Street artists are often in tune with the subterraneal rhythms of the city, its people, the movements: the psyche.  Their affinity for the wild unscripted truths that pop up asymmetrically as a normal course of everyday working in the streets makes them better positioned to divine the messages.

Can I help you with something? (image WK Interact)

WK Interact’s new show “How To Blow Yourself Up” addresses the unspoken fear always lurking in our unspoken New York day; dark wire fears strummed by Orange Alerts a few years ago, the smell of acrid smoke in the subway, the installation of thousands of cameras all over Manhattan, and “entertainment” like “2012”, a disaster film based on end-time prophecies of ancient religions where the world suffers cataclysmically.

If only WK was trying to calm your fear.

Hey dudes, is this what you mean by Half-Pipe? (image WK Interact)

Maybe, instead, he is merely calling the bluff of the fatalists by wrapping it around a copper coil of twisted irony.  Maybe he is giving you the means of your own self-destruction so you will feel self-empowered! It’s so hard to tell.

The show opening November 7th at Subliminal Projects gallery in L.A. turns friendly accessible objects you might associate with fun into blunt devices of nihilistic doom.  It used to be fun when you saw this stuff on “Mission Impossible”, but when you personally see a skateboard equipped with what appears to be a pipe bomb, your blood can turn cold.

He knows that.

He’s added a dash of color to his typical black and white, but it’s not for whimsy. Think of police tape, hazmat suits, 9-Mile Point blinking red alarm lights. Cheery.

WK helped BSA understand more about his new show:

WK takes a moment to reflect on destruction. (image Adam Wallacavage)

Brooklyn Street Art: First, about the name of the show…How alarming!  Are you encouraging people to self-detonate?
WK Interactive: We are all wired with our very own internal detonators. The artificial devices, which I provide, are to encourage individuals who find themselves applicable to the scenarios to reflect on their state of affairs, which may bring them to the point of pressing the buttons.

Brooklyn Street Art: As a New Yorker, it is very thoughtful of you to create explosive devices for people who are the move!
WK Interactive: They are also figurative symbols of age, authority or subjection and social position.

Objects on the way to LA for an explosive show (image WK Interact)

Brooklyn Street Art: Lets see now, you have skateboards, bicycles; do you have a nice exploding car? Those are always popular.
WK Interactive: The goal was to keep it economically viable.

Brooklyn Street Art: Some of these pieces look tempting to touch, but I’m afraid my hand might blow off.
WK Interactive: By all means – touch………

Pop a wheelie!  (image WK Interact)

Brooklyn Street Art: On the streets of New York, you use almost exclusively black and white. Do you feel more colorful behind closed doors?
WK Interactive: The colors used are all primary and ironically relevant in conveying the importance of the objects in the pieces, for example Police Blue and Dynamite Red.

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Oh, the guy’s a real cut-up! The more you try to nail him down, the better he is at evading you. So maybe we should just embrace the chaos, and realize WK is only reflecting back to us what we already knew.

SUBLIMINAL PROJECTS Presents
How To Blow Yourself Up
New Works by WK Interact
November 7 – December 5, 2009
Opening Reception: Saturday, November 7, 8 p.m. – 11 p.m.

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