Six years after Eduardo Kobra finished the iconic Bob Dylan mural, and the times are still A-Changin’ in Downtown, Minneapolis

By IASP. 

Landmarks are important for townsfolk as it fosters our attachment with our surroundings.  By understanding and mapping our neighborhoods in our minds, we make a space for ourselves. I find this fascinating. When a corner becomes a landmark, it lasts frozen in time exactly as Bob Dylan’s anthem, The Times They Are A-Changin’. The words of this song keep echoing, jumping from generation to generation, and by Eduardo Kobra's work, from lyrics to colors. 

Eduardo Kobra’s mural is a tribute to Bob Dylan featuring him in three different stages of his life (my best guess is that Bob is portrayed in his early 20s, later 30s, and present days). This portrait is incredibly vivid given the combination of techniques to create a kaleidoscopic image of Bob Dylan that anyone can easily identify many feet away. The size of the art piece is also impressive and is almost impossible to walk around downtown without noticing it. 

Bob Dylan's song was written for a specific purpose and time. When those times he cited also changed and the generation bursting the way in, would also burst out. Yet, the song survived. It keeps echoing with new meaning again and again to this very day. Kobra’s work makes me wonder what was Bob Dylan thinking every time he would sing the same song and words across many different stages of his life, and naturally, a different audience.  We know Bob Dylan himself disagrees with the "generation gap" interpretation of his words, as he advocated there is a bridge for a common understanding between different generations back in 1964. 

Landmarks also change with time. Think about Minneapolis. Who would have ever imagined that a medium-sized midwestern city would host the world-famous Brazilian artist Eduardo Kobra to paint one of the most important landmarks of the Hennepin Theatre Cultural district to these days? Four Brazilians and two Minnesotans painting day after day for the lapse of two weeks. Minnesota is the very jewel of unexpected surprises, which makes me excited about how this city will evolve in the years to come. 

The Times They Are A-Changin’, now portrayed as a colorful kaleidoscopic mural, is a space of dialogue and gathering.  My favorite line of the song is when Bob Dylan advocates for "senators, congressmen" to "please heed the call" instead of merely standing "in the doorway" and blocking "up the hall." To have this mural in downtown is such a powerful message in these convulsive times. 

To finish, I just want to mention that one of the Minnesotans involved in the project was Yuya Negishi, a local artist known for leading public art project and mural that incorporate colorful use of airbrushes and paintings in the crossroad of Japanese-Midwestern culture like this beautiful mural that I randomly found the other day.