About the street art/graffiti divide

I’m not going to get sucked into the whole Mear One/Corbyn mural saga, except to observe that the guys around the table do have noses that are rather larger than necessary and to suggest that if you want to defend yourself against charges of anti-semitism, there are better platforms on which to do it than David Icke’s website.

It does, however, add another layer to the whole debate about the dividing line between officially sanctioned street art and verboten graffiti, which I touched on here and here. I wrote a term essay about this in January, touching on the speed with which subversive, dangerous art can become officially recuperated in a relatively short space of time; one example was my local council’s attitude to the hoary punk combo The Damned, who were excoriated in the 1970s and are now lauded as favourite sons. Which, of course, means that the street art that celebrates them is falling victim to the spray cans of those (currently) beyond the pale. As is entirely right and proper, surely?

About Philip Glass

About Bowie and the vandals

Following on from my earlier post about the conservative (and Conservative) distinction between art and graffiti, I’m intrigued by the attack on the new Bowie statue in Ayslesbury. But, given the general response to the installation over the past few days, I wonder if this is actually the work of the provisional wing of Art Critics Anonymous.

About bedbeats

I checked. It’s real.

About billboards

And a tip of the hat to Jennifer Bolande, who populates billboards with images of the landscapes they’re blocking. (Via Toby Amies.) A practical manifestation of Baudrillard’s simulacra and Borges’ 1:1 map, I reckon.

About housing

Amidst the current brouhaha involving Facebook data being used to manipulate what we used to call democracy, it’s good to remember that lots of politics is carried out via good, old-fashioned leaflets through the door – and also that the tactics involved can be just as toxic. Here’s a glorious example of othering from my local Conservative party, in advance of the local elections. *Their* residents parking on *your* streets. Incomers, strangers, newbies, you’re not from round these parts, are you? Get off my land (or at least my parking spot). And, you know what? I bet it’s going to work.

And, on a related note, I posted the image below on Instagram, and within a few minutes it had been *liked* by an account called mortgageslondon.

PS: And more false dichotomy from the local Tories: street art (can be) good; graffiti bad.

About unlistenability

The US National Recording Registry has announced its latest tranche of recordings to be preserved for their cultural significance, which raises all sorts of choice and meaty questions about canonicity and taste making* and whether ‘Footloose’ by Kenny Loggins may be enjoyed outwith the arch finger-quotes of irony. But I’m rather startled by the BBC coverage of the story, which labels seminal 1967 album New Sounds in Electronic Music by Steve Reich et al as “now practically unlistenable” while nodding through the Proceedings of the United Nations Conference on International Organization, and Rhythm Is Gonna Get You by Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine without a quibble. I know which one I’d prefer to subject my friends to at my funeral...

* Essentially, a) Who decides? b) How and why do they decide?

About comments

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About Didcot

Having been re-flicking through childhood favourite The Phantom Tollbooth recently, I wonder where residents of England’s most normal town escape to, if only in their heads...

PS: And these are even better...

About NME

The NME has announced it is closing its print edition and becoming a digital-only product. The end of an era, if that era hadn’t ended in about 2002 (or 1995 or 1981 or pick the year you finally gave up and grew up).

PS: That said, a glance at the cover wrap of that last issue perhaps unwittingly explains what’s really gone wrong for print media:

PPS: And inside, confirmation of exactly how bland and impotent a beast the NME has become, when even the mildest swear is asterisked into oblivion:

About Duchamp and Cage

Lovely write-up in Hyperallergic of the Duchamp/Cage chess match, 50 years ago today.

While all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists.

About Pinter