Seeing The Art In The Mirror

Tag On Bear by artist Kid Zoom. Kid Zoom is an Australian artist who started out doing graffiti and street art. Recently he is gaining fame for his works and in 2010 had a big very successful gallery show in New York. This piece is actually from that show.  The hand portraits in the background are done with aerosol cans and show amazing skill. In the foreground is a stuffed bear that Kid Zoom tagged and put on a pedestal. This is a great example of how the art community is recognizing this art form as a legitimate part of art history and the fame that some of these artists are gaining.

Reflecting on this researched blog project assures me that I did indeed enjoy the journey. This project made me look at an issue, once I thought was relatively simple before I started, very much differently than what I expected to find. The issues on the views and feelings about street and graffiti art turned out to be much more complex, and in some cases very abstract. Each posting took me down a very different avenue to this universal issue; however each one remained relevant to the whole. Every article and posting brought me more insight into the images on the wall that I feel many people don't gain unless diving deep into a certain topic. Discovering all the different sides to this issue became not only an intellectual journey but an emotional one as well. This issue made me look at society and how everyday things are really controlled; intellectually it made me more aware. Emotionally, it sometimes angered me at what is valid and invalid; while also some parts made me happy to learn that as a whole we are not giving up, we can actually make a change if we really try.

This blog project, in my opinion, proved a more effective research trial than a conventional research paper. One reason is that it was an ongoing process that is never really finalized, so it does make you look further than what a regular limited paper would have you seek. The opinion base that is available and almost necessary in a blog also helped tremendously, for this is where all the information you read really has to be pondered on to make a statement. So this challenges the author of the blog more than what a paper would. All in all, the blog research project offered more opportunity to gain knowledge about a certain topic when compared to a traditional research paper. The last question I pose to my readers is: how do you now feel about urban art, and its place in this world?

Kid Zoom (2010). Tag on a bear. Retrieved May 6, 2011 from the World Wide Web: http://www.streetsandcanvas.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/KID-ZOOM-TAG-ON- BEAR.jpg.

 

Inspired Art Or Commissioned Marketing?

Graffiti started out as a marketing campaign. It was a marketing campaign for the artist to show that they were there to claim their fame. As time progressed street and graffiti art became a little more elaborate. It became more creative, imaginative, and meaningful. Still at the beginning it was all just about getting your name out there; until it evolved and pieces started to pop up more image base driven than word or text driven. Then just like the reoccurring names gaining notoriety, the images were gaining a sort of power from their repeated use. Marketing is at the very essence of urban art and both ways, text or image base, are very effective ways to market oneself. However urban art uses this aspect of itself to pass on beauty and important messages.

Ever since I was very young, graffiti wasn't just an underground urban art form. It had been encompassed a little by the commercial world. I would see the imagery on many things that surrounded me at the time, such as skateboards, toys, clothes, music, and television. This imagery was prevalent everywhere I looked, whether this art influence was created by an actual graffiti artist or just a mock creation imitating the lettering or figures commonly used. Gradually the look and feel of this whole movement and the influence that it has over other things has changed and continues to do so to this day, as it is still very prevalent in the commercial mainstream. It moved from elaborate, colorful text driven imagery to the more simplistic, rustic stencil imagery that it is at today.

This style of art is now and has been used, for awhile now, by corporations and other big business in their advertisements. There has been a bit of a marriage between the two, big business and urban art, ever since the youth culture started to latch onto the street and graffiti art movement some time ago. To be honest, graffiti and street art are perfect for the advertising gig. So as urban art progresses and prevails, the businesses moved away from just using the mock imagery or artists for creations on billboards, signs, and TV commercials. They actually have started to pick up the tools of the artists themselves and bring it all back to its roots. Certain businesses are advertising by going out and creating street and graffiti art for their logos or supporting their products or company, aka “guerrilla advertising”. This is especially attractive for companies because guerrilla advertising attracts a new audience and is much cheaper than conventional advertising; and if these companies get caught with vandalism there isn't a big punishment for them, only a small fee that is much cheaper than paying for an advertisement (Delana, n.d.).

This new way to market is moderately attractive to street artists because they get paid to put up street art as long as it advertises the product in some way (Delana, n.d.). The real problem is that advertisements already litter the visual environment with a scourge of images trying to turn us all into drone consumers. Urban art was the only thing in the environment that was created individually with true integrity for the purpose of beauty and community message. Not to mention that urban art was usually always more intriguing to look at when compared to those bland advertisements. The lines between these two visual imagery avenues are blurring now that they are mixing; soon cities will be overrun by images that seem like street art, but in fact are just pounding brands into your head trying to sell you something. Urban art is the innocent amidst the already huge cluster of visual marketing that surrounds us everywhere we turn our eyes trying to force things upon us. Why ruin that one visual break that artists give from the consuming overload?

Delana. (n.d.). Guerrilla art versus guerrilla advertising: What’s the difference? Retrieved May 3, 2011, from http://weburbanist.com/2008/07/03/guerrilla-art-versus-guerrilla-advertising-whats-the-difference/.

Cross Walk Mr. Clean (2008). Retreived May 5, 2011 from the World Wide Web: http://www.adsavvy.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/guerilla-marketing-example1.jpg.

Jeep Parking (2007). Retrieved May 5, 2011 from the World Wide Web: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-Ou9L6rRmaUM4JRepx65D9i_o3FqoaltndNT-IhHi7TnPhTIR7qBCK7LFjP5SGYu3_OOseg6ibu88PFmMbtrqULB2pLHofFimPm0LRh-Ja3mbKOAk6vS9B28ZK4Zjw8kz3Xt5Us7Rb68/s1600/jeep-parking-space-ad.jpg.

 

Visual Rhetoric

“Trash Men” by Mark Jenkins is a construction for street art. This is a illicit sculpture placed on the streets in London. It consists of four bags that are filled with some sort of material to make them seem like full trash bags. Then at the bottom of each bag are two openings where attached are realistic-looking but false legs that posed to look as if someone just through the bags down.

Street art isn't always just trapped on a vertical surface. Sometimes the art placed on the street comes in other forms, such as this installed sculpture. This particular artist specializes in this unconventional medium by placing installations and sculptures on the streets of some of the busiest cities in the world, letting the pieces seek people's notification.

“Trash Men” pulls at the pathos strings through shock and humor. Seeing this in a photograph or in person is quite shocking because at first you don't expect it to be what it really is, legs that are hanging out of the full trash bags. Although, it takes a little contemplation to come to the conclusion that the legs are just life size sculpted pieces with real clothes fitted on top that are arranged so that they are coming out of the bottom of the filled trash bags in a realistic pose.

At second viewing when more of your attention comes into play, you notice the legs and they seem very real, so an eerie feeling comes over you until you come to the realization that they are, in fact, fake. Then once the shock and spook factor wear off, the image becomes funny and ironic. The fact that someone would think of this scenario, of people actually being thrown out with and like the trash, in the first place and actually pull it off is humorously clever.

The image appeals to the logos (logic and information) part of you because it isn't logical at all. Being the opposite, it makes the logic program run to try and depict the message behind why people are in the trash. It is also logically shocking because these are normal everyday things (the trash bags, the pants, shoes and socks, and even the legs) that are usually close to one another in the same environment; however when you combine them it becomes very surreal and out of the ordinary; definitely something that you would never expect. The only way this image appeals to the ethos sense (integrity, trust) is the fact it makes you distrust the environment around you a little more and become more aware as well as suspicious. The connection of this construction to mythos (community) : this sculpture passes a message to the whole community, the message being to wake up and be more aware of your surroundings and also we need to work to prevent us all from becoming consumed by our trash; and anyone can interact with it for it is a tangible object that has no barriers around it.

Jenkins, M. (2010). Trash Men. Retrieved on May 2, 2011 from the World Wide Web at :http://sickoftheradio.com/2010/11/28/art-mark-jenkins-sculptures-speak/.