THE STREET, STRAIGHT UP
My art history studies at The Ohio State University did not include much about art after 1720. So, when my interest in art rekindled in the middle of my corporate career, I naturally started seeking out art that wasn’t limited to the 18th century or earlier. Sure, I was familiar with Impressionism and its successors: you could hardly avoid seeing all those Monet calendars and Picasso coffee cups that flooded the market in the 1980’s. But modern art, defined roughly by having been produced after 1945, this was a huge challenge for me. Like a lot of other folks, I felt awkward and suspicious around a lot modern art. I felt I was stupid because I wasn’t “getting it” and sometime suspected that the bit of blobs on the wall or a pile of rocks on a museum floor was some sort of con cooked up by cynical art dealers and a complicit art press to sell talentless art.
A year of intensive education in the Palm Springs Art Museum’s superlative docent training program last year cured me of that kind of thinking. No doubt, there are cynical art dealers and I still see art objects that make me roll my eyes, but my awareness shifted. Seismically.
SPRAY SOLDIERS
This wasn’t my first aesthetic recalibration. Like most business commuters in San Francisco, I had gotten resigned to seeing graffiti “deface” the trains and buses and pretty much every public place lacking a security guard. I tried really hard to suspend my midwestern, middle class prejudices since, after all, graffiti has a long history: the Romans were famous for juicy tagging that elicit a snicker even now. And it became clear that the hard line between graffiti and murals/social justice art had been dissolving for a couple of decades, especially in the Mission District and SOMA.
The notion of street art as “defacing” was debunked for good after my husband and I took a street art tour in Rome. Giorgio and Paolo (pictured below (guess who was the guide and who was the artist) ) weren’t just street artists, they were Apostles spreading the Good News along with the Spray Paint: “this is our art and our art is important. This art is our mirror to the world who doesn’t give a s--- about anything but consuming the earth. This art is our voice and our outrage and our humor. Look. And then f--- off if you don’t like it or “get” it.
I got it. Then over the next half-decade, I got it, repeatedly, in Barcelona and Berlin and Belfast and Berkeley. And brought it back to Palm Springs and to my graphic design thinking.
Oh, no doubt there is some street art that still lies in the creative trough called vandalism. But, increasingly, the art is become more and more sophisticated, and inevitably, art dealers and critics are piling on and monetizing what once the provenance of the outraged. And so it goes. But in this case – and to return to the manifesto in my first blog - today’s street art sure the hell ain’t boring.
SPRAY, WHAT?
So, how does street art (tagging, writing, wildstyle, rolling, bombing, etc.) relate to a graphic design practice? First, all street art is inherently graphic, whether it be stickers, spray paint, Sharpies, objects affixed to walls or stencils. It grabs your eyeballs and if good, grabs your balls of complacency and gives them a good squeeze. It can unsettle, enrage, or make you laugh. Most importantly, it makes you look closer and spend some real time: the holy grail of any graphic designer.
Second, street art usually relies on bright colors. Their colors change with the light and a dark alley can suddenly be infused with color when the sun strikes it or can magically appear under street lights.
Third, it can be referential and acquisitive, lifting ideas and artistic tropes from previous or current times. This is especially true in street art and graphics that reflect indigenous cultures, whether New York or Mexico City. In speaking with many street artists, I was told that they started with tagging, the ubiquitous assertions of identity that we normally refer to as graffiti. As they develop their style, their work can get increasingly more complex and technically adept. Many artists end up seeking more formal art training. And it shows in the sheer artistry of some of the work.
In response, cities and individual businesses are increasingly commissioning street art for larger installations or even for advertising. For instance, those metal roll-down doors that shop owners deploy at night are favorite targets for tagging. Smartly, the property owners now have street artists create a work that brings attention to their store. Pretty damn shrewd and a win for the owner, the artist, and the pedestrian.
One of the most astonishing street art installations is on the monumental embankment along the Tiber River in Rome. William Kentridge, a South African artist, was commissioned by the City of Rome to create the piece that runs 500 yards along the bank. What is so remarkable about this piece is its technique. Huge stencils were attached to the sooty walls of the embankment. He then pressure washed the exposed parts to uncover the original color of the stone. Over time, the figures will disappear as air pollution and the elements darken the stone once again.
In an interview about the decade-long effort fraught with bureaucratic delays, Kentridge said, “the Tiber is a river swollen with glory and pain. On one side the fortune of the popes, on the other the suffering of the Jewish Ghetto. Above ... a pulsating, splendid city; below, under the bridges, the desperation of the homeless…It is bit like putting a stethoscope on the banks of the Tiber and listening to the city tell its story.”
TELLING THE STORY
Whether it is graphic design in Palm Springs or street art in Rome, what grabs the attention is the story. A story can be as fleeting and subliminal as the Apple icon with its suggestive bite, to the pantheon of history represented in Kentridge’s work.
Sometimes a story isn’t a necessarily a narrative, it can be the story of moment in time. Take a look at Soviet or Communist Chinese propaganda posters. Heroic, inspirational, and by today’s standards, totally kitschy. But, boring, hell no!
STEPPING OUT AND UP
These blogs and my graphic design are all about stepping it out and stepping it up. I haven’t a frickin’ clue where my visual addiction will take me or what my increasing exposure to new ideas will result in, whether originating from textiles from Africa or street art are Albuquerque. But, I am sticking to my original mantra of this effort– No Mo Boring!