Public space is elevated to objet d’art
My contribution to Burnaway.org’s panel review of the Living Walls street art conference that happened in Atlanta last week:
The work of French artist OX illuminates, by way of contrast, a salient element of the great majority of street art from Atlanta and elsewhere exhibited in Living Walls: The potential to speak deeply to the public is stunted for many street artists because they are conceptually shackled to the realm of murals and tagging and to the egotism that is that realm’s currency. OX moves beyond the common practice of simply appropriating public space for the proliferation of personally meaningful marks or imagery by incorporating aesthetic elements of a piece’s environment into the language of the piece itself. The result is work in a place that is also about that place and therefore about anyone who is in that place to see it. The status of the commandeered public space is elevated from that of mere canvas to objet d’art—the viewer graduates from witness to participant, completing the work by observing it. The work thus encourages an eminently personal experience of itself and oneself in a way that no mural or tag can.
