Neighborhood Antics and Installation Art: Or, How to Entertain Yourselves During a Long Minnesota Winter

Obviously priceless art, in the manner of Constructivism,

perhaps Socialist Realism, or according to its creator, Surrealism (?).

We live on the best corner of the best neighborhood in the--um, well, a pretty good city--in Lake Wobegon Country.

This fun started as an email exchange in which one neighbor (tongue in cheek I believe) complained about another neighbor keeping his city recycling box out all week. The offending neighbor wrote back that this was not an oversight on his part but an art installation of the highest form.

Art for the masses. Art in sympathy with the masses. An empty box. An obvious symbol of the futile, the forgotten, the homeless and forlorn.

Said neighbor, now a self-proclaimed Salvador Dali, is a social worker by day so it is no surprise that he would take up a hobby with a social conscience. A day after the accusatory email, his box appeared on the curb with the proclamation: “Don’t Touch. Art.” on a sign using the medium of the Everyman--cardboard and duct tape.

Another angle on fine art.

As you can see in these photos I took today, shortly thereafter other boxes appeared alongside his, apparently with great feeling for the plight of those forgotten ones among us as well.

And now more (of us), after this Tuesday’s trash pickup, have declared (our) allegiance to this cause, making (our) statements too as we carefully leave (our own) boxes out on curbsides throughout the block. This has the makings of a new social movement, from the corners of our block, to the neighborhood, the city, our country and perhaps even the world!