MIDTERMS SUCK MORE THAN A HOMELESS MAN IN MIAMI!

CAN’T GET LAID?
TRI - D!

This particular genre of public art — the offensive/humorous/sexually-frustrated and masturbatory kind, most often conceived on, composed on, and befitting toilet seats in Alderman Library and Cabell Hall — is probably what we think of when the word “graffiti” is used. At the very best, we hearken back to the days of secondary school Latin class when, in our senior year of study, so very cosmopolitan and mature, our instructor deigned to show us 2,000 year-old depictions of stick-figured women filleting disembodied penises. Yes, “graffiti” is a word that inspires a full chest [sic] of pride in human ingenuity and creative expression in ... well, in no one. It is an art form left to the vulgar masses, whom so principled a Roman as Caligula himself would only chide and set to the task of whitewashing the bathhouses for the third time that week.

And yet one may think of Jean-Micheal Basquiat or James J. Kilroy — the latter sparking one of the most interesting mysteries in U.S. military history (viz., “KILROY WAS HERE!”), the former setting himself alongside the likes of Andy Warhol with only a can of spray-paint and some second-hand rollers. But this type of unsolicited, illegal public art is not, however, “graffiti;” it is never referred to as such, save for, perhaps, in its infancy. Once unsanctioned art is determined to contain some redeeming artistic “value,” it is quarantined into a world of galleries and pictorial anthologies, no matter its original medium. Sometimes this transformation is taken so far as to see whole slabs of concrete wall removed from an alleyway and relocated to the more publicly accessible art museum. If it’s “good,” the art industry (and it is, uncompromisingly, an “industry”), claims it as “found” and trains its critical eye, along with its delicate track lighting, upon the newly christened “street art.” If it’s “bad,” construction workers, not docents, are the only ones pointing to and destroying the easels of urban self-expression.

Thus “graffiti” remains an elusive term, not only for the privileged determiners of fate that like to call themselves “critics,” but also for us in our own Charlottesville alleyways. What at U.Va. constitutes “graffiti?” Should we consider the weekly scrawlings on Beta Bridge a certain art, or merely self-aggrandizing public displays? Why is chalking a staircase any better in our collective mindset than spray-painting a stencil? There is, most obviously, a question of permanency. It makes sense that the university allows us to write “JAMES IS 21 — WATCH OUT LADIES!” in pastel chalks, but goes searching for culprits anytime a mysterious head appears spray-painted onto a sidewalk or cross street. Or does it?

The proponents of “public illegal art” distinguish between “graffiti” — to mean painted unsanctioned art — and the lesser-known mediums of flyering and performance art. All share a unique desire to “transcend human presence,” as one Charlottesville artist told me. So while the flyers requesting your presence at any number of auditions, lectures, or community service activities serve as a basic means of communication, public illegal art seeks anonymity and, above all, expression. Take for example the “Conquest” posters made extremely visible throughout Charlottesville. The posters depict Cornelius Ape of the movie Planet of the Apes. Under the “CONQUEST” banner there reads: “For thousands of years Man has conquered beast, but now ...”

“Is Charlton Heston coming to the Film Festival or something?” I remember one of my friends asking. “If he is, this is a really cool way to get some publicity going.” Indeed.

The posters apparently originated not in Charlottesville, but in Great Britain. Since the first renderings of Cornelius began to appear on billboards and buildings in England a few years back, the campaign has spread throughout the eastern portion of the United States and has seen various perturbations of wording, heading, and medium. In Charlottesville alone, you can see red-stenciled ape heads lined up on concession stands (at the skate-park off the 250 Bypass), blue spray-painted ape heads on stop light control boxes (on Massie Road), and whole sections of wall covered with neatly arranged posters. For a time, there was even a row of Cornelius posters on the base of the George Rogers Clark memorial down by Red Roof Inn. A certain ingenuity and witty sarcasm has to be attributed to those who would paste a commercial example of animal dominance atop a historical example of European dominance — “Conquerer of the Humans” for the “Conquerer of the Pacific Northwest.” And if Clark looks regal to us astride his horse, hand assertively raised as if to strike the Native American who stands on the ground before him, then it takes only a small stretch of the imagination to see how, to some, Cornelius Ape could represent a much needed tempering of unquestioned pride and general Americanism. Or it might just be funny.

The artist I was able to speak with (these kids, for obvious reasons, like to remain anonymous) kept insisting to me that public illegal art is little more than a game — a very serious and artistic game, but a game nevertheless. As with any game, the participants do not intend to hurt anyone or to offend, perhaps only to pick away at the everyday cityscape and the accepted ideas that belay its existence. “Public illegal art wants to go over and above buildings, facades, the fakeness of all that,” he said; and in this regard, “excess is better.” The logic of the urban artist would go something like this: “If I want people to see my work and think about it, first they are going to have to be confused.” The essential questions seem to be: “Where is this art coming from?”; “Who is doing this?”; and “What the hell do they mean by ‘but now . . . ?’ What does this mean?” They’re the same questions my friend was asking about Charlton Heston coming to town; and the more varied the answers, the better.

Illegal art provides a forum for those (principally) young artists who otherwise would either be limited to the ordered world of galleries and art schools or who would have no voice at all. “It’s a lot better than CNN,” my artist friend told me in referring both to the filtered and elitist media, as well as commercialized expression in general. Public illegal art represents, then, the new gallery, art reclaimed in its primitiveness. It narrows the void between artist and audience by removing election on the part of the latter.  As it stands, we decide to go to the Bayly, Fareweather, or Culbreth, we purchase posters or prints and go to the effort of accessing the webpages we want to see. Graffiti, flyering, and performance art meet us in our (and their own) environment, and insist that we pay attention. Of course we may not want to see that which the artist produces. But the point seems to be that, while we may not like a particular building, ad campaign, or street name, there’s nothing we can do about that either, is there? Public illegal art seeks to empower not only the artist, but also those who would see her art and begin to question just what it is that we must accept, and just what it is that we might modify with some free time and a copy machine.

One example of public illegal art that, in Charlottesville alone, you can’t get away from would be  stencils. Anyone who has made their own valentines or banners knows the power of the stencil, insofar as it allows one to speedily and uniformly reproduce an image or phrase with only a quick spray of paint. So quick in fact that the illegal artist can get away with placing her work in highly visible areas. If you have ever sulked your way to class in the morning, eyes averted from the whole world and glaring at the sidewalk, then you’ve probably seen any number of odd faces, phraseologies, or even candies stenciled onto the sidewalks of Central Grounds.  The most recurrent image has been that of “Bob,” the prophetic figure for the science fiction/occult/fun with consumerism group, the Church of the Subgenius. Bob’s image is alarming in its “Hey there, old chum” expression and 1950s-style artistry. His very WASP-ish appearance combined with an insidious smile and characteristic pipe make Bob a figure frightening in his all-Americanism. He looks ridiculous, but the more you see Bob at your feet and on the wall you put your cigarette out on, the more you begin to wonder if you are being watched. The half-sarcastic point of the Church of the Subgenius: “You are being watched.”

But just because a particular image or campaign is, at its origin, associated with a particular group or message does not by any means justify a connection in its present depiction. “Obey the Giant” would be the most recognizable example. Begun by a student at the very prestigious Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, “Obey the Giant” was originally conceived of and carried out as a counter-campaign to the billboards of Providence Mayor John Brown and his administration. “JOHN BROWN HAS A POSSE” would be stenciled onto the billboards at night, along with the very recognizable, “OBEY THE GIANT.” Apparently an attack on the Mayor’s policies, “Obey the Giant” quickly became something else entirely, as it inspired a nationwide flyering, stickering, and graffiti campaign aimed, not at Brown in particular, but at power structures in general. Somehow the image of Andre the Giant became associated with the phrase, which was even attached to images of President Bush and Vice President Gore during the recent electoral process.  The creator of “Obey the Giant” now hosts a website (www.obeygiant.com), which calls the project, “an experiment in phenomenology.” Even Hegel is invoked in the defense and rationalization of this, dare we say, artistic movement.

So the idea that graffiti and public illegal art in general is at all territorial or “gang-related” is about as believable as the notion of the drug pusher. (Who, by the way, are these dealers giving out free drugs in an attempt to get little kids hooked? Does anyone actually experience this kind of absurd munificence, or is the D.E.A. and D.A.R.E. just trying to scare us again?) Public illegal art needs be distinguished from “tagging,” whereby recognizable gang symbols, painted or drawn in the same fashion, are used to demarcate a given area of a city, to “claim” it for a certain gang active there. It is hard to believe, but police departments actually manage to confuse something like the “Bob” stencil, painted on a university campus, for the three-letter tag lines common to gangs and found in more residential areas of town. In a short C-Ville Weekly article this past summer, the Charlottesville Police Department’s gang activity coordinator actually implied that, were they found, the “Conquest” culprits would not only be charged with the destruction of public property, but would further be investigated for gang activity. I suppose it’s a good thing Mr. Basquiat didn’t get hailed away to prison just before New York dealers started paying tens of thousands of dollars for doorways he had “defaced.” It also seems as though we are really safe when police departments can’t differentiate between territorial “tagging” and playful artistry.

This is not to say that public illegal art should be made legal. On the contrary, much of the mystery and anti-commercialism, the subversion and defiance essential to this manner of artistic expression would be lost were it brought out from “underground” and placed in the public discourse. Public illegal artists depend upon a certain shock factor that could never be achieved if their art were sanctioned and, thus, controlled. No, public illegal art must remain “illegal,” if for no other reason than to limit participation to the truly creative, intrepid, and punctilious.

Perhaps the most appealing part of public illegal art is that we don’t have to look for it. Like that mythical drug-pusher, it looks for us. We can just take our exhaust-filled lunchtime walks down the Corner, listen to the bass of passing cars, and look around. Chances are we can, on occasion, get a glimpse of someone else’s world, maybe even a funny or scathing critique of our own. The truth of the matter is that no one is going to paint our cars or undermine the structural integrity of some restaurant.  But a public illegal artist just may be successful in making us rethink our definition of “art” and the urban landscape we live in.  And if her anonymity is carefully persevered, she could be standing next to you while you pontificate, laughing the whole time at how stupid you sound.

For more information on public illegal art in general and graffiti in particular, visit www.graffiti.org.