Social Walking: Lygia Pape "Divisor" 1968-2011

Performance en el Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid

Brazillian artist Lygia Pape was a contemporary of Helio Oiticica and Lygia Clarke - part of the Tropicalismo movement that emerged in that county in the 60's and 70's - - a form of 'expanded' practice that developed from the neo-concrete aesthetics of the 50's (Grupo Neoconcreto). This looks like loads of fun - and a big presensce. Ryan's protest walk proposal made me think of this - I thought it was Oiticica but it was Pape! Here's another 're-performance' in Brazil…




Check out the Oiticicia clips on youtube as well - they are a hoot…
Wiki Tropicalismo listing here

Enjoy!

The Great London Circle Walk

On the weekend while looking for Richard Long artworks on the net, I cam across this walking project in London, by Michael Brunström: The Great London Circle Walk.

Here's an excerpt - the full post is worth a read - very inspiring!

It is fascinating to observe what happens when an abstract geometrical shape is superimposed on an urban landscape, which is organized along lines that are partly rational, partly organic and partly chaotic. Different definitions of the word 'natural' come into conflict. Obviously, you are forced to think about cities in a different way, following a route that no one would normally take. As a walker, you are both bound by the constraints of the route (no deviation from the circle is permitted!) and liberated from those all-too-beaten paths that others have made. The route almost takes on a ritual quality. You cannot help but become aware of time and space, observing the linear passage of the sun across the sky as you yourself perform a symbolic tour of a cyclical universe encoded in microcosm.

In addition to this pretentious arty bollocks, the walk offers plenty of general inspiration. It offers a stark illustration of different social conditions along the way, passing both the Aylesbury Estate in Walworth and Cheyne Walk in Chelsea, for example. It includes a bus garage, a museum, a university, a giraffe enclosure, a hospital, a high-security police station and a theatre – a rich resource of material for any narrative or fiction that might aim to encompass a cross-section of London life. It is made up of concrete, water, grass, brick, glass, trees, steel and earth. It passes at least fifty pubs. And below street level lie generations of souls amid fields, streets and houses that have long vanished from view, not to mention an even more ancient geology and hydrology.

Another UK project - this one very big - is walkit.com
The webiste provides Londoners with ideas for walks, and a place to share experiences and advice etc. - and they also have an app!

On The Aesthetics of Urban Walking and Writing

A beautiful essay on walking and the city by Phillip Lopate, via the NYC non-fiction blog/webiste "Tell Mr. Beller a Story", featuring some interesting observations on writting and walking amongst other points…

Around this time I began to appreciate the performance art of pedestrianism. Each New Yorker can seem like a minor character who has honed his or her persona into a sharp, three-second cameo. You have only an instant to catch the passerby's unique gesture or telltale accessory: a cough, hair primping, insouciant drawing on a cigarette, nubby red scarf, words muttered under the breath, eyebrow squinched in doubt. Diane Arbus used to say that in that split-second of passing someone, she looked for the flaw. I would say I look for the self-dramatizing element. How often you see perfectly sane people walking along grimacing to themselves, giggling, or wincing at some memory. Once, I passed a man in a three-piece suit who let out a sigh as intimate as if he had been sitting on the toilet. The expression worn on the street is perhaps more unconscious, therefore truer, than at work or at love. The crowded streets bring out, on the one hand, a pure self-absorption unembarrassed by witnesses; on the other hand, a secret conviction that one is being watched by Higher Powers, the anxious eyes of pedestrians all seeming to ask: Oh Lord, why hast Thou forsaken me?

Phillip Lopate, 2004