THE HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT
SEEN ’ROUND THE WORLD
30 years ago, i was a freshman
at the school of art of the cooper union for the advancement of science and art
in new york city
i had a class called “3-dimensional design”
our final 3dd assignment was to create a site-specific piece,
which could be anywhere within 3 blocks of the school
“site-specific” just means that at least part of the meaning of a work is derived from the specific place in which you are experiencing it (as opposed to, for example, a painting like the mona lisa, whose meaning wouldn’t change if she were in a museum, in a home, or on the street)
i was so excited by the prospect of doing something
that could be seen by people in the real world!
i wanted to directly refute the eurocentric idea
that i had been inundated with
that suggested that the only proper place for art
was inside venues officially ordained
by the “art world” and its institutions
during break, i went out on the streets of the east village
wide eyed, looking for inspiration
i prayed to a higher power, “GOD, please… i need a vision…”
then i looked up
and saw a crosswalk sign
and realized that the words inside them could possibly be changed
so right there, on that busy manhattan street,
i climbed up the pole, unscrewed some wing nuts,
and removed a plate of glass that had the words “dont walk”
stenciled across the top, and “walk” across the bottom
something that seemed easily reproducible
i felt like i held the holy grail in my hands
the challenge in making my own versions was that i could not control if a person would see only the top half (the 2 lines that would normally say “dont walk”), the bottom half (“walk”), or whether they would see the top first, bottom second, or vice versa
each sign, then, had to be conceived in such a way that the message(s) would make sense in any way a person encountered them (i.e. top only, bottom only, top first, or bottom first)
DONT
WALK
a)
b)
WALK
DONT
WALK
c)
1.
WALK
2.
d)
WALK
1.
DONT
WALK
2.
my friends and i went out
the night before my final critique
and installed 6 new messages
at intersections around lower manhattan
THAT’S ME!
the site-specificity of
the signs was not literal,
but rather tied to the metaphor of crosswalks as crossroads in life, and the ideas one may have to consider at such a juncture
a reporter noticed one of the signs
soon, news reports of “reprogrammed” crosswalk signs mysteriously appearing on the streets of manhattan went viral
internationally, and newspapers, magazines, and radio & tv programs around the world were running stories on them
when asked for comment, the department of transportation would threaten to arrest me:
*STR8UP was the street art name i used to protect my identity
after the school year ended, i kept doing more signs on the streets of nyc and l.a. – more than 20 altogether – with messages that were tied into the locations
in which they were installed
an unintended consequence of the pieces was that they bore witness to an unspoken race / class dynamic in the city. although it was claimed that the signs had to be removed immediately because they were a danger to public safety, signs in affluent white neighborhoods were replaced within hours; signs in less affluent black and brown neighborhoods, like this sign on avenue c and 5th street (a predominantly boriqua
neighborhood) could remain in place literally 1,000 times longer
although i chose to do the pieces anonymously – so that people would focus on the messages, rather than the messenger – madison avenue was still able to track me down. there were numerous offers by advertisers for me to do the same projects over again – with their commercial messages inserted
when i flatly refused, it didn’t take those corporate entities long to create their own
then i started seeing
other people around the world
doing their own versions of crosswalk signs and other public signage
30 years later, i still see new altered street signage being installed in public spaces that is directly or indirectly inspired by the homework project i did, in my efforts to prove to the “art world” that art can exist and be appreciated by the masses
outside of their institutions
epilogue: the crosswalk signs were so much fun to do that my next project involved altering instructional stickers in the subways
but that is a story for another 3 minutes