- In this edition of "aRTeffects," local businesses employ the Arts.

- Everyone as some connection to art.

So it's really interesting, being out and realizing how big art is a part of everyone's life.

- [Presenter] Jean-Michel Basquiat, and the hip hop generation.

- [Female art expert] He was surrounded by his peers who were on a similar journey with him.

- [Presenter] Arts in the digital space.

- [Male digital artist] In augmented reality space, we showcase to them that you're not limited by the physical world.

- And take a tour of the Midtown Murals.

Its just a wall and just your pe and there's no placard telling y This piece was made on this day with these materials and it mean And this is how you should It's all ahead on this edition of aRTeffects.

(lively jazz music) - [Announcer] Funding for aRTeffects is made possible by: Sandy Raffealli, the June S. Wisham Estate, Carol Franc Buck, Merrill and Lebo Newman, Heidemarie Rochlin, Meg and Dillard Myers, the annual contributions of PBS Reno Members.

And by.

- Hello, I'm Beth McMillan.

And welcome to aRTeffects.

In our featured segment, we learn how some Reno businesses are teaming up with local artists, transforming their buildings, and their customers' experiences.

Let's see how the magic happens, and how it creates a mutual benefit for the businesses and the artists in our community.

(upbeat gentle music) - Plumas Bank decided to have a mural painted on our walls, because we believe in supporting local artists.

And we believe that arts and culture is the soul to our community.

Without art, without culture, you have buildings, but you don't have a soul.

So we were very excited, about allowing an artist to bring his talent and a vision to our canvas on the corner, so that people could drive by and enjoy.

- The mural at Plumas Bank was really unique 'cause I never got a chance to paint a bank before.

And when they approached me, I thought it was really interesting, 'cause I've never been asked by that type of institution to do a mural.

So it was a nice mixing of two industries.

And, it was also my first time painting a corner where it's two walls coming together to make a kind of a sculptural mural.

(gentle upbeat music) It's a large landscape piece, with a different landscape in the background.

And then there's a anonymous figure holding the initial larger landscape in the center, and it's using the space and that 90 degree corner, to create a kind of box.

So showing someone embracing and taking care of the landscape that we live in, here in our community.

Also with my mural work, I try not to overtly say too much and leave it kind of open and abstract, so people could associate what they want with it.

And it's nice to make people feel like they're important, and their environment and community is celebrated.

Since the pandemic I've seen a lot of businesses look at the model of murals, and look at the model of public art, and see that relationship as a good way to engage with the community, and put their best foot forward, and also connect with the local art community.

And there's just an endless amount of opportunities.

- I think it's really important for businesses and local artists to work together to do promotional artwork on their building, or just regular artwork in general, some sort of murals.

It's really beneficial for both parties.

I get paid to paint, and that artwork draws in customers that make them money.

And then at the same time, those people that are coming in might see my art and see my name, and come and wanna get some sort of artwork from me too.

So it helps all the local artists get their name out to the general public, without having to have an actual gallery for themselves specifically, which is a lot harder to do.

- To me, one of the functionalities of the art aside from just the beauty of it and the outlet for the artists themselves, and being part of the art community, is also, the attractiveness it adds to the building.

It's a conversation piece.

There are different tours in Reno, whether they're the petty cab tours, or even the walking tours of the Midtown Mural Art Walk that happens monthly.

And, we've always been sort of an end-up spot for some of those tours, for a place to go eat and drink, that has a lot of space for people, between us and Pinon Bottle.

So, we decided to put this mural on the face of the businesses, and now it just gives us more relevancy to be part of that tour, and, in a more profound way.

We run a for-profit company and we wanna do things that, not only enrich our community, but also help to get people to spend money, and create commerce.

(lively soft music) - We have had a very positive response from our clients, and we've had very positive responses from non-clients, from the community, and that's our goal.

And, through art, and through arts and culture, I believe businesses can help bring the community together.

- Usually, on most of these murals, you're approached by random people, 'cause you're not in a specific place like a museum where people are going there 'cause they already like art and they wanna see art.

You're just out in the public having random people going to the grocery store or the bank, or to pick up their kids, stop and say, "What are you doing?

What is this?"

And then give you their feedback.

And usually it's like, "Oh, my uncle's a sculptor."

"My mom was a painter."

Everyone has some connection to art.

So it's really interesting, being out and realizing how big art is a part of everyone's life.

(lyrical piano music) - Art makes you grow.

It stimulates your brain, and it touches emotions that normally you walk through life and you don't touch.

Without arts and culture your community isn't vibrant, and you lose that peace that people want.

And they look for when they move here.

Arts and culture bring businesses to Nevada.

- See more of Erik's work, @erikburke.com and check out Anthony's work at Facebook.com/eqld _creations.

In the late 1970s and early '80s, a group of artists moved from the streets of New York, with their canvases, with subway cars, and brick walls, to the upscale confines of exclusive art galleries.

In a new exhibition, the Museum of Fine Arts charts the course of artist, Jean-Michel Basquiat and the hip hop generation.

- [Male narrator] Blazing off the walls of the Museum of Fine Arts, the massive paintings of Jean-Michel Basquiat.

He was a New York street artist of the 1970s and '80s, who became a darling of the art world.

Three years ago, one of his paintings sold for more than $100,000,000 at auction.

Legend, icon, maverick.

He bore all the crowns so frequently depicted in his work, before his young untimely death.

- He often gets described as the kind of sole black genius, artistically, of the time.

And what we're trying to show is that he absolutely was an incredibly genius artist, but he was surrounded by his peers who were on a similar journey with him.

- [Male narrator] This new exhibition at the MFA is the first to examine Basquiat, and his fellow artists in the hip hop generation who changed the chemistry and sound of New York.

(hip hop music) Rammellzee, Fab 5 Freddy, Basquiat.

They were among a crop of fresh-faced art world outsiders from marginalized communities, but they made New York theirs, says co-curator Liz Moncell.

- They came from many different boroughs: Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and then they began to converge downtown.

They were getting a little bit older and they saw this incredible scene of 1980s creatives, people like Madonna around, and they became part of this club scene.

- [Male narrator] But before that, they were labeled graffiti artists, pursued by police for tagging buildings, and the most prized canvas: the New York City subway.

Painting subway cars guaranteed their work would be seen by thousands of people, as trains raised throughout the city.

- There was a lot of chaos for the eye to see every day.

- [Male narrator] Writer and musician, Greg Tate is the show's co curator.

He knew most of the artists featured here when they all began to mix with performers, filmmakers, and musicians in New York's downtown scene.

(avant garde music) - This is a youth movement, and in America, youth is everything.

So whoever's leading that charge is gonna win.

- What the outsiders called graffiti, the artists simply called, "writing," a form Basquiat noted had dated to ancient times.

And what artist Lady Pink said, "was like calligraphy."

But it was all a language the artists shared.

- Abstracting it, coding it, crossing it out.

They really, in the vein of hip hop music, are incorporating really whatever they can get their hands on.

And very freely, in an unfiltered way, getting all of that into their canvases.

- [Male narrator] But these artists wanted off the streets and into the galleries.

They demanded they be heard, and seen.

The art world took notice, and in the U.S. two of them, Keith Haring and Basquiat rocketed into the stratosphere.

- [Male voice quoting Basquiat] "I could see the handwriting on the wall.

It was mine.

I've made my mark in the world.

And it's made its mark on me."

- [Male Narrator] Basquiat's work was fueled by his interest in history, not to mention the years of museum visits he'd made with his mother while growing up.

He charted his thoughts in notebooks.

- Went to a party, went to one party at his house once, walked past his bedroom on the way to the loo, I saw there was a video of Superfly that was on.

And then all these art books stacked up.

So, when he wasn't painting, he was in there just studying the artists he liked.

- [Male narrator] Basquiat's work is also often populated by random bits of anatomy.

When he was seven, he was hospitalized after a car accident, and developed a fascination with the book, Grey's Anatomy.

But it's this crown that is most ubiquitous in his work.

- Said, "My work is about three things, royalty, heroism, and the streets."

Right?

So he was also as someone who had gone to all the major galleries and museums and didn't see any black people represented there.

And he's letting you know that his royalty is a street royalty.

- [Male narrator] That reign would extend into the art world where Basquiat achieved superstardom.

But in 1988, he died of a drug overdose.

He was only 27, but he'd managed to see his community of artists get their due.

And beyond that, says Liz Moncell, they began to influence the A list artists they worked to be alongside.

- Frank Stella.

You can see his referencing.

And he also notes that he was looking at graffiti and trying to find a different surface for his paintings, in his late eighties' works.

- [Male narrator] It was a hard-fought acceptance.

And for it, this singular group of artists hang together still.

- Now let's take a look at this week's art quiz.

Who was the lifelong friend and mentor that Jean-Michel Basquiat collaborated with on a series of famous works?

That layered Basquiat's graffiti scrawl with the artist's bright pop imagery.

Is the answer: A Andy Warhol?

B Madonna?

C Jasper Johns?

Or, D Richard Hamilton?

Stay tuned for the answer.

"Interactive Initiative" aims to help artists translate their work into the digital space.

Their latest model is an interactive phone app which allows artists to dream their biggest project and make it come to life, in Tropi.

- We hope that we can give artists their dream project, because we can defy gravity, and we don't necessarily have to have performers, or lights, or anything.

It's just a person walking up with their phone.

My name is Jen Clay.

I am a co-founder of Interactive Initiative.

- I am Samuel Lopez De Victoria, and I'm the founder of Interactive Initiative.

- We started Interactive Initiative because Sam is a very altruistic person.

He really wants to teach.

And we think about artists who maybe are frustrated, or maybe at a dead end in their practice.

Or even like "Catch 22s", where you need to have work already made, to do that open call.

Sometimes that happens with public art or video work.

- We saw an opportunity in a space, primarily in South Florida, that there wasn't really a facilitator for artists to be able to make interactive art work.

And there are so many opportunities to be able to do that.

So we kind of wanted to step in, be kind of a helping hand for artists to be able to get there.

(dreamy music) - We also really love video art.

- Yes.

- And we're like, "You too can be a video artist."

- Yeah, yeah, with digital art, a big opportunity there that even kind of goes beyond the technology itself is interaction.

- If they paint, then that can be a stop motion animation, and then that can be a video.

And then you can project it on a building, and it can also be included in a video game.

- We primarily try to mentor them and kind of show them how to use tools in an intuitive way.

So that it's like more a part of their practice rather than like this obtuse thing that they have to learn.

When we are telling artists what they can do in augmented reality space, we showcase to them that you're not limited by the physical world, the rules, and they can kind of set their own rules.

So, something can be grounded or it can be floating.

- So right now, Sam's created this AR app called, "Tropi".

The app is free.

Sam worked with 12 artists for the Hollywood area, mostly centered around Arts Park.

He's made over a hundred virtual works in the app.

So it's similar to kind of Pokemon Go, where you interact with the work.

You can collect the work on the app and learn about the artist.

- So you can come out here to Hollywood and pick up artwork.

And then what you can do with the artwork that you've collected so far, you can actually place it around you.

So here, I'm just gonna choose this artist, Alissa Alfonzo, who's a local artist.

I can also place a different art piece if I wanted to.

So you can place these little palm trees, and a little flamingo over here.

If you're looking at artists and you wanna find out more about that artist, you can choose one of the artworks and press this button and it actually has a little info card.

When you don't own a artwork but you wanna get a specific one, you can search for it in the menu here and click on it.

It'll show you where you can actually pick up that artwork.

You can kind of make your own little gallery space of work you've collected, and just kind of be your own curator.

We actually worked with local artists to create a number of their work, but digitally.

And most of these artists don't work digitally.

So we have sculptors.

We have illustrators, painters.

- [Jen] Fiber artists.

- Fiber artists, musicians.

We have poets, also.

We've helped them translate their work into a three-dimensional interactive piece, that is publicly available to anybody to interact with.

- We're hoping that we can expand the app from Hollywood to Miami; Miami beach, even Pompano.

- What helps is getting feedback from a local community and actually hearing what it is that they're looking for.

And then we can create that programming for them, either be remote, or when doable, in person.

- To find out more, visit interactiveinitiative.org.

Now let's review this week's art quiz.

Now let's take a look at this week's art quiz.

Who was the lifelong friend and mentor that Jean-Michel Basquiat collaborated with, on a series of famous works?

That layered Basquiat's graffiti scrawl, with the artist's bright pop imagery.

Is the answer: A Andy Warhol?

B Madonna?

C Jasper Johns?

Or, D Richard Hamilton?

And the answer is: A Andy Warhol.

Our biggest little city has seen remarkable growth in arts and culture over the past few years.

And much of that growth is represented by the public art that can be seen throughout our region.

This next segment takes us back to the very first aRTeffects episode.

Let's remember how Reno's talented muralists began transforming the face of Midtown.

(quirky electronic music) - [Female narrator] This is art that anyone can see.

Take a drive, get on your bike, put your tennis shoes on and walk around.

- It's just the wall.

And it's just your perception of it.

And there's no placard telling you, "This piece was made on this date, with these materials, and it means this, and this is how you should think about it."

I love that there's open interpretation on these murals, and people can tell me what they think about it.

(quirky electronic music) - I was very nervous starting a business in this area, that really was perceived as very dilapidated, very run down, that had a lot of crime.

It was very dark.

It was our corridor going into downtown.

It should've been some place that was vibrant and exciting, and had lots of shopping and energy.

And I could kind of see little pockets sort of popping up and I could see the vision of what we could be.

- I remember coming to Midtown, I used to love to come here, and I thought that this was the up and coming area for Reno.

It's the hip, exciting area.

And so it's real exciting for me now, to see how it has flourished, because of the arts in this area.

- And Reno is one of those places.

You give it a couple of weeks and you don't leave.

You really don't.

People really fall in love with Reno, and it becomes home.

- And I passed through Reno for a weekend to see a friend, and Reno captured me in three days.

And I decided to move here instead, for the art scene.

The first weekend, I noticed the murals, and we had two in the back alley of Valley and Forth, where the building was.

One was done by Erik Burke.

And one was done by Little Bruno.

And I thought, "This is pretty amazing.

These really neat murals are in this back of this alley, in this bad part of town."

- I think a lot of muralists kind of come to painting murals and working outside from graffiti.

- [Man in black cap] It all started really with kids and spray cans, and that graffiti scene.

And it morphed very quickly into more of a fine art muraling scene.

- [Female narrator] You can see how it's progressed to wonderfully painted murals that are museum quality.

- I've been fortunate enough to go and paint in other cities and with other artists.

And I love the idea of bringing them to Reno so they could collaborate with our local artists, and share and learn from one another.

- And so this is a great example, this wall of Nevada Fine Arts.

The two owners, Mark and Debbie wanted to make their building look like it was full of art.

So they hired these seven muralists, some of them from other parts of the country, and they did this amazing wall.

And this really catapulted the Reno scene into that next level, of everyone wanting to be a part of it.

- People take notice from all over the world, and that's what's exciting.

I think that Reno really is being on the map as an arts and culture destination.

- It's a great thing for our community to have an influx of artists.

We can't do it all ourselves.

I could go to San Francisco.

I can go to LA and paint, but I feel like they already have a lot of mural work.

And here is where we need mural work done.

- So this very eclectic and vibrant art tour started right there in Midtown, because of all the different murals that were popping up all over the district.

- [Man in black cap] When people come visit I would drive them around or walk them around, and look at the murals, and then draw them.

I started doing it and a light bulb hit somewhere along the way that everybody should be doing this.

So there's a self-guided tour that anyone can do at artspotreno.com when you come into town.

- [Male speaker] It's brought in a lot of people.

It's showing them what's going on.

And all the reactions that I've gotten so far are positive.

- [Blond businesswoman] Now, when you go down there, there's so much arts and culture, and so many things that are happening.

More businesses are opening, more artists are coming in.

So we're very proud of it.

- [Male artist] In 2010 I did this mural.

I wanted to do two large portraits and they took on a real cartoony effect.

So I redid it, with the new skillsets that I've developed over the years.

- [Female speaker] I think that the murals, they have a strong historical context.

And I think that they have a lot of personal jewels in each of the murals.

- The mural over at Nevada Fine Arts was really close to me, because I live only a few blocks from there.

The background is a large pattern of designs, but also you'll kind of see these lines that create a grid, and they recreate the streets around the neighborhood there.

And on it, I put little houses and little marks, showing all the places that were a part of me, growing up in the neighborhood where I lived, and where best friends lived, and important things happened.

And then on top of it is the portrait of my wife with her eyes.

And it's just about vision, no one's vision in particular, but just all of our vision, and how we see our neighborhoods and our towns.

- I think we want art all over the city, because honestly it's great for economic development.

I think it brings character to a city.

And certainly as the Mayor, those are the kinds of projects you wanna see in your city, because it does bring the flavor of what your city is all about.

I truly believed in an arts and culture movement.

And so we are really looking at different areas of town where we can provide more arts and culture.

- [Female speaker] There are now murals, we have a circus who has a mural wall.

There are more murals in downtown Reno.

There are murals now, as far west, as Mayberry Park.

- We own a lot of land in the city of Reno.

And I think that would be our goal, is to be able to put art on every single vacant piece, because it's just sitting there.

And I think we could certainly do something that the community and tourists can enjoy.

- It's still gonna attract people.

There are still gonna be people taking photos of the building, where they weren't before.

- And I think economically, that can certainly help those spaces.

And then people start to see something that never existed.

- There's still gonna be a lot of dynamic change in the area just from a simple coat of paint.

(gentle music fading) - For more information on taking a tour of the Midtown Murals, visit artspotreno.com.

And that wraps it up for this edition of aRTeffects.

For more arts and culture and to watch past episodes, visit pbsreno.org/aRTeffects.

Until next week, I'm Beth Macmillan.

Thanks for watching.

- [Announcer] Funding for aRTeffects is made possible by: Sandy Raffaelli, the June S. Wisham Estate, Carol Franc Buck, Merrill and Lebo Newman, Heidemarie Rochlin, Meg and Dillard Myers, the annual contributions of PBS Reno Members.

And by.