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Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Boston; Another Sort of Art in the Street

October 12, 2011 Artists, Boston, Manhattan, NYC, On the Street

It’s been a few weeks since BSA first showed images of the protesting marchers of Occupy Wall Street and the number of everyday people from many walks of life in the streets has only bolstered what the kids have been saying. Now it looks like the marches have spread to hundreds of other cities in the country and around the world. All this in less than a month? It’s like it was waiting to happen.

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

In the intervening days the rapidly blossoming movement has been endorsed and reviled by many a political figure and well-known media personality. While some shiny happy telecasters seem bewildered by the discontent – the majority of people you talk to on the street or whom you stand behind at the grocery store or bank aren’t particularly mystified by the marchers or their myriad messages. It’s the same stuff people have been talking about at their kitchen table for years now – and now they’re talking together in the public square. Oops.

Occupy Wall Street. American Economist Rick Wolff speaks to Occupy Wall Street Open Forum on October 4. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Aside from the populist uprising aspect of it all, the art in the street during these Occupy marches has been pretty good. So have been the slogans, the witty turns of phrase, the clever costumes and dramatic street theater. Is there any question that Street Art will be reflecting what is happening in the streets? In many ways, it already has been – our recent talks at LA MOCA and the New York State Museum concentrated on the tea leaves of the street telling us for the last few years about homelessness, the effects of war, the struggles of the working class, and the housing crises. For many Street Artists this stuff is personal and they’ve been telling their stories with their art.

Here are some of the scenes we caught of the Occupy Boston and Occupy Wall Street marches recently; it will be very interesting to see how art and popular culture are influenced by what is now on display in the Streets. When you call yourself the 99%, you’ve cast a pretty wide net.

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street. “Rent Is Too Damn High” party founder and political activist Jimmy McMillan talks to the assembled on October 4th. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

What cha knitting? Occupy Wall Street. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Boston. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street: Handmade Signs and #Hashtags

September 24, 2011 Artists

“New York is the concentrate of art and commerce and sport and religion and entertainment and finance, bringing to a single compact arena the gladiator, the evangelist, the promoter, the actor, the trader and the merchant” E.B. White

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

And to the above list we might like to add the very, very rich.

“Occupy Wall Street” is the command of a loosely knit congregation of primarily young people who have set up a small colony in downtown since the 17th and, despite the armature of a police state surrounding them, these Millenials are questioning the economic structure of this millenium. Using D.I.Y signage, social media savy, and a fair amount of street theater, their message has been making it’s way far beyond the cavernous streets of the best know banking district in the country. Fortified with a heavy contingency of uniformed and plain clothesed officers with cameras and weapons at the ready, Wall Street became an iron clad citadel 10 years ago, an impenetrable marble and concrete castle to capital where tourists waddle and traders race daily past the steps on which George Washington took his oath of office. The stock market is here, the Federal Reserve, and so are all the banks.

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

It’s understandable that a generation with bad prospects of finding work, saddled with high debt for their education and living with parents who are at their wits-end because of underwater mortgages, loss of health insurance and disappearing retirements would now fix their gaze upon the root causes of this permanent insecurity. In many people’s minds the class warfare has been in full effect for a while and these folks are now wondering about those basic tenets of free speech and right to assemble that Americans of previous generations fought to maintain, guaranteed by the constitution. As corporations continue to gain rights and citizens continue to cede them, these demonstrators say they feel like they have nothing to lose, except their entire country.

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Their camp is a nerve center of hi/low tech creativity where handmade signs on cardboard are painted with sharp slogans and laptops and handhelds are regularly updated with hashtags and twitpics. In the center of the camp a makeshift digital press office is ringed with faces glowing in the cool blue hue as communication with the rest of the world is continued under the watchful gaze of a ring of blue officers and street cameras. There is also joyful music performed live, with folks sharing food, books, blankets and stories.

Here are some images from the streets of Wall this week – with tourists alternately perturbed and pleased, police polite and alert, and demonstrators all over the place with messages and chants forced into a cyclical narrow path in the public space by temporary steel structures. 2011 has brought an Arab Spring where people have taken back the discourse from ever more entrenched power holders, and this spontaneous discontent appears to be encircling the globe as the shiny finish on corporate globalism seems to lose it’s luster. It makes perfect sense that these demonstrators are in this symbolic and actual nerve center of capitalism in such a public way, using public space to public issues.

“Credit Crunch Monster” by Ronzo in London

March 6, 2010 Artists, London, On the Street

As the scourge of financial immorality continues to sprint at top speed through the hallways of power the street artist commentaries are addressing the issue in a concrete fashion.

Here Street Artist Ronzo installs a “Credit Crunch Monster” in a film reminiscent made in the style of silent films during the Great Depression.

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Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street. American Economist Rick Wolff speaks to Occupy Wall Street Open Forum on October 4. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street. “Rent Is Too Damn High” party founder and political activist Jimmy McMillan talks to the assembled on October 4th. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street. “Rent Is Too Damn High” party founder and political activist Jimmy McMillan talks to the assembled on October 4th. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

What cha knitting? Occupy Wall Street. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Boston. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Boston. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Boston. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Boston. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Boston. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Boston. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Boston. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Boston. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Boston. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Boston. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Boston. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Boston. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Boston. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Boston. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Occupy Wall Street (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Here Street Artist Ronzo installs a “Credit Crunch Monster” in a film reminiscent made in the style of silent films during the Great Depression.

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