"Rex Weil, a professor of art theory at Corcoran College, says that sidewalk chalking at the professional level is more performance than visual art. He has a lot of complicated ideas about how this developed, including that it is a rebellion of contemporary artists against the capitalism of modern art-collecting. Alternatively, he suggests, 'it's a critical posture, a kind of submission to forces that are just undeniable, which are basic entropy. Life and materials are eroding, burning up right as we speak. That's mortality.'"