Photo by Jean-Pierre Caissie
“Phénomène propre à l’art public: la possibilité de réponse,” wrote Jean-Pierre Caissie, the artistic director of Dare-Dare, on his blog last month. “L’expression artistique est habituellement à sens unique. L’artiste s’exprime et le musée présente le travail. Quelques tentatives de réponses ont trouvé place devant la cour de justice. Cependant, le street art ou l’art public non-permanent offre la possibilité de réponse au passant.”
Roaming from site to site around Montreal—first Viger Square, then the Park With No Name, and now Cabot Square—Dare-Dare specializes in ephemeral public art. I’ve been lucky enough to chat with Caissie about the various projects that Dare-Dare has helped curate and a common theme that keeps emerging is the opportunity for public interaction and response, something that isn’t normally possible in a gallery or a museum. Dare-Dare takes art from the gallery to the street and opens it up to the public.
What happens then is entirely unpredictable. In 2007, Chih-Chien Wang built a “nest” of cardboard boxes, illuminated from within, underneath the Van Horne Viaduct. People would come at night and drink nearby, but every so often, somebody would knock down all of the boxes, either deliberately or by accident. Each time, he rebuilt the nest in a slightly different way. Not long after, Caroline Dubois and Julie Favreau turned a long-vacant storefront into a space of perpetual construction and reconstruction. Many neighbours, surprised to see the shop doors open, stopped by to chat.
It’s not uncommon to pass by street art—stencils, graffiti, paste-ups and so on—that has been commented on. Caissie has a few examples, including one—a “raton voleur” that spills out from one of Franck Bragigand’s painted manhole covers on St. Viateur St.—that adds so much to the original work that I had always assumed it was painted by Bragigand himself. Two years ago, somebody pasted a long-form poem onto a laneway wall; “Too bad it’s not that good,” somebody scrawled underneath. Last spring, Fauxreel’s controversial Antlerheads were literally defaced by Zato, another street artist, who transformed their Vespa scooter heads into morbidly grinning moster faces.
Compare that to galleries, where any attempt to comment on art is considered vandalism rather than dialogue. Caissie points the way to a handful of news stories about people attacking, defacing and otherwise leaving a mark on various pieces of art.
The above was originally posted last month on Urbanphoto.
19 comments
This same message can be seen all around downtown. Here’s another one: http://www.vuamontreal.ca/2008/07/29/i-love-you/
C’est carrément du vandalisme.
J’ai déjà travaillé pour un courtier en wagons qui s’est fait vandaliser comme ça plusieurs wagons qu’il venait tout juste de vendre. Et bien le coût de les repeindre ($80,000) a simplement mangé son profit, et il a été obligé de mettre la moitié de son personnel dehors (non, les assurances disponibles ne couvrent pas ça parce que les wagons étaient dans un triage non gardé).
Au moins le petit crétin qui a fait ça s’est fait prendre et a passé quelques mois en prison, mais évidemment, impossible de lui faire cracher le $80,000 de perte sèche.
I don’t understand. If I write something on paper, then it’s just text, but if I write it illegally on a wall, then it’s art?
Or is it like this: If it has a clear meaning (like “no garbage here”) then it’s not art, but if it is samething very vague like “I love you” or “I like cheese” then it’s art?
I really wish someone could answer my questions, I am extremely confused…
Points to Jean and Adolfo for their consistency. Seems like they have been respectively angry and confused for a couple of years now. Keep it up, guys!
Well I don’t think you can make an angry person happy easily, but I am sure you can help me in my confusion by answering my questions :)
There has never been and never will be a single answer as to what is or isn’t “art”. If someone thinks something is art, then to them, it’s art and if they don’t think it’s art, then to them, it isn’t. I don’t really know how to elaborate any further than that.
Thanks, that answers my questions. I think there is a terrible tendency in blogs like this one to use the word art to describe almost anything. This need to romanticize everything that is so common in first world countries (and extremely uncommon in third world countries), must be the result of unfulfilled need for exciting experiences.
I wonder if there is any work on the psychology of this phenomenon. I might be looking in the wrong place, but if anyone knows anything about such work, please refer me to it :)
What are these moster faces artist painted on Vespa scooters? Could you mean monster faces instead.
Also, I’m curious about the Park With No Name. Did I miss that article? I remember seeing the one on Viger Square.
Yes, it’s true that art is subjective. The problem is that some people use their necessarily subjective definition of art to justify activities that would otherwise be considered anti-social.
Since when did vandalizing on gallery art become merely “commenting” on it. The art object in a gallery itself is not some multi-collaborative work, where people are free to alter it at will. This blog offers a good analogy. Anybody is free to comment and have a discussion about the posts. What we can’t do, however, is log into an account and alter the meaning of a post by adding or deleting someone’s else’s words. At the art gallery, you can discuss the art with the people around you, write about it it, or even create your own piece of art that offers commentary about the original.
With the internet today, there are so many outlets that offer people a means to express themselves. Still, some deem it necessary to vandalize other people’s things, on the grounds that it is a legitimate form of expression. It isn’t.
Adolfo,
You can have a look at this book regarding the sociology of this “phenomenon.”
Best,
Antonio
C’est pourtant pas compliqué: si c’est fait sans la permission du propriétaire, c’est du vandalisme.
Excellent book choice, it’s a classic. Some, like me, would say graffiti has been around from Day 1. Ever seen those prehistoric cave tags? I haven’t forgotten what it’s like to be 14 so I tend to side with those struggling to express themselves. There is bad graffiti, and there are arseholes who tag in places they shouldn’t, but it just makes it like everything else.
I’ve always thought that if people are OK with their walls being graffitied, a little indicator could be affixed. Maybe a spray can in a green circle? That might encourage artists to seek out ‘open’ walls. Perhaps an online registry of property owners seeking a mural could be a win-win proposition for both sprayer and sprayee. It wouldn’t eliminate unwanted graffiti and tags, but it may result in a reduction.
And if we’re not OK with getting our building vandalized, can we horsewhip the tagger vandals?
Un tag ou un graffiti sur un mur a jamais tué personne.
Du vandalisme c’est casser une fenêtre, pas écrire sur un mur. Personnellement, j’aime bien voir des murs décorés ainsi, ça donne un coté urbain et créatif au lieu.
En plus, j’aime bien la réponse de ZATO1, les tags “i love you…” partout, c’est assez ordinaire.
I for one have no problem with someone tagging “I love you”‘s all over the place, every time i see one of them (they’re everywhere :D) it always makes me smile. so does the “black cat” graffiti. most of the graffiti around town does. the signature tags are annoying though, that’s marking territory rather than graffiti imo. the city belongs to everyone, marking territory is redundant.
I know who ZATO1 is. He’s a skinny nerdy looking caucasian kid. He is probably the opposite of the way he wants people to see him :P. I don’t know his name though…
Anyway, I agree with Ni, tags are lame, incredibly ugly (at least the ones in Montreal) and just plain boring…
By the way guys, just for fun, if anyone is brave enough to make a graffiti in order to get another one removed, just spray paint a very offensive message on top of it and the city will make sure it’s taken off in a couple of days :). Disclaimer: I would never do this nor would I seriously advise anyone to do it, but I wonder if it is legal for a property owner to do that on his/her own walls, and if the city would remove it for free.
What I’m confused about is how anyone can claim a shred of consistency in arguing that illegal signage constitutes an intolerable invasion of the public space, and then, in the next breath, claim that graffiti, no matter how mediocre, possesses some sacrosanct position in the urban environment.
Trite little messages like “I Love You” and “Á [sic] Bas La Vie Quotidienne”(from a recent post) or the self-consciously “quirky” utility pole postings in Mile End (“achetez un casque”, anyone?) have about as much artistic value as whatever cheesy advertising slogan is running on the adjacent billboard.
Some graffiti is brilliant. But it’s brilliant because it possesses some inherent artistic value (however undefinable) outside of its medium. There’s a big difference between “artsy” and “art”, and the fact that some hipster writes a cliché on a wall instead of in their Moleskin doesn’t change how meaningless it is.