Rewarding Attentiveness: Street Level Urban Art

April 14, 2010 8:56 PM

Ben Wilson's Chewing Gum paintings and Slinkachu's sculpture rewards the attentive pedestrian. The former paints tiny pictures on sidewalk gum. The latter sets up tiny urban tableaus with humor and sly social critique. Pays to watch where you walk. (hat tip -- Raw Vision)
posted by cross_impact (5 comments total)

Beautiful! And finally humanity's rich artistic traditions are on display in a format suitable for the appreciation of ground-dwelling insects of all ranks.

Could this be the beginning of an institutionalised programme of cultural exchange between the republic of homo sapiens and the kingdom of bugs, beetles and other creepy-crawlies? Could such works bring hope for a new understanding - or a pause in the seemingly endless war between our respective kinds?

As a man who has long admired and emulated the lifestyle and moral code of a disgusting cockroach, I can only wish that it will be so.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 10:15 PM on April 14, 2010

I love Slinkachu - I have Office Politics in my office at work.
posted by patricio at 12:48 AM on April 15, 2010

That Ben Wilson guy does his thing where I live. I've walked past him and seen him painting gum a bunch of times. I always thought it was amusing and pretty cool, but I thought he was just following some street art fad he found on the internet. Never knew that he originated it nor that he had this online cult following. Thanks for the link!
posted by loveyourfellowman at 2:30 AM on April 15, 2010

Amazing how some color (ok, and creativity and talent) can make something so gross into art.
posted by TravelBug at 3:33 AM on April 15, 2010

Great stuff - adding visual complexity to urban landscape. I'd be interested in any other examples of this sort of thing (but thinking about it, seems like any sticker artist would be somewhat similar at least).
posted by D at 6:27 AM on April 15, 2010