GREATEST HITS OF A NATION IN DECLINE
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To highlight their accomplishments and escapades during 2021 Indecline debuts a full feature movie titled “Side Hustles” today.
Ultimately, it’s a show reel of greatest hits by the activist subverters of public space called InDecline – loosely strung together by an ongoing skit of a formal job interview that seeks to further illuminate the message, but sometimes tires. Anonymous by necessity, this mid-length docu-portfolio gives little indication of the origination of the mainly young, mainly white, and mainly male masked American protagonists of the street art/performance art scene, but you have an idea that it is their politics and disgust that bind them as one.
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The various installations range in skill, sophistication, and maturity – but something invariably impresses about each campaign. Clever Photoshop and elbow grease, and you’ve got yourself a subversive art installation that mocks both Easter and Q-Anon. A harrowing cable scaling of a massive statue of Christ to hang a pro-abortion banner looks far more dangerous and physically demanding.
Subverting a billboard to encourage masturbation is perhaps a bit of comic relief from the far heavier topics they target: Busting anti-abortion billboards to offer abortion services contact information, shining a light on police violence, and offering a no-holds barred criticism of a culture that births weekly mass shootings in cities nationwide.
![](https://www.brooklynstreetart.com/theblog/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Brooklyn-Street-Art-Indecline-Docu-Jan-2-2022-2.jpg)
Their methods may be driven by the economics of printing and installing their brand of détournement but the effect can be stunning and direct. A billboard showing off a gunmakers line of ammo says proudly “Born Here. Built Here” across a silhouette of the US map. It infers a national pride, a dedication to the 2nd Amendment, a nod to blue collar labor, and a healthy wallop of xenophobic distrust. InDecline simply replaces one word so the slogan says “Born Here. Killed Here” to refocus attention to the bodies piling up from coast to coast.
![](https://www.brooklynstreetart.com/theblog/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Brooklyn-Street-Art-Indecline-Docu-Jan-2-2022-5.jpg)
Whether its riding freights to spread the ashes of a friend or an earnestly rageful powerchord punk and/or bluegrass country soundtrack or the corporate cluelessness of local news footage, if you stay for the full ride you see the themes that drive the work – and feel a hopeful promise, and a sense of dread.
Canaries in the coal mine for a decade or so in public space, InDecline’s multiple acts of art show how the trendlines all merge. By the time you are finished with the list of societal/political/socio-economic ills that InDecline is addressing through their guerilla art installations, you realize that the country they are responding to is already in the midst of a civil war and the forward path is scabrous.
Previous interventions BSA reported on appear HERE, HERE, HERE, AND HERE.
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