C6 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, AUGUST 7, 2020
ways in which our stories and fates are tied
together. If you walk the streets of SoHo, the
alleys of the Lower East Side and heavily
trafficked avenues in Brooklyn, as I did over
the past few weeks, you will see these sym-
bols and signs and might wonder at their
meanings. What became apparent to me is
that in the intervening millenniums be-
tween those cave paintings and the killing
of George Floyd, the messages we share,
like the sociopolitical circumstances that
impel them, have become more complex.
Now street artists take account of the
qualified legal immunity protecting police
officers, the Black Lives Matter movement
and the ramifications of a dysfunctional de-
mocracy, among other realities, using a
well-developed visual language of cultural
memes that illustrate the ideological battles
among regional, racial and cultural fac-
tions. When we see the image of thin, green-
skinned, bipedal beings with teardrop-
shaped black apertures for eyes, we typical-
ly read “alien.” But when I see the image of
such a creature holding a sign that reads “I
can’t breathe,” I grok an urgent message:
Even aliens visiting from light years away
understand the plight of Black people in the
United States because this situation is so
obviously dire.
Today’s street paintings contain dis-
patches that proliferate across the city
sphere — lovely, challenging, angry, remon-
strative and even desperate. There are two
critical things to note about them. They are
different from graffiti, which to my eyes is
egocentric and monotone, mostly instanti-
ating the will of the tagger repeatedly. I am
here and you must see me, is the message.
The street artists in these works point be-
yond the self, to larger, collective issues.
The other pressing point is that these im-
ages in chalk, paint and oil stick are ephem-
eral. Between the time I walked these dis-
tricts and alerted the photographer to docu-
ment them, five images had already disap-
peared. One was a depiction of the
transgender freedom fighter Marsha P.
Johnson, whose image was marked in chalk
on the sidewalk in the ad hoc tent city creat-
ed near Chambers Street a few weeks ago.
It’s since been cleared out by police officers.
Unlike the caves of Lascaux (which are
on the UNESCO World Heritage Sites list)
most of this work won’t be protected or an-
thologized — but it should be. The lingual
messages and coded images on these ply-
wood facades are the means by which fu-
ture historians and researchers will come to
understand this time and give our genera-
tion a proper name.
SEPH RODNEY CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK
In SoHo, the artist Nick C. Kirk serialized images of President Trump standing in for overmilitarized police
officers in a work constituting a visual indictment of a commander in chief who claims to deploy state
forces only to quell violence and enforce the peace. The “VIP” sign on each shield seems to allude to his
widely documented narcissism and suggests that the deployment of the police is a self-serving ploy to
burnish his public image. Moreover, the running banner of “Demilitarize the Police” suggests that in the
artist’s eyes, the police do not come to make peace.
On Wooster Street in Manhattan, an unplanned collaboration by Erin Ko, Justin Orvis Steimer, EXR, Antennae and Helixx C. Armageddon, reads “Wisdom Lie
This reminds us that it’s incumbent on those of us who want to survive this time to learn to read the signs around us, the messages conveyed by street artists
news media. It suggests we need to read these communiqués critically, while not falling into the abyss of conspiracy theories.
This sign on Wooster Street means to stir up the anger that is
simmering. The unidentified author recognizes that this moment
in our history is an inflection point, a decisive pivot and what
comes after this may not bring the cessation of hostilities, but a
storm of social and political upheaval. Perhaps this is what is
required to finally begin to build a just and equitable society.
The green aliens depicted on Canal Str
artist, Gazoo ToTheMoon, no doubt un
precariousness and importance of Blac
Black Lives Matter campaign cleverly m
world needs to change.
This image of a raised fist by David Hollier on Fourth Avenue in
Brooklyn offers a universal message by Frederick Douglass for a
reborn America, one not pervaded by racism and greed. It pro-
claims that “A smile or a tear has no nationality; joy and sorrow
speak alike to all nations, and they, above all the confusion of
tongues, proclaim the brotherhood of man.” We tend to process
and comprehend hardship through the lens of ethnic, gender and
national differences. This sign is like a light illuminating a cave
most people never enter.
The photographer Simbarashe Cha introduced me to this image,
on Crosby Street in Manhattan, by Manuel Pulla, of Ella, a young
organizer who holds a large megaphone. This is an apt metaphor
for the activist’s voice. She calls for our attention, saying that
those who give their commitment to bodily action can transform
this country in ways our ancestors could only dream of.
Street Art:
Time to Hear
The Thunder
Sharing critical messages: a prehistoric
cave painting of stags, bison and horses in
the caves of Lascaux, France.
UNIVERSAL HISTORY ARCHIVE, VIA GETTY IMAGES
Photographs by SIMBARASHE CHA
for The New York Times
CONTINUED FROM PAGE C1
