PHOTOS New Wilson Alley mural in downtown Asheville

16 Comments

1. 

   ashevillain July 16, 2014

   Too bad this blog didn’t mention that the “mural” is the alphabet.

   I still think it doesn’t look good (or cohesive) but at least I know what it’s supposed to be now. (thanks AC-T!)

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   1. 

      boatrocker July 18, 2014

      So when are they going to start that mural to cover up all the chav/trainhopper/streetgunk?

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2. 

   Matt July 11, 2014

   Letter craft is a little understand and oft maligned form of art. Because it’s ugly. 🙂

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3. 

   Matt July 7, 2014

   Good on ’em for having a good time back there. And, even if the outcome is as messy as typical graffiti, the big difference is that they got permission first.

   I’m always happy to see people playing with colors and design in public spaces. And why not use back alley walls as experimental pallets?

   However, I will reserve the word ‘mural’ for more thoughtful and unique work. I walked by there this weekend to check it out and thought “oh, I guess they haven’t started yet”. I had in mind some of the bigger works that I’ve seen around town. But I guess those take time, and these artists only had one or two days to do their thing.

   Maybe it could’ve used some uniting theme or color scheme?

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4. 

   Gus Cutty July 7, 2014

   Looks great! Good to see the practitioners of letter craft in Asheville get some shine, even though as always people feel a need to critique that which they do not understand. Some really good pieces on there and the throwie wall is beautiful.

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   1. 

      ashevillain July 8, 2014

      I knew it wouldn’t take long before the ‘you just don’t understand it’ angle was presented.

      Look, I understand it fully. It’s just not good. It looks like graffiti that most business owners typically try to cover up.

      It definitely is NOT this:

      “Void has coordinated with 10+ artists to create a unified piece throughout the alley…”

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5. 

   Jason July 7, 2014

   Fucking sucks. I’d rather see some more rape sloths.

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6. 

   ashbeard July 7, 2014

   How ’bout we all start painting more than just letterforms, and actually make a statement about our social class, a record of what it means to live here and now. Are we all that content? Do we have nothing to say? Are we just painting up alleys to deter graffiti? It looks like a timeline of commercial advertisements to me (30 second promotions).
   Look at this alley…..what do you really feel?

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   1. 

      boatrocker July 7, 2014

      Yep.

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7. 

   Santa July 7, 2014

   Ew. Fugly.

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8. 

   ashevillain July 7, 2014

   With the exception of a couple small sections, that looks terrible. What’s with all of the tags? I thought that was supposed to be one of the points to this whole thing? Paint a nice mural so the taggers will go elsewhere?

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   1. 

      Fark July 7, 2014

      My thoughts exactly……… I thought these were still the before pics.

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      1. 

         ashbeard July 7, 2014

         All-in-all, it’s underwhelming. The highlight of the alley is still the Molly Rose Freeman piece, now accompanied by various forms of graffiti. Sure, the paint is colorful…but this is not a cohesive mural. It looks way more inviting to taggers, so perhaps it’s like bait that’ll be under surveillance.
         I was really in support of adding more artwork to the alley, however wasn’t expecting it to look like a subway tunnel. It looks like the whole thing was done in 4 hours…was there a time constraint or something?

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         1. 

            ashevillain July 7, 2014

            If the Molly Rose Freeman piece is the one that somewhat resembles a purple whale, then yes, that is the highlight. If that were a theme for the entire alley, then overall the alley might look nice.

            The rest of the stuff looks like the type of “art” that business owners typically would prefer to paint over.

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            1. 

               ashevillain July 7, 2014

               Actually, it looks like that piece was painted a couple years ago at least (according to Google).

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         2. 

            boatrocker July 7, 2014

            Yep.

            Reply