Carlsbad Art and Culture

The nomination of Banksy’s ‘Exit Through the Gift Shop’ has prompted a recent increase in interest in the creation and “planting” of street art pieces. Stickers clump among each other on walls and artistically altered pieces of paper decorate the back sides of electrical boxes and signage. Street art may have reached mainstream and a new explosion of art is bending all the rules.

One artist who goes by the name SKNA has been hitting the streets hard for the past weeks with standard paper size paste ups spray painted with popular cartoon characters. Stimpy has been seen near Encinitas and Bender from Matt Groening’s Futurama has been planted in numerous locations around the Carlsbad Village.

SKNA, who pastes in high numbers neglecting the importance of the environment and focusing less on the art and more on public visibility, is one type of street artist. The other type carefully picks locations with the intent of forming a relationship between art and the surroundings.

Street art is nothing new. Galleries discovered the emerging art movement years ago and have given anonymous street artists solo shows. Some have decorated the walls of museums and others sell out of prints online within minutes.

The street art bubble of New York, Berlin, Los Angeles and other culturally laden communities has been swollen tight, at times showing signs of sudden leaks. If a puncture is necessary to release street art into other less creative more conservative communities, then the nomination of Banksy’s film just may have been that needle.

What have you seen in the streets lately?