Public Art class 3
Week 3 (Feb. 12)
Visiting Artist Tristan Hummel Artist, Administrator (Loop Alliance)
Street Art
Mark making and ownership of public space Public space can be:
- Bought and sold (advertising, corporate ownership)
- Curated, controlled (Millenium park, the cows; government)
- Claimed (graffiti [1])
**Performative – ritual **Communal – done with a crew
One of a set of practices that define a particular subculture
Mark making in public places is old (think about Altamira, cave paintings, petroglyphs) Dungeons in a castle in England – Dover, graffiti scratched into the walls by French prisoners[2] Great wall of china [3]
3 kinds of mark making: writer (words) piecer (masterpieces, murals) tagger (name recognition)
Can't talk about graffiti w/out talking about advertisers' use of popular culture images, techniques, events to sell products[4]
Comment About Microsoft advertisements on pavement in Paris "Yes, I think it definitely qualifies as "publicité sauvage" -- unpaid and unauthorized. But perhaps it still slips through the cracks of the law since a basic premise in France is "anything that is not forbidden is authorized." Obviously nobody thinks to forbid things that nobody ever thought of doing before -- they'll have to amend the law with one of those clauses about "forbidden in all of the previously mentioned areas or any other public area whether on the ground, in the form of foam or mist, projected into outer space, injected into passersby or any other highly advanced or completely low-tech method that can be conceived."
Merchants of Cool, Ch. 2, Under the Radar Marketing[5]
advertisers co-opting transgression
*Ray Ban as sunglasses of choice of protesters [6] *coke on train [7] *welcomed by the art establishment (Paris):[8] *Ikea/Banksy [9] *Sao Paolo and GE [10] *Sao Paolo and Smirnoff [11]
distinction between graffiti art and advertising becoming less obvious [12]
Response to too much advertising:
or too much dirt: (Reverse Grafitti)[15]
Taming of transgression (it can be fun!) [16]
Street art can be more than/different from grafitti – urban art, community muralists
*Wall of respect, 1967 (from urban art reading)[17] *JR - large scale portraiture, Inside Out [18][19][20]
City as canvas
*Keith Haring [21] *Basquiat [22][23] *Banksy [24] *Shepard Fairey: Obey [25] connects graffiti with phenomenology, arguing that art is most powerful when we encounter it directly
From his website: “Because people are not used to seeing advertisements or propaganda for which the product or motive is not obvious, frequent and novel encounters with the sticker provoke thought and possible frustration, nevertheless revitalizing the viewer’s perception and attention to detail. The sticker has no meaning but exists only to cause people to react, to contemplate and search for meaning in the sticker. Because OBEY has no actual meaning, the various reactions and interpretations of those who view it reflect their personality and the nature of their sensibilities.” “I try to be respectful of businesses and private property that isn’t run down, but with all the bad ads out there, I think most public space is fair game.”
George Orwell, 1984 [26] Newspeak: WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
Links
Reading
Ch. 3,4 in Public Art
