Street art Hongdae: Day 3, Text messages

The easiest way for an artist to share intent is text, much simpler than nuanced tactics of shade and texture. All those years in art school and apprenticeship may teach them how to sculpt concepts that fit in academic exhibition books and published papers, but the artists who show intent best etch it in crude Sharpie letters on the walls of public restrooms.

So the streets of Seoul speak to me with what marks pedestrians have left there. Best is the stencil seen on doors and walls around Hongdae: SHAME FOR SALE, ENQUIRE WITHIN, and I know I’ve already sold it.

Across the forehead of green eye and eared character two more words seen around the city. THE END? And, yes, we know it’s coming. Outside a restaurant a silly sketch and the name Franz Kafka, who I think, better than I, would understand it.

In the brick zoo the grizzly growls, fish swims, shark dies; cat licks beer from the mouth of the bottle. The chicken shouts, “Don’t hate yourself!” to the two bears eyed with suicidal Xs.

It’s all ludicrous when placed together and stripped of all it’s meaning. Yes, some of the best street art is political (think Banksy on the West Bank) but, for me, good art is based not on how or why it was created, but viewer reaction.

So I see a stencil of an eye-patched bearish pirate carrying the words, Are You Happy? And I think to self: if I’m not now, then I will be.