© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Photos

Photography gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
Music on our iPod: Amy Winehouse - "Rehab"
Kick on our feet: Puma "Easy Rider"

© Ivan Corsa Photo - Street Art Photos

Photography gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
Music on our iPod: Amy Winehouse - "Rehab"
Kick on our feet: Puma "Easy Rider"

Stickers, graff, a wheat-pasty image of a Flava' Flav doppelganger and an octopus by Lower East Side artist Marco. Love it, mate.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Keane - "Nothing in My Way"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Marun"

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Keane - "Nothing in My Way"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Marun"

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Keane - "Nothing in My Way"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Marun"

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Mando Diao - "Before Rock and Roll"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Marun"

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Mando Diao - "Before Rock and Roll"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Marun"

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Mando Diao - "Before Rock and Roll"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Marun"

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Mando Diao - "Before Rock and Roll"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Marun"

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: The Rakes - "22 Grand Job"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Marun"

Awesome graf truck -- one of the best we've ever seen in this downtown neighborhood in the past year or so.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Mando Diao - "Before Rock ad Roll"
Kicks on our feet: Vans "Plaid" Slip-ons

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Kanye West - "Drive Slow"
Kicks on our feet: Vans "Plaid" Slip-ons

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Kanye West - "Drive Slow"
Kicks on our feet: Vans "Plaid" Slip-ons

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Amy Winehouse- "Rehab"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Marun" Original Sneakers

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Babyshambles - "Pipedown"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Beckenbauer" Sneakers

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Babyshambles - "Pipedown"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Beckenbauer" Sneakers

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Babyshambles - "Pipedown"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Beckenbauer" Sneakers

This popular graf spot in an abandoned downtown NYC lot has been heating up with new ups recently like "DaysFares" above. There a "Pigs Crew" tag embedded in the initial "D," but we haven't seen their tags before. This is a massive up, and this location at East 1st St. and 2nd Avenue, in the East Village, has the kind of space required for large scale graf and street art. The lot is on the corner of a block that was one of the last undeveloped stretches of Lower Manhattan and full of aerosol art and paste-ups. Now, several massive luxury condo buildings have sprung up on the block. It's only a matter of time before this spot is occupied by a new real estate development and huge tags like "DaysFares" are hidden behind brick and mortar.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Here's the detail shot of the "DaysFares" tag by "Pigs Crew" at East 1st St. and 2nd Avenue, in the East Village, NYC.

Ivan Corsa Photo

"A. Charles" is a New York City graffiti artist whose work can be found all over the metro area, but mostly in lower Manahattan. The artist has produced graffiti artwork on commision, as in this example, a massive garage-door mural at the Abetta auto-repair shop on East 1st Street in the East Village.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Here's a closer-in shot of the Abetta graf-mural by NYC street artist "A. Charles."

Background Note
"A. Charles" is a New York City graffiti artist whose work can be found all over the metro area, but mostly in lower Manahattan. The artist has produced graffiti artwork on commision, as in this example, a massive garage-door mural at the Abetta auto-repair shop on East 1st Street in the East Village.

Ivan Corsa Photo

And here's a detail shot of the graf-mural by street artist "A. Charles" at the Abettta garage in the East Village, in New York City.

Background Note
"A. Charles" is a New York City graffiti artist whose work can be found all over the metro area, but mostly in lower Manahattan. The artist has produced graffiti artwork on commision, as in this example, a massive garage-door mural at the Abetta auto-repair shop on East 1st Street in the East Village.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Here's the detail shot of "Shapes." Not your average East Village-graf, "Shapes" is a stencil-like splatter-work of red paint and sans-serif letters in all-caps. While the artistry and style is neither "wild" nor "hip-hop" by the standard of traditional techniques, this is a highly distinctive and original tag. Even though it's small, you can't miss it on East 9th Street between 2nd and 3rd avenues, a stretch of gentrified and expensive downtown Manhattan real-estate with practically zero graf but least a half-down Japanese restaurants.

Ivan Corsa Photo

And here's the wider, context shot of "Shapes."

Background Note
Not your average East Village-graf, "Shapes" is a stencil-like splatter-work of red paint and sans-serif letters in all-caps. While the artistry and style is neither "wild" nor "hip-hop" by the standard of traditional techniques, this is a highly distinctive and original tag. Even though it's small, you can't miss it on East 9th Street between 2nd and 3rd avenues, a stretch of gentrified and expensive downtown Manhattan real-estate with practically zero graf but least a half-down Japanese restaurants.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Here's a closer view of the facade of 295 Bowery and the iconic, ironic and grim skull and cell phone wheat-paste poster and skull-and-bones graf.

Background
The building pictured above no longer exists. The tenement at 295 Bowery was torn down earlier this year by Avalon Bay Partners, a real-estate investment trust, as part of their multi-building Avalon Chrystie condo development that straddles Houston St. and the Bowery on the border of the East Village and Soho. The building was a haven for lots of graf and street art, none more symbolic than that the wheat-paste poster of a skull talking into a cell phone on the facade. The 295 Bowery building had been a decrepit structure for decades, but was actually still home to a few artists who were paying extremely low rents on what had become extremely valuable real estate. The building is also known as "McGurk's Suicide Hall" because about a hundred years ago it was home to McGurk's Saloon, which was often frequented by hookers and their customers. The saloon was the scene of many suicides by desperate prostitutes looking to escape the misery of the Bowery.

Ivan Corsa Photo

The building pictured above no longer exists. The tenement at 295 Bowery was torn down earlier this year by Avalon Bay Partners, a real-estate investment trust, as part of their multi-building Avalon Chrystie condo development that straddles Houston St. and the Bowery on the border of the East Village and Soho. The building was a haven for lots of graf and street art, none more symbolic than that the wheat-paste poster of a skull talking into a cell phone on the facade. The 295 Bowery building had been a decrepit structure for decades, but was actually still home to a few artists who were paying extremely low rents on what had become extremely valuable real estate. The building is also known as "McGurk's Suicide Hall" because about a hundred years ago it was home to McGurk's Saloon, which was often frequented by hookers and their customers. The saloon was the scene of many suicides by desperate prostitutes looking to escape the misery of the Bowery.

Ivan Corsa Photo

We want to take moment to give a big shout-out to Cassidy Curtis at the Graffiti Archaeology Project. Cassidy correctly identified for the us the writer of some graf we posted about here at Global Graphica a couple of weeks ago (see BK with Skulls, East Village, NYC) . We were unable to identify the graf by "Booker" (a.k.a, "Readmore"), and at the time had speculated that the writer may have been "Beke" or "Beko." Of course, on hindsight inspection of the image, we spotted a second, unstylized tag that clearly says "Booker" in the upper right of the image. Somehow we failed to connect the dots the first time. Anyway, a big Global Graphica "Thank you" to Cassidy. If you have a second, we highly recommend you check out Cassidy's Grafarc.org website -- it's a very cool project.

Linkage
BK with Skulls, East Village, NYC [Global Graphica]
Graffiti Archaeology - Grapharc.org

Loving this "BK" tag we found behind the clump of buildings where the legendary club CBGBs is housed on the Bowery in the East Village, NYC. BK is punctuated with a couple of skulls worked into the tag. Maybe the skulls could be substitutes for actual letters. So maybe this is really "BeKe" or "BeKo." No matter. This writer has a great sense of style and technique. Find this one while you can along that decrepit, abandoned and razed stretch of E. 1st Street between Bowery and 2nd Avenue. As we post this, several recently bulldozed plots of land are being developed into fashionable, luxury apartments, condos and lofts. In New York, whether it's writin' space or living space, it all comes down to real estate.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Gear: Nikon Coolpix 3600 digital camera
On the iPod: Fiery Furnaces - "EP"
Kicks on our Feet: Adidas Y3

Here's a detail shot showing the "DRSEX" part of the larger, longer "HOLLRDRSEX" tag.

New and old examples of the "DrSex" tag can be found around downtown Manhattan, mainly on the walls of old apartment buildings and storefronts in the Lower East Side and the East Village. But usually the tag is just written as "DRSEX." Pictured here, though, is a longer moniker, "HOLLRDRSEX," as in "Holler" and "Dr Sex" perhaps? Don't know if HOLLR represents another graf writer who has collabo'd with the good Dr. for this piece of aerosol art. In any case, we don't often see tags this long in lower Manattan, as there's usually not enough blank wall space available for graf so large and elongated. This "up" is on the side of a tenement building that is adjacent to a rare empty lot at the corner of E. 1st St. and 2nd Ave. in the East Village. Dr. Sex, holla'!

Ivan Corsa Photo

... And to be fair, here's a detail shot of the "HOLLR" half of the East Village "HOLLRDRSEX" tag.

New and old examples of the "DrSex" tag can be found around downtown Manhattan, mainly on the walls of old apartment buildings and storefronts in the Lower East Side and the East Village. But usually the tag is just written as "DRSEX." Pictured here, though, is a longer moniker, "HOLLRDRSEX," as in "Holler" and "Dr Sex" perhaps? Don't know if HOLLR represents another graf writer who has collabo'd with the good Dr. for this piece of aerosol art. In any case, we don't often see tags this long in lower Manattan, as there's usually not enough blank wall space available for graf so large and elongated. This "up" is on the side of a tenement building that is adjacent to a rare empty lot at the corner of E. 1st St. and 2nd Ave. in the East Village. Dr. Sex, holla'!

Ivan Corsa Photo

New and old examples of the "DrSex" tag can be found around downtown Manhattan, mainly on the walls of old apartment buildings and storefronts in the Lower East Side and the East Village. But usually the tag is just written as "DRSEX." Pictured here, though, is a longer moniker, "HOLLRDRSEX," as in "Holler" and "Dr Sex" perhaps? Don't know if HOLLR represents another graf writer who has collabo'd with the good Dr. for this piece of aerosol art. In any case, we don't often see tags this long in lower Manattan, as there's usually not enough blank wall space available for graf so large and elongated. This "up" is on the side of a tenement building that is adjacent to a rare empty lot at the corner of E. 1st St. and 2nd Ave. in the East Village. Dr. Sex, holla'!

Ivan Corsa Photo

Here's a details of the boombox in a wheat-paste artwork by New York City artist WK Interact next to the 2nd Avenue Subway entrance at Allen and Houston streets in the Lower East Side. The neighborhood that is rapidly giving way to the development of luxury condos and apartments, as well as expensive restaurants and hotels.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Here's another awesome -- and new -- piece of wheat-paste artwork by New York City artist WK Interact. This work depicts a black-and-white life-sized dude with a classic old-school boombox (a.k.a., ghettoblaster). This artwork is next to the 2nd Avenue Subway entrance at Allen and Houston streets in the Lower East Side. WK Interact's studio and shop is on nearby Stanton Street in a diverse and creative neighborhood that is rapidly giving way to the development of luxury condos and apartments, as well as expensive restaurants and hotels.

Ivan Corsa Photo

This tag is jarring, not so much for its style or boldness or scale, but because of the moniker itself. Given current events in the U.S. and globally, the tag resonates with New Yorkers and, perhaps makes us pause to think, in a way it wouldn't have several years ago, before the events of 9/11/2005. Which, whether the intention of the writer or not, is the importance and value of art (whether or not you consider Krylon tags art).

Sneakers on are feet: Puma 5000M
Tunes in our ears: Seu Jorge "Carolina" (Mr. Bongo Records)

Ivan Corsa Photo

Another shot of the Skull tag in NYC.

Ivan G. Corsa Photo

Here's a closer look at the big, bold "Sufer" tag. Put this on a graphic tee shirt, Bathing Ape!

Ivan Corsa Photo

Found this pair of ups on a recent hot, muggy New York summer day while we were on our way from Soho to Williamsburg. (Or as a buddy out it, "from a former arty lofts nabe to an emerging arty lofts nabe.") Here's the breakdown: there's a tag by the writer "Sufer," and nearby the skull tag that lives on many walls of the East Village and Lower East Side. In the adjoining lot sits a shiny, luxury car. Nice contrast.

Notes:
On my feet when photo was taken: Lucia Nenickova "New Yorker" Sandal
On my iPod: "Dirty Harry" by Gorillaz

Ivan Corsa Photo

Here's a nice up by "Dr. Sex," whose tag is no stranger to the Lower East Side, in New York City. We found this tag on Orchard St. at Stanton on the front shutter of the popular bar and cabaret club the Slipper Room. The club was opened at the height of the dotcom boom by the founders of Razorfish, the biggest web design agency, that is, until the tech bubble burst a few years ago and the company was swallowed up in a merger. Anyway, the Irish rock band U2 filmed a music video on location at the Slipper Room a few weeks ago.

Style Notes:
Currently listening to: Iggy & the Stooges' "Search and Destroy"
Sneakers on my feet: Puma "California" (w/ Velcro strapping)

Ivan Corsa Photo

We don't know who this is. We don't know who the subject of this stencil is nor do we know the artist responsible for this work. But we like it. When we look at the person rendered in this image, we feel like we're look at some late Soviet-era East German spy hanging out in a Prague cafe waiting to meet his "secret" Czech contact. But this is the year 2005, so such a character would have shed the Cold-war look ages ago. Now he'd be clad with brand name logos -- a pair of Nike sneakers on his feet, an Izod Lacoste shirt on his back, and Diesel jeans on his legs. Go consumer culture, go!

Ivan Corsa Photo

The last in the series of life-size black-and-white wheat-paste ups by WK Interact at the corner of Chrystie and Rivington streets in the Lower East Side, in New York City.

Ivan Corsa Photo

In this detail shot, note the visible Krylon brand can of aerosol paint and the vague but indeterminate branding on the sneaker -- it could pass for the Nike "swoosh" at a glance or maybe the Puma mark.

This is yet another in series of life-size black-and-white wheat-paste ups at the corner of Chrystie and Rivington streets in the Lower East Side. The ups are by well-known New York City artist WK Interact, whose studio and shop are on Stanton Street near Ludlow, in the heart of what is now the ultra-hot real estate market for apartments and condos in the LES.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Note the downward double-arm movement of the graff writer depicted in this up, another in the recently upped series of life-size black-and-white wheat-paste ups at the corner of Chrystie and Rivington streets in the Lower East Side. The ups are by well-known New York City artist WK Interact, whose studio and shop are on Stanton Street near Ludlow, in the heart of what is now the ultra-hot real estate market for apartments and condos in the LES.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Two writers visible in this wide shot in the latest series of life-size black-and-white wheat-paste ups by well-known New York City artist WK Interact.

Ivan Corsa Photo

In this detail shot, the graf writer is on the one-knee stance. This is yet another in series of life-size black-and-white wheat-paste ups at the corner of Chrystie and Rivington streets in the Lower East Side. The ups are by well-known New York City artist WK Interact, whose studio and shop are on Stanton Street near Ludlow, in the heart of what is now the ultra-hot real estate market for apartments and condos in the LES.

Ivan Corsa Photo

One in a newly-upped series of life-size black-and-white wheat-paste ups New York City artist WK Interact.

Ivan Corsa Photo

More in a series of life-size black-and-white wheat-paste ups by well-known New York City artist WK Interact, whose studio and shop are on Stanton Street near Ludlow, in the heart of the ultra-hot real estate market for apartments and condos in the LES.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Here's a cool stencil we've seen all around downtown New York City for a long time. From Tribeca and SoHo to Chinatown and the East Village, this stencil of a Mars Rover-type vehicle is a regular reminder of NASA's mission to the mysterious red planet in the 1990's. But wait, maybe it's not supposed to be a Mars rover at all. Maybe the stencil is one of those remote control robots that are used for checking bombs. And notice the vehicle's probing, grappling arms are lifting a bag of money. Hmmm ...

Ivan Corsa Photo

Visual irony at street level: a wheat-paste paper cut-out of a van covered in graf tags. We love it. This piece of street art was found in the East Village. Wouldn't this image be cool as a graphic tee shirt? We could see someone like Nigo / A Bathing Ape or maybe Zoo York using this kind of imagery in clothing design.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Cow Parade was a major public art event to visit several foreign and U.S. cities, including New York City, in the early 2000's. The project entailed the placement of hundreds or thousands of often brightly painted life-size models of cows, each decorated by an artist. This cow was placed in the front garden area of a converted East Village townhouse apartment building.

Ivan Corsa Photo

If you're not looking carefully, you might easily miss this stencil as you're walking by it on the street because this work is really small. In that way and in the utter simplicity of it -- a man's head --this stencil is a subtle piece of street art.

Ivan Corsa Photo

New York City-based Kaws is an art star of the global street art and graf worlds. His work can be found in massive white-wall gallery exhbitions and on the street, as is the case of this black and green sticker, which looks like Kaws' take on the Michelin Man character-logo. There are books devoted to his work in several languages, and Kaws has a cult following in here and in Japan.

Ivan Corsa Photo

If it's pandas you want, then it's pandas you shall get ... at least as far as this example of stencil street art goes in lower Manhattan. The stencil genre has become ever more visible over the past four or five years, with a lot of Australian street artists leading the way and exporting the creative seed to places like New York City, Paris and Tokyo. Though stencils are not uncommon, they are still a niche-within-a-niche as far as art goes. Other forms/media of street art and graf lead the way in terms of visibility at street level.

Ivan Corsa Photo

It's hard to go wrong by employing repetition. As an aesthetic principle, showing the same image, or a slight variation of an image, in multiples and in an evenly distributed fashion, equally weighted in a grid-like pattern, is a visually compelling technique. Such patterns engage the eyes and draw the viewer in. This picture shows a group of black-and-white images of lips on wheat-pasted paper sheets on a wall. The building is on that famous downtown block that is a shrine to street art and graf, the stretch of buildings between Elizabeth and Bowery streets in Nolita.

Ivan Corsa Photo

It's a car. It's a helicopter. It's a ... "helicar"? No, wait ... it's a n "automocopter." Whatever it is, it was on the wall of a lofts building in downtown New York City. The car itself looks a lot like a tricked-out Porsche Carrera sports car or possibly a Volkswagen Beetle. But we doubt that there would be any official connection between the German automakers Porsche or VW and this graphic street art.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Pink paste-up of former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell in lower Manhattan. A couple of random notes about Powell. As this paste-up states, Powell is from the Bronx and he is a Brooklyn College grad, so in a sense he's originally a New Yorker. His son, Michael, was recently chairman of the FCC. Like many Executive branch administration officials, Colin Powell has been the target of much criticism with regards to the country's foreign policy, etc., as the message in this poster demonstrates. Question: does a paste-up on like this affect a building's property value in a real estate market like that of downtown Manhattan, which is very expensive to begin with and where the prices of lofts, condos and aprtments are currently soaring?

Ivan Corsa Photo

Walking along Prince Street in SoHo, past the the cast-iron lofts buildings, this past Wednesday evening, we spotted a major up by Gano on a truck. We've seen Gano's graf only on trucks, never on a building, and given that we've seen his moniker at least half a dozen trucks, Gano is prolific in exploring the truck medium.

Ivan Corsa Photo

This is a classic piece of large-scale street art by New York artist WK Interact, whose work is drawn in high-contrast black-and-white images that convery power and motion. This image suggest the notion of headache as experienced by a necktie-wearing office slave. A masked wrestler is tearing violently at the head the office worker. This street art is on a large garage door on a weathered industrial building. But looks can be decieving. Across the street and down the block are million-dollar condos, duplex penthouse apartments and lofts.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Another prime example of a "graf-out" on the Lower East Side of New York City. We love these things. The graf-out has its own aesthetic -- cloud-shaped blobs and swaths of gray paint on metal shutters look like abstract art.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Graf goes up, graf goes down. Or, rather, graf gets covered with a coat of paint. Often, that coat of paint is in a slightly different hue from the original color of the wall. We call these "graf-outs." Nevertheless, a mismatching of hues is the price one pays in the effort to cover up the graf. The effect of the graf-out is like that of abstract art. The above photo is a prime example of a graf-out on the Lower East Side of New York City.

Ivan Corsa

The East Village in New York City could just as handily be called "Little Tokyo" or "Japan Town" given the extraordinary number of Japanese restaurants, sushi bars and supermarkets, as well as Japanese owned-and-operated hair salons, vintage clothing shops and other establishments (from record stores to toy stores) opened and run by expats from Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya who now call New York City home. With the glut of sushi bars comes specialization, such as this Japanese fast-food chain restaurant, Teriyaki Boy, on East 10th St. The exterior design of the storefront and signage is eye-catching and demonstrates a successful use of logo-graphics and lighting elements to create an alluring storefront.

Ivan Corsa Photo