Street Art

On a bit lighter note than volcanic ash I like to share the Urban Camouflage Project with you. It is a project of Sabina Keric and Yvonne Bayer who started Urban Camouflage in 2007 during an exchange term at Konstfack – and continued in 2009. their website is built with indexhibit an easy and free way of presenting a portfolio in use by thousands of artists and maybe also a possibility for small hotel and B&B owners to present their accommodation.

Urban Camouflage deals with the question how to camouflage oneself and one’s identity in the commercial space. The costumes are inspired by «ghillie suits», the camouflage suits of snipers and hunters.

The commercial space is a clean and untouched area. Usually there are no artistic activities.

The customer expects nothing out of ordinary in a world of brands and price labels. Our project exeeds the limit and enters the world of commerce without any permission.

We chose the big superstores because of the extreme range of goods, the flashing monitors and the large salesrooms. The camouflaged person blends into the surrounding. He or she can dissapear for one moment and gets the possibility to merge with the supermarket to defend from the noise of commerce.

The costumes were made out of simple and cheap materials, the camouflage effect isn’t only about the colour, it’s also about the three-dimensional structure.

The reactions were different. As before mentioned, we didn’t ask for a permission. Most employees reacted humorously, but we had some trouble with the managment as well and had to quit some actions earlier than we wanted to.

The reactions of customers were also very different. Some were interested and tried to touch the costume, others reacted irritated and stayed in some distance. There were also customers who ignored us completely, it seemed like if they just didn’t want to get irritated by us.

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Hand from Above from Chris O’Shea on Vimeo.

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Two years ago I took this photo when I visited the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art on the occasion of the 2005 Istanbul Biennial. The following photos made me remember it.

Mark Jenkins in Washington, DC.

Mark Jenkins in Royan, France.

I didn’t take notes when I took the first photo. Therefore I’m not sure the installation had something to do with the Street Art of Mark Jenkins, but there are similarities. Mark has a canny eye to create situations that take you off guard.

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Luzinterruptus.com is a Spanish collective of artists specialized in Interventions. This time they draw attention to public urinating. By installing “public toilets” in places they chose by their noses, easy to find places where the smell tells, they hope to remind people to abstain from this anti social behavior. I second!

What annoys us is seeing how during the day and nigh people urinate anywhere in the streets without any embarrassment. They just walk along, turn round, zip down and, even in crowded places, seen by passers-by, let go.

Along San Ildefonso square and surrounding side streets in Madrid, Spain they installed 80 male urine containers, the ones used in hospitals, filled then with yellow water and added a little light. A powerful poetic protest I would say.

Photographs from Gustavo Sanabria who also maintains a Flickr Luzinterruptus set

Via a wonderful site unurth – street art which specializes in street art from all over the world. Definitely worth a look!

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