Writing on the Wall: Street artists transform the urban landscape
In the Writing on the Wall series, Grist’s special projects editor Greg Hanscom looks into this colorful urban underworld, which one observer calls “the ghost in the urban machine becoming self-aware.”
In This Series
-
![]()
![]()
The city speaks — and artist Candy Chang finds fresh ways to listen
Photo:Randal FordThe house was a nightmare. “It had been collecting dust and graffiti since Katrina and there was something very shabby and Brothers Grimm about it,” says Candy Chang, an artist and graphic designer who lives just a few blocks from the place in New Orleans. But where others saw blight, Chang saw an opportunity, […]
-
![]()
![]()
Fine art, writ large: Billboards become gallery space
“Window,” a photograph by L.A. artist Susanna Battin, appeared on a San Bernardino County billboard in December.Photo: Susanna BattinIf you drove down I-15 in San Bernardino County, Calif., outside of Corona, last Friday, you may have noticed a giant, digital billboard exclaiming, “WE BUY USED GUNS.” But if you’d looked at the same sign from […]
-
![]()
![]()
Guerrilla bike lanes and asphalt devils: Remaking the streets with protest art
Photo: c/o Peter GibsonWhen Peter Gibson first set out with spray paint and stencils into the streets of Montreal, he had protest on his mind, not art. He had little sense that his small act of sabotage would usher him into the boundary-pushing realm of street art — or land him in the back of […]
-
![]()
![]()
Street-art film fest! Reverse graffiti, urban archaeology, and other writings on the wall
The walls of our cities are becoming canvases for creative expression in the hands of a new generation of artists. These kids are street-smart and engaged. (And, OK, they’re not all kids.) They work, on some levels, in the same spirit as Occupy Wall Street, reclaiming and transforming the urban landscape, and infusing their art with […]
-
![]()
![]()
Dr. Dirt: Street artist scrubs images into the urban landscape
Photo: c/o MooseStreet artist Moose Benjamin Curtis was having some difficulty with the police. The officers had just arrested him for creating designs on a wall in South London. But it was complicated — as things often are when Moose is involved. You see, Moose doesn’t use spray paint or wallpaper paste — the usual […]
-
![]()
![]()
Underwater homes: A visual guide to NYC's future floods
A New York City artist brings climate change home by mapping the coming floods and drawing them on the actual cityscape.
-
![]()
![]()
Fighting climate change in the Navajo Nation
A physician-turned-street-artist takes an urban art form to a landscape where most of the walls are eons-old stone.
-
![]()
![]()
Street artists see the city as their canvas
The artist Gaia is part of a young generation using art to revitalize cities, engage residents, and connect to the past.
