Sunday, October 02, 2005

Grafitti, or art?

(As you may have noticed, I've been sorting through some of my photos from the trip.)

I loved Bratislava. We only spent a day there, but it was full of surprises. We walked and walked and walked, and it seemed that every corner we turned there would be something surprising. It wasn't just the cows, either.

We went to see a church. I think it was the Blue Church. It was lovely, but the surprise was not the church. The surprise was the old, run-down building behind the church, which was not mentioned in the guidebook at all. I think we spent more time looking at this building than we did at the church. I certainly took more photos.

Who did this? How? Why? When? I don't know. There was no information, and nobody to ask.

Here are some photos. It was quite a large building, and I could not get the whole thing into one picture. This did not stop me from taking a lot of pictures, though, and here are some of them. (Click for larger versions.)

This is more or less what we saw when we came around the back of the church:



In this one, you can see the church on the right. The buildings are touching. The church, however, is beautifully maintained. The Gogh building (I don't know what else to call it) is not.



I did not visit any art galleries on my trip. This did not stop me from seeing some famous works of art, out in the wild.




We wondered about the rugs hanging out the windows. They were high up, and we couldn't tell whether they were real or not.





The stairs were not real. Or, if they were, I would not want to try climbing them. I wouldn't try opening the door, either.





Here are a couple more close-ups...





And finally, here is the view from the other side of the building, where we discovered there were yet MORE pictures.



I can't find any information about this building on the web, but I'm still looking. One problem is choosing search words. Graffiti, or art?

8 comments:

Faerunner said...

Yes.

I'd have to say that if it's not in the guidebook it's either very recent or very looked-down-upon. Maybe the authors of the guidebook don't know it's there.

I find it fascinating!

kenju said...

It IS fascinating. I have never seen anything like that. I have seen whole wall murals in some cities, but this window thing is genius. Thanks for the photos.

Artistic Soul said...

Wow - that's really interesting! As a rhetorical scholar, I'm now running off to think about the potential meaning of this display...

Gordon said...

Wow. That's definitely art if you ask me. Graffiti, in my opinion, detracts from a building, this definitely adds to it. Lovely, just lovely.

Lippy said...

What a fantastic find! Definitely art, and so cleverly done. It reminds me of another similar place but I can't recall where. Wasn't Bratislava though. As always, your photos are brilliant.

Anonymous said...

Oh, I love my nightly Mary-blog read---transports me.....and tonight was such a transporting end to a long hard day.....what a trip!!! Kay in Eagle River

Doris said...

I love things like this. Real art! Art for the masses.

Badaunt said...

It was not the Blue Church. It was St Martin's cathedral.

(I'm posting this so I don't forget again.)