Anonymous “Wild Animal” artwork, Edmund Street, Bloomfield

Caught mid-step, body poised, steely eyes focused on unseen prey, its mouth is agape in carnivorous anticipation. The electric day-glow orange creature steps from an autumnal forest scene of tall pines and fallen leaves directly onto the hard concrete of a salt-stained Bloomfield side street walkway.

The animal’s genus is unclear. It has the triangular pointed ears, whiskers, and jowls of a great cat. Maybe it’s the woodland backdrop, but–if it’s not too confusing a metaphor–a fox seems like a dark horse. There could even be a little Billy “Bigmouth” Bass in there, too. The visible screws holding this fellow together give it a major Frankenstein vibe–so it may well be all of the above…and more.

Top view with description placard

For a city neighborhood, Bloomfield certainly has its share of wild animals. This blogger has crossed paths with feral dogs and cats, rats and mice, squirrels, chipmunks, and opossums. We’ve spotted wild turkeys as near as Bigelow Blvd., Allegheny Cemetery, and Friendship Ave. Clarence the Bird may or may not be domesticated, but he’s no stranger to these streets.

That said, this particular Wild Animal is something we’ve not seen before. Pittsburgh certainly has a fair amount of exciting street art–and Bloomfield could be considered one of the more likely spots to trip across it–but this piece is no mere wheatpaste poster or stenciled graffiti–it’s a fully-formed one-of-a-kind object d’art of the most remarkable sort.

Whoever put Wild Animal together [no attribution is given] didn’t spare any effort in the process. The piece’s large-scale full-color photographic backdrop, freestanding title placard, and deconstructed/reconstructed traffic cone-turned-woodland creature would sit perfectly well in an art museum, gallery, or last year’s terrific DRAP-ART show/Re:NEW Festival.

To deposit such a piece outside on little Edmund Street is a tremendous act of cultural generosity–one that Pittsburghers seem to have largely respected. The artwork has been allowed to remain intact several days into its original placement*. That this much effort was put into a work that could very well be swept up by PNC Bank’s security crew mere hours after drop-off is a strange gift and a great leap of faith. We’re glad we were lucky enough to see it.

Let’s hope this particular wild animal isn’t an endangered species–we’d love to see more of its kind around these parts.

In context: the Edmund Street side of PNC Bank’s Bloomfield branch

* By our estimation, Wild Animal was installed some time either Thursday, Feb. 23 or the early hours of Friday, Feb. 24. It was amazingly still in place, untouched, as of press time the following Monday evening.