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Late Monday night, Lamar Street got knit-bombed, y'all.
So this Saturday, Art City Austin goes down, and these knit-tagged street signs are a little taste of the public art you'll see decorating downtown. Magda Sayeg, who created the knit sleeves above, is one of Art City Austin's commissioned artists.
To me, Magda epitomizes the type of art that Austin does best: handmade craft, with a semi-guerilla spirit. Austin Craft Mafia, the lingering spirit of the Enchanted Forest, etc.
What I'm trying to say is - in the words of C+C Music Factory - it's "the things that make you go hmm."
As part of Magda's artist commission this year, she will also cover parking bollards along Cesar Chavez near Austin City Hall with lovingly knit sleeves. Which I might STEAL! (Just kidding. I won't steal.)
The second commissioned artist for Art City is Daniel Morrison, an architecture student at UT. Using discarded cardboard boxes, Morrison and a team of volunteers will create roughly 20,000 unique pieces of what he refers to as “a very large puzzle,” titled Cardboard Sky.
Once finished, the cardboard swath will be suspended in the air in the plaza of Austin’s City Hall. It will look kind of like this!:
In addition to these two offbeat public installations, there will be a whole slew of artists at the Art City Festival happening on Cesar Chavez. Check out the full line-up here.
Magda Sayeg photos above by Johnny Walker. Yes. That is his real name.
7 comments:
Such an improvement! When the original installation went up years ago I wasn't exactly bowled over. When I saw this yesterday while I was cruising down Lamar my face lit up and I thought - FINALLY!
I also saw there was some new knitting on the light post outside of DOMY - you gotta check it.
I say knitta please all the time now. it neva getz old
LOVE it! I want someone to do that to my apartment.
it always seemed like those lamar bridge thingys were a sort of work-in-progress ... that is to say, unfinished. lurv the new addition!
i drove up lamar on monday night and saw people setting up to do this and i was wondering what was gonna happen. what a fun result!
i love Magda's work (& of course her awesome moniker), but mostly i love that the overpass says "boobs." is that wrong of me?
@Model Citizen, you are the second person that's mentioned the DOMY installation! I've gots to go check it.
@The - I know. It really is too clever. If I ever meet Magda I'm going to shake her hand...or, wrap my arms around her.
@Peggy, RIGHT? THIS is what we should have done during Knitting Club. Created guerilla art. And tagged the office with it.
@huebscher - Agreed! I never knew what those odd signs were supposed to be, anyway. "Slow down?" "Caution?" "You are approaching Whole Foods?" Nobody knows.
@Katherine -Ooh fun! You saw the guerilla artists at work, eh?
@Beth - HAHA, I didn't even notice that until you pointed it out. :) Now I am teehee-ing!
--Tolly (supposed to be signed in as Austin Eavesdropper....but am too LAZY!)
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