Street Art Renaissance

I keep on seeing all these similarities between street art/graffiti and the Renaissance most obviously because both are painting on walls. Walking around the graffiti covered walls of Brunswick factories in the late 1990s I discovered my own Scrovegni Chapel of wall-to-wall painting divided into separate panels.

Adnate of the AWOL crew on wall in Rose St. Fitzroy (photo by Hasan Niyazi)

People have painted on walls since we lived in caves but what made the Renaissance especially similar to the street art/graffiti of today is the potential change in social status that being an artist brought with it. Unlike their ancient counterparts the Renaissance and graffiti artists can become famous across the city and intercity and to freely enjoy the change in status that this fame brings.

Collingwood graffiti 2009

There are many ways that the practice of street art is similar to the Renaissance with people up ladders painting a wall. Only the media has changed from fresco to aerosol. Fresco was the fast art medium of the Renaissance, the plaster could only be painted on when it was still wet. The works are designed in cartoons and then enlarged on the wall. Often he patron who bought the paint and commissioned the work is represented in the piece off to one side, as in a Renaissance altarpiece. Although all of the surviving Renaissance frescos are inside but exterior walls were also painted (an elephant remains on a portico wall at Castello Sforzesco in Milan) along with other ephemeral artwork. Renaissance painters worked in the summer when the plaster could dry, in the winter they would work on their designs, like the graffers drawing in their black books.

In graffiti slang a “piece, referring to a large complete aerosol work, is short for a ‘masterpiece’. It indicates a degree of a writer’s proficiency, as in the final work of a journeyman apprentice doing throw-ups. There is less of the master and apprentice in graffing for today the organization of society is much less formal, but there is more of a culture of master and apprentice in graffiti, where skills are learnt from assisting or watching masters rather than the formal education of modern artists. Collaborations between painters are common in both graffiti and the Renaissance.

The following is an email about painting a legal wall in Richmond. I want to point out that this email it is the street art equivalent to a commission for a Renaissance fresco.

On 09/03/2013, at 10:53 PM, CDH wrote:

We’ll be painting on Monday.

Location is 53-55 Burnley st Richmond. We’re painting behind the bike shop.

Meeting at midday.

Theme is yellow. Colour palette is black, white, grey and yellow.

As always, anyone and everyone is welcome. Hit me up if you’re

interested. Should be a good day for it: 34 deg.

Cheers,

Chris.

–

CDH

www.CDH-Art.com

Unlike the open invitation in CDH’s email a Renaissance commission was a longer legal document specifying a particular artist and a payment. Like CDH’s email it might specify the colour palette but this generally concerned with the weight of blue lapis lazuli and other expensive pigments.

There are, of course, many differences. The monetary value of the art produced is the biggest difference. Capping in the Renaissance was out of the question because fresco belonged to someone who was rich and powerful; the Medici would not have tolerated anyone damaging their property. But the insult of choice for both Renaissance painters and street artists are homophobic; the street artists will call the work of others “gay” whereas the Renaissance painter will denounce others as “sodomites”.

AWOL in Fitzroy 2012

Various crews have replaced the painters’ guilds, but even the most hardcore crew can’t compare to the murderous Cabal of Naples who controlled their territory with brutality and fear and no one else was allowed to paint in Naples. The Cabal of Naples are early Baroque rather than Renaissance painters, but they are a classy example. Melbourne’s graffers and street artists, in comparison are a passive lot and we live in a much less violent time.

(I want to thank Brain Ward of Fitzroyalty and especially Hasan Niyazi of Three Pipe Problem for their thoughts on the subject that has greatly improved this tenuous idea.)

Class & Culture

I’ll say it again – I thought that debate was over high culture and popular culture was over. I don’t know why I thought this, maybe it was the way that I was educated steeped in English liberal philosophy that I thought that education and culture to have replaced class. It was Matthew Arnold’s idea that culture can replace class and Arnold was the philosopher who described the various English classes as barbarians (upper), philistines (middle) and populus. Now consider Jean Michael Basquiat’s mother taking him to the public museums and art galleries in New York when he was a child.

Bang bang shooting down the high art cannon has become such a sport of class warfare. To avoid the issue people have been using phrases like ‘highbrow’ or ‘serious culture’? Really? Serious stuff? ‘Serious culture’ as a description is obviously absurd; seriously, are you going to call Dada, Duchamp and Warhol serious? What about R U Sirius? Is he serious? The swap between ‘high’ and ‘serious culture’ is just repackaging ‘creationism’ as ‘intelligent design’.

Consider Juxtapoz – Art & Culture Magazine edited by self-described “lowbrow” artist Robert Williams. The articles range a wide cultural field from skateboard, graffiti and other “lowbrow” art, to Australian aboriginal art, Balinese art, Egon Schiele, and the in between, like John Waters, David Lynch and Pixar animation.

But I’m just raving now, off in a mad tangent.

The first thing to get straight in this discussion is that class is not a culture. There is no ‘working class culture’ as a cultural is the set of all the activities involving the participation of all the people. Currently and historically artists (the cultural producers) often belong to a different class to their patron (the cultural consumers).

Instead of thinking about ways to divide a culture along class lines consider the influence of class on culture. For reasons of court protocol royalty needs art be defined so that the performances are repeatable. Consider the refined and defined actions of the royal drummers of Burundi or classical ballet that developed in the French royal court. Religious courts will also similarly want to define their culture for ritual repetition. Rural folk, although just as inherently conservative as royals, do not require the same degree of repeatability. There is consequently less of a need for the developing the codification necessary for repeatable performances.

Nor should we ignore the street subcultures, the cultural influence from what Marx called “the lumpen proletariat”. Marx despised the lumpen proletariat as parasites but consider how many bohemian and avant-garde artists would fall into that class.

What is called “popular culture” is distinctly different from what is known as “folk culture”. Popular culture is more ephemeral than folk culture because changes in fashion make money.  Popular culture is a recent development and at its most popular classless; it transcends class for it is after all it is after a commercial venture. And old popular culture can end up in the literary, musical or artistic cannon of today; Shakespeare, Mozart and John Everett Millet were all popular artists marketing their art to a mass audience.

But back to the topic at hand – why I thought this high art and pop art thing is so last century? Do I have to remind the reader of breakdown of class and racial divides are a major part of the history of the last two centuries. And that this was increasing expressed in avant-garde art in the 19^th and 20^th centuries with the breakdown between high art and popular art materials, techniques and themes. And that by the late 20^th Century the previously excluded or marginalized ‘others’ were increasingly being recognized in participating in the creation of avant-garde art. And we are back to Jean Michael Basquiat.

Is Art a Religion?

Art is, to some, a kind of secular humanist religion that fills the cultural gap in the lives of contemporary people. I know that this has been said many times before but it is worth repeating not because it is true but because it should be considered.

If art is a religion with an abstract divinity (art) it has lots of minor deities, or saints (major artists). There are places of pilgrimage and holy relics – art galleries and significant works of art. The history of art bears many similarities to religious history forms like hagiography or jeremiads. As a religion it is observed with Sunday arts programming on ABC TV. It is a religion that believes that art is good for your soul and for your moral outlook and that the world will be improved by art.

In part this attitude has been inherited from the Ancient Greeks who believed that beauty was the point of contact between mortals and the gods. Without this same appreciation of beauty there was nothing but an immense power imbalance.

David R. Marshall is critical of the idea of art as a religion in his “Review: Alain de Botton, Religion for Atheists” on the Melbourne Art Network. Specifically Marshall is critical of de Botton for suggesting that art galleries go further in turning art into a secular religion especially for his desire to replace art history with what Marshall calls “pop psychology”. To Marshall de Botton is a high philistine who wants to use the art as “merely illustrations of the moral or social issues that concern him.”

Other problems occur when thinking of art as a religion, strange irrational ideas about artists and art. Concerns are often raised about the Simony in art; Simony is the issue of buying or selling of something spiritual. This religious concern is at the root of many discussions about non-commercial art.

If art is a religion it is a very strange religion. It is not an exclusive religion, you don’t have to renounce your other faiths you can still have doubts. You don’t need to be initiated into this cult, there are no requirements, you can even scoff and critique, anyone is welcome. This doesn’t sound like a religion at all if the iconoclasts, blasphemers and scoffers are part of the congregation.

Art is not a religion however much de Botton and others might wish it. They will remain disappointed because art history has not worked that way. Art was divorced from religion about two centuries ago. Art, as we know it today, was invented a secular response to the removal of religious propaganda values from paintings and sculpture.

I have been interested in the arts all my life. Am I not the ideal candidate for this religion of art – the child of middle class secular materials parents? But I don’t believe in the religion of art. I doubt that art will make me a better person or the world a better place. Maybe contemporary art is not a religion but a type of walking and seated meditation; exercises for the mind and body.

Art & Sport

The bi-annual Basil Sellers Art Prize (see my entry about the Basil Seller Art Prize)has made me think and write more about art and sport. It is one of the intentions of the art prize not just to have an exhibition and a prize but to encourage a dialogue about art and sport.

This is not the first time that someone has tried to bridge the gap between the arts and sports. In the USA there is the National Art Museum of Sport at Indiana University. NAMOS was founded in 1959 in New York City by Germain G. Glidden, a portrait artist and champion squash player with a strong belief in sport and art as universal languages understood and appreciated by all people. NAMOS’s collection includes paintings by George Bellows, Henry Rousseau and Andrew Wyeth. Also in August of this year there was a football themed art shoe at the Bega Regional Gallery that Megan Bottari reviewed in her blog Glass Central Canberra.

There are some notable artists who had active sporting lives: the Fauvist Maurice de Vlaminck did cycle racing, British painter Ben Nicholson was a keen tennis and ping pong player and contemporary American video artist, Matthew Barney was on his high school wrestling and football teams. And two of the most famous artists of the 20^th Century, Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp, met over a game of totem tennis, providing an initial bond at a time when Man Ray spoke only English and Marcel Duchamp only French.

Enough of this sports/art trivia; moving on to some serious thoughts…

When I was a post-graduate student studying the philosophy of art I was presented with a problem by a philosopher. Aliens arrive on Earth, just outside Canberra. They are friendly but we can hardly communicate with them. To improve communications the aliens want to have a cultural exchange tour. The cultural exchange is a group of aliens who jump up and down for a period of time. Who should fund this cultural exchange the department of sports or arts?

Art and sport, whatever they are, is a cultural expression of excess. There are other cultural expressions that deal with the excesses in a culture from jokes to religion they come in many forms. The excess that must be dealt with is everything from an excess of time, energy, food or any other resources. If this excess is not dealt with through some cultural expression then it becomes threatening pollution. The excess of sport and art is contained within an area, within refined and controlled movements and within the idea of art or sport.

Art and sport maybe substitutes for religion and culture amongst people who have been displaced by modernization. They provide a reason, a connection with something greater and give additional meaning to life.

Time for a match of three-sided football, a sport invented by Danish artist Asger Jorn.

696

Galleries want to be able to run as a business. The public want a gallery with a consistent style and quality of exhibitions. And artists want a gallery to be a dynamic place that will represent them. A really good gallery will do all three. Christine Abrahams Gallery, one of Melbourne’s most established commercial galleries, is advertising to employ a new director to work with gallery owner and director, Guy Abrahams. But this blog entry, typical of my interests, is not about one of Melbourne’s established galleries, rather it is about a small, alternative gallery.

696 specialize in street art, graphic art and illustration. There is a small rental space gallery at the back of the shop is excellent for graphic arts and a courtyard, the Yard, for other events, weather permitting. I haven’t seen the Yard yet, but Paul, a regular at many gallery openings, has raved to me about it. But 696 is more than just a rental space gallery. It is a shop/gallery, selling t-shirts, badges, books, magazines, spray paint etc.; a good business model for a small gallery.

It is a dynamic gallery; there are events almost every week. Toby and Melika, who run 696, are hard-working women who are enthusiastic about the artists that they represent. And they are able to represent artists, in a small way, because they have a small stock room. Their email newsletter is informative with more content than just the next exhibition opening. They promote the artists that they represent even if they are exhibiting in another gallery. They ran a stall at the Sydney Road Street Party; they are very active and involved.

Outside the sidewall of 696 has a large street art mural by about 18 artists: Que, Meggs, Vocal, Pierre, Love Ariel, Ears, Seldom, Nicole, Satta, Sicks One, Deam, I Like Things, Scale, Pep, Scotty & Happy. It is a tight collaboration with each artist‘s style and images carefully worked into the overall composition. The panels in the windows change every month or so, the current ones up are done by Mr Cornish and Rachee Renee. Further down the alleyway Pav has done an enormous and subtle tromp l’oeil paste-up of an alleyway with signs, posters and graffiti. Enormous and subtle is a rather impressive achievement.

What makes it an exciting place is that artists meet there, dropping off art or just dropping in, making it a dynamic place. Pierre Lloga has had two exhibitions at the gallery in the last year. I met Jon Beinart there by accident; prior to that I had exchanged a few emails with him when I mentioned him in my blog. Pav Arts described it as the “696 community” in a recent email to me. Toby and Melika have created more than a small shop/gallery.

Anthropology Sociology

I prefer to see imaginary anthropology rather than real sociology in art galleries. I understand the historical development of presenting real sociology in art galleries; it emerged from realist photography that documented the world. Sociology can be presented as art rather than social science. Sociology is not without interest or value but when I walk into a gallery it is not the most appealing of exhibits. Perhaps if it was in a gallery or museum of sociology I might be better mentally prepared.

The word ‘dull’ springs to mind when I think about both sociological exhibitions at Conical Inc. Lily Hibberd’s “Bordertown” is both depressing in content and the way it has been exhibited with a curved black wall dividing the gallery. Emidio Puglielli “Through” is not depressing but failed to excite my interest. I won’t bore you with the rest of the details.

West Space Inc. has three exhibitions about identity over time, an excellent achievement for an artist run gallery. ‘Two’, photographs by Vivian Cooper Smith and David Van Royen, contrasted the permanent and transient. Fassih Keiso’s fun digitally manipulated photographs and video exhibition ‘Generations’ that engages with the next generation of her own family. And Mark Guglielmetti and Lisa Broomhead’s cultured skin grafts and installation: ‘Toowongs Don’t Make a White’ was a quasi-scientific and psycho-geographical study of identity.

I greatly enjoyed the imaginary anthropology of “Brothers & Sisters” by Belle Bassin and Alasdair McLuckie at Utopian Stumps. It was exciting, like finding the art of an unknown people who practice unknown rituals. The centrepiece of the exhibition is large ritual gateway with a narrow passage dangerously decorated with glass shards.

There are pyramids, triangles, repeating net pattern, knitted wool tubes, strange symbols and esoteric iconography waiting for interpretation. The foundation of this unknown culture is the shamanic visions of Jim Morrison, ‘Celebration of the Lizard’ (Absolutely Live, 1970). Bassin and McLuckie started collaborating in 2004 and I hope that they continue to create imaginary anthropology.

Utopian Slumps, a non-profit art space that opened in 2007, is only open on Fridays and Saturdays. Utopian Slumps is down an alleyway full of rubbish and up a flight of stairs behind the Melbourne Fringe building in Collingwood. It has a foyer and a single gallery room.

February 08 Exhibitions

Some galleries have taken advantage of the summer break to remodel their interiors including Arc One Gallery and, so I’ve heard has, Brunswick Arts. Arc One has lost one of its gallery spaces to office and stockroom, it appears from this an their upcoming calendar that they are changing from being another rental space gallery to a more professional commercial gallery.

And Arc One is off to a good start this year with David Ralph’s paintings about caravans. These are better paintings than most of last year’s exhibitions. Ralph has fun with both paint and the idea of mobile homes. On the subject of caravans Bob Jenyns has won the 2008 Helen Lempriere National Sculpture Award with metal Meccano style trailer. Strange; trailers must be, somehow, part of the current zeitgeist.

I’ve been climbing up lots of stairs to see some exhibitions in Melbourne. Christopher Koller’s exhibition, Trust, at Upstairs Flinders is worth climbing the stairs. Koller has created large, powerful and creative b&w portrait photographs of people in Melbourne’s art clique.

Everything’s A-OK by Kill Pixi at Until Never Gallery has a lot of publicity that Until Never normally generates. With a full page advert in Art Almanac and a photo and story in MXNews.  “Kill Pixi is Mark Walen” Until Never announces in Art Almanac, as the Sydney street artist comes out from behind his tag to establish his name in the galleries. I didn’t think much of his work. It has a deliberately awkward character to it, full of insignificant intense detail and simplified shapes.

Upstairs in the Nicholas Building, there are several galleries and I can take an elevator to the eighth floor and work my way down. At Stephen McLaughlan Gallery Jason Haufe’s compositions of painted iron oxide red squares on raw canvas are cool and funky in their irregular piles of odd angles. Down one floor at Blindside Yvette Coppersmith’s impressive Blue Series also uses the aesthetic of raw canvas but with figures. “Forever in Blue Jeans” is a series of seven canvases showing a rotation of views of a man in jeans and blue shirt. Down another floor to see the Museum of Modern Electricity’s a new installation in the door. And then, down several more floors to the Pigment Gallery, where there was a group exhibition Ephemeral Folds, an exhibition by three artists about fabric. At the start of last year the space occupied by Pigment Gallery was Tim Bruce’s Open Studio; it is a rental space gallery now. The Nicholas Building is still dynamic with small galleries opening and closing.

At Mahoneys Galleries I saw the paintings two more impressive figurative artists: Lucy Turnbull and Kelly Murphy. Turnbull and Murphy, and Coppersmith at Blindside, are all painting dramatic realist paintings of people with a love of both the subject and paint. Kelly Murphy’s paintings are very dramatic, showing alienated youths, sporting war paint and tattoos postcodes on their lips or mid-digits. Lucy Turnbull’s paintings of her younger brothers are less confronting but still dramatic.