Rochester, New York, held the closing of the annual B-Boy BBQ street art festival last week. I thought it was interesting to have an event so close to where were located. The festival was hosted by Ian Wison who began the street painting festival eight years ago with the taggers Sno, Zone, and Range. Now the festival includes artists from all over the world such as FAITH 47 and DAL.
Rochester is divided by an old winding highway called the Interloop, currently the subject of an exhibition at the Rochester Center for Contemporary Art. On one side of the loop is the wealthy part of town while the other is full of deressing ghettos. Ian Wilson and his team decided to use this run down area to introduce street art.
A quote taken from the article describes what is becoming of the condemned area. “Nevertheless, the participation on the street was joyous, with writers spraying the jagged wild style writing, while adding touches of romantic brilliance: a backwards-looking Mickey Mouse, sympathetic cartoon rats right out of the old L.A. Big Daddy sketchbook, blondes whose flowing locks tranform into tigers, all of it the only spot of color in an otherwise gray, dusty and hopeless landscape.” I think its great what they're doing to the area. Here are some photos from the event.
`
