In a series of work that interrogates the meaning of street art, photographer Alex Larsen and sculptor Alex Dijulio make artwork involving scenes of urban decay across Baltimore without turning the places into the subject of ruin porn. Their process begins as guerrilla art, with the two of them selecting a space somewhere in the city. They find objects in that space and compose them into sculptures, with special sensitivity to the relationship between their interventions and the context of the place. The arrangement of these objects into sculptures is intended to strip them of the meaning associated with their function, letting them become purely aesthetic and compositional.
Breaking from traditional street art, which is experienced by the viewer in the place where the art is inserted, these works are intended to be experienced through photographs displayed in galleries. The exhibits intentionally do not disclose the location of each image, so “art world” viewers at gallery shows are prevented from experiencing the on-site sculptures unless they stumble upon them by coincidence.
