Astoria Scum River Bridge on Vimeo on Vimeo

via Astoria Scum River Bridge on Vimeo.

So this is totally awesome. Like, it’s teh Roxxorz, for sure.

Graffiti Artist Robbo Took the Road – WSJ.com.

I don’t have any idea how long this will be available for free, but it’s up as of today, so I hope it will remain freely available in perpetuity.

Here’s the nutshell: Banksy dissed a ~25 year old ROBBO INC. piece, and now ROBBO has come out of retirement to wage war against the street artist. Gogo Robbo (and friends). Well, ‘dissed’ may not be quite the right word, but it had the expected effect: ROBBO is now busily dissing Banksy’s all over, and I say Good for Him.

I need to keep an eye on this as it develops. Banksy is something of a tourist commodity for London (and Bristol and other parts of England), and I wonder what reaction—if any—authorities will have to the battle being waged on London streets (and canals). On the one hand, Banksy’s works are as illegal as ROBBO’s; on the other, Banksy has an incredibly high market value and exists as something of a (sub)cultural icon, and the presence of his works adds value to neighborhoods and landmarks.

Additionally, I believe the responses by ROBBO (and TEAM ROBBO) bear a relationship to the activities of ‘the Splasher,’ who features prominently in my Master’s thesis “Street Art and the Splasher: Assimilation and Resistance in Advanced Capitalism.” I also feel that the discussion could be useful in my attempt to resolve my own confusion about what separates street art from graffiti, and may help to define this separation.

Also, the comments (available here) are quite interesting—if largely unsurprising—and range from ‘vandals should be shot’ to ‘I like Banksy, but that Robbo guy (and the rest of his vandal buddies) should be shot,’ with typical misunderstanding of the impulses behind graffiti, the purpose and import of vandalism as a hobby and as an integral part of capitalism (without vandalism, glaziers, painters, sandblasters, graffiti policemen, etc. would enjoy far less business and would thus contribute less to the economy, and this is not to mention loss-prevention departments at hardware stores, Wall-Marts, and other purveyors of spraypaint), and other myriad issues surrounding graffiti (and, by extension, street art, if ‘street art’ is indeed a separate activity) in the twenty-first century.

From “Bad Boys of Art at Manhattan Galleries,” by Roberta Smith, 11 February, 2010:

The 1980s certainly had no shortage of genuinely hopeless bad boys from both sides of the Atlantic, but Keith Haring 1958-1990 deviated from the norm by having something close to a heart of gold. It always seemed emblematic that his subway graffiti did no lasting damage: he drew in white chalk on the black paper covering unrented advertising panels. Even more characteristic was Haring’s habit of painting public murals pro bono. During his lifetime he completed 16 such works at hospitals and children’s centers around the world, including the 70-foot-long “Mural for St. Patrick’s Daycare Center,” from a San Francisco building. It dates from 1985, was dismantled in 2006 when the center lost its lease and can be seen in an enormous all-white space at Deitch Projects 18 Wooster Street, SoHo through Saturday, and then again from Feb. 23 through Feb. 27. It looks stunning.

Executed in acrylic on wood, the mural is populated by a range of charming cartoon characters and animals inspired by Haring’s childhood drawings, including a self-portrait at one end. The forms are rounder, the energy less aggressive and antic than usual, as if Haring were softening his style, summoning his younger self for younger viewers. Which makes it all the more interesting that he was clearly at the height of his powers, working with complete assurance and ease. The mural is a superb calligraphic performance, revealing the bad boy as a Zen master in a state of grace.

Of note here is two separate statements, both with important links to my current exploration of graffiti.

First, Roberta Smith notes an interesting aspect of Haring’s graffiti: it “did no lasting damage…” This suggests that graffiti usually does lasting harm to the surfaces on which it is put, and I wonder to what ‘lasting’ refers in this context. Spraypaint and wheatpastes are ephemeral: they do not hold up to environmental factors and are removable with commonly available implements (and a fair amount of elbow grease). Carvings, etchings, and other sorts of surface-marring techniques do indeed do “lasting harm,” but such techniques form a small sub-set of the graffiti milieu in contemporary society.

Now, it is largely true that writers desire their works to stay ‘up,’ to remain visible for weeks or months or years: this is likely why drill bits, etching compound, and other sorts of permanently destructive tools/media entered into use. In fact, a writer recently commented that he would like to develop a bleach-based ink for marking on awnings, cloth banners, and the like.[1]

However, graffiti is, for the most part, non-destructive, or not destructive in the same way as, say, a rock thrown through a window would be destructive. So it is interesting to me that Ms. Smith would point specifically to the nondestructive aspects of Haring’s production.[2] Of course, Smith’s assertion that Haring’s work was not destructive is a rhetorical device used to illustrate his “something close to a heart of gold,” so perhaps I’m reading too much into the statement.

It must be noted, though, that most graffiti is nondestructive and is, in some sense, a productive activity: Haring’s graffiti produced an international art career; CHUNK tags produce proof that CHUNK exists.

Second, Ms. Smith refers to the mural as “a superb calligraphic performance,” a statement that points out two of the most important aspects of graffiti practice: the style and form of the letters, and the confidence with which the writer gets his or her name out into the world.

Contemporary graffiti is, at its core, a form of calligraphy. Writers spend a great deal of time working on their letter forms and developing what artists and art historians call a ‘hand:’ an intimate knowledge of materials and techniques, and the body’s ability to deploy various materials and techniques.

In referring to Haring’s execution of the mural as a ‘performance’ also points to the active, performative nature of graffiti in general, a topic that requires much more space and time than I’m willing to go into today.[3]

And I would like to apologize for being so absent lately. Life has taken its toll (in fact, it’s had me in a choke hold for weeks), but I hope to be able to get back to work on this project soon, and with a greater sense of urgency and commitment.

[2] There is a difference between chalk on paper and spraypaint on brick: the point is that neither is particularly destructive to the surface. In fact, it might be argued that chalk on paper is more destructive than spraypaint on brick, since it seems to me that removing chalk would likely cause more damage to the paper than removing spraypaint would cause to brick.

[3] I spoke about this at some length in a 2008 lecture entitled “Varieties of Performance in graffiti and street art.” An essay version is forthcoming.