Urban Art Videos – Part 7
We’re back with a new selection of urban art videos, from some of the main street art stories in 2016 to festival recaps, artist interviews and talks, recent exhibitions, projects and documentaries.
BLU in Bologna
In March 2016, BLU erased his murals in Bologna, in response to the exhibition called Street Art: Banksy & Co. – L’Arte allo Stato Urbano. An official statement regarding the artist’s decision was posted on wumingfoundation.com, linking the show to the local political context and interests.
“This street art exhibition is representative of a model of urban space that we must fight, a model based on private accumulation which commodifies life and creativity for the profits of the usual few people. After having denounced and criminalised graffiti as vandalism, after having oppressed the youth culture that created them, after having evacuated the places which functioned as laboratories for those artists, now Bologna’s powers-that-be pose as the saviours of street art. All this deserved a response. (…) Blu is erasing all the murals he painted in Bologna in the past 20 years. The people who take this action don’t accept that yet another shared asset is appropriated, they don’t want yet another enclosure and a ticket to buy.”
Photos documenting the erased murals on Positive Propaganda.
Vandalog covered the story and the first reactions within the artistic community, including the reaction of John Fekner, whose work was part of the exhibition. Hyperallergic reminded about the street art condition in Bologna and BLU’s previous censored murals, while an interesting interpretation of the artist’s action was published on e-flux. Brooklyn Street Art wrote about BLU’s decision, discussing the questions it raises – for instance, “Does the artist hold all rights to the use of the physical and aesthetic work in perpetuity, even when done illegally or in violation of ordinances without consent of a property owner or community?”. BSA also wrote about the anti-Banksy & Co. Street Art show, “opened in Bologna Italy the same night as its controversial bank-backed cousin with brand new works by 50 or so Italian and international Street Artists and open admission to their outdoor ‘museum’.”
In an #INFLVENCERS episode focused on the exhibition Street Art Banksy & Co. at the museum Palazzo Pepoli in Bologna, Good Guy Boris interviewed Luca Ciancabilla & Christian Omodeo – two of the curators of the exhibition, Adnrea Pizzi – lawyer specialised in urban art & copyrights of art, and Camillio Tarozzi – the chief restorer of BLU’s artworks. Another interview with curator Christian Omodeo was published on Widewalls.
Read more about BLU’s previous censorship cases and street art censorship in general.
Artist interventions, interviews & projects
Sean Hart – Stranges/Strangers
Schellekens & Peleman – ‘Inflatable Refugee’
“Do we see him as a human or as a problem? Is his presence an opportunity or a threat, devoid of human characteristics? Schellekens & Peleman proportionally enlarged the ‘Inflatable Refugee’ to match the extreme reactions his arrival in the Western world evoked. His size represents how we perceive him.”
An interview with Seth while the artist was preparing for his exhibition Tribute @ Geraldine Zberro Gallery in Paris. Video by Ivan Kuzmin.
eL Seed: Perception, a mural painted across 50 buildings in Manshiyat Naser, a district of Cairo, Egypt, that can only be fully seen from a nearby mountain. (via TED)
INTI in Lisbon for Underdogs Public Art Programme. A film by José Pando Lucas.
Know Hope – Abbreviated version of video diptychs from the installation ‘Parallels’ presented as part of ‘Wall Drawings – Icônes Urbaines’ @ Museum of Contemporary Art, Lyon.
“For this installation, a series of outdoor interventions were created during the artist’s stay in Lyon. The documentation of these interventions in-situ were later juxtaposed with other representations of borders or the meeting point of two separate realities, allowing a correspondence and reflection on the notions of territory, identity and our emotional structures.”
Os Gemeos about their mural in Milan:
Early Banksy interviews via Street Art News. The first video has awaken the debate about the artist’s real identity. But does it really matter? Perhaps we would learn more by listening to what he has to say and understanding his work rather than joining the media gossip.
Also read about Dismaland – a full recap of the exhibition.
Festivals, events & projects
Biancoshock: WEB 0.0, for CVTà Street Fest 2016. Video Prod: Milkshake Studio.
The Crystal Ship, Ostend, Belgium, 2016. Video by VNA Magazine & Fifth Wall TV, filmed and edited by Doug Gillen, with additional images by Henrik Haven.
Cie. Willi Dorner: Bodies in Urban Spaces @ CityLeaks Urban Art Festival Cologne. One trail, three performances, going from Wiener Platz to Carlswerk on the 19th of September 2015.
“During a stroll through Cologne-Mülheim audiences are invited to experience the city in a new way, to be surprised, irritated and inspired. How do I perceive my living space? How do I move through it? How does the interplay between Space and Body work? With the project Dorner seeks to make the audience think about those and similar questions.”
Bukruk II Urban arts festival 2016 documentary:
Vhils: Debris in Hong Kong, video co-directed by painter and cinematographer José Pando Lucas via NOWNESS. Read more about the exhibition.
Cleon Peterson – Endless Sleep, mural under the Eiffel Tower for the Nuit Blanche 2016. Video directed by Emeric Visuals.
A look back at the exhibition ANIMAL by Borondo:
Corpocracy “is the absurd reality of our society in which corporations and their interests are allowed to have dominance over the economic and political systems. Through the subversive imagination, the artist works toward a transformation of social consciousness.” The show featured 13 artists: Beehive Design Collective, Michael D’Antuono, Ron English, Clark Fox, Kenneth Tin-Kin Hung, Packard Jennings, Steve Lambert, Mark Lombardi, Eugenio Merino, Yoshua Okón, Dread Scott, Stephanie Syjuco, and Judi Werthein.
Also read our Nuart 2016 recap.
Documentaries
Wall Writers, directed and produced by Roger Gastman, is a feature-length documentary “on graffiti in its innocence, focusing on the legendary writers of 1967 – 1972. Narrated by John Waters, Wall Writers tells the story of a time when underprivileged city kids refused to keep lurking in the shadows, when the streets were so wild that fame and infamy became indistinct, when art became a democracy and self-promotion became an art.”
Saving Banksy documentary. A few thoughts about the topic on Vandalog.
Watching My Name Go By (1976) – BBC documentary
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View our previous urban art recommendations.
Featured image for the post: BLU erasing his murals in Bologna. Photo via the artist.