Friday 1 July 2011

A London Vandal at work in Leeds

Last week we went along to the Creative Networks 'Artistic Vandal' event with street artist James Jessop. After a sneak peak around the end of year shows showing some future street artists in the making we found Jessop in the courtyard, at play recreating one of his designs ahead of the talk. 




Despite the crowd gathered and a number of photographers snapping away Jessop continued to paint almost trance like, until called in for the talk. As soon as Jessop steps up to the mic and starts to talk about his work it becomes clear that he treads a fine line between street artists and vandal.

He talks of bunking off school and stealing the now famous 'Subway Art' by photography legends Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant. On this occasion his 11year old self gets caught and battered by his parents for his troubles, only to be rewarded with his own copy on his 12th birthday.

Jessop clearly had respect and awe for the subway artists of the 1970s, who risked prison sentences, life and limb for their art. He shows a short film of him meeting his heroes including Martha, recreating those iconic shots and talking to the artists behind the work.

He goes on to talk about his own career initially as what he describes as a vandal leaving his tag across London and the south of England. As he grows up he want to know more about art and seeks inspiration from renaissance masters recreating abstract versions of their work.




At first many would have dismissed this cheeky Londoner with an air of shoreditch as a vandal, a graffiti pest leaving his mark and a mess for others to clean. But as the talk goes on and he talks about art history at a level most Oxford born and bred professors would struggle to articulate, he talks about the music scene and how that influences art and more importantly he talks about an 'art', not a way to pass half an hour scrawling his name on the side of a building.

There have been comments on this blog and others about what constitutes street art and sets it apart from lazy vandalism, and nothing answers this argument better than the closing few slides of Jessop's talk.

The camera pans to the same iconic location of one Martha Cooper's photographs. A single bright white, soulless train glides across the track. This could be anywhere, as Jessop says 'now they clean the graffiti off as soon as it happens in New York'.

Compare this scene to the one in 'Subway Art' that inspired Jessop and many others, that gave 1970s New York soul and vibrancy that people from across the globe still seek out, and you start to understand the importance of street art for giving a place it's soul.

There will always be those who are vandals and who seek to destroy, but there will equally be those who seek to add character, life, vibrancy, colour and heart to anodyne, sterilised environments.

[bows as steps off soap box]

For a bit more of an insight to James Jessop here's a link to the man himself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Y2orcPZtp0

3 comments:

  1. Unfortunately I missed the talk by James Jessop. I went along but I was so absorbed with chatting to the students that I missed the start.What they told me can be seen at http://leedsprinter.blogspot.com/
    I did want to see the talk as I find all the talks at CN worth a listen and I wanted to hear how James sees how his art fares in the art world and the gallery environment.
    I have heard how James was excited by the sight of the New York subway and to a child I can see how attractive that would seem. I can't help feeling that it would seem less so to the commuters riding the trains to work every day. I say this because I don't recall 1970s New York as a vibrant place sought out throughout the world. In the '70s New York was the murder capital of the world and I remember having an image of Central Park as being haunted with gangster, rapists and the like. That may be inaccurate, but its image was of a city sliding into lawlessness. I hasten to add that was how it seemed to me living at that time in the 'Old York'.
    The reverse in the city's image and the crime stats started with the adoption of the 'Broken window' theory and its adoption by the New York Transit Police under William Bratton and later by Mayor Giulliani. This from Wiki In 1990, William J. Bratton became head of the New York City Transit Police. Bratton described George L. Kelling as his "intellectual mentor", and implemented zero tolerance of fare-dodging, easier arrestee processing methods and background checks on all those arrested. Republican Mayor Rudy Giuliani and his police commissioner Howard Safir also adopted the strategy more widely in New York City after Giuliani's election in 1993, under the rubrics of "zero tolerance" and "quality of life".
    Graffiti is graffiti whether practiced by a local kid bunking off school or an Oxford Don and it is artistic snobbery to view it otherwise.
    I am afraid I see the glorification of graffiti by the colour supplements as a bit of middle class arms length slumming it. Perhaps the author of this piece enjoys seeing his local library or takeaway improved by spray paint but I wouldn't mind betting that the librarian or pizza shop owner doesn't view it in such a benign light. I wonder why we associate graffiti with run down council estates and not Knightsbridge or even my street of privately owned semis. If the residents of New York miss the vibrancy they are free to spray their houses and cars with tags. The same over here. The day that anyone who yearns for the vibrancy and excitement of graffiti sprays their house and car with graffiti I might take a different view, but it always seems to appeal when it is somebody elses property, or state property which is seen as fair game. That would I believe be perfectly legal. There are strict planning laws to prevent anyone livening up the souless street or countryside with a corrugated iron shanty town or a copy of Caesars Palace. The same goes for graffiti. Maybe those laws should go and free expression be let rip and that is a matter of public debate. Until then anyone who unilaterally decides their marks constitute art while someone elses marks constitute vandalism is simply selfish and arrogant.

    ReplyDelete
  2. As I've said previously we are going to have to agree to disagree on this.

    As much as graffiti is associated with crime and council estates it is also associated with rehabilitation and the freedom to allow expression to improve quality of life.

    I'm sure that street art isn't welcome in your neat street of semis but I think the assumption that it isn't always welcome on council estates is a little misguided. You associate graffiti with criminals wrecking property indiscriminately but as you rightly point out neither your estate nor Knightsbridge are particularly 'blighted' - that tells me something more about the areas that have graffiti not being entirely as tired of it as you may be.

    Yes there is a form of vandalism and we saw recently the case of 'Tox' whose work allegedly wasn't intended as an art form or to enhance a place all-be-it subjectively, it was considered a mindless act vandalism. But then again you wouldn't find Banksy behind bars for his work and most people would count him as a 'famous British artist'.

    At some point people have to decide if Street Art is art or not, they can't pick and choose. They can't celebrate the Banksy's of this world and ridicule the Tox's - they are essentially the same. You have to take the rough with the smooth and without a little freedom creativity will struggle to flourish.

    I'm sure New York in the '70s had it's issues but let's be honest it still does as do most cities and those issues were unlikely to be the cause of, or caused by the kind of artist's involved in the Subway Art scene. These weren't people mindlessly scrawling their name on any wall they could find. They were very specific about their art form which meant more than a few cheap sniggers from their mates.

    It may have been a form of protest and a way of breaking with their daily struggles but if we never had protests and the right to expression I suspect you may not be afforded the privilege of a nice neat street to enjoy. Again, people need to choose freedom to protest and demonstrate in a way they see fit or a willingness to compliance with someone else's way.

    The point here isn't to be personal to you, as you can probably tell as I'm as passionate one way as you are the other. The point is that this world takes all sorts and it is far better to try to understand than to judge. Just as the graffiti artists are respectful of the Knightsbridge streets, the residents of the neat little suburbs should learn to be respectful of their art when it has genuine merit.

    ReplyDelete
  3. PS - Thanks for the comments, despite our differences it's great to be able to hear a different view.

    ReplyDelete