Street Art Hongdae: Post Script

Tried to wrap up Hongade’s street art in a box and hold it. Six blog posts from those morning walks around the abandoned party shelter. Twelve months of carting a bulky camera around in side bag and backpack, catching paint as I saw it.

With the wound sewn tight, the stitches popped to announce the world is still infected. Before the airplane landed, different scribes drew pictures on the caves here. And so more still will etch and ink the city after leaving.

New likeness lent itself to the park walls that last afternoon in Hongdae. As the last errands ran, still ended stopping with whirling neck to discover as art fresh as bloody baby.

So Hongdae streets, tear down walls and repaint forever with fever beauty. And to Zacpot, the omnipotent tagger: paint it again. Paint As Time Goes By.

Forever.

Hongdae Street Art: Day 6

Outstretched jaws make way for raindrops, laughter, and the like. The stencil pulls black around the grey wall, draws a photo from the past. The road stretches out into a walkway and up to a park where a dad plays with his son. The footbridge stands above the city on its hill.

These objects of affection put rose glasses on the past. They warp the boy leaning into girl to every date you’ve ever had. The spaceman in his orbit melts the present moment to the birth.

The speech bubble says, “Swap my gold for bubblegum god,” and the deal sounds like a win. A baby-vamp leers into an alley, tosses purple hair. The ghosts barf their clouds into piles of white garbage bags.

The two hold hands and the line comes again: I remember back in the day. And if you look deep enough into the tape on the trash you can see the art. Look closer still and you’ll see he looks like someone you used to know.

Street Art Hongdae: Day 5 Sex, money, and animal love

Down a back alley a jazz cat brands himself the sex king. Down another a brother and his two-foot sister avert their eyes to the piss stained rubble and beer boxes at their feet.

The half spun social messages give way to dizzy-happy colours and pets. A Korean capitalist poses Kimchi, another tired tug against the Starbucks strings. The quietest commenters resonate the best.

Two exed-out eyes on the bag headed rabbit, brother wears a tie. A gopher grins and a pipe pours black paint onto a sumo wrestler’s head. Stretching from Hongik University out to Sinchon, a walkway is painted by students and re-collaged by vandals late at night.

Dozens of faces form three triangles of caricatured flesh. Peer close and you’ll see your face; we’ve all been one of those. Fall far enough down the alley and you’ll loose yourself, like the white silhouette.

Like his heeled feet, I fell face first into the art. The painted street lamps continue on, but just like at that: Oops! I’m gone.

Street Art Hongdae: Day 2, Nintendo

Sometimes you reach the edge of the world just before it comes to take you home. So I was walking to the lip of all I knew, Hongdae’s graffiti ending at an overpass into an un-spotted city.

One left turn and I was in a children’s park, then tumbling down a hill. Turned up on a street I thought I’d never seen when an image brought me back. Mario and Luigi, the world’s Italian uncles; the first and best game bought for most grey brick Game Boys.

So simple the idea, it must be seen elsewhere: telephone poles painted to the classic green tubes from the video game. There’s been some great Mario-themed street art all over the place, but this is the first I’ve stumbled into in RL.

I ran back and forth across the street documenting every one. And when they finally let up my walked had curved some circle and taken me back to the main artery of Hongdae. Home base: always closer than it seems.

Street Art Hongdae: day 1

The street art walk begins in graffiti park, Hongdae. A tiny park nestled into the clubland streets that sprawl out of the local arts university, Hongik, is covered in Seoul’s familiar tags. When we meet up it’s flooded with people for a hand-made craft sale.

Snap a photo of a V-Vendetta mask poster-cut next to a tattooed suicide girl style pin up and the topical marker sketch: What Is Wikileaks?? The art in the park is always peeling off, covered by new lines and unlaboured sketches. Today there is a nostalgic 1950’s lass left in the corner of a torn poster, the word SEX all that’s still legible from the work.

The next morning the streets are empty, save for last night’s garbage. Down the steps, out the park, and into the back alleys. There is one of the most-seen images of street art in Seoul, and maybe larger Asia. Angry-girl, by Nana Is Real, is all over Hongdae and Tokyo. Next to it is often Metaphysics and a hand missing fingers and dripping blood.

An aged Art Is Over poster haunts the same alley, another work perhaps by Nana. Also, a stencil often seen in Seoul, Mother Teresa says Don’t Be Greedy. A rich man and an Indian, and some fading sign of Lincoln.

The street fashion girls are out for the flattering mid-morning lighting, SLRs following them with duty. I take a few more shots of their backdrops and disappear into another alley to find more art for blog posts forthcoming.