STREET ART Lauren Todd
STREET ART Lauren Todd
Published in the United States of America in 2015 by Todd Publications, Wilmington, DE All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior consent of the publisher. ISBN: 318-0-07977-1145-5
Wheatpasting in Canada NEXT SPREAD
Yarn bombing in Chicago
CONTENTS noun {kon-tent} something that is to be expressed through some medium, as speech, writing, or any of various arts
12
History
26
Forms
42
Icons
58
Commercial Presence
66
Expression
76
Index
street
adjective {street}
taking place or appearing on the street
art
noun {ahrt}
the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance
noun {bih-gin-ing} the point of time or space at which anything begins
WHAT IS STREET ART? Street art is visual art created in public locations, usually unsanctioned artwork executed outside of the context of traditional art venues. The term gained popularity during the graffiti art boom of the early 1980s and continues to be applied to subsequent incarnations. Stencil graffiti, wheatpasted poster art or sticker art, pop up art and street installation or sculpture are common forms of modern street art. Video projection, yarn bombing and Lock On sculpture became popularized at the turn of the 21st century. Artists who choose the streets as their gallery are often doing so from a preference to communicate directly with the public at large, free from perceived confines of the formal art world. Street artists sometimes present socially relevant content infused with aesthetic value, to attract attention to a cause or as a form of art provocation. The terms urban art, guerilla art, post-graffiti, and neo-graffiti are also sometimes used when referring to artwork created in these contexts. To understand street art, you must first understand street culture—the medium’s greatest influence. We are well into the twenty-first century and we’re all down with the latest in everything. Nothing is hid-
den, everything is instantly accessible. Urban street culture has influenced everything you can touch, see, smell, watch, buy, wear, listen to, download, upload, record, and burn. What is street culture? It is an unconscious creative collective (in the fields of art, food, music, fashion, etc.) that is born from the streets of the urban environment. It has its own visual language: a multi-ethnic, multi-disciplined, multi-media, stream of consciousness that has a unique look and feel which cannot be faked. The audio/visual is God in street knowledge. As is frequently suggested, sound and image is (almost) everything, and it is an integral part of its DNA. This visual language is an ever-changing montage of retro and futuristic images. The cyclic nature of the culture means that looking back is just as important as looking forward. But to see the future you’ve got to know the past. The concept of this book is to document street art, its origins, and its artists that have made a difference and helped shape the ever-changing look and feel of the movement. And to look where it is going.
Intro 11
noun {his-tuh-ree, his-tree} acts, ideas, or events that will or can shape the course of the future; immediate but significant happenings
I
t’s a reaction. Everywhere, there is advertising, signage, and visual overload. The backlash began with writing a stylish name all over the city, and more than forty years later, street art and its siblings in graffiti, postering, and murals make the streets far more democratic, as everyone fights for space and the attention of the public. Around the world, a networked and loosely organized culture adds to the visual chaos of the street, resulting in friendships, court cases, and a whole lot of art.
An alley in New York City plastered with graffiti OPPOSITE
14 History
London street art
16 History
Any type of history is a discourse in it’s own right. What is more, when talking about art history, the discourses seem to flourish immensely from one into another, and so on into many more. In the context of the beginnings, one cannot but firstly reflect upon the artwork of graffiti. Later on, by the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, street art has evolved into complex interdisciplinary forms of artistic expression. From graffiti, stencils, prints and murals, through large scale paintings and projects of artistic collaboration, to street installations, as well as performative and video art, it is very much safe to say that street art has found it’s way into the core of contemporary art. And rightly so.
WHERE DID IT COME FROM? Some of the earliest expressions of street art were certainly the graffiti which started showing up on the sides of train carts and walls. This was the work of gangs in the 1920s and 1930s New York. The impact of this subversive culture was extraordinarily felt in the 1970s and 1980s. This cultural movement was recorded in the book The History of American Graffiti, by Roger Gastman and Caleb Neelon. These decades were a significant turning point in the history of street art – it was a time when young people, by responding to their socio-political environment, started creating a movement, taking the “battle for meaning” into their own hands. Soon, this subcultural phenomenon gained the attention and respect in the “grown-up” world. From the fingers and cans of teenagers it had taken
a form of true artistic expression. One of the most respected names in the field of documenting street art and artists, who would gladly testify to this, is photographer Martha Cooper. Soon enough, photographs weren’t the only medium for capturing and “displacing” street art into different contexts. Essentially an illegal activity, a process of creation through destruction began it’s ascend and evolution into numerous forms of artistic expression which found it’s way to galleries and the global art market. Although still subversive, and in it’s large part an illegal movement, through art enthusiasts and professionals, street art earned it’s place in the contemporary art world.
History 17
THE PIONEERS
1. JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT active: 1976–1988 Before Basquiat was one of the most popular artists in New York City, hanging out with the likes of Andy Warhol and Keith Haring, he was a young, homeless runaway who took up graffiti under the name “SAMO.” In his short life, Basquiat worked his way up the rungs of the art world, landing himself in top galleries yet continuing to put work on the street. His street art informed his canvas work and vice versa. His work helped define a generation of art. Stylistically, he is often imitated by artists from all over contemporary art but rarely matched. 2. KEITH HARING active: 1981–1990 Though Keith Haring only lived to be 32, his work has influenced not just street art, but the art world at large. Haring’s bold cartoon figures are a visual staple of the 1980s New York art scene and have come to appear on everything from T-shirts to skateboards. His rise to stardom all began with drawing on the empty billboards in New York City subway stations. Haring’s Pop Shop, where he to put his signature designs on just about anything he could mass produce, was a precursor to brands like Shepard Fairey’s OBEY Giant and KAWS’ OriginalFake.
4. BLEK LE RAT active: 1981–Present In 1981, Blek le Rat put up stencils of a black rat on the streets of Paris. At the time, he was the only artist in Paris using stencils on the street. A few years later, there were literally hundreds— talk about influence. The Parisian stencil scene still lives on to this day. Of course, Blek still does work outdoors from time to time, like when he painted his most recent mural in Bushwick, but younger French artists like C215 can also trace their roots back to Blek le Rat.
1
2
3
1 Jean-Michel Basquiat
2 Keith Haring
3 Blek le Rat
THE PIONEERS
“I don’t think art is propaganda; it should be something that liberates the soul, provokes the imagination and encourages people to go further. It celebrates humanity instead of manipulating it.” —Keith Haring
Jean-Michel Bascquiat and Keith Haring
History 21
WHAT ABOUT STREET ART TODAY? This is not a story just about graffiti. Although street art owes a part of it’s glory to this kind of artistic expression, it is a marvelous art form in it’s own right, and it is amazing to follow the evolution and diversity of street art in the 21st century. For example, stencils have been a part of history parallel to graffiti, and been vessels for socio-political activism for those in power, and even more for those who resisted. The evolution of street art became evident through such artists as Banksy, who transformed views on this art form with his documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop. With emergence of artists such Vhils or BLU, street art became a ground for experimenting with different kinds of methodology, but never giving up on it’s rebellious position in front of the hegemonistic patterns and structures of popular culture and mass media reality. Thus, street art gave birth to artists who create breathtaking murals, and those who have incorporated video art and other performative aspects to creative work “on the streets”. To understand the history of street art, one must immerse oneself into the energy of this sublime cultural phenomenon, as an admirer, but perhaps as a creator as well.
22 History
Wheatpasting by Shepard Fairey
Banksy’s work in Angel, London 2004
24 History
BROKEN WINDOW THEORY an excerpt from Banksy’s Wall and Piece Criminologists James Q Wilson and George Keeling developed a theory of criminal behavior in the 1980s that became known as the ‘Broken Window Theory’. They argued crime was the inevitable result of disorder and that if a window in a building is smashed but not repaired people walking by will think no-one cares. Then more windows will be broken, graffiti will appear
and rubbish get dumped. The likelihood of serious crime being committed then increases dramatically as neglect becomes visible. The researchers believed there was a direct link between vandalism and the general decline of society. This theory was the basis of the infamous New York City crime purge of the early nineties and the zero-tolerance attitude to graffiti.
letter received to Banksy’s website: “I don’t know who you are or how many of you there are but I am writing to ask you to stop painting your things where we live. In particular xxxxxx road in Hackney. My brother and me were born here and have lived here all our lives but these days so many yuppies and students are moving here neither of us can afford to buy a house where we grew up anymore. Your graffities are undoubtably part of what makes these wankers think our area is cool. You’re obviously not from round here and after you’ve driven up the house prices you’ll probably just move on. Do us all a favour and go do your stuff somewhere else like Brixton.”
History 25
noun {fawrm} a particular condition, character, or mode in which something appears
Shepard Fairey wheatpasting his famous OBEY installment OPPOSITE
S
omewhere between graffiti, murals, and other quasi-legal expression outdoors has emerged a movement that so far eludes any better name than street art. In many ways “street art” is best defined as artwork done in the streets, illegally, that doesn’t quite qualify as graffiti because it doesn’t feature the artist’s name front and center. Eschewing the name and style formulas of traditional graffiti, but embracing its irreverence and disregard for permission, street art has come to stay around the world alongside the graffiti movement from which it rose. Its media are wide open and still full of possibility. Street art can take the simple form of posters or stickers, or the more complex forms of fully rendered and elaborate sculptural installations or large murals.
Forms 29
GRAFFITI Graffiti is a continuum from the unabashedly ugly to the unavoidably beautiful. The grimy, dirty, dripping tag signature comes from the same hands as the enormous, multicolored mural. The throwup, landing between the two, combines speed, style, and size. Bombing—the act of getting your name up illegally and irrespective of the pretense of making “art”—remains the core of graffiti. It’s a duality that makes it impossible to dismiss the dripping tag as pure vandalism, and impossible to embrace the multicolored mural as entirely safe art. Art and crime in perfect harmony—graffiti wouldn’t have it any other way. The artistic core of graffiti is the typographical design of the letter, and purists pay close attention to it, with all of the colors, ornamentations, and embellishments simply aftermarket accessories. Still, its lettering is nowhere more developed, refined, and shown off than in a well-executed graffiti piece. A graffiti writer is generally expected to be proficient in lettering styles from simple to complex, and from large-scale, time-consuming work on down to the tag that takes seconds. For all the artful and colorful graffiti that reaches out to easy ideals of art and expression, there remains a side of graffiti unabashedly dedicated to the pure and raw act of getting a name up in the face of the public.
30 Forms
LEFT
Graffiti by Kems in Miami, FL
ABOVE
The Magic Seven in Brooklyn, NY
Forms 31
Anonymous work in Brooklyn, NY
32 Forms
34 Forms
WHEATPASTING Wheatpaste is a gel or liquid adhesive made from wheat flour or starch and water. It has been used since antiquity for various arts and crafts such as book binding, collage, papier-mâchÊ, and adhering paper posters and notices to walls. Closely resembling wallpaper paste, a crude wheat flour paste can be made by mixing roughly equal portions of flour and water, and heating until the mixture thickens. Activists and various subculture proponents often use this adhesive to flypost propaganda and artwork. In the US and Canada this process is typically called wheatpasting or poster bombing, even when using commercial wall paper paste instead of traditional wheatpaste. In Britain the term is also known as flyposting. When hanging unauthorized billboards or signage, to reduce the danger of being arrested, wheatpasters frequently work in teams or affinity groups.
OPPOSITE Wheatpasting
in Arizona
Forms 35
“Street art and graffiti are usually so male dominated. Yarn bombing is more feminine. It’s like graffiti with grandma sweaters.” —Ms. Sayeg
YARN BOMBING Yarn bombing takes that most matronly craft (knitting) and that most maternal of gestures (wrapping something cold in a warm blanket) and it transfers it to the concrete and steel of wilds of the urban streetscape. Hydrants, lampposts, mailboxes, bicycles, cars—even objects as big as buses and bridges—have all been bombed in recent years, ever so softly and usually at night. It is a global phenomenon, with yarn bombers taking their brightly colored fuzzy work to Europe, Asia and beyond. In Paris, a yarn culprit has filled sidewalk cracks with colorful knots of yarn. In Denver, a group called Ladies Fancywork Society has crocheted tree trunks, park benches and public telephones. Seattle has the YarnCore collective (“Hardcore Chicks With Sharp Sticks”) and Stockholm has the knit crew Masquerade. In London, Knit the City has “yarnstormed” fountains and fences. And in Melbourne, Australia, a woman known as Bali conjures up cozies for bike racks and bus stops.
36 Forms
To record their ephemeral works (the fragile pieces begin to fray within weeks), yarn bombers photograph and videotape their creations and upload them to blogs, social networks and Web sites for all the world to see. Sometimes called grandma graffiti, the movement got a boost, and a manifesto, in 2009 with the publication of the book Yarn Bombing: The Art of Crochet and Knit Graffiti, by Mandy Moore and Leanne Prain, knitters from Vancouver, Canada. It is part coffee-table book, with color photographs of creative bombs, and part tutorial, with tips like wearing “ninja” black to avoid capture. Whether yarn bombing is the work of artists or glorified knitters, the view of law enforcement is clear: it is considered vandalism or littering. Still, the police seem to tolerate it. Yarn bombers say they rarely have run-ins with the law. And in the few instances when they are stopped, yarn bombers say, the police are more likely to laugh at them than issue a summons.
A Yarn Bombing installment in Montreal, Canada by Olek LEFT
ABOVE
An anonymous installment in Barbados
Forms 37
Light Drawings by Brian Hart
38 Forms
LIGHT PAINTING
“When I first started doing light drawings, I had just bought a decent digital camera, and thought I’d have a go at writing my name with my cell phone on a long exposure. Now, I know this is not an earth shattering idea, but something about how the camera was a much more malleable tool than I had thought.” —Brian Hart
Light painting or light drawing, is a photographic technique in which exposures are made by moving a hand-held light source while taking a long exposure photography, either to illuminate a subject or to shine a point of light directly at the camera. Light painting can also describe works where the camera itself is moved during exposure. Painting with a point of light on a long exposure dates back to 1889, and was used in Frank Gilbreth’s work with his wife Lillian Moller Gilbreth in 1914, when the pair used small lights and the open shutter of a camera to track the motion of manufacturing and clerical workers. Man Ray, in his 1935 series “Space Writing,” was the first known art photographer to use the technique.
Forms 39
TOOLS OF THE TRADE
1
2
3
4
5
6
1. SPRAY PAINT noun {sprey-peynt} paint that is packaged in an aerosol can for spraying directly onto a surface uses: graffiti, stenciling, installments 2. PASTE noun {peyst} a mix of flour and water, often with starch or the like, used for causing paper or other material to adhere to something uses: stickers, posters, flyposting, wheatpasting 3. YARN noun {yahrn} thread made of natural synthetic fibers and used for knitting and weaving uses: yarn bombing, installments
4. STENCIL noun {sten-suh l} a device for applying a pattern, design, words, etc., to a surface, consisting of a thin sheet of cardboard, metal, or other material from which figures or letters have been cut out, a coloring substance, ink, etc., being rubbed, brushed, or pressed over the sheet, passing through the perforations and onto the surface uses: stenciling, graffiti 5. CAMERA noun {kam-er-uh} a boxlike device for holding a film or plate sensitive to light, having an aperature controlled by a shutter that, when opened, admits light enabling an object to be focused, usually by means of a lens, on the film or plate, thereby producing a photographic image uses: light painting, street art documentation 6. LIGHT noun {yahrn} the radiance or illumination from a particular source uses: light painting, staging
ICONS
noun {ahy-kon} a person or thing that is revered or idolized
BANSKY Back in the 1980s when graffiti was just crossing over into the New York downtown art scene, somewhere in Bristol, some kid called Robin was going to school and having fun. Years later, mirroring the past (just like the old-new school New York graffiti ‘writers’), Banksy began his career as a graffiti writer and attempted to get up on every wall of the borough of Easton, where he was from. The Banksy juggernaut began rolling with his first ever exhibition, which was held in a block of council flats. He sold four canvases to the band Massive Attack. He then progressed to using stencils, as it was a lot quicker to apply and created a harder impact, something that has always been important for his work. A well hard impact. And the resulting attention to detail is one reason why Banksy is responsible for the popularity of street art right now. He is the undisputed leader of the movement and his work is by far the wittiest, most accessible of any artist of the last 50 years. This is because everyone gets it. He gets up
44 Icons
somewhere and the resulting piece makes the front page of newspapers all over the world because the work is beautiful, topical, cheeky and extremely accessible. Although Banksy hails from Bristol, his artistic home is the streets of London (and later LA, New York, New Orleans, Bamako and the West Bank) for it was here that he built up his name with his stunts such as installing his illegal 25-ton statue opposite the Law Courts, or stickering police cars with ‘Legal Graffiti Zone’ written on them. Shows from Shoreditch to Mayfair showcased his unique brand of street art. Banksy is undoubtedly responsible for the rise of the street art movement, as he has taken graffiti out of the streets and into the hearts and minds of the public with his witty, spot-on pieces all over the world. No one would be making a living off their street art if it weren’t for Banksy.
OPPOSITE
A rare glimpse of Banksy applying a stencil
Banksy’s street art displayed in Shoreditch, London 2002
46 Icons
Banksy’s street art displayed in Clerkenwell, London 2003
Icons 47
SHEPARD FAIREY Shepard Fairey knows a thing or two about influencing culture. His visual propaganda has seeped into urban consciousness through its massive worldwide street presence alone. It all started back in 1989 with a whimsical sticker featuring a mug shot of Andre the Giant and orders to Obey him. This image was stuck to every imaginable surface in Providence, Rhode Island, as an experiment in phenomology. The success of the experiment can be measured by the reactions of unsuspecting passersby, forced to question why the images on Fairey’s stickers, posters, and hijacked billboards are there. With all the marketing babble oozing directly into our subconscious, it takes something out-of-place yet visually appealing to bring the scenery into focus. Fairey’s ideas have sparked an entire new movement in the art community, taking it from galleries to the street, and often back
Shepard Fairey creating a different interpretation of his infamous OBEY piece OPPOSITE
48 Icons
into galleries and even museums. As he says, “I have made 2.5 million stickers, 45,000 posters, and thousands of spraypaint stencils, by producing the stuff myself, bartering, or reinvesting money from posters sold. I know I have gotten more mileage from my money than any corporation.” Fairey is the rebel who infiltrated the system with a mission of changing it from within. He established a business infrastructure designed to facilitate continued renegade activity. What started as a covert operation, an insular intervention directed at students hanging out in the RISD quad, is now a global art phenomenon—yet Shepard still finds ways to go undercover and slip into the public consciousness through unsanctioned means. From underground to groundbreaking, from covert to overt, Shepard Fairey has evolved—and changed the world as we know it.
Corporate Violence for Sale, 2011 LEFT
Legislative Influence for Sale, 2011
“I have made 2.5 million stickers, 45,000 posters, and thousands of spraypaint stencils, by producing the stuff myself, bartering, or reinvesting money from posters sold. I know I have gotten more mileage from my money than any corporation.” —Shepard Fairey
Icons 51
Know Hope’s unnamed character featured as an installment in Israel OPPOSITE
character
Another depiction of the unnamed
KNOW HOPE Know hope is one of the next generation of contemporary artists. Born in Huntington Beach, California, but raised in Tel Aviv, Israel, his art has a unique flavor that is part urban, part folk, part craft but all good. His work is a documentation and artistic snap-shot of the times, built upon a collection of minor incidents. Recently, his work has followed the storyline of an unnamed character, with juxtaposed situations that are constantly happening around the character, which can be seen as direct portrayals of real-life happenings and a sign of the times.
In the beginning, his work was heavily text-based and consisted of a paragraph of sentences with an image, but not necessarily describing or illustrating the text, but creating some sort of juxtaposition. He started using the character, an artistic everyman, about two years ago, and when he first drew it, it looked completely different, and slowly it took shape into what it is today. As the visual aesthetic developed, so did the storyline, the concept.
“Since my work is based on observations, fragments and minor moments, it is those things that are most relevant to me.�
Icons 53
SWOON Suburban Florida. Sometime in the 1980s; somewhere near the home of the world’s most famous beach (but deep down you know that’s not really true). This is the stomping ground for an American girl who is going to go places and see the world. The city is also the headquarters for NASCAR and is like totally seasonal: busy as fuck in the summers and at certain race weekends (like the Daytona 500), but dead the rest of the time. It’s out of this environment that one of the most talented and original artists of the century emerges. “I grew up in Daytona Beach,” says Swoon. “When I was small, we were mostly out in the sticks, and it was all bare feet and falling off horses onto barbedwire fences and pig shit; when I was a teenager it was suburban Americans trap, classic.” Swoon is an American street artist who has created her own style of art, using lino-cuts, cut-outs, and lifesized figures, playing with negative space and positive images. She is one of the only street artists in New York’s prestigious MoMa museum and I have been following her work since the beginning, as she is one of my all-time favorite artists. Her work is so beautiful and
54 Icons
her characters have such a fascinating human dimension that when you see one in the street you want to stop and talk to them. She is the real deal Holyfield, and the world she creates on city walls is an amazing place fueled by her imagination and love for the people of our world. “Empathy, human connection, moments of pause in the city, how a joyfully inappropriate thing can change your whole day, adventure, exploration, reaching outside of yourself, making a whole world of your own with your bare hands and your best friends.” This is what gets her out of bed each day. She floated through school and made it out of the boonies, wandering up north to study at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, which is where she became Swoon after a random dream her friend back home had in which she was a world-famous artist called Swoon. “Well, I started painting and now I am making floating travelling sculptural city rafts. It’s a direct line of evolution, I swear.”
One of Swoon’s installations A life-sized lino-cut of one of Swoon’s precious subjects portraying human dimension RIGHT
ARTISTS AROUND THE WORLD
NORTH AMERICA • Magda Sayeg (Houston, TX) • MOMO (San Francisco, CA) • The Reader (U.S.A., unknown) • Swampy (Oakland, CA) • Gaia (New York, NY) • Darius & Downey (Richmond, VA / Louisville, KY) • Guerilla Girls (New York, NY) • Barry McGee (San Francisco, CA) • KAWS (Jersey City, NJ) • Barbara Kruger (Newark, NJ) • Swoon (Daytona Beach, FL) • COST and REVS (New York, NY) • Jean-Michel Basquiat (New York, NY) • Shepard Fairey (Charleston, SC) • Keith Haring (Kutztown, PA)
SOUTH AMERICA • Cekis (Santiago, Chile) • Stinkfish (Bogota, Colombia) • Jaz (Buenos Aires, Argentina) • INTI (Valparaiso, Chile)
EUROPE • El Tono (Paris, France) • Mr. Brainwash (Paris, France) • Roa (Ghent, Belgium) • Escif (Valencia, Spain) • El Xupet Negre (Barcelona, Spain) • WK Interact (Caen, France) • Invader (Paris, France) • JR (Paris, France) • Miss Van (Toulouse, France) • Blek le Rat (Paris, France) • Os Gemeos (São Paulo, Brazil) • Banksy (Bristol, United Kingdom)
AUSTRALIA • Anthony Lister (Brisbane, Australia) • Meggs of Everfresh (Melbourne, Australia)
OCEANIA • Ha-Ha (Hamilton, New Zealand)
adjective {kuh-mur-shuh l} suitable or fit for a wide, popular market
COMMERCIAL
PRESENCE
A
dvertising has had a massive influence on street culture and vice versa. In terms of audio/visual culture, adverts are not only massively influenced by street art (usually they are always playing catch up to what is really happening on the street), they also, once in a while, influence it. Okay, so right now the advertising industry is in a bit of a strange place as the Internet came along and changed everything. The web is a showcase of original ideas, created by everyone and anyone—it totally changed the way ad agencies worked, who were no longer an exclusive source of creative genius anymore.
An ABSOLUT ad inspired by street culture OPPOSITE
President Obama’s campaign poster, designed by Shepard Fairey OPPOSITE LEFT
Clever Durex ads using street culture to grab attention with unique placement OPPOSITE RIGHT
62 Commercial Presence
Back in the day a full-scale ad campaign to launch a new product consisted of a couple of press ads, some outdoor and—the king of ads—a TV spot or two. Now all that has changed but some of advertising’s most respected players have made their names in advertising before moving on to bigger and better things. For instance, the legendary Dunlop—Tested For The Unexpected TV ad from 1993, and advertisement that totally changed the face of how TV ads were made and watched. The most amazing visuals, cut to a Velvet Underground song, it blew the genre apart. It showed that elements of street culture (the ad was drenched in pure street style and attitude) could be harnessed and used in the mainstream media without having to use the obvious images of things like break dancing youths. This ad was light years ahead of the game, and in turn influenced music videos, film which in turn had a direct influence on street culture. Advertising has now become an integral part of the street culture, as a lot of the new campaigns are what’s called “guerilla”—stuff that actually happens in streets, events, exhibitions, star-maker competitions,
websites, publishing magazines, all of which appear to be non-branded, but are actually just vehicles for an energy drink, sneakers, or a pair of jeans, often using imagery, techniques, and other ideas lifted directly from the sub-culture of the street. Sony executed a campaign where they used street artists from Berlin to advertise their PSP, much to the scorn of the public who worked out what was going on immediately as the “street art” went up. It didn’t matter how good the art was, it was dismissed as just advertising. That being said, advertising is part of the day-today whether we like it or not. There are direct lines of influence between street culture and advertising, but more recently it has been a one-way street with street culture being absorbed, regurgitated, and then spit out as advertising. This will change as society is always hungry for the new and in the not-too-distant future it we be the turn of advertising to carry this torch.
Commercial Presence 63
LOVE OR HATE: MR. BRAINWASH Love him or hate him, the influence Thierry Guetta (aka Mr. Brainwash) has had on street art is undeniable. Unlike many of the other street artists featured in this book, who worked their way to the top from humble beginnings, Guetta’s career as a street artist was jump started with the urging and support of super-stars like Shepard Fairey, Banksy, and Invader (who is his cousin). Although many people laugh at the hollowness of his artwork, Mr. Brainwash has had a powerful, yet negative, influence on street art. He relies almost entirely on assistants to do all the grunt work of actually creating a piece, and collectors pay huge sums of money for what are often pretty terrible and overly hyped artworks. Mr. Brainwash has unfortunately inspired many artists (particularly in LA) to start putting up their own hollow street art with the goal of capitalizing on the street art trend.
64 Commercial Presence
EXPRESSION noun {ik-spresh-uh n} indication of feeling, spirit, character, etc., as on the face, in the voice, or in artistic execution
“Some people become cops because they want to make the world a better place. Some people become vandals because they want to make the world a better looking place” —Banksy
Malaga’s urban art scene, under the umbrella of MAUS (Malaga Arte Urbano Soho) has invited a number of well-known street artists to create works for the area OPPOSITE
Expression 69
STREET ART: FREE EXPRESSION OR VANDALISM? While some people see street art as vandalism, others see it as a form of creative expression or political acts of art. The controversy makes it all the more interesting. In particular, the street art scene was really taking off in Buenos Aires right after the 2001 political crisis. Triggered by the political and social chaos, much of the displays were a result of anger toward banks and government buildings, seen as culprits for the country’s collapse. This frustration of the common people exhibited itself in scrawls and stencils of dissent, seen all over the city. But it’s not just total economic collapse that inspires street art. In each country of the world people have their gripes with the government as well as strong individual opinions. Whether the issue at hand is abortion, 9/11, corruption of the government, pollution, or the politicization of Hollywood, the people who take to the streets to spray-paint or post stickers have something to say about the current social issues. Why not allow them to? 70 Expression
Street art is a temporary form of expression, often vanished within days. That’s another reason why it’s important to document it, especially the well-crafted, visually appealing and smart pieces. Each opinion is important, anonymous or not, and each one of us should have a voice. Street art has started receiving international acclaim in recent years, with star artists selling their work at Sotheby’s for astronomical sums of money. There are now prestigious galleries putting on street art exhibits; street art collectives have been formed in cities around the world; and a variety of books feature these colorful displays of public art. Yet even though street art may have reached critical mass around the globe, it’s still considered an illegal form of expression—a street crime.
Zev was arrested in Hong Kong in 2009 for his “liquidation� of a Chanel logo
“If we want to achieve greatness stop asking for permission” —Eddie Colla
74 Expression
LEFT
Work by Banksy in London
ABOVE
Street Art in Palermo
Expression 75
INDEX
noun {in-deks} an alphabetical listing of artists along with the numbers of the pages on which they are mentioned or discussed
ARTISTS
noun {ahr-tist} indication of feeling, spirit, character, etc., as on the face, in the voice, or in artistic execution
78 Index
A–G • Banksy (24, 43, 44, 46, 57, 64,
67, 69, 74)
• Blek le Rat (18, 20, 57) • Jean-Michel Basquiat (18,
20, 56)
• Cekis (56) • Eddie Colla (73) • COST and REVS (56) • Darius & Downey (56) • El Tono (57) • El Xupet Negre (57) • Escif (57) • Shepard Fairey (Cover, 23,
27, 28, 48, 51, 56, 62, 64)
H–L
M–S
T–Z
• Ha-Ha (57)
• Barry McGee (56)
• The Magic Seven (31)
• Keith Haring (12, 18, 20, 56)
• Meggs of Everfresh (57)
• The Reader (56)
• Brian Hart (38)
• Miss Van (57)
• WK Interact (57)
• INTI (56)
• Mr. Brainwash (57, 64)
• Zev (71)
• Invader (57, 64)
• MOMO (56)
• Jack the Beard (72)
• Olek (37)
• Jaz (56)
• Os Gemeos (57)
• JR (57)
• Roa (57)
• KAWS (56)
• Magda Sayeg (56)
• Kems (31)
• Stinkfish (56)
• Know Hope (52)
• Swampy (56)
• Barbara Kruger (56)
• Swoon (54, 56)
• Anthony Lister (57)
• Gaia (56) • Guerilla Girls (56)
Index 79
STREET ART Lauren Todd