This article was scraped from Rochester Subway. This is a blog about Rochester history and urbanism has not been published since 2017. The current owners are now publishing link spam which made me want to preserve this history.. The original article was published November 30, 2012 and can be found here.
A few months ago this woman caught the attention of motorists
on I-490 near downtown Rochester. The image immediately made me think of early works by Banksy
, artists who catapulted themselves into pop culture stardom by plastering their towns with often graphic and politically-charged poster art. I wondered, was this Rochester artist making a political/social statement? Or is this half-nude character with the peace sign pasty simply a random piece of visual titillation?
A few people on Facebook claimed to know the artist, but my attempts to track him (or her) down were fruitless. Then yesterday a friend* of mine spotted a similar image stuck to a 490/590 support column at the Can of Worms interchange...
I'm not sure if this is the same woman, but it's definitely from the same artist. Again, half nude (and a bit more so this time) and glued to the wall like an advertising poster. Have a closer look... go ahead... I'll wait
Ok quit ogling. Did you notice something? This time the artist has left us a clue. "SPACEMAN" printed across the woman's eyes. AH HA!
Turn your car around and head back down I-490, to where the speed limit changes from 55 to 65. Stuck to the side of a railroad bridge overpass you'll find this...
Bingo! There's our SPACEMAN! And a few smaller Spacemen have popped up around town at gas stations
and signal boxes
.
Now, if only Spaceman could talk. I'll bet he has a story to tell. Earth to Spaceman! Please contact me !
*Thanks goes to my buddy Jason "Eagle-eyes" Adlowitz for spotting these new artworks.
UPDATE: The first image of the lady with the peace sign pasty was not done by the same artist as Spaceman. This was by a different artist, A.K.A. Ax
.
UPDATE: We caught up with Spaceman... Read the interview .
UPDATE: Spaceman art available here .
