The existence of COVID street art is heartening. Street art in general tends to face some aesthetic limits. But it can also express a certain vitality, a view of life beyond order and orders.
As the author of the article notes, the monoculture is taking root and genuine weirdness is not welcome. It seems like we're being conditioned to a world of diminishing possibilities even on the personal level. So I'm glad enough to see some people with screen printing gear saying, "No."
EDIT: No idea why this didn't post Tuesday night when I wrote it. Internet cooties?
2 comments:
It was a long time ago that Gil Scott Heron wrote The Revolution Will Not be Televised in very different circumstances than those we see around us today, but the essential message remains a fitting one. The posters are great and I hope there will be more of them. We've seen them before in a video posted to twitter where a guy was discussing the merit of their pronouncements when a woman showed up and began tearing them down. What a shame it is when the first reaction someone has to an idea they don't like is an attempt to destroy the message.
I liked the article and his final statement rings true:
That’s fine. It’s worth fighting for—choice, I mean. Liberty, “free-dumb,” whatever you want to call it. Liberty forces you to contend with more than two variables, it’s all questions and no answers.
The revolution will not go better with Coke
The revolution will not fight germs that may cause bad breath
The revolution will put you in the driver's seat
Gil Scott Heron was a vital voice.
I also hope that there is more street art like this. And not just in regards to COVID either. We may--knock on wood--be getting close to a time where the most visible COVID restrictions are dropped to avoid further irritating the populace. For now, anyway. But the basic fact is that the same people are likely to remain in charge, for the most part, in government and the corporate sector, and will still have the same deceptive and censorious habits. It's only on the street level that we can be confident of keeping them honest.
"Freedumb." What a word. What a world.
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