One of the precepts of Arte Agora is that there is a symphony of actors in the public way. People placing posters, removing objects, playing on top of them, painting over or pressure washing (buffing) them. It encourages freshness and regeneration.
As I write my new book, Spots & Methods in Arte Agora, due out this Fall, I am driving deeper into where and how artists work outside.
Here’s documentation from today that shows a series of actions by a series of actors around a type of spot– Fresh Plywood Construction Barrier– and also illustrates concept of “actors in the public way”.
A few days ago, while I was out of town, I saw dontfret posted a new installation:
As you can see, this is a Fresh Plywood Construction Barrier spot. dontfret is a fan of this type– about 4-1/2 years ago, when they were building the Target on Division west of Ashland, he created this installation:
This is a good type of spot because if you get there before anyone else, it’s a nice smooth surface that takes loads of wheatpaste well.
I finally got a chance to walk by there today and saw that there were at least three modifications to the spot:
- Artist Tom Billings added a piece
- Artist Morning Do added a piece
- Paris-based Back Market, a technology refurbisher, added 2 posters and a white base, obliterating 8 out of 10 of the dontfrets
The Morning Do piece is completely sublime, because they took an image of the Billings piece, incorporated into their work, framed it, added a wall tag, and placed the entire thing in the public way, beneath the reference piece. Love what they do.
I then removed the two remaining dontfrets and the Tom Billings, leaving the Morning Do and the donfret “What Makes You Happy?” fragment peeking out of the Back Market plea for trust, and returned to my home with art, an actor from the public way.
It was a great night at a great spot.