Outside an abandoned building in New Zealand's second-biggest city, a sign reads slightly haunted but manageable. In the middle of a busy shopping strip, pedestrians are warned to keep to a 2.83km/h walking speed. In another part of the Christchurch, one piece of signage declares simply don't. The baffling boards are not an overzealous new council initiative, but a piece of art designed to play with the way we take authority and signage so seriously.
Our cities are full of grey tower blocks built for efficiency rather than aesthetics. Public benches are made of cheap concrete, pavements are falling apart, old structures are left derelict. Amid this backdrop of unloved, muted ugliness, a new wave of guerrilla mosaicists are enlivening their cities with beautiful, colourful designs. These artists rarely get official sign-off for their work.
Almost exactly a year ago, an inconspicuous U-Haul truck parked outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In lieu of cardboard boxes and furniture bound in stretch wrap, the truck's cargo was an assemblage of contraband objects taken from various workplaces. The truck was the U-Haul Gallery, on its third night of The Show of Stolen Goods, an exhibit curated by Jack Chase, the gallery's Head of Global Strategy, and artist Victoria Gill.
A new fair is parking just south of The Armory Show this year. Presented by U-Haul Gallery, the nomadic enterprise staging shows in the back of rented moving trucks, U-Haul Art Fair (5-7 September) will have ten participants parked streetside in Chelsea. Instead of a stand with four white walls, each exhibitor will have a moving van of their own.
