CEBU, Philippines — There’s an invisible wall that stands before murals that line various highways and access roads in Cebu, on various roadsides in the city – from General Maxilom Avenue to A. Soriano Avenue, General Echavez Street to N. Escario Street and so on.
The murals on the roadside walls are rendered by unnamed artists who craft their art works mostly using spray paint. A number of these murals are also made with stenciling techniques and printed paper appliqués – art-making methods which any artist, or at the very least, be familiar with.
Like quicksand, the walls that bear the murals don’t really have much of a sense of humor nor does it have an inkling for ennui. The reasons why the murals’ artists made them doesn’t really matter much to the wall too, and the prospect of the murals traced over with flat white paint by vandals causes no worry, either.
Like the murals themselves, no one can really say for sure when the wall was first propped up. What’s known for sure is that the work is there, so much so that it has encouraged opinions from anyone who could not escape it – weighing and counterweighing the murals as either “art” or “eyesores.”
If roadside murals are not much of an art, these may not be total eyesores, either. Many of these works get taken off the streets and into exhibits and galleries, where what’s commonly labeled as “finger paintings by adults,” become regarded as “masterpieces.” What’s viewed as “a waste of paint” in the streets becomes “an exploration of the depths of human expression” in exhibitions.
Like a Gemini switching signs, the wall art shifts states in the street and in galleries – but stands equally still regardless of where. The final verdict comes from the beholder: whether these are “art” or “eyesores.”