DOI Heft:
Nr. 1
DOI Artikel:Rattray, Michael: Something about a face: itinerant post-spectacle practices and the work of Graham Landin
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.31178#0082
entrance into the gaüery systém and its subséquent
de-politicization once claimed as art. Foster argues
that T Au* /o Ač* AA<?<?72
/o t? p/Frí* A
/AWT^ Twenty-hve years after Hal Fosterh founda-
tional work, RřroF//?gr, grafhti has entered the gallery
systém, adapted on the streets, become the symbol
of a génération, and provided the foundation for a
worldwide network of dissémination, critique, and
community. But for ali of its implied radicality, Foster
is as correct now in 2010 as he was in 1985. Graffiti
and subsequently street-art are now adapted into
the gallery systém and argued within the consistent
parameters set out by art history.
The above is clearly evidenced by the prominence
and emphasis on the individual bio of the Street
artistA Some of the most theoretically recognized
artists are those artists that are also represented by a
major gallery or art dealer. An example is New York
City based SWOON, whose wheat pasting practice
has recently garnered much attention. The artist, who
was university educated at the Pratt Institute in New
York City and was under the représentation of Jeffrey
Deitch prior to his move to MOCCA Los Angeles, is
a quintessential représentative of Street art practices.
All of the artisťs works are created and pasted in
the city so that they will occupy a certain space, for
a certain period of time. The works are as station-
ary as they are transitory, but the différence is that
the artist is averse to people taking down the work.
SWOON comments that she wants to appropriate
the eye-level spaces of the urban environment, but
hnds it distressing that as her popularity and value as
an artist has increased, her work is taken as opposed
to being allowed to decayA Her work is now illegally
removed for its value as opposed to its vandalism.
What appears common in Street, post-grafhti,
and graffiti practices is that the artists are gener-
ally concerned when someone interfères with the
originality and authenticity of their public works.
It is the spécifie différence between a participatory
^ FOSTER, H.: (AArA PAAks*. New
York 1985, pp. 48-52.
LEWISOHN, C.: TA New York
2008; GAVIN, F.: Yfřř/Re%ggA&f.'AA AATyw/ANA. Lon-
don 2007.
76
practice and a spectatorial practice, amounting to a
divergence of active versus passive recipiency in the
communication and function of the work between
artist and spectator. In contrast, Landin wants his
works to be removed, shufhed, further adorned,
stolen, or better, copied and adapted. Rather than
functioning in and within the culture of the bio,
Landin wishes to promote a culture of anonymous
participation.
For myself, as an art historian/artist that both
practices and actively theorizes public art, it is impor-
tant to personally dehne the urban public sphere(s)
as I understand it. It is a space that is contained by
differing and functional institutions that consistently
own their spaces. These functional institutions can be
evidenced through marketing, branding, billboards,
signs, universities, galleries, businesses, political
agencies, essentially anything that is systemically
sanctioned through abiding by the zoning régula-
tions of commercial, public, and private. A project of
créative, itinérant participatory practice active in the
urban public sphere(s) is to navigate the relationally
ambivalent areas of systemically controlled space
and free-up its dehned use value. One way of ac-
complishing this is through what can be termed non-
invasive artistic acts; theses are acts that consciously
appropriate spaces within the urban that can be easily
removed by anyone, hence respecting the multiplicity
of public sphere(s) in existence at any one time in
any one place or space. Because the city of Montréal
is an example of a late-capitalist market economy,
inclusive of ail of the faults raised by academies,
historians, artists, and theorists, a créative kind of
artistic practice that pushes forth an awareness of
place and site without domination, ownership, or
overt paternalistic tendencies is paramount to our
current reality. In short, choice is what differentiates
this type of work and the sphere(s) that it opérâtes
within. The object in question cannot be vandalism,
nor illégal, nor authentic or original, if the object can
be removed as easily as it is applied by anyone.
3° LEWISOHN 2008 (see m note 29), p. 141; WACLAWEK
2009 (see in note 25), pp. 21-22.
It should be added that many of the authors of books relating
to "street art" share my sentiment. I would argue though
that blanket terms such as Street art do little to address the
magnitude and importance that participatory works represent.
Consequentially, a further theoretical définition to the practice
is both needed and required.
de-politicization once claimed as art. Foster argues
that T Au* /o Ač* AA<?<?72
/o t? p/Frí* A
/AWT^ Twenty-hve years after Hal Fosterh founda-
tional work, RřroF//?gr, grafhti has entered the gallery
systém, adapted on the streets, become the symbol
of a génération, and provided the foundation for a
worldwide network of dissémination, critique, and
community. But for ali of its implied radicality, Foster
is as correct now in 2010 as he was in 1985. Graffiti
and subsequently street-art are now adapted into
the gallery systém and argued within the consistent
parameters set out by art history.
The above is clearly evidenced by the prominence
and emphasis on the individual bio of the Street
artistA Some of the most theoretically recognized
artists are those artists that are also represented by a
major gallery or art dealer. An example is New York
City based SWOON, whose wheat pasting practice
has recently garnered much attention. The artist, who
was university educated at the Pratt Institute in New
York City and was under the représentation of Jeffrey
Deitch prior to his move to MOCCA Los Angeles, is
a quintessential représentative of Street art practices.
All of the artisťs works are created and pasted in
the city so that they will occupy a certain space, for
a certain period of time. The works are as station-
ary as they are transitory, but the différence is that
the artist is averse to people taking down the work.
SWOON comments that she wants to appropriate
the eye-level spaces of the urban environment, but
hnds it distressing that as her popularity and value as
an artist has increased, her work is taken as opposed
to being allowed to decayA Her work is now illegally
removed for its value as opposed to its vandalism.
What appears common in Street, post-grafhti,
and graffiti practices is that the artists are gener-
ally concerned when someone interfères with the
originality and authenticity of their public works.
It is the spécifie différence between a participatory
^ FOSTER, H.: (AArA PAAks*. New
York 1985, pp. 48-52.
LEWISOHN, C.: TA New York
2008; GAVIN, F.: Yfřř/Re%ggA&f.'AA AATyw/ANA. Lon-
don 2007.
76
practice and a spectatorial practice, amounting to a
divergence of active versus passive recipiency in the
communication and function of the work between
artist and spectator. In contrast, Landin wants his
works to be removed, shufhed, further adorned,
stolen, or better, copied and adapted. Rather than
functioning in and within the culture of the bio,
Landin wishes to promote a culture of anonymous
participation.
For myself, as an art historian/artist that both
practices and actively theorizes public art, it is impor-
tant to personally dehne the urban public sphere(s)
as I understand it. It is a space that is contained by
differing and functional institutions that consistently
own their spaces. These functional institutions can be
evidenced through marketing, branding, billboards,
signs, universities, galleries, businesses, political
agencies, essentially anything that is systemically
sanctioned through abiding by the zoning régula-
tions of commercial, public, and private. A project of
créative, itinérant participatory practice active in the
urban public sphere(s) is to navigate the relationally
ambivalent areas of systemically controlled space
and free-up its dehned use value. One way of ac-
complishing this is through what can be termed non-
invasive artistic acts; theses are acts that consciously
appropriate spaces within the urban that can be easily
removed by anyone, hence respecting the multiplicity
of public sphere(s) in existence at any one time in
any one place or space. Because the city of Montréal
is an example of a late-capitalist market economy,
inclusive of ail of the faults raised by academies,
historians, artists, and theorists, a créative kind of
artistic practice that pushes forth an awareness of
place and site without domination, ownership, or
overt paternalistic tendencies is paramount to our
current reality. In short, choice is what differentiates
this type of work and the sphere(s) that it opérâtes
within. The object in question cannot be vandalism,
nor illégal, nor authentic or original, if the object can
be removed as easily as it is applied by anyone.
3° LEWISOHN 2008 (see m note 29), p. 141; WACLAWEK
2009 (see in note 25), pp. 21-22.
It should be added that many of the authors of books relating
to "street art" share my sentiment. I would argue though
that blanket terms such as Street art do little to address the
magnitude and importance that participatory works represent.
Consequentially, a further theoretical définition to the practice
is both needed and required.