"Weeds" sprout as bus shelter art
Weeds as art? Never underestimate the ingenuity of artists!
Starting Monday, bush bus shelters on North Avenue will feature large-scale photographs of some of the oft-overlooked and usually unwanted plants growing in the cracks in the sidewalk, in the gutters and storm drains throughout the city.
The bus shelter ads are part of a public art project called Uncultivated, offering what it calls "a virtual and physical tour of Baltimore's wild plant life."
Whle many might dismiss the green growth as weeds, the artists behind this project want people to look at them in a different light, as "tiny pockets of wildness within the urban environment."
"Often these tenacious plants are referred to as invasive, as if the blame for their presence lay with the plant itself," according to the release from Lynn Cazabon, the project's director and photographer.
"In reality, these plant species have simply evolved to thrive in the extremely harsh environment of the city, which is perpetually effected by human-caused disruption."
The release goes on to say that "these plants communicate something very important to us, telling how the landscape of Baltimore is evolving over time due to the effects of global climate change."
The photos are linked to a website, http://uncultivated.info , which provides information on the plants in the pictures, plus a map showing where they were found in the city. Others involved with the project are horticulturist Christa Partain and Amanda Barrett and Patterson Clark, who provided web site and logo design.
Look for the posters throughout July on North Ave. shelters between Howard and Charles streets and on St. Paul Street outside of Penn Station. Maybe this will give all the critics of the "Male/Female" sculpture at Penn Station something else to look at and talk about.
(Photo courtesy Uncultivated)
Comments
Art depiciting the natural world is always welcome.
Posted by: Michelle Brown | July 1, 2011 11:33 AM
What's a bush shelter?
TW: It's a typo, should be "bus," of course. Meant to fix earlier but got sidetracked. Thanks for reminding me.
Posted by: Cindy | July 2, 2011 4:18 PM
that's a lot of weeds in that tree pit. whenever a weed pops up in our tree pit, the city rights us a ticket.
what property owners are those? I want to look them up so see if they got tickets or not. I better not find out they're just calling it art on the other side of town!
Posted by: Lee | July 3, 2011 10:18 AM
You know I get the whole "art can be anything" thing but touting urban DECAY (meaning the results of a general ambivalence, lack of care, mismanagement and complete disregard of some people's social space by city and state
agencies, programs and officials) as "art" while forgetting, or at least not recognizing, that in doing there is an exploitation of that environment, for art's sake, by "the artist".
Art cannot be separated from the politic it portrays. It's awfully "romantic" to talk about how green is taking over as
tenacity and evolution while excluding the "why" or leaving that up to the viewer (and attributing it to "global warming" and not political, economic failures is ludicrous).
So why not take pictures of the places of the murdered people in Baltimore - wouldn't serve the same purpose? In the above story replace "plants" with "murders" and the same thing "works". Doesn't that show the tenacity and evolution of the city? But it's a helluva lot more problematic no?
Another more problematic issue will be the bus shelters the images will be placed in. While questionable located near the "arts district" of Station North did the artists ask the **neighborhood** about putting these up there
- I doubt it. Foisting this "art" onto people how have to live in that decaying space (Penn Station, maybe less so) already is careless and without respect to the residents' perceptions of their own community. Somehow I
highly doubt those living along that stretch of North Ave. between Charles and Howard need more emphasis of the decay they live in. Why not post these images in bus shelters in, oh, Mt. Vernon proper, or Federal Hill? Or Roland Park? Why - because you **can't** - the neighborhood would never let you.
And so the project, drawing attention to urban decay, perhaps rides on the backs of those without *voice* or opposition to the project. The same thing happened here in my own neighborhood when the rather self-righteous artist group for the Baltimore Love Project http://www.baltimoreloveproject.com/ decided, without asking anyone in our community, to paint a 30' mural with
gang signs on the side of the Rite Aid - they didn't ask because they knew they would never have been able to do it. Guerilla art has its place - but it's supposed to be for the art, not the ARTIST.
And one last thing - note that the project never takes ONE sample from anywhere east of Greenmount or north of North Ave. - the voices of the African American community, the images of their survival and the greening of decay are completely ignored then. The idea of the project then becomes, literally, one-sided as one side of Baltimore and not the other. It's not that you have to depict "everywhere" but you should at least acknowledge
what you have or have not done and not try to make the theme represent an entirety when it does not.
And so, while I applaud the idea of the beauty of
nature taking back what is its rightful domain I cannot ignore that the purpose here is skewed, misses the mark and is more about the product and the artist than the cause and the idea. A little more introspection from the
artists as to their place in the greater scheme of things, the impact of their actions and their "art" will go a lot further in making that art truly for all, not just the artists.
Posted by: baltobikeboi | July 3, 2011 2:44 PM
This is ugly... It's little stuff like this (along with the trash) that makes the city look like crap.. I don't know what these "artists" are talking about. It's one of the dumbest things I have ever heard of.
Posted by: MIO | July 5, 2011 10:34 AM
I am a artist and i hate weeds!!!!!!
Posted by: cynthia | July 6, 2011 12:14 AM
I think I can simplify what Lee has said... City people should get off their lazy butts and give a crap about their own neighborhoods. Stop waiting for other people to hand out to them. This is the sort of thing that disgusts me about the city. Call it "art" or anything else you want, in the end it is just plain LAZY people.
Posted by: Bill | July 6, 2011 6:48 AM
Art needn't be pretty to be inspiring. The artists aren't necessarily "touting" decay, merely documenting it. The fact that we're having this conversation means it has served its purpose.
Posted by: Jevon | July 6, 2011 7:15 PM
I think Baltimorebikeboi does an excellent job of parsing the issues related to his project. I would add, though, that artists NEVER "merely" document. To suggest such is naive...
Posted by: SSA IN BALTS | July 7, 2011 12:19 AM