Leave it to Japan to put manhole covers into a street beautification program, creating art that is now a national obsession. Examples of the stunning drain covers are collected in Drainspotting, a book by British-Australian artist and film director Remo Camerota, who also blogs about them, here. The image is from the iPad App.
Related articles
- The Art of Japanese Manhole Covers (amusingplanet.com)
- Manhole Monday: Ginowan (uncoveringjapan.com)
These are gorgeous… Reminds me a little of the work of Ben Wilson, who paints over chewing gum which has been trodden into the street!
Just went and found Ben Wilson. I hadn’t heard of him. Thanks!
How fab’! I definitely support it as a form of urban beautification.
Agree. Kind of surprised nobody is doing it in other countries.
I wonder if these are paid for by the state and who commissions the works. Are there special “manhole” artists? The images above have a certain artistic similarity.
Great questions, so I went hunting. There’s a good post on this blog ( http://www.gwarlingo.com/2011/drainspotting-61-amazing-manhole-covers-from-japan/ ) which explains they’re all made at one foundry, and it implies they’re indeed paid for by the state. Have a look. Thanks, that was interesting.
This is lovely! I mean, I love manhole covers anyway – always have, especially ones that are “rusted” in different colors. I wish we would do this here in the US! I was glad to hear about Ben Wilson’s chewing gum art as well. How cool is that?
That’s an interesting comment about the rust-style colors. Love it.