Street Art: thoughts about time
I have been thinking about street art a lot this week. It’s a growing interest of mine, which I have discovered thanks to my friend Sarah (whose photo you might remember).
What I find intriguing about street art is its link to the notion of Time.
A couple of issues seem to be related to this idea: this type of art is ephemeral and it is repetitive.
To illustrate my point I am posting this video which my father found here.
The artist, Joshua Allen Harris uses plastic bags to create sculptural creatures such as dogs, bears and huge monsters which Harris places above subway grates in New York City. The sculptures ‘come to life’ when the train passes underneath them.Harris’ ‘sculptures’ depend on the passage of the trains and on time. Indeed, the work’s time of life varies according to the time it takes for the trains to travel. Also, the number of times the creatures are reactivated each day depends on the frequency of the trains. The sculptures are repeatedly activated but they are ephemeral.
The possible link between time and street art came to me when I was walking (actually cycling…) around Tel Aviv. Everyday I see plenty of the same images and graffiti across town and I know that they are bound to be destroyed, removed or replaced at some point. We could perhaps suggest that repetition helps to overcome the images’ ephemeral nature.Finally, I think the way we perceive street art and graffiti is subjective and again it is related to time. It can change according to the time of the day, our specific mood at the time of viewing the work, the time of the year, the political context of the time and many other factors. Our perception of street art therefore depends on the time of viewing.
Maybe, because of all of these reasons, some artists seem to have chosen to record what can be read as the time of the day, next to their images (this is just my own interpretation), like in this case:
In order perhaps to immortalize their work not only spatially, on a specific location of the city, but also temporally.
3 Responses to “Street Art: thoughts about time”
If you are interested in street art you might like this (if you didn’t see it):
http://telavivstreetart.blogspot.com/2008/09/reuse-project-2.html
It’s about the ReUse project that happened in Tel Aviv in September…
Also, you should have a look at the Casco Urban Lab on Florentin Street – there’s a gallery there that has exhibitions by street artists like Klone and 0 cents plus they decorated the restaurant. (The food is good, too!)
sounds cool, thank you for the infos Cat! I’ll check that gallery soon!
I walked past a couple of days ago and they are renovating the casco – so I’d give it a month or so before you go…
shame that…
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