BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week.
The Pride parade comes down 5th Avenue today – a rebellious and celebratory parade that arose in the late 1960s in a hostile and oppressive political atmosphere toward LGBTQ+ people. After it became socially safe and financially profitable, corporations jumped into the parade during the 90s and 00s and pretended that they were friends of queer folks all along – while selling them shampoo and beer, or whatever else they could slap a rainbow on. With the retrogrades making war on people across the US today and many of those same corporations withdrawing their support of DEI initiatives in obedience to political winds, it is good to remember that the pride parades across the world are just not about go-go boys and drag queens; It’s simply about equal rights.
This week, we take you down the East Coast about an hour and a half south to Asbury Park, New Jersey, to see what’s happening on the boardwalk this summer. Often a good place to catch street artists who have painted murals, we also share this project from photographer Mike McLaughlin.
For decades, he has been quietly chronicling the people who give Asbury Park some of its soul. With one foot in documentary and the other in portraiture, McLaughlin has built an expansive visual record of a city that continually reinvents itself, from the music scene at Asbury Lanes to the artists, entrepreneurs, and everyday characters who animate its streets.
Below is one of his most memorable public projects, Art Lives Here, which turns the boardwalk into a gallery. Local musicians, tattooists, artists, bartenders, and other familiar faces were cast as the protagonists of celebrated paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, Johannes Vermeer, Grant Wood, Edvard Munch, René Magritte, Vincent van Gogh, Norman Rockwell, and others. The result is a playful art-history exercise – and a reminder that every city has its own living masterpieces—ordinary people whose personalities, histories, and creative energy deserve a frame as much as any museum icon.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Amberella, Anna Mraz, Ant Carver, Chelsey Luster, Dan, Gianni Lee, Hyland Mather, Mike McLaughun, and Vitale Bros.
