Street Art

Art allows us to examine what it means to be human, to voice and express, and to bring people
and ideas together.

Task A. To study this, your Art teacher shows you the following slide illustrating the
first public artistic expressions and some questions to discuss.
If you want, you can click on the link below to do a fascinating virtual tour of a cave full
of prehistoric art. Enjoy the experience! https://archeologie.culture.fr/lascaux/en/visit-
cave/salle-taureaux

The Cueva de las Manos, Río Pinturas, contains an

exceptional assemblage of cave art, executed between
13,000 and 9,500 years ago. It takes its name from the
stencilled outlines of human hands in the cave, but there are
also many depictions of animals, such as guanacos, still
found in the region, as well as hunting scenes. The people
responsible for the paintings were the ancestors of the
historic hunter-gatherer communities of Patagonia found by
European settlers in the 19th century.
Like our ancestors, artists today intervene in public spaces to capture the eye and mind
of people passing by.
Task B. To learn more about this, your Art teacher shares the following article. You
read it and double click on the links in the text to analyze the images and watch the
video of David Zinn. While reading, you ask some questions about the main points and
take short notes to answer.

Where can you see Art?

When you hear the word art, you probably think of painting in
galleries or sculptures in museums. But art isn´t always inside, and
you don't always have to pay to see it. In fact, you can view some
really interesting art for free in public spaces around the world.

Public art goes beyond just making a place look pretty: it can
change society. In Las Palmitas, a neighbourhood of Pachuca,
Mexico, residents worked together with a street art group to paint
their hillside houses in bright colours. The result was an enormous
mural that can be seen from miles away. As the community
worked together on the project, they noticed how the art brought
joy to the neighbourhood. “In the morning, you wake up and look
around and see the colours that surround you,” said one resident.
It's very pretty.

Public art can also send a message. For example, much public art
deals with political and social topics. In 2014, British artists Paul
Cummings and Tom Piper placed 884,246 ceramic poppies on
the ground around the Tower of London. The temporary display
of artwork was in honour of the hundred-year anniversary of the
start of World War I . Each poppy represented a soldier who died
in the war while fighting for the British. The goal was for visitors to
think about and remember the soldiers. After several months, the
artwork was taken down, and the poppies were sold to raise
money for charity.

Public art can also make people aware of a situation. In 2010, the
Icelandic artist Bjargey Ólafsdóttir created Red Polar Bear on the
Langjökull glacier in Iceland. It showed the red outline of a polar
bear on the snow. The very large bear-80m by 50m- was made
out of red dye. Ólafsdóttir wanted to make people think about the
polar bear and how its environment is in danger because of global
warming.

Of course, sometimes public art is there simply because its beauty

brings people pleasure.
David Zinn’s drawings are improvised on location and have
appeared around the world. His art is inspired by random objects
and cracks that he sees on the streets. How important is art during
the coronavirus pandemic? He thinks that science is how we solve
problems but art is how we cope with them. He says that his brain
is always trying to think its way out of this situation and creativity
serves to make that part of your brain shut up.

Glossary.
Poppies: amapolas

Now you are ready to write your conclusions about the main ideas of the text.
 We usually think that art
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Public art is important for the community because

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Public artists express all kinds of messages through their work, for example
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Also, public art could be a great way to let people know about
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Especially during the pandemic, public art

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Have you heard about Banksy?

Task A. Today, in your Art class, you study one of the most controversial graffiti artists
- Banksy - who also had a very active role during the pandemic. Read the text and
complete it with the words below. (Make any necessary changes. Observe if you
need the word in the plural or to make a modification to the form of the verb, for
example.)

AWARE DEAL WITH FREE PUBLIC SPACE DISPLAY SOCIAL

PLEASURE TAKE DOWN TOPIC VIEW

Banksy is a famous - but anonymous - British graffiti artist. He keeps his identity a secret.
He produces pieces of work which pop up in 1___________, such as on the walls of buildings and
subway trains. But not all his art is 2________. In 2008, a piece of work called Keep it Spotless
was sold for over $1 million.
He began spray- painting trains and walls in his home city of Bristol
in the early 1990s. But in the 2000s, he expanded his work and
was soon leaving his artistic mark all over the world. He quickly
became well known as an artist who would send political messages
to make people 3___________ of relevant 4___________ 5___________. Banksy was
influenced by a French graffiti artist called Blek le Rat. For many people, Banksy’s work brings
them a lot of 6___________, but there are others who consider it to be vandalism and
7___________ his work as soon as they can by cleaning or repainting the walls or trains.
In 2020, his work 8__________ with Coviid-19. The most prominent
is his homage to nurses and front-line health care workers which
people can 9__________ in Southampton Hospital. He also made an
intervention in the underground in London which 10________ one of
his famous rats holding a bottle of sanitizer.

If you want, you can click on the link below to watch Banksy’s latest video on Instagram
called “A Great British Spraycation” where you can see his ingenious work. Don’t miss
it!
https://www.instagram.com/tv/CShWMUwFKkI/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Task B. Before you continue studying about public art, you decide to prepare a poster
with interesting facts you have learned so far.

1. Archeologists say that Cueva de las Manos was probably painted by children
because their hands are _______________ (small) than adults’.
 2. Curiously, the animals painted in caves found in Europe are _____________ (big)
than the animals depicted in caves in South America.

3. The neighbourhood of Pachuca in Mexico used to be one of ________________

(violent) areas in the city.

4. The ceramic poppies around the Tower of London is considered one of the
_____________ (pretty) exhibitions commemorating the lives lost at the front in
the Second World War.

5. The outline of the Red Polar Bear in Iceland is _____________ (large) than two
tennis courts.

6. David Zinn’s drawings are one of _______________ (ephemeral) artistic

interventions in urban areas.

7. Banksy is ______________ (famous) graffiti artist in the world.

Task C. After reading and watching the different artistic expressions, which one did you
like best? Why?

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Shall we create public art?

We have already worked on the organization of our writings and new linking words to
connect our ideas. Let’s put this into practice!
Your teacher invites you to create public art! Go back to the reasons why people create
art in the open: which one do you prefer? Why? Then, write a short text to explain
which is the most relevant reason for you and which public intervention can represent
it. Think about the location, the participants and the kind of production (mural,
sculpture, etc).

Choose ONE of the following options:

★ You have decided to create a public intervention to make people aware of an
important social issue.
 ★ You have decided to create a public intervention at school, so students can
express themselves and leave a mark.
★ You have decided to create a public intervention in your neighbourhood to send
a message.
★ You have decided to create a public intervention in your club to build a sense of
community.

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