Roadside Art Archives - Page 7 of 11

Railroad bridges over the Calumet River, with the Chicago Skyway in the background.

January 9, 2016 Bill Swislow

Southeast Sider Art

Chicago’s Southeast Side easily looks like a wasteland to drivers taking the Chicago Skyway as the shortest, though most expensive, path to get from the city to Michigan. But of course there are glimpses of a more interesting reality. The most obvious are the dramatic railroad bridges you see as you cross the Calumet River near 95th Street. They are some of Chicago’s finest, and always the best part of a Skyway trip. But if you get off the expressway you can find great examples of the vernacular art that lines most of the Chicago area’s off-the-beaten-track commercial districts.

January 6, 2016 Bill Swislow

Short Review: Harlem: The Unmaking of a Ghetto

Camilo Jose Vergara brings a fine photographic eye, a sociologist’s curiosity and expertise, and tremendous commitment to his explorations of cities, their decay and their resilience. This study of Harlem is most enlightening.

September 30, 2015 Bill Swislow

Tour the Lakefront Stone Carvings: Oct. 11

Chicago is home to the greatest collection of outdoor stone carvings in urban America. Generations of beach-going carvers whiling away the hours left their marks on huge limestone blocks installed during the Depression to improve and protect the city’s park-lined lakefront. Many of these anonymous carvings have been destroyed as part of more recent anti-erosion projects. But the stretch of shoreline between Bryn Mawr and Montrose Avenues still boasts dozens of these small wonders — animals, bathing beauties, presidents, deities, buildings and, of course, initials, names and eternal professions of love. It’s the best public art that no one sees. They’re

September 3, 2015 Bill Swislow

Food Truck Visions: A Street Food Environment

The vibrant visual environment created by food trucks on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., is a longtime favorite at Interesting Ideas. These photos of this vernacular art experience are from our third session there, in August 2015. You can also see some glorious details at Food Truck Visions: Art of Street Food, D.C. . See our existing National Mall food truck gallery.

May 29, 2015 Bill Swislow

Short Review: A New American Picture

This is one of those “why didn’t I think of that” books, or more accurately, “I kind of thought of that but never got around to doing it” books. Doug Rickard travels the country via Google Street View and creates a virtual street photography from the massive library of automatically generated images. Rickard gravitates to images of more or less distressed locations that include people, which means he is drawing from a small percentage of available pictures. I’m impressed with the patience this must require. As the book notes, his approach lets him show places he’s never been and would

May 13, 2015 Bill Swislow

Short Review: David Plowden’s A Handful of Dust: Disappearing America

David Plowden’s photos in A Handful of Dust: Disappearing America are marvelously evocative as always. His introductory text moves them to a dimension beyond ruin porn. Usually when you see pictures of rural decay you respond to that evocativeness and to the formal beauty of the scenes. Plowdwn connects you to the stories behind these mostly Midwestern images in the same way that he’s connected, by talking about what these places (and the people who once populated them) were like when he first photographed them years ago. There really is a narrative behind almost every ruined farmhouse or boarded-up store.

August 27, 2014 Bill Swislow

The Art of Street Food

The National Mall, which stretches from the Lincoln Memorial to the Capitol and features most of the Smithsonian museums, is lined with hot dog wagons and food trucks, at least in better times. When last I saw them many of these trucks were extravaganzas of hand-painted signs promoting colorful snacks and refreshments. I fear photographed images are overtaking the paintings, but that’s life on the roadside, and at least they remain exuberantly colorful. Here are images from this portable, spontaneous art environment, August 2009 and July 2014. Update The last gasp of hand-painted signs on the National Mall food trucks,

Calatrava Sail at the Milwaukee Art Museum

October 27, 2013 Bill Swislow

Milwaukee Architecture

Shaved Ice and Wild Buses: Street Art in Suriname book cover

May 16, 2012 Bill Swislow

Book Review: Shaved Ice and Wild Buses: Street Art in Suriname

Schaafijs en wilde bussen: Straatkunst in Suriname, by Chandra van Binnendijk , Paul Faber and Tammo Schuringa, KIT Publishers, 160 pages, 2010. ISBN 978-9-4602-2054-8. Dutch, soft cover, 19.50 euros

April 5, 2012 Bill Swislow

Book Review: South African Township Barbershops and Salons

South African Township Barbershops and Salons, Simon Weller, Mark Batty Publisher, 128 pages, 2011. ISBN 978-1-935613-04-6. Hard cover $27.95 If African Signs, with its minimal text but rich collection of photographs, provides a window to African vernacular culture, South African Township Barbershops & Salons passes through that window to provide something of an inside tour. Simon Weller, a professional photographer, not only document numerous advertising signs but also spent time with the hair cutters and their customers as well as several sign painters. He aims not just to show the art but also the culture in which the art is