Dynamic Street Art

Redressing the Imposition on Public Space, acts enabled by the Billboard Liberation Front.

Note the discourse used by this group, active since the late 1970s, which likely weighs heavy in the mind of ad execs who might see their space overtaken by such provocateurs: “The fight against the use of billboards as commercial adverts rather than as a medium for public self expression, protest and communication for social issues.” Hence, it is no wonder that BLF visualizes Ronald McDonald as symbolizing a Supersize Me, gluttonous, death diet generational icon that may beg the question: what if HE continously ate the same food he dishes out and promotes with such fanfare for millions of children across the world? In many ways, the action seems to embody the ideals of anarcho punk bands like Crass, who penned the song “Contaminational Power,” in which the first lyrical lines are: Cause a disturbance, don’t let this slide by/Do you want to end up a McDonalds french fry?

http://www.billboardliberation.com/

This art offers an opportunity to reflect on several key concepts, including the four A’s: Appropriation, Agency, Autonomy, and Authorship. Let’s begin to dissect such cultural jamming while addressing the tactics of both corporations and renegade artists whose billboards are another mediated message in a urban terrain inundated by a web of socio-political-cultural signs and signifiers (note the graffiti behind the above billboard!).

Note this latest offering from the L.A. Times — a whole catalog of signs photographed by everyday people offering wit, subversion, and slyness. Some of the signs have been completely altered, colonized, adapted, or remade, such as this message, which tells us to heed another kind of dire danger divorced from typical road work fare! Nevermind the potholes! Other signs are simply homemade and funky to begin with, while others are photographed in such a way to highlight certain odd elements or idiosyncrasies, while still others are edited in the frame of the lense to create powerful playfulness. Many signs have been already altered, so the photographer just steps back and captures what may be temporary, insurgent swipes at municipal power and authority, or the logic of day-by-day community living. See the whole set here:

http://yourscene.latimes.com/mycapture/photos/Album.aspx?EventID=503684&CategoryID=30888

As the LA Times reports, the well-known street connoisseur Skullphone, known for his bombardments of billboards and dumpters, has been incorporated into a Riverside Art Museum show, though not quite in static forms but as an experiment in flux, of sorts. The once furtive designs show up scattered, in semi pell-mell style, throughout the museum inside and out. In a fascinating synergy betwen host, savvy local commercial interests, and the outsider artist himself, the show is sponsored by a waste management company and teenage fashion heart-throbs Volcom. The article does note that his work is also featured in the gift store of another museum, and graffiti and other forms of street art have been turned into a cottage-industry by galleries for the last thirty years. Let’s talk, again, of the commercialization of street art, or the incorporation, or co-opting, of youth trends and styles, but also the responsibility, or desire, of museums to stay “in touch” with trends and the dynamic undertaking of artists in order to create meaningful “conversations” with communities. Also, the article does highlight the sense of “branding,” so let’s discuss: Do we define branding, or does branding define us? Can there be a two-way street in terms of commodification? Is this an example of branding developing “from below,” organically, and naturally, or something that highlights Volcom making such an event simply seem that way, in order to generate loyalty?

See the full article here:

http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh306/leftofthedialmag/dumpster.jpg

And here are some quick vivid snippets:

“And it’s just the latest project for the elusive Skullphone, whose stickers and wheat-pasted posters began appearing in 1999 throughout the West Coast and New York. Earlier this year, he gained more attention when several Clear Channel electronic billboards throughout Los Angeles featured inserts of his namesake image, prompting rumors on the Internet that the artist had hacked into the billboards. As it turned out, the artist paid for the ad time, which created a backlash claiming Skullphone had sold out to corporate interests. “Not many people got through the surface labels in the blogosphere,” the artist says of the minor controversy.

In the Riverside show, curated by the museum’s Lee Tusman and sponsored by street-wear brand Volcom and a local waste-management firm, Skullphone’s work is displayed in installations depicting a gas pump, a bathroom and a parking meter, as well as throughout the building. Tusman says it’s an attempt to capture the seek-and-find nature of street art — to reflect the fact that, in the wild, Skullphone’s works go up overnight on the backs of billboards, in alleyways and on electrical boxes.”

-Camilo Smith

For the next few months, one of the world’s premier museums will be home to some of the most prominent and pithy street art that usually graces cities surreptiously or acts like schock and awe on busybee avenues. See the blurb below, and for more info, visit the web site. Let’s talk about the “incorporation” or gentrification of street art as it becomes institutionalized. Does it become neutered and defanged? Does it offer the possibility of change from within? Building the new world inside the old hull of the academic and cultural elite? Is it the art of the people, or the art of the underground, or anti-art?

“In the first commission to use the building’s iconic river façade, and the first major public museum display of street art in London, Tate Modern presents the work of six internationally acclaimed artists whose work is intricately linked to the urban environment:

Blu from Bologna, Italy; the artist collective Faile from New York, USA; JR from Paris, France; Nunca and Os Gêmeos, both from São Paulo, Brazil and Sixeart from Barcelona, Spain.

You can also take the Street Art Walking Tour: an urban tour of site-specific art from a group of five Madrid-based street artists: 3TTMan, Spok, Nano 4814, El Tono and Nuria – a map is available online and in the gallery.

Various events will take place during the exhibition, including an interactive evening with experimental New York artists Graffiti Research Lab, refacing Tate Modern with graffiti light projections.”

http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/streetart/default.shtm