Barry McGee – Drawing From The Street

Barry McGee (aka Twist, his street tag) also uses the personas of R. Fong and Lydia Fong. McGee’s art has been described as “Mission School” (after the San Francisco Mission District) and “New Folk” but I’ll just call it street art. McGee’s art brings together graffiti, comics, hobo art, sign painting and surfing.  His art on the street or in the gallery has clean lines and he uses a blocky sans-serif font with drop shadows. His art is based around grouping and clustering materials and images. He is inspired by the eclectic mix that is found in bodegas and on the street.

McGee enjoys working collectively and collaboratively. There are collaborations with his long time collaborator Josh Lazcano, his late wife Margaret Kilgallen, or his collaboration with Boston graffiti artists for this exhibition.

You can enter this retrospective from two directions at the ICA. You can start with McGee collaborating with local Boston street/graffiti artists to create his own exhibition (for more on Boston graffiti see http://www.bostonsgraffitighosts.com). Or you can start where the curators started.

The curators mention that there is a “central contradiction” in McGee’s art between the street versus the museum. I don’t know about that, museums/contemporary art institutes are (or should be) just place to display art, whatever it is rather than the art having to conform to the institution. McGee is not a naïve, outsider artist – he studied art the San Francisco Art Institute in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. And McGee can easily fill whole gallery walls as easily as he can fill walls on the street. In one gallery an animated wooden head repeatedly bangs against a bulging wall of scrap plywood. Maybe the central contradiction that McGee explores is between kitsch versus tasteful, quality versus junk, good versus bad art.

There is along with all the images, sculpture, junk and stuff a lot of sound in the exhibition, the animatronic spray painting figures squeak, there is tower of televisions – it is not a silent tomb of an exhibition.

I took some time out from walking around the exhibition to sit down in the Poss Family Mediatheque to take another look at the art of McGee in videos, photographs and text on an interactive screen while looking out the window to Boston’s bay. This gave more depth to the exhibition and meant that I wasn’t on my feet the whole time.

“I can live with the rats but I can’t live with graffiti” says a local resident quoted in The Boston TAB 7/8/90. You can get diseases from rats, like the plague, but I’ve never heard of anyone dying from exposure to graffiti. In the NYC flat that I was staying in last week the cat was sitting proudly behind the cockroach that it had killed.

The constitution of the USA does not include private property as an inalienable right; the inalienable rights (those that a person cannot be alienated from are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness). Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness seems like surfing and the art of Barry McGee.

This exhibition at the ICA Boston is billed as “the first-ever retrospective of acclaimed artist Barry McGee” expecting that there will be more, I hope there will be.

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.)

Total Liberation in Brunswick

Graffiti and street art keep Brunswick looking dynamic. I’ve been bicycling around Brunswick keeping my eyes open, trying to explore a bit but still finding new interests on familiar paths. Brunswick is full of pieces by the AWOL crew and Lush but I’ve written about them in previous posts. Lush has been everywhere, exploring and painting in all the laneways of Brunswick.

West St. Brunswick

Anarchist graffiti in Brunswick

The anarchists are the only people who bother to scale Safeway’s barbwire topped fence to write their messages on its pristine walls. Felicity Ryder is an Australian anarchist currently on the run in Mexico; Ryder was previously involved with the anarchist bookshop Barricade Books in Brunswick so I guess she still has some friends in the area. The words “Total Liberation” appears to be a reference to the Mexican anarchist website Liberacion Total where Ryder’s statements have appeared.

Fish scale pattern on concrete, Ilham Lane

As I step outside of Tinning Street Presents and look down at the concrete on Ilham Lane; to my surprise someone has proved me wrong – street art using wet cement – I didn’t think that I’d see that because writing in wet cement is opportunistic but I wasn’t that surprised given the area where there are plenty of creative people.

Here some other little bits of street art that I liked seeing in Brunswick.

The painted chimneys on this old house; the old house is now surrounded by new developments.

The ceramic unofficial tile street-sign for Ovens Street, I like ceramic tiles as street decoration and Ovens Street is always worth riding down because of the great graff along its south end. It is these small anarchic touches that make bohemian Brunswick.

Brunswick Graff by Bike

A self guided bicycle tour of Brunswick’s street art and graffiti. Seeing graffiti by bicycle is probably one of the best ways because many are located on bike paths and it is easy to stop and take a look along some of the laneways have bluestone cobbles that make for uncomfortable riding.

This is a circuit ride of about 7km looking at some of the better sites for street art in Brunswick.

View Larger Map

It starts on the Capital City Trail goes along the Liner Park Reserve bike path to Lygon Street. This part through the park doesn’t have much graffiti but is a great stretch of bike path to ride along. It is a pity that there isn’t still a train-line linking the Upfield Line to Clifton Hill that would be excellent.

Then its north along Lygon Street (no bike path) where there are a number of locations. Across to the Upfield bike on either Victoria or Albert Street, both have speed humps that retard the cars.

Follow the Upfield bike path north to the old silos at Tinning Street with a few visits to side streets. And the turning around and going south along the Upfield bike path back to the Capital City Trail and the beginning of this loop. You will cover some of this path twice but there is plenty of graffiti to keep your eyes busy. There are lots of graffiti pieces along the railway line often both sides – people go large here.

I haven’t given a great deal of detail about who has done what pieces because of the quantity and because the works are not permanent and may have changed by the time you see them.

Upfield line wall – Brunswick

Thanks to Spencer David (aka Spud Rokk) for the inspiration and cruising around the suburb trying to make a bike tour at the beginning of 2011.

Graffiti 365 – book review

I borrowed Jay “J.Son” Edlin Graffiti 365 (Abrams, 2011, New York) from Coburg Library. Graffiti 365 has 365 entries on graffiti in alphabetical order. It is a thick book, like a brick of photographs, art and text.

Another book on street art, it is impossible to keep up with all of them – so why read or review this one? (After all later this month I will review Dean Sunshine’s book Land of Sunshine.) In the foreword by Andrew “Zephyr” Witten” introduces the author Jay “J.Son” Edlin (aka Terror) as a NYC graffiti artist. “Imagine The History of Rock as explained by Jimi Hendrix, if that helps.” Zephyr writes.

And Jay Edlin does write, each entry has a photograph and three or four paragraphs of well-written prose. It is a well-rounded reference book, looking at the whole 360 degrees of the subject. As well as, lot of artists there are entries about collectors like Ivory, documenters like the Wooster Collective and opponents like NYC’s Mayor Ed Koch, Lt. Steve Mona and The Splasher. There are pages on media: fat caps, fire extinguishers and acid etching. Pages on locations: abandoned stations, heavens and Fun Gallery.

But most of the pages are about artists; there are pages on street artists and graffiti writers from all decades from the 70s onwards. There are graffers who specialize in painting trains and street artists doing urban interventions.

As well there is the usual glossary of terms and a solid index, which is almost redundant given the alphabetical structure. If anything wrong with this book it is the classic bias in the book towards NYC (a very understandable bias given the author) but the book does include are artists from around the world from A1 in Iran to Jace on Reunion Island (find that on a map). And there are pages on Australian artists: Dmote, HaHa, Anthony Lister, Merda, Phibs, Rone and Vexta.

NYC managed to save itself as the international art capital with street art and graffiti. In the late 80s and 90s when London and Cologne were fashionable it was looking doubtful if NYC was the international art capital but all along it was working on a comeback. I’m hoping to see it for myself next year.

Private Public

People complain, “Taggers vandalized my fence”.

“Really?!” I think to reply. “They came onto your property and scribble stuff on the inside of your fence, that’s outrageous.”

I’m then informed that the taggers wrote on the outside public side of the fence or wall. Not your side of the wall then? You wouldn’t complain if your neighbour wrote on their side of the wall between your two properties but you want to claim ownership of the public wall. You want to impose your beige or mission brown identity and taste on the public but object when others do it.

Public space in the city is an illusion. As far as the state is concerned it is the public and consequently public spaces organized like private space. In Melbourne public transport infrastructure is fenced off allowing buildings to go derelict rather than to allow any other use of it. Every defined border of public space, the walls and fences, is theoretically either privately owned or under the control of some government authority. Then there are private spaces posing as public space, like the shopping malls and pubs (short for public house). There is petty parochial nature in Melbourne with the proverbial dog in a manger attitude of ‘I was here first’ is matched by the territoriality of some graffiti crews.

Public and private are not natural states they are created by a culture and therefore can change or be in a state of flux. Changes in the public and the private become an issue for a culture to discuss – private or public communications on Facebook, how much of your body you can uncover in public and the contrary how much of your face do you have to show in public.

What exactly the public is an even more complex political issue. Do you mean the sum total of all the individuals, including all the taggers, the psychos and the others that you might want to exclude, or just the mob majority? Or do you mean the mean average, the beige, neutral public, Baudrillard’s silent majorities the great force of inertia? Or a ghostly public that is altogether imaginary, theoretical and ideal, that is a cover for politicians and executives that essentially owns it and treats it as their private space.

Upfield line wall – Brunswick

In part this post is a comment CDH’s article “Street Artists Aren’t Vandals”, that expands on the ideas in his Trojan Petition, because the issues are greater than just permission. A lot of new concrete walls went up along the Upfield train line in Brunswick, these walls haven’t been neglected but they are magnificent public walls for graffing. Street art, squatting and the Occupy Movement challenge and examine the sacred concept of ownership. The ownership on this city that was originally owned by the aboriginal peoples of the area has to be examined in a practical and civic way. Real and substantial damages should be the measure of a crime as opposed to transgressions on the sanctity of ownership.

We all share this city. We see it, hear it, feel it and smell it everyday. Tom Civil has spoken about “how street art and graffiti create community, mark space and act as a human-scaled anarchic form of urban architecture.” A piece of graffiti in a good location where nobody can be bothered buffing or a legal piece on the side of a house can last for ten or more years. It becomes part of the neighbourhood’s identity, in what is often a featureless uniform urban environment.

Street art explores the border of areas of the city, the areas of marginal interest, the laneways and alleys, the littoral zones of the walls that divide the city into sections. It challenges the ideas of public space.

Graffiti & Architecture

If graffiti is a major design movement, the contemporary equivalent to art deco, a total style from graphics to fashion to architecture. When I first wrote about street art and architecture in 2009 there was very little to write about apart from bigger walls. Now there are whole buildings.

Reka on building in East Richmond

Painting whole wall or whole building is becoming more common in Melbourne with works by Reka, Ears, Ghostpatrol and others. Most pieces use a section of wall as simply a support for the paint without consideration about the size of piece in relationship to the size of the wall. Going around the corner, looking at the whole wall or painting a whole building is something else.

But it is still just another façade.

Hive Graffiti Apartments in Carlton

In 2011 ITN Architects built Hive Graffiti Apartments. Located in the inner city suburb of Carlton. The project is the architect’s home; I went along to see it when it was open to the public as part of Open House Melbourne 2012. It is a joint development by the architect Zvi Belling and Melbourne old school graff artist ‘Prowla’, both of whom reside in the building. For more images and a floor plan of Hive see DeZeen Magazine.

‘Prowla’ was a member of the Rock Da City graffiti crew (1987 – 2009) – his dog was calmly watching all the people waiting in the garage from the stairs to his apartment.

On one side of the building large concrete letters and windows spelled “Hive” along with a couple of arrows on the upper floor and some dynamic old school design. But what apart from the façade was graffiti about the apartments? It is hard to know as this may well be the first graffiti style building in the world. The Hive is the first in a promised series of Hip Hop buildings designed by ITN Architects maybe when we see some more it will be easier to say. Perhaps, it is the collaboration in the design, or, incorporating existing urban elements – from the original street face of the old tailor’s shop, the old brick walls and the laneway entrance. The house is like a fresh new piece in an old laneway. Inside the lines are crisp, it is compact and the angles flow with a cool direction.

The street art collection hanging in the house was familiar – I’d seen some of it at a Melbourne Stencil Festival exhibition many years ago. The house was also familiar in a way, there was no feeling of being unable to imaging living there; it is like a typical flat only cooler.