The disembodied heads of Val Kilmer and Janet Leigh have been secretly attached to many concrete and wood structures in downtown Toronto for some time now, always making me think that there’s a network of people out there who know something very important that I don’t. Well, I think I’ve cracked it-if only a little. The Wooster Collective is a blog dedicated to the “ephemeral arts” of graffiti, tagging or any other word we have for what makes our cities a little more interesting to look at. Wooster, a street in the Soho district of New York, bases this collective in what is probably the apex for the world’s ephemeral art. The collective’s reach, however, is pretty global. The streets of Greece and Germany are also featured, adorned with colourful characters fused to street lights and decomposing concrete. The blog lists various gallery openings, randomly spotted acts of urban art and even docs based on some of the artists. Featured on the site are podcasts, announcements, and a seemingly inexhaustible number of links to other sites and artists-ideal for anyone even remotely interested in this art (or at least checking out other city’s decorators). The site also opens up into the subculture itself, as Danny Choe (featured in the doc) explains. “It’s about destroying public property, changing your environment, creating an environment you live in,” he says. This change, of course, is constant in the ephemeral arts, but lucky for us we have an online archive to keep some record before it’s washed away. (James King)
www.woostercollective.com