. Is there such a thing?

Photographer Martha Cooper braved the very low temps for the occasion. Olek for The L.I.S.A. Project NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“…the path of progress, the struggle for equality for all, is a life-long endeavor, achieved through persistence and faith, never wavering. Each individual must participate in this progress through any way available, including public displays of solidarity, creations of art, reliance on the legal system and vocalizations of opinion. Equality for all in some parts of the world is not total equality; it must be worldwide.” -Olek

Olek begins the process of fully encasing a willing participant in crochet for The L.I.S.A. Project NYC (photo © Jaime Rojo)

To learn more about the L.I.S.A. Project NYC click HERE.

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REVS is the Iron Man in New York Graffiti

January 8, 2014 Artists

How often do you find a new tag from an 80s graffiti writer? How often is it made of iron?

REVS is back.

Or maybe he never left. It is impossible to tell when the tag is a welded sculpture on a large rusted I-beam, or soldered on an oxidized chain link fence that rattles back and forth in the wind as city traffic rumbles by. Since this elusive graffiti artist doesn’t do too much talking to the public about his work the small cold piece before you could potentially be years or even decades old by the time you discover it.

In 2010 we wrote about REVS for the Huffington Post in 10 Best Street Art Moments of the Decade;

“Fiercely reclusive Street Artist REVS surprises everyone following his arrest in 2000 by abandoning his practice of creating monumental roller tags on walls and instead makes dozens of metal sculptures. He installs them, mostly legally, around New York, including many in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg, known for being an epicenter of Street Art growth in the early 2000s. REVS and his buddy COST are pointed to as inspiration by many of a new generation of Street Artists.”

In 2014 we keep finding more of these sculptures, most of which look like they must have required permission, and we thought you’d like to see a few of them. Some say REVS, often written cleverly, other times cryptically, and variously under one of his other nom de plumes like Shiesta, Toots REVS or the more declarative Fuckin REVS.

Finding these metal REVS can be a little like discovering the Holy Grail for graffiti and Street Art photographers not just because they are hard to locate, but because of the stories people tell about the sheer number of times you saw his name rolled out in New York in the 1990s. Then there are the multiples and replications of photocopies he pasted around town with his running mate Cost that included a real phone number you could call – an unheard of use of interactive elements long before the word “interactive” became associated with clicking a button or swiping a screen.

And what about the hundreds of real-life diary pages he painted in train tunnels then, each one a recounting of his life experiences, some posing existential questions. You can still see some of these mini-diatribes when the train stops mid-tunnel, scrawled in black aerosol across a primed white rectangle on a concrete wall two inches from your face as you glance out the window.

“REVS holds a special place in NYC graffiti lore for two reasons. For one there’s his creative output, which is hard to beat: from writing on trains to painting highly visible rollers to wheatpasting the city in a first-of-its-kind campaign to almost completing an ambitious project to paint diary entries between every single stop in the NYC subway system to taking it to the next level and sculpting his name out of steel,” says one of the most intrepid of today’s graffiti photographers, Luna Park, who has published around 200 REVS photos on her Flickr page in the last decade.

She continues, “Combine that output with a devil-may-care reticence and a complete disdain for the mechanisms of the art market and you’ve got the makings of a legend.”

That last part is notable in this time where a growing number of artists appear to be using the street to advance their fine art or commercial careers. REVS has done very little to capitalize on his work on the street publicly and is quoted in interviews as having a deep aversion to commercializing his work. Nonetheless, as the marketing mavens like to say, Brand REVS continues to strengthen and photographers are not the only people hunting for stuff by the man of steel.

“Given the propensity for REVS sculptural work to be stolen – and unfortunately there has been a lot of that recently – for his most loyal fans, locations of REVS pieces are closely guarded secrets,” says Ms. Park.

Ironic then, that for some urban art fans this work is far more important than that of, say, the British Street Artist Banksy, who alerts the world using the Internet and social media as soon as a new piece is up, sometimes with hints about location.

“He’s the greatest living graffiti artist,” Jake Dobkin of The Gothamist was recently quoted saying, “You know how some people feel about Springsteen or Bob Dylan? That’s who Revs is for New York graffiti enthusiasts.”

Our beat is Street Art, so we’ll trust Jake about this, but as a stylistic and creative lynchpin between graffiti and what would eventually be widely called Street Art, no one is questioning REVS steely staying power.

This article was also published on The Huffington Post

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