the present tense

Yesterday, I visited St. Petersburg (Florida), a city filled with art. People walk through streets decorated with sculptures, murals, and street art in every corner. There are many museums I’ll talk about later, but beyond their closed doors, the art on the streets feels different—more alive, more natural, maybe even more lasting. It’s not just art in a special place; the streets themselves become art, turning the city into a living masterpiece.

Open-air museums have a special charm—they make you feel like part of what you see. To what extent is the passerby in such a city also art in motion?

Pedestrian, bikers and so on become living works, blending with the pieces around them, not just observing but accompanying them, becoming part of the ever-changing urban canvas.

The same principle once shaped my college: Central University of Venezuela (in Caracas), where works by Alexander Calder, Ernest Maragall, Jean Arp, Fernand Léger, Francisco Narváez, and Baltazar Lobo (among many others) created a similar experience. There, art was not something to be visited but something to be immersed in—sometimes without realizing it—navigating through sculptures and murals as if they were part of the natural landscape, familiar and ever-present.