Paper 1 - The Accidental Iconoclasts for the class: Aesthetics, Architecture, History
Trailer: IN A WORLD...where Street Art was being systematically lost ONE MAN...was irrelevant because this is a choice we make as a community.
“Art cannot be criticized because every mistake is a new
creation”: this is the poster-dogma of self named Street Artist “Mr. Brainwash”
for his first UK show, a reinvention of his premier show in L.A., Life is Beautiful (Old Sorting Office,
New Oxford Street, Bloomsbury, London). Initially the stenciled image invokes
an avant garde battle cry; yet this call to arms may actually be an act self-defense,
given the Artist’s back-story. Mr. Brainwash came into the public eye via the
documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop
(2010).
Mixing the mythologies of Emperor Claudius and Darth Vader, an odd but
otherwise harmless shop-owner becomes seduced by hype, media, and the benefits
of being a dangerous Street Artist via his cousin, the Artist Space Invader. To
mark the metamorphosis, Thierry Guetta changes his name to “Mr. Brainwash” and
via a large public show, betrays the Street Art community by stealing their
ideas to gain notoriety. At the end of the film the viewer, like the other Artists,
is meant to mix revulsion and indignation at the commercial success of Mr.
Brainwash. He is portrayed as someone who never truly suffered for his Art or
developed a style - a fraud. We’re meant to be mad not because he made money,
but because he cheated.
The last, more diplomatic statement prompts a discussion about Art
in a truly public sphere and by proxy references some very old concerns
regarding aesthetics, the kind which were addressed by Immanuel Kant and
challenged by Marcel Duchamp. Questions like: ‘Should we protect Art we don’t
like because it speaks to our culture?’ ‘Is Art only ever really Art when
viewed inside a gallery?’ and the worst of all possible questions: ‘Is it
beautiful?’ With these heavy-handed intellectual debates in the mix, the
removal of Street Art or Graffiti Writing might be a topic that an
environmental employee for the local council may not be qualified to answer
with satisfaction to the Art community. As stated by a spokesman for Transport for
London in 2007: “Our graffiti removal teams are staffed by professional
cleaners, not professional Art critics.”
...Then some more stuff happens..
The
public sphere’s responsibility regarding Street Art is littered with tactile
and delicate issues. Asking a government, especially government officials, to
endorse Artwork that they themselves have not commissioned or had input on is
highly impractical in the current media-savvy and salacious sound-bite environment.
Further, there is the darkly practical issue of cost. If a government is
responsible for maintaining a piece of Art, then the funding for that
maintenance will come from taxes. Using taxes to pay for Art is a debate which
is as prickly as it is tedious. So the easiest solution seems to be the one
that Councils have started using, leaving it up to an eventual public complaint
and/or private ownership.
...Then even more stuff happens..
Putting the public in charge of Street Art’s fate has a systematic
logic and an inherent contradiction. An outraged public laments over the loss
of Artwork and decry the officials who carried out the execution, but this is
the same public who complained and asked for the work to be removed in the
first place. ‘Public opinion’ therefore is a wily entity, as real as it is
mythological. It makes ‘the public’ seem like a homogenous being, rather than a
vast collection of entities. As if the ‘Third Estate’ the ‘Hoi Polloi’ the
‘Unwashed Masses’ were a group in constant agreement. What’s more, ‘public
opinion’ can lead to the same problems that face the councils now; Art that is deemed
not worth protection because no one asked for it and deserving removal when it
becomes an ‘eyesore’, except this time we are without a party to blame. This is
particularly dangerous for new Artists, as public shock is a very old enemy to
aesthetic innovation yet rarely has singular public complaint of
‘eye-sore’ meant the Art’s destruction. If an individual grievance was the only means
of determining the course of Art History then we might be today without the
Pre-Raphaelites, the Impressionists or basically anything by Van Gogh.Then
again, Dante Gabriel Rossetti didn’t paint Bocca
Baciata on the side of a building, which makes this current problem a new
take on a very old theme. For the councils it seemed to be damned if you do,
damned if you don’t and opting for the better solution they turn to the camera
and say “Britain, You Decide!” hoping that the fabled force can make a
thoughtful choice.
Then there is a conclusion. A SECRET conclusion.
I really enjoyed writing this one. If nothing else because I got to tromp around East London with a camera and a sense of purpose. The other paper is certainly dryer, and with a more academic lean - what do I mean? Well let's give you a taste:
The Villa Adriana is an outlier of Architectural history,
not only as a collection of structures in a site but also for the vastly
different ways it can be interpreted. Depending on the author, the Villa could
be cast as the experimental workshop of a genius or the grotesque fantasy of a despot,
an idyllic center for learning, or a junk pile of hedonism. UNESCO World Heritage describes the site
as: “Many structures... arranged without any overall plan”.It appears in The Classical Tradition as
“a paradigm in what might be considered the landscape of allusion”while Baedeker’s Guide to Italy takes
a much more neutral assessment, describing it simply as an “Imperial summer
residence".
The Villa’s ability to inspire ambivalence is what makes it exceptional, a
quality not lost on those who reference it. If we use the Villa Adriana as a
case study example of the sometimes inaccurate self-labeling of the Architect
(especially the labels of Architect/Engineer and Bricoleur) then two prominent
figures are self-evident, Le Corbusier and Colin Rowe. Both writers use the
Villa Adriana as a paradigm of excellence in Architecture and planning (via Vers Une Architecture and Collision City and the Politics of Bricolage
respectively). However, that is where the similarities stop. Le Corbusier,
looking for a traceable lineage to justify his work, alluded to the Villa as a
prime example of moral, geometric and rational planning. While Rowe, aiming to
contradict and reinterpret the former’s manifesto, saw it as the fusion of
fragmented objects with competing agendas. By looking at how these two authors
use the Villa Adriana to construct their arguments, it becomes easier to
understand the problems with their self-identification; specifically by
studying the philosophies that produced the labels, the authors’ analysis of
the Villa and the media representation that they chose to depict their
findings.
....then a lot of stuff happens...
Though their Architectural solutions
are arguably timeless, in choosing their self-applied labels, Colin Rowe and Le
Corbusier define themselves within the context of twentieth century mind frame.
In choosing self-apply their own labels, rather than allowing the reader to
decide, they are cemented by their criticism. Le Corbusier writes as a Modernist,
authoritative in intent and language. Rowe writes as a
quasi-post-modern/quasi-phenomenological critic, ambiguous in his prose. The
earlier writer was still witnessing the aftermath of World War I, coming out of
the tradition of Architectural eclecticism while maintaining a growing interest
in abstraction and Freudian psychology. The later was writing from the
perspective of a post-war, post-pop, post-rationalist scholar knowing from
historical precedent that manifestos are inherently flawed. Le Corbusier had learned from movements like
the Italian Futurists that plan-based, decoration-less construction would not
be marketable ideas without a dynastic lineage. He could not sever his work
from the past such as Antonio Sant’Elia had done, but neither could he afford
to alienate potential clients with a sense of haughty supremacy, like Adolf
Loos. Rowe had a distinct advantage to his analysis, as he knew what Le
Corbusier would eventually become, that he would shed the white machine
aesthetic in favor of rough textures and bright colors later in his career;
that the early Modern worldview was overly idealistic. The Architect/Engineer
is looking to sell his goods and the Bricoleur is someone living in the
aftermath. Neither of the world-views is completely incorrect because both
authors have determined what being “correct” means.
Then there is a conclusion. Ooooohhh graaaddd schooool seeeecreeeeetttsssss.
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