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# Street Art or Garbage?
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/street-art-or-garbage/
- Published: 2010-06-01T22:26:49.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T15:49:13.000Z
- Description: Thanks to artist Mark Jenkins, life just got a little more complicated than it used to be. In addition to the age-old dilemma of “Is it art?” we are now forced to confront the question “Is it street art?”
- Author: Hrag Vartanian
- Tags: Opinion, #image-position-hidden, Dan Witz, Mark Jenkins, St. Petersburg, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2025-11-17 09:23 (2009-2011)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2010/06/art_2trash_600.jpg)

A Jenkins installation in St. Petersburg, art is on the left, trash on the right. (via xmarkjenkinsx.com) (click to enlarge)

Thanks to artist Mark Jenkins, life just got a little more complicated than it used to be. In addition to the age-old dilemma of “Is it art?” we are now forced to confront the question “Is it street art?”

I should’ve figured this was coming when I [confidently wrote](https://hyperallergic.com/jeffrey-deitch-street-art/) in April about the importance of street art looking like “art”:

> When street art pioneer Dan Witz began his career in the 1970s, he told me during an interview last year that he experimented by placing objects on shelves around the Lower East Side. He used found objects — batteries, plastic caps, anything really — but no one seemed to realize they were art and since he (or anyone else) ever documented them they disappeared into the ether.

Well, no more. Jenkins threw a wrench into the works with his new work in St. Petersburg. Thanks, dude. Now I can’t pick up litter for fear that I’m disturbing an art installation.

*via* [*Rebel:Art*](http://www.rebelart.net/diary/mark-jenkins-street-art-vs-garbage/004715/?ref=hyperallergic.com)*,* [*ignant.de*](http://www.ignant.de/2010/06/01/street-art-vs-garbage-a-visual-experiment-von-mark-jenkins/?ref=hyperallergic.com)*, and originally from the artist’s website:* [*xmarkjenkinsx.com*](http://www.xmarkjenkinsx.com/note1.html?ref=hyperallergic.com)