No Free Walls Documentary

A few months ago I was given the chance to comment on the visual gentrification that has been transforming Bushwick for some years for a documentary called No Free Walls that just came out. In addition to the on camera interview, I did a little phone conversation a few days ago for the Complex website. Take a look below. 

Watch the full documentary [HERE] Read the whole interview [HERE]

In Bushwick, Street Art Comes with a Copious Side of Advertising Billboards

Everyone asked for comment in this article, including myself have something interesting to say. On a compete side note, I wish writers would let you know that they may quote entire sections of your emails verbatim. I always assume they will integrate your ideas into a story and so often whatever grammatically deficient gibberish i spew out in an email on the plane home from Germany ends up as a quote. :)

VIA: Hyperallerigic

A Bushwick Collective mural by Joe Iurato at Troutman Street and St Nicholas Avenue with a large Coors billboard in the background. (photo by Joe Iurato, courtesy the artist)

The latest additions to the Bushwick Collective, the street art project founded and curated by Joe Ficalora around the intersection of Troutman Street and St Nicholas Avenue in Brooklyn, are a number of big, garish billboards. Since artists began transforming warehouse walls in the area with large-scale murals three years ago, there has been remarkably little infringement by the type of advertisements and hand-painted billboards that have overtaken many popular street art spots in Williamsburg and Greenpoint. But in recent weeks, as Bushwick Daily has pointed out, advertisements have begun appearing on the Bushwick Collective blocks, some of them installed directly atop existing murals. More [HERE]

A Conference Considers the Philosophy of Street Art

Hrag Vartanian just interviewed Nicholas Riggle about a conference at Pratt Institute finishing up this weekend with a keynote by Allison Young. I wont be able to make it, but I highly recommend making the effort to any readers who might be in New York. In the short interview, Riggle makes an amazing point that I think relates well to this blogs thesis, and my understanding of advertisings misalignment with our goals for cities and thier public spaces. 

"The street is a cultural space, one of the essential functions of which is to promote public interaction by facilitating self-expression. That’s a function that a space can have more or less, and it’s one that a space can lose." 

Thinking about what advertising does to our shared public environment in relation to this quote, it becomes pretty clear that a fully functioning public space cannot be one that includes commercial messaging. 

VIA: Hyperallergic

Today, a three-day conference titled Philosophy of Street Art: Art in and of the Street begins at Pratt Institute and New York University. Organized by Gregg Horowitz of Pratt, Nicholas Riggle of Lafayette College, and Christy Mag Uidhir of the University of Houston, the event will feature an artist panel (with Leon Reid IV, HOTTEA, ELBOW-TOE, and Tatyana Fazlalizadeh), two days of papers and discussions, and a keynote lecture by a leading authority on the topic, Alison Young of the University of Melbourne, who will speak about “Mainstreaming the Street: The Cultural Value of Illicit Street Art." Read the full interview [HERE]

If We Are Confessing Our Sins, I Stole This Image

I was reading through my favorite magazine, Cabinet, when I stumbled across the above image of a nun. I don't know what prompted me to do so, but I pulled out my phone, snapped a blurry picture and it ended up getting printed. I leave it to you on this Sunday afternoon to determine what the extent of my sins are.

Ron English Bus Shelter Work in Brooklyn and Manhattan

Ron English is an old staple in the ad takeover world and here are two recent images of Bus Shelter takeovers in NYC. Enjoy!

Art attacked! State park cops reuglify DUMBO building

VIA The Brooklyn Paper By Emilia Brock
"An evolution-themed artwork that beautified an ugly scaffolding was ripped down by state officials who claimed the artists did their public service without permission." [More Here]