Edgewater sign defaced by taggers

[building babel]

t

Last night, instead of going to the ROM to see the Cycladic figurines, the Buddhist temple wall paintings, the European art deco furniture, or the Mediaeval statuary, I took myself to the TTC parking lot behind Keele station to see the graffiti wall.

Unlike the temple wall paintings, national treasures which were shipped half way around the world and lovingly reassembled, clearly this grouping of derivative, mannered supergraphics is going nowhere.

Interestingly, much of it - I'd say about half of the surface area - was elaborately typographical in nature, in an obvious tip of the hat to the "tagging" roots of the medium. Visual subject matter, when it appeared, consists of predictably adolescent imagery - babes, pin-ups, Hendrix, card players, crowns, shadowy male power figures, etc. While some of the colour combinations were attractive, and the technique was consistent, the subject matter was stuck at the level of a not very bright twenty year old. It reminded me of airbrushed van art from the hippie era. Very splashy and "look at me" but with no emotional depth.

I think this is the perfect location for this sort of thing to be displayed.

 

[nassauone]

Re: t

BB - I think what you were trying to say is all art is subjective.

For the most part grafitti should be shown where it is - behind buildings etc. I think that way it remains in context. The absolute majority of it would seem completely out of place in a gallery setting. Maybe the charm (if you will) of grafitti is its naivete. Sure, charm may not the word one wants to hear associated with art but it remains a fact that this form of art appeals to the crowd it intends to. Does this make it less a valid art form? I can see why you would say yes it does, though I would say there are circumstances where it would be worth of the term art.

Regarding my earlier comment - I took your questioning of where can you see it etc. as catty. My apologies. It was the tone in which my head interpreted it. Your comments are all valid. It's the medium - this internet thing.

 

[adma]

Re: t

Babel, I still don't entirely disagree with the graffiti = Art equation being all too often overwrought from any side of the ledger--but that's also why I just referred to "Art" rather than "art". And the questioning you're offering illuminates the limitations of the "Art" world just as much as the graffiti world relative to the present--that is, how is the world of ROM visits and ultra-refined aesthetic sensibilities any less stifling, dreary, and gated-off than the Midas-wall adolescentesque drivel, ultimately?

Maybe it's better if we just regard our whole urban sphere as greater than the sum of its Art/art/kitsch/adolescent drivel parts.

Oh, and get a load of the Spacing Wire entry...

 

[building babel]

Re: t

If all art was subjective - if it was impossible, for instance, for our brightest and best minds to rank the aesthetic and cultural importance of two different sculptures - then we would live in a culturally valueless society. Fortunately, at some levels anyway, we do live in a world where excellence is valued and dreck is discarded. Museums and galleries such as the ROM house the best that we have, from world cultures throughout time, for all our benefit.

For a Neolithic Chinese earthenware bowl, produced by an anonymous craftsperson 5,000 years ago, to take pride of place in the ROM on the basis of its aesthetic strengths is mind-bogglingly non-stifling, dreary and gated-off if you ask me. That we collectively own such rare objects, and that they speak to us so directly across the ages, is something I find quite moving. They are no less accessible than the Keele graffiti wall.

It is a brave soul who stands up and claims to be an artist! They don't just get to bask in the reflected glory of the greats - they open themselves up to an inevitable questioning of their own values, and the work that they produce, whatever it looks like, and wherever it is.

 

[adma]

Re: t

But you're still just one pea in a pod--and sadly, that may be symptomatic of our segmented time, where true aesthetes are just another niche or tribe. Once, they may have had a legitimate claim to collectively "guiding our way"; but increasingly, it's a frustratingly untranslatable smokescreen for "serving their own"--and more frustratingly, those who hearken back to the golden age of "guiding our way" are increasingly of that betwixt-Allan-Bloom-and-David-Frum sort who really want to lay the blame like mad upon 60s/70s-style cultural pluralism, bla bla bla...

 

[paraone2004]

Re: t

I think I'll wait for history to judge the artistic merit of graffiti art.
Not amatuer art critics.

 

[building babel]

Re: t

History has been judging graffiti "art" from the moment it first appeared.

There isn't a magic date somewhere in the future when the Good Art Fairy will wave her magic wand and bestow the good artmaking seal of approval on the Keele graffiti wall.

In the world of cultural criticism there's nowhere to run, nowhere to hide ...

 

[paraone2004]

Re: t

Man, are you ever an art snob?
History will judge like it has in the past, every generation is poo-pooed by the generation before, design and art will evolve and leave the close-minded standing in cold wondering how they got so out of touch.

It really is a shame that you feel the need to trivialize an entire generation of artists in order to make your world seem more exclusive and superior. Your not original, the same arguements have been made against every knew form of art/design/media since the beginning of time.

These people you poo-poo will be the leaders of the design/art world in years to come, some already are. keep up to speed, keep expanding or forever stand still with the rest of the lemons.

 

[building babel]

Re: t

Some people know the difference between quality and rubbish as soon as they see it. The more widely you are connected to the cultural life of the city, and the more you expose yourself to the arts, then the sharper your sensibilities become. And the sharper your bullshit-detector becomes too.

People who hide behind the myth that they're misunderstood geniuses and victims of a generational plot may think that they are successfully insulating themselves within a critique-proof bubble, but they are only fooling themselves. Once you hang out the shingle that says, "artist" you invite comparison shoppers.

There is much contemporary art, powerful stuff, being produced in Canada. Some of these artists may have produced graffiti at times too. The examples you gave earlier - Dzine is a good one - show that there is hope.

 

[paraone2004]

Re: t

whatever dude, I'll keep branding/designing and moving millions of people around the world, so I must have some clue about what is good and whats rubbish as well. Your ellitist snobbery is pure rubbish and sounds like a regurgitation of an art school flunky turned art critic.

Nobody said anything about critque-proof bubbles. In my line of work I get critiqued all the time, trust me I can take constructive critisim. What your trying to do is shun an entire art form because of your distorted and uninformed views of the merits of the art versus illeagal vandalism, one arguement is legeal, the other artistic.

 

[building babel]

Re: t

On page 2 of this thing I've already stated that I think vandalism can be art. I go further than you do. You're busy disavowing the "ugly step sister" of tagging in order to assimilate into a mainstream art scene that wouldn't in a million years see the Keele wall as something of creative value anyway. Why bother?

My argument is with how second rate talents are using the form of visual graffiti, trying to pass off the same-old-same-old as art. If there is shunning, they invite it themselves.

 

[paraone2004]

Re: t

blah blah blah, I'm offically done

 

[building babel]

Re: t

It wasn't exactly the Lincoln-Douglas debates, but we gave it our all.

 

[bizorky]

Re: t

Your ellitist snobbery is pure rubbish and sounds like a regurgitation of an art school flunky turned art critic.

Very pathetic that you had to sink to this type of name-calling. No one was taking your crayons away.

 

[adma]

Re: t

Y'know, there's something we ought to keep in mind. This forum's called *Urban* Toronto. Not *Artistic* Toronto...