Category Archives for Installation

Back in Sweet Home Chicago

Last week, I was back home in Chicago. It was a quick visit, I spent a lot of time in Niles, since I was mostly there to see my parents and any other family that were available.

While in town, I was able to see a few friends as well. One friend, Anne Halston, lives in the north side neighborhood of Rogers Park. She took me to see some of the street art there. The first work is a very powerful paste up installation. The work is comprised of numerous small pieces of paper pasted to the wall. Each one has the name of a black person killed by the police. As you can see from the images, there are hundreds of pieces of paper.

The second set of images simply show the mural across the street from the first work. It is part of the Rogers Park street art mural series. Because I wanted to add the visual flavor of Chicago, I included the yellow concrete pillars of the underpass. It’s a colorful moment captured from an archetypical Chicago point of view.

It’s always good to be back in Sweet Home Chicago.

LIES Street Gallery: Visual Report (#5)

Ok, ok. I said I was done, but I changed my mind.

Here’s more documentation of the devolution/evolution of the LIES street galleries. The final visual report of the destruction and regeneration and further destruction.

The LIES Street Galleries

For months, I continued adding posters in these two locations on Wylie Street on a regular basis. Then I’d sit on my patio and people watch. During daylight hours, there’s a steady flow of people here on the Atlanta Beltline biking and walking path. These locations became my LIES street galleries and I had a lot of eyes on my artwork.

I documented their destruction extensively too. I plan to be use those images in a future series of mixed media paintings. See the visual report posts for details.

Street art in a space like this will get tagged, and should get tagged. It’s a part of the public space. No one expressing themselves creatively can claim ownership of these spaces. The slow destruction of this type of work is normal. In my opinion, the weathering and tagging adds to the visual appeal of the medium overall. I think it’s beautiful and has amazing mixed media potential. Makes the creative gears in my mind turn.

Living Across the Street

I’ve written before about where I live in Atlanta. It’s fast becoming a street art destination. I’d like to think I did a small part to spark the activity happening here. When I started working here, the Atlanta Beltline was yet to be constructed and the graffiti here had not been updated in along time. Today, there is constant action. New street art being added on a regular basis. That was not the case with this location (a metal, ridged wall) in 2016, when I started pasting up here. You can see pictures of that artwork here, here, and here.

Living across the street from your artwork has its perks. Not only am I on top of it in regard to my “principles of street art” battle (haha), I also get to see people stop and photograph themselves in front of my work. It’s uniquely rewarding.

On more than one occasion I’ve seen people film a scene for a music video right in front of my artwork. The video below is one example of this.

LIES Street Art Highlights (#4)

My final response to my graffiti artist nuisance was to make more posters, and paste up more posters. A lot more!

Living across the street allowed me to work with precision timing. As you can see from these photos, it was a lot of fun. A few total strangers stopped by to show support. Some of them wanted to get involved, including a Canadian citizen in full support of my message. We had to work fast, but I still had time to document the activity.

Their Reaction and My Second Response

A few days later I was told to shut the fuck up. That’s it, nothing else. I didn’t expect an intellectual war of words, but I thought there’d be more than just a simple tag.

Living across the street has its advantages. I had another sign up the next morning. With an additional handwritten message to emphasize a fine, sharp point.

I had a third poster ready to go in case I needed it. Never had to use it. Two got the job done.

LIES Street Art Highlights (#3)

I was quite pleased with this one. The location was perfect. High visibility, high impact. Right where the Beltline crosses Wylie St. Unfortunately, it didn’t last. Greg Mike covered it up with some of his same old shit. Guess, he liked the location too. I might post about it later when I present some of my thoughts on the Atlanta street art culture.

Here are some pictures of the installation. Pasted up during daylight, for a change.

LIES Street Art Highlights (#2)

Logistically, I started focusing my street art displays on one location. An old favorite. The wall across the street from my house on Wylie Street. The place I used for three of my four large scale paste up pieces. I posted about them years ago. You can find pictures here, here, and here.

This wall is ridged, which made it too difficult for pasting up the large-scale prints. Too much surface area. However, this would not be a problem with these new smaller posters. Therefore, I went to work making a large scale display.

Deranged Delusional Dipshit

Who else? Georgia’s very own Marjorie Three Names.

Conservative Scumbag

Seriously, this guy. What a conservative scumbag. The poster outlines a few things. I believe all three of these are true. The first two are already facts. Entitled dickhead. Trump Fanboy. These are indisputable facts. The third is Future Prison Bitch. This comes after he’s prosecuted and convicted for sexual misconduct. Fingers crossed on that one.

Gym Jordan Wrestles Facts

Jim Jordan (AKA Gym Jordan) is the epitome of the guy that talks fast, talks loud, and talks often, but says nothing but a bunch of bullshit. He’s the guy who wears the yellow tie without a suit jacket. He does this to appear like a commoner. Ya know, a hard-working, no nonsense kind-of-guy. Total lie. This guy isn’t no nonsense, Gym Jordan is all nonsense. His simpleton moves can be seen a mile away. The photo I used below is his official congressional portrait. In other words, the best that it gets for this guy. It might be the only time he’s been seen in his suit jacket.

Gym Jordan is also a former wrestling coach at Ohio State University. He has been accused of participating in the cover-up of widespread sexual abuse in OSU’s wrestling program. One day this will eventually catch up to the caveman congressman. He’s not a smart as he looks, and he looks like an idiot.

All of the Above

“I like Ted Cruz more than most of my other colleagues like Ted Cruz, and I hate Ted Cruz.” – Al Franken

The insurrection of January 6, 2021 was the direct inspiration for the LIES Brand targeted poster series to feature someone other than Trump. Who has the honor of being the first target? Who else? Ted fucking Cruz.

False Profit

I’ve already told you how much I love double entendres. False Profit is double entendre perfection.

The Cult of Trump believe many incredible lies. One of these lies is that Donald Trump is a successful businessman, a genius of capitalism, and an expert dealmaker.

Trump is not even a good businessman. By all accounts, he’s actually a shitty one. Not only that, Clown Face also owes millions!

Useful Idiot

The term “useful idiot” was originally used in the Soviet Union during the Cold War to describe non-communists regarded as susceptible to communist propaganda and manipulation. Fast forward to today and it’s still aptly used in the same manner to describe the relationship between Trump and Putin’s Russian Federation.

https://brettcalleroartist.com/2020/07/15/the-loyalty-lies-project-and-the-lies-brand/