There’s this strange trend showing up, primarily on Instagram, of people asking/demanding that muralists get tagged on social media — even if the artists’ names are perfectly visible in the photograph, or if the mural lacked any tag. I’ve seen it on others’ posts. It’s happened a few times with my own.

Doll in a tree

I don’t enjoy it.

That might sound strange coming from me. For years I taught students how to attribute information. The assumption, then, might be that I would expect a very specific format to be followed. That assumption would be incorrect. As I would tell my students, while certain formats are required in specific contexts, the important idea is that if they did not write the words or create the image, then they needed to somehow indicate this to show integrity. If a music artist samples another, the norm is to credit in the liner notes. When a word artist uses someone else’s letters, the norm is to give footnotes or link back to the source. I created an entire map showing where different art is located in Hartford, and people can return to the site to see who may or may not have signed it.

Mural

Here’s my issue with these new, stringent “requirements” — they seem to elevate a particular kind of art over all the other art that I encounter daily, which often has unknown artists. It feels elitist.

When it comes to street photography, I am nearly always showing something that others have created — from homes to skyscrapers to gardens. I don’t recall anyone asking me why I did not, when posting a photograph of a house, credit the home’s architect. But having grown up in a blue collar family of carpenters, electricians, HVAC technicians. . . I have to ask why people don’t find it necessary to give credit to the person who wired the streetlamps or  painted a home that they have photographed and Instagrammed. When showing an image of a bridge, nobody has scolded me for not naming its designer. At most, they ask where it is, not who made it.

House decor

Maybe you don’t find these fabulous peacocks or the installation of that doll in a winter bare tree to be art, but would likely recognize the gold-leaf covered sculpture atop one of the flag poles around the Old State House as art.

Cinque on top of flag pole

This is the kind of image I have posted a number of times yet nobody has suggested that I tag the artist.

How could that information even be known?

Maybe there is a sign somewhere on the museum’s grounds telling who the figures are and who created them, but I could not find it. If the sculptor’s name is etched on the artwork itself, it can’t really be seen from the ground, at least not with my zoom lens.

After a little research back at home, I was able to learn that the likeness of Joseph Cinque was created by Randall Nelson. I don’t know who is responsible for the addition of what looks like a piece of cloth, but my guess is either the wind or a crow. Maybe a gull.

Pedestrian tunnel filled with graffiti

I look at this tunnel next to Bushnell Park and see a non-curated gallery, with a range of skills on display. The photographs pasted inside — the best of the work, in my opinion — are now worn, and if a name was present, it’s now hard to find. Others have scrawled over the top. Paper exposed to the elements has torn and faded.

The graffiti scrawled over the top of some images — was it placed by the photographer or someone else?

It’s public art, and it’s hard to know who is responsible for what.

That’s okay. It’s not art cloistered inside a traditional gallery.

By the way, who installed those stones? I’d like to know their names.

Graffiti that says "I love jellybeans"

Who is to say that the declaration of love for JellyBeans (the candy? a person? someone’s cat?) is less worthy than a cartoonish mural with multiple artists?

Mural of woman holding spray paint can

It took me a minute to figure out which artists were involved with the mural on Broad Street, but still have no idea who is responsible for the JellyBeans love. . .and to be honest, the simple statement of affection makes me smile.

Names of mural artists, which are hard to read the way they are painted

Across the street from this mural are a few buildings with eye-catching and skillful paint jobs. I could not say who painted either, but I enjoy how Pepe’s and Hermana’s are both memorable and not boring beige.

Pepe's Furniture doorway

Much of what I post on Real Hartford is material that I consider art, even if no one else does, and if you look back through the Look! series, it may become more obvious.

Squirrel decor

Here’s another one: sandwich boards. Who would the credit even go to? This one is outside of Hartford Prints! but no person’s name is at the bottom. Do we credit the person who thought up the content, or the person who physically created it, if those people are different?

Sign that says "List of Things I'm Handling Well" with nothing filled in

Unpopular opinion alert: I don’t love Sol LeWitt. Why? Because while he may have conceptualized artwork, others brought/bring it to life. But who gets the credit? Look at pretty much any social media post. Go ahead. Take ten minutes and search his name on Instagram or Facebook. You are not likely to find a list of a dozen or so volunteers who did the actual painting.

I guess my point is that there is this purist or perfectionist tendency that has emerged about attribution, but it’s incredibly flawed and excludes worker bees, those who did not attend art school, those who are more interested in creating than anything else, those who are making things without necessarily thinking of their projects as Art.

Gold fish creature

There are two water fountains in front of City Hall. Even after looking through newspaper archives, I have no better idea of who sculpted these fabulously creepy figures. For something this odd and cool, I expected to find a bit of an origin story, or at least a colorful description. If I wanted to sacrifice my lunch breaks at work, I could probably find a record somewhere, but that’s access the average person does not have at their fingertips.

Yet a fountain in Pope Park, which has since been converted from fountain to flower planter, received plenty of attention in the press. A sketch of it was published while fundraising was still underway. George Keller designed this memorial, which was originally installed on Park Terrace at Capitol Avenue, within view of his residence. It was moved beside the Pope Park Rec Center’s parking lot because of the icky road redesign that followed the installation of I-84, and now it gets tagged routinely.

Statue with fish

Art needs not fit into a very narrow mold, and attribution methods should not be forced into one either — just so long as nobody is trying to pass off someone else’s work as their own.

Oh, and that mural at the top of the post? It’s on the Sanchez School facing Grand Street. I have no idea who created it.

Portion of a faded mural