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Tag: street art
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OFF THE WALL
LA River ConfidentialIn the 1970s, The East Los Streetscapers promoted the idea that graffiti muralism was part of the struggle to claim urban space. This concept was shared by the Los Angeles Fine Art Squad, a group of artists also taking art to the street using murals. This activist approach was always part of street art, but it wasn’t until Wild Style hit the left coast in the ‘80s that graffiti became Art; mostly because the result was large-scale graf burner throw ups in every neighborhood across LA.
Since then, many young contemporary muralists are introduced to their craft through street art and graffiti but seem to be artistically inspired by lowbrow imagery and/or the flowing cursives of “calligraffiti.” One of these artists is Tristan Eaton, described by writer Carlo McCormick as “the heir apparent of a delinquent cultural lineage that involves a variety of media… including graffiti.” Recently commissioned by the Aster Members Club to produce a pair of four-story tall murals for its Hollywood and Vine location, Eaton anticipated that his Street Art piece “saluting Tinseltown groundbreakers” would be seen by thousands of people every day. Consequently, he made it teem with cultural, racial, and political references, providing a sort of non-factual education of data without context for a public mostly ignorant of Hollywood’s backstory. Still, although Eaton believes the mural successfully shares his story “of the Hollywood he knows and loves,” the worth of Eaton’s piece relies on it being seen by the throngs promenading Hollywood Boulevard, whether they get what he’s putting down or not.
This is the fundamental tenet of graffiti: to spread a message or image by bombing any available surface, using everything from tags and murals to pens, stickers, and stencils. The endgame is a dispatch from a writer or crew to as many members of the public as possible. But beneath the streets of Los Angeles, graffiti exists rejecting this usual arrangement and interested individuals must go to extreme efforts to view the work. The Los Angeles River is joined by many “tributaries” of drainage channels and some of these tunnels have been hit so thoroughly that layered full-color pieces can be seen as far back as sunlight can penetrate the shaft. But the large and elaborate burner pieces don’t stop there, they continue into the darkness, seemingly without end, the “date stamps” and placas reaching further into the past. This is graf that shares none of the ambitions held by Eaton or the muralist liberators of the streets. According to the graf-legend Mear One, “True Graffiti artists enjoy the aspect of going places others wouldn’t. So, I guess we’re looking for that legacy location, a spot time forgot; maybe a place that can survive the next ice age and be discovered by future generations.” He pauses, then adds, “Plus, we can smoke weed with no hassles from the streets or the cops.”
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CODAworx Takes Over the Desert
Extreme Public ArtCODAsummit 2021 was marked by an in-person conference in Scottsdale, AZ which coincided with the dramatic light/art/water event titled Canal Convergence. While there was a COVID-friendly digital component for those not in attendance, the turnout was relatively staggering—a volume of renowned artists, museum directors and some of the heaviest global art fabrication companies all making the trek to the Arizona desert.
For those not familiar with CODAworx—simply put, it is an organization with a purpose of bringing together the needed elements to create public art on a massive scale. CODAworx touts itselves as “the hub of the commissioned art economy.” It is a singular place where those commissioning art can link to creatives, fabricators, engineers and most any others needed to actualize a project. A thrilling announcement at the conference was that CODAworx is nearing the $2 billion mark for commissioned public works; Yes, billion with a B.
The conference wasted no time diving into controversial issues around both COVID and problems with the traditional art institution model. Christy MacLear (inaugural CEO of SUPERBLUE, Rauschenberg Foundation, etc.) moderated a panel with artist and museum professionals that addressed The Reimagined Museum. The theme that continued to surface during this panel was how COVID regulations forced the archaic museum model to finally adapt, with new ideas, contemporary programming systems and nontraditional methods for engaging the public. Jeremy Strick (Director, Nasher Sculpture Center) spoke about the series of the “Nasher Windows” exhibitions that were presented to remain relevant during a time of nonpublic gathering. It’s worth noting that nearly all changes made in programing during COVID were highly successful and will be remaining in some context moving forward.
CODAworx organized presenters in a grounding dualistic approach, with conceptual art conversations were followed by tangible presentations such as the talk by Daniel Tobin, co-founder of fabrication powerhouse UAP. Daniel addressed the current need for manufacturing on a global scale—UAP has a facility in Australia, China and New York—but also the menagerie of difficulties that come from manufacturing public art on that scale.
The Reimagined Museum panel. Photo credit: M.O.D Media Productions The final component of CODAworx is the actual creative, the artist. Plenty of interesting presentations focused on the use of solar panels, robots or some tech in the artwork, but the standout artist was one with a far more traditional process. Los Angeles painter Ryan Sarfati, aka Yanoe, found his artistic footing while straddling large-format mural production with an AR twist. Yanoe takes both his moniker and learned skillsets from a prolific youth of graffiti painting in LA. He now applies them to world record setting murals as a part of a two-artist team—Oh Yanoe, LLC. The Majestic is a 15,000 square-foot mural in Tulsa, OK, which was finished in 2021 and is officially the world’s largest AR mural. This is not the first time Oh Yanoe has held the record, just the most recent. Their murals integrate community focused imagery and are inherently bright, stunning and dramatic to the naked eye. If the viewer chooses to employ the AR component it all starts to get real. Portions of the mural morph, hummingbirds fly off the wall, flowers grow and engulf the building. This is something new, and something great that builds on traditions we embrace.
Art and technology have been integrally related throughout the trajectory of human history with our current day and age being no exceptions. CODAsummit 2021 exemplified how many of our world’s foremost creatives are pushing the boundaries, working on global issues, and adding beauty into this world through the integration and use of technology in public art.
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Book Review: STREET ART & SOCCER
“The Chosen Few: Aesthetics and Ideology in Football Fan Graffiti and Street Art” By Mitja VelikonjaThe Chosen Few: Aesthetics and Ideology
in Football Fan Graffiti and Street ArtBy Mitja Velikonja
176 pages
DoppelHouse Press
Graffiti and street art are often considered synonymous since they affect the urban environment in similar ways. But graffiti is onomastic: the essential purpose is to advertise one’s presence; it’s the big “I am” that challenges metropolitan anonymity. That is also achieved with latrinalia, slogans and phrases that serve as necessary disruption of daily life. Graffiti is a platform for outsider political and social activism among those who consider themselves silenced or purposefully omitted from larger societal colloquies.
Unlike street art, which is generally sanctioned and can remain an element of the street for an extended amount of time, graffiti is illegal and temporary. Consequently, some writers and sticker-bombers prefer membership in a group from which graffitaro can anonymously promote that to which they pledge allegiance. In Europe, soccer fans known as ultras typically design and produce their own stickers, pasteups and wall pieces promoting their favorite Football Club (FC). These remarkable DIY designs are featured in Mitja Velikonja’s scholarly illustrated book The Chosen Few: Aesthetics and Ideology in Football Fan Graffiti and Street Art, which examines the relationship between European soccer teams and their graffiti-oriented, street activist fans.
Velikonja posits that sticker bombing and stenciling reveal how soccer fan graffiti is never ideologically neutral or apolitical, and the statements being made often cover more than a single issue. The observation that soccer is a “means by the powerful to pit workers against workers in competition and as a potential tool for nationalism” means that in some cases the graffiti is about intense societal differences as well as sports rivalry. In The Chosen Few, Velikonja discusses such direct display of political preferences and values, as well as fans’ self-image and the recognizable aesthetics of their stickers or stencils.
The Chosen Few book cover, image by Tauras Stalnionis Much of the graffiti and street art in The Chosen Few relies on altered versions of iconography already familiar to the public. This ensures that passersby, attracted by the striking image, will examine the sticker long enough to parse that it’s promoting a specific soccer team. For example, one sticker bomber fan of Slovenian Celje Football Club uses a metonymic image of Travis from the film Taxi Driver and the line “I got some bad ideas in my head” to express their disdain for other teams and non-fan society in general. The negative side of this “economy of means” is that present-day advocates of the extreme right resort to displaying swastikas and other Nazi symbols to promote their favorite soccer club, even though ironically, that team might have nothing to do with such ideology.
Although graffiti is an ancient method of visual communication, it is only in the last 20 years that it has matured to become a familiar element of self-expression in the urban arena. Consequently, Velikonja’s analyses are an essential addition to any discussion about the connection between football and graffiti, as well as its effect on social affairs in the streets. To be sure, an abundance of facts is necessary to support a thesis, but in this case it weighs down the fascinating nature of the subject. Velikonja’s exhaustive research makes The Chosen Few so dense that, while a compelling read, it could use a little more about markers and less about Marx.
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OFF THE WALL: Art in the Bike Lane
Los Angeles is a city best seen at 30 miles per hour, when its squalor and splendor even out to create a neutral grandeur; it’s at the slower speeds that our angels’ dereliction becomes evident. Pedestrians know this and that’s why nobody walks in LA—like the Missing Persons’ song. However, there is another method of getting around which combines the best qualities of walking and driving: bike riding. Thanks to forward thinkers at the Bikeways Unit at the Los Angeles Department of Public Works, there are bike lanes on the streets and dedicated bike paths away from vehicles. Because of Lewis Macadams’ promotion of the river as a usable urban green space, one of these paths parallels the LA River and has become a popular two-wheeled thoroughfare.
Photo by Anthony Ausgang In the tradition of motorcyclists, one can find both “lone wolf” riders and groups of all sizes on the river’s bike path. It’s not unusual to see ballers on crazy custom bikes with so many appurtenances they resemble Mod scooters and the occasional bike-powered shopping cart train. Since Street artists crave exposure, the number and variety of riders has proven to be attractive to sticker taggers, Graf painters, and agitprop wheat pasters. Thus, whether timing a ride between the Harbor Freeway and Burbank, or just taking it easy, an alert bicyclist can see an impressive array of guerrilla public art.
For years the concrete banks of the LA River have been a favored canvas for Graf artists, and while Saber’s massive 60 x 250 feet piece was buffed long ago, new ones are thrown up nightly. Up along the path, much of the renegade art is like that on the boulevards, but there is a genre taking the bicycle as its main motif. The artist “Ra” uses a fat Sharpie to scrawl his three-quarter profile drawings of bicycles and the phrase “Ride On” across the walls beside the path. Like most Graf artists Ra has a rival, and his work is often crossed out by an unidentified aerosol artist who sprays a side view of bicycles in the wild calligraphic style of Lettrists.
Photo by Anthony Ausgang Although the path is generally used as a route to get from one place to another, there is a group of people that live in the parkway between the Golden State Freeway and the bike path. They are a Darwinian offshoot of the overpass dwellers, managing to cross the bike path repeatedly without collision. Even so, the astute rider must exercise caution when passing through their villages, for this isn’t picturesque peasantry but a group of the disenfranchised and unwell. As such, they have their own specific artistic style: a jittery meth-addled Expressionist depiction of “the night before” stretched into the sunburned hours. It’s almost as rewarding to look at as it must be to make.
In the unsentimental world of Street Art, both the hysterical and the calculated eventually get buffed, so enjoy it today because tomorrow it’s gone. But the bucolic perseveres like the river itself, and on a graffiti-less wall near the LAPD stables, there’s a painting of a horse that returns the gaze of the observant cyclist; now that’s something worth slowing down for.
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WHAT, MEME WORRY?
On June 19th, 2018, Tumblr user deadbefordeath posted a photograph of a white cat with a confused expression sitting in a chair in front of a plate of vegetables, titling the post “he no like vegetals.” According to the Literally Media database, the post gained over 120,000 likes and reblogs in one year, and the popular feline was eventually identified as a cat from Ottowa named Smudge. Meanwhile, a formidable reaction screen cap of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills cast members Taylor Armstrong and Kyle Richards was getting its own internet exposure and on May 1, 2019, Twitter user @MISSINGEGIRL fused the two photographs together. This amalgam was titled “These photos together is making me lose it” and the tweet gained over 78,900 retweets and 276,800 likes in two months. But on May 2nd, Twitter user @lc28__ made the first known meme based on the format, titling it “Me accusing my cat of cuddling with other people when I come home drunk after bottomless brunch.”
A fresh meme must contain an essential irony, which can vary from wry observations to volatile political incorrectness. Consequently, the Woman Yelling At Cat meme—which features the image of Armstrong and Smudge expressing differing opinions, also known as “object labeling” in the meme lexicon—took off. And, since an important attraction of a meme is that the viewer is able alter it in any way they choose, the Woman Yelling At Cat meme went viral on October 13th, 2019, when Facebook user KucingMenangid posted a remix video of it. After replacing Smudge with the feline Thurston Waffles , the post received more than 727,000 views, 25,000 shares, 12,000 reactions and 3,500 comments in a little over one week. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwMwvuGOsX8
This transmogrification into a four-second video delivered the meme to a wider audience; plus, Armstrong herself contributed greatly by her engagement with people who tag her in their social media posts. But after kapwing.com posted their Woman Yelling At Cat Meme Maker, the internet was instantly flooded with Armstrong and Smudge dank memes. And once the meme became an internationally recognized format for commentary of any kind, it became obvious that, in fact, each individual Woman Yelling At Cat meme was also obliquely making reference to every other Woman Yelling At Cat meme. In essence, it became meta-commentary, its apex evident in womanvscatmeme’s tweet titled, “I don’t understand these memes/Who gone tell her.”
With such cultural resonance, it was inevitable that the digital Woman Yelling At Cat meme would become the subject of traditional analog formats such as painting and drawing. Still, even as a legitimate contributor to the contemporary artistic zeitgeist, it’s doubtful that the meme will be in the Whitney Biennial anytime soon. Which is unfortunate, because internet memeology shares its cultural and psychic intrusions with Street Art; in fact, memes are basically graffiti on the Information Superhighway. But the main reason that galleries and museums will snub the Woman Yelling At Cat meme is that it introduces a rival 21st century art form with its own commercial network. And that’s something the Fine Art Establishment doesn’t want to see go viral.
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WAYS OF NOT SEEING
If, as John Berger writes, “Oil painting… is a celebration of private property”, then Street Art is the equally joyous appreciation of public property. This difference is due to the nature of the work and their contrasting environments: Graffiti beats the streets while “oil painting” luxuriates in museums. So, other than both being categorized as Art, there’s not that much similarity between the two; in fact, the difference is so great that entirely separate skill sets are required to properly experience them.
Interior, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam is one of Holland’s greatest tourist destinations and at certain hours, as crowded as the nearby Centraal railway station. Here, tour groups dedicated to the Myth of Van Gogh mix it up with individuals seeking a private audience with the artist. Meanwhile, new arrivals aggregate around them like an out-of-control assembly line, each person anticipating their own virtual moment with Vincent in Arles. Everyone appears dumbfounded, like the devout reaching the ultimate destination of a pilgrimage, their rosaries exchanged for earbuds. Unfortunately, this “bogus religiosity” as Berger describes it, requires unfettered observation so the line of faithful at each painting moves at a geologic pace. But that’s OK, since to really be appreciated, Van Gogh’s subjects and techniques require a pensive approach.
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam,Netherlands Just across the Museumplein, Amsterdam’s MOCO museum recently hosted an unofficial show of work by the Street Artist Banksy. This contemporary art museum, “founded with the mission of attracting broader and younger audiences”, exhibits Pop Surrealism, Street Art, and works by a few “old masters” like Andy Warhol or his doppelganger, Elaine Sturtevant. MOCO is located in a 19th century mansion, so its galleries are small yet seem perfectly suited for hosting a crowd essentially the same size as the manageable coat check lines at the Van Gogh Museum. But even at those numbers, Banksy’s exhibition was denser and more uncomfortable than Van Gogh’s. People were colliding with each other constantly; plus, kids with backwards baseball hats and extra wide Sharpies aren’t going to apologize when someone’s crows-in-a-cornfield poster gets crunched. Worse than that, more than a few people waited to get up close and personal with a Banksy only to find out they were in the restroom line.
Banksy, Laugh Now But One Day We’ll Be In Charge, Spray paint and stencil on board, MOCO, Amsterdam I call the cause of all this aesthetic anguish Attention Surfeit Disorder, and it occurs when an art viewer deems a simple work of art worthy of the same extended investigation as a complex one. For example, MOCO’s version of the famous Banksy chimpanzee piece “Laugh Now, But One Day We’ll Be In Charge”, had more people lined up to gawk at it than Van Gogh’s sunflower painting. For a single stencil piece to garner that much attention is crazy; for a multiple of the same image, its certifiably insane. Banksy is a master of the static meme and what he scribes can be sussed out later; there’s no need for a lengthy on-the-spot evaluation. Graffiti’s economy of means demands economy of attention, so people are either going to get the message or not. And if they don’t, then they should heed that famous line used by London bobbies, “Move along, nothing to see here.”
Banksy, Sunflowers, Altered painting on canvas, MOCO, Amsterdam -
HEY MISTER, WANNA BUY A BANKSY?
In May this year, a Millennial identifying himself as the You Tuber Reckless Ben Schneider entered a Los Angeles gallery and told the art dealer there that he had a Banksy painting with him. The LA Art Dealer said he’d like to check it out, so Schneider pulled a painting of a banana from his backpack. He told the LA Art Dealer that in December 2018, Banksy had recruited an artist named Frizk to hang the banana painting in the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center on one of the Mamma Andersson: Memory Banks exhibition walls. After agreeing to the scheme, Frizk had his posse distract the guards at the CAC and the Banksy was quickly hung between two Andersson paintings. But the museum staff was on it, and the painting was removed after only a few minutes.
Photo courtesy Hyperallergic.com On January 1, 2019, Hyperallergic.com published the story, claiming that “the curious stunt in Ohio suggests that the international art prankster Banksy collaborated with a local artist.” In the same article, the CAC’s communication director, Joshua Mattie, is quoted as saying that the painting was “placed… in the lost and found area where it can be claimed by its owner.” Schneider told The LA Art Dealer that after he read the painting was essentially up for grabs, he decided to go to the CAC and identify himself as the owner of the Banksy. After presenting a counterfeit eBay auction receipt for five dollars, Schneider left with the painting.
http://picdeer.com/banksysbanana The LA Art Dealer eagerly agreed to help assess the authenticity of the painting; and at the current prices, who wouldn’t be interested in a loose Banksy? Fortunately, the painting’s originality could easily be confirmed by a department of Banksy’s Studio called Pest Control; unfortunately, Pest Control declared the painting and its story completely bogus. It is possible that Banksy would disavow his own pieces if there were too many for sale concurrently; but covering bullshit with more bullshit has a way of making the whole pile topple, and The LA Art Dealer wisely chose not to get involved further.
Photo courtesy Nathan Cartwright Counterfeit art is hardly specific to contemporary times. After the Greeks of the Hellenistic Age (4th-1st centuries BC) began collecting the art of previous stylistic periods, inauthentic work was soon being produced to keep up with demand. But what’s intriguing about Schneider is how he took advantage of the 21st century concept of “fake news” and utilized its associate confusion to his benefit. By publishing the article, Hyperallegic provided a base of believability that helped the story go viral, appearing on a slew of other news outlets and websites. Bingo, instant credibility! But even so, there’s a few questionable details. For example: it’s odd that Frizk never laid claim to the painting or tried to benefit from the association with Banksy. And, if you can trust a person as far as you can throw them, how far can you throw Schneider who admits that his part in the clusterfuck began with stealing the painting? Add the shadowy figure of Banksy to the mix and there’s more than enough cloudy confusion to make things seem perfectly clear to the right sucker. But what’s most 21st century is that when confronted with the denial from Pest Control, Schneider continued to identify the piece as a Banksy painting and began hauling it around like an errant lawn gnome. Now its been photographed in abandoned amusement parks, desert canyons, and even the American Ninja Warrior set; everywhere apparently, but an art gallery. #banksysbanana
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Shot By Both Sides
The primary icon of Low Brow Art is also unfortunately one of the most corrupting and dangerous icons of mainstream culture. It should by all rights and agreement be stuck on the business end of a spear and left out to rot in the streets for the amusement of the proles. It’s a jumped-up turd with a coat of glossy varnish, a PVC ’32 Ford with a cruddy Japanese engine. It’s the odor of a garbage collector’s fart coming from a Chanel perfume bottle, and it’s all wrong like black and white porn. It’s the first thing you think about when you go to bed and the last thing you think of when you wake up. It’s the grinning head of Mickey Mouse.
There are those that rebel at the idea of dragging M.M. into the Low Brow fold, the field is far too shit pure and exclusive to accept some image that’s been branded on things like baby bibs and flavored lozenges. We are told that Lowbrow icons favor rusty, trashy environments, the kind of neighborhoods Mickey avoids these days as he limos from Burbank to Hollywood. They say that there is no missing link between Lowbrow and Disney because there is no link, period.
Bill Barminski – Mickey Mouse Gas Mask, 2011 Low Brow has been forced by cultural analysts to expand and accept genres such as No Brow, Post-Brow and, in the case of some aesthetic futurists, Brow Moderne. The sweating armpits and road grease blackened knuckles that used to be seen and smelt at opening receptions have left by the garage door, and the pile of empty beer cans that used to greet visitors is now a mound of half empty cans of Krylon surrounded by taggers wearing backward baseball hats. Post-Graf was not preceded by Graf any more than No Brow was defined relative to Low Brow. It just happened, get me? So even though the flaming skull of M.M. screaming in agony as it’s tortured for all eternity just kinda slipped in under the door, it’s still M.M. and his shit stinks in the gas station crapper as much as in the executive washroom upstairs. He’s Low Brow because he’s a ‘toon which gives him street cred, and High Brow because he’s Disney; and Disney makes you check your gun at the door. M.M. is a true Post-Modern tragic figure, co-opted, corrupted and shot by both sides.
At his genesis, M.M. was a funny little drawing of a common mammal; his image was based on observations of the real, natural world. Ub Iwerks’ and Walt Disney’s initial use of this filtered distance between object and image can be considered a Modernist maneuver. Lacking only the total acceptance of the public to complete the Modernist cycle, Disney utilized the new medium of film to convince people that his character was as real as the one scurrying across the kitchen floor. It worked to the point that in due course, they began to don beanies crowned with bogus cartoon mouse ears in an attempt to falsify reality by pulling a species bend and become the mouse.
Jeff Gillette, Mickey Slum Sphere, mixed media, photo courtesy La Luz de Jesus The universal acceptance of this icon becomes the catalyst for the next stage. In this “Pre-Post Modernism”, the hipster elite initiates a backlash of scorn and derision against the revered image and parody becomes a form of worship. Mickey’s legitimate children are forced to deal with his bastard relatives: Annette Funicello versus Mickey Rat in a Pop smackdown. At this time Post Modernism initiates a cultural free fall and all references, alliances and manifestos are rendered void. This aesthetic scorched earth policy levels the playing field, and claiming allegiance to any particular school of thought is useless.
So, Mickey Mouse himself becomes the principle reference point for further graphic exploration of what the Buddhists would call “mouseness”. It is no longer necessary to observe the actual mouse; it is enough to have an available design that is based on one. This abstraction of an abstraction creates artistic white noise and cultural feedback; smells like Post Modernism’s fuck you finger is way up the ass of High Brow Classicist Style for now. And what could be more Low Brow than that?
Artist unknown, 4 x 4 in. sticker -
Mélancolie to Exhilaration from Studio to Street
There was astonishing buzz around Philippe Quesne’s La Mélancolie des Dragons at REDCAT last Wednesday night; and as a sucker for avant-garde theatre, I simply had to be there, heat or no heat. I felt cooler just looking at the stage set, which resembled a forest clearing under the first snow of winter. As the audience took its seats, you could glimpse four of the actors already in place in a cramped four-seater later identified a VW Rabbit parked to one side of the clearing. When the lights finally went down, the situation became clear – at least to those of us who lived through the 1970s and have some memory of those drug-hazy days that would continue for some of us into the 1980s. Four retro-rocking dudes (think metal, hair bands, etc.) roll into a wood, stoned out of their minds, almost unaware that their car has died beneath them. They drink beers and pass around bags of chips while listening to vintage 1980s rock until the fog starts to lift. As they emerge from the car and we see them in their hair-band glory, we also see that what at first looks like a flat screen in the middle of the stage is actually a trailer hitched to the car. As they finally begin to take stock of their predicament (sobriety will do that to you), a woman in a purple down jacket seemingly stumbles onto this scene, though eventually greeted by the hair-and-metal guys like a lost relative or old friend.
With their angel’s arrival (she’s a mechanic, too … sort of…), tricks and hi-jinks ensue – plumes of smoke (from beneath the car hood), disappearing and reappearing bodies, bubble machines, lit-up screen/trailer (with big-hair wigs), and—oh yes—inflatables (the dragons?). The inflatables eventually multiply to fill the stage; and maybe that’s a good thing, because nothing else does. Quesne’s background is in set design, from which he went on to found the theatre/performance company, Vivarium Studio, which produced the thing. It might be said he brought the studio to the stage at REDCAT; what he seemed to have left behind was the actual theatre and performance. The gimmickery—deliberately lame—was beside the point. There was no magic here. Not that I’m necessarily expecting drama, suspense, pathos, catharsis, comedy, satire, or even wit (or fill-in-the-blanks); but we should be able to expect something to happen: an event, a transformation, a change, a transaction beyond the ticket-tear at the turnstile. There’s more dramatic tension in John Cage’s 4’33”.
I liked that the Los Angeles Times’ theatre critic, Charles McNulty got the intended ‘amusement park’ aspect of the staging; but otherwise I had to wonder if we had even seen the same show. Frankly I think he was snowed. Artaud references? Give me a break – it merely underscored the pretentiousness of the whole business. “The courtesy depicted in La Mélancolie des Dragons makes it awkward to complain of dullness…,” he demurs. I have no such compunction. Dullness belongs on no stage whatsoever.
“The play’s the thing,” as Shakespeare (among others) put it; but it doesn’t have to be a ‘big’ thing. It doesn’t even require a stage. It can happen in the blink of an eye; it can happen on the street. You can stumble over or past it. It either registers or it doesn’t; but if it does, the action begins. The rest of the line is important, too: “ … [w]herein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.” On the street it operates at both levels: the state and its anonymous citizens, the passers-by. It’s an incitement to action, or simply a statement, but implicitly political either way. I’m talking about street art here – something that’s been with us forever, but taken on new importance since Haring and Basquiat transitioned from streets and subways to fine art main stages. In recent decades, its legitimation has expanded (not unlike fashion design) from private collectors and galleries into the divergent (but occasionally overlapping) domains of commerce and high culture (e.g., skateboard gear; museum shows like MOCA’s own Art in the Streets a few years ago). Many of these artists have extensive studio practices; the most successful are major enterprises; a few of them are art stars in their own right.
A few of those stars will be on view this evening at Julien’s in Beverly Hills – where they are being auctioned in two sessions scheduled for this evening and tomorrow morning. They include original work taken from actual street installations, as well as studio replications and multiples produced in studio and commercial lithography rarities. The best of them remind us (not unlike some of the highlights from MOCA’s 2011 show) how great some of this work is; also of its immense subversive power.
The largest and most significant of these installations are by Banksy. His 2010 installation at an old Packard factory in Detroit, I Remember When All This Was Trees, is here, complete with cinderblocks and broken two-by-fours from the original site. Another work, Donkey Documents, originally mounted in Bethlehem on the concrete barrier dividing the Palestinian West Bank from Israel, in which an armed Israeli soldier inspects a donkey’s passport, will be auctioned from London. (From its original siting, the Church of the Nativity could be seen in the distance, triggering the predictable associations.) But Banksy is not the only star represented here. L.A.’s own legendary Chaz Bojorquez is here (a beautiful layered, calligraphic work on paper); Shark Toof; and some truly outstanding works—both original installation panels and serigraphs—by Shepard Fairey. (I’m not exactly a huge fan of Fairey’s—and the ‘giant’ André’s charms are lost on me; but some of these pieces (e.g., “M16 vs. AK 47,” are wonderful—the best work of his I’ve ever seen.) The French are well represented here, too, by way of such artists as Ludo, the sui generis Space Invader (who practically transcends the category), JR (whose Women Are Heroes series of photographic prints mounted on tarps is already justifiably the stuff of legend), and Fairey’s famous French compatriot, Blek Le Rat. But even these scarcely graze the scope and depth of this rich selection. The vision of these artists is witty and wry; also bleak. Yet we emerge from these encounters not with mélancolie, but exhilaration.
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Robert Montgomery
This summer, in what seemed like a large seizure of prime advertising real estate, 10 LA billboards were repurposed for an alternative exhibition of text-based artworks by the Scottish artist Robert Montgomery. Sponsored by the Do Art Foundation and Art Share LA, Montgomery’s poetic texts forced viewers to consider something deeper than the usual plastic and perfection. Strategically placed in busy neighborhoods and high-traffic areas, these billboards were designed not only to invade the peripheral vision of commuters en route to their destinations, but also to infiltrate the city’s collective consciousness with emotion and meaning, even if just for a moment.
Borrowing a great tactic that the advertising industry, in turn, adopted from street art, and without much introduction, Montgomery’s entire installation appeared overnight, leaving Angelenos incredibly curious. There was a buzz amongst LA residents before there was an explanation. It was as if a new kind of corporate-sponsored street art vying for attention in an already oversaturated town suddenly identified the feelings of emptiness embedded in the perpetual rat race. The text-heavy, hard-to-read billboards were aesthetically simple—crowded white letters densely placed on a black background. Yet Montgomery touches on something advertising typically does not: self-deprecation and introspection through literary prose. It takes time to read and time to ingest, and that is what made people stop and stare.
Robert Montgomery, Above the Streets, 2014. Photo by Olivier Chatard. With nods to Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer and The Situationists, Montgomery seems to explore the notion of revolution while also instigating rebellion and forcing viewers to reconsider their busy, impersonal LA lifestyles. The Situationists, prevalent in the 1950s and ’60s, were an under-recognized anti-art, anti-movement, revolutionary group of painters, writers, architects and filmmakers interested in Marxism and intense psychoanalysis, mixed with a whimsical Surrealist-inspired take on everyday life. Criticizing manufactured beauty, the movie industry, ever-increasing technological obsession and the forced self-satisfaction amongst Angelenos, Montgomery pulls on the heart strings of viewers while also stroking their egos: The poems are intimate and feel like little treasures found uniquely by each viewer.
Montgomery certainly isn’t the first to infiltrate public spaces with word-based art, but his direction seems different than that of other artists working in this medium. Montgomery is also an editor for the London-based magazine Dazed & Confused and considers himself a writer first and foremost. The tops of buildings, large billboards, empty fields and even bus stops spread his intimate, self-reflective poetry to an international audience.
Robert Montgomery, Above the Streets, 2014. Photo by Olivier Chatard. This exhibition was his first in the City of Angels, and though he has public-ally expressed distaste for the hyper-fake, consumer-based LA culture, his site-specific works feel connected and inspired by the SoCal existence.
Montgomery effects a kind of subversive manipulation with his free-verse poetry and stylized confessional prose—he aims his work directly at the heart of the viewer, leading with self-deprecation and romantic abandon while simultaneously critiquing the realities of our contemporary, media-saturated lives.
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Incognito: JR, Banksy, Fairey
Remaining anonymous coupled with becoming a globally recognized figure is no easy feat; it seems almost a requirement of celebrity status that the entire world know your name and face. The crux of what has catapulted some into the spotlight also necessitates a need for anonymity. For street artists and superheroes alike, this is the case—vital to their continued success exists a need to protect one’s identity for fear of backlash or legal repercussions.
The last decade marked a monumental shift as the art market turned its eye toward the street; leading the charge are longtime icons Shepard Fairey, JR and Banksy. For street artists, revealing the “human behind the tag” and capitalizing on their branded monikers is all about timing and intent. Too early or late and they will have missed the window to transition to the white cube. For some this was never an objective, meaning their identities may forever remain shrouded in mystery.
more work by JR The current poster child for the activist side of the street art movement is charismatic photographer JR—a high-profile, globally recognized artist that was the 2011 TED Grant winner. His list of accolades includes exhibitions at the Tate Modern, Venice Biennale, MOCA and the Dallas Contemporary. Recently he covered Times Square with New York City portraits as a part of his ever-expanding “Inside Out” project, which has included 200,000 participants from 112 countries submitting portraits. Extending his reach, JR has released several documentary-style films, and is working with the NYC Ballet on their NYCB Art Series 2014.
The most notorious of all, Banksy, continues to capitalize on his anonymity, begging the question: How it is possible for an unnamed human to be on Time magazines’ “Top 100 Most Influential People of 2010,” or be given an Oscar nomination or have multiple works sell for over a million dollars at auction? We are forced to wait patiently and continue the “Where’s Waldo” search for his next endeavor.
Banksy’s work The final of the big three is one of the original street art crossovers. Shepard Fairey is known for his infamous OBEY campaign, clothing line and controversial Obama “Hope” poster, which nearly landed him in jail. While not as visible a public figure as JR, there are millions of human billboards wearing OBEY clothing and propelling Fairey’s subversive vision onward.
The question remains—stay anonymous, true to your street roots or shoot for the stars and be branded a sellout. There has to be a middle ground. It is undeniable that for these artists celebrity status doesn’t simply open doors, it gives them an all-access pass to the most prized walls in the world—in the full light of day.
One of Banksy’s largely publicized art acts was smuggling his work into the Tate Britain, hanging it on a gallery wall and leaving undetected. With JR’s status, there was no sneaking past security. The Tate Modern simply asked him to wheatpaste the building facade.
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Field Report: Berlin
Painted on a small particle board, screwed to a brick wall, above and behind which Berlin’s U-Bahn (here elevated) rumbles to and from its terminus, a figure of indeterminate sex holds a power drill to its head, the bit twirling out the opposite temple in a splash of red pigment. The agape mouth conveys a scream of pain—and perhaps a dollop of pleasure. In the upper left, the words, “You know the drill…” Funny. Now, who’s going around the city screwing paintings into walls?
The artist’s signature—Niko—gives little clue, as with the figure, to even the gender. Patience, perseverance and some deft keystrokes into Google Images eventually lead me to a facebook page (Niko Color, an alias) and from there, to contact with the artist himself. Besides being a “him” rather than “her,” Niko (who doesn’t want his real last name revealed) turns out to be in his late 30s, and a relic of the Berlin art scene in an earlier, more earnest incarnation—before the gallery gold rush in the now-branded “Creative City” led even so-called street artists to boast representation and reputations. “I don’t sell these paintings because it is part of my art to put them in the streets,” he tells me. “I’m not interested in making money and the paintings without the street would only be a half-work.”
He toils in a cluttered living room “studio” in a down-at-heel immigrant hood, still a brisk bike ride away from the nearest trendy-colored anything. There are rectangular panels salvaged from cheap furniture and whatnot stacked in the foyer. “I used to try painting on canvas but it’s too expensive,” he explains. “In my neighborhood, they throw out so much junk, that I take all these boards home and paint on them.”
His explications are couched in the language of simple, logical problem-solving rather than the turgid academic meanderings that characterize the typical artist’s statement or grant application. “Then I am looking at these paintings and wondering, ‘Okay, hmm, now they are finished, how will I show them?’”
“You know the drill… ” is then both the title of the work I first discovered and a statement of Niko’s artistic process—though he does not go out in public with anything as attention-attracting as a power tool. Rather, he roams the street looking for holes that are already there. Thus it is not he who ultimately chooses where a portrait of a German hip-hop wannabe can hang, or where to put “Angelus Dwarf,” his interpretation of Jean-Francois Millet’s The Angelus, wherein the farmer couple are replaced with a pair of German garden gnomes. His “exhibition” spaces are at the mercy of Berlin and its unfilled holes. As a result, a Niko (oil on sort-of-wood, not Krylon on brick) pops out at unexpected heights and angles on your way to and from your job, the store or your preferred inebriation venue—from overpasses, beside doorways and on random walls throughout the city.
Once discovered, most pre-bored surfaces require some quick measurements and notes before he returns to his studio-cum-flat to drill the proper array of holes (all German efficiencies implemented here). If the hole pattern is not perfectly square or rectangular, he applies a paper overlay through which holes are punched so the sheet can be used to create the identical pattern back at his “studio.” His “kit” therefore includes a tape measure, some screws and dowels of various sizes. The latter he inserts into a set of asymmetrical holes we discover before he punches through the paper. “There’s no flexibility with wood,” he says. “You have to get the holes just right.” Once that’s all done, he can return and quickly mount the work in the stealth of broad daylight, camouflaged in the kind of bland work jacket usually worn by generic company arbeiters.Through these and other stratagems (though he dare not divulge those, as it makes the works easier to steal), he’s hung over 165 public pieces since he began in 2004. Some last a few hours or days before being removed. Others receive comments in kind, such as a bikini-clad figure on a fashionable Mitte street that had the word “Jut” (Berlin slang for Gut or “good”) spray-painted underneath it, with only a slight bleed-over into the work. “It looks like they respected my work and tried not to paint on it,” he says. “They could have tagged all over it. Lots of people do.” Some manage to remain unmolested for weeks and even years, though the savage winters take their toll.
Park perimeters are particularly hospitable to Niko, as they all have metal sign structures that usually have more holes than messages the city can put up announcing what’s verboten. Niko takes me to one in a chic Mitte neighborhood. The bottom panel on the sign shows the ample backsides of a pair of municipal code enforcers known as the Ordungsamt, casting their eyes afield, above which is scrawled the cliché German query (and the painting’s title): “Alles in Ordnung?” (“Is everything in order?”).
The answer, as is often the case, depends on the viewer’s perspective.
All images by Niko, photos by Mark Ehrman
