art intervention

when i hear intervention i just automatically think, drug problem or vh1’s celebrity rehab. delving more into the topic, we find this has been a prevalent current generation movement. i mean, 9 times out of 10 you may have known it this whole time but not really know the name for what’s going on. if i mention names like, banksy, shepard fairey, and joshua allen haris you might know what im talking about.

to put it succinctly, art intervention is art that interacts with the space, nearby existing art pieces or even the viewer that the piece is put in. art intervention is considered to be at times controversial because a lot of art intervention occurs in public spaces and by law is considered vandalism. however, if that same piece were to be placed in a private art gallery that does not interact with the public in a subtle and spontaneous way then the concept itself has already been taken out of context. the message has not been delivered as desired. thinking about banksy pieces, some can be shocking, offensive while others can be clever and more warm hearted. most of banksy’s pieces are often politically driven. just in time for this blog post is the first attempt of a documentary on banksy.

with art intervention, its ways of interacting with the audience in a way that is unexpected and sometimes the end goal is to challenge the mundane day to day mentality. reading on wikipedia about art intervention, there was a park in ireland where little enamel shells were painted army green and painted on them were a skull and crossbones with the word “LANDMINE” and then placed in parks. the artist Will Leger said in an interview about this piece, “The only time that people really think about things is if they encounter them in their everyday lives”. other times, even though with less of a political or philosophical statement artists like joshua haris as mentioned before creates these sculptures out of trash bags tied to vents where subways pass by in new york. when the subway passes air is pushed up from the vents and into these garbage bags where it is inflated into the sculptures to which they were designed. these pieces do not make a political statement rather just break the normal cycle of people passing by these vents not thinking twice. perhaps the end goal was just to give people at the end of their day something to talk about. in the end, it is breaking the norm and utilizing the surroundings as part of the art. the art piece and the environment in which it exists together combines to convey a message or break an everyday convention thus formulating what is known as art intervention.