Found Art 2005 - ongoing...
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As an adjunct of my Return to the Street I
have also been picturing what I refer to as ‘Found Art’ or what another Artist friend of mine
once codified as the ‘Museum Without Walls’. As it is understood
by an international legion of younger people today, what is referred to as
Graffiti, these scrawls and graphics we see everywhere, represent the expression
of the underground, the authors most often young artists with no opportunity
otherwise in societies that today more than ever disdain such expression
in deference to corporate sponsored ‘product’.
These mystic messages
seen in conjunction with the advertisements that bombard our every waking
moment in the urban world, torn posters, discarded newspapers and other such
detritus, constitute the raw semiotics of our culture, the stuff of an anthropologist’s dream. My first interest in same was sparked
by the work of a street buddy from the late 70s who was Jean-Michel Basquiat,
one of the progenitors of the Graffiti Art movement of the 80s along with
Keith Haring. Before he became the celebrated ‘enfant terrible of
that scene, Jean-Michel was going around for some time posting his scrawls
all over New York under his tag ‘Samo’ (Say More). As profound
as the text were the lengths he would go to, his stuff showing up even on
the cupolas or steeples of buildings, leaving one to wonder how he managed
to get up there and why he felt it necessary.
But the answer is simple, he
was another young artist with something to say and no other opportunity available
to him at that time...
I
have another friend who is a Painter and German national. He receives his
support, commissions and the like, from his own native land that has infinitely
more respect for the cultural, but he has also maintained a Loft in the East
Village going back to the late 70s at least. “So why do
you keep this place in America?” I logically inquired. “I love
your GARBAGE”, he replied. “New York has the most interesting
garbage in the world and we don’t have this in Germany.”
Interesting thought there. What does it mean
exactly? He’s talking
about Freedom of course and this is exactly what this Graffiti or Street
Art represents. Will we be happy when it is eliminated as the ultimate realization
of the conservative agenda, as the Real Estate moguls have spelled it out,
an endless panorama of High Rise multi million dollar Co Op buildings and
streets restricted to the Rich and sanitized of all evidence of dissent or
alternative perspective?
Is this dream to be
considered ‘progress’ or
is it merely the Lemming like acceptance of the nightmare NOT so Brave New
World predicted by Orwell and Huxley?
Shelly Rusten 7/20/07