You Say Graffiti, We Say Stencil Art
Sure, it's been done before – but who cares?
We’ve all seen the ubiquitous stencil art around town – often, but not always, making some pointed political or social commentary.
But you’ll prove you really know the city if you can identify the locale of this work:
Close-up of a large work of stencil art.
It’s part of a much larger work on the south side of Catherine Street, on a concrete retaining wall across from the loading dock for UM’s 300 North Ingalls Building. The stenciling alone is interesting, but even more intriguing is the commentary – “IT’S ALL BEEN DONE BEFORE” – written beneath it.
A larger view of an adorned retaining wall on Catherine Street.
What you can do now, or what The Chronicle will do when we have time, is help answer these questions:
- How long has this stencil work been in place?
- Did the artist who put up the stencils also write the philosophical commentary?
- Who’s better looking – the Mona Lisa or Marilyn Monroe?
tomo captured some stencil art in 2003:
http://www.infinitedata.net/~tomo/092103/
don’t know about “this stencil work” in place but certainly the stencil as format is long going.
Does anyone know who this graphic artist is? I’d like to talk to them about presenting their work.
Re: the story about the bicycle accident at Wells and Packard: I reported that accident to The News. I was driving down Packard shortly after it occurred and was detoured around the intersection.
It’d been up for a couple of years…It appeared right around spring finals…I suspect it was part of an UM Art School project
Sarah wrote: “Re: the story about the bicycle accident at Wells and Packard: I reported that accident to The News. I was driving down Packard shortly after it occurred and was detoured around the intersection.”
This is a data-point also bearing on our practice of opening comments on selected stories only. Duly noted.
I’ve now opened up comments on the Wells and Packard accident story.