This Is Only The Beginning

Photo by ReignmanP

My commute down Fairfax Avenue has pretty heavy street art traffic. One of the recent gems of this stretch of our pot-hole ridden streets is the mural on Fairfax and Rosewood by Retna, Rime, Revok, Norm, Saber, and Os Gêmeos. I was horrified to see an orange Graffiti Control Systems van parked in front of the wall on my way to work Thursday morning. It was being BUFFED! They had just started rolling over Rime's characters as I drove past. I resisted every impulse to turn back and wrote the tweet in the car when I got to LACMA. I hit "send" the moment I emerged from the underground parking and by the time I got to my desk Saber had hit the timeline with a flood of comments including:

The wall was painted in July 2010, and I remember it was an exciting production. Besides Os Gêmeos being in LA from Brazil, Jeffrey Deitch stopped by and had everyone buzzing about the MoCA show. Almost a year later, LA Taco's headline pointed out One Week From “Art in the Streets” and Someone is Destroying Art by Famous Artists.

Photo via Melrose & Fairfax

Melrose & Fairfax were the first on the scene and posted the buffing in action. LA Taco looked into Who is Graffiti Control Systems? and posted their Facebook and Yelp pages. It soon became clear that the company had pulled the locked gate off it's hinges to get to the mural. The buffing was stopped before it covered the whole wall by the outraged owner of the building, actress Julie Newmar. In a comment on the LA Weekly art news blog she said "Trust me, I will get to the bottom of this. The crime will not go unpunished."

The angry local and street art community took to the web and demanded action. Blogging Los Angeles said "Seeing artwork like this destroyed is disgusting." FatCap posted about the irresponsible business of buffing legal public art and posed the excellent question, "When are we going to organize ourselves effectively in order to preemptively combat this affront?" By the middle of the day, Graffiti Control Systems Facebook page had been pulled down and their Yelp rating plunged to 1 star. Later, Dennis Romero of LA Weekly spoke to sincerely apologetic company representative, Josh Woods who said "It was a mistake. We did not do it maliciously. It turned out to be misinformation. There was no intent whatsoever to destroy a mural. We were informed by people in the neighborhood that it was an illegal mural and was to come down. As soon as we were informed on site that it was there with permission we ceased removal." In the article Wood promised that workers would be back the next day and attempt to remove the layer of paint.

Photo via Melrose & Fairfax

True to his word, I passed workers trying to remove buff from the wall on Friday morning. Woods made an updated statement to the LA Weekly "... We were able to remove all of the paint we applied and as we expected some parts of the mural came off but most is intact and looks to be in pretty good shape. And most importantly the overall aesthetic of the mural has been re-established." He also reiterated that Graffiti Control Systems would like to foot the bill for touch-up.

With the help of many, this beautiful work of public art has survived. But with the battle won, Graffuturism wondered "Will this be a one time mistake? The significance of this mural and the prominence of the artists involved that were painted over will have some serious aftershocks. The disregard of their artistic merit of this mural so close to the opening of MoCA doesn't paint a pretty picture for Los Angeles. With this new age of Twitter and its viral strength we could see some very widespread action from the artists and its supporters if this continues."

The fact that many of these artists are included in MoCA's Art in the Streets exhibition should not obscure the hostile environment they frequently work in. The future of this art movement will be shaped by the people who love it and as Deitch points out "This is only the beginning."

- Piper Severance

Originally posted at Saberone.com

@PSPublicSquare

Colbert's Copyright Comedy Continued

Being a total copyright nerd (I am perhaps the only person to be really excited to visit the Stationer's Company in London); I LOVE when Stephen Colbert brings up copyright and licensing issues. Check out a few of my favorites from the past few years:


Vancouverage 2010 - Ed Colbert (Feb. 22, 2010)

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Vancouverage 2010 - Ed Colbert
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election March to Keep Fear Alive

Obama Poster Debate - David Ross and Ed Colbert (Feb. 12, 2009)

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Obama Poster Debate - David Ross and Ed Colbert
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election March to Keep Fear Alive

The Word: Rip-Off (Nov. 1, 2006)

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Word - Rip-Off
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election March to Keep Fear Alive

Colbert's Copyright Comedy 10.07.10

The manipulation of images is a powerful tool, and a visually illiterate population only sees truthiness. Colbert may be right, we have much to fear.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Indecision 2010 - Revenge of the Fallen - FearStock.com
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election March to Keep Fear Alive

Women, Image, and Political Power

I frequently read Bag News Notes, a site that focuses on visual literacy in political images by posting images, commenting and fostering discussion about how that image is constructed and understood. This recent post about Sarah Palin asked for feedback:

"A (female) reader directed me to a site which uses a simple illustration technique to raise questions about "the cosmetics" of Sarah Palin. Now, click through and roll over the examples ... and come back and tell us what you're seeing."

I was surprised that so much of the response focused on if the post itself was sexist. This was my response:

I think it would be pointless endeavor to have a discussion about visual politics and ignore the fact that for women, dress, make-up (and the undercurrent of sexuality they imply) must be part of the conversation. Nor do I find the analytical exercise of discussing it on this site in anyway sexist.

In fact, the topic of image construction becomes particularly interesting when it intersects with political power. Examples like Hatshepsut (a female Pharaoh of Egypt who clothed herself in the male dress of the title), or Queen Elizabeth of England, (literally painted as the virgin married the nation), reveal how long women have been utilizing dress as political tool.

Hatshepsut Statue in Deir Al Bahri, Egypt

"Queen Elizabeth I" by Marcus Gheeraerts the younger, c.1592

Of course, these aforementioned women actually held power; and while Sarah Palin certainly has a following, she has yet only aspired to power. The images on Sarah Palin Unplugged appear to remove hairstyle and highlights, glasses and eye makeup, lipstick color and all jewelry. It does not appear to alter facial tone or shape, clothing or background. The first thing that strikes me is that she looks older, in some images considerably so; without the highlights or lipstick, her face drains of color. (of course I should note that this would hold true for most women, given the double standard that exists regarding looks in our youth obsessed society). Sarah Palin uses the 1950's librarian updo with glasses as her classic look to cultivate the responsible conservative, but lets her hair down sometimes, pushing the kind of under the surface sexuality that seems to drive the middle aged men wild. Mainly through the pins, she uses jewelry as a community identifier (she family of a solider, an Alaskan, an American).

Comparison from Sarah Palin Unframed

As Sarah Palin attempts to embody the angry tea party movement, it may be more interesting to look at her through the lens of Marie Antoinette, particularly given the fractured nature of Palin's reception among Republicans and the politics of her 2008 election wardrobe. In "Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution", Caroline Weber chronicles the disastrous political ramifications of fashion choices such as the tone-deaf and scandal making white muslin dress "en gaulle."

Marie Antoinette by Vigée le Brun, 1783

Antoine de Baeque's "The Body Politic: Corporeal Metaphor in Revolutionary France, 1770-1800" details the violent societal reaction, and ideas projected onto the body of the queen, transformed into a harpy by 1791. Both perhaps serve as warning to women like "Sarah Barracuda" about the dangers of linking physical image too closely with a political point of view.

Marie Antoinette as a Harpy published in 1791

Ultimately, a far more interesting meta-discussion would look at how society projects meaning onto female bodies and the role woman like Sarah Palin play in reacting/reinforcing/reshaping that meaning.

We the People and our American Flag

A few months ago a video that Saber created was chosen as a finalist in Organizing for America's Health Care Video Challenge. You can see the original video entry over on Arrested Motion (as well as some great production shots of the new Flag print which you can buy here). Needless to say, the video had a few critics (see the full Fox News response), but I doubt any of them understood what is means when an American graffiti artist turns his talent toward such a powerful (and art historically significant) symbol.

Saber, Tarnished Flag, 2009
mixed media on canvas, 19.3 X 25 in • 49 X 63.5 cm
art/ photo © 2010 saberone.com

When I saw the first flag he painted last year, I was surprised. It was overtly political in a way that had been uncharacteristic of Saber's art thus far. Compelling in its raw emotion, the dingy gray of the white stripes was created by words like oil, Katrina and Blackwater. Scratched into the textured surface, those words seem to further stain the flag with the dripping of red American blood. And in the square, he wrote the names of people, a real source of American power. This Tarnished Flag spoke to me of the anger, sorrow and silent shame of things done in the name of all Americans in the first decade of the 21st century.

With the impasto technique Saber was using, I could not help thinking about Jasper Johns (born in 1930), one of most significant and influential American painters of the twentieth century. In the mid- to late 1950s, Johns became known for painting, as he put it "things the mind already knows," familiar icons like the American flag. The detail below of Flag illustrates an early technique of his, painting with thick, dripping encaustic over a collage made from found materials such as newspaper. Yet, while it is literally made up of the news of the day, John's America of 1955 still retains it's tidy rows of red and white stripes and pattern of stars.

Jasper Johns, Flag, 1954-55

(Detail) Art © Jasper Johns/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

I wondered last year if the symbol of the flag would be as strong a draw on Saber as it was on Johns, now I feel certain of it. In Saber's recently released Flag 2010, the tidy order of mid-century America has been shattered. The states represented by stars in 1955 are now gone, replaced by the words: "We the people." Like much of our civil discourse, few barriers are respected and paint drips and juts aggressively over the lines. In this series of prints, the "white stripes" seem to recede back, forming a wall on which the issues of our time are being hotly debated.

Saber, Flag 2010 (in Red/White/Blue), 2010
11 color Serigraph on hand-made Nepalese Cannabina Fiber, 21″ x 30″ (54cm x 77cm)
art/ photo © 2010 saberone.com

If the life and movement of the color print speaks of a vibrant (if aggressive) civic debate, then the black version of the Flag 2010 shows the country drained of meaning. The layering of the words look even more tangled and muddied in this version, a stark reminder that difficult issues can imprison minds that only think in terms of black and white.

Saber, Flag 2010 (Black), 2010
11 color Serigraph on hand-made Nepalese Cannabina Fiber, 21″ x 30″ (54cm x 77cm)
art/ photo © 2010 saberone.com

You can see the same ambiguity of meaning in Jasper John's work on paper, Flag, from 1958. While still clearly legible as the flag, the active pencil scribbles and gray graphite wash that form the symbol appear to dissolve much of its meaning and power.

Jasper Johns, Flag, 1958
Pencil and Graphite Wash on Paper, 8 7/8 x 12 in.
Art © Jasper Johns/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

That ambiguity vanishes in Saber's gold leafed version of Flag 2010. In this print, solid gold bars with heavy outlines form the barrier between the rich and the rest of us. This is the symbol of a "greed is good" America, a place where money buys political power and the growing income inequality of last 30 years has resulted in a second Gilded Age.

Saber, Flag 2010 (Gold Leaf), 2010
11 color Serigraph on hand-made Nepalese Cannabina Fiber, 21″ x 30″ in. (54cm x 77cm)
art/ photo © 2010 saberone.com

Like Jasper Johns before him, Saber seems to have grasped the endless diversity of meaning that can be found in the symbol of our nation.

Saber, Mini Flag, 2010
Linoleum print on Fabriano mediovalis card, 2" x 3" in.
art/ photo © 2010 saberone.com

Saber's Mini Flag linoleum print is only the size of a credit card. As we enter 2010, bailed-out out banks are giving out millions in bonuses while raising fees on their customers. I don't know about you, but I believe that a symbol of America that is within reach of "we the people" is better than any cheap plastic promise.

The Time Switch on 01.07.10

So word on the street is "put up or shut up," so I just took a crowbar to the door. That was the easy part, now I have to figure out how the switch works and there are lots of moving parts. First thing is first, now matter how poor the results, I will write everyday. I have my first assignment and the time is NOW.

The Time Switch in 2010

I found the Time Switch right across the street. I wonder how long I must have walked right past it without seeing it, since I am almost always looking around me.

An atheist from childhood, you would think that I would value time; but I doubt my understanding of it. Thus far I have been far more interested in the sweep of history and the different paths that objects and ideas take through time, than I have been in its mechanical movement forward. I rarely had the time on my person until I got my first cell phone in '03. People who could tell themselves to wake up at a certain hour and do so amazed me, as I appear to have no capacity to do that at all.

Now in my early 30s, time (unsurprisingly) seems to be moving much faster. Life is a short, sweet thing. If I want to accomplish anything in life, I see that I am going to need far more control over time. I hope to use the Time Switch to help me get it, but the box is currently locked. I know this because it is 1:25 am on December 4th, 2010 and I had been meaning to write this for the New Year.

I am not certain how to get into the Time Switch box, or what I might find inside it, but I am determined that I will. My first course of action is to gather information. I need to measure my time. This post = 1 hour 34 minuets.