Trauma

Let's talk about yesterday. Aside from a few structural errors, all went splendidly. Around 8:00 am I had finished the final details on the last of four dummies, designed to look like terrorists who were a little down on their luck. I started installing them in their destined locations (a sidewalk on
36th and walnut street) around 8:15; first with an oil drum I'd appropriated from behind an Indian restaurant. For the last month my studio has been smelling like samosas. While I was carrying these life size figures out on to the street, the construction workers from the building next door were shouting out things like, "hey, he works for me" and "get him back to work". After I placed the second figure down, a police officer from across the street called me over and asked me what was going on. His point, and he was right, is that they looked a little "suspicious". I gave him my ID and my cell phone, told him they needed to be up at least until my professor saw them. The officer contacted his Lieutenant, who showed up and was incredibly amicable, cooperative, and as open to the idea of Freedom of Speech that this nation so proudly boasts. He called his superior, and ensured me that everything would be fine, and that there should not be any serious issues.
So after the last piece was installed, I sit back, and let the day unfold. The amount of traffic on the sidewalk varied through out the day, but consistently had a onlookers responding to the pieces, from either across the street or through the portal that these forms created. There was generally a positive reaction the men, people walked away saying how "cool" they were, and wondering where they came from. A gang of MFA students came to inspect them thoroughly as if they were critiquing something in a Chelsea gallery, yet the gallery was really the street. People filled the man with the Dunkin Donuts coffee cup with coins and someone even slipped a dollar in there, as if to express their enjoyment or approval of the works. The American mindset of having to pay for something that causes you joy is so well ingrained that people felt compelled to pay without even being asked to. And what does it say about society when a privileged upper middle class art student with nothing at stake but his pride can compel people to give him money on the street without even intending to?
I think what shook me the most, were the people who didn't even acknowledge or engage the piece. Either they were too caught in their own fears of the urban setting, or they were completely oblivious to the pieces existence (maybe the alarming abundance of destitution in Philadelphia rendered them desensitized, or maybe their own needs consume 100% of their attention 100% of the time ). Either way, the point was truly made for me in those moments. Are we too afraid for our own selfish reasons to pursue change? Or are we not even aware that change needs to happen?
The day wore on, responses stayed positive, people kept stopping to take photos with their camera-phones. All seemed well and yet I was also asking myself, so what now? Well the universe responded in the form of motorcycle officer Pugliese (nice South Philly name to accompany a nice South Philly attitude). As I was coming back from a class, I noticed him snooping around, and questioning civilians who stopped to check out the piece. I blew it off, took some photos, and went inside. Passing through the hall on my way to my studio I noticed there were more cops gathering around. He must have called in backup. I found myself a nice perch in one of the architecture studios that looked over the street, and watched as Julie (the head of my department) diploma-sized with the officers. Right then Donna, Julie's assistant, called me to tell me that Julie was talking to the cops, and that I needed to go outside. I took a deep breathe and made my way outside.
Officer Pugliese was a short man, and seemed to have a McCain complex. He claimed a complaint had been filed against the piece, and that he had seen a woman get startled and cross the street. I won't go into the fact that people are spooked by homeless people everyday, but I am more concerned with the legitimacy of this "anonymous complaint" about a piece of work that seemed to truly offend no one but this power tripping biker cop. I told him to ask his superiors about the situation, but he refused and told me that a garbage truck was on its way to dispose of the work. I didn't see the point in fighting any longer, and I didn't see getting arrested being an important part of what I set out to do. It had a good run, and this ending seemed like an appropriate one.
So its the now the day after, the piece got some coverage in a news paper, that as always, got the facts all wrong, and the photo was pretty terrible too. I am grateful for the attention though, and I accomplished what I set out to in the first place; re-spark the life of overpassed issues.



*here's a film! Its long, and meant to be on a gallery wall along with the pieces themselves. I'm trying more and more these days to give away the process, and make my work more transparent....
**i ended up not using the dynamite in the public context, but they will be there in the gallery