This is a collection of street art created by Joshua Allen Harris. These are installed in New York city streets, in front of subway or building exhaust release areas.

I found this artist via the website stumbleupon.com, and was immediately drawn to his work. I am a huge fan of street art, so that is another reason I liked this piece so much. I also liked how the artists used everyday materials (trash bags) and natural resources (the exhaust air from the subways) to make novel and captivating art.

There are multiple sculptures made by Joshua Allen Harris, but most of them depict some sort of animal form that would not usually be seen on the streets of New York. For example, he make a lochness monster, a bear, and a centaur, but little to no human forms. Harris was just trying to make a captivating piece of art; something that would get the people walking busily down New York streets to stop for a second.

Also, these sculptures allow the viewer to see the “life cycle” of the subject. The subject is given life when the air is blown into it, and it is killed when the air can no longer support its form. Perhaps Harris was alluding to reincarnation by having these installations go through many of these cycles before being taken down.

I view these sculptures as art because they are interesting and thought provoking, and are aesthetically pleasing. It is fun for the eye to see a creature expand and come to life as a subway passes beneath their feet. The artists’ choice to install them on the street instead of under fans in at art gallery, also adds to my appreciation of this art. The artist chose to use the world around him to create his art.

I believe these sculptures are more of the formalist tradition. Although they do mimic the forms of creatures, their short life, and modest medium makes me lean towards formalism, especially since I do not think the artist is trying to push a religious or emotional agenda onto the works’ viewers. The art is appreciated because it is there; it is art for art’s sake. The choice of installing it on the street also makes me believe it is formalism. If there was some serious message to be conveyed from these works, I doubt they would be displayed in such a fun and creative manner. The artists would have wanted to put them in a more serious atmosphere to drawn attention to their message, not their form and existence.

            One really interesting thing I found when researching this artist was this commercial:

 

 

Like I said before, I view this art as being formalist, there is no message trying to be pushed on the audience through its existence. But in this commercial featuring Harris’s Polar Bears, the work is clearly transformed into an emotionalist work, trying to cause people to feel remorse about the decline of the polar bear so that they will ride the subway to work instead of driving. I think it is really interesting how the context of how this art is displayed makes such a huge difference in the way we view it.

Although there is no definite grandfather to this type of street art, the work of blitz graffiti artists who started in the early 1970’s certainly paved the way for installations on the street. Going even further back, some say that cave art was the original graffiti and therefore, the original street art.

Earthsharehq. Environmental Defense Fund-Polar Bears. Perf. Joshua Allen Harris. Environmental Defense Fund: 2009, Web. 24 Sep 2009. .

NewYorkMagazine, Street Art: Joshua Allen Harris' Inflatable Bag Monsters. NewYorkMagazine: 2008, Web. 24 Sep 2009.