When is ART not ART?....

As a further artjunct to the questions posed, check out this- The 'Wild style wall' was found behind a newer wall in NY, contains a Basquiat scribble somewhere and the photo on the Gallery 151 wall that is shown will be replaced by the actual 'mural' as it is excavated.  Personally I don't see what the fuss is all about but take it to the antipodes, if Mccahon was around now,  knocked back a few vinos, and went on a bit of a spraycan rampage would/should he be spanked or would the work be preserved for posterity? Imagine Helen C raving about the 12foot high 'I AM (drunk)' he scrawled, in a masterly fashion, on the side of the Beehive. I mean, she is the cultural (ad)minister isn't she?

I was wondering when this would hit the artbash radar. Thanks for raising it cadmium hed.

this is an interesting dilemma.
on the one hand unofficial art creates more hostility to art in general because of an art=damage to the national identity equation. On the other hand many people think that it is one of arts most important roles to be critical of institutions (academic, social, political and yes civic) in order to prevent totalitarian thinking.

Cities are plutocracies, wealth and property supplants democratic principles. while councils are elected officials they are beholden to rate payers and there are very different permissions for how you can take up space in the city of you are rate payer or not rate payer (irrelevent riffraff). I own property and wouldnt want anyone to vandalise it...and yet I have a deep philosphical sympathy for the principle of existence that graffiti challenges...that people with money can take up more space and decide what the world looks like.

why is an eyesore like the warehouse superstore not considered vandalism when a street artwork is? clashing ideas of what constitutes suitable productivity is why. and a desire by cities governors to prevent mess disruption and change (change that wasnt their idea that is).

To me the steady rise of graffitti is literally a clash of values taking place in public space.

Much so called grafitti is highly skilled, witty, passionate and is also often moving (if not always attractive according to conventional aesthetic mores); and, together with the social questions that it raises that make the activity a valid and vibrant artform in my view.

The dilemma linx in with other threads on artbash about good/bad art, and as u said Bruce, a lot of grafitti is fantastic. And hence as relevant(?) to a societies culture as an artpiece in a gallery- Even tagging signatures in indecipherable alphabeats, mostly percieved as a form of territorial tree pissing, is somehow aesthetically inticing in the same way arabic script curls around minarets, somehow alien, confrontational to the uninitiated and unafraid. All essential elements of art surely?

the territorial tree pissing aspect is also part of the spectrum of clashing values.

there is a lot of chat floating around that creates a dividing line between good graffiitti and bad grafitti mostly based on whether the work is perceived to fit a very vaguely defined idea of being somehow appealing.

scenario one: good graffitti =pretty bad graffitti = ugly

But its too easy to say it has no intrinsic art value when it isnt pretty, but I agree with your observation that it is almost always visually interesting whether you are seduced by it or not, so this is an unstable and overly simplistic division.

a slightly more sophisticated way of coming up with a division is based on whether the street artist understands their work in a meta sense...ie if they understand the rules and power relationships between art and institution and are doing something deliberately to expand those relationships. more simply are they educated or are they ignorant?

scenario two: good graffiti= intelligent /educated bad graffitti= ignorant /uneducated

Tagging has been assigned to both the ugly and the ignorant categories by most pundits. But what happens to the conversation if we talk about tagging as a form of outsider art?

Glad someone brought this up. Initially I thought it was targetting tagging (BAD) and not graffitti (GOOD) but of course its not that simple OR as black and white. The thing is who has the authority or right to say what is good and bad? CH's example of McCahon's (or perhaps Nigel brown's) I AM "tag" is a good one. If anyone can define what art is in our post-modern deconstructed world - I'd like to hear it. Maybe tagging is "mindless" and graffitti (art) isn't? (maybe inline with what bruce has just written)

There was some good discussion on this on Russell Browns Blog

Also Askews blog

This blog is out of date now but I have to say I like the stencil stuff
http://artonthestreets.blogspot.com/

Bruce your equation works but leaves out one important consideration.

the educated and the well off are more likely to be the same people, the non rate payer and the less educated are more likely to be the same people. Ideas about Outsider Art are loaded with class issues.

If you want to talk about art value of the work being invested at least in part in the "social questions that it raises" then you cant forget that under all of this debate is the assumed social equation:

good graffitti=rich/er person bad graffitti = poor/er person.


I just dont know if that assumption is a safe one.
it leaves out middleclass adolescent nihilism from the equation. a christs college school boy is just as likely to want to draw the old cock and balls or scrawl his initials somewhere as a kid from a high school in manukau.

so now theres another assumption that also might not be safe: an age implication,

good graffitti= older (tertiary student and older) bad graffitti= youth or teen (school age)

BTW thanks for those links artandyourlife.

fair points nos'
I raised outsider art as a way to start thinking differently about the artvalue of the visual self-expressions of a marginalised group, instead of just going with the majority idea that they must be worthless if we dont immediately like or understand them...

I agree the model could be fatally flawed by its unproven assumptions of who exactly this misunderstood group may actually be! young brown poor and uneducated is the media subtext. they have mostly forgotten about the art students flexing their social consciences.

I'm still just as interested in the whole range of 'public art' for its disobediant and rebellious texture as well as for those more easy to appreciate domesticated examples when it the result is charming.

Is adolescent nihilism really so awful?

I think some graffiti-ists and taggers are using their spray-can independence to try to create a means to join in and count for something. I think some of what is created can be seen as acting as some kind of challenge to what exists and dominates in the visual cultural environment: commercial advertising, branding, international company names, all kinds of sleek expensive goods beyond reach, and its adjunct, the concept of property.
On the other hand, some work seems to be just a splurt against stuff not aspired to, related to rejecting and being rejected or left out
Its seems like a new means for a rite of passage (in some circles).

Just because it involves a can of paint doesn,t make it art. Get real.

A story from somewhere reached my ear that an early Banksy street piece had been cut from a wall by artlovers/thieves/investors. Hilarious.
I can almost stretch my self far enough to DECLARE that grafitti/tagging IS art. Almost. until some bandana wearing guttersnipe scribbles 'fukubro westsideforeva!' on one of my lamborghinis or kids or something. Stealing from nznancy, maybe it can be seen as advertising to. But, then isn't most art advertising? Selling by association the artist? What Bruce said about the (be)Warehouse resonated with me, if u grow up swamped by signage and symbols and have any creative blood running in your veins isn't some of it going to spill out and if you have limited access to bonafide outlets then grafitti is pretty damn seductive. Hell, I've been to the darkside (of a concrete wall) a few times and it's a cheap gallery with great exposure and little pretension. Until the council ruins the exxxhibition with their own grey colorfield work.
So mathew is grafitti art etc not real? How so?

Hey cadmium hed, that's an interesting story you mention about Banksy. I'm currently living in Hackney, East London, and Banksy's street art is pretty prolific around here, and there are many interesting issues raised by them.
This is slightly different to your example, but in West London, a Banksy recently turned up on a wall on Portobello Road (near Notting Hill), and was immediately covered with a large sheet of perspex and then auctioned on EBay, eventually going for £200,000!! The successful bidder also had to pay for the removal of the section of wall. The potential for damage was obviously quite high as the wall was ordinary bricks and mortar. Send in the diggers....very gently.....
Conversely, a much smaller piece turned up a month or so ago on the side of my local Off Licence, a great wee stencil of a dodgy cop with the accompanying message: "More Police, Less Justice". It was only there for about a week before being whitewashed. I talked to the owner of the Off Licence - a lovely Turkish fellow who sells me The Sunday Times and the occasional carton of orange juice - and asked him what had happened to the Banksy on his wall? Didn't he know that one had just sold for a couple of hundred thousand quid?
He did, but told me that his livelihood was at stake. Hackney Council has a zero-tolerance policy on graffiti (oh the irony - more cops, less justice) and are able to fine businesses who have graffiti on their building! This is a major source of exasperation for my Turkish friend, whose pristine Off Licence walls are fair game for urban guerilla artists. After various threats from the council everytime a tag - or indeed, a Banksy - turned up on his premises, he eventually told them to buy a bucket of paint and eradicate any offending blemishes themselves. And so they do. And did.
On top of this, one of the earliest - and largest - Bansky pieces, a massive cat with the head of a rat on the side of a dilapidated building in Liverpool, is to be destroyed by the local authorities. I should add here that for 2008, Liverpool has been designated the 'International City of Culture'!! This includes all sorts of exhibitions, symposiums, festivals, and performances, but no unsightly street-art apparently....
So whereas the rich get richer out west by preserving their street art behind perspex as if it were a museum exhibit (before hocking it off on the internet to a real museum, a collector, or whoever stumps up the most cash), in Bansky's own East London stomping ground (although he is originally from Bristol) the things come and go, making his messages all the more pertinent. And yes, he does have a message, often questioning authority, raising notions of equality, and turning a spotlight on the self-serving artworld that he has himself become a part of. Using public spaces, a very liberal dash of humour - some of his works are fucking hilarious - and an all-too-knowing nod-and-wink to the money-men, Banksy has circumvented the traditional art-world systems, and been embraced by them because of it. He maintains a reclusive, anonymous outsider status, but you can buy his book at Whitcoull's, or reproductions of his stencils at Tate Modern.
And my final thought on the graffiti art that has become big-business here in London (Banksy is just one of many talents), is a funny wee image I saw stencilled onto the pavement in Greenwich today in bright yellow spray-paint. It was a little dog with a leash, and the words "Bin It, Bag It". Seemingly a reminder to dog owners to act responsibly when nature calls for their pooch, but hilarious to see the Greenwich Council adopting a method of communication that Hackney Council would be issuing a fine for!

ok, Hed, it was just a visceral outburst against the rampant growth of PC twitterings.The fact is we all love graffiti.....just as long as its not sprayed over our fences or cars.
We are willing to bravely stand up for the rights of the downtrodden to express themselves....man the rhetorical trenches....as long as the fuckers don,t come near our property.
lThis thread actually reveals an innate conservatism on matters art.
Arts moved on from painting now.
Why aren,t we arguing over the rights of the citizenry to create installation art on our streets?..ie..piles of rubbish scattered about. Why is this not regarded as art?
Or better still...vandalism as installation art? Why isn,t that kicked over shrub... or that torn off limb of that tree down yr street regarded as art?.. Of coyrse... it doesn,t invovle a cac of paint does it... so it can,t be art.
The arguments here reveal a double std..based on class and the real subversivess of the act in question. The more subversive it is.. the less likely we are to view it as art.

By that supposition Matthew, can everything people destroy/pileup/movearound etc. be called installation art, and everything we do performance art?
Great banksy trivia jt, it just shows the extremes of reactions to street art-$$$veneration or whitewash solution-where i live there's a lot of (sanctioned) murals but recently an artist took it on herself to do a piece on a nice(?) expanse of concrete, by any standard it looked great, well, far better than the concrete, but of course illegal. Council threats followed, countered by promised support from other local artists to help add to/complete the work so it'd look like a "real" mural, but of course it dissapeared under a grey tide of conservatism without warning. Probably didn't help that housing values in that area were in the stratosphere. If members of joepublic don't like art without formal warning and an accompanying descriptive sign/sticker/thesis (ie: in a gallery, in a frame, in a park etc,,) then why aren't buskers not singing top 40 hits taken away by council busker catchers? Why aren't mime artists doing 'provocative' moves rehabilitated by churchgroups and why isn't the bastard who puts up the christmess decoration 'installation' every year just shot?

"The arguments here reveal a double std..based on class and the real subversivess of the act in question. The more subversive it is.. the less likely we are to view it as art."

actually for me the reverse is true.

but politics and art are not the same thing and to judge arts worth only by its political usefulness (instead of by its aestheic appeal) is also a form of conservatism.

jt's comments about Banksy are a great example of how crazy and interesting things get when the rules of art get tangled with the rules of money and the rules of activism...

(thanks everyone great discussion thread!)

PS. I would never want to live in a city with no graffitti... and graffitti is not meant to last. the banksy's should be painted out, or they turn into the opposite of what makes them great. clearing away a few icons occasionally makes space for new generations.

what would it be like if a brave city decided to calm down about stupid things like "gateway crime", and absorb the cost of regular removal (say..monthly instead of weekly) as part of a lively, continuously renewing  temporary public art programme...

I would love to live in a city like that

I guess you've all seen projected images on the side of buildings, but does anyone know of any legal action taken against that form of 'art'? I was thinking how it's like street art without the 'vandalism' accusation, but perhaps with the trespass threat hovering in the wings? And is it a light installation? A painting with light? Unpermitted signage? (as soon as artforms are labelled does it limit them?) Are we getting bogged down in semantix antix? I guess I'm still wrestling with the idea that banning/attacking/prosecuting grafitti ART is the 'establishment' deciding (for the wider good) it isn't art. And let's be honest the public @ large couldn't give a fuck about art. But if you do, shouldn't repression of expression disturb you? Or is it just easier in a gallery?

cad hed,

These guys have been testing the legality of projection for a couple of years:

http://graffitiresearchlab.com/


I find it very appealing to watch and there is always a twinge of 'fuck yeah!' (same with Banksy), but also there is a nagging feeling that there is never really any critique of the action or the tools used to achieve it... these guys (mostly richer, mostly educated) have genuine self-belief and you can feel the pride but in the end it seems to be more about getting it to work than 'doing' anything. An example for me is their 'LED throwies', a kind of flash mob event which is an environmentalist's nightmare. I definitely need to think about this more though.

As far as graffiti being art, it makes the transition when the writer calls it so. Until that point it is graffiti.
A well established culture with it's own code of ethics, traditions, world and local histories. A pretty defined culture with a purist streak that generally shuns galleries and the art world.
Exceptions exist as always, there is no shortage of artists making gallery art that shares graffiti concerns, and as such is primarily aesthetically driven.

The now defunct Disrupt Gallery clearly located graffiti within art by operating a traditional gallery model complete with openings, wine, sales and even it's own element of wank.

What people have been calling street art operates outside of graffiti in my eyes. Graffiti writers have a strong sense of ownership over the term 'Graffiti' itself, and the implications of it. And as such generally reject other street art as part of graffiti.
Street art perhaps lies closer to what most people would consider art than graffiti might. While still operating with a heavy emphasis on aesthetics, it serves as vehicle for concept and content more so than graffiti.

I realise for most, the term graffiti would include a very broad range of acts. Messages in bathrooms, in alleys and the like. Not the thing i'm referring to here however. I feel using the term 'graffiti' as understood by the people who practice it most isn't a bad thing.

Just to correct artandmylife, www.streetarse.co.nz is not Askews site, his is www.askew1.com

For street art check out www.streetsy.com as well as the www.streetarse.co.nz site.