The hierarchy in regarding urban markmaking is of course based on the intention and social position of the instigator. I believe the individual who authorised the two story canvas that covers the top of a prominent electrical store on O Connell st would not consider that this ‘business solution’ in any way corresponds with the permanent marker script that announces, on another small space nearby, Lorraine's love for Andrew.
This teenager, Lorraine, in graff speak is ‘all city’ (i.e. she tags as much of the city centre as possible). She displays an honesty in her work that the cynical blighting of the building ‘enhanced’ by this canvas refutes. As such she simply announces a truth in the public space that the shops mimicking of Times square does not , irrespective of their different agendas.
I believe you need planning permission to construct advertising on that scale, I wonder was this sought? If not, it displays its triumphal sheen as visual Pollution.
There is no such ambiguity in Lorraine's work. If your social standing leads you to accept a gaping canvas that defaces the already battered upper O'Connell streetscape as legitimate, then the marks of a teenager on shards of the leftover architecture of Cruises st are the marks of an outlaw. Some perhaps see a geography creative with an always present black marker.
In regarding unsolicited markmaking I find the declarations from Lorraines group(s) personally more interesting than the tentative generic sub-Bansky stensil work that tends to circle the streets around the Art College. Equally depressing from a graphic point of view are the large bubble work pieces that skulk around the alleyways off O'Connell st. These ones alert us to the fact that us to someone has spent time and money on silver spray paint and not enough of time and effort over
sketchbooks. Consequently, the latter two's attempts display over referential and stylised attention seeking marks that now read predominantly as therapeutic posts rather than considered progressive pieces.
Often these imitative artpieces hit the street well before the artist develops either their own style or accepts responsibility regarding their position in the canon of ‘street art’ should they intend to quote from this repository. It is also disappointing that Banksy's socio-political influence doesn't seem to permeate the Limerick stencillers which leaves a lot of the subject matter of the work visually resembling the clothing companies ‘street’ aesthetic. Ironically the display in one of these companies new shops (on Bedford row), exhorts the youth to ‘think outside the box’. I think they should set up a research meeting with Lorraine's people.
The secondary ‘School’ Limerick taggers like Lorraine are of course carrying out in context, the legacy of the 70s New York instigator Taki. This Ghetto youth, who by simply writing his name all (over the) city conceptualised a notion of an individuals sense of existence in an environment that denied its citizens many basic social rights (thus labelling them as outsiders). The case of Taki is generally regarded as year zero in the history of the subject in and this was outlined in, (the much quoted by graff books..) contemporary New York times article(pdf here) . In introducing Taki to the world his basic endeavour registered as significantly confrontational and as equal to Gallery orientated types of urban Art that were being practised at the time. In equivalent work in the Takis stomping ground the conceptual artist Hans Hacke undertook a photo-text project that traced the identity and practices of slum landlords to be presented as documents for viewing in (at that time) radical NY Art gallery spaces.
In the work of the anonymous Artist in the above photo there is an interesting stylistic development. Here is a re-categorising of the ‘bunching
of names’ technique that Lorraine's group tend to adopt when announcing a collective presence. The intention in ‘do you want a smoke’ is now processed into a single visual, the signification of similar territorial values, now dramatised singularly as an outlined cartoon narrative.
Where previously the bunching of names had the visual quality of a white message board or an unsupervised blackboard, the carefully drawn figure projects a quiet, more focused tone. In the rougher contemporary ‘Estate’ version of this subject matter that I have seen, there is painted a distorted smiley face with a oversized spliff dangling from a twisted mouth. This ‘In your faceness’ is not in evidence with the blue outline man.
"Do you want a smoke?" The figure carefully asks, of tobacco? Perhaps, but the inference is not just in the act of smoking but an invite to stop and share a certain cultural designated weed with a similar minded individual.
This call for a particular act of bonding is signposted discreetly in an alcove on the border territory of the City's equivalent to Temple Bar. The depicted figure stands neatly with branded cap, top, and understated jewellery. However the depiction of his trousers is vague and this denies a reading that might ‘label’ the figure as a tracksuited individual and of course one of a ‘tribe’ (their term) that the bouncers of large bars in this area have very little time for.
By this rendering he seems to float, hinting at the choice of a smoke that would allow him by depiction , to beatifically interact with passing individuals. This is in contrast to the floating late weekend behaviour of the more respectable members of the middle class, who frequent this area and are in thrall to their sanctioned choice of weekend pint n' short measured oblivion.
This sentinel, carefully in place on the wall of the now closed mecca of spraypaint and markers that was Newsoms shop, can be regarded as (a) an extension of the visual territorialism instigated by Lorraine and her team and (b) as an exercise in understated lifestyle advertising
for a non aggressive alternative to the Lager(s)and Coke(s) weekend diet of Limericks Temple Bar.
Imagine transferring ‘do you want a smoke’ as an large image above the shop in O'connell st and swopping the bland vulgarity of the present affront there, in a miniaturised version to the location outside Newsoms.
A public art brief anyone?
Paul Tarpey
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