Regarding the Banksy Over Robbo Incident

photo credit http://www.flickr.com/photos/nolionsinengland/4199803487/

Original post on Juxtapoz here
It seems as though Banksy has truly done it again. When it seems like he has exhausted his long list of issues to take shots at, there is always one more trick up his wry sleeve. There is not a single member of the street art community that I can think of that has so brazenly challenged its aggressive and cantankerous older brother, graffiti. And for good reason, considering the retribution for going over any writer is not worth the effort or the pain. Instead, artists who do not define themselves as writers, or frankly take on the kind of risk and responsibility of writers, are relegated to primarily street art or virgin spots. It seems that wheatpaste has only grazed (or maybe graced) a throwup or old school piece out of ignorance, not as a provocation; most notably Shepherd Fairey’s encounter with Marty, and the whole DYM incident revolving around Jace and 11 spring (of course there are even some personal anecdotes that I won’t go into.) In all of the countless cases in which street art has stepped on writers’ toes, the transgressions have warranted outcries, apologies, and even formal letters of justification.

But here we have Street Art’s most celebrated figure actually instrumentalizing an old school piece and incorporating it into the work UNapologetically. This is not a situation of callous poster application and graff forum howling, which is undoubtedly followed by a lauded takeback. Instead, Banksy scoped the spot, made the effort to cross the canal, and then turned a 24 year old piece into wallpaper, which despite being the ultimate offense, poses some interesting considerations. Firstly, instead of succumbing to graffiti’s belligerence, Banksy confronted and subverted its methods. In a satirical statement, we see the old school converted into figurative wall paper (while of course it is still paint). Robbo actually becomes controversial wheatpaste, the very medium that is so loathsome to aerosol, and in doing so essentially the piece is reinvigorated back into the spotlight of attention.

And this is precisely the most fascinating point, this revisiting of a piece that stood in a position of relative inertia (disregarding the countless tags that tarnished its former glory). This is the conflict of the contemporaneity of street art and the rigidity of graffiti. Banksy, by daring to perpetrate the ultimate taboo, basically capping a piece of history, has problematized the structure of how work on the street functions. He has epitomized this dichotomy between of the amorphous, forgiving nature of Street Art, and the unbending, intensely hierarchical and historically obsessed operations of graffiti. He has taken the prohibited, under the looming risk of serious punishment, and made it his own. Ultimately, Banksy has disputed the static hierarchy of graffiti that is founded upon an insecurity of the ephemeral with a brave, new gesture that is unafraid of ramification or change. While I am saddened by the loss of such a remarkably old artifact, I am simultaneously encouraged by the confrontation that has awoken this sleeping relic from its slumber.

But then again, I am a street artist, so what is my opinion really worth.
-yours truly, Gaia

Poster Boy Stunt in Miami

Poster Boy, the artist known for his disfigurement of New York subway ads, has struck Miami with a stolen billboard that was reclaimed to bear the scathing message “Change My Ass, Obama to Murder More Afgans”

Some pretty unbelievable shit, but it only last twenty minutes. For more in depth coverage, check out BSA’s post on the stunt.

http://www.brooklynstreetart.com/theBlog/?p=6463

photos courtesy of Allison Buxton of Ad Hoc Art

The Beginning of a More Exact Past

What it means to be alive today with documentation

Preparation for Scope

Painting this whole past weekend. Kicking it with wonderful people. Drinking, fucking, working, intimate conversations for hours. But no school work. In preparation for Scope Miami 

if this piece were only this piece it would totally freak me out.

 

New Imminent Disaster and Blanco In New York

Props to Guero on the photos. It is nice to see some new work in this neighborhood. This spot especially has had an interesting history. As you can see there was an old old swoon piece right next to that pipe running along the wall, and an elbowtoe poster down the block. About two years ago I put up that horseman once the swoon piece was torn down and then everything fell apart. There was one individual who pursued every street piece in the neighborhood and effectively destroyed them with brown and orange spray paint. Considering how rich Gowanus was with street pieces, this was actually quite a travesty in my opinion. It went beyond the understood weathering of time and interaction to a place of unfortunate destruction. Whatever the intentions of the perpetrator were, they most definitely deterred anyone from going back and since then these streets have witnessed a real lull in new work. Check out this page on streetsy to see all of the defaced pieces by elbowtoe http://www.streetsy.com/streetsy/tag/elbowtoe/13

Given this background, it is wonderful to see Imminent Disaster and Blanco returning and I hope that the threat of “the brown burner” has finally subsided. I love how the paper cut over the old cheekz piece reveals the paint of that hateful individual.

The Axial Iron Age: The Triumph of the Sky Gods

This text explores the development of polytheism with Archaic cultures to monotheism and eventually a more linear conception of time and transcendence. The text essentially, and very basically maps the progression of material conditions and how they shape the spirituality of a culture. The Archaic Iron Age maintains a sacred sense of cyclical time and the Axial breaks free into a historical sense that is linear. The future becomes open rather than an endless reproduction of the past. This sets the stage for the paradigmatic conflict between the indigenous Americans and the Europeans.

A concept I thought that stood out was the oscillations of cultures between a mind/body singularity and a mind/body binary that we now experience today. Interestingly, as the Hebrews develop a sense of sin and guilt their God becomes more kind and benevolent. As responsibility moves more inward into the self, the burden of punishment for motivation is lifted from the shoulders of God.

here is the Text, http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=e31beb6c39699ebc1bee9a6e9edd9c76b7bdbc8c19b26e859b20786b9a6e1ed0
Follow the Read more for the Notes

NYSAT response

I think that the issue should not be framed as Art Vs Advertisement but instead, as interaction versus limitation or conversation versus monologue. The issue is that there are spaces that have been designated as purely for the dissemination of information regarding commerce, corporate interests, events and communication, and that these spaces must only be received. It is very problematic that the circulation of information is controlled and regulated by systems of bureaucracy that sanction and decide the content and placement of communication. This intensely hierarchical system that dictates our public sphere prevents unwanted information that is not congruous with the agenda of the companies or governments that control advertising from being disseminated. It is not democratic in its current state but obviously has the potential to be a useful mechanism for democracy.

The art in the advertisement is undeniable, but the conflict is in who gets to speak and how are we spoken to? Does the soliloquy of advertisement that speaks regardless of who is there to hear, warrant a response? And if so where is the platform for such a response? Unfortunately, given the current situation of how we organize ourselves within the public domain, there is no space for dialogue between promulgated information and the public’s reaction. It is purely a circumstance of reception, of feeding.

There are obvious problems associated with an interaction with the environment that is open and unhindered. Our current structure that dictates the movement of bodies, how they organize, express, direct and occupy themselves, is one that is intensely arranged by bureaucracy, administration and regulation. These structures function as a filter to protect from disorder. Whether we are managed within our workplace, our hospitals, institutions of education, or the coercive measures of police and roving dangers such as criminals, our behavior is allowed agency as long as it fits within acceptability. It is difficult to think of a situation where the minute details of our lives and presences are not being tracked and codified.

Thus, it is difficult to imagine a situation, especially in the public sphere, where we could function and interact with our physical environment beyond the bureaucracies of community boards, panels, police and even assertions of private property. It seems absurd to think that a company could finance such an insane amount of capital into advertising in the public sphere and have their investments be precariously vulnerable to the public’s intervention. It seems even more absurd that a governing system would allow its citizens to express their opinion either verbally or physically anywhere without permission, permits or overview.

This project was a symbolic challenge to these coercive systems that decide the behavior of our daily lives. It was a gesture of complexity and disorder beyond the capacity of these systems. It was a moment of democratic interaction.

NYSAT2

 

NYSAT2 struck the streets of New York yesterday morning, whitewashing over 100 illegal street level billboard advertisements and adorning them with work from various artists. Despite intense NPA harassment and a major police crackdown that resulted in a few arrests, it seems that every artist had the chance to at least get their work up for a few hours. Unfortunately, NPA made a tremendous effort to reclaim all of their space so I think it is safe to say that nothing has lasted into this morning. But fear not, the whole process was documented so incredibly well that it was staggering. Here is the flickr account from last year! http://www.flickr.com/photos/37774782@N05

For a more detailed account of the activities yesterday, check out the New York Times article that ran in the paper today in the New York Region section written by reporter  COLIN MOYNIHAN who I had the pleasure of rolling with most of the day.  And of course http://www.publicadcampaign.com/ will be releasing more in depth coverage and documentation.

Here are the pieces that I hit up yesterday with ClownSoldier. We ended up taking two billboards and concluded the route with a revisit to a classic spot in Chelsea that I haven’t put work up at in a minute. Was super nice to be back in New York for a couple days but now back to school

End Time Now by Adrian Heathfield

A brief consideration of the Temporal Rationalization and Logics instrumental within late Capitalism that is apart of the book Small Acts: Performance, the Millennium and the Marking of Time . Adrian Heathfield explores the dilemmas of performance within a contemporary culture dictated by linear, compartmented, managed and marketable time. This concept of organizing time to maximize production is discussed explored in greater detail within Foucault’s “Docile Bodies” chapter within Discipline and Punish and Adorno’s Culture Industry. Life determined by efficiency, measured through absences and presences, endless fabric of the time continuum made distinct into categories. This is the innovation of late capitalism, blossomed from the seeds of the proto-institutions established within the European Renaissance.

Yet it is the cyclical that haunts the promise of linear growth and projection. It is the shadow of death that threatens this faith in progress, the uncertainty of the future that institutions attempt to control, moreover to colonize into an extended present(Nowotny).
Here is the link to the essay that I uploaded on mediafire.

Fever Ray

This video is a near proximity to what I consider this contemporary zeitgeist of neo naturalism, romanticized nature. The lyrics pining for nature, the gaze forward into the future with “when I grow up,” the contrast with the pool, the suburban reality.