Urban Canvases: East London's Street
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Urban Canvases east London’s street art Martin smith Includes three walking tours Contents Hijabs, hoodies, afros, locks Introduction: “The streets shall be our Teddy bear, liquor bottle shrines, rocks brushes – the squares our palettes” | 3 Tanks, prayer rugs, church pews, Mexican corn stands Stik: The human condition through Blood, sweat, and tears, police batons simplicity | 8 Gas masks and bullets create graffiti on corners TRP: The Rolling People | 10 Murals that salute freedom or death for liberty Be it Inglewood or Egypt, Bed-Stuy or Baghdad Walk 1: Brick Lane | 12 Syria or Liberia, the West Bank or the West Side of Chicago Thierry Noir: When walls come tumbling – “Ayesha Says” by Lupe Fiasco down | 16 ’Ello, ’ello Alo | 18 Walk 2: Hackney Wick | 20 Off the beaten track | 23 Amara and Zabou: Painting our streets | 24 Smile: It’s Sweet Toof | 26 Walk 3: Shoreditch | 28 Roa: Urban wildlife | 32 You can always bank on Banksy | 34 Shepard Fairey: He’s bigger than Banksy | 38 When art and protest collide: East London’s political street paintings | 40 Acknowledgements | 43 | 2 Introduction: “The streets shall be our brushes – the squares our palettes” Walking around the streets of east are the ones who keep the faith. When I and Petrograd. In many Southern European London it can sometimes feel like the look at their work I see beauty and defiance, and Latin American towns and cities the words of Russian artist, actor and poet while the police – they just see gangs Catholic Church encouraged artists to paint Vladimir Mayakovsky have come true. and vandalism. religious-inspired murals on gable ends. For in the few square miles that make up Street art is constantly evolving and as with The art of the street mural reached its zenith south Hackney and the western area of all art forms, there is good, bad and crass. in the 1920s and 1930s with the work of the Tower Hamlets you can see artworks by But there is no denying the fact that over the three great Mexican muralists Diego Rivera, some of the world’s most famous street last few decades street art has become one José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro artists on walls, deserted buildings and of the most significant art movements of our Siqueiros. During the troubles in Northern temporary hoardings. times. Its origins go back a long way. Ireland, Republicans and Loyalists all But it is not the works of Banksy, Eine or painted wall murals. They contained political For as long as humans have existed Shepard Fairey that really excite me. What messages, boundary markers and cultural they have been compelled to mark their brings me back time and time again to and historical displays of pride. existence. Humans from the Upper some of my favourite haunts is the hope of Paleolithic era (30,000 to 40,000 years ago) It was Oscar Wilde, the Irish poet and seeing new works by lesser known artists – painted hunting scenes and symbols on dramatist who said: Stik, SixOneSix, Amara Por Dios, the their cave walls. Rolling People, Team Robbo and many “Art is not to be taught in Academies. It is others. Juxtaposed against the grey city Even the ancient Romans were at it. Visit what one looks at, not what one listens landscape, their paintings’ shapes and Pompeii and there you will see crude to, that makes the artist. The real schools vibrant colours light up the darkest of drawings, political slogans, Latin curses, should be the streets.” corners and many openly challenge the magic spells and declarations of love on That certainly is the case for today’s street neoliberal institutions and advertising signs the walls of many of the buildings. They give art movement. Its roots lie with the graffiti that pollute the environment. you a useful insight into Roman street life, artists who emerged in Washington Heights just as modern graffiti gives you insights in I also love the work of the art school and the Bronx in New York in the early 1970s. contemporary life. students who are learning their craft. But Artists such as TAKI 183 (the godfather of most of all I love the “rebels” – the young Skipping over 2,000 years, street art in the modern graffiti) and Tracy 168 would spray graffiti artists, the self-taught who have 20th century has developed through official or paint their nicknames (tags) on subway no respect for authority, the rules of art or and unofficial channels. Artists inspired trains. These graffiti tags grew in size and the supposed street art “code”. These rebels by the 1917 Russian Revolution set up style. Bubble writing turned into “wildstyle”, a are the ones who scrawl their messages huge political art installations and painted form of graffiti that incorporated interwoven 3 | and tags on anything and everything. They gigantic murals in the squares of Moscow and overlapping letters and shapes. By the mid-1970s graffiti artists like Tracy 168, Bronx and other New York boroughs like popularising street art beyond the confines Zephyr and Dondi started to create works Queens and Brooklyn. For nearly ten years of New York. Blondie immortalised graffiti with more than just their names: they added it developed both free from commercial artist Fab 5 Freddy in her song “Rapture”. cartoons and beautiful background scenes. pressures and under illegal conditions. He in turn brought the art to the galleries Whole subway carriages would be painted – The hip-hop scene that emerged in New of downtown Manhattan. Fab 5 Freddy and it was the era of the mural-car. York in the late 1970s and early 1980s was Futura (formerly known as Futura 2000) took Another unique aspect of this emerging art a cultural movement that encompassed hip-hop graffiti to Paris and London as part form was the artists’ use of spray paints and music, dance and fashion and also absorbed of the New York City Rap Tour in 1983. Films marker pens. Artists painted solo, in crews large elements of the graffiti art scene. like Wild Style and Style Wars (both 1983) or gangs and sometimes worked on joint The music videos of early hip-hop pioneers also helped popularise the art form. Some of collaborations. It was also a movement that Grand Master Flash and Afrika Bambaataa the early street artists, such as Jean-Michel developed from below in the projects of the and the punk band the Clash played a role in Basquiat (1960-1988), Keith Haring (1958- | 4 1990) and Futura, became internationally follows is the commercialisation of the companies and councils who saw graffiti famous artists whose works were displayed sound and its transformation into a product. as illegal vandalism. In the US the around the world. authorities and the subway owners The next generation of musicians looks implemented a three-pronged strategy to In less than a decade hip-hop culture for new means of artistic expression, try and curb artists painting subway cars had spread around the world and graffiti develop its ideas and the whole process and subway property. art began to appear on trains in Berlin, begins again. London, Paris, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo. Two First any artists caught received large fines We have seen this different forces would react on graffiti and also some were jailed. Second railway happen to street the emerging street art scene that would depots and yards became like the Green artists like Haring, transform it for good and for bad. Zone in Baghdad: fences were erected, Banksy and Fairey. CCTV cameras installed and security The first was commercialisation of the art Their work has been patrols were introduced. form that began to take place in the early sold back to the public 1980s. As graffiti and street art grew in in the form of posters, It became virtually impossible for graffiti popularity, art dealers and rich collectors T-shirts, calendars and postcards. But the artists to ply their trade on the subway. The began to buy up some of the art. They would “official” art world differs from the music movement began to diverge. Some graffiti invite the street artists to display their work world in one significant aspect: owning artists stuck to the “old ways” and continued in their galleries. original works of art is the preserve of rich to work under illegal conditions and to art dealers, collectors and galleries. Today develop their graffiti art. The same process They literally took it off the streets and an original Basquiat can set you back $48m took place in London, Paris and countless put it in galleries. The art was treated as and a Banksy a cool $1.8m. other cities. a financial investment, something to be bought and sold usually at prices beyond I am not arguing that these developments It wasn’t all clampdowns though. There most people’s reach. are all bad. It’s good that some street artists was a carrot: some authorities opened up are gaining the recognition and appreciation “official” spaces for street artists to paint. Parallels can be drawn between street they deserve and are able to make a living Artists also found other legal or semi-legal art and music. Much of modern “popular” from their work. But market forces and spaces to paint. music has developed in waves of creativity commercialisation have had a negative – rock ‘n’ roll, soul, punk, hip-hop, house, This change in working environment impact too. drum ‘n’ bass etc. Most but not all musical gave artists more time to paint with no developments originated from below.