As chamber music wafted across the green Saturday afternoon, a different scene was underway at Pitkin Plaza, where graffiti artists and break dancers showed off their talents to a steady hip-hop beat.
Over the course of the afternoon, blank white canvasses tacked to the fence behind Koffee on Orange filled with color. Working from a magazine clipping, Jules Muck (pictured) took her spray cans directly to a brick pillar for her portrait of Jane Fonda.
The block party, along with a gallery opening on Court Street, kicked off Ideat Village, the two week arts and music festival that runs alongside New Haven’s International Festival of Arts and Ideas. It was put together by Lou Cox, owner of Channel 1, a skate shop and urban art supply store on State Street, along with Ideat Village organizers Bill Saunders and Nancy Shea.
Especially in light of a proposed city anti-vandalism ordinance prohibiting the sale of spray paint and other materials to minors, Cox (pictured) said he hopes the event provided a positive example for kids with an interest in graffiti art.
“We see a serious interest in that younger audience,” he said. “It’s important to have events like these to help focus that creative attention.”
Cox is also working to establish legal graffiti walls and to secure donated mural space from local businesses to give young artists a constructive outlet. “The goal is that the kids, instead of saying ‘I’m going to scribble my name on this guy’s building,’ will maybe ask him if they can paint a mural on one of his walls.”
In the middle of the square, break dancers, ranging in age from 5 to 50, practiced their moves and faced off in two-on-two competition in front of a growing crowd.
Ideat Village events over the next two weeks include a film festival at Book Trader Cafe and the annual American Ideat karaoke competition. The gallery at 118 Court Street, where wall and floor space is given out freely on a first come first served basis, will be open for the duration of the festival. For the full slate of Ideat Village events, click here.
Paul Wessel sent in these photos of the event.
Graffiti is fun primarily because it is illegal. The idea of city-sponsored "graffiti walls" might prove beneficial for Channel 1's spray paint selling business but it is clearly bad for the medium as a whole. In the end I guess this is relatively harmless, as the new wave of careerist graffiti artists who aspire to have their work shown in galleries has pretty much emptied graffiti of the last of its vitality. Locally, the final nail in the coffin will be when we see some sort of "collabo" between Channel 1 and the Wine Thief.