An odd new warning sign appeared at Line Street and the crosstown yesterday afternoon — but proceed with caution if you believe it’s real.
The sign reads, “Be prepared to stop. Gentrification ahead.”
That may be true for Charleston’s midtown, but the official-looking sign is anything but.
“Here in Charleston, we work to foster lively debate about the issues that matter most to our citizens,” said Cameron Wolfe, a spokesman for the City of Charleston.
“That said, putting up unauthorized signs is illegal and can be dangerous. So while we encourage residents to make their voices heard, we need them to do so in a safe, legal manner,” she said.
The person behind the sign put in a lot of effort — it looks and feels like an official orange highway sign. But it’s not. (We couldn’t definitively confirm it’s made of metal, but it had all the trappings of a standard metal road sign.)
“The goal of guerrilla art tactics has long been a way to stimulate discussion about issues impacting communities and under-recognized and underrepresented voices finding ways to get access to a public audience,” said Scott Watson, director of the city’s cultural affairs office.
Modern-day guerrilla art
Guerrilla art is loosely defined as a piece of work that appears unannounced in a public space and often comments on controversial issues.
Gentrification and overdevelopment are hot button topics in Charleston. Charleston’s rapid development over the last 20 years has led to community displacement across the peninsula. Yet, large new apartment complex projects with steep starting rent rates seem to pop up daily.
The artist seems to have a message for developers in town: Be prepared to stop.
“As far as the City of Charleston, we have an active interest in public art and protecting existing cultural art but guerrilla art projects [need to] go through a process of seeking permissions,” Watson said.
“We’re more likely to deal with taking things down that didn’t run through that process. It’s no different than if someone starts to build an addition on a house without submitting it to BAR [Board of Architectural Review] for design review.”
Watson recounted an unauthorized public art project from 2016-2017 that placed silhouette figures in public spaces as a reminder of issues surrounding homelessness and housing insecurity.
“It was a major point for civic discussion,” Watson said.
But one of the figures fell into a waterway on James Island, and the city’s emergency response team received calls about a person drowning in the water. No cardboard figures were seriously injured in the stunt, but it caused a disruption that could’ve been avoided pending the proper approval.
“It’s not that we have a position good or bad, yea or nay, it’s more that we have a process that prioritizes concern for public safety,” Watson said.
The city has previously worked with artists and institutions on public installations, including Shepard Fairey’s Andre the Giant piece, which was coordinated by the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art and temporarily displayed atop the Francis Marion Hotel in 2014.
“Had that gone through its course of being installed in the middle of the night, it wouldn’t have been safe, and it would’ve been immediately painted over,” Watson said.
More public art ahead
Coincidentally, he said, the City of Charleston recently posted a digital portal for visual artists interested in public art to submit materials to its database.
“We have a few grant cycles that we’re optimistic about” for more public art projects, he said. “We want to be open to as much of the community as possible.”
Upon hearing about the sign’s appearance on the crosstown, Watson said he was immediately reminded of a project by Charleston artist Fletcher Williams III, in which he posted Instagram photos of places in Charleston with signs about regulations of roaming peddlers and vendors in the city’s historic district. The photos were digitally modified (signs were not actually installed in these places), but it sparked a community discussion.
“I’m not sure if these things matter more in a virtual environment when tens of thousands of eyes can see them or if it’s there on the corner of Line Street,” Watson said. “Certainly we encourage the dialogue and discussion that follows these interventions, but our process needs to ensure that things are cited correctly and done in a way that’s safe.”
For any artists interested in installing more permanent pieces, Watson said to contact the Office of Culture Affairs.
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