Shepard Fairey: I see, I want, I take

Posted on April 18, 2011 by Heather Mac Donald

Los Angeles’s Museum of Contemporary Art just opened what it bills as the nation’s first museum show dedicated to graffiti, Art in the Streets.  In an article and a review, I explore the shameless hypocrisy on the part of MOCA’s director Jeffrey Deitch, its Hollywood mogul trustees, and such graffiti superstars as Banksy and Shepard Fairey, who scorn property rights until they get a chance to profit from their vandalism.   The exhibit is a nauseating example of wealthy liberal elites amusing themselves with anti-bourgeois play-acting, knowing full well that the rule of law and bourgeois values will secure their own fortunes against the radicalism that they pretend to embrace.

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6 Responses to Shepard Fairey: I see, I want, I take

  1. Polichinello says:
    April 18, 2011 at 9:52 pm

    Will they have some cranky Korean shopowner come in, paint over the exhibits, muttering expletives under his breath, and then call that performance art?

  2. CONSVLTVS says:
    April 19, 2011 at 3:33 am

    Odds are, only politically correct 3d glasses make the stuff on the walls look like art. If true, then we aren’t even dealing with sacrificing property rights to nurture a Giotto or Michelangelo. It’s the ultimate scam: giving up public order and receiving in exchange only more cultural pollution.

  3. GTChristie says:
    April 19, 2011 at 6:36 am

    All sorts of fun can be had with this artistic/cultural “event.” Consvltvs, your “politically correct 3D glasses” phrase is telling — and a hoot! And that’s just the starting point, for what it questions: is grafitti an art (or art form) or isn’t it? And if it’s art, is it good art?

    By placing actual “works of grafitti” (works of “art”) into a museum setting, MOCA is elevating the images themselves and stating “it is art” (or that grafitti is an art form). It also implies, besides, that the specific images on display are also good art, on some (possibly unspecified) criterion of quality in the images themselves (which I haven’t seen). So far, so good: at the very least this tells us what MOCA curators consider as good art, and the rest of us can debate the quality of the work (and MOCA’s judgment) as we please.

    But now the fun begins. As McLuhan said, “the medium is the message,” and in this case the customary medium is spray paint on public property. How does “the medium is the message” apply here? That’s what makes me laugh! Part of the art itself is the act — specifically, the act of defacing public property is part of the point of the art itself. Or, reductively: it’s the art of defacing public property.
    Especially if McLuhan is right about medium/message, that’s what the art itself actually is. The art of defacement.

    Now for the ironic laugh. Once this so-called art is placed in a museum, it’s ludicrously out of context. Half of its message is gone because it’s no longer the act of defacement of public property which was the point of the “art form” to begin with. The only way to save the context, to prevent a fatal implosion of the meaning of the message is to let the artists spray the grafitti directly onto the museum walls and keep it there for all time as a testament to the quality of defacement.

    Therefore, as Polichinello points out, it should be equally legitimate for any other artist of the same persuasion — Korean shopkeeper, religious zealot, child-abusing priest, child pornographer, or what-have-you — to paint it over in the very same name of art.

    On the other hand, if that were legitimate, then anybody could also decide that the Mona Lisa could use a different smile, or that Michelango’s Pieta might be just as good without a nose or two, or that his David would be more decent without a you-know-what.

    So the MOCA’s implied statement that grafitti is art (or an art form) only flies so far, and it is not quite as far as a museum. Since it loses legitimacy as art as soon as it gets to the museum, we must wonder whether the museum really understands the art. Therefore the judgment sticks, as stated in the post: “wealthy liberal elites amusing themselves with anti-bourgeois play-acting.” Let them invite the “artists” over to their poolside soirees (periodically, one would think, to keep the message fresh) … spray paint provided free.

  4. CONSVLTVS says:
    April 19, 2011 at 11:27 pm

    Thought experiment: If a youth snuck into the museum at night and spray-painted new “art” over top of the exhibited graffiti masterpieces, should he be prosecuted? Could he be, without violation of the aesthetic (and moral) assumptions of the curators?

  5. GTChristie says:
    April 20, 2011 at 6:42 am

    I wondered a similar thing, after I read Poli’s comment. Any street kid with a spray can could make a vivid statement about authenticity (and leftist play-acting) by doing just that. But I pictured doing that myself for effect (and to see what would happen) and decided I’d better not. LOL.

    I know! Let’s get Mikey!

  6. J. says:
    April 20, 2011 at 1:01 pm

    only politically correct 3d glasses make the stuff on the walls look like art.

    well, depending on what area of El Lay yr in, …some tags might not be so PC. So it’s ok with SRsters if like some swastikas are up next to the homie tags?

    That said, I wd agree with H-Mac to some degree (though for different reasons) that graffiti art’s mostly nauseating, and an example of what used to be call “radical chic”, meant to make Geffen-Co cronies feel good about their bogus PC Ahht rackets. Back in the day, some street ahhtistes at least could play saxophones or trumpets.

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