Comments on: Jonathan Jones’ Attack on Street Art

By: spoons

spoons — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 15:39:15 +0000

Mike Marcus in “some graffiti artists are wankers” shock. Guess what Mike – so are some street artists. I can think of one in particular.

Despite the efforts of the provocateurs at the extremes, Art/Graffiti is not a binary polarity. Neither you nor 10Foot can make me choose.

By: Mike Marcus

Mike Marcus — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 05:54:57 +0000

At this point I could support my argument by quoting Cedar Leiwsohn, curator of last years Tate Modern street art exhibition. I could also sarch flickr.com for the thousands of comments left by various graffiti writers stating “I dont give a fuck about the public” and other similarly articulate variations on the theme. Equally I could quote personal emails from graffiti writers turned street artists who moved from one to the other in frustration at what the scene had become. If I was inclined I could even trawl the streets taking hundreds of photographs of the intentional vandalism of works of art by respected (within their small world) writers such as ten foot and tox.

However I would be accused of not knowing what I was talking about so I prefer to make art and let the fans and so called aficionados argue among themselves.

By: spoons

spoons — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 08:17:39 +0000

Yes Mike, that is YOUR definition and you’ve made that plain on many occasions. It is not THE definition, and I don’t think it’s shared by many people – certainly not by people who actually know what they’re talking about.

1) Art is not only about intent
2) Art can be as selfish as anything else in the world
3) Art/Graffiti is not a binary polarity, there are many other options

“Graffiti” is a catch-all that can be used to describe anything from “I LUV TRACY” scrawled on a bus stop to the exquisite skills of the Heavy Artillery Crew (http://www.flickr.com/groups/heavy_artillery). Some of it is “just” vandalism some if it is vandalism produced with more positivity, pride and concern for the community than anything the official street art world does. Mike Marcus’ definition follows exactly the same uninformed arc of dimwitted and pompous art criticism as Jonathon Jones (and is not too much of a step from the stupidity of the “no art fag” crew – you deserve each other).

Some street artists produce graffiti and some graffiti artists produce street art. Deal with it.

By: Mike Marcus

Mike Marcus — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 00:03:22 +0000

I’m not sure its true that nobody knows the difference between street art and graffiti. To me its obvious. Its a matter of intent. Street art is installed with the purpose of engaging the public, providing an open dialogue and promoting community cohesion. Graffiti on the other hand is inherently selfish vandalism. The perpetrator couldn’t care less whether the community regard their intervention as a positive or negative one.

By: spoons

spoons — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 21:13:57 +0000

An idiot AND a hypocrite? Not an unusual combination!

By: RJ

RJ — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 17:51:23 +0000

If Jones thinks street art = graffiti, then he’s being hypocritical by dissing it now as a superficial footnote in contemporary art. He recently wrote in favor of state funded graffiti murals to increase the amount of public art in Britain and possibly discover this generation’s great painters.

You’re right though, Jones knows that he gets hits when he writes about Banksy in a negative way, so why not. As he says in that article, one of the reasons he thought about nominating Banksy for the Turner Prize was that it would get Joe Public interested in the award (he later goes on to say that the press no longer cares about Banksy, but I doubt that very much).

By: spoons

spoons — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 08:19:13 +0000

I think you may have read the article wrong: what he’s saying is that street art = graffiti. He sees no difference between anything outside of his precious gallery system. Everything on walls is the same (and he understands none of it, not the culture, the history, the traditions, the rules, the innovations, the life, nothing, it’s all scrawl to him). Because we all know that graffiti is ignorant, aggressive and scares old people, by extension support for Banksy is support for all graffiti and therefore support for scaring old ladies.

Everything about the article is ridiculous. It totally shows the guy up for his lack of knowledge. You’d think someone demonstrating to the world how little they understand it would be embarrassed, but he’s a stupid pompous hack trying to get hits on his blog with a bit of “controversial comment”, so he obviously has no shame. Or soul.