All posts tagged: Urban Nation

LADY AIKO Does Her “Martha Cooper Remix” on the Façade of Urban Nation (UN)

LADY AIKO Does Her “Martha Cooper Remix” on the Façade of Urban Nation (UN)

We have some special events taking place this month to celebrate one complete year of the career-spanning exhibition “Martha Cooper: TAKING PICTURES”, which we created with the team at Urban Nation Museum in Berlin.

Today graffiti/street artist AIKO talks about her striking new graphic mural for the façade of the museum that highlights and interprets a suite of recognizable elements from Martha’s iconic photographs – a perfect answer to the Martha Remix section of the exhibition inside featuring 70 or so artists “remixing” her photos in their individual styles.

AIKO. Remix with Martha Cooper. Urban Nation Museum. Berlin, Germany. October 2021. (photo © Nika Kramer for Urban Nation)

Later this month we are announcing a collaborative print release worldwide featuring another remix and a countrywide screening in theaters across Germany of “Martha: A Picture Story” with us and Martha interviewed by Nika Kramer at the Berlin opening. At a separate ceremony we also will co-host with Martha and Urban Nation the official opening of the Martha Cooper Library (MCL), a full library facility and research center to be permanently housed in the museum building.

AIKO. Remix with Martha Cooper. Urban Nation Museum. Berlin, Germany. October 2021. (photo © Nika Kramer for Urban Nation)

To start off the excitement, here is Lady AIKO herself speaking about her new mural welcoming visitors to see “Martha Cooper: TAKING PICTURES”, now open until May 2022.

Q: Tell us about this mural project for UN.
AIKO: Firstly, this mural is a gift for Martha Cooper in celebration of her big retrospective show at Urban Nation. Martha and I have been friends since 2006. We’ve been partners in crime, so to speak, for the last fifteen years. We have worked on many different projects together all over the world from the United States to Japan to Africa. Martha has taken over 16,000 pictures of AIKO and has archived many of her art projects.

I am honored to be part of this opportunity and working with Urban Nation to allow me to create this epic mural for Martha. The museum facade is almost like fresh skin wrapped around her massive historic exhibition with big love from everyone who was part of this production.

AIKO. Remix with Martha Cooper. Urban Nation Museum. Berlin, Germany. October 2021. (photo © Nika Kramer for Urban Nation)

Martha and I have been collaborating on this one; it’s called the “Martha Cooper Remix” whereby I interpret and illustrate her images, create paintings on paper and on outdoor & indoor walls. For UN, I easily imagined us creating a big remix piece on the wall.

To begin this mural mission, I asked Martha what she would like to see on the wall; especially since I wanted to paint based on the classic pictures she photographed in NYC. She suggested several of her favorite pictures such as the one with Lady Pink when she was in the yard with the boys, Little Crazy Legs with spray cans, and the boom box one (which is the most iconic picture and the cover photo of the Hip Hop Files). Also, I included break-dancers Emiko and Frosty Freeze which are popular ones as well.

Based on her selections, I spent time at my studio to illustrate a large-scale portrait in my style and imagined it as the giant invitation banner for her show – as if it were a classic hand-painted movie ad in old Times Square. Since her show runs until next spring, till 2022, I’d love to invite everyone and spread the vibe even to the people who see the mural from the U-Bahn train above.

AIKO. Remix with Martha Cooper. Urban Nation Museum. Berlin, Germany. October 2021. (photo © Nika Kramer for Urban Nation)

Q: Can you tell us about you and little background?
AIKO: I’ve been based in NYC since 1997. NYC has been my playground and a huge inspiration. I met many amazing local and international artists, Faile, Bast, Banksy, Ben Eine, Obey, and Space Invader at that time. We were young artists, not famous yet, but we connected with one after another pretty much spontaneously – as if it were destiny. I started working in street art with everyone daily during the early 2000s and I was part of numerous gallery shows, jams, festivals, and museum installations. Being part of the history of street art and the graffiti (urban art) movement is how I got involved as AIKO as well.

… Meeting Martha Cooper was also another magical happening for me. Martha and I met in 2006 when I just started leaving my boys’ crew, working solo and stenciling bunnies on the streets. We became good and hard-core girlfriends and started traveling together. She introduced me to subway art legends and all other kinds of fascinating people and stuff in the world. I feel I’m one of the people who is continuing the history for the next generation.

AIKO. Remix with Martha Cooper. Urban Nation Museum. Berlin, Germany. October 2021. (photo © Nika Kramer for Urban Nation)

Q: What do you think about working in Berlin?
AIKO: Berlin is such a memorable place in my personal art life history. I spent lots of time without the Internet and enjoyed every day as a young artist. I made lots of friends and lots of stencils on the street. Of course, I was with Martha and spray-painted my bunny too. I’m so grateful that Urban Nation welcomed me back to town and let me create such a huge piece on the facade of the museum. Thank you so much for everyone’s support.

AIKO. Remix with Martha Cooper. Urban Nation Museum. Berlin, Germany. October 2021. (photo © Nika Kramer for Urban Nation)
AIKO. Remix with Martha Cooper. Urban Nation Museum. Berlin, Germany. October 2021. (photo © Nika Kramer for Urban Nation)
AIKO. Remix with Martha Cooper. Urban Nation Museum. Berlin, Germany. October 2021. (photo © Nika Kramer for Urban Nation)
AIKO. Remix with Martha Cooper. Urban Nation Museum. Berlin, Germany. October 2021. (photo © Nika Kramer for Urban Nation)
AIKO. Remix with Martha Cooper. Urban Nation Museum. Berlin, Germany. October 2021. (photo © Nika Kramer for Urban Nation)
AIKO. Remix with Martha Cooper. Urban Nation Museum. Berlin, Germany. October 2021. (photo © Nika Kramer for Urban Nation)
AIKO. Remix with Martha Cooper. Urban Nation Museum. Berlin, Germany. October 2021. (photo © Nika Kramer for Urban Nation)
AIKO. Remix with Martha Cooper. Urban Nation Museum. Berlin, Germany. October 2021. (photo © Nika Kramer for Urban Nation)
AIKO. Remix with Martha Cooper. Urban Nation Museum. Berlin, Germany. October 2021. (photo © Nika Kramer for Urban Nation)

“MARTHA COOPER: TAKING PICTURES” Curated by Steven P. Harrington and Jaime Rojo is currently open to the general public. Click HERE for schedules and details.

Read more
Layer Cake Bring Their “Versus Project” to UN

Layer Cake Bring Their “Versus Project” to UN

The brilliant Patrick Hartl & Christian Hundertmark (C100) have been at the graffiti/street art/contemporary art nexus for much of the last decade, delineating the boundaries, and then artfully shifting them.

A multi-year project now welcoming guests at Urban Nation’s Special Projects space in Berlin reveals the imprecision of terminologies and commonly-used nomenclature in this period of hyper-hybridization.

Mick La Rock/Aileen Middel VERSUS Layer Cake. Versus Project. Urban Nation Berlin. (photo courtesy of UN/layer Cake)

When you consider the volley of influences that bounce and collide on metro cars and street walls and digital screens these days, it makes sense to describe the experimentation now afoot as a dialogue. As the Munich-based duo called Layer Cake, the two artists have been doing exactly that with one another’s art for a half dozen years.

“One begins to paint, the other reacts,” say Hartl and Hundertmark in their recent interview for the UN website. “Thus (we) conduct an artistic dialogue. The marker asks a question, the paint can answers, the brush completes or provokes,” they say, “until both artists agree that the mural is finished.”

It is not an automatic process for graffiti writers to create work this way; as one of the basic tenets of the street, you don’t go over someone else’s work unless you mean to show disrespect or provoke a battle.

Drawing upon an eclectic selection of participants with experience on the street, the two act as curators of the new show called ‘Versus’. The rules are similar to their personal practice – produce a collaborative piece with another artist whose style and references may not match yours directly – with each contributor agreeing when the piece is complete.

The clashing and crashing can be seen on the canvass as each new addition rebalances the abstraction, and not everyone was sure it would work.

Bisco Smith VERSUS Layer Cake. Versus Project. Urban Nation Berlin. (photo courtesy of UN/layer Cake)

Artist Flavien Demarigny hesitated to participate versus Layer Cake because he wasn’t sure if he could work with their style that often incorporates calligraffiti techniques, he says. “As it is a major ingredient of Layer Cake‘s visual language I wasn’t sure if I was the right fit for it,” he says in a Facebook post.

“Then I remembered this is precisely what collaborations are about: pushing your limits, opening your perception, and create together new horizons. As a result, we started three collaborative pieces and one came out fantastic, which we decided to present in this show. Their choice of sticking to the repetitive pattern of my style was the wise one, so the two vocabularies can interact, as accidents make it unexpected and create the poetry of it.”

Dave The Chimp VERSUS Layer Cake. Versus Project. Urban Nation Berlin. (photo courtesy of UN/layer Cake)

With 13 different artists passing canvasses back and forth – each adding and subtracting, obliterating and augmenting, they say that at the root of the process was a rule not to consult, but rather, react.

The results fairly wrestle under the constraints, each cutting forward, marking and gesturing and claiming space on the canvass. These works illustrate the tension you may associate with the harshly pounding street in cities, sometimes still glittering insistently despite the struggle.  

Usugrow VERSUS Layer Cake. Versus Project. Urban Nation Berlin. (photo courtesy of UN/layer Cake)

“It is not easy to make an intervention in someone else’s painting,” says graffiti style-writing veteran Mick La Rock of her ingrained hesitancy during the art-making process. “You want to avoid taking the painting over and make it your own style. Every part I added to the painting was thought over at least ten times before painting it,” she says in an interview for the show.

On view in the Special Projects room near the museum, “Versus” is a sharp reminder of the community that joins together on walls and surfaces all over the world. Each style challenges the one next to it, sometimes holds it accountable, other times revealing its true nature. The curators say “The Versus Project is an artistic experiment in communication, challenging dialogue, the struggle for a final form.”

Chaz Bojorquez VERSUS Layer Cake. Versus Project. Urban Nation Berlin. (photo courtesy of UN/layer Cake)
Wandal VERSUS Layer Cake. Versus Project. Urban Nation Berlin. (photo courtesy of UN/layer Cake)
Flavien VERSUS Layer Cake. Versus Project. Urban Nation Berlin. (photo courtesy of UN/layer Cake)
Layer Cake. Versus Project. Urban Nation Berlin. (photo courtesy of UN/layer Cake)

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS:

Layer Cake (Patrick Hartl und Christian Hundertmark aka C100), Chaz Bojorquez (Los Angeles / US), Mick La Rock / Aileen Middel (Amsterdam / NL), Sebastian Wandl (München / DE), Dave the Chimp (Berlin / DE), Bisco Smith (New York / US), Vincent Abadie Hafez (Zepha) (Toulouse / FR), Formula 76 (Hamburg / DE), Usugrow (Tokio / JP), Bust (Basel / CH), Jake (Amsterdam / NL), Egs (Helsinki / FI), Imaone (Tokio / JP) und Flavien (Apt / FR).

“The Versus Project” curated by Layer Cake is currently open to the general public at the Urban Nation Project Space. The exhibition will be on view until December 31, 2021. Click HERE to find more information about the exhibition, Covid protocols, and schedule.

Project space of the URBAN NATION Museum, Bülowstrasse 97, 10783 Berlin

Read more
EL PAIS : “Martha Cooper: Taking Pictures” in Icon Magazine Madrid

EL PAIS : “Martha Cooper: Taking Pictures” in Icon Magazine Madrid

Our thanks to writer Igor López at El Pais for his article about Martha Cooper and our exhibition running right now in Berlin until Spring 2022. Appearing in the Spanish newspaper’s magazine called ICON, Lopez describes the New York social matrix of the 1970s with pithy acuity; one where the city seemed at war on many fronts while various important cultural scenes were germinating alongside graffiti writing and musicians like Afrika Bambaataa, Grandmaster Flash or DJ Kool Herc who were laying the foundations of hip hop as the dominant global culture.

“One of the first measures of Mayor Ed Koch, who had taken office in 1978 to save the city from bankruptcy and chaos, was to put concertina wire around the subway garages to prevent “vandals” from accessing the city at night,” he writes.

Martha Cooper: Taking Pictures. Urban Nation Museum Berlin. El Pais ICON Magazine Madrid

Enter the documentarians who capture the quickly shifting winds of change, like Martha Cooper, and forty years later we have solid evidence of multi-cultures in motion.  

“I thought I was capturing a phenomenon unique to the city and that it would disappear in a few years,” recalls Cooper of her now seminal body of photography that captured the birth of many movements. Dryly modest, Cooper doesn’t brag much. “I am surprised and grateful that my photos continue to be of interest.”

Check out this article in print and online, and please feel welcome to Urban Nation on our behalf this fall, winter, and spring!

Martha Cooper: Taking Pictures. Urban Nation Museum Berlin. El Pais ICON Magazine Madrid
Martha Cooper: Taking Pictures. Urban Nation Museum Berlin. El Pais ICON Magazine Madrid
Martha Cooper: Taking Pictures. Urban Nation Museum Berlin. El Pais ICON Magazine Madrid

The exhibition, Martha Cooper: Taking Pictures at Urban Nation Museum for Urban and Contemporary Art in Berlin is currently open to the general public. To learn more about the exhibition’s details and schedules click HERE

Read more
“Martha Cooper: Taking Pictures” – Financial Times Weekend Magazine London

“Martha Cooper: Taking Pictures” – Financial Times Weekend Magazine London

Our exhibition got a lot of great press and we like to highlight some of the articles once in a while just to remind you that the museum is now open after a long Covid-19 closure.

The Financial Times Sunday magazine did us the biggest favor by printing a multi-page spread about Martha Cooper and our retrospective of her work at at the URBAN NATION Museum – the first major and expansive photo and documentary exhibition of her career.

As the UN Website says “‘Martha Cooper: Taking Pictures’ sets new standards in the museum program. The curators Steven P. Harrington and Jaime Rojo (Brooklyn Street Art) , in close cooperation with Martha Cooper, have created a multimedia exhibition in which artistic works and documentary material are juxtaposed.

Martha Cooper: Taking Pictures. Urban Nation Museum Berlin. Financial Times Weekend Magazine London
Martha Cooper: Taking Pictures. Urban Nation Museum Berlin. Financial Times Weekend Magazine London
Martha Cooper: Taking Pictures. Urban Nation Museum Berlin. Financial Times Weekend Magazine London
Martha Cooper: Taking Pictures. Urban Nation Museum Berlin. Financial Times Weekend Magazine London

The exhibition, Martha Cooper: Taking Pictures at Urban Nation Museum for Urban and Contemporary Art in Berlin is currently open to the general public. To learn more about the exhibition’s details and schedules click HERE

Read more
Interview with BSA By Urban Nation Museum (UN), Berlin

Interview with BSA By Urban Nation Museum (UN), Berlin

The new exhibition “Martha Cooper: Taking Pictures” is on view at the URBAN NATION Museum – a six-decade retrospective of Martha Cooper’s photographic work. Through photographs and personal objects, artifacts and ephemera, the exhibition traces Cooper’s life, from her first camera in 1946 to her current reputation as a world-famous photographer.

photo ©Nika Kramer)

The most extensive career survey ever exhibited, “Martha Cooper: Taking Pictures” is curated by Steven P. Harrington & Jaime Rojo (BrooklynStreetArt). For over a year Harrington and Rojo poured over thousands of photographs and hundreds of artifacts, memorabilia, and archives, working closely with Martha to ensure an accurate and complete presentation of Cooper’s career and to make certain the exhibition will appeal to a wide audience as well as her ardent fans equally. In an interview the two acclaimed curators talk about the challenges of planning a new exhibition and their relationship with Martha Cooper, giving a rare insight into the work of a curator and providing an inside look at selected highlights of the exhibition.

PROJECT M/7 “PERSONS OF INTEREST,” A SHOW CURATED BY JAIME ROJO & STEVEN P. HARRINGTON OF BROOKLYN STREET ART AT URBAN NATION BERLIN, IN MARCH, 2015. Photo © Nika Kramer

Steve and Jaime, you have been working as curators, writers and bloggers for many years. Please take us back to the beginning of your careers. How did you meet and when did you decide to work together as a team?

We met in the 1980s when we both came to New York as university students and we have been actively involved in a wide range of projects in the arts separately and together for the last three decades. From “Low” to “High” art, we’ve always relied on the intelligence of the street-based subcultures to tell us the future, and we’ve each found that a fully immersive approach is the best way to understand everything from aesthetics to the humanities to music to movements in media and popular culture. We also discovered that as a team we are both determined to do it 100%.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s we became captivated by the new wave of art on the streets in neighborhoods like Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where a booming artist community was reimagining and remixing cultures in the wake of radical economic shifts that were forcing the young creative communities off the island of Manhattan. Primarily art school students of one kind or another, these artists were using the platform of the New York streets to bypass a rigid gallery system and other “gatekeepers”– and they were of course influenced by the collective legacy of graffiti, pop culture, decades of being drenched in advertising, and the dawning of the Internet age. Not content to simply imitate graffiti culture, they were reinterpreting, reinterpolating, when translating concepts, techniques and history learned in formal education.

In short, it was the dawn of street art as we knew it and we were lucky to be living as artists/curators at one physical epicenter of it. Our neighborhood and social and professional circles included loosely organized groups of artists and collectives who created art parties and mounted interactive events in empty factory lofts or on rooftops or in basement speakeasies; art shows, theatrical events, djs, projections, video, performance, fashion, new music and a new merging of technology. We too were throwing loft parties and staging art events and performances, sometimes for hundreds of people, and it all seemed perfectly normal that art was spilling out into the streets as well.

These were all influencing factors that led us to self-publish our first street art book in 2006 with Steve’s words and with Jaime’s photographs of works by artists in our neighborhood. It was called Williamsburg Street Art: Unrestricted and it featured artists like Swoon, Faile, Banksy, Bäst, Shepard Fairy, Dan Witz, and DAIN – all of whom went on to show with major galleries and some who have had huge exhibitions in museums worldwide with great commercial and critical success. When we secured a proper publishing arrangement for our second book Brooklyn Street Art (Penguin/Random House) we started a small website to support it in March of 2008 under the same name. That first month we had 54 hits on the site. Later we would pass 100,000 per month.

Click HERE to continue reading the interview at Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art Berlin.

Read more
Martha Cooper “I Don’t Scare Easily” – ArtNet

Martha Cooper “I Don’t Scare Easily” – ArtNet

We’re featuring a great interview today from Martha Cooper – whose career retrospective we curated this year at Urban Nation in Berlin. We particularly love the title. Because its true.

‘I Don’t Scare Easily’: Martha Cooper on Crawling Her Way Through Train Tunnels to Become One of the Leading Photographers of Graffiti – on tArtnet

“In a photography career that spans six decades, Martha Cooper has broken boundaries and defined genres. She became the first female staff photographer at the New York Post in 1977 and shot seminal images of graffiti and the burgeoning hip hop scene during its infancy.

Now, Cooper is being honored with largest retrospective of her work to date. “Martha Cooper: Taking Pictures,” opening this weekend the Berlin’s Urban Nation Museum for Urban Contemporary Art, charts the artist’s photography, from the pictures taken with her very first camera, which she got when she was in nursery school, in 1946, through the present day.

Curated by Steven P. Harrington and Jaime Rojo, founders of BrooklynStreetArt.com, the show includes images from Cooper’s many books, which feature such as bodies of work as her photographs of women’s breakdancing competitions (We B*Girls); of traditional Japanese tattooist Horibun I at work (Tokyo Tattoo 1970), and the streets of gritty 1970s-era New York City (New York State of Mind).”

Martha Cooper in the Martha Cooper Library at Berlin’s Urban Nation Museum for Urban Contemporary Art. Photo Nika Kramer/Urban Nation Museum for Urban Contemporary Art.

“But it was graffiti that inspired Cooper’s best-known work, immortalized in the 1984 book Subway Art, which she published with fellow photographer Henry Chalfant. Cooper was drawn to the tracks by the desire to save for posterity these fleeting artistic creations, which were unlike anything she had ever seen.”

CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING THE INTERVIEW AND ARTICLE WRITTEN BY Sarah Cascone for ArtNet.

Martha Cooper, 180th Street platform, Bronx, NYC (1980). Photo ©Martha Cooper.

“Martha Cooper: Taking Pictures” at the Urban Nation Museum for Urban Contemporary Art, Bülowstraße 7, 10783 Berlin. Check the museum’s website for details and hours of operation.

Read more
The Ever-Changing Happy Chaos of Graffiti in the Bathroom

The Ever-Changing Happy Chaos of Graffiti in the Bathroom

The Egyptians did it. The Greeks did it. The Romans did it. Your favorite dive bar has it. The punk club CBGBs was famous for it, so is Urban Spree in Berlin. It’s worldwide, ancient and contemporary. Crude, rude, vulgar, vapid, poetic, gestural, artistic, meandering, succinct.

Bathroom graffiti. Urban Nation Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

We’re talking of course of the practice of writing graffiti in the bathroom. Few know that the museum Urban Nation actively encourages the furtive aesthetic expressions of visitors. Here is a survey of the ephemeral graffiti actions caught in progress.

Bathroom graffiti. Urban Nation Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Bathroom graffiti. Urban Nation Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Bathroom graffiti. Urban Nation Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Bathroom graffiti. Urban Nation Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Bathroom graffiti. Urban Nation Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Bathroom graffiti. Urban Nation Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Bathroom graffiti. Urban Nation Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Bathroom graffiti. Urban Nation Berlin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Read more
Downtown Miami for the KOOL KIDS : Juxtapoz Clubhouse 2017

Downtown Miami for the KOOL KIDS : Juxtapoz Clubhouse 2017

Ahhhhh the sun! The sea! The cigarette butt stuck to my leg from last night.

Also, did I wear ONLY this swimsuit and shoes, or did I originally go out with more clothes?

Anyway this is Miami and the annual mural-street art-graffiti-gallery show-art fair-melee is afoot. Wherever you go in Wynwood you are bound to find Instagrammable moments and pretty things pontificating about this or that, but if you want to see good stuff we’re suggesting this year that downtown is the next Wynwood, beginning with the historic Walgreens Building on 200 East Flager Street. Its second iteration, the Juxtapoz Clubhouse feels more like an organically spawned environment; cognizant of the many tributaries from where this art scene evolved, with room for free thought, experimentation, and growth.

Take a trip to another part of Miami this year and see JUX’s many assorted exhibitions and exhibitionists. Here’s a few of the hits we hope you hit.

Juxtapoz Clubhouse Miami 2017

Juxtapoz Magazine is taking over a 3-story department store with art installations, activations, murals, and site-specific projects, featuring works by Conor Harrington, Jean Jullien, Faith XLVII with Inka Kendzia, Ron English, Laurence Vallières, Serge Lowrider, Low Bros, Zane Meyer, Jillian Evelyn, Alex Yanes.

Juxtapoz will also be releasing their new Quarterly edition at the Clubhouse along with editions of Shepard Fairey’s “The Damage Times” newspaper, created in conjunction with his Damaged solo show.

Juxtapoz is also showcasing projects from Jonathan LeVine Projects, Thinkspace, Corey Helford Gallery, Think Tank, Athen B Gallery, Good Mother Gallery, Superchief Gallery, First Amendment, Station 16 Gallery and Urban Nation.

Juxtapoz will also once again team up with Mana Contemporary on a special mural by Conor Harrington and a-soon-to-be revealed skate park project – remember the massive skate park with Mana and Andrew Schoultz in the Wynwood neighborhood.

Historic Walgreens Building
200 East Flager Street

December 7 – 10, 2017
Opening Reception: December 6, 4 – 9 pm

URBAN NATION BERLIN

From 7th to 10th of December URBAN NATION is part of the Juxtapoz Magazine CLUBHOUSE project @downtown Miami with Mimi Scholz Arts, #MateusBailon, Insane 51 and Nuno Viegas

JONATHAN LEVINE PROJECTS :

Prefab77 “Goddess & Groupies1”

Jonathan LeVine Gallery is pleased to present a group exhibition at the Juxtapoz Clubhouse featuring the following artists:

Adam WallacavageDavid Choong LeeHandiendan, Jeremy FishJim Salvati, Jim WoodringJoão RuasJosh TiessenJulia IbbiniKevin CyrKip OmoladePrefab77Radosław Liweń and Ronald Gonzalez.

OLEK “Playpen” With Corey Helford Gallery

Los Angeles-based Corey Helford Gallery is showing new stuff by OLEK as part of the Juxtapoz Clubhouse. Olek says “Playpen” is a witty and flirtatious series featuring three new sculptures and an impressive 20-foot installation of an 8-legged “Spider Woman,” adorned with motifs like eyes, lips, hearts and flowers.

Look out for sculptures that represent various fantasy objects — a “Cat Snail” playset, a classical-shaped “Woman Bust” and a potted “Cock Plant” — all of which come to life under the glow of black light. Initially inspired by her own play experience as a young girl, OLEK uses this series to explore concepts of womanhood, sexuality, and feminist ideals.

FIRST AMENDMENT

A collection of works by San Francisco based First Amendment gallery artists will be on the third floor, including:

Andrew Antonaccio
Ellen Rutt
Francesco Lo Castro
Hell’O Collective
Hoxxoh
Lena Gustafson
Mando Marie
Scott Albrecht

THINKSPACE

Jaune (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Thinkspace is 2 for 2 here at the Clubhouse during Art Basel week in Miami with James Bullough and Jaune on site leaving their unmistakable marks.

ATHEN B. GALLERY

A collection of works and installations by Athen B. artists will include
Brett Flanigan
Cannon Dill
Heather Day
Jet Martinez
Kate Klingbeil
Laura Berger
Maxwell McMaster
Meryl Pataky
Muzae Sesay
Nicolas Romero
Nicomi Nix Turner
Pastel
Troy Lovegates
Woodrow White
Zio Ziegler

SUPERCHIEF GALLERY

Superchief will feature works by Parker Day, Don Pablo Pedro, UFO 907, Yu Maeda, and Reginald Pean and will be screening Wastedland 2 on Thursday December 7th at 7pm. See our interview with the director here.

 

GOOD MOTHER GALLERY

Good Mother will feature Egle Zvirblyte & Jose Mendez

STATION 16 GALLERY

Laurence Valliérs. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Station 16 will be featuring a new installation by Laurence Vallières

Read more
Young Announces Construction of Urban Nation Museum

Young Announces Construction of Urban Nation Museum

Berlin Begins Building a Haus for Street/Urban Art

Urban Nation “Museum For Urban Contemporary Art” Set to Open Mid 2017

“You can try and tame the wild but what good would it do? Isn’t the wild what makes us into warriors, kings and queens, discoverers and inventors? – The wild is all we need to know to make life worth living but we should never ever try to comprehend or change it…that is what art means to me,” says Yasha Young as she pulls back the curtains on the plans for the construction of the brand new Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art in Berlin this afternoon.

Brooklyn-Street-Art-copyright-Urban-Nation-Yasha-Young-may-19-2016-740

Yasha Young  announcing construction of Urban Nation Museum of Urban Contemporary Art today in Berlin. (photo ©Nika Kramer)

With a wall full of photographs by the renowned Martha Cooper behind her and before a roomful of press people and artists, the manager and future director of the museum gave this sweeping overview of the philosophical approach that has breathed life into a project that is her brainchild. Along with Markus Terboven from the Gewobag foundation, Thomas Willemeit, Managing Director at architect GRAFT, Tim Renner, the Undersecretary of State for Cultural Affairs, and Hendrick Jellema from the non-profit Berliner Leben, Ms. Young laid out the plans for the dynamically designed interior of this Wilhelminian-era building at Bülowstrasse 7.

The nascent museum and the Urban Nation project has already shown serious signs indicating it’s future significance over the past three years with the famed curated “Project M” series of urban/street/graffiti artists in the main street-level windows – as well as the UN’s partnering with urban/Street Art festivals and community-driven initiatives in Europe, the US, Russia, and Asia.

Brooklyn-Street-Art-740-MARKUS-TERBOVEN-(GEWOBAG),-THOMAS-WILLEMEIT-(GRAFT),-YASHA-YOUNG-(URBAN-NATION),-TIM-RENNER-(UNDERSECRETARY-OF-STATE-FOR-CULTURAL-AFFAIRS)-HENDRIK-JELLEMA-(BERLINER-LEBEN)

Markus Terboven (Geobag), Thomas Willemeit (GRAFT architects), Yasha Young (Urban Nation), Tim Renner (Undersecretary of State for Cultural Affairs), and Hendrik Jellema (Berliner Leben) before the site of the future Urban Nation Museum of Urban Contemporary Art in Berlin. (photo ©Nika Kramer)

In fact the lead-up to today’s announcement, a real art world first, has included three years of on the street programming and in temporary exhibition spaces that has featured 320 large scale and smaller works by 219 artists established, well known and emerging on the global street art and contemporary urban art scene.

Brooklyn-Street-Art-740-UN-video_-m-cooper-library-Screen Shot 2016-05-19 at 2.36.01 PM copy

Screenshot of new Martha Cooper Library at Urban Nation from video below.

In addition to featuring a brand new library named after Martha Cooper and featuring part of her collection of books, magazines, sketchbooks, photography and ephermera, and a winding, floating catwalkway through shifting perspectives that is inspired by Escher’s stairs, and education/lecture spaces, the new museum will feature a high tech façade that will continually change with installations, artists, and themes.

Brooklyn-Street-Art-740-UN-video_Screen Shot 2016-05-19 at 2.34.56 PM copy

Screenshot of architectural rendering for new Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art from video below.

Architects and designers at GRAFT, which has built a reputation for experimentation and design innovation in exhibitions as well as architecture, are said to have continually looked for ways to establish a continuum between the street and the museum. In a recent conversation with Denis Leo Hegic, an architect on the project, we learned that the concrete of the street will quite literally lead into the museum main floor.  Take a look at the video tour of the space here.

More to come on this story as construction begins along with curation of the inaugural exhibit!

New Video Takes You Flying Through Berlin’s new Urban Nation Museum for Urban Contemporary Art.

 

Read more
BSA Galavanting, The New Year and You

BSA Galavanting, The New Year and You

BSA galavanted through the streets last year and here we re-paste our recent newsletter to BSA readers. Sign up for it if you like. Here’s the original.

590-mad-mimi-Happy-New year-2016

Happy New Year from BSA!

From Berlin to Norway to Rochester and Mexico, Faile to Swoon to Ron English to Dan Witz and Gilf!, BSA was in museums, galleries, artists studios, at festivals, on panel discussions, on stages, on TV, radio, in theaters, and of course in the street.

Here are some highlights of the some of the amazing things BSA did with you in 2015. We sincerely thank you for your support and send love to you and yours in the new year!

***

In ’15 BSA Created “Persons of Interest” with UN in Berlin
Brought 12 Brooklyn Street Artists to Berlin with “Persons of Interest” show for Urban Nation Museum (UN)/ProjectM7

Reviews in:
Juxtapoz, VNA, Hi-Fructose, Huffington Post, Butterfly

11054351 1090638687629171 8795315509401460286 n

The (almost) complete “Persons of Interest” crew courtesy ©Sandra Butterfly

Attachment-1
Huffington-Post-BSA-Persons-of-Interest-031815
Brooklyn-Street-Art-Film-Friday-040315-Persons-Interest

BSA Presented “On the Radar” in Coney Island
With Jeffrey Dietch’s Coney Art Walls program at Coney Island Museum for Coney Art Walls, we presented 12 artist to watch who are on our radar.

Brooklyn-Street-Art-Jaime-Rojo-Jeffrey-Deitch-Steven-P Harrington-Coney-Art-Walls-Aug2015-740

BSA Presented Faile at the Brooklyn Museum
A beautiful experience to be a part of the FAILE exhibition from its earliest planning stages to its full summer run at Brooklyn Museum, the cherry on top was to host an in-depth presentation and conversation with Faile’s Patrick Miller and Patrick McNeil and BKM curator Sharon Matt Atkins in front of an enthusiastic Brooklyn audience.

Aside from The Pope landing in New York at the exact time people were traveling to the show and some microphone difficulties at the beginning of the show, it was a complete and total thrill for us. See the full video on LiveStream here.

What Happened with BSA + FAILE at the Brooklyn Museum?

Video-Steve-Jaime-Faile-BKM-Sept-2015

Brooklyn-Street-Art-copyright-Dusty-Rebel-740-092815-BSAfaile

Steven P. Harrington, Patrick Miller of Faile (top), Sharon Matt Atkins, Patrick McNeil, and Jaime Rojo (image © by and courtesy of The Dusty Rebel) (@DustyRebel on Instagram)

Brooklyn-Street-Art-Faile-Deluxx-BK-Museum-Huffpost-740-Screen-Shot-2015-07-08-at-9.39.52-AM
Faile-Pre-opening-July-8-2014

BSA Joined Swoon to Inaugurate Her New Heliotrope Foundation
The tenacious and visionary Street Artist grounded her dreams in a formal foundation in 2015, allowing her to pursue even greater reach in her growing projects in New Orleans, Haiti, and Braddock, PA. We were honored to interview her and to help celebrate the official beginning of The Heliotrope Foundation with the help of special guest and board member Kaseem Dean aka Swizz Beatz.

CFK25w1UIAIF4rf
Swoon-the-road-by-walking-BSA-web

swoon-swizz-beatz-rojo-harrington

Callie Curry (aka Swoon), Kasseem Dean (aka Swizz Beatz), Jaime Rojo, Steven P. Harrington inaugurate The Heliotrope Foundation

IMG 4917

photo ©Daniel Feral

BSA Hosted Martha Cooper, Bortusk Leer, and Herman De Hoop at Nuart Plus
For presentations from each of the guests and panel discussion on the intersection of “Play” and public space at NUART 2015 in Stavanger, Norway.

Read our published essay for the academic conference at Nuart: “TECHNOLOGY, FESTIVALS AND MURALS AS NUART TURNS 15

NUART 2015 Roundup: A Laboratory on the Street

Nuart-Rojo-de-Hoop-Cooper-Leer-Harrington-Copyright-2015-MZM-Projects034

Jaime Rojo, Harmen De Hoop, Martha Cooper, Bortusk Leer, Steven P. Harrington at Nuart Plus (©MZM Projects)

7784 10153136148636213 8998141878943446721 n
Nuart200x200

Banksy Does New York Took Us to Theaters Around the World
Good News: The movie got on NetFlix, iTunes, in festivals, and in theaters in cities around the globe
Bad News: People think we have a museum

Screen Shot 2015-12-30 at 4.23.20 PM

We Flew Over World’s Largest Mural
Flew by helicopter above the world’s largest mural by Ella and Pitr in Stavanger, Norway with two of our most admired photographers; Martha Cooper and Ian Cox. Thanks Nuart!

brooklyn-street-art-ella-pitr-jaime-rojo-year-in-images-2015-3

Ella & Pitr © Jaime Rojo

Brooklyn-Street-Art-copyright-Ian-Cox-of-Cox-Cooper-Rojo-in Stavanger-Sept2015

Ian Cox, Martha Cooper, Jaime Rojo getting ready to fly over Ella & Pitr in Norway (photo selfie ©Ian Cox)

We presented BSA Film Friday Live at MAG Gallery
Under the direction of Jonathan Binstock at University of Rochester Museum the MAG Gallery hosted us during the Wall\Therapy festival.

This is the grassroots sort of festival that rings true to us these days and the down-to-earth volunteers and organizers of this event, along with those of our associates at Urban Nation (UN), made this a highlight of the summer.

WALL\THERAPY 2015 : Surrealism and The Fantastic

11825634 884492504976484 7969751540945114103 n

Steven P. Harrington at MAG Gallery for Wall\Therapy (photo ©Jason Wilder)

MAG-Slider-380x240-Flyer-BSA-Film-Friday-Live-Rochester-Wall-Therapy

BSA moderated 1st panel for 1st event of 1st edition of LoMan Festival
“OMG Is this Street Art?” was the name of our panel with guest panelists Ron English, Gilf!, Dan Witz, and Jonathan Levine.

LoMan Art Festival Launches Its First Blast in NYC

11828542 10153536235577996 765811333769883939 n

Ron English, Ann J Lewis, Dan Witz, Jonathan LeVine, and Steven P. Harrington for first LoMan festival event in August (photo ©Rodrigo Valles‎).

11813460 890140724357161 4725028612032589413 n

BSA in Berlin Radio Interview with Vantage Point
We talked about Jay-Z, Bowie, Bushwick, the democratization of Street Art, cultural imperialism, the UN and what it is like to bust out a blog seven days a week and still keep your mind and heart open to discovery.
Listen to it here on Vantage Point and Soundcloud:

Brooklyn-street-art-vantage-point-video-screenshot-April-2015
961495206-263
BSA completed its fifth year in partnership with The Huffington Post in June 2015 (225+ articles) and was translated in Spanish on El Huffington Post, in French on Le Huffington Post, in Italian on L’Huffington Post, in Korean on Huff Post Korea, in Portuguese on Brasil Post, and in Greek for Huffington Post Greece.
BSA posted every single day and did 23 interviews and studio visits and published articles about street art in 103 cities
BSA was reference or appeared in the media in The New York Times, The Today Show, Le Monde, Agence France Press, German Rbb Tv, Borås Tidning, El Diario, El Heraldo, ArtNet News, Juxtapoz, VNA, Hi-Fructose, and others.
BSA’s Director of Photography Jaime Rojo took more than 10,000 images and we picked 143 as BSA 2015 Images of the Year.
download-1

Special thank you to photographer Martha Cooper and Nuart Festival director Martyn Reed for the banner image from this years festival.

Read more
“Wall Poetry” in Iceland : Stunning Views and Music-Inspired Murals

“Wall Poetry” in Iceland : Stunning Views and Music-Inspired Murals

Urban Nation (UN) and Iceland Airwaves Festival Create Mural Program

Sound and vision are inextricably bound in the modern music canon, with inspired visuals leading our auditory imaginations at least since Toulouse-Lautrec’s depictions of Moulin Rouge orchestral and singing talents. Later illustrators were important for ushering us into the jazz era with snappy collage and geometrics for album covers and the birth of rock and roll expanded and shaped popular album-oriented daydreams. With every subsequent genre and subgenre of music from pop to rap to metal to disco and EDM, static and video artists continue to visually augment, interpret, define, and expand upon the music that we listen to.

brooklyn-street-art-telmo-miel-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-1

Telmo & Miel. Process shot. Wall Poetry-Urban Nation in collaboration with Iceland Air Waves. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

This autumn in Iceland an equally inspired program pairing of 10 Street Artists with 10 musicians for the Airwaves music festival brought Reykjavik new murals from a mix of local and international artists. Since Iceland is the new Brooklyn, you’ll like to see how Berlin’s Urban Nation (UN) is precisely on top of something hot and icy with these eye-popping murals inspired by pace-setting modern sounds.

“I love music,” says UN Director Yasha Young as she describes the process that she and Iceland Airwaves’ Grímur Atlason and Henny Frímannsdottír went through to select music for their 1st edition of Wall Poetry. “We started to play our favorite bands from the lineup to each other, researched their album art, read their lyrics in great depth and watched all the video footage we could find,” she explains. “After that we decided who we thought would be interesting to approach for such a creative adventure. I know the artists I work with very well so it was more about listening to them and defining in more detail what the their individual ideas were for this project. The main goal for me was to pair them with the right collaborative partner musically and visually.”

brooklyn-street-art-telmo-miel-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-2

Telmo & Miel. Process shot. Wall Poetry-Urban Nation in collaboration with Iceland Air Waves. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

“With paintings in and around Reykjavik the artists had time to complete their walls in time for the 10 day music festival in November, drawing the attention of fans and locals who were interested in the artwork that is impacting their daily experience of the city. The musicians were asked to provide the street artists with a song, lyrics or poetry especially chosen or written for this project,” says curator Frímannsdottír on the site. “The visual artists were provided a city wall as surface for the large scale work.”

Artist and musician collaborations for Wall Poetry include:

Ernest Zacharevic + Dikta, Caratoes + Ylja, Tankpetrol + GUS GUS, D*FACE + Laxdæla saga, Deih XLF + Vök, Telmo Miel + Mercury Rev, Li Hill + John Grant, ELLE + ÚlfurÚlfur, Evoca1 + Saun & Starr, and The Ugly Brothers + Gísli Pálmi.

 

brooklyn-street-art-telmo-miel-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-4

Telmo & Miel. Process shot. Wall Poetry-Urban Nation in collaboration with Iceland Air Waves. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

We spoke to Yasha Young about the first year of Wall Poetry and the challenges of mounting a project like this:

Brooklyn Street Art: How important is the visual aspect of music to you? Many people may not always make that connection.
Yasha Young: To me it is so very important. I am a visual person to begin with but I think that it is vital as an individual who works with and for artists to work across genres and with as many different creative aspects as possible to be able to create one lasting and meaningful overall experience.

I remember buying LP’s for their cover art and the stickers and zines that came with them. I remember Buzzocks’s and The Ramones buttons and the silk printed posters by the Sex Pistols that came with the LP if memory serves me correctly. I think about The Rolling Stones “Some Girls” sliding cover and the art for Pink Floyds ‘The Wall’ and the “Led Zeppelin III” album with its rotating cover art that you could interact with.

And of course music videos became huge productions; actually they are little films that often connect with you on an even deeper level and enhance your experience of the music. Videos were launch pads for creative careers and massive innovations; for example Peter Gabriel’s ‘Sledgehammer’, ‘Cry’ by Godley and Crème, Gorillaz’ ‘Clint Eastwood’, Radiohead’s ‘No Surprises’, and my all-time favorite song and visuals combination was  Radiohead’s ‘Street Spirit’. Of course as we speak I’m thinking also about Iceland’s Björk and her video for ‘ Human Behaviour” and John Grant and Tate Shots collaboration… I could go on and on.

brooklyn-street-art-telmo-miel-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-6

Telmo & Miel. Process shot. Wall Poetry-Urban Nation in collaboration with Iceland Air Waves. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

“Mothrider” is inspired by the lyrics of Mercury Rev for “Moth Light”:

If, if I was a moth
I’d fly to the light in you
And if, if I was lost
I’d lose myself in you

Planets line up in the sky
Feel the waves go rushing by
Let’s just give it one more try
Ain’t got nothing to lose.”

brooklyn-street-art-telmo-miel-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-3

Telmo & Miel. Process shot. Wall Poetry-Urban Nation in collaboration with Iceland Air Waves. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

(Young, continued) In my career I’ve had the great pleasure to be part of making album art happen for bands, such as KORN’s ‘Untitled’ for example. I worked with many bands on that creative level and it only deepened my connection and convictions when it came to art and music. Today we have a one-click behavior for experiencing streaming music that almost reminds me a little of when video killed the radio star. There is an essential part of the experience that is fading and we feed it with the “instant buy”.

I believe that we are losing more than ‘just’ the record store and the poster art or album cover. We are losing an essential and lasting connection that came with the purchase of the record or CD but was established long before; the multi-faceted creation of the entire visual aspect. You became part of a creative baseline and connected to the music through the visual work. Reading the lyrics as audio poetry on the back sleeve or the LP or interacting with the music and the art made it a much more lasting and impressive experience in my view. This is just the surface of what I think and would like to explore even further and on a deeper level next year when we return for the 2nd edition of Wall Poetry.

brooklyn-street-art-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-6

Northern Lights. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

Brooklyn Street Art: What inspired you to start the project?
Yasha Young: I am always inspired by new opportunities to bring together different artistic genres and unusual or challenging – but always exciting – new venues. I had been visiting Iceland Airwaves for many years and finally decided last year to find walls and spaces and to connect with the Iceland Airwaves crew.

My idea was to visually prolong the reach of the music and bring it onto the walls through well-conceptualized and executed art pieces. In a way I wanted to re-connect two entities that have always been vital and necessary for each other in a public space, with music and art spilling out of the concert venues onto the streets and into the lives of people.

It was almost like we were going to extend the music, with the core idea being “We paint the music you love to hear”. Once that  was established as the core of the project I very quickly had an idea of which visual artists would be not only be a great fit for the city and the project but also who would be able to work in rather unusual and unknown conditions – namely, the Icelandic weather, and I say this with great fondness for those wild and unpredictable skies.

brooklyn-street-art-elle-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-1

Elle. Process shot. Wall Poetry-Urban Nation in collaboration with Iceland Air Waves. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

Brooklyn Street Art: How did you choose the lyrics? Was it a difficult process?
Yasha Young: Actually I only picked the bands and visual artists. It was more about creating and encouraging the connection between both of these groups to get their beautiful creative minds talking together. Once connected they picked songs and talked about their choices in depth. I was a bystander, a very curious fly on the wall and following the process was simply amazing. To read the exchanges and feel the moment the spark ignited – that moment to me is, and will always be, what marks true curatorial success and is key to all collaborative creative projects.

brooklyn-street-art-elle-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-7

Elle. Process shot. Wall Poetry-Urban Nation in collaboration with Iceland Air Waves. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

Elle was inspired by the song “Tuttugu og Eitthvað” by Úlfur Úlfur

brooklyn-street-art-elle-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-2

Elle. Wall Poetry-Urban Nation in collaboration with Iceland Air Waves. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

Brooklyn Street Art: Were there any challenges along the way? Specifically regarding logistics..
Yasha Young: ( laughs ) Yes! Many many many – but less in the actual execution of the vision and more in the daily production. For example the wind picks up and the mechanical lifts start swaying in the wind like a leaf. It was “Safety first” of course so we had to stop working immediately. Often the rain can be surprising and torrential and water runs down the walls like little waterfalls washing all the hard work from the night before off the wall again. But these artists are professionals and in my job the goal is to work as innovatively as possible – always finding or inventing new methods and finding other options.

It’s part of the journey and it can actually be fun. For my stubborn mind the only factor that will always be in way is time – we have not found a way to stop it or make more of it.

brooklyn-street-art-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-5

The road where the valley ends and the glaciers begin. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

brooklyn-street-art-deih-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-1

Deih One. Process shot. Wall Poetry-Urban Nation in collaboration with Iceland Air Waves. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

brooklyn-street-art-deih-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-3

Deih One. Process shot. Wall Poetry-Urban Nation in collaboration with Iceland Air Waves. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

brooklyn-street-art-deih-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-2

Deih One. Process shot. Wall Poetry-Urban Nation in collaboration with Iceland Air Waves. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

Deih took inspiration from Icelandic band Vok Music’s song “Waterfall” for this mural.

brooklyn-street-art-deih-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-4

Deih One. Wall Poetry-Urban Nation in collaboration with Iceland Air Waves. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

brooklyn-street-art-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-4

Giant ice cubes on the beach. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

brooklyn-street-art-li-hill-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-1

Li’ Hill. Process shot. Wall Poetry-Urban Nation in collaboration with Iceland Air Waves. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

brooklyn-street-art-li-hill-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-2

Li’ Hill. Process shot. Wall Poetry-Urban Nation in collaboration with Iceland Air Waves. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

brooklyn-street-art-li-hill-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-5

Li-Hill. Detail. Wall Poetry-Urban Nation in collaboration with Iceland Air Waves. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

Li-Hill worked in collaboration with John Grant and his song “Pale Green Ghosts” for this mural.

brooklyn-street-art-li-hill-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-4

Li-Hill. Wall Poetry-Urban Nation in collaboration with Iceland Air Waves. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

brooklyn-street-art-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-1

The carcass of an air plane on the beach. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

brooklyn-street-art-caratoes-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-2

Caratoes. Process shot. Wall Poetry-Urban Nation in collaboration with Iceland Air Waves. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

brooklyn-street-art-caratoes-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-1

Caratoes. Wall Poetry-Urban Nation in collaboration with Iceland Air Waves. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

brooklyn-street-art-caratoes-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-5

Caratoes. Wall Poetry-Urban Nation in collaboration with Iceland Air Waves. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

Caratoes took inspiration to paint this whole house from the lyrics of the song “Ode To a Mother”by Icelandic band Ylja.

brooklyn-street-art-caratoes-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-6

Caratoes. Wall Poetry-Urban Nation in collaboration with Iceland Air Waves. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

brooklyn-street-art-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-8

Waterfall. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

brooklyn-street-art-dface-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-1

D*Face. Process shot. Wall Poetry-Urban Nation in collaboration with Iceland Air Waves. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

brooklyn-street-art-dface-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-2

D*Face. Process shot. Wall Poetry-Urban Nation in collaboration with Iceland Air Waves. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

D*Face depicts the Icelandic saga of Laxdaela; a tale of love, betrayal and intrigue.

brooklyn-street-art-dface-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-3

D*Face. Wall Poetry-Urban Nation in collaboration with Iceland Air Waves. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

brooklyn-street-art-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-3

Northern Lights and Ice Cubes. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

brooklyn-street-art-ernest-zacharevic-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-1

Ernest Zacharevic. Process shot. Wall Poetry-Urban Nation in collaboration with Iceland Air Waves. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

brooklyn-street-art-ernest-zacharevic-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-2

Lithuania’s Ernest Zacharevic transformed the shadow of an earlier building into a personal photo book.

“It’s inspired by the song ‘I Miss You’ by Dikta,” says Ernest. “The image has the same sadness and nostalgia in the photographs that I felt in the piano track song. The work is my imagining of all the past scenarios that could have happened in this old heritage house, physically and emotionally being taken down and rebuilt.

It’s more about memory because after I spoke to a lot of locals they were very nostalgic about how Reykjavik used to be, not so keen on how modernized it has become.”

Wall Poetry-Urban Nation in collaboration with Iceland Air Waves. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

brooklyn-street-art-tank-petrol-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-1

Tank Petrol. Process shot. Wall Poetry-Urban Nation in collaboration with Iceland Air Waves. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

brooklyn-street-art-tank-petrol-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-6

Tank Petrol. Wall Poetry-Urban Nation in collaboration with Iceland Air Waves. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

Tank Petrol’s modern take on the myth of Freya, considered to be the mother goddess of Love and Beauty.

brooklyn-street-art-tank-petrol-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-7

Tank Petrol. Wall Poetry-Urban Nation in collaboration with Iceland Air Waves. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

brooklyn-street-art-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-2

Ice cube. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

brooklyn-street-art-evoca-one-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-2

Evoca One. Process shot. Wall Poetry-Urban Nation in collaboration with Iceland Air Waves. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

brooklyn-street-art-evoca-one-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-1

Evoca One. Process shot. Wall Poetry-Urban Nation in collaboration with Iceland Air Waves. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

Evoca One tells the story of the Sauna and Starr song “Gonna Make Time” about home and returning to those waiting on shore.

brooklyn-street-art-evoca-one-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-4

Evoca One. Wall Poetry-Urban Nation in collaboration with Iceland Air Waves. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

 

brooklyn-street-art-one-wall-wall-poetry-nika-kramer-reykjavic-iceland-11-15-web-9

The gang. Wall Poetry-Urban Nation in collaboration with Iceland Air Waves. Reykjavik, Iceland. October, 2015. (photo © Nika Kramer)

Our special thanks to photographer Nika Kramer for sharing her amazing shots with BSA readers.

To learn more about Iceland Airwaves please click HERE.

This article is also published on The Huffington Post

Brooklyn-Street-Art-Huffpost-Iceland-Dec-02-2015-740-copyright-Nika-Kramer-Screen-Shot-2015-12-02-at-1.29.55-PM

 

<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><<>>><>

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!

<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><<>>><>

 

 

 

Read more
Wall/Therapy 2015 Day 4

Wall/Therapy 2015 Day 4

BSA-Wall-Therapy-UN-Banner-Header

“Love is Sacrifice” says the calligraphic script on the new wall by Jeff Soto and Maxx242. The two words rarely appear one without the other, as any sentient being will tell you.

brooklyn-street-art-maxx242-jeff-soto-wall-therapy2015-4-web

Maxx242 . Jeff Soto. Wall Therapy 2015. (photo © Courtesy Wall Therapy)

As with most artistic endeavors there are sacrifices to be made here as well, but the outgoing inquisitive nature of Rochester people are buoying the spirits as community members continue to visit the murals-in-progress and engage with artists and the various volunteers who keep the show going.

Li-hill kept working into the night, as did Onur and Wes21 on their mural. Li thinks he can complete it within the day – he’s a fast and expressive worker so we’re guessing he’s right. Onur and Wes21’s dynamic image will be strangely realistic, dare we say surrealistic, depicting a scene of nature’s retaliation against our domination – and their pace is perhaps more steady and deliberate.

brooklyn-street-art-maxx242-jason-wilder-wall-therapy2015-4-web

Maxx242. Process shot. Wall Therapy 2015. (photo © Jason Wilder/Courtesy Wall Therapy)

Another outer-worldly battle is taking place between monsters and robots in the blockbuster piece by Rochester-based artists Joe Guy Allard and Matthew Robers, while also-local Brittany Williams is knocking out her first-ever mural, a portrayal of a woman blossoming in heart and mind on the streets of Rochacha.

brooklyn-street-art-brittany-williams-jenn-poggi-wall-therapy2015-4-web

Brittany Williams. Process shot. Wall Therapy 2015. (photo © Jenn Poggi/Courtesy Wall Therapy)

Regardless of how late they stay working, nobody really wants to skip dinner at The Yards, the collaborative arts space where most artists check in as a home base and where they actually get to hang out instead of being spread out. Friday night the party starts a little earlier so hopefully they’ll be able to break from the painting and come out to the BSA Film Friday at 5 pm on University of Rochester campus with us.

By then we’ll probably see Vexta’s vibrant, colorful textures have and blinkering diamond field fully anchor her masked woman, but no one is yet predicting what the Brazilian Eder Muniz will do on his arrival – but most predict is will be colorful, surreal, and fantastic.

brooklyn-street-art-nevercrew-jenn-poggi-wall-therapy2015-4-web

Never Crew. Process shot. Wall Therapy 2015. (photo © Jenn Poggi/Courtesy Wall Therapy)

brooklyn-street-art-onur-wes21-mark-deff-wall-therapy2015-4-web

Wes21. Process shot. Wall Therapy 2015. (photo © @MarkDeffPhoto/Courtesy Wall Therapy)

brooklyn-street-art-onur-wes21-jenn-poggi-wall-therapy2015-4-web

Onur and Wes21 burning that midnight oil. Process shot. Wall Therapy 2015. (photo © Jenn Poggi/Courtesy Wall Therapy)

brooklyn-street-art-onur-wes21-jason-wilder-wall-therapy2015-4-web

Onur . Wes21. Taking the long view to get some perspective of the wall in progress. Wall Therapy 2015. (photo © Jason Wilder/Courtesy Wall Therapy)

brooklyn-street-art-andreas-jenn-poggi-wall-therapy2015-4-web

Andreas Englund. Process shot of a superhuman not unlike the artist. Wall Therapy 2015. (photo © Jenn Poggi/Courtesy Wall Therapy)

brooklyn-street-art-andreas-mark-deff-wall-therapy2015-4-web

Andreas Englund. Process shot. Wall Therapy 2015. (photo © @MarkDeffPhoto/Courtesy Wall Therapy)

brooklyn-street-art-li-hill-jason-wilder-wall-therapy2015-4-web

Li-Hill. Process shot. Wall Therapy 2015. (photo © Jason Wilder/Courtesy Wall Therapy)

brooklyn-street-art-li-hill-mark-deff-wall-therapy2015-4-web

Li-Hill. Process shot. Wall Therapy 2015. (photo © @MarkDeffPhoto/Courtesy Wall Therapy)

brooklyn-street-art-vexta-mark-deff-wall-therapy2015-4-web

Vexta. Process shot. Wall Therapy 2015. (photo © @MarkDeffPhoto/Courtesy Wall Therapy)

 

For wall locations, schedule of events and further details about Wall Therapy 2015 Rochester click HERE

 

<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA
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!
<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA

 

Read more