Leo Fitzmaurice liebt Flyer, Kataloge und Verpackungen. Der britische Künstler gestaltet aus diesen gefundenen Papierprodukten Skulpturen – und plaziert diese in den urbanen Raum. Kleine, temporäre Interventionen sind sein Ziel. Rekontextualisierung. Aus dem Stadt-Touristen mit ganz speziellen Detournement-Absichten entstand sein Projekt: Der Detourist.

“Applying the techniques of appropriation and reduction familiar to us from his sculptural works, Fitzmaurice has subtly altered urban environments, adapting detritus already present or heightening existing forms through the placing of handcrafted structures that started life as commercial packaging. Created when inspiration and opportunity permitted, the works respond to generic street culture, countering the visual chatter of daily life by obscuring logos, brands and other textual and pictorial signs. These subtle aesthetic interventions claim attention via the peripheral vision, rather than head on and were thus never signposted. Ephemeral in their nature and delinquent in spirit, they lasted only hours or minutes before being absorbed back into the street; they are intended as the antithesis of made-to-order, site specific, biennial-style art that has become so prevalent over the last ten years.” (1)

Mehr Bilder und ein spannendes Interview via PingMag: “I guess that as we spend more time in front of a screen or with our heads in magazines and listening to MP3 players, we spend less time when and where we actually are. I realized after reading Michel de Certeau’s Practice of Everyday Life that one thing I am doing (and we all do in some way) is to consume public space and by consuming it in some way we make it our own thus privatizing it to some extent. But instead we spend our time consuming other stuff.”