needle-point grafitti

"we live not according to reason, but according to fashion" a quote by Seneca (4 BC till 65 AC) has been used and abused by the fashion in-crowd for long. But i think that who-ever embroidered this in reclaimed street-art graffiti way on the Zeedijk in Utrecht was thinking of something quite different than excusing fashion excesses. It seems more like a statement of protest. 

The statement is embroidered with what seems to be scraps of old fabric that have been torn into strips like a super-sized thread.  A fence that has probably been put up to prevent the public entering a vacant building-lot has been used as canvas. there is a fictive grid on the canvas on which the embroidery has been placed with great care. It's not the simplest, plainest letter-type that has been used, it's a cerif letter-type which is even more demanding to execute perfectly onto a fictive grid on a fence. For each stitch a knot or twirl has to be made to attach the thread. Whoever did this calculated the statement and the grid and with great perseverance and precision carried out the work. It all has an air of reclaimed art, reclaiming the street, this fence, using reclaimed fabric to make a statement.

This is clearly not fashion, nor is it fashionable (less urban art is fashionable of course). This is an area of Utrecht that is housing some creative scene, some old factory buildings that have been housing some of this creative scene are being demolished to give space to what? Modern urban living apartments for the hip hipster. The creative scene becomes homeless to house hipsters, that must be the essence of the statement; most people live according to fashion and not what they believe in. 

we live not according to reason, but according to fashion

we live not according to reason, but according to fashion

Ok, I admit it, it's tweaking the traditional essence of the statement, but I think in this case it might be what was truly meant. If you have been following my blog for longer you will know that I love reclaimed street-art, especially if it appears in the crafted form, love trying to solve the riddle. see also "in a world full of crooks".

Nature, it should be forbidden...

As if it has grown out of nowhere suddenly it is there, a tree, in the middle of the cities concrete, steel and glass. Usually nature prevails over urban landscape by penetrating through concrete. In this case I'm talking about man-made nature. Overnight somebody has created the illustration of a tree by inserting cuttings of plastic-foam tube into a stretched metal fence. It makes me smile. It makes me think. It makes me wonder. Maybe it's not just the tree in itself, it's the fact that somebody has made it. Somebody has come up with this idea and has had the courage to actually create it. Officially it would probably be tagged as vandalism. Which makes it a sort of paradox, urban art is good for us, it triggers our imagination, makes us think, it makes us feel good, maybe it even makes us a bit happier? But it's against the law.

Just last year somebody had created an image of a car made in a similar way but using fallen leaves. Maybe that was a purely spontaneous act, the leaves where lying around, why not just paint with them?

I would plea that illegal urban art makes city life better. Blank walls and fences should be released for urban intervention. Streets should be proclaimed to be galleries. Street artists should be celebrated, we should thank them, they are bringing art back to the people. All the people. Not just the elite that visits galleries and museums.