I’ve taken a big interest in public/street art recently, but most of the instances that I’ve happened upon and enjoyed to any degree are various modifications of the landscape that serve to provoke and confuse. As I still see it, street art generally tries to do the following three things: present art where it’s least expected, comment on the use of public space, and tries to be extremely clever.

But one thing that I haven’t seen this discipline do so often is actually make positive use of that public space in a way that, say, a city planner could appreciate. No problem–that’s not the artist’s job by any means, but surely there are a few street art projects out there that don’t just try and screw with the perception of the urban landscape but instead actually improve it, even in ways that conservative, committee-constrained planners could approve of and maybe even embrace?

I don’t mean big, cool paintings on the side of old buildings–go to any city with a modicum of artistic spirit about it (Montreal, for example) and you’ll find tons of that, all generally city-approved or at least tacitly endorsed by the fact that the best of them stay up for years. No, this is smaller scale, along the lines of the street art we’ve seen over the last few years, those exhibitions of “urban play” that trip up expectations and tweak common elements to new effect.

Enter Joshua Callaghan, who has done just this, and remarkably, he’s done it within the confines of a city-approved project. We all know about those power & utility boxes present on our streets, usually painted in an unremarkable, military-green. They’re ubiquitous and hardly appealing, but thankfully ignorable enough. After seeing Callaghan’s work, though, I’m starting to notice their stark uselessness in the landscape more and more, these big green boxes of electricity that occasionally contain some posters and flyers but more often than not do absolutely nothing besides what’s required of them to keep our telephones and traffic lights running.

The LA neighbourhood of Culver City decided to do something about them, and comissioned Callaghan to cover several of their boxes with large vinyl prints containing photographs of the landscape, or carefully chosen shots designed to somehow “blend” with the surrounding colours in a pleasing way. And they work as more than that, since the illusion is broken when you come up close and realize that hey, it’s just a normal old utility box with a big sticker all around it.

There’s a ton of possibility here: find an historical photograph from 50 years ago of the exact same spot, and put it on the utility box, creating a fleeting look back in time where one might least expect it. It’s also one excellent way of getting some commissions for your work: if you’re a young street artist, out filling the city with your highly original designs, you might just get a call from a city authority that isn’t about fining you or trying to foot you the bill for however much it cost to clean up your art project. Here’s hoping more planning departments see the light.

If you’ve stumbled across any other examples of urban/public art being used in an official context, condoned and approved by the authorities, fill us in!

To me, most street art wants to accomplish three little things that add up to the idea of ‘shocking’ the viewer. The word shock isn’t entirely appropriate as it implies something drastic–’changing perspective’ is probably more appropriate but kind of boring, so whatever. ‘Shock’ it is. Anyway, according to me, the three things that all projects of this kind attempt to do are:

• presenting art where it’s least expected
• commenting on the use of public space
• being (or trying to be) extremely clever

Those generally add up to the possibility of ‘shocking’ the passerby out of his/her normal sensibility or (if we want to start posturing) complacency, even.

Based on these criteria, I don’t exactly understand why Aakash Nihalani’s street art succeeds, but it does. His photography is great, his shapes are clean, clear, and fun. Maybe that’s it–the sense of fun that comes through in what he’s doing, which is really remarkably simple. It’s direct, well-photographed, and has a reasonably clear explanation by the artist as to what he thinks it is, and what he’s trying to do:

I’m not trying to push a certain highbrow logic or philosophy or purposefully communicate through the esoteric medium of art. I work instinctively, trying to follow my gut about the sensation of color and space, and have fun doing it.

On the ‘a-ha!’ scale, it’s about the same as when you were a kid and you first figured out that you could draw a two-dimensional square on a piece of paper, and then by adding some diagonal lines, make it into a three-dimensional object. The simplest thing in the world, which is probably why I like this stuff, because it’s a reference to that discovery in what’s already a multi-dimensional environment.

My street work consists mostly of isometric rectangles and squares. I selectively place these graphics around New York to highlight the unexpected contours and elegant geometry of the city itself. All execution of a piece is done on site with little to no planning.

Head over to his site for more quality work on display. His photography really does add a ton to the enjoyment of his work, it’s great stuff.

You’ve probably experienced “Urban Interventionism” without knowing it. Falling under the rubric of “activist art”, it’s the kind of art installation that attempts to directly involve the audience, often constituted as passers-by on the street. Usually designed as an interruption in the urban fabric, this is socially active art that changes public spaces into temporary art galleries on what can seem like an improvisational basis.

In this vein, the Amsterdam-based Droog agency has just launched Urban Play along a portion of that city’s riverfront. Featuring works by “some of the most notorious urban interventionists,” the work actively encourages public participation/documentation by the public. Under the banner of the larger ExperimentaDesign Biennale currently running through the 2nd of November in both Amsterdam and Utrecht, the exhibit is one of the few times in which so many of these artists, together, have a legal and comissioned forum of expression. At least I think it’s legal. (update: some people are confused)

Reversing the traditional approach to urban design, in which objects and areas are created explicitly to discourage public interaction and intervention, this collection of objects will be created to encourage interaction and physical engagement by the public.

At first I thought the idea of bringing together a group of artists like this actually ran counter to my preconceived notions of what Urban Interventionism means, but rather than being subversive for the sake of it, most of the artists and their respective work simply operate outside the normal “channels” of the art world–no funding, no authorization, just creative expression with the specific intent of altering urban spaces.

While some social attitudes have previously dismissed urban intervention as a form of vandalism, at the heart of this current wave of DIY urban design is in fact a deeply sophisticated movement driven by artists and designers who want to expand our relationship between creativity and the city.

Besides, the exhibition strives to ask a series of questions about art in the city, questions like “can a city tolerate its residents interacting with it in alternative ways?” or “what is the limit of urban intervention?” And the legal status of all the Amsterdam installations is (intentionally?) left unclear, meaning some of the exhibits might test the city’s limits in untold ways–these people don’t get casually labelled “pranksters” by local governments for nothing, after all.

After the exhibition in Amsterdam, Urban Play will continue on to other various European cities. I’ve only ever experienced Urban Interventionism second-hand, through newspaper articles, design sites, and various recountings. While collecting a series of these city-mods together might take away some of the experience of stumbling upon an “intervention” at random, I’ll gladly trade a touch of spontaneity to see so many designers at work in what is undoubtedly the new direction in street art.

From small interventions such as a series of stickers that turn the London Underground’s Northern Line map into an interactive game to bold projects that transform chain-link fences in Chicago into public message boards, these actions fall outside of traditional notions of urban activity, and are quickly relegated to the margins, often labeled as subversive, underground, or even illegal. Urban Play is an international project that believes this street-level inventiveness, energy and innovation is a window into a new form of creativity in the city.