Brooklyn
C215, Elle, Faile, Gaia, Imminent Disaster, Jaye Moon, JR, Nick Walker, Paul Richard, R. Robot and Sweet Toof
The Street Museum of Art (SMoA) is pleased to announce its inaugural exhibition, In Plain Sight, currently on view throughout the streets of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Featuring the found work of C215, Elle, Faile, Gaia, Imminent Disaster, Jaye Moon, JR, Nick Walker, Paul Richard, R. Robot and Sweet Toof, In Plain Sight is the first exhibition of its kind to adopt the guerrilla tactics of a street artist in its curation. Rather than trying to displace these inherently public works of art within a gallery setting, The Street Museum of Art coexists with the vibrancy of New York City’s urban environment. Much like the essential nature of street art, In Plain Sight is ephemeral. The duration of this exhibition is entirely reliant on external forces and the reaction of the public.
While the work included in this exhibition may be clearly visible to any pedestrian walking down the street, many remain unnoticed by the jaded eyes of New York City locals. Each piece has been cleverly positioned by the artists – hidden in plain sight and taunting those who pass by to stop and look. The exhibition encourages visitors to rediscover this city through a street artist’s perspective – paying attention to the freshly wet cement of a sidewalk, the rooftop of a run down industrial building or the flat exterior surface of a familiar storefront. For a moment, through the scavenger-hunt-like exhibition experience unique to The Street Museum of Art, one can begin to imagine the artists on their search for the ideal urban canvas.
Didactic labels publicly posted alongside each of the artists works encourage a more direct interaction between the viewer, the art and New York City’s urban landscape. SMoA challenges previous methods of exhibiting street art with an unauthorized program of public exhibitions calling for one to physically walk through the city and experience each piece firsthand, within its original context. As The Street Museum of Art’s inaugural exhibition, In Plain Sight is an illegal guide to Williamsburg, Brooklyn through the lens of a street artist – offering a new way to view the city and acting as a catalyst for future public street art exhibitions.
