“How to Win Friends and Influence People”

Before I begin, I have a slight confession to make. My reasoning behind playing the ‘Banksy’ card so early in the life of this blog is two-fold.

Firstly, I have always been a big fan of Banksy. This blog shares the same title as one of Banksy’s self-published collections of his work and I even have a (supposedly) limited edition silkscreen print of ‘His Master’s Voice’ adorning my bedroom wall. Incidentally, the said print has now outlived the young lady who bought it for me. Only in a metaphorical sense, unfortunately.

(HMV print, hanging from my wall, photographed and edited in Photoshop)

Secondly, as Existencilism has not had a huge amount of visitors since its inception, I figured, somewhat duplicitously, that I may be able to ride the Banksy wave and snag a few more visitors via aimless Google searches by publishing a hyper-extended quasi-essay on the man and his work.

If nothing else, I am honest.

“…stifling anonymous speech is a huge cost to democracy.”

One of the most inappropriate nicknames of all time, at least in my opinion, belonged to Ronald Reagan: The Great Communicator, who we’ve come to learn did a pretty shitty job of communicating the government’s problems and indiscretions. A nickname like that deserves a more righteous, honest owner—someone like BANKSY
(Shepard Fairey)

Without putting too fine a point on it, Banksy is Britain’s most celebrated graffiti artist. In fact, Shepard Fairey has even gone so far as to call him the ‘most important living artist in the world.’ Therefore, as you would expect, due to the British constabulary’s habitual dislike of graffiti (and immigrants, minorities, groups of young people, actually serving the public…), you are likely to find Lord Lucan before you cross paths with our most famous anonymous artist.

Banksy’s identity is a subject of febrile speculation. Various reports describe him, with his silver tooth and matching Elizabeth Duke silver chain, as looking more like a cross between Jimmy Nail and Mike Skinner of The Streets than he does Damien Hurst. It is even possible to buy t-shirts emblazoned with the three little words: I AM BANKSY. At this point, I have to hold my hands up here and go on record as saying that I actually think they are quite cool.

(Mr. Crocodile Shoes and Mr. Original Pirate Material)

Even his parents are apparently completely oblivious to the fact that their son is the equal parts lauded and lambasted Bristolian: ‘[they] think I’m a painter and decorator’. An abridged history could read as follows: around 1993, Banksy’s graffiti began appearing around Bristol and by 2001, his signature could be seen all over the United Kingdom and beyond, eliciting both civic hand-wringing and comparisons to Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring.

Weapons of mass distraction

Whilst Peter Gibson, a spokesperson for the very British Keep Britain Tidy campaign, asserts that Banksy’s work is simple vandalism, it is possible to see Banksy’s political purpose through such ‘vandalism’ (although he prefers the term ‘brandalism’) as being reminiscent of the Ad Busters (read: subvertising) movement, who deface corporate advertising in order to distort the original capitalist message and therefore hijack the advert.

(used courtesy of Adbusters online)

Having first formed an interest in graffiti due to the pieces he saw in Bristol by 3D, who later quit painting and formed the band Massive Attack, Banksy decorates his own urban canvasses with unabashedly left-wing scenes of anti-authoritarian, anti-war and anti-capitalist whimsy that consciously set out to undermine the cultural status quo: Winston Churchill with a Mohawk, two policemen kissing, ten pound notes featuring Princess Diana in place of the Queen, a little girl cuddling up to a missile, a beefeater daubing ‘Anarchy’ on a wall, an Ethiopian child wearing a Burger King cardboard hat, Mickey Mouse and Ronald McDonald escorting Phan Thị Kim Phúc (the napalmed girl from Vietnam).

In 2005, he sprayed nine trompe-l’oeil scenes on the Palestinian side of the West Bank barrier, a four hundred and twenty-five mile barrier that separates Israel from Palestinian territories, showing satirically idyllic images of life on the other side of the barrier, which included a beach scene and mountain landscape. Sometimes, there are just words, in the same chunky typeface – puns and ironies, statements and incitements. At traditional landmarks, he often signs ‘This is not a photo opportunity’ or ‘Designated Picnic Area.’ On establishment buildings he may sign, ‘By Order. National Highways Agency. This Wall Is A Designated Graffiti Area.’ Come back to the latter in a few days and people will have obediently tagged the wall.

(You Can’t Beat the Feeling, from Wall and Piece)

Whilst his weapon of choice is the stencil (‘The holy grail is to spend less time making the picture than it takes for people to look at it’), this is not to say that Banksy’s subversive work is limited to the streets. In 2005, he succeeded in thoroughly embarrassing the floor monkeys at the British Museum by planting a hoax ‘cave painting’ of a man pushing a supermarket trolley (Early Man Goes To Market) in Gallery 49, which went unnoticed for three days. They later decided to add it to their permanent collection.

He has also produced numerous revisionist oil paintings – such as Mona Lisa with a yellow smiley face and a pastoral landscape surrounded by crime-scene tape – then, disguised in a trench coat and fake beard, no less, installed them, respectively in the Louvre and the Tate galleries. He did the same thing in 2005 in each of New York’s top four museums – the Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum and the American Museum of Natural History. Of the four cuckoo pieces, he simply commented: ‘They’re good enough to be in there, so I don’t see why I should wait.’ Notable subversions include his reimagining of Monet’s Water Lily Pond, adapted to include urban detritus such as little and a shopping trolley in its reflective waters; and Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks, redrawn to show the characters in the diner glaring at an English football hooligan, dressed only in his Union Jack shorts, who has just thrown an object through the glass.

His first exhibition, Turf War, held in a London warehouse, featured paintings on live animals – such as pigs in police colours, sheep in concentration camp stripes and a cow covered in images of Andy Warhol’s visage. Despite the RSCPA deeming the conditions suitable, this did not prevent one nut-job, I mean over-zealous animal rights activist, from chaining herself to the railings in protest.

In 2006, he managed to place a life-size replica of a hooded Guantanamo Bay detainee inside the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ride at Disneyland, California, in order to highlight the plight of terror suspects at the controversial detention centre in Cuba.

(Big Thunder, Disneyland and Wild Style, from Wall and Piece)

Explaining his taste for such thrill seeking excursions, Banksy simply comments:

…it's all part of the job description. Any idiot can get caught. The art to it is not getting picked up for it, and that's the biggest buzz at the end of the day because you could stick all my shit in Tate Modern and have an opening with Tony Blair and Kate Moss on roller blades handing out vol-au-vents and it wouldn't be as exciting as it is when you go out and you paint something big where you shouldn't do. The feeling you get when you sit home on the sofa at the end of that, having a fag and thinking there's no way they're going to rumble me, it's amazing... better than sex, better than drugs, the buzz.

Last year, a Banksy-crafted image of a naked man hanging onto a bedroom window ledge on a wall at the side of a sexual health clinic located on Park Street, Bristol, sparked some controversy, with the Bristol City Council leaving it up to the public to decide whether it should stay or go. After a poll, a resounding 97% of local residents supported the stencil, and the city council decided that it should be left on the building.

In June 2007, Banksy recreated Stonehenge at the Glastonbury Festival. However, as the sculpture was located in the same field as the ‘Sacred Circle’ which has always had a ‘no plastic’ rule, many felt that the sculpture was inappropriate and the installation was itself covered in graffiti before the festival even opened. As someone who attended the festival, the installation seemed to be more celebrated that it was chastised and the added graffiti made the spectacle even more catching.

(Naked Man, Bristol, 2007, courtesy of The Gregg and Stonehenge, Glastonbury, 2007)

My personal favourite of recent times was his reverse-theft (read: glorified smuggling, but necessitating watermelon-sized cojones) of 500 ‘alternative’ versions of Paris Hilton’s self-titled album into a number of high-profile record stores around the UK. Banksy replaced Hilton’s songs with ‘remixed’ titles, such as ‘Why Am I Famous?’, ‘What Have I Done?’ and ‘What Am I For?’ Oh, did I mention that he also doctored the artwork to show the US socialite topless and with a dog’s head?

(probably neither the first or last time you will see Ms. Hilton topless)

In September 2006, he even managed to become the darling of Tinseltown, with glittering creatures from the Hollywood firmament such as Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Jude Law and Christina Aguilera, to name a few, attending the great man’s first large-scale US exhibition, entitled Barely Legal. The pièce de résistance at the show was the disconcerting presence of an elephant in the middle of the exhibition. Yes, you read that right, an elephant. On entering, visitors were presented with a flyer reading:

There’s an elephant in the room. There’s a problem with never talk about. The fact is that life isn’t getting any fairer. 1.7 billion people have no access to clean drinking water. 20 billion people live below the poverty line. Every day, hundreds of people are made to physically be sick by morons are art shows telling them how bad the world is but never actually doing something about it. Anybody want a free glass of wine?’

Whilst no-one will ever suggest that Banksy is remotely subtle, there was something exceedingly subversive with flying over to Los Angeles and doing this particular show. After all, L.A. is the origin of so much of the surface, surface, surface nonsense that boils Banksy’s blood so blatantly.

(Barely Legal exhibition, LA, 2006)

Also, in addition to self-publishing three mini-volumes of his work – Banging Your Head Against A Brick Wall (2001), Existencilism (2002) and Cut It Out (2004) – the Random House published Wall and Piece has sold more than two hundred and fifty thousand copies.

This list goes on.

“I can’t believe you morons actually buy this shit”

Whilst Banksy declares that the ‘art world’ is a ‘rest home for the over-privileged, the pretentious and the weak’ and that ‘every other type of art compared to graffiti is a step down’, his effect on the ‘biggest joke going’ and the way that graffiti/street art is perceived is undeniable.

In February 2007, Sotheby’s presented seven Banksy pieces (note that these were resales, as Banksy does not pimp his art out at auctions and suchlike) during an auction of contemporary art. A piece entitled Bombing Middle England (2001), an acrylic-and-spray stencil on canvas, featuring a trio of retirees playing boules with live shells, was estimated to bring in between thirty and a fifty thousand pounds. It sold for a hundred and two thousand. In April 2007, a piece entitled Space Girl and Bird sold at Bonham’s for around two hundred and eighty eight thousand pounds.

Rick Taylor, a Sotheby’s specialist in contemporary art, has proclaimed that Banksy is the ‘quickest-growing artist anyone has ever seen of all time’. Banksy was apparently far from pleased. To coincide with the second day of the Sotheby’s auctions, he updated his website front page with a new image featuring an auctioneer presiding over a rabid crowd, who in turn were bidding for a piece featuring the words, ‘I can’t believe you morons actually buy this shit’.

(edited I Can’t Believe…, from Banksy’s website and Arse, from Wall and Piece)

Herein lies the dilemma. Banksy is vehemently opposed to becoming a commercialized part of the art establishment, stating that ‘I wouldn’t sell shit to Charles Saatchi. If I sell 55,000 books and however many screen prints, I don’t need one man to tell me I’m an artist’. However, in an interview with Banksy, Shepard Fairey, who is a genius in his own right, succinctly dissected the dichotomous fetishization of anti-capitalist propaganda and its subsequent appropriation by what Theodor Adorno coined the Culture Industry:

…you want your books to be cheap because they show the work in the context of the street, as well as the installations in museums and other pranks, which are actually honest representations of your work. But then, people want objects, so they’re going to want the canvasses and things like that, and you’re just kind of accepting that people fetishize objects and are willing to pay a lot for the status of owning something that they can hang up.

In a later interview with David Usborne, Banksy even doffed his cap to the all-powerful culture industry: ‘I love the way capitalism finds a place – even for its enemies. It’s definitely boom time in the discontent industry.’ Indeed, Banksy’s attitude to brands is ambivalent. Like Naomi Klein, he opposes corporate branding and has become his own brand in the process. Normally, I would now make a sexist comment about Naomi Klein being better looking than Banksy. You know, just for japes. However, after a quick look on Google images, I am firmly of the opinion that there is no way in the world that Banksy can be any more unattractive than Little Miss No Logo. Seriously, she is hideous.

Anyway, moving swiftly on, nowadays people sell forged ‘Banksies’ on the black market and manufacture stencil kits to allow hipster kids to produce their own. Does Banksy mind being ripped off? ‘No,’ he says, ‘I was a bootlegger for three years, so I don’t really have a leg to stand on.’

Whilst he views art as ‘one of the last great cartels’, as a ‘handful of people make it, a handful buy it and a handful show it,’ Banksy does not shy away from exhibiting in galleries when necessary. For instance, without a formal space it would have been impossible for him to display his livestock-come-artwork during his Turf War exhibition. Also, graffiti by its very nature is rather proscriptive, as most councils are committed to removing offensive graffiti within twenty-four hours. However, if it is ‘art’ in a gallery, the boundaries of taste are not so rigidly defined.

For instance, without the aid of a gallery setting, Banksy’s work depicting Jewish women at Bergen-Belsen, daubed in fluorescent lipstick, would never have seen the light of day on a street, because ‘it’s just blatantly offensive.’ But in a gallery, Banksy can place such a piece in context:

It's actually based on a diary entry from a colonel who liberated Bergen-Belsen. He described how they liberated this women-only camp, and a box of supplies turned up containing 400 sticks of lipstick, and he went nuts - 'Why are you sending me lipstick?' But he sent it out to the women, and they put it on each other, they did their hair; and because it gave them the will to live it was probably the best thing the soldiers did when they liberated that camp...

See, that's talking about how the application of paint can make a difference.

The Banksy Effect

That Banksy has unintentionally, inadvertently and somewhat reluctantly become the commercialized face of ‘street art’ has in turn resulted in what Marc at Wooster Collective has coined ‘The Banksy Effect’. Catchy, huh? Essentially, Marc proffers that it is widely accepted that most people need entry points to become comfortable with things that are new. To this end, by a quirk of fate Banksy has become the entry point to non-canonized contemporary art for millions of people worldwide.

Thanks to the extensive broadsheet and media coverage on the phenomenon that is Banksy, people are slowly becoming accustomed to the fact that they do not have to pay through the nose to attend formal art galleries, which generally contain traditionalist elitist representations of ‘art’ and are chosen by the few for benefit of the few. Instead, they have come to realise that real, grassroots art is all around them. Whether it be on the wall at the side of your local greasy spoon, or on a bridge on your way to work - all you have to do is look.

useless fact #5

During the ninth century, the Danes imposed a ‘nose’ tax on the Irish, so-called because those who avoided paying had their nostrils slit. Hence the term, ‘paying through the nose.’ No doubt you will sleep better now that the origin of that quirky oft-used phrase is cleared up. Or maybe not.

However, despite the obvious advantages of blowing the corrugated iron doors off an otherwise largely elitist boys club, some people insist on defending their territory like a rabid wolf defending its cubs. For instance, Charlie Brooker of The Guardian, the newspaper for those who like their broadsheet light on news, heavy on views and prefer their journalists to project their own academic and genealogical shortcomings via thinly-veiled and failed attempts to sound convincingly middle class, commented that Banksy is ‘often feted as a genius straddling the bleeding edge of now. Why? Because his work looks dazzlingly clever to idiots. And apparently that’ll do.’ In response, I offer the following, abridged and simplified for the benefit of all my ‘idiot’ readers: can anyone say ‘out of touch’?

(untitled, location unknown)

Unlike Mr. Brooker, I am firmly of the belief that the concept of ‘art’ is subjective. That he probably finds solace in dissecting the deep, intellectual meaning of a black canvas with a single white dot on it in his spare time is his choice. What he should not be propagating is a divide based on established preconceptions of ‘high’ and ‘low’ art. God forbid that the proletariat (or, if you prefer, ‘the great unwashed’) find a voice of their own? How very dare they find a vehicle from which they can express their own discontent in a manner that will resonate with their peers. How ghastly would that be? You, Mr. Brooker, by living in London, are depriving a village somewhere of an idiot. In contrast, here is what the right honourable Shephard Fairey’s observed when dissecting Banksy’s work:

[Banksy’s] works… are filled with imagery tweaked into metaphors that cross all language barriers. The images are brilliant and funny, yet so simple and accessible that even children can find the meaning in them: even if six-year-olds don’t know the first thing about culture wars, they have no trouble recognizing that something is amiss when they see a picture of the Mona Lisa holding a rocket launcher.

A lot of artists can be neurotic, self-indulgent snobs using art for their own catharsis, but BANKSY distances himself from his work, using art to plant the feelings of discontent and distrust of authority that anyone can experience when he prompts them to ask themselves one gigantic question: Why is this wrong? If it makes people feel and think, he’s accomplished his goal.

Similarly, Wooster Collective offer the following (admittedly romanticized) prediction as to the long-term effect that Banksy will have on the art world:

Like Andy Warhol before him, Banksy has almost single handedly redefined what art is to a lot of people who probably never felt they appreciated art before. By being an iconoclast, and in the process becoming a mythic hero for a lot of people, Banksy has become an incredible icon in our society. One that we think, when things are said and done, will be at the level of Warhol.

If Shepard Fairey ‘created the movement’ then Banksy has ‘created the market.’ Wall and Piece is available for purchase in almost every bookstore, music store and trendy boutique imaginable. The auctioneers at Sotheby’s now rub their hands together in glee when they see a certain six little letters. In essence, Banksy is the best thing that could have possibly ever happened to the street art movement. What he has done is prompt the recognition of an otherwise unacknowledged art form by, to use Mr. Brooker’s handy little black-and-white world definitions, both the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.

“The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man… what will sell.”

Unfortunately, this shift has polarized a lot of people. People like myself see it as being part of the greater good, as those who cannot afford ‘a Banksy’ are now using their feelers to find gems of their own and are actively buying pieces by other talented artists, who are part of the movement but who are not yet part of its market. Would such work have sold without the ‘Banksy effect’? Probably. But such sales would have generally been restricted to the few who were ‘in the know.’

Now, people who may not necessarily know the artists inside out are buying pieces because they like them. As such, prints from places such as Pictures on Walls have never sold out faster.

On the flip side are people such as Mr. Brooker (read: art fascists) and people who think that Banksy is a 'sell-out' for allowing his work to sell for exorbitant prices or for signing a publishing deal with Random House. This blog is not intended to be a forum to bash the delusional, so I will say no more on the former type of dissident other than what has already been said above. However, the latter group worry me. A small section of individuals seem to be incapable of untangling the dichotomy of the popular and the precarious balance between ‘keeping it real’ and ‘selling out’. These people would much rather artists such as Banksy (and their favourite musicians, authors, foods, clothing brands…) remain the dirty little hipster secret of their own little private boys (and girls) club. To this end, they are not dissimilar to high art fascists.

In my humble little opinion, there is nothing wrong with Banksy et al making money off something that (a) they continue to be exceptional at; and (b) they obviously eat, sleep and breathe. Personally, I am hoping to be exceptional at what I do. A healthy salary is obviously a bonus, but it is my ambition that drives me. If someone calls me a ‘sell-out’ because I have discarded my piercings of old, have developed a penchant for smart suits and spend my time flicking through statute books in order to give myself the best possibly opportunity of succeeding in my chosen profession, then they are an idiot.

On the other hand, if I were do something at the cost of my integrity or at odds with my beliefs, such as becoming a Tory politician, with the sole intention of making more money or to gain popularity, then that would make me a sell-out. There is a distinct difference between making a sacrifice for what you believe in and consciously selling your soul in order to make the leap from nobody to somebody.

For example, I would wager that Banksy is comfortably off. That is not to be begrudged. He has remained anonymous in order to avoid the perils of the British celebrity grinder yet remains current, as he allows his artwork to talk for him. Whilst the majority of us could not afford to purchase a bona fide Banksy from an auction, the nicely priced Wall and Piece has sold over a quarter of a million copies worldwide – giving almost everyone the opportunity to experience this gifted artist first hand. Has his work become sloppy and predictable? No. Is he mass producing everything from posters to mugs in order to take advantage of his current popularity spike? No. In fact, if you visit the ‘Shop’ section of his website, you will even find a selection of wallpapers, poster templates and postcard designs, accompanied by the following disclaimer:

Everything in the shop is free.

Simply download the file and process the artwork as per the serving suggestion.

(The screenprinting studio and ceramics workshop require are not included).

Please note:

Banksy does not sell photos of street graffiti or mount exhibitions of screenprints in commercial galleries, so please don’t complain if you found them disappointing.

This ‘Shop’ is intended ‘for personal amusement only’ and ‘not for mass producing product.’ Does this make him a sell-out? I would suggest not. Also, what Banksy does not do is hide away from questions regarding the opportunities that he has had to cash-in on his success. He readily admits that over the past decade, the very brands that he despises and has so vehemently parodied have approached him to do advertising campaigns for them. According to the great man himself, despite him having turned down a number of Nike jobs in the past, they insist on contacting him every so often to see if he will buckle.

The list of jobs I haven’t done is so much bigger than the list of jobs I have done. It’s like a reverse CV… Nike have offered me mad money for doing stuff… [I turned them down because] I don’t need the money and I don’t like children working their fingers to the bone for nothing. I like that Jeremy Hardy line: ‘My eleven-year-old daughter asked me for a pair of trainers the other day. I said, ‘Well, you’re eleven, make ‘em yourself.’ I want to avoid that shit if at all possible.

In response to accusations of selling out, he has commented: ‘I give away thousands of paintings for free, how many more do you want?’ After all, he does not think it would be possible to ‘make art about world poverty and then trouser all the cash’, as it would be ‘an irony too far, even for me.’

Banksy himself makes a clear distinction between doing things with the sole aim of paying the bills and doing something that you believe in, such as his ‘perfectly symbiotic’ work on Blur’s Think Tank cover art. He has also done work for Greenpeace. Echoing the sentiments above, he comments that if ‘it’s something you actually believe in, doing something commercial doesn’t turn it to shit just because it’s commercial.’ Otherwise, you would have to be a ‘socialist rejecting capitalism altogether’.

(Blur’s Think Tank album art, 2003 and Greenpeace anti-deforestization poster)

“The delicate balance between modesty and conceit is popularity.”

On the 21^st May 2007, Banksy was awarded the accolade of ‘Art’s Greatest Living Briton,’ although, somewhat predictably, he did not attend the ceremony. It would appear that, love him or loathe him, Banksy is here to stay. The Guardian can huff and puff all until it is blue in the face.

To this end, Martin Bull has published a handy little guide for budding Banksy aficionados entitled Banksy: Locations and Tours, which provides three detailed London tours and details sixty-five graffiti locations in the capital, as well as including pieces by other artists such as Eine, Faile, El Chivo, Arofish, Space Invader, Blek Le Rat, D*face and Shephard Fairey. In addition to this, there are more Banksy fan groups on social networking websites than one person could possibly know what to do with. As Facebook seems to be de rigueur of such sites at the moment, here is a link its very own ‘Banksy Appreciation’ group.

Banksy not only remains current, but his artwork remains accessible rather than elitist, engaging rather than preaching, simple yet effective and subversive whilst simultaneously engendering its own commercialization. Every light-hearted piece is a bitter pill made easier to swallow and you do not have to possess an Arts and Humanities degree from a red brick university in order to appreciate Banksy’s call to arms.

In a nutshell, his work is the contemporary literalisation of Gramsci’s call for the subversion of the dominant cultural hegemony in order to help instigate revolution. With added jokes.

(Camp, from Wall and Piece)

posted by Si at 20:02
0 people commented...

Infamy is a documentary that journeys into the 'dangerous lives and obsessed minds' of six of America's most prolific graffiti artists. Directed by acclaimed filmmaker Doug Pray (of Hype! and Scratch fame), and with the aid of writer, publisher and graffiti guru Roger Gastman, Infamy aims to take the viewer deep into the world of 'street legends' Saber, Toomer, Jase, Claw, Earshot and Enem.

With brutal honesty, humour and charisma, these artists reveal why they are willing to risk everything to spray paint their cities with tags, throw-ups, and full-colour murals. You'll also meet Joe 'The Graffiti Guerilla' Connolly, a notorious 'buffer' who paints out graffiti on his neighborhood’s walls with a vengeance matched only by those who vandalised them. From the streets of the South Bronx to the solitude of a San Francisco tunnel, from high atop a Hollywood billboard to North Philadelphia for a lesson in 'Philly-style tag,' from the Mexican border to a Cleveland train yard, Infamy doesn't analyse or glorify graffiti... it takes you there, and brings it to life.

Now, as I have yet to sit down and watch Infamy, I am putting-off reviewing it until a later date. Instead, I am posting the (largely) graffiti-themed soundtrack that accompanies it. Personally, I recommend 'Don't Get Caught' (Planet Asia and Evidence), 'Throwin' Up Letters' (KRS-One and Rakaa Iriscience), 'Kings in the Game' (B-Real and Sick Jacken), 'Graff Superstars' (B&G) and 'Spoken Graff' (Mike the Poet).

Whilst I appreciate that hip-hop is somewhat of an acquired taste, I urge you all to expand your musical palate and give it a listen. Remember kids, having leprosy is not an automatic corollary to a predilection for hip-hop, so I stress that you have nothing to fear by venturing into pastures new.

Title: VA - Infamy OST
Released: October 17th 2006
Genre: Hip-Hop
Tracks: 19
Size: 70,5 MB
Quality: VBR/44,1Hz

TRACKLIST

01 - Planet Asia and Evidence - Don't Get Caught
02 - KRS-One and Rakaa Iriscience - Throwin' Up Letters
03 - Talib Kweli, MF Doom - Fly That Knot
04 - Medusa - Size 'Em Up
05 - B Real and Sick Jacken - Kings in the Game
06 - Prince Po, Turtle Man and Volume 10 - All 4 Dat
07 - Double K, Longevity, Pablo Like Picasso and Recanson - Jib Jabber
08 - Filthee Immigrants and Site Razon - Leave Your Mark
09 - Aloe Blacc, Otherwize and P.E.A.C.E. - Gotta Be Ready
10 - B&G - Graff Supastars
11 - Infamy (Interlude)
12 - 2Mex - Get Up
13 - Aceyalone - 1983-1993
14 - Scratch "Kalzone" and Kanye West - I'm Reh to Go
15 - Longevity - Thing
16 - Motion Man and Tytus Penn - Go for the Gusto
17 - LMNO and J.Maddox - Click Clack, Click Clack
18 - Peyote Cody - Lookout
19 - Mike The Poet - Spoken Graff

LINK: click here!

posted by Si at 19:51
0 people commented...

“I am not just doing hip-hop, I AM hip-hop and I cannot tolerate wackness”

The average New Yorker sees upwards of fifty pieces of graffiti a day. But they never stop to think about the stories behind those pieces. This is one of those stories.

Having resided in the UK for the duration of my young life, I have yet to make my first journey across the pond to sample the world that Jean Baudrillard described as being ‘completely rotten with wealth, power, senility, indifference, Puritanism and mental hygiene, poverty and waste, technological futility and aimless violence’. I am, of course, referring to George Dubya’s good ol’ You-Ess-of-A. However, as a self-proclaimed hip-hop aficionado, I am familiar with the four pillars of hip-hop as perpetually propounded by the blast-master KRS-One: DJing, MCing, B-Boying and, of course, Graffiti.

So, it was with baited breath that I sat down to watch Adam Bhala Lough’s dramatic foray into New York’s burgeoning graffiti scene, Bomb the System, which is apparently the first feature length film in over twenty years to focus on the subject of graffiti (word to Wild Style).

It also cost less to make than it costs to buy an average-sized property in one of the many rundown areas of London ($500K/£250K). The movie was first screened at various film festivals in 2002 and later hit American theatres in 2005. As far as I am aware, Bomb the System has not been screened in the UK, but for at some smaller art house theatres that advertise their showings only by carrier pigeon or telekinesis. No matter, for as well as being familiar with the four pillars of hip-hop, I am also familiar with BitTorrent and managed to find a DVD rip of the film online. Ah, the wonders of the interweb.

useless fact #4

Shortly after Bomb the System’s limited theatrical release in the United States, a cinema in Delaware was closed down and both the police and bomb squad were called to attend the cinema. The reason? Because the manager found a sticker saying ‘Bomb the System’ in the cinema. Cultural misunderstanding or not, some people should really be executed at birth.

Graffiti: the only art form that can be considered a crime

It is widely documented that graffiti emerged in the 1970s in New York City and quickly made the transition from ‘vandalism’ to ‘street art’, perhaps primarily due to the sheer volume of pieces that appeared around the city. In the 1980s, graffiti went some way to being semi-legalized and even crossed over into the lofty realm of ‘high culture’ thanks to its inclusion in the works of artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat. It seemed, for a fleeting moment, that graffiti would finally be recognised as a bona fide art form and not merely a form of nuisance championed by the great unwashed. However, such recognition was quickly curtailed as graffiti was reigned in and sent back underground by Rudi ‘little Hitler’ Giuliani and his straight-out-of-a-Batman-comic-named ‘NYPD Vandal Squad’ in the 1990s. Accordingly, despite its interesting and varied history, graffiti has not been given much of a cinematic makeover over the years.

To this end, Rolling Stone called Bomb the System a ‘next-gen update of 1983’s Wild Style’ that has ‘strong whiffs of [Danny Boyle’s] Trainspotting and [Larry Clark’s] Kids’, as well as distinguishing itself with ‘streaky, Krylon-bright editing and El-P’s eerie soundtrack beats’. As an aside, El-P is the bomb (pause) and I have included a link to a version of the score, ripped straight from the DVD no less, at the end of this post (courtesy of CCWM). Village Voice similarly concluded that the movie was birthed from a ‘blunt-fueled blend of Aronofskian frenzy [read: Darren Aronofsky of Requiem for a Dream and Pi fame] and nostalgia for the agreeable griminess of mid-90s Wu-Tang Clan videos’. Which reminds me, does anyone else remember just how good Wu-Tang’s video for Protect Ya Neck was, back in the day?! The New York Times even contributed its two cents by noting that:

the movie runs on the synergy between this grimy but glamorous urban landscape and the emotional intensity of characters, who at moments suggest contemporary descendants of the innocent, tormented teenagers in Rebel Without A Cause.

Any negative comments largely seem to come from out-of-touch conservative (Republican?) reviewers. The New York Post criticized the film for trying to ‘argue that graffiti writers are political artists, not an urban blight’ and Sean Axmaker, in response to the unabashedly positive depiction of graffiti artists in the film, likened the filmmakers to ‘tomcats spraying in their own yard’. Notice the distinct juxtaposition between the intelligent dissections of Rolling Stone et al compared to this twaddle. If in doubt, vote Conservative/Republican, eh?

“Graffiti does not belong in a gallery. It belongs on the streets, where it started from”

In short, Bomb the System follows the misadventures of a group of graffiti artists, living in NYC, who decide to mark their mark on the city’s urban landscape. In the film, Anthony ‘Blest’ Campo, a nineteen year old high school graduate with no ambition, is one of the most notorious (and gifted) artists in NYC. Blest sees the city as his playground and spends his days stealing spray paint from hardware stores and his nights getting high and ‘bombing’ with his crew (which includes Justin ‘Buk 50’ Broady and his younger brother, Kevin ‘Lune’ Broady). Such blatant theft is justified by the fact that ‘real’ graffiti artists apparently steal their tools of the trade, as purchasing them is regarded as a sign of weakness and lack of commitment to the anti-establishment roots of the art form. I will keep that argument in mind next time I am caught boosting from Wal-Mart.

Racking spray paint is the one and only way for a graffiti writer to acquire his tools.

Writers who buy their own cans are considered toys: bitch-made pussies with no heart.

Blest and his crew use graffiti as their primary means of expression, as well as a way of proclaiming their identities. They are motivated solely by the glory of having their work seen and the challenge of circumventing the legal hurdles that they are faced with on a daily basis. Coincidentally, Blest is the most wanted writer on the NYPD Vandal Squad’s hit list, whilst paradoxically featuring as a figure of interest for the local gallery scene.

As the narrative progresses, Blest does his best to avoid the police and hostile rival crews. Then, after Lune, a tagger-in-training, is collared by a corrupt cop and physically abused, Blest’s crew declares war on the police by intensifying their bombing excursions. However, Buk 50 becomes increasingly frustrated by Blest’s apparent preoccupation with his (tagger) girlfriend, Alex, and his lack of commitment to their cause.

Somewhat inevitably, a tragedy leads to a predictable, yet cleverly-executed, climactic twist that suggests martyrdom. However, instead of pulling emotive heartstrings, the sequence will likely leave the average viewer left cold and short-changed.

I adore the lighting, darling, but you have truly made a faux pas with the wallpaper

As a strictly sensual experience, Bomb the System tackles graffiti subculture with an edgy, contemporary and stylish perspective. The drama in is primarily provided via a series of jump cuts and El-P’s post-apocalyptic score (as a Def Jukie myself, I was particularly impressed by this). Further, the cinematography and editing bring urban New York to life with the gritty realism that its subject matter not so much necessitates as it does demands. For instance, the opening segment of the film gives the viewer a breakneck tour of a typical day for Blest, Buk 50 and Lune an impressive split-screen sequence and the narrative itself is strung together by Blest’s streetwise and slang-laden narration.

However, as a substantive experience, Lough fails to take advantage of his potentially avant-garde subject matter and further the political and social exploration of graffiti as both an art form and a culture. Instead, he relies heavily on already established genre stereotypes and narrative clichés. At the heart of Bomb the System lies a conventional bildungsroman tale of friendship, anti-establishment struggle and self-discovery. That the life trajectories of Blest and Buk 50, despite sharing a common start, begin to move in opposite directions is hardly an original concept. Whereas Blest struggles to overcome a family grievance and becomes acutely aware that graffiti culture holds no tangible future for him; Buk 50 is so immersed in the culture that he cannot distance himself from it and view his own life through an objective lens. There are no prizes, therefore, for second-guessing Buk 50’s eventual ‘keep it real’/’sell out’ rant later in the film.

If that was not enough, enter the archetypal left-wing girlfriend, Alex, who (true to form) pleads with Blest to direct his skills to something with more substance by incorporating political and anti-corporate messages in his work. Also, that Alex’s work is politically-inclined contrasts sharply with Blest and Buk 50’s mere tagging and undermines their own rationalizations of their need to create art in the form of tags. Indeed, standing beside Alex, their work seems more of an ego trip than an exercise in self-liberation. On the plus side, the actress who plays Alex, Jaclyn DeSantis, is awesome.

At least Blest’s mother, with her ‘why don’t you go to college and make something of yourself’ stance is wholly originally. I believe that this is the point where Will Smith, in his Fresh Prince of Bel Air guise, would say ‘psyche’.

Run home and cry, emo kid

As a protagonist, Blest is also far from ideal and his self-absorption engenders little sympathy for his plight. He is a white boy from suburban Queens and as such there is a sense is that he is essentially slumming in the Manhattan underworld of gonzo art as a homage to his late older brother, who himself was a legendary tagger (‘Lazaro’) who left his signature tag on the Brooklyn Bridge on the night he died. The point is that Blest can, unlike Buk 50, who is on probation and has to clean toilets as part of his community service, if he chooses, escape. His is a visitor. He is not ‘real’. His resistance to the options that The Man can offer him (a potential art school scholarship) and obliviousness to the needs of his friends does little to endear him to the viewer and sharply undercuts the sense of tragedy that Lough evidently aspires to.

New York: so good they named it twice

Bomb the System is a true New York story. Like the city it depicts, it is a fatally flawed and romanticized microcosm of urban life in modern day American society. Despite this, it (spray) paints an unforgettable portrait of the oft misunderstood art form and culture of graffiti – albeit it in the form of a thinly-veiled thesis on the nobility of graffiti versus conforming and giving in to The Man. Whilst it will do little to convince conservative viewers of the merits of graffiti as anything other than mindless vandalism, Lough offers an honest, heartfelt and impassioned cinematic love poem dedicated to the art and merit of graffiti and to the city that gave birth to the art form more than two decades ago. Rudi Giuliani take note: those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable.

posted by Si at 20:09
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¡No te lo pienses, tío, ante la duda, la más tetuda!

During the summer of 2005, I travelled with a small group of friends to the Balearic island of Ibiza (Eivissa, if you are a Catalan and intend on being pedantic) in search of sea, sand, sex and sangria. Whilst the island is oft documented as being a hedonistic playground for underage drinkers and midlife crisis-suffering ageing techno-monkeys, there has never been much focus on how pretty the island itself is. So, to cut a long story short, during the days we took full advantage of our hire car and did a wee bit of sight-seeing. Whilst enjoying a leisurely stroll around Ibiza Town one day, I spotted a quirky stencil design in the corner of my eye.

I really cannot tell you what it was about the design that caught my attention. Maybe it was its neon-colouring. Maybe it was the subtle juxtaposition of the neon-colouring with the chalk-white, typically Balearic, wall. However, if I were I betting man, I would wager that it was probably more down to the fact that the stencil was of a cute, almost anime-looking, wee cat. Man, I am a sucker for all things feline.


(somewhere in Old Town, Ibiza, August 2005)

A few months later, thanks to Tristan Manco’s Stencil Graffiti, I learned that ‘the wee cat’ was actually called El Gato (‘the cat’, in Spanish, imaginatively enough) and it was the work of an artist who goes by the name of Nano4814 (‘N’ from herein). He originates from Vigo, which is located on the Atlantic coast of Spain, and, to paraphrase his own words, chose the spray-can as his medium of expression in around 1995, having earlier spent the summer of 1991 ‘listening to Public Enemy and first experimenting with a spray can’ through architecting a piece that simply read ‘SEMEN BOYS’. As an aside, in 1995 I was still learning algebra and figuring out the most efficient way of undoing bra-straps.

"I know Ms. Pacman is special. She’s fun. She’s cute. She swallows."

N studied Fine Art at the University of Vigo during a nine-year stretch (1997-2006) that puts even the great Van Wilder’s fictional tenure at Coolidge College to shame. By his own admission, he simply spent his time ‘adding elements to my own particular formula of interacting with the streets’, ‘paid more attention to other things’ rather than his grades and only finished his course out of pure stubbornness: ‘at some point I was told to quit, but I don’t like following the advice of others’.


(© Copyright 2007 Subaquatica (eng.) (Ediciones Superego, S.L.). All rights reserved)

N attributes his career choice as being the ‘natural evolution’ of his spending all day skateboarding in the streets as a youth. In fact, he considers skateboarding to be his ‘main influence as an artist and as an individual’. N comments:

Seeing streetlife from on top of four wheels gives you another point of view of the city – you see it as something creative – and I think that makes you want to be a part of it; be in everybody’s daily life, watching them from the walls

"Art is a lie that makes us realize truth"

Citing Dr. Stump, a Japanese cartoon, and the crazy world it portrays as one of his influences, N also gets inspiration from ‘music, everyday life or situations that make ideas pop into my head’. It is safe to say, judging by the results that I found for the programme on Google, that Dr. Stump is utterly crackers.


(Dr Stump)

In addition to this, during an interview with Wooster Collective, N also cites ‘truckloads of LSD’ as another of his influences. With this in mind, it is unsurprising that N’s work is based around his own world of similarly bonkers and surreal (normally neon) characters – be they rabbits, cats, kids, cows and all sorts. These he uses to ‘always try and give the viewer something that won’t leave them indifferent’. N firmly believes that sarcasm and humour are important and every one of his characters ‘usually has some story behind them’. For instance, El Choquito ('the squid') is a ‘representation’ of N and the medium that he uses: ‘swimming in the streets, spreading the ink’.



N believes that recently his work has been ‘turning more introspective… self-conscious and also less anecdotic’ and that he is currently at a point where the three different lines of work that he had previously undertook meet. His work as a designer has always been detached from his personal work, whilst his work in galleries is increasingly focusing on things that N is concerned about on a personal level. Added to this, N’s work on the streets is ‘becoming more of an escape value that helps me survive in a big city and more tags and throw-ups [rather than] big murals’. The latter signals a return to N’s Vigo origins: simple iconic characters in basic colours in downtown areas.

"Sleep is the cousin of death"

As well as working on his own, N is also a member of Los Niños Especiales (‘the Special Children’), whose work can be found online at www.fotolog.com/los_especialitos.


(© Copyright 2007 Subaquatica (eng.) (Ediciones Superego, S.L.). All rights reserved)

2007 has been good to Nano4814. Among other things, he spent a month in Toulouse painting for the Rio Loco festival, contributed to the Cultura Urbana festival in Madrid and prepared a show with Equipo Plástico in Seattle.

"You talkin’ to me?"

Despite the fact that N is well known outside of Spain and that he always seems to be busy, he has yet to achieve success in the capital letters sense just yet. Call it a hunch but, to somewhat plagiarize the introduction to N’s interview with Subaquatica, this may have something to do with the fact that he is terrible at self-promotion and does not yet have a proper website through which to sell his wares.

My attitude during all these years of street activity has always been the same: do what pleases me and ignore everyone else. I never worried about documenting or promoting my work. The important thing for me is the action itself: doing and being there at a precise moment, alone or with others, and being able to display on a wall what is in your head

This may have something to do with N, bless his little cotton socks, not liking the term ‘street art’ or ‘street artist’. It gives him ‘the creeps’ as it is a media label and he does not believe in lumping people together by virtue of the fact that their chosen artistic medium is the spray-can, posters or stencils. He does not ‘feel very connected’ with some of his similarly-labeled contemporaries. It follows that, by not proactively self-promoting his work, N is simply comfortable ‘doing’ his work rather than being praised for it. And good for him.


(© Copyright 2007 Subaquatica (eng.) (Ediciones Superego, S.L.). All rights reserved)

In the meantime, if you want to learn more about this eccentric Spaniard, you could do a lot worse than checking out his MySpace (www.myspace.com/nano4814) and/or his Fotolog profiles (www.fotolog.com/nano4814).


(© Copyright 2007 Wooster Collective. All rights reserved)

posted by Si at 11:00
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All hail Tomohiro Nishikado

Space Invaders, the arcade game designed by Tomohiro Nishikado in 1978, is the undisputed forerunner of modern video gaming. In short, it is the daddy. In fact, the ‘space invader’ sprites themselves, whilst simplistic in today’s world of Grand Theft Autos et al, have become iconic in their own right – with a quick Google search returning everything from Space Invader t-shirts to belt buckles.


In October 2005, Nishikado commented during an interview with the England-based videogames magazine, Edge, that the look of the ‘space invaders’ had been based on the description of the alien invaders detailed by H.G. Wells in the (reputedly) classic science fiction story The War of the Worlds. Whilst it would, at first read, be fair to conclude that in 1978 Nishikado was in possession of not only the best crack cocaine that money could buy but also the largest crack pipe, his reasoning behind the designs actually makes sense:

In the story, the alien looked like an octopus. I drew a bitmap image
based on the idea. Then I created several other aliens that look like sea
creatures such as a squid or crab.

So, there you have it. Not only did Tomohiro Nishikado create one of the most addictive videogames on the face of the planet – next to Pacman, Pong and Bomberman – he was also a diamond geezer to boot.

What the hell?!

Now, at this point, you would be well within your rights to ask, ‘So what the bally hell does this have to do with graffiti?!’ Well… Space Invaders, as well as bankrupting teenage arcade goers since 1978, also served as the inspiration for a largely anonymous French artist, who is known only by the nom de plume ‘Space Invader’. Clever, huh?

(Camden, London, April 2007 and Near Victoria Station, Manchester, May 2007)

Whilst this ‘Space Invader’ character appears to have the same supplier and crack pipe as Mr. Nishikado (choice quote from his website: “Some people call me a polluter, others say I’m an artists. I prefer to think of myself as an invader!”), I just happen to think that he is a genius.

Using ceramic tiles, Space Invader cements together mosaic images inspired by traditional Space Invaders aliens, bonus spaceships and variations of these themes. Most of the mosaic tiles are small (10” x 10”, at a guess) and others are absolutely enormous (a lot bigger than 10” x 10”, I can tell you). Whilst being extremely practical, the use of mosaics also enables Space Invader to keep the ultra-pixelated appearance of each ‘Invader’. The said mosaics are cemented onto building walls, lamp post bases and pretty much anything that cement will stick to.

Take me to your leader (or dealer, as the case may be)

In Space Invader’s own words, the idea is to ‘invade’ cities all over the world ‘with characters inspired by first-generation arcade games, and especially the now classic Space Invaders’. This he does solely by himself and over the course of the last eight years he has travelled to thirty-five cities, spanning all of the continents. Some of the thousands of individual ‘Invaders’ have been documented with photographs on Space Invader’s website.

(Canal Street, Manchester, May 2007 and somewhere in the East End, London, April 2007)

Space Invader’s mosaics do not have a deep political message as such (‘The act in itself is political, as 99% of the time I don’t have authorization’) and he instead emphasises the ‘gaming’ aspect of his actions: ‘I’ve spent the past eight years travelling from city to city with the sole objective of getting a maximum score’. Space Invader then ranks his compositions as being worth between ten and fifty ‘points’, depending on its size, composition and location. From here, each invaded city gives a final ‘score’ that is added to his previous scores.

O.C.D. ahoy!

How does Space Invader know his ‘high score’? Simple. Because each mosaic is different, they are all numbered and indexed. Then selected information is given in the ‘invasion maps’, that Space Invader produces to not only help addicts such as myself retrace the history of a particular invasion, but also to make some pocket money as well.

(Whitworth Street, Manchester, June 2007 and The South Bank, London, April 2007)

It is at this point that it becomes evident that mosaics and cement are not as cheap as crack cocaine in La République Française. At the present date, Space Invader has produced fifteen of these maps, out of a possible thirty-five invaded cities, and they are available to purchase here.

“Plagiarists at least have the quality of preservation”

Whilst Herman Melville banged on about it being ‘better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation’, Space Invader seems to agree with Benjamin Disraeli’s sentiments, commenting that when he is sent pictures of Space Invaders in towns that he has never set foot in, he sees it as a positive thing (a ‘kind of tribute’). Also, whilst he does not ‘encourage this kind of copying’, he does not ‘especially condemn it either’.

Which is a good job really, seeing as lesser attempts at replicating Mr. Invader’s signature style range can range from average at best to darn godawful. Whilst I do not profess to be able to tell the difference on every occasion, a good yardstick to use is: if it looks like it was designed by an autistic amputee and then cemented onto the wall by a blind epileptic, then it is probably the work of a drunk student, ‘inspired’ at quarter-to-five in the morning after a binge at the local discotheque.

What lies above and below

Aside from the fact that the simplistic genius of Space Invader’s designs habitually succeeds in making me draw for my camera at speeds that would put Wild Bill Hickok to shame, the true pleasure in finding a Space Invader design is just that. Finding it. The designs can be half way up buildings, down alleyways, next to ground-level street signs – the list goes on and on. So, personally, I feel slightly proud when I spot one. Sad, I know, but I do not own a metal detector. Nor can I read archaic maps. Such little discoveries are my little pieces of modern treasure and they never fail to brighten up an otherwise dull day.

Next time you are in a big city, look up, look down and prepare to be invaded.

(Er... Canal Street, Manchester, May 2007)

posted by Si at 11:40
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I'm Simon. I'm 25 and I reside in Manchester, UK. I am living proof that man can live off Potato Waffles alone. At any given time, I'd rather be pillaging.

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