"Method of this project: literary montage. I needn’t say anything. Merely show. I shall purloin no valuables, appropriate no ingenious formulations. But the rags, the refuse - these I will not inventory but allow, in the only way possible, to come into their own: by making use of them" Walter Benjamin
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Friday, December 14, 2012
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Broadway, near East Houston St
Manhattan
Pretty unusual to see stickers on a manhole cover, and deliciously Satanic at that, in the red glow of night.
Monday, December 10, 2012
Washington Ave & South 10th St
South Philly / Italian Market
Part of this blog project is to think about the various types of ephemera that inhabit city streets, their intended purpose and what they actually do once posted.
A major category of ephemera is the "missing" sign - here, a labor union makes stickers invoking missing union leader Jimmy Hoffa, or an image of the artist Basquiat (last post), who is a major inspiration for many street artists.
I've been seeing Missing Pets posters around South Philly - there is one for a horse, a pig, and a spider. They're obviously (?) fake, but are so intentional about using this trope of the public missing poster..
One could also think about the posters that populated streets of lower Manhattan after 9-11, with images and descriptions of people who went missing after the terrorist attack. Since many of these people were presumed dead, the purpose of missing posters was complicated, and symbolic - a means of taking up space, memorializing while unable or unwilling to admit the unthinkable reality of their vanishing.
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
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