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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Sixty Eight: A city portrait -- impressions of New York > Breaking the chains, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, 2011
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01-AUG-2011

Breaking the chains, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, 2011

Part of massive mural known as “Great Walls: Justice Everywhere,” these huge fists dwarf pedestrians walking by them on Park Slope’s DeGraw Street. They symbolize a job-training program for ex-prison inmates. The mural, created by New York City’ Groundswell Community Mural Projects, salutes the program, an effort of South Brooklyn’s Fifth Avenue Committee – an economic and social justice community organization. The symbolic fists dominate the image and the wall itself. Incongruously, the pedestrians in my image seem utterly oblivious to them.

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Phil Douglis13-Aug-2011 19:01
Thanks, Iris, for noting the significances of this kind of art work. Most of what I saw in South Brooklyn was created by talented young artists who live in the area. Yes -- some of it does express metaphorical anger and frustration. Yet I also found much of it to be constructive, proclaiming the triumph of the human spirit over adversity.
Iris Maybloom (irislm)12-Aug-2011 23:03
There was just a wonderful exhibit in Los Angeles on Street Art. I have always been drawn to this genre of art and the talented artists who create it. The political, social and economic messages communicated in this art form are powerful, as you have expressed in several of your images in this gallery. That these pedestrians seem oblivious to the message is, for me, a metaphor for the feelings of alienation, detachment, and frustration experienced by so many in our current political climate.
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