Ashes to Ashes

One of the most clearly political street artists in Melbourne is Phoenix. His paste-ups are the visual equivalent of a play by Bercht; they always has a message but you to think for yourself. In the case of Phoenix you have to look at the play of words and images in his paste-ups.

Although I write about the politics and street art I haven’t mentioned Phoenix’s work that much because the message is always so clear. But if Phoenix’s work were only political messages there wouldn’t be much art to them. The collage overlay method that he uses to create his images throws up many surreal combinations. The shapes and use of primary colours only make his work instantly recognizable even though there is no tag or other signature.

Phoenix’s paste-ups have a wooden backing and are coated polyurethane that makes them both weather resistant and difficult to remove. There is another reason why his paste-ups are seldom removed, even when the rest of the wall is buffed, and that is the obvious quality and workmanship in every piece

Phoenix, t-shirt face, 2010

I first noticed Phoenix’s paste-ups when he was using t-shapes and then I met up with him when he volunteered at Sweet Streets. Phoenix is a thoughtful guy; he is not the art student type, and older than the typical street artist, more of a cheerful eccentric. His art reflects his thoughtful approach to life and street art.

Phoenix, spraycan hand, 2012

Looking back on the war on terror: I was alert to the anti-war stencils and street art but not alarmed. It was a war with many different sides fighting a propaganda war and Melbourne’s street artists were mocking the official line. Mockery the one thing that really works – laughing at the enemy. The propaganda war continues on the street with street art and stencils.

Phoenix, Osma Scare, 2011

Pheonix, statue of liberty, 2010

Phoenix’s art roses from the ashes of a studio fire and now disintegrates on the streets in a loop of creation.

Phoenix, Less Ephemeral More Ephemeral, Melbourne

The Assault on Culture

On re-reading Stewart Homes The Assault on Culture (Aporia Press & Unpopular Books, 1988, London).

Maybe I should have been reading Grail Marcus Lipstick Traces instead as it is better written and covers the same trajectory as Homes does in The Assault on Culture. Homes follows the history of the various post-war utopian art movements: Cobra, Lettriste, College du Pataphysics, Nuclear Art, the International Movement for the Imaginist Bauhaus, Situationists, Fluxus, Auto-Destructiove Art, Dutch Provos, Kommune 1, Motherfuckers, Yippies, White Panthers, Mail Art, Punk, Neoism, up to Class War in 1985.

Situationalist slogan stenciled in Melbourne, 2010

Homes published his shorter book a year before Marcus – it is shorter and physically lighter than Marcus’s tome. There are other physical differences between the two books – there are no illustrations in Homes, no soundtrack CD – just a densely written history.

Homes declares in the preface that he is writing for the insiders first and others second – Marcus is clearly writing for the others. Also in the preface Homes scorns Andre Breton’s interest in mysticism and magic whereas Marcus brings magic, heretics and, even, God into his preface. Although Homes can’t ignore the historical connections with Lollards and Anabaptists, he didn’t have to worry, the tradition can be traced further back to the completely non-mystical Cynics of Ancient Greece – Diogenes pissing and throwing plucked chickens like the punks – so we don’t have bring religion or magic into it.

Homes might be able to ignore the mysticism but he couldn’t ignore the music and it is the music that provided a focus for Marcus. The music of the Sex Pistols is the beginning and the end for Marcus. So Marcus leaves out Neoism, Mail Art, Fluxus and other groups.

This history could be continued with groups like Negativeland, Survival Research Labs and the Church of the SubGenius and the street art movement. Home’s careful distinction between groups and movements becomes clearer with these examples; Negativeland is clearly a group with a few members whereas street art is a movement with thousands of participating artists.

Paris, Melbourne

Why include street art with these utopian political art practices? It is a hard case to prove, as there are thousands of disparate artists involved with no leaders writing street art manifesto to quote but the trace elements (to use Marcus’s metaphor) are there. From the Letterist International street art has the love of letters and the continuation of an urban exploration and reinvention. The linage between political stencils and street art stencils is clear from Crass and other punk bands. And some street art is an opposition to the contemporary gallery art.

“Down with the abstract, long live the ephemeral” – a Situationalist slogan from 1968 that could be the slogan of street art.

Phoenix, Less Ephemeral More Ephemeral, Melbourne

Little Diver Remembered

Melbourne’s street artists have been recreating it in tributes ever since Banksy’s “Little Diver” in Cocker Alley was destroyed in 2008.

Cocker Alley Banksy Tributes – Sunfigo above, Phoenix below

The first artist to document create a paste-up tribute images was Phoenix. Phoenix created an identically sized Little Diver figure that was revealed by the dripping paint that destroyed it. Phoenix continues to refer to the Banksy’s Little Diver, this time with a cross over reference to Warhol “Famous for 15 minutes comments.” (See “The Resurrection of Banksy’s Little Diver” by John Raptis.)

Earlier this year Sunfigo remembered Banksy’s “Little Diver” in a work that parodied the Melbourne City Council’s Laneway Commissions. Sunfigo is a good multi-layer stencil maker and knows Melbourne street art and graffiti history including references to HaHa, Hugh Dunit, Sync, Phibs, the notorious CCTV, and others, as well as, Banksy.

Melbourne street art performance artist, Bados Earthling has been creating his own tributes to Banksy with performances and songs. When a Banksy rat was destroyed in Prahan in 2012 Bados held a candlelight vigil in Prahran to mourn the loss. Bados Earthling and his band the Wild Audio Society’s have a Banksy tribute songs: ““Be Like Banksy” with the chorus “Where’s the Banksy?” Bados Earthling says “the most comonally asked question I get from the general public is where are all the banksy’s located… They never asked about any Austrtalian street artist.” (You can enjoy Bandos’s performances on YouTube.)

In 2010 another Banksy rat was destroyed in Hosier Lane, local street artists reproduced it and added other work commenting on it. (See my blog post: Street Art Notes July)  Do all of these tributes to Banksy really contribute anything to Melbourne’s street art? Even though the tributes to Banksy by Phoenix, Sunfigo and Bados are all quality and nuanced works of art but repeating the legend of Banksy is not the subject of significant art. Apart from serving as a reminder of the hypocrisy of Melbourne City Council towards street art – and politicians eat hypocrisy for breakfast. There is an element of the cultural cringe in both the council and Melbourne street artist’s continual celebration of a visiting British artist.

Rather than dwelling on the past maybe these artists should think about the future of street art in Melbourne. Street art is ephemeral and has little room for history – maybe it’s time to forget about Banksy.

Maps & Trails

There are various paths and walking trails around the city, some are works of art, official trails with their focus on history or unofficial street art trails. One of the forms of graffiti is that of a trail – in the last year some of Melbourne’s street artist made this form part of their art.

Many people date contemporary graffiti to when Taki 183 started to leave a trail of his tags along NYC rail system. As this linear trail was different to the graffiti on sites, like toilets, school desks or prison cells. Using stencil trails are not new – a bit of history for Melbourne’s street artists.

“Stencilled advertisements were a popular form of footpath advertising particularly in the more frequented stretches of Bourke Street. Little action was taken against offenders unless damage to property was incurred, though the practice was seen by the MCC as being contrary to the spirit of the advertising regulations. In 1920 some men who had stencilled the footprints of a dog in whitewash on the footpath from Flinders Street to the Majestic Theatre could not be prosecuted under clause 32 of By-Law No. 134, as no obstruction or annoyance could be proven. This lead to the creation of a new By-Law No156 in 1920 ‘for regulating or prohibiting the writing, painting, printing, stencilling, placing or affixing any letter, figure, device, poster, sign or advertisement upon any footpath, street or road within the said City, or upon any building, fence, or other property vested in the Municipality of the City of Melbourne’.”

(Andrew Brown-May, Melbourne Street Life, Australian Scholarly, 1998, Kew, p.50 Brown-May does not have any information on when stencilled advertising on pavements began. Stencilled advertisements were probably used prior to 1920 and before 1870s it would have been pointless as the sidewalks of Melbourne were in too poor a condition to stencil on.)

Now some of Melbourne’s street artists have taken this to a new level, leaving a trail of paste-ups that are intended to be followed. Urban exploration art like CDH’s mapping games in the inner city (See my post about his first puzzle map, the “Chazov-Dmytryk-Harkov logic test”), Phoenix’s “Mornington Whale Tail Trail” or visiting US artist Snyder’s “Banana Splat hunt” create an urban, interactive kind of land art. These trails are like Richard Long’s walks only the viewer is also a participant.

CDH Pacman street art map

More or Less Ephemeral

There are many new tattoo parlours in the northern suburbs and their presence has reminded me to write about the connection between tattoos and street art. Street art may be easier to remove or buff than a tattoo but that doesn’t make it ephemeral. Street artists may be realistic and stoic in the face of buffing or capping of their pieces. Some street art may not last that long but this is circumstantial and not an intrinsic quality and some pieces for years.

“Ephemeral”, “transitory”, “fad”, “fashion” are these words are applied to street art in the hope that it will all go away? Ephemeral means that it is lasting for only a short time; it was first used for plants or insects that live for only a short period of time, like mayflies. Collectors of ephemera collect items that were designed to be short-lived use like postage stamps, postcards, tickets and movie posters. Compared to the lifespan of these items street art is hardly ephemeral.

Phoenix, Less Ephemeral More Ephemeral

The transitory nature of street art is occasionally referred to in the art. Some street art is self-consciously designed to only last a short period of time, like Gav Barbey’s “Hate Love”, two coloured ice blocks melting in Hosier Lane. “Less/More Ephemeral” by Phoenix a series of letters that have been slowly wearing away on a wall in Little Lonsdale Street. These works are the street art equivalents of the auto-destructive art of Gustav Metzger or Jean Tinguely.

Lasting for years is hardly an ephemeral quality, more like an annual or biannual but not ephemeral. The people who object to graffiti do not consider the marks to be ephemeral but rather permanent. Street art may be one of the most permanent art movements, considering all the digital photographs of the street art preserved somewhere on a computer. And the street art style tattoos are permanent.

Ars langa, vita brevis (art is long, life is short) – Hippocrates

3 Portraits of Julian Assange

Anon, stencil of Julian Assange, Coburg

Melbourne street art has a tradition of doing stencil images of famous people so it was no surprise that images of Julian Assange of Wikileaks started to appear late last year. Some of the artists have made political comments like the anonymous stencil that calls for “Free Speech” under his image. Much of it is also about the fame of the face depicted; a movie or TV stars are more likely than a political figure. As his fame increased a number of Melbourne street artists have depicted Julian Assange.

Phoenix, “Julian Assange”, Hosier Lane, Melbourne

Phoenix looks at the deeper issues behind the arrest of Julian Assange and creates an image of global oppression, quoting Rousseau: “born free but everywhere we are in chains.” Phoenix’s paste-ups have a political or social comment – they are multi-coloured works with shape cut MDF backing and a coating of polyurethane that makes them both weather resistant and difficult to remove.

HaHa, “Julian Assange”, Hosier Lane, Melbourne

HaHa, following the Pop Art tradition of repeating the images of celebrities as contemporary icons stencils, has depicted many famous faces. From bushrangers, to gangsters, to whistleblowers Julian Assange is yet another famous criminal that HaHa has portrayed. It is all about fame just as graffiti is all about fame and notoriety. HaHa stencil has three or more layers, it is repeated in a grid in various colours in a reference to Andy Warhol’s silkscreen celebrity portraits.

P.S. I found more street art portrait of Julian Assange.

Calm pasted one just below HaHa’s multiple stencil portraits in Hosier Lane.

Calm, Julian Assange, 2011

Poster Bombing 2011

Graffiti creeps up along the Upfield line bicycle path and in recent years there several quality pieces north of Moreland station. Paste-ups have now reached the shoe factory on my block with a well-placed piece by Shark, who appears to be specializing in images of birds.

Shark, flying ducks, Coburg

As if there weren’t enough fly-posters for bands and concerts all over Melbourne there has been a big increase in paste-ups in the last year. Paste-ups maybe popular with street artists but are not highly regarded by the general public, unlike the public reception to the stencil art scene. This is because there often there isn’t much to this poster bombing. An unoriginal black and white photograph is enlarged on a photocopier and pasted on the wall doesn’t impress the general public even if it is really big. Part of the problem is often the only consideration for paste-up placement is access and visibility. The content of many of these paste-ups is just bland selection of sampled photographs images. Many people want the instant fame of street art; years ago Happy commented with his “Instant Fame” series of paste-ups.

Happy, "Get Instant Fame"

Quality paste-ups are cut around the outline of the image, or include, even more paper cutting, like those of Miso and Swoon. Paste-up specialists like Phoenix mounts his paste-ups on cut MDF panels that have been designed withstand the weather.

Baby Guerilla, floating nude women

Many artists and illustrators are using paste-ups to show their work on the street; I keep seeing Baby Guerilla’s floating nude women along on the streets. The Melbourne paste-up artists that I most admire are Phoenix, Urban Cake Lady and Happy. (There are others who I have not been able to identify.) I admire their work because they are produce interesting content; the message and content of the paste-up is more important than the wheat paste technique. Phoenix is interested in the politics and meaning of signs. Urban Cake Lady mysterious red draped woman with stripped stockings along with wild animals. And Happy had a cynical take on both street art and advertising.

Phoenix

Suki

Urban Cake Lady

unknown artist, clothes line

Happy, "toy!"

unknown artist

Who is your favorite wheat-pasting street artist?