Saturday, February 16, 2013

illegible in the city


It's impossible to tell the status of this hoarding poster: a real appeal, torn away since no longer missing? An advertisement for an event or show, now past?  A satiric take on the "missing" genre, now defaced?  For the original girl in the poster is also defaced, or obliterated, disguised behind a checkerboard of the kind of blurred pixelization used to disguise minors or the innocent - I mean, what use would this actually be in helping to recognize someone and track them down?  Or does the whole artifact, tears and all, constitute an installation, a commentary on the illegibility of all faces of those who are lost in the city?  [there certainly seem to be many more panhandlers than in previous years, and I'm not even counting the woman who, putting on makeup for free in Duane Reade, turned to me and asked if I was often told of my resemblance to Barbra Streisand?  Er, no.]



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