ART
Art Fag JAY FRAZER
A
s some of you may have noticed, artistic bollards have been popping up around the city. For those slightly less observant, these bollards have been spray painted to look like cigarettes and each bear the words ‘Art Fag’. It strikes me that while this may be slightly offensive to the many Art students buzzing around Dundee (as it implies they are pretentious, if not homosexual), I have found them kind of refreshing. It’s always comforting to see people play around with art in the streets and push the boundaries in order to evoke a public reaction. My attempt to find the guy behind these new ‘Dundee icons’ was quite unsuccessful. A friend of mine is a good friend of the artist, but his attempts to try and tempt him from his flat for an interview failed. Apparently the guy is pretty happy chilling on his sofa playing video games and is motivated only by finding another perfect street object to deface. I decided to rather not bother him, though I did hear the background story and motivation to his idea though. Eventually I made it up to the guy’s flat for a chat. I was informed of many of his artistic opinions and finally heard the background story. As a budding artist he was updating a ‘flickr’ blog with his work on a frequent basis and was receiving a lot of comments from friends in a mocking tone claiming he was an ‘art fag’. After his friend requested that he turned a bollard into a cigarette as a joke, he decided to do so. He realized he was onto something and it developed from there. I asked him in general what he would say to people about his Art Fags, what I got from him was this “It is a bollard painted to look like a cigarette, It’s what it says on the tin, take from it what you want.” As a mockery of all us ‘art fags,’ creating pretentious works of a contemporary and conceptual nature, I like it. It’s comforting (and, again, refreshing) to see art that doesn’t necessarily involve a huge amount of skill and is not attempting to achieve a certain aesthetic. This project is raw and rather inyour-face, popping up as a reminder to us all not to take life too seriously sometimes. To use and abuse the environment around us. There is, however, the debate as whether or not this is vandalism. I noticed an email sent to all Duncan of Jordanstone students requesting that students did not graffiti the university grounds. To quote Caroline Peters, the DJCAD School Secretary, “Some students are defacing DJCAD estate with graffiti. This is not acceptable.” I presumed that this must also apply to
Photograph by Jay Frazer
‘art fag’ as there is one happily supporting a tree on the grass just outside the Matthew building. This amuses me, as while the artist is not actually a Duncan of Jordanstone student he probably accessed the building at some point to reach his canvas. The strict new regulations on identification within the art school could be trying to discourage exactly this, along with its prime purpose; theft prevention. The fact that Mr. Art Fag
but only to brighten up the public’s day and to make more accessible art. I did notice that I was being slyly advised to steer away from things such as pasting and stencilling by various tutors. Perhaps there’s still an issue to overcome concerning the legalities of street art. For me, street art can be much more affecting and relevant than a lot of art that you may see in galleries; as it is imposing and exciting and it could
“It is a bollard painted to look like a cigarette, It’s what it says on the tin, take from it what you want.” has made his mark slap bang in the centre of a creative hub full of ‘art fags’ just leaves us full of respect for his poor frustrated mind. If he was a student at the art school would his work be accounted for? After all, it is effectively illegal. In my own practice I have been interested in working on the streets,
be gone tomorrow. I like to be surprised or taken back by a piece of art outwith a typical artistic environment. For these reasons I approve of ‘art fag’ and think we should all learn to lighten up, to observe our surroundings closely for more ‘art fags’, and of course to encourage more street art in Dundee!
One of the ‘art fags’. Photo by Jay
Art Issue 29.indd 27
The Magdalen
NO. 29 - MAY 2012
PAGE 27 03/05/2012 12:04