First of all, the frustrations in this post are pretty much the same that Caroline voiced in a post earlier this year about the All City Canvas festival. This year’s edition of the major Bristol mural festival See No Evil finished up recently, and I’m thinking that some great walls were painted. But how the hell can I tell? Other than Nychos’ wall, all the walls I’ve seen are in photos that have been filtered to hell because (I guess) that makes them more bloggable or tumblrable or whatever. Too often now, it seems like street art is more about the photo that will be sent to sites like this than the actual mural which should be meant to be appreciated by thousands of people every day. Photos are important, but rarely should the photo be more important than the actual work. I don’t think that the internet has to be the death of street art, but it damn sure could be when walls get painted for the purpose of taking filtered-to-hell photos of the finished product.
There were some talented artists painting at See No Evil, and the photos looks great if you think of them as photos untied to an actual mural that should be documented, but I’d like someone in Bristol to tell me how the murals actually turned out in-the-flesh. Here are some more photos that I was given from the event:
I’m sorry to pick on See No Evil about this issue. It’s not something that they started and it’s not something unique to them. They seem like a cool festival, but this is an issue which they are contributing to.
Photos courtesy of See No Evil and by Ian Cox