Thoughts & Prayers Expected: Matador’s ‘Gun School Zone’ Sign Removed Within Days in Denver

@matadorfeet on Instagram.

Over Labor Day weekend, local street artist Matador installed a new work outside the artist’s boutique, MegaFauna, near 31st and Blake Streets in Denver. Depicting the silhouette of a semi-automatic rifle below the recognizable “SCHOOL” text in yellow, the sign reads “7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., Thought & Prayer Expected.”

By Tuesday morning the sign had been removed by city officials, but not before tweet from a resident got Denver’s attention. While there’s no actual school within the sign’s immediate vicinity, the closest public school is less than a mile south.

“I feel an interview would take away from the power of the piece,” the artist said in response to a request from the local Fox station. “It’s a conversation starter in the finest form. What art should be. It evokes a visceral response.”

Matt Schooley, a manager at the Rino Supply Company on 31st and Blake, told The Denver Post he did a double take when he pulled up to work Monday. “To me, that stuff’s cool,” he says. “We need a wake-up call. It’s gotten a lot of people around the neighborhood to talk about it.”

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About the author

Lindsey

Lindsey Mancini is an arts accessibility activist and digital strategist studying the essential connectedness—or disconnectedness—between art and community.

She currently works in communications at the Yale School of Art, and teaches as an adjunct professor of contemporary art at Eastern Connecticut State University. In 2017 she earned an MS with distinction in the history of art & design from Pratt Institute, where she wrote her 80-page thesis on street art theory. Lindsey is currently pursuing a PhD in Visual Arts, Philosophy, Aesthetics, and Art Theory from the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts.

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About the Author

Lindsey

Lindsey Mancini is an arts accessibility activist and digital strategist studying the essential connectedness—or disconnectedness—between art and community.

She currently works in communications at the Yale School of Art, and teaches as an adjunct professor of contemporary art at Eastern Connecticut State University. In 2017 she earned an MS with distinction in the history of art & design from Pratt Institute, where she wrote her 80-page thesis on street art theory. Lindsey is currently pursuing a PhD in Visual Arts, Philosophy, Aesthetics, and Art Theory from the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts.