There is the frame.
The art gallery.
The picture frame.
The theatre.
The book.
The photograph- yes a photo is a kind of frame.
Anything in a frame looks ‘good’. It attracts our attention. It has a sign on it saying ‘look at me’.
Lots of art in the 20thcentury played with the idea of the frame. 26 gas stations and various small fires by Ed Ruscha. Marcel Duchamp. Joseph Beuys. John Cage. Every gallery you’ve been that has a curated pile of rubbish in the corner. And it isn’t that badis it?
Then there is the street. In the 1960s the street became a place where you’d risk art that has no frame. A bare encounter. Street art. Graffiti. Mime. Street theatre. Busking. Selling fanzines. Drawing on the pavement.
Street art has no frame to fall back and be ironic about. It has to be something. It can’t be a pile of rubbish in the corner because there is plenty of that already. Street art has to get in your face a bit. It can’t be subtle, not in that way.
Somewhere between the two.