The contemporary street art database is being re-conceived in a much more useful fashion. AT SLU, arts cataloging guru Arline Wolfe has been organizing image files and assigning consistent terms for artist, title, date, location, and most importantly, subject and description fields. Good cataloging = easier and better access. Sounds simple. It’s not. Really not. We’re still stuck with a non-intuitive online display format using ContentDM software, but at some point in the future something better will surely appear on the horizon. Arline now has 200 stickers from Berlin in the new collection with 300 in the wings – another…
Sometimes/all the time
“Sometimes the pencil is stronger than I am” is my favorite quote right now from an Inuit artist, Suvinai Ashoona. I can kind of relate. Sometimes stickers and street art have such a strong presence and force, stronger than me. Well, not sometimes. All the time. I hope that’s not too weird. I love the creativity, the hope, the commitment, the optimism. That people will notice. That people will care.
Notes
I was able to speak today with someone who grew up in (west) Germany, and I showed him stickers from my two recent trips to Berlin, the one in 2009 and the other in 2010. He’s lived in the US for the past 30 years, but he talked about aspects of German history and culture that will help me make better sense of the stuff I have been gathering for the past six years. My favorite quote of the day was, “Tempelhof is a cult like The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” (I’ve got a dozen or so stickers about Berlin’s…
autonomous
Do I want the right to be self governed? Or do I want the diamond ring? Or the girl? Too many choices…. Wait a minute…. Who is in charge here?