A call to boycott Flashdancers, a PSA about stray cats and anti-freeze, “fresh meat” from Baltimore seeking encounters… “This collection of street posters, mad scribblings, political screeds, religious rants, and paranoid raves was collected on the streets of New York City from 1985 to the present,” writes Kenneth Goldsmith — poet, professor and founding editor of UbuWeb, the largest archive of avant-garde material available online. Aside from concrete poetry and sound art, UbuWeb also hoards odd, raw artifacts like these. Ooh, goodies!
Armed with a portable razor and inspired by “Jim Shaw’s collection Thrift Shop Paintings, Adolf Wölfli’s visionary scrawls, and outsider music,” Goldsmith has reaped that gallery that is the street, dutifully slicing off hundreds of flyers from NYC walls and posts, uploading some to UbuWeb:Outsiders. Warning: These might be offensive, illegible and/or loopy. So, let’s get to it, because “mindless self indulgence needs a fucking drummer” and anti-bird porn advocates are counting on you.
Courtesy of Kenneth Goldsmith, UbuWeb.
Courtesy of Kenneth Goldsmith, UbuWeb.
Courtesy of Kenneth Goldsmith, UbuWeb.
Courtesy of Kenneth Goldsmith, UbuWeb.
Courtesy of Kenneth Goldsmith, UbuWeb.
Courtesy of Kenneth Goldsmith, UbuWeb.
Courtesy of Kenneth Goldsmith, UbuWeb.
Courtesy of Kenneth Goldsmith, UbuWeb.
Courtesy of Kenneth Goldsmith, UbuWeb.
Courtesy of Kenneth Goldsmith, UbuWeb.
Courtesy of Kenneth Goldsmith, UbuWeb.
Courtesy of Kenneth Goldsmith, UbuWeb.
Courtesy of Kenneth Goldsmith, UbuWeb.
Courtesy of Kenneth Goldsmith, UbuWeb.
Courtesy of Kenneth Goldsmith, UbuWeb.
Courtesy of Kenneth Goldsmith, UbuWeb.
Courtesy of Kenneth Goldsmith, UbuWeb.
Courtesy of Kenneth Goldsmith, UbuWeb.
Courtesy of Kenneth Goldsmith, UbuWeb.
Courtesy of Kenneth Goldsmith, UbuWeb.