About French

The Jesuit grammarian Dominic Bohours (1628-1702), quoted in Babel, by Gaston Dorren:

Of all languages, French has the most natural and sleekest pronunciation. The Chinese and well-nigh all Asian peoples sing; the Germans grumble; the Spaniards holler; the Italians sigh; the English whistle. Only the French can properly be said to speak.

Also, at BlueSky (which is where all the Twitterers are putting down roots in case Uncle Elon succeeds in making the whole thing entirely awful):

About Banksy and Quinn

Two recent events, independent of each other but thematically linked, have prompted mass chin-stroking with regard to the definition and legitimacy of art.

First, Banksy’s mask-related modification of a Tube carriage came and then went, removed by a cleaning crew unaware of its provenance (or, indeed, of its potential monetary value to cash-strapped Transport For London). It’s a sharp reminder that, despite the mystery graffitist’s claim to be the most famous living artist in the country, a huge swathe of the population has no clue who he is or what he does, and presumably cares even less.

And then Marc Quinn, of blood head fame (although, bearing in mind what happened to Banksy, perhaps “fame” should be enveloped in multiple ironic air quotes) replaced the fallen statue of a long-dead slaver with one of the campaigner Jen Reid.

And then, no sooner was the Reid statue up, it was removed again, albeit by direct order of the local council. One could of course argue that the permanence of Banksy’s and Quinn’s pieces is not the point; their surreptitious installations are the real works of art in both cases. And because they are both working in these guerrilla traditions, the worst thing that could happen would be for the graffiti and the statue to be permitted, condoned, recuperated by the authorities. The twin erasures, accidental and then deliberate, represent not the destruction of the art, but its culmination and validation, proving that the graffiti and the statue are both too dangerous to exist.

About the stubborn persistence of the analogue

Further to my baffled musings about stickers, I’ve been aware of a resurgence of communication that doesn’t quite challenge the digital hegemony, but wants to operate alongside it. I guess graffiti is one example; still obstinately analogue, but wanting to be photographed and shared as much as possible. And the serious creators always include their own Instagram tags. And then there’s something like this: whoever stuck it up hasn’t even bothered to use a laser printer or photocopier, and the jagged frills where the page has been torn from its spiral binding shout its wood pulp reality. But there’s no physical location given, or even a phone number; for any useful details, the analogue isn’t quite enough.

About The Damned

I wrote several months ago about the fuzzy line between art and graffiti, and which of them carries within it more value and/or credibility. I suggested that the gradual eradication of an image of Croydon punk pioneers The Damned is strangely appropriate to the movement’s aesthetic. Now I’ve found a tweet by the original artist who seems to view the process with a sort of shrugging fatalism, but crucially he regards his own work not as “graffiti” but as a “cartoon”, which – I infer – is considered to be somehow better.

My Damned and Johnny Moped cartoons on display at St George's Walk, Croydon. Go and see it before it gets covered in graffiti. #PunkLondon pic.twitter.com/9w9Gnj85Xe

— Punk Rock Toons (@punkrocktoons) 23 October 2016

March this year:

A few days ago:

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 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 Banksy (not for the first time)

Bristol Museum is in hot water for selling prints of a Banksy work without the mystery stenciller’s permission. On the face of it, it’s a straightforward copyright issue; but of course Banksy made his reputation as a graffitist, a subversive, a lawbreaker, a defacer. He does things in galleries now, but derives his authenticity from his time on the streets, where copycats attract opprobrium, but not lawyers’ letters. One purchaser cancelled his order when he found the print wasn’t authorised, as if a picture of something that Banksy did (not the work itself) is only good if Banksy says it is.

Which reminds me – “authentic” and “author” and “authorised” and “authority” all come from the same root.

About that four-storey phallus

The street artist Carolina Falkholt doubtless expected to provoke a reaction when she painted a large phallus on the outside of a building on New York’s Lower East Side, and she got it, much of it expressed as sincere worries for the tender sensibilities of children. (Just read some Freud, people.) But I was rather fond of the response of local resident Sal Balvo: “I’m walking down the street and I see a genital. That’s what I came to New York for.”

About street art

I’ve been thinking about graffiti/street art lately, so was intrigued when Annie flagged this up, because it raises two interlocking questions; not just the inevitable “but is it art?” but also the equally pertinent “but is it street?”

Rothko vs the Yellowistzzz

OK, I’m officially bored with people defacing works of art in the name of art (or anti-art or something along those lines). The joke’s just become too ingrown. Yeah, yeah, Vladimir Umanets, you got your name – and that of your precious Yellowism – in the papers. But you also knew that deep down that for most people your stunt would simply provide yet another excuse to trot out all those tiresome “a-child-of-five-could-do-that” whines about modern art; which LC, incidentally, has curated into a rather fetching conversation piece in its own right. Maybe he should ask Mr Umanets to scrawl all over his blog.

And in any case, there’s nothing new about it. I ran through the most notable examples of recent years a while ago; but some restoration work on frescoes in Valencia Cathedral has uncovered an even older example. Apparently a 17th-century workman had scratched a full set of gentlemen’s trouser equipment into an angel’s wing. Unfortunately he isn’t around to expand on his aesthetic justification.

Hanbury Street: who nose?

Not entirely sure what to make of this. An LA graffiti artist, Mear One, has painted a mural in Hanbury Street, east London, which, according to how you choose to interpret it is either an attack on global capitalism or a collision of several different bonkers conspiracy theory tropes with a distinct stench of anti-semitism. “Oh, but those big-nosed guys on the Monopoly board aren’t meant to be Jewish,” say the picture’s defenders. “They’re just, y'know, capitalists. With big noses.” The fact that the mural appeared in a predominantly Muslim area has escaped nobody’s attention.

Without wanting to descend to a pointless game of whataboutery, maybe those Danish cartoons were just pictures of some bloke. With a turban. Oh, and while we’re there, check out Amazon’s Dachau jigsaw; and, from a free speech perspective, William Saletan at Salon. My view? None of these things should be banned; but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s sensible to do them either.

Meanwhile, on a cheerier note: over here, I write an entire blog post about one footnote.

PS: Panic over. The mural’s going. But not before it becomes the victim of another moment of impromptu street art.

Professor Stephen Graham: “very silly” (allegedly)

Context determines much about how we perceive art; graffiti is an eyesore until it’s determined to be by Banksy or John Lydon, at which point it goes into a gallery or becomes appropriate raw material for academics to ponder. And that 120-year-old Ecce Homo fresco in a church in Zaragoza is rather more famous now it’s been, um, restored by a parishioner and, I guess, a bit more valuable as well.

So I was immediately sceptical when nice residents of a nice street in a nicer bit of Newcastle claimed to be discombobulated that their nice cars had been vandalised with words such as “VERY SILLY” and “ARBITRARY”, spelled correctly and all. The Daily Mail in its wisdom has decided that the culprit is one Stephen Graham, a professor at Newcastle University where he focuses on cities, technology and surveillance; here he is on the subject of London’s Olympic lockdown. I should stress that Graham has been arrested and charged, but not convicted of any offence, so someone at the Mail should really get a major bollocking some time this morning; but still, I’d guess that having one’s Merc or BMW etched with what may be the initial notes for a groundbreaking thesis on ostentatious consumption by the bourgeoisie of North-East England would double its resale value at least. If I were a well-off car-owner in Jesmond, I’d be slipping Professor Graham a research grant to enable him to scratch a bit deeper.

See his picture hanging on your wall

Graffiti drawn by the Sex Pistols when they lived in a rented flat in London in the 1970s has been described by archaeologist John Schofield – who in no way, shape or form is reaching for a headline-grabbing bit of hyperbole that may just raise his media profile enough so that his name is buzzing around the media ether when some desperate producer gets round to making a show called The Real Bonekickers – as “punk’s Lascaux”. In fact, much of it appears to be indebted to the wondrous work of Leo Baxendale – begetter of the Bash Street Kids – and as such ought to be preserved for the time when LB finally gets his own exhibition at Tate Modern. This really shouldn’t have been a surprise, as Johnny Rotten was so clearly the bastard offspring of Plug and Steerpike, but hey, now we have proof, and the images that provide such proof must be preserved.

But wait – what’s that I hear? Is it the sound of Telegraph readers harrumphing that this isn’t really art, and what the Pistols did wasn’t really music, and protecting these doodles isn’t what archaeology is about? And the occasional fabulously witty one-liner about unmade beds as well? Leaving aside the fact that the only piece of art a Telegraph reader would really appreciate is a portrait of Margaret Thatcher kicking a wind turbine to death, painted on tweed, it seems as if they’ve been lured into a trap as deliciously effective as the one that ensnared poor Bill Grundy. The Pistols’ credibility has taken something of a knock in recent years, what with one of them hawking butter, and another joining Simply Red (although at least they haven’t yet taken the John Lewis shilling). With their anguished, blimpish howls, the ruddy-faced disgusteds are just proving that the middle-aged punksters can still provoke. Mr McLaren would have approved.

PS: In The Guardian, Jonathan Jones sneers at Schofield’s appropriation of pop culture – then quotes George from Seinfeld.