Lucky Luke Makes An Appearance

But Is It Art?

Objects affixed to posts on St. Viateur and Milton streets in Montreal

“This is Where We Make Good on Life”

Sometime around the St. Patrick’s Day snowstorm that undid all of the progress spring had made so far, somebody decided to give people in Mile End a bit of an escape from the weather. Photos of green parks, summery shadows and outdoor cafés have been stapled onto hydro poles near St. Viateur Street. Only one of the pictures has a caption: “This is where we make good on life,” it reads in faded blue ink.

The King of Kowloon

Before we left for our trip to Hong Kong, my girlfriend told me about the world’s oldest graffiti artist. “He’s eighty-five years old and he calls himself the King of Kowloon,” she explained. I had trouble reconciling the image of a frail old man with that of a typical paint-wielding street artist, especially after seeing a photo of some of the King’s work, which consisted of densely-packed, obssesive Chinese script arranged in neat lines and scrawled over the side of a pedestrian overpass.

About two weeks after I arrived in Hong Kong, I was walking from our apartment in leafy Yau Yat Chuen to go explore the more downscale Sham Shui Po. It had been raining that morning; the humid midday heat was so intense that I felt I was walking through water. As sweat poured down my back, I wished I hadn’t worn a thin pink shirt. Eventually, I emerged onto the inhospitable Boundary Road, walking towards the intersection with Tai Hang Tung Road. As I began crossing the street, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. It was a grey utility boxed covered with Chinese script.

I knew it at once: I had finally crossed paths with the King of Kowloon.

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Natural Street Art

The streets are filled with the detritus of everyday human activity. Occasionally, however, those remnants are left behind in such a fashion that they seem extraordinary—almost artistic. In Vancouver, on Keefer Street, I came across several feathers stuck into the cracks of a wooden hydro pole. Nearby, orange peels had been delicately placed on a utility box. Downtown, on Granville Street, a stray newspaper had been imprinted onto the surface of the sidewalk by thousands of footsteps, giving it the appearance of having been painted on the concrete.

None of this can be described as street art, since it is all, as far as I can tell, entirely accidental. But perhaps it can be considered a sort of natural art? Art created unintentionally? In the same vein are the posters, stickers and random notes that litter our cities’ streetscapes. Here in Montreal, I remember a series of posters that mysteriously appeared one night, declaring, “Girl from Saskatoon! I owe you bagels! Email me.” Another afternoon, walking along Sherbrooke Street in NDG, I noticed a poster pleading for the return of a lost “Pakistani passport, green color.” It was taped haphazardly on a traffic control box, next to an unrelated sticker with a drawing of a woman.

The only link between these things is that, somehow, they transcend their randomness or utilitarian purpose and take on another dimension. They become a kind of comment on the way we use our streets and public spaces. But most of all, they become strange, beautiful, perplexing.

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What Good is a Blank Wall?

If you live in the city, there’s a good chance you’re surrounded by street art. Take a look out your window; see any? There’s probably some graffiti in the alley or a strange stencil on the back door of the restaurant down the street. Maybe this afternoon you were walking home and noticed a bright new piece of graffiti on the side wall of a tall building. Street art is now as ubiquitous as trash cans or mailboxes—probably more so, considering that a magic marker has likely had its way with each of those. Graffiti is the most common form of street art and it causes strong reactions in the people who live with it. Some revile it, some love it, but still, it’s there. And it’s fascinating.

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Kiss You Are Under the Mistletoe

Holiday street art on St. Viateur Street, Montreal

The Art of Francisco Garcia

Mile Enders are used to street art, so it takes something special to catch their collective eye. Lately, people have been noticing the work of Francisco Garcia, a thirtysomething artists whose painted black-and-white posters have appeared above storefronts and on alley walls all around the Montreal neighbourhood. In an article published last year, Reading Montreal praised Garcia’s paintings for their “restrained composition, muted greyscale shading” and “honest depiction of unstylized unadorned people.” Most recently, those people have included the entire staff of Open Da Night, an Italian sports café on St. Viateur Street, in a series of six posters mounted across the street from the café. It’s a cheeky and poignant homage to one of Mile End’s most beloved institutions.

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