10-03-2008, 03:19 PM | #1 (permalink) |
Please touch this.
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Location: Manhattan
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Is it art or graffiti? (Urban Art)
There are few acts of vandalism that can actually raise the property value of a building, but if you ever were to get tagged by the infamous Banksy, your place could become a priceless work of art over night. Then there are the signs, stickers, stencils and markings that you encounter on your walk down the block. Some of them whisper little messages to you, in an unobtrusive way, but they are still scrubbed from their surface the moment the city orders a worker to do so. There are street musicians who gather crowds around them as they play, but simply annoy those who have to scurry around their noisy obstruction. The trash on the grass in the park is in fact litter, but its arranged in such a fashion... it appears to be a message. Will you listen or will you throw it away?
There is a place and a time for everything. Some people believe art should be confined to a museum. Nobody wants to live in a world cluttered with noise and garbage, but you also need flavor and contrast. Art provides just that. Sometimes an artist needs to bring the art to you because you're never going to go search for it yourself. Have you had any experiences with "urban art"? How do you feel about people making artistic statements on public property? I currently follow a blog that highlights various street art "installations" that make ways on the internet. They run the gamut from really creative ploys to political statements to outright vandalism. One initiative, for instance, encouraged people to deface Hummer vehicles by replacing the H with a D. There is also one that makes use of a shadow that a streetlight gives to a statue, but is also technically graffiti and defacement of public property. I have to say that I approve the installations that can be easily removed and have inherent creativity (as opposed to some blatant political message). Many old-fashioned "pranksters" may find this to be weak in the guts department, but I feel that destructive subversion is something I grew out of several years ago.
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10-03-2008, 04:17 PM | #2 (permalink) |
Leaning against the -Sun-
Super Moderator
Location: on the other side
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I don't think that degree of permanency in a public or semi-private location affects my ability to appreciate a piece of interesting and highly creative graffiti as art.
I understand that it's public or even semi-private property, in any case not belonging to the person who "defaces" it, but I also think that sometimes the work is so striking, of such high conceptual and aesthetic quality, that it's a shame to have it removed. Some places that get work of this kind done to them are probably the better for it. I don't much care for things that are more a defacing than anything else. Tagging for example, makes no statement other than, I was here and I wrote on your shit so I'm cool. It's not aesthetically interesting nor does it carry a meaningful message. I totally disagree that art work should be confined to a museum. In fact, that is something I'm particularly interested in, access to art and how art work is presented by the artist to others. Art should not be put on a pedestal if it is to have any relevance to the lives of ordinary people. I believe that it should be a part of everyone's lives, and indeed it is, even though many times in less obvious ways. No-one can say they live without art in their life. Art can be pleasurable, both visually and physically, and intellectually. It can make us think in new ways about new and old things, about things outside of our own small lives and concerns, about others. It can shock us into action. Some acts of subversion can be good for you. If you always conform, then some of your spirit withers and dies, because you become the same, with no differentiation. Variety is important. Sure, some people may call art, or even street art, garbage. A nuisance getting in their daily path. But I think these people are definitely missing out.
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Whether we write or speak or do but look We are ever unapparent. What we are Cannot be transfused into word or book. Our soul from us is infinitely far. However much we give our thoughts the will To be our soul and gesture it abroad, Our hearts are incommunicable still. In what we show ourselves we are ignored. The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged By any skill of thought or trick of seeming. Unto our very selves we are abridged When we would utter to our thought our being. We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams, And each to each other dreams of others' dreams. Fernando Pessoa, 1918 |
10-03-2008, 05:07 PM | #3 (permalink) | |
More Than You Expect
Location: Queens
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As I said in the culture jamming thread, graffiti to me, is much more so about the act of reclaiming public spaces that'd otherwise be reserved for adverts. It's the act of defacing someone else's property which is inherently wrong and it can even be pretty damned ugly but I can't say I find graffiti any more offensive than the fact that I can't even urinate in an NYC club without an advert over the urinal and another embedded in the urinal cake.
We are in the midst of a media war, anyone with a voice should make themselves heard. Via graffiti, blog or artfully placed speech bubbles. Quote:
As an aside, I shot this piece from the infamous REVS two days ago in dumbo. That man is transcendent.
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10-03-2008, 05:13 PM | #4 (permalink) |
Delicious
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I love the idea of "urban art." Do I have to use quotes? Is that the acceptable term? We had a pretty busy railroad track where I live and I remember many days watching the graffiti on the trains. You'd see tons and tons of amateur stuff, single color, crappy font, then every now and then you'd get this fantastic stylized text or character. You just have to wonder about who painted it and how far it had traveled. I don't live in a large city. Hell, I've only been to a single large city and at the time I wasn't allowed off the "tourist path" which meant I missed probably all of the things that the people living there see every day. Personally I find industrial and technological things to be unattractive. The colors are dull, the edges are sharp, It's hard to look at after a while. I think to break the tedium we need surprise art like a 20ft spray painted mural popping up overnight, someone playing their guitar on a street corner and even little things like a clever sticker placed in just the right spot. It's decoration. Sure it fades after a while and becomes unattractive and looks like garbage, but for a few days, it's art. That's what I love about it. You just know it's not going to be around forever. Mona Lisa isn't going anywhere, There's the original, there's prints and pictures and copies. It's boring. The art you see spray painted on a rail car is something you're going to see once in your lifetime.
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10-03-2008, 07:24 PM | #5 (permalink) |
Crazy
Location: East Texas
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Exactly. I can't see how graffiti is any more offensive than having to pee on a coca-cola ad or being blinded by ginormous tv screens advertising cologne at least some graffiti is cool...most ads are just obnoxious
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10-04-2008, 12:12 AM | #6 (permalink) |
Leaning against the -Sun-
Super Moderator
Location: on the other side
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What?! The USA really is on another level. That is unheard of here. Come to Portugal and pee advert free!
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Whether we write or speak or do but look We are ever unapparent. What we are Cannot be transfused into word or book. Our soul from us is infinitely far. However much we give our thoughts the will To be our soul and gesture it abroad, Our hearts are incommunicable still. In what we show ourselves we are ignored. The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged By any skill of thought or trick of seeming. Unto our very selves we are abridged When we would utter to our thought our being. We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams, And each to each other dreams of others' dreams. Fernando Pessoa, 1918 |
10-04-2008, 04:20 AM | #7 (permalink) | ||
Tilted Cat Head
Administrator
Location: Manhattan, NY
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I don't even konw where to begin with this.
I remember the art crimes site from the internet beginning. Art Crimes / graffiti.org - The Writing on the Wall I've always appreciated tagging and bombing since I was a kid. I loved the fonts, the colors, the style. I can't believe that some of the pieces can be done quickly and be so intricate. What I cannot agree with is something like tagging buildings and trains. None of these train cars look attractive in any shape or form from the 70s-80s. I can't imagine how it would make me feel as a commuter to watch a beat down looking train come into the station and see it assaulted by spray paint and pens from the inside and out. But here is this building that I walk past all the time. Quote:
Quote:
190 Bowery, the Greatest Real-Estate Coup of All Time? - New York Magazine The building was landmarked. I just wish that they'd de graffitti it. But as a building owner, and a board of director's member for a 4 building 1600+ family coop, I'm annoyed at graffiti. It costs money, manpower, and time to clean it up. I recall the first time I saw COST/REVS wheatpastes all of the city when I first moved to NYC. The Andre the Giant, the LES Squid, Neckface... Urban Decor - A Wall-to-Wall Tour of New York Street Art Of course last year, there was the infamous Splasher who went around defacing the graffiti and everyone was up in arms. I was interested in the idea that someone who didn't have the right to paint something was pissed off that someone defaced their work. I thought of just how odd and ironic this is. They didn't have permission to paint the wall in the first place in many occassions, and then when someone does to them the same thing, they are all pissed off and up in arms. Basically I think I can sum it up as, permission walls, I'm good with. That's a no brainer. Open walls that no one has coopted, a bit grey. Walls/things that people use like gate rollups, doors, windows, I get more annoyed with it.
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10-04-2008, 07:05 AM | #8 (permalink) |
Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
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yeah--i'm more or less the opposite. i basically agree with ms above, particularly regarding the way advertising complicates the matter of public/private space and to my mind invites reappropriations of "private" spaces as public. i suppose there are limits, if i think about what spaces i might see as suitable for some kind of transient art installation--i'm inclined to use the advertising thing as a litmus test--if there are adverts, it's public. if it's abandoned, it's public. if it's in a space of transit, it's public. by which i mean that the exterior walls are elements of a public sphere, a public space, and there's no argument to my mind that can or should stop graffiti--or anything else that generates these little temporary autonomous zones. but i wouldn't do residential spaces which did not invite it by advertising. so there's a line i wouldn't cross myself in general. so i suppose there's a line. there are exceptions i can imagine, but only in the context of specific actions or projects that would contain their own justification within them.
luckily for all, i suppose, pianists tend to be indoor plants.
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03-19-2010, 04:15 PM | #9 (permalink) | |
loving the curves
Location: my Lady's manor
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I ran across this variation on urban graffiti. What is attractive is it's innate artistic merit, the planning and creative effort that it requires, the thoughtful approach to a reverse image in dirt in our urban environment, and lastly the ephemeral nature of the work as dirty city air covers up the scrubbed imagery.
Artist Neil Coppen has pioneered this particular brand of graffiti. Here's a link to an article and a couple of examples, and the article in whole printed below as well. About | Neil Coppen Quote:
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03-19-2010, 07:58 PM | #10 (permalink) |
Human
Administrator
Location: Chicago
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kramus, I too read a recent article about that form of graffiti - if it can even be called that. It's pretty neat.
In general, I'm on the fence regarding graffiti. Who is the graffiti artist to judge that his or her creative output is worthwhile, and so worthwhile that it justifies permanently defacing another person's property? Still, some of it is very appealing.
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03-19-2010, 08:13 PM | #11 (permalink) |
Everything's better with bacon
Location: In your local grocer's freezer.
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simple tagging is not art, it's straight up vandalism. however, the beautiful multi-colored paintings/murals that some of these graffiti artists produce are stunning. While still illegal, at least it's beautiful. We hired a graffiti artist to do mmurals inside my school in HS for the stairwells. it was incredible. Bottom line is, some graffiti "artists" are just punks with a sharpie, while others truly are artists and should be encouraged in constructive ways to share their talents with the communities.
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art, graffiti, urban |
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