Saturday, October 16, 2010

SKIPS at ARTSPACE FLIPSIDE Eindhoven NL Nov 5





Soul Artists / Zoo York

As much as I'm itching to get back into some walls, I've been too busy at the studio for some upcoming shows. 
I remembered this great clip the other day. 





found this on Hurt You Bad...take it or leave it...

Graffiti wasn’t ‘invented’ either. In the latter half of the 20th Century it just became loud enough that middle aged white people started making books and movies about it. And Subway Art is not ‘the Bible’ so please stop calling it that. The reason graffiti got to the stage where people couldn’t ignore it? Technology. Without the train, the telegraph, guns and poison gas, there wouldn’t have been a Holocaust (sorry for mentioning such a subject in this glib way). Without the aerosol can and photography there’d be no ‘worldwide graffiti movement’, but people would still be writing on shit as they have done for thousands of years. Have you never been to a neighbourhood on the ‘wrong side of the tracks’ and seen the graffiti that kids do? Kids that have never seen Style Wars or NYC graffiti. Have you noticed the stylistic conventions such as bubble letters(!), smiley faces, arrows, stars? Have you ever watched footage of graffiti in the 1950’s and earlier? Are you actually fucking blind?

Graffiti is not illegal. Graffiti only became an offence with the advent of property laws. When Europeans settled in what is now North America the First Nations people were bemused by the idea of ‘property’, i.e. owning land. It would be like some random guy coming up to you and saying, “I’ll give you money for that cloud.” Well you ain’t gonna say no are you? Prehistoric people had no concept of the absurd notion of owning land, but after the “birth of civilisation” in Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq) when something went horribly wrong in our psyche and we embarked on a murderous rampage that continues to this day, competing for property and killing people were suddenly the shit. Unfortunately the inner need to leave your mark on your environment in some small way doesn’t fit in with this new way of thinking. Oh well it’s everyone else’s loss, they’re in denial of their own humanity. By the way, ex-writers who look down on tags are fucking brainwashed scum, don’t listen to their worthless opinions.

Graffiti is as natural as breathing. Don’t ever forget that other forms of expression have been banned by modern man, like certain types of music and dancing. The stuffy, sexless Victorians were the most perverse people ever, and their presence can still be felt by most of us. Being ashamed of the human body, get the fuck out! Anyway like Skeme said, graffiti is for us. Men lift weights to impress other men. Women wear the latest fashions to impress other women. Writers write for other writers. Don’t ever be ashamed of that, or let some artfag tell you that you should be doing pretty characters just to please Joe Public (by all means do characters if it helps you get over).

Graffiti is freedom. Freedom is illegal. Back in the day, prior to the world’s first police force being created in the 19th Century, but anterior to the birth of our fucking scumbag forefathers (before those cunts came along disputes were settled symbolically), if someone stole your shit or tried to fuck with your family, you had to man the fuck up. In other words you had to flex your Alpha male muscles for all they’re worth, whether you were an Alpha male or not – and chances are most men weren’t. Alpha males still exist today in organised crime and politics, they are men who are either powerful enough and/or ruthless enough to live outside the law. For everyone else, ‘Proxy Alpha males’ have been established in the form of the police and the government. However the graffiti world polices and governsitself. The best writers are the ones who exercise their Alpha tendencies to the fullest, you can’t exactly call the cops if someone goes over you so if you’re not willing to physically fight you will only go so far in graffiti. Graffiti writers live outside the laws of society – until they’e caught, obviously – thus they are free, thus true freedom, the way humans once enjoyed it, is illegal. Don’t squander it while you have it, by doing pointless shit like writing a blog on the internet.

All of the above was written off the top of my head and only checked for spelling. If you disagree with anything, please don’t get in touch, I couldn’t care less. Fuck this shit I’m gonna go and listen to some Nick Drake…