Directional Footsteps, 1

I should have done this a long time ago but been stuck on me, me, me. I guess the life of a "street artist" is more vain than Martina Navratilova's forearm. Ok, punny-ass jokes aside, I thought it was time to stop being so myopic so i'm going to step back and try to rejuvinate my little digi-loft here at Overunder. I'm not going to call it a New Year's Resolution but I am going to do my best to bring you a weekly Saturday post showing you my favorite artists of the week. I'm usually amazed by a bunch of people and usually come across half a dozen new people a week that utterly blow my mind. Not to mention, the countless people who have made an indelible mark on me in person, video, or folklore. So this week I wanted to share them with you.

The first is this new piece by El Tono. The works were pasted up in layers in a loose enough way that those in passing could get enough of a grip to rip the work. These are then then taken down by El Tono and are up now in his current show Pubblico in Milano. El Tono has been thoughtfully ridging the gap between gallery space and people space, having the work fluxuate back and forth and inviting the public to truly participate in some form; Whether it be transforming the piece through delivering it to a specified address (as in the piece with Nuria) or vandalizing it in order to create something of chance and authenticity.

The second person is Aram Bartholl who created the below video telephony project. He does tons of crazy street/cyber mashups and he's fluent on internety (is that even an adjective) cultural affairs. I like the "here's looking at you kid" project because it tries to tackle the ironic social unconnectivity created by the internet although it borders on sci-fi virtual reality eyewear. You should definitely check out Aram's site for more of his work.

Lastly, I found the work of Daniel Buren which is bare to the bone. This fool keeps it ba-sic. But his work ethic is top notch where he's all about stripping the work itself to a minimal and highlighting the experience. He calls it "scene of production" which is devoid of representation and solely devoted to highlighting the work itself. He works with striped awning canvas, common in France and wheat pastes it in situ. He was active in the 60's and you can learn more about him through the wiki or this spanish write-up.

Hope you few stragglers reading this enjoy and excited to bring it to you next week.

Si se puede.