Screening tonight: To Be Seen
Posted October 28, 2005 by in Events
Our friend Alice Arnold is screening her great documentary To Be Seen tonight (Friday, October 28) at DCTV. To Be Seen is a 26-minute film about the ways street artists in New York City interact with public space. It features revealing interviews with Swoon, Dan Witz, Ryan Watkins-Hughes, Vinnie Ray, Michael DeFeo, and others. From the director's description:
"To Be Seen"is a study of visual culture, of urban culture and an exploration of an age-old urban cultural phenomenon, street art. The film takes a critical look at our consumer society by looking at the practice of street art in New York City.The subculture of street art is significant because it embodies within it a sense of subversiveness, which is rare in today's culture of consumerism and political amnesia. Street art functions as a way of 'taking back the streets.' Streets are public spaces, but increasingly public spaces are being privatized - through security cameras, Business Improvement Districts, and the profusion of corporate marketing. This form of art, that is not a commodity (there is no price tag), that is somewhat ephemeral, and that tends to address current political and/or cultural issues, will be examined as a form of public expression, a form of media and a means of political and social protest.
The film is showing tonight at 7pm with a number of other short films. DCTV is at 87 Lafayette St, two blocks below Canal St., in Manhattan.
Comments
no dude, it's tonight. flyer here (pdf file).
not sure if its just me, but hearing the manifesto for street art getting rehashed over and over is churning it to butter.
feeling similiarly as rations. Things are at a point where the representation of things need to progress or keep on catering to people who keep on "discovering" street art. As a "movement" its on a precipice where it needs to take a step in some direction. It has made some people's career, some famous, etc. and now we need to get back to making shit and not watching it happen, in a gallery, or on the street...
So someone says "Street art blows," well what are we doing about it.
yeah i don't know, maybe we could all post a black box jpeg on our site for a week (instead of our lastest street piece) and reflect on what were really in this for-- the fame, the friends, the art? im as guilty as the next artist for wanting that up on wooster, or checking hit box data. i was lucky enough to get started before i even knew there was a movment and as much as i dig the friends ive made, the desire to have "success" makes me feel a bit like im not as "real" as id like to be.
my first reaction to "street art blows" and the corporate vandals poster was defensive but now i realize much of what they're saying is true. i still think graf artists these days are the same as us but that doesnt justify it.
All street artists should pick up a can of spray paint and climb up the side of a building before they even attempt to think they are renegades.
Its so easy just to walk down the street and put up posters. I see street teamers doing it in broad daylight. Where's the sacrifice?
And to think people have careers made out of this stuff...
not all street artists are setting out to be renegades. but really this is just one more example of graffiti culture trying to superimpose standards on street art.
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this was last night, DOH!
Posted by: k.see at October 28, 2005 12:39 PM