"Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere."
-Albert Einstein
Art has long left the museums and temples and inundated the streets. Art as engagement, art as equalizer, art for the masses, art in department stores, malls and on the walls in American neighborhoods. Galleries on main streets, art walks in trending communities, pop-up art in emerging neighborhoods, artists as urban pioneers in the dis-invested hoods and, of course, art and entertainment districts as economic development.
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Mural demolition in West Baltimore (Dec. 2010)
Photo: ArchPlan Inc. |
Graffiti, originally a subversive form of art, tamed as a mural has a pretty checkered history of many purposes. From laying claim, to education to beautification. The mural started as interior decorating and went full circle by being once again officially sanctioned in Baltimore's "
Open Walls" programs (
Video,
video). This program also managed to turn the process between museum and street on its head: No longer was it museum-art that went on display in the streets but street art that entered the museum. Doreen Bolger, Director of the Baltimore Museum for Art (BMA) and always on the lookout for young talent, opened her hallowed halls to graffiti artist and Open Walls curator
Gaia (
video) who lived in Baltimore for eight years but now declares himself "a citizen of the world" and is working around the world...