Hasta La Ideas

Last Friday, we posted about the latest in a long string of people accidentally painting over beloved and, perhaps more important, very valuable street art by the international renowned Banksy, believing them to be pieces of mere regular-graffiti instead of graffiti-that-could-pay-off-your-mortgage. In that last post, we came up with the idea of selling a listing of all known Banksy work to local business, so they wouldn’t be making a million dollar mistake. The city of Bristol, the artist’s hometown, apparently reads our blog and thinks we’re brilliant because according to this story filed by the BBC, they’re planning to do just that. Or rather, a variation (the city seems less greedy than we). A city councilor has introduced a plan that would create a register of all valuable pieces of street art that “people could consult it before they did work on a building, and have a look and see if it was of any value before they get the emulsion out.” Furthermore, the plan would also call for getting permission by the city to alter any work if it appeared in the list. Though the plan still has to pass a vote to get enacted, it seems like a solid idea. Though also perhaps a bit counter to all of what street art is about in a way, isn’t it? Once you have the city council on board, doesn’t that lessen a bit of the edge?

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(Photo: Gregory Bojorquez)

As we reported a few days back, the regrouped Red Hot Chili Peppers recently unveiled the cover of their forthcoming album, sharing that it had been designed by none other than Damien Hirst. Now they’re apparently continuing on their path of hiring celebrity artists to market their materials, as TMZ, found by way of ArtInfo, reports that they band has gotten Mr. Brainwash, aka Thierry Guetta, to promote the album by way of street art. According to the gossip site, Guetta “wouldn’t specify how much he’s getting paid for the gig, but tells us, his job is far from done…in fact, he and RHCP are teaming up on several more projects.” That extra income is sure to be good for the artist, made famous in the documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop, following the recently-lost copyright suit against him brought on by photographer Glen Friedman. So why did the band ultimately decide to go with Guetta, as his artistic brand is less than stellar following both that recent lawsuit and his not coming off so well in the very film that made him a household name? Our guess is that Banksy just decided long ago that he was a one band-that-was-at-its-most-famous-in-the-90s man and would only work with them. And after all of this hiring of celebrity artists, we think the Guardian hit the nail on the head when they write, “All they need now is a music video by Matthew Barney.”

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The award-winning David Choe documentary now available on DVD

Now available on DVD for the first time, the biographical documentary “Dirty Hands: The Art and Crimes of David Choe” has been released through exclusive collaboration with Upper Playground. The painter, muralist, graffiti artist, and graphic novelist is best known for his unabashed personality and raw artwork that draws on his mental and physical desires—all of which make for an entertaining and captivating experience.

Released in 2008, the straightforward documentary spans seven years of debauchery and creativity by the Los Angeles-based street artist. From his crime-ridden childhood and search for acceptance in the art community to his life-changing time spent in solitary confinement in a Tokyo prison, “Dirty Hands” captures every bit of emotion, energy and eventual understanding that characterizes the free flowing relationship between Choe and his surroundings.

The two-disc DVD includes a twenty page booklet by Choe and plenty of bonus footage. You can grab it today from Upper Playground from their shop ($19) or stream it online for free.

A comprehensive study of tribal art

American art historian Carl Schuster spent more than three decades traveling the world exploring tribal customs and patterns, gathering ancient tribal art and artifacts along the way. Though his goal was to illustrate the intrinsic human connection to artistic expression in an anthropological study, Shuster never managed to compile his research into a cohesive form. With the help of a fellow anthropologist, Edmund Carter, who transferred Schuster’s notes and musings, they were able to transform Shuster’s work into “Patterns that Connect: Social Symbolism in Ancient & Tribal Art“, a seminal book from 1996 that provides evidence and examples to support the scholar’s theories on our natural connection to art.

Comprehensive and comparative, the study contains a total of 1,023 illustrations, featuring sculpted figurines, garments, carved stones, paintings and body decorations from cultures and tribes around the world. Schuster labors to decode this complex iconography in notes and analyses that accompany the images, providing insight into the surprising unity of human society.

According to Schuster, tribal designs such as the ubiquitous zig-zag motif and artifacts such as “Y-posts” are really attempts to record family lineage, not meaningless doodles or objects meant for play. Of the continuous patterns generally used in ceremonial and even everyday garments Schuster remarks, “This is a graphic representation of the puzzle of procreation itself, in which there is neither beginning nor end.”

In contrast to the common anthropological idea that each culture is singularly unique, Schuster argues that since these designs did not just occur in isolated cultures, but were widespread across the earth at different time periods, they are proof of a collective human instinct. Schuster further pushes his theory by positing that ancient patterns continue to survive and are in fact relevant today. Stacked chevrons, for example, ubiquitous in several tribal cultures, are used as modern military insignia denoting rank. Another extension of this relevance appears in modern tattoos, textiles, fashion and art, which all seem to draw from frivolous and innocuous patterns that are actually saturated with hidden meaning through their connection to our tribal past.

A hefty tome in and of itself, Schuster & Carpenter’s “Patterns That Connect,” is intended for more than casual students of anthropological beauty (I discovered it in the library of New Mexico-based artist Judy Tuwaletstiwa). It’s out of print but a good copy can be found for around $100. Those even more serious about the discipline will want to check out the monumental work from which “Patterns” is derived, the 1986 “Materials for the Study of Social Symbolism in Ancient and Tribal Art,” which consists of twelve books in three volumes. Alibris is a good place to start your search.

“It seems to me that the end of the Cold War produced a very important effect: the Internet. The Internet was released and realized because of the end of the Cold War—it was declassified. The Internet brought about a kind of extreme democratization of art. Now anybody, not just artists, can make photographs and videos and put them online, offering their videos and images to global audiences….So, what distinguishes a professional artist from everyone else? Today’s professional artists are those who reflect on and respond to the economic, political, and social conditions of contemporary image production.

The reaction to this new phenomenon—the extreme democratization of art production—still has to be defined. But the politicization of art is perhaps the only feasible response to the extreme democratization of image production, which is a huge de-legitimization of the art system as such. How can you legitimize your existence as a professional artist if everyone else is doing the same thing? That is a very difficult question.”

-Philosopher, art critic, and media theorist Boris Groys, interviewed by Judy Ditner in the exhibition catalogue for “Ostalgia,” on view through September 25 at the New Museum

Pictured: An untitled work from Sergey Zarva’s “Ogonyok” series, 2001. (Courtesy the artist and the New Museum)

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