It’s kudos time. Let’s get that out of the way right now. A friend of mine back in the old country has a really great blog (LINK). Heck of a guy, as they say in The States. I play the role of digital parasite, feeding off the links he posts, siphoning new ideas and inspiration from what floats his boat. Granted, a decent percentage of the external links will lead to sites dealing with web development languages and technologies (XML, XSLT, AJAX, CSS...) that I know fuck all about but there are also a fair quantity of links for the lay man.
He recently posted a link (LINK) related to the subconscious, accidental art of graffiti cover up. The artists being the city workers detailed with slapping mundane concrete shades of paint over vivid and unsanctioned works of public art. I spent a while thinking about what I had read at (LINK). It brought to mind personal observations of this tit for tat relationship between those who paint graffiti and those who try to pretend it never happened. The graffiti temporarily exists, is removed, appears elsewhere and is once again blotted out, all with the end result of the urban surface being forever altered which is exactly what those who run the city have been fighting against. Nobody wins. It’s hard to imagine any civic manager being passionate about coordinating this removal effort. What satisfaction can be taken home from a day’s work when you know that as soon as you go to sleep the graffiti artists begin their shift, providing you with your work for the following day? Tit for tat, back and forth, up and down, profit and loss... cyclic, rhythmic. Those who win are the likes of me, the man who walks the street and drives the freeways noticing fresh graffiti, and counting the days until it is replaced by a rough rectangle that’s three shades different from the surface it tries to mimic.
Mental sustenance and being privy to art mixed with crime mixed with psychological warfare between city government and artist is the reward. It fractures the monotony of the drive to work in the gray dead of winter with bursts of color in unexpected places. The façade of the city approximates the walls of a gallery with a rotating catalog of artists that any museum would be jealous of. The stealth with which Minneapolis removes graffiti seems to feed the problem and nourish the artists. The city is wasting money in trying to defeat something that it perpetuates.
Anyway, here (LINK) are my findings on The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal. Hopefully I have added something to the dialogue.
A doffed cap to you too sir, I appreciate the nod. Unfortunately I've been a tad busy to be doing anything on the old blog the last few weeks, what with the new job and all. Then again, look who I'm talking to. Are you writing this stuff at night in between feedings?
ReplyDeleteAs for the whole graffiti thing, I think we're of similar mind. I was actually brewing to write something quick based on that link myself but now you've done it for me. I was pretty intrigued by that film review, I'd love to see it some time. I have also been pondering the back and forth that plays out on the surface of the city for quite a bit (my second Flickr photo ever was of a patch job).
Interesting point on how the covering up actually feeds the graffiti artists to go out there and do more. I think the continuous layering of images is integral to what they do - if the city didn't cover it up, it would soon be covered by another graffiti artist. I can't imagine the artist being upset that his work gets covered; by it's very nature graffiti is a temporal artform, and sometimes the enjoyment to be had is derived not only from happening upon a piece in the right place, but also at the right time.
So while I would agree with you that trying to stamp out graffiti is a waste of the city's money (in that it's untimately unachieveable), in a way it also probably unwittingly supports an important part of the process. Without it, the artist would have no fresh easel to work on each day; he wouldn't have the reward of knowing that his work pissed someone off (that is, provoked a reaction, surely a primary ambition of any artist) enough for them to paint over it; he wouldn't get the thrill of doing something forbidden that would otherwise see him painting on paper; he wouldn't have the motivation to keep going out there and doing new work.
Nice gallery analogy too. Also, I think that there's a certain amount of beauty to be found in the patch jobs themselves. The idea that the artwork exists only for a small length of time, and that the new paint represents the destruction of art, is in itself poetic I think. Reminds me a bit of Michael Landy, the artist who systematically destroyed everything he owned.
hey there.found your blog interesting.i am doing a doc on graffiti in Galway, ireland and looking for contributors. it will be very much based around the art/vandalism argument. drop me a line if you think you might want to play some part. comments, artwork, photos, etc. all are appreciated. drop me a line at g00178261@gmit.ie
ReplyDeleteMy name's Heather.