{ Daily Archives }
July 5th, 2006
What Jeff might have linked to.
Well, yesterday was Independence Day, and so Jeff spent time being independent and blowing things up in a legally sanctioned way, more or less.
But I think that what Jeff might have had in mind was a discussion of Graffiti. I know it’s close to his heart. He got quite a settlement from the guy that put it there.
I found this via an NPR article the other day. I’m not sure what I think about a gallery show of graffiti. One of the things that makes graffiti a powerful artform is the lack of editorial influence that mainstream artists have to fear. With graffiti there is rarely any concern as to whether or not the public will be accepting of your work. You do it so that people will know that you were there and that you have left a mark that no one can avoid.
I like to think of graffiti as the most recent instance of the dada art movement. And I tend to think that graffiti may be headed down a similar path. As I see it the idea of the dadaists was to make fun of the fine art community and make a little money in the process. It really is hard to look at Marcel Duchamp and think that anything he did was done in earnest. But the art comminity embraced this bold savages and the dada movement became part of the mainstream and faded away. Perhaps that is exactly what will happen to graffiti, and maybe that is the idea.
Wow, that almost sounded thoughtful.
Tune in tomorrow and watch Jeff do interpretive dance of some of the best pieces from the graffiti exhibit.
