Art History
#art history #painting #street art #wheatpaste
New Anonymous Portraits Liberated From Their Museum Frames by Julien de Casabianca
We are often inundated with images of famous artworks, pieces even the most disconnected art viewer can name on the spot. These portraits however make up a very small percentage of the work in museums worldwide, the majority of faces either nameless or not burned into memory—men, women, and children immortalized by brushstroke but forgotten by time. These anonymous faces are the ones that French artist Julien de Casabianca (previously) is most drawn to, and has been “liberating” for the last few years by placing recreations of the unknown on urban street corners and abandoned buildings as a part of his Outings Project.
Since its inception the project has gone global—Oslo, Geneva, and Warsaw included in the recent cities that have received their own wheatpasted faces. De Casabianca was invited by the Cummer Museum in Jacksonville, FL to create a few pieces, including one that stands two-stories tall, a young girl in a bonnet peering away from the viewer and into the boarded-up brick wall on which she is placed. Other works of his are less conspicuous, characters hiding behind drooped plants or crouched on the ground at knee-level, glancing at the viewer from urban streets rather than behind museum quality glass.
The project has always been intended to be participatory, de Casabianca inviting anyone to photograph and “free” images from museums in their own city. De Casabianca will show his own work in Belgium next year at the Musée d’Ixelles from March 5th to April 10th. More of de Casabianca’s pieces can be found on his online gallery, Facebook, and Instagram.
#art history #painting #street art #wheatpaste
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