The streets are often empty, coronavirus restrictions keeping many Angelenos from venturing out. But when we do, street artists have been leaving coronavirus-inspired work for us to find.
It ranges from Ruben Rojas calling for us to pull together:
To Hijack's dystopian take on cleaning:
You'll also find pieces like Rasmus Balstrøm's gas-masked figure and Teachr1's focus on bathroom essentials (especially for those of us without bidets):
Jeremy Novy says putting up his art right now helps him cope with how he's feeling, instead of sitting at home, worrying.
"I'm trying to deal with my own anxiety, and my own feeling of being disempowered," Novy said. "We don't know what tomorrow holds — we're kind of sitting here waiting — and making art and putting it up makes me feel like I'm somehow empowered over the situation."
Catalina Bolívar, who's majoring in studio art, finds doing street art therapeutic.
"If I feel like I'm in a bad mood, I just say 'Well, I'm gonna go out and paint tonight — let's see where I can go,'" Bolívar said.
Her latest images, which she put up Sunday night, call for good hygiene practices.
Bolívar is glad that people find her crying cat character funny — it's her street art signature and she's been putting it up since high school — but just because she's out making art doesn't mean she isn't concerned about the virus. She's less worried for herself than for her parents, who are in their 60s and 70s.
Sometimes, street art is also about taking advantage of the opportunity. With fewer people out at night, Bolívar doesn't worry much about getting caught.
"Right now, literally, I could probably do a whole piece in 15 minutes, and nothing would happen. There's actually really no police patrolling, except maybe one or two," Bolívar said.
Many street artists are used to working alone.
"Street art always has been a socially isolating, socially distancing artform," Novy said.
Novy said his stencil art of praying hands with a soap on a rope is about government leaders who claim coronavirus can be defeated with thoughts and prayers.
"Yes, [soap] is one of the precautions that we need to take," Novy said, "[but] we really need to start thinking about this not by protecting ourselves, but protecting others, and protecting your community... instead of starting to think individually and hoarding and only worrying about yourself."
Coronavirus isn't the only issue artists are addressing in this moment. Bolívar put one of her hand-washing crying cats up by a Highland Park Chase Bank on a wall where an earlier mural had been whitewashed. She said she wanted to post something there as a "f—- you to the whole thing going on with the gentrification and the whitewashing of our murals in the community."
Through it all, Hijack told us (via email) that he hopes work like his helps people take things less seriously and have a sense of humor in a difficult situation. (Hijack declined to be identified by name given the dubious legality of street art.)
But even he's not going out. Hijack says he created the mural above before California's coronavirus quarantine was enacted and he's now sheltering in place with the rest of us.
MORE ON CORONAVIRUS:
"street" - Google News
March 27, 2020 at 11:00PM
https://ift.tt/39pLJ7m
How LA's Street Artists Are Responding To Coronavirus - LAist
"street" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2Ql4mmJ
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update
No comments:
Post a Comment