Underground Art

    There are artist throughout the world that use their talents to display messages to the observer. Plenty of these artist lack funds, funds that would be used to purchase items such as canvases, paint, and so on. This leads to the streets becoming the artist’s canvas; buildings, sidewalks, build boards, artist have documented their talents upon these structures. Mustart, Clarence Rich, and Distort are all local street artist that have grown quite popular over time. Receiving immediate publicity, these artists have been contracted to do murals inside restaurants and on the side of buildings. Each have graced us with the Underground exhibit and each piece offers different views socially and artistically.

   

Mustart wall mural @ Cellar 365 in Jersey City

     The first piece by Distort is titled Shield of Justice and it made with the hood of car. Within the painting, you see a car on fire within a city that helps symbolize the results death and new regime. This is supported by the artist sampling the painting Judith Slaying Holofernes, with the burning car symbolizing Holofernes. Judith would later take the head of Holofernes back into town as motivation which lead to the Hebrews defeating Holofernes’s armies. This ultimately refers to society standing up for themselves and taking down the higher powers that are ruining society.

    Each art works speaks to you in some sort of way and the one piece that stood out to me was Mustarts piece titled Hummingbird Canvas. I feel this piece is most unique because it hits all factors, artistic, social issues, religion, and society. He keeps to his routes by having the top designed with graffiti style writing. Immediately it portrays that the artist is true to himself. Going deeper, I feel the graffiti styled writing is used as the sky, portraying clouds with the clipping of various items below symbolizing the world.

Hummingbird, Mustart

    The left side of the Hummingbird Canvas stands out more to me with its items below the graffiti. Each clipping represents the world we live in today from the middle photo which is the signing of the declaration of independence to the small coupon ticket. The ticket could mean items that we hold on to with hope and faith. The chances people ever win raffle prizes is very slim but society still holds on to something of chance rather than working towards it. The clipping of Hamlet represents how society turns on each other for ones own self interest. Again, each clipping shows our world currently and Mustart did this purposely. He is trying to send a message via artistic talent versus a lecture that other generations might not comprehend.

More on Mustart

Left Side, Hummingbird

   Nato Thompson explains that over time the world has become nothing but consumers and self-interest. “We gain a sense of how the game is played, we play it well with hopes of gaining more power”, quoted by Nato Thompson, this plays into Mustart’s piece with the clippings of Hamlet and Christopher Columbus. We look to gain more power and stray away from proper morals to maintain our fake reality.

Night At The Museum

    Clarence Rich created Night at the Museum, a perfect view of society today. The world has become a place of fake reality, a world of if no picture exists then the experience didn’t happen. Taking photos of amazing events or places helps a person gain culture capital. According to Thompson “Culture Capital becomes kind of a resume” to those whom don’t know you. This art piece shows a girl posing for a photo at the museum as if to demonstrate her intellect towards the arts. The lines around her head could be reason to believe while she is posing for a photo, she doesn’t quite understand what she is looking at.