Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Madurai
Mangalore
Puducherry
Tiruchirapalli
Thiruvananthapuram
Vijayawada
Visakhapatnam
Street sm‘art’
|
With its unique blend of activism and skilfulness, street art gets mainstreamed
|
Make your voice heard It is a unique medium to grab the world’s attention
It is the invigorating thing to appear on buildings, on cardboards, in the uninhabited countrysides, on beaches or in the mountains. One could find it even on rugged hillocks, on jagged rocks and in nooks of streets; a mixed metaphor of art and activ
ism, the synthesis of monumental irreverence and concern, spontaneous, feisty, uncompromising, in-your-face, improvisational, relentless, candid and unflinching…an art with an attitude for the earth, for the rivers in which the fish never feel out of water, for the sky unblemished by polluting particles from vehicles and chimneys, for the fog that’s not a miasma, an art for the heart of nature, for the vastness of space.
A few decades ago, the very connotation of ‘street’ implied a certain urban chaos, a perennial overcrowding, an isolation that doesn’t brook ‘the other’ and a crisis. It implied corporate takeover of public spaces, it implied minds conditioned by brands. As the times changed, the street became a physical common that should be reclaimed, a natural milieu wherein you can meet and mingle and interact and be happy for that, an essential text of existence as fluid as its assembling and leaving cast of characters.
Virtual reality
Though our ancestors peopled the caves and mountains, rocks, and on whatever they felt like, with scratches, scrawls or images, it’s only in the 90’s the reclaiming of the streets movement took off. Artists who felt ‘disenfranchised’ and felt the need to say something to the world, to communicate their voice to a larger audience, claimed the streets and made them their own. Street art gives them a voice which otherwise would get drowned in the honking of vehicles on the streets. Combining the mechanisms of painting and the dynamics of activism, street art sprawled artist communities and spawned freewheeling discussion, in communities, and on Internet.
Art movements tend to be responsive. In some cases of life imitating art, street art is streets ahead of societal reactions, influencing policy and performance of governments. Artists ring in changes with small-bore, innocuous activities like painting a scalding image that sears your conscience and jolts your mind into thinking about a green future or a less warmed planet. With an aesthetic that obliterates the boundary of the image and physical environs, it engages the viewer at a personal level. It calls for a direct action (as opposed to the indirect action like electing representatives) to the pressing problems of the day with an immediacy that you feel in your bones. Synthesizing beauty and functionality with a unique worldview informs their work. With their welter of paint and passion, they create and make it everyday stuff.
Swoon, a street artist aptly observes: “I feel art should climb down from its high horse and make itself a part of the small things that ordinary people can have and live with.” Street art does that.
G.B.S.N.P. VARMA
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Madurai
Mangalore
Puducherry
Tiruchirapalli
Thiruvananthapuram
Vijayawada
Visakhapatnam
|
