All posts tagged: Tristan Eaton

BSA Images Of The Week: 01.25.26

January 25, 2026 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Welcome to BSA’s Images of the Week!

The New York Post is complaining that the new mayor is using 2,200 digital street kiosks to promote himself, rapper NAS mentions a generation of graffiti writers in his new song called simply Writers-“The Mic is a Marker I’m tagging more names”, the Metropolitan Opera has two murals by Chagall for sale, Trump was forced to back off his ideas about stealing Greenland in Davos, Canada’s PM gave a history-changing speech saying that US relations with the rest of the world have been ‘ruptured’ permanently, people in many cities, particularly in Minnesota, are going on strike and taking to the streets to demand ICE stop its attacks on people and its probable violations of human rights, and speaking of ice, more than half the US threatened with ice, snow and cold in massive winter storm.

The State of New York is under a State of Emergency due to the storm, which made it a good decision to get out earlier this week to document new street art and graffiti. This is typically a slower period for artists and writers, but in this city, the street is never static. There’s always an ongoing visual discussion unfolding in public, often reflecting the moment back at us.

As the weather intensifies, attention turns to those most affected—especially people without shelter and neighbors who may need help. If you can, check in on people nearby and offer what you’re able: a blanket, food, or a small bit of assistance can make a real difference.

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Acet, Dah Face, DASH, DELUDE, DIKS, DINK, FLASH, Hal Merick, Homesick, Kane, Mike, No Normal, Os Gemeos, Quaker Pirate, Trisan Eaton, Uwont, and Xara Thustra.

Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

It looks like Xara Thustra is the artist behind the “STOP MEN” installation (sometimes interpreted as part of a larger, ongoing tag) on the Manhattan side of the Williamsburg Bridge. The letters are painted on a high, visible spot on the bridge structure, reportedly over several nights.

BSA Film Friday 05.17.19

May 17, 2019 Artists, BSA Film Friday

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

Now screening :
1. Evan Roth “Since You Were Born”
2. “Island” Hamburg Max Mortal and Robert Lobel
3. Isaac Cordal In-Studio Visit. Bilbao, Spain.
4. ARTRIUM in Moscow

BSA Special Feature: Evan Roth “Since You Were Born”

Graffiti Research Lab co-founder Evan Roth has been hacking his way through life and art practice for the mid-2000s when he was a student at Brooklyn’s Parsons, where he was valedictorian. Now an older wiser daddy of two, he turns his attention to the saturated everyday data pileup generated from Internet browsing. The accumulated images, logos, maps, banner ads in the cache is like so much DNA of the person behind the mouse, and when it is printed to display, one becomes engulfed.

Our favorite term from his new exhibit? “An alternate form of art-making, memory-making, and storytelling”.

Project Atrium: Evan Roth

“Island” Hamburg Max Mortal and Robert Lobel

From Hamburg an animated short video by Max Mörtl & Robert Löbel explores the irresistible desire to communicate with this stop motion & 2D animation piece. Adorable exotic creatures come alive during the day to explore and seek kindred spirits.

Isaac Cordal In-Studio Visit. Bilbao, Spain.

From our visit to his studio comes this silent overview of how to turn a pig into a pig-man. “Here is where you see the craftsman at work; carefully attentive, problem-solving industry in play, possibly more at peace while he is creating than when he is left to think too much. He picks up a pink pig figurine and begins the plastic surgery, the fine reconstruction; a gentle whirring, a whittling away of snout and a defining of chin-line.”

See our full interview HERE:

ARTRIUM in Moscow

When we were in Moscow last summer as curators at Artmossphere, we had the opportunity to meet the director of the new program to bring international Street Artists to paint a shopping mall. The magnetizing force that drew artists to hit these walls is pretty strong; just ask Shepard Fairey, Felipe Pantone, Tristan Eaton, Ben Eine, PichiAvo, Okuda San Miguel, Pokras Lampas, Faith47, WK Interact, Faust, and Haculla.

BSA “Images Of The Year” For 2018 Video

December 16, 2018 Artists

Here it is! Photographer Jaime Rojo of BSA selects a handful of his favorite images from his travels through 9 countries and around New York this year to present our 2018 BSA Images of the Year.

Seeing the vast expressions of aesthetics and anti-aesthetic behavior has been a unique experience for us. We’re thankful to all of the artists and co-conspirators for their boundless ideas and energy, perspectives and personas.

Once you accept that much of the world is in a semi-permanent chaos you can embrace it, find order in the disorder, love inside the anger, a rhythm to every street.

And yes, beauty. Hope you enjoy BSA Images of the Year 2018.

Here’s a list of the artists featured in the video. Help us out if we missed someone, or if we misspelled someones nom de plume.

1Up Crew, Abe Lincoln Jr., Adam Fujita, Adele Renault, Adrian Wilson, Alex Sena, Arkane, Banksy, Ben Eine, BKFoxx, Bond Truluv, Bordalo II, Bravin Lee, C215, Cane Morto, Charles Williams, Cranio, Crash, Dee Dee, D*Face, Disordered, Egle Zvirblyte, Ernest Zacharevic, Erre, Faith LXVII, Faust, Geronimo, Gloss Black, Guillermo S. Quintana, Ichibantei, InDecline, Indie 184, Invader, Isaac Cordal, Jayson Naylor JR, Kaos, KNS, Lena McCarthy, Caleb Neelon, LET, Anthony Lister, Naomi Rag, Okuda, Os Gemeos, Owen Dippie, Pejac, Pixel Pancho, Pork, Raf Urban, Resistance is Female, Sainer, Senor Schnu, Skewville, Slinkachu, Solus, Squid Licker, Stinkfish, Strayones, Subway Doodle, The Rus Crew, Tristan Eaton, Vegan Flava, Vhils, Viktor Freso, Vinie, Waone, Winston Tseng, Zola

BSA Images Of The Week: 08.26.18 / Moscow Special

August 26, 2018 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

It’s part of the fascinating world that you inhabit when you follow street art – you have no idea what you will discover in any city at any time because of it’s LIVE daily evolutionary personality. Here in Moscow we don’t see so much of the improvisational extra-legal type of works that characterize cities like Rio or Berlin or Paris, but we have been seeing a bunch of familiar international names in the last few days. Here are some shots of stuff we’ve found – much of it that you will also recognize – along with some great local Moscow stuff.

We’ll bring you more of the scene at the Artmossphere Biennale this week as artists and curators like us are arriving right now at the Winzavod Center for Contemporary Art. We’ve already seen Faith XLVII, FAUST, Adele, Martha Cooper, CaneMorto, Cedar Lewisohn … As the lounge singers say, “We’ll be here all week folks”. Don’t forget to tip your waitress.

Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring 0331c, Ben Eine, C215, Felipe Pantone, Haculla, Interenzni Kazki, Jan & JS, Losaer, N888K, Neue, Stasdobry, The RUS Crew, Theo Lopez, Tristan Eaton, Vasya, and WK Interact.

Our top image: Interezni Kazki (photo © Jaime Rojo)

C215 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jana & JS (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

WK Interact (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The RUS Crew (photo © Jaime Rojo)

N888K (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ben Eine (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Haculla (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Theo Lopez (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

NEUE (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Stasdobry (photo © Jaime Rojo)

0331c (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Vasya (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Felipe Pantone (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

LOSER (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tristan Eaton (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tristan Eaton Pops The Cosmonaut Theme In Moscow

August 22, 2018 Artists

BSA is in Moscow as curators of 50+ international artists in the Artmossphere Biennale 2018 for its 3^rd edition called Street Art Wave. Till the end of the month we’ll working with a stellar cross section of people involved with Urban Art/Street Art/Graffiti at curious and fascinating intersections. We’re meeting with Street Artists, academics, collectors, gallerists, museum curators, organizers, and thoughtful pontificators of all sorts in studio, on the street, behind the scenes, and on display. Come with us!

Ask most Street Artists looking for fame and they’ll tell you it is a bonifide space race out there – looking for the right wall that gets the best exposure to peers and fans is key to winning. Tristan Eaton is launching his murals around the world this summer – including New York’s famed Houston/Bowery wall and this cosmonaut themed installation that has landed in a heavily trafficked section of Moscow’s inner ring.

It’s part of a project called The Artrium that has been inviting high profile international and Russian Street Artists to paint this summer. We hear news that more Americans will touchdown before cold weather arrives, including Futura and Shepard Fairey in September.

Tristan Eaton. Moscow, Russia. (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Astronaut Street Art : Ground Control To Major Tom…

August 13, 2018 Artists

Aside from signing the Outer Space Treaty that was ratified by 107 nations in which member states promise to not militarize the celestial heavens, US Vice President Pence tried to pull a fast one last week by announcing an idea for a US Space Force, the 6th branch of US Armed Forces.

Evidently being in 7 wars right now on Earth isn’t enough for the masters of war. There is surely more money to be made by further bloating a global weapons industry that focuses primarily on destruction rather than construction.

Victor Ash. Berlin, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

What is Mike Pence needing defense from exactly? Gays? Gay aliens? Intelligent assertive women? African-American or immigrants struggling to make ends meet, living day-to-day from paycheck to paycheck? We decided to take the whole ridiculous announcement with humor and found ourselves pawing through the archives for Street Art images of astronauts. We found many!

As we contemplate war in space, we turn to our collective fascination with astronauts and cosmonauts and nauts of many kinds. Since the dawn of this popular spaceman fixation there has been this guy or gal floating around weightless in our collective imaginations, bouncing along at the end of his tether, or untethered altogether.

Victor Ash. Berlin, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Toven. Baltimore, USA. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

B.D. White. NYC (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Axolotl Collective. Mexico City. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

City Kitty. NYC (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cranio. Berlin, Germany. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Topaz. NYC (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The London Police. Boras, Sweden. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tristan Eaton in Collaboration with CYRCLE. NYC (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Joe Iurato. NYC (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Faile. NYC (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Film Friday: 08.03.18

August 3, 2018 Artists

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

Now screening :
1. Cheryl Dunn Walk The Streets Of NYC
2. Studio Visit With Bordalo II in Lisbon
3. Good Guy Boris “TOYS ARE BETTER PEOPLE” / Part I and II

BSA Special Feature: Cheryl Dunn Walk The Streets Of NYC

“Go there and go deep,” says street photographer and filmmaker Cheryl Dunn in this new brand sponsored content video that takes you through mainly Chinatown/Wall Street area and allows you to hear her story and perspectives briefly.

Director of a highly-praised documentary called “Everybody Street” and many others of high quality, Dunn is more than familiar with the ethos of observing life in the chaos-metropolis and hoping to capture a moment that sticks out as a clarion yell. It’s about an approach that is only yours, and only possible through your vision, and luck.

Studio Visit With Bordalo II in Lisbon

Literally garbage. But you knew that.

But did you know the level of detail and minute mechanical manipulation that goes into a piece by Street Artist/fine artist Bordallo II ? Straight from Lisbon, where he propagates grandly forward from a curiously ornate studio spot.

Good Guy Boris “TOYS ARE BETTER PEOPLE” / Part I

Bad Boy Boris is not good at math or certain mechanical/technical matters but he’s good at persistence. Which is why he’ll succeed.

The graffiti writer is an authority on sniffing out opportunity and his hand-made and witty vlog allows you to tag along as he looks for the perfect spot by the beach outside of Athens to put up his piece.

“Toys are humble people, cool people, chill people,” coos the suddenly philosophical Boris as he strides victoriously from his freshly painted pat on the back for that much maligned population. Ah, but everyone is a rookie as some point right?

“Just another obsessed vlogger risking his life for the sake of YouTube because YouTube is more important than life,” he says in one more pearl of wisdom that will surely entice viewers to follow this guy until he works out all the kinks.

Good Guy Boris TOYS ARE BETTER PEOPLE / Part II

Tristan Eaton and Summer “Intermission” on the Bowery/Houston Wall

July 7, 2018 Artists

And now its time for a mid-year intermission to pause and reflect upon the events that have happened in the first act. We’ve had plenty of treachery, intrigue, jailbirds and back alley suspense. Clearly it is time for a serendipitous summer romance, with Tristan Eaton as director.

Tristan Eaton. Houston/Bowery Wall. Manhattan, NYC. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

An historic reenactment of sorts, this scene is usually full of its own drama; the painting of the Houston Wall in Manhattan appears once again on this drive-by screen, crammed with special effects as multi-talent Tristan Eaton explodes for days with the coursing traffic roaring and halting and honking and rumbling behind him.

The action unfolds and cameras are ablaze as documentors are there to capture it, including the stalwart Martha Cooper, the in-flight Zane Meyer, and our own private-eye Jaime Rojo.

Tristan Eaton. Houston/Bowery Wall. Manhattan, NYC. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tristan’s cunning recombinative practice of recalling images from pop, television, cinema, and advertising languages, selecting many of their most emotionally charged aspects in exquisite fullness is all leveled here with a tropical lushness almost never found in this forbidding city, safely encased behind a protective gloss.

It’s the nostalgic stuff of marquees and beige canvas directors chairs, patterned jacquard wall tapestry, crimson velvet curtains, butter soaked popcorn, sticky floors and a certain smokey Saturday matinee reefer madness. This all once reigned in cinematic and tawdry Manhattan; mixing showgirls and space scientists and dames with sex-workers and 25 cent peepholes. Of course, the glam and the grind are all still here in Gotham – they’ve just become uberized and swiped right.

Tristan Eaton. Houston/Bowery Wall. Manhattan, NYC. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Eaton’s influences from Sunset Boulevard and Detroit’s motor city grit translate well here in the thick of our own version of mid-summers’ insouciance. It’s all hustle, hormones, and a finely pulsating particulate matter that sticks to you; a humid cloud of complex desires clinging to your skin, now flickering in warm succulence as you ride by on your wheels.

Tristan Eaton. Houston/Bowery Wall. Manhattan, NYC. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Our guy on the street rolled past the one-man show many times over the past couple of weeks to check on progress and mingle with the ever-more-gilded gentry that frequent the sidewalks/runways here. Cuffed tonal highwaters, PVC wedges and fugly white dad sneakers aside, New Yorkers still walk the walk and have a certain respect for their Street Art, if only to pose before it for the 1,000th selfie.

The affable showman Eaton is not shy for the endlessly inquisitive fan, either – ready to layer on additional color and texture. For this particular intermission, our summer romance will continue long into autumn’s golden glow.

Tristan Eaton. Houston/Bowery Wall. Manhattan, NYC. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tristan Eaton photo bombs Jessica Goldman, Sheryo and Martha Cooper. Houston/Bowery Wall. Manhattan, NYC. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tristan Eaton. Houston/Bowery Wall. Manhattan, NYC. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Images Of The Week: 07.01.18

July 1, 2018 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

This week’s edition of BSA Images Of The Week is heavy with messages, especially on the subject of refugee children and our responsibility to keep them safe. Family Values, as we once heard on a near daily basis here, are apparently not to be mentioned when applied to certain families according to the people pulling children away from immigrants – certain immigrants anyway.

New York streets had people marching yesterday about these families, and our top Street Art image by Ernest Zacharavic features little kids set afloat figuratively. As Mexico elects a new president today, the US Supreme Court looks rightward with Kennedy’s resignation last week. Meanwhile the country will celebrate “liberty and justice for all” this week – and the streets are thick with politics like we haven’t had in a while.

On a practical, art-making level, we have also noticed the prevalence of wheat-pasted posters on the streets this spring/summer. Whether mass-printed or labor-intensive one-off paintings, wheatpasting is a practice that has been a staple since we began documenting the arts on the streets worldwide. We are glad to see that the ‘paster, like the humble one-color stencil, hasn’t lost its appeal in the face of the current fascination with big murals.

Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Adage, AJ LaVilla, Baron Von Fancy, Boutros Buotros Bootleg, C3, Damon NYC, Drsc0, Ernest Zacharevic, Indie184, Jason Naylor, Jeff Henriquez, LMNOPI, Praxis, Simon (Xi An), REVOK, Tristan Eaton, Unapologetically Brown Series, and Voxx.

Top image: Ernest Zacharevic sets these kids afloat in Manhattan (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ernest Zacharevic (photo © Jaime Rojo)

AJ Lavilla (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The Unapologetically Brown Series (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jason Naylor (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Indie184 for 212Arts. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

LMNOPI (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Adage (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Damon NYC for 212Arts. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jeff Henriquez (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Baron Von Fancy (photo © Jaime Rojo)

VOXX (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Boutros Buotros Bootleg (photo © Jaime Rojo)

REVOK (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Adage (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Simon (Xi An) somewhere in China. (photo © Simon)

Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The wheat pastes above and below remind us of the early works of Faile and Bast…on the streets of Williamsburg. It’s fun to see their influence on the streets today.

Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

drsc0 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Praxis (photo © Jaime Rojo)

C3 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. An spectator taking in Tristan Eaton’s crafty work at the Houston/Bowery Wall. NYC. June 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Images Of The Week: 01.08.17

January 8, 2017 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Over the holidays we made a quick stop in West Palm Beach, Florida to take a look at the murals from the CANVAS program, adjacent to the neighborhood of the Trump resort where he spent New Year’s Eve where he charged guests a minimum of $525 per person to attend his party. Scrubbed clean of any actual graffiti or organic Street Art, the downtown West Palm Beach shopping neighborhood adds these murals to a sleepy commercial area to pick up the glitter of a current fascination with Street Art.

With the highly contentious and disputed Trump right next door at his Mar-a-Lago estate, one wonders if any political messaging will be visible in the future, or will the neighborhood expressions of art in the streets be comprised of these decidedly apolitical and attractive murals created in advance of his presidency.

So here’s our first weekly interview with the streets for the year, this week featuring Anthony Hernandez, Astro, Bikismo, Case Ma’Claim, EMC, Grafftoyz, Greg Mike, Herakut, Hoxxoh, Kobra, Lonac, Michael Dweck, Pastel, PHD Graphitti, Pichi & Avo, Pipsqueakwashere, Sipros, Tristan Eaton, and WRDSMTH.

First image above: Lonac for Canvas West Palm Beach. Florida. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kobra for Canvas West Palm Beach. Florida. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tristan Eaton in West Palm Beach, Florida. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pichi & Avo. Side A. Canvas West Palm Beach. Florida. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pichi & Avo Side B. Canvas West Palm Beach. Florida. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Herakut for Canvas West Palm Beach. Florida. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Anthony Hernandez. West Palm Beach, Florida. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Case Maclaim for Canvas West Palm Beach. Florida. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Collaboration between Grafftoyz, EMC and PHD Graphitti in West Palm Beach, Florida. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sipros for Canvas West Palm Beach. Florida. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

ASTRO for Canvas West Palm Beach. Florida. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pastel for Canvas West Palm Beach. Florida. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Michael Dweck for Canvas West Palm Beach. Florida. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bikismo for Canvas West Palm Beach. Florida. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hoxxoh for Canvas West Palm Beach. Florida. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

WRDSMTH for Canvas West Palm Beach. Florida. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pipsqueakwashere for Canvas West Palm Beach. Florida. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Geg Mike for Canvas West Palm Beach. Florida. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Greg Mike. Side A. Canvas West Palm Beach. Florida. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

To learn more about CANVAS WPB click HERE

Miami Basel/Wynwood 2016 Wrap: Parade of Eye-Popping Beauty at a Portentous Time

December 7, 2016 Artists

An embarrassment of riches in so many ways, the Wynwood Street Art and mural scene is outrageously sexy, flashy, ugly, posey, pretty, proliferate and quizzically content-free. The annual outdoor urban art visual carnival that accompanies Art Basel in Miami is full of hi/low expectation and spectacle, and it confidently delivers on both.

Long-limbed and shimmery sleek women are often working the sidewalks like runways, the men are carefully posing/not posing/posing with open shirts and genial braggadocio, and there are thousands, more likely millions of selfies taken in front of painted walls.

International art fans are mixing with skater kids and hip hop heads and egg-headed social scientists and teenage marching bands and they are all gawking and interacting with loquacious mamacitas and bearded lumbersexuals; this is not your average clambake.

Sometimes it is just weird; flourescence mixed with plaid, shot-callers and violins, strollers and stillettos, an undertone of aggression and sexual tension, salt-of-the-earth with self-admiring clubbers, perfect skin and aerosol painted hands, a whiff of weed and a sense of wonder waiting to be discovered.

While there was a parade of 40 or so citizens and activists carrying signs and handing out flyers down the street to protest the oil pipelines taking sacred lands from native tribes and polluting natural water supplies, the thousands of art fans flooding the Wynwood neighborhood of Miami would have been hard pressed to find any Street Art talking about those topics.

Ironically the political shockwaves this year in Miami seemed to emanate from behind doors at the fair with Sam Durant’s “End White Supremacy” piece that many interpreted as a direct response to the election of a president whose followers include radical organizations that champion white supremacy. Alas, the piece was made in 2008, and although its hand-style emulates the hit and run scrawl of some graffiti on the street, it was a thoughtfully executed piece constructed as an illuminated sign.

With one very notable exception, the enormous and frightful mural featuring Donald Trump as Heath Ledger’s Joker wielding a knife at the neck of the Statue of Liberty with the screaming headline “Come On… What the Hell Do You Have to Lose?” by 12 artists for The Bushwick Collective/Mana Urban Arts Project, the professionalization of Street Artists and their murals may be steering the paintings in Wynwood away from in-your-face activism.

Granted, no one is thinking that commercially branded ventures that actually pay artists to paint will encourage the outright expression of social or political opinions – that may challenge or frighten potential customers and investors. Hotel lobbies need murals, sport cars need decorative painting, beer cans need labels. A number of liquor and lifestyle companies have invited artists here over the last few years and paid them to make their special events and products visually appealing, but little else.

David Choe portrait of Martha Cooper and her cat Mélia. Goldman Global Arts. Wynwood Walls. Art Basel Miami 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The newly refurbished Hard Rock stadium a few miles north of Miami features huge mural installations by international Street Artists that are curated by Goldman Global Arts, a division of Goldman Properties, the same real estate organization that has brought artists from around the world to the Wynwood Walls compound and featured their fine art canvasses in gallery expositions since the late 2000s. The pieces are opus works in an unusual setting and now sports fans are going to be up close and personal with some of the bigger names in Street Art right now.

It would be hypocritical for anyone to expect that these artists should accept commercial work and yet disrespect guidelines about the content. Similarly, expecting artists not to seek commercial opportunities for fear of “selling out” is arrogant and unrealistic and often the convenient provenance of privileged youth who dabble in “slumming” as a rebellious lifestyle. Later they are bankers.

Even so, where’s the anger right now? Why didn’t you see a lot of furious diatribes, challenges to power, and mockery of small-minded thinking on the street in Wynwood – and what would it take for Street Art to embrace its power to affect social and political change?

Just posing the question here now, again – as the topics of impending fascism, the increasing acts of racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, corruption, oligarchy, state-corporatism, and a systematic eroding of respect for our institutions – all came up in conversations at bars, art openings, panel discussions, and roof parties.

The murals you see here are often technically superb and their themes, while muted, may address some of the larger themes affecting society, but one wonders if there is an internalized censorship that we have accepted.

These images are admittedly of a modest percentage of the hundreds of legal murals and illegally dashed-off pieces we saw this week, but that’s only because we have edited for our individual aesthetics, not because of content. Also admittedly, as people in the arts, we are exhausted from the recent election and all it portends, and we were happy for some glorious eye candy to salve the psychic wounds – so maybe we were selectively seeing what we wanted to.

Probably not too much though.

For an art practice with some serious and proud roots in activism, the walls in Miami are curiously quiet. But they definitely look amazing.

Martin Whatson. The Raw Project. Eneida M. Hartner Elementary School. Wynwood / Art Basel Miami 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Our week’s coverage on BSA:

Wynwood Awakes: BSA x UN BERLIN ART BASEL 2016: Dispatch 1

Police Arrest in Miami: BSA x UN BERLIN ART BASEL 2016: Dispatch 2

You’ll Need Good Shoes: BSA x UN BERLIN ART BASEL 2016: Dispatch 3

Clubhouse Chemistry in a Warehouse : BSA x UN BERLIN ART BASEL 2016: Dispatch 4

Paint, Protest, Party : BSA x UN BERLIN ART BASEL 2016: Dispatch 5

Urban Contemporary Inside the Fair : BSA x UN BERLIN ART BASEL 2016: Dispatch 6

This article is the result of a collaborative partnership with BSA and Urban Nation (UN).

This article is also published on The Huffington Post.

Paint, Protest, Party : BSA x UN BERLIN ART BASEL 2016: Dispatch 5

December 2, 2016 Artists

Scope! The verb, not the art fair.

We will be hitting SCOPE shortly but in the interim we’ve been scoping for action or trouble; trolling around the streets of Wynwood and other selected odd locations to find Street Artists actively brush-painting, aerosol painting, markering, stenciling, wheat-pasting, even tying some wires and ribbons around fences. The walls and murals and the scene are all transforming in front of your eyes here, with photographers, videographers, and drones all flying around to capture the action as it progresses.

Bob from The London Police working at their mural for the new Goldaman offices in Wynwood, Miami. Wynwood Walls 2016 /Art Basel. Miami. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

This neighborhood is an art fair, without the attitude. Well, maybe there is attitude occasionally on display as well.

Also, political speech was pushing through the carousing beer swilling, late-sipping, burrito chomping streets yesterday with a 50 person troop of protesters with home made signs addressing the massive oil pipeline that is routed through sacred land of Native Americans in North Dakota and a pipeline planned to go through Florida.

We followed them for a few blocks, listening to chants about water and hegemony and found that for many art/party fans it was a curiosity to see citizens demonstrating, and a few bystanders took the fluorescent green flyers offered and said thanks, while others took photos and naturally, selfies with the marchers.

Just one more element to add to your sense of cognitive dissonance.

Night time in the Wynwood District is a chaotic grimy glittery mix of high and low and middle in the neighborhood as well – where you are as likely to catch a whiff of a models’ perfume as she sashays past you in a backless silver mini dress with her 3 leggy friends flipping their long hair over their shoulders as you are to catch a whiff of sweet ganga smoke from the joint of an open-shirted, low-waisted Romeo in dreadlocks or one the acrid whiff of the rumpled grayish clothing worn by the guy who is sitting on a chair against a mural and is ready to spend another night laying on the sidewalk after you stumble back to your hotel.

An ongoing slothful and bloated and thumping network of car-minivan-limo-Escalade-motorcycle traffic is rolling into a mechanical Ambian lethargy, at times looking more like a parking lot or tailgating party, grid-locking and popping and actively cruising the options parading down the sidewalks, with windows open and music pumping.

With no police at intersections to ease the flow of this jamtastic scene, low-bubbling rage mixes with cologne and produces slick insults hurled at the guy whose car is blocking the traffic flow, or more importantly, your flow. The song of the night wafting through the air on one corner, perhaps because a bicycle would be a perfect solution here, is called Bicycleta.

Luckily for us, we are usually on foot and not afraid to walk to find the good stuff. That is the best way to experience the street and the various events and to catch artists at work. Enjoy a few scenes from the day and one from the evening in Wynwood in Miami.

Ron English touching up his mural from a previous edition of Wynwood Walls. Wynwood Walls 2016 / Art Basel. Miami. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Insa and Drew Merritt. Work in progress. This will be an augmented reality wall which the public will be able to appreciate on Saturday with an app. Wynwood / Art Basel. Miami. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Insa and Drew Merrit. Work in progress. This will be an augmented reality wall which the public will be able to appreciate on Saturday with an app. Wynwood / Art Basel. Miami. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Low Bros. Perfecting ones curtsy to the Queen comes in handy while painting on a wall. Wynwood / Art Basel. Miami. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Artist Talk at the new Goldman art gallery with Martha Cooper, Crash, Tristan Eaton, Faith47 and Pixel Pancho. Moderated by Steven P. Harrington of BSA. Wynwood Walls 2016 / Art Basel. Miami. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pichi & Avo at the Hard Rock Stadium for Goldman Global Arts

This article is the result of a collaborative partnership with BSA and Urban Nation (UN).

Urban Nation Berlin “Love Letters To The City” Part 5
February 3, 2026
BSA Special Edition LOVE LETTERS TO THE CITY at Urban Nation Museum, Berlin A newly released Interview snippet with curator …Read More »
BSA Images Of The Week: 02.01.26
February 1, 2026
Welcome to BSA’s Images of the Week! Dude, it’s bad out there. But it’s nice in here! Here is our …Read More »
The Martha Cooper Scholarship For Photography: Call for Application
January 29, 2026
Named in honor of photographer Martha Cooper—whose lifelong commitment to documenting everyday life, cultural expression, and human dignity has shaped …Read More »
Signals in the Urban Body: Stickers as Cultural DNA
January 27, 2026
Handmade and hand-slapped stickers operate in the city the way cells operate in a living organism. Individually, they are small, …Read More »
BSA Images Of The Week: 01.25.26
January 25, 2026
Welcome to BSA’s Images of the Week! The New York Post is complaining that the new mayor is using 2,200 …Read More »
ENAMUR ART Returns to Les Franqueses del Vallès for Its Fourth Edition
January 22, 2026
ENAMUR ART returned this January to Les Franqueses del Vallès with its 4th edition, continuing to build a locally rooted, …Read More »
Before It Was Called Art: UGA, JonOne, Pixação at the Museum of Graffiti
January 20, 2026
Steven P. Harrington After Hours at the Museum of Graffiti On a late-night private tour during the Art Basel week …Read More »