Restoration of Large-Scale Cityscape Wheatpaste Installation near Saint Alfred on Milwaukee Avenue, Chicago

Last month I was walking one morning on a usual path and encountered a new work of art.

It’s rare to see such a large-scale, single-theme piece. A street scene with Vespa, two garbage cans, two people, a bicycle, and graffiti and sticker-covered walls.

It doesn’t appear to be signed, although my guess is that there is some sort of indication of authorship somewhere in the tags in the piece. I also have a feeling that someone with a better working knowledge of the Chicago street art scene would be able to readily determine the artist.

Time passed. I walked by often, and saw how other artists had defaced/ added to the art.

Early last week the weather was stormy and thick, which I’ve come to know as the perfect atmosphere for peeling wheatpaste art off walls. So I went out.

Walking by Saint Alfred, I saw that the entire piece had slumped off the wall and lay crumbled heap-style on the sidewalk. I scarfed it up, walked home, and blocked out the piece to dry. I smoothed it out, put ripped pieces back where I could, and otherwise tried to stabilize the thing. It’s sort of like blocking a sweater after you’ve hand-washed it in Woolite.

I left it under my porch all week and pulled it back out Friday. It was  remarkably complete and it relatively good condition.

I taped pieces together, went back to the original scene to pull whatever else I could off the wall, and put it back together best I could. I confess a lack of precision or sophistication— I just wanted to generally put the thing together.

I put the finished piece in my basement hallway, so I don’t have a very good head-on shot of the whole thing. Here it is:

Here’s details of each section:

Restoration of Large-Scale Cityscape Wheatpaste Installation near Saint Alfred on Milwaukee Avenue, Chicago

If anyone knows who made this, lemme know— I’d be happy to give it back to them!

UPDATE:

The artist is PITR, and they are having a show this month.


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