Art project aims to shake up rural Md. with barns painted with contemporary images

Tucked between two grain silos in the gray and white of winter is an old Maryland dairy barn spray-painted with monsters. There's a droopy-eyed Technicolor slug with fangs and horns and a catlike character with big teeth and plump Hollywood lips.
The creatures are the first offspring of a rural street-art experiment launching from Montgomery County that intentionally avoids lovely country scenes and sunsets. The goal is to bring contemporary art to pastoral places by painting a barn in each Maryland county and pairing the artwork with poetry.
The project is being curated by John Shipman, director of the University of Maryland's art gallery. He likes the idea of presenting jarring works to people who don't show up in the cloistered world of art exhibits. In his years perusing galleries throughout the country, he's encountered snobbery, boorishness and revelation between bright gallery walls.
"I think probably 90 percent of it is bunk," Shipman said. "The 10 percent of it you get is possibly life-altering."

　ギャラリーを出ていくアーティストたちは今はそんなに少なくないし、珍しいことでもない気もしますが……。もしかしたら日本の現代アートの作家ってアメリカほどがっつりギャラリーの制度があるわけでもないから、逆にそういうことに対してオープンなのかも？