Art on the walls of the city: interview with the artist Kristin Jones

Street art is an artistic phenomenon that has grown into a multifaceted and lively artistic phenomenon happening in many different situations including the spontaneous and illegal appropriation of walls and surfaces. In recent years, thanks to the affirmation of this powerful and fertile artistic phenomenon in public spaces, there is new interest in works created for urban territory. Although it is important to point out the differences between public art and street art, it is important to emphasize how the context of city itself influences the phenomena of hybridization and fruitful exchange of themes in a given work. Disciplinary fields and artistic practices now trigger exchange and mutations with a continuous transformation of artistic expressions. Public art, like street art, provides artists, critics and spectators with opportunities to observe contemporary culture, using places that are more or less neglected in the city as a space for questioning and exchange. Among the many artists working today on urban projects, Kristin Jones occupies a strong position for her sensitive site specific works that interpret and bringing out the artistic and poetic potential of an urban space. Her collaborative approach involves multidisciplinary teams of individual specialists and scholars as well as internationally renowned artists. The following interview here is a rare opportunity to reflect on the challenges and difficult path that led to the creation of the project with William Kentridge whom Jones had invited to collaborate in 2002.