Lock On is a genre of street art, where artists create installations by attaching sculptures to public furniture using lengths of chain and old bike locks. The installations themselves are referred to as "a Lock On" (''singular'') or "Lock Ons" (''plural'').

Style

A Lock On is art in a public space, typically attached to a fence or street lamp with some sort of

padlock Padlocks are portable locks with a shackle that may be passed through an opening (such as a chain link, or hasp staple) to prevent use, theft, vandalism or harm. Naming and etymology The term '' padlock'' is from the late fifteenth century. ...

, without permission. The Lock On style is a "non-destructive" form of

underground art Underground art is any form of art that operates outside of conventional norms in the art world, part of underground culture. This can include essentially any genre of art that is not popular in the art world, including visionary art and street ...

Artists

* REVS is the tag name of a New York City graffiti artist whose sculpture, wheat paste stickers and roller pieces have earned him a reputation of an artist provocateur. In New York, steel sculptures created with construction-grade steel and spelling "''Revs''" can be found around Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan. *

TEJN Tejn is a harbour town on the north-eastern coast of the Danish island of Bornholm, south of Allinge-Sandvig. As of 1 January 2022, it has a population of 858. Initially a fishing village, it grew considerably during the 20th century as the har ...

is considered the "founder" of the Lock On phrase. Taking

scrap metal Scrap consists of recyclable materials, usually metals, left over from product manufacturing and consumption, such as parts of vehicles, building supplies, and surplus materials. Unlike waste, scrap has monetary value, especially recovered me ...

from

urban Urban means "related to a city". In that sense, the term may refer to: * Urban area, geographical area distinct from rural areas * Urban culture, the culture of towns and cities Urban may also refer to: General * Urban (name), a list of people ...

areas, TEJN welds and shapes the iron into figurative sculptures which he "returns to the street" as site-specific art secured with chain or an old bike lock. The genre was introduced when he started placing welded iron sculptures, chained and locked, throughout

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

and

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

. * The peace organisation Pink Army places pink war toys in selected urban areas as part of their "war against war". * Street artists In

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the list of cities in Oregon, largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, Columbia rivers, Portland is ...

have chained toy horses to old metal rings, formerly used for tying real horses.

Technique

Lock On street sculptures can be made from various materials like wood, plastic, clay, concrete, iron, styrofoam or polystyrene. Typically a part of the concept is to re-use found materials. In some cases the materials are released in the same neighborhood where it was originally collected, now upcycled into sculptures, following the thought of improving cityscape by the use of materials that used to impair the very same area. The locks used when mounting street sculptures are, in some cases, dismounted from broken bikes, found nearby.

Gallery

File:Callwaiting.jpg, Sculpture installation by Mark Jenkins

References

External links