— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
For the denizens of Dolores Park, Zoltron's ever-changing plywood wall beside Bi-Rite Creamery is nothing new. It started out as a strung-out tribute to Ronald McDonald's 48-year-long slaughter campaign, but it was quickly vandalized by hipsters criticizing hipster street art. The greater neighborhood community responded by vandalizing the vandalism and Mother Earth, not knowing how to handle the puzzling situation, spun off its axis and sent earthquakes to D.C. and summer rainstorms to California.
Zoltron explains how it all started:
For the hell of it, i was drawing a famous clown named Ronald (as a junky villain derelict,) but somewhere along the way, I saw a glint of compassion in his eyes. So the drawing ended up showing Ron suddenly caught in an existential crisis of sorts… Like he just realized that he was solely responsible for the death of hundreds of millions of cows. Maybe he suddenly understood that he was fueling massive rainforest destruction and undeniably accountable for child obesity and onset adolescent diabetes.
So i drew him, printed him out, mixed up some pigment and painted on some paper. Then I pasted him up in a foodie district in the mission. The following photographs [GIFed above] were taken over the next 2 weeks.
The chaotic mixture of paper, wheatpaste, spraypaint, finger paint, drug addiction, and disdain for thousand calorie hamburgers and hipsters has long since been replaced, but it will be back on display beginning Friday when Bi-Rite's non-profit, 18 Reasons, opens the doors to their new 18th Street space. Free tickets to the opening are still available, and if you can't make the opening, Zoltron has some additional shots and analysis on his blog.
(Thanks for the heads up, Bruce!)
Comments (2)
Eric Gregory | [Permalink]
That wall was the best thing to ever happen in the 18th St. gourmet ghetto.
I don't think before I type | [Permalink]
What a great writeup Kevin. I’ll be there!