Stikman

Last updated
Stikman figure, New York City. Robot Street Art.jpg
Stikman figure, New York City.
Stikman figure, downtown Portland. Downtown Portland Stikman robot sticker embedded in asphalt (cropped).jpg
Stikman figure, downtown Portland.

stikman (stylized lowercase) is an pseudonymous American street artist best known for placing images of humanoid, robot-like stick figures on the sidewalks of cities across the United States. [1]

Contents

Background

He is reported to be Philadelphia native. [2] He has been active in street art since the 1960s, [2] when he began his career at age 14 with anti-war graffiti. [3]

Street art

He has been creating the stikman figures that he is best known for since the 1990s. [2] [4] [5] These are usually made of yellow linoleum-like pavement marking tape that becomes embedded in the asphalt over time, [6] [7] The artist places the figures, most frequently on crosswalks, [8] without any direct indication of authorship. This has led to articles in the media investigating the origin and authorship of the figures. [7] [9] While they are frequently interpreted as robot figures, the artist has said that they are simply "little men made of sticks". [3]

A Washington Post article stated that the Washington, D.C. area had over 150 stikman images embedded in its sidewalks in 2008. [10] The figures have also been placed in New York City, Boston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Wheeling, West Virginia, Ann Arbor, Michigan, Minneapolis, Minnesota, San Francisco, [11] and Chicago. [12]

stikman has also created the figures in other styles and media. [5] [13]

Although known primarily for works placed on the street, the artist has also been featured in gallery exhibitions. [14] [15] Works by stikman were selected for Amazon's first collection of limited-edition prints by seven international street artists. [16]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pedestrian crossing</span> Place designated for pedestrians to cross a road, street or avenue

A pedestrian crossing is a place designated for pedestrians to cross a road, street or avenue. The term "pedestrian crossing" is also used in the Vienna and Geneva Conventions, both of which pertain to road signs and road traffic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Toynbee tiles</span> Messages of unknown origin found embedded in asphalt of streets

The Toynbee tiles, also called Toynbee plaques, are messages of unknown origin found embedded in asphalt of streets in about two dozen major cities in the United States and four South American cities. Since the 1980s, several hundred tiles have been discovered. They are generally about the size of an American license plate, but sometimes considerably larger. They contain some variation of the following inscription:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jim Dine</span> American artist (born 1935)

Jim Dine is an American artist. Dine's work includes painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture and photography; his early works encompassed assemblage and happenings, while in recent years his poetry output, both in publications and readings, has increased.

"First Friday" is a name for various public events in some cities that occur on the first Friday of every month.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Red Grooms</span> American multimedia artist (born 1937)

Red Grooms is an American multimedia artist best known for his colorful pop-art constructions depicting frenetic scenes of modern urban life. Grooms was given the nickname "Red" by Dominic Falcone when he was starting out as a dishwasher at a restaurant in Provincetown and was studying with Hans Hofmann.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ursula von Rydingsvard</span> American sculptor (born 1942)

Ursula von Rydingsvard is a sculptor who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She is best known for creating large-scale works influenced by nature, primarily using cedar and other forms of timber.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joel Shapiro</span> American sculptor

Joel Elias Shapiro is an American sculptor renowned for his dynamic work composed of simple rectangular shapes. The artist is classified as a Minimalist as demonstrated in his works, which were mostly defined through the materials used, without allusions to subjects outside of the works. He lives and works in New York City. He is married to the artist Ellen Phelan.

Italo Scanga, an Italian-born American visual artist and educator. He was known for his sculptures, ceramics, glass, prints, and, paintings, working as a neo-Dadaist, neo-Expressionist, and neo-Cubist; his art was mostly created from found objects and/or ordinary objects. Scanga taught for many years at the University of California, San Diego.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen Powers (artist)</span> American artist (1968-)

Stephen J. Powers is an American contemporary artist and muralist. He is also known by the name ESPO, and Steve Powers. He lives in New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Megabus (North America)</span> American commercial intercity bus service

Megabus is an intercity bus service of Coach USA/Coach Canada operating in the eastern, southern, midwestern, western, and Pacific United States and in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. It is the North American service equivalent to the European Megabus.

An alternative exhibition space is a space other than a traditional commercial venue used for the public exhibition of artwork. Often comprising a place converted from another use, such as a store front, warehouse, or factory loft, it is then made into a display or performance space for use by an individual or group of artists. According to art advisor Allan Schwartzman "alternative spaces were the center of American artistic life in the '70s."

The following is a timeline of franchise evolution in Major League Baseball. The histories of franchises in the National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP), National Association of Professional Base Ball Players (NA), Union Association (UA), and American Association (AA) before they joined the National League (NL) are also included. In 1900 the minor league Western League renamed itself the American League (AL). All of the 1899 Western League teams were a part of the transformation with the Saint Paul Apostles moving to Chicago and to play as the White Stockings. In 1901 the AL declared itself a Major League. For its inaugural major league season the AL dropped its teams in Indianapolis, Buffalo and Minneapolis and replaced them with franchises in Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore and the Kansas City Blues moved to Washington to play as the Senators.

Lucy McLauchlan is a contemporary artist from England. She is the founder of the Beat13 Collective with artist Matthew Watkins.

Ted Lawson is an American contemporary artist.

Rick Berry is a contemporary American expressionistic figure artist based in the Boston area. Berry creates art for galleries, illustration, and paintings for theatrical performances.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sol Kjøk</span> Norwegian artist

Sol Kjøk is a Norwegian-born, NYC-based visual artist and founder of NOoSPHERE Arts, a nonprofit exhibition and performance venue on the Lower East Side in Manhattan. She lives and works at The Mothership NYC, the arts collective she founded in Brooklyn in 2005. In 2015, she started Last Frontier NYC, a new collaborative arts platform for international artists and performers, calling it "a campfire where the creative tribe can share its stories".

Ann Gillen is an American sculptor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liz LaManche</span> American installation artist

Liz LaManche is an American artist based in Somerville, Massachusetts, known for creating large-scale public installations and street art in the Boston and Washington, DC, areas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Seitu Jones</span> American Artist

Seitu Jones is a multi-disciplinary artist and community organizer known for his large-scale public artworks and environmental design. Working both independently and in collaboration with other artists, Jones has created over forty large-scale public art works.

<i>Metrobot</i>

Metrobot is an electronic public art sculpture designed by Nam June Paik. At the time of its unveiling in 1988, it was Paik's first outdoor sculpture and his largest. Since 2014, it has stood in front of the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) on Walnut Street in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio, United States.

References

  1. Lowman, Stephen (21 September 2008). "On the Trail of the Mysterious Stikman". washingtonpost.com.
  2. 1 2 3 McDonald, Blair (6 April 2021). "Curious Nashville: How Stick Figures Spotted Downtown Fit Into A Global Street Art Project". WPLN News - Nashville Public Radio.
  3. 1 2 Cooley, Patrick (27 July 2017). "Guerilla artist Stikman leaves his mark on Cleveland". cleveland.
  4. "Speaking with the Legendary stikman" Street Art NYC (November 28, 2012).
  5. 1 2 Armstrong, Phil "Cincinnati Crosswalks Are Being Invaded By Mysterious 'Stikmen'" Cincinnati Refined (September 29, 2017).
  6. Kelly, John "If you've walked over an alien robot plastered to the street, you've met stikman" Washington Post (March 21, 2020).
  7. 1 2 Trigg, Lisa. "No one's quite sure where mysterious robot-like street markings come from". Terre Haute Tribune-Star.
  8. Riggle, Nicholas Alden (Summer 2010). "Street Art: The Transfiguration of the Commonplaces". Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. 68:3: 244.
  9. "Secrets of the Square: Mr. Stikman, bring me a dream | Magazine | The Harvard Crimson". www.thecrimson.com.
  10. Wear, Ben. "Keep an eye out for Stikmen in the crosswalk". statesman.com.
  11. HARRIS, BERNARD. "Has 'stikman' left his mark?". LancasterOnline.
  12. "The hide-and-seek story behind the yellow stikman figures in Cleveland". www.cleveland19.com. 26 July 2017.
  13. Dale, Eric "Philly Street Art Interviews: The Artist Behind stikman" StreetsDept.com (December 10, 2020).
  14. "The Ever-Evolving stikman at Woodward Gallery on the Lower East Side" Street Art NYC (December 2, 2015).
  15. Crimmins, Peter "Mysterious 'Stikman' artist's iconic street figures on display at Fishtown gallery" WHYY.org (March 24, 2015).
  16. Middleton, Josh "Amazon’s First Series of Artist Prints" Philadelphia Magazine (November 23, 2015).