Artist Caledonia Curry; aka Swoon : fearless documentary

Berlin Street Art 2004 - New York street artist Swoon work

We have long been fans of the work of New York-based street artist Caledonia Dance Curry better know to most for her street artworks under the name of Swoon.

We have been following her work since first discovering some of her clusters of wheat-pasted posters outside East London famous Beigel Bake on Brick Lane in the early 2000s!

Swoon London Street Art
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Later in 2003/2004 discovering some of her larger life-size portrait wheat-pastes and paper cutouts that she is now best to know for in and around Hoxton Square and Spitalfields Market in London.

In the following years we would continue to seek out her work in our travels finding works in cities from Berlin (GER) to Grottaglie (IT), Stavanger (NO), Paris (FR), Brussels (BE), and of course in New York (US) where her studio is based.

Pictured above: One of Swoon's large scale street artworks in Berlin, photographed in the summer of 2004.

London Street Art by New York based street artist Swoon

An earlier piece from Swoon in London, was not 100% on when we took this photo we will have to do some digging to figure out the exact date of this one.

London street art on Regents Canal by New York based street artist Swoon

Beautiful paper cut portrait from Swoon, pasted in London along Regents Canal in East London from a visit to the city ahead of her 2012 Murmuration Installation at Black Rat Press Gallery.

Street Art in Puglia, Italy by street artist Swoon

Detail from a larger piece of work from Swoon on the streets of Grottaglie in southern Italy installed during the now-legendary Fame Festival curated by Angelo Milano at Studiocromie.

Swoon The Canyon: 1999-2017
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September 2017 saw the opening of Swoon The Canyon: 1999-2017 a retrospective show of the artist's work curated by Steven Matijcio and organized by the Contemporary Arts Centre in Cincinnati, OH.

The retrospective runs through February 25, 2018, and we are hoping to somehow get over to Ohio to visit the exhibition before it finishes. In the meantime, while we hatch a plan to get us there we have been enjoying this recently published hour-long documentary below about Swoon by filmmaker Fredric King.

New York Street art in Brooklyn by artist Swoon.

One of a number of large scale works by Swoon we photographed on our last visit to New York in June 2016, the piece pictured was found in Brooklyn, NY.

Swoon: Fearless film
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The film titled “Swoon: fearless" documents Swoon, her collaborators, inspirations, and antics. The documentary is woven together from 20 years of footage shot from around the world and is an intimate portrait of the street artist.

It reveals the moment she became internationally recognized, what inspires her creatively, socially, and politically, and why none of it matters if she can't get out on the streets to wheat paste.

Sharing the film on her Facebook page Swoon has said of the project;

“Filmmaker Fredric King surprised me this year by making an hour-long documentary about my work. I was really blown away that he would take on such an endeavor.

He got ahold of tons of old footage from films like Inside/Outside, Our City Dreams, Empire Me, and pieced it together with footage that he shot in Haiti, Braddock, Detroit, as well as interviews with Jeffrey Deitch, Obeygiant @__moreferalthan__ Tod Seelie, Jeff Starked, and a score by Brian Bo. I'm totally mortified that it's called Fearless because I consider myself such a wimp, but hey, it's Frederic's movie, he can call it what he wants! Thanks, Fredric! I'm so so honored.”