Footprints of history

Here is 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 began in Melbourne. Stencilled advertisements were probably used prior to 1920 but before 1870s when it would have been pointless as the sidewalks of Melbourne were in too poor a condition.

Maybe if this trail in the 1920 had been proto-street art, the work of art students rather than advertising then the City of Melbourne’s council might have taken a different view of the activity. However, there was no street art in the 1920s and advertising not graffiti was seen as blighting the image of the city. Along with stencilled advertisements there were numerous advertisements pasted around Melbourne along with people ringing bells to advertise sales. And so the City of Melbourne passed the first laws specifically prohibiting stencilling, wheat-pasting and the other techniques of street art

Advertising has long had a deleterious effect on Melbourne’s culture and on its street art in particular. Except that without the techniques and technologies of advertising, like stencils, there wouldn’t be street art. (See my post for more on the nexus of  Art & Advertising). The footprint of advertising is still on us.

Melbourne Skull

I’ve been out headhunting and over the years I’ve brought back lots of skulls from Melbourne’s streets. Pirates, danger, old master paintings reminding the viewer that they are also mortal – you aren’t a real artist until you have painted a skull. Andy Warhol did skulls, Damien Hirst did skulls, and Vincent Van Gogh painted a skull with a smoking cigarette held in its teeth.

Rone, Fitzroy, c.2009

If you want to see Melbourne’s the largest collection of undead street art then go to Zombie Dance Lane in Brunswick (somewhere near Victoria and Lygon streets) . The zombie dance party paste-up have gone you but there still are enough undead art to keep the visitor amused and the street sign is still there (a bit of guerrilla geography).

Famous Faces

Aung San Suu Kyi stencil

You haven’t really made it unless your face has been celebrated with an aerosol stencil on the streets of Melbourne. (See my blog post on Portraits of Julian Assange now with even more portraits.)

Famous heroes but not celebrities - Firemen and fire truck by HaHa

Various Face Blender Lane

Rolf Harris - trust spray paints ... sure can

Dame Edna (Barry Humphries)

It helps if you look good in high contrast black and white. Who is this guy?

You know that you are really famous when HaHa does a stencil of you – then it looks like full colour because he uses so many layers of stencils and different densities of spray.

Kurt Cobain & Michael Jackson by HaHa

Various people by HaHa in Stevenson Lane

Chopper Reed by HaHa

Street Art meets Graffiti in Coburg

Coburg is on the edge of the donut ring of Melbourne’s inner city suburbs and the outer suburbs. For street art it is the high tide mark, the final piece on a midnight mission, the liminal zone where beautiful street art meets ugly graffiti. Coburg is different from it’s more inner neighbour, Brunswick where the aerosol is thick and fast. Coburg is where the inner city pieces run out and only bombing, tagging continues. It is not in the mainstream of Melbourne’s street art or graffiti scene but the occasional piece still pops up. Braddock, Psalm, Lench and others have all decorated the walls of Coburg.

Suki Art, paste-up, Coburg, 2010

There are street artists who do the occasional odd piece, leaving messages along the bike trail, Shark’s paste-ups of birds and Forever’s great Cooo-burg pigeon paste-up, the odd stencil here and there.

I have been looking at Coburg’s graffiti for decades. I remember a long gone, old Psalm blockbuster piece on the fence by Coburg railway station from back in the 1990s when there was very little graffiti on the Upfield line. I also remember an early stencil and paste-ups by Peter Bourke who went on to a great fake newspaper headline paste-up campaign, “The Pedestrian Times”.

Lench, aerosol, Coburg, 2010

The aerosol pieces along the Upfield train line run and bike path out a little way into Coburg past Moreland Station, partially due to a lack of available walls. Build a brick wall by the railway tracks in Coburg and it will be painted, as Lench did with this new wall. And beyond Coburg Railway Station the there is a lot of crap graffiti. There are few pieces due to local strange attractors, like the walls opposite Batman Station. There aren’t that many laneways in Coburg, the city council had a policy of selling them off. There are the occasional sticker and paste-up runs up Sydney Road that reach Coburg’s shopping centre. And furious political debate and simple graffiti cover the giant back walls of the supermarkets.

Coburg political graffiti 2011

This is Shit, stencil, Coburg, 2008

buffing, Coburg 2011

There is also a lot of serious buffing in Coburg creating walls that look like abstract paintings. This buffing discourages anyone to go beyond tags, throw-ups and slogans; although the occasional one can take even that to a new level. There are some really creative throw-ups in Coburg.

yarn bombing, Coburg 2011

throw-up flower, Coburg 2011

stencil, Coburg 2011

throw-up, Coburg 2011

Logo Jammers

The “Space Invaders” exhibition brought “adbusting”/ culture jamming back to my attention. I liked Marcsta and Merda’s “Disobey” sticker, which I saw exhibited at “Space Invaders”, as I’m tired of Shepard Fairey’s “Obey” logo being regarded as an example of quality street art. What “Space Invaders” defined “adbusters” is a culture jamming subversive alteration of corporate logos. (Adbusters Media Foundation is a Canadian not-for-profit organization.) There is a good summary of culture jamming and more links to articles about culture jamming from the Center for Communication and Civic Engagement (University of Washington).

Stickers and culture jamming at "Space Invaders" exhibition.

I hadn’t really though about culture jamming recently because I was so close to it. I used to listen to a lot of Negativeland and read about culture jamming organization like the K Foundation, Church of the SubGenius and the Emergency Broadcast Network. Before that I was reading Wm. Burroughs “The Invisible Generation” and other pieces of his writing best summed up in his line: “language is a virus from outer space”. And tracing the history of the “meme” idea of Richard Dawkins (I yearned to read his book, The Selfish Gene for as a child seeing it on my father’s bookshelf with its attractive cover of biomorphic surrealist painting by Desmond Morris); tracing it back to philosophical “spooks” of Max Stirner. Along with regular updates from the local Melbourne news about the culture jamming activities of BugaUp and other group’s billboard vandalism for political objectives.

But by the late 90s there were so many t-shirts with subversive alteration of corporate logos that I began to tire of the tactic. It all seems like a lot of graphic designers were just having fun with parodies to sell products with a cool vibe. It wasn’t anti-consumerist just another product range. There is still a lot of culture jamming stuff around, although, some of it like the Everfresh crew use a subverted version of the Cellarmaster logo is just parody (I’m not sure what the connection is apart from the guys from Everfresh drinking habits). But the lack of serious political intent makes many of these works simply parody and homage rather than culture jamming.

The politics of culture jamming is more difficult and subtle than mainstream politics; both sides are using the same basic psycho-technology propaganda repertoire. Many companies don’t mind the satire, many politicians collect political cartoons of themselves, if culture jamming was effective it might be worth pursing but the results of decades are not promising. Most people can take a joke, only despots who can’t stand satire. Maybe it is time for a return to the politics of the blunt aphoristic quality of the graffiti slogan.

Mac pills

"men never commit evil so fully and joyfully..."

iBong

Fitzroy to East Melbourne

In my wanderings around the city, searching for art galleries and street art, I walk along familiar and unfamiliar streets. I pass the mural on the wall of Whitlam Place in Fitzroy; it has been there a few years but still looks good. Of course these great public murals on so many buildings in Fitzroy would not be possible without artists working illegally along its back lanes. You cannot have one without the other. And there are so many pieces on the streets.

Anon. Fitzroy stencil

In the back lanes of Fitzroy, along with old stencils by Psalm, Dlux, HaHa, Optic and other veteran street artists, Vandal Spruce has been adding his paste-ups. Vandal Spruce is continuing to paste-up to taunt the Victorian Police with his inverted version of their badge. Vandal Spruce has been doing a great many of these paste-ups; I’ve seen them from Brunswick to Fitzroy.

Vandal Spruce, Fitzroy

Crossing Victoria Parade the municipal boundary between the City of Yarra and the City of Melbourne. Suddenly there is no more street art, legal legit pieces nor any illegal pieces. (Like I said you can’t have one without the other.) The backs of street signs were not covered in stickers, the white cream of all the buildings is fresh and clean. And the streets of East Melbourne are almost empty of people in contrast to the bustle of the streets of Fitzroy.

Tom Civil, 3CR wall, Fitzroy

It is only a couple of hundred meters south from 3CR community radio with its sidewall covered in a two story high painting by Tom Civil, Reko Rennie and others. Tom Civil’s huge section with hundred of figures walking, riding bicycles and sitting around a campfire is a great vision of the idea of community. Victoria Parade clearly demarcates the contrasting patchwork of Melbourne’s inner city and the different policies of its municipal governments. Is this what the City of Melbourne has a dedicated graffiti removal van for? To protect the areas of Melbourne occupied by the Masons, private hospitals, surgeons and the police association headquarters from the dread graffiti.

Street Art in Melbourne 2010

At the end of the decade street art has become mainstream with “Space Invaders”, a major exhibition at the Australian National Gallery Canberra; the exhibition was even featured on ABC Kids TV. This doesn’t mean that street art is over, except for people who were only into it for a snobbish feeling of underground exclusivity; street art will continue, more walls will become available (outside and inside art galleries) and more people will participate. The street will still operate as a temporary autonomous zone for artists who want to show an image to the public.

Kangaroo/Koala augmented soft toy in lane.

Melbourne street art is now moving in some strange directions: street sculpture, yarn bombing and guerrilla gardening are now all in evidence on the streets. This may, in part, be due to a few more women engaging in the once male dominated street art scene. It may also be that people are more aware of street art as an option for exhibiting their own creative ideas.

Hanging garden in lane.

In 2010 the Melbourne Stencil Festival transformed itself into a real street and urban art festival – Sweet Streets. For 6 years the festival was little more than an exhibition with a few other events – this year there were several exhibitions and more events than I can remember. Following this success I decided that it would be my last year on the committee; after being involved with the festival for three years it is time for me to do something different.

Part of the Amnesty Int. wall painted during Sweet Streets

It was a bad year for Banksy stencil rats in Melbourne – Melbourne City Council buffed the one in Hosier Lane and another one was stolen from the South Melbourne home of artist and underwear designer Mitch Dowd. A few of Banksy’s rats do survive in Melbourne, there are a few along Brunswick St. Fitzroy. Brunswick St was a Banksy rat run spray mission. The paint around these stencils is old and faded – the shops have been careful not to paint over these rats. The steady attrition of Banksy’s work in Melbourne is not surprising as he sprayed the stencils in 2003.

A surviving now threatened Banksy rat in Fitzroy