Category: AR474

The recent visit to the Museum, reading, and discussion with Beth Finch inspired me to reflect on the ways in which graffiti may be used as a framework to study and interpret images (and words) more broadly. Specifically, I connect our discussion to my analysis of the images produced during the 1983 Siluetazo in Buenos Aires. As many of the images of silhouettes in the original Siluetazo were painted on large sheets of paper, then wheat-pasted onto buildings and trees in Buenos Aires, I have clearly adopted an open definition of graffiti (though it is true that the “ripple” effect of the original Siluetazo produced thousands of images of silhouettes throughout the city––many painted directly on to walls, billboards, buildings, monuments, and the ground), just as coding Spero’s mythological goddesses painted on to the walls (and ceilings) of galleries as graffiti requires an open definition.

From the reading, I also draw similarities between my project and the idea that Spero’s paintings used “architectural space” in inventive and intentional ways. As I have perused hundreds of archival images of the Siluetazo, I have looked at the varying ways in which porteño participants used the architecture of the city as their canvas. The historical roots of the architecture of Buenos Aires––and the displacement and idealism of Parisian Enlightenment and modernity that it connotes––provides a truly remarkable underlying message.

The image above is an example of this importance of architectural space; the obelisk, a monument commemorating the founding of Buenos Aires (read: colonialism and Empire), sits in the center of la Avenida 9 de Julio (“la calle más ancha”), a broad boulevard that was constructed to Europeanize and “modernize” BA (that displaced the immigrant communities living in precarious conventillo housing). Already, scholarship often associates obelisks with macho masculinity, violence, and the patriarchy; obelisks take up both physical space and visual space, and, as a state-sponsored monument, frames and constructs an image of nationalism. Thus, by producing graffiti directly on its surface, the artists/activists reclaim the space, at once giving voice to their message of freedom for political prisoners and questioning the construction of Argentine project.

Having recently watched both films about the transferral of Basquiat’s work from exterior walls along the streets of New York into gallery spaces, I was confronted by the tangible reality of this transferral when viewing the retrospective of Andy Warhol’s work at the Whitney this weekend. Below is an image of “Paramount,” one of the collaborative works by Warhol and Basquiat. Basquiat’s aesthetic produced a disruptive element to the gallery in which this piece was located, as it was surrounded by Warhol’s silkscreens of mostly brand logos displayed in repetition. In a manner that prompts me to consider the “uncanny” qualities of the “double,” per Jorge Luis Borges, this dynamic of aesthetic juxtaposition echoes the ways in which one might encounter the work of Basquiat outside––disrupting the advertising cacophony of repetitive images, logos, icons that serve as signifiers for corporations.

Incidentally, just as I was taking this photograph, I found myself standing next to Marta Minujin, the Argentine pop artist who’s work––The Parthenon of Books––I have been studying for my research project. This experience prompted me to consider what it means to study the works of living artists: How is it that we prompt questions for, produce discourse surrounding, and attempt to come to conclusions about works of art made by living artists, (considering that they may never read our undergraduate work)?

I found “Kitchen’s Closed” to be a really interesting chapter to read given the context of this class. At first, I really struggled to understand why this reading was assigned. I love Kitchen Confidential and I think its an amazing read, but I was confused as to how it has anything to do with art. However, after separating the chapter from its original context, food, I realized that the this piece is really about identity. The long description of the marks on Bourdain’s hand are used to illustrate Bourdain’s identity as a chef. When describing a specific callous on his hand, Bourdain writes, “I’m proud of this one. It distinguishes me immediately as a cook, as someone who’s been on the job for a long time. You can feel it when you shake my hand, just as I feel it on others of my profession, Its a secret sign…” (Bourdain, 296). This idea of “signs” relates directly to graffiti. Graffiti, and all art for that matter, is composed of a group of signs signifying meaning. These signs serve as a form of self expression. This self expression constructs identity. Thus, just like how Bourdain describes the scars on his hand as a sign that he is a chef,  graffiti artists use tags as a way to sculpt their identity on the street.

I also really liked the Debuffet essay, “Anticultural Positions.” His argument for outsider art is extremely compelling. The contrasts he poses between Western man and the “primitive” are very interesting. On the surface, all the reasons seem to be rather different. However, they all connect though Debuffet’s claim that culture has ruined art. While he believes reason is also a deterrent for the creation of good art, ultimately culture ruins the authenticity of all art.

***thoughts from after class

I thought “Ugly Delicious” was a very interesting documentary to bring to the class. I think it fit really well with the Bourdain article, but also our discussion of appropriation. It showed the contrast between tradition and innovation and illustrated a positive example of cultural appropriation. In this episode, chef’s appropriated from other cultures in order to create something new, while also paying homage to the culture that they were inspired by. This episode shows the inclusive nature of appropriation and positives outcomes of a contact zone.

Post-Seminar Reflection

I am particularly interested in the Word and Image approach, as developed by WJT Mitchell, and in its applicability to my research project. Mitchell writes of the binary problematic in essentializing communication mechanisms to word or image, and, without providing a concrete solution, Mitchell invites a new way of being in the liminal space between word and image. Mitchell applies this to art history, writing of its contradictory nature:

…if, on the one hand, art history turns the image into a verbal message or a “discourse,” the image disappears from sight. If, on the other hand, art history refuses language, or reduces language to a mere servant of the visual image, the image remains mute and inarticulate, and the art historian is reduced to the repetition of clichés about the ineffability and untranslatability of the visual. The choice is between linguistic imperialism and defensive reflexes of the visual. (Mitchell 60)

In this essay, as is especially evident in this passage, Mitchell invites a new way of looking at, interpreting, thinking and communicating about art that valorizes the border space, the between-ness. In doing so, one might reconcile that “we can live neither with nor without, but must continually reinvent and renegotiate” (60). By mobilizing semiotics, one might see that words themselves, as constructed and accepted as “langue,” are icons––they are images that symbolize thought. In coding the written word (signifier) as image, but understanding the ways in which mental imaging simultaneously produces images of the signified. Thus, we rely on both word and image in our quixotic attempts to fully communicate, to comprehend and to fully imagine the holistic and integral constellations of meaning.

In my research on the Porteño Siluetazo of 1983, I will apply a Word and Image approach to the images themselves, in conjunction and conversation with other approaches surrounding the context/performative qualities of the event. The images provoke liminality: the tension between present/not present, visible/not visible. My questions, through interpreting image as word, as a form of communication, perhaps may reach toward transdisciplinary meanings.

I am researching Outsider Art for my senior capstone, so it was really interesting for me to read these articles and to think about the term “appropriation” within this context. By definition, outsider art is dependent on the marginality of artists. These are works of art created by so called ‘outsiders’, who can be people on the fringes of society who lack formal artistic education and training, and who are not exposed to contemporary culture and society. Dubuffet was inspired by the works of surrealists and those of patients in psychiatric facilities. He came up with the term ‘art brut’ in the 1940s-50s to define art that was ‘untainted’ by the culture and norms of the academy. Outsider art was proposed as the American equivalent of the term in the 70s, but has evolved significantly since then.

One issue that arises with outsider art (besides its incredibly broad definition over who and what are included), are the ethics behind collecting and curating outsider art.  One issue that Plesch and Ashley mention in their article (which fits well with the practice of ‘insiders’ curating the work of ‘outsiders’), is that there is always a relationship between cultural unequals, where a dominate culture will appropriate a weaker culture, leaving the latter with no control over its representations/products. This reveals a question of moral legitimacy of taking art from a less powerful source/culture, at what point do we draw the line when generally, this art is being taken and exhibited for the financial gain and aesthetic pleasure of others? 

It is interesting then that Plesch and Ashley argue that appropriation is aimed at creating and/or consolidating identities, and that that is usually a collective identity. I’m not sure if this was the intention, but it made me think of how Outsider Art has come to be its own category. For decades, we have looked to outsider artists to satisfy our desires and interests in the ‘other.’ We are inspired by their raw creativity and talent, but for many of these artists, they are creating art for themselves and for most of the early artists at least, would not consider themselves to be ‘artists’ at all. So looking at it this way, we are ‘appropriating’ their art and backgrounds to create a new culture/artistic catch-all category to fit our ‘dominant’ culture’s market and aesthetic values. 

In Alexandra Duncan’s essay, “From the Street to the Gallery,” Duncan questions the role graffiti plays in a gallery. She uses Zevs, a street artist turned art world phenomenon, as an example. She argues that when street art is put into a gallery, the new setting dictates the meaning of the art; the art might be the same formally, but the meaning is completely different. In the gallery, the work is commissioned and is seen as a commodity. In the street, graffiti is illicit and for the people of the street. Graffiti is universal, democratic, and accessible. However, once the the graffiti is put into a gallery, it is no longer universal or accessible. Rather, it is now a commodity to be seen and ultimately bought. Furthermore, Duncan states that graffiti’s meaning comes from its location. We have seen this in almost every reading we have done for the semester. Graffiti interacts with and feeds off of the street, but in a gallery, the graffiti becomes static and stagnant. In the street the graffiti changes every day by the nature of the way people interact with it; in the street, people can touch it, add to it, and find their own meaning in the work. In the gallery, there is no interaction with the work, and therefore, less of a connection with the work.

***thoughts from class

I think Basquiat created a nice dialogue with the reading. It illustrated all the concerns that Duncan brings up in her essay. In Basquiat, there is a clear distinction between his street art and the art he started creating for the gallery; Basquiat completely changed his style in order to sell to a broader audience. Although still using a spray can, once the work is no longer on a wall, it is no longer graffiti. We see this manifest when Basquiat starts painting on a canvas on the floor, instead of  on a wall.

 

This chapter in Understanding Graffiti forces us to examine the ever evolving placement and market of graffiti. In almost every paper we have read in this course, each one starts with a definition of what graffiti is. And while definitions vary in specificity, the most common theme is that they are on surfaces which were not originally intended to receive it. Meaning, that graffiti is supposed to be site specific, as there is an “important sociopolitical aspect linked to a work’s geographical location, and as such, the work’s placement within a community, and within a system of relations is much more crucial to its meaning than aesthetic form alone” (135).

Graffiti is praised for giving voice to marginalized groups and for helping to bring together communities. Which is why I think it is so interesting that the French street artist “Zevs” is so comfortable with his work being displayed in art galleries. His work is all about speaking out against big corporations, especially his work with liquidating logos. He does not believe that taking his art out of their original contexts changes anything, when in reality, it is changing everything. “The only prerequisite for creating street graffiti is the desire to be heard” (135). But, by taking his art out of the street,  the audience and art is being restricted to the inside of a gallery. Institutions are deciding what kinds of art should be “heard”, and that is not what graffiti is about at all.

One question we keep coming back to throughout this seminar, is what circumstances encourage or inspire people to create graffiti? The readings from this session showed us that graffiti can be made as a way to pass the time, show proof of visit, or as a form of political protest.  But to me, the reason depends entirely on circumstance, which is why graffiti struggles to be categorized and defined, which sometimes allows for it to be such a broad catch-all term.

Additionally, when the space changes, so does its viewership and context. We tend to think of graffiti as mainly occurring on a local level, but in the case of Cairo, when conflict graffiti is shared via the internet, there is a new “global street” that emerges. Instead of just a community unifying together against violence, the world is also sharing in their anger and fear.  As the graffiti becomes such a dominant presence on the internet, the space that people are interacting and viewing the graffiti is changing. When the space changes to the internet, how do people interpret and experience this graffiti differently, if at all?