#problak

[sheltiechicago]

Black Artists Revitalize the Streets of Detroit With a Colorful Mural Festival

The City of Detroit’s North End just got a whole lot more colorful. And that’s all thanks to BLKOUT Walls—a mural festival led by Black artists—which launched its inaugural event back in July. Taking place over the course of a week, the festival brought a diverse group of local and visiting artists to work their magic on Detroit’s city streets. Now that all is said and done, more than 20 new murals grace the walls around the North End area, beautifying underutilized spaces throughout the neighborhood. These artworks bring with them the hopes that they will reinvigorate the district and “be the seed of an arts-based economic development, or creative economy” within the community.

Mural by Max Sansing and ProBlak for BLKOUT Walls.

Work-in-progress by Sydney G. James for BLKOUT Walls. (With assistance from Max Sansing, Ijania Cortez, Sterling Toles, Birdcap, and Detour.)

Work-in-progress by Marka27 for BLKOUT Walls.

[impermanent-art]

‘Breathe Life ToGetHer’

Showstopping work by ProblaK in downtown Boston.

[supportblackart]

Dope mural by @problak Peace family. I would like to share with you one 3 story message of many in a neighborhood I went to middle school in. With a combination of styles I wanted to #breathelife back into our neighborhoods one mural at a time. Thank everyone for their support and most of all your attention. @professorvexer this one is for you big brother. See y’all at work. Live in Love. Grow On Flow On. Www.problak.com. 📷[email protected]. 📍324 Bluehill Ave . . . #supportblackartart #problak #robgibbs #muralist #muralart #mural #justgettingstarted #grovehallmuralproject #streettheorygallery #bostonartcommission #dnd #cantstopwontstop #gncrewboston #roxburystateofmind #artistlife #roxburynative #bostonart #respecttheart (at Boston, Massachusetts)

[sheltiechicago]

Max Sansing and ProBlak

Launched in Detroit This Summer, A Black-Led Mural Festival Wants to Revitalize Neighborhoods with Public Art

Murals have long been associated with placemaking because of their unparalleled ability to transform underutilized corridors and city stretches into spaces primed for cultural gatherings, tourism, and subsequently, economic growth. This revitalizing potential is what drives a biannual festival that launched in Detroit earlier this summer as it dramatically altered the urban landscape of the city’s central North End neighborhood.

All images courtesy of BLKOUT Walls

Sentrock. Image courtesy of the artist

Rick Williams and Sydney James

Tony Whgln

[aka-xn]

The #murals of Rob Gibbs have brought a dignity to the city by reconnecting politics and empathy to public art. But while the accolades of his work include words like “powerful,” “intimate” and concepts of anger, pain and healing, for me I also deeply appreciate how he always – ALWAYS – includes grouches of humor. Many of us hold stories of survival within us. The power to persevere is a process of forgiveness, patience, and perseverance, among other qualities. And one of the “other qualities” is laughter. The power of comedy to help us heal is often overlooked or misused. I think, within his murals, Mr. Gibbs always applies whimsy it masterfully. Humans find things funny from a distance. When we have space, and look upon something from far away – whether distant in s time or literal space – it becomes more humorous. When you see someone trip from across the street it is silly, even though when it is next to us we feel concern. When we think of our past we often laugh at our own absurdity, even though it might have been Excutive in while we lived the melodrama. Distance helps us find humor. This fact of humor also works in reverse. When things are framed with a touch of satire of slapstick, our mind steps back a little. This distance is useful for more than evoking a few grins; it also opens up space to heal, to learn, and to analyze with fresh eyes. This is why @problak’s application of humor is so precious. Yes there is struggle and pain and conflict in his work. But it’s this humor that brings the challenge and charm of his pieces alive. ▫️ #madisonpark #problak #muralsforthemovement #roxbury #roxburyrenaissance #graffiti #murals #muralist #urbanart #boston #akaXN #TheRealXN (at Madison Park Technical Vocational High School) https://www.instagram.com/p/CMaN39tjpfQ/?igshid=4pxo697tcbe5

[aka-xn]

Heritage is what shapes us. By strict definition, it is comprised of the objects and spaces that influence our lives, especially the assets that help us operate in a society. Yet the term has expanded it’s meaning in #America to mean all notions passed down which inform our beliefs, morals and expressions. I like this expanded meaning. It has guided me this year, moving me into exploration of space and the objects of #heritage; my own, the nations, my communities, and others. I’ve been humbled and fascinated by is how heritage internets and recombines among us. After all, no one’s heritage is private; it’s comprised of things shared, objects handed between us, spaces occupied by many. How heritage perhaps shaped my personal beliefs in one particular way is the random part, for the same heritage would have also contributed to an entirely different perception in another. Yet whole the experiences are diverse, parts of our heritage – of what we inherit  – are common and shared. We forget that experience doesn’t have to be at all identical for us to share heritage. And maybe resolving to understand this is what will teach us to care for the imbalances of representation in our society. Maybe it is by shutting off the ego’s favorite personal beliefs for a moment at at time – the part that wants to make heritage all about myself – and instead look forensically and starkly at what we’ve inherited that we may understand which of it we share, and what responsibility we have to preserve and celebrate all of it. In the powerful murals of @problak, @gofive and other artists, I find entry. I am drawn in to understand what I owe, to embrace what shapes me, and to know that feelings of shame or remorse are as important inheritances to building community pride and social compassion. I am deeply grateful for these works, and my ability to visit them and sit with them; sometimes laugh with them, other times pause and feel. Yet always connect; always know that heritage is a shared asset; to foolishly assume heritage is private is to not value heritage at all. ▫️ #mural #publicart #problak #gofive #go5 #ita #gncrewboston #muralist #roxbury #boston #akaXN #TheRealXN (at Madison Park Technical Vocational High School) https://www.instagram.com/p/CG3AqADj6io/?igshid=g4y52v8zctlg

[aka-xn]

“Breathe Life” No. 3, by Rob “ProBlak” Gibbs. @problak’s murals never fail to stop me. In a city so full of anodyne, uptight art installations that do more to comfort #Boston citizens into a state of comfort with the status quo, Mr. Gibbs’ work agitates and excites in ways that are at once personal and demanding. Many know ProBlak as a prolific “urban heiroglyphicist,” or rather just simply “graffiti artist.” His approach is to uplift with whimsy yet confront with “the real today.” I always enjoy how he will include fanciful, almost comic elements, and yet never break ties with a reality-based reflection upon the spaces where his art interacts. This was the first mural in his Breathe Life series I captured, and I’m finally adding it to my social media feed to share. I can’t encourage enough the urgency and importance of maintaining #art and #radical #creativity in urban spaces – heck it, in ALL spaces. Especially places like Boston which has a long heritage of favoring the convenient and entitled over the vital and and the essential. Art like Gibbs has the power to undermine our held perceptions without assured mutual destruction of people’s lived perspective. It seduces you into consideration. What do the arrows mean? Why are they laughing? Are his eyes closed out of coincidence? Or elation? Or imagination? Are they exploding forward with light, or have they just emerged to journey into a future with their brightness? There’s stories here; some fantastic, some political, but all urgently enticing. Thanks you once again, #ProBlak. And if you agree with even an iota of my ramblings, you ought to look into #ArtistsForHumanity, a Bostobn-based organization that works to galvanize change and empower voices – especially black and brown voices – within all areas of the urban landscape and beyond. ▫️ #art #urbanart #mural #muralist #breathe #roxbury #artcity #akaXN #TheRealXN (at Roxbury, Boston) https://www.instagram.com/p/CDyUjkyjQL6/?igshid=z6bdlbpk6891

[kingmallmurda]

Dope Artwork For A Dope President By A Artist @problak #problak #ProBama #YesWeCan #YesWeDid ($mall €hange series) www.problak.com