Getuporgetout

Contributions to: If you’re getting your work up on the streets we’d love to hear from you. st2k@finelinedesign.com.au Contact us: ST2K presents getUp or getOUT st2k@finelinedesign.com.au production: 0413 833 161

The Crew Chief Melinda Vassallo is the author of Street art of Sydney’s Inner West.

Graphic designer and director of Fineline Type & Design, she is a prolific photographer of Sydney’s street art.

Cook Chris Tamm is a prolific street artist and DIY publisher. Chris was former managing editor and art director of Entropy Magazine 04-05 which won national and Australasian awards for excellence in youth publishing.

Our cover artist: who? smc[3] // thre // ethr... //www.smc3.net

Editor Acid Midget is a street art photographer and blogger. He has documented the movement in Australia and overseas since 2009.

He is also a Sydney-based journalist.

Website: acidmidget.blogspot.com Bottle washers (Sub Editors)

what do you do? character evolution/ sticker bombing/ paste-ups/ throw things onto rooftops/ drunken tags/ aerosol murals/ dogshit filled, flaming paper bag, knock and run on the doors of; developers, sterile city planners, imaginationless repeat-ism, and mainstream(upside-down underground)...

Andrew Lees, Liz Story Publisher Fineline Type & Design Erskineville NSW 2043 ph: 0413 833 161 st2k@finelinedesign.com.au

how do you do it? independently, without meetings or deadlines

why - what does street art mean to you? art on the street. PUBLIC IMAGE LIMITED.

Sponsor This newspaper would not be possible without the support of Marrickville Council 2-14 Fisher Street, Petersham NSW 2049 Phone: (02) 9335 2222 council@marrickville.nsw.gov.au

2 | getUP or getOUT Newspaper. First Edition 2012

Presented by

nocturnal light - Rise and repeat: Am

anda Parkinson

f tagging: in defence o

or

/mr_metaph

the joy of paste - Konsumterra

featuring artists: ar

a, SMC3 K, FUKT, Houl, Shid EL , as sk hi w og dd aa, ba tar, bafcat, bunkw

and Syke

ts

the mirror that flatters not: /Dame_Di

smember

l wall

bring Back the Art: The fight for a lega

getUP or getOUT Newspaper. First Edition 2012 | 3

BEEF

BEEF | ( pl. beeves |bevz|) | the flesh of a cow, or bull, used as food. We believe there is more than one definition of street art. Here are short 50 to 300-word articles where artists describe what street art means to them. We hope this starts a debate (or fight). Anonymous contributions welcome.

Send your beef to us at at st2k@finelinedesign.com.au

VARS I would like to inform the baby boomers of the fact that tags, far

The Australian art scene is stuck festering

from being scribbles, are actually postmodern anti-establishment

in a veritable time warp compared to the

stylised typography, forming a visual aesthetic and a language. A

forward-thinking

exhibits

language that only belongs to an underground subculture due to

exploration

done

the public’s intolerence, misunderstanding and blinkered view of

Foundation Cartier in Paris.

what art is and how it should be displayed.

being

and by

curatorial

galleries,

such

as

We have created an elitist, abhorrently short-sighted

Due to these stereotypical views and a blind willingness, born

Australian

art

of ignorance and a sense of superiority, the ‘cultured’ wine and

programs

that

cheese crowd is led by the ‘high’ art scene in Australia. So while

cashmere-wearing idiots who believe that art is just oil

we continue to produce technically adept young artists, we are

paintings of horses.

not catering to their emergence in our scene and as a result we are stuck seeing the same guys over and over and over.

These

‘underground’

artists

who

are

unable

network are

of

galleries,

frequented,

read

magazines and

and

watched

by

Artists like Anthony Lister, Kid Zoom, Bridge Stehli and Dmote, who in 10 years will be among the most collectible

or

unwilling

to

artists

on

the

planet,

were

essentially

forced

to

travel

even try and break into the sycophantic, vain, idiotic world of

outside Australia in order to be able to maintain their full-

the gallery circuit in Oz. Go overseas and do their best work in

time art practice and continue to develop technically and

environments like Berlin, Paris, New York or Tokyo. These are

economically.

the places that artistic process is encouraged. As a result, our Australian artists, who worked thanklessly here for years before making a shift overseas, then become an integral part of the

The past 15 years will be remembered as one of the great ostracising and damaging periods of Australian art.

creative quotidian in other countries.

Konsumterra I’ve been involved with so-called street art scene for over 20

different definitions. For some it must be illegal but for me I don’t

years. One of the things I like about the genre is the freedom and

care about legality or whether anybody wants me to make art

diversity. Of late I feel this has suffered as car and vodka ads and

or not. Cedar Lewishon (the TATE book on street art) claims

career gallery artists have pretty much destroyed this spirit. In

political art is not street art. I find this pretty incredible as much

short it’s been killed in part by success.

of the more memorable street art has something to say. Others

Relief art on walls has a secret history as old as human culture itself. The worldwide wall scrawl is the world’s oldest mass media. Recent fingerprint evidence on European cave art has determined that most of the famed art was made by teenagers and mostly males. Vikings tagged the Santa Sophia in Istanbul

would argue all street art and graffiti is inherently political as it is about territory and control of space (including galleries, magazines, the web and placement in other media). While crappy scrawls of naïve anarchists may be lacking in any skill or aesthetic sensibilities there are people who find them beautiful.

in the 11th century. Romans and my friend’s ANZAC dad tagged

The aesthetics of white cubes (galleries and buildings) many

the pyramids. When mid-19th century Europeans began to

persons love is just learned taste. After World War II, there was

be interested in the graffiti of Pompeii, some noticed that the

no time to waste on ornaments the Victorian or the Deco era

phenomenon was not just ancient but was alive in London. More

loved. Somehow this bland, blank slate idea came to be seen as

evidence of old graffiti, such as recent works like English Medieval

normal rather than boring or uninteresting. Street art and graffiti

Graffiti by V. Pritchard continues to push this back. Books on

is a subversion of this. But the street art in galleries and books

graffiti were published as early as 1731 (Thomas Rowlandson).

and even the web is just a shadow of the reality on the streets.

Napoleon was illustrated writing on walls. French artist Grandville

While international stars in the scene appear in every book I

(1803-1847) illustrated himself tagging a wall with an urchin.

mourn all the amazing local work of artists who have come and

Photographer George Brassai inspired his many early modernist

gone without recognition, while an audience that follows just the

painter friends with his documentation of Parisian graffiti.

star system and the successful artists is missing out big time.

Victorian eugenicists were very concerned that the poor classes’ use of slang and graffiti was a threat to the empire which had to be bred out of the population.

Thankfully a younger generation with new ideas will continue to emerge and will take all these to strange new places rather than copy the shit deemed as acceptable by the moneyed classes. While

Drawing distinctions is a big part of street art and graffiti culture.

I approve of legal walls and murals by stars, there needs to be some

Definitions of these terms are fluid, with different artists giving

place for new artists to hone their skills, or even lack thereof.

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The morning after a pasting run tradition; walking the

The

dismembered

and

waterlogged

corpse

of

my

art is ephemeral, doomed to decay, be defaced or destroyed by hose, guerney or scraper, and all that other bullshit, but still, it deserves more than a mere handful of hours before it’s end is realised. Surely this much is true? This piece of writing is not so much a vent for my own frustration, and all those who share on my disappointment, as much a plea to all the shop

owners,

residents

and

council

workers

whose

job, it seems, is to throw up roadblocks in my artistic development. it is a plea to have some consideration before and

you

unique

unthinkingly artwork,

that

rip

down

beautiful

that glowing

original golden

representation of the current pinnacle of my artistic endeavours. This is me on my literary knees, asking same route from the night before, taking pictures for

paste-up staining the ground an unholy white. Now

you to ask yourself, if there is something which could

prosperity and personal satisfaction. I reach a familiar

I’m well aware of the notion that swearing is simply

make better use of your time. Surely you could give

corner which, if my recollection from the haze of the

a linguistic crutch for the inarticulate, but Fuck That

it a week? A month maybe. Thats all I ask, and really

previous night is right, indicates that a finely rendered

Shit!

the

is it that much? Just a short stay of execution and

example of my artistic talent lies beyond. I hesitantly

wall, defacing my perfectly legitimate example of self

then you can scrub your wall back to bland, boring

approach,

knowing that just around that rough brick

expression not realise the blood, sweat and tears that

blankness, another wall devoid of anything remotely

edge awaits my prize. I turn the corner, cast my eyes to

have gone into getting that one paste-up all the way

resembling some sort of individuality. Give me that

where I expect to see my piece, but instead of moving

from it’s initial conception to the form it took in the

much and next time, when stumbling down alleys,

forward to marvel at my own skill and brilliance in

moments before it’s life was cut short? Fuck me! Do

with a broom dripping its sticky payload down my

true artist style, I stand still, unmoving, feet glued

they not understand the difficulty of getting a flimsy

back, a bucket in my hand slimy and sticky, slipping in

to the ground not by a finely rendered mix of flour,

piece of paper to adhere to a wall in high winds and

my grip, I’ll choose something other than the decrepit

water

disappointment

low lighting? Can they not comprehend the physical

old man sporting a throbbing erection to plaster on

and, yes, a tinge of sadness. Where my piece had

effort involved in carrying around all the paraphanelia

your wall. Maybe I’ll choose something your kids can

stood not 12 hours prior, displays only a blank wall.

involved in a pasting run? Now I know that street

appreciate. Our maybe not, whatever.

and

sugar,

but

by

frustration,

Seriously.

Does

the

person

who

cleaned

defacing my perfectly legitimate example of selfexpression graffiti’s only hip when it’s street art on TV! Channel 10 filmed stencil artists Luke Cornish (E.L.K.) and R.J. live for their breakfast program in March. Cornish is now hot property after becoming a finalist in this year’s Archibald Prize. Luke stencilled Westsyde Connection’s storefront, located on New Canterbury Road in Dulwich Hill, while the cameras rolled.

The journalists pursued that age-old story on whether graffiti was art or vandalism…yawn.

getUP or getOUT Newspaper. First Edition 2012 | 5

art*star Interview with Christie Torrington What is your work about?

I have a penchant for dark, brooding and beautiful subject matter. This is what I have been creating lately. These illustrations were created in response to The Stranglers song, ‘Baroque Bordello’. I used this song as an inspiration to create surreal portraits of sad imaginary girls. I love to imagine the history and personality of a person that I have invented. I like to construct a character and convey their personality through their facial features, expression, the setting they are in and the objects that accompany them.

What sort of technique and media do you use, how long do they take?

I’m using Indian ink and watercolour a lot. I like getting deep black voids happening and lovely, washy tonal gradations in my work. This medium suits the illustrative works that I’m producing at the moment. I sometimes take a long time to resolve a drawing and other times it just all falls into place really quickly - there is no rhyme or reason. As I use a lot of source imagery, so I spend quite a bit of time taking photographs or hunting for useful and inspiring imagery to use as a basis for my drawings.

What would you like to see more of/less of in the art world: I’d like to see more dead trees, carelessly strewn ribbons, sad girls and bunny rabbits.

It would be great to see more illustrators (and/or artists who work in an illustrative style) taken seriously as visual artists.

Sydney needs more affordable exhibition space/s.

Not sure what I would like to see less of in the art world... snobbery perhaps? www.christietorrington.com

6 | getUP or getOUT Newspaper. First Edition 2012

photos Melinda Vassallo

+

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

getOUT‌look around!

by Melinda Vassallo Being creative isn’t easy. There are too many distractions, the day-to-day stuff can drag you down and leave you feeling grey. That is why I live in the inner-city. Just to walk up the street or that daily jaunt to the station can be an interesting source of inspiration, that everchanging colourful canvas of street art.

I am surrounded by art that makes me smile and challenges my imagination. Street art is everywhere and seeing it can make my day.

GetUP or getOUT was created out of a greed for inspiration and desire to promote and encourage emerging artists. It also celebrates the street artists of Sydney and laughs at the mundane day-to-day.

This issue is full of interesting people who like to get their art up and out there.

From bad dogs that document art with photography, a midget that blogs and the simple impulse that some artists have to put their thoughts up on walls.

I hope you enjoy the first issue, and look forward to the possibility of more.

getUP or getOUT Newspaper. First Edition 2012 | 7

the Gong

by Bafcat.

The Wollongong street art scene is growing larger and larger, with many different styles and artists of all ages getting involved. The Wollongong City Council provides legal walls to paint, around its youth centre where you can paint any time, and the gallery of Wollongong once a year allows artist to show works outside of the gallery, which gives great exposure. But this is kinda where it stops. The council and many land lords are hard on street artists and where murals are allowed to exist, many murals in Wollongong are years-old and faded – but no permission is given for new ones.

I feel if the council allows more murals to be created there will be less vandalism and become a tourist attraction, for street art gives our city culture.

I feel that the people of Wollongong appreciate murals and they understand that it reduces vandalism. I have had good support from property owners when creating murals and this has made way for more people wanting to give there their shop, home or community more life.

photographs bafcat

8 | getUP or getOUT Newspaper. First Edition 2012

Street art will forever be growing. Wollongong has a strong creative hub and it won’t be long until everyone sees how important street art is for the ‘Gong community.

Nocturnal Art: Rinse and Repeat

by Amanda Parkinson

As corporate culture clashes with Sydney’s grungy street art revolution, is commercialisation challenging the boundaries of this transient art form?

Illegal graffiti removal costs Sydney $170,000 per year. In

Sydney City Council has enforced new laws to inspect

a bid to deter graffiti artists, Marrickville and Sydney City

graffiti ‘hotspots’ every 24 hours. The council must now

Council have begun commercialising public art spaces.

remove illegal graffiti within a day of identification or

Marrick ville businesses

Council to

has

worked

commercialise

with

well-known

many

local

graffiti

spaces

once

private

property

owners

agree.

ApeSeven

believes

this will eliminate the amateurs from the purists.

along King Street, Newtown. The most recent was the

“The 24-hour council laws mean our art is busted quicker

back

Park.

so we really have to be dedicated to the cause,” he said.

Dendy and Marrickville Council have commissioned three

“It polarises people and tests their idealism – people who

local street artists to begin work this year. The community

aren’t genuine won’t vest time into it.”

of

the

Dendy

Cinema

facing

Camperdown

will no longer be able to use this space as a place for public dialogue.

Street artist ApeSeven said: “The art is still a mechanism for public forum and that’s what makes it community art

-

commercialisation

explained

that

the

way

stands

to

threaten

commercialisation

has

that”.

He

become

“two pronged”. “It breaks the transient nature, but the underlying need for money means we too have to make a living,” he said.

Street artists are caught between philosophical ideology and practical realities. Many disagree with the idea of a

commercialised

public

space

as

it

contradicts

the

original form. “Originally the essence of street art was an expression of rebellion and community forum,” ApeSeven said. “But as an artist gets more exposure, they get more

photos apeseven

commercial work so we are caught in a catch-22.”

getUP or getOUT Newspaper. First Edition 2012 | 9

Bring back the Art

Mahoney Reserve Tennis Wall, Marrickville

The Mahoney Reserve tennis wall is located at the corner

She took the matter to the council to get the wall back

of Illawarra Road and Wharf Road in Marrickville. Until

how it was. Marrickville Council then agreed that the

January 2011, the wall was presumed a free-for-all; it was

Mahoney Reserve tennis wall should be a legal street art

a moving feast of street art for more than 10 years.

wall. NO MORE BEIGE touch-ups!

Then, out of the blue, it was painted beige by

However, for this to be OK with the police, the deal

Marrickville Council and a sign went up stating that it

became that artists must first get a permission slip to

was illegal to paint. People were getting arrested for

paint the Mahoney Reserve tennis wall from the council,

painting it and there was public outcry. Channel 10 even

located at 2-14 Fisher Street, Petersham. The permission

did a story on how local residents wanted the art back!

slip lasts for a week. If you are under age 18 you must be

So local lady Juliet Barr decided to represent the majority of the community who live near the tennis wall photographs Juliet Barr

View the documentary on the Mahoney battle Against the Wall

by LcBeats and Aiden Keogh

and who loved the random art that used to appear on it.

10 | getUP or getOUT Newspaper. First Edition 2012

with a supervising adult, since it is illegal to carry spray cans.

Against

the

Wall:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OdAybvQ4K4

E.L.K cracks ARCHIBALD Photograph rushphotography

From the Sydney Morning Herald, March 16, 2012.

“Spearheading the charge of the new guard at Australia’s most famous portraiture award is the street artist Luke Cornish, known as E.L.K., whose canvas of Melbourne’s Father Bob Maguire is said to be the first stencil-art entry chosen as a finalist.

The picture, using a technique associated with graffiti luminaries such as Britain’s Banksy and France’s Blek le Rat, was among 41 finalists in the $75,000 prize unveiled at the Art Gallery of NSW yesterday.”

Cornish hailed his inclusion. ‘’I think it really validates street art as a legitimate art form,’’ he said. ‘’It’s a huge movement and it’s only a matter of time before it cracks that prestigious art award.’’ www.elkstencils.com

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Syke

I usually have a hundred ideas running around in my head of things I want to make or paint or both. Currently it’s a artdeco chicken coop. Most of my ideas are ridiculous but nonetheless for some reason I must bring them into existence so they stop niggling at my brain. So when I have enough motivation, time and money I play around with my ideas. Due to storage issues in the inner city and a weird ego boost I get, these creations usually end up on the street. It’s a cosy little scene that can be very accepting.

Or, if they don’t accept you, ‘fuck it’. No-one can really stop you.

What I think street art means...

I don’t know, try Googling it. Or I’m sure there is a Wiki page. getUP or getOUT Newspaper. First Edition 2012 | 11

Creating the large panels for the stencils is a trade secret, let me just say I have a few methods. The owner of the company I work for is an admirer of street and subversive art and with his blessing I have had access to the workshop after hours for the creation of my stencils, it’s always a bonus when you get your

interview:

materials etc. for cost price.

What do you love and what really gives you the shits?

Hahaha, I think what gives me the shits will outweigh what I love.

by Melinda Vassallo Sydney-based

large

I’ve always had a subversive personality, and early on in my life format

stencil

artist

Fukt

talks

to

Melinda

tests

also

confirmed

strong

anti-social

traits. This

attitude,

for

myself at least, has meshed perfectly with street art. My early

Vassallo about what it takes to get up.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ stuff is basically me just playing around, I’ll be the first to admit

a lack of maturity in some respects, although now I feel that I’m

What’s with the name FUKT?

starting to fall into a niche.

I seem to constantly use it in a sentence, so it was deemed

I love walking around a corner and finding something new on

appropriate.

a wall and thinking ‘what the fuck’, or finding something that

Undoubtebly you are doing the largest format stencils around.

What’s involved in this? How hard is it to get up and what

seems to strike an emotional nerve. Personally, graff art and street art that is positioned well, either in a hard to buff spot or in a great visual position (I always thought Fatel had great

problems are you faced with?

positioning).

Getting up is not a problem; if it’s a semi-legal piece then go for it, if its illegal then be quick about it. As for the large stencils, I’ve always worked in the printing and exhibition industry, so the jump to large stencils is no different from doing my day job – same skills

so for me there is no difference between a stencil 10 metres tall and a stencil 10cm wide, on a computer screen they look the same.

buff

12 | getUP or getOUT Newspaper. First Edition 2012

least the corporate side to it, nah fuck that, all of it. I could go on about it for a while, but I’ll leave you with something that may indicate my feelings.

and approach. I work with vector graphics a lot,

Crew

What gives me the shits? The street art scene in Australia, at

+

There seems to be a formula for street art: 1) Get up for one to three years (optional).

2) Saturate social and image sharing websites.

3) Learn key street art terms: ephemeral, transitional,

photographs fukt

cathartic etc.

4) Create website, or the advanced user can join creative agency.

5) Start exhibiting.

6) Keep exhibiting while doing the minimal amount of street art on legal walls to maintain street cred (keep saturating websites).

7) Create 20-100 limited edition prints of every piece of work you have done.

8) Rinse and repeat steps five to seven.

LOL. As you can see I couldn’t give a toss who I offend.

What should we keep our eyes out for next?

More paste-ups, a lot more guerrilla pieces involving text. I’ve got some new stencils on the way, and I also want to stencil the side of a three-to-four story building.

getUP or getOUT Newspaper. First Edition 2012 | 13

bunkwaa Who are you?

I go by the name BUNKWAA or sometimes WAA ‘cause it’s quicker to write!

Why do you do what you do?

I’m compulsive. I can’t help it. The more I paint the more addicted I get and the more I want to paint. It’s a vicious circle of awesomeness!

I like placing my characters in odd places; usually somewhere someone will discover and get a laugh or surprise. I never draw the same character twice and I like trying to see how happy I can make them look. I think that’s probably the underlying reason I do what I do: to share love, happiness and laughter in a disenchanted world.

Although you’d have to look hard, my work is quiet political and philosophical. For me, it’s the nature of the medium, rather than

14 | getUP or getOUT Newspaper. First Edition 2012

the art itself. Placing something on a wall without permission is a statement against authority.

What does street art mean to you?

I don’t really know. It probably means different things to different people. I don’t really care what it means. I like interacting with the urban environment I live in by painting walls, putting up stickers and paste-ups. Call it what you want; defining street art, graffiti, and vandalism seems to be an ongoing process. Wake me when it’s an underground movement again!!

I’m not a big fan of the competitive nature of the scene (or any scene). I just like hanging out with people who also like to paint. I like collaborating with people like Andros, Bafcat, Konsumterra, SMC and others. If I wanted to be completive I would have become a footballer! I feel collaborating tests you as an artist. If it was fun I wouldn’t be doing it.

Shida It’s kind of a natural way of life for me. It makes a city a lot more interesting and allows you to get involved with it. It makes me fell omnipresent knowing I have work scattered all around the world representing me. It’s a blessing being able to interact with your surrounds the way street work allows you; wherever I go I take a bit of the street as my own and leave behind something of myself.

You can use vandalism to get out your tension and empower yourself or create art and contribute to your community.

Photographs Baddogwhiskas

getUP or getOUT Newspaper. First Edition 2012 | 15

#

Kid Zoom, Phibs & Deb, Hibernian House

baddogwhi Teazer, Darlinghurst 2006

Dam, Newtown 2006

Mis Link, Enmore 2008

Artist unknown, Melbourne 2004

Ears, Newtown 2008

Banksy, Melbourne 2008

+ Artist unknown, Surry Hills 2012

16 | getUP or getOUT Newspaper. First Edition 2012

Kill Pixie (Mark Whalen) 2005

skas

Phibs, Glebe Tram Sheds 2010

Photographs Baddogwiskas A photographic ‘archive’ from one of Sydney’s prolific street art photographers.

“For those of you who have asked me over the years, I am not a graffiti artist, I just have a great passion for documenting all kinds of public street art and graffiti in my local area - it all began after a visit to Melbourne in 2004.”

Peque & Kerupt, Bondi wall 2011

To see more visit www.flickr.com/people/22179952@N00/

Zap & Jumbo, Camperdown2011

Phibs at Oupost 2011

Slug 2011

+

Skulk 2011

Hibernian House 2007

Birdhat 2011

getUP or getOUT Newspaper. First Edition 2012 | 17

Vexta, Haymarket 2011

baddogwhiskas more

Tortuga Studios 2012

Emily Lovehoof, Enmore 2009

Ultimo 2006

Rone, Melbourne 2009

18 | getUP or getOUT Newspaper. First Edition 2012

Fezwich Melbourne

During the day, The Maggid (storyteller) of Fezwitch is a graphic designer in a corporate world. By night (and in lunch breaks) he keeps his sanity by dabbling in street art and experimenting with collage. His work is considered: “Satirical art with vintage respect”.

In

this

consumer-driven

society,

we

tend

to

forget

about whats important. Life shouldn’t be taken too seriously, its about having a laugh and poking fun at the ‘money making machines’ we all live and breathe by. www.fezwitch.com Photographs Fezwich

getUP or getOUT Newspaper. First Edition 2012 | 19

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getUP or getOUT Newspaper. First Edition 2012 | 21

in defence of tagging by mr metaphor

Tagging is often ostracised as the bastard child of everything

TAKI’s name around town before they starting to throw in their

we talk about when we use the term ‘Street art’. When our

own. And after the New York Times ran an article about him in

grandma tells use she hates the defacement of public property,

July 1971, it was a craze amongst normal people who had never

it’s probably tagging that she’s bringing to mind. Even those of

tagged before (and never would again) to pull out a Sharpie in

us who profess to condone all writing on walls – be it political

TAKI’s name.

or poetic- will often add “I love all graffiti… but for tagging.” Yet we forget that the term Street art is quite contemporary, a 21st Century term. The phrase - meant to elevate ‘graffiti’ from the grit of the streets- took root in popular jargon about the time more

complex

Cambrian

species

explosion

of

came

to

stencils,

rear

their

stickers

&

pretty

heads.

paste-ups

The

(among

others) truly kicks in on a worldwide scale in those early years of the Naughties, when people were still awkwardly calling it “The ‘00’s”. The forgotten father of all this Street art is not Art at all, but angry kids on the street with a three-dollar spray can & something to prove.

Or, you can focus your attack. Hit higher. Live larger. Tag taller.

The same New York Times article quoted TAKI confessing that he’d once been caught by a Secret Service agent tagging an official car in a presidential parade. Big ups to that. A little earlier, a writer by the name of Cornbread was writing his name not everywhere he went, but where no one had previously dared.

He penned his pseudonym on the Jackson 5 tour jet during their first official Motown tour in 1970. He scribbled on the side of an elephant in the Philadelphia Zoo. This tradition lives on in what has affectionately been dubbed ‘giraffiti’, wherein height is everything. That which is meant to make us crane our necks up

In Style Wars (1983), Detective Bernie Jacobs of the NYC Transit

& wonder, how’d they do that? It’s about getting your name out

Police declares, “Graffiti

by getting up.

- as the name itself - is not an art. Graffiti

is the application of a medium to a surface.” His definition is simple, making no mention of style. Let us also draw the line there for our discussion- at those rushed, one-colour scribbled sprays that say nothing of substance at all, only the writer’s chosen name.

Let us ignore whatever influences might have inspired the flicks & flecks of the Posca pen. Does the tag have anything left to say?

Not really, but nor is it trying to say anything more insightful than simply “I Was Here”, a sentiment older than Art itself. What it speaks of is where it is: placement, not statement. It’s not about Art; it’s about getting your name out, for its own sake.

Even earlier, we have the early pixacao pieces of mid-20th century Brazil. In Sao Paulo, the southern hemisphere’s largest city, the government would paint political slogans directly onto the street’s surface. Dissident citizens would use mops dripping with black tar to cross them out in different jagged shapes. This was no art, for these were not artists. There was no message but the erasure of another. And yet a certain style or a kind of arcane font arose from the layered zig-zags that came from this fusion of censored scripts.

‘Piche’ is Portugese for ‘tar’ and modern pixacao pays something of an accidental tribute to this history. Again, the message is in

There are two ways of getting your name out there. You can go

the medium: in Sao Paulo today, most pixacao is done with foam

‘All City’ as it is known, hitting all the subway cars to cover the

rollers dipped in latex paint. And although the modern pixacao is

entire town. A numbers game. As the mustachioed-villain of Style

different in the sense that it hugs the higher windows of abandoned

Wars puts it bluntly, “The object is more. Not the biggest and the

buildings, it no less shouts the otherwise hushedvoices of the

beautifulest (sic) but more. Like a little piece on every car, is what

street. While not directly political, the message is along the same

counts. Not, one whole car, on thirty cars that goes by.” This is

lines. In no other country is the poverty gap between the rich & the

certainly the method that turned TAKI183 into a household name.

poor wider, and the iconic lines of pixacao are a way of claiming

Style

abandoned buildings back from the rich landowners who might

Wars

credits

TAKI183

in

kick-starting

New

York

tagging,

and indeed many early NYC writers have admitted to putting up 22 | getUP or getOUT Newspaper. First Edition 2012

otherwise infringe upon the space of the slums.

Bleeding

hearts

aside,

tagging

of

all

types

serves

a

serious

purpose for street art, even in the middle-class streets of the first world. Around the outskirts of all our favourite hotspots, dollars to donuts they’re also dotted with tags, especially around the entranceways. What matters is not who put each tag up, but where they put them, collectively. Not only does each tag give props to the placement of the previous, it says something to every subsequent sample. More than hinting how long a writer could potentially paint a piece without being busted, the sheer amount of tags also speaks of how long a piece may stay up before being buffed. If we’re going to accept that street art has evolved enough to be more than Just Another genre and indeed a medium unto-itself, we have to accept tagging’s important role in that process, even if it isn’t Art. Tagging gives us the narrative of Street art. In many ways, the bigger piece is still, stationary. Placed in a location where it is likely to remain for some time, it is an object made to be admired.

Meant to inspire an appreciation of style, skills, can-control etc; there is content to consider. A tag, on the other hand, is all context. Forget whoever put it there. What matters is where it is and why, rather than who it’s from. If we must hate the players, let us not hate the game.

Even when combative, cross-outs & disses of “Toy” are at least a

creative

confrontation,

all

adding

something

to

the

surface.

The enemy isn’t even always the dreaded council buffing , as a whitewash can provide a shapely blank canvas for new pieces to rise from the ashes. What’s worse than them all is the newer council trend of running paint rollers over only the curved edges of a piece. Akin to leaving a decimated corpse out in the open on as a warning to others, the piece remains but it is utterly illegible.

It matters not that you can no longer read the name; what hurts street art is that you can no longer give props to their skill. No style

remains

but

shattered

fragments.

As

soon

as

someone

works out something creative to do with this bad-buff patching process, the better off we’ll all be.

Putting the full stop on this line of tagging, Simon & Garfunkel once sang, “The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls & tenement halls”. Tags have their place, and needn’t be profound to have something to say. And for those words to make it through to us, we should pronounce that no whispered sounds be silenced. mistermetaphorism.blogspot.com Tumblr: mistermetaphor Twitter: metaphorism

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the mirror that flatters not

by Dame Dismember

My creations are

visceral in both creation and reaction . I think they have an immediacy to them.

People usually like them or find them repellent. It’s more an intuitive process than any set end-vision.

What I do is basically 2D sculpture. I sculpt an image into something else . In that metamorphosis.

I think the dark energy that surrounds us forces its way into my fingers and through my scissors creating a dark, confronting but still beautiful language. People are fascinated by their shadow sides, the current fascination with the dark archetypes that permeate popular culture attests to this . Unfortunately this manifests at a shallow level. I’d like to think my work grabs the viewer by the heels & drags them down amongst their psychic refuse. This is an experience that has a purifying result. Art in my mind should perform an internal/eternal alchemy.

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art Dame Dismember

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What is live art?

Live art is an extension of street art, taking a lot of the elements that define street art and distilling them into events for the public.

Focusing on the speed, and scale that street artists employ to create work on the streets (often illegally, resulting in the need for speed) live art expresses this immediacy of action in legal events for the audience to experience the evolution and techniques used by artists to make their work. More than anything live art embodies the ideal of free art for the pubic and the movement that street art has taken to wrestle the control of art away from the galleries to put art back into the eyes of the public.

How did you discover it?

I was asked to curate a last-minute gallery show near a place that I used to live and had about a week to put the show together.

The gallery was bigger than the amount of work I had to exhibit so in the end I was left with a whole window front room that was completely empty. With about a day to go before the opening a friend of mine and I decided to buy two huge canvases to fill the room and make work for the room on the night of the opening.

We worked on two black and white works over about six hours and got a great response from people watching us work. After that I was pretty much hooked.

What is your inspiration?

I am inspired by a whole different bunch of stuff depending on what mood I am in and what type of work I am currently interested in making. The influences for the live art that I do usually depend on the amount of time I have, the type of materials I get to work with and the environment that I am working in. I usually try to do something that fits into the space that I am doing the work and more often than not I am thinking about what level of detail and complexity I am going to be able to manage in the time I have to do it.

Has it always been live art for you? Where did it all begin?

Live art has really been a quite recent direction for my work, having only been working in the scene for about a year or so now. However I have practiced as an artist for years and drawn since I can remember. I have ended up working with a lot of different mediums along the way, as I said I have always drawn since I was a kid, I studied film and animation at university, making a few short animated works, then moved into illustration, painting, sculpture and more recently street and live art.

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How would you describe your style?

That’s kind of a tough question as I tend to change my style quite a bit depending on what medium I’m using but there are often common threads that run through most of my work. I am mostly graphic/comic based blending realistic proportions with the surreal and modern iconography. I focus a lot on depicting characters infused with mysterious backstories that the audience can read into and I have also recently begun using a lot of simple text in my work, basic word combinations that hold undefined dark and humorous meanings.

How long does each piece take?

It really depends on what kind of work I am doing. If I am working on something small scale in the studio with no particular deadline I can end up working on an illustration that is A3 for like a week! Umming and ahhing over what I should do to it next.

That is one of the major reasons I moved into live art; I like the pressure of a time limit and an audience who want to see results now, since I started to work live I have never worked so big or so quick, I started taking about six hours to do a work that is 1x2m but now I can do something that big in three or four. In the last few months I have been using spray paint so now I can do full color work that size in a couple of hours. In the past year I have increased my speed a lot, but there is defiantly something nice about getting back to the studio in quiet solitude to umm and ahh over a work for a day or two as well.

What’s an art battle? How do you win?

Live art takes a few forms; there are standard live art events where one or more artists create their work for an audience over a few hours and then there are more specific events ‘such as battles’ that are a side of live art that is growing more popular.

Art battles are between two or more artists over a set time period. The artists compete against each other to create work in front of an audience usually based on a theme or to insult the other artist. Influenced a lot by graffiti and hip-hop culture, art battles are roughly based on rap battles and the idea of free styling to push two artists to their limits by competing against one another. A winner is judged using differing systems, but often using a decibel reader and basing the decision on crowd response. The louder the crowd screams for each artist decides the winner.

Who would you most like to battle against and why?

Umm probably someone who is not as good as me so I can win hahah, nah I never really feel like there is any real contest when

I battle as it’s all art and the event is more of a collaboration to push each others, skill and speed so I would most like to battle against one of the many artists I look up to. If I had to pick though I think it would probably be Ken Taylor or Heesco, I think these guys are the best live battlers in Australia at the moment, Ken Taylor because I have always looked up to his precise technique and Heesco because of his speed and realism, I would without a doubt get smashed by either of these dudes but it would be heaps of fun to work with them haha.

What’s next for OX KING? I have a lot planned for this coming year, apart from continuing with group shows and live work I plan to move further into large scale mural work, trying to go bigger and better and perhaps even get paid! Haha. I have plans to curate a couple of group shows with artists that I have been working with over the past year in Sydney and hopefully a solo show mid-year called Black Blood that I can tour around Australia a bit. Basically looking for freelance of any kind, from commission painting to mural work to fund all this, so get at me if you want any art done;) Why OX KING? OX is a name I picked for myself when I started doing street work for my paste ups to remain a bit more anonymous, OX relates to the idea that drawing is like developing your own specific language of lines, that all images can be broken down into sets of iconography. I like the symbols O and X because they are used in so many different ways in our society and in that way are beyond their meaning within the alphabet and can be used as versatile visual icons within my imagery, linking the words to the drawings and symbols I use. OX King however came about as a personaI use for the type of work I am making now, I have had a lot of names depending on the type of work I am making (Mr. Cow for instance) Ox King is a character that I have made up that relates to the fantasy and Viking influences that I put into some of my recent work, he is a Viking god of beasts, bacon and burbon; a lord of storms and hangovers and generally just a fun mask to wear every now and then.

Where can we find you?

You will most likely find me in galleries and bars around Sydney hawking my live art wears or you can follow my work as it happens through my blog which I keep as current as I possibly can. http://theoxking.tumblr.com getUP or getOUT Newspaper. First Edition 2012 | 29

words from

Will Coles What do I do? I glue down concrete objects, shapes with words in them, things that will hopefully generate a thought: “What the fuck is that?” or “What the fuck is that shit?” or “What the fuck does that shit mean?”.

Someone once said art doesn’t change anything, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t try. You don’t have to think, you might even be happier if you don’t. You can piss your life away on a 9-to-5 job feeding a mortgage, doing what you’re told, believing what you’re told and be planted in the ground never having questioned anything… and what a dull cunt you’d be.

Photographs Melinda Vassallo

‘Street art’ is a term coined by those who are on the outside looking in. These people sell coffee-table books and claim to be experts on all the elements that are bundled together under this term. These people control what gets into public museums, they curate street-art exhibitions, they lecture students, they generally misinform others as to who does what and how.

Think of the true innovators of graffiti, those with the best skills and freshest ideas, and then see if any of these are in any major public art collections. Then read the names of the graff and street artists they have in their collections, the ones that they tell the public are the biggest and the best. Little or no similarity.

So fuck ’em.

As long as you can find a way to keep making your work and getting up then it’s all good regardless of whether you get paid for your art or not, because it is art. The real test is what the public thinks when they pass it every day – not just if they ‘like’ it or not, but if it will become part of their neighbourhood. Will they defend you and your work? Will they respect it, even if they don’t get it? Will you get respect from other artists, will you get dissed by toys, and if so will you even care?

‘Street art’ doesn’t have to mean anything, but it should always try to be good, better than your last piece.

finite isolation numb stop! cute empty dumb

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Paste Modernism is probably one of the best art related events I’ve ever had the pleasure of being involved in. If you’ve missed one of its three incarnations here is your chance of catching up. The product of artist Ben Frost with Bridge Stehli, The premise to provide an opportunity for paste-up art, an often neglected form of street art.

Basically, paste-up artists use glue in the form of wall paper paste or home made wheatpaste to glue up posters.

Artists may draw, spray paint, silkscreen, print or whatever their preferred image.

One book titled: Streetart, the Punk Poster in San Francisco (1977-1981 edited by Peter Belsito), demonstrates paste and street art have long roots (and for me a little bit of punk).

I’ve always been a fan of paste because it means I can spend as much time as I want on my art and get it up the results relatively quickly. Or just enjoy getting large amounts of work up fairly blatantly even in daylight. Ive had many an elderly person complement us for working hard at night giving us big cheery grins which doesn’t happen as often if you use aerosol paint.

One thing I learned from my days with the Movement was using brooms to get work up high above the tags and throw ups. You can get 60 ft high brooms if you really want.

The strangest thing ever happened to me pasting was an old man who asked what we were advertising. When we replied nothing he went mental and chased us round all night and destroyed lots of our work.

It is rather funny that people regard advertising as legitimate even though one council newsletter reported illegal posters were double the cost of removing aerosol paint. Pasting up is generally treated as litter with varying fines but generally far less than aerosol vandalism.

Its probably polite to not cover aerosol art. Traditional graffitists may regard paste as less risky and inauthentic so try not to give them more reasons to hate all paste-ups.

The first Paste Modernism was held at Hibernian House 2008 in the Surry Hills. A truly underground guerilla event it brought together a variety of Sydney’s finest street and graffiti artists. While some artists were new paste – the results where amazing. Tiny cave like corridors full of hundreds of paste ups over several floors all on top of a healthy collection of other stencils and scrawls. Reminded me a bit of Blade Runner.

The second one was at Lo-Fi Gallery in Darlinghurst 2010 – a more public affair with a more traditional opening in a rectangular space. I did hear someone complain there was nothing for sale – but I think it is one of the show strengths.

The third was the biggest yet at Cock-or-two island for the Outpost 2011 festival. A massive scale event with more artists than ever before. While Outpost was an amazing event PM3 stood out as the densest collection of interesting artists I’d

Flickr group pool: www.flickr.com/groups/1764984@N23/

seen exhibited anywhere. I’m still looking at the photos and seeing new things. It is like a cathedral of 21st century art, where pilgrims could contribute and leave part of themselves.

To appreciate it at its most you really had to see it going up because some works were buried 4 layers deep so check out the Flickr pool for a great collection of images from all versions of PM. I’m sure a few artists shed tears and we probably could have had four times the wall space. probably more artists from a non street art or graffitti background but the increasingly international content and the chance to meet other interesting artists of any type is a good experience.

At the time of writing this I don’t know what future plans the event has but I hope it continues and keeps getting better.

Creating versions of the event in other cities was one idea thrown up. Hopefully the event grows and gets bigger tentacles with hundreds more artists contributing and leering they joy of paste. There are surprisingly few uses of this style of street art as a public event so cheers to Ben making this all happen.

www.pastemodernism.com

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Photographs Baddogwhiskas

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