OK PROTEST 2024

OK PROTEST 2024

The Walking Man, Soon I'll Get Far
Video, 02:00 min, 2008, 2024

Born on the streets of Tel Aviv, the Walking Man paved the way for current urban activism. His visual language and actions around the city raised the public's awareness of urban planning priorities and generated civil actions.

His various appearances, with their sharp, local wit, refer to the absurd effort inherent in any struggle. With a seemingly carefree aesthetic gesture, his feet planted firmly in advertising logic, he wins over viewers before delivering a surprise. His 2D form, fanzine graphics and modus operandi embody resistance as he turns the environment into a communication channel and challenges official institutions’ dominance over the cityscape.

The Walking Man’s first appearance, a graffiti of the man from the pedestrian crossing sign along with the moto “Soon I'll Get Far,” evolved in the 1990s in a weekly column in the Ha’ir local newspaper and in the city itself via posters, giant sculptures and a fictive municipality campaign that called for the establishment of the State of Tel Aviv. In the 2000s, several exhibitions presented works and actions by the Walking Man, and the Tel Aviv Municipality activism prize was devised in its shape. It was awarded in a ceremony at the museum in its previous incarnation as City Hall, in collaboration with Time Out Magazine. Thirty years after being shredded as garbage, the Municipality installed the Walking Man on the corner of Gordon and Hayarkon streets.

Curator: Hadas Yossifon