New York City Is Empty, But Street Artists Are Still Working. Here’s How They’re Adapting Their Methods for Our Time

Like cities across the world, New York City has largely shut
down, with the government ordering residents to practice social
distance and cease all non-essential business. But over the
past few weeks, a handful of intrepid street artists still went out
there, creating new works of art in public.

“In times of grief or stress, I believe that these pieces are a
way that people can visually share their frustrations, or use them
to laugh at adversity,” artist Adrian Wilson told Artnet News in an
email. “Street art is like the news, fleeting and ephemeral. I hope
to use the medium to give people a way to respond to a news event
in a more creative, and even humorous, way.”

But everything is different in these unprecedented times, even
for street artists. There’s always an element of risk to
unsanctioned street art—but normally that does not include
potentially jeopardizing one’s health through contact with
contaminated surfaces or sick passersby.

“I wore a mask and used a Citi bike to get around as much as
possible,” said Wilson, who has since left the city. “I did ask a
couple of people to use my phone to photograph me putting up the
work, but nobody wanted to touch it in case it had virus on it.
That was a new one. A guy shot images on his phone and emailed me
instead.”

After two weeks of leaving works referencing the coronavirus on
discarded objects in her Brooklyn neighborhood, Sara Erenthal began to
feel under the weather. Concerned that she had contracted COVID-19,
she retreated to her apartment.

“As soon as I realized I wasn’t feeling well, I knew I would not
be going out,” she told Artnet News. Although Erenthal did not get tested, a call to
her doctor suggested the diagnosis, even though she had been taking
precautions.

“I had very strict rules for myself,” she said. “If I needed to
move anything for a photograph, I would put on gloves and I
would sanitize and all that stuff.”

There were other risks as well. With fewer New Yorkers on the
streets, Wilson, whose work includes illegal spray paint, was more
concerned than ever about being spotted by the police. “I stuck out
like a sore thumb carrying a big stencil and street sign,” he
said. “I have been arrested several times before, and I didn’t
want to catch coronavirus from a jail cell bench.”

Both Wilson and Erenthal noticed a distinctly different mood
across New York City as social distancing began being enforced.
“The streets started emptying,” said Erenthal. “I started
wondering, should I still be doing this?”

“It was as if a big thunderstorm was coming. Nobody was taking a
leisurely stroll or looking around them,” Wilson added. “It’s a
grim time.”

Nevertheless, there were still those who found the time to
appreciate art. In her walks through the Prospect Lefferts Gardens
neighborhood in Brooklyn, Erenthal found a building with many large
objects in its trash area—offering a perfect canvas for her work.
She created new pieces there several times, drawing her signature
stylized woman’s face with coronavirus-inspired captions on
successive days.

“A couple stopped to tell me that they really appreciated it and
how much it was making their days,” she said.

Some of Erenthal’s recent captions include: “the art will get
damaged if you try to sanitize me;” “help, I’m trapped in a
tower”—that one was written inside her apartment window—and “the
street is our only museum right now.” In an eerie bit of
foreshadowing given her recent health issues, one reads “I hope
this isn’t my last public art piece.”

Wilson also finds garbage piles to be sources of inspiration. “I
enjoy writing on trash because it is both legal and a challenge to
come up with spontaneous ideas,” he said. Two messages the artist
scrawled on discarded mattresses read: “remember when bedbugs were our biggest
fear” and “one flu over the cuckoo’s
nest.”

He stenciled works reading “spread no virus”—hoping, of course,
that the work would go viral—across the city, sometimes in
collaboration with subway artist Jilly Ballistic. She
suggested combining Wilson’s slogan with her wheatpastes that
incorporate historical images, often of World War I-era figures in
gas masks.

Another piece was an official street sign that Wilson bought
online, altering it to read “STAY IN, SANE” and temporarily bolting
it up around the city, until it was stolen. “I felt it was
important to do these pieces as a creative defiance against the
impending doom,” Wilson said.

“Art is a really great tool for coping and healing, especially
when we’re going through difficult times,” said Erenthal, who
says she is already on the mend and eager to get a clean bill of
health and leave her apartment again. “There’s something about
the street that keeps me thriving,” she said. “I needed it for
myself, but I think it is a gift for everyone.”

See more street works below.

The post New York City Is Empty, But Street Artists Are
Still Working. Here’s How They’re Adapting Their Methods for Our
Time appeared first on artnet News.