NEXT GEN Aug. 13, 2022 Vol. 1 Monarch
Table of Contents (2) Editor’s LetTER The Defacement of Art: “A Representation of changing times” & “‘NoT Gun Problem’” “Storm the Court” From Championing the Victor to Up lifting the Marginalized: “A Chronicle of the Equestrian Trope” Placing black and brown bodies “Building Blocks” New“Lovers”space for lgbtq+ art DragStonewallasa performance art streetLovers art as protest Interview with an Endhistory/backgrounDex-taggerofMagcollage 22-2518-1914-1510-116-74-5389121316172021
I would like to thank my team, Mia, Rachel, and Divya, as without y’all this would not be possible. I am so happy we are able to put together this magazine in one summer as college students and working jobs and dealing with general life. I would also like to thank, you, the reader, for reading this and reading our magazine. We greatly appreciate it.
Within “Monarch” you will go on a journey. You will learn about the history of art as activism in writings by Mia Maniquis, edited by Divya Chandrasekharan, and witness the artworks that are activism created by myself, Rhyu Olide, and Rachel Skwersky. We encourage you to research deeper into any terms you may not be familiar with and open up pictures of the artwork that we reference in order to gain a deeper understanding.You will read about class and race issues, LGBT art, and street art. Additionally, you’ll learn about how art was used by varying artists as well as our editorial department’s own opinions. This zine is not only meant to inform you about topics we are commonly not taught, but also it speaks of activism meant to seek change in this world. I would also like to mention that there are mentions of racism, abortion rights, LGBT rights, violence, and police brutality, so please proceed with caution as some of these topics can be difficult to read about.
RhyuEnjoy,Olide Editor in Chief & Head of Design
Editor’s Letter
Dear Reader, You may be wondering: what is Next Gen Zine? What’s a zine? Why “Monarch”? Well, I am here to answer. For starters, Next Gen is a group of individuals who are passionate about art of all kinds and the powerful messages art can convey. We believe that art is powerful and art in all its forms has the power to influence the world. We are young college students who are the next generation of minds. We seek to influ ence the next generation in a positive manner and work towards a better world. We are the Next Generation. A zine is “a small-circulation self-published work of original or appropriated texts and images, usually reproduced via a copy machine” according to google. It is also a shorthand for magazines. Our zine will only be publishing online as we believe there is a wider range to be reached. To us, a zine means more than that. It is a collection of our thoughts and ideas that seek to make a change in this world. The reason we are calling this first issue “Monarch” is that we are inspired by the monarch butterfly. I personally believe that it symbolizes strength, bravery, fluidity, and change. We need to strength and bravery to talk about the things we do within the magazine. Fluidity allows us to be willing to experience change and influence change in this world.
The defacement of art as a political statement is not a new practice. It can be traced from an cient to modern times. One of the earliest, most prevalent examples art historians have found is the Head of an Akkadian Ruler which is dated all the way to approximately 2200 BCE. This bronze head has clearly been defaced with some type of tool, damaging the eyes specifically. This was a popular practice these times in order to dishonor the represented ruler following the changing of regimes. Another popular example of this post-regime change practice, is the defacement and destruction of statues of Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 2004. The defacement of art is not an act ex clusively linked to current politics or the changing of regimes. The Mona Lisa has been repeated ly attacked throughout history for various reasons (from climate change to museum accessibili ty for the disabled), leading to it being one of the most heavily protected paintings on display. In more recent times, during the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 following the murder of George Floyd, many historical statues and buildings were defaced or torn down. One of the most publi cized examples would be the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia. The names of victims of police brutality were painted onto the monument along with anti-racist messages and phrases of the movement. The most popular phrases being “Fuck 12,” “ACAB,” and “Black Lives Matter.” Not only was this defacement an act of remembrance and honor for the vic tims of police brutality, but it was a tool to challenge a facet of the current political regime: the police and their lack of accountability. Protestors transformed an outdated, and historically rac ist piece of art into one that represented the current times and emotions of the American people, particularly Black people. What these protestors did was not simply deface a piece of art, but they created a new statue with an evolved history. This was repeated with various statues and buildings across the country that were erected with racist ideals in mind. The defacement of art is not always senseless, it is often a political act and is done with clear intentions and messages behind it. This practice is a fundamental part of human expression traced throughout history, and is a form of art.
Black
4
MatterLives
Written by: Mia Maniquis
The Defacement of Art: “A Representation of changing times”
Artist: Rhyu Olide
“Not a Gun Problem”
- Rhyu Olide, 19
“This artwork is composed of every city where a school shooting has taken place since the year 2000. It is a statement which highlights undeniable evidence that we have a gun problem. There has been an enourmous amount of school shootings from coast to coast throughout the 14 years which I have attended school. Everytime I am on campus I always have the thought in the back of my mind of how I could survive if there as an active threat. Going to school should not feel dan gerous. We should not have to worry about if we will come back home or not on a random day in September. This artwork points to the hypocrisy of current law makers. Many of those who oppose gun restrictions don’t seem to care about the lives of children who are at stake. Even after countless school shootings, they will grasp at straws and say the problem is anything but a gun problem. The title and text are there to underscore the hypocrisy of congressmen. The United States has a gun problem. There is no denying it.”
5
Artist: Rhyu Olide “Storm the Court” is a piece in protest of the Roe v Wade rulling. Everyone involved in Next Gen supports bodily autonomy for all. This piece reflects that.
“storm the court”
Next Gen Zine
From Championing the Victor to Uplifting the Marginalized : “A Chronicle of the Equestrian Trope”
Written by: Mia Maniquis
The equestrian trope, in its most unadulterated form, is meant to portray the rider as victorious and preeminent. From its ancient depictions like the ancient Roman statue of Marcus Aurelius–a Roman emperor and well-known Stoic philosophe–to its modern reclamations, as seen in the artistic evolu tion of Saint James, the equestrian trope has been continually appropriated across time periods, re ligions, and regions. The artistic evolution of Saint James began when the equestrian trope made its foray into Spanish imperial art as a champion of the “Reconquista.” The Reconquista was a series of battles that eventually concluded with the Christians overcoming Muslims in Spain. Art made in this period typically celebrated the triumph of Christian rule over Muslims. In keeping with the equestri an trope’s nature of a victor and the defeated, American art then utilized the trope to support their attack on a different group. This can be seen through the renaming of Saint James to Santiago Mata indios (Saint James the Indian/Native Slayer). The tables then turned in the 19th century and the equestrian trope was adopted by those who were oppressed. Indigenous tribes in Peru used the image of Santiago and rebranded him: Santiago Mataespañois (St. James the Spaniard-killer). The reversal of the equestrian trope has been solidified even further, in more modern art. This can be seen through paintings like “The Cost of Removal,” where artist Titus Kaphar painted President Jackson in his signa ture equestrian pose, draped in his own writings that debated the removal of Natives from their land. Saint James remains a prominent example of the reversal of the equestrian role because of his trans formation from being a symbol of colonial oppression, to one of colonial resistance. The artist Kehin de Wiley continues to depict this reversal in his series entitled “Rumors of War,” in which he shares his take on the historical equestrian trope. In Wiley’s series, he paints people of color he meets on the streets of New York. This series rejects the historical favoritism of white people in power and instead depicts everyday people of color through a trope that has regularly excluded them. His re-creation of Jaques-Louis David’s Napoleon Crossing the Alps is a prime example of this. Napoleon Crossing the Alps sheds light on the many historical artistic embellishments of white men and their power/ achievements through the equestrian trope. This early 19th-century painting is ripe with propagan da, depicting Napoleon as a victor leading his troops when in reality he had his soldiers on foot while he followed later on a mule. Wiley comments on this through his re-creation: Napoleon Leading the Army over the Alps. In this piece, the subject wears camouflage to echo the military scene of the origi nal painting and hint at the violence Black people experience in America. The ornate background also contains small paintings of sperm, pointing to, and possibly making fun of, the embellished masculin ity of white men in Western portraiture. The equestrian trope is not only an example of the evolution of artistic themes, but an interesting, and key example of people of color creating their own space in art history and forms of representation and glorification they have been historically excluded from.
8
9 Next Gen Zine
“Lives”
Artist: Rhyu Olide Inspired by works of Keith Haring, this piece shows the realities of police brutality. It raises the question of how many more lives until this horror ends.
Placing black & brown bodies
Western art. While cowboys and desert may be what comes to mind first, historically western art is a category that encompasses pieces that originate from Europe and places that share European tradition (such as the U.S). Western painting is known for its focus on the represen tation of the human body. Western art was large ly commissioned by the wealthy, which means that art at this time exclusively depicted white individuals as the main subject. Art eventually became a part of the social sphere, and by the height of the Renaissance era, art academies be came all the rage. In these academies, the idea that the white man was the ideal and relatable body remained prevalent. This led to the prolific pieces of art we know today being dominated by white bodies. For example, the Mona Lisa, Girl with a Pearl Earring, The Birth of Venus, The Gar den of Earthly Delights, etc. As artistic eras came and went, the “primitivism” era came about. This name was coined due to the perception of the na ture of its paintings at the time. Beginning in the late 19th century and early 20th century, artists began to seek inspiration from cultures abroad. Europeans saw these differing cultures as “prim itive” due to their varying country’s historically racist and imperialist practices. Although this trend in art meant more Black and Brown bodies were being depicted in famous art (prime exam ples being Gaugin’s late 19th century pieces and Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon), they were not held to the same “ideal body” representa tion that white bodies were previously. Art in the primitivism era was charged with racist language and ideas. However, as time progressed and soci etal norms and current events changed in West ern culture, Black artists became more popu lar. In the 20th century, we began to see African American artists who depict Black people and the experiences of the community, becoming increasingly popular. Some of the most notable names are Jacob Lawrence, Romare Bearden, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Some of their art is includ ed in this piece with brief captions. Let us now turn the focus of the article on Romare Bearden. Bearden’s preferred medium was collage; which was a direct contradiction to the previous mod ernist movement. The modernist movement of the mid-20th century favored simplicity and “purity.” That is a sense of a lack of manipulation on the artist’s part, or a desire to emulate any other kind of painting. This is why Jackson Pol lock gained most of his notoriety. His “drip tech nique” (pouring paint with a bucket and a stick) was seen as emblematic of this “purity” of art. Critics idolized him and his art. Bearden’s use of collage after this movement was given particular attention. His art directly contrasted the iconic white American artist of the time. His prefer ence for collage has also been described by art historians as a representation of modern Black life at the time. The fragmented style of Bearden is compared to the diasporic nature of the Black community in America. His art also contradicts the historic caricature of Black and Brown peo ple as seen through minstrel shows and racist political cartoons. Bearden’s art represents the Black community as complex and dynamic. Al though Western art has been historically domi nated by white artists and bodies, Black artists are gaining their due recognition and represent ing the Black community through their own lens rather than being represented by others.
10
Written by: Mia Maniquis
11 Next Gen Zine Shown: Romare Bearden Artist: Rhyu Olide
This art work is meant to express how black, brown, and queer spaces are the birthplaces of many ideas and styles within pop-culture. This artwork is a reminder that these communities started many so-called “trends”. It isn’t a trend to these communities, it’s their lives. They are the framework. Blocks”
By: Rhyu Olide
“Building
14
While we do see men kissing in Michelangelo’s Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel, it is not the type of representation we see today. It was likely a representation of Michelangelo’s queer desire, it is not an open depiction of queer men. An open depiction would not have been accept ed at his time. Another artist, Giovanni Bazzi was active at the time of Michelangelo, he was suspected of being gay and had many queer themes in his art. This led to him being nick named “Il Sodoma” (the sodomite). While Bazzi embraced this nickname and created songs per taining to his title, it’s understandable that not everyone could be comfortable with this (for example Michelangelo). This is why we don’t reg ularly see historically iconic art depicting queer bodies and themes, it was not deemed appropri ate by Western culture at the time. This lack of historical representation for trans/LGBTQ peo ple in art is being remedied in modern times. In juxtaposition with its past, Western society has evolved into a more accepting space for queer people, leading to queer and trans artists being able to depict their art to larger audiences. This acceptance took time; it wasn’t until the gay rights movement and AIDS epidemic of the late 20th century that notable LGBTQ+ artists like Keith Haring gained attention. Now there are ex hibitions and museums for queer and trans art. For example, the Oakland Museum of California had an exhibit entitled Queer California: Untold Stories in 2019. There is also the Museum of Trans History and Art (MOTHA) which exclu sively exhibits art in connection to transgender life and history. Western art has a history of exclusion, that is being challenged by modern movements that have confronted the antiquat ed ideas of society that led us to where we are today: a time where the excluded can create and dominate their own space.
A New Space for tr an S & LG BT Q a rt
Written by: Mia Maniquis
Tarot”Lovers“The
15 Next Gen Zine Artist: Rachel Swersky “The Lovers Tarot” depicts two women who are deeply in love. This is in contrast to many tarot decks who show a masculine and feminine energy . This Tarot card drawing challenges that notion and shows that love can be between any two individuals. It is meant to challenge the origins of art. Art is not unlike other industries it is dominated by white men. This art work centers LGBT women of color.
In art history, popular artists and pieces that are recognized and discussed at length depict solely cis-gender European people. While many other cultures throughout history have recognized and depicted trans and gay people in their art, Western art has excluded them. It wasn’t until the aforementioned “primitivism” era of the 20th century took off that Black and Brown bodies were even depicted in popular Western art (see Placing Black and Brown Bodies article), let alone trans and LGBTQ bodies.
Photo: Mia ManiquiS Stonewall Inn
DRAG AS A Performance ART
“ MindPayNo”
18
- Marsha P. Johnson Artist: Rhyu Olide
When we think about performance art we often picture it taking place in a museum or in a fine art context. However, this can be a limiting view of performance art. What matters to art is meaning, the history of the medium, and how the artist’s message makes for a piece that speaks for itself. While there are instances of drag being incorporated into major art exhibitions at prominent museums, many still view drag as just a part of the world of pop culture. In reality, drag performance has a his tory just as rich and influential as any art form. Men have performed as women in plays since ancient Greek and Shakespearean times. In the nineteenth century, the medium then began to transform into what we associate with drag today. Drag soon became tied to the LGBTQ+ community, and served as a way for people to challenge the gender binary and rigid sexual stereotypes. By this point drag had moved far beyond simply men dressing as women, allowing people of all identities to perform as drag queens and kings alike. As we reached the 60s, drag was a big part of nightlife in cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York City. At the time, police raids of gay bars were common. It was their way of threatening LGBTQ+ spaces in a time that was brimming with ignorance and lacking in acceptance. On June 28, 1969, New York’s Stonewall Inn decided to fight back. Many drag perform ers, including the iconic Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, were at the frontlines of what is now known as the Stonewall riots. This is now recognized as one of the major sparks of the LGBTQ+ rights movement of the late 1900s, solidifying the role of drag performers in the history that has helped to define modern society. Today, drag has become accepted as mainstream, even inspiring well-known TV shows such as RuPaul’s Drag Race. Drag has evolved in its meaning since ancient times, just like all other recognized mediums of art, from painting and sculpture to architecture. The rich history of drag has developed into a medium that challenges norms and expresses persona. By all defini tions and expectations, drag is absolutely a legitimate performance art, and should be seen as such.
Next Gen Zine By: Rhyu Olide “Lovers” is an abstract line drawing of two individuals who are in love. The use of both masculine and feminine features are used to show that love has no bounds. It’s between two individuals, no matter how they may identify. “Lovers”
20
Interviewer: Rhyu Olide Interviewee: Anonymous
“So I was about seven or eight years old. Well, the way it happened. I was in the third grade. And I was in Mrs. Smith’s class. She was my teacher. And after a few months in the school year, she decided to leave, for a counseling job at another high school. Mm-hmm when she left, we were stuck with having a lot of substi tute teachers. Therefore, we had a lot of free time. Very major influences in my life were my friends, Jon, my friend, Ralph, Bernie, and my friend Darren. And it was, it was me. It was a, you know, us four were friends. Um, Ralph had, um, two older brothers, um, Ben, which was, I believe already like in eighth grade, possibly ninth grade already. And he was already driving and Richie, which was a sixth grader. And he was like the king of like the school they taught us about break dancing about, um, writing hip hop don’t stop, um, fresh. And that’s how it all started. We were actually just drawing on paper, the words fresh in block letters, with brick back grounds, and we started writing ‘hip hop’, ‘hip hop don’t stop in’ bubble letters. And, we started drawing. We started drawing shapes of poses
Interview with a tagger that we used to do while we were break danc ing and pop-locking. That’s kind of how we all started. Um, so third grade, no name, no crew, no representing nobody. It was literally about influence through hip hop, and break dancing. And it was part of it. It was one of the elements. That’s how it all started. I hope that answered your question.” “You mentioned how hip-hop and tagging were like very intertwined. So then were those two art forms very influential on you, right?. When did it become more scale than just drawing on paper? Let me look for something real quick for you. There’s this thing called the five elements of hip hop. The five elements of hip hop are rapid MCing & freestyling, DJing, breaking, graffiti, and beatboxing. We were all trying to find our little piece of that and I was, I was really good at break dancing and pop locking, and I was really good at drawing automatically, like right off the bat. So graffiti was like my piece, and break dancing was my thing. So we really got into it, towards the end of the third grade. Yeah, I know,
“For starters, when did you start tagging and why?”
Don’t, don’t F up things that are clean. Don’t write, like if there’s a nice clean wall and it looks nice. Don’t fuck that up. So that’s what we started doing. So we started battling, ‘Hey, let’s see. Who
In the beginning, you’re this impressionable small kid in elementary school where you’re just trying to fit in and hip hop was the thing. You’re trying to find, your place, but going fast forward to the fourth grade, I had a teacher Mr. V that made a really big impact on me. And he started talking about black history month in Febru ary. We started learning about civil rights and certain areas weren’t getting the same income. He was showing us pictures of schools and other areas in comparison to ours and how he started challenging us. ‘Notice what, what gets fixed “La Unidad”
21 I know. Towards the end of the third grade, we decided to come up with names, and actually, that’s when my name was born. Yeah, it was 1988. “So then, in the LA area and where you’re from, what was the motive for doing that? Was it just that [tagging] you had free time or was it something else?”
Artist: Rhyu Olide La unidad is a piece about the relations between the US and Mexico and the crossing identities of Mexican-American people such as Rhyu. It also can be seen as a protest piece of the treatment of Mexican-American people and how the fight is not over. around here? What doesn’t?’ At that moment it was just in my brain, but I didn’t know what to do with it. I’ll fast forward to when it really got real. I got into the fifth grade I got into gifted and talented education class and I met some girl, her name was Donna and her brother used to write. One day we’re riding our bikes and I met him and um, they were talking about how the city never painted a wall. ‘They never do nothing for us. Watch this’, he said. So he just bombs a big old tag. And then he said ‘Watch, they’re finally gonna get off their lazy asses and do something.’ So the next day we come there and it still said the tag. The next day, finally, someone complained and called, and then they finally painted right. So it was getting attention. But it was funny because he was teaching us, let’s see who we can get up the most, but don’t vandalize people’s homes.
22 can hit the most poles because the poles were all messed up and all written on. There were some wood parts that hold the electrical wires that weren’t, um, fixed. So we started just bombing things that weren’t getting fixed. We started noticing that they started painting. They start ed, they started to make our neighborhood look nicer. So what we started doing is we started branching out into the main street, which was Long Beach Boulevard. But the internal streets, Alpine, El Segundo, Banning Street, and the streets around there were pretty messed up. And that’s where we started hitting. As we started branching out, we started going to Long Beach Boulevard and this is an era of heavy gangs. Like there was a lot of like killings and stuff like that. These guys were riding on the walls, but they were riding on, on garage doors, on houses. They were claiming their territories. Right. Mm-hmm so we, so because we started writing on poles and on brick walls and alleys, they were ignored. They started this task force in the city of Lyn wood that was made to clean up the streets. No one knows that like everyone thinks that like, oh, it’s just a bunch of kids they’re just writing and they’re just screwing around. But the mo tive of it was to actually clean things up to make them look better. Was this a widely popular idea or was this something that just you experienced? Do you think it was more than just your circle? It got really, really big. That was one way of beau tifying the area. The idea was, ‘I’m gonna write on areas that look like crap, because they’re gon na see this tagging, right. This writing that, these adults are going to think is gang-related, but it’s not cuz writers and taggers are not gangs. It’s a different movement. Well, there’s another ave nue of, ‘I’m going to make this wall look better.’ And this is where people started getting really into it. So.that’s what people refer to peacing P E A C I N G. If you look at wild style, you’ll see how, it was intricate with a lot of curves. Next, it was ‘Let’s add some flare, let’s add arrows to it.’ We wanted our culture to hide within it. We want to be visible, but we don’t want you that far in where you know exactly what we’re doing. I just wanna make sure that you understand it. There was a political reason and we needed them to invest money in our areas and we needed them to know, Hey, we are here. We need you. We are we’re alive. Like, do something about it. You can’t, you can’t have this alley looking like crap. You can’t have this damn mattress sitting there. And then people are, are laying on this mattress shooting up, sell ing drugs and all that, clean these areas up and what we started doing is, okay, you don’t wanna pay attention to our blocks. We started hitting the pretty blocks. So it was kind of like a trickle-down effect. This kind of sounds like performance art, but it also sounds like protest, which is what the magazine is all about. With that being said, would you say that tagging has the potential to be a good thing and then be more than ‘just street art’?
Well, 100%, I mean the proof is in the pudding. We’re already very far removed from the eighties, right? You’ll see, graffiti on clothing. You’ll see, graffiti flares, the drips on Nike shoes. It’s part of our everyday life. Now you’ll see it on TV. So it’s become more mainstream. And for the young me and the crew and the guys, we didn’t want it to be mainstream. We wanted it to be ours, but at the same time it’s got widely accepted and it has opened up careers. That’s just one aspect of it. Like, it was a political reason, but also it was art, you know like I love drawing I’ve always been very egotistical. So I liked the fame that came from it. But it became useful in way more areas of our life, such as entertainment and taught us skills for corporate jobs. “Would you say you are inspired by any particu lar artist?”
Well, definitely mad props to my friend who put a political spin on tagging. It inspired me and I was like, oh, there’s actually a really good reason. Guys from around the neighborhood. They were push ing the envelope, they started hitting buses.
Is there anything else you would like to add at all? Um, that my experience is just a one-person’s perspective. There are many different reasons why people get into graffiti and to name a few, some of them are, that they are part of a group and they want to hang out with people and they want to just go fuck shit up and they don’t care about if they’re going to come and fix it or whatever. They have no respect. They’re break ing windows, they’re breaking into places and they’re bombing and they’re riding and they’re just leaving their mark no matter what. The jacking part of it is pretty effed up too, because, in order to get paint in order to have spray paint, you’re stealing, you don’t have money. You’re a kid you’re going into what are now Auto Zones. They used to be other small auto shops and you’re stealing from mom-and-pop shops that need that money for stuff. That’s kind of messed up. There’s a lot of bad stuff that came from it, you know. Then people sometimes would end up fighting, which eventually turned into tag bang ing, you know? Then would you say it ended up not being a good thing? I will never say, I would never say graffiti is bad. I will always say that there were good people and there were bad people that did it [graffitti].
They were like, ‘oh yeah, we’re gonna take our stuff across the county lines. They started actu ally and we said, oh yeah, well we’re gonna jump out our bikes and we’re gonna go write further. So those guys were pushing. But guys from scenes from like, New York, always mad respect because you know, a lot of this stuff started in New York, even, the fictional character Remo from a beat street.
“Thank you for your time, I really appreciateit!”
Tagging: the origin of the street art we know today. Beginning in the 60s and 70s, taggers & graffiti artists worked their way across New York City, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia. This practice flourished in mainly Black and Latino neigh borhoods alongside the growing popularity of hip-hop. The act of writing and depicting simple drawings on walls is a practice that dates back to ancient times, with the intent of recording knowledge. This meaning has greatly evolved in modern times. The act of tagging has become separate from any traditional art form. It began as text, and was a form of communication regarding presence. Taggers have their specific tag, whether it be a name, symbol, phrase, etc. This practice is about asserting existence, leaving a mark, in as many places as possible. As discussed in the interview, this assertion had different meanings. While not all had noble intentions, many taggers in LA would write on things with the hope that the city would fix them and clean up their neigh borhoods which had been historically neglected. It wasn’t until the late 70s and early 80s that writ ers began to include more imagery in their pieces. This also led to the inclusion of different mate rials and styles in order to achieve images with specific meanings. Now we see street art is often a key art form in political statements and protest, with many pieces alluding to the important social issues of today. While we may notice street mu rals and more image-oriented pieces on a regular basis, the original practice and message of tag ging are far from gone. As discussed in a previous article, the Robert E. Lee statue in Virginia was covered with acronyms and phrases associated with the Black Lives Matter movement. Tagging was and still is, about the assertion of existence, of communicating your presence to as many peo ple as possible. This meaning is still at the core of the street art and writing that we see today; we are seeing people assert the existence and impor tance of the sociopolitical issues we discuss today with the hope of change being enacted.
Tagging: A Brief Summarry
25 Next Gen Zine A Refusal to be
Street art evolved from the practice of tagging, as discussed in the previous interview and back ground. The original meaning of tagging is still fundamental to that of street art: the assertion of ex istence. We associate this with the assertion of the existence of the sociopolitical issues of our time. As the Black Lives Matter movement gained more attention and supporters in 2020 we saw murals embodying the meaning of the movement spring up across the country. While this is the most wellknown and modern example of street art used in protest it is surely not the only one. During the AIDS epidemic of the 80s, artist Keith Haring became popular due to his work that addressed the issue, along with many others including politics, sexuality, war, and religion. He even painted a mural on the Berlin wall, stating “It’s for people and it doesn’t matter which side of the wall they’re on. It’s about both sides coming together.” Another popular artist you are bound to know, that is alive and active today, is Banksy: an English street artist who is known for his artworks that address current events regarding issues like war, capitalism, pollution, and consumerism. Street art has been funda mental in the expression of the masses throughout the crucial movements of modern history. This practice has spread far from its roots, appearing across the country and in countless movements. We still see its important role in the communities that essentially helped found this practice as a tool to be seen. In Black and Brown communities across the country, you can find gorgeous pieces and mu rals commemorating the culture of the neighborhood. Some key examples would be the Black and Latino neighborhoods in East LA, Venice, Harlem, San Francisco’s Mission District, etc. Today we see gentrification ravishing many of these neighborhoods. My hometown, Venice, is a historically Black and Latino neighborhood. Now its homes are regularly knocked down to make expensive, modern houses, and to cater to Snapchat and Google employees. As a result, the overall cost of living is in creasing. This is taking place in all of the aforementioned neighborhoods. At the same time, we still see murals celebrating the original culture of these neighborhoods. This is the extension of the asser tion of existence associated with tagging. The people of these neighborhoods refuse to be phased out and forgotten about, like many of those who originally started tagging from the 60s to 80s. Tagging was developed by the ignored in order to get noticed. This often took place in Black and Brown neigh borhoods, due to the historical neglect through practices like redlining and an overall lack of care for the well-being of the people. The street art we see today has stayed true to the original practice of tagging, it still plays a part in the assertion of the existence of people and issues that have been ig nored. Tagging has been about changing spaces in order to invoke change, and this is still true today.
Written by: Mia Maniquis
PersistenceNeglected–TheofStreetArt
26
27 Next Gen Zine
28
29 Next Gen Zine
WE ARE THE NEXT GEN www.nextgenzine.com
