What is Nike without the swoosh? What is McDonalds without the Arches? What is Redux without the murals?
The Murals at Redux are probably the most “day to day” community engaging product they have, solely because when you drive down St. Phillips St. you can easily see it and the mural is changed over time. Right now the mural on Redux’s current building is the face of Senator Pinckney and nine birds flying out of a palmetto tree. No matter how often you drive by the building and see the mural, your heart drops and your remember what happened in Charleston just over a year ago. The Pinckney Mural will probably stay up for a long time because it is very iconic and Redux in moving to 1056 King Street.
The building at 1056 does not have the same canvas like qualites as the building on St. Phillip’s street does, but that does not mean that the mural program has to die. There are opportunities to use the north facing wall as a canvas. Yes it is a brick facade and cannot be painted on, but that doesn’t mean we cannot build a structure that can be attached and removed as needed and still looks like is the wall of the building. This is a design challenge we are tackling. After doing studies on how far away you can see the north face, the key areas are the top of the wall and the western side of the North face. This area will be easily seen from traffic coming from upper North-Central. Signage here will also help with the small front lot that will not need a sign. a mural sign will help the front lot inhabit more people during events. The biggest challenge is having approval from the B.A.R. and letting them know the vision redux has.
Redux is a breeding ground for new up and coming artist. It is easy for a well established native artist such as Shepard Fairey to have murals in the city. A new artist that LEGALLY wants to do murals will have hard time in Charleston. The sad part about Shepard’s story is that he had to go to a more progressive place (los Angeles) to get his start. Charleston at large is a very progressive town (especially in North Central). Many artist want to make an impact on this city and help it grow. In Charleston there are a few ideals that are clashing and if they started to work together could be an very cool urbanism that is unique on its own. Charleston would have traditional styles as well as some of the best progressive styles in the U.S. and maybe the world. No, it will never be an L.A., or New York, but what it could be is ….Charleston.
