Street Art: Bushwick’s Renewable Resource
Street art is pasted and painted all over the industrial areas of Bushwick. — Photos by Jessi Bautista
Walking around the industrial areas of Bushwick, it’s stranger to see a freshly painted facade than one covered in wheatpasting. The variety of posters, murals, and spray-painted images adds a certain uniqueness to the neighborhood; it contrasts with the often barren, concrete landscape. And for each disintegrating poster, a new work of art seems to crop up in its place, forming an ever-changing public exhibition featuring some of the most interesting and original artists working today.
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Almost every street has something different to offer. The buildings lining Bogart Street and Morgan Avenue are cluttered with work by such artists as Dain, C215, UFO, Smilee, Hellbent, Peru Ana Ana Peru, and Mike Marcus. Head down Varet Street for a paint and newspaper collage woman by FKDL, or go to Cook Street to see Bloke’s staple painting resembling a blimp affixed with surveillance equipment. Flushing Avenue boasts a beautifully colored Swoon wheatpaste next to a large, patterned Stikman.
Smaller side streets are not to be missed though, and absent-minded wandering can be one of the best ways to see new and interesting stencils and pasting. Other artists like Chris Stain, Gaia, JM Rizzi, Celso, Imminent Disaster, Robots Will Kill, Faile, Cake, Flying Fortress, Judith Supine, and more can be found throughout the neighborhood.
Keep an eye out, and don’t be too surprised when the same images you see on your way to work in the morning are up for sale in galleries like Ad Hoc Art and Factory Fresh.
lovely slide show, Jessi – you could do this every other month and have completely new work to photograph.
welldone!
Thanks so much. It is crazy how quickly the streets change.
http://www.streetartblows.com
I really like that Street Art Blows is out there telling it like it is – “Street art blows. That’s basically what it comes down to. It’s sad because as a medium it has so many possibilities, and while everyone is doing it, almost no one is doing it well. What’s more, no one is calling the shit brown.”
That swoon piece is on Franklino in Crown Heights/Crow Hill.
So Dresden I got an idea why not do it “right” rather than heap negativity on people.
It’s an intelligent dialogue, well-written and definitely has a right to exist. I don’t run streetartblows.com – and I didn’t invent anything new – the fact is, the only reason street art is as popular as it is is because it’s on the street and it’s illegal to put it up. I don’t think being intelligent and critical is heaping anything on anyone. If they create it, we can critique it….
For instance, they throw it in our faces. I don’t remember being given a choice in the matter between clean, glistening city walls and decaying paper rotting on buildings…
Or being asked to really consider the validity of DICKCHICKEN.
Dresden: nobody has ever said dickchicken is good. So please leave that out of any argument you’re trying to make (or that you’re letting streetartblows.com make for you).
Art is art – every piece is not for every person. Casting off anything painted on the streets as shit is lazy.
dickchicken does not equal RWK.
Bloke does not equal Barry McGee.
Street art is popular because a lot of people like it — a lot of people who may never even set foot inside a gallery. So get over yourself and accept the fact that many a person is going to have differing tastes. That’s kinda what makes art art.
That’s fine Johnson Johnson, agreed. What many people see as inner-city folk art, I consider to be the Bloods and the Crypts vying for terroritory. Whatever argument I’m making is simply – street art shouldn’t be loved for the sake of itself.
“the only reason street art is as popular as it is is because it’s on the street and it’s illegal to put it up” – that is a load of preposterous horse-feather. Street artist leave their work in the gutter out of a great desire to share their art with the public. Also, many street artists are former and current graffiti writers so I would imagine they don’t have the same reservations that an artist who doesn’t have that kind of background would have about hanging their work in public illegally.
B**** – out of interest, would you describe the “great desire to share their art with the public” a bit attention-whoring? Self-absorbed? And most-importantly, an infringement on property owner’s?
This is a very interesting discussion for me – and I don’t want to sound dissident at all – or “shitting” on anyone. The first ammendment has been used in the past, however it is a flimsy argument, at best. I believe Poster Boy even said “slavery was illegal once” which really is an interesting perspective (because it’s so completely divorced from reality – slavery and being arrested for defacement of MTA advertisements being pretty unrelated).
I’m guessing the urban street scene does benefit from the art itself, because I think some of it looks pretty cool and all together it sort of makes a good aesthetic – however, taken alone most of it really isn’t very good as a craft. It’s like kindergarten kids scribbling on rocks compared to what professional artists create. Expression is very different from art – the difference is talent.
Dresden, This is an old debate. I think that – as is the case with every other art form – there is good, bad and ugly street art. Some of it is simply amazing.
As a property owner, though, I want to keep my building clean and grafitti free. Nevertheless I believe that there is a place for street art and that is in derelict buildings or unkept industrial areas – as long as the owners don’t complain.