Tag: Arts

Posted on

Masterpiece or Eyesore? Street Art and the Battle for Public Spaces

Spend any time in a city of even modest size and chances are you will have been confronted by the abundance of visual stimulation that surrounds. It seems that everywhere we look we are bombarded with images screaming for our attention. It can be incredibly noisy.  In amongst the din, some real gems come to light. I am talking about street art.

Professor Alison Young is an expert on the subject of street art, and has made it the focus of her academic career. She has written three books on the subject. Her most recent Street Art World delves into this fascinating subject and tries to answer a number of questions. Questions like what is street art? Is it the same as graffiti? Does it have to be in a gallery, or at the very least officially sanctioned to be regarded as art at all? These questions are not new, and while this book doesn’t definitively close the debate once and for all, it provides an interesting and compelling salvo on the side of urban artists.

Often derided as vandalism and banished, street art brings a vibrancy and an energy to a city. It provides tangible proof that living, breathing, and feeling human beings occupy the space; and not just soulless corporate automatons. Without street art our public spaces would be completely monopolised by the McDonald’s and Nikes of this world. Our world would be sterilised and airbrushed beyond all recognition from reality.

Aside from the aesthetic, street art, as with any art, challenges us to think. Whether it’s a commissioned mural, a cheeky stencil or a statement scrawled across a wall street art provides an insight into the collective psyche of a populace. It is a snap shot of the prevailing feelings and controversies of the day. Take for instance the current wave of so called ‘bollard art’ popping up across Melbourne. In response to a number of incidents both locally and abroad, it was deemed necessary by the powers that be to erect concrete blocks in places where people gather in large numbers. Within a day, local artists began anonymously turning the grey concrete from depressing eyesores into interesting pieces of art. In addition to making the blocks more attractive, the beautification project raises the question about what citizens will tolerate in the name of their ‘safety’.

For your ‘To Read’ List:

Alison Young- Street Art World (2016) (Aus)

Posted on

The Tiger’s Wife- Téa Obreht

The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht is the story of Natalia, a young doctor in the former Yugoslavia, who upon learning the news that her beloved grandfather has died, remembers the stories he had told her throughout her life. The main stories she returns to are the story of the ‘deathless man’ and the story of the ‘tiger’s wife’.

This is a wonderful book, so full of life and whimsy, but always in the background is the tragedy of loss and hardship that comes from a land that has been if not at war, then at least preparing for war, for most of the last hundred years or more. I found this book by accident, and when I realised that it had as its backdrop the Balkan Wars that followed the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, I was hesitant, expecting it to be depressing. I am so glad that I ignored my hesitation.

While the various wars that have beset the area are a near constant feature of the landscape, it is never allowed to intrude on the telling of the stories. If anything, the book is about how life continues despite the horror of war, and that human beings always find ways to cope.

It is a country where superstition rules. To begin with we share the frustration of Natalia (and her grandfather) with the prevailing superstition that seems to grip the people, refusing to make way for reason. In many ways this superstition exacerbates that tensions between the different religions and creeds that make up the Balkan people. However, we eventually come to understand that superstition can serve a useful function in providing the survivors of horror, the means to go on.

This is Obreht’s first novel, and at the age of 26, she has already set the literary world on fire. She has won several awards about the place for her short stories, and The Tiger’s Wife was the Winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2011. It is with great anticipation that I look forward to seeing what she produces next.

Related articles
Blog at WordPress.com.