Author: caitlinbruce

This month is a busy one in the street art and graffiti world in Paris. Opus Délits, a group show featuring 40 street art headlines including Jef Aerosol, Miss Tic and Mosko; État des Lieux at Galerie du Jour Agnes B. featured Monsieur Qui, Ox, 36Recyclab, Sowat, Psychoze, PAL, Ludo, and Seth; and the Tour…

This morning, while editing the introduction to the dissertation and trying to thicken the dialogue in my notes about how the 1932-1934 Diego Rivera controversy at Rockefeller Center has been critically discussed, I came upon Raymie E. McKerrow’s 1983 piece, “Visions of society in discourse and art: The failed rhetoric of social realism.” The piece…

He is called the Mosaic Man, and he has been installing mosaics on the bottom of street lamps in New York City’s East Village for the past 28 years. Walking with my sister who was just talking about him last Sunday, we suddenly saw a small crowd surrounding a long-haired elderly man with a cane…

Statik Interview: Aerosol Supremacy, April 19, 2013, Howard Street Art Gallery Statik’s new show, Aerosol Supremacy opened April 19th at Howard Street Art Gallery. Statik was gracious enough to let me do an on the scene interview about his show, his artistic philosophy, and his hopes for the future. C: Can you first tell me a…

The following is the transcript of an interview with Sandia Roja and Melón before their show opening at Howard Street Gallery. The show will be up for a month so check it out as soon as you can, it is really fantastic. Thanks to the artists for being so generous with their time, and candid…

I met Juan last year when visiting León and writer perspectives on the government sponsored City of Murals program. Juan helped me translate a series of individual interviews, some of which are drawn on in my upcoming article “City of Murals: Modalities of Publicity” in the Centro Estudii Urban Art project Inopinatum. Below follows an…

Banksy is no stranger to controversy. His street art pieces, done in secrecy usually poking at issues of state domination and social inequality, such has his work on the Israel-Palestine wall, and his critique of Guantanamo Bay launched via an installation on Disney property, use simple and elegant stencils or installations through iconic figures and…

“Style Wars,” released in 1983 and directed by Tony Silver with Henry Chalfant, documents the 1970s and 1980s graffiti movement in New York City. Mapping the growth of graffiti as part of the rise of hip hop culture, the documentary also records graffiti’s contested social and legal status, interviewing Mayor Ed Koch, directors of the…

Hello 2013. It has been awhile, and intense work on getting this dissertation written has unfortunately traded off with my ability to gallavant around and just BE and observe the constantly blossoming art scene here in Chicago, and blog about. But I miss you, Chicago. And I am thinking about you. I am also recently…

Disaster imaged by a city icon under threat. In several Hollywood blockbusters key icons from New York City’s landscape are turned into detritus, attacked, or mobilized, in various circumstances. A meme floating around facebook  enthymematically gestures to a cannon of New York disaster films, including Ghost Busters II, Godzilla, and, not included, Planet of the…