According to an AM New York article “Guerilla artists don’t want bench back“, an 8-foot-tall bench mysteriously appeared on Houston Street about two weeks ago. It goes on to say, “All this work, once it’s installed, it’s kind of just left to the fates,” said Tod Seelie, who collaborated with street artist Brad Downey on the bench and photographed its stealth installation in the middle of the night. “The idea is to see how time changes it.”

It would have been interesting to see people’s reaction walking/driving by the bench. Unfortunately, it appears that the bench has been taken down and since the artists do not want it back, it will likely be scrapped.

According to an NPR Boston (www.wbur.org) article about “Guerrilla Art” and a bench like object found in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, it states that “Guerrilla art has been described as an insidious way of leaving anonymous art work in public places. It’s unsanctioned and often unwelcome.”

Guerrilla Art is part of the Street Art Movement, defined in the Wikipedia as “art of an illicit nature, as opposed to government sponsored initiatives. The term can include traditional graffiti artwork, stencil graffiti, sticker art, wheatpasting and street poster art, video projection, art intervention, and street installations. Typically, the term Street Art is used to distinguish contemporary public-space artwork from territorial graffiti, vandalism, and corporate art.” Guerrilla Art is “a street art which embraces a more active, aggressive and usually covert approach to adapting public space.”

Follow the link to the library catalog for the ‘Subject’ term Street Art.