Kirsten Luce for The New York Times
Bel Borba uses duct tape to create a piece of public art on Roosevelt Island. More Photos »
It was an odd sight for an industrial street in the Ridgewood section of Queens, so of course the delivery-truck drivers, the workers from nearby manufacturing plants and other curious passers-by felt compelled to stop, look and ask questions. On the maroon-colored external wall of a furniture factory, the Brazilian artist Bel Borba was busy making a large mosaic of white tile, portraying a globe surrounded by objects that looked like a cross between sunflowers and mechanical fans.
"I think I'll call this mural 'Global Cooling,' " Mr. Borba said with an animated cackle as he stepped back to survey and decide on finishing touches for the work, which he and some assistants had begun barely three hours earlier. "But that globe needs to have a running man atop it, as if he were making the world turn, like a hamster in a cage."
That was Friday, the first day of an unusual monthlong public art residency that will take Mr. Borba all over New York City and allow him to work in whatever medium strikes his fancy. On Saturday he created a painting of a lizard and a spaceman on the asphalt on Roosevelt Island; this week he is in Red Hook, Brooklyn; Howard Beach, Queens; and other neighborhoods. Starting on Oct. 1, a short film he made with two collaborators will be shown every night for a month on 15 jumbo signs, some with multiple screens, at Times Square.
Mr. Borba, 55, is from Salvador, in the state of Bahia and the third largest city in Brazil. Its streets, walls, plazas and beaches have been his canvas since the late 1970s. He is a well-known, even beloved, figure there, regularly greeted on the street by residents who encourage him to come and work in their neighborhoods; his output there led to a documentary about him that will open in New York next month. But he said he was delighted to receive an invitation to work in New York, so far from his comfort zone.
"Rarely in my life have I had an opportunity like this," Mr. Borba said. "I don't know that I'm ever going to find another city with this variety not just of ethnicities, but of neighborhoods that change from one side of the street to another. On one side it may be Caribbean, and on the other Jewish, and I like that, I feed off that."
Since Mr. Borba works mostly with found or discarded materials — broken tiles, pieces of wood, rusted metal, plastic bottles — supplemented by power tools, duct tape and other everyday objects, the proclivity of New Yorkers to throw things away also excites him. A recent trip to scout sites and materials suitable for transformation left Mr. Borba enthusiastic, for example, about out-of-commission plastic traffic barriers, which he then cut into figures that resemble both totem poles and robots.
"I could stay here for 20 years and not run out of raw material," he said in Portuguese. "I'm really out of my jurisdiction here, working with all kinds of materials that are new to me, and without the support structure I have in Salvador. But the material available for me to recycle is so abundant and fantastic, and the equipment is much cheaper too."
Mr. Borba's project, called "Diário," or "Diary," is part of the international multimedia "Crossing the Line" festival, sponsored by the New York branch of the French Institute Alliance Française; other participants include the guitarist Bill Frisell and the director Peter Sellars. Each of Mr. Borba's undertakings is being filmed and edited for posting on a Web site created for the purpose. For Mr. Borba's audience in Brazil, a blogger is posting regularly on what he is doing.
This ebullient artist is also the subject of the new documentary, "Bel Borba Aqui: A Man and a City," which is scheduled to open at the Film Forum on Oct. 3 for a two-week run and later in the year across the country. This 95-minute film is directed by Andre Costantini, an American photographer and filmmaker, and Burt Sun, a Taiwanese artist who encountered Mr. Borba's work while traveling in Brazil a few years ago and was immediately smitten.
"This guy is a force of nature, so it would be stupid not to make a movie about him," said Mr. Sun, who has also enlisted as the curator of Mr. Borba's public art project in New York. "I went to Salvador at a time when I was feeling very cynical about art and artists, but meeting Bel, feeling his energy and seeing his work and the way he inspires and is inspired by his community, that restored my faith in art."
By LARRY ROHTER 19 Sep, 2012
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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/arts/design/bel-borba-brings-contagious-creativity-to-new-york-streets.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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