Take it to the Street

Stencil graffiti seems to be getting more respect these days.  Once upon a time, it was seen as the easy way out- the less dangerous form of tagging.  Taking your time, and spray painting a design on a wall freehand is far more labor and time intensive than placing a stencil, spraying a color in its general direction, and running at the sound of a siren. Lately, it has become a much more acceptable form of street art, and I would mostly blame Banksy for that. 

If you haven't heard of Banksy, he is a very famous street artist, who was recently further popularized by his self-directed documentary about his work,  and the work of many other street artists and "artists," "Exit Through the Gift Shop".  It's a quality film, and I would highly recommend it.  The piece sheds a lot of light on pop culture phenomena and fame, as well as helping the normal person to understand more about street art culture.  Banksy began tagging with self-designed stencils in Bristol, and now has art in cities all over, including Bristol, London, New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, and New Orleans.  In addition, much of his work is now on display in museums and galleries, including The Imperial War Museum in London.  He generally paints in some kind of rebellion, and teeters on the edge of legality.  His works is occassionally invited, and sometimes loathed by the owners of the space.  For example, one of his most famous works, a stencil of a scene from Pulp Fiction, was on a wall in a London Tube Station.  Even though he was already a well known artist at the time, Transport for London had the art removed in 2008, for the purpose of not promoting graffiti.

I think that stencil street art is perfectly legitimate.  It takes just as much time, if not more, to design the stencil, and saves time during the actual tagging.  To me, that makes a lot of sense.  It's safer, and a more sure design, and it is a little bit more individualistic than a sticker.  Basically, I'm a fan of the street stencil.

The newest trend that I have seen with them, however, is to paint the stencils directly onto the sidewalk, instead of a building, a fence or a sign.  Or, whatever.  Maybe this has been going on for a long time, but I've been seeing it happen more and more recently.  The sidewalk would be faster, simpler, subtler, and not quite so much of an obvious violation of someone's personal property.  I mean... who owns the sidewalk?  The city?  It's not quite as vandal-tastic as painting on a restaurant or a subway station, I think.  It is also very obvious.  In this city, people walk around looking at the ground extremely often.  Maybe it is to avoid standing out, being seen, getting hit on, or being blinded by direct sunlight, or possibly because they are cradling their iPhone in the crook of their neck as they do work on their iPad.  I don't know.  It doesn't really matter.  People look down at the sidewalk, and they see these stencils. 

Here are a few of these sidewalk stencils I noticed, and photographed, in SoHo last weekend.  I particularly love the first one- it has a Pablo Neruda, "pen is mightier than the sword" vibe about it.  After the sidewalk art are a few other choice sights from around SoHo.

Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA