For those who don't know: In August D*Face, Faile, Fenx, Flying Fortress, Galo, Logan Hicks, Martin Watson, SEEN, Shepard Fairey, The London Police, Mizer and Will Barras were invited to paint some walls around the center of Oslo, in support of the organization Human Rights Watch.
Most, if not all of the walls in question are owned by the real estate investor, art collector and billionaire Christian Ringnes.
The neon sign smack in the middle of the London Police mural is from one of his companies. Art lover Ringnes has been quoted as a supporter of Oslo's infamous zero tolerance policy on graffiti. A policy that not only attacks illegal grafiti but also aims to rid the city of legal graffiti. At least one non-profit art show has lost it's funding from the city because it included local graffiti writers. And there is constant talk of closing down the city's only three legal graffiti walls as part of this policy.
D*Face's mural is painted on a building that houses the HQ for the rent-a-cop company Securitas. Now isn't that just lovely! Maybe D*Face was trying to comment on this with the clown he painted? I don't know. Still, I can hardly think of a single wall in Oslo that deserves a "nice" painting less than this place.
As for Shepard Fairey. To the best of my knowledge he wasn't even in Oslo himself, and his posters were put up by his interns. According to Shepard the wall is a tribute to the victims of the 22/7-bomb. Thats nice and all, but it would be even nicer if it wasn't a mass produced ad for his brand Obey.
And then there is Martin fuckin' Watson. I don't even understand why he was included in the artist roster, which to be fair, did included several heavy weights and could be labeled as pretty impressive – if you are into this sort of thing. Could it be that his invitation were nothing more than a gesture from the organizers? A 'thank you' for helping them connect with all the big name artists?
Logan Hicks painted house facades on a house facade as usual (now isn't that clever?), Galo's piece looks painfully out of place, Fenx' shit looks bloody awful, and Faile…. No fuck it. I can't even be bothered.
Considering that Oslo has been and to some degree still is a city well known for it's graffiti – at least within graffiti circles – the lack of local graffiti artists seems at best ignorant, and at worst it's disrespectful and could almost be considered a big 'fuck you' to the local artists that have been producing art in Oslo's streets for the last 25 years.
To be fair, the two girls who organized the whole event most probably have no idea of Oslo's graffiti-history and the city's standing within the graffiti world. And of course they are free to choose stencils, brushes and posters over actual graffiti. But I honestly can't decide if that's a valid excuse or if it just makes the whole thing worse. Probably the latter.
Pretty much sums up everything that's wrong with street art really. It's just bland inoffensive pretty pictures used by the rich as window dressing for their gentrification projects. A flimsy faux-bohemian facade to mask the brutal capitalist reality going on behind the scenes, with the full collusion of the artists involved of course.
ReplyDeleteThe sad/hilarious thing about it is that idiotic cunts like Vandalog, VNA and all the other fanboys who promote this type of shit and these artists have bought so completely into the hype that they truly believe they're part of some edgy counterculture underground rebel movement, when in actual fact they're just moronic pawns in a much larger game. They might as well just line up obediently to take turns sucking the cock of the guy in the picture above, while he laughs contemptuously at them for being so easy to manipulate.
Street art isn't just bad anymore because it's become like advertising. Things have actually got far more serious than that. It's now being used by those with power as a tool of social control.
"a city gets the street art it deserves". Whatson is in because his gallery was sponsering the event. Organizers showing some taste by not seeming to be too impressed, granting him little coverage on their blog.
ReplyDeleteWhatson is a third generation Banksyimpersonator, a poor man's Dolk.
Will Barras was the only artist in this company worth following.
I think Flying Fortress didn't go, as there was no money involved and he was broke, since he spends all his time and money painting graffiti (mostly legal walls) and drinking with his crew "Jukebox Cowboys". At least that's what he told me (that he couldn't go) so please, don't think of him as one of the bad guys. You graffiti dudes should embrace him, he's for sure more a writer than art fag!
ReplyDeletehttp://flying-fortress.blogspot.com/
(ok, so he's a bit of an art fag)
;-)
Can I say "thanks" to the person who wrote this piece. It's nice to see more sides of stories (like with that Robbo documentary) This blog needs more investigative journalism!
Did you come to bury the art tour or to praise it? You
ReplyDeletecite a few rumours then cheerfully admit you can't tell what to infer from
them. Did you form an opinion or reach a conclusion? is
this Ringnes guy in on the deal, swallowing his pride and providing walls to
benefit charitable acts for a good cause, or have the artists and the
organisers and the blog writers and all those other soft targets you always
pick on gone all anarchist-with-hearts-and-conscience? You are
baffled and baffling.
Your weird crush on preserving the status quo is what holds back all forms of
street art and graffiti. The present doesn't owe anything tangible to the
past other than perhaps a little selective respect. It is welcome to steal and to borrow from the
past but preserving it is the last refuge of the art luddite. An artist doesn’t to have been a local
producing art on Oslo's streets for the last 25 years to merit painting these
walls and producing some street art for these times.
Mr Chimp – I hear semen has a sharp flavour, need some
toothpaste? Investigative journalism –
lol. You know this is just a desperation
blog don’t you? Written by a needy motor
mouth who alternated between flouncing out of and being booted out of forums and
almost singlehandedly (almost, there are two sides to every exchange of
childish vitriol) led to the plug being pulled on one of the less mediocre
ones.
oh bugger - ignore the last part of the paragraph addressed to Mr Chimp
ReplyDeleteGreat post nice work, no doubt some people would prefer that this place didn't exist.
ReplyDelete