Just caught wind of what is turning out to be an incredible project from Imminent Disaster. Check out the Kickstarter, because money talks, but please take the time to support however you can. More from Disaster on the project after the jump.
“Homeland” is a Wet-Plate Collodion photo essay focusing on grassroots efforts to rebuild life after the collapse of the American economy. By documenting communities and individuals in NYC and across the country, this project aims to connect disparate communities and individuals into a national movement with common ideological threads. The range of projects documented will include urban farms, bicycle collectives, off-the grid homes, alternative fuel producers, art and theatre collectives, community dinners, free schools and after-school programs, squats, itinerants, tent cities and other grassroots social practices.
So you might have heard me talking about Wet-Plate photos, or mentioning that I might be leaving town on a cross-country trip at some undetermined date in the future. Both of these things are true and part of one and the same thing, which is a project I have been brewing up since last November. I am finally at a point where I am confident the project is happening. I just bought the car on Monday, a VW Golf Diesel, which gets about 50mpg, that I can run on biodiesel, from a funny man on Staten Island that I’m still dealing with to get the title figured out.
This might have been one of the least productive weeks of my life. Just one of those weeks. Here’s some of the stuff I didn’t post about while procrastinating 30 minutes of homework for 3 hours on Thursday:
The Underdogs‘ book is available online. The Portuguese collective features artists like Vhils and Tosco.
Had a pretty interesting week. Last Friday was the opening of, Sex Drive, the latest show at The Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery, where I work part time. It’s a pretty great show, so if you’re in the Philadelphia area, I’d say it’s worth stopping by. But if you’re not, there’s also a lot of online content. But here’s what’s going on the more Vandalog-relevant world this week:
There’s a trailer out for a film called How To Sell A Banksy. It seems to be about a person or group who are trying to sell a street piece by Banksy that they removed or somehow got their hands on. I’m not sure what to think of the whole thing. On the one hand, it certainly raises some questions about the value of art and what Banksy is (like the guy from Andipa, a dealer in secondhand Banksy artwork, saying that perhaps Banksy’s street pieces are absolutely worthless), but I can’t help but believe that those questions will be obscured in the film by the filmmakers themselves being sucked into the system. They are trying to sell something after all, how could they not become part of this system that the film seem to be critiquing?
As mentioned a few days ago, Mr. Brainwash is being sued by Glen E. Friedman over the use of Friedman’s iconic photo of Run DMC. While this lawsuit has been going on for quite a while, attention was first really brought to it after a recent post on Boing Boing. The immediate reaction from the blogosphere seems to be to side with Friedman and against MBW, while somehow trying to explain how this is massively different from Shepard Fairey’s lawsuit with the AP where most of these same people were siding with Shepard.
I would love to, as usual, bash Mr. Brainwash’s work as overpriced, barely qualifying as art, completely derivative and only of any value (monetary, intellectual or otherwise) for the absurdity of him and his career as a whole. And I’d love to back up Glen E. Friedman, a photographer with a uniquely talented eye that combines taking photos of interesting/historic things with aesthetic and technical know-how. If there’s a guy a want to like in this story, it’s Friedman, and if there’s a guy I’d love to hate, it’s Mr. Brainwash. Unfortunately, I’m not going to take the easy sides. All those things I’ve said are true, but in the wider context of fair use and artist rights, Mr. Brainwash is the bastard child of a good idea worth defending.
Photo by textdrivebys
A lot of MBW’s work relies on taking existing iconic imagery and changing it to fit within his world. With the Run DMC image, he has used it in a variety of ways, including stencils and his portraits made of broken records. He didn’t copy the photograph and start running off copies. He transformed it into something new. Yes, you could overlay MBW’s stencils with Friedman’s photo in photoshop and they would match up, but that’s how references photographs often work. That similarity, the reference, doesn’t mean they two works are the same thing or that MBW is legally obligated to license the use of the image from Friedman. The MBW artwork transforms the Friedman photograph into something new, and even if it doesn’t, street art fans need to be careful about not defending appropriation.
Street art and pop art in particular have relied heavily on the ability to appropriate from other people’s photographs or other imagery, iconic or not and often not licensing or even crediting the original creators. Shepard Fairey (countless times including his early André the Giant image and the Obama poster), Banksy (source), D*face (source), Rene Gagnon (source), C215INSA (okay this one is within the public domain but it’s still a good example of appropriation) and so many others have used source imagery in their artwork and transformed it into something new. We can debate, particularly with a lot of pop art, the extent to which the original thing was transformed, but there is definitely a change taking place and some sort of artistic or design input involved in making that new image. And if you want to argue that in all those examples I provided except for INSA, the artist should be legally and morally obligated to license the imagery from the creator of the source material, then that’s another debate. What I’m taking particular issue with today is that the same people who defend Shepard Fairey doing his lawsuit with the AP are now rooting for Friedman against Mr. Brainwash for doing essentially the same thing that Fairey did.
Sean Bonner has argued that the key difference between what Fairey and MBW did comes down to how iconic the photograph was to start with. By that logic, any random photograph is fair game to turn into a stencil without credit, but it would become problematic if the source photograph is well-known. Well then Bonner must also think that a lot of street art and pop art is vulnerable to lawsuits. The same argument that Bonner makes on behalf of Friedman would threaten some of the artists mentioned in the last paragraph, Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Can series, the work of Elaine Sturtevant, any artist using Mickey Mouse except in instances of parody and possibly even Shepard Fairey’s Andé sticker since Fairey was basically utilizing the iconic nature of Andé the Giant for his sticker.
Taking that view out of art and looking at music for a moment, mash up artists like Flosstradamus, The Hood Internet, Girl Talk and DJ Dangermouse rely on a combination of iconic and non-iconic sounds for their songs and don’t license that material. The courts have made it clear that a lot of what they do is illegal, but I don’t think that’s a decision conducive to the creation of new art and music. The White Album, The Black Album and The Grey Album are three very different artistic creations.
I hope that MBW wins this lawsuit and the rights to fair use and artistic appropriation are upheld.
That said, I want to get back to my earlier comment that MBW is the bastard child of fair use. It doesn’t seem to me like MBW’s artwork is how fair use is intended to work. And he looks like a complete jerk for not licensing imagery which it might have been possible to license (Shepard Fairey has licensed some of Friedman’s photos). The ethical thing to do might have been to at least attempt to license as much of the imagery that MBW uses as is possible. But he can’t legally have an obligation to license the imagery. Otherwise, art and music are screwed. MBW’s art based on iconic imagery is not how fair use is intended to work, but if it doesn’t work for MBW, it stops working for the artists who deserve fair use rights and use them respectfully. Although excessive allowances for fair use can screw good over people like Friedman who get taken advantage of by jerks like MBW, on balance, it’s better to have too many rights for fair use than not enough.
But I’m no expert on fair use. I’m hoping to get a nice discussion going here. What do you think?
PS, if you’re wondering why I’ve not posted Friedman’s original photo, it’s because I don’t have permission or a way to get in touch to ask for permission, and I don’t want to upset him by using his photo without permission even though it probably qualifies as fair use in this case. Just kidding (sort of).
With the riots and protests in Egypt, I thought the above sticker is a worthwhile thing to consider this week. I’m a bit late on this week’s link-o-rama.
A TWIST bus stop from 1995. And intense Barry McGee fans may appreciate this video, but it’s kind of lost on me.
Seems really interesting that this piece has text in English even though it’s placed in Iran. As if they intended for a good number people to see it online in the Western world and placed as much importance on that as on people seeing it in person.
This may not be “street art” per say, but I am taking creative license and writing about it because it they are “artistic pictures of the street.” Plus, one of the editors is a street artist, so I’m allowing it.
In the latest craze of “bring back the physical written word,” people are looking for any excuse to print some type of zine. I tend to look past 99% of them and stick to online ventures (what can I say, I’m biased and maybe a pseudo-environmentalist). Albeit, a new zine recently grabbed my attention as fast as a guy in skinny jeans and Buddy Holly glasses would. Hours is a monthly zine that documents one person’s 24 hour use of a disposable camera. All of the pictures are unedited and printed as they come out. Below are images from the first issue:
The editors, Molly Rourke and Matthew Shearer, sent me this bit to expand upon the magazine’s mission:
One artist/photographer/creative thinker is chosen each month and have 24 hours to fill the camera they are given, and the photos are then turned into a publication. The person chosen is done so at random (literally pulled out of a hat), with anyone able to submit, from anywhere, each month.
In an age where digital photography is king, and photos can be uploaded to Facebook instantly, Hours invites the camera holder to take a journey, to take a risk, to feel excited about seeing photographs again, and being unable to delete, to edit or discard any – to savor and consider each and every frame. Even the photographer of each issue will not see their own photographs until the zine is launched.
The official launch party of the zine was last night in Cardiff, but contact the guys on their Tumblr and you can subscribe for 1 pound an issue.
Yes. Blu and Nunca and Shepard Fairey and all the rest can put up really impressive gigantic murals that tourists will travel from around the world to see and property owners will cover in plexiglass. That’s cool sometimes. But there’s something to be said for the anonymous street art that just makes people smile. It’s an often overlooked segment of the street art world, because a lot of that sort of work is small, very ephemeral, hard to notice, something that doesn’t look like art, hard to capture an image of on film and impossible to experience through a photograph. This is a short post attempting to draw attention to some of that art. To me, it’s just as important, if not more important, than the sort of street art that will one day wind up in museums.
Over the winter break, a high school friend of mine introduced me to Faces in Places. He loves that blog. Me, I’m indifferent, but I see the appeal. When I mentioned to him that there were a bunch of googly eyes appearing on my university campus, where people would put googly eyes on things to help facilitate more Faces-in-Places-like-things, he laughed. Here at Haverford, the googly eyes are a mystery, but it turns out that some of his friends started a bunch of googling (as they call it) on the Wesleyan University campus. I don’t think they were consciously trying to make art, they were just trying to make people smile and take back to the world “googling” from Google. But putting googly eyes on things is amazing street art. Is it as complex as something by MOMO? No. But it makes people smile and it brightens their day! That, to me, is one of the most noble and important goals of street art. And it’s not particularly difficult to achieve. So go and google something or scribble a funny piece of graffiti in the bathroom stall, it’s probably not going to end up in MoMA, but it may just make somebody smile, and that’s much more important.
Even though there’s a slight advertising component with that project and it’s not completely anonymous, it’s still a pretty damn good gift to the community. Putting up swings is a simple gift to make the world a better place. Kudos to Oh San Fransisco for getting out and making people have a better day. Random Acts of Greatness also explains well why they like Oh San Francisco’s project.
Futura has done a series of t-shirts with 12ozProphet. Kind of cool. I’m not usually a fan of straight up logo shirts, but Futura’s style trumps my usual reservations and the white t-shirt is just a straight photo of a Pointman sketch, which I think is cool. Check out some more full sets of images on12oz. These shirts will be available very soon (about 2 and a half hours from now as of this post being published) on the 12oz website.
No word yet on the priceUPDATE: Shirts are $32-36, but there is a giveaway that Hypebeast and 12ozProphet are running where you can win a free shirt. You can check out all the rules and prizes here. Seems a bit complicated to enter, but I imagine Futura fans will think it’s worth it for a t-shirt or even a photo print.
And here’s a great video interview that 12oz have done with Futura:
Who else is excited about that little comment at the end about The Twins? Sounds like Os Gemeos are involved here somehow too. Maybe some shirts of their own coming up with 12oz?
The work of critically acclaimed public artist John Ahearn is as diverse as the models that he casts, yet in retrospect, his work is most commonly known from the community debacle of his three bronzes commissioned for the 44th precinct in the South Bronx.
The contentious issue is eloquently considered in the Jane Kramer essay Whose Art is It(provided here on mediafire) and is very pertinent to Baltimore Open City’s attempt to work publicly. The question is what role does art serve in the public? Does it function best as an affirmative representation of ideals, like many of the massive murals in philadelphia, as an expression of political action or a critical gesture that challenges the perception of its audience? While such questions and their sundry variations may be difficult to answer, when producing work for the public sphere, these modes due warrant consideration. Yet one thing is certain, a cohesive vision of community is in fact illusory, and once the artwork steps into the fray of contending opinions the myriad antagonistic voices clearly differentiate the affiliations that surround our places of living.
In the case of John Ahearn’s three bronzes, after years of deciding the appropriate work and getting its approval for the location, once the pieces were installed, the site became a channel for rhetoric regarding political correctness and representation. The issue was that these were not ideal figures represented in the work, but actual down and out individuals, a reality that the South Bronx dealt with every day but did not want to look towards. In the end the pieces were quickly removed personally by John Ahearn and relocated to the safety of PS1. The empty pedestals became an unfortunate testament to an artist collapsing under the pressure that art should make people “happy” rather than inspire dialogue.
Can Banksy die? I’ve got no doubt that the man who was writing the name Banksy on Bristol’s walls in the 1990’s can and will, at some point, die. That’s not what I’m wondering though. Keith Haring has been dead for more than 20 years, but you can still buy new products with his imagery. Similarly, Basquiat’s estate released prints after his death. But those artists had names and faces. Even after their deaths, products can still be made using their images, but there’s not going to be any new imagery. But Banksy (the brand, not the man) doesn’t have those same constraints. Disney didn’t die with Walt Disney. Is Banksy one man or many people?
While he is anonymous, Banksy is publicly portrayed as being one person. But what does that one person actually do these days when it comes to making art?
It’s ridiculously risky for Banksy to paint his own street art…
A Banksy billboard/artwork in NYC. Photo by caruba
Does Banksy paint his own street art? Shepard Fairey has said that he doesn’t (thanks to Mischa for the link to that article) and, in the latest issue of Very Nearly Almost, Eine says that he used to paint street pieces for Banksy. Given his high-profile status and the risks associated with painting outdoors, it probably makes legal sense for assistants to paint Banksy’s street pieces. If I were in Banksy’s position, I wouldn’t risk painting all of my own outdoor work. Even if Banksy does paint his own street pieces today and has always done so up until today, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to notice if that situation changed tomorrow.
There’s no way to know if Banksy paints his own gallery art…
Collaboration between Damien Hirst and Banksy. Photo by ahisgett
What about his indoor work? Maybe Banksy still paints everything himself, but I’m doubtful of that. While hiring assistants might be more difficult for Banksy than Jeff Koons, it’s clear in Exit Through The Gift Shop that Banksy has a staff. At the very least, I think it’s safe to assume that Banksy isn’t executing the creation of any his sculptures himself (no matter what this video purports to show). And there’s little reason to think Banksy doesn’t have assistants completing part or all of his paintings. Banksy has said that he paints his own pictures, but how would anyone outside of his team know if he was telling the truth or not? Assistants who work on paintings for an artist are a widely accepted practice. As an extreme example, Damien Hirst has said that his best spot paintings were the ones painted entirely by Rachel Howard, his former assistant. Even if Banksy paints all his own pictures today, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to know if that practice changes in the future. Again though, some use of assistants for painting is probably what almost any artist in Banksy’s position would do.
There isn’t just one man who can come up with funny stencils…
Stencil by Meek. Photo by Joshua Rappeneker
But regardless who who physically executes the artwork, conceptual artists have long contended that the artist is the one who comes up with the idea of the art, not the one who makes the art. By that standard, what makes a Banksy a Banksy is that he came up with the idea, but he isn’t the only one who could do that. Countless artists emulating Banksy, as well as generations of political cartoonists, have shown that coming up with clever 1-liners isn’t a skill possessed only by one man. Admittedly, I think most people find Banksy’s average success rate with his jokes to be higher than that of a lot the people he has inspired, but that is probably as much about being careful with what you put out there as it is about being clever. Maybe it’s true that no one person will ever be as good as Banksy at his brand of humor and commentary, but a dozen people working together probably could be. But I’ve already made an assumption here: Today, there is only one individual who comes up with all the ideas behind Banksy’s artwork. Again, we have no way of knowing how true that assumption is. Banksy’s cloak of anonymity means that the public really has no idea how many people contribute ideas to the Banksy identity. Today and in the future, the ideas behind Banksy’s art could come from one man or a team of 50 with no input from the original individual who called himself Banksy. How could we tell the difference?
Life after death…
Photo by Jake Dobkin
I’m inclined to think that Banksy, the man, is a hard working guy who does involve himself in the making of the artwork that he signs. But given all the possibilities for others to be involved in the Banksy brand without the public knowing a thing, it is clear that the Banksy brand can continue to create artwork indefinitely with or without the original man behind the name. Like the many boys who took on the role Batman’s sidekick Robin (oh, haha okay I came up with this metaphor days ago and only now as I write it down do I realize the irony given Banksy’s supposed identity. I’m an idiot), an anonymous artist’s name and image can be taken up by any number of people. If the man behind Banksy ever leaves the Banksy organization, or when he dies, will the public ever know? It’s possible that my grandchildren will be able to see “original” Banksy artwork completed a century from now. Banksy seems to have reached the absurd hyperbole of conceptual art: the original artist may not even need to conceive the artwork for it to bear his name. Banksy has finally achieved what Warhol and others set out to: the artist is truly a brand without a human identity.
This isn’t to say that Banksy’s death is impossible. It may happen one day. It seems only right that Banksy the brand dies with Banksy the man and it may very well end there, but it would definitely be possible for his team to continue the brand without the man. Then, the questions become would we notice, would we care and how would Banksy the brand change itself from the original intent of Banksy the man?
What do you think? Does Banksy’s death promise a new frontier for art? Have I completely misunderstood the brand/man that is Banksy? This is a post of questions I’ve been thinking about more than it is a post of answers and opinions, so I’m looking forward to reading other people’s thoughts in the comments.
