Cultures @ Brood Box

Wandering around the laneways west of Elizabeth St. has not been a regular feature of my exploration of Melbourne’s art galleries and street art. After all most of the art galleries are east of Elizabeth St. along Flinders Lane as are most of the laneways containing street art, or so I thought.

I was looking for Brood Box, a new gallery on Rankins Lane, “off Lt Bourke Street between Queen and Elizabeth Streets”, which narrowed it down to a couple of laneways. At first I thought that Brood Box, might have been a renamed Mahoneys Gallery, but I found that Mahoneys had become a framing service in the corner of another restaurant that fill these laneways. A strange combination – the meal was so good that I think I’ll have it framed.

There are other galleries and art dealers in the area but most are by appointment only. In Warburton Lane I saw there is a new gallery space but again by appointment only.

On my walk I also saw a lot of street art, paste-ups by Miso and others, aerosol art by the Everfresh crew and others, and lots of street art sculpture. (See my entry on Street Art Sculpture.)

Rankins Lane has enough street art to draw attention to it. Brood Box is a big space with a trailer parked inside selling coffee and cakes, combining an art gallery with a coffee shop. The coffee-trailer has been painted by the ubiquitous Drew Funk. There are tables and chairs but also enough wall space for a contemporary art gallery. I was looking for Brood Box because Joseph Flynn was exhibiting. I had interviewed Joe for my entry on Fine Art Education and I wanted to see how his career was progressing with this exhibition.

Joseph Flynn’s exhibition, “Cultures” is two series of drawings on large sheets of paper. I found my self steeping back across the laneway and looking through the entrance of Brood Box to get far enough back to taken in one of the drawings as a drawing of a face. Up close the intensity of the lines that form the pictures look like circuit diagrams, cultures of bacteria or star-maps. There are many star and psychedelic references in the images and titles of this main series of drawings. The second series of drawings are more colourful with outline drawings of faces overlayed on top of one another. Flynn shows a great deal of confidence and skill in the execution of these large images.

I saw a few other exhibitions on my walk around the city but Cultures at Brood Box was the best that I saw that day.

Anti-graffiti

A white car with “Graffiti Management” on its door driving in the dirt beside McCauly Station with a wall of solid graffiti behind it. The derelict switchbox near Coburg Station where the graffiti is assiduously painted over but the building has been allowed to stand derelict for decades. Managing graffiti and allowing a hundred-year old brick buildings to slowly crumble is like the proverbial dog in a manger. Melbourne’s railways are being covered in anti-graffiti grey paint. The preference for grey graffiti proof paint over the multi-colour calligraphy of graffiti is a strange preference. The grey monotone symbolizes control that is considered good and therefore aesthetically preferable to graffiti, even if in an industrial wasteland like McCauly Station. On the other hand graffiti is a symbol of loss of control that is considered bad and therefore ugly, despite being superficially appealing to the uninformed.

Know your enemy.  And the hardcore extreme enemy of graffiti everywhere is Steve Beardon, Councillor for the City of Casey (2003, 2005 – present) and the president of a community group called “Residents Against Graffiti Everywhere”. Cr Steve Beardon associates graffiti with gang membership and chroming without citing any evidence. His rhetoric is full of phrases like “blight, “wage war” and “zero tolerance”. He believes that he can speak for the community, as if ‘the community’ was a genuinely coherent group. I presume that I am not part of Beardon’s community and nor are the little children who enjoy the cartoon character graffiti that they see from the train.

“Residents Against Graffiti Everywhere” is an extreme position and they are either potential vandals themselves or not really against graffiti everywhere. For if they advocate the removal of Roman graffiti or other graffiti of historic value then they would be potential vandals. I asked Steve Beardon some questions via email and within a day he had responded with five lengthy emails, from which I have found the answers to my questions amidst his electronic diarrhoea. It is clear these emails that Beardon is both obsessed and extreme in his anti-graffiti views.

I asked about the ‘tolerance zones’ established by Melbourne City Council? Beardon replied: “Its my belief that Melbourne council is wasting money and denying all of us a clean city free of graffiti. Tolerance zones send a mixed message that graffiti is acceptable and clearly has failed to stop the blight.”

I asked about the use of aerosol art for decoration of shop fronts etc. or, galleries that specialize in aerosol art? Beardon replied: “I advocate street art not be the standard used for murals. It needs to be remembered that the majority of graffiti is perfected illegally on residents front fences, walls etc.” And Beardon sent me an email with images of the kind of kitsch; tromp l’oeil and historicized murals that he advocates.

Laws and other forces can influence the quality and type of graffiti but it is extremely unlikely, given the millennia of graffiti history, that anyone could eliminate it. A realistic response to graffiti problems has to acknowledge that graffiti is an ancient human behaviour. A realist response also has to acknowledge that the current street art style is an attractive and successful graphic style. Beardon and his ignorant, unimaginative, extremist views will not eliminate graffiti, as he is part of the problem and not the solution.

(This blog entry is an edited version of two entries published in my old blog, Culture Critic @ Melbourne. My old blog has since been taken down for reasons beyond my control but I thought that this entry was worth republishing.)

Street Artists making $

My blog entry Street Art & Galleries attracted a lot of comments some of them espoused a non-commercial ideal for street art. However, much of the free art on the streets appears to be advertising for street artist’s highly commercial enterprises, (see my blog entry Advertising & Graffiti). Street art is the most commercially accessible of contemporary movements; street art is far more commercial than even the Surrealism.  Street artists produce art from the high to low price range, from museum quality pieces to badges, and this allows anyone to purchase the artist’s work. Keith Haring opened shops in New York and Tokyo for his merchandise and generations of street artists have followed his example.

The marketing strategy of street artists is similar to that of KISS, the most commercially successful rock band ever. KISS gave extravagant concert tours at less than cost ticketing, as a promotion for the band’s t-shirts, figurines and other marketing spin offs that is KISS’s main revenue stream. Like fashion designers many of these artists also produce diffusion ranges – the number of sneaker, t-shirts and figurines by street artists is incalculable. Collectable is a sales feature for these limited editions designed by street artists.

Toys, miniatures and street art are not something that I’ve paid a great deal of attention to although I know that many well-known street artists make limited edition toys. It is not that I don’t understand that models making and miniatures are an art, especially after painting many models in my teenage years, it just isn’t my scene anymore. Dean Christ, who I met when he was exhibiting at the Melbourne Stencil Festival, sent me a link to some of his toys. These are not cute, they are very much boys toys. Dean Christ combines military vehicles with insect forms.

Street artists make many other promotional deals: from minor deals like putting a business’s name or logo on a legal work to major deals like local artist, Phibs’ YouTube video promotion for VB Raw. These many different income sources means that street artists, unlike most other artists, are not entirely dependent on gallery sales, arts council grants or other institutional funding.

Now I’m not opposed to artists making money and I am not criticizing these street artists mentioned for any of their commercial work. I am opposed to the idealism that generates the denial that street art is not commercial; a denial that is not unique to street art but is encountered in so many areas of the arts. Parts of the art world are reluctant to talk about money, as they want to be seen placing certain ideals above financial concerns. Medieval knights and royalty were not meant to engage in business or industry and some artists ape these antique manners. However, this is to deny the reality that art is connected to life, where artists have to live and make a living.

I am impressed with the marketing of street artists; many artists in history would envy their success. Many modern art groups wanted to be able to market their art democratically so that people of different income could afford it, however the technology and distribution market often did not support these enterprises. Marcel Duchamp tried producing men’s shirts, travel chess sets and picture discs (records with op art images) but there he was no internet to help generate international sales for him and none of these enterprises made a profit. The success of street art, an art movement that has spread around the world, is in part due its ability to be commercial successful.

Street Art Forgeries & Plagiarism

Street art involves a lot of appropriation (stealing) other people’s images from the mass media, art and elsewhere. Appropriation is part of the cut and paste, Dada to hip-hop, lineage of which street art is a part. A sample, appropriated from some other work of art or design, can be used creatively to create new and original works. (I could expand on the history of sampling in music, art and literature but this is not the point.) Appropriation, sampling, homage, tribute, plagiarism, copy, whatever you want to call it, are all the various degrees of lack of authenticity and originality. And this leaves the door wide open for many kinds of abuses.

Not a real Banksy

I saw a fake Banksy gangster rat on the street of Brisbane, I’m pretty sure that Banksy never went to Brisbane but if he did this would have faded in the sun by now. It has been copied from a photograph of a Banksy gangster rat but it has left out details on the ghettoblaster. This fake Banksy is different from the forgeries on sale in auction houses or on Ebay. (In April 2007 auction house Christies withdrew two alleged Banksy paintings from sale. And The Art Newspaper reported (1/10/07) that unauthorized Banksy prints with forged signatures are for sale on Ebay.) Legally it is hard to actually be a forgery when you are free and anonymously created on the street as no claims are being made about the authenticity and nobody is suffering any financial loss as a result of the deception.

Street art is frequently not just copying or sampling but plagiarizing with copies of copies of copies. (See my review of Swifty’s show and see his reply in the comments). I do not want to see another Warhol imitation or any famous high contrast black and white image reproduced in stencil-art. Copying Warhol is just repetitive and it does not make the copyist another Warhol. On a full colour sticker by Mask is a reproduction of Roy Lichtenstein’s painting of an artist and his girlfriend saying, “Oh Brad, soon all the galleries will be clamouring for your art”, only “Brad” has been replaced by “Mask”. This sucks all of irony out of Lichtenstein’s appropriation of the original comic frame. A copy of art will not alone make a work art.

Mask sticker

There are many reasons for copying: for learning and practicing, for ironic or satirical parody, for all kinds of reasons – but copying for it’s own sake is not one of them – it is just plagiarism.

Street Art Notes – Nov 09

“Cherry pickers, with satin brushes big as a door, inch through Wall Street leaving a vast souvenir postcard of the Grand Canyon. Water-trucks slosh out paint. Outlaw painters, armed with paint pistols, paint everything and everyone in reach. Survival artists, paint cans strapped to their backs, grenades at their belts, paint anybody and anything within range. Skywriters dogfight and collide and explode.”

William S. Burroughs (“Apocalypse” from an illustrated catalogue in collaboration with Keith Haring, 1989) Amongst his many crimes and peccadillos, William Burroughs was caught doing graffiti on a NYC subway. He had written: “Ah Pook was here”, Ah Pook is the Mayan god of destruction.

Unknown artist - St. Kilda Rd.

I have seen some street art using trees, is very uncommon, this one on St. Kilda road had charcoal marks applied to it. Trees are a common feature of the urban environment; they are rarely touched by street artists but I have seen some good site-specific art on trees by street artists. And after much talk about the possibilities of street art with moss I finally saw some near East Richmond station however it had not been grown but glued to the wall.

unknown artist - details of moss antlers

After lots of comic book characters the aerosol street artists are now doing lots of large realist faces, mostly images from cinema history. Some of the best of these faces can be seen along Hoddle St. in Collingwood.

I went back to look at Croft Alley in Chinatown about two months after the Don’t Ban the Can event. There was one graffiti writer at work in the alley when I visited on a warm Saturday afternoon on my way to yum cha. It was hard to see all the walls because of all the garbage bins, but they are, along with other services why these alleyways have been constructed. It looked good and fresh, in contrast to the smell of garbage. There are a great variety of styles from the old school, wild-style, characters and beyond. I say “beyond” because there were also work there that really pushed the techniques and ideas of what aerosol art could be. I could see more of it and there was more to see then when I was there for the painting.

“Style in ornament is analogous to hand in writing, and this is it literal signification.”

Ralph Nicholson Wornum (The Principles of Ornamentation, 1858)

Street Art & Galleries

Every time street art enters the gallery the question is raised about the definition of street art. The Melbourne galleries most associated with street art doesn’t want to use the term “Street Art” because it is a contradictory term for art in a gallery, But it is the term that we are stuck with. Maybe some future art historian will find a better name for the art movement.

When I want to use a word like ‘movement’ I refer to the “Afterword” in Stewart Home The Assault on Culture (Aporia Press & Unpopular Books, London, 1988) “’Movement’ has military connotations and implies a mass of adherent. For something to merit the title ‘movement’ it would seem to require several thousand participants at the very least.” (p.106) Art movements are very rare; Home lists the Sixties Underground (taken as a whole), Punk and Mail Art as the only post war art movements. The rest, Situationalists, CoBrA  Fluxus, etc. are just groups.

Like other movements, street art is, in part, a reaction to previous art movements with a radical change in artistic paradigms. Instead of art dependent on gallery space to make it art, street art is independent of the gallery setting. Walking through W.E. Kennick’s imaginary warehouse of all the objects in the world and trying to pick out the art you may be confused by Duchamp’s readymades but not by the street art. (Kennick, Journal of Philosophy, v.81) Street art is designed to appear as art without the museum, you would know that it is art anywhere.

If you know that street art is art anywhere why is there any doubt about it still being street art in an art gallery. How can one identical image, for example a stencil, be street art when sprayed in the street and not when shown in a gallery? Unless “street art” is merely a geographic description that would also include any art found on the street, (e.g. public sculpture etc.) Although street art is a rejection of the influence of the anesthetizing environment of the contemporary art gallery that dominated so much of late modernism and contemporary art it does not follow that street art ceases to be street art in an art gallery.

Perhaps the question would be better put is it appropriate to show street art in art galleries? But this does not make sense as it would make art galleries only appropriate for a very limited amount of art. For most of human history art was not made for art galleries – Leonardo da Vinci never thought that his paintings would hang in an art gallery because the idea of art galleries had not been invented. Very little art is therefore appropriate for an art gallery, however, currently a lot of art does end up being exhibited in art galleries from sacred art intended for churches and temples to street art intended for the street. However, the contemporary art gallery is the site for displaying and selling art and design as diverse as Amish quilts to street art.

Street art has become a term for a new graphic arts movement that started in the early 1980s and continuing into the 21^st century. It is a calligraphic and figurative art movement that developed on the street. Instead of art that requires no talent, no technique, no skill (aside from theory, publicity and management skills), street art emphasizes illustrative drawing skills and other talents. Instead of art that is dependent on art theory, that was becoming, in Arthur Danto’s terms, philosophy; street art is independent of current art theory (this is not to say that street art is theory free). Street art may be independent of art galleries but that doesn’t mean that they are antithetical.

Advertising & Graffiti

Defenders of graffiti often point at the visual pollution of advertising, arguing that only economics separates the two and that graffiti if often more aesthetic than advertising.

Increasingly advertising campaigns are using graffiti as part of their campaign. In 2007 there were stencils advertising for the Borat movie in Lt. LaTrobe St, in Richmond and in Centre Place. The publicists for the Borat movie thought that they could grab some hip free space but were greatly mistaken. Their ad was quickly covered up with “No Ad” in marker pen and “John Howard killed the Glasshouse” in a purple and yellow stencil. This zone of “extreme tolerance” towards graffiti is not going to tolerate the invasion of advertising. The advertising dollar might rule in the rest of the world but its images will be resisted in temporarily autonomous zones.

Well, that is the idealistic version but some advertising does sneak through. The first stencil graffiti that I saw in Melbourne was the 1984 publicity campaign for the movie, Dogs in Space. That publicity campaign was a copy of the graffiti publicity campaigns that bands had used earlier (there is the notable use of stencil images from Crass and Black Flags).

There are lots of viral advertising campaigns employing street art techniques, including advertising stickers posing as street art. One of the most sophisticated of these was Adidas’s Zero Tag campaign (see my blog entry and the comments on Lex Injusta) From the comments it appeared that this advertising campaign did not impress many street artists.

Fly-posting of posters is just as illegal as paste-ups/wheat-pasting but because they are advertising they are tolerated more than art – there aren’t organizations against fly-posting but there are anti-graffiti organizations. The poster gangs of Melbourne quickly paste over any material that encroaches on their territory. The current use of chalk stencil advertising on footpaths is just as illegal as fly posting and graffiti. It has been used increasingly in 2009 to advertise universities, soft drinks, the Dali exhibitions, plays and awareness of sexually transmitted diseases.

Advertising for the play "Optimism"

The street artists are advertising themselves in their work, the signature tags write large. In 2007 there were lot of myspace addresses amongst the art in Hosier Lane. And, in the case of legit legal works the image will advertise business that commissioned the work and supplied the paint. Street art has always been a form of alternative advertising. Jason Dax Woodward points out that “the standard size of a billboard is much like that of the side of a train.” (Woodward, How to read Graffiti , p.12)

Street Art Critic

“Call this art?” Jonathan Jones of The Guardian critically examines the art of star stencil artist Banksy. (The Guardian Weekly, July 13-19, 2007) Jonathan Jones tries to appreciate Banksy but concludes, “after wallowing in this stuff for a while, I almost found myself hating Banksy’s fans. But actually it’s fine to like him, so long as you don’t kid yourself that this is ‘art’.”

Graffiti style is increasing entering the commercial design world, as well as, the fine art world. It is a graphic style with youth and rebel overtones that make it very suitable for commercial uses. Street art is more of a graphic style than fine art; most street artists, if they do have any formal training are from a graphics art background than a fine art background. The difference between graphics arts and fine arts is most apparent over the issues of original creativity and the meaning of the work. Graphics arts are more concerned with successful communication and appeal than original creations or artistic depth. As Jonathan Jones writes “The easy humour that makes his (Cartrain) work superficially likable removes from it any hope of being made or poetic.”

To Jonathan Jones street art is “background” art, “as in background music: like all graffiti, his is essentially an accompaniment to other activities.” Unfortunately this is poor argument because ‘background music’ is still music and therefore so is ‘background art’. To take Jones’s argument further it appears he would conclude architecture is not art as it is “essentially an accompaniment for other activities.” Background or foreground is context and not an inherent quality of the work in consideration.

Jones is on firmer ground when he examines the inherent quality of Banksy’s work. He complains that Banksy’s conceptual humour works are “one-dimensional and soulless”. That his art is conservative in its use of trompe l’oeil and “superficially likeable.” However by this critique it appears that Jones has conceded that Banksy’s work is art and is now arguing that it is bad art.

“Whereas Basquiat’s had the dirt and mystery of true graffiti” Jones writes, “Banksy is merely one of the lads, having a laugh.” One of the motivations for Jones’s criticism is that Banksy, like other street artists, is following Basquiat off the street into the art galleries and expensive collections. That same year London at auction house Bonhams Banksy’s piece, “Avon and Somerset Constabulary”, which depicted two policemen looking through binoculars, sold for £96,000 (Australian $216, 901) and “Untitled, Rat and Sword” went for £64,800 (Australian $146,426). Jones believes that the joke is on the collectors who buy Banksy’s art and Bristol council who are now preserving Banksy’s work on their streets. I wonder who will be laughing last, Jones now or the collectors?

I don’t know a lot about Banksy’s art so I am not going to defend it from all of Jones’s critique; the quality of Banksy’s art is certainly debatable. Instead I want to largely draw attention to Jones as a critic. This was the first article that I have read that is actually critical of a street artist rather than describing the social phenomena. It is important for street art to have serious criticism to expand the discourse about street art, even if Jones doesn’t think that it is art.

Jones continues his attacks on Banksy and street art in his blog. “The reason I don’t like street art is that it’s not aesthetic, it’s social. To celebrate it is to celebrate ignorance, aggression, all the things our society excels at. For middle class people to find artistic excitement in something that scares old people on estates is a bit sick.” Jones (Wed. 15 April 2009)

Stencil Festival Underground

Part of the Melbourne Stencil Festival 2009 took place in a disused underground carpark in the middle of the Collingwood Housing Commission flats. It was a real urban environment and perfect for street art, apart from the ventilation and the cold.

Melbourne Stencil Festival Underground exhibition

Junky Projects robot

Junky Projects robot at the end of the festival

stencils in the underground

It was a car park so a van was brought in and painted.

Van painted during the Stencil Festival

I have kept this entry short  and full of photos because I am the secretary of the Melbourne Stencil Festival so I have a biased opinion. The festival may be over but I still have things to do.

HaHa stencil in Underground

Gender & Street Art

Most street artists are male, in Melbourne and around the world. Unlike in other visual arts where the genders are more or less balanced the gender imbalance in street art is evident; there are a few women street artists. Boo asked why at the artist talk at the Melbourne Stencil Festival. Boo was the only woman on the panel.

Rhen Fray found the issue irrelevant: that he wouldn’t care if the gender balance were reversed, and that balance was irrelevant both equality and to the art. However the panel, including Fray, and the audience were keen to explore gender issues in stencil and street art. Boo was not complaining about inequality, repression or sexism in street art. Boo is planning to run some women’s only stencil workshops in an attempt to encourage more women to do stencil art (there are plenty of women doing the workshops at the Melbourne Stencil Festival).

It is very interesting area for discussion because it is not clear why there should be such a gender imbalance. Answers could elucidate gender differences in the way that men and women use the streets and alleyways, proclaim their identity and show off. Speaking of showing off, not one of the other artists on the panel was as well dressed as Boo with her peroxide blond hair and deconstructed style jacket. Fray’s clothes were grey and forgettable.

Perhaps the question should be why there are so many young male street artists? The arts in Australia are regarded as feminine in comparison to the masculine area of sport. Street art is an exception, as well as, the street artists there are a lot more men interested in street art. I know many middle aged men who photograph street art as a hobby and I see groups of young men who admire and discus street art.

What makes street artist particularly interesting to men? Street art combines aspects that appeal to a masculine image: exploration, daring, and large scale. Above all, street art is a public display of bravado, just like a lead guitar in a rock band (and nobody asks the question why there are so many young men aspiring to play lead guitar because the answer is so obvious and phallic). Is spraying aerosol paint a sublimation of the desire to spray on the walls like tomcats?

The nocturnal external urban environment where street art occurs, especially the laneways of Melbourne, is still largely the domain of men. The imbalance in ownership of the street is an issue for women’s groups like Reclaim the Night, as well as, the general public in having a safe peaceful environment. Street art is not a safe activity and young men and women have different strategies for personal security.

What are the young women doing instead of street art? Looking at the organizational side of the Melbourne Stencil Festival you see a different gender divide. The majority of volunteers running the Melbourne Stencil Festival are young women, including both the curators. And it is not just at the Melbourne Stencil Festival; We Make Stuff Good also has a large number of young women running the events.

Thanks for raising the question Boo and I hope that the discussion continues.