Everyone agrees New York is hot this summer—oppressively so—until, suddenly, there’s a breeze, a clear sky, and you exhale. Let’s go for a walk. How much of what is seen is real? How much is perception? How much is projection? Hard to say. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s all part of the picture.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week including Couch, D30, Dopamine, Homesick, Jappy Agoncillo, Kam S. Art, KEG, Nekst (tribute), RatchiNYC, Sefu, SMLZ, Sower Kerd, Wild West, and Zoot.
Known for his emotionally resonant paste-ups, Bifido has appeared on Brooklyn Street Art numerous times over the years. Based in Naples, he is celebrated for using photography to explore youth, vulnerability, and psychological tension. Children and teenagers are his recurring subjects, and his work often channels a personal, autobiographical undercurrent: “I am drawn to the anxieties, melancholy, expectations, fragilities, and turmoil of that age in relation to society and its absurd rules.”
BSA: Your poster flips the acronym DEI from a framework for equity into a confrontation with authoritarian ego. In a list of topics to address, what gave you the spark for this specific artwork?
Shepard Fairey: Of course, the verbal assault on the DEI programs at colleges and corporations infuriated me, but it became something more serious when Trump began to rescind funding to colleges and deny contracts to companies with DEI programs. I think Trump attacks DEI because he associates it with “woke” people who don’t support him. The bottom line is that Trump rewards those who stroke his ego and punishes those who don’t. Having someone that shallow and petty influence policies that impact millions is incredibly dangerous. In my original post, I laid out the definitions of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion because they are concepts that are pretty hard for a rational, fair-minded person to disagree with.
On the walls and rooftops, there’s a different story unfolding. Some have observed that graffiti writers whose names once seemed fossilized in memory or confined to old flicks and zines—have been spotted again, dropping clean throwies and sharp tags on buffed surfaces from Bushwick to the Bowery. You’ll be biking past an auto-body shop or abandoned roll gate and do a double-take: Was that fresh?
Here’s a glimpse of NYC graffiti, street art, and murals captured in Red Hook, Gowanus, Bushwick…in this week’s survey, including Chris RWK, DeGrupo, Espo, EXR, Humble, Ian Cinco, John Echo, Manuel Alejandro, Mdot, MSK Kings, Qzar, Red Rum, Rime, Sharpy, Tess, and Zimer.
Nestled just outside Barcelona, Sant Andreu de la Barca hosted the first-ever Kromatic Festival, a bold venture in large-scale street art that ran from June 3 to June 23, 2025 — transforming municipal walls into immersive murals and hopefully igniting community dialogue.
This inaugural edition featured seven expansive murals, each selected through a mix of curated invitations and an open-call process, under the artistic direction of Rebobinart in partnership with the Ajuntament de Sant Andreu de la Barca and support from the Generalitat de Catalunya.
The LOVE LETTERS TO THE CITY exhibition at Berlin’s Urban Nation Museum continues to evolve, provoke, and inspire—inviting new eyes and fresh conversations nearly a year since its debut. Curated by Michelle Houston, the show features over 50 artists from Berlin and around the globe, each offering their own “letter” to the city in the form of street art, sculpture, video, photography, and installation.
The echos of Saturday night stereo is pounding in our memories with the adorable Atlanta hedonism of Bunna Summa and the swooning Puerto Rican charms of suavicito Bad Bunny. Vices and voices lilt through the neighborhood at night; a humidity induced dream that confirms we are all “New Yol” now.
Yes, the world feels upside down—truths twisted, systems slipping, war drums on many fronts—but for now it’s summer in Brooklyn, and we’re still in love. So let’s take our time… dance in the streets, drift across rooftops, wander the train tracks. Let the city hold us a little longer.
Here’s a glimpse of NYC graffiti, street art, and murals captured in this week’s survey, including Below Key, Ed Roth, EXR, Fumero, ICU463, Klepo One, Luch, Never Satisfied, Nick Walker, Sonni, TQRY, and Wizard Skull.
For three days in early June, the streets of Mollet del Vallès echoed with the clatter of ladders, the hiss of spray cans, and the upbeat pulse of DJs and market stalls. Artists from across Spain and beyond—including Laia, Uriginal, Sfhir, Lily Brik, Digo.Art, and Zurik—brought their visions to life on walls around the city, turning otherwise ordinary facades into large-scale, camera-ready installations. At first glance, the scene resembled the familiar format of the community-driven mural festivals that have blossomed across Europe over the past two decades.
The catalogue Writing the Future: Basquiat and the Hip-Hop Generation, accompanying the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston exhibition, is as multifaceted and dynamic as its subject. Edited by Liz Munsell and Greg Tate, this robust volume unravels the layers of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s artistic world and his role within a transformative cultural era. It positions Basquiat not just as an individual artist but as a pivotal figure in a constellation of intersecting movements reshaping art, music, and performance in 1970s and 1980s New York City.
Back in the city, stoop sales and block parties occupy the streets, murals are going up, and conversations drift between the Fourth of July Subway Series games with the Mets and Yankees, the newly approved rent-control rate hikes, and the eye-popping sums raised by the city’s elite to defeat the Socialist Democrat currently leading the mayoral race.
Here’s a glimpse of the latest graffiti, street art, and murals captured in this week’s survey, including Aida Miro, Frankie Botz, Humble, Juliana Ruiz, Kong Savage, Lao Art, Lina Montoya, Minhafofa, MSK Crew, Musicoby, OSK, Paolo Tolention, Phetus88, Pixote, Qzar, Rambo, Sonni, Steve Sie, Tess, and Zoot.
Ten summers later, the Cvta Street Fest in Civitacampomarano is still a stubborn bonfire in Molise that refuses to extinguish—exactly the kind of smoldering ruin that draws Elfo like a moth with a paint roller. The village, half-abandoned and sliding gently into the weeds, gives him a ready-made stage set: crumbling stucco, porous stone, and few humans around to complain if the punch line lands a little hard. Perfect. Elfo, the “ever-clever minimalist” who prefers snappy text to splashy figuration, once again proves that a few uneven letters can shout louder than a ten-story portrait.
Bordalo II 2011 – 2017 is an essential document of the Lisbon-based artist’s transformative approach to street art, sculpture, and environmental activism. Published in conjunction with his massive solo exhibition ATTERO in Lisbon, the book chronicles six years of Bordalo II’s relentless exploration of waste as both material and message. Known for his large-scale animal sculptures crafted from discarded objects, Bordalo II turns industrial, commercial, and consumer debris into expressive works that challenge the culture of overconsumption.
Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani clinched the Democratic nomination here this week after defeating former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, possibly igniting a polarized reaction across NYC politics. Hm, wonder if anyone will mention his religion in the next few months. What do you think? But, de facto, he’s going to be the next mayor – unless Bloomberg wants to blow more money before the November election.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Andre Trenier, Dirt Cobain, Drones, Dzel, Fear Art, Jappy Agoncillo, Jason Naylor, Jeff Rose, Kam S. Art, Manik, Modomatic, Par, Riot, Senisa, Tom Bob, Werds, and Zimer.
The new exhibition Terra Forma from Saman and Sasan Oskouei at IRL Gallery is a quiet storm—an atmospheric meditation on fragility, formation, and the traces of life left behind as nature and industry brush against one another. The brothers don’t shout their critique; it would be folly. Instead, they whisper it across surfaces that suggest ancient terrain, marginalized neighborhoods, and the factory floor—a cross-current of poetics and rusted precision.
At the corner of Primorska 3 in Novi Sad, where vendors at an informal NAJLON PIJACA flea market lay out used clothes and household items on the pavement, a new mural has appeared. It shows a burning crown, painted directly onto a low wall beside the rag-tag but prim market. The work is by French-German artist MTO, known for his precise technique and sharp social commentary.
This week, we mark the passing of Brooklyn-born photographer Marcia Resnick, whose camera cut through the cultural chaos of late 1970s and early 1980s New York punk subculture with clarity, bite, and precision. She wasn’t just in the room—Resnick was part of the scene. Her black-and-whites told the truth, or at least a version of it that compelled you. She caught peacocks like Andy Warhol, Mick Jagger, and Stiv Bators when nightlife was a contact sport and celebrity was going through a re-evaluation. Gritty or mundane, she captured pockets of the city—Mudd Club, CBGB—where the Ramones, Talking Heads, and Bad Brains blew out the walls and made mockery of mainstream.
Here is our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Branded Art, Elena Ohlander, INEPT, Karat, RIPE143, Rita Flores, Tones One, Trek6, and Yalus.
Everybody’s proud of their neighborhood, and even though Bushwick continues to change, become more unaffordable, a little suburban, and sometimes feels like it is erasing the hardworking community that made it great, it takes a block party like this to remind you about what Bushwick is. Shout out to Joe and his family and team for incorporating the graffiti heads into the mix and allowing street art and graffiti to coexist in a way many predicted would be impossible; a truly unique collection of artists, styles, disciplines, inspirations, and themes.
In art and culture news, the Trump administration has proposed eliminating federal funding for NPR, PBS, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, with the House approving a $1.1 billion rescission that is now headed to the Senate. Simultaneously, over 500 arts grants from the National Endowment for the Arts have been revoked—especially those tied to DEI or LGBTQ+ themes—and the 2026 budget proposes dismantling the NEA entirely.
Here is our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Adam Fujita, Bonut, Drew, Duster, Four Star, Great Boxers, Hef, JJ Veronis, KAM, Kristy McCarthy, LNE Crew, Nite Owl, Seaizing, and SHC.
In a decisive nod to the city that shaped him, legendary graffiti artist DAZE (Chris Ellis) has unveiled two new large-scale murals at 550 Madison Avenue, transforming the building’s soaring street-level space into a canvas that bridges worlds. Painted live in public view, these works are part of “Above Ground Midtown: MCNY x DAZE.” With their vibrant forms, layered textures, and intuitive energy, DAZE’s murals draw from the pulse of New York City, the geometry of Philip Johnson’s iconic building design, and the surrounding garden oasis that gently appears in midtown Manhattan.
On the mural front, the Block Party again transformed Troutman Street into a living gallery. This year’s visiting muralists included Sef1, Contrabandre, Huetek, Gigstar & Minus One, Tymon de Laat, Ashley Hodder, and Enzo a psychotropic summer stew that again sampled from acrss the graffiti and street art spectrum.
It was a weekend where paint met poetry, beats met brushstrokes, and each corner of Bushwick told a fresh story. We hope these images capture the creative dialogue that unfolded. Stay tuned for Part II, where we continue to explore more of this year’s murals and moments.
This week in break-up news, the U.S. President and the Twitter tycoon who would be king took their grievances public, trading jabs on social media in a battle to tarnish each other’s image. Each was presumably trying to damage the other’s perception in the public eye, although that hardly seemed necessary. As George Clooney’s Edward R. Murrow put it last night, live on Broadway and live broadcasted on network television: ‘Good night, and good luck.’ As ever, it’s more about control and good money than anything else. It makes you wonder if either one of these guys could be sworn in as president in January ’29. Has a certain ring to it, no?
And here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring 2DX, Adam Fu, Atomiko, Below Key, Chris Haven, EXR, HEFS, Jason Haaf, Quaker Pirate, Scoote LaForge, Tom Bob, and Werds.
It was during this fertile moment, when early graffiti writers were claiming walls and conceptual artists were transforming the urban landscape, that Masao Gozu began his own quiet, obsessive project in New York.
During the Pleistocene 1970s and 80s, New York street art culture coalesced into a variegated art form. What began with simple tags ended with museum exhibitions. In the early 80s, when East Village street artists were painting and posting on derelict buildings, Masao Gozu was disassembling them and reconstructing them into monuments. I first met Gozu when I was the artistic director of Howl Happening: An Arturo Vega project. We mounted his exhibition Timeframe in the Fall of 2017. I was awestruck by his all-encompassing quasi-spiritual devotion to his work. Piece by piece he dismantled abandoned buildings. Piece by piece he methodically rebuilt them in his studio. In disassembling and reassembling a puzzle of bricks, he was in search of a fleeting moment in time. His work is not street art, rather art made with the streets.
After a landmark debut in Brooklyn in 2023, the Tag Conference returns to New York City this June with sharpened purpose. Hosted at the Museum of the City of New York — where Above Ground: Art from the Martin Wong Graffiti Collection currently holds court — this year’s program centers on legacy: specifically, the lasting influence of writers who’ve passed, but whose marks, names, and styles helped shape graffiti as a global culture.
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! Love you to the moon, June!
In New York yesterday, gamers marked the launch of the city’s first annual Video Game Festival, where esports battles, indie demos, and retro arcades spilled into real life like the final boss stage. With its mashup of pixel nostalgia and future-forward tech, the festival echoed the spirit of underground subcultures — not unlike street art — where DIY worlds are built, rules are rewritten, and creativity levels up with every move.
At BEYOND THE STREETS, curator and publisher Roger Gastman sat down with graffiti artist RIME for an intimate conversation and book signing highlighting RIME’s raw, unfiltered sketchbook—a personal and psychedelic blend of graffiti, visual journaling, and spiritual reflection created entirely in pen during his travels across the U.S.
And here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Below Key, Blanco, Bisser, Danilo Parrales, Detor, Gouch NKC, Gregos, Kosuke James, MSG Crew, Nite Owl, Nito, Skewville, Tom Bob, Turtle Caps, Zero Productivity, Zoot, and ZUI.
Interview with Doug Gillen | Video Feature from Fifth Wall TV
Ghosts of concrete modernism and whispered nostalgia drift through “The Morning Will Change Everything,” the first solo museum exhibition by Spanish artist Sebas Velasco, now on view at the History Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo. In this new video interview, filmmaker and art observer Doug Gillen sits down with Velasco to unpack the layers of emotional and political weight carried in these oil-painted nocturnes—each a meditation on memory, architecture, and the complex afterglow of Yugoslavia’s post-socialist present.
The streets of Bushwick, Brooklyn right now are one sprawling open-air studio—artists from around the world balanced on cherry pickers, ladders, and step stools, bending brushes, tilting rollers, and waving aerosol cans like conductors directing an urban symphony of color. Thick lines, fine mists, reflections, textures, letterforms in every handstyle—they’re building volume and vibe, layering stories and style one gesture at a time.
Since transforming this once Dutch “town in the woods” into a global destination for graffiti and street art over a decade ago, Joe Ficalora has brought hundreds—more likely thousands—of pieces to these Brooklyn walls. A working-class, heavily industrial neighborhood with a strong immigrant presence for the last century, the new neighbors may not always understand the street culture that this movement grew from – often arriving with a whiff of suburban sensibility, but let’s be honest—they wouldn’t be here if the Bushwick Collective hadn’t turned the place into a magnet.
And yet, the Banksy machine rolls on. At this point, there may be more Banksy museums than Starbucks — none sanctioned by the artist, of course, but still packing in the crowds. There’s The Banksy Museum in NYC, The World of Banksy in Paris, Museu Banksy in Barcelona and Madrid, and the touring Art of Banksy show, rolling through Jakarta, Melbourne, and Vancouver. It’s a brand now — maybe not quite as big as Mickey Mouse, but it’s definitely what cultural tourists reach for when they want a little edge with their museum day. What this says about the artist, the audience, or the architecture of commodified rebellion… you draw your own conclusions.
So here’s some of this week’s visual conversation from the street, including works from Shin, Crash One, GO, Ham, Hasp, Homesick, IMK, Jeff Henriquez, Mike King, Nela, Piggie the Pig, Queen Andrea, Stesi, Wetiko, Wild West, and Zimer.
In the evolving global dialogue of street art, it’s not often that two hemispheres collide with this much color, conviction, and cultural force. This summer in Amsterdam, STRAAT Museum hosts a rare and vital encounter: a comingling of Brazilian street expression in two distinct but interconnected exhibitions — Pixação: Resistance and Rebellion and NaLata X STRAAT. It is a vivid, timely lens on one of the world’s most influential street art cultures, bringing political urgency, spiritual depth, and unfiltered humanity into focus.
Inside, four artists — Specter, Rene, CASH4, and ITIN — served up a visual demolition of American currency and its cultural metaphors. It wasn’t bitter, but it wasn’t sweet. Like the Williamsburg of old, before the glass condos, this was salty, smart, funny, blunt. No manifestos on the wall, just wry, sharp-tongued critique told in paper pulp, paint, and political memory.
The anchor piece? Gabriel Specter’s massive currency-redesigned The State of America. A redux of the reverse of a dollar bill — if it had lived through January 6. The Capitol dome smokes like a symbol under siege, while foregrounded rioters pose in shades of government green. It’s beautifully executed, deeply personal, and visibly furious — a portrait of patriotism cracked in half.
On New York walls right now, you’ll spot a mix of collage-style cut-and-paste work, aerosol rendered full fantasy – and a surge in vertical graffiti done while hanging from ropes. This high-risk approach echoes Brazil’s Pixação scene, where writers have been scaling buildings since the ’80s to get their monikers out there running north to south; a technique later amplified by crews like 1UP and Berlin Kidz in Europe. Now, numbers of New York graffiti writers are embracing this daring vertical style — a radical shift that some see clearly, while others barely register. Across styles and mediums, there often appears a recurring presence of scarlet, crimson, rose, magenta, purple, pink, and fuchsia. These grab attention an resonate at deeper undercurrents — power, sacrifice, passion, and perhaps even the stirrings of revolution.
Here are some images from this week’s visual conversation from the street, including works from Werds, Humble, EXR, Great Boxers, Dzel, Meres One, Go, Man in the Box, DK, Luch, 1440, Fridge, El Souls, Natural Eyes, Lisart, Ilato, YOSE, Miki Yamato, HypaArtCombo, Senator Toadius Maximus, HOH22, Hound, Mr. Must Art, Lucia Dutazaka, and Tess.
Hamburg-based street artist Lapiz has brought his sharp wit and political edge to Berlin with a new stencil mural for the Urban Canvas Parkhaus Wedding project, curated by Emily Strange and Liebe zur Kunst. Painted on the concrete wall of a parking garage, the piece shows a sleek modern car towing a rickety wooden cart packed with what appear as indigenous figures, soldiers, riot police, an endangered pink flamingo. It’s a wry take on what Lapiz sees as the illusion of our progress: technology moves forward, but systemic problems like inequality, militarism, and overconsumption keep tagging along.
SaveArtSpace marks its 10th anniversary with The People’s Art, a sweeping public art initiative and gallery exhibition that brings together some of the most urgent and incisive voices in contemporary art. Curated by an influential panel of curators and cultural leaders grounded in the study of graffiti, street art, and public art — Anne-Laure Lemaitre, RJ Rushmore, Zahra Sherzad, Steven P. Harrington and Jaime Rojo, and Travis Rix — this year’s exhibition takes the streets of New York City as its canvas and its airwaves as amplifier. Selected from a competitive open call that drew nearly 500 artists from across the country, the final group includes over 50 creators whose work explores money, power, and the poetic disruptions of public space.
So here’s some of this week’s visual conversation from the street, including works from Homesick, Gabriel Specter, Clint Mario, Werds, IMK, EXR, Jorit, Wild West, JEMZ, Ribs, Diva, Ellena Lourens, APE, NOEVE, ENEKKO, Rene, Happy, Disoh, Peuf, and Off Key.
Street art, food, and antifascist activism collided on the walls of Verona – and we’re back for seconds. In Part I, we witnessed how local hero CIBO and a crew of international street artists turned hate-fueled graffiti into gourmet-inspired murals, reclaiming public space with humor and heart. Now, welcome to Part II of “Best Before. Street Art Against a Rancid Future,” where we dive even deeper into this unique festival of creative resistance. Here we have more exclusive Martha Cooper shots of the artists in action. Grab a slice of pizza and join us as we continue the tour of Verona’s transformed walls, proving that even the most bitter messages can be remixed into something surprisingly sweet.
Verona, Italy—known for Romeo and Juliet—is now also home to a very different kind of love story: one between food, public space, and antifascist resistance. At the center is CIBO, a street artist whose name literally means “food,” and who has made a career of turning hate speech into visual comfort food. His murals cover neo-fascist graffiti with pizza slices, cheesecakes, and bundles of asparagus, using humor and everyday symbols to defuse toxic ideology.
From the street, the studio, the museum, and the stage, leading an inquisitive global conversation on street art, graffiti, and contemporary urban art 2008-2025 If you have a friend to add to this mailing list, drop us a line at news@brooklynstreetart.com. Thanks!
WELCOME! Hello BSA Friends! Striking images, background stories, and long-winded observations about the streets worldwide. We've been busy. Enjoy! BSA Images Of The Week: 07.27.25 Everyone agrees New York is hot this summer—oppressively so—until, suddenly, there’s a breeze, a clear sky, and you exhale. Let’s go for a walk. How much of what is seen is real? How much is perception? How much is projection? Hard to say. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s all part of the picture. Here’s our...
WELCOME! Hello BSA Friends! Striking images, background stories, and long-winded observations about the streets worldwide. We've been busy. Enjoy! BSA Images Of The Week: 05.04.25 We The People. This mural has been on this spot for years now. We have published it on these pages before. We were happy to see it still running, so we took another photo and publish it again. These are the first three words in the United States Constitution. These words carry a powerful message. “We The People”...
WELCOME! Hello BSA Friends! Here's our eclectic mix of striking images, background stories, and pithy non-sequitor observations from the streets worldwide. We've been busy. Enjoy! BSA Images of the Week 3.16.25 In NYC news, a new exhibition celebrates the 20th anniversary of those orange fluttering “gates” one winter in Central Park. Christo and Jeanne-Claude: The Gates and Unrealized Projects for New York City at The Shed is an immersive exhibition that includes an augmented reality...
