BARBED WIRE ENTRANCE

It is hard to believe that back in the 1960s graffiti did not exist in the form we are used to now. The first graffiti artist was a teenage Greek Taki (diminutive from the full name Demetrius). He lived in Manhattan at 183rd Street and worked as a courier. In the summer of 1968 he found out that a guy from the next block wrote his name and the street number on a few walls, it read “Julio 204.” It seemed funny for Demetrius and, as a result, for a year the writing “Taki 183” appeared on subway cars and buses, on the walls from New Jersey to the Kennedy Airport. Taki did something nobody thought of before him: he took the tag (signature) outside his district.

One of those tags attracted journalists’ attention and on July 21, 1971 The New York Times published the article called “‘Taki 183’ Spawns Pen Pals.” This push was enough to cause a visual explosion in the city. Already in 1972 some Stitch wrote over the whole fences. In 1973 through 1974 main fonts and graffiti own jargon was formed. Teenagers drew and wrote everywhere but the most suitable environment was subway. Graffiti became a constant characteristic, usual tourist nature of New York. The number soon transferred into quality. Artists began to carefully handle their drawings and worked on their outlines. By the mid 1980s the former vandals got successfully accustomed to the outdoor advertising market and the galleries. In the early 1990s underground vandalism ceased to exist in the city. However, graffiti, after spreading all over the world, developed much more complex forms which found its name in the notion of street art.

In the 1990s a division into “vandals” and masters, who often had academic education, took place. The elite emphasized semantic capacity of an image, which was not characteristic of early “bombing” (another name for graffiti). Professional artists turned to this genre. Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat (USA), and “Sprayer of Zurich” Harald Naegeli (Switzerland – Germany; last year he visited Ukraine) were the first to do so in the 1970s. However, the most significant in this line is the work of Ernest Pignon-Ernest.

Pignon-Ernest was born in 1942 in Nice, he now lives and works in Paris. Since the early 1970s Pignon-Ernest painted life-size portraits and glued them on the street walls – the series dedicated to Arthur Rimbaud, Jean Jeunet, Antonena Artaud, Pier Paolo Pasolini made the artist famous. Equally impressive projects are series of posters based on paintings by Michelangelo Caravaggio stuck in Naples, “Booths” – lost, desperate, or self-isolated characters in transparent phone booths. 

It was under the influence of Pignon-Ernest that a legendary French artist Blek le Rat (real name Xavier Pro), respected, particularly, as the one who opened the way for British Street Art star Banksy. Bansky readily admits it: “Every time when I think that I drew something original, it turns out that Blek le Rat already did exactly the same only 20 years ago.”

On the other side of the ocean New York remains a gigantic laboratory of street art. Streets of some districts are natural art galleries. The choice of techniques and materials is unlimited. You can see the compositions of felt, turf, mirrors, wood and plastic, outdoor installations, and complex metal sculpture – all of that is mounted on walls illegally or semi-legally. There is also an unexpected turn to the literature: complete reflexive texts are put on long thin strips of paper, the art of mosaic and even knitting is revived. One of the entertainments of street artists is binding colorful covers, which are then strained on totally unexpected objects.

The most aesthetically significant figure on New York stage is Swoon (from English ‘swoon’ that means unconsiousness, her real name is Caledonia Dance Curry; see interview with her in The Day No.46 from 2011). She is one of a few psychological portraitists of street art, her models are real people. She works with a technique close to engraving and uses short-lived news print.

Similar processes are also happening in our country. Graffiti is no longer exotic for Ukrainian cities. In recent years a couple of talented artists got distinguished from anonymous chaos. The most famous Kyiv group is “Interesting Tales.” They legally draw surrealistic murals (graffiti murals). Kyiv artist Homer (Oleksandr Kurmaz) tries to work in a manner that resembles the experiments of conceptual artists. Social trend is supported by a young man from the Crimea with a nickname Sharik and anonymous artist Sik from Novomoskovsk. They obviously follow Banksy with their stencils but using them they describe our realities. Anatolii Belov from Kyiv is one of a few of those, who stick their paper works. He is equally successful on streets and in galleries. Municipal authorities begin to realize that street artists can be partners in social projects. Festival Muralissimo took place in Kyiv for the second year in a row. Within its framework Ukrainian and foreign artists decorated some buildings with original murals. So far those are only a few of encouraging examples, however, taking into account the fact that Ukraine has always been primarily not a literary country, but a visual one, we can expect quite interesting artifacts on our streets in the near future.

Starting with naive firework of graffiti, street art made a colossal progress in 40 years, it mastered installation, assemblage, print, graphics, and sculpture. It now has its stars and its impoverished, hungry and angry youth, and criteria of excellence; it has pathos of social representation and secret aestheticism of introverts. Thanks to Swoon, Pignon-Ernest, Elbow Toe, Imminent Disaster, and Banksy we can now speak about high graffiti or high street art (similar to high baroque): there are all signs of a mature tradition.

Invading the streets an illegal artist, albeit briefly, breaks down the established range of characters that make up the urban environment. In the city’s monologue the work of the street artist is a remark which throws off the usual rate of speech, inappropriate for its brightness, absurdity, or a talent of aphorism, which falls out from both standard landscape and from usual flow of teenage cuneiform.

Lois STAVSKY: “For me street art is a visible poetry”

Resident of New York Lois Stavsky is an unusual amateur of street art. She is 63 years old and for 30 years she taught English in high school. Lois got interested in graffiti when she was already retired. She now keeps her own blog, there are over 20,000 photos of street art in her collection. She is one of the greatest experts and authorities of the genre.

Why did a retired English teacher become obsessed with street art? It’s a really unusual hobby for teachers, especially retired teachers. Can you say a few words about it?

“To me it’s a kind of a visual poetry. I’m fascinated by it, not just esthetically, but I’m also fascinated by the intent behind the pieces and the motivations of the artists. And to me it’s almost an extension of being an English teacher, although I realize that that’s unusual.”

What do you like the most in street art, generally speaking? What general qualities fascinate you most?

“As far as graffiti goes, versus the rest of street art – in graffiti I’m fascinated by the skills of the artists, many of whom were my students. And to see a positive outlet for their creative energy, because in the schools they have very few positive outlets for their creative energy, and their talent is not appreciated in the school system. And it’s great to see them do something which utilizes their skills, that’s in public. So I love the graffiti for that reason. It personally attaches me because the kids are the toil of my life. As far as the street art goes, I’m interested in the street art more for its meaning, like I said, that’s visual poetry for me, and the esthetics. So I guess the idea of them doing something illegally, surreptitiously – that I think is for the good! Okay, any other questions?”

What genres or techniques of the street art do you prefer most?

“I can’t even say because I love so different ones. You know, I guess I have to say stencils, like I said before, I love the old school graffiti, so I could not narrow it down… It’s between stencils and the three-dimensional graffiti, I got the appeal of both.”

It’s a very interesting thing because when they are talking about this equally esthetical and equally social, which is the main do you think? Which is more important?

“What’s more important to me? To me the best is when you combine the two. That’s what the guys in Tel Aviv are doing. People like Know Hope and Zero Cents, they both are great, they are both esthetically interesting and conceptual, they make you think, it’s Tel Aviv.”

Could you describe an average portrait of the street artist? Gender, age, habits?

“Again, there is no average portrait. But I can tell you one of the differences between the street artist and the graffiti artist, okay? The street artist, generally, they will have gone to arts school, they have degrees in art, they come from middle-class, upper-middle class, or upper-class families… What else can I say? And I think that everybody who risks, you know, the law by putting things out on the streets, also has the kind of mind that challenges things. They have challenging minds. That’s the street artist.

“The graffiti artist, now, they are not all lower-class, there are some upper-class, white kids among them. The kids who do graffiti, and I’ve taught many of them, they are kids who… Okay, one of the big differences about them is that the kids who are street artists, their parents usually love what they do and support what they do, and the kids who are graffiti artists, many of them have told me how their mothers go around the house tearing up everything, ripping it off. They don’t get any support from their family, generally. Again, you can’t stereotype it generally. And generally, they have their own thing conceptually, they are much more interesting than esthetics, in terms of color, and designs, and techniques. So that’s a big difference.”

What does the term “vandalism” mean to you?

“What does vandalism mean to me? Okay, the only thing is that I don’t think of graffiti as vandalism. What I think of as vandalism, and I don’t approve of it, is when somebody will, like, tag their name on somebody’s private property. That, to me, is vandalism.”

Could you please repeat what you said when we spoke about graffiti, that many believe graffiti is where crime starts from?

“Oh, that’s ridiculous. To me, it’s an outlet for the kids, so they don’t commit crimes (laughs). Because graffiti started with so many minority kids and people, the general population feels threatened by minorities, they associate graffiti with crime. But they don’t realize that, you see? They don’t realize it, because when I ask some of these people why they don’t like the graffiti, they can’t even verbalize why they don’t like it. They know they don’t like it. Interesting, eh?”

There is one important question I wanted to ask after the visit to the art gallery. Does the street artist lose his originality after becoming a gallery artist? Is there a border between the two?

“This is the thing. I’d much, much rather see it on the streets than in a gallery. And sometimes it works in a gallery, sometimes it doesn’t. But I understand, I’ve known enough artists to understand that if they sell a piece in a gallery, it gives them the time, they are able to pay for materials and whatever to do work outside, on the streets. And they need to be able to make a living somehow. So I understand them pretty well, I understand them putting their work in galleries, but as for me, I’d rather see it on the streets.”

What projects are you working now on?

“I’ve been working pretty much consistently with a woman in Jerusalem, on the street art that’s surfaced in Israel within the last few years. I created an exhibit of hers in Jerusalem, and we do like varied projects together, so I always keep my eye open on what’s going on there, and I try to get there at least once a year. So that’s one. The other is that I’m fascinating with pichadores, these Pixacao writers from Sao Paulo, Brazil, and I started an oral history last summer, and I’m planning to continue it. But the third one, which unexpectedly came my way, was a chance to develop with somebody – a website, a blogger – just on New York City street art with a partner in London. And that’s what I’m working on now when I’m on the streets documenting this. And I wouldn’t be out here if I weren’t doing a research working on my project… And I also blog, a few different sites.”

So, you don’t know much about Ukrainian street art?

“No. You know what, though? You should send me some video images and I’ll put them on this Bandoo log and they get a lot of people looking at them, so if you know of any good images, send them to me so I can introduce them to the world.”

And the last question, how do you see yourself in future?

“How do I see myself? Just walking the streets!” (Laughs.)