A note from the editor: This is a guest post by Peter Drew, a street artist originally from Adelaide, Australia.
Although Adelaide’s urban art scene is the underdog to Melbourne, its larger and louder interstate cousin, recent years and new blood have seen Adelaide catching up to Melbourne’s lead. Oi You: Urban Art Festival marks a high point for Adelaide as a private collection of 70 works by ‘the worlds urban art megastars’ visits the city, on view now at the Adelaide Festival Centre through June 2nd.
As crowds flock to the glamour and safety of ‘street art’ in a state gallery, Adelaide’s artists are using the exhibition as a catalyst for painting new walls. In addition to Anthony Lister, Rone and Beastman, local artists Kab 101, Jayson Fox, Vans the Omega, Fredrock, Seb Humphreys, Gary Seaman, Shane Cook and Store are contributing to the +12 murals going up across the city. Organised by Matt Stuckey, this aspect of the festival couldn’t have happened a few years ago. “We actually ended up with more walls than resources to paint them this time” says Matt.
Seb Humphreys
Graffiti first hit Adelaide in the mid 80s and its tradition’s continues with most of the artists involved in the Oi You festival. After trying to eradicate graffiti for years The Adelaide City Council now seems to think that street art is the solution to their problem. According to Adelaide’s Mayor: “it’s frustrating that we spend more cleaning up ugly vandalism and graffiti than we do investing in street art…young artists could be tapping into an opportunity that’s going to bring the city to life.” Continue reading “Oi You Festival in Adelaide”
Young New Yorkers is a restorative justice, arts program for 16 -17 year olds who have open criminal cases. The criminal court gives eligible defendants the option to participate in Young New Yorkers rather than do jail time, community service and have a lifelong criminal record. After our successful pilot program last year we continue to finance the project by hosting a silent art auction this summer – which would not be possible without the very generous donations of our artists, friends and collaborators – This year we are also publishing a catalog which contains critical essays on Youth Justice, Art as Social Practice and Street Art in order to make connections between these projects and our youth at risk.
The following is one of those essays and we’ll be publishing more of them on Vandalog as we approach the auction – so feel free to join the developing discourse…
We are a self-organized and grassroots effort. If you’ll like to help us find a locale for the auction, donate your time, partner with us or just be more informed please visit our website or Facebook page or write to Rachel@youngnewyorkers.org.
A couple years ago I was doing a wheat paste installation on a friend’s outhouse at his rodeo arena. A team roping competition was to start several hours later. I woke up around 5 a.m., drove an hour to the site and started working before sunrise. An 18 wheeler loaded with calves was parked nearby. A white cowboy emerged from the cab and groggily made his way to the outhouse. Upon seeing me he mumbled to himself “…Where else would you find on old black man wallpapering the outside of an outhouse at dawn at a rodeo event on an Indian reservation? Only in America.” We both laughed. In retrospect, it was an improbable moment but in the words of Spaulding Gray, it was also a perfect moment in that it captured the bridge building potential of public art.
That’s the question I get asked most frequently – what the fuck is an old black doctor doing making street art along the roadside on the Navajo reservation? Admittedly, it’s an unlikely journey which upon further inspection it makes perfect sense.
I came to work at a small clinic on the Navajo nation 26 years ago bright eyed and full of idealism and misconceptions. My first misconception was that as an African-American I’d be accepted by the Navajo who I thought would share a sense of solidarity with me as a member of a historically oppressed group like themselves. Wrong. I learned quickly that people here are focused on addressing their daily needs such as herding sheep, hauling water, firewood and/or coal and taking care of family. Acceptance into the community is hard won. There’s an expression amongst people here that unless you’ve walked amongst the Navajo for 2 years, they don’t take you into their trust. They’ve grown weary of outsiders coming to take from them leaving little in return.
My first year here I set up a black and white darkroom. After work I’d go out into the community to spend time with people as they were doing chores around their homesteads or hanging out with their families often getting to photograph these experiences. I’d started shooting black and white film in junior high school. My junior high school experience was unique and in retrospect, was instrumental in influencing my efforts to contribute fully to my adopted community.
I attended a small, alternative school in the mountains of North Carolina called The Arthur Morgan School. The school had 24 students, aged 12 – 15 in grades 7, 8 and 9. Being an actively engaged community member was demonstrated to us in practical terms every day. Each student had work assignments that we’d rotate weekly. The projects involved everything from preparing meals to working in the garden to repairing bridges on the dirt roads around the school. Once a week we’d have community meetings where students and staff would sit around in a large circle to discuss issues affecting our lives at the school. Coming from a traditional, all black public school, I remember being impressed that my opinion in these meetings mattered just as much as anyone else’s including our principal.
During my family practice residency in West Virginia during the early 80s, I’d make frequent trips to NYC hoping to see break dancing on street corners + burners on trains. My dream was to become a member of the Zulu Nation and it was during this time I started experimenting with graffiti.
Public Health Meets Public Art
The Navajo nation is located in the Four Corners region of the U.S. The land area of the rez is 27,500 square miles in size which is larger than the state of West Virginia. It’s home to roughly 160,000 people. Coal, natural gas, oil, uranium are found in abundance here. The Navajo should be one of the wealthiest groups of people living in the U. S. However, because of the way the contracts were written to exploit those natural resources, the Navajo people are amongst the poorest people in the U. S. Health problems on the reservation reflect those of other impoverished communities. Rates of diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence, teen pregnancy, interpersonal violence are all higher than the national average. The unemployment rate is close to 60%. Yet in the midst of what many from outside the reservation characterize as overwhelmingly dire circumstances, there are people living lives of dignity, celebrating the joys of family, farming and community.
My first intersection of public art and public health occurred shortly after I arrived on the reservation. Concerned with what we considered irresponsible advertising in that it was promoting cheap, sugary drinks in a population plagued with Type 2 Diabetes, a community health nurse and I went out one night to correct a billboard on the reservation.
It used to read “Welcome to Pepsi Country.”
Building Community
Wikipedia defines community as a social unit that shares common values. It goes on to say that “in human communities intent, belief, resources, preferences, needs, risks and a number of other conditions may be present and common, affecting the identity of the participants and their degree of cohesiveness.”
What does it mean then to build community and what are the implications of such an undertaking for someone from another community whose belief system differs from the host community? I didn’t consider any of these questions before I started placing photographs along the roadside.
During my time on the reservation I’d been following street art from a distance. Any time I’d go to a big city with graffiti or street art, I’d seek it out. In the mid 90s I did a project called the Urban Guerrilla Art Assault where I’d place black and white photos on community bulletin boards and in store windows in Flagstaff. In 2004 I traveled to Brazil for the first time and was blown away by the abundance, diversity and caliber of the street art there. I returned to Brazil for 3 months in 2009. The first day of my return the feeling of being alive and intrigued by art on the street made by the people and for the people consumed me again.
There was one guy whose work I saw and liked as I moved around Bahia. His name is Limpo. It turned out that during my last 3 weeks there I rented a flat immediately above his studio. I spent everyday in his studio talking with him and street artists from around the world who’d stop by to share ideas in sketch books, videos online and street art books. The highlight was getting to go out on the street with one of the artists as he did a piece. These guys loved what they were doing. Their energy and enthusiasm were infectious. As I left Brazil, the street art community that had embraced me and stirred my soul said “keep it going!”
When I returned to the States I decided to enlarge and start wheat pasting images from my 22 year archive of negatives along the roadside. I got a recipe for boiling wheat paste off the internet, talked with people at Kinko’s about how to make enlargements and away I went. My first forays were at night. I pasted onto roadside stands where people sell jewelry to tourists venturing to the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley and Lake Powell. As I contemplated doing this, I had to consider how to introduce a new art form into a traditional culture. What imagery is acceptable? After stumbling a couple times, I settled on what I considered universally beloved Navajo themes – Code Talkers, sheep and elders.
One of my first pastings was of Navajo Code Talkers that I pasted onto an abandoned, deteriorating jewelry stand along the highway to Flagstaff.
I was shocked a week later as I drove by the stand to find people repairing it. Curious, I stopped to find out what was up. The guys working on the stand didn’t know I’d placed the Code Talker photo there. They said that so many tourists were stopping to photograph the stand, they decided to repair it and start using it again. I asked if I could take a photo as well and told them that I placed the image there. They responded by asking me to put something at the other end to stop traffic coming from that direction. This was my first validation from the community to continue pasting and it was my first insight into the potential of art to promote economic independence for the roadside vendors. More importantly, I appreciated the potential of this work serving as a tool to bridge cultures and races of people.
It is through these types of interactions with people as I’m installing art that I get to better know my community apart from the constrained interactions I have in the clinic. Installing art in communities on the reservation where people don’t know I’m a doctor who has been here for 26 years and that I have a sixteen year old 1/2 Navajo son, I defend what I’m doing by telling people that my project is a mirror reflecting back to the community the beauty they’ve shared with me over the past quarter century. It’s my hope that a stronger sense of self and collective identity is nurtured through the images which thereby strengthens the community.
Last summer I decided to pursue a dream suggested by a fellow street artist to invite some of my favorite artists out to the reservation to paint murals and to work with local youth. I called this experience The Painted Desert Project.
The Painted Desert Project
The Painted Desert Project hates stereotypes, respects the unique culture in which it operates and spreads love.
Before the first group of artists came out last summer to paint murals (which included Gaia, Labrona, Overunder, Doodles, Tom Greyeyes and Thomas “Breeze” Marcus), I sent to the non Native American artists copies of a book chapter on the Navajo creation story, a book of images and observations about the land and the people, a beaded item from one of the roadside stands and a film (“Broken Rainbow”), in an effort to sensitize the artists to the different world view here. I attempted to pair artists with various roadside stand owners and arranged for sweats with tribal elders to bless our efforts and to give the artists an idea of acceptable imagery and Navajo taboos.
It’s important to me that artists come to the project without preconceived ideas of what they’re going to paint. It’s important that they have enough time to interact with community members and spend time in this land of enormous skies and stunning landscapes then create work that reflects this interplay of cultures and landscape. In this way, the art is responsive to the moment like jazz. My hope is that the artist leaves enlightened and that the community feels enriched or vice versa.
Gaia saying goodbye to Matilda + her son, Tony
Last summer as the first group of artists was preparing to leave, we did something I’d never done in my long tenure here. We invited members from the community to my house to share a dinner with the artists. It was a simple meal shared around a candlelight lit table outdoors under the stars. How can this type of rich exchange not inform my medical practice which like my art practice attempts to heal and spread love?
My hope for the project this year is to not only share art but to do community service projects. For example, last summer Doodles painted a killer mural on a nearby food stand which burned down last fall. I’d very much like to get him back this summer to help the vendor rebuild the stand and then repaint it.
So when mofos ask me what’s up? What’s an old black doctor man doing wheat pasting on the Navajo nation? I tell them like the brothers told me in Brazil. I’m just trying to keep a good feeling going round and around.
Over the past month, Hense has been in Lima, Peru painting this massive mural. The following is a recap of the events courtesy of Hense:
We just finished up a large exterior installation in Lima, Peru. This is my tallest work to date measuring 137 feet tall and 170 feet wide. The project was organized by Morbo Gallery and funded by the ISIL Institute in MiraFlores, Lima.
I worked with my head assistant and a crew of 10 professional painters over the course of a month to complete the work.
With all my exterior projects, I rarely use a preconceived sketch or concept to go off of. In this case, I presented a few rough concepts to the school to express my vision for the building. However, I always like to leave some room for creative freedom and spontaneity while working. This project was challenging because of the scale. Every shape and mark that we made on the wall had to be massive to be seen from a great distance. I also wanted to leave smaller, details that would be seen by viewers close to the work. In this case most of my painting crew were local to Lima and spoke little to no English and I speak very little Spanish so it was challenging to communicate with them in the beginning of the project. After a month of working everyday with them we managed to be able to understand each other. I’m very grateful for that experience and I learned a lot from them and hope that they were inspired in some way by assisting in the process of the artwork.
Photo by Gino Moreno
We used over 200 gallons of exterior latex paint and a small amount of aerosol on this work. Most of the tools we used were rollers of various sizes, a paint sprayer, brushes, and homemade tools. One thing I feel is important when working on this scale is the improvisational use of tools to create the marks and shapes. In order to reach heights and lengths I had to attach brushes to extension poles to paint in hard to reach areas. We used strings and ropes to create circles and lines that needed to be accurate. However, most gestures and shapes were created freehand. I always push to keep a loose, painterly feel at a large scale. All my work is purely abstract and non representational.
Photo by HENSE
These works are inspired by the architecture and context of the structure. In this case I wanted to use very bright colors that would pop against the sky and next to other near by architecture in Lima. This piece has many layers in it. some of which we covered completely. It’s important to me that the work has a very layered and built up look. I’m never afraid to destroy the image at any given time if it means I have to in order to achieve progression in the work.
Photo by Christian Rinke
I’m always wanting to challenge myself and the viewer in regards to painting and what that can be.
Special thanks to: Jules Bay, Taylor Means, Morbo Gallery, ISIL Institute, Luar Zeid, Panorama, Angel, Paul, Pedro, Alex, Miguel, Jaime, Mayo, William, Christian Rinke, Gino Moreno, Os Villavicencio, Carlos Benvenuto, Candice House, Elard Robles. For all the hard work and making this project come to fruition.
Hense has been committed to growing as an artist for nearly two decades now. The Atlanta native sticks to his guns by constantly showing support and advocating for the art scene in Atlanta. He’s done murals for the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, the Museum of Design Atlanta, and recently transformed a historic church in Washington DC into a colorful, multi-surfaced piece of public art. Hense has exhibited his work nationally and internationally in solo and group shows, and has a long list of public art projects, commissions and collections. His abstract paintings and murals can blend precise line work with bright colors, shapes, and gestures.
Nico Glaude: Let’s kick things off with the church you painted in Washington. First of all, congrats on the massive amounts of attention that the project got on blogs and art sites, well deserved. If you can just talk about how that project came to being and your overall experience painting such a historic piece of architecture?
Hense: The project in Washington DC was probably the most interesting structure I’ve ever painted. I worked with a small crew to complete it. The project was a private commission which was located in SW Washington DC across the street from the Rubell’s proposed Contemporary Art Museum. The area in DC is a part of town that has huge potential to be the next art district and this project is the first step in bringing some life and color into the area. Taking an existing object like the church and painting the entire thing recontextualizes it and makes it a sculptural object. We really wanted to turn the church into a three-dimensional piece of artwork. With projects like this one, we really try to use the existing architecture as inspiration for the direction of the painting. I did several concept drawings for the church to present to the owner as rough ideas of aesthetic direction. I knew that visually, I wanted it to be drastically different from what it looked like before painting it. I also wanted to use very bright and bold colors to catch a viewers attention from far away. Most of my works are done in layers. The first step was to just get paint and color on every side and surface of the building. We then started developing large shapes and marks that would takes days to paint. The entire process took several weeks of layering and working. I’m very happy with the outcome of this project. I really enjoyed working on such interesting architecture. I also love working large and with multiple surface changes. When I’m working in my studio I usually am starting with a blank piece of paper, canvas or wood, and with projects like these I’m starting with an already beautiful piece of architecture to add color to.
Historic church in Washington DC
NG: Moving on to another mural you made for the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center. This mural is a complete departure from your most recent work; it’s a call back to letterform, minimalistic, comprised of only two colors and we get to see your name painted across a building. What was the inspiration behind the piece and why such a drastic change in style compared to previous murals?
Hense: I actually had another piece on the Center prior to this one and felt like it was time for an update. We were working on another exterior project right down the street for the Westside Cultural Arts Center which was very colourful and decided to do something totally opposite of that. I enjoyed taking it back to the pure essence of getting up. Silver and black, drippy block letters.
Atlanta Contemporary Arts Center
NG: Your murals always tend to be vast in terms of scale, and covered with a wide range of colors and shapes. What’s approach to doing a mural?
Hense: It really depends on the project. Right now I’m very influenced by interesting architecture. That could mean historic or contemporary. I enjoy working on flat surfaces of course, but a structure that has multiple planes and angles is much more dynamic visually before any paint is applied. It’s like having a blank canvas that is already layered and ready to go. Depending on the scale, I may have assistants work with me on projects.
Almost everything I work on is completely spontaneous and I rarely use a preconceived sketch or concept. I’ve been recently experimenting in treating my exterior works similarly to my paintings. Color is another important aspect of my work. I like to use bold, bright colors that make a statement and really pop.
The work is purely based on abstraction and the physical process of painting. I want to constantly push myself and the viewer as to what can be defined as a painting. I enjoy the experimental process of painting in my studio or outdoors and I never want to know ahead of time what the final outcome of the piece will be. For me, the exciting part of the creative process is the unknown and the experimenting that takes place to get from one stage to the other.
I worked large early on with my letter-based graffiti, so painting entire buildings was a natural progression. I used to write my name in big block letters 100 feet long and 50 feet high using silver and black oil-based paint. I think that has helped me understand how to execute large exterior works which can also have multiple surface changes. Working large for me is the best. As much as I enjoy painting in my studio, I can easily say that working on large exterior projects has been the most exciting. One of the major challenges of working on that scale is the material application to the surface. We need lots of tools and lots of paint. The marks and shapes need to be larger than most studio tools can make which means we have to invent new tools or methods for the particular project.
NG: The great debate of graffiti writers moving into gallery settings will always be contested, but it’s something that’s becoming the norm of late. How was your transition from the streets to the gallery and any advice for artists trying to make that same switch?
Hense: I would say to do what feels right, go your own route and be original.
NG: You’ve traveled a lot in the past because of your work. What is it that draws you to, and keeps you in Atlanta?
Hense: I enjoy Atlanta for many reasons. I think I’ve kept Atlanta as my home base because it allows me to grow as an artist and lets me hold down an affordable, nice studio.
I’m able to travel for projects whenever I need to and the City still has a great sense of originality and culture.
NG: So there’s the story of you getting booked bare foot while on the run from the cops, any other interesting stories that have happened to you whilst getting up?
Hense: That story your referring to is probably the most ridiculous of them. I’ve had my share of chases, bookings and incidents.
NG: What’s your favourite kind of spray paint to use?
Hense: I like them all.
NG: Do you have an all time favourite mural you’ve made?
Hense:
700 Delaware
2012
Washington DC
House paint and aerosol
NG: Toss up between a blank canvas and a blank wall, which would you pick?
Being an elusive figure in the graffiti/street art world is slowly becoming obsolete. Artists find themselves making the transition from anonymity to the limelight, for what many think is solely for profit. The proliferation of social media has amplified the audience of street art, and led to increased exposure and opportunities for artists. But what motivates street artists to step away from their elusive lifestyles?
Recently, it seems many graffiti writers have cast away their incognito identities and made the transition towards becoming legitimate artists. What was once considered an act of vandalism is now commissioned by brands and displayed in art galleries around the world. But in order to market themselves as legitimate, recognizable artists they need to step away from their personas and present themselves not as vandals, but as artists.
At one point, street artists in question would mask their voices and hide their faces behind a blurred out lens in order to keep their identities hidden to the general public during interviews. Now, all that smoke and mirrors are gone. Personally, I used to love D*Face. He was strictly recognized by his moniker and nothing else, with his face always blurred during interviews. Then, seemingly overnight, it all changed. He began to create work and appear in interviews under his real name. Suddenly, D*Face became Dean Stockton. His work became mild and denotative. His mythical qualities as an artist were diminished. He just didn’t seem as interesting.
So why make that transition? Why not stay hidden and attempt to make a living while staying private? Artists such as Kaws and Shepard Fairey could easily have stayed elusive, but now they’re the biggest names in the street art world. When Kaws started hijacking billboards and bus shelter ads, no one knew who he was. They only knew him by his name. Now he’s making vinyl toys, taking part in the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade, and getting interviewed by Pharrell Williams. Similar tale with Fairey: he started out pasting up stickers around his local skate park, nobody knew what Obey meant, but it was everywhere, so it must have been important. Fairey stepped out of the shadows and now, a decade later has his own clothing line and his face is one of the most recognizable in the street art world. Why? Artists realize that in order to market their art, they need to market their persona first. Is this the process of selling out?
But then there are the ones that stay elusive, the purists of the street art world, artists like Dain and Bäst. Born and raised in Brooklyn, the elusive Dain creates sublime works of art the merges old Hollywood glam with new age colors in their composition. This, along with his roots in graffiti, creates a gritty yet delicate street art style that is all his own. There was a weird video that came out a while back about Dain, starring someone other than Dain portraying him. It followed around an old guy as he talked about his life and art and all of his inspirations while answering questions from the camera man. At this point, we know that Dain isn’t really the old man (notice his pasting skills), but one can only assume that the video was meant as a marketing tool, for people to get on the Dain bandwagon and spread his name out to the public without ever being seen. But apart from that video, Dain has never really been a public artist but his works will always be deemed as some of the best of our generation.
Dain. Photo by Sabeth718.
Bäst plays his part really well. Brooklyn-based artist Bäst has been wheat-pasting throughout New York’s urban landscape for over a decade now. Bäst has remained an elusive character that has rarely been seen in public and whose very existence has been debated. There are very few video interviews where you can hear Bäst talk. The only interview that comes to mind was for the Deluxx Fluxx collaboration with Faile (which is, in my opinion, one of the best street art based collaboration to have ever happened). Bäst manages to frequently collaborate with Faile, who are not anonymous artists, but apart from that, he’s a pretty elusive guy that keeps producing on a consistent basis. Sure, he had this weird, super small scale collaboration with an olive oil company, and the Marc Jacobs collaboration which confused pretty much everybody, since his art being displayed on a sweater for a highly lucrative brand could be seen as an uncharacteristic “sell out” move, but apart from that, he’s always stayed true to form and just stuck to street art.
I bring up Bäst and Dain not only because of the elusive nature, but because they are in fact brothers. One can only assume that some sort of pact was made between them to stay pretty much anonymous to most social groupings. Sure they might have ulterior motives, but as long as they stay elusive, we’ll really never know.
Bäst. Photo by Sabeth718.
And of course, one has to mention Banksy or as we know him now, most likely Robin Gunningham. Regardless of his moniker, he helped cement street art’s place in the established art world. Street art fans will forever have a love/hate relationship with Banksy. At this point, his work can come off as banal and obvious, but the fact that his identity was questioned for so long, in our surveillance culture, is pretty significant. He got his art up in the Met, or someone posing as him did. He got in and out of Disneyland without getting caught. Banksy’s evasiveness lends him a mystique and fascination, but he still manages to profit from his art.
These are the kind of question that people ask themselves when artists stay anonymous. We question everything about them, not knowing what they’ll do next. Suspense and curiosity will always play a part in their persona. Their anonymity is what keeps us interested; it plays a part in how we perceive them. Take these qualities away, and we realize that these artists are just like the rest. Would Banksy of reached this kind of popularity if he was just Robin Gunningham all along? Of course not. But he’s also a unique case; it’s hard to imagine a street artist will ever achieve what he has in our life time. So why stay elusive? Well, I guess it’s a question at the core of street art. Artists are supposed to be a hooded, hidden characters putting art up illegally, leading people to ask questions. How did it get there? Who did it? Why did they do it? When it comes to people like Kaws and Shepard Fairey, they answer these questions in the interviews that they partake in. But for others, maybe we’ll never know.
Note from the editor: This is a guest post by Nico Glaude, who will hopefully be contributing more to Vandalog in the future. – RJ Rushmore
RJ tweeted this a few days ago “Alec Monopoly is in the latest issue of @JuxtapozMag. Seriously? Come on Evan. I know you’re better than that!” Which got me thinking; what exactly is going on to the state of street art culture? For those that don’t know, Alec Monopoly is a street artist who “lightly” appropriates the Mr. Monopoly character in the streets, sometimes he’s playing a keyboard or even playing the turntables. His interior work follows the same guidelines of appropriation; Mr. Monopoly on canvas either pasted with monopoly money or news paper articles related to the economic state of the U.S. The point of it all? Maybe there is none.
Alec Monopoly. Photo by Birdman.
Meaningless art is something that will always plagued the art world, and most definitely plays it’s part in the streets. Yes there will forever be the debate of subjectivity, but let’s just be closed minded for a minute and examine things. What’s make Alec’s art pointless? The lack of effort in it all, the irony of taking on the economic state as a message, yet selling his art for thousands upon thousands of dollars. There’s no sense of real purpose or substance in his work, no evolution. If you take a minute to think about it, the same can be said about countless other “artists” who are getting rewarded even though they’re in a constant state of mediocrity.
Another case of substance abuse can be latched on to Curtis Kulig’s overly redundant “Love Me” campaign. It’s grown from a simple tag to becoming nothing more than a brand. In terms of marketing, it’s pretty genius, but at what point does it not become art anymore? Like with Alec’s work, Kulig’s work doesn’t evolve, what once had some substance, is now replaced with something that is lost in the world of pure redundancy. “Love Me” is now found on tee-shirts, skateboards, and sneakers. The slogan has become meaningless because the message is gone. It’s now become simply a marketing tool. Maybe, that’s all it ever was.
The point to all of this? Well just like Alec’s and Kulig’s art, maybe there is none. Yes meaningless art will forever be inescapable, this article won’t change that, and as I mentioned Alec and Kulig are only two cases of many. But we, as a culture, need stop validating such pointless attempts at attention, and realize that it is simply that, artists trying to get noticed by pawning off pretentious, uninspiring and empty art. This fact will be true until the end of time, but we need to stop letting artists off so easy, stop granting them a “Get out of jail free” card, and make them realize that in order to gain our attention,they need to start making art that isn’t so meaningless.
A note from RJ – This guest post is by my friend Shafiur Rahman, whose films I’ve posted about several times on Vandalog. Shafi is an interesting figure in the London street art community. Yes, he can be seen wandering around Shoreditch looking at work or at the gallery openings, but he isn’t just a street art fan boy. He is interested in street art, but his film company makes films about a wide range of social issues. On a few occasions, he’s been able to bring a bit of politics back into street art and muralism by involving street artists in his other film projects. What he writes about here is just one such instance.
In 2010 I started filming a film about apartheid in South Africa. After conducting several interviews, I realised I had interviewed – unwittingly – various members of the Picasso Club. These were activists who used to paint anti-apartheid slogans in the dead of night in the city of Johannesburg in the 1960s. Some of the members of the club are still alive and they have led very distinguished lives – everything from 26 years of imprisonment to holding high office in the post-apartheid government of Nelson Mandela.
These Picasso club guys gave me an idea. It dawned on me then that I could use street art meaningfully in my film. A kind of sloganeering too because I had in mind to paint giant portraits of those who had died in the struggle and who were now fading from memory. Fading both in terms of being easily recognised and in terms of the spirit they embodied: selfless struggle and sacrifice, I think is the phrase here. So the art would question the viewer – who is this you are looking at and why here. I had in mind to paint people who had died in the struggle and were intimately connected to the places where they would be painted. It could be where they worked or where they lived or where they were killed.
So Ben Slow painted Ruth First. She was a white Jewish woman, a communist party member and a dedicated fighter against apartheid. The apartheid regime killed her with a letter bomb. We painted her at a spot not far from a place called Kliptown. This was the place where the Freedom Charter was adopted by the many organisations fighting apartheid. Over the years the Freedom Charter became the central document outlining an egalitarian vision of South Africa. Ruth First helped draft that document. We painted her in a community which has experienced much violence and continues to do so. The building we chose was big enough to paint the 4m mural. Surrounding it are other smaller dwellings with no electricity or running water. They are simple one-roomed tin shacks. The legacy of apartheid is still evident in 2012. Sadly the values Ruth embraced and fought and died for are less evident in today’s South Africa. That is the general feeling. Picasso Club members despite their loyalty and polished diplomacy betrayed similar feelings in their interviews.
The people of Nomzamo park loved the mural. Some had a notion of who Ruth was. Most did not. One guy who knew of her kissed Ben’s hand and said he loved him for painting her.
A note from RJ: This is a guest post by Damon Landry, probably Philadelphia’s foremost street art photographer right now. Damon is writing about Open Air Philly, who a sponsor of Vandalog this month, which is why I figured it would be better to have Damon write about the event than me. The color photos were shot with a Nikon D7000 and a 17-55 f2.8 ED DX lens. For the black and white photos, Damon used an Olympus EPL2 Pen camera using a 20mm Panasonic pancake lens.
At first I was not “sold” on the concept of this project by aPA and Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, as I am used to seeing these types of Xenon lights used mainly to draw attention to used car lots and nightclubs and so had that association in mind. However seeing the project being tested from out my home’s 3rd floor windows my curiosity was tapped, especially on humid nights as the air carried the beams in a very defined manner on those nights. I went down the night before the opening and was literally laughing as it was fairly amazing to be under what appeared to be a crystal castle of sorts… “I got it” at that moment! Opening night was great however the crush of people on the parkway took away from what I thought needed to be a more intimate experience insomuch as you can have in the environment of the parkway. Nonetheless I was again amazed and like a lot of people were doing I just laid down on my back in the middle of the parkway and stared at the sky and was taken away by the show. For public art, this was pretty interesting stuff and for all the news about the very few “dark sky advocates” who were going to be there in protest I did not see any nor did anyone I know pay them any mind. I brought along a variety of camera gear to get images but in the end I just wanted to watch and not bother with setting all that up. This was good stuff… go see it if you have the chance!
It’s a great pleasure to introduce my good friend (he DJ’d at my wedding), author and vinyl obsessive Mr Tim O’Brien. He and I share a love of a funky tune and the graffiti you find on record covers but Tim has done more research into the field than anyone I know. His physical collection of graffiti vinyl has to be second to none and through his numerous essential blogs it a subject he generously shares with the world…
– Tristan Manco
Hello, my name is Tim and I have a problem with vinyl…
The humble album cover tells the whole story of graffiti. From the earliest tags to the latest styles, the album cover has used them all. Any styles in-between, it’s used them too. Go into any record shop, search long enough and you’ll come across some graffiti-based album art. Look in any of the Hip Hop, Jazz, Rock, House, Indie, Electronica sections and you’ll find graffiti based album art. Look to some of the most famous artists of all time – James Brown, The Rolling Stones, The Jam, Run DMC – and you’ll find graffiti based album art. Go through the bargain bin and you’ll find disrespected tunes with great graffiti based covers. Don’t forget, if the owner/assistant/loiterer gives you a hard time, for some obscure and unfathomable reason, you can always get them elsewhere.
“Walk This Way” by RUN DMCUltimate Breaks & Beats
The first time graffiti album art caught my eye was in HMV, Oxford Street, in the late 80s. The shop was clearing out their vinyl and in a back room they had rows of Ultimate Breaks & Beats LPs. The artwork really captured my imagination, classic as it was and is. Straight away I loved the colours, design, themes and styles and have done ever since, the music on the LPs too. HMV were switching to selling CDs of course. 25 years later and CDs are on the way out, vinyl is still going strong and the Breaks & Beats series looks as fresh as ever.
The inspiration for these blogs came courtesy of a lucky break/some small success with the publication of Naked Vinyl in 2003, thanks to Chrysalis Publishing. For a while I was on the same label as Blondie, kind of and it was a fun time. The graffiti vinyl blogs followed from there and are well on the way to becoming a follow up book in their own right. This is pleasing in lots of ways, firstly because computer servers don’t destroy enough trees for my liking and also because album art is such a great way to showcase the ongoing creativity of graffiti/street art.
“Wotupski” by Jellybean
The best thing about graffiti vinyl is that it includes artwork by classic artists like Futura, Seen and Keith Haring, plus lots of different graff/street art styles, and lots of modern graffiti based design too. While, I’m happy to say, the Thames & Hudson titan of street art, our very own Mr Tristan Manco, has designed (with the artwork of Banksy and others) his own graff vinyl covers too. These come courtesy of his freelance design work and are pictured here in all their glory.
“Think Tank” by Blur“Pure Braziliance”
Most of the covers were bought in the UK or online. With special mentions going to the Notting Hill Soul & Dance Exchange, Rarekind Records, Brighton, West Pier Records, Brighton and FOPP, Cambridge. The mighty Worldwide Empire of Discogs is, of course, due a mention too. Some of the vinyl was, and is, pretty pricey and a few of them I still haven’t been able to find – the, stunning, graffiti picture sleeve of Tyrone Brunson’s The Smurf and the Trouble Funk, 7”, graffiti picture sleeve, of Pump me up, spring to mind. So, if you’ve got them, please send them on to Vandalog for safe-keeping.
The graff blogs created include three themed around graffiti vinyl – an overview with info and links, a gallery and the story of graffiti vinyl:
Some of the above blogs are archives and complete, while others will have content added on an on-going basis. Finally, if you get a chance to check my google blogger profile, you’ll find some more blogs based around other left-field themes. New blogs will be likely added as inspiration strikes.
Note from RJ: We at Vandalog are excited to publish Tristan Manco‘s first post on the site, hopefully the first of many. Tristan is one of contemporary street art’s greatest champions and most-distinguished writers. Tristan curated by iterations of Cans Festival, worked at Pictures on Walls for half a decade, has written or in some way contributed to 8 art books since 2002 as well as numerous magazine articles in publications such as Juxtapoz. I’ve known Tristan for a couple of years, and he is one of the people whom I really trust when it comes to art.
Taking place in the 24-hour daylight of a Northern Norway summer on a small island town called Vardø north of the Arctic Circle – Komafest was always going to be a unique event…
Vardø is the oldest settlement in Northern Norway and in recent years has become depopulated with many buildings left empty, partly as a result of the collapsing fishing industry. The curator and organizer of the festival, the Norwegian artist Pøbel saw the potential of a street art festival to make a visual transformation of the town and to show the local people it was possible to make changes. While developing the idea Pøbel spent time getting to know the locals and with his unassuming nature and enthusiasm he began to gain their trust. Soon the public began to get behind the idea and offer up buildings for artists to paint on and volunteering to help in the organization. It became a truly grassroots movement rather than something imposed on the community.
The island, shaped like a butterfly, has an otherworldly atmosphere and is only accessible overland by a winding 3km undersea tunnel, which appears out of the ground like something out of a science fiction movie, but the real stars of the show are its traditional wooden buildings. Many of the wooden jetties, warehouses and buildings are abandoned, weather-beaten and in a state of beautiful decay. Although standing empty these heritage buildings all have owners who are often unable to afford their proper restoration. The idea of project is that the art that is created on them can awaken these buildings out from a coma, giving the festival it’s name – Komafest.
What I found inspiring about this project was the way the invited artists responded to the place. Each artist had some idea of what they might experience but in most cases their preconceptions soon changed once they began to speak to the locals and learn more about their environment. According to local fisherman Aksel Robertsen, Philadelphian artist Steve Powers had many ideas planned but scrapped them as soon as he began to meet the people and experienced the place for himself – all those encounters shaped his final murals; such as “Cod is Great” and “Eternal Light – Eternal Night”. The French artist Remed painted a mural on an old seafront warehouse, which took some of its imagery from the seascape but included the text Hellige Heks Fortuna, (Hellige Heks means Holy Witch in Norwegian). This references to witches dates back to the Vardø witch trials that were held there in 17th century resulting in many of the accused being burned alive at the stake.
