OUTSIGHT, a Jorge Rodríguez-Gerada mural in Laon, France

Interrupting the status quo is something we associate with Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada. From “culture jamming,” where he employed marketing strategies to call attention to the detrimental social impact of targeted advertising or the “Identity Series,” where he utilized random locals in massive charcoal drawings, he is using art as resistance. The same is true of his current “Outsight” project in Laon, France.

The mural covers the side of a residential building and depicts a young boy with gently sloping symmetrical lines across his face. He’s not looking directly at the viewer, but rather looking blankly into space, but seems deeply impacted. There are, what appear to be, melting stripes of paint off of his right side, like there’s a part of him not fully formed and yet is already falling apart. There’s a single tear about to fall, but he’s stoic, like a child of war. Notably, replacing the boy’s iris is a “play” button symbol.

Gerarda invites us to question the effects of children viewing their world through the symbol of the ‘play’ button and a mobile phone from such a young age.

The color of the stripes stands out, they are varying shades of skin tones, they feel like a mask and a prison. And through this, we can’t decide what he is, his race is undeterminable and it seems to highlight the ridiculousness of skin color categorization.


Gerada (b. 1966) was born in Cuba, raised in the United States, and now resides in Barcelona. He has created a number of large works in urban spaces, some so large they can be seen from space. His focus is on using walls and streets as his canvas and ordinary people as models in his work. He was a founding member of the Culture Jamming movement in New York City and has subsequently launched the Identity Series (ephemeral charcoal drawings) and the Terrestrial Series (ephemeral earthworks that can be seen from space). His important large-scale works include “Out of Many, One” created near the White House in Washington, D.C. commissioned by the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery and to create mural designs for the Spanish Pavilion at the Dubai World’s fair.

Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada: web | facebook | instagram | twitter | youtube

The post OUTSIGHT, a Jorge Rodríguez-Gerada mural in Laon, France first appeared on street art united states.
by Veera Mylapore via street art united states

from Graffiti Bremen und Mehr ! Streetart auf Papier und Online https://ift.tt/yM7jWKl

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Silence of the Street Art Community is Disappointing

Image
As we are witnessing a genocide unfolding before our eyes in Gaza, hundreds of thousands of people around the world have come together to march and protest in solidarity with the Palestinians and demand a ceasefire. However, I can’t help but feel disappointment with the street art community that is, for the most part, silent, a community that “supposedly” supports underserved communities and gives a voice to the voiceless. Seasonal in Ruins by Escif The contrast between the vocal condemnation of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine by artists who advocate for peace and justice and their relative silence on the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is indeed striking. While many artists have used their platforms to raise their voices against one form of conflict, it raises questions about the consistency of their advocacy. The situation in Palestine demands a similar commitment to the principles of justice, human rights, and empathy for those affected by violence and oppression. It underscores th
Read more

13 DEADLY SCARY GRAFFITI ARTISTS TO CONSUME BEFORE YOU DIE

Image
You don’t have long left to live on this planet, but there is plenty of time left to suffer at the hands of these artists whose dedication to torturing walls and trains knows no bounds. Whether it be through lethal lettering, killer characters or awful abstraction, these unhinged beings live amongst us, living discreet existences during the day before unleashing their evil imaginations by night.

 Extreme warning: the contents of list should only be consumed by human beings with extreme tolerance to disturbing graffiti styles. Tera There seems to be something in the water in Italy that produces artists keen on bizarre textures, organic ornamentation and fungal features. Tera works interact with the abandoned spaces she finds with discomforting results. Kool Func 88 This Frenchman gets his name from Fun Crime, and is a member of the dangerous crews GT and UB. His graffiti is 100 % twisted, evidenced by the names he gives to his pieces: “Leftover Potato”, “Weirdies” and “Corrod
Read more

OKUDA: A LIFE PAINTING FOR FREEDOM AND DIVERSITY

Image
This month at Montana Colors we’ve celebrated #mtnwokemonth: a series of publications and articles on MTN World and on social media highlighting the role of graffiti, street art, muralism and exhibitions in promoting social causes. We can think of no-one better to cap off the month than Okuda San Miguel , a world-famous Spanish artist who makes no secret of the role of his art in the promotion of freedom of collectives of all kinds. MTN World caught up with him during the production of a huge new collaboration in Valencia with Sixe Paredes to talk about social causes in art, the effect of travelling on the environment and his support for the LGBTQI+ community. Are there any artists that you think have an interesting social message? I love Icy and Sot , I think their work is incredible. Besides, I know their backstory: they escaped from Iran because they were going to be imprisoned just for their art, and they have political asylum in the United States. What they communicate in t
Read more